CH 71

Chapter 9 – Change (3)

Translator – Vodka

Will proofread later. I have lost all contact with Soju. Well, I just hope that he is doing well. So, we will continue with only me.

The teacher posed one math problem after another from the textbook.

He made a student answer a question and then moved over to the next one, and the process repeated.

Math classes were basically, a repetition of this very process.

Math classes weren’t like modern Japanese, Japanese history, or English classes, where we could arrive at the answer by reading the content.

You would be able to comprehend that, only after you have had to deal with a large number.

Sometimes, there would be students who couldn’t understand the contents of the class. The teacher would append a little supplementary explanation, and the class would then continue to progress as usual; and as if this wasn’t enough already, we had no choice but to memorise every new formula that came our way.

High school was different from middle school, in the sense that it wasn’t compulsory education.

Everyone here had decided to pursue higher studies, and it was their own decision to get enrolled in this Sakuragoaka school.

If you want to gain knowledge, you should take the initiative to learn, and not have to wait for somebody to teach it to you.

These were the words of our distinguished student council president.

……By the way, those words seemed like a quote from somewhere, but neither did I feel like looking it up, nor was I interested.

If you looked at those words in isolation, they sure did sound about right.

Since the students themselves had decided to further their studies in high school of their own volition, they should try and make an effort to understand the contents of the class. If there was something they didn’t understand in class, they should take the initiative to ask the teacher for clarification.

However, teachers were humans too.

Since it was a human being who was doing the teaching, even if it did look like he understood the concept himself, it was nigh impossible to convey all of that to another person.

And then there was the person who was at the receiving end of that teaching. He too was human.

The perception of the explanations that came out during a class, differed from one person to another.

In my case, these numbers that bore no meaning in my eyes only looked like an enumeration of numbers. Even if someone had explained it to me, I wouldn’t understand it well.

As I rotated the mechanical pencil in my right hand with my fingertips, I surrendered myself to the incomprehensibility of the ongoing classroom session. I had given up on trying to understand the class.

I carried out the simple action of jotting down the answers that the students had been giving, in my copy.

The current me wasn’t able to do anything else aside from this.

……The midterms were looming over us, but well, I should be able to manage it somehow or the other.

No matter what it was that you had to do, your feelings and motivation were the most important.

“Teaching doesn’t suit me”

My neighbour Kirasaka muttered these words.

“……I am curious as to what kind of job is it that suits you”

More like, I wanted her to tell me what it was that suited her.

A model maybe?……Or, wouldn’t becoming an actress be nice too?

I don’t think you will be able to enter the likes of a company.

Hm, there was no doubt……it was probably going to be the other way around. She enters the company, and the next thing you know is that she became its president.

“I couldn’t do a job where I had to maintain a hierarchical relationship with kids younger than me, much like in a vertically structured society from the olden days, while paying attention to the parents who would only ever complain”

“You could pay attention to others?……That was unexpected”

“Are you listening to me seriously?”

“Were you being serious when you said all that?”

I was the one who is surprised here, you know?

She had suddenly started talking about her future occupation, and that too while class was in session.

However, there was something convincing about her answer.

I had always thought that the job of a teacher was an especially difficult one.

After all, the majority of the other party were kids.

These kids, whether it was because they were going through puberty, or whether it was because they were impertinent, would suddenly act like a grown-up. However, when things got bad for them, they would hide under the veil of killer moves like, “We’re still minors” or “We’re still high school students”.

Much like myself……

You could even say that there was not a speck of similarity between the innocent childhood notion we had as kids of what it was like to be a teacher, and the real job.

After all, dreams were dreams.

“It is because, in life, you must compromise here and there. I too, don’t want to work if I don’t have to. I want to stay back at home and spend my days leisurely”

“In your case, I can actually imagine you doing that. So, I think it is amazing”

She was definitely not praising me.

She could say hurt words with a straight face, without even looking away. As expected of Kirasaka.

The two of us were talking whisperingly. So, to the students who were sitting in front of us, they might have had thought that we were talking to ourselves.

Let’s be careful so as not to be mistaken for lovers.

Then, a doubt crossed my mind.

“Kirasaka, won’t you inherit your dad’s company or something?”

“My dad’s company?”

There was something bothering me when she was talking about her future.

Did she not have to worry about having a job, or just her future in general?

It was only natural to think so.

She was the young princess of one of the largest and most prominent companies in the entirety of the nation.

I had been looking at her in isolation, contemplating her future based on her personality, words, actions and appearance. So, I had completely forgotten about her background.

“Dad is dad, I am me. Whatever work it is that I want to do, and whoever it is that I want to get close to, is my decision”

“Eh, what the heck? That is so cool……”

That was dangerous. If she was a girl, I would have fallen for her.

……I didn’t put that joke into words, even by mistake.

Since it was her, she might have had used her hand like a katana to strike me down. That sharp hand-katana would have had, pinpointedly, gone for my neck.

However, those words very much sounded like Kirasaka. Her valiant demeanour and her sense of her ‘self’ were on full display.