Monday at Minegahara High School began with the usual melancholy. For Kaito, the start of the week was even harder due to a stiffness in his neck muscles that seemed incurable.
He dragged himself through the hallways, ignoring all the looks thrown his way. His bed was taken by two girls—a celebrity and a scientist who had just gained a bit of confidence. The smell of the bathroom was a chemical assault of cleaning products that Fia still hadn't learned to use properly. And the beanbag, faithful as it was, failed miserably at giving the lumbar support a growing teenager needed.
"Status Analysis: HP Critical. MP Depleted. Will to Live: Low," Kaito murmured, adjusting his backpack strap.
"Kaito! Cheer up!" Fia's voice echoed in his mind, annoyingly cheerful. "Today is the day of the 'Diplomatic Offensive'! We have to convince the 'Other Futaba' to return to the mothership! The System suggests an approach based on compliments and maybe a discount coupon for bookstores!"
"The System is a delusional optimist," Kaito thought. "I'm going to use the approach based on brutal logic. It's the only language she understands, even if she pretends not to."
He found her in the classroom.
She was sitting at her desk, wearing her uniform in a way that tested the limits of the school dress code: the skirt a little shorter, the blouse with two more buttons undone than necessary. She was twirling a strand of her ponytail with her finger.
Kaito observed the scene from the door.
He walked to her desk. The social bubble around her burst with the arrival of "Social Threat Level 1." The other girls murmured apologies and moved away.
The Other Futaba looked up. Her eyes, without glasses and with contact lenses, met his.
"What do you want, Tanaka?" she asked, her voice defensive. "Come to give me another lecture on the price of sweet buns?"
"I came to observe the performance," Kaito said, pulling up a chair and sitting backwards, arms resting on the backrest. "You are trying too hard; it is exhausting just to watch. You are burning social calories at an unsustainable rate."
"I'm making friends," she retorted. "Something you wouldn't understand."
"You are making an audience," Kaito corrected. "Friends require connection. An audience requires a spectacle. And your spectacle..." he pointed discreetly at her phone, which was on the desk with the screen lit, showing Instagram, "...is getting dangerous."
She covered the phone with her hand quickly. "None of your business."
"It becomes my business when the other half of you is occupying my living space and consuming my resources of eggs and rice," Kaito said.
He leaned forward, lowering his voice so only she could hear.
"Why do you do it, Futaba? The photos. The 'choco_cornet' account. You know that is cheating, right?"
She blinked, caught off guard by the word. "Cheating?"
"It is a cheap 'cheat code'," Kaito explained, with the coldness of a gamer analyzing an exploit. "You want to be seen. You want to be validated. But instead of building that validation through real interaction, intelligence, or personality—things you have plenty of—you are using a shortcut. You are posting provocative photos to get quick dopamine from strangers who don't care about you. It is inefficient. It is like using steroids to look strong without lifting weights. In the end, the muscle is fake and your health goes to trash."
She pressed her lips together.
"Do you think it's confidence?" she whispered, bitterness leaking into her voice. "Do you think I post that because I think I'm beautiful? Because I love myself?"
She let out a dry, humorless laugh.
"It's the opposite, you idiot. It's an inferiority complex."
Kaito tilted his head, listening.
"Look at Mai-san," she continued, voice trembling. "She is perfect. She is beautiful, talented, smart. She walks into a room and the world stops. And me? I am... this." She gestured to her own body with disdain. "I grew too fast, people looked, but not with admiration, they looked with malice, I felt like a freak."
She looked at her own hands.
"So I thought... if that's all they see, then that's all I'll show. If I control what they see, maybe I'll stop feeling like a victim. Maybe I'll feel... powerful." She looked at Kaito, eyes watery. "But it doesn't work. Every like is a relief for five seconds, and then the emptiness comes back worse. I know it's cheating. I know it's pathetic. But I don't know how to do anything else."
Kaito was silent for a moment. Her analysis was painfully accurate. She wasn't a shallow girl. She was a scientist experimenting with her own self-esteem, and the experiment had spiraled out of control.
"Understood," Kaito said finally. "Your logic has a flawed premise, but the execution is consistently human."
The bell rang, announcing the end of classes.
"Let's go," Kaito said, standing up.
"Where to?"
"To the station. Aren't you going home now? I'll walk you. Consider it a security escort against your own stupid thoughts."
She hesitated, but grabbed her bag. She didn't want to be alone.
They walked toward the train station. The afternoon sun painted the sky orange and purple. The breeze was a little cooler.
They walked in silence for a while. Kaito observed how she walked. There was a painful self-consciousness in every step. She was constantly adjusting her skirt, touching her hair, checking if anyone was looking. It was the opposite of confidence. It was paranoia.
"Futaba," Kaito said, breaking the silence as the station appeared on the horizon.
"What?"
"The Fireworks Festival is next month."
She looked at him, confused by the change of subject. "So?"
"Are you going to wear a yukata?"
She stopped walking. She looked at him as if he had asked if she planned to pilot a rocket to Mars.
"A... yukata?" she repeated, incredulous. "Why would I wear that?"
"It is a cultural tradition. Maximizes the festival experience," Kaito replied, monotone.
"I don't wear yukata," she said, crossing her arms and resuming walking, faster now. "Yukatas are... tight. They show everything. And people stare. I hate when they stare."
"You just told me you post cleavage photos on the internet so people will stare," Kaito pointed out.
"That's different! On the internet I'm anonymous! In real life... I'm just the weird girl with the wrong body!"
Kaito stopped. He grabbed the strap of her backpack, forcing her to stop too.
They were on a walkway over the train tracks. The wind messed up her hair.
"Futaba, listen carefully, because I am not going to repeat this and I will deny having said it under torture," Kaito said, looking her straight in the eye.
"You have a great body."
The sentence came out dry, factual, devoid of any lust or malice. It was as if he had said "You have a great immune system."
She froze. Her face turned bright red instantly. "W-What do you..."
"Don't interrupt me. I am presenting facts," Kaito continued. "Your physical structure is aesthetically pleasing. Your proportions are what society, biologically and culturally, defines as attractive. This is a fact. It is not an opinion, it is not flirting. It is data."
He let go of her backpack and put his hands in his pockets.
"The problem is that you think for this fact to be true, you need to expose it aggressively. You think the only way to 'validate' your body is to show it off. That is a logical error."
He pointed to a poster in the station showing models wearing traditional yukatas.
"The yukata," he said, "covers 90% of the body surface. It hides the skin. It softens the curves. It is, by definition, modest clothing."
He turned to her again.
"And yet, if you wore a yukata, with your hair up like that..." he gestured vaguely to her ponytail, "...you would look perfect."
Futaba's mouth opened slightly. She was in shock. Kaito Tanaka, the boy who treated human existence as an administrative inconvenience, was telling her she would look perfect.
"You would still be attractive," Kaito continued, relentless in his logic. "Even covered from head to toe in floral fabric. Even if you don't reveal an inch of cleavage. Because attraction doesn't come from exposure, Futaba. It comes from the whole. It comes from the person inside the clothes."
He sighed, looking tired of talking so much.
"What I am trying to say is: posting 'risky' photos is a crutch. It is unnecessary. You don't need to scream to be heard. You don't need to undress to be seen. When you have good hardware..." he made a vague gesture toward her, "...you don't need to use false advertising. Quality speaks for itself."
"SYSTEM ALERT! LOGICAL CHARISMA LEVEL: MAXIMUM!" Fia bellowed in his head. "YOU JUST MADE A BODY COMPLIMENT SOUND LIKE AN ENGINEERING ANALYSIS! THAT IS BRILLIANT AND STRANGELY TOUCHING!"
Futaba was motionless. The blush on her face hadn't subsided, but the defensive expression had disappeared. She looked at Kaito as if seeing a complex equation being solved for the first time.
"Do you think..." she began, voice fading. "Do you really think... I would look good? In a yukata? Without... trying to be sexy?"
"I think you would look adequate," Kaito corrected, returning to his safe language pattern. "And 'adequate' is better than 'desperate'. When one has a good body, the only logical choice is to accept the fact and stop treating it like a sales product or a factory defect. It is just you. Accept it. It is more efficient."
The train arrived at the platform below them, the noise of wheels on track filling the silence.
Kaito turned to continue walking.
"Think about it," he said. "And delete that account. It is embarrassing. If you want attention, go to the festival. I will buy you a candy apple. 120 yen. That is my limit."
Futaba stood on the walkway for a long moment, watching Kaito's back recede. She brought a hand to her chest, feeling her heart beating fast.
It wasn't the frantic beat of anxiety she felt when she posted a photo. It was something calmer. Warmer.
She looked at her reflection in the walkway glass. She saw the ponytail. Saw the short skirt.
But for the first time, she imagined a yukata. Blue floral fabric. Hair up. No cleavage. Just her.
And, surprisingly, the image didn't seem "boring." It seemed... enough.
"A great body..." she whispered to herself, repeating his words. "Fact. Just a fact."
A small, genuine smile, free of artifice, appeared on her face.
"Logical idiot," she murmured.
She took out her phone. Opened the app. Went to the "choco_cornet" account.
Her finger hovered over the "Deactivate Account" button.
Not yet. She wasn't ready to erase everything yet. But for the first time, the urge to check notifications had vanished.
She put the phone away and ran to catch up with Kaito.
"Hey, Tanaka!" she called. "If I wear a yukata... do you promise you won't wear that horrible gray hoodie?"
Kaito didn't stop, but raised a hand in acknowledgment.
"I will consider it. But don't expect miracles. My apathy is resistant to fashion."
They went down the station stairs together. The distance between the "Other Futaba" and reality was shrinking. Not long now until reintegration. All that was missing was a festival, some fireworks, and, inevitably, a few more logistical problems for Kaito to solve.
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