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                                What defines me? Does anyone know? Voices echo in my ears Breaking down the boundaries I’m becoming one with everyone And that’s not good. — From Touko Kirishima’s “Social World” 1 Sakuta Azusagawa wondered how much oolong tea it would take to justify the 1,200 yen it had cost him for the two-hour all-you-can-drink deal. As he finished his third glass, he flagged a passing waitress and ordered another. The rest of the table started piling on, ordering beers, highballs, lemon sours, and oolong-hais. “I’ll be right back!” she said with a smile. She vanished into the kitchen. While they waited, Sakuta filled his mouth with the leftover ice. Before it melted, the waitress came back with a tray laden with glasses and mugs. “Your oolong tea,” she said, placing the glass in front of him. It had a straw sticking out of it, so he took a sip. It had the faint bitterness of oolong tea, no different from what they sold at the local grocery store. A two-liter would cost him two hundred yen. The price of entry here would get him twelve whole liters. Trying to drink that much in two hours was just torture. He’d live longer if he abandoned all hope of making it worth his while. As these thoughts ran through his mind, a girl asked, “Mind if I sit here?” He looked up to find her standing across the low table from him. She wore a long dress tied at the waist with a ribbonlike belt. On her shoulders was a military jacket with the sleeves rolled up. Her hair was lightened just a tad, and half of it was pulled back in a loose knot—casual without looking clueless. But her body was thin to the point of frail. She was smiling but didn’t look all that confident—but maybe the teardrop mole just gave that impression. “I’d rather you didn’t,” Sakuta admitted. “……” The teardrop girl held his gaze, blinking slowly. Like it had never occurred to her he might say no. “Why is that?” she asked after a full three seconds. She sat down across from him, brushing her skirt to keep it from wrinkling. Clearly, his attempted rebuff had been ineffective. The girl put a half-finished drink down on the table. The ice was melting, and the sides were damp. She pulled over an appetizer plate, clearly settling in. “I can feel the glares boring into my back already.” He didn’t even need to turn around. She’d come from another table, leaving behind a short-haired female friend—and three men. When he’d ordered his tea, he’d spotted them with their phones out, pulling up contact info. “They started sharing IDs, so I bailed.” His table was apparently a refuge. “You could just refuse.” “Would that I could.” The teardrop girl seemed a bit at a loss, but that might just have been her default expression, so he couldn’t tell if she actually was. “You got a reason you can’t?” “…I just don’t own a phone.” It took her a second to admit it. “You’re one of the few,” he said. “No one ever believes me.” The truth did not always sound true. Sometimes, it sounded like a bad lie. To make the truth convincing, she’d have to explain why, and she’d probably rather not. “What, did you have a bad day and fling it into the ocean?” “People actually do that?” He had, but since she’d laughed, Sakuta elected not to volunteer that information. “But how do you live without a phone?” “Do people die without one?” “So I’m told. The source is this high school girl I know.” “…A high school girl?” That was definitely a note of contempt. Were college students not allowed to know anyone younger? “A kohai at my old school,” he tried to explain, before she reached any untoward conclusions. “I guess that’s kosher. Cheers.” The transition between those phrases was lost on him, but she held up a glass, and he tapped his to it. Each took a sip on their respective straws. “Whatcha drinking?” “Oolong tea.” “Me too.” “Yeah?” “How many glasses to justify this tab?” “Someone did the math. You’d need at least twelve liters.” “No one can drink that much.” “Pretty much what I thought.” Such a vapid conversation. They might legitimately be better off talking about the weather. Keeping up the empty banter with a girl whose name he didn’t even know seemed depressing, so Sakuta followed the spirit of the gathering and introduced himself. “Sakuta Azusagawa, freshman. Statistical science major.” “Where’d that come from?” she chuckled, taking a bite of edamame. “These are good!” she muttered, then washed it down with tea. The way she held the glass, the way she pinched her straw, even the way her lips wrapped round it—each gesture was weirdly feminine. Sakuta could see why the boys had flocked to her. The regular dude inside him deemed her pretty cute. And he understood why they’d been eager to get her contact info. That body language, plus the way the teardrop mole made her look permanently frazzled, stimulated the protective impulse. It was like she had a spell cast on her that made people fall in love at first sight. “You watching me eat is pretty awkward,” she said, glancing up at him. She didn’t look the least bit put out, though. She was already on her next edamame. “You know what this gathering is about?” Sakuta asked, glancing pointedly around the room. They were inside an izakaya bar. Specifically, inside a room built for large parties, with tatami floors and dugouts beneath each table. Six tables in all, each seating four. One table with just guys. One table with just girls. And four with a mix of genders—including the one the two of them