Chapter 7 Taking a Commemorative Photo by Myself
#Sareta OtokoTaking a Commemorative Photo by Myself
When the entrance ceremony ended, all the new students who had attended the ceremony stood up and began to stream out of the auditorium.
I stood up once, but I was so overwhelmed by the crowd that I couldn’t move, and the woman sitting next to me seemed to be just as overwhelmed as I was.
“It might be better to wait a little longer.”
“…yes.”
When I sat down again, the woman sat down as well, so I decided to talk to her to pass the time.
“Are you from here?”
“No, I’m from Fukui.” (福井)
“Oh, Fukui? I’m from Tohoku.” (東北)
“Aren’t you further away than I am?”
“Yes. I’ve come a long way.” Tehehe.
“Ufufu, it looks like fun.”
“Isn’t it? It’s been a goal of mine for a long time, and today it came true.”
“Now that you mention it, it is. I’ve always dreamed of becoming a teacher, so today is the first step towards that dream.”
“Yes, yes, that’s right.”
“Ufufu. Oh! My name is Mizunami Iroha (瑞浪イロハ). I’m in an elementary teacher program.”
“Oh? What a coincidence! I’m also in the elementary teacher program, and my name is Sakamoto Taichi. We might have classes together.”
“Yes! I’m happy to be here with you.”
Among the freshmen, many of the women were wearing beautiful traditional Japanese dresses, but Mizunami-san gave a quiet and serious impression, perhaps because she was wearing a navy blue suit and glasses. However, after talking to her for a bit, she turned out to be a cute woman with a friendly smile.
“Oh, it seems like there are fewer people around now; shall we go out?”
“Yes, let’s go.”
It was our first time meeting, but maybe because we were both alone, the two of us just walked out of the auditorium.
Outside the auditorium, however, there were a lot of seniors who seemed to be from clubs, handing out flyers and recruiting people. We were overwhelmed and stopped again.
“This is amazing.”
“Yeah, but a little scary.”
It certainly doesn’t look good.
Mizunami-san looks docile, and she’s relatively small for a woman, so it would be a disaster if she walked into this crowd and got crushed and hurt.
“Umm, if you don’t mind, may I see you out?”
“Eh? You mean walk me out?”
“Yes, if you leave it to me, I’ll see you out safely.”
I tried to look a little pretentious and cool.
“Okay then… thank you.”
“Okay then!”
I enthusiastically grabbed Mizunami-san’s right hand and ran into the crowd.
Holding the flyers that were handed to me one by one, I pushed forward and said, “Yes, yes, I’m sorry~”.
It’s been a while since I retired, but I devoted myself to kendo in middle school and high school, so I have no trouble dodging and weaving in a crowd.
Though I kept calling out, “Mizunami-san, are you okay?" along the way, and I kept going.
When we finally made it out of the front gate, both Mizunami-san and I had a bunch of flyers in our hands and suit pockets.
“That was a bit pushy, but were you okay?”
“Uh, yeah….”
“Still, it was amazing. Campus clubs are really not shy about recruiting.”
“Ah, um… my hand….”
Ah. I’d forgotten about it until she said it, but I was holding Mizunami-san’s hand the whole time.
“Oh! I’m sorry!”
I quickly let go of her hand, and Mizunami-san clutched her hand to her chest, her face reddening as she looked down.
This is not good.
She might have thought I was sexually harassing her by pretending to see her out of the crowd….
I thought I’d finally made an acquaintance from the same elementary teacher program, but now I’ve been branded a s🬀🬀ual harasser from day one!
“No, I mean… You were very helpful… thank you….”
While I was so upset that I was desperately trying to think of a way to explain myself, Mizunami-san bowed her head and thanked me with a bright red face.
“I’m from the countryside, so I don’t like crowds, so that really helped me.”
“Ah, I see. I’m glad I was helpful.” Haha-Haha!
It seems I wasn’t labeled as a s🬀🬀ual harasser.
But it was really dangerous.
I’ll have to be more careful from now on.
“Well, I’ll stop here! Let’s both do our best in college!”
“Yes, yes. Oh, um….”
“Yes? Is there anything else?”
“No, nothing.”
“I see. Well, I’m leaving, so excuse me.”
After saying goodbye to Mizunami-san at the main gate, I started walking home, but soon stopped at the row of cherry trees, rolled up the flyer I was holding into a ball, and stuffed it into my suit pocket, then took out my smartphone from my inside breast pocket.
I turned on the camera and set it to selfie mode, and after trying this and that, I took about 10 selfies, taking pictures of the cherry blossoms, checking the picture, taking a picture, checking the picture, and repeating the process.
It’s really hard to do it alone.
I looked at the ones I’d taken and sent an email to my mom with a picture of me making a peace sign and winking, along with the message, [Today I’m a college student! Yay!].
Mission accomplished, for now.
But somehow I suddenly felt a sense of emptiness.
I feel bad thinking about it now, but if it were true, Chika and I would have attended the entrance ceremony this spring, like three years ago, and we would have taken a commemorative photo together.
Sigh.
I’m going to stop at a grocery store before I go home.