Fifteen minutes passed, and I am still waiting here with no sign of her showing up. I see less students walking toward the gate of our school trying to find their way home.
I watch them from a bench which I'm currently sitting on. This bench has no specialty in term of appearance. It is an ordinary, well-crafted, wooden-bench for people to sit. But this ordinary bench holds a particular story for me.
Inside the school, there is a bench placed near the entrance gate. It is positioned near a small booth which is for our school guard to stand-by during day work-hours. The booth serves as first recipient for any incoming guest who has business with the school. Every time guests come and, our school guard will help guide them to their intended destination.
Not very long ago, every morning before the first bell ring, I used to sit on the bench for some reason. At first, it was to have a sip of a very tasteful original-blend, home-brewed coffee that Mr. U always have with him.
Mr. U is a kind middle-aged man with an easygoing nature who has been working as our school guard for almost 15 years. Everyone calls him Mr. U, even though –obviously- he has a name. But Mr. U himself prefer to be called that by everyone whom he familiar with.
He came from a quite village somewhere on the countryside in the northern region of Japan. Once in a year, he travels back to his hometown. When he returns to the city, he always has with him sacks of delicious coffee beans which were grown in his village.
One day, I came too early to school.
I was standing at the gate in my fresh uniform which was recently washed and ironed. Hanging on my right arm was my grayish-blue school bag which held an average amount of stuff inside. Almost not a single thing was moving there except for my eyelids which had to blink on a certain seconds of interval.
I had simply nothing to do.
So, I thought I could read this book that I had bought recently but never got a chance to read it. The reason was because there was other unfinished book, which I was still reading it at that time.
On a sudden consciousness, I saw the bench and thought it might be a good idea to read the book and pass time there.
Only minutes later, someone approached me. It was Mr. U. Of course at that time, I had not been familiar with him, so I addressed him by his family name. Later, he would eventually become familiar with me to the point where he told me I could just called him Mr. U like everyone else.
Mr. U was holding a plastic cup which emitted a visible some sort of gas from the top of it on this fairly cold morning. I greeted him before then he offered me that cup which turned out to be a hot coffee. I accepted his gracious offer.
After I drank that delicious coffee we chatted for a while until the bell rang and I had to come to class. Mr. U told me to come again whenever I want to drink the coffee. So I did.
Since then, I would come to sit on the bench and drink the coffee.
While sitting there, there were various inevitable sights to observe.
I would see the flow of other students coming into schools. The people from the disciplinary committee somewhat “scanning” the other students. They would point out people who broke the school guidelines.
Sometimes, three times a month at random, a teacher would join them. The teacher would frisk the bag of every student who was on the "black list". These students had brought some things which were against the school regulations. The first two times you break the rules usually end with a warning. The third times, you would be sure you were on the "black list".
I would see many other things too.
Students who came to school alone with their face saying “I didn’t get enough sleep”; There were they who came in together like a pair of shoes or even in group like a pack of wolves; There were students who came running because, I assumed, they thought they were late or they did not want to be late; And there were also students who were transported with vehicles. Possibly by their relatives or not.
Those were only some of the many examples which I could not elaborate all, due to the irrelevancy of it.
Time passed by and the more mornings I spent on the bench, the more all the repetitive sights grew on me. I finally got bored and stop looking. Since then, I would just drink the coffee and read a book. Or sometimes have a chat with Mr. U, which caused us on getting familiar with each other.
Before I knew it, my third year of school arrived. The books which I brought with me changed in a drastically, from fiction to non-fiction. Horror switched to physic, romance to math and thriller to chemistry. Subjects which would never be a good match-up.
Imagine a horror movie with a ghost that has to follow the law of physic. The ghost who could not pass through the wall because density did not allow it. And wouldn’t it be nice if love has its own math formula? So that everyone could calculate everything and not screwing up on love. The only matching subjects were thriller and chemistry. There are already many movies and shows of that.
The times I would spend on the bench from then on were no longer a pass time. It became my extra studying times. People say you can never learn too much.
Then there was that day. That day when I forgot to bring the book I supposed to read on that morning. Mr.U was not there to chat with. So I sat on the bench and once again forced to look at the boring repetitive sights. There in the middle of the crowd, I saw her for the first time.
The day when everything started.
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