Minamoto Tamako’s life experience keeps leveling up, her social skills continuously improve, and she feels like a master at making friends. The next day, she excitedly goes to practice, but ends up stuttering from nervousness, thus earning a new nickname from her classmates, ’Little Stutterer’.
Tamako runs home crying, accusing Teacher Fushimi of lying again, calling him a pure liar!
Fushimi Roku, half coaxing and half tricking, falsely claims the best place to make friends is the bathroom and persuades Tamako to talk to people in the stalls at school. This way, the other person couldn’t escape, and Tamako wouldn’t be face-to-face, which makes her stutter.
He hadn’t forgotten his bathroom plan, hoping Tamako would go to the bathroom in her dreams and wake up from reality due to bedwetting, truly going to great lengths.
As they say, fools rush in where angels fear to tread, Tamako suffers a loss three times in a row but still doesn’t learn the lesson. She listens to Fushimi Roku’s nonsense, follows her friendship target into the girls’ bathroom, sits on the toilet in the stall, and uses the icebreaker technique taught by Teacher Fushimi to start chatting.
The bathroom is ideal for using the "scenario association method," creating a common topic by using the environment. Teacher Fushimi once taught her to use a formula: observe the environment + specific details + open-ended questions... For example, if you meet someone at an art exhibition looking at the same painting, you can ask, "This painting’s colors are quite special. Do you think the artist is trying to express loneliness through the contrast of light and dark?"
Tamako fits this into the bathroom scene, asking the person, "The bathroom door is so special, do you think the designer deliberately painted the door gray?"
In normal adult social interactions, she would definitely be seen as a weirdo, but luckily she’s currently a primary school student, and her friendship target is also a primary school student, so they don’t think the topic is strange at all. The other person even finds Tamako’s question a bit profound and ponders it seriously.
...Why are the bathroom stall doors gray?
Tamako and her new friend explore the topic for a while without finding a result. However, she successfully made a friend, which was worth celebrating. When she got home, she announced her success, and Teacher Fushimi congratulated her, then asked if she’d used the bathroom.
"No, but I found something interesting. All the women’s bathroom doors on every floor at school are gray!" Tamako said while doing her homework.
Fushimi Roku is not concerned about the color of the bathroom doors, only whether Tamako used the bathroom: "Why didn’t you go? Are you constipated?"
"...Just didn’t want to go," Tamako scratched her head and then asked: "Teacher Fushimi, do you know why the bathroom doors are gray?"
"There’s no reason why." Fushimi Roku asked again: "What about peeing? How many days has it been since you last peed?"
He kept asking, which made him seem a bit like a weirdo, but Tamako didn’t notice because she’s never met a true weirdo, so she simply ignored the question and continued chewing on her pencil as she thought: "Hey... but don’t you think it’s strange? Classroom doors are green, so why are bathroom doors different?"
Fushimi Roku pinched his eyebrows, feeling that he’s talking to a brick wall, unable to connect with Tamako’s train of thought.
"Because gray is stain-resistant." He casually provided an answer and added a criticism: "Don’t chew on pencil tops, it’s bad for your health."
"Why is it bad for your health?" Tamako was very curious. Her curiosity has been intense since childhood. Initially, everyone called her a Curious Baby, but after being overwhelmed by her questions, they said she was an annoying child.
"Because lead is toxic. If you lick it too much, you’ll end up becoming an idiot," Fushimi Rokukyo said with a sneer.
"Oh no! Why didn’t you say so earlier!"
Tamako quickly spat out the pencil and set it aside. However, when she thinks, not chewing on something makes her uncomfortable.
Since she can’t chew on a pencil, she might as well chew on her fingers... Her fingers surely don’t contain lead, right?
Chewing on her thumb’s nail, furrowing her brow, Tamako continued pondering and asked further: "Then why not choose black? Black is even more stain-resistant! If someone pranks and doodles on it, you wouldn’t even notice... Wouldn’t it be better to paint it black?"
"Because dust shows on black, it builds up over time and accumulates a layer of dust, plus black doors look ugly," Fushimi Roku asked: "Do you think black bathroom doors would look good?"
Tamako accepted this answer, eager to share it with her friends, but unfortunately, her friends don’t have a home phone, so she can only wait until tomorrow to chat.
Fushimi Roku noticed her habit of chewing on her fingers, which is exactly like her grown-up habit—Minamoto Tamako loves to chew her thumb nail when she’s thinking.
Kujo Yua probably said the same thing, as she would definitely stop her daughter from chewing on pencils, hence making Minamoto Tamako develop the habit of chewing her thumb.
Tamako got the answer she wanted and focused on her homework. Seeing this, Fushimi Roku sighed, realizing his bathroom plan had failed.
In reality, Minamoto Tamako can’t urinate, so the Tamako in the dream won’t go either.
Fushimi Roku scratched his knee, thinking back and forth, now somewhat at his wits’ end, unsure how to wake up.
A piercing bell rang from the living room. Follow current novᴇls on N0velFire.ɴet
Fushimi Roku’s heart moved, and without waiting for Tamako to get up, he actively rolled his wheelchair to the living room to answer the phone.
"It’s me!" Minamoto Tamako’s voice came through: "I just finished... How are things now? How many times did you die?"
Fushimi Roku glanced at his legs and replied, "Not bad, died twice."
"Previously, I hadn’t finished speaking, there are invisible rules in the dream, violating them will cause you to die..."