Chapter 6 I've Come a Long Way

I’ve Come a Long Way

It takes about 10 minutes to walk from my apartment to the university. By bike, it takes less than five minutes.

On this day, I walked to the university wearing a brand new suit that my parents bought me to pass the entrance exam and a tie that my sister gave me as a farewell gift.

Today is the entrance ceremony, so I’ll walk, but on lecture days I’ll use my bicycle.

It’s only been 10 days since I moved here, but it feels like it’s gotten a lot warmer in the past few days.

My hometown is way northeast of here, so it is still cold in April.

It’s nice to be somewhere warm.

I hear there is almost no snow in the winter.

It’s heaven not to have to shovel snow.

As I walked along, thinking about the nice weather, the main gate of the university came into view.

There was a straight road in front of the main gate, and the rows of cherry trees on both sides were in full bloom.

The cherry blossoms are already in full bloom in this area. In my hometown, the cherry trees would have bloomed a little later.

When I think about it, I’ve come a long way.

Looking at the cherry blossoms in full bloom, I feel a little sentimental.

My mother had urged me to take a picture of myself in my suit to commemorate the entrance ceremony, so I decided to take a selfie with the cherry blossoms in the background. After the entrance ceremony, let’s take a selfie and have fun.

Come to think of it, at my high school graduation, Chika and I took a lot of pictures in front of the school gates and on the way home.

But I’ve already deleted them all!

Fufufu.

On the street in front of the main gate, there are a lot of people walking around dressed up like me, looking like new students, and it’s very festive.

In the middle of it all, I’m looking at the cherry blossoms and grinning to myself, so maybe I look a little out of place?

No, no, no.

I can’t help but be excited, right?

I mean, it’s entrance day, you know?

I can finally become a college student.

It’s a national college of education.

Well, I admit I’m a bit of an idiot.

It’s nothing to be ashamed of.

But if Chika had been standing next to me, she would have scolded me and said, “Stop it, it’s embarrassing!”.

But she’s not here anymore, so I don’t have to worry about her scolding me!

Fufufu.

After passing through the impressive, historic main gate and entering the campus, I saw a sign directing me to the auditorium where the entrance ceremony was to be held, so I followed it.

There were many freshmen dressed like me walking around, looking around, and thinking that they were all new students this year. I was overwhelmed by the sheer number of students.

As I walked around and reached the auditorium, there was a line to check in, so I got in line, checked in, and entered the auditorium.

I looked for the seat number I was given at the front desk, and there was a woman sitting next to me, so I bowed and sat down.

Even after I sat down, I couldn’t calm down, so I looked around by myself to see what was going on around me when the ceremony started.

Finally.

It really was a long way to get here.

No, it wasn’t the way from my studio apartment, you know? It was just a 10-minute walk.

I mean. I decided to go to a university outside the prefecture, persuaded my parents, studied hard, hid the fact that I wanted to go to a national university, secretly took the common entrance exam and the first-semester exam, passed them without incident, prepared to live alone in secret, came out of my hometown like a runaway in the night, and finally reached my goal.

As the mumbling speech of the president or dean, I don’t know which, played in the background on the stage, I remembered the time when I decided to take this path.

It was the end of the last summer vacation.

By that time, I had already found out about Chika’s affair, and it was too painful to think about her, so I stayed in my room every day and studied to escape reality.

I quit the club in June; I didn’t want to see Chika, and once I took away the club and Chika, there was nothing left, so the only way to escape reality was to devote myself to studying.

I studied every day from morning to night during the second half of the summer vacation.

My mother was happy, but my sister was worried.

She was the only one who knew why I was like that.

So, on the last day of summer vacation, my sister came to my room and said, “Don’t sulk forever! Hey you!!”.

She wasn’t that rude, though.

“You start school tomorrow, right? Why don’t you make up your mind? What are you going to do about that girl, ‘Chika’?”

“I don’t know.”

“Even if you say you don’t know, you’ll see her tomorrow whether you like it or not. Are you okay with that?”

“I’m not okay with that.”

“You have proof, so shouldn’t you confront her and break up?”

“Unn… I intend to break up with her eventually, but if things continue like this, I’ll feel frustrated.”

“Heh, even Taichi felt frustrated.”

“Of course, it’s going to be extremely frustrating.”

“I see, right. So are you going to take revenge or something?”

“Unn… Considering Chika’s personality, even if I did something right now, she’d probably just say, ‘Oh, really?’ and act like it’s no big deal.”

“Ah, maybe. That’s the kind of girl she is.”

“Well, not right now, but sometime in the future I want to make her so frustrated that she cries.”

“Like what?”

“Maybe date someone cuter than Chika?”

“Oh, are there any candidates?”

“No, there aren’t any.”

“That’s not good!”

“Unn… Ah, that’s right. College.”

“College?”

“Yes. I promised Chika that we would go to the same college. When we entered high school. So I’m going to pretend to go to the same college and go to a better college than Chika?”

“Regardless of your academic ability, this is a healthy form of revenge.”

“Right? And a famous college in a bigger city than here.”

“I think it’s hard to get into a university outside of our prefecture. When I was in high school, our parents asked me to go to a university in this area.”

“No, but I think I’ll ask them anyway.”

Then I talked to my parents about “I want to go to a university outside our prefecture”.

My mom was against it, but my dad said it was okay. “If it’s a national university, it’s okay”.

The reason was that if I went to a national university, I would be able to handle the financial aspect, but I think my dad probably thought that I couldn’t get into a national university with my academic ability and that if I did get in, it would be a great opportunity.

At my high school, if you get into a national university on your first try, you’re treated like a hero.

Our high school was a mediocre school in name, and although a few students got into national universities every year, most of them got in after one or two years of studying for the entrance exams. I think there have been many failures in recent years.

But at that moment, I had a clear goal: “I would leave this place and go to a national university outside the prefecture!” and from that day on, I threw myself into studying like crazy for that goal.

By the way, my sister was there too, and she supported my wish to go to a university outside the prefecture, and she told me the reason why she felt that way: “I’m angry because Chika-chan cheated on you, so you should try your best to get revenge on her," and when my father heard that, he said, “Then you’d better work hard as long as you can and get revenge on her. Don’t ever give up. Show her what kind of man you are,” and he was very enthusiastic.

I think my personality is probably the influence of my father and sister.