Insomniacs After School (君は放課後インソムニア)

At night, I always feel wide awake.

I get in my bed and I try to doze off,

but I can't sleep.

And time just passes by.

My inability to sleep causes

a cycle of negative thoughts

and I end up wide awake again, out of worry and frustration.

At around 5:00 AM I hear the sound

of the newspaper delivery bike

and the elderly neighbor across the way

opening up their shutter door,

not to mention the dogs.

Then the sky gets bright

and light seeps in through the curtain.

The morning comes and I prepare...

for another day...

of despair.

Wanna hear a story?

It's about why our school

stopped having an Astronomy Club.

Well, one of the girls in the club

had a crush on this guy from the soccer team,

but she got rejected and took it really hard,

so she jumped off the school's observatory.

Then, one day, a boy from the Astronomy Club

claims that he saw a girl waving her hand from up on the moon.

That boy totally had hidden feelings

for the girl who had jumped.

From that point on, he was possessed by something

that made him unable to sleep.

So he spent every night looking at the stars.

As he took his final breath, he left these words behind:

"That girl isn't waving to say hello,

she's asking me to join her."

All the other members of the club met with the same fate

then the club faded from memory

and the observatory turned into a warehouse.

However, just beyond that tightly locked door,

the ghost of the Astronomy Club are lurking!

A girl from Class 2 said she saw them recently.

The door to the observatory was slightly open,

but it's usually locked.

So she decided to take a peek

and saw the club members and their advisor

beckoning her inside!

Hey, Kani, quit running your mouth already

and start helping, would you?

Hey, I'm multitasking over here.

Oh, and that observatory rumor,

it's only the ghost of the dead girl who jumped that appears.

Don't gimme that, Anamizu!

If you wanna get things done,

then why don't you go bother

the shameless slacker Ganta over there.

Ganta, wake up.

If you've got time to take a nap,

then go grab some more boxes for us.

They're over in the main building,

near the fourth floor landing, okay?

Yeah, what she said.

Get to it.

Why is it always me?

Huh?

How about the one who's wasting time with ghost stories?

Here's the thing,

the boxes are close to where

the haunted observatory is,

so none of us girls wanna go near it.

Hey, there's no such thing as ghosts!

And besides, just look.

I made two gravestones all by myself already.

And despite us starting at the exact same time,

Kani's group hasn't even finished one of them

while working together.

Which means, I'm done for the day

because I've completed three people's worth of work.

And you were tal...

Check it out! It's my greatest work yet!

It's not a real monster, Nakami!

Nice going, Nono!

Nice. The quality you'd expect from an Art Club member.

No monster would have those kind of ridiculous colors!

I'll get more boxes.

Oh, really? Thank you!

Whoa, that was brutal, Kani.

What can I say? Ganta sucks.

He always acts like he's the only one suffering around here.

Ganta thinks he's better than everyone else, huh?

Totally. Plus he's always such a grouch

Hey, where's Isaki?

She was with me not too long ago.

Is your boyfriend coming too?

Yep! We're going together!

Tomorrow is the big day, let's do it again.

-Okay! -Okay!

So carefree. It must be nice.

Why am I the only one with this problem?

Keep raising it up. A little to the right.

That's good.

Yeah, hook it right there, okay.

Hm?

Sorry, be right back.

- Okay. - Sure thing.

Hey, Ganta.

Hm?

Ukegawa.

Yo!

You don't look so good, buddy.

Yeah, headache.

Have you been sleeping?

Not a wink.

Man, for real?

I've read some reference manuals

thinking they'd put me to sleep, but no such luck.

Okay, so this insomnia thing,

it's kind of like picking up one of those super stars

in a video game, right?

You're invincible!

Just kidding.

For some reason, I'm wide awake at night,

but sleepy as hell during the day.

It's so bad that nothing feels real to me anymore.

What if I'm losing my mind and you're just a hallucination?

Get some rest in the nurse's office.

-No. - Why not?

Because if I'm always in the nurse's office,

people will start to think I'm some messed-up kid!

Whoa, what the...

Let's go.

Yeah.

I'm gonna go get boxes.

Oh, okay.

Kani's gonna gimme crap if I only come back with this much.

They said something about this place

being a warehouse now, right?

There's no such thing as ghosts.

Oh.

Huh?

Awesome.

It's a secret base.

I can hardly hear any of the hustle and bustle outside.

Nobody comes close because of the ghost rumors.

Perfect.

It's official. This is my hangout spot.

Huh?

Okay.

Hey, wait!

You're in my class!

Isaki Magari?

So, like, the door to this room has a busted lock

and once it gets shut, it can only be opened...

from the outside.

So you're saying... that we're stuck?

So, care to tell me what you're doing here, Ganta?

Getting boxes.

I was told to grab some.

Now my turn.

Why are you here instead of

helping with culture fest?

No reason.

Whatever.

This sucks.

I can't call anyone, I left my phone in class.

But hold on a minute.

Maybe we can get out if we open up the ceiling.

Hmm...

It's too dark to see anything.

We need some kind of light source.

Here.

I might have passed out

if I weren't so on edge right now.

Huh?

But that solves our problem.

Use your phone to call someone.

They can help us out.

Except I can't tell anyone

about why I was here.

Then don't tell them why.

Just hurry up.

What other choice do we have?