Monday
Day
I HAVE TO CONFESS, I did stop back in at the school on Saturday night as well, but Yano wasn’t there. It seemed there was no such thing as midnight break on the weekend.
The rain had let up on Sunday, but on Monday the sky was still shrouded in grey clouds.
My number one concern on this day was not whether I could keep myself from slipping up or whether I could avoid having any one-on-one exchanges with Yano. It was whether or not Iguchi was going to show up at school.
Honestly, it was weird that Yano was able to proudly come to school, day in and day out, despite how she was treated. No one could blame Iguchi if she never showed up at the classroom again—nor Yano, for that matter.
Still, it would definitely be better for Iguchi if she came. If she took the day off, everyone would know that what happened on Thursday was the reason. Might as well get it over with—the more time went by, the harder it would be to keep from coming back to school. Also, we had exams coming up this year, so it was best to show up every day.
Of course, that was merely my public stance on the matter. Internally, I couldn’t help but worry that Iguchi had been so hurt by my ignoring her last comment that she wouldn’t be able to show up at all. I felt a huge weight lift off my chest when I entered the classroom and saw Iguchi sitting at her desk—even if I couldn’t ignore the fact that no one else was standing around her.
“Weather’s got even you down, huh?” Kasai spoke up as I arrived at my seat, sitting himself down atop my desk without so much as a greeting. “Looks like no soccer today, I guess.”
I quickly rearranged my face. “Yeah, guess not.”
“Hey, sour face, I got somethin’ exciting for ya.”
Whenever Kasai said he had something “exciting” to tell me, it was usually some factoid that he’d heard on TV, or gossip about our classmates’ love affairs, or something even more trivial. What could he possibly have to say this time?
“Something happen?”
“Yeah, yeah! You remember what I was sayin’ about that kaiju, right?”
“Right, the one that comes out at night.”
“Apparently, it’s been spotted near the school.”
“What?” I replied, decently surprised. Of course, I should have realized that at that size, someone could probably spot me from far away. But it turned out that was not the case.
“So like, apparently Motoda snuck into the school on Friday night.”
“…What?”
Without meaning to, I let out an unadulterated, genuine reaction.
“Ahaha! I’ve seen that look before.” Kasai laughed guilelessly, clapping his hands. “He’s such an idiot. Apparently, he realized in the middle of the night that he forgot his mitt in the club room. He had a game first thing in the morning, and he was worried that his coach was gonna kill him, so he came here. He’s definitely got a bike at home, but like, it was raining, hah. But apparently when he got here, the gate was open, and he just walked right in. Luckily the lock on the club room’s broken, so he got in and got the mitt. It was just when he was leaving that it showed up.”
As I grew more nervous, Kasai slapped my shoulder.
“The kaiju?”
“Yeah, apparently it’s crazy huge when you see it up close and super creepy. He called me in the middle of the night, all worked up. He really needed to tell someone. Right, you’d have been asleep then.”
I gave a modest “sorry” in response to the jab.
“Anyway, he was hiding in the shadows of the clubroom watching this thing, then it jumped up high all of a sudden, and when it came down it got smaller and vanished into the school.”
“The hell?”
“Right? When I asked if he expected me to believe that, he got all huffy and said that when he came to the school again on Saturday, it showed up again. Honestly, I think he was just dreaming, but apparently that idiot actually snuck inside the school building. He’s so stupid.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah, now he wants to try and sneak a bunch of guys into the school to try and catch the kaiju. Ahaha, I honestly can’t wait for them to all get caught by the guards.”
“Ahah…hahaha… Good point.”
Though I forced a laugh, my heart quivered inside my chest.
This was bad, I thought. But then, when I considered it again, I realized that really, there was nothing bad about it at all.
As long as I never came near the school again, I’d be fine. That way, Motoda and his crew would realize that no monster was going to show up at the school, and I’d be somewhere far away where none of my classmates could see me. My nights would be peaceful as they had always been.
Yes, my peaceful night was assured. But Yano on the other hand? Her solitude was going to be destroyed.
Just as Kasai had said, the best outcome would be for Motoda and the others to be caught by the guards. It wouldn’t be good for them, of course, but it would be a huge help for Yano. However, if Motoda and his crew managed to sneak into the school undetected, as Yano did, and they ran into her there, things would be very bad.
Or worse—what if they were to encounter her when she was on her way to the school…?
No matter who came across me when I was a monster, no matter where, I could simply make myself larger and escape, and they could never catch me. But what could Yano do? The quiet peace of a young girl, without any powers to change her size or run like the wind, would disappear.
The midnight breaks that Yano spoke of would be ruined.
What could I do?
I probably had to do something, even if, honestly, this was none of my business at all.
I pulled at my hair as Kasai went to spread the tale around to the other factions of our class, only coming back to my senses when Takao let out a loud “I can’t believe this!”
Initially, I assumed he was responding to the story about Motoda, but something about his reaction seemed a bit different.
I found out that Takao had ridden his bike here in the morning on Friday but left it at the school because it was raining so hard, having gotten a ride home from his parents instead. But apparently someone had stolen his bike over the weekend.
If it disappeared on Saturday, the thief was probably someone from one of the sports clubs. However, saying something like that in a class with a fair number of members in said clubs would make things awkward, which was probably why he had elected to shout and let everyone know at once—both out of a conscientious effort not to ruin our class’s sense of unity and out of fear of making enemies.
I remembered a time in our second year when Yano made a fuss about someone having stolen her pencil box only for it to turn out that she had forgotten it at home.
“Acchi, Acchi!”
“Hm?”
There came a sudden shout from beside me—Kudou. As I turned to look at her, I realized that there was some sort of liquid dripping onto my pants.
“Ah!”
A nosebleed. I quickly dug through my pockets, but I hadn’t brought a tissue or handkerchief.
“I’ll go get a tissue from Noto,” I said, hurrying from the room with my hand pressed to my mouth. I didn’t want to cause any bother to the people sitting around me. I heard a loud laugh come from behind me. Kasai was probably telling some funny story. My heart was pounding fast, but I ignored it as always. Why would I get a nosebleed all of a sudden? Were the consequences of turning into a monster finally catching up with me?
I pushed the door to the nurse’s office open with my non-bloodied hand, tasting iron in my mouth. Inside, I saw Noto and an unexpected guest. It was Midorikawa.
“Knock first, Adachi,” Noto admonished me.
“Could I have a tissue?”
As I made my terse request, offering neither apology nor greeting, Noto handed me a tissue box. I took several out, wiped my hand and mouth, and stopped up my nose.
“Take this, too,” she instructed.
I took the offered wet wipe and peered into a small mirror on the wall, cleaning up my face. In the corner of the reflection, I saw Midorikawa looking at me.
“Thank you so much,” I said. “And sorry for not knocking.”
“Boys aren’t the only ones who come here, you know. You have to be more careful.”
“I’m sorry. Apologies, Midorikawa,” I said.
“Mm,” she replied.
Just as I gripped the doorknob, with an “I’ll be off, then” sort of wave and started to leave, Noto asked me, “How did you get that nosebleed?” A fair question.
“It just started all of a sudden. I wasn’t even doing anything,” I told her.
“I see. I said so before, but don’t push yourself too hard. If you ever need it, come here and rest.”
I said nothing. Just what was it she knew that would make her say that?
She knew nothing about me, or our class, or Yano, and yet she was telling me not to push myself. It was utterly useless advice, just as much as me telling Iguchi “not to worry about it” that past Friday.
Could it be that Midorikawa had been telling Noto about what was going on in our class? I wondered, but it was weird enough for my classmate to be talking at all. Surely no teacher would simply let things go if they knew of our class’s situation—even though, logically, there must have been teachers who suspected.
“If you’ll excuse me,” I said.
This time I successfully left the room, though I did wonder why Midorikawa was there. Was something wrong with her physically? Or was she just doing as Noto had suggested and taking a break after pushing herself too hard? Whichever it was, I presumed, she seemed like a fragile person and was probably easily damaged, both mentally and physically.