A Message from the Past

Today, I'm going to take you back to when I was in junior high school.
When I was in my second year of junior high, there was a boy in my class who stopped coming to school.

The classmate in the corner of the room who had no presence

He wasn't part of a so-called 'plain' group or anything; he was just a normal kid.

But apparently, there was some kind of bullying going on within his group, and he stopped coming to school around the autumn or winter of our second year.

When we moved up to the third year, the class stayed the same, so his name was still on the roster, but he wasn't there. That was the situation.

I wasn't particularly close to him, and honestly, I don't even have any memories of really talking to him.

So, in a sense, I just thought of him as 'someone who was in the same class'.

The shoe locker at graduation, and 'Why me?'

And then, the day of graduation.

If I recall correctly, he came to school just for the very end. I think he participated in the ceremony, but he wasn't in the classroom...

My memory is a bit hazy on that part. And then, when I was about to go home after the graduation ceremony.

I looked in my shoe locker and found a letter addressed to me. When I opened it, it was from him.

It said, 'I like you, please contact me,' and he had written his email address.

I was like, 'Huh?' It wasn't that I disliked him or anything, it was just simply, 'Why me?'

Since we had barely ever spoken, in the end, I didn't contact him.

The winter I was 19, a reunion at a local cake shop

Five years passed just like that.

The winter I was about 19, I was working a short-term job at a local cake shop.

Then, one day, that boy who had stopped coming to school came in as a customer.

I thought, 'Oh, how nostalgic.' We made small talk, just asking things like what he was doing now or if he was going to the coming-of-age ceremony.

I served her like any other customer, and she bought a cake and left, but...

A few minutes later.

The shop staff called me over and said, 'Hey, sorry, could you come to the back?'

I wondered what it was about, so I went to the back, and they showed me a fax, saying, 'This...'

A message from that girl had arrived there.

When I read the content, it said, 'I like you, please contact me.'

Fear, pity, and the unsettling feeling that 'it wasn't over'

I had forgotten about it at the time, but then I remembered what happened five years ago.

I was shocked, thinking, 'Wait, this is the same message as back then.'

On top of that, I had just met her a moment ago. And then, this, just a few minutes later? I couldn't understand it.

It was genuinely scary.

How should I put it... I thought, 'This person's time has been frozen since middle school.'

Five years have passed for me, I've met all sorts of people, and my middle school days have properly become a thing of the past.

Of course, I don't know what kind of five years she spent.

But when I saw that fax, it felt as if she had brought her middle school emotions with her exactly as they were.

It was... as much as it was scary, I also felt pity for her.

I mean, besides, sending a fax to the shop is just not okay, I thought.

It felt like the sequel to five years ago was suddenly being played back.

I thought, 'It wasn't over yet?'

Silence and an unshakable premonition

Naturally, I didn't contact him after that. So, I don't know what happened next.

I'm scared of the thought of running into him somewhere again, but I wonder if he'd just say 'please contact me' again... or not...

Or maybe......... next time...