Senior Classmate

I have a senior I really adore.

The night high school I attended was filled with people carrying various circumstances.
There were people like me who chose night school for a fresh start after being truant, and there was even a 60-year-old student who had never been able to attend middle school, having gone into apprenticeship, who came back to study to achieve their dream of high school life after their child-rearing days had settled down.

A classmate ten years my senior, with whom I still keep in touch even after graduation, was one of those people. Although they were a classmate, I will refer to them as my senior here.

While we were in school, I often saw them being lectured by other adult classmates, saying, "You won't be able to graduate if you don't come to school properly."

"But I'm just so tired, you know!"

They would let out their frustrations in a childlike voice.
Seeing that, the adults around us would laugh.

They were terribly irresponsible, but they were good at being spoiled and were somehow impossible to hate.

I will never forget the drinking party after graduation; my senior was drinking like a fish.
When I asked, "Are you sure you're okay drinking that much?" they replied, "How can I not drink on a day like this!" while downing their drink.

As I feared, after a while, my senior didn't come back from the restroom. When I went to check on them, worried, the door was open. As I entered saying, "Senior, the door is open!" I found them clinging to the toilet, vomiting while saying, "Listen here, Otoma! Watch how I live my life!"
The gap between their words and their actions was just too extreme.

Apparently, they were quite wild in their youth. My senior never boasted about it at all. Recently, they even went out of their way to take the Shinkansen to apologize to someone they had caused trouble for when they were young. They told me about that time while truly sweating on their forehead and wiping their face repeatedly with a wet towel.

I watched them talk with their face all scrunched up in embarrassment, thinking, "They don't run away from the important things, do they?"

One time when we were drinking with classmates, for some reason, it was trendy to carry around small skateboards. My senior, completely plastered, sang, "When I drink draft beer, I start to dance! I start to dance to the rhythm of samba!" while fluttering their hands and stepping to the beat, and then, just like a child, they rode the skateboard through the station concourse and went off somewhere.

Passing office workers frowned and muttered, "This is why the 'yutori' generation is like this."
Do you know? That person isn't from the yutori generation at all.

While being looked at with cold eyes, I followed after them, saying, "You're going to fall!"

Even now, we still go out for drinks together occasionally.

Watching my senior talk happily while completely plastered, I think to myself.

Maybe the ones who win at life are those who honestly enjoy it.