"COPY BOY" My Clone is an Elementary Schooler ⑦ [Synchronized!?]

<Spring, Episode 7>

"Did you sense the tension?"

A LIME message appeared with a light pop sound.
A cute cat icon. It's from Neko-chan.

"That's an interesting phenomenon," the cat icon said.

"Interesting? I'm a bit confused."

"Please, let me hear the story."

"Please do."

"Can I come over later?"

Oh, she's coming over again. When I told the little guy next to me, he jumped up and down with joy.

"Yes, that's fine," I replied in a restrained tone.

Neko-chan's purpose for coming to the house was mainly to check on the life of me and the little guy.
While watching us fight over the last remaining hamburger from the side dishes, stabbing it with our chopsticks, she would giggle and type something into her smartphone.
"What are you writing?"
"You both stabbed your chopsticks at the same time, which is very synchronized, so I'm recording it."
"Huh?"
"I use an app to record the time and content of the video data from the pillar camera. '12:34 PM: Stabbed chopsticks at the same time.' That flies in real-time to the lab's cloud, and the professors analyze it."

The toothpaste was pushed out by the air from the nearly empty tube with a pop. When it stuck to the mirror, we burst out laughing. I guess we have the same sense of humor.
Neko-chan laughed too. While laughing, she was taking notes on her smartphone.

When I argued with the little guy about what to watch on TV,
"Alright, let's decide with rock-paper-scissors."

Rock, paper, scissors, shoot!

...Both chose scissors

It's a tie!

...Both chose rock

It's a tie!

...Both chose paper
...Both chose scissors
...Both chose rock
...Both chose...

"Haa, haa, haa, haa"
"Haa, haa, haa, haa"

It's a tie!

...Another tie.

No matter how many times we do it, it's just ties.
Neko-chan was excited and flying high, saying, "Amazing! 16 times in a row! I have to report this."
"What do you learn by recording things like this?"
"I'm investigating what kind of phenomena occur when a clone and the original are together," she said while recording on her smartphone. She seems to call me the 'original.' Professor Yagi-hige and his team are researching the mechanism behind how our actions sometimes synchronize or how we can somehow feel what the other is thinking.

"That's why we are also studying twins."
Clones and twins seem to be similar. Every year, Inuzuka enrolls many twins as students at the junior high school attached to the University of Tokyo's Faculty of Education. They say they are advancing clone research based on the behavioral data of them living their daily school lives.
What we have learned there is,
that both twins and clones seem to have similar attitudes toward risk. For example, whether they are the type to go to a restaurant they are used to, or the type to enter a shop they don't know... Various choices tend to be similar. In other words, if the choices made in the thousands of behavioral decisions made in a day—'Should I turn the next corner?' 'Which book should I pick up?'—are the same, then even their subsequent fates will become similar.

"It seems that the precision of similarity is far higher in clones than in twins. Even regarding risk," she said.
"Risk... is it?"
"Yes. Just like how the little one couldn't go to the classroom."
"Did he sense a risk?"
"Yes," she said, finishing Grandma's barley tea, "just like adult Yutaka."
"Like me?"
"Yes. You're shy, aren't you?" She looked at me while tracing the water droplets on the glass with her fingertip. I felt a bit embarrassed, as if everything was being seen through. The little guy is shy like me... no, rather than being like me, we are the same person.

She continues.
"It's the same reason you ran away during the examination. I think you felt a risk."
"That too?"
"You thought the examination was a hassle, didn't you?" She looked at me teasingly.
"I did." I gave a forced smile, wondering if she had figured me out.
"I'm sure that feeling got through to him."
"Something like that..."
"It happens."
According to Neko-chan, Chibi and I were unknowingly exchanging and resonating with each other's "fear," which caused it to amplify more and more. She said that living together makes that degree of synchronization especially high.

"What do you mean?"
"It's still under research."
"Why are you investigating something like this?" That was what I was curious about.
"We haven't fully understood what kind of phenomena occur when living with a clone yet. When clones advance into society, what kind of impact will they have? What awaits us in the future beyond that? We want to be able to predict it."
"Advance into society? ...Does that mean clones will increase from now on?"
"That is..."
"That is?"
"Um..."
"Um?"
"...I'll tell you about it later." She playfully evaded the question.
"Eh!? That's unfair."
"From here on, you'll have to sign another non-disclosure agreement. A whole stack of them." She joked with a chuckle.
Being told that makes me even more curious.
"Then, can I ask another question?"
"Yes?"
"Why did my father create a clone of me?"
"Eh?"
Perhaps it was too straightforward, as she showed a little surprise, and then eventually said quietly,
"...That is something only the late Professor Shiozuma knows."
The conversation sort of fizzled out there.

After dinner, I played Old Maid with Chibi.
But neither of us would draw the other's Old Maid, so the game didn't work. The more we wished for the other to "draw it," the more we could somehow sense its position. It ended up being a boring task where whoever held the Joker at the start just kept holding onto it.
"This isn't fun."
Chibi got tired of it and threw the cards away.

When I suddenly looked toward a distant whispering sound, I saw Neko-chan's back. She was sitting on the veranda, talking on her smartphone.
"...but... I just can't help but be concerned..."
I couldn't see her expression, but it sounded like she was strongly pleading for something. Was it Inumaki from headquarters? Perhaps she was whispering out of consideration for the neighbors in the late night. But her tone carried a firm sense of resolve.
However, perhaps it didn't go well, as she eventually slumped her shoulders as if giving up. She always wears a smile, so maybe it was the first time I'd seen her back like that.
"Are you okay?"
"Yes," Neko-chan said as she turned around with her usual smile.

I was concerned.
But, for some reason, I decided not to ask any further.
I felt like it wasn't the right time.

(To be continued)

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