by Yoru Sumino
Yano had been the perpetrator here, so the contempt she inspired was only to be expected. After all, you reap what you sow.
On the other hand, one had to wonder how Midorikawa felt; she never showed her emotions on her face. The very fact that she said nothing made the rest of us worry that she might actually hate this seating arrangement, which intensified the hostility towards Yano all the more.
Yano had probably arrived late because she had been asleep somewhere during our twenty-minute break. She could always be found napping in some relatively quiet place around then. I was the only one who knew why she was always so sleep-deprived, but I had nothing pertinent to say in her defense. That too was all her own doing.
The beginning of class only offered a brief distraction from thinking about Yano, interrupted by Yano running up to the front of the classroom after I and the other group leaders collected the handouts for our groups from the front desk. As I began to wonder if she hadn’t gotten a handout, she told the teacher that she had forgotten her textbook and then asked if she could go and get it.
The teacher wearily responded with something twisted. “We can’t waste any more time today. Just share with your neighbor.”
Saying nothing, Yano returned to the back of the lab, a satisfied smile on her face. Without waiting for her to take her seat, class began. I looked straight ahead towards the blackboard. I didn’t so much as glance back. Even without looking, I could picture exactly what was going on. There was no need to see it with my own eyes.
One of the best things about science class, I thought, was probably that Yano never had to cross my line of sight for the whole class period. I couldn’t shield myself from any noises that came from behind us, of course, but there was nothing to be done about that.
“Stop that,” I warned the girl sitting beside me, who was busy gawking back, her attention caught by the noise. At my warning, perhaps realizing that others could see what she was doing, Iguchi quickly put her eyes back down to her paper. I was relieved that she wouldn’t draw any more attention to herself than she already had.
Yano’s standing in our class had been wrought both by the members of our class and by Yano herself, but naturally there were those among us who did not actively display any ill will towards her.
The worst offender was Iguchi. Compared to Yano, Iguchi was friendly with everyone, a kind girl who would lavish anyone but Yano with smiles. Though Iguchi tried to hide it—which was probably the wisest decision, I knew—she constantly kept an eye on Yano when she was being bullied, fretting over whether the others might be overdoing it.
That said, she was still on the class’s side rather than Yano’s. While I was usually content to ignore Yano, I couldn’t help but notice Iguchi’s nervous face. Honestly, it might be easier for her if someone else definitively decided her side for her. All that dithering must have caused her a ton of stress. Not that it was any of my business, though.
Science class proceeded normally, without incident. If something was happening where I couldn’t see it, then I didn’t need to know about it. All I needed to do was sit with my group members and focus on learning about hereditary traits.
It’s not like things ever get too out of hand in these situations. At the very worst, sometimes people’s belongings were damaged, or people got a bit hurt. The most that usually happened in our class was that something belonging to Yano got soaked or dirtied. She had suffered a fair few injuries, sure, but they were always total accidents, brought on by her own clumsiness. Nobody’s fault but her own. There was never any violence that anyone could see.
Everyone in class was clever enough to make sure.
Thus, what happened after science class really couldn’t be defined as an “incident.” Way too strong a word. Things just got a little out of hand, that’s all.
Yano was walking several meters ahead of me in the hallway, en route back to the classroom. There were a number of other students walking in the same direction in the space between me and her. This distance was not by chance. I had slackened my pace just a little, so that even if she were to suddenly stumble again, no one could say that I’d kicked her. So far, the plan was a success. I felt pretty comfortable with how far apart we were.
…And that was why I grew careless.
I was talking with the other boys about a TV show that had aired the day before. Something that Yano had been juggling back and forth went tumbling out of her hands. The tri-colored object—blue, black, and white—was more than likely an eraser.
I caught this moment in the dead center of my sight. And though it was faint, I let slip a small “Oh.” That was no good. My voice drew the gaze of everyone else around.
Yano didn’t crouch down today. There was no need for her to do so.
I’m sure that she didn’t mean much by it, but…
It was Iguchi.
Straying apart from a group of girls she’d been walking with, Iguchi found herself right behind Yano. Perhaps unintentionally, perhaps reflexively, she picked the eraser up off the ground.
Don’t do it! I thought, but it was too late to stop her.
Iguchi was probably stunned herself. Maybe she only realized what she had done once she’d already done it. She locked eyes with Yano, who turned around and froze for several seconds.
Ignoring someone is like a habit or custom. At first, you have to do it intentionally, but as you become accustomed to it, it becomes natural to act like they aren’t even there. Eventually your body ignores them all on its own, like it’s second nature.
Iguchi had yet to acquire the habit of ignoring Yano. On the contrary, she was a slave to a different kind of habit—the common courtesy of picking up something that someone else has dropped. That was the kind of heart she had, a natural kindness that made little gestures like that as easy as breathing.
Thus—unfortunately—she happened to pick up the eraser that had fallen right in front of her.
Iguchi was still frozen, eye-to-eye with Yano. Without thinking, I stopped walking as well.
Yano held her right hand outstretched stupidly to Iguchi, with a lively “Thank…you!”
Then she snatched the eraser from Iguchi’s hand, turned on her heel, and walked on.
From behind Yano’s back, the girls of our class stared at the two of them. Their eyes suggested they had just spotted yet another cockroach. I have no idea what expression was on Iguchi’s face, but you didn’t have to think very hard to know why she blurted out a thin “It’s not like that” just a moment later.
A momentary silence fell over the hallway—a short grace period for Iguchi to make some sort of excuse. However, she stayed silent. She probably couldn’t come up with anything to say.
And then the spell was broken. Time began to flow once more. The girls up ahead began walking towards the classroom, discussing something or other, and we followed behind them. Yano proceeded at her own pace, as always. She resumed her juggling, not much caring how many times she’d failed at it.
And Iguchi just stood there as everyone left her behind.
I wondered if she would be okay.
It was unfortunate, but while I worried for her, it was nothing that I was about to obsess over.
It happened after school that day. After Yano, as always, left the classroom with a “Bye, ev…eryone,” without stopping to talk with anyone.
That was when the girls of our class surrounded Iguchi.
It happened on the far end of classroom, so I couldn’t hear what they were saying. All I know is that Iguchi was vehemently denying something, looking as though she was about to cry.
This sure went south, I thought to myself, as I prepared to leave. She messed up.
Not about to step in between the girls or anything clever like that, I elected to leave the classroom with Kasai and the others.
After we stepped out into the hall and passed by another classroom, Kasai tilted his head.
“Did Igu-chan do somethin’?”
Right, Kasai hadn
’t been there when it all went down.
“Iguchi happened to pick up something that Yano dropped,” I explained, trying as best as I possibly could to imply that Iguchi was not the one at fault. Hearing that, the other guys laughed. “Gross! Yano cooties!”
The corners of Kasai’s mouth dipped. “What, seriously?”
He seemed displeased. Probably not over what Iguchi had done, I reasoned, but simply from hearing Yano’s name. Yet as soon as we arrived at our shoe lockers, his temperament completely shifted. “Oh, that reminds me,” he said, with an air that suggested he had suddenly remembered something far more interesting. “Wanna go see the baseball clubroom?”
“The baseball club? Why?”
At my frank question, Kasai began to laugh. “What? I thought you were the one who told me about it, Acchi. Guess I was wrong. Anyway, apparently a window got broken in the baseball clubroom. Last night.”
“Last night?”
“Yeah, some guy probably threw a rock through it as a prank or something.”
Night. A prank. The baseball club window.
No way. It couldn’t be.
“Hm, what’s with that face, Acchi? Are you the culprit?”
Alarmed at Kasai’s grin, I quickly forced my expression into one of vague displeasure.
“Like hell I am. I was just wonderin’ who’d be that stupid.”
An eerie sense of premonition was spreading throughout my whole body. I got the feeling I knew exactly who that stupid criminal was. She hadn’t been there when I arrived at the classroom the night before.
Was she really off just laying a little frog to rest? Could she actually have been off seeking vengeance for it along the way?
Nervously, though there was really no reason to be nervous, we decided to change from our indoor shoes to our athletic shoes and go check out the baseball clubroom.
The baseball clubroom adjoined the soccer and rugby clubrooms, down at the far end of the wide field shared by various sports clubs. From a distance, they all looked like one big massive block. As we approached, we could see a sheet of cardboard tacked on to the window frame. A club member was coming out of the room at that very moment, someone who happened to be a friend of Kasai’s. After we hollered at him, he explained that their club adviser had put the cardboard up that morning.
Though we’d come with no great expectations, our enthusiasm waned, and we decided to head home. We greeted our other classmates as we passed them by, received the customary “Later,” “See ya,” or “Yeah” in return, but just as we crossed the entrance, our eyes stopped on a small girl who was exiting, her eyes to the ground.
Her spirit was broken. There was no other way to describe her. As I considered how to address the girl, mindful of the eyes of the other girls around, Kasai waved his hand.
“Later, Igu-chan!”
Hearing Kasai’s lively voice, Iguchi weakly lifted her head and smiled, replying with a “Later” that suggested nothing less than utter exhaustion.
The feeble little smile on her face was pure heartbreak.
But still, that was Kasai for you. When he waved at her again, saying, “See ya!” as though he knew nothing about earlier, Iguchi’s strange smile deepened a little more.
As we walked away, I told Kasai, “You really shouldn’t bother her like that.”
Kasai replied, laughing, “It’s not like Igu-chan is seriously friends with that girl.”
If only I could be like Kasai, I thought—but in the end, I still did nothing.
Thursday
Night
THOUGH I KNEW it wouldn’t do any good, I was livid with Yano-san. If she hadn’t been doing that weird juggling thing in the hall, Iguchi-san wouldn’t have been berated so cruelly. However, the reason that I headed to school again that evening wasn’t just to criticize her for that, no. There was something else on my mind: the baseball club. On the off chance she really had broken that window, then that act was far more grave. It was downright criminal.
When I arrived at the school and slipped through the back door of the classroom, Yano was digging through the trash can near the blackboard for something. Unsure of how to call out to a girl who was elbow-deep in garbage, I decided to wait until she noticed me.
When Yano, clutching something thin in both hands with an Aha, finally noticed the monster at the back of the classroom, she cried out with a vapid “Wuh-hoh!”
“Yo,” I greeted.
“…Look…at that. You…came,” she said, flapping the object, which seemed to be some notepads, around in her hand.
I had thought at the very least that I would be met with that usual satisfied grin of hers, but she couldn’t seem to care less about the fact that I was here. It left me feeling a little down. Not that I was looking forward to her smile, or anything.
Just as I thought, Enough, I’m going home, and began to disassemble my form, she asked me a strange question. “Acchi…kun, are you a Fire…ball type? Or a Frizz type?”
Fireball? Frizz? Was she talking about games?
“You mean for fire magic?” I said. “I prefer Incendio.”
“What’s…that?”
“From Harry Potter.”
“Wow… Then can…you do…that?”
“Huh?”
“Can…you breathe…fire?”
“Sure can’t.”
She looked disheartened at my response. What was that face about?
I was the one who ought to be put out, I thought. But when I considered Yano-san’s disappointment, I recalled the rumors that Kasai had mentioned, about a kaiju appearing. Since she knew that the rumors were about me, she must have figured that if I was a kaiju, I could probably breathe fire or something.
“What d’you need fire for anyway?”
“To burn…this. Any…way, let’s go…to the…roof.”
As usual, she exited the classroom without waiting for my reply. Left without much choice, I locked the door in my usual way and followed behind. I was honestly a bit impressed by how conscientious I was every time.
By the time I made it out to the hallway, I found that my free-spirited classmate had already started towards the stairs, not waiting for me. My self-admiration turned to exasperation. The fact that I followed her was not conscientiousness but softhearted foolishness.
I prepared a Shadow clone just in case, but we arrived at the roof without incident.
As I unlocked the rooftop door and we stepped outside, I was struck by a crisp breeze. Though I had been here the night before last, I had forgotten how good a feeling it was being on the rooftop in the middle of the night. One got the feeling that the sky might just swallow us whole.
“People shouldn’t…smoke,” said Yano-san, pointing at a cigarette butt that was rolling by.
“Well, I mean…” I paused. “It’s no big deal, as long as they don’t get caught.”
“But it’s…bad for the…body.”
She was right, of course, but it was weird to hear something so sensible and mature out of Yano-san. The ones who came up here to smoke were probably the ones who kicked off the bullying against you, I wanted to say. But there was no need for it, so I kept my mouth shut.
“Now…then, show…me some…fire.”
“Uh, no, I just told you that I can’t.”
“Have you…tried?”
Now that she asked me, not only had I not tried it, I hadn’t even considered it.
“Just try…it…one…time. Oh, ac…tually, I’ve never tried it…either, so I’ll try…too. Go!”
She placed the two notebooks on the ground and held out her hands like she was trying to gather up energy. Her arms trembling, she muttered again and again: “Go…! Go…!” For some reason, partway through, she appeared to stop breathing. I watched her for a while, thinking about how stupid she looked. At length, she seemed to accept her own powerlessness and sat down, grumbling. “Guess I…can’t.” Her shoulders heaved, as though she had been putting in some real, serious effort.
; “Okay… Now it’s your…turn, Acchi…kun.”
“Huh?”
I flicked my eyes away from her hopeful gaze and observed the two notebooks. Both had been scribbled all over in magic marker. What was written all over them were not childish little insults like “Big Dummy” or “Stupid Idiot.” This stuff was nasty. Their covers were scrawled with enough vitriol to deeply wound anyone who read it, not just Yano-san.
“If fire does come out, can I burn those?”
“That’s…fine. I’ve al…ready used them…all up, so I’d put…them a…side.”
Even if she hadn’t, would she really ever use them again, the way they were now?
“I threw…them away, but…I thought it… might be better to…burn them.”
Ah, so it wasn’t that someone else had thrown them in the trash; she’d done it herself.
I wondered how long they’d been defaced. I highly doubted that whoever did it had the courtesy to choose a notebook she’d already filled.
While I stood there thinking, there came a demand of “Hurry…up!”
Yano-san had moved some distance away from the notebooks, clearly believing in my power. I had my doubts, but those notebooks looked so pitiful. If I could honor them with a proper cremation, I thought that I might as well try.
If I could make a Shadow, then why not fire, too? If I said I wasn’t a little optimistic about my chances, I’d be lying.
I visualized it, the same way I had the night before.
In order to breathe fire, I needed to store up enough energy to make my whole body vibrate. Then, I had to make the black drops inside of my monstrous form crank like an engine and heat up. Then, the droplets had to ignite, gathering up into a big flame, which I would spit from my mouth.
Suddenly, I was assailed by a bright light shining in front of me.
“Gaaah! It’s…hot!”
The flame that flew from my mouth was exactly as large as I had imagined. So large it came dangerously close to catching Yano-san’s uniform. Quickly, I breathed in, picturing a sudden end to the heat, a re-absorption of the burning droplets. As I did, the flames returned to my body, stopping just short of injuring her.
