Cheerful Girl

Sanke has always harbored a deep affection for his schoolmate, whom he fondly calls 'the cheerful girl.' Finally, he resolves to approach her; however, as he does so, his eagerness to get to know her and his curiosity will lead him into unforeseen circumstances...

Index

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 5

Since I was going to participate in the inter-school athletics tournament, the teacher recommended that I train during the three weeks leading up to the event. At first, I followed his advice: I stayed after school to run on the school track. There was a beauty in the splendid orange of the sunset that tinted everything and in the freshness of the autumn air that surrounded me, but, on the other hand, when the bell rang, I usually just wanted to go back home. So, my discipline dwindled after a few days.

A couple of times during that period, I went to play ball with my friends, and deep down, I considered it part of the training I needed. Also, taking advantage of the fact that there were no exams on the horizon, we met up quite frequently after school.

I'm not proud to recount these things, but that's what happened.

Later, several days before the tournament, I went to Kazu's house to spend the afternoon. Pier was also there; however, Emell had a commitment and couldn't attend. As usual among us, we spent our time playing video games and talking about whatever, as long as it was something trivial.

Or almost always.

"Look, that's Sanke running," Kazu joked, referring to a character on the screen.

"Do you no longer stay after school to run?" Pier asked me.

"I'll have to do it these days."

"However, isn't all that effort just to be with the President too much?" Kazu inquired, not taking his eyes off the screen.

"What? I don't do it for her."

"You're lying!" Kazu exclaimed.

"Is it so hard to talk to her directly? We're really telling you," Pier added.

"If confessing is so embarrassing for you, why don't you write her a letter then?"

"That's a girl thing," Pier remarked.

"Well, then write her a note. Or send her a message."

"Ha, ha! 'Dear President: I hereby notify you that I've fallen in love with you.'"

"Will you guys be quiet?" I exclaimed.

The image of the letter I had written to her a while back flashed briefly in my mind—the letter I kept between the pages of an old book in a secret corner of my room.

"And it's not embarrassment; it's just, haven't you noticed? She's always with her friends."

"Ah, so that's the problem? Easy solution: we distract her friends so that you can be alone with her, what do you think?" Pier suggested.

"Don't help me, please, I've already had enough of your 'help,'" I said, clearly alluding to the incident of the confession made on my behalf.

"Again with that... Are you still mad at us? We were giving you a hand," Kazu said.

"I'm not mad, I told you. But you went too far. And that's enough talking about that, it's my business."

I couldn't help but miss Emell's moderation, which would have balanced out Pier and Kazu's persistent comments.

"Alright, but I still think it's too much effort."

"Just write her a note. It's simpler."

That was the last time we had a discussion about my romantic situation. That had been my intention.

When it got dark, I decided it was time to head back home. My plan was to go to bed early to rest properly and, the next day, to at least take a couple of laps on the athletics track, so that no one could say I wasn't training.

I left Kazu's house and started walking without haste. It wouldn't be a short walk, and it was better to go slowly to avoid getting tired. You see, on that occasion, I had decided to take a long route back.

One that led me through the neighborhood where the cheerful girl lived.

Being nighttime, I considered there was less risk of running into any of her friends. And well into the night, I set off.

The sky was blue and peaceful. The light was provided by the tall street lamps and, above all, by the full moon, firm, large, and bright, gazing down at me from above the rooftops. Traffic lights were scattered along the avenue like colorful dots splashing the darkness of the night without drawing too much attention. A few pedestrians could be seen, heading back to their respective homes with their heads down.

Aside from the few people walking on the street, an occasional vehicle passed by, and in the distance, I could hear the train passing—the train that took many students to school every morning and took them back home in the evenings. There weren't many more signs of life unfolding before me than that. The contrast with the characteristic rush hour hustle and bustle was absolute and total.

It seemed later than it actually was.

It was truly a beautiful night, peaceful, pleasant.

Trying to look innocent, I walked the nearly deserted streets. And although I didn't notice it then, as I ventured deeper into the neighborhood where the cheerful girl lived, I encountered fewer people and fewer cars, and I no longer heard the train passing.

It would have been impossible for me to recognize the streets I had walked earlier. The only thing that assured me I was getting close to my secret destination was the feeling of familiarity that the large houses and wide, some tree-lined sidewalks generated.

Somewhere, my mind suddenly stopped. Few houses were lit, which struck me as somewhat strange, but behind some window or curtains, the cheerful girl could be there. And if she saw me lurking around the neighborhood, walking down her street, looking suspiciously or furtively in all directions, what would she think? And furthermore, if she recognized me, what would she think of me?

Somewhat uncomfortable with the products of my restless mind, I veered off course at the first corner I reached. I scanned the street name as I walked, but there was no sign indicating it. I walked one, two, three blocks, and nowhere did the name appear. I was about to change direction when I noticed someone behind me. Glancing back briefly, I saw him: a seemingly young man, dressed in a shirt and trousers like an office worker, but unkempt, with a generally disheveled appearance. The shadows that covered his face and his lackluster movements exuded concern, or was it just indifference and apathy towards life? He didn't look particularly threatening, but neither harmless. Perhaps the absence of people around and the negative aura emanating from the man unsettled me. Consequently, I decided to turn right at the next corner. I was going to circle the block; keep covering ground. The man continued straight ahead on the unnamed street, as I could see from the corner of my eye. I turned left at the next corner to continue along the street parallel to the unnamed one. Halfway down the block, I encountered the end of an alley perpendicular to the nameless street, dividing the block in two. The alley was narrow and dimly lit by the faint glow of a couple of old lampposts. Bulky objects hid in the shadows, their square-shaped protrusions giving them a haunting appearance. There was no way I was going in there, and I'm glad I didn't. So, I continued on my way, and upon reaching the next corner, I turned left again. The air grew dense with palpable uncertainty; I no longer paid attention to the facades of the buildings, and the illusion of finding the cheerful girl under a cone of whitish light had vanished without a trace.

Behind me, the moon was glowing, and it cast a shadow in front of me that I couldn't avoid stepping on.

As I reached the corner of Street C* with that nameless street, I was instantly enveloped in a slightly dense and completely atypical fog. Through it, the already blackened silhouettes of the city blurred, lost their sharpness, and merged with one another, creating an amorphous urban tangle. I made a complete turn and noticed that there was no fog in one direction only. It was precisely in the direction of the street with no name, from which I had veered away when I saw that mysterious man walking behind me. And indeed, thanks to the absence of fog, I saw the same man moving slowly toward me. His appearance had not changed in the slightest: he was still lost in thought, immersed in who knows what kind of thoughts, paying no attention to his surroundings...

Until he passed by the other end of the alley, the one that opened onto the street with no name.

A figure emerged behind him and followed him. I could barely make it out because the man was standing between that figure and me, eclipsing it.

Despite appearing so absorbed in his world, the man soon realized there was someone behind him.

He turned around, and immediately jumped back in terror, stumbling, almost falling.

Then I distinguished a female figure, apparently a young woman, wrapped in a simple but elegant short dress of the purest white; it was she who was following the stranger. With her facing him, she took a swat at him, which he narrowly avoided as her hand sliced through the air. Visibly terrified, the man tried to run, but the woman grabbed his arm, preventing his escape. The man writhed violently, trying to free himself from the girl who, despite her slender and somewhat fragile appearance, held onto him with impressive strength and wouldn't let go. The man desperately threw punches with his free hand and knees. She released him without flinching or showing any signs of pain. Quickly, the man attempted to run in my direction again.

His gaze found me standing on the corner, motionless.

His eyes were wide, and his lips trembled uncontrollably.

His face contorted.

He opened his mouth to scream at me.

"...!"

And a knife slicing into his throat drowned out his cry for help.

As soon as the knife was withdrawn, the man fell to the ground like a bag of bones, hitting the huge sidewalk tiles with a dry thud. Without wasting any time, the girl knelt in front of the corpse, opened his chest with the knife, and broke his ribs with bare hands. The sound of his bones amid the silence of the night sent a shiver down my spine. Those delicate, white hands ripped the heart out of the body, and then the lady sank her teeth into it. With each bite, the poor man’s blood could be heard clearly splattering.

I wasn't breathing anymore; I was drenched in cold sweat, and my stomach was twisted into a knot or two or hundreds.

Mid-meal, the young woman noticed a presence.

She suddenly looked at me; in her half-lit face, the stains of someone else's blood took on a violet or indigo hue, just like on her dress and arms.

Her fiery eyes went out instantly, and in less than a second, she ran to hide in the darkness of the alley, like a rat suddenly exposed to light.

Incredibly swift, her movements had an unsettling grace. In her escape, a silver medal that she happened to be wearing danced in the air in front of her chest, and a strange symbol gleamed in the moonlight.

I timidly exhaled a bit of air, as if relearning how to do so.

I managed to move with trembling legs. I began to distance myself from there.

A larger and less human silhouette than the young woman's emerged from the alley and slowly moved toward me. It had a pair of giant red eyes, and it didn't take them off me.

The silhouette grabbed the corpse by the legs and dragged it toward the alley. It was the last thing I saw before finally reacting, turning around, and running to safety.

I ran with all my might, like never before in my life. I could have won the inter-school athletics tournament.

I turned a corner at random and leaned against the wall of a building. I breathed heavily, but I breathed. My whole body shook from tremors. My heart, unable to beat any faster, throbbed within my chest. Something like nausea welled up in my stomach, but there was nothing left to empty. Dazed, disturbed, I let myself fall and lay on the sidewalk for a few minutes.

I thought I was going to die of fear.

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Chapter 6

Days passed after the horrifying incident, then weeks, and finally, months. And the relentless march of time on the clock's hands, on the pages of the calendar, and in the passage of the sun and the moon across the sky soon pushed the memories of the anguish I had suffered to the back of my mind.

I had been distressed, but a man—a fellow human being—had died.

I told my parents about what had happened, omitting the chilling details and anything that might make me seem like anything less than a stalker, so to speak. In the end, what I told them was that a man had been attacked and murdered on the street...

"Maybe he was involved in some kind of trouble..." my mother speculated.

"Some places are dangerous at night," my father pronounced.

Neither on television nor in the newspapers was there any mention of the death of a middle-aged man in our city, nor was his disappearance even acknowledged. I reasoned that the man must have been a loner, without family or friends, and no one had noticed his absence, or perhaps there was no one who cared enough to claim his body. And his absence at work would likely go unnoticed if the unfortunate man was either unemployed or his job didn't care if he died. There are companies like that.

The bellow of desperation, the sound of his ribs being cracked open, the gushing of his blood, and the sound it made when it collided with the floor quickly receded, fading from my bodily memory, just like the shivers, violent tremors, shortness of breath followed by nervous agitation, the twisting of my innocent insides, and the deluge of cold sweat that had drenched me.

But what I could not and would not forget was what my eyes had seen.

The girl's white dress, gleaming like a second moon, which was soon covered in stains, seas, of a blue-red.

Her graceful and feminine movements, akin to a dancer, yet precise, lethal, ruthless, merciless.

The dress and the girl's hair billowing with every movement, an incongruous freshness in stark contrast to the gruesome scene, orchestrating that horrifying scene.

Cheeks painted silver, a tacit smile with cold, motionless lips, before her mouth and hands were stained with the precious vital fluid, completing an abhorrent act of cannibalism.

Blood flowing in a torrent, staining the skin that looked like the finest porcelain, beautiful yet demonic.

Eyes aflame like torches, like fires suddenly extinguished, as if they had been rained upon, perhaps acquiring a more human aspect but also devoid of soul, expressionless, dead. Like the man lying in the middle of the sidewalk.

And at the end of that chain of horrifying and disturbing visions, a mysterious and unknown symbol, gleaming in the darkness of the night, begging to be seen by me.

My eyes were wide open. The light had been off for quite some time—not only in my room but throughout the neighborhood and the house. My head rested heavily on the pillow, and my body had already settled comfortably between the mattress and the blanket. So why couldn't I fall asleep, when it was so late at night?

The answer to that question was quite simple: because my mind refused to be silent, because it was hyperactive at a time when the neighborhood, the suburb, and the house with the green gate fell into a deep slumber. In just a few hours, as the sun would ascend once more into the sky, I would be competing in the athletics tournament. As I mentioned before, I hadn't gone through the trials and qualified for the competition out of a love for sports, but rather to create an opportunity to talk to the cheerful girl and perhaps confess my feelings once and for all, although deep down, I admitted that I couldn't be too optimistic about the response I would receive. Furthermore, even though I had qualified more than two weeks ago, I hadn't planned or imagined how I could have any kind of conversation with the cheerful girl without her friends being present. During that time, I hadn't really thought about it, and moreover, in light of the whole story, my decision had seemed impulsive, taken hastily. But that's how things had unfolded, and now I lay there with my eyes wide open in the darkness, completely unsettled. My mind was showing me a variety of scenarios for the next day: being the fastest and winning the race by a wide margin, which would reveal me as an unexpectedly talented runner, thanks to the use of a power I didn't even know I had, one I would discover at the most critical moment—like in television series—or battling neck and neck for first place and winning by a hair, or losing by that same hair to complete a more than dignified performance—dare I say impressive, considering the school's prize history. And nothing worse than that, because fantasies can be excessively optimistic or pessimistic, depending on one's mentality, but never realistic; for realism, there's reality. Amidst my chaotic musings, I began to think that winning the event or making it onto the podium would make the cheerful girl take notice of me, see me as someone interesting, with a talent previously hidden or unsuspected, and certainly surprising. From there, becoming closer was only a step away. So, my participation in the tournament had become a serious matter.

I couldn't shake the optimistic feeling that I really had a chance to win. "If I was the fastest in the trials, I can also be the fastest against students from other schools... And I have to admit that the cheerful girl 'helped' me on the track... If I use that 'trick' again and give it my all, I can really win!"

Only when my brain shut down from exhaustion and my mind could no longer replay happy or exciting scenes did I finally fall asleep.

The alarm clock failed to wake me up the next morning. At some hour I never found out, I opened my eyes slightly and twisted in my sleep due to the light, natural light right in my face. After tossing and turning on the mattress for a bit, an idea quickly crystallized in my brain: yes, I was running late for the tournament. As soon as I remembered that the day had arrived, I sprang out of bed, got dressed, and rushed out of the house. I barely had time to glance at the clock...

During my journey, my cellphone started to ring. I was receiving a call from an unlisted number. It was very unusual for someone who wasn't a family member to call me at that hour, so I couldn't help but be surprised.

"Good morning, Sanke! It's Kari... from school," said a sweet and lively voice on the other end of the line.

"Ah... Kari... Yes..."

"Are you okay? We're waiting for you to go to the athletics tournament."

"Yes, sorry, I had a delay."

I must have been embarrassed to offer such a clumsy justification or excuse, even if it couldn't be said that it was untrue.

"Alright, we're counting on you today."

"Yes! I'm about to arrive; just a few minutes..."

"Good, we'll see you then."

"See you..."

I hung up the phone, already feeling that I might have disappointed the cheerful girl... and despite my irresponsibility, she had spoken to me as friendly and sweet as always, as if my lateness didn't bother her, as if there was nothing wrong with making everyone wait.

"Ah, but if I win today..." I dared to think.

As I got off the bus, I sprinted in the direction of the school. Although the participants of the tournament weren't required to attend classes, the school's entrance was our meeting point to depart for the sports complex where the event would take place.

From a distance, I spotted one of the buses that would take us to the complex. A crowd of young people and a few adults had already gathered on the sidewalk. Due to my rush, I arrived visibly out of breath.

"How foolish," I thought I heard Aira say.

"Good morning. I apologize for being late, really," I said, bowing respectfully.

Hana gave me a disgusted look, as if she were looking at someone unpleasant.

"Are you okay, Sanke?" the cheerful girl asked, as kind as always and without making any faces.

"Did you know the race isn't here? It's at Club Ch*," Aira said mockingly.

Then, she went to stand next to the bus door. The cheerful girl followed her, but before that, she said to me with a soft, discreet voice, "Don't worry. We still have time; the opening ceremony is at ten o’clock, remember?"

It was only then that I remembered being told that a few days ago.

The cheerful girl went to her friend and nodded to the male Physical Education teacher.

"Classes 3-A, B, and C!" he called out.

The third-year participants quickly formed a line that was already partially formed. I joined them, standing at the back. Kari and Aira had an attendance sheet with our names; they made sure everyone was present. I was feeling hot and had started to sweat. When I boarded the bus, Aira averted her gaze, avoiding looking at me, while the cheerful girl seemed to feel sorry for me. She had every reason to.

A while later, now recovered, I was bored to death in one of the grandstands in front of the athletics track. Those who weren't waiting for their turn to perform were wandering around, getting ready at the side of the track, or already competing. Occasionally, I glanced at the cheerful girl, who was warming up her muscles near one of the track's curves. Aira and Hana were close to her, as always; not Ruri, though: she didn't like to run but participated in volleyball tournaments. Also, by attending classes, she could take notes that she would later offer helpfully to her friends.

The day was splendid, sunny and cloudless, but it was also hot. Tired of waiting and thirsty due to the dryness of the day, I got up to refresh myself and to go to the bathroom.

I don't remember what I was thinking when I went there; only that I was distracted enough not to pay attention to the loudspeaker's voice. In any case, the background noise in that confined space helped drown out that voice. When I came out, I saw Mack looking around, searching for something. I was about to ask him if he had lost something when he spotted me and said, "What are you doing? Your race is about to start!"

Then I remembered that I was there to compete in the tournament. I ran to the track, where about twenty boys were getting ready to start the race; as I passed by the male Physical Education teacher, I heard him exclaim, "Wake up, Jina!"

I made it in time, but there was only room for me at the back, which meant I would start among the last. Immediately, without a moment to gather strength or inspiration, or even to stretch my muscles or catch my breath, the whistle blew, and we all set off. And my competitors quickly pulled away from me...

It didn't take long for me to experience the race as suffering or even a kind of torture, in which I was short of breath, my side hurt, and my legs responded less and less, all in the midst of unbearable and growing agitation. I couldn't think clearly about anything; I could only watch as the initial compact mass of students scattered after half a lap. I had already lost sight of the first ones, and shortly after, I could only see four or five runners in front of me. As I approached the starting line to complete my first lap, Mack urged me with gestures to pick up the pace. I didn't see the cheerful girl or any of my other schoolmates on the side of the track. She had probably already been called to her event, or she didn't want to see me run and had left, or she had been taken away. The teacher was next to the starting line, among several of his colleagues, stopwatch in hand.

The following laps were the same for me as the first, with the added gradual certainty—and the resulting resignation—that I would neither win nor make it to the podium—I was actually among the last. All that was left was to try to finish my performance in the most respectable way possible.

I increased my speed, passed three runners, and crossed the finish line. Right after that, I stepped aside from the track, and there I wanted to stay for hours, if I had been allowed, to recover a bit. The teacher approached me and said something briefly, and a second later, he walked away.

With sore legs, I managed to move away, first a few meters from the track, and then back to the grandstands, with familiar faces. I joined a group of students from my school to chat, but the group constantly dissolved and reformed as someone was called or returned from an event, and before I knew it, I was at one end, somewhat distant from the rest.

After a while, I saw Kari and Aira approaching us. Each of them carried a tray with juice boxes. Kari climbed the grandstands to join those sitting higher up, while Aira headed towards those of us seated below.

As she offered a juice box to each of us kindly, with a warm and sincere smile on her face, the cheerful girl took a moment to ask each one how they had done and to offer words of encouragement. In contrast, Aira simply handed a juice box to each of us down below, almost without looking at us and speaking with what seemed like pure obligation, if not disdainfully—perhaps trying to imitate the cheerful girl in her own way: "Well done... You tried... You gave it your all..."

But when she stood in front of me, she added, "Or so I think."

"Have you won yet?" I challenged her as I reached out to take a juice box.

"I haven't competed yet," Aira replied haughtily.

"Ah, because you're talking as if you've already won. I'd speak like that if I had a medal hanging around my neck."

"I'm ready to win. I've practiced a lot."

"I hope you do... although I'm not sure those legs of yours can hold up for long."

"Huh?" Aira exclaimed, looking bewildered. "I'm entered in shot put and discus."

"Really, with those little arms...?"

Then, with a sudden movement of the tray, Aira threw the juice boxes at my head.

"Enough of this," she said to herself, putting the empty tray under her arm.

She then turned to me, looking at me sideways.

"We'll see what face you make when I win."

And as she was leaving, she thought of adding something else:

"And you talk as if you're not pathetic, as if you don't inspire pity. Don't you understand that the President doesn't want to see you, not even in photographs?"

The President, having noticed the scene, followed Aira, but before that, she stopped in front of me and said:

"It would be better if you didn't anger her. She's very proud, and she doesn't like to lose... The idea of losing doesn't sit well with her."

As she spoke those words, I noticed that she couldn't help but furrow her brow—very slightly and for tenths of a second, but I still saw it.

It was the first time I had seen her frown or appear upset. That made me angry with myself for having offended her by attacking her friend unnecessarily. If I had been smarter, I would have acted wisely and ignored Aira's insult, or I would have kept my mouth shut and not argued with her in the first place.

Ashamed, and also because of Aira's final words, I walked away and strolled around the complex. After a while, I ended up behind the main track, on the other side of the grandstands, near a small soccer field where other events were taking place. I settled comfortably behind the starting line, in a clear spot. As I sat on the dry, prickly grass, my body almost gave way and collapsed. In front of me, at a certain distance, some girls were practicing shot put. Aside from the one currently throwing, there were four young women waiting their turn. They all watched their opponent attentively and clung to the teacher when she recorded the distances reached. Then, another girl picked up a shot put and prepared to throw it. As she took the nervous steps toward the spot from which she was supposed to throw, she stretched her firm arms and legs, perhaps more to release tension than to elongate her muscles, as her subtle neck rotations suggested. She had a perfect posture, an elegant stride, and a completely resolute face, to which nothing seemed to be able to disrupt. She appeared extremely focused, and nothing and no one could divert her attention.

The girl looked down, scraped the dirt with the tip of her shoe, and assumed the typical pre-throw position. Then she began to spin; she propelled herself through the three ceremonial turns on her axis and, with incredible force, threw the shot put, letting out a noisy exhalation.

It was like watching a professional athlete in person and not on television.

That's how Aira was.

"She's a very strong girl," someone next to me commented.

Well, it wasn't "someone." It was the cheerful girl.

Seeing her, I realized that she had already run her race, as her clothes were slightly damp, her hair was wet, tied in a ponytail, and her face was slightly flushed, as if she had just finished exercising on a hot day.

I stood up.

"She'll do well. She practiced really hard. Even before the trials, she was practicing the movements," she continued.

Against all my instincts, I had to look away so as not to get lost in the beautiful cheerful girl, in her shorts, in her sun-kissed arms and legs, and in her hair, just slightly tousled, beautifully tousled.

"It seems she did well," I said, seeing Aira smile with satisfaction, though in a measured way, upon hearing her score.

"That's my girl," the cheerful girl said, with an equally wide smile. She then went over to her good friend to congratulate her with warm expressions.

Thinking that the competition was over and that Aira had won, I felt like leaving, but I was still too tired to continue wandering around, and I didn't know where to go. So, I sat back down on the yellowed grass. However, a moment later, the cheerful girl approached me again, in fact, she stood in the same spot as before. She had a peeled mandarin in her hands. She split it in half right in front of my eyes—I had quickly gotten back on my feet, suddenly driven by the need to hide my exhaustion from her eyes—picked a segment and brought it to her mouth. As soon as her teeth burst the citrus bag, a look of satisfaction took over her face. She was clearly enjoying the food. When she noticed that I was staring at her, dumbfounded and amazed, the cheerful girl composed herself and asked me, extending her hand toward me, with half a mandarin in her palm:

"Do you want some, Sanke?"

I accepted timidly, taking a segment without daring to take the fruit from her hand. And I understood the sensation that had taken over the cheerful girl because the mandarin was filled with sweet and refreshing juice, and the fact that I was very hungry—since I hadn't brought any food—made it doubly enjoyable. That's why my insides rejoiced that the cheerful girl didn't move her hand and instead said to me:

"Take more, have some more!"

Masking my stomach's eager desire, I allowed myself to serve two more segments and ate them separately and slowly.

"Thank you so much, Kari. It's delicious."

"Isn't it?"

For some mysterious reason, we were alone in the middle of a sports complex full of people. Any reasonably smart person would have seen the opportunity to have a quiet and pleasant conversation to get to know each other a little better. But instead of that, the first thing that came to my mind was to ask about a third person. When I realized my mistake, it was too late.

"Where's Aira? I thought she'd be with you."

"She made it to the final round. She has to throw again at some point."

"Oh, I thought she had already won. How did you do?"

"Ah..." the cheerful girl sighed. "An honorable fourth place. I was so close..."

At that precise moment, Hana arrived.

"You're just in time," the cheerful girl said. "She's about to compete for the medal."

"For the gold, yes. Yesterday, she couldn't stop talking about it."

"Well, that's her. I hope she gets it!"

"Where is she? I don't see her."

"She was over there," the cheerful girl replied, pointing to where Aira had been. "I think she's with those girls over there."

"Ah, I think I see her."

Kari and Hana continued talking to each other, and I stood aside in silence. I wanted to sit back down or simply walk away, but I didn't want the cheerful girl to think I felt uncomfortable or left out. I also didn't want to intrude on their conversation, which was about their concerns and not mine. So, I ended up getting lost in trivial thoughts until Kari and Hana suddenly got excited, catching my attention. Aira and other girls were about to participate in the final round of shot put. The teacher in charge of the competition addressed them briefly, and the young women listened with rapt attention. Then, the throwing order was decided. From what I saw in the distance, unable to hear what was being said, Aira was up first. Immediately, Kari and Hana whispered words of encouragement and expressions of desire to their friend, with a touch of nervousness added to their excitement. At this stage of the tournament, Aira was one of the last students who could put our school's name on the medal board.

Aira picked up the shot put and calmly walked to the spot from which she was supposed to make the throw, once again with a calm and determined expression, her gaze fixed on nothing. Then she turned her neck from side to side, exhaled, stretched her arms, pulled them back, took a deep breath, and prepared to get into position...

"See how he's looking at her," Hana whispered.

I turned to her immediately, realizing that she was referring to me.

"Well... he asked about her a moment ago," the cheerful girl said, laughing in a joking tone, but it was hurtful to me, as it seemed like she was forgetting (or worse, ignoring) that I liked her and not her irritable friend.

"She's a very pretty girl, isn't she, Sanke?" Hana asked me, with a mischievous tone in her voice.

I didn't say anything; I just shook my head vigorously and looked ahead.

The cheerful girl was much prettier, a thousand times more so.

Just as she was about to throw, Aira's gaze coincidentally found her friends, who immediately greeted her with gestures. The cheerful girl applauded enthusiastically and exclaimed, "Go!"

Aira returned a smile, but then she glanced away for a moment and looked at me. Her face underwent a transformation: first, her eyes widened in surprise, and less than a second later, she adopted a terrible, irritated expression. I could barely notice it since she immediately averted her gaze and focused on her preparation. I, too, started looking in another direction, as if shifting my attention to something more important; what mattered to me was being close to the cheerful girl.

"Oh, she fell," the cheerful girl said.

As I looked at Aira, I saw her on the ground on her knees. Two girls were already helping her to get up. Apparently, she had slipped or stumbled while throwing the shot put.

Taking advantage of the situation, I left. I did it on impulse, it's true, but perhaps I needed it. Hana would probably insist on embarrassing me, and Aira might blame me for her failure. I no longer saw a chance to speak privately with the cheerful girl. The best course of action, I thought at that moment, was to get something to eat before my stomach complained about being deceived by three measly but delicious mandarin segments.

A couple more hours passed until the events involving the school, at least for the third-year students, concluded. The bus that had taken us to the sports complex of Club Ch* picked us up at the spacious main entrance. Several people surrounded Aira, dazzled by the silver of her medal, admiring her for being the only student from our school to win one. I, on the other hand, was eager to return; I was already aware that the sort of plan that had occurred to me had failed, and I considered that I had nothing more to do... perhaps.

I got on the bus and looked for an empty seat. There weren't many options, and I quickly sat in the first seat I saw without paying attention to who was sitting next to it, looking out the window.

"Um... Sanke?"

I turned my head towards the aisle and saw Kari.

"I love you. Please, go out with me!" I exclaimed suddenly.

Well, that's not true, but at the time, I felt that if I didn't confess for real, on my own, I was going to go crazy.

"Excuse me, could you let me sit there? I want to sit with Aira."

Indeed, the person sitting next to me was Aira; she was now looking at me with horror, as if I were a monster or something of the sort.

She wore that silver medal hanging around her neck, which couldn't be ignored, and in front of which I couldn't help but feel a shiver that I believe I managed to hide, although it was accompanied by a fleeting and dreadful vision.

"I'm sorry, I didn't realize," I apologized as I stood up to find another seat.

"Thank you, Sanke, and sorry!" exclaimed the cheerful girl, bowing to me with folded hands, a gesture that I found exaggerated.

"It's okay, no problem," I said, somewhat bewildered by what had just passed through my mind.

"I thought he was coming to apologize to me," I heard Aira say in a low and disdainful voice. The cheerful girl responded with a little laugh.

And that's how it went for me in the track and field tournament: bad on the track and bad off it. To avoid being negative, I could say that everything had turned out differently from what was planned or desired. I also thought that at least I had been able to talk to the cheerful girl, who supposedly had no desire to see me, but in reality, didn't shy away from interacting with me when she stood next to me and chatted with me for a while. Yet, I had made no progress; it seemed that if I couldn't summon the courage to confess, I would have to settle for brief moments devoid of almost any emotion.

In reality, when I tried to think about the matter, I ended up feeling confused.

Return to index

Chapter 7

As I've already mentioned, after the incident on the nameless street, time passed. Or rather, it continued to pass: days flowed by like the changing seasons. My life followed its normal course, the one I would have expected. The typical school life of a seventeen-year-old boy. Classes, homework, friends, and the inability to get closer to the cheerful girl. Amidst all this, like an oasis of excitement and novelty, there was the athletics tournament and a vacation I spent at home, except for a weekend in a neighboring town. Always far from the cheerful girl.

With each passing day, my hopes faded. I began to think that trying to win her over was a futile endeavor.

Not that I had tried anyway.

It may seem like I'm talking about a very long period; in reality, to be more precise, it was three months.

Almost three exact months.

And what I'm going to tell you began with a children's game.

Some first-year students played a prank on a classmate, or settled a bet... I never found out, and it doesn't really matter, anyway. Two boys, probably thinking themselves as rebels, were forcibly dragging their classmate down a corridor on the ground floor. A third boy followed them at a short distance, perhaps supervising the operation's progress. Meanwhile, the third-year Physical Education class was coming to an end. I had changed into regular clothes and left the boys' locker room earlier than the rest. That's why I saw the boys. The girls from my class were still inside the locker room.

I was loitering in the hallway when the boys crossed my path heading towards one end of the ground floor, where they turned right towards the girls' locker room.

Perhaps it was because of memories of what Kazu, Emell, and Pier had put me through not long ago, and out of empathy for the boy who, perhaps undeservedly, was being dragged to be thrown into the girls as if he were being thrown to the wolves; perhaps it was simply the desire to do good, which should never require excuses, that I ran toward the boys.

"Hey! What are you doing?" I shouted at them, like a police officer ordering a criminal to stop.

They ignored me and sped up toward the locker room. However, the third delinquent, after hesitating for a second between entering or not, chose to retreat cowardly. I continued following the others and entered after them in a last desperate attempt to prevent them from entering, or at least to free the prisoner.

"A student from the school entered the ladies' locker room unexpectedly while the third-year female students were changing clothes," the principal would later read in his office. In the cold, dark words that roam the winding corridors of a courtroom, that's what happened. But that wasn't all.

The girls jumped to their feet in whatever they had on and fled to the back of the locker room, screaming as they stampeded. Most of them were only half-dressed or covered by nothing more than a towel; jumping and screaming in fear, they tried to cover their bodies with their arms and hands. As for the miscreants, they shoved their classmate further into the locker room and, without taking advantage of the situation to look at the ladies, rushed out of there at full speed. I made a futile attempt to catch one of them, who ultimately managed to slip through my grasp. Just as I struggled with him in the middle of the room, I stepped on a piece of clothing on the floor, slipped, and fell.

I fell... on top of Aira.

The commotion ceased in an instant. A deathly silence now filled the room. A tense circle of fixed gazes surrounded us.

Aira and I were lucky that I hadn't crushed her with my body since I had landed with my arms extended by a reflex act. She wasn't hurt, and consequently, she didn't have to murder me. But I had no reason to celebrate. Aira was beneath me, trapped between my arms, with my face almost against her chest, which, fortunately for her, had managed to secure her bra.

I reacted quickly, although one is never fast enough in a situation like that. I lifted my palms from the floor and moved aside, releasing Aira. She wasn't happy.

Blushing or, to be more precise, redder than a tomato, shocked, she slid backward, sitting in front of me; with one arm, she covered her chest, and with the other, she adjusted her skirt, which had ridden up. With her left foot, she delivered a swift kick right between my eyes.

"Pervert!" she yelled.

I fell backward, ending up on my back. I reacted promptly, turning my body to get up and get out of there. The girls started screaming and panicking again. And I, still dazed from Aira's kick, hadn't gotten up yet, half-blinded by the blow. I saw an object lying under the bench beside which I lay.

It was a silver medallion that had escaped from a poorly closed backpack, likely dropped to the floor during the incident. It had... a strange symbol, one I didn't know but recognized.

How could I not recognize it, given that I had seen it on the girl who had murdered the nameless man?

After being hit, due to the screams and commotion in the locker room, the Physical Education teacher arrived at the scene. I found her standing in front of me as I got up. Her extraordinarily serious expression signaled that it was not a good day for her, and perhaps that a severe reprimand awaited me as well. Without uttering a word and without looking back, I quietly left, head down.

From what I later learned and how things unfolded, the teacher drafted a report that reached the principal's office with impressive speed.

When I left the girls' locker room, the first thing I did was head to the nearest restroom—men's, of course—to examine my face in the mirror. While I was at it, the lunchtime bell rang, signaling the lunch hour.

My forehead was red from Aira's blow. She had kicked me between the eyebrows. "If she had hit me a bit lower, she might have broken my nose," I thought.

I wet my face and massaged the reddened and slightly swollen area with my fingertips. It no longer hurt as much, but the evidence of the attack was undeniable.

I locked myself in the farthest stall, lowered the toilet lid, which was up, and sat down for a moment. I let out a long sigh, looking up. First, exhausting myself in Physical Education class, then getting hit in the face... It was definitely not the best day for me. And to make matters worse, there was the matter of the medallion... There was no doubt; it was the same one I had seen on that fateful night...

I thought I had overcome the memories of that event.

The sudden entrance of noisy students into the restroom interrupted my incipient contemplation. Without wasting time, I got up and left. Just before the bathroom door closed behind me, I ran into my friends, who were about to enter.

"Sanke! What happened to you?"

"What are you talking about?"

"Look at your forehead... Who hit you?"

I didn't want to talk about the blow to avoid having to explain how and why I had received it.

"No one hit me."

"What, then?" Pier asked.

Kazu flung the bathroom door wide open and, putting one foot inside, asked in a harsh tone, "Let’s see! Who hit my friend?!"

Those who heard him looked at each other, unable to respond. Perhaps they hadn't even noticed the mark of the kick on my forehead, given how quickly and discreetly I had left. After a brief and futile wait, Kazu let the door close in silence.

"Come on, tell us what happened to you. If someone hit you, we'll have to give them a beating."

I looked at Kazu, wanting to smile. He wouldn't beat up Aira.

"Let's go eat, and I'll tell you."

We headed to the classroom, where we usually had lunch. The courtyard was probably our favorite spot, but on nice rain-free days like that one, it was usually packed with students, and there probably weren't any good vacant spots. The prefect was waiting for me at the door.

"Student Jina, you need to go to the principal's office," he said in a dry and neutral tone.

As he spoke, he noticed the more than obvious swelling on my face.

"But you should go to the nurse's office first," he added.

My friends intervened.

"We were about to sit down for lunch," Kazu said.

"He needs to eat something to recover," Pier added.

"And he was going to tell us what happened to his face," Emell said, referring to me.

"The principal also wants to know what happened," the prefect calmly replied.

Then he turned to me and said, "Go, student."

I obeyed without protest, feeling that my fate was sealed. Only serious cases ended up in the principal's office, and it was said that he carried himself with the airs of a judge or something of the sort, as if he had worked in a court of law.

"Is he getting into trouble?" I heard someone ask behind me.

The prefect paused, and I assumed he filled the silence with a facial expression before saying, "I hope not."

I didn't want to go to the nurse's office; I didn't see the need. The blow didn't hurt, and I wasn't interested in hiding it. Many, if not all, had just seen it.

On the other hand, I didn't want to visit the principal's office either. I wasn't ready to face punishment. And yet, I went, because not doing so was worse than doing it, because I had no alternative.

I slowly climbed the stairs to the third floor. Everyone I passed couldn't help but see my forehead, as if a third eye had sprouted there.

I arrived. The door was wooden and beautifully polished, gleaming because of it. I timidly knocked on the glass.

The door opened without haste, even with a hint of suspense. It was the principal himself who invited me in. He was of medium height and seldom smiled, but his countenance was always calm; he lacked the severity one might expect after having heard the legends about him in the hallways and on the playground. He was extremely neat and well-mannered; you could say that his clothes never wrinkled when he moved. He had a tidy and proportioned mustache, and his glasses were almost perfectly round, much like my grandfather's. His hair, impeccably combed, never had a strand out of place.

"Ah, it's you, Jina," he said upon seeing me, and when I entered the office, he gestured for me to sit.

We took our seats on either side of the desk. The report written by the Physical Education teacher rested in front of him.

"I was informed that you caused a commotion in the girls' locker room while the ladies were changing," he began, reviewing the words written by the teacher.

"A commotion...?" I murmured. It seemed like an exaggerated term.

"You understand that this is a serious offense, don't you, student Jina?"

The principal then looked up, moving his gaze from the paper to my face, over the lenses of his glasses, while resting his elbows on the desk and interlocking the tips of his fingers in front of his small, square chin. I couldn't bear the eye contact—even though the director was looking at me neutrally, not threateningly—and I lowered my gaze.

"Yes."

"Well, in this school, the rule of law prevails. That means that, while you have been accused of violating the school regulations, you have the right to present your defense. Do you understand that, student Jina?"

"I understand."

"Very well," said the principal, settling into his plush leather chair. "I'm listening."

"I entered because I saw some students going in."

The principal was surprised, though he didn't abandon his comfortable posture.

"Some students? What students?"

"I don't know, sir, I don't know them. I think they're from the first year."

"Hmm... You don't know them, you say? Noted."

And he did just that. The principal reached for a pen that lay to his side and wrote a brief phrase on a sheet of paper. It was as if he didn't believe me. In reality, he was being as impartial as possible, following his conscience; he remained true to his principles.

I continued my account:

"They rushed into the locker room, and I tried to stop them, but I couldn't."

"You could have avoided entering, especially in the manner you did," the principal opined.

"Yes, but..."

I wanted to explain that one of the youngsters was being taken against his will by the others, and I wanted to get them out of there. An untimely tapping on the glass prevented me from doing so.

"Come in!"

The door was opened.

"Excuse me!" exclaimed a cheerful voice.

I turned around and saw the cheerful girl, who was only halfway through the door, not allowing herself to enter completely.

"Good morning, principal! Do you have a minute to talk? It's... important."

Then she noticed my presence.

"Hello, Sanke," she said with her usual warmth, her smile gentle but well-defined.

"Yes, student," the principal replied. "Wait for me outside, and we'll talk in a minute."

"Alright, thank you!"

I turned back to the principal.

"Well, student, from what I see, your situation is..." He corrected himself, "seems complicated. You can leave now. You'll hear my verdict... soon."

I left wondering where the heck my right to a defense had gone. I didn't even greet the principal.

As I exited, I found the cheerful girl waiting by the door.

"Getting yourself into trouble?" she joked, her smile as sweet as honey and as soft as velvet, melting my insides.

However, I laughed half-heartedly, as I was also tired, annoyed, and hungry to take things lightly.

"You'll get through this. The principal isn't bad, as some people think; he's not a tyrant or a monster," she said in a hushed voice to avoid being overheard from the office.

I nodded in silence, wanting to believe her.

"Don't worry!" she exclaimed, giving me a thumbs-up. A second later, she had cheerfully slipped into the office.

I headed back to the classroom. I remembered that it was still lunchtime. Taking advantage of the lack of people around me, which was usual on that third floor of the school, I reached into a pocket and pulled out the silver medallion.

I looked at the symbol contained within it once more, whose meaning was deeply intriguing and impossible for me to fathom.

"’Don't worry,’ she says?”

The medallion spent the night in my possession. In the privacy of my room, I could study it with my gaze.

It was perfectly circular, about six centimeters in diameter, made of extremely fine silver—at least to my inexperienced eyes—and perfectly polished, shining despite being contaminated repeatedly by my touch. On the obverse side, there was a symbol in relief, composed of a cross and eight curves that seemed to form two circles, one inside the other, or a number eight, or the leaves of a clover... It's hard to say, even though I saw it with my own eyes up close. The reverse side had an inscription in three lines in a foreign language, written with symbols that were entirely unfamiliar to me. A chain made up of a multitude of tiny, equally silver links served to secure the medallion around its owner's neck.

After contemplating it for a long while, I placed it on the nightstand.

I didn't know why I had picked it up. It had been a spur-of-the-moment decision, something unusual for me. It was as if the medallion had asked me to take it with me, no matter how strange or unbelievable that may sound.

Without thinking and without hesitation, I had reached out and, while getting up to escape from the locker room, I had hidden it from the horrified eyes of my female classmates under my shirt.

But that had been theft. That was worse than accidentally entering the girls' locker room; for that, I could indeed be condemned—not only by the principal but also by any true court of law.

And speaking of the principal, I thought he wouldn't take long to deliver his verdict, to pronounce the sentence. I expected that very night he would personally call my parents to deliver the news; perhaps they would tell me not to bother going to school the next day, that I was suspended.

I think that, more than being condemned by a judge or a school principal, I feared disappointing my parents.

However, there was something even more unsettling. Why was this medallion, which I had seen in the possession of a killer, a diabolical girl who ate flesh, in the girls' locker room? Could it be that one of the students in the school was... that girl? What were the odds that the one I had now was another medallion identical to the one that young woman had? And what were the odds that it had been stolen—meaning I had stolen from a thief—or that one of my classmates had found it on the street and picked it up because it seemed too valuable to leave behind? Because the medallion looked like something of great value, something no one who saw it face-to-face could ignore, and something no one who found it in the street or elsewhere would leave behind.

I lay down and tried to quiet my persistent thoughts with the pages of a manga.

I succeeded for a while, but very soon scenes from that night of horror returned to haunt me, preventing me from having a peaceful night. The idea that the mysterious and valuable object resting on the nightstand might belong to an evil creature troubled me, despite my wishes to the contrary. It couldn't be a mere coincidence, and I couldn't remain indifferent to that fact.

"It's best if I return it," I thought, referring to the damned medallion.

I turned off the light, and then, in the pitch darkness of the room, I took the medallion and hid it under the pillow. I didn't want to leave it in plain sight for my parents to see, as I didn't want to lie to them or admit that I had stolen it.

"Yes, it's the best," I insisted before letting out a long yawn.

I moved my body somewhat lazily until I found a comfortable position, but the price was hearing a muffled noise on the side of the bed. The manga had fallen to the floor, pushed by my movements.

"Damn," I muttered. Then, I fell asleep.

The next day, I prepared to go to school as if it were a normal day, as the director hadn't called my house, and as far as I knew, I hadn't been punished. With some effort, I abandoned my horizontal position—first sitting, waiting for my brain to activate; after a few minutes, I got up. While picking up the uniform that hung from the back of the chair, I remembered that I had dreamed about Kari. I had seen her dressed in white on a bed bathed in light, and then she spoke to me cheerfully in private, something that rarely happened when I was awake. A place that vaguely felt familiar, simple blue clothing, and a giant question mark floating above her head were all I could add to what I remembered from my dream.

I shook my head in despair. I felt like I could slowly lose my mind if I didn't do something about it soon.

I moved the chair, sat on it, and put on my socks. Something unusual immediately caught my attention.

The last of the three drawers of the desk was not properly closed.

In that way, it doesn't sound strange, as it's probably very common to not properly close a drawer. However, that was the only drawer I never opened unless in rare and exceptional circumstances. I knelt on the floor and brought my face close to the drawer, as if I couldn't believe it unless I saw it.

I opened the drawer. It offered a slight resistance that was characteristic, which I attributed to the weight of the objects inside. At first glance, nothing seemed to be missing. I stored old notebooks there that I couldn't bring myself to throw away and two small books I never read. And under the cover of one of those books...

The letter I had written for the cheerful girl but had never intended to give her.

The letter was still there, to my relief, as I checked when I removed it from its place.

Except... it was folded incorrectly.

My face turned red instantly. Someone had violated my privacy and discovered my best-kept secret! Someone had made their way to the most secluded corner of my domain, secretly bared my heart, and did so without my permission!

The person who had accessed the letter had carelessly returned it to its place, not only failing to close the drawer completely but also placing the paper in such a way that it had been folded imperfectly—obliquely—under the books and notebooks that were supposed to protect it.

I smoothed out the sheet of paper with my hand and put it back in its place, with the books and notebooks on top of it. I wondered who could have gone through the drawer and read the letter. My mother came to mind immediately; maybe she had entered my room when I wasn't there, and well... I guess those things happen.

I closed my eyes tightly and cursed my bad luck. How could I look my mother in the eye knowing that she knew my embarrassing secret? I had never mentioned anything about having feelings for a girl, especially since I had never been interested in anyone romantically before meeting the cheerful girl. "I should have hidden it better," I complained.

Then I noticed something else: the volume of the manga I had been reading was innocently resting on the nightstand. I approached it, completely embarrassed, and just to make sure it was the same one I had read the night before, I knelt by the bed and reached my arm into the space between the nightstand and the bedpost. There was nothing there, just air and dust.

Upright once again, I paced around the bedroom uneasily, searching the floor and the furniture for more oddities to discover, more things out of place. I was beginning to believe that it hadn't been my mother who had opened the desk drawer.

The gentle morning breeze on my face surprised me. The bedroom window turned out to be partially open.

I couldn't remember if I had left it properly closed the night before.

Then, impulsively, I lunged onto the bed and tossed the pillow aside. The medallion was still there. I took it and examined it with my back to the window.

"Could it be that... someone came looking for this?"

I quickly stashed the medallion in my backpack and left the room.

When I embarked on my daily journey to school, I was already mortified. It was clear to me that someone had entered my room while I slept and, besides being kind enough to pick up the volume of the manga that had fallen off the bed, they had found and likely read the letter I had written but never intended to deliver to the cheerful girl. This last part added absolute embarrassment to my unease. There was someone out there who knew my most intimate feelings, who had read things I never thought I would express, except in the unlikely event that I ended up with the cheerful girl. But, on the other hand, if that nighttime intrusion had something to do with the matter of the silver medallion, I was probably in danger. After all, if the diabolical girl I had seen on the nameless street discovered that I had stolen the medallion... it wasn't difficult to reason that I could be her next victim.

Just thinking about it made my forehead break out in cold sweat, and my stomach twisted in the middle of the street.

"I need to return it today," I thought, referring to the medallion, "and close the window tonight. But how do I return it? Leaving it in the women's locker room would be ideal, but I don't know if it's a good idea to go there after what happened yesterday. Maybe I can go after class, after everyone has left... No, I think they lock the door at that time. Perhaps I'll try throwing it out the window and let someone find it tomorrow..."

I arrived at school.

I tried to act as if nothing had happened the day before, but some of the girls in my class didn't want to see me and looked away when I passed by them.

I didn't let that discourage me, and I spent the day with my friends, to whom I had recounted what had happened the day before. However, every now and then, I was aware that my punishment was imminent.

As I mentioned before, I felt that my fate was sealed.

I had lunch in the classroom with my friends. It was hot outside, and the courtyard and terrace were probably full of students. Inside the classroom, the air was cooler, and the atmosphere was calmer.

"Well, it's noon, and the prefect hasn't said anything to you. I guess you're in the clear," Kazu told me as he opened his lunch container.

"It seems so," I replied.

"In a way, I see it as a pity," Pier said. "If you had been reprimanded, it would have been a good opportunity to put my idea into practice."

"Oh, you're on that again..." Emell protested.

"Of course: the basement prison at school; a place where the juvenile delinquents who populate this school receive the treatment they deserve," Pier said, growing increasingly excited. Then he turned to me. "Tell me, Sanke, wouldn't you like to be punished by the President herself in the basement?"

Kazu laughed; I didn't want to answer such an absurd question, and, besides, I suddenly felt embarrassed to share the table with someone who spoke so casually about prisons and punishments (read: torture).

"I already told you there's no basement in this school," Emell told him.

At that very moment, the cheerful girl and her friends returned from lunch and stood near the first row, inches from the blackboard, very close to each other, chatting animatedly. After a minute, Aira separated from the group and timidly moved towards the back, in our direction. Emell took the opportunity to ask her:

"Hey, Aira, would you like to kick Pier in the groin? He needs it."

"What?!" she exclaimed while blushing uncontrollably. "Don't involve me in obscene activities," she added with profound disdain towards us.

Then she clenched her fist tightly and gritted her teeth.

"Ugh, I don't want to know what perverted things are in your minds..." she muttered.

She turned around and returned, stomping her feet on the ground next to her friends, to continue their conversation. They were discussing something in private. I tried to ignore them, but I noticed a couple of times they glanced in my direction.

What could they be plotting?

I got up from my seat and left without looking at them. I was going to the bathroom to wash my hands.

The gossip seemed to intensify as I passed by them.

I didn't get very far when someone softly and imperfectly cleared their throat behind me. I stopped and turned towards the source of the sound, naturally feeling targeted.

My eyes found Aira standing in front of me. She had a look of disgust on her face.

"The principal..." she said in a trembling voice, so much so that she had to pause.

She timidly handed me a sealed envelope that she held in her hand.

"The principal said... he obliged me to write you an apology letter for..."

I quickly took the envelope and opened it in front of her eyes.

"You don't have to read it now!" she snapped, already angry. I ignored her and read a brief message written on a piece of paper:

"Sorry for hitting you."

It had no signature, date, or anything else. It occurred to me that it was a waste to use a whole sheet of paper to write just those four words.

I looked up. Aira had crossed her arms, furrowed her brow, and her cheeks had turned slightly red. I wanted to laugh at my luck. Not only had I been saved from severe punishment, but now it was Aira who had to apologize to me.

"I don't know why I have to apologize. I actually did you a favor. I improved that face of yours," she told me, while looking away disdainfully.

Pleased, I couldn't resist making a joke.

"So, do you like it now?"

Aira got furious, tensing her limbs like a cat. She raised a fist in front of my face and muttered:

"I'm going to punch you in the eye..."

"Well, why are you so irritable?" I asked.

Aira calmed down; her muscles relaxed. She suddenly seemed saddened.

"It's because something valuable got lost... Something of value..." she murmured, her gaze turned to the side.

However, she quickly added, remembering she was angry:

"Well, it's none of your business!"

She turned around, but before returning to her friends, she looked at me with one eye and said:

"And don't be so happy. The principal spared your life because the President told him it wasn't your fault. I would have sentenced you to two years in jail for being a pervert."

She walked away from me; as she did, she exhaled sarcastically and muttered to herself, "I really don't understand..."

After the fleeting feeling of relief and the sweetness of my unexpected triumph over Aira, I became serious. I felt guilty for still having the medallion in my possession. I had stolen it for no reason—not out of necessity, not even out of greed—and it really served no purpose for me. On the other hand, I was still disturbed by the possibility that one of the girls in the class, one of my classmates with whom I had shared more than two years of school, could be nothing less than a cold and ruthless killer.

Could Aira be the girl I had seen on the nameless street?

It didn't seem so; her appearance didn't quite match that of the girl in the white dress. However, it was true that I hadn't been able to see that one clearly that night, and over time, the image I remembered of her was gradually enveloped in the mist of forgetfulness.

I couldn't help but admit that it was a possibility.

Maybe Aira was a little violent at times, on certain days she could easily lose her temper, she was haughty, elitist, and lacked empathy... but a murderer? That was entirely different; that was too much for her.

But it was also possible, why not?

The same person who was ashamed to apologize to me could stab me in the throat in a second and eat my entrails.

She might kill me if she found out I had her valuable medallion.

She could have killed me in my room while I slept peacefully if she had found the medallion on my nightstand.

There was also another issue, the intervention of the cheerful girl in my favor. I now knew that she had spoken to the principal and managed to have the charges dropped against me. I assumed that she had somehow learned the truth, or she was convinced that I was not capable of rushing into the girls' locker room to cause "a commotion"... The words she had said to me before entering the principal's office made sense now. "You'll get through this." It wasn't just an expression to encourage me; it was reality. She was going to get me through this. With that situation in mind, it was my duty to thank her.

All these thoughts and many more distracted me from class.

When the sound of the dismissal bell echoed throughout the school, I already knew what I had to do.

I caught up with the cheerful girl in the main hallway, halfway between the classroom and the exit. Her friends surrounded her, as usual. Nerves threatened to make me back out at the last moment, but with some effort, I managed to maintain my determination. There was no room for doubt, and I couldn't miss the opportunity to do the right thing.

I suppose Aira must have felt that way when she decided to apologize to me in writing.

Furthermore, I couldn't continue to delay the moment of returning the medallion (by this point, I wanted nothing more than to get rid of it), because every minute, every second I kept it in my possession, increased the risk of something happening to me. Who can say that nothing could have happened to me on the peaceful and boring way back home?

"President..."

The four girls turned towards me. The cheerful girl raised her lively eyebrows and smiled.

"Sanke!"

"Can we talk for a minute?"

The joy on the cheerful girl's face diminished slightly, probably due to the unusual nature of my request. Nevertheless, she agreed to it, while her friends made expressions of suspicion or surprise.

"Yes, of course," she replied amiably, approaching me. "How can I help you?"

I took a few steps back, inviting her to follow me. Obviously, the conversation had to be private. The other girls stayed to watch us. To ensure they couldn't hear what I was saying, I took the precaution of speaking in a rather low voice.

"Aira told me... that you helped me with the issue of... you know, what happened yesterday."

"Oh, yes!" she exclaimed after thinking for a moment, her eyes looking upward. "Well, it's nothing."

"You knew I didn't want to go in there, right? And that..."

"One of the boys from the 1-A class told me everything. About how his classmates took him to the locker room by force, and he said you tried to stop it. Yes, I told the principal because he needed to know."

"You saved me."

"Well, it's not that big of a deal," she said modestly, and she smiled again, nodding vigorously with her head and closing her eyes.

"Yes, it is. Thank you, Kari."

"It's nothing, really," she insisted, and then jokingly added, "but don't do it again."

She was turning to leave when I stopped her.

"And..."

She tilted her head slightly and curved her eyebrows.

"And Aira also told me that she lost something."

The cheerful girl thought for a second or two, trying to deduce what I was referring to. She was about to say something about it, but as soon as she opened her mouth, I took the darn medallion out of my pocket and showed it to her.

Her eyes immediately widened, and her mouth froze. In the distance, her friends were also surprised to recognize the object in my hand.

"Is this it?" I asked. "I found it... and it seemed too valuable to leave lying around."

Ruri, Aira, and Hana rushed over.

"It's your medallion!" they told the cheerful girl.

My blood ran cold.

"But how?" Ruri murmured, looking at me, stunned.

"He had it?" Aira asked, on the verge of indignation.

"Oh, thank you, Sanke!" Kari exclaimed, her agitation evident in the trembling of her voice, the nervous movements of her eyes and limbs, and the fact that her normally eternal smile had disappeared. "I thought it was lost. I really owe you one!"

I could have said it was nothing or that it was okay, as I normally would have, but I didn't. Instead, I said:

"Well, if that's the case, I might ask you for something."

Ruri gave Kari a gentle nudge and said, discreetly but still audible to me, "Are you sure, President? Will you grant him anything? My sister says that men ask for... what was the word? Oh, yes, 'abominable' things."

Kari looked at Ruri with confusion, not understanding what she was saying.

"What do you mean?"

"Anyway, thanks, really," I said.

"Yes, let's go," Aira intervened, looking at me with deep distrust.

The four girls set off. Hana and Ruri held onto Kari's arms, while Aira followed closely behind. Kari's friends didn't stop looking at me, relieved but unable to understand how I had come into possession of the medallion.

I was unfocused all the way back home. My mind was disturbed just by the thought that the cheerful girl might actually be the mysterious girl from the nameless street. Closing my eyes several times, I tried to fit Kari's figure into that of the girl in the white dress; there was some physical resemblance, but as I mentioned earlier, my memory wasn't so clear anymore, and a part of me didn't want to remember what I had seen that night.

I arrived home. I went straight to my room and collapsed on the bed. I was confused, restless. A flood of varied sensations, some even contradictory, engulfed me.

I spent a long time with my eyes closed, resting, as if sleeping. Images of the cheerful girl and the creature of the night flashed by in rapid succession in front of me.

After that, I got up.

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Chapter 8

I found my parents conversing in the living room.

"I'm going out," I announced, speaking a bit quickly, as if in a hurry. Then I briefly but affectionately hugged my mother, a gesture she gladly accepted. Next, I stood by my father and placed my hand on his shoulder. He responded with affectionate pats on my back.

"Are you having dinner here?" my mother asked.

"Um... I don't know."

"Take care then!"

I stepped out into the fresh breeze. It made me happy to see that my parents were content. It made me happy. If that had to be the last time they saw me, then it was best to show myself so cheerful, so happy, in front of them. And if that had to be the last time I saw them, then it was best to see them happy.

Happy, my parents and I.

My good mood faded too quickly, as I became aware again of why I was out on the street. Soon, a feeling of nervous uncertainty grew within me. But I was already on the move; I didn't know my exact destination, but I knew I would recognize the house when I saw it.

And so it was: after a journey of five train stations, I hurriedly ventured into the narrow alleyways of a certain neighborhood whose sidewalks I hadn't trodden in a long time. In all those years, it hadn't changed a bit, which helped me find the house. It was located in an area of small, tightly packed houses, overshadowed during the day by the towering apartment buildings that stood nearby, like a concrete wall.

For some reason, I had been on edge the entire trip, feeling an inexplicable impatience to arrive and knock on the door as I hadn't when I arrived. Instead, I managed to keep up appearances and appear calm.

Five, ten seconds passed with no one appearing behind the door. An outbreak of restlessness surged within me, urging my hand to reach for the doorknob, with a strange desire to grasp it and shake it. My fingers were already circling it when it turned slowly, almost suspensefully.

The door opened just as slowly, and a wide-open eye that seemed fearful appeared in the narrow opening. It was Kire, who, as soon as she recognized me, relaxed and came out to meet me.

"Sanke! How are you?"

"Hello, Kii."

Despite the late hour, she was still wearing her school uniform, just like me.

"What brings you here?" she asked, cheerfully surprised.

"Me? Nothing... Well, I was just passing by and..."

Kire watched me closely as I offered my feeble attempt at an excuse. Her face soon took on a worried expression.

"Sanke, what's wrong with you?"

I leaned against the wall in an attempt to hide or at least dampen the trembling in my legs.

"Nothing, why do you ask?"

"It's just that your face... Oh, sorry, I didn't mean to offend you," she hurriedly clarified.

I smiled weakly and turned my face toward the horizon, hiding my expression from Kire's gaze. I wasn't offended by her comment, as she had made it without malice, but it did make me realize that the anxiety I didn't want to show was, in fact, quite noticeable.

We fell silent for a moment.

"Don't you want to come in and have something to drink?" Kire asked.

"No... I'm leaving. I just came to say hello."

"I see," Kire said, and she thought for a few seconds. "My parents and my brother are home. Don't you want to greet them too?"

"Yes... Well... You know that if I step inside for a minute, they'll make me stay the whole night," I said and chuckled. "I know them."

Kire got excited and laughed with me.

"That's true."

We both looked at the landscape for a moment. Yellow and orange lights emanated from the tiny windows of the houses, less colorful and vibrant than the sky dyed by the setting sun, which descended to disappear behind the silhouettes of houses and apartment buildings. Clothes hung peacefully from the ropes on the terraces, without a breeze to sway them. Some pedestrians strolled down the street without hurry.

"Hey," I said after a moment. "What happened to your school friend? Have you seen her again?"

"Huh? Oh, that. Yes, she missed two days of school, but then she came back."

"So, I trust she's okay after all..."

"Yeah... Well, she is."

"But?"

"But her grandfather never showed up."

A mysterious negative sensation washed over me.

"I see," I said unintentionally somber, lowering my gaze. "Yes, I suppose that's something that could happen," I added.

"Sanke."

I ignored her and remained in a thoughtful posture.

"Sanke, what's wrong with you?" Kire insisted.

She had positioned herself in front of me and was watching me closely with two terrified eyes, as if something horrifying were about to happen right then and there.

"Nothing. I have to go," I said solemnly.

"Sanke, why are you talking like that? You sound like her..." Kire said, her voice on the verge of breaking.

"I'm fine. Maybe it's nothing," I told her, attempting to smile while placing a hand on her shoulder to try to dispel her fears.

I was already leaving when Kire stopped me by pinching the sleeve of my shirt.

"In the end," she said, "they did report the old man's disappearance. But there's still no news."

I nodded.

"They did the right thing. Yes, it was the right thing to do."

The tension began to ease.

"Goodbye, Kii. I'll see you later."

"Okay, but you have to come tomorrow."

"Of course."

Kii pouted as she held onto the sleeve of my shirt again.

"Promise."

"I promise. Tomorrow, I'll come to spend the day with you," I affirmed, firmly placing a hand on her shoulder.

And I managed to muster the strength to offer her a sincere smile. She caught onto it and, regaining her spirits, nodded with a broad smile.

"Yes!"

After that brief mission, I had to continue on to my true objective.

I was a bit calmer, but something still bothered me. I was realizing that I didn't know why I had visited Kire so unexpectedly, and I had needlessly frightened her, acting strangely and perhaps terrifyingly dramatic—mysteriously dramatic, looking back from the perspective of time. I should have created a more natural situation to talk to her, but that night there was no time to do so.

And to make matters worse, at that time, I had probably deceived her with my improvised attempt to make up for the mistake of visiting her.

Twilight was in full swing: half of the sun had already disappeared behind the roofs of the low houses in the neighborhood, and in one corner of the sky, the moon was making its presence known.

The bus took a few minutes to arrive, as if it had deliberately delayed to give me a chance to reconsider my decision, as if it had wanted to offer me one last opportunity to back out.

But I was determined. I wasn't thinking about what I was doing, or anything else. I simply waited until the bus appeared.

I got on, and during the entire trip, I didn't want to think about anything. I kept my gaze fixed on the landscape. I was still somewhat nervous, and in the back of my mind, the images of that horrible night three months ago were pulsating.

The journey passed by quickly. When I realized it, I was nearing my destination.

I got off the bus and stood still, unresponsive.

I wasn't ready.

I really wasn't, and yet, through an impulse, I managed to break my unconscious stillness.

I remember jogging across the street, as if the slightest delay would make me change my mind.

I couldn't recognize the streets I had walked the first time, but I knew where they were, and that was all the guidance I needed.

I also knew where the alley was.

As I approached it, I stopped hurrying and began to walk. Nerves were mostly reflected in my breathing, leaving me with little oxygen to sustain a brisk pace.

I took a break on a street corner. The sky was already tinted with intense orange, streaked with reddish bands, and high above the rooftops and terraces, the night arrived in a purplish tide.

The streetlights all came on at once, but they contributed only a little extra light to the surroundings, almost going unnoticed.

There were no people on the street. I took a long look around but couldn't find anyone. I wondered if this was common at this time of the evening.

From a distance, I looked toward the end of the alley where I had seen the girl in the white dress exit. It was dark; it looked like the mouth of a sinister and narrow tunnel or the entrance to a semi-secret passage.

I wandered the nearby streets like a stray dog, undecided, with no clear direction, just turning around. Everywhere, around every corner and on the asphalt of every street, I found only solitude. I moved as if in a ghost town, as if the population had been annihilated, and their remnants had dissipated in the humid air of the approaching night.

Or as if everyone had run to hide from a white angel of death before it appeared.

Feeling so alone, with the whole neighborhood to myself, I finally sat down to rest on the doorstep of a house. I couldn't estimate how much time had passed while I was doing nothing. Just a few meters away, I had bumped into Hana some time ago—although the corners of the neighborhood all looked very much alike, I could recognize it easily. That moment had become a distant memory.

I rested my head against the door and closed my eyes. My nervousness discharged through my limbs—especially my legs—causing an annoying tingling sensation.

I took a deep breath of the cool evening breeze.

The sound of rhythmic footsteps surprised me. A youthful figure passed by me just as I opened my eyes. It was a girl who was walking cheerfully, taking a little skip every three or four steps. In one hand, she carried a plastic bag with an object inside; it wasn't difficult to deduce that she had just been shopping.

It was Kari, without a doubt.

I jumped up, unconsciously.

"Hey...! Kari...!"

Kari froze on the spot and immediately turned toward me.

The last golden rays of a sun setting behind the cement horizon illuminated one side of her, while the cold, whitish artificial light spilled over her other side. The same girl was thus divided in two halves: the one everyone knew and loved—the cheerful and charismatic model student and class president, the girl with a heart of gold—and an unknown half with incredible and sinister undertones, which apparently only I had seen.

I had no doubts that Kari was somehow involved in that dreadful affair, whatever it was, and, moreover, seeing her as I did, I couldn't help but be overwhelmed by the terrible premonition that it was Kari whom I had seen killing the man that night.

"Hello! How are you?" she greeted me, not letting her appearance reveal the surprise of finding me because how could she know that she was going to meet me?

I returned the greeting, trying to conceal the ominous feeling that had taken hold of me.

Unlike me, she wasn't wearing her school uniform, but a light-colored blouse; with a quick glance at her neck, I tried to spot the medallion, but without success.

"Regarding the medallion... I'm sorry if I seemed like a thief," I apologized, shaking my head as I spoke.

"Oh, don't worry," Kari said. "No one thought that. Thanks again for returning it."

"Yes... You see, today I wanted to ask you what the symbol on it means."

"Oh, that?" she said nervously. "It's a very old emblem from my ancestors."

She paused for a second, then added:

"Sorry, I'm in a bit of a hurry, but we can talk another day."

It was unusual for the cheerful girl to end a conversation like this. Typically, she would engage in friendly conversation with anyone who wanted to talk to her. Only an urgent matter could force her to interrupt the chat—or was I making her uncomfortable, or did she want to avoid me?

Without waiting for me to say anything about it, Kari turned around and continued on her way.

"Goodbye, Sanke!" she sang, barely starting to move.

A bittersweet taste washed over me. For once, I had been able to be alone with Kari, and she had to leave. I hadn't been able to sustain a two-minute conversation. It was things like that one later says, "it only happens to me."

In the meantime, all traces of the sun had already disappeared from the sky. Instead, the roundness of a huge lunar aura appeared above and below an elongated, leaden cloud.

I turned to look at Kari, who was walking away hastily, not hiding her urgency, without skipping or swinging her bag.

As she reached the corner, her gait became somewhat erratic, and she slowed down; her legs didn't seem very steady. When she tried to cross the street, a speeding car almost hit her. Unfazed, Kari continued her hurried march. However, on the other side of the street, she began to stumble.

I grew concerned. Clearly, something was wrong. I ran after her, and as I got closer, it became increasingly difficult for her to move. Her legs were trembling, one hand was pressed against her chest, and the other was clutching the wall for support as she struggled to reach her destination.

"Kari! Are you okay?" I persisted, stepping in front of her and holding onto her shoulders.

She raised her head, and through the hair covering part of her face, illuminated by the moonlight, I saw a grimace of pain. Her eyes, once bright, were now half-closed. Her body gave way, and I had to support her to prevent her from collapsing. I realized she was as light as a feather. I knelt down carefully, positioning her so her back rested against my torso, while I used one hand to support her head to prevent it from falling backward, like that of a baby with no neck strength. The pained expression on her face disappeared; now Kari appeared to be resting or peacefully asleep, as she had also closed her eyes.

After a few seconds, she suddenly opened her eyes.

"You have to go..." she muttered.

Then she moved her head and with a sudden movement of her arm, she pushed mine away, freeing herself from me. Immediately, she began to get up, albeit clumsily, making a determined effort to do so. In the process, she also picked up the bag that had fallen to the ground.

"What are you saying? You can hardly walk. Let me help you."

Kari shook her head as she attempted a few clumsy steps, trying to leave me behind.

"No, Sanke," she said seriously, her voice on the verge of breaking.

Less than ten steps later, Kari stumbled and was about to fall. I was forced to react. Without warning her, I wrapped my arm around her and helped her walk. Initially, Kari tried to resist, but her strength was feeble.

"I'm just going to take you to your house."

Painful expressions crossed her face despite her vain attempts to hide them.

We walked about fifty meters, and in front of a wooden gate, Kari stopped moving.

"This is my house," she indicated.

With a trembling hand, she searched for and found the keys, which took her some time, partly due to the poor lighting. Meanwhile, I took a look at the house behind the gate. It had two stories, like most houses in the area, but it was noticeably larger than the other houses on the block. The lights on the upper floor were off. Judging by the distance from the gate to the house, I deduced that it had a small front garden.

Kari turned the key and weakly pushed open a side door. Indeed, behind it, I saw a path made of large smooth stones, flanked by vegetation, separating it from her home.

"Thank you," she said quietly.

Her face had a somber look.

She stepped away from me and seemed to be able to walk somewhat upright. However, before leaving, she retraced her steps and approached me for a moment, making me notice that her cheeks were flushed as if she had a fever. She pleaded with me, her lips close to my ear and her voice sweet but also infused with fear:

"Now, please, leave. It's dark."

The door closed gently, making almost no noise. I remained motionless until I recognized the sound of the house door opening and then closing. Afterward, the neighborhood fell back into absolute silence.

I started walking, but I wasn't sure where to go.

That wasn't Kari.

She looked like her, but she wasn't her.

Kari wasn't like that. Not the Kari I knew.

Even so, when I held her to keep her from falling, and when I helped her walk, worried as I was, all I could think of was embracing and kissing her.

I started walking. There was nothing else to do.

I realized I had held Kari herself in my arms, but with the tension of the situation, I couldn't enjoy it, and I wasn't aware of how close I had gotten to her.

Everything had happened too quickly, like a dream scene that abruptly ends with a simple opening of the eyes.

I reversed my steps and turned the corner.

I can't pretend innocence and say that I didn't notice or didn't know. As I turned the corner and walked a bit, I found myself in front of the alley. I gazed at it at my own risk. A yellowish light fell upon it, illuminating a trash container and the skeleton of an old appliance, patches of weeds, and the protrusions of doors and windows that opened onto the alley. The passage was long, and shadows and silhouettes of undefined origin accumulated there, where the lamppost light didn't reach.

Something very difficult to explain prevented me from running away; something was indeed trying to attract me, inviting me to venture into the murky narrowness of the alley. Besides, this alley was behind Kari's house.

So, I couldn't bring myself to move. All I could do was examine the alley with its partially revealed interior, without daring to go any further.

Part of me considered looking for the door or window of Kari's house and spying on the inside.

I dismissed the idea almost immediately. It was nonsensical.

But then... despite the dim light, I noticed some stains on the ground, right by my feet. A trail of glistening drops led into the alley. Almost immediately, before I could even hesitate between following the trail or leaving, a faint moan in the distance broke the silence of the night, echoing in my ears. Insecure, I ventured into the alley. I didn't advance more than seven or eight timid and cautious steps when I came upon two partially bent legs lying on the ground in front of me. They belonged to a woman, whose body was mostly covered in shadows. Nevertheless, apart from her legs, I could see her face. Her eyes were vacant, lifeless, like those of a dying person about to expire, and they didn't turn to me when I arrived. The woman was crying profusely, and her trembling jaw hung loose; her slightly open mouth emitted nothing more than a long, pitiful whimper. The sleeve of her shirt was torn, and on her bare arm were bloody streaks resembling the scratches of a wild animal.

"What is this?" I said to myself, observing the horrifying scene. Then, without wasting time, I approached the woman and bent down to help her out. As soon as I placed my hand on her arm, hidden in the darkness, the woman's entire body shivered violently, as if suddenly returning to life; her eyes opened wide, but she didn't turn her head, and her pupils stared seriously at my face.

"No, no..." she murmured as best she could, given her trembling jaw. I supposed she thought I was going to hurt her more than she had already been.

"Come on, we need to get out of here," I said, while gripping the woman's arm more firmly with one hand and sliding the other under her back to lift her.

Initially, the woman seemed to resist, but I managed to get her to sit down, with her legs bent and her shoulders and head drooping.

And then, as I let go and straightened up, a shadow very close to me detached itself from the darkness in which it had been concealed, taking on the form of a being...

Not just any kind of being, obviously.

It had a threatening figure, tall and bulky, with long hair and a single piece of clothing, resembling a long tunic, a long dress, or a nightgown. Its enormous eyes emitted a powerful gleam that warned me of its intentions.

The figure began by bending over and extending its thick arms to grab its prey without ever taking its eyes off me. The woman, on the other hand, contrary to her reaction when I had tried to help her, didn't resist, although her body spasmed. Perhaps she had lost all hope of salvation and resigned herself to being dragged to a fatal fate.

And I wanted to stop it. I couldn't allow them to take a person—a human being—right in front of my eyes... again.

It's not that I had consciously decided. There was no time for that, and in any case, if I had been allowed to make a decision about what to do, I probably would have fled, even though I don't take pride in saying it.

Mine was an unconscious reaction, something one does without thinking, like a puppet moved by someone else's will.

I lunged forward, attacking the figure with long hair and long robes.

I hit it with my shoulder and arm; it would have hurt just as much if I had collided with the wall. The figure staggered for a moment; out of surprise, its claws let go of the woman, who was now lying at its feet. Then, suddenly, it reached out its arm to strike me, which I partially avoided due to cat-like reflexes and partly because I opportunistically tripped over the fallen woman's legs, causing me to stumble.

But I wouldn't have time to recover. Before I could even stand up, the figure jumped at an incredible speed above the woman and with its other arm captured me... by the neck. It held me firmly, at first without squeezing, allowing me to breathe as little as possible. However, when I began to kick and try to free myself, it decided to slowly close its fingers around my throat, with a sadistic and cruel expression visible in the part of its face that emerged from the darkness.

If I had had time to feel something, I would have felt that this was the end, that my time had come.

Then, someone let out a gasp that pierced through the entire alley.

And then I heard that someone shouting, "No!"

And that same someone emerged from somewhere, and all my pain-stricken eyes could see was an arm waving in front of me, cutting through the air, fast, bright, and fleeting like lightning. Almost immediately, the pressure on my neck disappeared. Coughing and gasping, trying to catch my breath, I could make out a struggle between the terrifying figure and a young woman.

There was no doubt who she was, not even in the dimly lit depths of the poorly lit passageway.

"Go away!" she exclaimed, taking a moment to look at me directly.

But I was petrified, unable to react.

It was so strange, so shocking to see... Kari... there, and in that way. The sweet young girl, the one with a heart of gold, the cheerful girl, was in a sinister corner of the city where people were attacked, and she fought with beings larger than herself.

The figure struck her on the head, and Kari was thrown back. She leaned against the wall with her back.

The situation was so incredible and felt so unreal...

But she was Kari, and I couldn't abandon her.

And again, I didn't decide it. My body moved on its own.

I held onto Kari and pulled her toward me before she could receive another blow. The figure's claws whizzed over her head and struck the wall.

I fled into the nameless street with Kari behind me, still holding onto my arm. With her free hand, she pushed me. Before leaving the alley, I managed to take one last look at the woman. She lay still, perhaps already dead or only unconscious. The figure followed us for a few meters, fury burning in its giant eyes.

As soon as we lost sight of the figure, which had turned back into the alley, Kari stopped running. I stopped too, and doing so, I felt cramps in my legs, the pounding of my heart, and the need to breathe again.

Exhausted as I was, I looked at Kari. Her blouse was stained with blood, and I couldn't tell if it was hers or someone else's. Blood also dripped down her arms, neck, and face.

And she...

She sobbed, and her eyes were filled with tears that mixed with the blood on her face and rolled down her pale cheeks.

Kari opened her huge, beautiful eyes a little to look at me and exclaimed, while lightly hitting my chest:

"I told you to leave! I told you!"

With a constricted heart, all I could do was watch as Kari brought her hands to her face, lamenting, turned her back on me, and walked away. Still sobbing, she ran across the street and disappeared into the shadows of the night.

The first drops of an unexpected rain fell at that very moment.

I arrived home late and wet from the rain, after wandering aimlessly through the streets. My parents were already going to bed. That made it easy for me to avoid them seeing my face, the one that had been radiant with happiness just a few hours earlier.

I collapsed on the bed without taking off my clothes or covering myself with the blanket. My body had no energy left for anything.

A multitude of thoughts crowded my mind, which left me in a daze. I had left home without a clear reason, and I had come dangerously close to dying in a dark alley. Yes, I had escaped death; I had saved myself for just a few seconds, perhaps no more than five or ten. Although... in reality, I had been saved. And by none other than Kari, the cheerful girl, the one with the heart of gold, the girl we all loved, admired, and respected. The girl who might have turned into a ruthless killer who fed on her victims... No, that couldn't be real. That young woman couldn't be Kari, the Kari we all knew. It had to be a hallucination, a bad dream. But if it was a dream, why did it feel so real, why were my sensations and memories so vivid? And why couldn't I convince myself that the girl in the white dress and Kari were two different people? And why did they have to take the lives of that man and that woman? Why? Why...?

A kind of fever came over me; my head felt heavy, and I felt like I was about to get sick, or already starting to.

I tossed and turned in bed. Constantly and without rest, images of what had happened that afternoon flashed before me. The deserted streets at dusk. The woman lying in the middle of the alley, next to a pool of her own blood. The figure about to attack me; its diabolical and inhuman eyes. A girl... Kari, saving me. Kari... walking happily toward her home. Kari... in my arms, light as a feather.

Kari... crying inconsolably.

Crying for a reason I couldn't understand.

My eyes remained open in the darkness of the room. I had no trace of drowsiness, even though I was tired and disturbed. Kari's tear-filled eyes fixed on my mind and tormented me from the ceiling.

"I told you to leave!"

It was the first time I had seen her cry. To see a girl like her cry... it was heartbreaking.

I sat up in bed and lay back down. I closed my eyes and opened them again. I tossed and turned in bed and around it. My mind couldn't be still, and neither could my body.

I wondered... where had Kari gone? She hadn't told me, and I hadn't followed her either.

I looked out the window, as if I could have seen something other than the wall of the house across the street, illuminated by a streetlight, as if my answer could have been out there.

I wanted to go after her, but I no longer dared, no longer felt willing to keep risking myself. I was aware that next time, I might lose my life for real, with no chance of salvation. After what I had experienced and the scenes I couldn't stop replaying in my head, I no longer felt so brave, and the recklessness of my actions seemed inexplicable to me.

However, the unease, the uncertainty about what had happened to Kari gnawed at me from the inside. I fervently wished she was safe, while I was driven crazy by not feeling capable of leaving the house and going to look for her. I pounded the mattress and strangled the blanket, and I fell face-first onto the floor, then I tried to calm down, trying to rest, and after a while, I started cursing under my breath and wanting to break the objects in my room.

I imagined Kari, safe and sound, vital, beautiful, radiant, and, above all, as cheerful as ever, in the school hallways, in the classroom, in the courtyard. As if nothing had happened.

I wished... to wake up the next morning and discover that it had all been a long dream.

Return to index

Visions of a city beyond

Cheerful Girl

Index

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8