Puddles
I had always thought the concrete floor in the school restroom was an ugly color.
That perpetually damp color, like a rag soaked over and over and left to dry in the shade.
And now my face was pressed against it. My left cheek could clearly feel the tiny bumps in the floor, along with something sticky.
Probably water left by the last person.
"Hey, Yoshino, weren't you looking at the teacher funny yesterday?"
A shoe tip struck my side.
Not hard, but enough to make me curl up.
It was Miura, the leader of that group in class.
He crouched down, pinched my bangs between two fingers, and forced my head up.
"I wasn't," I said, my voice calmer than I had imagined.
"You weren't?" He tilted his head with an exaggerated look of confusion, and the lackeys around him laughed along.
"But Tanaka said he saw you glaring at the teacher. Disrespecting teachers isn't good, you know, honor student."
I knew what would happen next.
They would drag me into the innermost stall, press the flush button, and shove my head into the toilet.
Or make me kneel on the floor and lick the tips of their shoes.
Or, like now-Miura pulled a lighter from his pocket.
"Your hair's getting a little long, isn't it?" he said with a smile, a blue flame springing from the lighter.
As the flame approached, I closed my eyes.
Heat danced at the ends of my bangs, and I smelled the stink of burning protein.
It was faint. The laughter around me sounded as though it came through water, muffled and distorted.
"Whoa, it's really burning!"
"It stinks!"
"Like burning bugs."
Miura let go, and my head knocked against the floor again. He stood up and brushed nonexistent dust off his trouser legs.
"Remember to get a haircut tomorrow, Yoshino." His voice came from above my head. "Otherwise, next time it won't just be your hair."
The footsteps faded. The restroom door opened and closed, and finally everything fell silent.
I lay on the floor without getting up right away.
My eyes fixed on the stark white fluorescent light on the ceiling. One end of the tube had already blackened, like a necrotic blood vessel.
A moth fluttered inside the light cover, making faint tapping sounds.
Mom had said that morning that I had been coming home later and later.
I said club activities were running longer.
She smiled and said, "You've made friends too, Junpei. That's wonderful."
I nodded and stuffed the fried egg into my mouth.
The yolk was overcooked, with a ring of dark brown around its edge, like burned hair.
My knees shook as I climbed off the floor. I went to the sink and turned on the tap.
As cold water washed over my face, I raised my head to look in the mirror.
A small lock of hair over my forehead was blackened and curled, like withered grass.
There was dirt on my cheek and a small bruise at the corner of my eye-from hitting it when I was pushed down the stairs last week.
The inside of my lip was split, and the taste of rust spread through my mouth.
I stared at the person in the mirror.
Was this person me?
Was this person with empty eyes and an expressionless face, like a breathing corpse, Junpei Yoshino?
The sound of water echoed through the empty restroom. I turned off the tap and wiped my face with my sleeve.
My sleeve was wet, but it was better than going home with dirt on my face.
The hallway was quiet.
School had already let out, and most of the students had left.
Sunlight slanted through the west-facing windows, cutting sharp patches of light across the floor.
I walked along the edges of those patches, as though walking on a blade.
The shoe lockers were at the end of the hallway. When I opened mine, a few scraps of paper fluttered down.
They were pieces of a movie poster.
The poster for my favorite movie, "Worm Man 3," which I had only put up inside yesterday, had now been torn to shreds.
On one scrap, glasses and a mustache had been drawn over the protagonist's twisted face in ballpoint pen.
Beside it was written, "Disgusting"
"Go die"
"Freak"
I crouched down and picked up the pieces one by one, my fingers trembling.
Instead, I wasn't angry-I felt nothing at all.
My chest was empty, as though a hole had been dug through it, letting the wind blow in through the front and out through my back.
I stuffed the pieces into my pocket and closed the locker.
The metal door reflected my blurry image. That scorched lock of hair stuck up over my forehead, looking ridiculous.
As I walked out of the school gates, the setting sun was sinking between the tall buildings.
The sky was stained a sickly orange-red, like an inflamed wound.
I walked along the riverside path. Few people used this route.
Weeds overran the bank, and plastic bags and empty cans floated in the water.
Occasionally, a crow perched on the railing, stared at me with black eyes, then flew away with a hoarse caw.
I sat on a bench, took out my earphones from inside, and put them on.
My playlist was full of movie soundtracks.
I turned the volume up loud, loud enough to drown out that buzzing noise in my head.
But it couldn't drown it out.
That laughter.
Those looks.
Those touches.
Those words.
-"Is your mom as weird as you?"
-"Look at him. So disgusting."
-"Why don't you just die?"
I closed my eyes.
If I disappeared right now, would anyone notice?
Mom would cry, wouldn't she?
She would cry for a long time.
And then? Then she would go on living, like everyone else.
Time would wash everything away, until all that remained was a vague notion: "Oh, I once had a son, but he died."
Would Miura and the others remember?
Probably not.
At most, they would mention during a conversation, "That freak Yoshino apparently killed himself," then shrug and move on to the next topic.
The world wouldn't stop turning because it had lost one Junpei Yoshino.
That realization frightened me and calmed me at the same time.
When it was completely dark, I got up to go home. The streetlights came on one after another, casting broken patches of light across the river.
The neon signs of the distant shopping street began to flash, like the breathing gills of some enormous creature.
The light outside our door was on. Through the window, I could see Mom busy in the kitchen.
I stood outside watching for a long time. Only when she turned to look out the window did I push the door open and go in.
"Welcome home, Junpei." She wore an apron and held a ladle. "You're a little late today. Are club activities keeping you that busy?"
"Yeah." I bent down to change my shoes.
"Go wash your hands. Dinner's almost ready. I made your favorite hamburger steaks today."
Three dishes and a soup were laid out on the dining table.
The hamburger steaks were cooked just right, with blanched broccoli beside them.
Steam rose from the miso soup, which had tofu and kelp in it. Everything was as perfect as a scene from a family drama.
I sat down and pressed my palms together. "Thank you for the meal."
Mom sat across from me, resting her chin in her hands as she watched me eat.
"Is it good?"
"Yeah."
"You seem to have lost weight lately, Junpei. You need to eat more."
"Yeah."
"How's... school?"
My chopsticks paused. I looked up and smiled at her.
"It's good."
"Have you made any friends?"
"...Yeah."
Her eyes lit up. "Really? That's wonderful! When will you bring them over? I can make lots of good food."
"Maybe another time." I lowered my head and shoveled rice into my mouth.
Silence spread across the dining table.
There was only the sound of chewing and the faint clink of bowls and chopsticks. After a while, Mom spoke softly.
"Junpei, if anything's troubling you, you can tell me."
I looked up. She was watching me, her eyes gentle and worried.
That look pierced my heart like a needle.
"Nothing's wrong, really," I said, trying to keep my voice light. "It's just... exams are coming up, and I'm a little tired."
"Don't push yourself too hard." She reached out to touch my head, but her hand stopped in midair-she had seen that scorched lock of hair.
Her fingers trembled.
"Your hair..."
"I accidentally did it with a curling iron," I said quickly. "I wanted to try a new hairstyle, but I messed it up."
A lie.
We both knew it was a lie.
But she didn't expose it. She only withdrew her hand and forced a smile.
"I see... Be more careful next time, then."
"Yeah."
After dinner, I helped wash the dishes.
Water ran over my fingers, warm.
Mom wiped the table, humming a song I didn't know. Everything was so ordinary, so cozy.
Yet it felt as though a block of ice had been stuffed into my stomach.
I returned to my room, closed the door, and the world fell quiet.
Movie magazines, DVDs, and the monster figures I collected sat on my desk.
I opened the movie forum I often visited.
My username was "Sakamaki," taken from the name of a villain in an old movie.
Nobody on the forum knew who I was. Nobody knew what I was like at school.
Here, I was just a film fan who liked bizarre movies.
There was a new thread today, titled: "Does anyone else think the ending of 'Worm Man' is actually a metaphor for society's oppression of minorities?"
I clicked on it and skimmed through.
The original poster analyzed the scenes where humans hunted Worm Man, arguing that they symbolized mainstream society's rejection and persecution of "abnormal people."
Some replies agreed, and others argued against it.
I stared at the screen for a long time, then began to type.
"Worm Man never chose to become a monster. Human fear and malice forced him to become one.
In the end, he devoured the town not because he wanted to, but because this world gave him no other way to survive."
I hit send. A few seconds later, the first reply appeared.
"Very well said. That's exactly how this world works. It treats everyone who's different as a monster."
Another reply: "But Worm Man killed innocent people too."
I typed: "Those 'innocent' people stood by while he was bullied and cheered while he was hunted.
Their 'innocence' came only from standing on the side of the majority."
The conversation continued.
Some agreed, and some argued.
The light from the screen lit up my face in the darkness, and the monster posters on the wall.
Monsters.
I stared at my hands. My fingers were long and slender, my skin pale, with faint blue-green veins visible beneath it.
What if I turned into a monster?
What if, like Worm Man, I could take all those people who mocked me and hurt me and-
No.
I closed the webpage and leaned back in my chair.
That was a movie.
It was fiction.
In the real world, monsters only got killed or locked in cages for people to stare at.
An ambulance siren sounded outside the window, drawing closer, then fading into the distance.
Like some kind of wail.
I took out my phone, opened the camera, and switched to selfie mode.
My face appeared on the screen-pale and expressionless.
A face with a ridiculous tuft of singed hair over its forehead.
I stared at that face until it became unfamiliar, until I felt that the person on the screen wasn't me, but a stranger who looked exactly like me.
Then I pressed the shutter.
Click.
A flash of white light.
The photo froze.
The person in the picture had his eyes open in the darkness, his gaze hollow, like a corpse that had only just stopped breathing.
I saved the photo and named it "Today."
Then I turned off my phone and lay down on the bed.
There were fine cracks in the ceiling, like winding rivers on a map.
I stared at those cracks, imagining them spreading and widening until the entire ceiling collapsed and buried me underneath.
That wouldn't be so bad.
When I closed my eyes, I heard that laughter again.
And Miura's voice: "Remember to get a haircut tomorrow, Yoshino."
Tomorrow.
I'd have to go to school again tomorrow.
Have to see those people again.
Have to play the "obedient" Junpei Yoshino again.
My stomach cramped, and I curled up, burying my face in the pillow.
The pillow was soft and smelled of sunshine.
Mom aired the bedding in the sun every week, even when I told her she didn't need to go to so much trouble.
"Sunlight kills germs," she always said with a smile. "And bedding smells like sunshine after you air it out. It helps you sleep well."
The smell of sunshine.
But all I could smell was the stench of my own burnt hair, and that lingering rusty taste in my mouth.
My last thought before falling asleep was: If only tomorrow wouldn't come.
If only time could stop at this moment, in this dark, quiet room where I was all alone.
If only.
Fortunately, I still had family.
That was my last bottom line, and my last line of defense.
Mom was my most precious family, even if her lifestyle habits weren't so good.
Even if her cooking wasn't all that tasty, I still loved her.
She had a bad habit of smoking... I hated seeing her smoke, afraid that it would take her away from me.
Tomorrow would come, and there were countless tomorrows.