by Yoru Sumino
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 g
otten 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.
Wednesday
Night
THAT NIGHT, after I transformed, I headed to the school with a heavy heart.
I entered the classroom via the same route as the night before, but Yano-san wasn’t there. I started to grow fairly irritated at her absence. She’d told me to come early, hadn’t she? I tried to tell myself that perhaps she might be hiding—but no, she really wasn’t there. Was she running late? Or was she not going to come at all? The latter would be just fine, I thought, adjusting myself to a comfortable sitting size and planting myself in the back of the classroom, when suddenly the front door flung forcefully open.
“You’re here…already.”
“You told me to come, didn’t you?” I complained, but Yano-san appeared to pay me no mind.
“Oh… I’ll go wash…my hands,” she said and once again exited the classroom. What was with this girl?
Shortly, she returned, rubbing her hands on her skirt to dry them. Now that I thought about it, why was she still in her uniform? I hadn’t bothered to consider it the night before.
“I was…just dig…ging…a grave.”
I hadn’t asked her, but Yano-san explained why she’d been absent all the same.
“A grave?”
“Yes, a frog…got stuck in…my shoe box and died…there. Poor thing.” Without prompting, she continued, “It was such…a little thing.”
She held her thumb and index finger a short distance apart, indicating its size.
“Do…you pre…fer tree frogs…or horned frogs?”
“…I like Keroppi.”
“Oh, I see.”
Her dispassionate attitude really rubbed me the wrong way. Yano-san dutifully took her own seat and then looked my way, her legs dangling.
“Eight…eyes. Six…legs. A lot of…tails.”
I began to feel like an anatomical model as she pointed out the features of my body one by one. I couldn’t tell you why exactly, but the whole thing made me feel kind of weird.
I thought that she might ask me why I assumed this form, so I had prepared my answer ahead of time: “I don’t know.” It was a perfectly honest answer. However, the question she did ask caught me completely off guard.
“Is that…your real form?”
“…Huh?”
“Why…do you…change into a…human?”
I had never even considered the possibility. She was totally off-base. I told her truthfully, “I transform when night falls.” I suddenly felt embarrassed, realizing how much the word transform made it sound like I thought I was some kind of superhero.
“I thought…for sure that you had…been born in that…form.”
“If that were true, I wouldn’t bother turning into a human and going to school.”
“I thought that…you might…change into a human because it’s…difficult to…live in a strange form like…that.”
It hurt to be called “strange.” Even imagining it vividly, it didn’t seem like a very difficult life. At the very least, no worse than Yano-san’s every day.
“Yano-san, why do you come to school?”
Behind my question was the unspoken barb: It doesn’t seem like a fun place for you to be at all. I had meant it in a retaliatory way, but her reply was indifferent.
“I don’t…have a break during…the day, so I…like to play during…midnight break.”
I had no idea what she meant. I seemed to recall her saying something about “midnight break” the night before as well.
“So what is ‘midnight break,’ anyway?”
“You want to…hear?”
“…I mean, not really.”
“Midnight break is… Well… Oh… That’s it… How do you think I…get in here?”
“Dunno.”
“You want to…know?”
She was such a pain in the butt. I already knew as much, of course, but talking to her one-on-one just reaffirmed the point. As I waited in frustrated silence, she began to answer a question that no one had asked.
“The security guard looks…the other…way. Only for one…hour every night. That is…midnight break.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
If that was true, it was information that thieves would be dying to know.
“It’s not a…lie. Obviously, it’s…only for students.”
And just what was obvious about that? That obviously wouldn’t be acceptable for students, either. Not that I, standing there, was in any position to talk.
“I knew the…one be…fore…too. There…were, um…three guards whose…names I heard but forgot, but…they were all…nice peo…ple.”
For them to have been “nice people” meant that not only had Yano-san met with the guards and talked to them, but those guards had neglected their duties and allowed her to remain here. If that story was true, I couldn’t imagine what would have persuaded them. The more I thought about it, the more obvious it seemed that such a thing could never have happened.
“You don’t…believe me…huh?” she asked.
“Believe that you come here because of some kind of midnight break?”
“Well, you were…here too yest…erday, Acchi…kun.”
“I came here to collect my math book. We had homework from it.”
“You’re so…serious.”
I doubt that Yano-san had intended to tease me, but hearing what my friends had said to me at lunchtime again now, not knowing whether it was her intention, I felt a pained flutter in my gut.
“I come…here to en…joy midnight…break.” It wasn’t the proper timing for it at all, but Yano-san grinned. “Since I…don’t get to…rest dur…ing the day at…school.”
How could she possibly be smiling about that? I wondered. When I didn’t say something like “I see,” or, “That’s not true,” she withdrew her smile and asked something strange.
“Acchi…kun, do…you have a…midday break?”
I didn’t answer either way. I simply stayed quiet. And then, I thought about my break that day. I had shoveled down a katsudon, played soccer, gotten hurt, and met with Noto-sensei. Now that I thought about it, I wasn’t actually sure that I had gotten a break.
“Well…then. Let’s leave the talk of…daytime there.”
Even though she was the one that started it.
“We still have…some time in mid…night break. What…shall we…do?”
“Uh, well, I was just thinking of going home.”
“How do…you normally pass the time…at night, Acchi…kun?”
“What do I do at night?”
“I don’t mean…that in a dirty…way.”
Seeing this idiot say such a weird thing with such a straight face, I let out a big sigh. I couldn’t help myself, hearing Yano-san say something so typical of a normal junior high-schooler.
“At night, I usually go to the beach, or the mountains,” I told her.
“So, you go…wherever you want… That’s nice.”
“I used to go around scaring people who were out walking, but I got tired of that.”
“Must be…hard to be a…ghost.”
“After that—oh, right—I tried going to a theme park. I was surprised that there were a lot of employees still working there after hours.”
“Really?! They…must have thought…you were some…kind of new at…traction, Acchi-kun.”
Yano-san listened to my tales, giving exaggerated reactions in between. I was a bit surprised; I’d never expected such interest from her. “What about you, Yano-san? What do you do at school?”
“I watch vi…deos on my phone and…read manga, even though those are…both against school…
rules.”
The rules weren’t in effect right now. If they were, we would probably have been breaking a lot more than just those two.
“Why not just do it at home?”
“That’s not…the point.”
She looked at me straight on. Unthinkingly, I averted all eight of my eyes. I didn’t understand, but if Yano-san said that wasn’t the point, then I guess it wasn’t. It wasn’t that I understood her, but that she clearly had her own code. Of course, everyone has their own code, but hers was probably more extreme. A product of her current circumstances. Thus, it was probably pointless to try and understand.
“But come…to think of it, there is some…thing to what you…said, Acchi…kun.”
While it was surprising that anything I’d said to her had actually sunk in, I was grateful. At any rate, it looked like my quiet evenings might return to me.
“Let’s ex…plore the…school,” she said.
“…Yeah, no thanks.”
“But you were…saying I should…do some…thing that I can’t…do at…home.”
“No, I wasn’t. I was saying we should go home.”
“I will…go home. In another thirty min…utes.”
She took out her phone and checked the time. Somehow, it seemed peculiar to see her holding a phone. Did she ever actually contact anyone with that thing?
“Let’s go…then.”
Without even waiting for my answer, she stood up and moved to exit out the front door of the classroom. I thought for a moment—and while I was endlessly unenthused about this—I resigned myself to shrinking down to the size of a large dog and following her for now. I worried that if she was caught by the guard, she might tell him about me.
And truthfully, I can’t say that I wasn’t a little bit interested in what the school building was like at night.
After Yano-san left the classroom, I closed and locked the door, then slipped out into the hallway in the form of droplets. When I shifted back into monster form, the girl gave a small round of applause.
