“Hiiragi!”
A boy in uniform waved in front of the ticket gates. Asano.
At the sight of that extremely lively attitude, I checked how many conversations I had had with Asano over three years of middle school.
Including the one just now, two.
The last time had been the first time he spoke to me, so it was easy to count.
Apparently, Asano was the type who could get along with other people regardless of how much time they had spent together.
Put another way, he was friendly. He was a kind of person I liked quite a lot.
Why?
Why else?
I did not speak much, so the other person had to speak a lot for the conversation to continue.
Of course, if I met someone like that too often, I got tired because of my introverted nature, but if it was only now and then?
It was seasoned just right.
After tapping my transit card at the ticket gate and passing through, Asano came up beside me and said,
“I only just thought of this, but Hiiragi, you’re absolutely getting accepted, so didn’t you not need to come out today?”
“But then you would have had to go alone.”
At my answer, which contained my genuine feelings, Asano paused for a moment.
Then Asano spoke.
“Hiiragi, you were a good kid?”
“I’m quite the good person. Just like you, Asano.”
“Call me Riku instead of Asano. We’re going to have to do our best together for the next three years now. I can call you by your name too, right?”
“Of course.”
To try calling me by my name immediately. As expected, Asano was highly sociable.
My former life was my former life as well. Whether someone called me by my first name or surname did not matter to me, so I readily accepted Asano’s suggestion.
I quietly opened my mouth.
“Thanks to you, Riku, one of my worries is gone. I was wondering how I was supposed to attend high school alone.”
“You really never drop the polite speech, huh? You’re seriously unusual.”
I boarded the train with Riku, who burst out laughing as if he found that terribly funny, and moved to the neighboring city.
The family home was on the outskirts of Yokohama.
It took about thirty minutes by train from the family home to Kawasaki, and that meant I had not actually moved very far away from home.
As I had said many times, I had moved out purely because the family home was cramped. There had been no reason to go far away in the first place.
I also disliked having my living sphere change too much.
“What are your hobbies, Touji?”
“Listening to music. What about you, Riku?”
“I like watching movies.”
Movies.
I asked to check.
“What kind of movies do you like?”
“I recently watched <Ring of King 2>, and it was really fun. Did you watch it too, Touji?”
“I like that one quite a lot.”
What kind of movie was <Ring of King 2>?
It was a blockbuster superhero film currently popular worldwide… It would be easiest to understand it as a film that occupied an intuitively similar position to <Iron Man 2>.
At my words, Riku began talking excitedly.
“Miracle Studios movies have such great detail that they’re fun to watch. Things they casually slip in have all kinds of meaning.”
“Miracle Studios does a pretty decent job.”
“What movies did you enjoy, Touji?”
“Recently, mine would be <Ring of King 2> too. The action sequences were good.”
“Right? I especially—”
As the conversation continued that way, we reached our destination quickly.
I wrapped the scarf I had taken off around my neck and got off the train.
The wind at the end of winter struck my skin.
February 28 was still too cold to be called spring.
Tamagawa High School, the school I was expected to enter, was a high school with a deviation score of around fifty-four.
A high school where most of the students wanted to continue on to higher education, so there was an atmosphere of studying, but not one where everyone was desperately strangling themselves over academics.
Exactly the kind of high school I wanted.
Once we stepped onto the sidewalk, students heading somewhere came into view.
After walking for about ten minutes with them, a wide athletic field appeared.
People were gathered densely across the wide field, and all of them were checking one place.
I stood in front of the board with the list of accepted students and scanned the numbers.
My deviation score was high enough that I would be accepted even if heaven and earth collapsed, but since I had come all this way, I should at least check.
1251… 1251…
There it is.
As expected, I had passed.
Then what about Riku?
“I got in!”
Riku shouted in joy. Fortunately, it seemed Riku had been accepted too.
Riku came toward me with an excited expression.
“Touji. Let’s eat lunch to celebrate getting in. What do you want to eat?”
“Riku.”
“Hm?”
“Do you know the acceptance procedure?”
Koreans would be familiar with the current scene too, as long as they were hardcore nerds.
The scene of confirming acceptance on a board placed in the athletic field appeared to the point of exhaustion in subculture.
However, precisely because of that, even hardcore nerds probably did not know what came after this.
After this, things were usually boring and pedantic, so everything got skipped.
At my words, Riku’s eyes rolled.
“Uh… We need to get the acceptance notice and enrollment documents, right?”
“And after that?”
“They measure us for uniforms too, maybe? But why? Is this not going to be over by lunch?”
“It will be over by lunch, but walking around while carrying various things is inconvenient.”
I had brought a bag, but inconvenient was still inconvenient.
When your hands were heavy, wanting to return home quickly was human psychology.
Therefore, eating lunch with Riku would be difficult.
“Is that so?”
“Yes.”
“But if we’re just eating lunch, shouldn’t it be fine?”
“Let’s go get the acceptance documents soon. You know that if we don’t receive them, we’re considered to have forfeited admission, right?”
“Uh… really?”
I headed to the designated classroom with Riku.
School staff sat at desks, and the accepted students stood in lines in front of them.
Once I joined the line, my turn came quickly.
When I handed my exam slip to a middle-aged male staff member, he adjusted his glasses and spoke to me.
“Number 1251. You are Hiiragi Touji, correct?”
“Yes.”
“Congratulations on your acceptance, Hiiragi.”
The man handed me a thick envelope.
It contained an acceptance notice, an enrollment pledge, a written oath, a tuition payment guide, textbook and supplies purchase forms, and so on, but there was even some kind of academic improvement homework inside.
So this was still a college-prep school after all. They cared about things like this.
The homework was not particularly difficult. It was at a level I could finish in an hour.
I comfortably put the documents into my bag and headed to the first gymnasium. It was to have my measurements taken.
Since all the incoming students were crowding in, we had to wait, but if you disliked that, you could go to the designated tailor on your own.
But since I was already here, was it not better to finish everything in one go?
So I decided to just wait a little.
“Hm? You want the hem longer than what we measured just now?”
“Yes. About ten centimeters.”
The employee from the local tailor contracted with the school gave a hearty laugh while holding the measuring tape.
Because I had made the request on the premise that I would grow taller in the future, he was probably thinking, He wants to get taller. There are kids like that.
To give the conclusion first, it was true that I was thinking that.
However, I was not just spouting a baseless wish.
In my former life, I had grown exactly ten centimeters starting around this time.
I had grown so rapidly that my bones hurt, and the body I had taken over was, starting with the face, strangely similar to my former life.
Since things had been similar until now, it was a kind of guess based on statistics that they would be similar going forward too.
And if not?
If not, well, I could get it altered.
Originally, it was easier to alter something long to be shorter than something short to be longer.
On top of that, I was already in the mid-170-centimeter range now. Even if I did not grow taller from here, there would be nothing inconvenient.
I stretched languidly.
With this, all my business was finished, so I planned to go home and play the games I had fallen behind on.
“…”
“…”
Then my eyes met someone who was having her measurements taken.
A little time passed.
The other person.
Yukimura opened her lips.
“Why do you keep replying so halfheartedly? Am I annoying you?”
“I told you, I wasn’t replying halfheartedly.”
***
I came to a family restaurant that, in terms of my former life, would be treated roughly like a Saizeriya, and lightly ordered from the menu.
Rib steak, focaccia, Italian gelato, and pudding.
At the sight, Riku, who had ordered only a light Milanese-style doria, applauded.
“Touji, unlike how you look, you’re a big eater.”
“I’m still growing.”
After pouring myself water and drinking it, I raised my head.
Yukimura was staring intently at me.
Bzzzz. My smartphone rang.
When I checked it, it was Riku.
[Asano Riku]
Touji, should I get going?
At Riku’s consideration, I answered with my mouth instead of a reply.
“No. You don’t need to. Yukimura is not my girlfriend. We’re also not in the middle of a cold war over whatever you’re imagining, Riku.”
“So you weren’t.”
“Hiiragi.”
After calling my name, Yukimura continued calmly.
“Haven’t you been too cold lately?”
“Touji. Are you sure that’s not it? It kind of seems like it is.”
“I said it’s not.”
Why was Yukimura acting like this?
I did have a guess.
I recalled the messenger conversations I had recently had with Yukimura.
[Yukimura Mai]
(Video)
How about this one? I tried filming it as if I were participating in an audition.
[Hiiragi Touji]
It’s not bad.
[Yukimura Mai]
(Video)
This is acting practice footage. How is it?
[Hiiragi Touji]
It’s fine.
[Yukimura Mai]
In your judgment, how is my acting overall?
[Hiiragi Touji]
It’s watchable.
And so on.
Certainly, compared to the beginning, my replies had mostly been short, but it was not as if I was doing this because I found Yukimura annoying.
I sincerely had nothing to say other than that.
To be honest, I did understand how Yukimura felt. Yukimura was the type with an extremely high passion for acting.
Did anyone think I had given Yukimura strong feedback from the start for no reason?
There could be a misunderstanding, but I did not give that kind of feedback to just anyone.
I only gave strong feedback to people who wanted to hear such words.
Of course, Yukimura had been stunned for a moment too, but had she not recovered quickly?
Recovery was originally important when it came to feedback.
Even if you experienced being unable to breathe when it hit you, you had to overcome it for your skill to improve.
So.
One. Yukimura wanted it.
Two. It helped Yukimura.
For the two reasons above, I had to give Yukimura cold, direct feedback.
However.
Recently, I had not been doing that.
The reason was…
“To be honest.”
“Yeah.”
“Since I was trying to talk only about the acting, I ended up choosing my words.”
I had warned her from the start, but I had not dug deeply into acting.
I could only say amateur things.
Because of that, even when Yukimura had wanted feedback recently, all kinds of filters had caught.
At my explanation, Yukimura murmured,
“Hiiragi, you listen to the other person’s request more thoroughly than I expected.”
“At least now I know what you thought of me.”
By the way, Yukimura.
After talking with me, you realized I am a warm and kind person, did you?
Well now.
Another truth had been revealed today.
Yukimura leaned back languidly in her chair and said,
“Do it comfortably. You’ve watched a lot of movies too, so you must have your own perspective.”
“The method of acting well as I understand it necessarily includes understanding the direction and the story, though.”
“I figured. Then just do it like you did at first. Lately, it hasn’t been helpful at all.”
“Understood.”
When I answered normally, the waitress brought the food.
Finally, I could fill my stomach.
I reverently picked up my fork and knife. It was to cut the rib steak.
And then Yukimura abruptly spoke.
“Hiiragi. Hey. Want to make a movie together?”
“Out of nowhere?”