by Yoru Sumino
I looked up, but at first did not understand what she was indicating. All that I saw when I looked where she was pointing was the ceiling.
“The…ball.”
I finally noticed it once she pointed it out. My perception wasn’t all that great.
After pondering for a moment what to do, I moved away from Yano-san and unfurled my wings. Just as I had imagined, I heard Yano-san’s awed voice behind me as I rose into the air. I could have simply jumped up there, but it was worth bothering to do it this way.
I nudged the basketball that was trapped in the scaffolding until it fell, catching it midway, to keep it from hitting her in the face. I circled the gym as I landed.
I gently chucked the ball in the direction of the arrhythmic applause I received, and it plunked perfectly into the space between Yano-san’s hands, mid-clap.
She bounced the ball once against the ground, again not extending any thanks. The ball sprang up in the wrong direction, as though she had not even thought to adjust her power or angle, and then rolled towards me. I grabbed it with my tail and tossed it back. The ball missed her, soaring past, and Yano-san trotted off after it.
For a brief while, she clumsily practiced dribbling, throwing some free throws that fell well short of the basket. Eventually, growing either tired or frustrated, she walked my way and flung the ball at me. What was with that, all of a sudden?
This time, when I caught the ball with my tail and threw it back, she caught it properly and then threw it again my way. Apparently, she had decided we were going to kill time playing catch now. I could go for at least that much.
As the ball went back and forth, back and forth, sailing behind Yano-san countless times, the sound of rain upon the roof grew stronger and stronger. We might have been shut up inside of here, but at least we were protected.
“It’s lucky for this little one that you were…here, Acchi…kun,” she said, abruptly as ever.
Little one?
“You mean the ball?”
“Yeah. Now we…get to see it living pro…perly, as a ball.”
“It’s not alive, though.”
“It might…be alive, just very quiet.”
“That’s creepy. We’re throwing it around.”
Conversation and a game of catch. I realized then that, somehow, somewhere during all this, I had started having fun.
“Isn’t there some…thing like that in…the world of Harry…Potter?”
“Well, the pictures and broomsticks talk and move around and stuff, so kind of.”
“I see, so…then don’t be…so stupid.”
“What?”
“Though I guess…we should still be care…ful.”
“What are you talking about?”
“So, Acchi…kun.”
As always, she wasn’t listening to a word I said. With how poor her control of her whole body was, as she took form to throw the ball again, the intonation of her voice was even stranger than usual.
“Mm?”
“Your night…form or your day form… Which is…the real one?”
Perhaps it was because she had thrown the ball with more vigor than before, but it went sailing over my head. The echo of its heavy impact against the wall behind me made my black droplets shiver.
“Huh?”
“Go get the…ball,” she said casually, pointing right at me. I obeyed, turning around and picking up the ball behind me with my tail.
“Throw…it.”
I threw the ball in an arc. Yano-san deftly caught it.
“Are you a human? Or are you…what you are…now?”
“No, I, uh…”
“I’ve been wonder…ing which it…is.”
This time she flung only words at me, the ball still in her hands.
“Which one…is the real one?”
What exactly was she referring to?
“You know… I…”
Though I hadn’t asked her, as per usual, she began speaking about herself.
“I’m not…either one. Day, night, there’s…no difference to me. I don’t change…at all. Everything around me changes. The time and…the people and things and at…mosphere around me change, but I am…the same, day or night. The dif…ferences mean nothing to…me.”
I was lost for words.
“But you, Acchi…kun. You change…completely…between day and night.”
What was she talking about?
“So I wonder which…one it is.”
She kept pointing straight at me, as though interrogating me.
“I’ve been thinking about this while you weren’t…around,” she playfully jabbed.
My black droplets began to quiver, quietly, under the aim of her pointing finger. She was staring straight at me, not averting her eyes.
“I want to…know.”
I drew in a single breath.
I doubted that Yano-san was all that strong or all that wise. She probably had simply developed some sort of curiosity. My human form and my monster form—which one was the real one? She had asked me something like this before, about whether I had been born in my monster form. So it made more sense to assume that this was merely an innocent question.
Regardless, to me it seemed as though her teasing was merely a means to hide her true feelings. Hiding the truth behind a different expression, just as Nakagawa-san had when Kasai criticized her.
Maybe it was merely my feelings of guilt at work, but it felt as though I was being reproached. It seemed like she was concealing her anger towards me—for what I had done while a human, naturally.
She hid this to protect herself. To protect the time that she had now, as Iguchi-san and Nakagawa-san had. If she were to grow angry, then the night would be ruined. If she were to grow angry, then the connection that the two of us shared might be severed. It was for this reason, I believed, that she suppressed her feelings and tried to reach an emotional compromise, by eliciting a response from me that she could accept.
I have no idea if my reasoning was correct. I had no idea how to answer her question in a way that she would find acceptable.
Not knowing this, I sidestepped it.
“I’m sorry.”
I couldn’t answer her question. Instead, I spat out the answer she was truly seeking, flying directly past her inquiry. It was a bit of an evasion, but honestly, it got to the point of what we both had originally been circling around. I felt this was far more meaningful than offering a reply that suited the question that Yano-san had asked, the one which concealed her true feelings. Thus, the deep question that she had asked me was quite convenient for my purposes, if I could speak the truth here now.
“For…what?” she asked, tilting her head theatrically as she rolled the ball between her fingertips.
Of course, she wanted a more concrete apology, I thought.
Normally, that kind of manipulation would have gotten my monstrous hackles up, but for today, at least, she was right to feel as she did. It was natural that she would be angry with me after what I had done.
However, apologizing felt less natural. It was not something that I could do during the day. And so, I stood up straight, bowing down my large, monstrous head towards her.
“I’m sorry.”
“O…kay?”
She was acting even more bewildered. Her eyes were big and round, like a child’s. Goggling at me as she was, she looked almost stupid.
“Um…”
I began to speak and then closed my mouth. Where had my courage gone?
Hardly ever in my life had I done something with ill intent. Even fewer times had I needed to apologize to someone for doing so. Most rarely of all had I been the sole perpetrator of the act.
All the more reason then, that I should apologize.
It was bad, after all.
Bad.
Bad?
Which was bad?
“About today…” I said and then trailed off.
Which was worse?
The thing that I had done toda
y? Or what I did day in and day out?
The explicit bullying? Or the implicit?
Motoda and Nakagawa-san, or me?
Yano-san or the rest of us?
“I’m sorry for stepping on your present for Noto-sensei.”
So many other words, other questions ran through my head, but I offered her the words I had already prepared as they were, not second-guessing them. If I let myself overthink it, I would never say anything at all.
So, it was good that I was able to say it. Still, between my nerves and everything else, I had to avert my eyes. Realizing, however, that this made my apology seem like a lie, I looked her properly in the face.
I saw it.
I took in the transformation of her face as she accepted my apology, clearly, with my own eight eyes.
Her lips twitched.
Yano-san…
“Don’t a…pologize for things that…happen during the…day.”
…did not grin at me.
Her lips still pursed, the reply she gave me was one that I had heard before.
Honestly, I had suspected that she might say such a thing, a prediction which turned out correct. So, that was all right. The words, anyway.
What I had feared most was not her words, but her expression. I didn’t know what I would do if I saw that face; that face that only I understood the meaning of, that face that she showed towards those terrible people.
In the end, however, she had not made that face.
So, that should have been just fine too, and yet…
“You aren’t…going to smile?” For some reason, these needless words came spilling from my jagged mouth.
“Hm…hmm?”
“Even after what I did?”
There was no reason for me to ask her such a question, no reason for me to put my own head on the chopping block in that way, but even a monster like me could not take back words I had already spoken.
Yano-san’s eyes opened wide. She clapped her hands theatrically, saying, “Oh.”
And then, she smiled. It was a peculiar smile.
But…not a smug one. It was a real, natural smile.
“Acchi-kun, I’m not…afraid of you.”
“Why not?”
There went my mouth, all on its own.
“Why not? Even after what I did to you?” I asked.
My voice reverberated curiously throughout the cavernous gym. The trapped sounds and smells from the daytime all seemed to vanish.
“Why?”
Yano-san tilted her head, curiously.
Even I had no idea why I had asked this question.
“Be…cause…” she said, “You look at…me, Acchi-kun.”
I had asked this without a hint of sincerity. And yet, she had answered me straight-on.
However, I did not understand the meaning of this reply. I truly did not understand.
“Did you act…ually want me…”
Her words that followed rumbled through me like thunder.
“…to be afraid of you, Acchi…kun?”
…Ah.
“That’s…weird.”
She bounced the ball once. This time, it returned properly to her fingertips. The sound of the ball striking the floor seemed to tear through the very membrane of my heart.
Then I realized.
All of the true feelings that had been trapped inside that membrane came pouring into my brain at once, and my body went numb with realization.
Oh. Oh. I see.
I could not answer her question.
It was not as though all the words had vanished from my head; it was that the true answer to her question was something that I could never allow anyone to see. As I listened to her, I finally realized that all this time I had been mistaking the name of the thing that I had kept concealed inside my heart.
I could not believe this revelation, but I no longer had the means to dismiss it.
In the place within my heart that I thought held guilt, I ached, as though pierced by a needle.
It was Yano-san’s words that had pierced me.
Right on the mark.
“Acchi…kun, you’re the weird one.”
“…”
“Just returning a…little something you…said to me on the rooftop, hee hee.”
I wanted her to be afraid of me. Just as she had said.
The reason for this was simple. If she were afraid, then I wouldn’t have to worry about her anymore. I wanted her to fear me, to hate me, to think that I was an awful person. It would be so much easier if she could just cast me aside, wouldn’t it? For her to rebuke me, to deny me, even after I had wholeheartedly apologized. That would be so much simpler. I’m sure I had believed that.
I couldn’t say that I didn’t still feel that way.
I was afraid that she would continue seeking my aid. I had so carelessly, readily, come here to apologize, had I not?
Surely, there was some part of me that was still convinced that what I had done today was right.
The name of that tarnished spot I had found within my soul… I don’t believe that its name was truly “guilt.”
“Oh…or…”
Surely not knowing the darkness of my heart, she pointed at me, her neck crooked strangely. “Are you…afraid of your…self, Acchi-kun?”
“…Huh?”
“It’s o…kay, don’t be a…fraid,” she said, in a Nausicaa-like quote, grinning not smugly but flippantly. When I didn’t reply, however, she tilted her head the other way and asked again, “Am I wrong?”
I said nothing.
“Well…then, could it…be…”
She pointed now not at me, but at herself.
“You’re a…fraid of… me?”
Out of the whole rapid-fire volley of her questions, that was the only one I could nod in reply to.
With my simple nod, a sour look came naturally over her face. She recoiled, a perfectly normal reaction.
“But…why? I haven’t done anything bad to…you.”
No, she hadn’t. She was awkward, and strange, and slow on the uptake, but she had done nothing cruel to me. What I feared about her was not as pure and simple a reason as that.
“…Because I don’t understand,” I said.
“Under…stand what?”
I believe I was trying to feign innocence here, craftily showing her only what could readily be seen on my sleeve, not wanting her to see the true darkness inside of me.
Still, I told her the truth, the truth I always carried.
“Because you’re so different from me that I don’t understand what you’re thinking.”
So there’s no point in even worrying about this, I wanted to say.
“Huh? But isn’t it…normal to be…different?”
She didn’t sound as though she was belittling me.
“To not know…what someone else is…thin…king?”
Yano-san furrowed her brow, as though she did not understand what I was saying or thinking at all. That was the face—the face I was afraid of. The face where she didn’t try at all to conceal her lack of comprehension.
“In that case, then…who do you stand with, Acchi…kun?”
Who? Various faces passed through my mind. She held her hand out in front of her face and bent her thumb.
“The in…secure, useless…girl who doesn’t ac…tually look down on anyone but still pretends she…enjoys bullying?”
Who was she talking about?
Then she bent her forefinger.
“The smart…boy who’s always play…ing around, who al…ways knows how to…act, what the people around him will…do?”
Who was she talking about?
Then she bent her middle finger.
“Our stupid classmates who feel res…ponsible for taking revenge on be…half of someone who got into a fight and had something…ter…rible done to them by a former friend and…can’t bother making up with them, only ever nodding at every…one?”
Just who the hell was she talking abo
ut?
Finally, she bent her ring and pinky finger down together and squeezed them all tight, pointing that fist at me.
“Me, you…and all of them, we’re…all different. It’s normal to be…different. So there’s…no reason why you should understand what I’m…thinking.”
“…”
“And even…so, you’re afraid of…me?”
This time, I could not nod. What she said was completely off the mark of what I had tried to convey. At the same time, part of me thought that maybe what she said was true.
As I puzzled over this, her expression changed.
Her eyebrows lowered, and the corners of her mouth rose, just a little. It was not her usual broad, smug grin, but it was still a false, constructed smile. An expression that concealed her true feelings, to an unnatural degree.
“That’s so…sad,” she said.
That moment, a shrill chiming rang from Yano-san’s pocket.
When we parted at the gates, the words, “See you tomorrow,” passed from neither of our lips.
***
As soon as I was alone, I began to run, recklessly. There was no need to, but I could not sit still, and so I ran. Before I knew it, I ended up high in the murky mountains. I slipped through the trees, passing by wild animals, and came out on the bank of a river. The rain poured down on my body, all the thoughts gone from my head.
In this form, I never grew cold. I was not cold, but I felt myself shivering, deep down inside. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, but the trembling would not go away.
Sad. Sad. That’s so…sad.
I couldn’t get her smiling face out of my head.
I had accomplished what I set out to do that night. I had apologized. And I believed that she forgave me. That should have been a good thing.
And yet, I was shivering.
Yano-san had said it was sad that I was afraid of her.
The bullying, the fact that things had become so bad for her, that I had stepped on her precious birthday present, those things were not sad.
She said that it was sad that I was afraid.
I wasn’t so stupid as to have no idea what she meant, once I thought about it. If someone was afraid of me, wouldn’t I be sad? If someone wanted me to stay away from them, wouldn’t I be sad? It wasn’t so hard to imagine.
Especially if it was someone that I believed in.
Someone who, even if it wasn’t the whole of them, there was at least some part I could believe in.
