My Arrival in a Japanese High School

Hey, look at that girl over there, isn't she ugly? Yeah, tell me about it. She probably watches nerdy stuff all day. HA HA HA HA! I wake up startled and I see I'm in my new house in Japan.

For one, I'm glad that Japan has good school lunches like France (unlike in America where I heard their school lunches are disgusting.)

Recently, one of the things I have done differently is that I made sure I'm great at sports by working out two hours a day during the time when we are about to move to Japan. I also practiced socializing with strangers to become more confident in being more outgoing.

This is a chance for me to start off with a clean slate, I thought. I might finally get the chance of making friends with people, but to do that, I'll need to hide my true hobbies. I grab a piece of toast, brush my teeth, comb my hair, and then I walked towards the school building.

When I walk towards to Tokoton High School, I see cherry blossoms in the wind swirling all around. When I turn back, I see a guy turn back like he didn't see me. I thought, Do I look weird? I thought I arranged my hair in a nice way, and I wear contact lenses now. I brush that thought away from my mind and headed through the school gate.

I notice in fact that a lot of people are staring at me. Why are they all staring at me? Is it because I look new? Or is it.... I didn't want to finish that thought.

I head into class 1-A, and Ms. Aki asks me to come in front of the class and introduce myself. I can do this. I've been practicing for weeks now, and I can't chicken out now!

I finally mustered the courage to introduce myself. After that, I see what I think is a positive reaction. I walk to my new desk where I see that same boy from before looking at another girl waving at him, and then wandering in thought.

Maybe I should go talk to him, I thought. Then, a couple of girls said hi to me, interrupting my next move.

"Hey, your dad is really from France? That's so cool!" One of them said. "I wonder can you actually speak French?" another girl asked. "Yep," I replied quickly. "Can you say something in French then?" The third one asked.

"Tres Bon, which means great." "Wow! That's awesome!" All of them replied. "We'll see you after school!" The first girl said. "Bye!" I replied back. Well, I think I'm on a very good start.

I decided I try to talk to him again, but I was interrupted by the teacher announcing that they were going to do the exams to see who is going to be the class representative today. Everyone groaned (I mean, who likes exams?)

We had two exams, Japanese and Math. I was always good at exams but maybe is that also why that... No, I need to concentrate. Let's see, what's the quadratic formula? I think it's... I wrote that answers down super fast for Math.

For Japanese, well... let's say I struggled because I used to only speak French.

When I finished with my exams, I caught that boy looking at me again. What's his deal? Do I look strange? I mean, no one else keeps looking back and forth at me, so it shouldn't be that, I thought about it feeling very puzzled. The bell rang signifying lunch time.

Apparently, in Japanese high schools, you get to buy what you want to eat from the school shop. I got yakisoba bread which is very popular because there used to be fifty, and about five seconds later, there were none. I returned to the classroom to eat, and then I decided to talk to that boy for the third time.

That boy is really gazing at me intently as I step closer. "Hey what's your name?" I ask in a nice voice. "Uh... Hi..ro..sh..i It....su.ki is my name," he said very nervously. Oh he is just shy. Maybe I should ask kindly so I can get to know him better. "Hey Itsuki-kun*, would you like to go outside with me?" I asked kindly as possible.

"Wait why are you calling me by my first name?" His face turned very red. "Wait, I'm not supposed to call somebody by their first name?" I asked confused. "Well you only call them by their first name only if... if..... they are ... clo..se ....you know .....close close."

A second later, my face turned red realizing what he meant. "Well, do you want to go outside or not?" I asked very embarrassed. "Sure," He replied without a thought. We walked outside with nothing significant happening. The school day ended, so I walked outside talking to the girls who talked to me in the classroom and went home for the night.

The first thing I did when I went home was to take a shower. I feel like all my troubles are being washed away. Oh yeah, since I'm home, I can finally watch some of that anime that starts today! I finished washing my hair and body quickly, and headed towards my room (after eating my dinner in record time.)

The anime was called Love Game Hate Life, which was about two cousins named Kimiko and Hisashi, who have lost faith in humanity, and became the best gamers in the world from their room. In the story, they get transported to a world based solely on games.

Should I really lie to others who I am? Should I conceal my actual hobbies, or just reveal it and be proud of it? I decided to look up "someone keeps looking back at me and pretended like they didn't until they notice that I noticed." The result that came up was "Do you mean Love?" I stared at it for quite some time. No, it must be some mistake I thought. No one can ever love me.