Tuesday - Day

Tuesday
Day

 

I THINK I’VE ALREADY alluded to this well enough, but it’s a fundamental truth—whether you’re human or monster, whether you’re good or bad, whether it’s noon or night, no one really likes to see bad things happen to others. Thus, I was fully aware that life at school, starting today, was going to become really unpleasant. I would have to sit and watch a certain classmate face even more loathsome treatment than she ever had before. And I would have to do it without letting anyone see how uncomfortable I was with the whole thing.

Realizing this, I steeled myself, but naturally all the resolve I thought I had mustered to make it through the day was blown away by reality—a reality that was leagues worse than anything I could have possibly imagined.

When I arrived at the classroom in the morning, things were immediately different from usual. For one, Motoda was already there, which probably wasn’t that strange; his coach might have had something come up, which would mean no morning practice. What concerned me the most was seeing the girls surrounding a particular desk—Nakagawa’s. When I glanced over, half out of politeness’s sake, wondering whether something had happened, I saw that Nakagawa was in her seat, crying.

At first, I assumed that she had just broken up with her boyfriend or something. She had a pretty face and a nice body, so she was popular with the boys in our class. And plenty of people worried about getting cheated on. Her tear-soaked face made her seem like a completely different girl from the other day when she had looked at Iguchi like she was a cockroach.

It was when Yano arrived at school that I realized the issue wasn’t something merely as simple as that.

She entered the classroom as she did every day, greeting the room with a “Good…morning.” Despite yesterday’s strange occurrence, as per her custom, she then headed to her seat, no one so much as reacting to her.

Yano was her usual self. What was different was everyone else.

Nakagawa’s desk was in the front of the classroom. As Yano started to pass beside them, Motoda, who was also there, smacked her in the back of the head with an empty plastic bottle.

“Hey,” he said.

It was a far softer sound than that of yesterday’s slap, but it was enough for everyone in the room to freeze in their tracks and look at the pair.

Yano turned to look at him, stunned at both his voice and the unprompted attack. Everyone knew that Motoda had previously done numerous things to Yano, but no one, including him, had ever laid hands on her directly.

Even without knowing the dynamics of our class, it was obvious at a glance which one of them could overpower the other from their difference in size alone.

As the tension in the room rose, everyone wondering what exactly was going to happen, it was Motoda who was the first to speak again.

“It was you, wasn’t it?”

I had no idea what he was referring to. Yano cocked her head as though she didn’t either.

“I was…what?”

That bizarre speech pattern of Yano’s only ever made people angrier.

“You tore up Nakagawa’s shoes and threw them out in the yard, didn’t you? As payback for yesterday.”

Did that really happen? I wondered. From my seat, I glanced at Nakagawa’s feet, which is when I finally noticed the brown slippers she was wearing.

“Don’t play games with me,” Motoda said.

What lingered inside of Motoda, the root of the forceful edge with which he spoke, was not a sense of justice, nor righteous fury on Nakagawa’s behalf. It wasn’t even disdain—instead, it a pure and simple desire. The desire to harm Yano. I think we all realized it, but such matters were of no consequence to the members of our class.

If I had advice for Yano, then I wish I could have given it to her before. I probably should have done so the previous night. I could have told her the correct facial expression to make when someone says something like that to you. If she had just shaken her head from side to side, given a meek denial with a tense look upon her face, she would have been fine. If she did that, then unless the other person had proof of the accusation, which usually was not the case, then they would calm immediately down.

So why would she make that face?

“I don’t know…anything about that,” she said with a grin, flat-out denying the accusation.

“Come again?”

“III…dooon’t knooow…aaanyyything…about that,” she said again, stretching out each and every word as though he hadn’t heard her, before turning and heading toward her seat, that self-satisfied smirk still on her face.

Perhaps she believed that sharing a smile with the world was a surefire technique to make friends with other people. Perhaps in her twisted mind, so long as she always smiled, always laughed, then others would be endeared to her.

If so, then I needed to teach her: no, that’s wrong. If you smile at someone who doesn’t want to see your smile, then you’re only going to rub them the wrong way.

It was because she made that face.

“Wipe that smile off your face,” snarled Motoda, taking a rectangular blackboard eraser that was sitting on the ledge of the blackboard in hand. “You creepy little—!”

He called her a truly foul name.

And without a moment’s hesitation, he flung the eraser at her. Luckily, the side that struck the back of her head was the softer one. As it fell to the floor, the people near her jumped back, as though a dead bug had just come flying their way. It was an object that had come in contact with Yano, after all.

“Wah!” said Yano, pressing her hand to her skull. But as she took her seat, the grin still remained on her face.

Seeing that look, I grew frightened again. How could she smile even at a time like this? Was this just some stubbornness or something on her part?

There were no other overtures made towards Yano that morning. Until the teacher arrived, the whole class was occupied with the matter of the still-crying Nakagawa’s shoes, but ultimately, the culprit was never found, and Nakagawa spent the whole day wearing visitor’s slippers.

It was our teacher who picked up the eraser, admonishing us, “Who did this? Put things back where they belong.”

As I watched, I wondered who could possibly manage to pick it up, when it was too awful for any of us to even say who it had struck.

 

***

 

The class unanimously decided that Yano was the culprit behind the shoe incident. Naturally, I had no idea what the truth was, and so I could neither confirm nor deny. I merely went along with the flow.

During gym class, standing behind the net that divided the gymnasium’s court in two, Nakagawa and the other girls ganged up on Yano. The game of the day was dodgeball, and Yano became the target of relentless, skull-thumping throws, over and over again. But what could I do? There was no point in dwelling on it. Nor on the fact that Iguchi appeared to be watching the other girls with distress. I needed to think about something more useful.

After we finished eating our lunches at midday break, Kasai and I were washing our hands in the restroom while everyone else headed out to the field. I asked him, as though I had only just happened to remember: “Oh yeah, so, is Motoda seriously gonna try to go after that kaiju?”

Motoda himself was in the classroom napping, perhaps to replenish his energy stores for club activities later.

Kasai smiled, amused. “I mean, he said he was, but he’s an idiot. There was already that whole thing about him getting into a fight with a first-year on the baseball team, ahaha.”

A fight? That was the first I was hearing of it.

“Like, he seemed happy when he said there wasn’t any morning practice, but I’m pretty sure he started something and they just wouldn’t let him play. Sucks for him, but that’s just too funny,” he said, lowering his voice. He slapped my shoulder, smiling.

So that was why he was in the classroom so early. That was calamitous. For Yano.

“So when’s he gonna do it?”

“No idea. I mean, it’s not like there really is a kaiju.”

Didn’t seem like I was going to get any more information out of him. It annoyed me a little how flippant he was being, but after thinking about it for a minute, I realized that his attitude was normal. I was the one acting weird.

“You really care that much, Acchi?” Kasai asked. “Don’t tell me he’s got even you hooked.”

“I’m not gonna sneak into the school.”

“’Course not, you’re too serious.”

“That’s right, I’m not like you, Kasai.”

“Wha?”

His expression suddenly darkened. That happened now and then. It was pretty rare, but occasionally, when I messed with Kasai, he would suddenly make a very unhappy face. Everyone gets pissed off now and then, but seeing that sort of expression on someone as carefree as Kasai made me nervous.

“I mean, uh…”

He laughed then. “Ahaha, seriously man, what is with you, Acchi?”

Kasai smiled wider than before, slapping me again on the shoulder as though he had seen the fear come across on my face and simply found it funny. That calmed me down in a hurry.

It also just so happened that the one person who could always brighten up Kasai’s mood was passing by as we left the restroom. It was perfect timing, both for Kasai and for me. It was Midorikawa, who was walking towards the cafeteria. I got the impression that she brought her own lunch every day, but maybe she was on the way to buy some juice or something.

“Yo,” Kasai called energetically from behind her. “Midorikawa, you off to the snack counter?”

Despite his enthusiasm, she turned languidly, with no hint of surprise. She nodded with a simple “Mm.”

Any normal person, at this point, might have offered up at least a “What about you two?” But if you waited for something like that from Midorikawa, you’d be there until sundown. Perhaps realizing this, or perhaps just wishing to prolong the conversation, Kasai continued to speak, his voice slightly higher than normal.

“By the way, Midorikawa, have you heard? Apparently a kaiju’s been showing up around here lately.”

Midorikawa tilted her head and said nothing. Her way of saying no. There were times, now and then, when I really wondered whether she could even say anything other than “Mm,” but she always managed a proper reply when the teachers called on her in class.

“Apparently, there’s a kaiju that comes out at night. Honestly, I don’t believe it.”

“Mm.”

“A bunch of people say they’ve seen it, though. You have any interest in things like that, Midorikawa?”

“Mm.”

“Whoa, seriously? I’m surprised, ahaha. Well then, if I hear anything else, I’ll let you know.”

“Mm.”

“Anyway, we’re gonna go play soccer. Sorry for interruptin’ you.”

“Mm,” she said, which perhaps meant, “Yes, you did interrupt me.” She gave a nod, and, as though she deemed the conversation over, turned her back and left without another word. It seemed awfully rude, but Kasai was grinning and in high spirits, so I guess that was fine.

We finally headed to the entrance, me walking alongside Kasai, whose mood was fully restored. The other guys had already started playing. “C’mon, hurry up!” Kasai demanded, dragging me along. Pretty presumptuous for someone who had caused the delay himself. We arrived quickly at the shoe box designated for our class, finding someone already there.

“Oh hey, Nakagawa. Don’t usually see you go outside.”

Kasai was already opening the door of his own shoe locker as he spoke to her and perhaps didn’t see what Nakagawa was holding in her hands. I did, and realized why she was standing there. Maybe that’s why the two of us locked eyes for a moment before I averted my gaze.

“Are you two going to play soccer?” Nakagawa asked, not appearing at all concerned with being caught.

“Yeah. What about you?”

It was then, as Kasai shoved his feet into his athletic shoes and looked up at Nakagawa, that he seemed to finally notice what she was holding in her hands.

“Whoa, what the heck?!”

Nakagawa laughed. It was a pair of shoes, gripped in a cleaning cloth, along with a box cutter.

“I thought it was time for a little payback,” she said in a lilting tone, looking from Kasai to me. This time, I averted my gaze in time.

“Ah, those are hers, huh?” I asked.

“That’s right!”

Nakagawa seemed overjoyed at my confirmation. It was very much like seeing a princess who had been lauded by her subjects before the eyes of a handsome prince.

I guess she was certain that Yano was the culprit. As I mulled over this conviction, which the rest of the class seemed to agree with, Kasai gave a rather impressed-sounding, “Oh?”

Nakagawa’s eyes flicked immediately back to him.

“So, you’re sure, then?” he asked.

“Hm?”

“You figured out for sure that she was the one who did that to your shoes?” he asked innocently, putting to words what I could not.

Her lips pursed.

“Well, there’s no evidence, but it’s obvious, isn’t it?”

Evidence, huh? Seemed like a lot of people liked playing detective these days.

It was not at all strange for her to come to this conclusion, given what had happened with Iguchi, I thought, but Kasai did not appear to agree.

“Then it’s kinda soon for that, isn’t it?”

I don’t think that Nakagawa was expecting such a reply. It was surprising even to me. Though he would never do anything to her directly, I assumed that Kasai harbored a deep-seated hatred for Yano. Where he differed from the others in our class was that he didn’t hate her out of some herd mentality or a sense of unity or even justice, but because she had hurt someone he cherished, pure and simple. Thus, I figured that he was indifferent to all the things that others did around him.

Doubtless, Nakagawa never thought she would be admonished by a classmate about something regarding Yano—and especially not Kasai. “Y-yes, I guess you’re right,” she muttered, smiling only with her lips. She dropped Yano’s shoes on the spot, passed between us, and left.

Guess she was embarrassed, I thought as I watched her walk away.

“All right, let’s get goin’,” said Kasai.

“Yeah.”

As I followed behind Kasai, I silently thanked him—not for the fact that Yano’s shoes had made it out of this unscathed but for chasing Nakagawa away.

To be honest, I had never been very fond of her. Maybe it was because her good looks gave her confidence or something, but she was the kind of person who had no qualms about harming those whom she deemed below her. Even before the class came to hate Yano as a whole, Nakagawa would talk to Yano in that wheedling voice of hers and then make fun of whatever Yano had said with the girls she actually was friends with. Moreover, Yano was not her only target; Iguchi and other weak-willed classmates were all fodder for her ridicule.

All the better that she was hurt by Kasai, I thought, who she thought so highly of. If it hurt her a bit to be admonished, that was for the best, whether she took it as being over her lack of morals or because she’d leapt to conclusions.

When I thought of how Nakagawa’s gaze trembled, despite all that bravado of hers, my heart felt just a little bit lighter.

At the same time, I realized how stupid it was for everyone to wish for someone else to get hurt. Instead, I wished for Kasai—who was jovial and emotional but possessed a sharp sense of judgment—to have his prayers finally be heard. In other words, I hoped Midorikawa would have slightly better communication skills from here on out.

The day finished with no other major incident to speak of. The only other things that happened were eraser crumbs being tossed at Yano during class and Takao’s missing bike being discovered in the nearby river.