C11 – I Received An E-mail ◆ Nekura

“Yabusaka!　You little !”

“Good morning. What’s wrong?”

“What were you doing!　You made me a laughing stock!”

When I received a text message from Hiria-chan other than the one about meeting up, I shamelessly told Yabusaka about the situation from the very beginning and discussed it with him. Yabusaka is like this, but he had a girlfriend once. He was dumped after a week, but to me, he was a master of romance for having a girlfriend for a week.

“Eh, why? I just told you to put in some emoticons or something so that it wouldn’t make things too awkward”

“I did put it in. …… It feels like a total disaster. …… She laughed for about two hours.”

“Let me see.”

“Eh, I don’t want to. Why do I have to show you my interactions with the girl I like?”

“I can’t get that text out of my brain, so let me see it. I can’t say anything without seeing it.”

When I reluctantly showed it to Yabusaka, he exclaimed, “Uwa”.

“This is too much. It’s a message from outer space, to put it mildly.”

“Did I use it too much?　I figured the more the …… the merrier.”

“My eyes are stinging. ……The characters in the message are less than other stuff. It’s hard to read. Reminds me of a squid fishing boat.”

I hadn’t had a smartphone until high school. And even though I had gotten one, I hadn’t used it much.

I’ve never exchanged contact information with girls before, and I’ve only kept in touch with Yabusaka and a few of my old friends from elementary school or my family. I’ve been using the calls for most of my contact lately, and even when I do use text, it’s minimal. It was very simple stuff.

This was the first time I had seen the symbols, small face illustrations, and marks that were sometimes attached to the e-mails that Hiria had been sending me. The first thing I couldn’t figure out was how to send them.

“Hey, why did you put the Trunks emoji on this? What’s the point of having an infinity next to it? Are your pants infinite?”

“Oh, it’s a decoration. I framed it like a Christmas decoration.”

“Don’t frame it with your pants!”

“Okay, ……, I’ll try not to put pants on it.”

Yabusaka looked at my embarrassing email some more and blurted out again.

“Hey, Souji, did you type this in yourself?”

“E, which one?”

“This ($唇€) .”

(TN: 唇 means lips)

“Yeah, I made it face-like ……. Something similar is written on a website ……, and it looks like someone is meditating with one eye.”

“You’re like a grandpa trying to fit in with his grandson!　Souji …… you don’t have to make this bizarre thing.”

“What, then use pre-made?”

“You say that like it’s a side dish!”

“Yeah.”

“There’s also this!　Why is this knife emoji in here?”

“Why, you ask? It’s all decorative.”

“Emoji have a meaning!　You can’t put an old man’s emoji next to a kitchen knife!”

“Oh, they have a meaning?”

What is that? The symbols and pictures that I thought were meaningless decorations between letters, had meaning? Isn’t that a new language? That would mean the whole text of my email was incomprehensible to anyone else. I was horrified.

It was rather easy to decipher the language when I reviewed it calmly with the mind of an archaeologist.

Next to Hiria-chan’s email, “I’m sorry I couldn’t meet you,” is a crying face. Perhaps this small illustration is serving as a substitute or supplement to the text.

I placed a lot of grinning, drooling faces next to “sorry” in a row. This could have been taken as a mockery.

The assumption is a terrible thing. Because I first thought of it as a cute decoration used by the cute Hiria-chan, somehow I didn’t see how simple it was.

“I’m glad she didn’t get upset by this and just laughed at you.”

Yabusaka said, somewhat dissatisfied.

When I said in a shaky voice, “No, she’s not like that”, he rambled on.

“You!　All you have is a face!　Your face is the only thing that makes you popular!　You should just get a girlfriend based on your face and let her get disillusioned with you!　So what is this!　A love affair with a girl you don’t even know through the email?　Ugh, what is this, gut mail?　Ryan’s not coming you know!　Even If he does, it’ll be as a royal court warrior.”

(TN: Yeah, I didn’t understand the last part either. This was what was written “ユーッッ、ガットメールかよ！　ライアンはこねえぞ！　来ても王宮戦士の方だ” )

“You sometimes throw in stuff I don’t understand.”

Yabusaka has bought him a lot of games, movies, and manga, and he doesn’t hesitate to mix up his stories. I have no idea about it.

He crossed his legs in a pompous manner.

“She probably looks like a monster, anyway.”

“I can love her no matter what she looks like ……. She’s really cute.”

“Can you really say that when you see her?”

“Yes.”

“…Let’s search then”

“Eh, that’s bad manners.”

“You’re really curious too, aren’t you? Give me a hint.”

“Not much of a clue, I’m afraid. She said there was a class change, so I think she’s a sophomore.”

“There’s got to be something. …… What about voice?　What’s your voice like?”

“It’s very cute.”

“Give me a hint, not an opinion!”

“Well, …… I feel like I know a voice that sounds very similar, so it could be an actress or one of the voice actors.”

“Who is it?　Who is it?”

“Hmmm …… I can’t remember now.”

Yabusaka conveyed his disappointment with an exaggerated gesture of ‘oi oi’.

“Well, other than the voice!　Anything in the email address?”

“There are no names in there.”

I didn’t feel like I could identify her at all as I talked to him. Same school, female gender. It would be impossible to find one person in the school with that alone.

“Oh, she likes beef bowls and natto.”

“There’s a fat girl in my mental picture.”

“That’s a possibility. ……”

“If she’s fat and friendless, there aren’t many of them. If you work hard, you can find her. …… Souji, what about your class?”

“I don’t think there are any in my class.”

To begin with, from the impressions I’ve gotten from talking to her, there isn’t a girl in my class who resembles Hiria-chan.

Yabusaka, who had been thinking silently, said with a somewhat bitter face.

“There’s a girl in my class who’s very heavy …….”

“Oh, really?”

“No, ……, but she doesn’t lack friends, she has a dumb voice, and …… she has a tremendous personality.”

“Oh, yeah? …… But maybe she’s ……”

“That person once smeared peanut butter on my face …… and then stuffed pistachios up my nose ……. Is it really possible that’s her?”

“For now that girl is out of the picture. …… What the heck did you do to her?”

Hiria-chan doesn’t seem to be that militant type. Probably not the same.

“Do you want to see her just in case?”

“O, sure.”

When I went to see Yabusaka’s class, I saw a huge female student lifting a chair with a smaller male student on it high in the air. The other students around her shouted in admiration, “Whoa”.

“It’s not the same person”

“Really?”

“Yes. She’s not that kind of regal entertainer. Besides, that girl has a lot of friends.”

“Then, I’m pretty sure there’s a chubby kid in the next class over.”

“Hmm……”

In the first place, I feel that the idea that beef bowl equals obesity is too simple, or that the evidence is too weak.

“It’s fine.  I don’t like the idea of searching in secret.”

“Really?　But you are curious, right?”

“Yes, I am, but ……”

As I was doing this, the girl who was the candidate for Hiria-chan came out of the classroom with her friends.

I knew that it wasn’t the right person, but I couldn’t help but stare at her.

As she passed in front of me, the ex-Hiria-chan candidate laughed so hard that she collided with the girl next to her, causing her to lose her balance and stumble. She collides with my chest and lets out a yelp.

I looked over and saw that the girl’s hair was caught in the buttons of my uniform.

She must have been startled, but I was upset too. She struggled to get away from me, flapping and flailing forcibly.

“Don’t move.”

I said, and the girl stopped moving.

I tried to undo her hair from the buttons, but I couldn’t seem to get it out of her frizzy hair. I was in trouble. What should I do?

In a hurry, I tore off the button of my uniform.

I heard a scream from the people around me.

What? I wonder If I did something wrong.

“There’s no way I’m cutting a girl’s hair.”

The girl in front of me nodded her head as I said it as an excuse.

“Ah, thank you …… Sakura-kun.”

I listened to her voice carefully and earnestly and confirmed it. I knew it was different. This girl is not Hiria-chan.

“Let’s go, Yabusaka. I’d like to see the one in the next class.”

When I called out to him, Yabusaka, who had been looking at me with a stunned face, came back to his senses.

“You, what are you doing making mammoth fall out of nowhere?”

“Eh, who?”

“That’s the nickname of that girl from earlier. …… She’s got a face like that. ……”


After all, the girl in the next class was surrounded by her friends, too, and she was obviously different.

However, it is full of possibilities that every girl out there could be Hiria-chan. It makes the world lovely.
 

When I tried to go back to the classroom, I ran into Saionji-san at the door, who seemed to be going somewhere.

Both of us try to give in for a moment. But in the end, we tried to enter at the same time and lightly touched each other.

I heard a small “ouch”.

I looked over and saw that the ends of Saionji’s long hair are tangled in the buttons of my uniform. One of the buttons had come off, but there was another one. What’s with these buttons, do you like women?

While I was taken aback, Saionji-san grabbed the end of her hair just a little in front of my button, and with a small “ei”, quickly tore it off.

Then she said a small “sorry” and went back to her seat.