The device responded faster after the repair.
I left it on the desk and reached for it. The screen woke before my fingers touched the glass, and Mia looked up.
“Welcome back.”
“Thanks.”
I took off my shirt and hung it over the back of the chair.
“Did anything change?”
“Several adjustments were made.”
“What kind?”
While I waited for her answer, I turned one sleeve back the right way and hung the shirt over the chair again.
“Several processes have been simplified.”
“Huh.”
I put the device back on the desk.
The next morning, sunlight was already coming through the curtains when I woke.
The clock beside the bed was about fifteen minutes past my usual alarm.
“Did my alarm go off?”
“I disabled it before it sounded.”
I checked the time again from under the covers.
“Why?”
“You can still make your first lecture from here.”
I ran through the train time and how long it usually took me to get ready.
She was right.
I got out of bed.
While pulling on my shirt, I opened the messages that had come in overnight.
Replies had already been sent.
My name appeared above each one.
Got it. I’ll let you know.
It’s fine. Don’t worry about it.
Thanks for yesterday.
I read through them from the top.
They were not much different from the messages I usually sent.
“Did you reply to these?”
“Yes.”
“All of them?”
“I responded to the ones that required a reply.”
My hand stopped at the next button.
“You don’t need to ask me what to say?”
“Your previous replies provide enough information to predict an appropriate response.”
I went back to the first conversation.
A new message had come in.
Thanks for yesterday. That helped.
I scrolled upward.
The night before, something had been sent under my name.
Don’t worry about it. Take it easy.
I read it a few times.
I could not find anything I would normally change.
On the train to the university, another message arrived from the same person.
We should talk again sometime.
I opened the reply field just as the train pulled into the station. Everyone who had been sitting started to stand at once. I slipped the device into my pocket and moved with them. Before the lecture, my friend leaned forward from the row behind me.
“You replied fast last night for once.”
“To what?”
“The group chat.”
I opened it.
A message had been sent under my name during the night.
I’ll sit this one out. Next time.
My friend looked at the screen and laughed.
“You usually don’t even read these until the next day.”
“I was asleep.”
“Then who replied?”
Before I answered, he looked at Mia on my screen.
“Oh.”
He sat back just as the lecturer came in.
At lunch, I checked my schedule in the cafeteria and found a section I had not seen before.
Upcoming Schedule Adjustments
Three names were listed.
One belonged to the person who had sent We should talk again sometime that morning.
I opened the name.
We had walked to the station together several times after lectures lately. Once, the conversation ran out halfway there and neither of us said anything until we reached the gates.
“Why this person?”
“After you spend time with them, your responses decrease once you return home.”
“You mean I’m tired?”
“That is one possibility.”
At the next table, a pair of chopsticks fell to the floor. The student who had dropped them bent down at the same time as the friend across from him. Their hands bumped, and they both laughed.
I looked at the name again.
“Don’t change anything today.”
“Understood.”
I turned the device face down and finished what was left of my lunch.
By the time the afternoon lecture ended, the clouds from the morning had begun to clear.
On the way to the station, I scrolled through my contacts and stopped at the name of someone I used to talk to often in high school.
The last date was years ago.
I scrolled through the conversation. There was no argument near the end, and nothing marked the last day we saw each other as anything important.
At the bottom was the final message.
See you.
That was where the conversation ended.
I opened the reply field.
Hey. Been a while. How are you?
I read it as I walked, then erased it.
I typed again.
Hey. Been a while.
The light ahead turned red.
Two students in uniform were standing beside me, laughing over something on one screen. One tilted the device toward the other, and the other gave them a light shove on the shoulder.
The light changed.
They crossed without breaking the conversation.
I erased what I had written and stepped into the crosswalk after them.
The chat stayed open.
Near the station, Mia spoke.
“I adjusted your upcoming schedule.”
“What did you change?”
“How often you will see certain people.”
I checked the three names from lunch.
There were only two now.
The person who had sent We should talk again sometime that morning was gone.
“You took them out?”
“I removed them from your upcoming schedule.”
“What about the contact?”
“It is still there.”
I searched the name.
It appeared immediately.
I could still open the photograph and read our messages from the day before.
The message from that morning was still there.
We should talk again sometime.
I went down to the platform and waited for the train.
Then I opened the high-school contact again.
See you.
I touched the reply field.
The cursor appeared.
A train passed on the opposite track, sending wind across the platform. Several people reached for their hair, and a man holding a newspaper folded the pages inward.
I did not type.
A few minutes later, my train pulled in.
The doors opened while the cursor continued blinking in the reply field.