A bunch of stuff went through my head as I was kneeing her face: no needles or hammer…but got to pound Maki…make sure she can’t fight back…but what was happening?…why were they doing this? I knew that the other girls weren’t like Maki, that I could probably talk my way out of this if it was just them. Anyway, when they saw what I was doing to Maki, they would probably back off. Which is why I was kicking the shit out of her right there in front of them. “You’re out of your league, Maki,” I shouted at her. “You little shit! You’re totally fucked!” The fights in girl manga were never like this, so I had to use stuff I’d read in guy comics, sound effects and all. Maki couldn’t talk anymore, just sputter. “Ahh, ahh, kaa, gaa.” The other girls were telling me to stop now, but of course no one actually stepped in to break it up. Chickenshits. No surprise. They yelled at me, and I kept on kneeing Maki in the face, smashing it up; but then suddenly they all drew back in a circle and got real quiet, so I slowly let go of her. Her nose had been bleeding all this time, so her face was completely red and gross. My thigh was red too, and there was a little blood on my skirt. As I let go of her, she slumped to the floor, but she put her arms down to catch herself; I suppose because she didn’t want to end up flat out on the bathroom tiles. She gasped or gagged or something and then tried to crawl out the bathroom door on her hands and knees. But I pulled her hair from behind and sat her down right by the door. “Where do you think you’re going?” I said. “Have a seat.” There was this little turn in the passage that led from the bathroom out to the hall, so the kids passing by out there couldn’t see her. She sat, bloody face buried in her knees. It was like a scene straight out of a horror flick. Her shoulders were heaving, and it didn’t look like she’d be getting up for a while.
Hiding my fear, I turned to face Miyon and the others.
They had all drawn back away from me, as far as they could get, and they looked a little nervous. Not scared exactly, but I was getting some kind of strange vibe. What? Why were they looking at me like that?
“What?”
“You’re a little scary, Aiko,” Shima said.
“What do you mean?”
“Why did you do that to Maki? She just slapped you—you went way ape-shit.”
Ape-shit? There were six of them and one of me, and they were planning to crucify me. Here in the bathroom, with Maki as executioner—and I went ape-shit? If I hadn’t put her out of commission once and for all, if I’d left her anything to hit back with, I would have got double in return. She would have crucified me for sure, or worse.
“You brought her into this, you shits,” I said. They said nothing. I was done with them. No more partying with Kan or Shima or Miyon or Nakajima or Narucchi. Crucifixion in the bathroom, with Maki—that was the end. And then to try to make me out as the bad guy on top of that? No, that was too much. Way much. But fuck it. Whatever. I still had some friends. Yoshida and Marilyn. But I was done with this crowd. Though before I stopped talking to them forever, there was one more thing I had to do: find out why they were doing this.
So I just asked: “Why are you doing this?” I really wanted to know. Why had they suddenly hauled me off to the bathroom to crucify me? When we’d made plans to do all sorts of fun stuff together this summer, go to the beach and shit. Which we would not be doing now. Why was that? Why?
But they ignored my question and instead Kan asked one of her own.
“Aiko, where were you last night?”
Last night?
“I was home,” I said. What did she mean? Did they want me to tell them I’d gone to a hotel with Sano?
“But you left with Sano,” Kan said. “Where’d you go?”
Was this for real? They wanted to know about that?
“Who the fuck cares where I was,” I told her.
“We do!”
“Why should you? And why should I have to tell you?”
“You went to a hotel, didn’t you? Did you really go home last night?”
“Go ask Sano, if you’re so curious.”
And then they all stood there for a minute, staring at me with these weird looks.
What the fuck?
“But Sano didn’t come to school. Nobody’s seen him since last night. They’re saying he’s dead. Murdered. You didn’t know?”
What the fuck?
“What the fuck?”
“That’s right. That’s what we’re asking you. What the fuck?” And with that they began closing in on me, and now their faces were real serious. Though I wasn’t sure that serious meant they were really serious…but whatever. I didn’t understand anything that was going on. What did they mean “murdered”? What the fuck? It probably wasn’t a “what the fuck” kind of moment, but I really didn’t have a clue. What the fuck?
“How was he killed?” I asked.
“That’s what we’d like to know,” Shima shot back. “And were you involved?” Kan added.
“Hold on,”
