Run Over Chapter 1.2

After leaving the station, I reached the school in a few minutes, an unremarkable public school, and went in through the rust-covered gate. The cla.s.s teacher standing with them monotonously murmured the greetings. Good morning. Good morning. Her name was Katai. A woman of about twenty-six to twenty-seven. She was in charge of cla.s.s numbers 2 and 3 neighboring my cla.s.s. Every day she smiled at everyone. Good morning. Good morning. Agony started to build up. I changed my shoes at my locker and climbed up some stairs. A pair of schoolgirls walked by, chattering loudly on the way. Stairs, a platform, more stairs, a corridor. At last, the fourth floor.

Our cla.s.s was at the left end side of the corridor. There was a holder covered in tape, sticking out of the wall above the door. On it was a sign that said "2-4". A real decoration for my school, where there was no tradition to yearly shuffle cla.s.ses.

Most of the students have arrived. When the door opened slowly, loud shouts escaped the room, in which the phrases like, "shut up worm" and "oh boy" were vaguely deciphered. Today, like always, the loudest yells came from Hara, a short, frail guy.

As soon as I walked into the cla.s.s, Kiyama, a guy with chestnut hair, smacked Hara on the a.s.s. There was a sharp slap and Hara fell over, arching his back. The whole cla.s.s erupted in laughter. Everyone laughed and screamed. It was habitual by now. Hara. A punching bag. The cla.s.s rallied together against Hara. He became the lubricant that eliminated conflict between the rest.

Hara. After the death of the previous punching bag, he firmly took her place. Watching the action from afar, I took my spot, the last on the right, right by the door. No one noticed me, but I saw the whole cla.s.s from there. Having beat Hara for everyone's entertainment, Kiyama stood in a victorious pose. In the crowd of laughing people, I looked at a few exceptions. They lowered their gazes and pretended to be fumbling with their phone or reading a book, and one was moving his finger on the screen of a tablet. Everything went as usual.

"Hey, Hara, why are you whining?" asked Fus.h.i.+mi, who was standing near Kiyama, when Hara, wriggling in pain, continued to lie on the floor without trying to rise. An informal cla.s.s leader, he contrasted with Hara. No one ever called him the leader aloud, but everyone recognized him as such without any words.

"Come on you're not in pain, stop fooling around in front of everyone, you hear me?" barked Fus.h.i.+mi while looking around. The students smirked. "If you moan like that, someone will think that I'm making fun of you."

And then everyone gave Hara a judgmental look. It's all your fault. Pretending that you're hurt, disrespecting the foundations of the cla.s.s. This is how they looked at him.

"Th…is…." Mumbling incoherently, Hara jumped in convulsions, with his eyes twitching from nervous tics.

Chuckles were heard in the cla.s.sroom.

"What, you think it's funny?"

"N-no…"

Tanabe Kyoko, Fus.h.i.+mi's girlfriend, the guy that started this fight, laughed along with another girl. Her golden-black, dirty hair stuck out in different directions. Pleased with the position of the leader, Kiyama proudly demanded:

"Apologize," getting carried away, he went completely crazy, "Get up on your knees — naked of course!"

Definitely got carried away. The fun hit him right in the head and didn't let him stop. That and how was it possible to calm down here. If we were in a third-rate movie, now a character full of sense of justice would appear. He would scream something in the spirit of. "Hey, what are you doing?!" or
"You went too far!". Shortly speaking, a fellow who is messed up in the head. In reality, this doesn't happen. It does not happen, therefore such events became daily.

"Agreed", "That's all you do, standing naked on your knees. Come up with something new, Kiyama", "Come up with it yourself", "Oh, how scary", "As if he wants to apologize, make him get on his knees", "Naked".

The crowd yelled everything it pleased. As always. As always. I imagined that the cries of the crowd was distant and that noise had no relation to me. Just in order to get through this.

"If you're apologizing, strip naked", "Be careful", "Wow, he really is", "He-he-he, ha-ha-ha", "You're so funny,"

I seemed to be sinking in the sea, and the voice became blurred. I gave up on what was happening in the room and waited for it to end. From time to time, the sound of clapping hands reached my consciousness submerged in water. Clap-clap-clap. I put up with it as much as I could, waiting for the applause to finally stop beating in my ears.

I don't know how much time had pa.s.sed, but soon, the bell rang. The teacher entered, nicknamed Bison, and my consciousness swam back to the surface.

The cool hour ended, and here a waste of time began, divided into parts of fifty minutes each. The teachers and the students were nothing but an external entourage for lessons, which took time for nothing. After the recess bell, Hara's execution was resumed, and cheers were heard from the cla.s.s once more. The cycle was repeated until the sixth lesson, and until half past four, I was abstracted from the school.

A meteor. A truck. A plane. Terrorists. Anything. If only something hit the cla.s.s and killed everyone. What a ridiculous dream. I'm being foolish. I just need to take a breath. What is this nonsense coming from my head? I put my index and middle finger together and dragged them across my neck as if cutting my carotid artery. Of course, I did not die.