School Entrance Ceremony
For R, there's an unforgettable memory...
That is an incident that happened on the day of the entrance ceremony for junior high school, when R was 12 years old. That day, R was dressed in a new school uniform as was everyone else, and with a new schoolbag on his back, went along with his mother to his first attendance.
Yes, the school entrance ceremony.
When the ceremony finished in the auditorium where all students of the school were gathered, they all moved to the classrooms appointed to them and listened to their homeroom teachers talking. But R, who felt something odd about the comfortable mood, became aware of a certain unease. As expected of the students around him, all the boys had extremely close-cropped haircuts and all the girls had bob cuts, yet it seemed that the uniforms they were wearing were somehow different than his own.
Tilting his head in confusion while listening to the teacher, he looked around restlessly but everybody was gazing downward and it was suddenly quiet...
'I've come to a strange class...' R's innermost thoughts were to a great extent discouraging, and on the way back home from school, he let his complaints out to his mother.
The next day, R went to school without his mood having cleared up. When he entered the classroom, he once again felt unease. Not a single one of the faces he recognized yesterday were there...
'Did I get the classroom wrong?' R thought, going to the door many times to get another look at the placard. But reliably it was written there as 'Year 1 Class 2', and he could tell without a doubt that it was his own classroom.
Reluctantly sitting in the chair he took yesterday, he waited for the homeroom teacher's arrival. During that time, the tumult all around him was much different from yesterday's atmosphere.
R made friends with his classmates afterward and bid farewell to a fun three years, but until he grew up he kept silent about this mysterious experience at the school entrance ceremony, even from his friends and parents.
"I wonder what that was... But, even now I can distinctly remember the faces of the kids who were around me at that time..." R said, draining the beer mug in his right hand with a single gulp, and smiling wryly.
That is an incident that happened on the day of the entrance ceremony for junior high school, when R was 12 years old. That day, R was dressed in a new school uniform as was everyone else, and with a new schoolbag on his back, went along with his mother to his first attendance.
Yes, the school entrance ceremony.
When the ceremony finished in the auditorium where all students of the school were gathered, they all moved to the classrooms appointed to them and listened to their homeroom teachers talking. But R, who felt something odd about the comfortable mood, became aware of a certain unease. As expected of the students around him, all the boys had extremely close-cropped haircuts and all the girls had bob cuts, yet it seemed that the uniforms they were wearing were somehow different than his own.
Tilting his head in confusion while listening to the teacher, he looked around restlessly but everybody was gazing downward and it was suddenly quiet...
'I've come to a strange class...' R's innermost thoughts were to a great extent discouraging, and on the way back home from school, he let his complaints out to his mother.
The next day, R went to school without his mood having cleared up. When he entered the classroom, he once again felt unease. Not a single one of the faces he recognized yesterday were there...
'Did I get the classroom wrong?' R thought, going to the door many times to get another look at the placard. But reliably it was written there as 'Year 1 Class 2', and he could tell without a doubt that it was his own classroom.
Reluctantly sitting in the chair he took yesterday, he waited for the homeroom teacher's arrival. During that time, the tumult all around him was much different from yesterday's atmosphere.
R made friends with his classmates afterward and bid farewell to a fun three years, but until he grew up he kept silent about this mysterious experience at the school entrance ceremony, even from his friends and parents.
"I wonder what that was... But, even now I can distinctly remember the faces of the kids who were around me at that time..." R said, draining the beer mug in his right hand with a single gulp, and smiling wryly.
Note: This is, unfortunately, the last of Isshi's stories as were published in CD Data that I know about. I find it peculiar that they end abruptly at R, so if anybody knows anything about the continuation of 鬼談 in CD Data, please let me know and I will continue!!