A Strange E-mail?

"I am home."

I finally reached home. It didn't take as long to reach as I thought it would. I closed the door and went straight to my room. I was exhausted. I laid down on the bed without changing.

I wanted to go to sleep but I got up against my will. My whole body was sweaty and I felt kinda uncomfortable. I wanted to take a shower but changed my mind.

I went towards the wardrobe and took out a T-shirt and a pair of trousers. It took me a while to change since my body didn't want to move. I put my used clothes in the washing machine. After that, I went to the bathroom to wash my face. I put a little bit of facewash on my hand and rubbed it on my face. While washing the facewash off, my t-shirt got a little wet.

"Ugh, I should've washed my face before changing."

Since I was pretty tired, I thought a quick snack would be a great idea. I dried my face and went to the kitchen.

I've never used this kitchen. I don't know why my dad bought me this house. It's like a classic Japanese family house, I mean the ones you often see in animes. A whole family can live here without any difficulty.

I opened the fridge and it was...

"Just an instant noodles, huh? I guess I have to do some shopping" I murmured.

I prepared the instant noodles. I needed some energy for shopping.

My life after coming to Japan was pretty lame. I spent most of my time watching TV shows and reading or studying in the library. Waking up, jogging, going to the library, and spending time on the internet, it was like a daily routine for me. I never had to think about my food and other stuff. I used to eat in a restaurant which was right beside the library. I bought those instant noodles for snacks.

While eating the noodles, I turned on my laptop and searched for some cooking recipes.

Since I came to Japan. All I ate was Junk food, which was of course very unhealthy for me. If I managed to cook food at home, I could bring them for lunch at school too. So it was a win-win for me.

But the main problem was, that I didn't know how to cook.

After searching for a while, I finally found an easy-to-make recipe. It didn't take that long to find, it was actually a normal Japanese Dish.

I quickly wrote down the ingredients I needed for the dish.

I got up and went towards the front door. Put on my shoes and went outside. I live alone so I had to lock the door. Since the store was pretty close, I went there without changing. My T-shirt was still kind of wet but it wasn't noticeable.

"Thanks for shopping. Please come again"

I shopped a bit too much. This was the second time I came to this shop. I didn't need to do any shopping other than some snacks and some necessary stuff before.

"Damn, I bought things a bit too much"

This time, I bought the ingredients for my recipe and some other necessary stuff. I bought some weird things. For some reason, I thought they might get handy in the future. I was still wondering how a toy gun can be handy in the future.

"I am home."

Even though I live alone, saying that makes me feel a bit better.

I put the shopping bags on the floor and made my way to my room. I opened my laptop. The dish I was thinking about making was Omelette Rice. It was a pretty simple dish. I chose it because of it and since it's pretty simple, the chances of me failing was low.

I turned on the rice cooker since I needed warm rice for this dish.

First, you need to make the chicken rice. I've already cut the onions. I put some oil on the pan and cook chopped onions. Then add diced chicken to the pan. After cooking the chicken for a while, you need to add some ketchup.

A certain thing interrupted my cooking. My phone was ringing. I couldn't guess who would call me at this time. I went upstairs, where my room was.

"Oh, it's her again. But it's an odd time for a call" I murmured.

I received the call and instantly regretted it.

"Sup! Big Brooooooooooo" The person who called said in a loud voice.

I held my urge to hang up the call. If I hung up now, she'd try again and again to contact me.

"What do you want?" I said.

"Uuu, that's not a nice reaction at all"

"How was I supposed to react?" I asked. I was kinda annoyed.

"I hoped for a surprised reaction. It's been a while since the last time I called you." She said it with a sad tone.

She had been calling me every day since I came to Japan. Even though we last talked like two days ago. I decided not to talk about it any further.

I sat down on my bed and opened my window. The breeze was blowing softly. It looked like it might rain soon.

"Ok ok, I am sorry." I continued.

"Hmph, I forgive this time."

Like I care about your forgiveness.

"Ok then, I am hanging up-"

Before I could finish my sentence, she spoke up.

"How was your first day at school?" She said it sarcastically.

"Not that bad, I guess," I replied.

"Did you make any friends?" Her voice felt excited.

It was pretty surprising that she asked about making friends. When I was with her, I had a few friends. I still wonder if I couldn't call them friends or not. I spent most of the time with her since I didn't have any friends to play with. But she was pretty annoying that time too. If I beat her at any game, she'd start crying and say I cheated. Those days were pretty good.

"Well, no. But I did talk with some people," I replied.

"Hmmm? Really? I am pretty surprised that people actually approached you. You're always so gloomy. Haha."

"Hey. That was rude. " I replied. I felt pretty irritated but was actually having quite fun talking with her. It's been a while since I last talked with someone like this.

"Btw" I looked at the clock. "I think it's 4:30 am over there. Why are you awake so early?"

"Ahaha..." She sounded nervous, "Well, I haven't gone to sleep yet"

"Wha- Go to sleep right now. If you don't, I won't receive your call anymore."

"Ok ok, fine. I'll go to bed"

"Good. How's dad doing?" I asked. He didn't contact me since I came here.

"You know, he's always busy with his work"

So, that was the reason why she was still awake. If dad was home, he'd force her to go to bed by 10:30.

My dad is a Psychiatrist. For as long as I can remember, he was doing some research on human mentality when I was about to leave the USA. My dad's job was pretty interesting. The way the human mind and brain works. It looked like an interesting subject to me.

He's always so busy that he doesn't spend time with us on the weekends.

I still wondered if he ever cared about us. I had never seen him spend time with us even if for a little moment. I couldn't tell if it was because of that incident or not. But it had nothing to do with my sister. I had never seen him spending time with her either.

"So, what were you doing?" I asked. I couldn't find a topic to talk about.

"Uh-..... I was playing a game. Ahaha" She laughed weakly.

"Oh, that game again? Are you still playing it? What do you gain from collecting those characters?"

Apparently, she plays a gacha game, where you can customize and get new characters. That game's been pretty popular among young girls and even boys! I still can't figure out why such a game like this can be so popular.

"Well.....haha....W-What about you?" She avoided the question.

"Well... I was-" I just realized what I was doing. "Wait."

I quickly got downstairs and saw what abomination I'd created. The pan, thankfully, wasn't that damaged. But the chicken was badly burnt.

"Hello? What happened?" She sounded worried.

Why do you sound worried? It's all your fault, stupid.

"Nothing. I was making some coal" I tried to be a little sarcastic, hoping it'd lessen my pain.

"Coal? You really are weird"

"I know."

"Ok, I am hanging up. Good Night"

I wish you hung up a little early.

"More like Good Morning," I replied.

She hung up the phone. I put my phone in the right pocket of my trouser. I stared at the burnt chicken for a while. If I talked some more the pan would've been burnt.

I should've turned off the oven before going upstairs. It was actually my fault that the chicken burnt. I couldn't just accuse her, how'd she know that I was cooking at that time?

"I guess I have to eat omelet and rice for dinner"

All of my confidence was gone. I wasn't sure if I could make an omelet.

I trashed the burnt chicken and cleaned the pan.

Suddenly my phone buzzed. I grabbed my phone out of my right pocket. It was an E-mail from school. The E-mail was pretty small. I read the E-mail and became kinda confused. The E-mail said:

"Dear Ashiro Kaname,

Please come to school by 7 am tomorrow. Meet your Class Teacher in room C304 of C-Block.

Thank you."

....

"What?"