“Taki, you scumbag, whaddaya think you’re doing, getting a jump on us?” “You’d better have an excuse, weasel.” “You two left together yesterday, didn’t you?”

“Huh… Wait, no way—seriously?! I did? With Okudera-senpai?!”

Meaning that journal entry was real?!

“What happened with you two after that?!”

“Uh, no, I… I really don’t remember much…”

“Don’t gimme that crap!”

Just as it looks like somebody’s gonna haul me up by my shirtfront, a cool voice echoes through the hall.

“Okudera, reporting for duty.”

Okudera-senpai arrives, her long, bare legs and the shoulders peeking out of her top gleaming in the light. She greets us with a smile, strappy sandals clicking pleasantly.

“Hello, everyone.”

“Hi!”

She’s sort of an idol at this place, and confronted with her stunning presence, the four of us reply in unison. For a moment, we almost forget about our problem. Then Okudera-senpai turns back and looks right at me.

“Let’s make it another good day. Okay, Taki?”

I can almost hear a heart symbol punctuating that sentence, so sweetly delivered, followed by a wink sent my way before she disappears through the door. I turn so red, it’s like somebody dumped boiling water over my head. This is way too much. I want to go polish all the glasses in the restaurant until they shine, right this minute.

“……Hey. Taki.”

The guys’ voices are so dark it’s as though they’re resounding from the depths of the Earth, and I come back to myself with a jolt.

—Not good. As the senior staff cross-examines me, almost wailing, I wonder:

What’s going on here? Are they pranking me? Is everybody in on it? …Nah, couldn’t be. What’d I do while I was out of it?

What the heck is “Mitsuha”?

The birds are energetically twittering away again this morning. There’s a newborn clarity to the early sun that streams in through the paper sliding doors, and the morning is peaceful, as usual. Even so, although I’ve just woken up, unfamiliar writing with a quality of pure, concentrated irritation is scrawled across my arm.

Mitsuha??? What are you? Who are you????

The letters are big and messy, written roughly with a super-thick Magic Marker, from my palm all the way up to my elbow.

“Sis, what is that?”

When I look up, Yotsuha’s standing in the open sliding door. I make a face that says, That’s what I want to know.

My little sister’s face replies, Well, it doesn’t really matter.

“You’re not feelin’ up your boobs today, huh? Break! Fast! Time! Hurry up!”

She shuts the sliding door with a sharp clack, just like always, and I watch her from my futon. Huh? Boobs? I’m “not feeling them up today”? …Excuse me? My mind produces a gratuitous image of myself happily squeezing my own boobs… B-but that’s so perverted and gross!

“Mornin’!” I say as I enter the classroom.

The minute I do, all my classmates’ eyes are on me. Eep! I give a little gasp. Wh-what? Trying to make myself small and inconspicuous, I cross to my seat by the window. I hear whispers.