March is [Shirokuma Literature Club] I want to return to that day

This is a story that begins with the Shirokuma Literature Club prompt: "March is".

March is a time of farewells and new beginnings.

Current students: "The March sky!"
Graduates: "The willows are budding!"
All: "The cherry blossoms are swelling in the March sky!"
Current students: "Congratulations on your graduation, older brothers and sisters."
School song by all:
"Cherry blossoms, spring is Mukoyama, summer is the firefly-lit Mizuta River...,"
This phrase,
which I practiced many times in elementary school.
Even after half a century, I still remember it.
An uneven grade of 12 boys and 24 girls.
We were in the same class for six years, and even now, we are irreplaceable friends who open up to each other like siblings when we meet.
Junior high school would be a large school combining four schools. Our friends would be scattered by class assignments, so our teacher trained us hard in our studies so we wouldn't shrink away. He made a sumo ranking board at the back of the classroom and made us compete at every opportunity. Kanji tests, math, footraces, etc.,
1 Yokozuna, 2 Ozeki, 4 Sekiwake, 8 Komusubi, and Maegashira were posted in multiples. I was naturally laid-back and disliked competition, so I went back and forth between Sekiwake and Komusubi. However, I was by far the fastest among the girls in footraces. Being a bit absent-minded, I would forget something during the morning inspection, so I would dash home 300 meters away to get it before the start bell and slide back into school. After repeating this stunt several times, my running became exceptionally fast.
What I was curious about on the ranking board was who the Yokozuna was.
M-kun, who did not yield that position to anyone during our sixth year.
He was good at sports, drawing manga, and even telling rakugo stories. It was also from M-kun that I first heard "Jugemu, Jugemu, Gokō no Surikire..." Before the graduation ceremony, M-kun invited several of us to his house. In terms of imagery, I was like Maruko and M-kun was like Hanawa-kun; the only difference was that he didn't act rich.
We decided to play a card game and had to form pairs to work out a strategy.
I, of all people, was paired with my crush, M-kun!
We decided to work out a strategy,
and so that no one else would find out, we both stuck our heads under the kotatsu to plan.
To put it in Maruko-style,"My head is already at a beach on a summer day, thanks to the red halogen light and heat of the kotatsu."With the heat and fever of love, my brain was mush, and little birds were chirping around Maruko's head.

Surely, that was...
f, i, r, s, t, l, o, v, e
It was first love.
Ding-dong-dang 🎯

In junior high school, the names of the top twenty students in the grade were posted for regular exams. Here too, M-kun did not yield the top spot for three years. He was the pride of our elementary school, and I wanted to brag to everyone, "He's my friend!"
M-kun did not go to the local high school but went to a neighboring city through a 5% quota. He had already climbed up to become someone beyond my reach, like a cloud.
Around that time, I had become completely obsessed with the Takarazuka Revue, transforming into an otaku girl who enjoyed one-person plays in her room, saying things like, "Andre~, Oscar-sama."
M-kun went to W University in Tokyo and got a job at a top-tier company. I had imagined a brilliant future for him, but he returned to his hometown in just three years. He became a junior high school teacher in a rural area with no major industry. Then, he reached retirement age, contributed to the development of the region, and finished his term as principal. Only a few of my friends found jobs locally; the rest are in urban areas like Tokyo, Osaka, Kobe, and Hiroshima.
"He wasn't the type of person who suited such a rural place, was he?" When I grumbled that,
"You're rare too, you're the only one who crossed over to Kyushu."
"That's true, isn't it."
The school where we laughed until our heads were empty and ran around is now closed, and the school song will never echo again.

I can't imagine what kind of lives the 36 of us have led, but I feel like if we met, we could return to that day.

Facing the endlessly blue, clear March sky, I whispered to my precious friends with love that if we are alive, we can meet again.
I'll ask M-kun at the reunion:

"Did you like me?"
"I did!"
"You've gotten good at joking, haven't you?"
I still can't say things like that, though 😅
To Shirokuma Literature Club Manager Komaki,
Were you also an honor student?