Shiratori Haruto

“All those days were really… quite peaceful. I had started to settle into society again, forgetting all that feeling of ‘everything’s changed’ which I used to have. I was feeling at home… once more. And I was content this time.”

The foot covered with a white sock was stuffed into the white shoe with some black outlines on it. The white shoe was followed by a black pair of trousers on top, with a white shirt stuffed into it. The topmost button of the shirt was open, exposing the tips of the shoulder bone. My neutral face turned up from the shoes and then turned to the back. “I’m leaving, mom!”

“Safe journey, dear!” My mother shouted back.

I was standing right in front of the shoe rack on my left, with the white drawing room—lighted by the sunshine of the morning—right behind me. I turned my head to the front again, held the strap of my bag on top of my right shoulder, and then stepped to the front. I pushed open the door, walked out, and pushed close the door behind me.

***

Isekai’d

Written by Dhruv Pabreja

***

I was walking toward the gate of the school building in the middle of the narrow street which was sloping a little upward. My eyes were fixed on my right, where I can see the brown football field on the other side of the green fence and bushes. There were some more students on my front and back, scattered in groups, as I walked alone through the path. I then turned my head to the front and continued walking toward the gate, where I could see others from the other side too walking in as they talked. Both my hands were inside my pockets, my eyes neutral.

“Well, I didn’t know what I used to be back then, but I could bet that this silent version of me was not what I used to be. And that was a thought which had been haunting me for some time. Who am I? Who was I used to be? What had happened to me? Those were the same questions that I was asking myself for quite some time, but I still couldn’t answer my questions. But you know, at that particular point in time, I had recently started to believe that… maybe, just maybe… I can live without answering myself these questions.”

***

DING-DONG!

The sound of the bell echoed in the whole school. Inside the class filled with the windows to the corridor to the left and to the outside blue sky to the right, the students sitting on the chocolate-colored wooden desks with thin metal legs stood up, along with the teacher who sat on the dark brown wooden desk at the left corner of the room. The teacher stood up, turned his head to the desk, and the students bowed down and said, “Thank you, sir!” The teacher collected his books, took them up, carried them parallel to his right arm and waist, turned his head to the front looking at the kids beneath his shining spectacles, corrected his dark violet-colored shirt by the chest with his left hand, turned to his left at the open sliding door of the classroom, and started to silently walk away in his mustard-colored trousers and black slippers. As the fat teacher was walking midway to the exit, all the students turned to their rights or lefts, filling the whole classroom with indistinct chatter of the young. On the right corner of the room, with the other exit of the room just behind, stood me, who was looking at the guys and girls at the front who had just made a circle around the table just two tables at the front and were now laughing and chatting. I turned my head to the right, looking outside the room at the corridor, and looked at a group of girls walking from my back to front in the corridor with their lunchboxes in their hands as they smiled and chatted. I continued looking at them for a couple of seconds as I sat down on my seat again. I then turned my head to the ground at my black bag, opened its zip, moved my right hand in, shuffled through the stationery stuff inside, and after a second, moved out a lunchbox tied with a light green cloth at the top. I kept it on the table, my eyes still at the bag, moved my right hand down again, closed the zip, and then turned my head to the front, looked at the lunchbox, and kept my elbows and hands on the table around it, glaring at the lunchbox for some time.

After glaring at it for a couple of seconds, I then moved my hands a little back, opened the knot at the top, and then started unwrapping the cloth. Suddenly, someone patted my right shoulder. I turned my head back to the right.

“Alone again?” I heard a feminine voice from my left.

I then turned my head to the left, and looked at Hina walking in from my right back from the entrance around me at my left. She smiled. “Miyamura-san, why were you absent from school all these days?” I asked.

Hina turned to her right and sat on the seat in front of me, her legs out at the aisle on her left, and her open lunchbox on top of her black skirt. With a smile, she turned to me and said, “I had to be in Tokyo for a wedding. But I’m back.”

“Oh, you’re back?!” I said with my eyes wide open in exaggeration. “I thought you were still there.”

She narrowed her eyes a little. “Bad one, Shiratori-kun.” She then turned to her legs at her lunchbox.

I turned my head down at my lunchbox too, opening its lid as I smiled. “Well, I think comedy just isn’t made for me.”

“Don’t be so sadistic, dummy.” Hina turned her head up at me as she took in some rice and started chewing. “It’s this negative approach that you’re depressed. Think positively!”

I chuckled in my mouth for once as I chewed. I then gulped in and turned at her. “You know, I actually cracked another joke right there.”

Her eyes narrowed again as her chewing slowed down a little. I hesitantly continued looking at her as I gulped in. She then gulped in too and said, “Dummy!”