An Ordinary Day?
The next morning, I arrived at school a little earlier than usual. It wasn't as if I'd suddenly discovered a work ethic. I'd simply tossed and turned until late the night before, and ended up leaving the house first thing.
If I'd been the protagonist of some run-of-the-mill web novel, I might have rounded a corner on the way to school and collided with a tousle-haired girl still clutching a slice of toast in her mouth, kicking off a fateful first meeting... but unfortunately, reality doesn't deal in cinematic events like that. I walked alone down a dull, desolate stretch of asphalt.
When I stepped into the classroom, the seats were still only sparsely occupied. I dumped my bag on the floor and planted my face on the desk. After last night's restless sleep, every joint in my body ached. And before long, right on cue, a familiar voice drifted over from the seat beside mine.
"Morning."
"...Hey."
I lifted my head, reluctantly. There he was, standing right next to my desk — the same guy as yesterday, wearing an expression of completely unnecessary good cheer. Looking at that sunny face, a face that seemed never to have entertained a single worry in its life, I could feel my blood pressure climbing. I shot him a half-lidded glare and put my face back on the desk.
"Why do you look so tired?"
"Because of you."
"What did I do?"
"That's the thing. You didn't do anything."
"Then why is it my fault?"
"Because you're the protagonist."
"...That again?"
He let out a short, incredulous laugh. He really had no idea. He would go his whole life without ever realizing how thoroughly he turned the people around him inside out.
Tap. Tap.
Then, out of nowhere, he started drumming his fingers on my desk in a steady rhythm — the habit he had whenever he was concentrating.
"Anyway, I wanted to ask you something."
"What."
"So there's this girl."
I raised my head, slowly. A chill slid down my spine.
...Here it comes.
"There's this girl who's been giving me snacks a lot lately."
"Okay."
"And she comes looking for me every break."
"O-kay."
"Sometimes she texts me first, too."
"Okay..."
"And she keeps asking what I'm up to."
"..."
I wanted nothing more than to unload a string of profanity so thorough it would have peeled the paint off the walls, but if I did that he'd just get sulky without understanding why and become even more of a pain. So I swallowed the rising heat, as I always did, and tried to be the bigger person... I really, genuinely tried.
"And then yesterday she suddenly asked if I was free this weekend."
"..."
I looked at him. Slowly. Very, very slowly.
"Keep going."
"So I said I was, and then..."
He paused. I narrowed my eyes, praying with everything I had that my prediction was wrong.
"...Oh, please no."
"She asked if I wanted to go see a movie."
I finally lost the fight and slammed my face into the desk hard enough that my forehead should have split. I didn't even feel it. It was the most complete crash of reality I had ever experienced.
"What's the problem?"
"No. There's no problem at all."
"Right?"
Right. Of course there was no problem — for him. The problem was that my mental health, sitting here watching this unfold in real time, was being ground into paste.
"Then why are you sighing like that?"
"No reason."
I pressed my fingers into my throbbing temples.
...No. Wait. The more I think about this, the more it pisses me off. No matter how you look at it, hasn't this crossed a line?
She gives him snacks. She seeks him out every break. She texts him first. She wants a play-by-play of everything he's doing. And then, for the finishing blow, she asked him out to a movie this weekend. Just the two of them. At this point, it was no different from slapping I LIKE YOU across a billboard in letters the size of a house.
I couldn't take it anymore. I lifted my head again, slowly.
"Hey."
"Yeah?"
"Does nothing actually occur to you?"
"Occur to me how?"
"..."
I shut my mouth. Fine. Patience. There was no need for me to clutch the back of my neck and collapse just because my friend was criminally dense. I'd known he was a lost cause from the start, hadn't I?
"Has it not crossed your mind even once — not even a little — that this girl might be interested in you?"
"...Who?"
"The girl who asked you to a movie."
"Oh."
Something seemed to flicker across his face at last. He thought about it for a moment. Then he tilted his head.
"You think so?"
"..."
"Friends go to the movies together all the time."
"Just the two of you?"
"Yeah."
"On the weekend?"
"Yeah."
"And she was the one who asked?"
"Well, I mean..."
He started turning it over with a genuinely serious expression. Frustration climbed all the way to the top of my skull, and I threw up my hands on the inside.
"Forget it."
"Forget what?"
"There are heights of understanding a dense idiot will never reach, even if he lives to a hundred."
I gave up on explaining entirely. If he couldn't chew and swallow after being spoon-fed this thoroughly, nothing I said was going to help. And wasn't that just what the typical romantic-comedy protagonist always was?
The kind of person who remained hideously oblivious to every radiant kindness poured over him, leaving everyone around him choking on secondhand frustration while he strolled through life as a blissful pacifist. And the one who suffered for it, standing closest to him like some combination of manager and guardian, was me.
"So what would you do, if it were you?"
"About what?"
"About her asking you to a movie."
"Just go."
"Is that okay?"
"Why wouldn't it be?"
"What if I end up giving her the wrong idea, and she gets her hopes up..."
I stopped short. Of all the things for him to be sharp about. He couldn't clock a single ounce of affection aimed at himself, but he was meticulously worried about making the other person hope for something and then letting them down. Was I supposed to call that deep and considerate, or just a hopeless idiot whose romance cells had gone completely extinct?
...I genuinely don't know.
"Then just go as friends. Keep it easy."
"You sure that's all right?"
"If you don't dislike her, what's the harm?"
"Hmm..."
He thought it over with that same earnest look, then nodded.
"Yeah. I'll do that."
"Great. Excellent choice."
That was when it happened.
"...Um."
A careful, small voice came from behind us. We both turned at the same time.
A girl was standing there, a little plastic bag held in both hands.
"Oh..."
He was the first to speak, looking faintly dazed.
"What's up?"
"Well..."
She stammered, hovering for a second, then held out the bag she'd been clutching to her chest.
"Here."
"What is it?"
"Just... a snack."
He took the bag as naturally as breathing, without a shred of suspicion.
"Thanks. I'll enjoy it."
"Okay."
She couldn't manage another word. She answered in a single syllable and scurried back to her seat as if she were fleeing the scene. I watched her go in silence, then slowly turned to look at him. He had already opened the bag and was peering inside.
"..."
I'm going to lose my mind. I really am.
"You... you didn't feel that just now?"
"Feel what?"
"Never mind."
Talking would only wear out my mouth. He would probably graduate high school, become a working adult, and go to his grave without ever figuring it out.
And yet, strangely enough, I found the sight of him a little funny — and not entirely bad. He never treated someone's sincere attention and kindness as something he was owed. He just received whatever feeling was offered to him, simply and cleanly, with nothing clouding it. Maybe that was why people kept gathering around him.
"Hey. That movie this weekend."
"Yeah."
"Don't be late."
"Got it."
"And..."
I hesitated, my lips moving soundlessly for a second, then finished the thought.
"Do your best, you hopeless idiot."
He looked at me like I was speaking another language. What? was written all over his face.
"..."
I ended up snorting out a laugh.
"It's nothing."
Honestly. This was why protagonist-types were a lost cause. And the friend of that hopelessly dense protagonist had no choice but to sigh, deep and inward, all over again.
That was what I thought. I was certain of it, with every ounce of enlightenment I could muster — that this weekend would be peaceful.
And then the weekend arrived.
Why, on a golden Saturday, was I standing by myself in the middle of a crowded downtown plaza?
I looked around blankly from the center of the square, Saturday afternoon milling past on every side. People moved with that moderately busy weekend energy, and the weather was relentlessly, almost offensively, bright. There was a big café nearby, and a movie theater — as good a place as any to spend a weekend. But that wasn't the point. I had not had a single reason to be here at this hour.
This morning, another childhood friend of mine — someone I'd known since we were kids — had suddenly dropped an utterly cryptic message on me.
A truly unhelpful, hopelessly naive way of talking. Honestly, it was a pain. I didn't like being summoned first thing on a weekend morning, and I liked the complete refusal to hint at why even less. Still, we'd known each other for so long that I grumbled my way into actual clothes and dragged myself out here anyway.
And when I finally reached the meeting spot, the guy who'd called me wasn't even there.
"..."
I frowned, pulled my phone from my pocket, and looked down at it. There were still about ten minutes until the time we'd set. He was probably oversleeping again and sprinting here in a panic.
Ugh. When is he ever going to kick that sloppy habit?
I sighed and looked around, just to kill the time. And before long, a familiar silhouette slipped out of the crowd and landed squarely in my field of view.
"...Huh?"
Walking toward me from the other side of the plaza, dressed neatly, was the same hopelessly dense guy who'd been slouching around our classroom just yesterday. Today, though, he looked distinctly different. His clothes were actually put-together civilian wear, and the hair that usually stuck out in every direction had been tamed with wax.
The second I saw him, I understood why he was here.
...Ah. So today was the day.
The movie date he'd talked about so casually in class yesterday. The girl who'd given him snacks, texted him first, and asked him to see a movie together this weekend — this was the day he was meeting her. Which meant there was nothing strange at all about him being in this place at this hour.
The strange one was me.
"..."
He spotted me from a distance too, hesitated, then came striding over.
"Huh? What are you doing here?"
"That's my line."
"Me?"
"Yeah. You."
I looked him over slowly, from the top of his neatly arranged hair to his shoes.
"Isn't today your movie day?"
"Yeah."
"Then why are you hanging around here?"
He looked briefly bewildered, then answered.
"Because the theater's here."
"..."
It was such a perfectly correct answer that I had nothing to say back. Why did our neighborhood movie theater have to be planted right in the middle of this plaza?
"And your date?"
"The girl I told you about yesterday."
Of course. I nodded without a word. Then it was his turn to look me over.
"Then why are you out?"
"A friend called me out too."
"Who?"
"The one who's been on school refusal for a month now."
"Is he doing any better?"
"No idea."
He nodded as if that tracked perfectly. An awkward silence settled between us. We were standing in the same place, but we'd come here for entirely different reasons. He was here for the first date of his life... no, for a tender little movie outing. I had been dragged out by someone else's irresponsible summons.
"...Hey."
He looked straight at my face and opened his mouth.
"You're alone?"
"Yeah."
"Your friend isn't here yet?"
"Not yet."
"Then want to watch the movie with me?"
"What?"
I stared at him, floored.
"Did you forget who you came here to meet?"
"No. I remember."
"Then we're good. Go wait by yourself."
"But it'd be livelier with three people. More fun."
"Are you insane? Why would I third-wheel that?"
"..."
He closed his mouth for a second and looked at me. Then he muttered, sounding faintly hurt.
"That's cold."
"What is?"
"Friends can watch a movie together, you know."
"You realize this is not the situation for that line, right?"
I shoved his shoulder lightly and waved him off.
"Just go already."
"You're really not coming?"
"I'm not going, you dense idiot."
"I'm going to look awkward standing here by myself."
"You think I'm the type to get awkward over something like that?"
"Still..."
"I said go."
I kept pushing at his back until he finally stopped walking.
"She's coming."
His head snapped around. Someone was picking her way carefully through the crowd toward us — the same girl from the classroom yesterday. The moment he spotted her, his eyes widened a little.
"Oh. She's here."
I sent him a look that said, so get lost already, and he scratched the back of his head.
"..."
He glanced back and forth between me and the girl approaching in the distance. Then he nodded, as if he'd given up.
"All right. I'll text you later."
"Yeah. Have fun."
He took a few steps, then looked back again, lingering.
"You're really not coming?"
"I said I'm not. Believe people when they talk."
"Okay, okay. See you later."
Only then did he let out a light breath and start walking toward her.
"Hey."
"Ah, um... h-hello!"
The girl ducked her head shyly, her face a little flushed, and he answered with a soft smile, as if the last five minutes had never happened. Even from a distance, they made a good pair. It was such a tender little scene that the words a handsome boy and a pretty girl arranged themselves without any help from me.
...Well. I'd done my part. My friend had gone off to his life's little event, and I could wait for the late one on my own.
I pulled my phone from my pocket and checked the time.
We were already well past the time we'd set. I was about to hit call, wondering if something had happened, when—
Bzzzt—
The phone in my palm gave a short buzz. I checked the screen. A message had come in from the same guy who'd summoned me here and then gone completely silent.
My eyes narrowed on instinct.
"..."
I stared at the screen for a few blank seconds.
I lowered the phone into my pocket, slowly.
"...What is he even saying?"
It was hollow. Hollow to a degree that almost felt like a joke. I had gotten up early on a weekend morning, washed, even put on clothes I didn't normally bother with, and dragged myself all the way out here.
The whole morning I'd spent getting ready because we hadn't seen each other in a while had just been erased. And the person who'd called me out in the first place had unilaterally announced that something urgent had come up, and that was that?
"...Is this a joke?"
I was so deflated I couldn't even laugh. I glanced sideways. The dense idiot and the girl were already walking side by side toward the theater entrance, looking for all the world like they belonged there. I watched their backs with a bleak little feeling, then shook my head.
"Fine... you two have a great time."
There was no reason left for me to stay. I let out a long breath, shoved my phone deep into my pocket, and turned around. Time to go home.
Dragged out first thing on a weekend morning to spectate a friend's date, then dumped by the person who'd summoned me in the first place. Really. Today had been an unusually exhausting day.
"...Next time someone tells me to come out, I'm not going. Period."
Of course, I knew perfectly well that the next time he whined at me I'd end up going anyway, which only made the muttering sound more irritated.
I trudged along, talking to myself.
"I'm going home and eating the ice cream in the freezer."
Today would pass the way days usually did. Nothing would happen.
...At least, that was what I genuinely believed, in that moment.