Chapter 412: Chapter 411.

Chapter 411. We Encounter a Strange Spaced-out Girl Stranded on the Highway. (4/10)

“Excuse me?” I interjected.

“What!” “What!”

The two of them snapped back at me at the exact same time.

“Do you two mind dropping this already? It’s never going to end at this rate. The gas has been ready for a while now too. It’s going to evaporate by the time the two of you are finished.” Unable to take it anymore, I finally intervened in their heated debate over the pros and cons of both types of lifestyles.

“Ah, uh... sorry… I got too worked up.” Dawn lowered her head apologetically.

“It’s fine. Relax. Here you go.”

“Thank you.” After I handed the jerrycan over to her and she gave her thanks, she proceeded to fill up her pickup truck’s gas tank with it. It took less than a minute to empty it out.

When she finished filling it up she stuck her hand into her pocket and pulled out a twenty-dollar bill.

“Is this enough for the payment?” She asked somewhat nervously.

“I already said you don’t have to pay.”

“But it doesn’t feel right if I don’t pay. Unless… yuh wanted me to pay with my bo-”

“I don’t.”

“Ah, right. Yuh have a girlfriend. Haha… what am I even thinking? I went an’ read too many weird manga lately. When you got such a pretty girlfriend why would yuh want some country bumpkin to pay that way?”

“You read manga?”

“Uh… yeah… is it weird?” Dawn asked hesitantly as she averted her eyes to the side. She was a peculiar girl, her eyes and expression always remained serene, but her body language told a completely different story. There was a sort of disconnect between the two that I couldn’t help but be fascinated by.

“No, not at all. I used to read a lot of manga in the past. Though not so much anymore. They were a great way to escape to other worlds far more interesting than our own.”

“Right!” Dawn grabbed my right hand and held it up as she gave a serious nod. Though the serene look in her eyes hadn’t changed, it still felt like there was a sparkle to them.

“Your eyes and expression really don’t match your enthusiasm.”

“Ah. That is… people… tell me that a lot. They say... it’s creepy. Sorry.”

“No, I didn’t mean it in a way to put you down. I just thought it was a bit peculiar.”

“It’s not intentional is it?”

“It’s… a little intentional I guess. When I was a kid, a tooth was knocked out after a fall, and in a picture taken of me in school, a buncha kids made fun of me when I was smiling in it. I got overly self-conscious cause of it and developed a habit of not smiling and avoiding opening my mouth much. Even after the adult tooth filled in the gap, I never kicked that habit and now I’m kinda stuck like this I guess.”

“So it’s not that you can’t make other expressions, you can, but your brain is unconsciously stopping you from doing so?”

“Yeah. At least… in front of other people… I get too overly self-conscious about it. I’ve tried practicing a lot in the mirror and I can make other expressions when I’m alone… but in front of other people … I just can’t.”

“What a weird psychological block to have.”

“Do I… uh… look that weird?”

“Not at all. You should just be glad you can make any expressions at all. I know someone who can’t make any even if she is alone.”

“Huh? Did she experience something similar?”

“Hmm… hard to say, I don’t really know all the details. She’s a teacher at my school. Hers is probably more of a case of in exchange for IQ, she was born with zero EQ.”

“IQ? Yuh mean she’s a super smart person?”

“Yeah.”

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“At least she’s smart… I’m just a dumb socially awkward country hick.”

“You can speak, you’re not dumb.”

“Huh? What do yuh mean?”

“The proper term would be stupid rather than dumb. But I don’t think you’re stupid either.”

“How would you even know I’m not stupid when we only just met?”

“Do you use social media?”

“No. Do yuh think I’ve got the confidence to post pictures of myself online like all those pretty dolled-up city girls? Who’d even wanna follow me? I don’t stand a chance stickin out among them when I can’t even take pictures of myself.”

“If you don’t use social media, you’ve never truly seen how a stupid person behaves in their natural habitat before.”

“Yeah. He’s right.” Rosa nodded in full agreement.

“How can you say that with certainty?”

“Have you ever licked a public toilet seat and recorded a video of it to post it on a social media site?” Rosa asked.

“Huh? Who would do that?”

Rosa followed up with a second question, “Have you ever seen people buy a girl's farts or bathwater in a jar through social media before?”

“Uh… no.”

“Have you ever set up a table and chair in front of a train track, sat there with your back to it while the train approached and you recorded a video of it to post online?”

“Who would ever do any of these things? You’re just making stuff up, right?”

Rosa shook her head and explained, “I’m not making anything up. Real people who use social media have pulled all of these stupid stunts and more while chasing after clout online trying to rise to fame. This isn’t even close to the worst of it, it’s only the tip of the iceberg. So if you haven’t done any of these things, I hardly think you can be considered stupid. At the very least, you can confidently say you’re above the average social media user who eats up idiotic brain dead content like this online on a daily basis.”

“But people who do those sorts of things are surely in the minority, right? There can’t be that many of them. You’re exaggerating things.”

Rosa let out a helpless sigh, “Haaaaah. It’d be nice if they were the minority and I was exaggerating things. But their numbers seem to be growing greater by the day and they always find some way to one-up the sheer idiocy of the stunts they pull. One day, I’m afraid they’re going to be the majority.”

As someone who’d seen it all play out first hand, I could confirm that they most definitely would become the majority. When a certain platform makes its appearance in the world, the idiotification process would only accelerate.

I was immensely thankful that Rosa wasn’t one of those girls who were overly obsessed with social media and her follower counts online. She did have a few social media accounts, but she wasn’t on them constantly posting stupid crap or trying to get random people online to follow her. 

There were still a lot of guys from school who had followed her accounts despite her not posting anything to them. As for other girls, aside from some of the girls I’d gotten closer to, there weren’t that many. She mainly just had those accounts to be in the know about things going on. Information about other people was a valuable thing to have after all.

Though… she still occasionally posted pictures of the more scenic places we’d been together and the various foods we ate on her social media accounts during our trip. She didn’t post the pictures with her in them or of us together and kept those to herself as memories.

She had a pretty good understanding of me and knew I had no interest in narcissistic girls who wanted to bolster their ego by getting guys to flatter them online. If she’d turned out to be that sort of girl after we got together, I’d definitely have broken up with her on the spot. It was definitely a deal-breaker for me.

“Uhm, thanks for helping me out… but... you’re really sure you don’t want any payment?”

“Yeah, don’t sweat it.”

What we’d like is a connection around here we could make use of during our stay. Would she make such an offer though?

“Uh… in that case… how about…” she stopped and was unable to squeeze out her next words.

“How about what?” I tried to push a bit more.

“N-Nothing. It was nothing. Sorry.” She turned away, tossed the jerrycan into the back of the pickup truck, and jumped in the front seat.

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