Chapter 1 — The boundary line, the marriage between a girl and a wolf. Part 11
He was so certain that it was almost bizarre. But he was most probably right.
I could feel it too, just like a premonition, that the laws unknown to me would spring into motion.
A completely different set of laws from a completely different world, the forest.
"Conflict is necessary. It doesn't matter that the city has long forgotten the forest, and that the forest rejects the city as of the present."
"If," I asked, almost certain of the answer, "I made the humans my enemies and fought against them, would you still stay by my side, even then?"
"I would, even if you said that you hated me," he answered immediately. I closed my eyes and nodded slightly.
We were both waiting for it.
For the battlefield that will absolve us of this hatred.
"Saki, what do you hate?"
My smile distorted. I couldn't tell if the face that was reflected in Shiro's eyes expressed pain, sorrow or anger.
"I hate the same thing as you: everything in this world that we live in."
This small and narrow world.
"You can make even those frightening words sound beautiful," he muttered as he narrowed his eyes.
After that, I took a bath alone, and slept alone.
I had opened the window and called for him, but he wouldn't enter the room.
He was probably glaring at the forest from the roof.
Doing just that, for the entire night.
We couldn't live on without fueling our hate.
Like sharks that would die when they stopped swimming.
~~~
I attended school, at least for now. As forgettable as I found it, I was still a third year middle school student currently studying for tests, and it was September at present, the time when everyone was swamped in test studies.
But I didn't see any appeal to it.
I was aware that it was something I needed to do in order to live as a regular person, but I couldn't find any worth in doing it.
For me, who had lived being exposed to hatred for my entire life, I saw nothing in worldly achievements.
If anything, I only went to school out of habit.
I walked past the crowded sports field and changed into my indoor shoes at the entrance, then opened the door to my classroom.
Today it was margarine, with some glass shards sprinkled over it.
It was just the usual.
Margarine was smeared over the surface of the entire desk, with jagged glass shards standing up by themselves imposingly, inserted into the fat vegetable mucus.
If anything, from where had they managed to procure this much margarine?
If this was elementary school, I would have no idea. Here in middle school, the only way would have to be by gathering the leftover margarine from school lunches.
Or maybe, could they have brought it from their own homes?
Their efforts were really commendable.
I took some pocket tissues out and wiped off the margarine and glass shards, then threw it all into the garbage can.
With every move I took, some snickering, peculiar to the classroom, could be heard.
The tone of the laughter sounded like the source of them was trying to display their strength in front of a crowd.
I turned to look at the one laughing, and by chance my eyes met with a student's, whose name I didn't know. She seemed to have become slightly scared as she looked away with a twitching, forced smile.
She was boring, too boring.