Chapter 15 Notifications

Notifications

“I’m home.”

As usual, the house is empty. Of course, no one answers. When he was a child, there were greetings in response to his greetings. But now there are none.

He simply says hello on his return, takes off his shoes at the entrance, arranges them carefully, and steps onto the floor of his house.

He walks up the familiar stairs to his room. He uses both feet to climb the stairs, one step at a time.

After climbing about 20 steps, he reaches the second floor. Naturally, both feet land on the second floor.

He moves his feet until he is directly in front of his room and arrives there in a few seconds. Sou’s room is right next to the stairs.

He turns the knob and opens the door before entering.

Once in his room, he grabs the doorknob with his left hand and closes the door.

A few seconds later, the sound of a door closing can be heard from inside the room. Sou’s room is now airtight. As proof, there are no open windows anywhere; there are two, but they are all tightly closed.

“Ahh. I’m tired.”

With a big sigh, Sou puts his school bag on the desk lined with textbooks and notebooks and lies down on the bed. He lies on his back.

The soft, elastic blanket feels soft and absorbs everything, and the blanket is evenly distributed on Sou’s back and waist. It’s really perfect for relaxing.

He recognizes the familiar ceiling. The color of the ceiling is orange or white. As always, he can’t tell what color it is. No matter how many years have passed, he still can’t tell.

He stares at the ceiling for a while. He thinks that his eyes will naturally close and he will fall asleep.

But he doesn’t seem to fall asleep. His eyes are wide open.

His body is tired. There’s no doubt about it. But his eyelids don’t feel heavy despite his physical fatigue. They feel lighter than normal, or even lighter than usual. They feel almost weightless.

It seems that he cannot sleep.

So Sou turns his eyes to the bookshelf, one of the few pieces of furniture in his room. Cleverly, he shifts his gaze to the side, revealing the bookshelf lined with light novels and self-help books.

Sou concentrates on the light novels, not the self-help books. He’s not in the mood to read self-help books right now.

There are about 50 light novels on the bookshelf. They are all part of the various series. Each light novel has a band without scratches.

Sou’s hobby is reading light novels online. Another hobby is collecting light novels made into books from online novels. Therefore, all the light novels on his bookshelf are books that started out as online novels.

He tries to stand up with a light novel in his hand. His back almost rises a few centimeters.

But he stops just in time. He needs to check the notifications on his smartphone first.

Sou gets up from his bed and pulls his smartphone out of his school bag.

At Seidou High School, the use of smartphones is forbidden except after school.

Of course, there are many students who break the rules and use their smartphones during recess and lunch to avoid teacher notifications.

Sou, on the other hand, always follows the rules and only uses his smartphone after school.

He has to follow the rules. He is not trapped by such ideas. For Sou, using a smartphone on school grounds and having it confiscated by a teacher would be a hassle. So when it is not necessary, he puts it in silent mode and basically puts his smartphone in his book bag.

He turns the phone on from silent mode. The screen lights up.

“Hmm. What is this?”

As soon as the lock screen appears, Sou frowns. He clearly expresses his discomfort.

Dozens of messages and notifications from SNS appear on the smartphone screen. The name of the SNS is LEIN. It is the most used SNS by people in Japan. This fact is derived from statistical data.

Not only messages but also phone calls. If you combine messages and phone calls, you get more than 100 silly notifications.

Sou scrolls through a large number of notifications with his finger. They are all about not wanting to break up. They all have the same message.

The reason Sou didn’t notice these notifications was because his phone was in silent mode. So there was no notification sound or vibration. No wonder he didn’t notice.

Suddenly, a new notification appeared on the lock screen.

He checked the content and found that it was a call from Seira for the umpteenth time.

“What a nuisance. All these notifications are so annoying.”

After revealing his honest feelings, he opens the LEIN application.

The application launches with the LEIN icon.

He taps his finger on Seira’s account registered in the application to block her. Seira’s name disappears from his LEIN home page.

The notifications that were updating until recently suddenly stopped. The notifications stop as if a switch has been turned off.

He also deletes Seira’s data from the LEIN chat list. All 150 notifications that had accumulated have disappeared.

“Okay! No harm can come to me now. At least not through my smartphone.”

Satisfied, Sou smiled and surrendered to the bed again. This time, he didn’t lie down but face down.

Meanwhile, Seira….

“Why! Why?! Why didn’t I get an answer from Amane-kun?! So many times! I sent him so many messages and calls!!!”

In her room at home, Seira was wailing loudly as if she were crying. Seira’s anguished cries echoed in vain. She just continued to wail on her bed. The difference in behavior between Sou and Seira in bed was so clear.

But cruelly, no matter how long she waited, there was no answer from Sou. Because Sou had already blocked Seira’s LEIN.