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Chapter 4 â Reunion With an Old Friend \nVolume 1\n<hr class="wp-block-separator is-style-wide">\n\nWhen I was a child, I never had a hard time with my studies.\n
When I started learning arithmetic and Japanese in elementary school, I thought it was pretty easy; I understood the concept of adding one to one right away, and I felt that Japanese was just a language I used all the time. As a child, I had dabbled in printed books as well as picture books, so kanji seemed like common sense to me.\n
I never got anything other than a perfect score on a test, and even if I was given more than half an hour to solve a puzzle, I would only finish it in about five minutes. Even if I included the time to review, I would always have more than half of the time left over.\n
The lessons were always simple. I didnât have to listen to the teacherâs lengthy lessons every day, I could just read the textbook and understand it. I wondered why he spent so much time on each lesson.\n\n
âOh, youâre so smart, arenât you?\n\n
Thatâs what I got when I complained to the teacher. Indeed, what was easy for me was not that easy for the other students. Many students could do as well as I did, but I was the only one who got a good score with a little study.\n\n
It was when I was in the fourth grade.\n
-Maybe you should take the entrance exam.\n
Thatâs what my mother told me.\n
âYou can study so much. Letâs go to a better school.\n
With those words, I started attending a cram school for junior high school entrance exams. I got a good grade on the entrance test and was placed in the top class from the beginning.\n
In that class, all the students had a deviation score of over 70. My grades were not bad, but unlike at school, I often lost to someone else.\n
But I didnât care about that. Because I was more occupied with myself than comparing myself to others.\n
The education at that cram school was demonic.\n
I think it was fanatical. I guess it depends on the cram school, but at the school I went to, the value that going to a good junior high school equals a good life was considered to be absolute. The cram school instructor repeatedly said, âThe best you can do here is to work hard. Those who can do their best here will have success waiting for them. On the other hand, those who canât even do their best in the junior high school entrance examinations will just become helpless people in helpless schoolsâ.\n
When the attitude to receive a class was bad even a little, they were frightened. Even though I was not intimidated, there was a time when I saw the figures of other people being shouted at while being grabbed by the chest. Fear and the sense of mission that I must follow these people were apparent. At any rate, if I studied hard, I would be praised, and so my mother and I began to think of cram school as our priority.\n
âIf you are going for it, you should aim for the top.\n
My mother, who had a loose feeling about things, began to say that to me repeatedly.\n
Thinking about it now, I think it was almost like brainwashing.\n
If I got a bad grade, I had to be disappointed. Even if my grades were good, I had to aim higher. At any rate, I had to show them how hard I was trying to catch up.\n
Because I was so desperate, I was even less interested in my school work. Relaxed teachers and other students. They seemed like something that existed somewhere far away.\n
It was much lower than the field I was fighting in. Iâd rather study at home than be in a place like this. I stopped doing my homework more and more, and I ignored all my summer assignments. I continued to do only the homework assigned by the cram school.\n
The winter of my sixth year. The culmination of all my efforts came in the form of an exam result.\n\n
To put it simply, I failed.\n\n
I did not get into the school that was my first choice. I passed all the other schools of my choice, but I was filled with a sense of emptiness, wondering what all my efforts had been for.\n
I was fed up with the fact that I didnât get into my dream school even though I had spent the last three years of my life studying hard, not even having time to play.\n
At the same time, I began to wonder why I had worked so hard.\n
After all, it was a junior high school entrance exam. If I get into a good school, I might be able to do well in subsequent examinations. But it would be after the university entrance examinations that it would have a direct impact on my life.\n
âWhy?\n
Why did I really want to go to that school? I was not sure anymore.\n
I didnât have many friends in elementary school. I stayed in class to study rather than play during recess, and I looked down on the others. I didnât even look at them as people who existed on a lower level than I did.\n\n
So, after graduation, I was left with almost nothing.\n
All that was left was a strange high sense of pride.\n
When I entered a private junior high school, which I didnât really want to go to, my sense of discomfort became even stronger. I didnât feel like there was a place for me there. I continued to feel flustered.\n
It was boring. Everything was boring. I used to think I was a special person. However, when I was suddenly thrown out of the exam like this, I realized that I had nothing.\n
I felt an urge inside me that I had never felt before.\n
It was hard to describe, but it was almost like a kind of desire for destruction.\n\n
One day, I went to the hairdresser with the New Yearâs money I had saved up.\n
I wanted to dye my hair.\n
The color I chose was an orthodox blonde. I cropped the sides of my hair, which was quite long, and added mesh near the top of my head.\n
I felt mysteriously satisfied, and when I went home looking like that, everyone was naturally furious.\n\n
âGo back and change it back.\n\n
I wonder why. I was the angriest Iâve ever been in my life when I was told that.\n
So I ignored it.\n
Naturally, I was also berated at school. The life guidance teacher had me in a locked room.\n
It didnât matter. I saw the teacher and the tutor as the same.\n
Thatâs what being an adult is all about. They just want to put you on a set of rails.\n
 I looked down on my classmates.\n
I looked down on my teachers.\n
I even looked down on my parents.\n
I wanted to establish my own existence in this crappy world. I lacked self-confidence. I thought I had nothing. Thatâs why I wanted to make myself different from others.\n
First, I opened the first button of the school uniform.\n
Gradually, the second and third buttons were lowered, and eventually, all the buttons were opened.\n
The undershirt was replaced by a T-shirt, and the socks became shorter and shorter.\n
I began to skip class more and more often, not taking it seriously.\n
The wrinkles between my eyebrows became more and more frequent.\n
And so, the delinquent that I am was complete.\n\n