Monday 3 Days Later
"Aoi, Aoiiii!"
"Uhm, hm, uhm, yeah, what is it, Yuna?"
"Man, Aoi, are you even listening to me?"
Aoi remained silent.
"Aoi?"
"Yeah, sorry, I was lost in thought," she said gloomily.
"You've been lost in thought all day. Tell me, what's bothering you so much?"
"Oh, nothing special," Aoi brushed it off.
"Aha, you think so."
"What?" Aoi looked at her in surprise. "You know I can't speak English."
"Well, I think it's pretty special," Yuna said with a smile and rested her head on her hands.
"What do you think is special?"
"Well, you know?"
"What?"
"Well, you know."
"Don't keep me in suspense, Yuna."
"Well, the boy you have a crush on, even though you don't even know where he lives or what he looks like."
"WHAAAAAT? Uhmm, no, definitely not! I don't have any time for that kind of shit," Aoi said nervously and looked down at the campus square below them.
Yuna slapped a hand against her face as if she had just made the biggest mistake of her life.
"Well, whatever. Are you coming to the biology lecture today?" Yuna asked with a bright smile.
"Yeah, I'm coming."
"Greeeeat!" Yuna jumped up and clapped her hands. Then she walked around the small dining table on the roof and whispered into Aoi's ear:
"You should stop dreaming and find yourself a boyfriend instead." Yuna grinned as she watched Aoi's face turn red. Then she laughed.
"You're just way too easy to read."
"N-n-n-no, that's not true! Whatever you're thinking, it's not true!" she said, trembling, and abruptly stood up while her hands gripped the edge of the table. Her gaze avoided Yuna's grin.
"Yeah, yeah, sure, but you'd better not chase after a phantom for too long."
"Anyway, see you later at the lecture," Yuna said once more with a smile before heading off.
"See you later," Aoi muttered to herself and then looked out over the city. A phantom, huh.
University Building:
The boy looked at his phone. A large map with many hallways and rooms.
He looked back at the hallway.
Then back at his phone.
Stare, stare.
He sighed and looked at his phone once again.
3rd floor; Lecture Hall 3.
He looked down the hallway and at the walls once again, but everything was in Japanese.
For almost 10 minutes now, he had been wandering through the hallways like a lost child. He had actually wanted to arrive extra early so he could read up on things. Well, he could forget about that plan now.
A little farther away, he noticed two students who were having a conversation in the school hallway.
He put his phone away and took two steps toward the students.
"Excuse me, do you speak English?" he murmured quietly to himself.
No answer.
Should he try it in Japanese?
He took another two steps toward them.
Now the students noticed him.
The boy reached for his phone and hurried past them.
I'll find the lecture hall on my own.
He continued down the hallway, passing wooden doors, until he finally saw a door standing by itself.
This could be it.
Relieved, he opened the door.
Staaare. Silenceee.
He looked into what felt like a classroom.
Bang.
In the blink of an eye, he closed the door again and quickly and nervously continued on.
Hmm, where else?
Wrong again. That's the 4th wrong door now, or at least that's what he thought. When he looked at his watch, he saw that another 10 minutes had passed.
He opened another door.
A professor stopped in the middle of his sentence, and 30 students silently looked toward the door.
"So sorry."
He quickly closed the door again.
Another look at his watch showed him that he still had 7 minutes until the lecture.
I have to ask the next person.
He walked a little farther when he saw a girl on her phone.
He took one or two deep breaths and then finally walked up to her.
"Sumimasen."
The girl looked up from her phone.
"Hai?"
He tried to get the question he had painstakingly memorized that morning back into his head.
"Biology... kōgi wa... doko desu ka?"
The boy looked at her uncertainly.
The girl blinked at him and smiled briefly.
"Ah! Seibutsugaku no kōgi desu ka? Sore nara kono rōka o massugu itte, tsugi no kado o hidari ni magatte, kaidan de nikai ni agatte."
He stared at her.
What?
She continued speaking quickly.
He had heard hidari.
Left.
Or at least he thought it meant left.
While he was lost in thought, the girl described the way and pointed to the right with her hand. She continued speaking, but he didn't understand any of it.
"Hai," he suddenly said and slowly nodded.
The girl wanted to say something else, but he nodded twice more and said:
"Hai, hai. Uhm... Arigato."
The girl smiled and bowed slightly.
He hesitated, but then did the same.
So, left.
He turned left and walked down the hallway.
Less than two minutes later, he stood in front of another door.
He looked at the room number.
Then at his phone.
Then back at the room number.
Shit...!
He was completely on the wrong side, on the wrong floor.
Farther down the hallway, another girl was walking by.
The boy clenched his fist and walked up to her.
"Hey, uhm, sorry."
"Uhm, uhm..."
"Biology... kōgi wa... doko desu kaaaaaaa?"
The girl started laughing.
"I see, you must be a student from overseas, right?" she asked in English.
"Uhm, yes."
"Good, I can show you the way to the lecture hall if you want. I have to go there too," she said with a smile and nodded.
"O Okay, thank you."
"Here we are. This is the lecture hall. If you have any more questions about our university, you can ask me anytime."
"Thank you very much," the boy said.
"Oh, and you can call me Yuna," she said and looked out the window. When she looked back toward the door, however, the boy had already disappeared into the packed lecture hall.