Monday - Day

Monday
Day

 

EVER SINCE I BECAME a monster, I had stopped sleeping.

Thus, the form that my body took was determined by the boundary between day and night. Typically, I returned to my human form between four and five A.M., around when the sun began to rise. Naturally, when I returned home in monster form, not a soul was awake in my house. There was a long stretch until breakfast and heading to school, so I had a fair amount of free time.

A number of times, I had decided that I might at least try to sleep, even if only for an hour or two, and gone to snuggle in beneath my futon. However, again and again as I lay there, not sleeping, the smell of coffee would eventually come wafting up from the first floor. Ultimately, I gave up on it.

Today, as usual, I sat alone in my room on my bed with too much time on my hands. If I turned on my lights and the glow seeped out into the hallway, my family might notice and say something, so I opened my curtains and sat there quietly in the dark. It had been overcast since Saturday, and the moon was hidden.

Previously, I would use the faint light from my cell phone screen to read manga by, but lately I had no interest in this. Instead, once I finished my homework, I would just sit there blankly, like a fixture, waiting for time to tick by on its own.

As long as I thought about nothing, this time was rather relaxing. Actually trying to keep my mind clear was rather less so. The gurus in movies had the power to totally clear their mind, but even they often said something like: true zen takes much training.

I lay sprawled on my bed, gazing upward. Though I could not sleep, as long as I stared up at the ceiling, it felt like my body was resting.

If I was going to be thinking about things anyway, they may as well be fun things. I put my hands on my head and started to imagine what I’d do the following night.

When night fell, I would probably head to the school and watch over Yano from the shadows, as always, and then I would be free to go pass the time elsewhere. So what would I do tonight? I imagined various destinations, all sorts of ways to spend the hours. I had visited a number of islands over the weekend. When I crossed over the waves, I found nature and people who I had likely never once crossed paths with before. There were plenty of animals beyond the usual cats and dogs, too, but they all fled as soon as they became aware of my presence.

Maybe it was time to try sightseeing in another country. I supposed that, though I couldn’t stay long, I could make it to some of the other countries of Asia, at the very least. And if that worked, then the whole world was my oyster.

As I pondered this, suddenly, a thought occurred to me.

Just how long did I intend to keep doing this? I’d been thinking as though these strange nights of mine would last forever, but in truth, I had no idea how long the nightly transformations might continue. Like I’d thought on the night I chased Motoda away, my nights might return to normal at any moment.

I prayed that it would continue for as long as possible. But what did “as long as possible” mean? Until the end of junior high? Until the end of high school? Until the end of university? Until I was an old man?

I couldn’t really pin it down in concrete terms. At the very least, it would be nice if it lasted until I had some freedom. Until I didn’t feel so stifled all the time. I’d love to keep my monstrous form at my disposal until then.

And still, just when would that be?

Perhaps it was like Noto said—you could live a bit more freely once you’re an adult.

If that was true, at what age did she mean? How many more years would it take?

How much longer would I have to keep watch to ensure that no one ruined my classmate’s nights? How much longer would Yano keep up this habit of sneaking into the school at night?

How long would this go on? I don’t simply mean protecting her midnight breaks. How much longer would Yano keep irritating us all by being unable to read the room? How long would Midorikawa refuse to communicate with others? How long would Motoda and Nakagawa take pleasure in harming others? How long would Iguchi be unable to have faith in the people around her?

Just how long would it all continue?

Perhaps it might end once we graduated from junior high. Perhaps we would all go off to different high schools, our class becoming only a thing of memory, and everyone’s treatment of one another—their personalities, their beliefs, their twisted hobbies—would all change.

But who could know for sure?

Once again, I felt anger build up inside of me at Noto for saying something so clueless.

Then I realized that this was no time for me to be worrying about other people. I needed to keep from slipping up in the classroom, to take care not to step out of line, to live my life with the utmost caution in the upcoming week. As I imagined this, I felt a cold sweat come over me.

It was fine, though. I still had the night.

As I comforted myself, shifting from side to side, the sounds of human life began to stir.

 

***

 

There was a light shower coming down on the way to school—a gloomy Monday, through and through. I walked with my umbrella out, cursing the weather that I hoped might suddenly clear up overnight.

I continued along the road, thinking over the day’s schedule. There would be an extended homeroom, then English, then math. Not an especially taxing day. The issue here was how much of the class’s tension from last Friday had carried over into this week. I had to be extra careful when gauging it. If I didn’t, I might find myself suddenly on the wrong side at any time. I might end up outside of the circle of unity before I knew it. Like day and night, my position could be reversed in an instant. And just as drastically as between human and monster, I would change.

I had to choose my actions wisely. Truthfully, even the sort of things I had been thinking about at dawn were starting to veer off course, so perhaps it was already too late.

I had to be careful.

“Acchi!”

As someone called me, I returned to my senses. I turned around to see a jovial Kasai.

“Ahaha, you’re totally soaked.”

Apparently, I had neglected to properly keep the rain off of me while I was spacing out. I brushed off my dampened left shoulder and corrected my stance—both bodily and mentally.

“Don’t usually see you walking, Acchi.”

“No? I always walk when it’s raining.”

“Huh. Guess so.”

Kasai lived comparatively close to the school and always walked in the mornings. After school, he often hitched a ride home on the back of someone’s bike. Obviously, such a thing was prohibited within the schoolgrounds, but as soon as he stepped outside the gates, such rules probably meant nothing to him.

Little of note happened as we walked along, avoiding puddles. The usual group who were chauffeured by their parents on rainy days passed us by, and eventually, we arrived safely at the school gates. “Safely,” I thought internally and then had to laugh at myself for thinking something so carefree.

It was here that the real trial would begin. To put it in a word, the path stretching forward from here was a minefield.

Kasai flew through the gates, not a care in the world, striding nimbly around every single land mine as he headed towards the entrance. As skilled as always, that one.

I could do no such thing. I didn’t have the slightest bit of the innate sense that allowed Kasai to live that way. I had to proceed step by cautious step through life, careful not to step on any of the mines, but making sure that that vigilance did not weigh me down. If not, I would end up exposed. Shunned.

But the tedium of this slow progress weighed on me. It was my own fault, a flaw in my disposition. And yet, there were times when I worried I might have this problem forever, just as I had at dawn.

I shook my head, as though shaking off the raindrops from my hair, shedding myself of these cowardly thoughts as I did.

I just had to keep living carefully. I just had to be sure to always choose the right things. It wasn’t that complicated.

As I politely folded my umbrella outside of the entrance, careful not to send the drops flying onto anyone’s uniform, I heard a cheerful voice.

“Heya, Non-chan, you goin’ out?”

“My name is not Non-chan.”

I tapped my umbrella along the ground, drawing closer to the little scene playing out between Kasai and Noto in front of our class’s shoe boxes. I noticed that Noto was holding her shoes and umbrella, currently donning said shoes. She had probably just come from the nurse’s office.

“Morning, Adachi-kun.”

“G’mornin’.”

“One of the first-years fell off of their bike and broke a bone, so I have to take them to the hospital.”

“You can’t just leave ’em?”

“Kasai, would you want me to leave you to fend for yourself if you broke a bone? There will be someone else in charge while I’m gone. You boys do your best in class today.”

With that, Noto hurried out of the entryway.

“I guess that’s just another of a school nurse’s duties,” said Kasai, laughing nonchalantly as he watched her walk away. “Still, seems like she’s got it pretty easy. It’s not like she’s gotta do all that much.”

Being a school nurse did seem pretty easy…from what we had seen firsthand, anyway.

But really, there was no reason to even consider anything more than that. Having the ability to imagine things beyond what you could see with your own two eyes was fruitless, excessive. Kasai knew this well enough. We switched from our sneakers into our indoor shoes, and finally, it was the start to another perfectly typical week.

I neither enjoyed nor particularly hated the fact that things were just as they always were. It was just that, even on days like these that weren’t especially bad, I still had to take care that my comfortable existence remained intact.

Honestly, I didn’t really need to be thinking about any of this. Once I was an adult, I would be free. I just had to live a proper life. That took even less work than avoiding traffic accidents. All I had to worry about was just avoiding the things that I shouldn’t do. There was no point in wondering now how long things might continue.

All that I had to maintain here was my place. I could come to school normally, sit for my lessons, and take my breaks. I just had to be sure that this tolerable status quo didn’t suddenly take a turn for the worse. I needed to keep on maintaining things as I had thus far, keep on with the strategies that had gotten me to where I was.

I, the human, could accomplish at least that much.

When I was a monster, though, things were different. With my imagination at my fingertips, I no longer had to focus so intensely on myself.

It was the same as always. As long as I could preserve the status quo, everything would be fine.

As long as I could keep doing the right thing, as I always had.

I settled my resolve and straightened my back. I ascended the stairs alongside Kasai, walked down the hall, and stepped into the classroom.

It was then that it happened.

Something landed at my feet.

I don’t know what course of events lead to this, or what was going on, or why this thing had ended up just at my feet. At this juncture, I had no idea what the item might be. All I knew was that, besides Kasai, the eyes of everyone in the classroom were on the thing that had landed at my feet, and on me.

Wondering just what it was, I glanced at the bulging white paper bag at my feet. There was something written on it. I took in the warped lettering.

Yano Satsuki.

It was Yano’s.

This was the moment of truth.

All of the things I had been thinking about since dawn spilled over in my mind, and amongst those thoughts was a spot that went pitch-black. From out of that darkness a dim thought of Iguchi drifted out. Actually, it wasn’t Iguchi. It was something far more terrifying—the thought of Iguchi’s harassment.

Here I was again, at the mercy of Murphy’s law.

I looked once again at the faces of everyone in the classroom. Everyone there was scrutinizing my actions. Amongst them was Yano, rushing my way with an “Oh!”

A shiver ran down my spine.

I had to do the right thing.

There would be no making the excuse that I wasn’t thinking. Being careful meant one could never leave these sort of things to chance.

I reconfirmed what lay at my feet. Though it was not for long, I thought hard, made my decision, and acted.

With my right foot, I stomped down on the white paper bag.

The thing inside made a crunching sound.

It was as though that sound was the key that undid the spell. With that single step of mine, time began to move in the classroom once more. Everyone turned their gazes away from me and returned to what they were doing.

I felt relief. That sound had cleared up any doubts I had about myself. I had done the right thing as a member of this class. With that fateful stomp as my first step, I continued straight on to my desk.

I knew at once that, normally, such an action would see me criticized, but that was the right thing to do, here in this room. I had merely evaluated my options and properly aligned myself with the views of my classmates. Yes, that was what I told myself.

As I set my bag on my desk, desperately trying to steady my racing heartbeat, Kudou jabbed me in the side. At first, I was afraid that she was going to reprimand me, but instead there was a lively grin upon her face.

Even Kudou should have known how wicked a thing it was to step on something belonging to someone else. Not just Kudou—that should have been common sense for everyone in the room. And yet, here was Kudou smiling, not a single one of my classmates looking to rebuke me for it, because what I had done was the right thing to do, only now, only here. I had succeeded by the barometer of how much ill-will or anger one should show towards Yano, by the strange metric this class used to judge one another. That test was sacred within these walls.

And I knew that. And yet, my heart kept beating faster and faster, because I could not find solace in the shelter of our class’s unique mindset. I should have recognized how important this was, but facts that only I—that only I and Yano— knew, kept me from feeling that righteousness.

The heat within my body rose as a war waged within my own heart.

If such a thing would have been allowed, I would have done anything to question Yano at once.

Why?

Why hadn’t she left something important to her at home? Why would she bring it to school during the day? In my moment of panic, I hadn’t even thought to hesitate, not knowing what was inside that bulging white bag. But I should have at least known what it was for.

And yet, I had stepped on it.

“Oh,” said Yano, picking up the bag, before peeking inside. “It’s…broken,” she muttered, trudging to the back of the classroom and shutting it inside of her locker. I watched as she did this, still sitting next to a gleeful Kudou.

There was no need to even set my powers of imagination to work. I had known the answer just from looking at that bag. I did not need to imagine it at all.

For the first time ever, true guilt panged within my heart. The guilt filled me like a balloon until I was ready to burst.

After all, I had seen in the wake of my own footstep one other warped line of letters on that white bag, below Yano’s name.

To: Noto-sensei.

It should be “for,” shouldn’t it?

Within my heart, I could only repeat that it was none of my business.