'Enjoying the ride' was exactly what I was going for when I first moved to Japan.
Three years ago, the greatest happiness would've been my parents telling me that everything was a long-winded joke and that we weren't actually going to move to the other side of the damn world.
I came to find that it was staring me in the face three years after that, in the split form of an acceptance letter in my left hand and a few texts on my phone in the other.
An acceptance letter to a school me and my friends had fought to get in, to which, after several weeks of anticipation, I'd found out that I had. Only to be expressly alerted by my friends immediately after.
'You guys all in?' Ryo had texted.
Touji replied with a humble 'Yep' whilst Jiro with a more aggressive 'You ever doubted that I would? Of course I did.'
Truth be told, we all doubted his academic ability, having messed around in the already sparse revision sessions we held anyway.
I gave my confirmation and switched my phone off, feeling happier than I had been in a while. I nearly jumped for fucking joy right there and then, and started cackling to myself at the thought of doing so. I lay down on my bed and smiled. The school we'd gotten into was perfect - a boys only school called Sakuragaoka, with it's girls only counterpart under the same name a moderate walk away. It was also our only option that was close to home, the other was some comprehensive school in a neighbouring town that no-one was particularly keen to wake up early to get to.
I felt a rush of euphoria as the loose ends and anxiety of the past few months suddenly tied together neater than I could have ever imagined and my future seemed considerably brighter than before. I'd seriously doubted I'd pass the exams - I was good at sciences and maths, but anything requiring comprehension I was sure I'd fucked up. Of course I aced the English exam without trying, but Japanese? I'd - my parents - had luckily spoken to the board at Sakuragaoka who agreed to be lenient on my score in the test on Japanese due to our circumstances, which I'm sure I absolutely bombed. I was even allowed to skip all English lessons and study kanji or whatever I needed to alone, but I never got around to focusing in those unsupervised sessions. I got in though and I supposed regretting the past instead of celebrating what I was sure were about to be a happy few years was fruitless.
My mind felt devoid of worry, I could only think about how carefree these next few weeks would be. Any teachers setting proper work now would be sure to face a makeshift rebellion from the soon-to-be graduates, and I'd sure as fuck be one of them. Although I was pretty happy about how I'd managed to stay completely out of any major trouble at my time there. I thought I'd miss the place, but I'd essentially be doing whatever I'd done there in a different, probably better institution - Ryo immediately let us know that most of our classmates weren't as lucky as we were.
It'd be a clean break and this time starting, I'd have mates to go along with.
I stared at my ceiling, lightly stroked by the falling sun, with only satisfaction lighting up my wide eyes.