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8. To the Entrance Ceremony
“I’m going.”
I said so at the front door, but there was no response. No one was in the house anymore.
It was already around 9:30 am.
Still some time until the entrance ceremony, but I decided to leave early.
Mom was already at work.
Sis persistently said she would go with me, but I persuaded her that I wasn’t a child anymore and asked her to go to school first.
In the first place, even her high school was preparing to welcome new students.
If she were to send me, she would completely be late.
Since I can get to school by bus, seems I’ll even have some time left over there.
As I walked slowly to the bus stop, a girl in school uniform stood at the end of the road.
“Makoto……? “
It was, my middle school classmate, Makoto Tokioka.
“Good morning, Taketo-kun”
“Yes, good morning. Is Makoto, also going to an entrance ceremony?”
I can’t remember Makoto’s house, but I don’t think it’s in this neighborhood.
“Yes. You see, yesterday… with Rie and Yuuko, I had a talk. In the end, it was decided that at least one person would accompany Taketo-kun.”
“Accompany…? Our school, is different, isn’t it?”
They all should be going to a girls’ school called Ichimiya High School.
“But it’s close… see, I still have time.”
Makoto and I were in the same group when in the third year of middle school, so I was able to get along with them.
It could be said, she was one of the relatively close girls with me.
The same goes for Yuuko and Rie. Four people including me had been in the same group for a year.
Makoto is here, probably because she’s worried about me. Then, in this case, it’s better to go along with what she said.
“Then, let’s go to the bus stop together.”
“Yes!”
When I said that, she followed me happily.
Fifteen minutes by bus to school. It didn’t take much time to go to school, probably because the Special Ward Tokyo was small.
“But school… it’s a shame.”
I thought for a while about what she wanted to say, but probably it was about the fact that I was assigned to a co-ed high school.
“Well, this might have been better. I can have various experiences.”
Makoto was surprised with her eyes wide open.
Is it so surprising?
“Am I being weird?”
“Rather than weird… Have you lost your mind? I mean, you used to think about it so much. I thought that you might suddenly disappear… even now…”
I couldn’t clearly hear the latter one, but apparently, this “Taketo Souya”, didn’t want to go to school.
Ah… if that’s the case, I can understand why Makoto’s here. She’s really worried.
Well, ‘he’ seems to have lived a tough life enough to be a mountaineer with my body, but I think he was mentally weak.
“Hmm… Maybe it’s because, I’ve been worried about it a lot, that I started to be positive? I mean, even in the future, I can’t completely avoid women.”
In this crazy society, it was impossible to avoid women.
That was why he relied on Goddess. He prayed seriously at the Shrine, hoping for a solution.
“Is that… so? I’m glad. I thought that you might not be coming out of your house anymore… I’m worried, you know?”
Apparently, Makoto thought I wouldn’t go to school.
If I didn’t go to school today, would she come to see the situation at home? Surely, she would.
“I think, it was because I was worried so much that I was able to move forward. That’s why, including what you worried about, all’s not for nothing.”
“Taketo-kun, you’ve become stronger. By the way, Yuuko may be still vexed with the result. She wanted to go to Itsuki High School after all.”
Itsuki High School… the school I would be going to attend.
There were only two co-ed High Schools in the Special Ward Tokyo, and the requirement for girls was extremely high. Probably over 70 for the overall score of the test.
It was said that there were some high-spirited girls from outside the Special Ward, who didn’t mind spending two hours just to take the examination.
Anyway, Yuuko changed the first high school she wished to apply to Itsuki High School late and began to study hard.
She was among the smart people, but it was questionable whether she could get into Itsuki High School. Still, she kept studying day and night.
Normally, anyone would think, “Do you want to go to a school that has male students that much?”, But that wasn’t the case.
She was purely worried about me. Therefore, she was studying hard.
Yuuko’s appearance in the memory was like a ghost. Apparently, ‘he’ wasn’t really fond of her, but if I could send words to him, I would like to say that she wasn’t that scary like what he thought.
“At that time, I could only think of myself…… I did something bad to Yuuko.”
“Yeah. And Yuuko understands that too.”
Yuuko started studying hard because it was decided that I would be assigned there.
She studied as if she would go to kill the demons, but she didn’t have enough time. She couldn’t get into Itsuki High School.
“You can’t get in there just by studying hard, right?”
“Yeah, that’s right. It seems to be true that there are mysterious judgments other than the exam. It’s said that the appearance, family, personal behavior, parents’ assets and occupation are also important for successfully get in there.”
The parent’s assets don’t matter, isn’t it? No, wait, perhaps it is?
“Isn’t it just an urban legend?”
“They didn’t clearly announce the acceptance criteria, but when I looked at the students who were attending, I thought that there should be such judgments. Ah, the bus has arrived.”
“Here is enough. Makoto is going to the entrance ceremony too, right?”
“It’s okay. After I calculated the time, I’ll be still in time, so I’ll accompany you until the main gate.”
“But……”
“Really, I’ll be just fine, so don’t worry, and let’s go in.”
In the end, Makoto pushed me into the bus, and went inside together.