I might have a type for people who are like honor students

I have lived for a fair amount of time, and I believe I have gained a fair amount of life experience.
Even so, I still don't quite understand what my type is.

Do I like kind people?
Do I like funny people?
Do I like people I get along with?

I feel like none of those are wrong, but they don't quite feel right either.
While thinking about that, something occurred to me.

Perhaps, I might have a type for people who are like honor students.

I feel that this thought is also influenced by the women I have worked with so far.

They are serious, responsible, and reliable.
In my mind, they are what you would call honor student types.

And I find such people very likable.
However, I always think at first that we wouldn't get along.

That is because they seem serious, and it looks like we live in different worlds.

The fact that I have come this far without a fixed type might be due to my lack of learning ability or my strong preconceptions.

However, when I talk to them, that is not the case.
Rather, it is fun to talk to them, and before I know it, I have come to respect them.

Looking back, I have started to remember that I have respected people like honor students since I was in elementary school.

Class representatives, group leaders, the leads in school plays.

People who take on the tasks that no one else wants to do.
To my younger self, they seemed a bit like adults.

And back then, I also thought they were people who lived in a different world from me.

However, strangely enough, there were opportunities for us to talk.

And when I talked to them, it was different from what I had imagined.
I had assumed they were creatures different from me, but that was not the case.

I think I was in a slightly strange position in class.
I was not particularly conspicuous, nor was I deeply embedded in any group.

Rather than being isolated, I have the feeling that I was in a position that was not easily categorized.

I don't feel like that has changed much from now.

And for some reason, I felt something similar in the people who were called honor students.

It feels like they are completely at the center of the group, yet at the same time, they are looking at their surroundings from a step back.

Before I knew it, we occasionally had opportunities to talk just the two of us.

It happened occasionally in our daily lives, but there are a few clear examples.

It was when we were deciding the lead roles for the school play.

It was a play with a male and female lead, and a boy who was a bit of a handful in class ended up playing the male lead. At that point, none of the girls volunteered to be his partner.

The troublesome boy seemed to like the honor student girl, and he was shouting for her to be his partner.

I wonder if you could call it getting your way by being difficult; it was a pity, but it was approved.

The honor student girl held back her tears and accepted it, but she clearly had an expression that showed she wasn't convinced. The girls around her were surrounding her while saying things like 'that's so pitiful,' but that's how it turned out.

After things had calmed down a bit, the honor student girl spoke to me.

Wondering what she would say,

I remember saying something completely unthoughtful like, 'What's up? That was a real disaster being forced into that.'

As for how the conversation went from there,

It felt like I was being made to listen endlessly to her saying, 'I seriously hate this, it's the worst.'

Hey now, didn't you just tell the girls surrounding you earlier that 'it couldn't be helped'?

So you really did hate it after all! It was to the point where I almost laughed a little.

I listened to her whole story, and then,

I said things like, 'Well, well, let me know if he's really being annoying,' or 'If he says anything about practicing together, come and call me.'

Even as a bratty kid, I tried to soothe her. I feel like that was when I started to like that honor student girl more than I had before.

Also, this is a story from a different school play.

There was a scene where the honor student girl had to sing a solo in the play. She was being made to practice that song endlessly in front of everyone.

The teacher was getting heated, shouting, "I can't hear you like that!"
and giving acting direction like Ninagawa.

"If you don't project your voice to the back of the venue, you won't be using a microphone!"

He spent over an hour explaining this obsession of his.

I don't remember what I was thinking, but apparently, I, the slacker prop manager who was being forced to watch this, slowly walked over toward the teacher.

This is a story that a classmate who saw it still tells me from time to time.

Apparently, I went up to another teacher who was standing near that teacher

and said something like,

"If you want them to hear you in the back, wouldn't it be faster to just use a microphone?"

Honestly, I don't really remember it myself.
However, it seems they ended up using a microphone right after that.

For my part, I didn't have any grand reason like wanting to help the honor student or wanting to rebel against the teacher.

I think I just simply

"wondered why they were doing something so difficult."

That's all I felt.

Looking back, I think I might have been seeing the same thing as the honor student at that time, too.

Of course, our positions were different.
They were the lead, and I was just a prop manager with nothing to do in the back.

Even so, unreasonable things are unreasonable, and troublesome things are troublesome.
I wonder if I wasn't the only one who thought that.

There is one other thing I remember.

When I was in elementary school, there was an issue in class with someone being ostracized.

The teacher was furious, breathing heavily, and brought in a male student who was crying, and a class meeting started first thing in the morning.

What's more, it didn't end in one day; it continued for several days.

Honestly, I didn't know anything.

It seems the exclusion was mainly happening during lunch break, but since I would spend my lunch breaks holed up in the librarian's office using a key I had obtained, I was unaware.

The boys were to be questioned one by one, and as luck would have it, I was the first.

When the teacher asked me, "What do you do during lunch break?"

"I read books in the library (I didn't mention the librarian's office)"

The moment I answered that, my part in the class meeting was practically over.

I wasn't even at the scene to begin with.

It just brought to light that I wasn't being excluded, but rather that I was just a guy who spent time alone for other reasons.

Nevertheless, the heated class meeting continued, with me now an outsider.

It felt like being on the bench even though I'd been told I was out of the game right after it started.

After a while, I said to the honor student girl who sat next to me,

"I'm heading home now, so let me know what happens tomorrow," and I left early.

When I went to school the next day, the honor student girl next to me said,

"We're having the class meeting again today," and I remember thinking, "Are you serious?"

And the final conclusion was, "Let's all play together as a class during lunch break."

Apparently, it was to put an end to the exclusion.

The first thing I thought was, "What's going to happen to my librarian's office life?"

When I told her that, she laughed and said,

"You should just participate at first. It's not like it's going to last forever anyway."

Looking back now, those words left a strange impression on me. The fact that she didn't say something like "everyone has to get along," combined with the feeling that she understood my perspective a little, made her seem somehow mature. She wasn't just looking at ideals, but also at reality.

Perhaps I have held people like that in high regard for a long time.

Looking back on it now, I don't feel like it was the honor student persona itself that I was drawn to.

It wasn't about having good grades.
It wasn't about being praised by teachers.
It wasn't about being a role model for everyone.

They say when something is a hassle.
They say when they don't like something.
They even complain about things that are unreasonable.

Even so, they take on the things that someone has to do.

They do things I could never imitate, even while complaining about them.
That's why I thought they were amazing, and at the same time, I thought they were admirable.

It was the same with class representatives, group leaders, and the leads in school plays.
And the people I met at work and grew to like were all like that, too.

I used to think that I wouldn't get along with people like that.

They seemed serious, and I thought they lived in a different world than I did.

But in reality, that wasn't the case.

When I talk to them, they are surprisingly interesting.
Before I know it, I find myself holding them in high regard.

I have repeated that experience many times.

That might be why I thought I had a type for people who are like honor students.

No, that's a little different.

Trying to be better, trying to grow, or taking something on for the sake of someone else.

Perhaps I just feel a sense of respect for people who are trying harder to be responsible than everyone else.