With a pen in my hand unconsciously drawing circles in a notebook and my mind devoid of any particular thought, I got startled when I heard the sound of a bell ringing out all of a sudden. 

My body, heavy under the burden of insufferable heat, didn’t feel like moving away from the seat—the thought of eating my lunch didn’t appear attractive to me anymore either, and all I wanted was to rest my head on the cool surface of the desk. 

Still, the incessant heat that embraced me, sucking out the remains of water from my body, made me uncomfortable no matter what position I’d taken, and, as if it wasn’t bad enough, the harsh noises inside the room of people I had somehow spent almost three years with, and yet I barely knew them, made me want to cover my ears with something. 

Was this summer exceptionally hot, or had my endurance gotten worse? No matter what was the true reason, I felt like jumping into a pool of cold water. At that moment, I thought that it was unfortunate that there was no swimming pool in my school. I probably couldn’t have used it by myself on a break either way, though. 

Thoughts like that, incessantly lingering in my mind, prompted me to rise from my seat and head to a certain place in school that was as close to being a paradise as it was possible. It was a grove behind the club building—a thick layer of leaves growing from the trees rising from the ground all around provided better protection from the sun than the walls of the school building I was currently in. The surface that couldn’t be reached by light remained cool, and the accompanying rustle of grass emphasized the overarching tranquility. 

Undoubtedly there was no better place within the school grounds to achieve peace of mind—that might have been the reason the peculiar girl took it for herself and dubbed it her base. Sadly, I had one tiny problem with that place; it was entirely a fault of my own, useless and cowardly personality. It caused me to be incredibly hesitant and anxious before going there, and even after I managed to overcome it, I wasn’t able to reach the promised peace of mind, rendered insecure by the girl sitting by my side. 

That girl’s peculiarity was something that continuously intrigued me. One of her eyes was concealed under an eyepatch, which most likely didn’t serve any practical purpose—it was only a quirk of hers. Her condescending manner of speech, pretending to be a being higher than human, certainly didn’t fit with her timidity that reached an extraordinary level. 

Apparently, I was supposed to be her servant, although it had already been long proven that this title didn’t bring any practical consequences with it. Looking back at the way we got to know each other, I found it so humiliating and there was no way I would ever do it again. 

Her long, blonde hair that was somewhat distinctive as well, although definitely not strange, looked great in pair with the black eyepatch. 

In general, I found her appearance mismatched with her personality. If she only took off that eyepatch and acted like a normal girl, I was sure that she would look great. She would have a lot of fans, which might be both a blessing and a curse, but either way, she would be anything but the kind to hang out with someone like me. 

Personally, I didn’t have anything against the way she currently acted—it didn’t annoy me. In fact, we wouldn’t have ever met if she hadn’t been that way. Would that be a good thing? 

Well, there was no use thinking about that, because she acted in a such way and we had met, and it didn’t seem like she was going to change anytime soon. 

Walking down the staircase at a laggard pace, I passed past some people that I might have seen before or not, but I didn’t care about it. Eventually, I arrived at the first floor. Before making the first step outside, I had to pass through the shoe racks first. As I opened the front door and made my way through it, the searing atmosphere struck me thrice as in the classroom and deprived me of the remains of my will to push forward. Had it always been that bad? 

Anyhow, sluggishly making heavy steps, I made it to the well-trodden path next to the club building and advanced on it as such. The thought of finally hiding myself in the highly anticipated shade of trees eased my mind and made me pick up the pace. The fulfillment I felt upon entering the thicket was immeasurable—the air around me didn’t become much colder, but the sun stopped assaulting my body that was instead being cooled down by the gentle breeze passing through the forest. 

My feet proceeding through the short layer of grass made it rustle a little, and before long, I noticed a person inside. The girl I wasn’t necessarily expecting to see there without a cover, was lying belly down on the grassy ground. Seeing her like that, I felt uneasy—wasn't she afraid of insects making their way under her uniform? 

Her stare was fixed at a phone she had been holding horizontally with both hands in front of her head. Judging by the swift movements of her fingers, she seemed to be playing a game—and the fact that she undeniably hadn’t noticed me yet proved that she was deeply absorbed in it. If that wasn’t enough evidence, she kept quietly talking to herself, most likely making comments on the progress of the game—something I was sure she wouldn’t do if she knew somebody was listening. 

While I had to admit that I found this situation slightly funny, it wasn’t enough to make me let out even a silent laugh. If anything, it left me confused, unable to take a single step in either direction. I was afraid that she would notice it and grow flustered. In case I decided to keep standing still as if pretending to be dead, she would sooner or later notice my presence and become flustered, assuming that I had heard everything. 

In the end, making her embarrassed was inevitable. The choice I had to pick was only whether I was going to postpone or hasten it. 

As such, I had finally decided to make a step forward. I succeeded in raising my leg as quietly as possible, but when I tried to place it on the ground again, I accidentally stepped on a branch. When I heard the audible sound of it snapping, I couldn’t believe how I could screw up that much. How come I hadn’t seen it? Even though I was prepared to be suddenly noticed by her, I still felt anxious when her head suddenly sprang up in order to look at the source of the sound, which was me. 

“...!” 

Subsequently, I continued approaching her at a slow pace. I felt my steps becoming irregular because of the anxiety kicking in, but nonetheless I narrowed the distance between us. 

If I said “I didn’t hear anything!”, that would undoubtedly sound fishy. After all, this way I would confirm that I knew that she was letting a sound of some kind. Therefore, the best way was to act dense, as if I hadn’t noticed anything at all. 

“Hello...” I tried to say calmly, but it turned out leaking my anxiety as I had expected. 

She was still lying belly down on the ground, twitching slightly every now and then, with her head lowered so I couldn’t see her current expression. The phone wasn’t in her hands anymore, but lying on the ground in front of her head. I didn’t hear any response from her yet, but it was likely that it just wasn’t loud enough to be audible over the incessant rustle of grass. Either way, it was evident that the blonde girl named Lumiya was currently in her embarrassed mode. 

“You caught me off guard...” her faint voice suddenly arose from the ground and reached my ears. 

“But... you’re lucky that it was only me...” I responded uneasily, giving up on pretending that I didn’t know what she was talking about. 

As such, her hands that had been immobilized until now began moving in order to soon lift her body up, or so I though, because she only switched her position to sitting.  

She held out one of her hands to grab her phone back and then swiftly slid it under her skirt. It would be a confusing move for someone seeing it for the first time, but since she had already showed me that a few times, I felt no surprise. She most likely had some kind of a pocket in there—there should have been one on the outside as well, though, and I didn’t know why she found it less convenient. 

Shortly thereafter, I took a seat next to her and placed on the ground the lunchbox I had taken out from the bag I had left in classroom. Today, I was determined to overcome my anxiety and build courage to finish it... although in reality, it wasn’t that easy. Even though my eyes were fixed at the lunchbox and the silhouette of that girl wasn’t in my sight, I still felt constant pressure coming from her side. 

It pretty much made the point of coming to that place void—if there wasn’t high temperature and noise bothering me, there was this relentless uneasiness. 

“Um...” 

Unexpectedly, I heard a voice coming from her side. At first, it startled me, but it took me a while to realize that it was the girl’s voice. I wanted to instinctively turn to face her, but I was reminded that it was likely to make the situation awkward and prevent us from talking anymore that day. 

“H-have you made up with that friend of yours?” 

The contents of what she said to me were even more unanticipated than the mere act of her attempting to speak to me. By a friend of mine she obviously meant Yamaguchi, that was something I was able to realize quickly. I recalled that I had told her the story of what happened a few days ago and how I had gotten mad at him. To be honest, the way she reacted to it back then gave an impression that she hadn’t really paid attention to it, or at least didn’t care about it, hence her question right now was surprising. 

But, the answer itself was that I hadn’t. He hadn’t approached my desk since then, and because I couldn’t be bothered to speak to him myself, we hadn’t talked at all. In case he suddenly decided to go ahead and approach me on his own, I honestly wouldn’t know what to do. I couldn’t ignore him anymore, but I couldn’t pretend that nothing had happened as well. In the end, I probably would have to come up with a solution on the spot. 

“No... not really.” 

Another surprising thing was that she bothered to ask me about it—even though she was a person that seemed to hate humans and relationships between them. Perhaps she had some deeper concern about it, but she might have been as well just searching for a topic to start off a conversation. 

“J-just so you know, I’m not interested in your lowly human affairs.” 

Even though she said that, the manner by which she had done so exposed that those weren’t her real feelings... but it was only obvious—no matter how she pretended to be some kind of a higher being that despised humans, inside, she was nothing but a human herself. 

“Humans are loathsome. There is no point in relationships between them, because all of them are going to end in treachery and misery...” 

If what she was telling me was her real way of thinking, then she got a very limited picture of it. Depending on what kind of relationships she was talking about, she might have been right. For instance, a marriage—it may end with an act of betrayal from one side, or in misery due to a death of the partner. Sometimes, there are situations when they both die at the same moment, but it’s usually an outcome of a highly unlucky incident rather than a coincidence. That doesn’t change the fact that, before the end, there are years, often dozens of them, of time spent more or less happily. Most people just turn a blind eye to it, and it’s completely reasonable, since it’s something that’s going to happen in the far future. 

That being said, she obviously wasn’t thinking of something that excessive like a marriage. What she most likely meant were simple, everyday friendships, and I quite couldn’t agree with her in that matter. Betrayals are unfortunately common and they do hurt, but they aren’t something you can’t recover from. It depends on how close you were to the other person, but if you spent much time together with your friend for a longer period of time, then they weren’t likely to reject you overnight. 

Her outlook on friendships seemed to be to avoid them because she thought they were going to nothing but hurt her. I couldn’t help but think that it might be related to what happened to her before she transferred here; perhaps she had been betrayed by someone precious to her? 

Regardless, it contradicted the fact that I was currently by her side, casually talking to her. Maybe we weren’t friends, but we weren’t strangers either. This situation wouldn’t have happened if she had closely followed her beliefs; was I an exception? Why would I? 

If I asked her, I doubt she would have a plausible explanation for that. It would only make her flustered, so I would rather not do that. 

“Yeah, maybe.” 

As such, I held out my hand to open the lunchbox I had brought with myself. It was probably thanks to her talking to me that I found the courage to feel free and do something more than merely stressing myself out motionless. For the first time I truly felt the advantages of this place—a gentle breeze cooling my body down, the relaxing rustle of trees embracing my body and the thicket surrounding us, suppressing the sounds of people within the school grounds. 

“Sure it’s hot today, isn’t it?” I mumbled unwittingly under my breath. 

It’d been like that for a longer time, so I was already tired of it. Perhaps I would regret it if it truly came, but I wanted summer to pass and autumn to finally begin. It wasn’t like I had been taking any advantage of the current hot weather—all I’d been doing at home was drowsily lying on my bed, with almost no strength to get down to anything. I hadn’t been to the beach, hot springs or anything... I mean, the season for those had yet to come, but I could bet that I would end up not doing that. 

“Could be worse”, she responded with a short sentence, not showing any care, as if hushing me. Did that mean that she had no issues with that insufferable heat? It might have really been only me, then. 

“Really...?” 

“No... it’s quite bad during the day. The nights are better, though”, she unexpectedly continued. 

It was true that after the sun had set, the temperature became more friendly. I’d say that walking in the evening with only a t-shirt and maybe a hoodie on was really enjoyable and I could even say that it was the thing I recently looked forward to every day the most. Unfortunately, the heat that made its way into my room was too stubborn to leave for the night, so I still had some trouble with falling asleep. 

“That’s right...” 

•

And so, the time kept flowing along with the light wind. Slowly, although steadily I managed to finish my lunch while exchanging a few words with the girl that was sitting next to me and seemed to be eating her lunch as well; although I didn’t know what particularly were its contents because I couldn’t bring myself to turn my head to peek at it. 

Since it was going to take some time to walk all the way from there to our respective classrooms, we agreed to leave earlier so we wouldn’t be late like last time. Enough time passed, and today it was me that rose from the ground first. 

“Shall we go?” 

As I said that, she proceeded to slowly stand up without showing an expression on her face to me. We thought that being caught together would be too embarrassing, so I didn’t follow her when she started walking toward the exit, having passed by me. 

I couldn’t help but stare at her figure gradually growing smaller and be amazed by it—following her, her blonde hair swayed about in the wind. Her white uniform would have been clean if it hadn’t been stained by the remnants of dirt that urged me to brush them off—but I couldn’t do that for obvious reasons. Seeing her figure like that, it simply intimidated me—without the eyepatch, she looked like any other girl. I was probably dense by thinking like that, but the fact that I’d been alone with her this entire time... was it something I should be proud of? 

Unexpectedly, I noticed her stopping midway. Moreover, her body was slightly quivering, with one of her hands pinching at her skirt. She turned halfway sideways so that I could just barely see one of her eyes—the uncovered one. 

“Human... uhm...” 

Her body language alone told me that she was about to tell me something she found embarrassing. It was a dangerous and confusing situation for me—I didn’t want to startle her, but I didn’t know how I should behave to make her assured that I wouldn’t find it awkward. I didn’t know whether I should remain motionless and hope for her to overcome her anxiety on her own, or make a step towards her and try to help her in some way. It went without saying that I, no matter was she would say, wouldn’t even think of making fun of her. In fact, I was simply curious about what she had to say. 

“Yes...?” 

Was responding her a mistake or not? I senselessly kept looking at her silhouette turned sideways to me, and it didn’t seem to budge more than it had already been. 

“D-do you have some... free time on the weekend?” 

The weekend...? Could it be... that she was going to say that... No way. 

The fact that I had always had some time to spare could have been my motto. As such, I responded her truthfully: 

“Yes...” 

Her head turned away and leaned forward, making me unable to catch a glimpse of her face anymore, although her body remained standing in the same place as her hand kept restlessly pinching at her skirt. 

“Then... would it be alright with you if you... you escorted me on an expedition...” 

It was evident that she was putting enormous effort to utter those words, and the roundabout way she used made it difficult to understand... but I caught the essence of it. It was so unbelievable and unexpected that I didn’t know what to think about it. Before I had time to think of a response, she continued in a hurried voice that simply sounded out of character for her. 

“No...! That’s only an excursion. I need some supplies, supplies... I would rather not go alone because it’s... no, it won’t take more than an hour! Only half an hour...! No, that doesn’t make sense... no, nevermind. Forget about it...!!!” 

I had seen her embarrassed many times, but now... it was something else. Her tone became irregular, either hushed or loud as she kept saying those not entirely comprehensible words to me. Once she finished, she turned away from me and started walking away at a hurried pace. I was confused, but I knew that if I left it like that, it was going to take some time before we meet again, if ever. 

Therefore, without thinking, I broke into a run after her. I knew that it might frighten her at first, but I couldn’t think of a better way on the spot. I had no bad intentions... I just had no choice but to let her know about it in a rather insensitive way. 

“Lumiya...-san!” 

I called her name out loud, to which she surprisingly stopped without turning around to me. We were still in the forest, so I could feel relatively at ease about making loud sounds like that. 

“It’s... alright!” 

When I finally reached her and said that, she turned to face me. From the unconcealed eye, there were tears flowing out slightly. The way she looked at me was as if she was utterly confused. Her cheeks were reddened because of her embarrassment. She only let out a bewildered sound: 

“Huh...?” 

“You don’t have to worry... it’s alright with me.” 

I tried to assure her as much as I could. I didn’t want for this whole thing to end like that on the spur of the moment, and I didn’t really mind going anywhere with her. I understood why she found it embarrassing, and I was embarrassed as well, but... I was also somewhat happy. 

“This Saturday? Or Sunday?” 

I didn’t know what she meant by an expedition. The first thought I had after she had asked me to go with her on a weekend was... a date, but I was only overthinking that! Why did a guy and a girl going to hang out somewhere have to be considered a date? If I’d been a girl as well, it would’ve been just hanging out as usual, right? 

“Saturday...” she responded me in a confused tone, “w-when the stores are open but there aren’t many humans around...” 

It depended on what kind of store she was talking about. If it was a convenience store, then basically anytime was alright... but why she would necessarily want me to go with her to a convenience store? On the other hand, seeing how odd she often was, I wouldn’t even be surprised. Unfortunately, on Saturday, there were people around no matter what time during the day you picked. 

“There will always be some people... but shouldn’t be many of them in the early morning or in the evening. Do you know what are the opening hours of that store?” 

“Uh... from ten to eight...” 

That would leave us with evening, then. Come to think of it, it brought some other advantages—for instance, the weather would be more pleasant than during the day. 

“So... would 6pm be alright?” 

“Saturday, at 1800 hours, before the train station”, she repeated in an odd way to confirm. 

“Okay... I will come, I promise.” 

“Uh-huh... thanks...” 

She gave her final response, after which she turned around and started walking away from me. That situation was so surrealistic, unimaginable for me. The fact that she asked me to hang out after school. For a few minutes, I stood there astounded like an idiot until the bell chime brought me back. Worries started gathering in my mind—I realized that I hadn’t been thinking about what I had said. We were supposed to meet this Saturday, at 6 o’clock, before the train station... Alright, there shouldn’t be any detail I missed. 

But... the mere thought about not only what I had done, but what was going to happen, was embarrassing enough to make me stop midway and restlessly fidget with my hands. I was going to meet that girl outside of school for the first time... 

Even in spite of the relentless anxiety it caused me, I was looking forward to that.