Lenku one-shot stories by Shirai Hisaishi (orphic saudade)

Handkerchief

Handkerchief.

The theory of multiverse says
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Miku is smart. She is strict and annoying, and boyish for sometimes. Miku has a heart of a fighter and a mind of dreamer, working on ideas and actions -- breaking the classic idealism of the children of her age.

She was four when she realized that she was up to competitions. It was during her kindergarten, her late teacher was checking the work book and she was proud to score higher than her other classmates.

Her spirits were high in shushing her seatmates sharing the long table with her, because their teacher scolded the other children from other table. They were loud.

Miku was happy and excited when she received her first medal and award, she thought she was the only one.

That Miku-thinking continued until she was 12 and defeated in an interscholastic quiz bee. Last year, she was the champion, but that day, she was upended. Her stubborn self blamed a person who intruded the contest proper -- if not interposed by a contestant's trainer, she could have earned a score more (because her answer was really correct, that boyish coach just protested that they should move to the next item as what was stated on the contest rule--but Miku had this thought, "aren't coaches of students who qualified in the oral phase not allowed to mingle with the coaches facilitating?" But it wasn't spoken), and probably could have made it even on fifth place.

She was so bitter with her defeat, she couldn't forget that event. The next year, she entered high school and joined the elimination round for the same contest. Her classmates were different and she had no clue who's who, better than her or not when it comes to science. However, this new face posed a threat against her in becoming the contestant for the division quiz. It was him, a nerdy guy with thick glasses, quiet. He introduced himself to have a liking on plants versus zombies on the first day of class as freshmen high schoolers. She was clueless what is the game. He was silent yet deadly for her, it made her curious. He was the only one who could make it in science class with her.

Through the help of her middle schoolmate, she learned that the boy came from the school she hated. It was where the tomboyish coach came from. There was a high possibility that this boy was the same boy sitting a seat away from her during the oral phase of the quiz bee last year. He could be the same boy she blamed, together with his coach.

And she was right. He was.

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There are infinite parallel universes containing every possible situation
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It was a small world, she fussed about him and told her pals that he was the boy she was talking about. The event was in the past, and Miku was told to move on. But she wouldn't, because her defeat brought shame to her coach. She wanted to prove those people in her middle school that she was capable of something. This time was a higher level, it's high school and it's a division contest. She could win it.

She won. Miku won. But it seemed that as the semester went through, he was the sole guy who couldn't and wouldn't talk to her. She wouldn't blame him, she openly declared her hatred of him, she was stubborn, and repeated her mantra whenever her classmates would pair him to her. "The heck. Not with him, please. I am manly than he is,"

They were like same poles, people with same likes and dislikes. And like the belief in magnetism, they repelled. They were both good in drawing and writing and poetry, and yet, they never talked in class. She had known him as someone who hates women -- but during a club meeting for all science class officers of all years, he talked to Gumi and Rin -- both smart girls were rumored to have a crush on the typical cool antisocial guy.