The Days I Spent as Childhood Friends with Shunpei Chihaya

My childhood friend, Chihaya Shunpei, gave up baseball in middle school. It was heartbreaking.

I thought he had said goodbye to baseball for good and was ready to live like an ordinary high school student. But just a few days after starting at Kotezashi High, his love for baseball reignited, and he joined the baseball club, which was barely any different from a baseball enthusiasts' association.

I felt like he had a thing for making himself suffer. He turned down countless offers from prestigious baseball schools, insisting on going to a public school, only to start playing baseball again.

Still, however you look at it, I'm really glad he's playing baseball again.

Also, I thought I was playing the role of someone watching Chihaya Shunpei find his passion again. But one day, he secretly stamped me with the label of his girlfriend.

I was speechless. I wasn't emotionally prepared to play the romance lead yet.

Later, Chihaya Shunpei said that a senior couldn't let her pride take a hit or let her juniors look down on her, so he was asking me to help him out in a pinch.

I pinched his cheek and accused him: "You weren't this prideful in middle school! You've fallen, Shunpei."

Chihaya Shunpei asked when I was planning to start dating.

Me: "Senior year."

Chihaya Shunpei: "Then I'm calling dibs. For now, I'm on a trial run as your test boyfriend."

Me: "..." (He's really fallen.)

Reader's Guide:

★ Sweet, short story.

★ Archived on 20240921.

★ Probably mostly first-person narration.

Theme: Live life optimistically