-2-
The Growing Chasm...
Shiratorizawa Aacademy, among the most prestigious schools in the Miyagi prefecture, offers the highest quality of Japan's education system from the tender age of six and prepares their students all the way until the preparation for the best of universities. It boasts that not only are their graduates able to compete on the national level but on an international scale in terms of intellect, artistry and athleticism.
Naturally the number of applicants for Shiratorizawa are high, and the acceptance rate, extremely low. Out of two thousand applicants for primary school over ninety percent are rejected, and of the annual approximate one thousand applicants for junior high and senior high separately, the average admittance rate is only six and five percent respectively. Transfers in between years are extremely rare; seats only open up should there be a student transferring out, a dropout or an expulsion.
Out of nine hundred and seventy-eight applicants for junior high that year, Takenaka Hiroko ranked sixtieth. Shiratorizawa Academy extends only sixty seats to external students.
Sixty slots, and she ranked exactly sixtieth.
Hiroko's eyes were fixated on her name next to the cell that read '60.' printed unto the piece of paper that was currently pinned up on the bulletin board. If she'd really gotten in, her acceptance letter would be mailed in the following day. But apparently the results were already up for public viewing. A crowd was starting to gather around her, and still she stared on dumbstruck not believing she was seeing.
The previous afternoon, the school had phoned all applicants to collect their results at the administration building. The following day being Saturday, her parents were free to drive the family to Shiratorizawa at the crack dawn so as to wait by the school gates till they opened at seven.
On the way there, her father had commented on her silence. "Nervous?"
"Yeah."
"Well you shouldn't have to be unless you didn't study."
Hiroko didn't rise to the bait, settling for staying quiet. The family having picked up on her sombre mood, left the rest of the ride silent.
In her defence, she studied hard. In the sense that she spent a lot of research reading up what sort of questions generally came up in exams like these. Disregarding the practice maths problems, reading of science textbooks, and brushing up on English, she instead spent her time wondering how many marks were allotted per section, and which branch of science are usually focused on. She was more concerned about whether essay-type questions would appear rather than preparing for the break-neck speed multiple choices that were a given.
Hiroko had very short attention span, which is surprising considering her attentiveness in class, though once her head latches on to an idea brought on by having to listen to others talk, her mind constantly starts to wander, jumping on from thought to thought rapidly. This is perhaps the quirk of hers that gives way to other facets of her behaviour, from the mood swings to her general inattention.
But despite this, or perhaps because of it, she found it easy breaking down and reconstructing all sorts of ideas at record time. With set rules it becomes infinitely easier to narrow down possible outcomes. So when the section with the heaviest graded weight in the exam turned out to be logic and mathematics, well, Hiroko had her hopes up.
Actually getting in, though? Hiroko's stupid grin at the moment reflected perfectly the giddiness that swelled from her chest.
She spun around, intent on bringing her parents over to see for themselves only to find them already staring at her form from a few paces away. Having seen the expression on her face, as if it were a contagion, they too broke into feverish smiles.
Mindful of the plentiful groans of dejection around her, Hiroko dampened her demeanour and pushed her way back out of the horde and ran towards her parents. Leaving with much higher spirits than they came in, they made their way to the car where a bleary-eyed Hideaki was blinking away the vestiges of sleep from his doze in the backseat. At the mention of breakfast in the city centre, he was instantly alert. She continued to coax her younger brother into a fervent state, knowing that even if the result of her entrance exam might not excite him, the prospect of food certainly will.
The rest of the day was a blur, they wandered from shop to shop at the mall, then moved on to the park where they rented bikes and tired themselves so much, that with full stomachs on top of exhaustion, they passed out as soon as they've changed and seated themselves in the backseat.
She woke up just as her car pulled up in front of their house.
"You're up?" Her mother murmured. "Come help me wake your brother up. Dad's opening the gate. He'll park the car as soon as we get off."
It was only when she stepped out of the car at faced Iwaizumi's house that she remembered the Kitagawa Daiichi placement test and enrollment in two days' time that she'd have to prepare for.
She was so done.
That was how she found herself walking the grounds of the large school campus on the second week of April. She had been so conflicted about which school she was going to attend that by the time Kitagawa Daiichi's enrollment rolled round, she ended up not going for the placement exam despite having registered for it. She just hoped no-one else who knew Oikawa and Iwaizumi would be there to tattle.
The night before the first day of school, she'd tried everything to make herself sick and at three in the morning, settled on binge-eating everything she could find from the tupperware of four-days-old pasta sitting in the back of the fridge, to the two cans of Sapporo from the stash her dad kept hidden in the bottom drawer behind the vegetables. She made sure to get rid of the smell of alcohol from her bed by downing a pack of nori and umeboshi; she'd just set the rice to cook less than twenty minutes ago and so it wasn't ready yet.
The thought of Iwaizumi and Oikawa attending the entrance ceremony only to notice she wasn't present served as her motivation to eating the four bowls worth of rice she cooked. She topped it off with a cup of cider, then set off to clearing her mess.
She'd washed all the wares she'd emptied from the fridge, the rice cooker, as well as the the pan she used to cook sausages, beans and box of taiyaki with. She hadn't used the microwave at all, in case her light-sleeping parents were woken up by the buzzing and beeping of the appliance. All of the wrappers she'd discarded were piled in a separated garbage bag that she tied off tightly before making her way to the front door as stealthily as she could. No point in all the secrecy if her mother were to find them in the kitchen come breakfast.
She undid the door chain, then took the keys from their hook, making sure she did so without them knocking into each other and jingling in the process. Sliding the key into the lock, she turned the lock as quietly as she could until it clicked.
She paused.
Holding her breath, she perked her ears to catch any creaking of the bed or shuffling of slippers that would indicate that her parents had gotten up. After a tense moment she let the key continue it's revolution slowly until it clicked again. This time, less tense, she waited on guard, for any interruption then heaving a sight turned the knob and slipped past the front door.
Running to the trash bin at the other end of the block and back was an easier affair, and getting was about the same. She waited outside the front door with her ears against the door to make out any noise, and once she'd confirmed it was clear, sneaked back in, locked the door twice, more hurriedly this time, then put up the chain. Skidding to her room barefoot, with slippers in hand and jumping into bed just as her parents' internal clock rang it's alarm, was easier said then done, as she'd nearly tripped on the bathroom rug on the way in.
She dozed off under her blankets, with the air conditioner set to the lowest setting, allowing only her hot breath to warm her face, and her stomach to warm her hands that she'd crossed and tucked into her sides.
Being woken up not even half an hour later, after having fallen asleep with an overly full stomach and having gone nearly forty-five hours of no sleep, set the stage for a seriously upset Hiroko and the beginnings of a major headache. The alcohol she'd ingested was probably to blame for that.
She made sure to practically inhale her breakfast, though her parents mistook her attempts at making herself sick for excitement about the new scholastic year. It was after downing nearly a litre of water that he felt her stomach turn.
She ran to the bathroom and pushed her head into the toilet, a worried mother in her wake. She retched so badly, tears began to form in her eyes. She'd forgotten how badly it felt to empty one's stomach; the stinging sensation and the acidic taste of digestive juices that accompanied.
It was only when her mother started patting her back and had pulled up her hair that she remembered that the food she'd eaten earlier hadn't broken down yet and her mother would be able to make out the residue. She immediately hunched her shoulders as she next retched, making sure the entire seat was covered. And that was how she'd escaped her first day of junior high.
She'd asked her parents later that day if they'd said anything to the neighbours about her going to Shiratorizawa. They assured her that they hadn't despite how odd her request of secrecy was. Eased upon hearing their affirmation, Hiroko spent the rest of the day sleeping.
The second day, her father dropped her off at the bus stop. Her parents had always either had her go along with Iwaizumi, Oikawa and her brother to school. Now that Shiratorizawa was in the other direction, and a nearly two hours drive away during rush hour, her father had to drop at different designated bus stop on the way to work. She also had to leave the house by five, if she were to catch Shiratorizawa's bus at five-thirty. She was more astounded that Shiratorizawa had a bus system of its own, really.
As soon as she'd been dropped off at the stop that day though, she ditched. Never before in her life had she ditched so much as a class, and yet, guilt gnawed at her from not having confronted her friends with the truth yet. She spent the rest of the week in similar fashion, hiding out at parks in fear that any other establishment would judge her for her school uniform.
Which was probably why she was left wandering on the seventh of April, her first official day at Shiratorizawa even though the term was already a week in, her head turning left and right, her eyes flitting around even faster, trying to somehow absorb everything and help her find her way through the new environment.
It seemed more like a university campus really. The buildings were so contemporary, they seemed more like a city hospital or a mall rather than an educational institution. She walked under the skywalk, looking upward with her mouth agape.
'They had a frigging skywalk!'
There were a lot of students milling around, several hundreds. That's without even taking into account the students that have already settled down inside the classrooms, or those of the elementary division that was a field away from the high school buildings. Even so, it wasn't cramped at all. The crowd was indeed busy. Yet it was still so spacious that students didn't have to push or brush against each other as they walked past.
Judging by the number of gymnasiums they'd had during the exams and the large fields within the campus she'd already known Shiratorizawa was big. But she couldn't believe just how much until now that she could compare the buildings to her old school which housed two thousand students across six years, with their measly singular four-storey.
A thought flickered through her head and as soon as it did she regretted it. 'Kitagawa Daiichi doesn't even amount to half of this.' She mentally scolded her brain, which seemed pointless but helped stop her thoughts from wandering in that direction.
She walked around a bit more, exploring the place. She came across a couple more buildings, a few parked buses which confirmed her suspicion that the school didn't hire transport companies after all, a football field, even a horse-riding field which had her taken aback for a whole minute, some sort of garden surrounded by topiaries, and a semi-large greenhouse to top that off sitting in the centre. The garden was pretty impressive and magnificently balanced both Western and Japanese styles, with a rock garden that slowly transition into a field of grass, trimmed hedges, trees, and flowers.
It wasn't until a bell rang in the near distance that Hiroko actually took the time to look at the time. After a quick glance at her watch, she realised that she only had ten minutes to get to class before the teacher came in and classes officially started.
This wouldn't usually be much of a problem. Except that her school campus was now fifteen times larger than her elementary, and she still had no idea which building her class was in. She recalled seeing signs somewhere near the entrance of the school, so she tried to retrace her steps, following the few students walking towards a general direction.
They began to split off and go on their own ways a few turns later, so she quickly tried to catch up to one who looked around her age. A skinny boy only albeit shorter than her.
"Excuse me. Do you know where the junior high classrooms are?"
The boy seemed to be caught by surprise for a moment, before he straightened his composure and smiled brightly, a little too brightly, at her. "Sorry, I'm a senior high student, so I can't really guide you there. Opposite direction, you know." He looked around them, head swivelling quickly before it came to a rest. He pointed his hand towards the direction he has facing. "Nakamura-san might be able to help you though."
A girl behind them perked up, presumably the one he had called out. "Yes, senpai?"
"Nakamura, she's a first year or a tranferee I think. Doesn't know the way to the building."
"O-oh, of course," the taller girl stammered, her cheeks dusted a vividly bright red which Hiroko was pretty sure the guy was aware of. "You don't have to bother yourself with it anymore, senpai. I'll walk with her." The girl's eyes darted to Hiroko, "Come with me," her voice shifted to a more authoritative tone. The two girls bowed to their senior before going on their way.
They had to jog a little bit, but reached the building anyway with five minutes to spare. As soon as they entered the three-storey building, a loud wave of noise that echoed through the hallways, invaded their ears. It seemed more like they were in an amusement park rather than a school building. Someone screamed and laughed loudly from an above floor.
"Probably the first years," Nakamura muttered. "The teachers don't seem to be around," she said glancing at some third-years probably that were flitting in and out of the classrooms. "They might be at the faculty meeting so I probably have time to take you to your class."
"Thank you very much," Hiroko said bowing her head.
"So what's your name?" Nakamura asked as they walked up a flight of stairs. Whether out of curiosity or politeness, Hiroko didn't care to know, until Nakamura continued, "I need to know who to use as an excuse if my teacher gets to class before I do." She smiled.
Hiroko must've looked horrified because Nakamura instantly fretted and laughed over her, "Kidding, just kidding. You won't get into any trouble, of course."
"It's... Takenaka Hiroko. First year, class eight."
"That's nice. Lucky number. My brother's a first year too. I'm in my last year of junior high."
"I see. Are you close with the senpai from this morning?" Hiroko wondered.
She didn't miss how Nakamura blushed at the mention of him. "A-ah. We're both in the broadcasting club. He's the club president of the seniors and I'm the president here." She blushed even deeper, "W-we work t-t-together whenever we need to collaborate."
Hiroko smiled slightly at the older girls expense. She was about to ask some more until they stopped. "This is the top floor. first-year classrooms are here, second-years are right below and third years are at the ground floor. Classes one to four are generally on the right wing, and classes five to eight, and the faculty rooms are on the left which is where we are now," Nakamura explained rapidly. "Right. I'll see you when I do. Good luck!"
With her third-year companion suddenly gone, Hiroko had to again focus more on her surroundings. The loud chatter and screaming was louder than ever, signalling that the majority of the noise really did come from the first years. She took off to the right and realised that she started off the wrong end, right away. The classrooms started to count down from class 6, then 5, and so on.
She about-turned in the middle of the crowded hallway, pushing her way through to the end, where her classroom should be. She got quick glances at the classrooms as she passed by, and they seemed to have more students outside than inside of it.
It was only when she arrived at the door that read fire-exit that she realised she'd passed her own classroom. She made her way to the previous door and entered the room which seemed fuller than the others. Probably because a lot of the students were already seated or standing next to their already established circle of friends.
Only a few eyes followed her silently as she entered. One of them from the front seat next to the window, even picked up their own bag and went to sit at the opposite corner of the classroom, where he began to talk excitedly with his peers. It was only when she dropped her bag that a few rounds of 'welcome' was shouted over the noise of the rest. The rest of the class paid no heed to the new face.
Hiroko sat at the front seat of the class closest to the window, ignoring her surroundings. She far from disliked the spot though she wouldn't go far as to call it her favourite. It was just her usual place back in elementary, knowing that the seating arrangement would hardly disrupt her attention during classes, but rather help increase surveillance of her surroundings. Not of the classroom, but of outside. She just hoped they hadn't issued a fixed seat plan yet and that if they did, this was yet to be occupied.
She began to slump in her seat, perking up only when the student behind her tapped her back. "Yo. I'm Miho. Yamazaki Miho. Nice to meet you," the classmate said dipping her head a bit before meeting her gaze once more. "So, first week's already over. Late enrollement? Or long vacation?" She asked nosily, then tossed her a Cheshire grin. "If you don't mind me asking."
Yamazaki had a face that looked too young for her age, making her look eight rather than eleven, yet it suited her perfectly and made her look more innocuous as well. She had a round face, short dark hair that barely grazed the base of her neck, and soft brown eyes.
She noticed the name tag on Yamazaki's bag and discovered that her given name Miho was written as the words beauty and sail in kanji.
"It's alright," Hiroko said giving her a smile. "I'm Takenaka Hiroko. Hiroko's good enough. Well..." Hiroko paused to think then continued slowly, filtering what she would say next. "It's more of the latter really. But that's just between the two of us. For the record, I was confined to bedrest, yeah?" She made sure to grin conspiratorially, in kind.
Surprisingly, Miho didn't even bother to tease nor lecture her on it. "You're the lazy type too, huh? I mean like come on, who isn't? My parents would kill me than let me ditch school though. You're lucky, you!"
Before Yamazaki was able to say anything, the students in the hallways flooded the room and the teacher followed behind them barely a few seconds later. The chairs and tables scraped slightly against the floor as the seated students rose from their seats. They teacher greeted them, then after the class representative's cue, the students chanted a pleasant 'Good morning' in unison.
Hiroko snapped out of her dreamlike state as she walked from her bus stop to the outskirts of the city where the residential blocks started. The closer she walked toward the familiar block, the tighter did the dread coil in her gut. She couldn't for the life of her decide whether she should start walking faster or slower as soon as she entered the area. She tried her hand at being as vigilant as possible, keeping to the side of the street so that she could duck from view as quickly as she can.
Kitagawa Daiichi had started with school the same day as Shiratorizawa just like most of the schools in the country. And Hiroko hadn't told Iwaizumi and Oikawa yet. About not getting to go to Kitagawa Daiichi. In fact, she's been avoiding them over the spring break and that in itself was no easy feat considering the fact that Iwaizumi lived right next door.
Also, her parents were convinced that there was nothing wrong and that she'd gone to school from the second day. The only good thing out of that was that she'd made sure they were still sworn to secrecy every morning at breakfast. She'd also just had her brother tell Iwaizumi that she was going to come in late because she was coming down with a really tough fever for the past week that didn't seem to break. Keeping the two out were easy, keeping them from overreacting though, was next to impossible.
At least once for the past four days, they had sent either a pot of okayu, bread and even messily made get-well cards, though that last one had only been sent by Oikawa, and she was sure he had been pressured to make them by either his mother or elder sister.
The worst part at that moment was that she couldn't remember exactly where Kitagawa Daiichi is, therefore she didn't know which stop they would've gotten off and so was at a complete lost as to which streets they'll be taking on the way home.
It was only five in the evening. For all she knew they were still back in school for club activities, though she doubted they'd have done much considering that the second week of school marked the first day of clubbing. Probably just introductions. Then there was the fact that although classes would've ended the same time for both schools, Kitagawa Daiichi was definitely closer than Shiratorizawa, probably only half the distance.
Just as luck would have it, she got served a pang of embarrassment as she walked up the street. Iwaizumi and Oikawa were coming up too from the opposite street across the intersection and both parties were in, no doubt, clear view of each other.
The fact of the matter really, was that she wasn't just embarrassed because she didn't tell them about the other school, but that she had, regardless of how short-lived, made several comparisons of Shiratorizawa and Kitagawa Daiichi throughout the day, mostly in favour of Shiratorizawa. And she really did enjoy the school. She liked Shiratorizawa and she even as a late-comer, had found herself new friends. At least, she hoped the sentiment was returned.
She'd promised she'd have a terrible time of it, would only single-mindedly pursue her studies as repentance for forsaking her long-time friends. Before going there, she had had thoughts of how she would sit, huddled up in a dark corner of the classroom, not join any clubs, and be so horribly rude to her classmates till they'd hate her. But at the end of it all she's already done what she couldn't undo.
And the most shameful part of all? She didn't regret today at all.
TBC 25.01.2020
-AN-
Put this up as soon as I finished, and now I'm off to bed. I hope you don't get offended by any mistakes. I won't be proofreading it till the morning. Please feel free to hit me up if anything bothers you from the writing style to the grammar. If my writing style has changed any from years ago, it will definitely be more noticeable in this chapter seeing as this one is more heavily rewritten than the last. Thank you all for reading on, and I sincerely appreciate all those who have put this story on their favourites or alerts since I put up the chapter last week. I hope you've enjoyed this one!
Chapter Notes
Calculation of student population. Current population of Miyagi Prefecture (as of 2019, but avg between 2000s to 2020 is still just 2.3m) is 2.306 million. There are 3.5 million primary school students in Japan as of 2012, and Japan ended 2012 with a population of 127,552,000 people. So 3.5m divided by 127.55m leaves us 2.74% multiplied by Miyagi's population of 2.3m is approx. 63,184 primary school students. Divided by the 6 years, that's approx 10k students a year and considering Japanese families invest a lot into education, based on the population's wealth distribution at least 90% should be able to send their child(ren) if you count those willing to take out loans for the long-term. Especially to a prestigious school where TU or Ivy Leagues are rumoured to be essentially secured upon graduation. However, since it would be cheaper to attend elementary and even junior high else where (although it's usually preferred to send a kid from junior high if they're an escalator school), perhaps only 20-30% are willing (based on affordability and actual want) to send their kids to such a school from primary. That still makes for a possible whopping 2k applicants. I'd like to think they've got 24 students a class (they can't hit 30 being a bougie academy and all that) and 8 sections in 1st year, cutting down to 5 by second or third grade (38 students/room). So they only admit 192 and even if they've got 2-3k applicants that would make their admittance rate less than 10% still. If the rejection starts at the limited interview seats, which are usually on a first-come, first-served basis then we can assume there are only 250-300 slots. Urgh, headache. Anyway, it's tough competition. We can assume there are around the same or less number of applicants for junior high and high school yet acceptance rate should remain the same regardless of competition from inside. There should open up more classes, probably back to 8 classrooms with 30 each. That's 240 seats a grade which is a lot less than the average but quite accommodating for a bougie school. Assuming 180 students carry on from inside the school that's only 60 open slots. For senior high the intra-school competition should also be revving up as they get closer to college. There are 35 students per class and 8 rooms still. That creates 40 more seats in the year making 280 total. Presumably 30 slots are allotted to promising athletes, artists, and musicians among the current student body who don't perform as well academically. To open up at least 60 slots for outside applicants, 40 of the lowest-performing (lowest-ranking) students will be eviscerated. 1k should be applying for junior high since it's an escalator school that moves up to senior high, and another 1k is to be expected of senior high applicants especially those who want to get in for the school teams, the connections, and college prep.
Location. Shirakashidai Elementary mentioned last chapter where Hiroko (and so IwaOi too) supposedly studied at is a real place. They live within the area, around north of Sendai (for those of you who can't be bothered to look it up, this is the capital of Miyagi Prefecture). Several of the schools in Haikyuu are based on real schools, however since Shiratorizawa's rl counterpart is located in the middle of the city, specifically (and correct me if I'm wrong), the Aoba Ward of Sendai City, it just doesn't connect with he anime where the school is within jogging range of the hillsides. Miyagi, heck Japan itself, has a pretty slopy geography but I doubt Shiratorizawa with its many fields would fit smack dab into the city, so I placed it all the way south of the prefecture, about Shiroishi. Kitagawa Daiichi would be in between Shiroishi and Sendai, around Kawasaki if you want to search that up.