Wednesday - Day

Wednesday
Day

 

SINCE I STARTED becoming a monster, I no longer sleep at night.

However, for the first time in ages, I thought that it all might have just been a dream. There was absolutely no rational explanation behind my becoming a monster and going to school in the middle of the night, only to find a girl from class there and have a conversation with her—let alone agreeing to a secret meeting. For all I knew, maybe the past weeks of my becoming a monster were all just a vivid dream, too.

Though reckless and unfortunate, no matter how you slice it, that kind of thinking is normal. Honestly, even if it was a dream, there still had to be something wrong with me. That was some imagination. Transforming into a monster and meeting Yano of all people?

I hopped on my bike and set off for school, clinging to my comfortable delusion right up until I spotted the ruined doghouse. There aren’t words to describe the way looking at it made me feel.

“Yo, Acchi!”

Someone punched me lightly in the back as I stood at my shoe box. I already knew who it was, but I made a show of surprise as I turned around.

“Morning. Oh, did you change your hair?”

“Heh heh, somehow, having another man notice it doesn’t really do it for me!” Kasai had a toothy grin on his face as he took a dancing step into his indoor shoes. Kasai was a great deal shorter than me, so I was quick to notice his new flair. Standing at the foot of the stairs, I was wondering whether someone might find fault with it when a voice came from behind us.

“Kasai, you get rid of that perm immediately.”

My petrified friend and I both turned to see the school nurse standing there, grimacing. Her name was Noto.

“You don’t expect me to shave it off, do you?” Somehow Kasai always managed to crack a joke in the face of a warning, no matter who the teacher was.

“There’s no point in a punishment if it doesn’t make you reflect on your actions,” she said and walked away.

What might she say to me if she knew that I had snuck into the school? I began to wonder, letting my mind run wild with all kinds of terrible scenarios, as Kasai once again moved to climb the steps. I followed quickly behind.

“Acchi, were you starin’ at Non-chan there? You got a thing for old ladies?”

“No way. And anyway, she’s not that old.”

“Isn’t she like thirty?”

The hallway was packed when we reached the third floor. Our teachers kept telling us that this would be the year we needed to focus on our exams, but the reality of that had yet to really sink in for us. I turned towards the classroom and took one step, and then another. Naturally, my gaze was drawn to my classroom. My classmates swarmed in and out of the entrance of that box, like ants from a mound.

One of them walked towards us, so Kasai raised his hand and gave them a mild greeting. Then someone else came out from the other side and caught my gaze. A shiver ran down my spine. The girl, just now leaving the classroom, waved the cleaning cloth she held in one hand. She began walking our way with a satisfied grin.

Yano Satsuki found us, as smug as you please. She opened her mouth to chat as though everything were completely normal. “Good mor…ning.”

She greeted us in her weird way, the emphases and pauses in her words all wrong. The two of us said nothing until we passed her by, not even looking in the direction of her voice. I patted my chest in relief.

There was such a ruckus in the classroom that you could hear it from the hallway. We entered the room, Kasai greeted everyone, and the whole class reacted. I managed a greeting of my own, but that got lost in the mirth surrounding Kasai. Thank goodness he decided to change his hair that day. While everyone was busy ribbing him, I slipped into my seat, blending into the background. My face pretty much said, What? I’ve been here the whole time.

I moved my math textbook from my locker to my desk. It was the same book I’d bungled bringing home last night. I should have used the time I had left to complete my homework, but I couldn’t think of anyone in my class who would have tried to make that kind of desperate recovery. Not because of one piddly little homework assignment, anyway. I couldn’t bear the thought of being laughed at as some kind of study freak, so I had no choice but to keep my head down for the day and admit to forgetting.

With that decision made, I had nothing in particular to occupy myself with during that morning period, so I just passed the time fiddling pointlessly with my phone, exchanging greetings and making light conversation with the students in the surrounding seats as they arrived. Really, it wasn’t so bad. Kudou sat down at the seat next to mine, her double teeth poking out from a toothy smile. She’d been in the same class as me since we were first years, so we always got on well.

After some time, Yano returned, her cleaning cloth swaying in her hands. Water from the cloth dripped onto the floor, like she hadn’t wrung it out properly. I can’t say that made her any more popular with the people around her. As I wondered what she intended to do with such an excessively wet cloth, she moved over to her own desk and began leisurely wiping down the top. I caught the spectacle out of the corner of my eye. From my seat in the very back, Yano’s was situated two squares away diagonally, a quick hop for a bishop in chess or shogi. I wasn’t exactly sure what was up with Yano’s desk that it needed cleaning, but it was obvious that something had happened.

Once she was satisfied with her careful cleaning job (or maybe she had simply given up), Yano walked toward the front of the classroom again, swinging her cloth in her hand. Just as she passed by Kasai and the others, who were still loitering in the front, she called out in a lilting voice. “You changed…your hair!” Something about her manner was just…inconsiderate, somehow. That same self-satisfied smile sat upon her face. Naturally, not a single one of them looked her way. Yano didn’t fail to notice. She was used to it. She had barely any reaction to the lack of reaction as she exited the classroom.

Once she left, a number of kids clicked their tongues loudly. It was business as usual for Yano. If I started worrying about her, I would never stop.

Either way, I had nothing to do at the moment, so I decided to head for the bathroom. I stepped out into the hall and started walking in the opposite direction of where Yano had headed. The set of bathrooms where she was probably off dampening her cloth again was definitely closer, but if we ran into each other and she tried to talk to me, it would be a pain. She probably wouldn’t say anything about the night before, not wanting to be found out herself, but even so.

After carefully washing my hands for I’m not sure how long, I stepped back out into the hall to see Midorikawa Futaba standing nearby.

What a name. It felt like the kind of name only an actress or a manga character could have. She held a book in one hand and glanced my way, a sour look on her face. Her long hair fell to her back, swaying. It gave me a bit of whiplash to deal with two girls with such drastically contrasting personalities first thing in the morning. However, I wasn’t about to let that feeling overwhelm me. I put on a little smile, the same kind of smile I might give to anybody.

“Morning,” I said.

“Mm,” Midorikawa signaled back in a tiny voice. The corners of her mouth raised so subtly that I couldn’t tell whether or not she was smiling. Without saying another word, she turned towards the classroom and walked off, as though she had no recollection of ever having met me. It wasn’t that she was mad, though. That was just how she always was.

I followed behind her, this girl who was the polar opposite of Yano. They couldn’t be more different. Yano was always grinning and saying unnecessary things in that loud voice of hers.

As Midorikawa entered the classroom, a few students standing near the entrance brightly greeted her. “Good morning!”

She replied to them collectively with another “Mm,” and a nod, heading to her seat without so much as a word of greeting.

As she sat down, a girl at a nearby seat piped up. “Futaba-chan, were you at the library again?”

Midorikawa replied to the question with yet another “Mm” and opened up her book. Clearly, she had no interest in making conversation. Unbothered, the other girl simply turned to another classmate and began chatting with them instead, not seeming at all displeased.

Midorikawa, though as thick as Yano when it came to reading the room, received completely different treatment than the class’s whipping girl. There were all kinds of reasons why.

As I passed the time in meandering conversation with my seat neighbor, Kudou, I once again caught a glimpse of Yano in the corner of my eye. She was sitting in her seat, with no one else around, swinging her legs with a smile on her face.

Finally, the bell rang. Our homeroom teacher, Koike, arrived. As long as the flow of our homeroom and lessons proceeded in their usual way, everything would be fine. I could relax.

I completely ignored our first period of language arts, and when I spoke up during math lessons in second period, the teacher merely said, “That’s unusual.”

It wasn’t at all, though. I often forgot my homework, though I usually didn’t stand up and admit as much. I was directed to be sure to bring it in tomorrow and then returned to my own desk.

After third period’s geography class came to a close, we approached the least relaxing class of all: P.E.

As we walked to the locker rooms, the girls held a large-scale rock-paper-scissors tourney right in front of Yano, to see who she would be foisted off on. Ah, of course. There were an even number of girls present today. Did the gym teacher really think that it was a coincidence that Yano always ended up the odd kid out when forming warm-up pairs? Did the adults really not remember their own time in junior high?

We were all far crueler creatures than any of the adults imagined.

As we changed, moved to the gym, and started playing something like dodgeball, the teacher blew the whistle. Once warm-ups were through, we remained in pairs and practiced volleyball serves, while the students in the athletics clubs watched us and offered assistance. One had to be at least decent at it to not stand out.

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.