While I Was Away by Waka T. Brown

Author:Waka T. Brown
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Quill Tree Books
Published: 2020-12-10T00:00:00+00:00

During the lunch after our calligraphy lesson, I approached Midori-chan and her friends.

“So I gave the whole guruupu thing some thought.”

Midori-chan glanced up. She looked defeated, like she thought she knew what I was going to say. Naomi-chan chewed her nails as her eyes darted back and forth between Midori-chan and me.

“If I join your group, do you care if I still walk to and from school with Reiko? And play with her sometimes if she has recess the same time as us?”

Midori-chan and Naomi-chan exchanged surprised looks.

“Sure!” Midori-chan piped up without consulting with the rest of them. With Midori-chan’s answer, Naomi-chan nodded too.

“That’s fine with me!”

Saito-san boomed. “Of course you can. It’s not like I was planning on walking you home.”

Yamashita-san shrugged. “Great.” The way she said it, it was clear she didn’t think it was great at all, but I was tired of turning this decision over and over in my mind. I was just ready to have this nonsense over with.

When I let Emi-chan and Fujita-san know, they seemed disappointed but not upset.

“You and Midori-chan were such good friends a couple years ago.” Fujita-san and Emi-chan nodded knowingly.

It was settled, then. I didn’t like having to choose in the first place, but I felt like of the two options, I made the right choice.

I walked home with Reiko, as usual. I didn’t tell her about my guruupu woes. I didn’t want her to know the girls of 6-5 thought it was weird I wanted to be friends with someone outside of their class. I didn’t want to hurt her feelings, and to be honest, I didn’t want to give her any reason to decide being my friend was more trouble than it was worth. Out of everyone, she was the person I felt like was my truest friend here.

When I got home, I took my first calligraphy attempt out of my randoseru. Once I fished my paper out, it struck me that “got home” meant Obaasama’s house now. And that, instead of automatically wanting to show my mom my schoolwork, I thought of my grandmother first. That surprised me. Then, it was a relief. I didn’t feel like a guest anymore. I took a good long look at my calligraphy and remembered how Obaasama said part of my apron was “clumsy.” Although I was so happy to have Mr. Adachi finally approve my kanji for “friend” during class, it was clumsy too. It might do for Mr. Adachi, but it could be better. I tucked it away and decided not to show Obaasama my work. Not yet.

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