Role Reversal

"I'm not God."

"I don't believe you."

"What?" Haruko sat upright. "I'm telling you that I'm not God. I'm just a regular person."

"That's exactly what someone who isn't a regular person would say."

"Would you shut up?" She turned to grab her pen and booklet.

"I'm not gonna shut up until you explain what the hell is going on."

"Explain what? I'm just a girl. I've been just a girl since we first met. The whole God thing was all a bit, y'know? For fun."

You're kidding me. "No one writes up a manifesto for fun."

Her chin shot up and she grinned like a catfish. "I'm pretty cool, aren't I?"

"Writing a manifesto isn't exactly cool." I took a deep breath. "Still, I don't believe you."

A frown shot in my direction. "Now that I'm seriously trying to tell you the truth, you don't believe me?"

"Because I don't understand any of this! Why are you telling me now?"

"Hmm…" She tapped her nose. "I'm grounded?"

"That is not how being grounded works in the slightest."

"What's the big deal, anyway? Shouldn't you be happy I'm not like… deluding myself anymore? Or whatever?"

"What? I'm… well—I don't know!"

"Perfect! Nothing to worry about." She stood to match my height. "Hey, aren't we gonna be kind of late?"

I'd forgotten about school.

It was lunch when Haruko and I got back. Standing next to her definitely wasn't a good idea either. A couple of students looked our way and then ran off toward the principal's office. Other than them, a bunch of kids were staring in our direction and whispering to each other.

I gave Haruko a knowing look, meanwhile, she was busy glaring back at everyone. A voice came over the loudspeaker. Haruko and I, both called to the principal's office. That wasn't a surprise. I went to change my shoes when I noticed they were stained green. I'd never put my outdoor ones on to begin with.

To my surprise, I was barely in trouble. Mostly, the principal was upset about my shoes. He sent me back to class right away, under the assumption I'd "wrangled Haruko," which was closer to the truth than I wanted to admit. The downsides were two-fold. First, I had no idea what Haruko was being told in there, nor could I act as backup. Second, I had to face the students of my class, who'd all witnessed a less-than-savoury version of myself a few hours ago.

Walking back into that room was like sticking my head into a burning furnace. There's an expression: if looks could kill. Let me introduce you to: if looks could set your hair on fire. I patted mine down to make sure I hadn't spontaneously combusted. The only person who wasn't staring at me was Fujiwara.

"Why's everyone looking at you like that?" Takamoto asked.

"Uhm, it's a long story."

He scowled. "You could at least—" Then, he cut himself off and looked away as if he were terribly embarrassed. The boy glanced back at me and smiled like normal. It was an odd smile. "Sorry, didn't mean to pry."

Throughout the rest of lunch, and the rest of the day, the classroom was filled with shards of glass. One wrong step and I would cut myself against the tension in the room. At one point, I had dropped my pencil and you'd think I killed the class pet with the glares that came my way. At the very least, it would be ending soon, and I might get the chance to ask Haruko why she hadn't shown up in class.

When the clock rolled in its final hour, I escaped from my new hell of embarrassment and kept on the lookout for Haruko. Unlike earlier, I found her straight away, sitting in a chair outside the principal's office.

"No class?" I asked.

"Wouldn't let me."

"Grounded?"

"Basically."

I chuckled. "Damn. Did you sit here the whole day?"

She stood. "I stood too."

Very funny.

"They argued with me a lot. I told them I didn't do it, though," she said.

"What? What do you mean?"

"Well, they kept going on about how breaking into the school was a serious criminal offence, and how I was attempting to radicalize the student population. I just told them it wasn't me. They wouldn't believe me, so we went back and forth for a while. At one point they tried convincing me they'd caught me on security cameras, but those things don't record any video. I already checked. They tried the whole 'we know you didn't do this alone' trick too, but they never mentioned how many people, so I didn't fall for it."

Holy crap, that's basically a police interrogation.

"I'm pretty sure I'm not in any serious trouble, but they definitely won't let me run for student council anymore. And they're still trying to decide what other punishments they can throw my way," she said. "My parents are on the phone with the principal so I'm gonna be here for a while. You should probably head home without me."

"Right, good luck."

After a brief farewell, I went off alone. It was strange to see Haruko acting largely as herself, knowing full well something was missing. She hadn't so much as mentioned our conversation from earlier in the day.

I spent the ride home brainstorming. Transit was always the best time to think. So long as I could manage Haruko's refusal to accept her godhood and the awkward classroom experience to come, things seemed to have sorted themselves out better than I had anticipated.

For the first time since the start of school, a faint hope kindled within.