~The monster inside me never died. It only learned how to hide behind my own face.~
1. A Trace That Never Leaves
I always thought waiting was only a brief pause before something certain would happen.
I was wrong.
Waiting can become a punishment.
Silent, without sound, without an executioner—
yet enough to wear someone down until only the shell remains.
I waited in that corridor.
Between damp walls, the nauseating smell of soap, and the hum of the lights that sounded like the breath of someone dying.
Hiroshi told me to wait there.
He said it would only be a moment.
He said he would come back.
And I, with the foolishness that at the time looked like kindness, obeyed without a single suspicion.
Now I know:
that was my first betrayal of myself.
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2. A Voice That Never Sleeps
I even felt relieved for a moment.
Thinking I had stopped him.
That he had finally chosen not to go any further.
That somehow, I was still on the right side.
What kind of arrogance was that—
believing bad intentions could disappear just because of one refusal?
I hadn't even made peace with that false relief when the sound shattered it.
A scream.
Not an ordinary scream.
Not the cry of a startled child or someone slipping.
It was a sound born from pure panic—
broken, rough, as if his lungs were being crushed by fear itself.
Hiroshi's voice.
For a second, the world seemed to stop breathing.
His two friends and I turned at once.
From the end of the corridor, a teacher's silhouette came running.
His footsteps echoed wildly on the slick floor.
The transparent curtain swayed gently, like thin skin unable to hide anything.
My heart pounded louder than his footsteps.
I didn't know what had really happened.
I only knew one thing:
He was running toward us. Considering the branching corridors, it shouldn't have been that easy for the teacher to find the way to us. At the fork where the path split—as if fate itself hesitated to choose a direction.
And in my chest, fear did not grow as a scream—
but as a deadly shame.
The worry crept into my mind—fear that my presence would be seen as a stain, as something improper even before I could explain myself.
Not about punishment.
Not about scandal.
But about being in the wrong place,
at the wrong time,
with the wrong people.
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3. A World Spinning
On the other side, noise began to stir among the girls—a chaos growing slowly, like a storm learning its own name.
Panic crawled up my throat like a living creature.
I tried to pull Hiroshi's two friends.
"Go… we leave now."
Hide.
Disappear.
Anything.
But they froze.
Their legs refused to obey their minds.
And that was when I understood the cruelest form of fear:
when you want to run,
but no direction will accept you.
The footsteps drew closer. There was no time to hide.
Then—
BANG!
A hard crash exploded in the air.
Someone fell.
The sliding door opened halfway.
With trembling hands, I pushed it a little more—
enough to see the small hell just born before me.
The teacher lay on the floor.
Not moving.
Beside him, Hiroshi stood holding a baseball bat.
His breath was heavy, broken.
His face wet with sweat…
and something darker.
Blood.
Clinging to the tip of the bat.
Time collapsed.
Like glass shattering without sound.
I didn't scream.
I didn't move.
I only stood there as a witness—
who didn't yet realize he was being reborn as a suspect.
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4. Who Am I
I didn't know whether to feel relieved or terrified by what happened. On one side, my identity was still hidden—a bitter kind of luck. But on the other, I knew this incident was opening the door to something far worse, something that would only drag me deeper into a chaos I didn't fully understand.
Blood began to flow from the teacher's head wound. Not heavily, but real enough to choke my breath. For the next three to five seconds, my mind went blank—like the world suddenly freezing in front of my face. I had never imagined witnessing something like this from such a close distance.
What would I say if others saw me here with Hiroshi and the rest?
Dark possibilities piled up mercilessly. The premonition throbbed like a wound not yet bleeding.
Then suddenly, a sharp voice broke my trance.
Hiroshi.
Without hesitation, he threw the bat he had just used at the teacher—
toward me.
He looked straight at me.
His eyes did not tremble.
"Throw it away."
One word.
Short.
Cold.
The bat flew toward me.
Landing in my hands like a curse passed from one soul to another.
I should have dropped it.
I should have screamed.
"Throw it to the end of that corridor," Hiroshi ordered.
Not far from where I stood stretched a narrow hallway with a small window high on its side—a piece of pale light peeking through like a watchful eye. Perhaps that was where he wanted me to throw it, where traces could be hidden and sins could pretend to be forgotten.
But my thoughts no longer moved straight, swallowed by anxiety. In that fog of panic, my body moved before reason—following Hiroshi's command like a puppet pulled by fear.
All I did was run.
I ran carrying the body of the crime in my own hands.
My breath choked.
My stomach twisted.
The world spun as if trying to throw me out of itself.
I ran with one foolish belief:
as long as the evidence disappeared, I would be safe too.
I was wrong.
From the opposite direction, several teachers appeared.
Their footsteps sounded like a verdict not yet spoken.
Behind me, Hiroshi and his two friends followed—running.
Cries for help broke out—
short,
fake,
calculated.
I turned at the exact second their hands pointed at me.
"Satoshi forced us!"
Hiroshi's voice shook—
perfectly imitating fear.
The others nodded.
Strengthening the lie with equally pale faces.
One sentence.
One direction of accusation.
And at that moment I understood:
I was no longer a witness.
I had officially been reborn as a monster.
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5. Neither Living Nor Dead
The most painful thing was not the accusation.
But the fact that I stayed silent.
I could have said anything.
I could have shouted.
I could have dragged them all into the truth.
But fear stitched my mouth shut first.
And that silence—
became my first sin.
And from that day, a voice was born inside me:
As long as you stay silent, you will live.
But you will live as someone who is no longer yourself.
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6. Not Much Different
And for a moment, Misaki—her shadow crossed my mind like a whisper almost without sound, yet enough to shake something in my chest.
With a gaze that seemed to know everything without asking—
I felt the same echo.
The silence before betrayal.
She didn't force me to change.
She only showed that the monster had long lived inside me.
Like someone calling a shadow out of the darkness,
Misaki only whispered:
I no longer know whether I follow her because of a feeling…
or because I finally found someone who accepts the monster inside me without condition.