Tuesday
Day
BEFORE I KNEW IT, morning came.
My head felt heavy. I had let myself get soaked for so long in that form I had probably caught a cold.
My body felt sluggish, and the thought that I should stay home from school today flickered through my hazy head—but it was only a flicker. I descended to the first floor and ate the breakfast that my mother had prepared. I had only one piece of toast this morning.
Though it only occurred to me partway through changing into my uniform, I decided not to bother taking my temperature. Seeing it in numbers was sure to be disheartening.
Feeling my body’s weakness reinforced the conviction that I was in fact stuck with this body. It was the opposite feeling of when I was flying through the skies at night. With the atmosphere and the sounds around, I could make believe that I was an entirely different existence from myself. Of course, just because I could didn’t mean that I should.
When I stepped outside, it was no longer raining. However, I decided to walk.
Step by step, I walked the exact same path that I had yesterday. It was the same path that I had walked and biked countless times, but for the briefest of moments, it felt different than how it usually did. It must’ve been because of this cold or whatever.
I walked along with my head lowered, gazing at the puddles, when I suddenly saw a small pair of sneakers ahead of me.
“Mornin’!”
Before I could lift my eyes, I heard a girl’s voice. The word alone was enough for me to distinguish who it was, but I was still surprised.
“Oh, mornin’. Weird seein’ you here, Kudou.”
I meant on this route to school. There were three main routes along which students typically commuted to our school, but Kudou lived along the northern path.
After laughing in her cheerful voice, she said, “Well, y’know.” Even wrapped up in whatever heaviness had overtaken me, I had to laugh at the half-hearted answer.
“Well, y’know, what?” I asked.
“I stayed over at my sister’s house, and she was gonna drive me to school, but I figured people would make fun of me since I usually ride my bike in, so I had her drop me off.”
“Huh.”
I was surprised to hear that Kudou, who seemed to be relatively enmeshed with the more athletic groups, was afraid of a thing like that, but I didn’t say so out loud.
“Your sis used to be strongest member ever of the kendo club back in the day, yeah?”
“Yeah! There’s a lot of pressure on me.”
Kudou stuck out her tongue. She was a strong one. She could always make complaints or talk about things she hated with a smile. “Keep it up,” I said, offering my heartfelt encouragement to the girl who always brightened my day. She returned a firm nod and a smile that showed her crooked teeth.
As I watched her nod, I suddenly thought—this cold or whatever was definitely doing my head in.
Which one was it? I thought again.
“Say Acchi, that reminds me…”
“Hm?”
Which one was it?
Kudou, who always tried to enjoy life to the fullest, always cheerfully looked after her juniors.
“You seem like you’ve been pretty down lately. Everything okay?”
Kudou, who would suddenly throw a drink carton at the back of a classmate’s head in the middle of a conversation without hesitation.
“Seriously? I’m totally fine.”
Which one was the real Kudou?
“That’s good then. Seriously though, if anything’s bothering you, you can tell me. I sit right next to you, after all.”
“I mean, it’s really nothing,” I said.
I couldn’t tell her that I might be a monster.
“Really?”
“…Hmm, I have been wondering if I should start getting serious about test prep.”
“Whoa!”
I spun around, my hand to my head, as Kudou stopped walking and raised her voice in surprise.
“What?” I asked.
“No, I mean, it’s just, I knew you were a serious guy, but wow.”
Serious, she said. I put up my guard, thinking that I was being ridiculed…but I was wrong.
“I really need to start thinking about that, too. I’m not good enough at kendo to get into high school on just that. I need to follow your lead, Acchi. In exchange, I’ll give you some of my chill!”
“Yeah, no thanks.”
“Ahaha!”
She raised her voice in laughter. Honestly, that carefree nature of hers had saved me time and time again, and now, I felt that it might perhaps help me out again. I thought that, maybe I could ask Kudou—who never made fun of me for being serious, never made fun of people for being different from her. Even if the question itself was most certainly a strange one.
Still, I believed in Kudou.
“Now that you mention it, something else is kinda bothering me,” I said in a breath.
Kudou quickly molded her face into a more serious expression.
“Oh, sure. Let’s hear it.”
“So, when you’re with your teammates in the kendo club, and with the people in our class, and…you have a boyfriend now, don’t you?”
“N-no, no way,” she stammered.
“Well then, I guess when you were with your boyfriend before. Which of those times did you feel like the real you?”
“Uh, erm, well, I uh…” She hopped over a puddle. I walked around it. “I guess when I’m with you…and the others. When I’m with my club, I have to act properly as a third year, and when I was dating an older guy I was always on my toes.”
“I see. Sorry for asking something so weird.”
“Nah, it’s fine.”
She really didn’t seem to mind the question; I was relieved. And then I began to fret, hearing that she knew exactly which one was her true self. Was everyone else like that, too? Was I the only one who didn’t know?
Also, if that was true, then I wanted to know how bullying Yano-san fit in with that, but I was not about to push that far.
Until we arrived at school, I talked with Kudou about frivolous things, as always. It was a time when I didn’t have to think about our class’s shunning, or bullying, or revenge, or anything.
I thought the whole time about what Kudou had said, but I found no answer.
As we approached the school gates, there were suddenly more people around, and I saw Kasai in the midst of it, mouth open wide in a yawn. He noticed us as well and waved. Kudou and I waved back.
Then, Kudou suddenly sighed.
“I really am useless.”
“At what?”
“Oh, uh, nothing.”
She blushed uncharacteristically and covered her mouth as though she had spoken unconsciously or something. Despite my curiosity, I wasn’t about to follow up. I didn’t think she was useless, after all.
Kasai waited for us in front of the gates.
“Mornin’! You two always walk to school together?”
“Morning! I had my big sis drop me off nearby, and I met up with Acchi along the way.”
Perhaps unable to stand how bored Kasai seemed as he grinned and gave empty responses, Kudou quickly changed the subject.
“It’s nice that the rain stopped,” she said.
We all crossed the school gates at our various paces, smiling at Kudou’s appropriately put words.
Thus began another perfectly normal day of junior high school life.
I turned Kudou’s words over again and again in my head.
The one who was truly useless was me, I thought.
Kudou lived her life every day, knowing exactly who she was, but I was different. Today I had come here yet again, knowing nothing at all, even though I was consumed with questions both night and day.
Surely, I should have decided by now.
Decided what, I don’t know. But I felt that I should have decided something before coming here today.
And yet, here I was, beginning my day in the same way that I always did—still unable to even clearly say who I was and where I stood amongst our class.
At the shoe boxes, I changed into my indoor shoes—shoes that weren’t soaked, weren’t vandalized—and headed up the stairs alongside my classmates, who, unlike me, were not so cowardly.
I walked down the hallway, entered the classroom, and took my seat. Just as I had hundreds of times before. In the classroom, there were people who called out to me with a smile, people who were caught up in chattering about last night’s TV programs, and people who were asleep facedown on their desks.
There was a monster sitting right here.
A liar, sitting right here.
And not one of them realized it.
None of them could tell my true form at a glance. Even I did not know what that was, after all. I still had yet to decide.
“Good…morning.”
I still hadn’t decided anything. Yet, there was that familiar odd voice.
I lifted my head, and as always, looked at her out of the corner of my eye. Yano had entered the classroom through the front door, a self-satisfied grin on her face. Naturally, no one replied. A chill filled the room.