Sadly, that modest dream of mine—to make friends in high school—crashed and burned not even a month in.
In the beginning, I really tried. I took the initiative and struck up conversations with other students while trying not to seem weird. But once again, my grades got in the way.
Because our high school was the top-ranked school in Oita Prefecture, classes were organized based on our test scores. As the top scorer, I was naturally assigned to Class A, where students seemed to care more about studying and good grades than they did about having fun with friends. In the beginning, I started to think maybe I should have answered some questions wrong on purpose so they would have put me in a lower class.
Class A was full of students who spent every minute of free time studying or going to cram school. I got the feeling that the mere suggestion of going somewhere for fun would earn me funny looks, so I didn’t bother. But as I watched them, it dawned on me.
For as hard as they all work, they’re still worse than me—and I don’t even try.
The instant that thought occurred to me, it was all over. I was already judging them the same way I judged my peers in junior high. Having lost all academic drive, I started getting bad grades on purpose. 97, 89, 83, 79, 73… But even then, I was still somehow in the upper percentile of test takers.
I officially had no way of making friends. Despite being so academically focused, Class A had still managed to form little cliques within it, without me. And so, just like junior high, I spent my days alone with my nose in a book.
But the real story began one summer day after school…
✦ ✦ ✦
“Koyomi!”
At first, I didn’t realize someone was calling my name. After all, my entire high school career had consisted of me walking these halls alone. On the occasion someone was forced to address me, it was by my surname, Takasaki. It simply wasn’t within the realm of expectation for a female student I barely knew to call me by my first name.
So, my brain processed it as background noise while I packed my bag and got ready to leave the room.
“Hey!”
When she grabbed my arm, however, it obviously snapped me to attention. Startled, I turned around.
“What are you ignoring me for?” she asked.
I…didn’t understand. The classmate currently scowling at me with her hand on my arm was none other than Takigawa Kazune. She was a bespectacled girl with long dark hair tied up in a ponytail. She was a brilliant student whose test scores trounced the rest of Class A—and incidentally, she was the same girl who had inherited the title of valedictorian after I passed on it.
But while we were in the same class, we had never so much as spoken to one another, not even once. We were never partners on any school projects, and we never said each other’s names—especially not first names.
Confused, I just stared blankly back at her. I must have looked like a total idiot because her scowl deepened.
“Why are you looking at me like that? You’re not still hung up on what happened, are you? Because I’m not mad at you anymore.”
I was truly, utterly clueless. What was she talking about? What happened? Why was she mad? My mind was awash with a thousand questions.
“Let’s just walk home together, okay? We can talk it out on the way.”
With that, she took me by the hand and started to leave the classroom. I should have been elated to hold hands with a girl, but instead I was terrified.
“Um… Takigawa-san…?” Too cowardly to shake her off, I timidly called out to the back of her head.
She stopped walking and looked back at me. “What did you just call me?! Even if you’re unhappy with me, that’s no excuse to get passive-aggressive!”
“What? I’m not! What should I call you, then?”
“Are you mad at me now?” she asked.
This conversation just wasn’t making sense! Maybe this girl had crammed her brain so full of knowledge that it broke something else. Meanwhile, our classmates were staring at us.
Even though I’d given up on making friends with anyone, I still didn’t want to be seen as weird. “Look, just…let go of me, okay?”
Surprisingly, she did as I asked without complaint. Her hand was much warmer than the expression on her face, and I was startled to find that I missed it as soon as it was gone. But I didn’t have time to think about that right now.
“What’s gotten into you, Takigawa-san?” I asked.
“I should ask you the same thing, Koyomi! Something’s going on with you! I know we’ve had a few misunderstandings lately, but normally you’d never—”
And with that, Takigawa-san gasped as some sort of realization hit her. She looked down at the watch on her left wrist, inhaled sharply, and looked back up at me to say something—but no words came.
She was silent for about five seconds, and then… “I’m sorry.”
With that, she hurried out of the room like it was on fire.
Given that the whole class was now staring at me, clearly they did have other interests besides just studying…but at that point, I didn’t care anymore.
By the time I stepped out into the hall, Takigawa-san was already long gone.
✦ ✦ ✦
Takigawa Kazune, queen geek. A fitting title if I ever heard one. She wore her waist-length hair in a ponytail, and barely concealed behind her coke-bottle lenses were a pair of sharp eyes that kept others at bay. We were three months into our first year of high school and she never once got anything less than the top score on her tests. I had also never seen her interact with any of the other students.
So what was all that about?
I thought about it all night after I got home from school, but I really couldn’t remember ever talking to her before. In fact, I was pretty sure we never even made eye contact. So it went without saying that we were in no position to get into an argument, much less call each other by our first names. Maybe she mistook me for someone else…? No, she unmistakably said Koyomi. She was definitely talking to me.
I glanced over at her desk, sitting in the northwest corner of the classroom. My desk was near the center, so I could only see her from an angle. She was sitting up straight, facing forward, and listening to the lesson with narrowed eyes. But when I paused to observe her, I realized she was hardly taking any notes. Sure, she’d scribble down a few words on occasion, but she certainly wasn’t copying down the chalkboard verbatim. And neither was I.
After that class came a ten-minute break period. As I prepped for the next lesson, I kept glancing at Takigawa-san. She didn’t look my way even once. The way she read her book exuded such unapproachable vibes that I was half-convinced what happened yesterday was all a dream or something.
But every now and then, a fellow classmate would look from me to her and back again. I knew they had to be wondering what was going on between us. If any of them were friends with me, they’d be asking me a thousand questions right about now…so ironically enough, for once in my life, I was grateful to be alone. I wanted to be the one asking a thousand questions—though admittedly, I did have one little theory.
As a result, I spent the day spying on Takigawa-san, but she didn’t look at me once all day. I thought about saying something to her on my way out after school, but she moved so quickly that I could only watch her disappear into the distance.
Then again, if my suspicions were right, I didn’t really need to worry about it…or so I told myself.
However, when I opened my shoe locker, I found a folded scrap of paper inside.
Huh? I immediately opened it and read it on the spot.
It was a note from Takigawa-san.