Chapter 24 – Items Returned
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There was a school bag hanging on my shoulder. Inside, aside from textbooks, there were the books that I had accidentally taken home after she had bought them on Saturday. There was also the yellow raincoat she had lent me because it had been raining that day. 

On Saturday, we had met in front of the train station. Perhaps it wasn’t worth bragging about, but just a few months ago, I would have never expected that something like that would ever happen. 

The first time I saw her, I didn’t recognize her. That was because she came dressed in a peculiar outfit that she even called a disguise—it was entirely black, and on her face, she wore a gas mask. While I was quite familiar with her quirks, it caught me off guard. I became conscious of what oddball of a girl she truly was. 

She hadn’t taken it off even for a short moment, so I hadn’t gotten to see her face that day. To be honest, it disappointed me a little, although I couldn’t understand why. It’s not like I liked looking at her face—in fact, I rarely could bring myself to, because I always ended up embarrassed and awkward—yet, I was looking forward to seeing her without the mask on today. 

It was lunch break—I had been waiting for it more eagerly than ever before. I didn’t hesitate before leaving the classroom. The place I was heading for was a small forest behind the club building. Even though it wasn’t that difficult to find, it seemed that nobody but us knew about its existence, or at least used it regularly. 

I entered the forest, my steps audible. The grass rustled as I progressed through, and before long, I finally reached that place. Filling the air was tranquility as the calming wind continuously blew through and the sun couldn’t reach the ground anymore as the trees cast shades. 

A lone girl sat there. Her long, blonde hair was unusually disheveled and her head was dispassionately cast down—she hadn’t even raised it slightly as she heard me approaching. Her back was slouching, and her hands were weakly resting on the ground. 

Her uniform was white with a red ribbon and the skirt covering less than half of her legs. There wasn’t anything lying around her—no phone or lunchbox. 

“Hi...” 

She lifted her head to glance at me only when she heard me calling out to her. I saw the face that had been hidden behind a gas mask the last time I met her—as usual, she had an eyepatch on her left eye. Her expression seemed to be dejected, which wasn’t that uncommon for her, but it still left me slightly worried. 

“Human.” 

“Err... I came to return this”, I pointed at the bag on my shoulder as I approached her. 

Noticing it, she straightened her back and raised her hands slightly only to rest them again, but this time on her thighs. I proceeded to remove the bag from my shoulder and open it in front of her. 

I bent down and placed it on the ground. I took out another bag containing only the books I had to return and the yellow raincoat, and handed it to her. I basically hadn’t touched them ever since I returned home that day. 

“Here. Sorry that I took your books. And thanks for the raincoat.” 

“No problem...” wearily, she took them from me and placed them next to her. 

“Er... you seem tired, Lumiya-san. Is everything okay?” I was genuinely worried about her, so I couldn’t help but ask her. As I said that, I sat down next to her and took out my lunch from the school bag I had brought with me from the classroom. 

“Fu fu, don’t worry about me, human... Of course everything’s okay with me...” she responded calmly. Her usual, keen peculiar laughter lacked spirit—it was obvious that there was something wrong with her. 

“But... I can hear it. Did something happen? You can tell me... I guess.” 

I thought I heard an unusual sound coming from her side. It wasn’t a rustle of grass, but more like a... fart. 

“L-like I said, nothing.” 

I took a glance at her. She was slouching forward, with one of her hands pressing at her abdomen. Her head was cast down so much that I couldn’t see her expression, although her cheek was rather reddened. It was very likely that the sound came from her, but what was it exactly? 

“Okay.” 

I wasn’t going to give up yet, though. Evidently there was something wrong with her and she was trying her hardest to hide it from me. Either way, I proceeded to take out a pair of chopsticks and dug into the lunch after I muttered out the necessary “Thank you for the food.” 

Silence fell between us. She didn’t say anything, and I didn’t know what I could talk about, and thanks to the situation earlier it became rather awkward to speak up now. 

“...” 

All of a sudden, a similar sound came from her side, soon after accompanied by a silent murmur “uhh...” that certainly was uttered by her. It was a bit clearer this time, and after I unwittingly turned my head to look at her, I got an idea what was going on. 

There was no sight of anything resembling a lunch around her, pressing at her abdomen again. That sound was most likely her belly rumbling—for some reason, she hadn’t brought her lunch and was now hungry. 

“You’re hungry?” 

“K-ka ka ka ka, don’t underestimate me, human! I always have more than enough energy required in a single day” in her voice, an obvious uneasiness could be heard. I had no doubts anymore. 

I did have my own lunch, but... there was only one pair of chopsticks. There were numerous reasons why I couldn’t share them with her, pointless embarrassment caused by this thing called “indirect kiss” being among them, but I either way found the thought of using the same chopsticks as someone else without cleaning them disgusting, and it didn’t matter whether I was sharing them with a girl, a friend or a family member. 

Sharing one lunch... that was something couples did, wasn’t it? We weren’t a couple, obviously... I didn’t like thinking about that. 

“Ah, I know! You can buy food at the canteen.” 

Wh-what you might be talking about.” 

“I can go buy something for you now... let’s say I’m returning a favor for... recommending me a book. Do you want something in particular?” I didn’t think there was some point in asking her that as she seemed to be set on declining that she was hungry even though it was clearly bothering her, “By the way, a long time ago you said that... I am your servant, so... isn’t that my job?” 

“You can buy me... a rice ball. There isn’t much food on this planet I can eat, so... don’t buy anything else if it’s not available”, she finally gave in and responded quietly, clearly humiliated with her head cast down. 

“Okay.” 

Rice balls should be available at the canteen—there wasn’t much demand for them. As such, I shoved the leftovers of money there were left in my bag into my pocket, and didn’t take anything else with me as I stood up and quickly strolled off towards the main building, leaving Lumiya alone in the forest. 

It had already been several minutes since the lunch break began. Everyone at the canteen had already picked up their orders, so I didn’t have to wait in the queue to buy rice balls, which thankfully hadn’t been sold out yet. In general, the atmosphere in that room was pretty much the same as in the classroom—too loud, although for some reason, they actually had air conditioning there, so at least it was cooler there. 

I was lucky that I had my lunch made at home, but I realized that most people did not. The food there didn’t look bad, so maybe it wouldn’t be a bad idea to try it out one day. Actually, I had forgotten my lunch a few times throughout those three years I spent in that school, but I hadn’t used the canteen even once. It was there, yet I forgot about its existence. 

That girl happened to forget her lunch today, but she refused to eat at the canteen, even though she was hungry so much that it made her extraordinarily dejected. Well, it’s not like I couldn’t understand her—there was a lot of people there, and she didn’t seem to be fond of crowds. Perhaps she didn’t have any money left—you actually had to pay for meals, but they were really cheap, so I didn’t mind paying for her. 

They had a few types of rice balls there, but since those she had given me in the past didn’t have any extra addons, I chose the plainest ones for her. What she could have possibly meant by “There isn’t much food on this planet I can eat”. She might be particularly picky or have multiple allergies... well, I should ask her about it soon. 

I returned to the forest with a small bag of rice balls. Surprisingly, she hadn’t run away... why did that surprise me? The only difference between her earlier and now was that she was fiddling with her phone, so she didn’t seem bored anymore. 

“Here.” 

“...” as a response, she let out a murmur. 

Come to think of it, her hair was particularly unkempt today. I had noticed it earlier, but I hadn’t given it any thought. She didn’t have time to take care of it... perhaps she had (almost) overslept? That would make sense, along with her lunch missing. 

I sat down next to her. My bag had been lying untouched, obviously. I would never expect her to fiddle with it... either way, there wasn’t anything interesting in there, only textbooks and a bunch of keys. 

“Human.... You remember the expedition a few days ago... what did you exactly think about my outfit? Was it funny?” 

Unexpectedly, she came up with a question. It was about our stroll to a bookstore on Saturday. She asked me about her outfit she had worn back then. It was entirely black, covering her entire body, leaving only part of her neck exposed... but later, she turned it into a hoodie or something and it couldn’t be seen anymore. I couldn’t forget about the fact that she had a gas mask on. No matter how you looked at it, it was quite weird, even for her. 

“I think it suits you well. Yeah.” 

It was a little bit funny. Not enough to make me laugh, though. The way she behaved on that day... it was clearly different. She immersed herself in that imaginary world of hers completely and wasn’t that embarrassed about it before me. At some point, when we were already going back from the bookstore, she started skipping. Her voice was unusually cheerful. 

Was it because of that outfit? She had that mask on her face, which left me unable to see her expression. Maybe that was why she allowed herself to act more freely? If it really was the case, then I didn’t want to stop her. I mean, yeah, it would soon come time for her to stop acting like that, but for now... why not? 

“It was like... you gave yourself up to pretend— I mean, you threw aside your human disguise and revealed your real self before me... or something like that.” 

“It means that... I didn’t seem disgusting or pathetic to you, human?” 

“No... Why?” 

I hadn’t even thought about that. Sure, it was quite weird, but then again, she was weird overall and I knew about it from the very first day. If I found it disgusting, I probably wouldn’t be sitting here right now. 

“That’s weird”, she responded shortly as she bit into a rice ball. 

“You think...? I don’t know... I don’t really care about how you dress or act. You’re... uhh, an alien, so you’re obviously different than us...” 

I kind of felt like I was treating her like an idiot when I referred to her as an alien directly. Either way, what I said was what I really thought. I knew well that she actually was human, but I didn’t mind her oddities. In fact, it made her more interesting as a person and encouraged me to learn more about her. 

“That’s nice of you, human. If you’re not lying, that is. Kaka.” 

“I’m not lying...” 

She had said at some point that she could see through me, right? What I said to her was what I really thought of her, so she should have been able to notice it. While I doubt that she really had such ability, I think that I didn’t look as if I was hiding something from her. 

With the corner of my eye, I noticed her biting into another rice ball. Inspired by her, I returned to eating my lunch and didn’t talk to her for a while—she didn’t speak to me either. It was still difficult for us to find a common topic that didn’t concern her pretense. While it wasn’t as bad as a few weeks ago, it was still awkward, eating our lunches in silence when there was nobody in that forest. 

That’s why I thought, why not try to stir up an extremely normal conversation? Especially that there was one topic that concerned us all, no matter if we wanted or not. 

“By the way... the final exams are coming up next week, right?” 

That’s right—near the end of each term, there was a set of exams. It was already July, which meant that there was less than a month left until the heavily anticipated summer vacation. I hadn’t been looking forward to it besides not having to wake up that early in the morning anymore, but recently, I was reminded of something. 

That girl... not that I’m suggesting anything, but I thought that we might perhaps go hang out somewhere sometime. I wasn’t expecting much... in fact, I doubted that we would get to do it more than once, but... I wanted to try it out. 

“Yes.” 

“Yeah, and... I don’t really like them. I’m a little bit nervous before them, and also, I have to study more. I don’t really like studying.” 

“I guess.” 

“So, I was wondering if you’re preparing to them somehow, or something.” 

“Not really.” 

“Huh?” 

I’d heard that, contrary to her appearances or behavior, her grades were pretty good. Since I thought she had to study a lot to achieve that—which, by the way, I completely couldn’t imagine her doing at all—her response surprised me. 

“It’s not like you can fail them. Therefore, they’re not important.” 

Well, they were called exams for a reason. While they weren’t that easy, I think you had to put additional effort to fail them enough to get scolded by the teacher. The only consequence was having to attend additional classes during summer vacation, which I guess most people would rather avoid. That said, there was constant pressure put by parents, teachers and classmates to achieve the highest score possible, and that’s why I thought that it was important. 

The real battle, which was very important for us, was going to begin in a few months—the high school entrance exams. 

“Well, you’re not wrong, but still...” 

“Kaka, you don’t have to worry about me, human. It’s one of the few things that I can actually do well.” 

“Yeah, I’ve heard about it.” 

“A-about what?” unexpectedly uneasily, she asked me eagerly. I actually learned about that from her classmate... Come to think of it, I wasn’t supposed to tell her about it. Well, too bad. 

“That your grades are good.” 

“A-and anything else?” she inquired me further. Was she that ashamed of having good grades? Maybe she thought that I would hate her for that and take advantage of the fact that I knew her well and could easily humiliate her? Well, no matter how good she was, I wasn’t that type of person. In fact, my own grades weren’t that bad either, so it’s not like I had much to envy. 

“No, not really.” 

“That’s good”, she heaved a silent sigh of relief. Did that mean that there was something else than her grades she tried to hide from me? Well, knowing her, it might be something small and irrelevant, so I wasn’t really curious about that. 

Subsequently, she arose from the ground with the bag of rice balls now empty and the bag of books in her hand. I could see the entirety of her frail silhouette again. I caught sight of her unkempt blonde hair again—it made her look a little bit different than usual. Incidentally, it did fit surprisingly well with her alien pretense—the singular braids of hair sticking out looked like tentacles a weird alien could have. 

Sure, I was exaggerating, but I guess it wouldn’t be impossible to reach a more similar effect with that long hair of hers. Maybe I should suggest her it sometime? It wouldn’t be allowed at school, obviously—in fact, it wouldn’t look good at all, maybe funny at most. It probably would sound like I was making fun of her. 

When I looked at her like that, clad in school uniform, I felt awkward. It was because I couldn’t help but be amazed how in such body that was no different from any other girl’s dwelt someone with such peculiar, unusual personality. 

Her figure itself was rather frail, although tall. I think you could call it thin—it was just as though her body had been forcibly stretched out. Not that I cared about that, but there was no bump at her chest area. Apparently, she didn’t have it going for her. Then again, I didn’t care about that. I wasn’t that kind of person. 

“Well then. Thank you for returning the books... and for the food. Until we meet again, human”, standing before me, she said goodbye to me and started walking away at a usual pace. 

“See you.” 

It should still be a lot of time left before the break ended. Well, perhaps she had something else left to do. As such, I remained in one place until I finished my lunch and then returned to my classroom. 

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