Chapter 7 - Small

Chapter 7

Friday is when things start feeling like something.

Not something bad. Something warm, which is the word I keep not using because I don't know what to do with it. The Rooftop Alliance has been eating lunch together for a week and a half and somewhere in that week and a half a thing happened that I did not plan for and cannot fully explain.

I started looking forward to it.

Not the food. Not even the conversation specifically. Just the roof. The six of us. The particular chaos of Kenzou saying something that makes no sense while Yuma finds the kindness to respond to it, Kaito at the end of the table being present in the specific way that means he is paying attention to everything and saying very little, Kurenai contributing exactly when she wants to and ignoring everything else without apology.

And Hori next to me stealing whatever I'm not eating fast enough.

This is a normal thing. I know it is a normal thing. People look forward to lunch with their friends every day in every school in Japan.

I don't think I have done this before.

Friday lunch Hori is in a good mood.

She is always in a good mood, this is a different version. Something lighter underneath the warm. She laughs faster, teases harder, leans over and draws something on the corner of Kenzou's notebook without asking and he looks at it and says "that's me?" and she says "obviously" and it is a small round figure with enormous eyebrows and Kenzou looks at it for a long moment and then says "I'm flattered" with complete sincerity.

She draws Kaito next. Sharp lines, very still posture, a tiny book in one hand. Kaito looks at it without expression. Then he says "the book is too small" and Hori says "the book is exactly right" and Kaito says nothing else but his jaw does the thing where it is not a smile but it is adjacent to one.

"Do me," Kurenai says.

Hori draws her. Kurenai looks at it. "My hair is better than that."

"Subjectively."

"Objectively."

Hori shows her teeth when she smiles. "Yuma?"

Yuma's comes out with soft lines and a very gentle expression. Yuma looks at it and says "oh" quietly like she wasn't expecting to be seen that accurately.

Everyone looks at me.

Hori turns to the corner of my notebook, I don't stop her, and draws. I look down when she's done.

It is me at the window. Left side. Looking out. The city is three lines and a suggestion. The figure has its hands in its lap and is drawn smaller than everything else on the page.

I look at it.

"You made me small," I say.

"You make yourself small," she says. Her voice is the same warm easy register it always is. "Different thing."

The roof is quiet for exactly one second.

Then Kenzou says "that was deep" and Yuma nods and Kaito looks at the city and Kurenai looks at me with the expression of someone confirming something she suspected.

I look at the drawing.

I eat the rest of lunch thinking about nothing.

That is what I tell myself anyway.

Saturday.

The apartment. Noodles. The window.

My phone has three messages. One from Kenzou sending a photo of the drawing Hori did of him with three laughing emojis. One from Yuma saying have a good weekend with a small flower emoji. One from Kaito that says simply: rest.

I look at them for a while.

I don't know when I got a group chat.

I put the phone down.

I take the photograph from my wallet and hold it for exactly four seconds. Hana laughing. Ice cream melting. Pigtails uneven.

I put it back.

Outside the city moves. My father is on television. I watch the ceiling instead and think about a drawing of me sitting small next to a window and Hori's voice saying you make yourself small like it was the simplest true thing in the world.

I think about forty three students somewhere that nobody can find.

I turn off the light.