“I mean, what’s our destination?”

“We can’t just walk like this?”

I rolled my eyes toward the sky.

Misaki stopped and folded her arms, deep in thought. “Hm. Now that you mention it, it is kind of strange. Thinking about it more carefully, I guess most people do try to go somewhere.”

I had nothing to say.

“Hey, where do you think people normally would go?”

It’s not like I have an answer. To begin with, what in the hell were we doing? It was Saturday, in the middle of the afternoon, and we had met to walk around in the city. Who in the world are we, anyway? If I could answer that question, maybe our destination would change.

At any rate, I asked, “Misaki, is there anywhere you’d like to go?”

“No.”

“Have you eaten lunch yet?”

“Not yet.”

For the time being, we decided to go to a nearby family restaurant.

As we entered the family restaurant, Misaki said, “This is the first time I’ve eaten at a place like this.”

I smoked a cigarette. The tip was shaking slightly. It was painful for me. I wanted sunglasses. If I could just have sunglasses, I wouldn’t have to worry about strangers staring at me.

Misaki ordered the lunch special. She ate with vigor while I sipped my coffee.

Dammit, I thought. The caffeine was making it even more difficult to stay calm. Soon, I would start acting suspiciously.

Misaki was rather cheery, however. She looked like she was having fun making some sort of origami from the paper napkins set up on the table.

“Look, it’s finished. Isn’t it amazing?” It was a crane.

“It is amazing. You’re very skilled.” I praised her.

My stomach was starting to hurt, so we left the family restaurant.

We walked for about another half hour before heading to a cafe. I drank some black tea, and Misaki ate cake. I was trying to remember the original reason we were meeting like this.

On that night, Misaki had said, “Let’s go into the city. If we do that, I think you’ll definitely head in a good direction.”

Oh, right. In short, this was another part of the hikikomori escape program, and it didn’t mean we were on a date or anything. And then, there was the previous night. After watching Misaki last night, I was oven more mystified by her true identity. For starters, the evening had erased my theory that all this was just a covert religious recruitment on her part. Given how little she had fit in with the surroundings at the assembly, it was unlikely that she’d zealously try to convert strangers.

In the end, who was she? Even now, she remained a huge mystery. What should I do, hanging out like this with such a mysterious girl? What should I do? Finally, with no idea what else to do, I simply kept silent.