Book 8: Chapter 1: April 19th (Monday) – Asamura Yuuta
Cherry blossom petals no longer line the gutters, and the city has been decorated with vibrant shades of green. This was a sight I saw every year—pink petals discarded by the trees that gave them life, and the scenery changing as late spring took hold. It was always the same.
But for us high school students, not everything stayed the same. Moving up a grade was a significant change for us. The sets of stairs we climbed to reach our classroom increased by one. Looking out the window from our new vantage point, we could see the rows of trees lined up outside, and our view of the school grounds extended further than before. These small differences were enough to make us feel one more step closer to adulthood than the year before.
The same went for the view inside the classroom, too. Among the rows of neatly shuffled students, one-sixth of the familiar faces from the year before were gone, replaced by fresh ones. Naturally, that meant the atmosphere in the classroom changed as well, and it took a bit of getting used to.
I reached into my bag to take out my textbook and began getting ready for the first class.
While I was at it, I also grabbed my notebook and a mechanical pencil to jot down my notes.
Now that we were in the same class, Ayase-san's seat was two rows in front and one to the right of mine. I could barely make out her bright-colored hair among the nearby group of girls. I’ve kept my promise to Ayase-san and haven’t spoken to her much at school. Well, it's not like I get that many chances to naturally talk with girls, anyway.
The girls were chatting away energetically in a circle, even though they only had ten minutes after homeroom ended before class started. I have no idea how they have so much to talk about.
Ayase-san seemed to be mingling with the group pretty well, participating in their conversations normally while not looking like an outsider. She seemed to have taken the changes brought about by the class reshuffle in her stride.
It was the complete opposite for me. Come to think of it, when I was with Maru for PE yesterday, he said, “Yo, Asamura, I’m worried about you. You eating lunch alone?" I told him that I really didn’t mind that much and that he shouldn’t worry about it—