Chapter 5- Entrance Ceremony

The cherry blossoms are in bloom.

A blanket of pink covers the edge of the roadway, creating a path of petals on the ground. The view makes me think that spring has come again this year.

In my previous life, I had no interest in the seasons or events in my life, but when I saw the cherry blossoms, I thought that spring had come and my spirits were lifted a little. I didn’t think I would make a fresh start in the spring or change jobs to reset my environment.

“Itsuki. Are you nervous?”

“No, I’m fine.”

I shook my head as my mother spoke to me.

We were standing in front of the main gate of the elementary school.

There was a white sign that read “Entrance Ceremony Celebration” with red and white fluffy decorations decorating the edges of the sign. Where is this place and what is going to take place from now on? No need to explain all of it.

I’m at the entrance ceremony of elementary school for the second time in my life.

But I don’t really remember much about the first time.

I only have a vague memory of being led by upperclassmen and entering the gymnasium in a line. I wonder if this is the same all over the country.

I walked straight through the schoolyard with my mother leading the way, and stopped in front of the school building. There was a bulletin board, which I miss nowadays, with the class rosters posted on it. Of course, there was a huge crowd gathered around it.

Some were nervous, some were excited.

Some were having fun with their friends

What, you made friends already?

No way! It’s too soon.

No, they must be friends from nursery school or kindergarten.

If not, what am I supposed to do now?

While I was in a state of mild despair at the sight, my mother was patiently accompanying me through the crowd of people who were being gradually processed out of the area. And within a few minutes of riding the wave of people, we arrived at the bulletin board.

Well, we didn’t have to get close to it, I can see it from a distance if I do “vision enhancement” using guiding thread silvate…… but it’s no fun.

In the first place, it was me in my previous life who was taking care of events in such a mechanical way.

I decided to say goodbye to that kind of thing.

“What group are you in. Itsuki?”

“N……. Ah, there it is!”

I looked at the list from the top of the first grade to the bottom and found my name right away.

To my surprise, my class was 1st grade. My last name starts with “Ki,” so my attendance number was 5. That’s easy to find.

I found my number, and my mother took me by the hand and led me away from the list again.

Then, my mother asked me anxiously.

“Itsuki. You have to go to the classroom by yourself from here.”

“Yes, I’ll be fine!”

Yes, from here on, I would go to the classroom alone, away from my mother.

Wow! I’m so nervous!

At my age, I’ve been in the line of death twice, and if anything, I’ve died once, but a new class usually makes me nervous. But I’m looking forward to it. It’s the first of six years of elementary school. It would be impossible not to be nervous.

I will do my best to have a good elementary school life.

With this thought in mind, I entered the school building with my heart pounding.

And as I searched through the shoe boxes of the first grade 1 class, I vaguely thought about the list of names I had seen earlier.

By the way, there were a lot of names in katakana.

It’s not that they have flashy names. There were a lot of non-Japanese names in the list. Well, the world is global and we live in an age of diversity.

I wonder how it was in my previous life.

I feel like there were kids from abroad, or maybe there weren’t.

But if there were, I think there was one in my grade. At least, there were definitely no more than two or three in the class.

While absentmindedly thinking about the changes in the world, I put my shoes in the shoe box, took out my new shoes, and put them on. These shoes, I realized, were all black. And I have to wash them myself. That’s the hard part.

When I passed the shoe box, there was a signboard that looked like it was handmade by an upperclassman that said, “First graders go this way”. Easy to understand.

I followed the arrow on the sign and headed up the stairs to the classroom.

There were other first-year-ish kids on the stairs besides me, but I’m not confident enough in my communication skills to talk to them here, so I silently head to class. No, I’m not confident enough to talk to a 6-year-old.

I took a deep breath as I reached the door to the classroom.

Standing in front of the closed door, I pull my mind back together.

……Good, let’s go in.

When I pulled the door, it made a sound and there was a big fuss inside.

It sounds like the beginning of a snow country, but it really is, so there’s no other way to describe it. In the first place, there is no way that a six-year-old child will be quiet if you tell him to be quiet, so it is natural to say so. No, this is great.

“Eh? Is it the one with the black pencil case? That’s so cool!”

“But the pencils are cool.”

“Wow! Really!”

I slip past the fussing kids and my classmates and head for my seat.

The seating chart was written on the blackboard with the words, “Congratulations on your admission,” in hiragana characters.

It was handwritten with chalk, but I wondered if the teacher had written it.

By the way, my seat was by the window.

It seems that the first seat on the window side is number 1, and the number goes down as you go to the back of the room. I was number 5, so I was in the last row.

I was the last one at the window.

I was about to put my school bag on the desk, thinking something too stupid, when my eyes fell on a girl sitting next to me……

Unlike the rest of our classmates who were fussing, she had her pink school bag hanging over the side of her desk and was resting her cheek on her hand with a mousy look on her face.

No, it’s not her attitude that should be noted.

The color of the school bag was unusual when I was in school, but nowadays, pink is not unusual.

What is unusual is her appearance.

She has platinum blonde hair and blue eyes.

Her skin is so white you would think she had never had a tan.

She looks very much like Irena-san…….

Maybe this kid is of European descent.

I’m sure she is one of the kids with katakana names that were on the roster earlier.

With this in mind, I took out my pencil case from my school bag and hung my school bag next to my desk, following the example of the girl beside me. Then I looked at the clock.

The entrance ceremony starts at 10:00.

It is 9:30 now. There is still about half an hour to go.

What should I do……?

I had assumed that elementary school students would be more tense and stiff before the entrance ceremony. I thought that the ideal way to make friends would be to gradually shorten the distance between them, but in reality, elementary school students are much freer than I had expected.

In fact, they had already made friends before entering school.

Oh, no.

If I don’t do something, I’ll be tripped up from the very beginning of elementary school.

As they say, the first time is the best time, and if you miss the start, it takes a lot of effort to make up for it afterwards.

I look around and try to find someone to talk to, but it’s no good. Everyone is free to leave their seats and talk as they please. There’s no room to take advantage of it!

I looked around the classroom and circled it, and then I saw the girl next to me again.

There she is! She hadn’t talked to anyone yet!

I was excited for a moment thinking so, but it is hard to talk to a girl who is resting her cheekbones on her hands before the entrance ceremony.

No, of course I knew that.

If I were in elementary school, talking to the girl sitting next to me and making friends with her would be the most basic thing I could do.

It is a level equivalent to “Kaijutsu” in the magical sense. If you can’t do that, it’s impossible to make friends. I could say that a girl with a bad attitude and a foreigner next door is too much of a challenge!

But I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.

I decided to make friends.

I can’t be scared in a place like this. ……

I made up my mind and spoke to the girl next to me who was facing away from me.

“Hello…”

“………….”

But the girl was silent.

I was so surprised that she didn’t say anything.

But I can’t stop here.

The goal of a first grader is to make ten friends.

If I can’t make friends with the girl sitting next to me, I’m not going to be able to achieve that goal!

“I’m Itsuki. What’s your name?”

“…… Nina.”

Wow! She answered!

She didn’t look at me at all, though.

“Nice to meet you, Nina-chan.”

“…Hmm.”

When I greeted her, she gave me a menacing look. She was very harsh.

I thought so, but then she stopped resting her cheekbones on her hands and turned to me.

“Itsuki what?”

“What?”

“Tell me your last name.”

She gave me a slightly matured look, and I had nothing to hide, so I said.

“It’s Kisaragi.”

As soon as I said that, Nina-chan was stunned and jumped from her seat with a clatter!

And then she stood there in front of me looking surprised.

It is an odd behavior if you view it from the outside, but unfortunately, none of the first-year students preparing for the entrance ceremony noticed it. Then Nina-chan said in a voice just in time to be buried in the commotion.

“Ho, really…!”

What do you mean, really?

Could it be that she knows me?

“Really? The Kisaragi Itsuki who exorcised the sixth rank monster?”

“Do you know about me? If so, that’s it! Would you like to be my friend?”

When I said that, Nina took a step back.

Eh, that hurts.

“Why are we in the same class?”

“Why can’t we be in the same class?”

“Of course not!”

Nina barked angrily, yet confidently.

“I’m a fourth rank magician, that’s right! I’m here to beat you, Itsuki!”

……Eh.

Eh ……？？？？

Previous chapter | TOC | Next chapter