Chapter 3.1 (1/2)

At our high school, it was decided that the first-years would put on a play for the cultural festival. What we would be doing had already been decided by vote.

Romeo and Juliet.

Isn’t it too cliché? I thought.

And then we had to decide on the cast.

“First of all, the role of Juliet. I was thinking that we’d nominate candidates, then have a show of hands to vote,” said our homeroom teacher, Yos.h.i.+e-sensei.

She was wearing a light expression; it didn’t seem that she was dragging out the issue with Kayama. It was possible that Kayama had chosen his timing so that she could get her feelings in order over the summer vacation.

I looked around, but there was an air of avoidance among everyone. Our school was quite focused on preparing students for university, so there were a lot of people attending cram schools even among first-years, so the people who partic.i.p.ated in events like this were in the minority. Supporting roles might have been fine, but main roles with many lines that needed a lot of practice were the most unpopular. This applied for every cla.s.s, not just ours. Apparently, it was common for the teacher to just choose people.

“There aren’t any candidates, are there…” Yos.h.i.+e-sensei said, sounding disappointed.

I took a moment to take a deep breath, harden my resolve and then raised my hand with all of my strength.

“I’ll do it,” I said.

The whole cla.s.sroom exploded with roars of laughter at that moment. But I certainly hadn’t raised my hand to make people laugh.

“You know we’re talking about the Juliet role, right?” Yos.h.i.+e-sensei said. “You’re a guy, aren’t you, Okada-kun?”

“I’ve always been interested in wearing women’s clothes,” I said.

More laughter echoed in the cla.s.sroom.

“You can’t. Aren’t there any girls who want to do it?” Yos.h.i.+e-sensei curtly rejected my statement and pressed the other students. Even so, n.o.body raised their hand. It was clear that n.o.body wanted to do it. And then someone said it.

“But maybe it would actually be more popular if a guy did it.”

That opinion triggered voices of approval with responses like, “You’re right,” “It’ll be hilarious,” and, “It’ll work, won’t it?”

Finally, Yos.h.i.+e-sensei partially gave in. “Hmm… I’m against it, though. Well, in the end, it’s up to the students to decide. Well then, everyone in favor of Okada-kun in the role of Juliet, raise your hands.”

A few scattered hands went up across the cla.s.sroom, and their number steadily increased. At a glance, it looked like more than two thirds of the cla.s.s had raised their hands.

“Well then, we’ll give Okada-kun this role for now. But if a girl wants to take the role later, she will get it. That’s fine, right?”

I couldn’t imagine that anyone else would come forward, but Yos.h.i.+e-sensei’s words settled the matter.

“Next, the role of Romeo. Well then, shall we make this one a girl?” Yos.h.i.+e-sensei said, probably joking.

But n.o.body raised their hands. Finally, Yos.h.i.+e-sensei looked around the cla.s.sroom with a troubled expression.

And then Kayama raised his hand. “Well then, I’ll do it.”

“I-I see. Then, I suppose I’ll leave it to you, Kayama-kun.” Yos.h.i.+e-sensei looked surprised, but she wrote our names on the blackboard.

Romeo: Kayama Akira

Juliet: Okada Takuya

What a terrible cast, I thought as I looked at the letters on the blackboard.

“Kayama, why did you raise your hand?” I asked him after homeroom was finished.

“Because I want to stand out,” he replied calmly.

“I was sure you just wanted to cause trouble for Yos.h.i.+e-sensei,” I said.

“You’re overthinking things. And actually, you being Juliet is stranger than my problems. What on earth is that about? You’ve changed much more than I have.”

“… I have my own circ.u.mstances, too.”

Well, I wasn’t normally the type to partic.i.p.ate in school events. I didn’t think Kayama’s reaction was unreasonable.

After homeroom was sixth period, PE.

In most PE lessons, Kayama just watched. Kayama was watching from the corner of the basketball court on that day as well. After being put in the same cla.s.s as him, I was always nervous during PE lessons. But the one thing that made me the most nervous was basketball.

The ball was pa.s.sed to me. I wondered whether I should dribble or shoot. At that moment, Kayama suddenly entered my field of vision. In the next moment, the ball was taken from me by someone on the opposite team.

“You’re so clumsy, Juliet!” Kayama shouted at me, sounding a little angry. I could hear chuckling laughter around me.

I looked behind me to see the match proceeding, and a goal was easily scored against my team. As I was thinking that it might be my fault for not getting back into position right away, a loss pa.s.s flew towards me from my teammate. I heard him shout.

“Juliet Okada!”

It sounded like the stage name of an unsuccessful comedian. With a sigh, I jumped and threw a shot.

The ball flew through the air in an arc and fell into the net.

Surprised, I looked at Kayama. Our eyes met.

“What?” Kayama said, sounding irritated.

I stood stock still, unable to say anything. Why had I looked at Kayama now, after scoring a goal? I regretted that a little.

In the past, Kayama had been a basketball player.

Up until a certain point during our second year of middle school.

Kayama and I were in the same cla.s.s back then. And during that time, I was being bullied by a certain group of delinquents in the cla.s.s who had their eyes on me.

“Jump, Okada!” one of the delinquents shouted.

I was holding the handrail of a veranda, facing our cla.s.sroom.

“If you hurry up and die, it’ll make us all happier, too.”

It had all begun when I covered for another guy who was being bullied. I wasn’t good at fighting myself, and I had no way of winning a fight, but I couldn’t help myself when I saw that guy having the contents of his bento thrown over his head.

On the veranda, I laughed at myself for having done something so stupid. For some reason, the guy who had been bullied back then had joined the group that was bullying me now. I didn’t understand. Was he doing this to escape the fear that he might be the one to be bullied again one day?

“Die! Die!”

It seemed that everyone in the cla.s.s was pretending not to see the bullying that was targeted at me. That was to be expected; I was living proof that anyone trying to stop it would become the new target.

There are several forms of bullying; there are malicious ones like verbal abuse and hara.s.sment, but the bullying I faced was direct violence, being punched and kicked. At that moment, I’d become tired of that violence.

When I looked at the ground below me from that veranda, I felt like I was going to be sucked in. Maybe dying would be fine, I thought. I didn’t really understand, but there were a lot of troublesome things about being alive. When I thought about it, I hadn’t particularly enjoyed anything while living.

“Alright,” I said quickly, climbing over the veranda’s handrail.

Holding the handrail behind me, I placed my feet on the edge of the veranda, where there was only enough room to fit half of my sneakers, and looked down. I looked back and saw my cla.s.smates looking at me with blank expressions through the open window. They were looking, but showing no particular response. I felt like things being like this was good in its own way, so that I wouldn’t have to become like them.

I looked down once more.

The wind was blowing.

I remembered Meiko, who had died a year ago.

Dying is simple, I thought.

But my legs were shaking.

I couldn’t really make up my mind.

That was when it happened.

“Oi, cla.s.s is starting soon.”

Kayama opened the door to the veranda and approached me.

Surprised, I turned around.

“Shut up, you. Get back.”

Ignoring the delinquents’ words as if he hadn’t heard them at all, Kayama got closer to me.

I’d never even had a proper conversation with Kayama before that. The only thing I knew about him was that he was in the basketball club.

But, with that said, the two of us did have a certain connection.

Kayama Masataka.

Kayama’s dead older brother had been Meiko’s boyfriend. Our siblings had been in a relations.h.i.+p with each other, so we had to acknowledge each other’s existence whether we liked it or not. That didn’t mean that we’d had any deep conversations about it or anything like that, but our eyes met from time to time.

But that was all our relations.h.i.+p came down to. Up until then.

“You guys are boring,” Kayama said in a clear voice.