Chapter 4 first quarter

In the water-colored sky, the sun is dazzling. I crossed the intersection side by side with my good friend Masako Takaoka, and the crowd was almost all students.The morning class has just ended.On the way, Xiaozheng waved to the man who passed the road ahead, as if waving from the river to the opposite bank; the other party also noticed it, and stopped with a slight smile.Small eyes, big nose.The nose is very cute. Riding the May wind, Xiaozheng sent out a question: "Want to have lunch together?" This person seems to be a member of her club.Although we were not succumbing to the cute charm of his nose, we finally decided to go together.Surrounded by crowds, we walked for a short distance along the narrow sidewalk lined with soba shops and bookstores, and entered the frequented "Wakakusa".

"'Ginger-Juice-Roast-Pork-Meat-Set-Eat'." Xiaozheng said as if reciting a mantra, "What about you, Terao?" "me too." Although the store is small, it has light-transmitting light green walls.When the outside light is bright, the color of the wall will become beautiful, which is the kind of quiet tone used in Japanese paintings.Once, when I said this, my good friend Jiang Mei—it would be disrespectful to call her a girl, but she got married in her third year of college last year—it was Jiang Mei who told me, "It's a color made of green and blue, called white." Green (ice green)." Learn all kinds of things from all kinds of people.However, it is too late to integrate it, and it is already a senior year in a hurry.It's unbelievable.

"Eat once, you can get a coupon, and if you collect ten coupons, you can drink coffee for free." "Yes." "Terao, you won't come here again, will you?" Xiao is thinking about his coupon. After all three ordered the same set meal, Terao and I introduced ourselves to each other.Terao is a fourth-year student in the Department of Political Science and Economics, majoring in politics.Like Xiaozheng, the club he joined is "Creative Yin".In short, writing is poetry reciting, but when it comes to reciting poems, in addition to Chinese poems that first come to mind, they also recite haiku and tanka.After last year, this spring, I also received a solemn invitation under Xiaozheng's opening remarks of "Wait a minute, I have an exclusive news", and went to the venue in Ikebukuro to listen to their poetry performance.

This year, Xiaozheng was the first to recite poems.Her clear voice still haunts my ears today. This is the opening verse of Miyoshi Tatsuji's "Survey Ship". It is a tanka in form, but it should be regarded as a poem in essence. When visiting the second-hand book street in Kanda, some places sell replica celebrity autograph pads, and I have bought two in the past at different stores.The one I bought when I was a freshman had this poem written on it. To make a digression, the other one is "Struggling for Life Everywhere" by Ango Sakaguchi.I just bought this recently, and I casually flipped through the stacks of 500-yen duplicate signature pads, and when I got to the number one, I found that one.Or rather, the signature pad was waiting to be discovered by me.That's when I was really shocked by the soul-shaking words that ran all over my body, like being strangled by someone, forcing me to buy it.

After Terao and Xiaozheng finished discussing club affairs, they finally turned to me, "It's great that you are studying in the Faculty of Arts." "Ah? How to say?" "At least there will be no regrets." On the other hand, it means that he has regrets.In senior year, I can empathize with this feeling.I've been a "student" for as long as I can remember, but it won't be soon.No matter who you are, as a student, you must think that you could have done more.As far as I am concerned, I set the goal of "reading a book a day" in the winter of my freshman year, but due to various reasons, I failed to achieve the goal.And in terms of dramas, I also regret not watching more.To be more frank, it is natural for a girl in the Mood for Love to try the so-called "love", so it is inevitable to feel anxious and unwilling.It's a pity that this is the only thing that can't be done by yourself.

"However, it shouldn't have anything to do with whether you're going to the Faculty of Arts, right?" As I said that, I thought to myself that he is a member of the poetry reciting club, so maybe the implication is that he regrets not studying poetry more. "No, the students of the Faculty of Arts seem less utilitarian. It seems that studying is not just to consider future work, but to study because you really like literature. That's the difference." The set meal has arrived.After taking a sip of water, Xiaozheng picked up his chopsticks, "I'm also from the Faculty of Arts. Don't you envy me?"

"Of course I envy you too. Anyway, you are Miss Takaoka." "You say that like I'm a fool who is happy every day." Xiaozheng said while starting to eat, "But to be honest, Terao, you are indeed a little pitiful." "Please don't use the word pitiful, okay? I will definitely find a way to make a name for myself." Terao also said while drinking miso soup, "But in front of you, I always seem to be very fragile. Probably because of the last time I drank some wine during the meeting, so I accidentally said the truth. Those words just now were all because you were in front of me, and you complained inadvertently."

Xiao Zheng straightened his back, "The woman who makes men tell the truth, Masako Takaoka." "That's an odd title." So Xiaozheng explained kindly: "Isn't this guy majoring in politics? He said that he had decided to work in the United Nations in the future when he was in high school, so he chose this department. To put it bluntly, it means that he has already planned for the future. Unexpectedly, when he actually started to think about employment issues, he was told that the focus of that kind of place was not politics at all.” "Otherwise what is it?"

"It depends on foreign language ability. In the end, only students from the foreign language department are admitted. So he said, his work was wasted." "Although it's a waste of time, it's not always the case. Of course, studying is still useful. Besides, I don't hate this department. It's just that the situation is not suddenly changed now, but that I have made a wrong policy from the beginning. It kind of knocked me out. All I could think was, I'd just study international politics or something first anyway." I can't help thinking deeply.At the beginning, I decided that "studying in liberal arts college is the only choice", but I didn't even think about the purpose.However, reading is of course an advanced tool compared to the act itself.No, the latter may be more appropriate if one considers the function of an institution like a university.