High school smells the same as always.
Chalk dust. Sweat. Cafeteria grease that clings to your clothes long after lunch is over.
It's familiar, like an old hoodie you'd never wear in public but can't throw out.
And yet…
After last night, everything feels a little louder.
The chatter in the hallways, the squeak of sneakers on polished floors, even the scrape of chalk against the board—it's like the school itself is leaning in to listen.
"Ririku-kun, morning!"
A girl waves at me with the same boundless energy she has every morning. Too much energy for seven-thirty AM, if you ask me.
My hand rises automatically, a lazy half-wave. She beams like I just agreed to walk her down the aisle.
For a second, I almost say it.
Last night—
But the words catch in my throat. Instead, I fake a cough and say, "Forgot to eat breakfast."
She laughs and walks away.
Of course she does. People see what they want to see.
"Hey, Ririku"
Right now, someone is tapping my shoulder.
"Hey, Ririku. You look… tired. Did something happen?"
"Nope." A perfect lie, or not. It depends on who's grading. The teacher's voice drones on.
Something about formulas, or history dates, or dangling modifiers.
I'm not listening.
"Ririku," the teacher snaps, "are you paying attention?"
I nod automatically. I am paying attention—to the thump of my own heartbeat, to the memory of dirt shifting under boots, to the metallic scrape that still rings in my ears.
"What's the answer?"
I don't answer. Didn't even hear the question.
The class snickers. The teacher sighs.
This is fine. This is normal. Teachers always sound like they're buzzing. Like flies on a corpse.
And none of them would believe me if I said I heard shovels digging at midnight.
It's not like I dislike people. I have a family. A pretty decent one, actually. My sisters, for example. They're a little too good at wrestling moves, but they're loud in a way that makes life feel… alive. It's just that..
Making friends would lower my intensity as a human.
I think I said something of the sort.
As to when, it was right before spring break: Saturday, March 25th, in the
afternoon of the day our school held its closing ceremony.
I was wandering
around aimlessly near the school I go to, kyoetsu High.
We're talking about me, who has zero affiliation with any school club.
I really was just wandering around, for no reason whatsoever.
If you're wondering if I was thrilled that spring break would start the next day,
I was by no means excited.
As a rule, students are happy about any cluster of days off. Not just spring
break, but summer break, winter break, Golden Week, and so on. Even I was
happy for the most part that our third trimester was over and that spring break
had begun, but at the same time, long vacations also meant having far more
time on my hands than I knew what to do with.
Especially spring break, since we don't even have homework.
Staying at home would feel a bit odd.
Anyway─with closing ceremonies over, I went to my classroom to receive my
report card, and we were dismissed with an okay, see you next school year, but
I hesitated to go straight home. Yet it wasn't as if I had anywhere else to go,
which meant loitering around school like some sort of suspicious fellow.
I had no particular goal.
I did it less to fill time than to kill time.
While I bike to school, my bicycle was actually still parked in the school
lot─another expression of my intention to not go home yet.
You could say I was going for a walk.
Of course, I'm not the health-conscious type.
While it may have seemed like a good idea to kill time inside school if killing
time is what I wanted to do, just as I found being at home odd, in its own way it
was odd being at school too─though it may have been the afternoon after
closing ceremonies, a lot of people were in the middle of their club activities.
I don't like people who try too hard, but I do respect it.
Well, it's not like the students at my school are that enthusiastic about their
clubs. The only real exception was the girls' basketball team after this
monstrously huge rookie joined as the result of some sort of mistake. Most of
the other clubs, even the sports teams, were the kinds of outfits that were
actually happy to receive participation trophies.
And that's why (well, there's not any actual reason why) after aimlessly
circling around the school a few times, I had begun to think that yeah, it really is
about time for me to pick up my bike from inside the school and head home─I'm hungry, after all─when I came across an unexpected turn of events.