We split the gym in two between boys and girls and continued our lessons. After giving Kasai a high-five, I happened to look towards the girls. Midorikawa had pulled back her long hair, something she did only for gym. She’d just suffered defeat from a ball served by Iguchi. Just beyond her, I saw Yano lying on the floor, face-up towards the ceiling. Something white was fluttering from her nostrils, so she must have gotten a nosebleed. Some of the girls were observing her, but no one approached.
“Acchi, who are you lookin’ at? Do you need little Kasai-chan here to help you out?” said Kasai, grinning.
I replied with a casual “Shut up,” and returned to the court.
Kasai returned to the court after me, lagging behind when the teacher reprimanded him. He had surely been looking at someone as well. Well, not someone. It was more specific than that, which was probably why he had assumed that I was doing the same.
“Nice work, every…one,” Yano said to us in the same way that she spoke to the other girls.
Sure enough, as class ended, the tissues sprouting from Yano’s stopped-up nose were dyed with blood. When nobody replied to her, Yano began trudging towards me, her small body swaying. I turned around and prayed with all my might that she would not bring up anything from the night before. It was Yano, after all, so I couldn’t rule out the possibility.
But I didn’t need to worry. Yano did no such thing. That said, she was always causing trouble for the people around her, whether by her inability to read a room or because she simply was unaware of her surroundings.
I was talking to everyone else, trying my hardest not to lay eyes upon Yano’s small receding form, when suddenly, she crouched down—or so it seemed. I wasn’t…actually looking at where I was going. And so, I didn’t notice until it was almost too late, and though I panicked and tried at the last moment to avoid her, I inadvertently ended up kicking her right leg. When I unthinkingly turned back to look, she was on the ground on her backside, the bloody tissues on the floor in front of her.
Yano looked up at me, seemingly with great shock. I said nothing.
Still saying nothing, as if nothing had happened at all, I returned to my conversation with Kasai and the others. The others did not question this.
From behind, I heard a voice say, “You sur…prised me…” but I did not turn around.
Eventually, I followed the others in the crowd flowing back into the boys’ locker room and was getting changed when a heavy hand struck me in the shoulder. It was Motoda of the baseball club. He wasn’t even scowling at me or anything. He was actually grinning.
“You totally kicked her, didn’t you?” He spoke in a loud voice, so loud that those out in the hallway probably overheard.
I just shrugged as I shed my gym clothes and replied, “She shouldn’t have crouched down all of a sudden in front of me.” Motoda whistled.
As I finished changing my clothes, I was suddenly struck with a gnawing hunger. Ever since I first became a monster, I would grow ravenous completely at random. Up next was lunch. Our school didn’t serve set meals, so when the bell rang, there was a small stampede towards the cafeteria. I followed that stampede, purchased a meal ticket, and snagged myself some udon and katsudon.
As I sat down diagonally across from Kasai, who had already begun eating his ramen, he grinned, teeth bared. “You’re gonna get fat, Acchi!” He cackled, good-natured.
After taking a healthy bite of my cutlet, I replied, “Hut upff.”
It was that natural, unguarded smile of his that made Kasai so popular with both girls and boys. After a large contingent of our cafeteria-going classmates had gathered at our table, Kasai suddenly piped up. “Oh yeah, Acchi, have you heard?”
“Heard what?”
“I heard there’s been sightings of a kaiju at night, lately.”
Unthinkingly, I dropped the meat that I’d been holding between my chopsticks into the udon.
“Huh? A kaiju?”
Perhaps at how clumsily I had shown my surprise, the whole table burst into laughter.
“Yeah, there’ve been a bunch of people lately saying that they saw it! Like, they looked out in the middle of the night and there was this huuuge thing. They thought at first that it was just a dream, but they’ve all been sayin’ the same thing—that it’s got a bunch of eyes, and a bunch of legs, and it’s all creepy-crawly.”
“Would be pretty scary to see something super big like that,” I replied, making what I hoped was a skeptical face. I carried the dashi-soaked cutlet into my mouth, which should have been delicious, but I was so focused on Kasai that I couldn’t taste it at all.
“So, wanna go look for it?”
“It comes out in the middle of the night, doesn’t it? I’ll be asleep.”
“Whaaat? Acchi, you’re so serious!”
I suppose to Kasai, who had been caught sneaking out of his house in the middle of the night in order to meet his girlfriend, refusing an invitation on the grounds of an early bedtime seemed an awfully straight-laced thing to do. It was only after I thought that I better try to avoid bumping into Kasai during his nighttime excursions that it occurred to me: Even if I was seen, no one would ever know that it was me…short of seeing me digging through my locker, anyway.
Nevertheless, the rumor of the monster’s existence appeared to be spreading.
“Kasai, stop it! Acchi isn’t like you!”
With that, a burst of laughter rang out. One of the girls added, “That’s right, you stay away from Acchi!” to yet another laugh. Acchi, Acchi, they called, but everyone was looking at Kasai. I was looking his way as well, laughing along.
“Enough, enough! Whatever, I’m done eating. Let’s go play soccer!” Kasai stood up to ward off everyone’s teasing, for some reason scratching his head and looking at me. After I unthinkingly nodded, he turned an appraising eye to one of the other boys and set about confirming we had the numbers for a game. As always, the girls looked at the boys hurriedly stuffing the rest of their meals into their mouths and laughed. “Don’t you get bored of doing that every day?”
We spent the remaining thirty minutes of midday break on soccer, powering through despite our full bellies. Honestly, I wasn’t very good at it, but all I had to do was run around the others to assist, so I didn’t think too hard about it. We each have our own roles and positions in life. That’s something we all need to understand about one another.
Not that it was something that she understood.
My attention had drifted away from the soccer game, dwelling on what was to come that night. I was growing a bit depressed and didn’t notice when the ball came flying my way. I collided with a burly member of the basketball club. I was unprepared and already off-balance—I fell flat onto my butt.
“What happened?! Acchi! Ah! Your elbow, it’s bleeding!”
Kasai alone came running over to me, the game continuing on without us. When I looked at my elbow, sure enough, I’d gotten a scrape.
“Should I take you to the nurse’s office?” he asked me, his lively voice ringing out as the soccer ball flew into one of the goals.
“I’m not a kid, I’m fine,” I said. “But I’ll probably head over there and get it disinfected.”
Kasai stared at me for a moment and then grinned. “I see.” He continued, “I seeee, Acchi. You let yourself get hurt on purpose just so you could go see Non-chan! That’s why you don’t want me to come!”
“No way,” I said, returning his smile.
Kasai replied, “That’s what you mean about not being a kid, huh?” Then he ran back towards the others, who were all standing still by the goal.
Kasai would probably make some excuse for me later. As I returned from the field to the school building, I felt at ease.
Just as I’d said, I decided to head to the nurse’s office and have Noto disinfect my wound. When I knocked on the door, her reply came immediately. The smell when I opened the door was a delightful one. It wasn’t the smell of disinfectants; it was a calming smell. I got the same kind of feeling you get when you reach home base during a game of tag.
There were no other students in her office, so Noto appeared to be reading a library book atop her desk: No Longer Human. I’d never read it, but I did have to wonder if it was about turning into a monster at night or something like that.
“’Scuse me, I got a scrape. I was wondering if you could disinfect it.”
“Of course. Haven’t seen you in a while, Adachi-kun.”
Except when she was angry, Noto always addressed students with “-kun” and “-san.”
“You saw me this morning.”
“I mean in here.”
I sat down on the stool, and Noto quickly tended to my wound. It was only a scrape, so she didn’t bandage it.
I gave her my thanks and moved to leave, when she called out, “Wait.” When I looked at her, she asked, “How have you been lately?”
“How…? I mean, I’ve been pretty okay.”
Obviously I couldn’t tell her that I’d begun turning into a monster in the middle of the night. If I did, I’m sure she would have sent me straight into counseling.
“There’s still thirty minutes left of break, so why don’t you have a rest? You shouldn’t push yourself.”
“…Nah, my friends are waiting.”
With a word of parting, I excused myself. My heart was beating a little faster than usual.
Noto could be harsh when issuing reprimands, but she was conscientious as a school nurse. While it was true that there were many students who found her bothersome, I wasn’t one of them. So it wasn’t out of any sort of malice that I chose to ignore her advice.
It was because I worried that somehow, perhaps Noto was just like Yano. Somehow, she might discern my true form.
Logically, there was no way that could be the case. Even so, thanks to what had happened the night before, I was struck by paranoia.
Now that I thought about it, I began to grow angry with Yano.
Of course, perhaps I’d only gotten what I deserved. I usually left school with Kasai, and the other day, the two of us had been loitering around the classroom. Because we left school a bit later than everyone else, I’d noticed that Motoda of the baseball club and his friends seemed to be amusing themselves doing something to Yano’s shoe box. I’d kept quiet about it.
So maybe this was a bit of justice, after all.