Himawari.

That peculiar girl had been hiding her real name from me until recently. Not that it infuriated me—I didn’t even find that fact particularly surprising, considering her quirky personality. Revealing it to me clearly meant much for her. I guess I could have easily found out on my own, but I never bothered.

We were already halfway through summer break—I had finally gotten used to waking up later, which caused me not to be able to enjoy it as much as before, but the sight of new semester grew unfortunately larger. It was my last summer vacation in middle school, which meant that I was going to be facing more exams soon. After that, I would enter high school.

I had been forgetting about it lately, but this meant that my friendship with Lumiya/Himawari would be over. That’s why I shouldn’t grow too close with her… but I think I had already failed. Often I found myself dreaming of her, thinking of her while eating or reading a book and before going to sleep. No matter how you look at it, she was the most interesting part of my life right now. It wouldn’t be that much of an exaggeration to say that every day, what I was looking forward to most was interacting with her.

I had simply lost control over it.

I wonder if she was in a somewhat similar situation—but no, that’s impossible. Unlike me, she surely had a lot of things to do every day. After all, she seemed to be having fun when pretending to be an alien, and she could do it on her own. Surely, she had been doing it even before she met me.

That being said, I still couldn’t rest at ease and feel comfortable around her. Constant anxiety unfortunately was not something I could get used to, and having to bear with it every day was really exhausting. It was dumb, because it was only my own fault. It wasn’t like she could humiliate me or something, because she always acted in such a seemingly embarrassing way before me, and I didn’t mind it.

It’d been almost four months since then. We had known each other for nearly four months, yet I still acted as if I had just met her. Why was that? How could I convince myself to stop being such a coward? She was in fact my only friend at the moment—if it wasn’t for her, I would be completely alone. If I ever got into some trouble that I would be afraid to solve on my own, she was the only person that could potentially lend me a hand.

But I would be afraid to tell her that as well, wouldn’t I?

And to think that all of it would come to an end soon after next year began. It was just like a tearjerker anime movie.

…

Not that I had to worry about that now. It would come at some point either way.

Since summer break was already halfway over, I thought it was high time I got my summer homework done. Most people touched it on the very last day, but I wanted to have it behind me already.

Since her face couldn’t leave my mind, I also thought that it would be great if I could do it together with her. It would be somewhat more pleasant and, most importantly, faster. Besides, she, despite her looks, was one of the best students in entire school (I learned that she placed second on last exam), so she could surely help me if I had trouble with something.

That’s why I found myself on the way to her house.

Yes, the place we agreed to meet at was her house.

Needless to say, I was extremely tense from the moment I heard about it. I didn’t refuse, because in fact, it was just as exciting. Visiting a friend’s house was something I had last done back when dinosaurs still existed.

She had told me that no guardians would be on watch that day… which probably meant that her parents weren’t home. It made the situation even more troubling, but on the other hand, it spared me having to introduce myself and respond to uneasy questions.

Obviously, I was somewhat curious of where and how she lived. Honestly, what I wanted to find out the most was how the room of a self-proclaimed alien looked, but I didn’t place high hopes in that since she didn’t necessarily have to let me in. She was a girl, after all. That would make it a girl’s room. It would be nice if she did, though.

All I brought was a bag filled with relevant books. The cloudless sky didn’t protect me from the sun that was shining on me mercilessly, and all I sometimes passed by on the street were some kids running around.

“It should be here…” I commented under my breath as I reached a house that didn’t stand out whatsoever from the others in the neighborhood.

There were no signs indicating that such a peculiar person lived there… but why would there be any? Her parents lived there as well. Also, come to think of it, she had a thing for disguises.

It looked pretty much similar to my own house—it had two stories and a small balcony on the second floor. Well, I just noticed that there was something unusual about it—namely, all curtains on the second floor were shut. Perhaps she had done it on purpose.

“…”

All I had to do now was push the small button, but of course, I hesitated a lot before it. I didn’t have any doubts as to whether it was her house since the addresses matched. What was I worried about, then? Well, as always, I didn’t know myself.

“You’re free to enter”, was what she had sent me just before I left my house. It meant that most likely there was nothing wrong, like her parents unexpectedly coming back or something.

I held out a finger to lightly push the small white button. The doorbell rang inside. There was no going back now.

“…”

I couldn’t move as I waited for any reaction from inside. Obviously, I couldn’t hear her footsteps or anything, so I had to wait for the door to open. It wasn’t see-through or anything, by the way.

“…”

I was visiting someone’s house… a girl’s house. It was something that both excited and intimidated me, but in the end, I was glad that I had an opportunity to do that.

“…”

She didn’t have any siblings, did she? She hadn’t told me that. Come to think of it, it wasn’t impossible. Why hadn’t I thought of it? What if her brother opened the door instead of her? But maybe it was better that I hadn’t thought of it before, because I still could talk my way out of it if it were necessary, and it was better than running away as I would have done if I realized it earlier.

“…”

I stared at the door waiting for a reaction, and I finally saw it. The door moved slightly—as if not to be noticed. It made nearly no sound, but something shyly peeked out.

“…”

That something was pink, or rather, the figure that peeked out was dressed in pink. Her favorite color was black, so I was taken aback at first, but I quickly regained composure as I noticed the long, blonde hair and a small black cloth covering the left eye.

Undoubtedly, it was Lumiya.

But there was something different about her—she wasn’t dressed in her usual way. Her skirt wasn’t black, she had no black coat, and her head wasn’t sheathed by a peculiar black hood with cat ears.

Instead, her dress was pink with white accents. Partially covering her arms were detached pink sleeves, which ended with white cloth that loosely embraced her wrists, and a huge pink heart-shaped ribbon hung above her tiny chest. Her frilly skirt was layered and pink, and she wore white knee socks. Similarly, she had white gloves on her both hands. Worth noting was that no rods of any sort could be seen held by her.

In other words, she looked like a magical girl.

“Human.”

Her small voice reached me along with her unusually unusual appearance. Come to think of it, it was her home, so it was only to be expected that she would be dressed in a different way.

“Hey…” having uneasily greeted her, I proceeded to push the gate open and enter her (family’s) possession. “You’re a magical girl now?”

“W-wrong. I always wear these clothes.”

“So, you were a magical girl all along…?”

“A-as if I would ever help those filthy humans. Kaka”, she laughed timidly—a very weird combination.

Apparently, she was an alien that despised humans. And she was someone I knew. Amazing… it would have been were this all real.

“Sorry for intruding…”

I followed her and entered her house for the first time ever. Despite belonging to an alien… it looked completely ordinary. Of the shoes that were laid out on the ground, none particularly caught my eye.

“So, this is your base, huh?”

“No. My base is upstairs, but this building can be considered a semi-safe territory, so worry not.”

I took my own shoes off and crouched down to align them neatly. Then, I let myself be led by her to the living room. It was nothing out of the ordinary too—there was a large yellow sofa, a huge TV flat as a business card, and in the very center of the room, a wooden table… no, come to think of it, those had to be expensive. I wasn’t the kind of person to pay attention to such things, though.

The room was also quite chilly due to the AC being on—that was a rare thing nowadays. It would make our work more pleasant, so I didn’t mind it.

On the table, there were already some books lying, so she had apparently prepared them beforehand.

“Err… Lumiya-s— do you have any siblings?”

“None. The only people occupying this house are the guardians—a pair of human male and female, who are supposed to serve as my parents, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“Oh, I see.”

She referred to her parents as guardians… well, I could see why that would make sense to her, but I was somewhat wondering what her relations with them were. Did they accept her peculiar behavior? Or maybe they didn’t even know about it?

Soon, I sat at the wooden table across from her. Probably taking a seat next to her would allow us to collaborate easier, but it went without saying that I was too embarrassed to do that for the time being. Her glove-covered hand reached for one of the books that had been set aside earlier by her. I brought out the books from my bag as well.

“Does that outfit have any superior properties?”

“Fufu, of course. It may help us get the work done quicker and better.”

She placed a hand on her eyepatch to make her usual gesture, only to soon use it to reach a pen and open one of the workbooks. It may help her, but not me… Having her to accompany me was both motivating and troubling, which would probably make the quality of my homework worse… but it’s not like it mattered.

“This is all truly pointless, but I have to bear with the human realm’s rules for now…”

“O-okay, let’s begin…”

I opened my book and read the contents of the first task… and I quickly got discouraged when I realized how much homework there was to do, but there was no going back now… come to think of it, I might have given up if I wasn’t with her.

But I found myself unable to process the contents of the task. It was because I couldn’t stop thinking about the magical girl sitting across from me, who surprisingly seemed to be focused on her workbook so that she didn’t even notice that I was staring at her.

Just to make it clear, she still had the eyepatch on her left eye, so she was using only the right one. It was one of the situations that had to bother her most… yet she showed no signs of it. While I hadn’t written anything, her pen was continuously progressing across the page—I noticed that she was using her left hand to hold it, which meant that she was left-handed. It’s not like it was relevant at all at the moment.

What speed…

Discouraged, I looked at the open page of my own workbook and took the pen into my right hand. I somehow managed to start writing, but compared to her, my speed was sluggish. If it went like that, I probably wouldn’t be able to finish it today.

What a pain…

•

“H-human.”

Silence had lasted for almost an hour. It wasn’t the most pleasant experience, but I found forgetting about the girl dressed as a magical girl sitting across from me quite easy after several minutes of work. Still, I had finished about a half of the first workbook, and there were two more to go. There was no way I could get all of it done today.

“Yes…?” I looked up at the magical girl. Instead of a wand, she held merely a pen in her left hand.

“I have already finished, so you may copy the answers from me.”

“Oh, I s—"

Wait, she had already finished? All of summer homework in almost an hour? Not only a part of it?

Astonished, I took a look at the table. All three workbooks were lying in front of her, and she held them in preparation to hand them to me. I knew that she was quick, but that quick?

“Really…? You finished all of it already?” I asked for confirmation.

“Like I said, human. That’s the extent of my abilities…“ she explained, timidly looking aside.

I found myself on the verge of believing in her supernatural powers.

“Oh. But…”

“Worry not. Take it as my appreciation for all you have done for me, human…”

Since we were in a different class, our homework may have been slightly different, but it still was the same for the most part. Perhaps copying the answers wasn’t the best thing to do as exams were approaching, but… the lazy side of me couldn’t reject such opportunity.

“Then, don’t mind if I do.”

I brought the books closer to me and turned them over. They looked exactly the same as mine, but I didn’t really have to worry about mistaking them since I could easily distinguish them by the handwriting inside.

Since I was quite curious, I opened a workbook and took a look at her handwriting itself. She used her left hand, but I doubted that it affected anything.

But…

“Also… I’m sorry if you find something illegible. Paper is obsolete. To think that humans still use it, kakaka...”

Her writing… it wasn’t horrible, but it was quite bad. Definitely it did not seem like it belonged to a girl. Perhaps she really wasn’t human?

“Human… do you mind if I take a break waiting for you to finish…?”

Well, I didn’t really want to force her to stare at me as I copied her work. Besides, it was her house. She could do whatever she wanted, technically.

“Sure, I don’t.”

“W-well then…” the magical girl rose from the chair and proceeded to leave the room.

She said that her “base” was upstairs, right? I wonder if she would show me. Anyway, I took a pen and got to work.

“…”

With her having left somewhere, the room was utterly silent. All I could hear was the ticking of a wall clock and the silent humming of the AC. I felt uneasy. I couldn’t help but take a look around the room now that no one was watching me.

Yeah, the room was pretty shiny. I didn’t know who her parents were, but they had to be wealthier than average. Not that I envied her or something. Well, I did envy her the ability to do this tedious homework so quickly, but that would be it.

Behind me, I noticed something strange, that was both funny and intriguing. Some of the picture frames set on a rack were turned backwards—it definitely wasn’t meant to be that way. I could only suppose that she had done that because she found them embarrassing—maybe they were photos of her a few years ago? Yeah, I could see why she would want to hide that.

Of course, I wondered how she looked those few years ago. Before she came up with all that alien thing. Come to think of it, her left eye would be uncovered on those pictures. For that reason, there was most likely no way she would agree to show them to me even if I asked.

That said, I could as well approach that rack and take a look at those photos. She wouldn’t know… no, actually I couldn’t be so sure of that. Maybe she wasn’t an alien, but she did display some impressive abilities at times. She could have remembered the exact positions of the photo frames, for example, and there was nothing but me who could fiddle with them.

Needless to say, that was only me theorizing. There was a reason she hid them from me, even if it was dumb, so I had to accept it.

Trying to forget about all that, I directed my stare to the books laid out on the table and proceeded with the tedious work of copying her job.

…

Soon, I heard footsteps approaching. I couldn’t help but stop working for a moment and automatically take a look at her as she entered the room.

It didn’t look like she had changed her clothes, as she was still dressed in the pink magical girl outfit with white accents. She had a pair of black headphones on her head and a handheld console in her hand. Noticing that I was looking at her, she slowed down to bow and continued… Why?

She could be having fun when I was working hard. Lucky. On the other hand, it was only because of her that homework would take me at most three hours instead of three days, so I was grateful.

“…”

As I continued doing my (copying her) homework, I sometimes heard small sounds coming from her lying on the yellow couch, mainly giggles. I guess she couldn’t help it. Not that I found it annoying, in fact it was somewhat pleasant—I felt someone else’s presence in the room without it making the situation awkward.

My hand began aching slightly from that intensive writing.

megu3

Hello. Thanks for reading so far. It’s been about 4 months since I started writing this and I’m surprised that I’m still doing it. There were ups and downs, but I managed to keep up with the two chapters per week pace. I think the quality of my writing varies, for example last chapter was a mess, but I’m quite proud of this one. I don’t think I have anything else to say, so… I hope you’re enjoying this story.