The next day, the atmosphere in Class 2-B felt like a battlefield filled with landmines planted by soldiers experiencing mass PMS.
As soon as I stepped through the creaking sliding door—a sound I usually ignored, but this time rang like an air-raid siren—I could feel the social gravity in the room shift unnaturally.
There is an unwritten law of physics in high school: A large social mass will always pull smaller objects into its orbit.
However, this morning, that law was broken.
Minamikata Miwa sat in her seat, alone. Surrounding her was a one-meter empty zone, a "belt of asteroids" of isolation deliberately created by the other inhabitants of the class.
There was no longer a circle of girls crowding around her just to gossip about the latest K-Pop idols or to ask for annoying little favors like borrowing lipstick or copying math homework.
She appeared focused on reading a fashion magazine, but even from five meters away, I could see her fingers trembling slightly, flipping pages at a speed that made no sense for a human actually reading.
In another corner—the throne of power in this class—The Queen, Shirayuki Madoka, sat with her legs crossed with the elegance of a tyrant planning a public execution.
Her sharp gaze could melt steel, or at least make a mental coward like me want to go into eternal hibernation immediately. Her eyes were fixed on Minami for a few seconds, then slowly—like a predator finding a disturbing foreign scent—her gaze shifted and pierced right toward me.
Shit. Her animal instincts were sharp.
I immediately lowered my head, trying to become a lifeless stone or perhaps a piece of moss clinging to the wall. I pulled out my Japanese literature reference book, hoping to disappear into an ancient text that was no less boring than my life.
However, that peace was merely a mirage in the middle of this crazy social desert.
Brak!
The sound of the desk being slammed didn't come from my desk, but the shock effect made my heart nearly leap out of my throat. Madoka stood up. Every stomp of her high heels as she walked toward my desk echoed throughout the room, silencing the conversations of other students as if she were carrying a giant mute button.
Even Akabane Kazuya, the prince of light who usually mediated all conflicts, could only stare with an anxious expression polished with an aura of a "good person" that was completely useless in this situation.
"Oi, Nakamura."
Madoka's voice was low, vibrating with suppressed anger, and full of intimidation usually found in low-level mafia bosses in failed live-action movies.
I looked up with the lazy face that was my best defense. "Yes? What is it, Madoka-san? If you want to ask about the math assignment, I'm not the right person. Besides, you know, my math grades are as pathetic as my future prospects."
"Don't joke with me, trash," Madoka slammed my desk. This time right in front of my nose. I could feel the vibrations on the wooden surface travel into my bones.
"Lately, Minami has become strange. She started disobeying, talking about unclear things, and yesterday she dared to shout in front of me. At first, I was confused why a submissive and stupid girl like her could turn so rude..."
Madoka narrowed her eyes which wore too much eyeliner, bringing her face close enough that I could smell her pungent expensive perfume—a scent that reminded me of a cosmetic shop on fire.
"...but yesterday afternoon, I saw her coming out of the pavilion building with you. You and that arrogant bitch Kurokawa, right? What conspiracy are you two planning to ruin my friend?"
The entire class suddenly went silent, as quiet as a mass funeral. Kurokawa Reina's name was a taboo in Class 2-B. She was a foreign entity, an intelligence too pure for an ecosystem built on lies and group "mood."
"So what?" I asked flatly. I tried to maintain my reliable "weary sloth eyes" face, even though in my heart I was counting how many seconds were left before I had to seek shelter under the desk.
"So what? You ask so what?!" Madoka laughed cynically, her laughter sounding like grinding broken glass. She turned toward Minami who was now standing, her face pale as if all her blood had just been sucked out by a vampire.
"Minami, so it's because of this trash that you dared to oppose me? You're hanging out with someone who has no future and this disgusting loner? No wonder your brain is broken! You've been infected by his loser nature!"
"Madoka, stop! Don't talk like that!" Minami stood up, her voice trembling violently but with a firm tone I had never heard before. It was the voice of someone who had just found their backbone in a pile of jelly.
"Shut up, Minami! I'm talking to this bacteria!"
Madoka looked back at me, her eyes flashing with pure hatred. "Listen, Nakamura. I don't know what poison you shoved into her head in that weird place, but stay away from her. You bring a bad influence. You're just a loser trying to pull others into your pathetic hole of loneliness so that you have friends, right? You want everyone to be miserable like you so you don't feel alone anymore, right?!"
I took a long breath. So long that I felt the oxygen in this class was running out. I really hate energy-draining drama like this. To me, drama is something that should happen on TV, where I can turn it off by pressing the remote button when I start feeling nauseous. But here? There is no off button.
"Bad influence, huh?" I stood up slowly, putting my hands in my pockets so people wouldn't see my hands which were actually trembling slightly from adrenaline.
"Listen, Madoka-san. You've misunderstood one big thing. I didn't pull her anywhere. Someone like me doesn't need 'friends' to legitimize my existence. She came knocking on the door herself because she was fed up with the 'peace' you forced upon her. She's bored of being a pet in your private zoo."
"What did you say?! How dare you—!"
"You call her a friend, but you treat her like an accessory that must always match the color of the clothes you're wearing that day," I continued, my voice now sharper, piercing the air like a scalpel dissecting a social tumor in this class.
"You feel she is 'strange' now because for the first time in her life full of fakery, she has an opinion. You feel threatened because your favorite doll can suddenly speak without its strings being pulled. To you, anyone who has a personality outside of your control is a 'bad influence'. So, if speaking honestly is considered a disease, then yes, I am the carrier of the plague. And honestly? It's much healthier than living in a lie led by an ego as big as a hot air balloon."
Madoka's face turned crimson, a color gradation that reminded me of a tomato that was about to rot. Her hands trembled with mounting rage.
"You... you are truly disgusting... Who do you think you are to talk to me like that?!"
"Madoka, enough!"
This time, the long-awaited Hero, Akabane Kazuya, finally intervened. He stood up and held Madoka's shoulder gently—an act so "princely" it made me want to vomit.
"Don't continue this. This isn't a good way to talk in class."
"But Kazuya—! This trash insulted me!"
"That's enough." Kazuya looked at me with an unreadable gaze—half disappointed because I ruined the mood, half impressed because I said what he didn't dare to say, yet still wrapped in a nauseating "good person" aura.
He is the type of person who will smile while giving you poison because he feels it's the "good" thing to do.
Madoka snapped Kazuya's hand away, gave me one last look of hatred that could wither a plant near the window instantly, then stomped out of the class with heavy steps. The classroom door was slammed until it shook.
The silence that followed her departure felt very heavy. All eyes were on me—some afraid, some disgusted, and some staring with a strange curiosity.
I sat back down, feeling all my energy for the next month had just been spent in that five-minute debate. I needed to sleep for three decades to recover.
Minami walked closer to my desk. Her steps were hesitant. I could see tears welling in the corners of her eyes, glistening under the annoying classroom neon lights.
"Izumi... I'm sorry. Because of me, you... you became the target of Madoka's anger."
"Don't think about it," I cut her off shortly. I pulled out a can of strawberry milk that was already somewhat warm from my desk drawer.
"Besides, my name has been bad from the start. In this school, my name is equivalent to a war criminal in a history book. Adding a bit of a 'bad influence' label won't change anything. My reputation is already at the bottom of the abyss, so a little extra mud won't ruin the view."
I sipped my strawberry milk, trying to calm my still noisy heartbeat.
"You'd better think about how you'll face PE class later," I continued while staring out the window. "It seems after this incident, not a single girl in this class will want to pass the ball to you. You will become a permanent bench player in their social drama."
Minami was silent for a moment. She stared at Madoka's back as she walked away in the corridor through the classroom window, then she looked at me. A thin smile—very thin and fragile, yet looking more real than any smile I had ever seen on her face—appeared on her lips. She wiped her tears with a quick motion.
"It's okay. If no one gives me the ball, I'll just run around by myself. Like you said yesterday... being independent is cool, right?"
I only snorted and went back to staring out the window, watching the slow-moving clouds, indifferent to the human drama below.
"Fool," I muttered. "Being a loner isn't cool at all. It's tiring, boring, and you have to talk to yourself often so you don't forget how to make a sound."
But, as I saw Minami's reflection in the window glass—the girl who was starting to learn to stand on her own two feet without moving strings—somehow, the sting in my elbow felt a little more meaningful.
Yesterday's incident, when Naoya pinned my head with his strong arm to force me into that room, might not have been a total disaster.
Maybe, being the carrier of the honesty plague in the middle of a class full of social living corpses isn't such a bad job. Even though I still hate having to sweat because of other people's emotions.
"Izumi?"
"What now?"
"Thank you... for the milk."
"It's my own milk, I didn't give it to you."
Minami laughed a little. A laugh that this time was truly clear, without any hint of anxiety behind it. And to me, the loner who was used to silence, that sound of laughter felt a little... disturbing. But the kind of disturbance I might be able to get used to.