Saturday mornings had a strange kind of silence. The kind that wasn't empty, but expectant.
I woke up earlier than usual, not because of any alarm, but because of a strange sense of foreboding. Last night, before she left, Himari had said one dangerous sentence.
"I'll be testing the variable of spontaneous behavior next."
Knowing her, it could mean anything,from rearranging my kitchen cabinets alphabetically to bungee-jumping in the name of emotional data.
I checked my phone. 7:04 a.m.
No messages.
Relief.
Then, just as I turned over to go back to sleep, the phone buzzed.
Meet me at the riverside café in thirty minutes. Don't ask why. It's for the experiment.
No emoji, no explanation, no mercy.
I stared at the message for a full minute, trying to remember what kind of past life sin had led me to this situation.
By the time I reached the café, the early sun was spilling gold over the river. The place wasn't crowded yet, only a few joggers and sleepy couples sitting by the glass windows.
And there she was.
Himari-san.
She was sitting near the window, a notebook already open, her hair tied in a loose ponytail that somehow made her look both elegant and disarmingly human. She wasn't wearing her usual office-cool outfit, but a simple cream sweater and long navy skirt. No lab coat, no clipboard,just her.
It was, frankly, unfair.
"You're late," she said the moment I approached.
"I'm three minutes early."
"Early arrival relative to message delivery is irrelevant. Subject's facial expression upon seeing me was worth observing."
I blinked. "You made me rush here just to record my expression?"
She sipped her coffee, pretending not to hear. "Sit. I already ordered for you. The experiment begins once caffeine is administered."
The cafe was quiet except for the sound of clinking mugs and the faint hum of morning chatter. I sat opposite her, watching as she jotted something in her notebook.
"What exactly are you testing this time?" I asked.
"Spontaneous behavior," she replied simply. "Specifically, how an individual with a structured routine responds when exposed to unpredictability."
"In other words, you're trying to make me uncomfortable."
"That's one interpretation."
She tilted her head slightly, her lips curving in what could almost be a smile.
"You should eat before it gets cold."
I looked down. A plate of pancakes, syrup glistening like sunlight. I hadn't had pancakes since high school.
"You ordered this for me?"
"Based on previous data, I assumed you'd skip breakfast if left alone."
I sighed. "I didn't realize I was living under surveillance."
Her eyes softened. "You were."
That shut me up for a moment
For a while, we ate in silence. She watched the river through the window, her gaze thoughtful. There was a kind of calm between us that didn't need filling.
Then she said quietly, "I was supposed to go to this café once. Years ago."
Her tone had shifted, light but distant.
"With someone?" I asked before I could stop myself.
She gave a small nod. "A colleague. Before I left my old research institute. But I canceled that day."
I didn't ask why. Some stories carried their own weight without needing to be told.
Instead, I said, "So this is your way of rewriting that memory."
She looked at me for a long second, surprised. Then she smiled faintly, almost shyly.
"Maybe."
It was rare, seeing her without her usual armor of precision and logic. The warmth in her eyes then felt… almost too human for the person I'd met months ago
After breakfast, she suddenly stood up.
"Come on."
"Where?"
"Spontaneity, remember?"
She led me out of the café, across the riverside path lined with early-blooming flowers. The air smelled faintly of citrus and sun-warmed water.
She stopped near a small stall where an old man sold sketch portraits.
"We're getting our portrait drawn," she declared.
"What? Why?"
"For observation. Facial proximity under static conditions."
"Facial proximity,you just want to sit close, don't you?"
She gave me that unreadable look that was probably hiding amusement. "Purely academic."
I sighed but followed anyway. The old man waved us to sit. "Ah, young couple, please sit close! Makes the drawing easier!"
I opened my mouth to deny it, but Himari was already leaning slightly toward me, her shoulder brushing mine.
It wasn't much, just a small touch. But my brain short-circuited anyway.
"Relax, Hoshino-kun," she murmured, barely above a whisper. "You're trembling. It's affecting the data."
"I'm not trembling."
"You are."
She looked at me with a small, satisfied smirk that was definitely not scientific.
The artist worked quickly, chatting about the weather while I tried not to spontaneously combust. When he finally handed us the drawing, I nearly forgot how to breathe.
It was a soft sketch,her smile gentle, my expression awkwardly caught between surprise and contentment.
We both stared at it in silence.
"Not bad," I said finally.
Himari nodded. "He exaggerated your eyes. You look... kind."
"That's an exaggeration?"
"Yes. But a pleasant one."
She folded the drawing carefully, tucking it into her notebook as if it were a data sheet.
We walked along the river afterward, letting the morning stretch lazily into noon. For once, she wasn't analyzing or timing anything. Just walking beside me, the wind tugging at her hair.
"Do you ever get tired of thinking?" I asked suddenly.
She blinked, as if no one had ever asked her that before.
"Sometimes," she admitted softly. "But thinking keeps me from feeling too much."
"And is that a bad thing?"
She didn't answer right away. "It depends on the feeling."
I smiled. "Then I hope this one counts as a good one."
Her lips curved slightly. "You're interfering with the experiment, Hoshino-kun."
"Sorry. Spontaneously."
That earned me a quiet laugh brief, soft, but real.
When the sun had climbed higher and the crowd began to thicken, we stopped near a bridge.
"This concludes today's test," she said, flipping her notebook shut.
"And the results?"
She met my gaze, her expression unreadable again.
"Unstable," she said. "The subject displays unexpected warmth under minimal stimuli."
"Sounds like I'm a malfunctioning robot."
"Maybe." She paused, then added, almost too quietly, "But so am I."
That silence after her words felt different not awkward, but fragile, like something new being born.
Then she took a small step closer, enough for me to catch the faint scent of her perfume the same one from that first day, light and citrusy, like the edge of summer.
"I'll see you tomorrow, Hoshino-kun," she said finally. "Don't analyze this too much."
And before I could ask what "this" meant, she turned and walked away.
That night, I found the sketch she'd left folded inside my notebook when I got home. On the corner of the paper, written in her precise handwriting, was one line:
"Spontaneity, successful variable."
And below it, in smaller, almost hesitant letters:
"Thank you for making that memory a better one."
I sat there for a long time, staring at it, until the smile I'd been holding back finally escaped.
Maybe I was the one being studied.
Or maybe, without realizing it, we were both learning how to feel again.
Either way, I didn't mind being part of her experiment anymore.