A Day in Room 106

Friday, April 24th

Satomi Koutarou’s ability to wake up was absolutely terrible.

Today was no exception. Even as the strong morning light shone down on him, he showed no sign of waking up. His mouth hung wide open as he snored almost as loudly as the fridge’s compressor.

“Mm...”

That said, it seemed the morning sunlight did at least appear to bother him. He turned over in his sleep, putting him up against the wall. Koutarou had laid out his futon in the middle of the room, but since he rolled around in his sleep, he’d ended up in the corner of the room by morning.

But thanks to that last roll, the sunlight was no longer washing over his face, and he returned to sleeping as normal.

The time was now 6 AM.

The sunshine was bright and the sky beyond the window was clear blue. As it was nearing late April, the temperature was pleasantly starting to rise. It was nice outside these days. If the window were open, there would have been a nice, cool breeze coming through it.

But the first thing to open in room 106 was not the window. With a little noise, the tatami mat closest to the front door appeared to lift itself up slightly. As it rose, the plastic bag on top of it starting to rustle, revealing several instant noodle cups inside. The rustling, however, was short-lived. Not a moment later, the tatami mat was raised up from the floor completely. From underneath it, a lone girl appeared.

There was another rustling sound.

“I keep telling her to put those away...”

Because the girl had flipped up the tatami mat, the bag of instant noodle cups had spilled over. She saw this and sighed. Her beautiful, long, black hair swayed as she crawled up into room 106. The girl’s name was Kiriha. She was wearing an outfit that was something of a cross between a kimono and a shrine maiden’s garb. Her clothing and her cool, long, narrow eyes were quite striking. She was one of the girls attempting to seize control of room 106.

“Hey, ho! Hey, ho!”

“Ho! Ho! Ho, ho, ho! Hey, ho!”

Following Kiriha out from under the tatami mat were two haniwas, each about thirty centimeters tall. As they entered room 106, they began picking up the noodle cups without waiting for Kiriha’s orders. This was getting to be a daily occurrence.

That was when the far wall began glowing, just above where Koutarou happened to be sleeping.

“Is that Ruth?”

Kiriha was unfazed by the strange spectacle taking place before her. She simply went about replacing the tatami mat she had moved. As she put it back, a girl appeared from the glowing wall. She had a short bob and serious eyes, and she was wearing something resembling a military uniform. This was Ruth. She was an alien that had come to Earth from over ten million light years away.

“Kyaaah!”

As Ruth entered the room, she screamed. It wasn’t because she had fallen, though. It was more so an issue of where she had landed.

“I-I’m so sorry, Satomi-sama! I’ll move right away!”

Ruth had appeared right above Koutarou, planting her stockinged feet right in Koutarou’s face.

The glowing wall served as a sort of door to room 106. Passing through it would teleport one to and from the alien spaceship in orbit around Earth. But unlike a normal door, you couldn’t see through it. There was no way of knowing what it was like on the other side until you were already passing through it. Because of that, Ruth had unwittingly stepped on Koutarou’s face.

“I’m deeply sorry for stepping on your face morning after morning, Satomi-sama!”

Ruth hurriedly got off of Koutarou and apologized. She looked truly penitent as she repeatedly bowed her head.