008. Has Destiny Made a Mistake in Our Fateful Encounter?

The time was shortly after school let out.

The place, interestingly enough, was the café where Jiang Yu was about to start his part-time job.

The characters: Aki Lunya, wearing a rather peculiar expression; Jiang Yu, shrouded in immense confusion; and Girl Classmate No. 1, whose face remained perfectly composed.

The event: a bewildering conversation between a baffling speaker and equally bewildered listeners.

It all began when Aki Lunya took out his phone, called the homeroom teacher, and said something along the lines of, “I have something to do this afternoon, I’ll take care of it first thing tomorrow.”

And then, Aki Lunya launched into a lengthy monologue.

“…So, to sum up: the main heroine you’re talking about, the one who picked up the detective’s hat that had rolled down the slope, is… uh, this classmate?” Jiang Yu pressed his forehead with one hand, gently stirring his second cup of coffee with the other, his face twisted in subtle perplexity.

This scene so strongly evoked the feeling of a galgame—fate dropping the heroine into the protagonist’s path, the classic setup for their first encounter—that Jiang Yu was left utterly speechless.

According to Aki Lunya’s account, the incident went something like this:

Passing by Detective Slope, Aki Lunya was cycling at the same slow pace as the drifting cherry blossom petals, gazing up at the spring-laden sky.

The bright blue was streaked with white wisps of cloud, scattered with soft pink petals.

The sun was warmer than in winter, and the moon, shrunken but not yet vanished, still lingered in the dawn.

And then—something larger and closer than the sun or moon, a swiftly passing, round, unidentified flying object.

While Aki Lunya was still puzzled, the object landed with a thud right in front of his eyes, then tumbled down the slope on its own.

“It would have been more poetic if it had stayed airborne a little longer. That would have been nice,” Aki Lunya couldn’t help but narrate his thoughts at the time.

Upon closer inspection, the rolling object wasn’t a bright red straw hat but a white beret.

Ah, that made sense—given its size and lack of sturdiness, it couldn’t have flown far.

Well, the color hardly mattered.

And so, while Aki Lunya was lost in these utterly inconsequential musings…

“Ah, ahhhh—! Please, wait for me!” came a clear, melodious, delicate yet urgent voice.

Aki Lunya squeezed the brakes with such force his muscles bulged, craned his neck backwards so sharply it almost cramped.

All just to see with his own eyes the owner of that clear, melodious, delicate, yet urgent voice echoing down the slope…

“My hat!” the girl called out.

Looking back up the slope, Aki Lunya saw a girl, likely his age, standing there at a loss.

…

“To be honest, Aki, when you sped up and stopped so abruptly, it really did startle me,” Girl Classmate No. 1 remarked in an utterly calm tone, her face betraying no sign of having been startled.

“…Well, Lunya’s cycling skills are maxed out, so it’s fine,” Jiang Yu teased.

Aki Lunya, still looking serious, declared, “So, Megumi Kana, you’re our heroine!”

“…When you put it so ambiguously, it does feel a bit strange. Also, it’s ‘Kato,’ not ‘Kana.’”

“Wait, Lunya, what do you mean by ‘our’?” Jiang Yu sensed a wave of foreboding.

“Oh, it’s for the game we’re making, of course! The greatest galgame ever! You’re the first person I want in the team, Jiang!” Aki Lunya announced excitedly.

“…” Jiang Yu pressed his forehead, then said seriously, “And when did I ever agree to join you?”

“Eh—! But Jiang, we’re good friends, right? The type who stay up all night gaming and watching anime together?”

“Well, to a certain extent, yes…”

“So, you definitely wouldn’t just stand by and do nothing, would you?”

“…Sigh, don’t be fooled by appearances. I’m about to get really busy. I honestly might not have time to help you make a game,” Jiang Yu replied with a wry smile.

Meanwhile, Megumi Kato entered what might be called a “sage mode,” quietly eating her cake and sipping coffee without the slightest intention of joining this inexplicable, rambling conversation.

By the way, all of this was courtesy of Aki Lunya.

“Ehh—” Aki Lunya looked incredulous.

So Jiang Yu resorted to the long-lost art of topic diversion, forcibly addressing the silent girl beside him: “By the way, Kato, your memory’s really impressive. You recognized Lunya and me, even though we’re both in the go-home club.”

Aki Lunya, successfully redirected, chimed in, “Right, right! Today’s only the first day after the class shuffle, and you already remember our names.”

“Ah…” The expressionless girl gave a small sigh and answered, “Well, we’ve already seen each other around, so it’s not that strange.”

“???” Two confused faces, black question marks floating above them.

Megumi Kato glanced at the two bewildered boys, giving Jiang Yu a look that seemed to say, “What can you do?” and asked, “Leaving Lunya aside, Jiang, which class were you in during first year?”

“Uh, I was in Class E,” Jiang Yu replied, rubbing his nose, still confused.

“So was I,” Megumi replied with her usual calm.

“Ah. Oh… Wait—what!?” Jiang Yu’s expression was a perfect demonstration of Sichuan opera’s face-changing art, shifting from confusion to realization to shock.

He hastily stammered, “S-sorry, I honestly don’t remember a girl like you in our class…”

“Ah… I didn’t mean anything by it, really… Anyway, I’m sorry, Kato.”

In the end, Jiang Yu could only scratch his head in resignation, finishing with a sheepish “su mi ma sen.”

“…It’s fine. It’s not like many people in class seem to remember me. My friends say I leave a weak impression, that I’m easy to overlook. Sometimes it does bother me, though,” Megumi said, frowning ever so slightly, though her composure never faltered.

Honestly, girl, if it troubles you so much, maybe try actually looking troubled? Otherwise, who can tell if you’re being sincere or not, Kato?

“So… Lunya, how do you know her?” Trying to cover his own embarrassment, Jiang Yu shifted the focus back to Aki Lunya.

“Yeah—come to think of it, why didn’t you introduce yourself back then? You could have just said we were classmates,” Aki Lunya picked up the thread, helping out his self-proclaimed friend and clubmate.

“Eh—because we’d already seen each other so many times, it would have been weird to formally introduce myself again.”

“But we weren’t in the same class in first year, right? I was in Class A.”

“Our classes were on the same floor,” Megumi replied.

Aki Lunya and Jiang Yu suddenly realized—they broke out in a cold sweat. Back then, Aki Lunya would often visit Jiang Yu between classes to discuss anime, comics, and games, and every day he’d pass by Class E.

So, the three of them must have seen each other every day.

“But even so, we’d never spoken before becoming second-years, right?” Aki Lunya protested, not willing to admit defeat. “Plus, I’m just in the go-home club, my grades aren’t outstanding, and I’m an otaku… For someone unremarkable like me from another class, I can’t believe you remembered me.”

“I’ll grant you the otaku part, but if you say you’re unremarkable, I think everyone would disagree. Right, Jiang?” Megumi turned to Jiang Yu with a look that said, “You get it, don’t you?”

“Uh… Wh-what do you mean?” Jiang Yu was completely lost under Megumi’s expectant gaze.

The inconspicuous girl gave him a look that seemed to say, “I give up”—if a blank expression could convey such a thing.

But Jiang Yu could more or less guess what this girl was thinking… probably. He filled in the blanks, just like in the last few lines.

Then Megumi Kato explained in her signature monotone, “After all, Aki, you’re pretty well-known at our school.”

“…Am I really that noticeable?” The bespectacled boy, who had always labeled himself ‘unremarkable,’ found it hard to believe.

“Your anime screening at the first-year school festival played a big part. If you’d kept it underground, people would have just thought you were a troublemaker. But you went to the office every day to get official approval, ended up clashing with the head of academics, and the principal even had to step in and mediate… No one in the sports clubs could pull that off.”

“…People in sports clubs wouldn’t try to hold an anime screening in the first place,” Jiang Yu muttered weakly.

“Because of all that, when people hear Aki Lunya’s name, they either laugh or feel annoyed. But no one ever asks, ‘Who’s that?’”

With this, Megumi Kato concluded her explanation, dealing Aki Lunya a direct blow.

…

Meanwhile, in some forgotten corner.

“He didn’t come?”

“Nope, he didn’t…”

…