How She’s Been Lately

The messages Yūha sent me arrived while classes were still in session at her high school.

There was always the possibility that she was using her phone during class, but that school wasn’t the kind of place where you could get away with that. It was a reasonably competitive school within the city, so they were strict about classroom behavior.

I knew that much because I had attended the same school myself.

After exchanging messages with her for several days, I became certain.

“She’s not going to school.”

Her reply speed was completely that of a shut-in with nothing to do.

Whenever I sent her a message during a break at work, she replied within thirty minutes without fail, regardless of the time. Rather than being especially eager to talk to me, she probably just had too much free time on her hands.

Maybe she had started using this dating app because she was bored too…

Or perhaps she was looking for somewhere to escape to. Was she trying to find a boyfriend who would protect her?

Or maybe she had simply started acting out.

If that were the case, though, I figured it would show a little more in her profile photo or self-introduction.

The genuinely dangerous ones would edit their photos beyond recognition or write things in their bios like, “I’m ugly and fat but people say I have a cheerful personality lol.”

Compared to that, Yūha’s profile was restrained.

She had only blurred a few areas and slightly warped the space around her face to make it look smaller. With editing this minor, it was easy enough to predict what her real face looked like at a glance.

Don’t underestimate my scumbag skills.

No, wait.

This was about Yūha.

Her self-introduction was just a slightly modified template, and she didn’t seem particularly serious about using the dating app.

She didn’t seem desperate, nor did she seem determined to fool around.

In that case, maybe she really was just using it to kill time.

…Yeah, that seemed the most likely explanation.

She was probably just in that transitional period where she could either fall into a bad crowd or stay out of one.

That was the conclusion I reached.

“Not that I have any obligation to worry about her…”

But I couldn’t help being curious.

Right.

This was curiosity.

It definitely wasn’t meddling.

After piling up excuses aimed at no one in particular, I sent a message to the one person I could reasonably call a friend.

I had quit using the social media account I’d had in high school, so the only person I could still contact was that infuriatingly happy bastard—Keiji Nitta.

He must have been free, because he called me a few minutes later.

“Yo, Sabu. Asking about your old high school out of nowhere? What, have you awakened to the charms of minors?”

“Even if I had, why the hell would I turn my alma mater into a hunting ground?”

“That’s exactly when you should use the app. There should be a few eighteen-year-old high schoolers on there. If they’re seventeen or younger, I hear social media is quicker, though.”

“Why the hell do you know that…?”

Without even asking, I had somehow learned how people met underage girls.

Unfortunately for him, I preferred older women to younger ones.

“Because a senior at my part-time job is always hooking up with high school girls.”

“Thanks for that end-of-the-world information. But that’s not what I’m asking about.”

“If your motive isn’t shady, then—ah. Yūha-chan?”

“Mm.”

Keiji understood from the other end of the call.

Yūha and I were three years apart, so our time at school had never overlapped.

The reason Keiji knew her was because she had come to visit our classroom during the school festival.

Yūha had still been in middle school at the time, and apparently she had been exactly Keiji’s type.

I remembered him passionately declaring, “If she were one year younger than me, I’d go for her.”

God, Keiji had been seriously creepy back then.

“Knowing her, she’s probably grown into a beauty. How’s her development looking?”

“I’ll kill you.”

“I’m joking, I’m joking. Don’t actually get mad, Sabu-chan.”

“I told you before, I haven’t seen her in ages. I live alone.”

“Then why are you suddenly asking about Yūha-chan?”

His tone was casual, but I could clearly hear that he intended to pry.

There was no way I could tell him that I had matched with her on a dating app and gotten curious about her current situation.

Fortunately, I had prepared a replacement lie.

“My parents asked me to check on her. Apparently she’s not fitting in very well at school.”

“Gotcha. Is Yūha-chan in any clubs?”

“She played soft tennis in middle school, but I don’t know about high school.”

“Soft tennis, got it. I’ll ask around through some juniors.”

“Sorry about that.”

“No problem. Seriously, Sabu, you turn into a completely different person when it comes to Yūha-chan.”

“…………”

Keiji agreed in his usual carefree tone.

He was a piece of trash, but he was surprisingly useful when I needed someone to consult.

I should probably repay him somehow next time.

I was about to hang up when he stopped me with, “By the way.”

“How’s the dating app going? Been on any dates yet?”

“Obviously.”

Obviously not.

In fact, even after several days, Yūha was still the only person I had managed to keep messaging.

Other women either went completely silent after matching with me or blocked me without warning.

Society was not designed to be kind to me.

“As expected of Sabu! You’re not bad-looking at first glance, after all. Your personality is completely ruined, though.”

“Use gentler words with your friends.”

“I don’t want that kind of friendship. Anyway, I’ll let you know if I find anything out.”

“Yeah. I’m counting on you.”

He cut me down without hesitation, then ended the call as well.

Out of habit, I checked my notifications and saw that I had received another message from “Yū.”

Another quick reply.

Our recent conversations had been about cooking, and according to the persona I had created, I was apparently the kind of man who elegantly prepared Italian food with balsamic vinegar and olive oil.

Thanks to that, I had to browse around ten cooking websites every time I wanted to send a single reply.

Apparently, women these days were into things like avoiding meat and eating low-carb, so I also pretended to understand that sort of thing.

I had become surprisingly knowledgeable about soy meat and carbohydrate restriction over the past few days.

Thinking it was a pain, I opened Yūha’s message.

“Saburō-san, you know so much about cooking. Are you a chef or something?”

This one looked easy enough to answer.

“No, I just enjoy watching cooking videos.”

“Do you cook, Yū-san?”

Not that I had ever actually watched any cooking videos.

But at this point, adding one or two more lies hardly changed anything.

She was lying about her appearance by editing her face.

I was entitled to lie openly about what was on the inside.

I hit send and let out a breath.

Then I tapped my forehead with the corner of my phone.

“Man… what the hell am I doing?”