Masumi did his best to breathe in the fresh air, take in the view of the village, and find some way to get comfortable on the wooden bench. Part of him was thankful that nobody else was at the overlook yet, while most of him was focused on the phone that sat in front of him. It shifted into standby and he tapped back through to the message.

[email protected]

Meet me at the overlook. 9am.

Then glanced back at the clock. Just a couple of minutes left until Schrodinger’s box was opened. He counted down the seconds until he looked down the hill and saw Yui striding up the hill to the overlook, right on time. She was wearing her green jacket, with her hair done up in a french braid, and looked every bit the same as she usually did. Perhaps a little less likely to smile, but for all Masumi knew that was all in his head. That’s where most of his problems seemed to come from.

He hesitated to stand up, but did so eventually. She still loomed over him, cast against the cloudy sky, but it was polite.

“H-Hi.” Masumi greeted Yui and didn’t attempt to smile. “Um. You look nice today.”

“Thank you. You do, too.” Yui said, then lead her own way to the table and sat on the opposite side of the bench. She sat upright and watched as Masumi joined her, then nodded. “To start with, I’d like to apologize for how I acted last night. I was acting on instinct and...attempting to gain control of the situation, I suppose, rather than doing what I was saying I was. We shouldn’t have had to come out here for you to be able to explain things.”

Masumi stared wide-eyed at Yui. “You’re saying sorry to me?”

Yui nodded.

“Oh...um...thank you.” Masumi bowed his head. “Um...I’m sorry for hurting your feelings. I don’t think I was thinking when I did what I did. I mean, I was thinking, but it wasn’t the kind of thinking that goes through the right way, like, it was the thoughts I have when I let...me get to myself. I shouldn’t listen to me, but it’s kind of hard to block out, y’know?” He smiled nervously at Yui.

“I do know. That’s why I shouldn’t have acted how I did. It wasn’t fair, when I know how nervous you can get.” Yui adjusted her jacket and looked to either side. “So, I think I get why you deleted them, but I want to know it straight from your mouth. I’m sure you’ve thought about it.”

“Y-Yeah, I have. It’s...I like our friendship a lot, and I don’t like the idea of other people getting in the way. And it feels like they’re doing that, a lot, because people like you and that means they notice me, and that’s not your fault, but it still makes me worry, like it normally does. And I don’t get a screen or anything, like I want to, so I can separate that? And, so, people can find me and look at me wherever and then know things...and I really don’t like that.”

“You’re talking about the rumors that are spreading.” Yui noted.

Masumi bobbed his head. “I, um. I thought you hadn’t heard anything?”

“I since have.” Yui sighed. “It seems that the reason people are talking about you more is that you’re more vulnerable. People know me and know that I’m not going to let rumors or gossip or peer pressure bother me, not as much. So the rumors have been happening, but out of my earshot. You don’t have that benefit, so you’re the target.”

“...yeah.” Masumi nodded. “That makes sense. And there’s been so much of that, and I noticed that people had been looking at our stream archives. I thought that deleting them would stop the rumors, or stop them from getting worse, or something like that, and I didn’t even think about how it could hurt you or remove our memories and stuff. I was just thinking about me, and not even any kind of me in the future, just...” He bit his lip. “I know that I wish I hadn’t done it now, ‘cause it would have been nice to still have our first stream together.”

“I understand.” Yui smiled at Masumi. “And you don’t have to be worried about me hating you. You’re...delicate, and I get that, and I’ll be certain to keep an eye out for anyone who might hassle you. As long as you make a promise to tell me about these worries before you leap into acting on them.”

“Th-That makes sense.” Masumi smiled. It was like an instinct when he was Yui’s. “I promise I’ll do that.”

“Good.” Yui said. “It’s a shame we don’t have drinks to toast the agreement, but I suppose that’s life. Do you have any other worries about this? About the viewers that have been showing up to your streams?”

“Well, I don’t know if they’ll keep showing up, or even if they’re from school.” Masumi said. “I know that I don’t want to stop streaming just ‘cause I got really worried and then we had an argument, and even if they are from school, maybe they’ll like it.” There was some tone of hope in his voice. “So I’ll just treat it like I’ve been practicing to this whole time. We, um, might have to be a little less familiar in chat, though. Not because I don’t like it! But, um, it’s not polite to do when other people are looking.”

Yui laughed. “No public displays of affection. Understood. Now that we’ve got that nastiness behind us, there was something I wanted to talk with you about. It’s...going to be difficult, because it’s tied into a lot of my ow-”

“Aha! J’accuse!” Came a cry from nearby. Both heads swiveled in the direction of the voice and their eyes landed on the source. It was Akira, clad in a long yellow jacket with a polta-dot top under suspenders. Her eyes were covered by sunglasses, but only for the moments it took her to sprint up to the table and lift them up, before slamming her palms on the edge of it. “I knew it! The dating of the two of you has begun and it was I who saw it coming! Nobody believed little Akira, but now they’ll see! Ohoho, yes, they’ll know!”

Masumi stared at Akira, because his voice had retreated into his throat and gave no signs of coming out.

“Allow me to unravel that.” Yui said, utterly unperturbed as she held her fingers up and counted down. “You know because we spoke, extensively on the matter last night. Everyone believed you, because rumors had already started to spread through the school. And, once more, they already know. So, what exactly is the point of this melodramatic display?” She raised an eyebrow at the shorter girl.

“Because it’s fun and I wanted to see him squirm a bit. Duh.” Akira grinned at Masumi, who felt rather like he should be sprouting big round ears and a narrow tail.

“H-Hi.” Masumi said.

“Don’t do that.” Yui chastised the leering girl. “He’s been through enough and he hasn’t built up a tolerance to your stupid behavior.” She looked back to Masumi. “Forgive her. She’s the one who calmed me down enough to get through to my rational mind, believe it or not. She was showing up to the hospital because she’s a creepy stalker, but the end result was something good for both of us, at least.”

“I’m not creepy!” Akira put a hand on her hip. “I’m a stalker, but a virtuous one. I’m like Cupid, if he was cool and not a weirdo baby.”

“She told me that she was following you around school.” Yui told Masumi. “And that she was following me around my jobs, to see if I was actually going to them or simply meeting up with you. And asking other people about when they’d seen you.”

“Um, that is.” Masumi frowned. “That is kind of creepy.”

“No, it’s not, because it was for a good cause!” Akira folded her arms over her chest and scowled. “And it was clever, too! I even cross-referenced when this guy was streaming!”

“Y-You know about my streams?” Masumi blurted out, his voice shaky.

“Pfft, yeah?” Akira laughed. “I’m awesome like that. Not gonna lie, you’re super cute in those outfits. You should show more skin, though.”

“Creepy. Stalker.” Yui said. “And a pervert, to boot.”

“U-Um, yeah.” Masumi nodded. “That is kind of...really...creepy.”

“I’ll be honest; I’m feeling kind of attacked right now.” Akira stood back to her full height and pulled her sunglasses back down. “So, I’m going to leave you two lovebirds alone and continue being not-creepy somewhere else. Later!” She shot fingerguns at the pair, then strolled off.

Masumi gave a little wave while Yui watched the girl go, then shook her head.

“What, um, what does she do all day?” Masumi asked.

“Poke and prod at people as much as possible. She would actually be a good partner for when I get into journalism, but I have the feeling that she’d end up getting both of us killed.”

Masumi giggled. “Oh, that wouldn’t be any good. And, um, I don’t know that she’s that good at the journalism thing...” He paused as Yui looked over at him. “Um, I mean, she said that we’re lovebirds and stuff, and that’s not what...I mean, I don’t think that’s, uh, what we do. We hang out and stuff and that’s cool, but, um, we don’t kiss or anything that proper people who are dating do, so I don’t even know where she’d get that idea.”

“That’s true.” Yui nodded as she leaned into the table and balanced her head on her palm. “We don’t do any of those things.” The wind ruffled Masumi’s hair and he found himself unable to look away from the girl. “Yet.”

Masumi felt his cheeks burn bright pink, perhaps due to the sheer volume of images pouring into his head at those words. He’d already been burned by acting on them too soon.

“What, um. What d’you mean?”

“What I mean is that I know that I have feelings for you.” Yui said. “And I think that you do for me, too. We probably wouldn’t react so...viscerally to the things we do. So I think that it’s only a matter of time until we do start kissing. I don’t think that I have a problem with that.”

“I, um, I, uh, I don’t...” Masumi giggled, wondering if he was getting lightheaded because of how fast his pulse was beating. “It’s, I think, that would be a good thing to start doing, eventually, yeah.” He nodded. “I’d like that.” He bit his lip.

“Good.” Yui smiled and sat back in an upright position. “Not now, of course.”

“Oh! Um, no, not now, that’d be silly.” Masumi bobbed his head. “Some other time, when it’s...um...”

“Proper.”

“Proper, that! Yeah.”

Yui laughed softly. “Perhaps when we’re somewhere more private...but for now, I have most of the day available and it’s still morning. Would you like to do something for the rest of Sunday?”

“Um, yeah, let me just think...” Masumi furrowed his brow and stared intently at the center of the table. “Oh! My parents will be going to Kyoto soon! We can all go if you want and, um, if we’re going to start kissing eventually then if they know you now then they might be more okay with it than if we just started doing it when you first show up!”

Yui considered it for a moment, then nodded. “I think that would be fun. You can show me where you get your clothes.”

“Great!” Masumi stumbled off of his chair. “Let’s go!”