"Were you calling me?"
The boy looked at Rita, who had called out to him, with a hint of confusion.
"Mm, hello! Sorry, may I take up a little of your time?" Rita approached him and asked with a very polite smile.
She gave off an approachable, likable impression that made it impossible to reject her. Yet there was also a trace of reserve within that friendliness, making people hesitant to get too close.
"H-Hello! Um, do we know each other?"
Looking at Rita... the boy clasped his hands together, displaying a slightly girlish bashfulness and a touch of nervousness. That sort of posture would have been perfectly normal on a girl, but it looked a little strange on a boy.
And... his gaze held none of the infatuation or desire other boys had when looking at Rita. Instead, there was envy? And surprise...
"We don't know each other."
Rita shook her head slightly as she looked at the boy before her.
She studied him carefully... His hairstyle was somewhat frivolous, as though he was trying to create an effect that was sixty percent natural and one hundred percent deliberate. His bangs reached just to his eyebrows.
The shape of his brows suggested a stubborn personality. He had fairly large eyes, dry lips, a strong jawline, and thin cheeks without much flesh, though the shape of his face was attractive.
He was wearing a tracksuit.
He looked like an utterly ordinary high school student. Normally... Rita would have had no interest in a boy like him. But... what was inside him piqued her curiosity.
"Then... what do you need from me?"
Hearing that Rita was not someone he knew, the boy seemed to relax a little. At the same time, he looked at her with a trace of confusion.
"It's