Chapter 8 - NORMAL

Chapter 8

Monday morning is completely normal.

I mark this. I have gotten into the habit of marking normal mornings because I have learned they do not stay.

7:57. Third row. Left side. Window.

Kenzou arrives at 8:09 with food. Yuma takes something from his bag without being asked. Kaito is reading. Kurenai arrives and the room shifts. Hori arrives at 7:58 and takes her front row seat.

Normal. Completely normal.

Homeroom. Announcements. A reminder about upcoming exams. The teacher moves through the schedule and I write what needs to be written and look at the window when nothing needs to be written.

At lunch Hori steals my noodles. Kenzou tries to explain something about a video he watched. Kurenai tells him he has misunderstood the video. Kenzou says he understood it perfectly. Kaito says nothing. Yuma finds the middle ground that does not exist and somehow makes it exist anyway.

The city is bright today. Warm for the season.

I think, for the first time in longer than I can remember, that this is a good thing. Six people and a roof and the city below and noodles going cold.

A good thing.

I mark it.

After school the group walks to the station together.

This also started happening without anyone deciding it would happen. One day we were all going the same direction and now we always are. Kenzou walks in the middle of the pavement so everyone has to navigate around him. Hori and Yuma are talking about something. Kaito is next to me.

"Good week," Kaito says.

"Yes," I say.

He looks at me. "You mean it."

I look at the street ahead. "I think so."

He is quiet for a moment. Then: "good."

That is all he says. That is enough.

We reach the station. The group splits by platform, Kenzou and Yuma going one direction, Kurenai another, Hori pausing to say goodbye to each person specifically like she has a particular thing to say to each one and she does, she always does.

She reaches me last.

"See you tomorrow Shin," she says.

"See you tomorrow," I say.

She smiles and goes.

Kaito and I take our platform. Left side. Window seat. The city moves past the glass and I look at it and think about nothing and it is almost peaceful.

Three stops from my station I feel something.

Not a sound. Not a movement. A pressure change. The kind your body registers before your mind catches up.

I look up.

The car is normal. People on phones, salary men, a student with headphones. Nothing wrong. Nothing out of place.

Kaito is looking at his window. His jaw is set.

One stop from mine I feel it again. Stronger.

I look at the doors.

They don't open at my stop.

The train doesn't slow.

I look at Kaito. He is already looking at me.

"Kaito," I say.

"I know," he says.

The lights in the car shift. Not off, different. A frequency that sits wrong behind the eyes. Around us the other passengers go still in a way that people don't go still. Not asleep. Something else.

My phone has no signal.

The train is moving faster.

"Kaito," I say again.

"I know," he says. His voice is completely level. His hands are on his knees and he is looking at the door at the end of the car and his jaw is set in the way it gets when he has been carrying something for a long time and the time to carry it has ended.

He knew.

He knew something and he didn't tell me and I want to ask him but the lights shift again and somewhere ahead of us the tunnel opens into darkness and the last thing I see before it takes everything is the city, bright, warm, completely normal, exactly the way I marked it this morning, disappearing behind us like it was always going to.

The last thought I have before the dark is Hana laughing.

Ice cream melting faster than she can eat it.

Shin ni-chan.

Then nothing.