The Everything Files

A voice brought the eyes of the classroom to me, and I was immediately uncomfortable with the sudden attention.

“Class, this is Kenji Suzuki. He’s a transfer student from…What was it? Kyoto?” He flicked through some sheets of paper on his desk and nodded. “Kyoto. Introduce yourself, Mr. Suzuki.”

In the back of the classroom I heard something that sounded like an undertone voice saying Kyoto? So he’s a country bumpkin. and I had to keep myself from snorting aloud.

“Hello,” I started instead, my rough voice making it clear that what I was really saying was Stay the fuck away from me. I strained myself in the effort to not flip them all off to ward their eyes.

Pens clicking. Noses sniffling. The sound of thirty-two students breathing unevenly. Heartbeats. Nails tapping against the wooden desk and feet tapping against the floor. Coughing. A chuckle. Someone slamming their hands against the desk. Feet tapping on the floor. The teacher chastising the class for speaking out of turn. The sounds of T and S hissing from between his lips. Papers rustling. Some random kid who thinks he’s funny hooting in the back of the classroom. Chalk screeching against the board. The constant whir of air-conditioning.

I want to die.

I can’t handle all of this noise and movement and fucking God, people staring at me. Fight yourself, not them, you wimp, I tell myself. The last time I had a breakdown in front of a classroom caused the beginning of the end of my life.

The teacher, whose name I had already oh-so-conveniently forgotten, seemed a bit unsatisfied by that introduction as if he had expected me to tell my entire life story, but he dismissed me to my seat on the far right side of the classroom by the window. I hadn’t bothered to watch the reactions of my faceless and thus insignificant classmates to my short speech, and honestly I didn’t care. What they thought of me was what they thought of me, and if anyone looked at me wrong for too long I would take care of it. I knew almost every little detail about their lives, and I was willing to use it against anyone. Especially that kid who keeps flipping his notebook pages.

“Mr. Nishimura, as class president, you should show Mr. Suzuki around the school.” My teacher, who I had managed to finally look in the face, said in a stentorian voice. The creases of his skin were folded with the pale and tired cloth of one who has spun thread for far too long. His sunken eyes were tired and annoyed. Grey streaks in his otherwise black hair gave him the look of a man who had seen too much--and considering that he was a biology professor in an elite high school in Tokyo, Japan, he probably had. And as for the text above his head, his list of his crimes was far from extensive. How boring.

Akaashi Satou

Biology Teacher at Tokyo Shibuya Academy

Born: April 2, 1964 (54 yrs. old)

Birthplace: Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan

167 cm

74.8 kg

Hair: Black

Eyes: Brown

Generally considered: Boring, old, strict

Legal: Speeding, 1978

Speeding, 1982…

The boy, to whom he was referring, snapped his gaze up from the notebook on his desk to our professor, and then to me. As our eyes met, something turned in my stomach out of fear of this boy. Shit, I swore wordlessly. My ability had never brought so much fear out of me, though I had met many secret criminals in my lifetime. But since I was born, I had never met a person so unsettlingly warm who had committed something so heinously cold. Murder.

He had midwinter eyes ebbed ever-so-gently with the grey of an ocean, an instant before dawn’s first sun rays struck the waves, the slate of a pigeon’s wing ruffled by a compelling breeze. The light greys in his startling eyes were the first thing I noticed -- they seemed nearly fluorescent in the light. The dark splashes in his irises were the brittle grey that would be found on a beetle’s wing, in ashes that were tossed into the air as the wind killed the fire. But they were…strangely empty, like cement on a cloudy day.

His cheeks were flushed with the boyish pink of hyacinth and his lips of apple blossoms spoke aloud silver words in a honeyed voice. To anyone else, it would seem warm and eloquent. To me, however, I felt an unsettling sense of silence in each of his words, as if he was saying them not for himself, but for others. They were not his words, and yet they came from his mouth.

His hair was tamed where mine was unkempt, and his posture spoke of agility and vigilance. His temples were tickled by soft brown locks almost resembling silk. He was definitely of mixed ethnicity.

His hands were clean and large, but not out of proportion with his body. He was slim in the physical and very well-mannered in the spoken world. A slight dimple on his right cheek arose when he smiled, and yet his eyes were not crinkling with the genuinity of amusement. His, though uneven, smile was stunningly white and straight, and charming with the ease of a very convincing--yet very practised--smile. He always seemed to know what to say, how to ease a situation, and always seemed to have the right answer. Not a rude word came out of his mouth, even to those confronting him. In offending so few he offended so many, jealous of his popularity. Perfection, he was perfection. I immediately hated him.

And yet there it was; Murder. Indubitably it was there, hovering above his head like a nervous pussycat toeing the fence above a mutt. Surrounded by us there were unrecognisable blurred silhouettes of boys and girls and the blurred words above them of theft, vandalism, shoplifting, jaywalking, but none of them held a note to him, whose list consisted of only Murder.

Oliver Nishimura

2nd Year student at Tokyo Shibuya Academy

Born: October 27, 2001 (17 yrs. old)

Birthplace: Aoyama, Tokyo, Japan

Height: 180.4 cm

Weight: 62.1 kg

Hair: Light Brown

Eyes: Grey

Generally considered: Perfect golden child, exceptional athlete and student, polite

Legal: Murder, 2016