It had been a little bit over a week since the beginning of summer vacation. Nevertheless, I still hadn’t gotten completely used to it—but on the other hand, it might have been a good thing. After all, I had still been appreciating the fact that I didn’t have to wake up early in the morning every day.

I had been feeling unusually glad for the past few days because of what happened recently. Unlike ever before, I had something to look forward to. I had a friend. Sure, it was normal for humans to have friends, but apparently, I had been an exception of sorts until recently.

It was a girl. She invited me to a concert recently, obviously saying that it was a secret mission, but I knew what she truly meant. While it wasn’t really enjoyable in itself, I really did enjoy having her by my side.

We were both somewhat similar to each other. From what she had told me, she didn’t really have any friends other than me—and it worked the other way around too. I couldn’t be surprised—seeing her odd behavior, it was clear that there was something different about her. That’s right—her behavior was definitely off from the norm.

It was clear from the first look. For example, the eyepatch on her left eye. There was no real reason for it. She chose to discard half of her vision just because she felt like it. Apparently, she claimed that there was a tremendous power in her left eye that had to be constrained, because using it brought immense consequences for her.

Moreover, she often wore unusual clothes that certainly were inconvenient for her—yet she denied that and even insisted that they were comfortable. Well, it wasn’t like I knew how she really felt—after all, she hadn’t shown me any clear signs of being troubled by it, and she didn’t seem to be hiding anything either.

Some of her quirks were indisputably ridiculous—for example, she had a full-sized gas mask on her face when we first met outside of school. Moreover, she had refused to take it off when we entered a store. Her reason for that was camouflage—which I could understand, since I was afraid of being seen together with her as well, but there certainly were some better ways of achieving that—and protection from the “contaminated” air exhaled by other people. That one point didn’t make sense to me—I hadn’t seen her wearing any kind of mask at school, where there clearly were lots of people. Actually, it was good that she wasn’t doing that. That would get her labeled as a weirdo even more than she was now. Perhaps she had tried it at her old school but got scolded and decided to stop?

Either way, I did not dislike that side of her. Actually, it might have been the major factor that attracted me to her. That was weird, since I guess it was something that put most people off—what caused her to not have any friends.

Today, I went ahead and invited her out. I didn’t really know why I had done that—it was as if I was directed by something independent inside me, I just wanted to see her soon. Fortunately, she had accepted it, so I was glad.

Having made my way to the station, where we had agreed to meet at, I noticed a conspicuously inconspicuous figure standing under the shadow cast by a tree. Black cloth covered its entire body, with an odd pair of cat ears protruding from the hood. Unfortunately, it was turned in a way that made it impossible to see its face without directly approaching it.

Technically, the chances of another person having an outfit very similar to hers weren’t huge, but it wasn’t impossible. Since I was a scaredy-cat, I had to first confirm its real identity before I proceeded to approach her.

As I tried to inconspicuously move forward without being noticed by it, I got a little bit mad at her for always wearing clothes that made recognizing her from a distance impossible and always standing with her back if it wasn’t enough. How did she think I would recognize her? It had somehow worked out before, but it didn’t mean that it was always going to be like that.

Staring at it, I noticed that it was fiddling with a phone. While I had mine in my pocket, I wouldn’t see it if she sent me a message, because I had it in silent mode. I never expected anyone to call me—in fact, I didn’t even know why I had brought this phone since I wasn’t planning on using it at all, but… you never know what would happen.

All of a sudden, it turned around. The mysterious figure turned around and naturally, I became able to see its face. Or so I thought at first, because…

Undoubtedly, it was the girl I was looking for, Lumiya. Her hair was blonde, her left eye I had never seen was concealed under a black eyepatch as usual, and the right one was blue. I could see her eyes now, so there was some progress, but… I couldn’t really see her nose, mouth, or cheeks. Not that I would look at them even if I could, but the overall image of her face being obstructed did slightly bother me.

Since last time she had come dressed in a normal way, and even her behavior was more normal, I was caught off guard. At that moment, looking at her reminded me of how odd she was.

Namely, she had a mask on her face, again. It wasn’t a full mask like before, but it only covered the lower part of her face. It was black like the rest of her strange outfit, and I guess it was the kind you see in movies and games… no, I guess it was the case for most masks—either way, it wasn’t the festival kind.

Surprisingly, as soon as she noticed me back, she raised her hand covered by a black glove and waved at me like nothing. I hadn’t expected that, so the whole situation made me unwittingly slow down for a moment in confusion.

I waved back at her since I guess it was the best course of action and continued closing the distance between us. There were other people around, which made me feel a little bit awkward that I was meeting with someone that clearly appeared like a weirdo. Then again, it wasn’t her fault, but only mine for being such an anxious coward.

I arrived right in front of her. I got used to her weird outfit quickly since I had already seen it once, but the fact that I couldn’t see the expression on her face was constantly bothering me.

“Human”, her highly muffled voice came out of the mask to welcome me.

“Hey”, I said to her back.

Awkward—that’s how I was feeling looking at her, face covered by the mask in more than a half. We were standing next to a tree in the middle of the plaza in front of the train station. The single eye of hers was staring at me back helplessly, as if telling me to lead her forward.

At that moment, I remembered something. We were about to go to a restaurant, where we would obviously eat. I hadn’t forgotten to tell her about it, had I? She had a mask on, so obviously she wouldn’t be able to eat without taking it off. She didn’t want to do it last time, so I decided to ask her just in case.

“Err… I have told you that we’re going to a restaurant, right?”

“Affirmative. I know about that. Is something troubling you?” she responded in a monotonous voice without any visible movements on her face, which reminded me of a robot.

I asked her further, since there was a possibility she wasn’t intending to eat at all despite going to a restaurant. Seeing what odd things she was sometimes doing, it wasn’t all impossible.

“Well, you can’t eat with a mask on...”

I turned my head to the side to look away from her, because the awkwardness was slowly beginning to get the upper hand over me.

She took a while to respond as she tilted her head and raised her hand to point at the mask that made her entire figure appear like a robot.

“Ah, this? Fufu, you don’t have to be concerned, human. I shall take it off when the need arises. Chances are that I would be able to endure that much.”

“Oh, I see…”

It seemed that she didn’t have anything against taking it off this time in order to eat. Why had she put it on in the first place? I guess I wouldn’t get a plausible answer from her even if I asked.

Streams of people were flowing all around us, and it wasn’t surprising—we were right in front of the station, which was unarguably the most crowded spot in our neighborhood. Aside from the main station building itself, there were numerous other relevant objects like a convenience store or a small hotel. I couldn’t notice anyone paying particular attention to us, but they still made me more anxious.

It was afternoon. It was going to take a few more hours for the sky to start growing orange, so we would have most likely already been long home by then.

“Kukukuku…”

Suddenly, I heard a sound from her growing increasingly louder. It was her peculiar laughter. It was quite funny and to be honest, made me feel a little bit better. I took a brief glance at her, and she was lowering her head while pressing her widely opened hand on it.

“Those filthy humans are everywhere... but they are all worthless in the end.”

“Huh, really?” I didn’t know how to react to her contemptuous comment.

Promptly, she let go of her face and looked up with her hooded head again. She turned it slightly in my direction and said with her muffled, barely audible over the noticeable background noise voice.

“By the way, I listened to your suggestion and made it smaller. What do you think?”

Her words made me remember—when we were on our way back from the bookstore, just before we were about to part, I suggested her that I would rather see her face without the huge gas mask on next time. I found looking at it troubling—not being able to read her expression at all gave me an unpleasant feeling and her excessive weirdo aura made walking next to her a tad too awkward.

I didn’t know why she liked hiding her face in public, but I had to bear with it. In the end, this one was certainly better than the previous one, if I had to choose.

“Looks great… I guess.”

“Kuku, I know”, she cast her hooded head down again and let out a quiet, almost indistinguishable sound.

I tried to find something to add to this short, pointless conversation, but to no avail. For that reason, I just decided to suggest her that it was time we started moving.

“Now then, shall we get going?”

“Very well”, I noticed that her voice, being quiet as usual and additionally muffled by the mask, was barely distinguishable over the surroundings that were moderately noisy. Surely I wouldn’t be able to hear her clearly anymore if I wasn’t standing right next to her.

Since only I knew how to get to our destination, it was my turn to be the lead. I quickly began moving forward and artificially picked up my pace, because I knew that her gait was unusually swift and instead of making her follow me slowly, I chose to adjust to it.

“…”

Walking with her right by my side, I felt awkward. We were passing through a pretty noisy and crowded street, so I was afraid of receiving suspicious glances from other people, which were only to be expected because of her unusual attire. Moreover, there was the incessant fear of merely being spotted by someone that recognized me. While I couldn’t possibly pass by someone from my family, there still was a possibility of coming across a classmate. I didn’t talk to anyone, but it didn’t mean that nobody recognized me, and rumors weren’t likely to arise.

“Human.”

Suddenly, I heard a voice from the side. I couldn’t hear what she said to me because of the loud noises all around and her voice being additionally muffled, so I slowed down and turned my head to her slightly, just so I could see her in the corner of my sight.

“What?”

She soon followed me suit in slowing down and raised her hands slightly as if out of a habit.

“You don’t have to walk so fast.”

“A-ah. Sorry.”

Was I walking so quickly that it bothered her? Either way, I continued walking slower in accordance with her suggestion. The sidewalk was wide enough for us two to comfortably walk next to each other, even while sharing it with other people.

“Hey”, I suddenly heard her voice again, this time more clearly. It seemed that she bothered to speak louder this time.

“Huh?”

“Do you have some reason for taking me with you today?”

The question was simple, but I didn’t know how to answer it. Did I have any particular reason? I was bored, and for some reason I wanted to see her again after what happened a few days ago on our way back from the concert. I took a while before responding tentatively.

“Ah… no, not really. I just felt like it.”

Come to think of it, why exactly did I want to see her as soon as possible? To be honest, merely having her here made me glad for an unknown reason. I was still anxious, but not as much as earlier.

“You’re weird, human…” she responded, as if sighing.

A relatively normal middle school boy was walking next to a slightly shorter figure that was dressed entirely in black—definitely it wasn’t the proper outfit for a hot summer day like that, even if one ignored the eyepatch and mask on her face.

“No, no. You’re clearly the weird one”, I commented without any purpose under my breath.

“Impossible”, she responded idly, showing that she didn’t have the slightest care about that in the world.

Before I knew it, I’d turned my head to take a brief glance at her. Fortunately, she didn’t return it. Her field of view certainly had to be limited not only because of the eyepatch, but also the hood that basically hid her face from me.

I had gotten somewhat used to the warmth that embraced my body unceasingly, so just looking at her seemingly thick outfit made me want to drink something.

“Isn’t it too hot inside all those clothes…?”

Moreover, she was breathing through a mask, which had to make the already humid air even less bearable. She was putting herself through all this trouble without any plausible reason...

“No problem. It’s not what it looks.”

I didn’t feel any sign of uneasiness from her, but I nevertheless suggested:

“Err… you should take the mask off if you have problem breathing. I won’t be mad or anything…”

There was no way she would be afraid of me getting mad at her for taking off the mask, but I said that either way. Similarly, there was no way that she would listen to my words, and the confirmation came soon:

“Human, I told you already. It is indispensable. I would be more troubled without it, if anything.”

I continued leading us to the destination, which was a certain restaurant. We sometimes passed by other people that sometimes did glance at her unusually dressed figure.

“Kuku, of course you won’t understand. You’re a mere human, after all”, she laughed as she raised a hand embraced by a baggy sleeve and brought her head down in an irreverent manner.

“Imagine that I were a human and flew to the moon. I would need a special spacesuit to survive, right? It works in a similar way”, soon she continued to explain her train of thought to me.

Yeah, I understood that much from the beginning. The thing was that she was actually human and didn’t need to wear such clothes and breathe through a mask to survive. She was only pretending to be an alien and troubled herself even though she didn’t need to, and that was bothering me.

Well, I had to acknowledge for now that I couldn’t convince her to stop troubling herself for no reason.

“Okay. I understand…”

“Fufu, that’s great. I hope that you will cease to ask me those pointless questions, human.”

She sounded like she was a little bit mad—but that might have been only my imagination, since I could just barely identify any emotions in her muffled voice.

“…”

Before long, we finally arrived before the restaurant. Showing it to her, I stopped, and she soon followed suit. Having taken a short peek through the huge window, it didn’t seem to be filled with people, so we would easily be able to find a table.

“We’re here.”

“Very well”, she lowered her head and raised her hand to her mask.

When I took a peek at her, I noticed that she was taking the mask off as promised. For some reason, I found looking at it kind of exciting. I guess I was just looking forward to seeing her face.

“…”

She had unfastened whatever was keeping it on and pulled it away. As I kept staring at her doing that, her nose, mouth and cheeks appeared before my eyes for the first time today. They were slightly red, but I guess it was caused by the mask itself rather than some kind of emotion.

Soon, she coughed two times. It was either forced or caused by the difference of air—I didn’t know how it worked, because I had never had this kind of mask on my face.

“Disgusting”, she scornfully said in a low voice, most likely to comment on the fresh air she began to breathe. I couldn’t sense any stench, so I didn’t know what the reason for that was.

There was something charming to that act. Even though I had been seeing her face almost every day at school, there was something in it right now that left me stunned and unable to look away.

The look in her right eye was at first scornful, but it quickly became abashed as she turned to look at me, most likely inadvertently.

“D-don’t look at me, human…”

What was with that sudden transformation? For a short moment, she actually appeared kind of cool, as if she really was an alien that absolutely despised humans.

“S-sorry.”

She shoved the mask inside her coat. It was just as if she had an unlimited amount of space there.

“Shall we enter?”

“Affirmative. I’m prepared.”

With that, I approached the entrance, pushed the door open and entered, with her following me closely.