.Hack//ZERO RE:1030

RE:1030

A small body was lying on the floor, motionless.

And Junka was staring down at it with a vacant expression. Even though it was right there in front of her, she felt as though she were looking at it through a telescope and just couldn’t grasp the distance.

Behind her, she heard a chair grinding across the floor as it was pushed aside. Then a sharp, bug-like voice filled the room.

“I don’t know!”

The boy – who was the most energetic among Junka’s classmates – was the first to jump up and shout. He was probably trying to appear jovial to lighten the atmosphere, but his attempt failed.

“Teacher! Someone, get the teacher!”

The class representative called out an order to the others.

And right on cue, some of the other students ran out of the classroom.

The uproar grew quickly from there. Some of the neighboring classes came over to take a peek, and when they did, some became hysterical and started crying.

However, no one would touch the boy who was lying on the ground barely one meter in front of Junka.

It was like everyone was afraid of being infected by some kind of disease.

In the few minutes before the homeroom teacher arrived, Junka found herself calmly observing her surroundings.

The first to burst into tears had been an annoying girl who was always clinging to the homeroom teacher and had a nasally voice, while the class representative’s cheeks were flushed, and she seemed agitated by all the drama.

Between crying and calmly assessing the situation, the fifth-grade girls reacted in a much more diverse way than the boys.

The boys didn’t seem to be able to do more than just joke or look dumb.

And Junka looked at all of them like they were strangers.

A few moments later, the homeroom teacher finally came running in.

She caught sight of the limp unconscious boy and gasped.

The boy’s arms and legs were splayed out around him, and he was lying facing down against the floor.

“Shindo?”

The homeroom teacher rushed to the boy’s side, gently picked him up and turned him over onto his back.

At that moment, the boy finally let out a short scream. Then he clutched his forehead and scrunched his face in pain.

Eventually, he let out a long, shaky breath and slowly looked up.

Leaning his head back, he moved his gaze around. And when his eyes fell on Junka, he looked uncomfortable.

“Are you alright? Do you feel sick or nauseous?”

The boy shook his head quietly in response to the homeroom teacher’s rapid-fire questions with one hand on his forehead. He struggled to stand up, and removed himself from the teacher’s arms.

“Nimura pushed Shindo.”

One girl pointed at Junka.

“She pushed him?”

But when the homeroom teacher questioned her, the girl just started crying again, like someone had flipped a switch on her.

“Is that true, Nimura?”

The homeroom teacher looked at Junka for the first time.

All of the children who had run to the staff room had no idea what was going on, only that a boy had collapsed.

“It’s true.”

Junka answered with a flat voice, and her homeroom teacher’s eyes widened in a look of shock.

In her mind, Junka was a quiet and easy to handle student, not a student who would answer in the callous way she had just now.

“What’s going on? You aren’t the kind of girl who would do something like that for no reason, are you Nimura?”

Junka did not answer.

The homeroom teacher looked to the boy in confusion. A bump was forming on the left side of his forehead.

“Let’s go to the infirmary. Nimura, come with me.”

This one time, she was being reminded to be good.

The cause had been something else.

The boy had wanted to know about Junka’s family.

For someone who had grown up in a family where his father was a businessman and his mother was a housewife, it seemed unusual to him that Junka’s mother was a doctor.

And why she didn’t have a father was another innocent question that he wanted to ask.

“Did your parents get divorced?”

From his perspective, it was a rare experience like bungee jumping or whitewater rafting, so it was something interesting worth talking about.

“When? And how come?”

If I weren’t experiencing it myself, I would have no idea how much pain comes from growing up as part of a broken family.

Or rather, it simply wouldn’t be possible for me to feel the same pain as them.

The boy wasn’t being completely insensitive, though. Rather than talk about it behind her back like girls often would, he decided to be more polite and asked her about it directly.

“Did they have clashing personalities? Or did they not have the same values? Was it something like that?”

He leaned over her desk and used terms he’d probably just heard his own parents use without knowing what they meant.

“I don’t know.”

“Really? How is that possible? Come on, you have to know why.”

The boy shook Junka’s desk with his whole body.

“They broke up a long time ago.”

“What do you mean?”

Junka wanted to get away from here as soon as possible.

But she also knew that this boy would not go away until he had satisfied his curiosity.

“It happened before I was born.”

“Before you were born?”

He sounded like he was getting excited for some reason.

The girls who were talking by the window turned around to see what he was getting all uppity about.

“That’s crazy! So, you’re an orphan!?”

“No.”

Junka turned her head down to try and hide her disgust at his conclusion.

She noticed a bit of dirt on her left slipper over the pinky toe. She would have to bring them home to wash over the weekend.

“Then, what happened?”

“Why do you want to know?”

“Because no one else has divorced parents; you’re the only one.”

The boy spoke with such confidence.

“I don’t think it’s anything that special.”

“Wow! Nimura, you’re so cool!”

The fact that she knew he wasn’t teasing her and actually meant that made Junka’s heart race just a bit.

“Then, what’s your dad doing now?”

“I don’t know.”

“Why not!? He’s still alive, right?”

The boy moved his face closer with rising interest.

“I’ve never met him before.”

“Never? He doesn’t even call?”

“No.”

“That’s weird!!”

He shouted.

“How can you be sure you even really have a dad, then?”

“I’m here, aren’t I?”

Junka struggled to hide her growing irritation and tried to get up from her chair.

“What’s wrong? I still…”

The boy wasn’t done asking questions yet. He leaned forward, reaching for Junka.

And she knocked his hand away on reflex.

To the others around them, it must have looked like Junka had pushed him.

The boy lost his balance and fell onto the desk, hitting his head on the corner with a heavy thud.

The faint smell of disinfectant permeated the nurse’s office while the chime of the dismissal bell echoed through the school.

The sky was shifting into an unsettling dusk.

And Junka just kept staring at the dirt on her slipper.

“This isn’t like you, Nimura.”

Her homeroom teacher sighed in relief.

Fortunately, the boy had not complained about feeling nausea or pain in the back of his head. Apart from the bump on his forehead, he seemed to be okay.

“Nimura, apologize to Shindo. This could have been much worse than it was.”

She pushed Junka in front of the boy who had a large cold pack held against his forehead.

However, Junka would not move from where she stood.

“Nimura?”

“I don’t want to.”

Junka refused outright.

“What?”

Her homeroom teacher was confused by her response. Even though she had definitely heard her, she couldn’t immediately believe what had been said.

“I won’t apologize.”

“Nimura!”

Her homeroom teacher raised her voice in frustration.

Junka pursed her lips and looked up at her.

“Yes, ma’am.”

The boy tried to get up from his stool. “It’s fine, I’m alright.”

However, instead of diffusing her frustration, the boy’s words tempered the homeroom teacher’s desire to see justice carried out.

She turned to Junka with a look of resolve. She was going to force Junka to admit she was wrong and apologize.

“Nimura, you think you haven’t done anything wrong, don’t you? You have.”

Using all the strength she could muster, Junka refused to move.

Her homeroom teacher scowled and tried phrasing it as an accusation.

“You are in trouble. I didn’t think you were this kind of girl, Nimura. Moreover……”

“I am that kind of girl.”

Junka made that declaration and turned her back on her stunned homeroom teacher.

Then she opened the door and left the infirmary.

A second later, her homeroom teacher came to her senses and called out for Junka, but didn’t chase after her, and she didn’t stop, either.

Junka walked down the hallway to her classroom, and then she noticed a tingling sensation in her left-hand little finger.

She looked down, and her heart nearly stopped as she realized that her finger was bleeding.

It must have been from pushing that boy away.

Junka held the bloody finger to her mouth, tasting iron and dust.

And when she opened the classroom door, Junka was met by the gazes of all her classmates.

They weren’t sure if they should accept her back since she had returned alone.

Junka returned to her seat and began preparing to leave.

“Where are Shindo and the teacher?”

The class representative asked Junka a pointed question.

“The infirmary.”

Junka answered quickly, and the girl’s shoulders stiffened. Still, she couldn’t let go of her curiosity and stepped closer.

“It’s fine. You can go back, Nimura.”

“Shut up.”

Junka muttered.

The girl’s expression wavered for a moment, and then gave Junka an ugly, forced smile.

“You know, you’re scary Nimura.”

Junka ignored the girl and stuffed her textbook into her bag. Then she put the back on her back and faced the girl one last time.

She had a nasty smile stretching over her face. She was aware of the crowd listening in behind her, but her expression betrayed her desire to finish this quickly and bask in the victory of pushing Junka away.

“You’re going home? Why?”

Junka closely examined the girl’s face.

Even though she was frightened and blinked quickly, she did not break eye contact with Junka. And Junka continued to stare back with a blank expression devoid of emotion.

“……What?”

The girl clammed up and her face went beet red. Sweat dripped under her nose, and her black hair looked scraggly, like a beard.

Junka turned away from her.

And started to walk away.

Passed all of her classmates.

Neither the class representative nor the well-behaved boy said a word as Junka stepped around them to get by.

Then at the entrance, she paused when she bent down to take off her slippers.

She realized that there was no need to wait until Friday anymore. She could just bring them home now.

Feeling oddly free, Junka stepped out onto the pavement in her slippers.

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