Monotony was a beautiful thing.
Most people would disagree with her on that. Nobody seemed to like how nothing seems to happen to the point that some people would deliberately stir the quiet lull of the world and create chaos; all for the purpose of destroying the monotony they appear to loathe with their every fibre.
It was also these very people that didn't know how to handle the consequence of the chaos they've caused.
Of course, the attack didn't need to be at a large scale. Some can be categorized as small as how one would cut one's bangs just to pull themselves out of the monotony that enveloped them.
It was amazing the length some people would take just to break it.
She on the other hand loved monotony.
Of course, she didn't think of it as strange until her friends pointed it out. Most teenagers would prefer their lives to be painted in a hue of colors; bursting, crackling, and never ending. Even the most introverted person wanted their world in different colors. Maybe not in the bursting colors of a rainbow but it wasn't also in black and white.
She wanted it to be in black and white.
To her, it was comforting. There was something about the monotony of her everyday mundane life that she found endearing; wake up, wash up, get dressed, go to school, then work at her part time job.
Rinse and repeat.
It was boring but she wouldn't trade it for anything in the world. She loved the peace that came with the monotony.
Seiko—her best friend who was bursting in the colors of sunshine and daffodils—asked her one day if she ever got sick of her seemingly unending routine. She replied "no" without missing a beat.
It's not like she was expecting anyone to understand, anyway. People see the world differently and she's fine with that. She's indifferent whether people appreciate the comfort she felt whenever time passes by slowly.
She's indifferent if they would give her weirded looks when she admitted that she wanted time to stop when she's in her room, window open while the soft humming of a pop song was playing from her phone and she's sitting on her bed doing nothing.
"Before you know it, you'll be an old lady and then you'll be regretting not doing anything when you were young, you know?" The words were spoken to her one lunch time and a pair of chopsticks was pointed to her face.
They were spoken as some type of joke, but she didn't miss the underlying worry in it.
It wasn't like she didn't get where it was coming from. She didn't have any ambition, which was strange for someone her age. This type of behaviour was to be expected from a middle-aged woman who had been through a lot and was tired of her life, not from a sixteen year old girl who was at her prime. Once in her last year of middle school she even got scolded when she wrote in her future evaluation form that she wanted to sit and do nothing until she gets old.
The teacher nagged at her and told her to take it seriously.
He didn't understand that she was very, very, very serious about it.
Well it was amusing to watch him fume at least.
"Dream a little, will you? Stop wasting away your youth!" Another friend, Kaito, exclaimed as he not so subtly stole an egg roll from her lunchbox. She let him do so, but she opted to take his fried chicken, much to his distaste.
"Even if you say that," she started after thoroughly chewing her food. "What am I supposed to dream about? I really don't care about anything."
That of course earned her an overdramatic sob from the boy. "I don't know where I went wrong! I don't remember raising you like this!" He said and she watched Seiko rub his back in a comforting matter. Even Seiko was wiping her tears and agreeing to what he was saying.
(It's strange how a couple can be so alike. Is this what they call chemistry? She questioned more to herself.)
She of course pointed out that he didn't raised her because they literally only became friends during their first year in high school, and she only met Seiko during middle school.
It made them both cry harder and their classmates laughed at their expense. Their antics had become an ongoing gag in their classroom even after they've ascended to second year in high school.
"Maybe if you get yourself a boyfriend then you would stop being like this." Seiko commented with a pout; something that made her grin.
"Maybe," she said and popped her last egg roll in her mouth. "But I'm not really interested in that type of thing."
"You're not interested in anything!" The other girl whined loudly. She countered that she was actually interested in movies and music but apparently those weren't valid answers. The counter argument was that they were an instrument to her wanting to waste away in the shadows, never to be seen again.
And it wasn't like she was passionate about them. Even with those two she was so-so.
The bell rang shortly after that and she watched as her friends pout and go back to their respective seats. It wasn't the end of the argument, she was sure of it, but at least it was the end of it for the day.
Well, if you look at the bright side she can be boring once again without people getting riled up about it. For a few hours anyway then it's back to Seiko worrying about her like a mother hen.
She loved the monotone. She loved the world in black and white. She loved the never-ending routine and most importantly she loved the simplicity of it.
Yes, her world was in a consistent monotony...
...until the colors started to seep through her monotonous world.
It was amazing how a single fuck up in her routine could change everything.
It happened one morning when she woke up with a gasp and saw that, well, she was going to be super late for her class. The girl hurriedly jumped off her bed and changed to her school uniform. She was internally screaming and rushed downstairs with only one sock on.
Maybe it was because of her state of panic that she didn't noticed how her mother was not in the kitchen and preparing breakfast, or how she ran passed the store owner near their home who would only sweep outside his shop during the very early mornings, but she willed herself to run faster and reach the bus stop.
She disregarded the weirded look she got from the few occupants of the bus when she ran inside the vehicle like she's being chased by a thousand demons.
The girl was hyper aware that she might've looked like a deranged lunatic but the image of her being chewed on by her demonic homeroom teacher occupied her mind more.
So much so that she also failed to notice how the campus seemed to be completely barren when she got off the bus.
She continued to run like a maniac—even the time she changed her outdoors shoes to her indoor ones was a new record to behold—and ignored how her legs were pretty much screaming at her to stop.
With a loud slam, she opened the back door to her classroom and screamed "I'm here!" to announce her arrival. (As if the door slamming wasn't enough.)
Then she was greeted with silence.
Her heart was hammering hard in her chest and she was catching her breath. She blinked rapidly and then she falls to her knees.
For the first time in her life, she wanted the world to explode and have everything end.
Because despite of all that unnecessary cardio that she did first thing in the morning, she found herself greeted by an empty classroom.
"You've got to be kidding me." She groaned and slapped a hand over her face.
She's heard of this cliche before.
Person A mistakes the time and scramble to their feet thinking they're late only to find out that they got the time wrong. She laughed when she heard it the first time, thinking how stupid you must be to be in that predicament. Yet, now she found herself in the same position.
Karma really works hard, huh?
Her hunch was her clock ran out of batteries and stopped during when she was asleep but then again, her stupidity was slowly dawning into her for not noticing the signs. (Or checking the clock in the living room for a comparison.)
To make matters worse she saw on the classroom clock that there's still an hour and a half before her classmates would arrive. That and she finally realized that she left her phone at home.
Today was already turning for the worse. She debated going home and just skipping but then quickly realized that getting into an argument with her mother over it was not worth the trouble.
So, with a deep sigh, she stood up from her position and walked to where her seat was. She didn't even bother closing the door, too pissed off to even care.
The girl plopped on her chair and gave out another sigh, this time not out of frustration but with just exhaustion.
She thought of things to do while she waited for her friends to arrive—do her homework? She already finished them last night while she was hunched over the counter of the convenience store that she worked in. Roam the school campus to pass time? Viable but she doesn't think that her feet was in condition to take another step. That leads her to one thing: sleep.
It made sense because if she wasn't such a moron then she should still be snoring her life away that very moment.
Problem was she was one of those people who simply couldn't sleep while sitting down. She needed to be in the comfort of a bed with a soft pillow underneath her head. Again, a sigh escaped her lips.
"Well, whatever. I can try at least." She told herself and buried her face into her folded arms.
It's not until she was two minutes into her attempt to sleep that she started to appreciate her current situation.
Maybe it was because she was too ticked off earlier, but she just realized how peaceful that morning was. The sound of her quiet breathing melded well with the birds chirping right outside of the classroom window. There was also the muffled sound of the track and field club echoing from hallway as they do their morning run and exercise; and then there's the soft humming of the heater thanks to the still cold air the early springtime brought.
Unconsciously, she smiled.
This was the type of peace that she liked. The monotonous sound of everyday mundane life that she wouldn't mind staying in. It filled her heart with a type of warmth that she knew other people would attribute to different things. Maybe not everyone, but she knows most of the people she was acquainted with wouldn't share her thoughts.
She doesn't mind that people don't appreciate her love for this type of thing; she know they too have something that they love as much as she did with this quiet comforting moment.
People might think of her as strange for attributing the colors of black and white with warmth and she don't get it as well. Maybe it's the thing that her mother would often times tell her while she was in the midst of crying over an unlikely couple in a movie.
"Some things just make sense without any explanation!" The woman would sob as she blew her nose in a tissue.
She didn't get it but she doesn't dare argue with the older woman because she was quite a sensitive fellow.
The girl let out an unattractive snort at the image of her mother ugly crying and defending the couple on the television screen.
She has no idea how long she was in that position—arms slowly going numb while the soft lull of the morning cradled her—and frankly she found herself slowly falling asleep, which was shocking to say the least.
But it's the sound of shoes skipping over the concrete floor that pulls her back to reality. She didn't pay it in mind at first, but she did thought that whoever it was might be quite of a character. Mostly because you're not supposed to be running in the hallway—she assumed they were running based on the sound.
Pitter, patter, pitter, patter. It was rapidly increasing in speed and then a screech.
Then it was silent all over again.
She frowned at this. She was sure the sound had gotten closer, around the front of her classroom even.
So, did it just disappear?
Her fingers twitched as she was deciding that it was finally time to get up. She has no idea what she's going to do but she thinks that she had rested well enough.
It's when she's finally sitting straight and rubbing the sleep off her eyes that she heard a gasp. It startled her to say the least and she snapped her head so fast to the direction of the sound that she nearly had a whiplash.
What she saw from the open classroom door was a familiar face that she didn't know the name of.
She'd seen him before, of course.
It was one of those cases where they always seemed to be everywhere that one suddenly starts to recognize their faces even before actually having a conversation with the person. It also helped that he was always so boisterous that anyone would turn their head to his direction whenever his voice boomed within the vicinity.
A familiar face but a stranger, nonetheless. She didn't know his name and frankly it was probably the same with him.
What she knows was they're in the same year level but in different classes.
It was when she blinked rapidly that she finally registered the expression on his face.
He was... gaping? His eyes were opened wide and there were visibly hues of pink on his cheeks. The boy's eyes were undeniably shining and he looked like he's been blown away by something.
Which was very strange to say the least.
"Hello?" She started and swallowed down the laugh that bubbled in her chest when he jumped a few feet above the ground.
Really, what a strange guy.
"Y-you're—" he strangely stuttered and slowly raised his index finger to point at her. "You're real—"
"What the hell, you're already here?" And his words were cut off by a different voice coming from the other side of the room. Instantly, her eyes transferred to the owner of the voice.
Kaito was standing there with one of his eyebrows raised. She blinked once then twice and was about to respond when a scream echoed within the classroom, and possibly in the entirety of the campus.
He noticed him this time around but before he could even open his mouth the other boy was already sprinting away, leaving a dust of cloud in his wake.
"J-just now," he started. "Was that Nishinoya from Class 3?" The boy finally asked.
"Nishinoya?" She parroted just as he got closer. He of course gave her weirded look and questioned how come she doesn't know him when he's so apparently famous.
She has no clue of what his name was, she admitted which in turn only made her friend snicker. But the conversation was quickly put aside when he asked why she was so early in the morning, leading her to admit the mishap that had happen to her.
Much like how she used to do, she didn't put Nishinoya on her mind. Whatever his problem was she was sure it didn't have anything to do with her.
It wouldn't make sense if it did because they don't each other, right?
He was just a small glitch in her everyday black and white world and would disappear as quick as he disrupted the monotony of her quiet morning.
Unbeknownst to her was how said Nishinoya continued to run screaming until he couldn't anymore. It's when he uncharacteristically hid behind the building wall, face ablaze, clutching the fabric of his gym clothes over his heart, that a crack hard formed in her two colored world.
It's a small burst of color in a black and white space but as it will continue to burn, it will slowly occupy the vicinity.
Monotony was a beautiful thing but a world bursting with colors was a thousand times better.
But she doesn't know that yet.
thanks to my friend who proof read this. u the best