Chapter 80
From then on, Ryosaku and Rika Toyama met every Sunday, studied side by side at the library, went to the movies, and became as close as lovers.
However, due to unfavorable circumstances such as the fact that they were enrolled in different schools and Ryosaku's extremely poor grades and disgust with schoolwork, the two gradually met less frequently and became estranged.
He no longer has contact with Lisa Tanaka, who moved to Hokkaido.
Ryosaku had excellent grades during his junior high school days and was in the top class of his school.
In the mock exam held a month before the high school entrance exam, he finally came in first place in the school, and had high expectations for his future.
He entered the local co-educational Y-Higashi High School with high spirits, and even in the detailed tests conducted at the school, he came first in all subjects except English.
And...at the top of the standings posted in the hallway, there was always the name "Ryosaku Takada."
Ryosaku attracts attention and respect in his class.
...However, he eventually fell into a slump and his grades gradually declined...Even though he was not good at English to begin with, he managed to keep his grades high in middle school by using his "study method"... ...His English deteriorates, and he falls off the rankings posted...eventually, he ends up at the bottom of his class.
As a result, the attitude of his classmates, who had initially been cheering on him, changed... Even the teachers, who had high hopes for Ryosaku's future, began to treat him as an inferior.
For the first time in his life, Ryosaku was shown vividly the cruel reality of this kind of "return of the hand"...He became a second grade student and managed to enroll in the preparatory class at a national university as the ''bottom of the class'', but around this time... By then, he had become extremely distrustful of humanity, and his grades had fallen further to the bottom.
At home, he was blamed and scolded by his parents... After the summer of his second year of high school, he completely abandoned his studies.
At that time, his heart was based on movies, comics, and novels.
What saved him from living a rough life of desperation was that kind of entertainment and the many faint memories he had with Mieko and the others.
Even in the midst of his difficult days, Ryosaku fully understood himself through the sparkling, dream-like days he spent with Mieko...and the sweet days with the kind Lisa Tanaka.
And Ryosaku somehow manages to control himself, supported by memories of sweet days with Lisa Tanaka, who was kind to him, and Rika Toyama, who understood him well and listened to his many worries without even bothering him. ...Only the worst "dropout" was avoided.
Abandoned by both his classmates and his homeroom teacher, his nightmarish "dark years" come to an end...and he is finally freed from his deplorable life.
Although he was unable to attend university, it was his father who offered him a helping hand as he had nowhere else to go.
In fact, when Ryosaku's father was a student, he suffered from the exact same situation as his son, failing in his grades and being kicked out of the class. He looked to the school to find his destination.
After enrolling at his father's alma mater, Ryosaku reconciles with his father, who had teased him in high school, and returns to his previous relationship with his mother...both of whom he consults more than before. , and started to respond to requests whenever Ryosaku needed them.
However, since he was not a farmer, working on the farm at his new alma mater was tough.
Up until that point, Ryosaku had not had any experience in physical labor, so he fell behind his classmates who were used to working on the farm and helping around the house.
...and he ends up living in a dormitory without being able to make any close friends in his class.
At this school, all students, including those who live right next to the school, are forced to live in a dormitory during their first year, in order to help them make friends.
This system was designed to enable young people, who will be responsible for the future of Japan's agriculture, to make reliable friends and develop a sense of solidarity by living together.
However, until now, Ryosaku has been at an "honor student school" where there were no delinquent students.
Ryosaku used to live surrounded by honor students, but from the beginning he didn't get along well with his new classmates, who took "adult manners" such as drinking, smoking, and playing with women as a matter of course.
What saved such a good work was the "reading room" in the dormitory.
It wasn't a very large room, and it was rather bare, but for him, it was exactly the same as a "shelter."
Although there were not many books in the room, there were some interesting books such as "Foreign Jokes, " and delinquent students did not come into the room to read such books.
Therefore, for Ryosaku, who likes quiet environments and loves reading, that room was the perfect "heaven."
Ryosaku was enrolled in a class called the "Agriculture Department," which specialized in rice cultivation and field crops, but eventually he met two students in the "Animal Husbandry Department," a class that specialized in fattening and raising cows, pigs, chickens, etc.
Ryosaku became friends with the two of them, and the three of them started talking and reading together in this small room.
And on days when the other two were not in the room, he began to record little by little in his notebook the memories of those nostalgic and exciting days he used to spend with Mieko, Lisa, and Rika... and came to take it as his own "comfort."
As Ryosaku writes, many precious memories that he had almost forgotten overflow one after another as if gushing out from a fountain of memory...sometimes with tears in his eyes, and sometimes those three girls who appear in the distance like a phantom.
He was wandering and playing in a fantasy all by himself, chasing after the adorable face of the girls...
Mieko and Lisa...and Rika once gave him a "testimony of love".
Ryosaku wanted to preserve these memories in the form of a "novel" someday.
And so...he found free time, recorded it, and threw himself into a long journey to find memories with the girls.
