Three days had passed since that discouraging exchange of words I had with Tamaki-san, it is now Thursday, February 18.

With a huge blue sky before my eyes, I was lying on my back on the rooftop of one of the three main buildings of the school, to be more specific, the one designated for second year students, waiting for the lunch break to end. When it was ten minutes before the end of the hour, I lifted my body that was lying on the ground to start walking towards the classroom.

As I walked down the stairs to the second floor, I immediately began to feel the cold and desolate atmosphere of the hallways. After taking a few more steps in a straight line, I was right in front of the entrance door to my classroom.

Piip—

Piip—

Piip—

As I entered, the high-pitched sound of the APA turning on began to be heard ascending as I made my way to my desk.

After a while, the APA was turned on, which was to be used by the teacher in charge of teaching the class at this time of the day. I got up from my desk while Tamaki-san, the class representative, greeted the teacher cordially. After taking my seat, I reached into my school bag to pull out my laptop. As I turned it on and checked the email account given by the school, I could notice that there was an email in the inbox.

Then confused I looked around as I wondered, how quickly has the teacher sent out the guidelines for this class work? That was my first thought, however, none of the APAs of my other classmates in the room had made the high-pitched sound that alerted me that the professor had sent them out.

I immediately opened my inbox to read that email. If it wasn't an email sent by the professor, who could it be from? Spam?

Clearly was a message there, and it had a strange subject line that in capital letters said:

"PLEASE DO NOT IGNORE THIS EMAIL".

I twisted my head for a few seconds looking surprised, then I began to read it.

"PLEASE DO NOT IGNORE THIS MAIL

I must confess that for quite some time now I have been observing your behavior with others. There is no doubt that you are the only one who can help me in this difficult time I am going through.

I want you to meet me today after school, right next to the main building of the school where the huge garden with flower arrangements is located.

If it's about you, I know very well that you will come."

What kind of joke is this…? I could not believe what I had just read, I had never received an email like this before. Also, when I read the sender's address, I realized that the domain after the at sign was not one used by the school. Could it be an external person? No... If I reread the words that were used in the body of the email, it is obvious that the person who wrote it knows me quite well. It is very easy for someone who is enrolled in the school to find another student's email, even if he or she belongs to a different class.

My heart started beating very fast.

Even if this were a joke, for me it can be transformed into a great opportunity. After all, someone wants to talk to me of their own free will.

Piip—

Piip—

Piip—

I was alerted by the sound of my classmates APA around me. Looking once again at my email inbox, this time it was the instructions for the work to be done for this class.

“No way!”

As I read and got to the end of the message contained in the email, I could identify those words.

Work in Pairs.

This was the second time in the week that I had used this very rare methodology of work. Then I read the name of the person who had been chosen to be my partner on this occasion.

Kubota Maki.