March 27, 2013 --- (Short stories, Boy meets girl in 3 minutes, The ills of the filling-in education and the girl at a corner of the classroom)
Spoiler! :
There is a somewhat old cuckoo clock hanging right on top of the teaching podium, indicating the time of ’11.45’.
I am seat at the second seat from the window in an extremely ordinary classroom, and on a side note, I am sitting at the last row.
In this steaming hot environment in front of me, the boys and girls dressed in middle school uniforms are scribbling with their mechanical pencils. In other words, my classmates are struggling against the test papers.
“Second Year First End-of-Semester Examination—World History.”
The blackboard in front of me has these words imprinted on them.
“Erm…”
Flabbergasted, I cannot help but let out a soft shout.
The other people who are concentrating on this exam glance at me with impatient looks, but I do not have the time to care about this.
Where is this place?
Who am I?
I cannot remember anything.
“Is there anything the matter?”
There is a man, probably a teacher and barely entering old age, invigilating around the classroom, and he looks over here suspiciously as he asks this question.
I can’t let him suspect anything here.
My instincts are telling me to do this, and so, I softly answer to prevent this, “Ah, it’s nothing.” I then start to press the mechanical pencil cartridge and push it back in.
I must not make too much noise, and I must not stand up here.
This is because I am having an exam.
I sit on the chair and observe my surroundings.
There is a pencil case filled with a few stationeries, a “World History” question booklet and an answer booklet, all placed neatly on this very ordinary, albeit slightly scratched classroom. My optical answer sheet is 60% filled, and about 40% of the questions were blank.
What was written on the name column was — “Class 2-C 若井数波”
Is this my real name?
I have no idea at all…speaking of which, how do I pronounce this name?
I look at the question paper, and for some reason, the answers to these questions appeared in my mind immediately. I thought that I did not want to lose this opportunity, and started to fill in the optical answer sheet.
I filled in the correct answer to the questions.
Therefore, I have to break through this test with the maximum score possible.
I start to fill in the answer sheet instinctively, as if I was driven by someone.
After working hard for a while—I suddenly realized something.
There are a few handwritten words on the huge blank in the question sheet, meant for students to do their notes.
Those were messy scribbled words.
“‘My’ memory will reset every 3 minutes.”
“This is because I studied so hard during this test, all because I wanted to get a high score.”
“I crammed all the correct answers in the test in order to memorize them, causing my brain to be overly fully—and the result is that my daily memories and recollections are squeezed out like Tokoroten.”
“This might be really unbelievable, but please trust me.”
“And please try to find a way to deal with it—the test has not ended yet.”
Once I read these words, my mind is naturally thinking “What is that…am I an idiot?” but with if the lines stated here are the truth?
In that case, everything can be explained.
At the same time, I feel a sense of anxiousness inside me. My memory will reset every 3 minutes, and whenever I feel doubtful and lost, it will end immediately.
I worked so hard on my studies that I even forced out my memories, and the exam ends before I can fulfill my abilities—this outcome a little too hilarious, is it not?
As I think about this, I hurriedly fill in the answer sheet.
Suddenly, something hit me on the head. Kok.
Kok, kok, kok.
It seems that those were shredded rubber scraps.
They flew over at me from the left side—the seat located right at the window.
I look over there, and see ‘her’ at a corner of the classroom.
The slightly old cuckoo clock hanging above the classroom is now pointing at ’11.46’.
I look at her, and at the same time, I feel the shock of being grabbed by the heart.
She, like the people around us, is wearing a middle school uniform.
Her long pitch-black hair absorbs the sunlight radiating in from the window, and was heated to an extremely hot temperature. Her stare is extremely cold, and she looks like an unhappy wild cat.
We are having an examination now, and yet she has the mechanical pencil left on the table, and is staring at me without looking away, not doing anyway.
“What?”
I cannot help but increase my volume, but the teacher has already walked here before she can reply.
“…Is there something?”
The teacher is staring right at me, probably because he has been keeping an eye on my suspicious actions.
I panic, but for some reason, “that girl threw rubber at me” I did not say it as I remain silent.
This teacher is probably not too strict as he coldly chuckles and says, “Don’t cheat.” Before turning back to invigilate.
I heave a sigh of relief and turn to the girl—
The girl flips the question paper.
The word ‘idiot’ was written in large font on that huge space.
It is infuriating, but we can talk by writing on the paper. In that case, the teacher will not catch our conversation. Once I realize this, I quickly turn the question paper to the other side and scribble quickly.
“Who are you?”
On seeing this question, she sighs, and then uses the rubber to scrub the back of the answer paper. The small and round girl’s handwriting is really hard to identify.
“My name is Minakawa Sui.”
This part alone looks like it was erased a lot of times.
“I understand your current situation. Your memory will reset every 3 minutes, right? I may know how to help you, and I will help you regain your memories. Also, you need to tell me your test answers.”
She wants me to help her cheat.
“My exam results are a little on the borderline—but I want to get high marks if possible. My life depends on this exam…”
…What is going on?
I cannot help but feel a little puzzled.
“I understand your situation, and I accept your proposal. Losing my memories like this is not fun—I will hand my answer sheet to you, you make a note of the answers somewhere else, and hand it over to me, okay? It’s optical answer this time, so copying answers here should be easily.”
“Okay, you really help me out ‘this time’ by understanding what I mean immediately. Our ‘previous’ negotiations ended when the time limit was up…”
The girl who calls herself Minaka Sui looks very impatient as she receives the answer sheet from me. She hands me a piece of paper torn from the question paper—what was written on it was probably written beforehand.
The words written on it are,
“You crammed your knowledge into your head in order to attain high scores in the exams, and lost your memories. In other words, if you spit out those knowledge—or in other words, keep answering questions, the excessive knowledge suppressing your memories will vanish, and you should be able to get back your memories.”
My heart thinks that this is really ridiculously, but I take back the answer from Minakawa Sui, who seemed to have finished cheating, and quickly open the answer sheet. Ohh, the questions are solved immediately. It feels good.
Those years in history, the names of the historical figures and the incidents continue to surge out from my mind—
Unbelievably, a small portion of my memory returns to my mind.
It is a normal apartment, washiki-styled, and there are tatamis on the floor.
A kitten is curled up below the roof on the other side of the sliding door, and the wind chime is dangling.
She—Minakawa Sui, has long black hair and a savage-looking look. In my memories, she was naturally not wearing a uniform, but a light piece of clothing with revealed shoulders. She is using the cushion to fan her face.
It seemed that Minakawa Sui and I were preparing for our examinations.
“I say, ●●-kun.”
In my memories, she was smiling away.
“If you ●● during the next examination, ●●-kun, I’ll ●● “
My memories are full off blanks, and I am really confused.
However, the me in my memories was immediately motivated after hearing these words—this is definitely why I worked so hard to study, and I crammed so many things about world history that I ended up losing my memories.
“Ah, it’s going to be reset again.”
Back to reality, in the classroom—Minakawa Sui sends me a message to me with my twisted memories.
“You have it good. You can meet up with me with a fresh feeling over and over again. You really have it good there. A boy meets girl every single time? I find it harder to accept than you whenever your memories are wiped clean.”
She turns her face away.
Then…goodbye.”
She gently waves her hand like a dancing butterfly.
I am seat at the second seat from the window in an extremely ordinary classroom, and on a side note, I am sitting at the last row.
In this steaming hot environment in front of me, the boys and girls dressed in middle school uniforms are scribbling with their mechanical pencils. In other words, my classmates are struggling against the test papers.
“Second Year First End-of-Semester Examination—World History.”
The blackboard in front of me has these words imprinted on them.
“Erm…”
Flabbergasted, I cannot help but let out a soft shout.
The other people who are concentrating on this exam glance at me with impatient looks, but I do not have the time to care about this.
Where is this place?
Who am I?
I cannot remember anything.
“Is there anything the matter?”
There is a man, probably a teacher and barely entering old age, invigilating around the classroom, and he looks over here suspiciously as he asks this question.
I can’t let him suspect anything here.
My instincts are telling me to do this, and so, I softly answer to prevent this, “Ah, it’s nothing.” I then start to press the mechanical pencil cartridge and push it back in.
I must not make too much noise, and I must not stand up here.
This is because I am having an exam.
I sit on the chair and observe my surroundings.
There is a pencil case filled with a few stationeries, a “World History” question booklet and an answer booklet, all placed neatly on this very ordinary, albeit slightly scratched classroom. My optical answer sheet is 60% filled, and about 40% of the questions were blank.
What was written on the name column was — “Class 2-C 若井数波”
Is this my real name?
I have no idea at all…speaking of which, how do I pronounce this name?
I look at the question paper, and for some reason, the answers to these questions appeared in my mind immediately. I thought that I did not want to lose this opportunity, and started to fill in the optical answer sheet.
I filled in the correct answer to the questions.
Therefore, I have to break through this test with the maximum score possible.
I start to fill in the answer sheet instinctively, as if I was driven by someone.
After working hard for a while—I suddenly realized something.
There are a few handwritten words on the huge blank in the question sheet, meant for students to do their notes.
Those were messy scribbled words.
“‘My’ memory will reset every 3 minutes.”
“This is because I studied so hard during this test, all because I wanted to get a high score.”
“I crammed all the correct answers in the test in order to memorize them, causing my brain to be overly fully—and the result is that my daily memories and recollections are squeezed out like Tokoroten.”
“This might be really unbelievable, but please trust me.”
“And please try to find a way to deal with it—the test has not ended yet.”
Once I read these words, my mind is naturally thinking “What is that…am I an idiot?” but with if the lines stated here are the truth?
In that case, everything can be explained.
At the same time, I feel a sense of anxiousness inside me. My memory will reset every 3 minutes, and whenever I feel doubtful and lost, it will end immediately.
I worked so hard on my studies that I even forced out my memories, and the exam ends before I can fulfill my abilities—this outcome a little too hilarious, is it not?
As I think about this, I hurriedly fill in the answer sheet.
Suddenly, something hit me on the head. Kok.
Kok, kok, kok.
It seems that those were shredded rubber scraps.
They flew over at me from the left side—the seat located right at the window.
I look over there, and see ‘her’ at a corner of the classroom.
The slightly old cuckoo clock hanging above the classroom is now pointing at ’11.46’.
I look at her, and at the same time, I feel the shock of being grabbed by the heart.
She, like the people around us, is wearing a middle school uniform.
Her long pitch-black hair absorbs the sunlight radiating in from the window, and was heated to an extremely hot temperature. Her stare is extremely cold, and she looks like an unhappy wild cat.
We are having an examination now, and yet she has the mechanical pencil left on the table, and is staring at me without looking away, not doing anyway.
“What?”
I cannot help but increase my volume, but the teacher has already walked here before she can reply.
“…Is there something?”
The teacher is staring right at me, probably because he has been keeping an eye on my suspicious actions.
I panic, but for some reason, “that girl threw rubber at me” I did not say it as I remain silent.
This teacher is probably not too strict as he coldly chuckles and says, “Don’t cheat.” Before turning back to invigilate.
I heave a sigh of relief and turn to the girl—
The girl flips the question paper.
The word ‘idiot’ was written in large font on that huge space.
It is infuriating, but we can talk by writing on the paper. In that case, the teacher will not catch our conversation. Once I realize this, I quickly turn the question paper to the other side and scribble quickly.
“Who are you?”
On seeing this question, she sighs, and then uses the rubber to scrub the back of the answer paper. The small and round girl’s handwriting is really hard to identify.
“My name is Minakawa Sui.”
This part alone looks like it was erased a lot of times.
“I understand your current situation. Your memory will reset every 3 minutes, right? I may know how to help you, and I will help you regain your memories. Also, you need to tell me your test answers.”
She wants me to help her cheat.
“My exam results are a little on the borderline—but I want to get high marks if possible. My life depends on this exam…”
…What is going on?
I cannot help but feel a little puzzled.
“I understand your situation, and I accept your proposal. Losing my memories like this is not fun—I will hand my answer sheet to you, you make a note of the answers somewhere else, and hand it over to me, okay? It’s optical answer this time, so copying answers here should be easily.”
“Okay, you really help me out ‘this time’ by understanding what I mean immediately. Our ‘previous’ negotiations ended when the time limit was up…”
The girl who calls herself Minaka Sui looks very impatient as she receives the answer sheet from me. She hands me a piece of paper torn from the question paper—what was written on it was probably written beforehand.
The words written on it are,
“You crammed your knowledge into your head in order to attain high scores in the exams, and lost your memories. In other words, if you spit out those knowledge—or in other words, keep answering questions, the excessive knowledge suppressing your memories will vanish, and you should be able to get back your memories.”
My heart thinks that this is really ridiculously, but I take back the answer from Minakawa Sui, who seemed to have finished cheating, and quickly open the answer sheet. Ohh, the questions are solved immediately. It feels good.
Those years in history, the names of the historical figures and the incidents continue to surge out from my mind—
Unbelievably, a small portion of my memory returns to my mind.
It is a normal apartment, washiki-styled, and there are tatamis on the floor.
A kitten is curled up below the roof on the other side of the sliding door, and the wind chime is dangling.
She—Minakawa Sui, has long black hair and a savage-looking look. In my memories, she was naturally not wearing a uniform, but a light piece of clothing with revealed shoulders. She is using the cushion to fan her face.
It seemed that Minakawa Sui and I were preparing for our examinations.
“I say, ●●-kun.”
In my memories, she was smiling away.
“If you ●● during the next examination, ●●-kun, I’ll ●● “
My memories are full off blanks, and I am really confused.
However, the me in my memories was immediately motivated after hearing these words—this is definitely why I worked so hard to study, and I crammed so many things about world history that I ended up losing my memories.
“Ah, it’s going to be reset again.”
Back to reality, in the classroom—Minakawa Sui sends me a message to me with my twisted memories.
“You have it good. You can meet up with me with a fresh feeling over and over again. You really have it good there. A boy meets girl every single time? I find it harder to accept than you whenever your memories are wiped clean.”
She turns her face away.
Then…goodbye.”
She gently waves her hand like a dancing butterfly.
