» Le remords s'endort durant un destin prospère et s'aigrit dans l'adversité. «
"Remorse sleeps during a prosperous period but wakes up in adversity."
― Jean-Jacques Rousseau; Confessions
━━━━━━━━━━━🅳🅴🅲🅴🅸🆃━━━━━━━━━━━
"This is my school, isn't it?"
Advanced Nurturing High School, a boarding school where students learn various things regarding social etiquette. It was quite difficult to get in, and it took special recommendations and such kinds of rigorous selection simply to get through the school's door gate.
Despite its unassuming exterior, this school promises a bright future for the students who study here, including a 100% acceptance rate into popular public universities, giving endless hope to those willing to study as high as they can, or at least until they reach their goals.
"Well... welcome to this school, myself. Guess that I'm ready to spend my youth life here."
I did a monologue, taking a deep breath before stepping into my dream school.
"Alright, in one... two... three, go!"
"Wait, you!"
I looked behind and noticed a familiar figure.
And from what I had seen, she appeared to be slightly mad.
"You stared at me before I gave up my seat. Was there anything wrong?"
She said in a commanding tone. Apparently, there was nothing wrong about it.
"No, nothing. I just thought that you were just like me."
I thought such a vague response would stop her from questioning but...
"And what is your point?"
When she asked me what I meant, I realized that I shouldn't have answered her question.
"You didn't seem to have any intention on giving up your seat to begin with."
I began to draw a point, as I didn't want to argue about it anymore.
"But I gave up on it, didn't I?"
Technically, she did, but I would have expected something else instead.
"Yes, but I thought you preferred not to interfere in anyone's business, right?"
She could have had countered this point with something else, but maybe the pressure was a bit too much for her, to the point she had drawn yet another line instead of a single point.
"Of course not, I didn't want to give up my seat to begin with but... alright, never mind. I simply wanted to state something: This would be the last time we met or talked to each other, understand? You are such a pain in the ass."
Apparently, for no reason, "a pain in the ass" had become the first nickname I received upon the first day arriving to the school...
maybe I should have sulked over it in my bed instead, or not.
By the way, this school is huge and it seems to be worth the money to make it easier for every student to get here. As if those stuff weren't enough, the chestnut brown uniform with a golden yellow collar line appears to be just one of many prestigious facets of this high school.
Okay, enough talking about the school uniforms, you might probably think that I'd be going straight into the school. However, apart from the obvious, it turns out that there's something much more interesting than the procession of entrance ceremony.
Long story short, I still had 30 minutes before the event started and it seemed that my routine would have been quite monotonous had I just followed the ceremony like the other students.
Hence, I would rather doss around then walk carelessly off to somewhere else.
Thus, by coincidence, I had happened to notice a figure of a beige-haired female student with fiery crimson eyes. She seemed to be visibly irritated, was wearing a twisted face andtwiddling her fingers.
She was the same person whom I had met on that bus.
Apparently, she had been waiting for someone but maybe this certain person didn't come for her already. But it never was my business on the first place so I had decided to walk away.
To be fair, the initial scenario was for me to greet her by saying "Good morning!" to shock her but maybe it was a little too much of an effort for me to do so. Therefore, I had to lurk around.
I then walked through the corridors of the main building, looking for a place where I could hide for a while. Yet I couldn't help but not see anything worthwhile to be seen as a hidden place.
In the midst of the sea of students, a female student with a long, silky, black hair caught my eye.
She was the same female student whom I had seen a few minutes ago when I walked into the school entrance.
Her name was...
...
...
...
Right, I didn't know her name in all fairness.
Well, should have I talked to her again then if given a chance?
But the thing was, she already had stated her wish to never meet me ever again in any scenario. But maybe if fate indeed did exist, it would have forced itself to meet us together so I could have asked for her name, or maybe it was just a wishful thinking as it probably would never happen.
Never mind.
And to be fairly honest, I had to admit that it was a little lonely without having her to tease me around the way I would have imagined, but it's alright.
It would have been great to know her name, though.
I then sighed with a little disappointment expressed in my face as I went out of the main building to enter the opening school ceremony.
━━━━━━━━━━━🅳🅴🅲🅴🅸🆃━━━━━━━━━━━
There was nothing eventful about the ceremony, most of them were filled with the clubs introduction, as they had been promoting themselves for more or less an hour, apart from one single scene.
When the MC finished his open speech and gave way to the student representative to speak in front of the podium, he had said,
"And now, allow me to introduce the representative of the graduating class. A young man who has shown outstanding academic results in the past few years. He currently is the council president of Advanced Nurturing High School. I hereby present you... Manabu Horikita."
The moment I heard the MC said the name of the student representative, I had immediately been shocked.
To be fair, I had never heard anything about the aforementioned student, let alone never have I heard of his name, or even seen his face. Yet the atmosphere by all of a sudden had changed when he entered the podium. It went a little too overwhelming as his charismatic presence overshadowed the entire room.
His face was stern and he had a calm composure as he spoke before the microphone.
"Our school is a institution that is both civilized and military like, and where strength comes first—"
After he entered the podium and gave his speech, I immediately saw a certain figure.
It was the same long black-haired girl, standing a few rows before me.
I immediately turned my attention towards the student representative on the podium, Manabu Horikita, whose eyes were staring intently at her by a few seconds during his speech.
A few seconds later, their gazes met. It was occurred as if they had known each other before, despite I didn't know what history that fell apart between these two individuals.
I observed them from distance, making sure to not make any direct contact.
Meanwhile, by the time that moment happened, I had remembered the full speech.
It was done not on purpose or it might have been to kill the time. And it went like this.
"Our school is a institution that is both civilized and military like, and where strength comes first, you will be able to learn how to use your skills in the most efficient way possible, as well as train your body to survive in any situation.
Here, no useless or unnecessary things exist. All are treated fairly and equally, and given a fair chance to prove themselves and grow stronger.
Being able to become a member of this school, I would like to acknowledge your strength and ability, and the fact that you have what it takes to become the best.
Welcome to the school for the elite, the "S-rank" students.
Welcome to the Advanced Nurturing High School."
He then later continued with an advertisement to join the council.
"If you are an S-rank student, you have the rights to choose the council you want to be in, but it requires two things: high grades and no involvement towards the other clubs.
There are four councils in-total, and they are all led by one person each.
Each council has different roles, but all have one purpose in common, to keep the school running smoothly.
I hope you S-rank students choose a council that suits your abilities and wishes, not to waste your time by joining school clubs. Remember, we want your full dedication to school on this regard."
With that, the ceremony ended, and the students were dismissed as we all would have to enter our first class.
The councils he talked about were as follow:
Council of Discipline.
Council of Education.
Council of Facilities.
And the Council of Combat Research. Yes, you weren't mistaken. You heard that one correctly.
As a narrator, I decided to cut the part about the councils because it was irrelevant to begin with. But from what I noticed, he kept mentioning "S-rank student' several times.
However, meanwhile, that certain specific long black-haired girl whose name was unknown had already gone away from my sight. I thought of catching up to her but decided to give in.
After all, this was a new start, so I would have to make the best out of it.
At the very least, I could try to get rid of this boredom that had been plaguing me for a long time.