Book 1: Chapter 2: 8th of June (Monday)
Of course, some heart-throbbing event of Ayase-san and me going to school together didn’t happen. Finding out that we both are students at Suisei, she advised against this in order for no weird rumours to spread at school. Naturally, that was an absolutely correct choice. My old man and Akiko-san seemed to be aware of that, and decided against any sudden change of life, like changing our family names. Since that would have invited a misunderstanding, and the paperwork simply being a pain in the ass, I was pretty happy about that. This being the case, Ayase-san and I left the house at different times, heading to school separately.
The world is based upon a competitive society. To survive this harsh competition, one shall not complain nor boast, and show a hundred results.
That is the motto of our school. It states that results are more preferable than efforts, which means that if you can keep up your good grades or show excellent achievements with your club activities, you are allowed to keep a part-time job. Admiring this kind of freedom, I decided to take the entrance exam here at Suisei. It is a fairly high-level school, but I don’t really have some university in mind, or any goal to achieve. I just want to make it to a relatively good university.
However, that wasn’t exactly because I wanted to achieve something great, or aimed for something higher, but merely because I used my studies to evade anything problematic in my personal life. As a grade school student, I was told to visit a cram school. That happened before my old man got divorced. The person that was my mother tried raising me into a person who had greater social influence than my father, which is why I was told to visit a famous academic cram school.
—Only for me to feel discouraged during the trial attendance.
Mixed with the other children who were studying like their lives depended on it, I had a lot of trouble dealing with them and my studies, getting to the point where I would break down from the pressure just being forced to deal with them. That’s the first time I realized in my entire life that I suffered from communication disorder. To counterattack that, I studied desperately, and raised my grades. Now that I am attending this high-level school, my grades are in the upper half, but back in middle school, I was in the top class for sure.
It’s not that I was aiming higher, I just didn’t want to attend cram school. Because of these efforts, I could avoid doing so. The only reason I went to work part-time on top of getting good grades is solely to show off to my old man that he didn’t need to worry about me, as that sounded bothersome to deal with. That’s why I don’t even feel like I did anything great, nothing that deserves any respect, as I wasn’t even working hard towards a goal. That’s right, my trusted friend Maru Tomokazu was more of that type.
“Yo, Asamura. Morning.”
“Maru. Morning practice?”