diaLOG "I"

"Were you up all night again?"

"... … …"

Yeah, I told her with a lighthearted laugh while she opened the shoe cubby at her eye level. I crouched down next to her and opened a lower locker to put on my indoor shoes. As I stood, a cloud of gray sand obscured my vision—then there was a loud, metallic bang. Apparently I fell forward right into the locker.

"You really have to get some sleep tonight. Oh, and I don't mean in class, I mean at night. Obviously."

She's used to me getting dizzy from standing up, so she's learned not to worry too much. Thinking back to how confused she was the time we first met in middle school makes me nostalgic. My vision steadily cleared and I saw her, all grown up, smiling warmly at me.

[REDACTED]

"How was it this morning? I know it rained last night," the girl asked, sitting sideways in the seat in front of me and pecking away at her colorful homemade bento.

"It was really nice after the rain. The dawn is a bit chilly during this time of year, but I find it somewhat refreshing…" I replied. With my melonpan in one hand and my smartphone in the other, I showed the girl the photo I took from my window this morning. 

It was a photo of the city with the morning sunlight swallowed up by the fog. Unfortunately, trying to capture such a moment with a smartphone makes it lose its charm. And to be brutally honest: my smartphone was pretty much an ancient relic by today's standards. Not to mention its screen was cracked, so even showing her a photo made me feel embarrassed. Still, she didn't mind the crack when she looked at the screen. She made a happy "ooh" noise, but something about that reaction…really annoyed me.

"...This picture is nothing like the real thing, you know."

"Really? I wouldn't know, actually. Because the sun's risen by the time I'm prepping my bento."

Should I buy a camera? I want to at least try and share even just a little of what I see with her…

She seemed to like me because of that weird quirk of mine–how I loved to watch the sun rise.

I think I'm just bad at sleeping. I know I need to sleep, but whenever I get under the covers and close my eyes to try, all of my embarrassing past blunders and mistakes just grip me and shake me awake. The dawn always felt like my personal savior, since I couldn't do anything but protect myself by shrinking underneath the covers at night. After I entered middle school and got a smartphone as a gift, I started taking photos of the sunrise, as if I was celebrating the end of my prison sentence. I forgot when it started, but I guess I started showing her my photos. I wasn't really trying to make conversation about it or anything, but she just seemed to be genuinely interested in them… I couldn't bring myself to ask why she liked them since I thought it'd be rude. And so, showing her my photos from every morning during lunch break just sort of became tradition for us. I'm not afraid of being alone, but I was never alone at school thanks to her. I concluded that she must be a bit of a weird person, like me.

"Whoops, it's almost time to get going," she said, after glancing at the clock above the blackboard, then she put away her bento. "What class do we have for fourth period again?"  

"PE," I said.

The worst class ever. I'll never understand why anyone would schedule PE right after lunch. My mood felt so light after talking to her, but it sank right back down like a lead weight.

"Well you definitely won't be able to sleep during that class, hehe," she teased me as she stood, then returned to her seat.