Chapter 1: A Fateful Encounter
It was in March of the year when Hikari and I were about to start elementary school that our families, the Takamuras and the Shirasakas, moved into these side-by-side prefab homes.
Just a little earlier, at the end of February, I had come down with a bad case of chickenpox, right before graduation from kindergarten and the move. Because of that, I wasn’t able to say goodbye to any of my kindergarten friends and just ended up moving into this house.
And even in April, after the move, the traces of the illness, the rash, were still all over my face and body, and as soon as I entered elementary school, I ended up practically not going at all.
With those ugly bumps all over my face, arms, and legs, I didn’t just hate the idea of going to school, I even cried at the thought of stepping outside or going into the yard. My parents were clearly at their wit’s end, but they never scolded or forced me; they let me do as I pleased.
So for a while, I stayed shut in my room, spending the day in bed and staying up late at night when I couldn’t sleep. I was free to do what I wanted, but none of it was fun.
That miserable routine was finally broken on a Sunday.
Hikari: “Ah-ha~! There you are~!”
Yuu: “Eh...”
That day, as usual, I was killing time with nothing to do, and on a whim, I opened the window of my room, which had been shut tight all this time.
But outside the window wasn’t some great view or anything, just the wall of another prefab house, the same design as ours, and a window facing mine that was built exactly the same.
From that window, a girl about my age was resting her chin on her hand, staring right at me.
Hikari: “Heyyy~ heyy~, what's with those little dots~?”
Yuu: “Huh!?”
It was only the second thing she said after we met for the first time, but she, Shirasaka Hikari, suddenly asked about the traces of the illness still left on my body.
Now, knowing her well, I can say without a doubt that it was just innocent childlike curiosity. Nothing more.
But for a shy first-grade boy, being asked something like that out of nowhere by a girl he just met… well, it was rough. Really rough.
Yuu: “…uh”
Hikari: “Huh?”
Yuu: “Uwaaah… Waaahhhhhhh!”
Hikari: “Eh? Ehhhhhhh
~!?”
I cried so loud that you could hear me from the living rooms of both our houses, and of course, our parents from both sides were totally shocked.
Later, when Hikari’s parents found out why I had burst into tears, they apologized to us so profusely it made us feel bad. And then, in response, they scolded Hikari really harshly, so harshly that she ended up bawling too, and then our parents felt terrible. It was a whole cycle of apologies and tears.
But in the end, that intense first meeting ended up cementing a friendship between the Takamuras and the Shirasakas that has lasted over ten years, through family outings and dinners together.
Even now, whenever our families hang out, that story always comes up. It’s our go-to tale. Hikari always gets mad, and I always get embarrassed.
And so, the next morning, the doorbell rang. My mom answered the door…
There stood Hikari, smiling brightly with her backpack on, completely oblivious to the situation, she had come to invite me to walk to school together.
…………
…………
Boy 1: “Whoaa, what's up with this guy~?! He's covered in weird dots all over~!"”
Boy 2: “Ewwww~, gross~! Stay away, stay away!”
Yuu: “…”
Dragged along by her and nervously making my way into the classroom, I was immediately hit with a “welcome” from some of the boys in class.
The rashes on my face and body had already healed and scabbed over, but of course, first graders couldn’t tell the difference. Once a few boys started teasing me, others quickly joined in, until about ten of them were jeering at me in chorus, louder and louder.
And just as I was about to be swallowed up by the same sadness I’d felt over the weekend, tears welling up again, thinking “I shouldn’t have come after all”—
Hikari: “You absolutely, ABSOLUTELY can’t say stuff like that!!”
Her voice rang out loud enough to probably reach the teachers’ office. Hikari, the girl who had brought me here, shouted at them, her face bright red with anger.
Hikari: “It’s a disease anyone can get! You could get it too!”
Hikari: “It hurt a lot, okay!? He toughed it out, put on his medicine, and finally got better so he could come to school!”
Hikari: “So that makes him amazing! He’s way, way more amazing than any of you!”
…That whole speech sounded really familiar.
Right, she was repeating almost word for word the scolding she’d gotten from her parents the day before.
Which meant her words weren’t exactly based on her own knowledge or understanding.
She just believed it was right because her parents said so. She got scolded like that, so now she was turning around and throwing it at everyone else.
And if you asked, “So does she really understand what she’s saying?”, well, honestly, I’m pretty sure she didn’t.
But even so…
Even if it was secondhand, even if it was naive, even if she was just being impulsive—
I still thought Hikari’s outburst was the coolest thing in the whole world.
In the first class of the day, our homeroom teacher spent the entire period explaining my condition in detail to everyone.
And the boys who had teased me? They were forced to apologize in front of the whole class. (Honestly, that probably traumatized them too.)
With “justice” officially served, Hikari couldn’t stop grinning in triumph.
That was the moment of my “fateful encounter”, and the start of my first love.
Looking back on it calmly, there were plenty of questionable things about how she handled it.
When I later told the story to four of my friends, three of them went, “Seriously? You fell for her because of that?”
But still… in that moment, what saved me was how casual she was, and how unreasonably, irrationally on my side she was.
Hikari: “If anything ever happens again, make sure to tell me, okay? Ta~kun!”
Yuu: “Y-yeah… Thanks, Hikari-chan.”
…By the way, she didn’t actually remember my name correctly back then.
And that’s how my life as “Ta~kun”, the childhood friend, began.
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Takamura Yuu, first grade at the time.
Back then, I had no idea she’d turn out to be such a hard nut to crack…
Or that I’d end up being this pathetically hung up on her.