You couldn’t explain it. You felt like you knew everything about your classmate Fuyumura, but if anyone would’ve asked you about her, you wouldn’t know what to say.

You‘ve secretly had an eye on her for a while now. Ever since the first year that you guys were classmates, and now you‘ve been classmates for three years already. You always sat at the back while Fuyumura sat at the front with her friend Ono, even though you were one of the livelier ones and Fuyumura was rather reserved. You didn’t understand what you felt about her. Was it a crush? But those don’t usually last three whole years… Was it your stubborn curiosity? But even for you, this was more than just stubborn… You took note of her dorm number, her grades, her friends, her lunches, her physical challenges like her getting taller, her hair getting longer and her eyebags getting darker… but why did you? It’s not like you felt some kind of sick joy from it. The only thing you felt when observing her was curiosity. But could curiosity really go that far? And even if, why did you only care about her and no other classmate? You didn’t even observe your own friends that much… You sometimes really worried about the possibility of turning into a creepy stalker, but your friends always seemed to reassure you.

You tried to start ignoring Fuyumura, to just not look at her for at least one day, but it was almost impossible. You had no wishes, no thoughts or desires whenever you observed her, your head was just empty, like a child watching cocomelon. None of your friends understood, but they also didn’t care. They were focused on entirely different things, like school and romance, while you got your stimulation from watching Fuyumura‘s ahoge move around during chemistry class. It was almost pathetic. But only almost.

Eventually, you found the guts to make conversation with her. It went about as well as putting two clams in front of each other and waiting for them to do something, but nonetheless, you were comfortable. You were comfortable with exchanging names and phone numbers and occasional glances. Did she trust you? Hell no. Did you trust her? Why would you. But you felt good about the thin connection you had recently built with her.

After what felt like years, you finally start to notice her softening up to you a little, though frankly you couldn’t have accomplished that without Ono and Sanda‘s help. After all, seeing her only friends warm up to you and treat you as one of them made Fuyumura feel like you were at least a little trustworthy after all.