Rio Futaba's small, analytical smile was more reassuring to Kaito than any words of encouragement. It was the smile of a programmer who finds a particularly challenging bug. It was an acknowledgment that the problem, while complex, was a problem. And problems had solutions.
"Interesting," Futaba said, getting up from her stool. She ignored Kaito and Mai for a moment, walking over to a large whiteboard that dominated one wall of the lab. She picked up a black marker. "Your constraint about not screaming romantic confessions in public is logistically sound. That method is the quantum equivalent of hitting a malfunctioning electronic device. It might work, but it's inefficient, loud, and lacks elegance."
Kaito felt a wave of relief. Finally. Someone who understood.
"KAITO! SHE'S INSULTING THE POWER OF LOVE!" Fia's voice sounded in his mind, shrill and offended. "The System runs on 'Bonds' and 'Affinity'! Not 'elegance'!"
"The System is a terrible programmer," Kaito thought back, venomously.
Futaba drew a circle on the board. "We'll call this 'Entity S,' for Sakurajima." She glanced at the empty space near the desk. "No offense."
"She's offended," Kaito said, deadpan. Mai was standing with her arms crossed, glaring at the whiteboard with an annoyed expression only he could see.
"Irrelevant," Futaba continued, drawing small arrows pointing at the circle. "In a normal state, a person's existence is maintained by a constant stream of 'observations.' Family, friends, strangers on the street, digital records, memories. Thousands of tiny interactions that, collectively, tell the universe: 'This person is real.'"
She turned, the tip of her marker tapping the board. "What happened to you, Sakurajima-san," she said, addressing the air, "was the emergence of a 'Strong Quantum Observer.' Your mother. Her denial wasn't just a feeling. Given the intensity of your relationship and her power over your identity, her observation—'I do not have a daughter'—was so potent it created a wave of 'destructive interference.' She didn't just stop seeing you; she actively un-saw you with enough force to nullify all other weak observations."
"She wants to know if that means she's just a pile of probabilities and not a person," Kaito translated Mai's hissed, irritated question.
"Yes, essentially," Futaba replied without hesitation. "We all are. You just had the misfortune of having your wave function collapsed to zero." She turned to Kaito. "And you, Tanaka-kun, are the anomaly. For some reason, your perception is immune to this interference. You've become her sole anchor. A single, weak observation preventing complete dissipation. But it's unstable. Precarious."
The logic was cold, inhuman, and made perfect sense. Mai didn't seem to like it, but Kaito appreciated the clarity.
"Right. Diagnosis complete," Kaito said. "Solution."
"The 'Azusagawa Solution'," Futaba said, with a hint of academic disdain, "was brute force. He generated a single, massive wave of 'positive observation'—an event so shocking and undeniable it forced hundreds of weak observers (the students) to acknowledge Sakurajima-san's existence simultaneously. It overloaded and reset the mass perception system." She shook her head. "It works. But, as I said, it's inelegant. And, given your reaction, emotionally troublesome for the agent."
"Very," Kaito confirmed.
"So, we need a different approach," Futaba said, and her eyes lit up with genuine intellectual excitement. She erased the arrows and began drawing a new diagram. "We can't use brute force. Instead, we'll use resonance. What we need isn't one massive wave, but many small, perfectly synchronized waves."
She circled 'Entity S' again. "Your mother created a wave of denial. We need to create a wave of recognition that is equally powerful, but built from smaller pieces. We need to create an event where a large number of people don't just see Sakurajima-san, but recognize her for who she is, all at the same time, in a way that feels natural to them."
"How?" Kaito asked. The theory was good, but the application seemed impossible.
"Through a catalyst," Futaba said, tapping the board with her marker. "We need to find a way to put the name and face of 'Sakurajima Mai' back into the school's collective consciousness. We can't just put up a poster; reality would erase it. It has to be something that bypasses the universe's 'correction.' Something people already expect to see, but which has been altered."
She paused and looked at Kaito. "The answer, Tanaka-kun, isn't to shout. It's to edit."
Mai, who had been silent and sulking, suddenly straightened. Kaito could feel the change in her. Hope.
"What do we need to edit?" Kaito asked.
"The Cultural Festival is in two weeks," Futaba said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "Every club and class is preparing projects. And the Student Council is assembling the official schedule and the event pamphlet."
She turned to the board and wrote in large letters: CULTURAL FESTIVAL PAMPHLET.
"This," she said, circling the words, "is our battlefield. It's an official document. Hundreds of copies will be printed and distributed. Every student will read it. If the name 'Sakurajima Mai' appears on it, in a prominent and justified way, it will force a mass observation."
"But they don't remember her," Kaito pointed out the flaw. "They wouldn't put her on the pamphlet."
"No, they wouldn't," Futaba agreed, her analytical smile returning. "That's why we will."
The plan unfolded, elegant in its troublesome simplicity. The film club was planning to show a marathon of classic movies. The pamphlet would list the films. Mai Sakurajima, before her hiatus, was the star of a very popular teen drama movie called "The Sea at Dusk."
"The plan is this," Futaba said, her voice precise and emotionless. "One: we get a digital copy of the festival schedule before it goes to the printer. Two: we edit the film club's lineup, replacing one of the boring black-and-white films with 'The Sea at Dusk,' featuring Mai Sakurajima's name prominently as the star. Three: we ensure the edited file is the one that goes to print."
She turned to them. "On the day of the festival, hundreds of students will receive a pamphlet. They will read the schedule. They will see the name 'Sakurajima Mai.' Their brains will make the connection: 'Oh, the famous actress. Her movie is playing.' It's a natural observation, not a forced one. Hundreds of brains, all thinking the same, subtle, positive thought at the same time. It will be a wave of constructive interference. It should be enough to counteract your mother's denial and re-anchor you to the school's reality."
The silence in the lab was thick. Mai was staring at Futaba, her eyes wide, no longer with anger, but with awe.
Kaito processed the plan. It was... perfect. It required no shouting. No confessions. No emotional exposure. It required subtle computer hacking, data manipulation, and subterfuge.
It was a hacking mission, not a romance mission.
"That," Kaito disse, and for the first time in a long time, his voice held a note of genuine, if reluctant, interest, "is an acceptable plan."
He finally saw a path. A logical, (relatively) low-effort path to getting his apartment, his beanbag, and his peace back.
He just had to commit a little digital fraud in the name of quantum physics.
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