Shamer

“I’m getting nervous…”

The next morning. I was walking to school alone.

It had been more than two months since I entered high school, yet, this was my first time actually going to school.

As I approached the school, more and more students around me were wearing the same uniform.

Although I had a lot of energy yesterday, walking next to the students like this made me nervous.

I was nervous because some of them might be my classmates.

“Ooh, so this is Seiran High School…”

When I arrived at the school gate, I looked at the school building.

It had no special features, and its exterior looked like a very ordinary high school.

In case you’re wondering, I came to the high school once when I took the entrance exam, but I didn’t get a good look at the school building or anything, so I only had a hazy recollection of it.

Then, I entered the school building like the other students and changed my shoes at the shoe lockers.

Normally, I would just change into the shoes that were left in the shoe locker, but since it was my first day of school, I had brought my shoes from home.

When I took them out of the bag, a student nearby looked at me curiously, which made me feel a little awkward. After that happened, I went to the first-year classroom on the first floor.

“I was in 1-D, I think.”

Walking down the hallway, I looked for my classroom — found it.

I should go into the classroom as soon as possible… But I decided to take a peek inside first.

In the classroom, my classmates were each talking in several groups.

There was a cheerful group, a quiet group, a nerdy group, and a group of people who were probably club mates. It was a common scene in junior high school.

“Don’t worry, I’ll be fine.”

I muttered to myself over and over again.

From this day forward, I will live my life as myself.

And this was the first step.

“Let’s go.”

I opened the door to the classroom with a bang.

My classmates were so engrossed in their chit-chat that they hardly noticed me.

But a few of them were looking at me with looks of “who is this person?”

“Well, that’s normal…”

Muttering to myself, I checked the seating chart on the teacher’s table and headed for my seat.

At any rate, as I had decided yesterday, I’ll greet the person sitting next to me first.

That will be when the new me begins.

After arriving at my seat, there was no one to my right, so I decided to greet the person to my left.

I wondered when was the last time I talked face to face with someone my own age.

Kiritani-sensei was a whole lot more mature than me, and Marumaru was of indeterminate age.

I started to get nervous again when I thought about it.

I take one deep breath in to calm down. …Okay, I’m good.

I then greeted the person next to me with a hopeful expectation.

“Good M—”

I stopped speaking halfway through.

It wasn’t that I was sick of saying good morning, or that I was too scared to stop.

It was more that something shocking was right in front of me.

“…Ruri?”

Surprised, I called her name.

Then she turned to me awkwardly and said.

“…Good morning.”

She greeted me back in a small voice.

In the high school that I finally decided to attend, I found, sitting right next to me, my childhood friend and the person I love — Aima Ruri.

[EDN: Hey, sorry for the long delay, been busy with College classes and fighting off laziness, I’ll try to get more parts out soon.tm]

[TLN: SUS. On a real note, we have the release of ELITE, the third novel in the Goodbye Declaration series this late October.]