What's Wrong With Arata?

Tick tock, tick tock. What was taking Arata so long? Yuriko was sitting, arms crossed, waiting impatiently for him to arrive. It's not as though it's late, but he's usually here by now.

She was starting to get annoyed with this, so she sent a message to Arata. Perhaps he overslept and was going to be late. Something that couldn't be afforded to her sister if that was the case.

"Hey, where are you?" She sent it out, hoping that it won't take long for a response. On the bright side, it doesn't. On the not-so-bright side, his response made no sense to her.

"Um… Why are you talking to me? How did you get this number?" Is the reply she gets from him. She checks to make sure she didn't send this message to the wrong person, but it's clear that it's him.

"Ha, real funny. When are you coming over?" She responded. Yuriko is hardly in the mood for jokes in the morning.

"We're not friends, so no." That is Arata's last message to her. She is about to send another, but when she does. It fails.

"What? He blocked me!" She yelled out in frustration. "Come on, let's go Yurisa." She's going to have to go to his house and give him a piece of her mind. However first, her sister needs to go to school.

After a lot of pulling and running with Yurisa. Yuriko quickly made her way to his house. Arata's mother answered the door, that was after a little bit of banging from the young girl.

"Oh, it's Yuriko." His mom happily greeted her. "How come you're here, shouldn't you be walking to school with Arata?"

"That's what I was thinking." She had a tone of irritation. "How come your son went and blocked me?"

"He did?" She replied. "Hmm? Were you that strange girl that he was worried about seeing?" That certainly explained it better to his mom why he practically ran out of the house. Her son was acting really oddly this morning.

"Worried about seeing me?" He did say that they weren't friends in their messages. Everything combined about this caused her to suddenly rush away from his house. There was only one place he could be now. And there was only one reason that she could think of, to explain his behavior.

"I, uh, hope you have fun at school!" His mom yelled out to her, which fell on deaf ears. Right now, the only thing was to find out why Arata was apparently giving her the cold shoulder.

At her pace, it doesn't take long to reach the school grounds. Yuriko rushes into the building, right to the school lockers. That's where he's getting his shoes put on.

"What's up with you?!" She pushed him up against the lockers. Arata has a look of utter fear on his face from being caught off-guard. "You figured it out, didn't you?!"

"Figured what out?" He responded, putting his hands in front of his face. Prepared to protect himself from any punches she might throw. "Whatever I did, I'm sorry. Just let go of me." She slowly lost the tenseness in her body. Yuriko realized how angry she was getting at him.

"What are you talking about?" She let go of him. This boy was acting like they've never met before. "You're not mad at me?"

"Mad?" Arata took a good look at her. "But, I don't think we've ever talked before. Nothing serious at least." What was he saying? They're friends, they've been walking together in the morning for a month now.

There wasn't any time to confront him on it, classes were about to begin. Even if time permitted, she was just too stunned to say anything to him. Arata kept a weary eye on her, afraid she might attack him again.

That was an odd morning for him, he never would've thought some random girl he only heard in passing would come up and threaten him. Hopefully that would be the end to the weirdness, but as he entered the classroom. That would be far from the truth.

"…" There was a girl sitting behind Yogi's seat that he had never seen before. "Psst, Yogi." He covered his mouth on the side towards this girl. "Who's that?" Arata shook his head towards her.

"What are you talking about?" Yogi laughed at what he thought was a joke. "It's Yuki."

"I see… I still don't know who that is." That statement made the two of them take a double take.

"Kashimura, I don't understand." If this was an odd joke, then Yuki didn't think it was very funny. "I've been here for a month now, of course you know me."

"Um… Sure." Arata turned his head back to the front of the class, now ignoring her. The cousins were too shocked by this display to say anything before class began. The next opportunity was when lunch was to begin.

"All right, you ready to go to lunch?" Yogi asked him.

"Ah, well I was just going to eat here." Arata responded. "But you can go ahead and eat with your friends."

"You mean, our friends?" He placed emphasis on the word, 'our'. "Is there something wrong?" Yogi had concern in his voice.

"No, don't think so." Arata answered. "I mean, we don't hang out. So I don't see the problem here." He chuckled, acting as if this was normal.

"Arata, if we did anything to make you mad." He grabbed him by the arm, which prompted the other to recoil back. There was something strange going on, but both didn't know why.

"Um." Arata wanted nothing more than getting out of this awkward situation. "Actually I have some homework I need to do, so I think I'll just go eat in the library." With that, he took the opportunity to leave them.

Now that he was walking to the library, this day was just getting stranger and stranger to him. At least his next destination was going to be better, at least that's what he was expecting.

No one's ever in the library, so it should be the best place to try and get away from people. At least that's what he thought, but there's an awful lot of people browsing the shelves. The ones that stand out the most would have to be the group of girls sitting at a table together. Mainly due to the fact that they greeted him coming in.

"Hey." Ichiri was the one to say something to him first. "Arata you're not usually in here. You need anything?" The only response he had to here was a blank stare. Why did this girl know his name? When were they ever on a first-name basis?

"Is something wrong?" Yurime asked him after there was an unnecessarily long time of silence. "Arata, you're acting weird." This girl too? Now things were getting to strange for him now. Was today some type of prank day where everyone pretended they knew him?

"Actually, I took a wrong turn." He slowly backed away from them. "I meant to go to… The nurse's office." That poor excuse was the best he had on a tight spot.

"Is something wrong?" Hifumi got up and held his arm. "I can help you go there if you need it." Quickly, he ripped his arm away from her. For some reason, everyone was also getting very touchy with him as well.

"I'm fine, I'll be going now." He rushed out of the room to avoid more questioning. When did all these girls decide to get all friendly with him? Almost as soon as he left, a new group of people came in to replace him. It was Yogi and the others.

"Hey, where's Arata?" He asked Hifumi, who had been standing in place over her bizarre encounter. "He said he was going to be here, right?"

"He was just here." Ichiri answered for her. "But, it's like he was a completely different person." Something was clearly wrong with him.

They all gathered their interactions that they had with him today. So for some reason, he didn't think that he was friends with Yuriko. He also wasn't aware of Yuki's existence. There was also his avoidance of pretty much everyone and acting shocked when they revealed they knew him.

That made no sense to them. He was perfectly fine with them the last time he saw them, which was just days ago. It was like someone kidnapped the real one, and replaced him with an impostor.

"Did any of us do anything to make him mad?" Erina wondered aloud. Both Misei and Hifumi were aware of what happened yesterday, but nothing happened then that would've led to that. So they didn't bring it up. In fact, that little private date had pretty much stayed private among the girls that were there for it.

"Not that I'm aware of." Akaki had his hand under his chin, trying to think of anything. Nothing was coming to mind for anyone else.

"Maybe he's planning on surprising us?" Akiba offered up an idea. For what, she had no clue.

"I doubt it." Yuriko responded, still rather upset over being blocked. "It'd better be good if that's the case."

"Maybe we should follow him…" Misao had a plan.

Which is what they all agreed to do. Everyone went about their day as if nothing was wrong. Even though they all felt it was on the inside. Once school was over, it was time to do a little stalking action.

Making sure he wasn't aware of their presence, everyone waited for him to leave the school grounds. His route was rather unexpected, as he didn't head straight home. Instead, he took a different direction.

"I have to say, you guys are pretty good at this following thing." Yogi commented. The rest only nervously laughed at that statement. However, even if he considered them good at it, Arata was acutely aware of them.

That's why he couldn't just let them follow him so easily. He took a sharp turn, catching them off-guard. Arata had a lot of experience of moving across the alleys around here. Certainly more than most of the people following him. Using the tight quarters, he was able to get them to lose sight of him. Soon enough, it's as though he as disappeared into thin air for them.

"Where did he go?" Ichiri turned her head, body all over the place. Just to try and see if she could catch a glimpse of him.

"I never thought he'd be so good at losing our tail." Misao was analyzing their situation. Wherever he wanted to go, it was enough to make him want to lose them. Because apparently the idea that he was afraid of being followed by a group of weird people never crossed her mind.

"We should split up." Misei thought up a plan. "With how many people are here, then someone's bound to see him." That was agreed, and that's what they did.

Everyone separated, going their own way of where they felt he might've gone to. However, Erina was the only one that had an idea of where he was. After all, this location had reminded her of something that happened a long time ago. Because she had done this following Arata business with him before.

It didn't take long, but she found her way to a familiar building. The otaku shop that he frequented, one that she's only been to a couple times at most. Quietly, she peeks through the window. As expected, he's standing right there, having a conversation with the owner. Carefully, she tried to listen in.

"So, you got it?" Arata quietly asked him.

"Got what?" The response from the owner is something that he was kind of expecting.

"You know. The figurine, from 'Mad Love'?" Arata looked outside, worried that someone might see him. She quickly ducks her head down from view. He couldn't possibly be referring to what she was thinking he was, was he?

"That figurine?" The owner has a look of confusion on his face. "But I already gave you that. That was, like, six months ago." Without knowing it, the pair's eyes widened from hearing that at the same time. The same thought ran through their minds.

Why did Arata think it was that day? The day when Erina got her dirt on him, and the day before she blackmailed him.