In My Second Life, I Could See My Skills, so the More I Trained, the More Peerless I Became

Confessions and Career Aspirations

In my previous life, in the first half of elementary school, I was the so-called skinny student who read textbooks and studied whenever I had free time.

At that time, I was very fond of tests. The more I study, the more knowledge I gain and the higher the score I get.

Studying to get a higher score might be hard for some people, but I was confident in my ability to concentrate, and I’ve never been averse to repetitive tasks like writing the same letters repeatedly or doing calculations, so it wasn’t hard for me.

And conversely, even from that moment on, I was inevitably bad at building relationships. I’m not sure if it was because I was not very good at associating with people, but I’ve learned to deal with it.

At the time, I was being bullied: other students would scribble something into my textbooks, jump and kick me from behind, trip and roll me over. They bullied me in such a conventional way, and to top it all off, even the teacher was encouraging the bullying.

I didn’t want to go to the same junior high school as those guys, and I was pretty confident about my test scores, so I decided to take the exam.

I did, but… two months later, they stopped tormenting me for some reason.

I think it was because someone in my class said something like, “Sashima-kun, you’re so smart, didn’t you get accepted at the school you wanted to go to? That’s amazing!

Or maybe it was because my random throw of a slow spin in an inter-class dodgeball tournament knocked out the strongest boy in the opposing class.

Or was it because he protested vehemently against implementing daily morning practice of the long rope, which the teacher insisted on, because it would reduce the time for studying for the exam (as a result, it became once every two days)?

It’s not that I’ve changed in any way, it’s just that when I found out, it disappeared naturally. I guess I was a little too active back then to be a target for abuse.

After escaping such difficulties, my elementary school life was rather enjoyable.

I had fun playing around with my classmates at lunchtime, playing football after school, and playing trendy games.

For that one time, I feel like I was just being a normal elementary school kid.

As I was expanding my friendships, I fell in love for the first time in my life.

It was Ichika Kobayashi from my class.

I wasn’t interested in any of my classmates, not even a millimeter, and I didn’t see any of them at all as a love prospect.

When I saw Ichika-chan, I thought, “There’s a really cute girl.”

After that, I kind of started to follow her with my eyes

And so we sat next to each other, and we talked, and we talked, and we talked. She had a rather serious, straightforward personality, and yet she was just plain friendly. But Ichika-chan is not the type of person who goes out to talk to people and neither am I.

So we sat next to each other, and we chatted. But when we didn’t, there was nothing special going on.

If I had to sum up my fondness for Ichika-chan at the time, it would be just one reason: I liked her appearance.

I barely knew her personality, as I rarely talked to her. I just like her enough to dream about her every night and follow her with my eyes all day long. It was a very one-sided crush. I thought about confessing to him, but I couldn’t find the courage.

Before I knew it, a year had gone by.

I didn’t think for a second that I wanted to be separated from my classmates at that time, but I liked studying so much that I just took it.

It should only take “I like you, Ichika-chan”, but it was terribly embarrassing for me to find the courage to confess.

Other than some lingering feelings for her, I couldn’t find any reasons not to transfer, so I went on to a different school. As I was swept along, we ended up being completely estranged from each other ever since.

Nothing mundane, nothing at all, just a memory of my first love.

As a result, I enjoyed studying with people who had the same level of academic ability as me, and I made friends with whom I felt comfortable.

So I didn’t have regrets, but I did have unresolved feelings as time passed by.

As I’ve grown up, my feelings have faded, but I still think about it every once in a while.

If only I’d said I liked you back then.

If only I had said, “Let’s take the exam together,” my life would have been more colorful and bright.

My previous life, which lasted twenty-six years, was really uneventful.

With no events happening, I sluggishly moved on to higher education. Around my second year of high school, my studies were sluggish, and I couldn’t keep up my motivation, so I quitted.

As a result of dropping out of the university, I went on the sly; I lost a lot of credits.

My life was so boring that I joined a black company and kept doing a simple job of typing every day. And before I knew it, I was dying of overwork.

I only had one friend each in junior high and high school, so I’ve never had to deal with the headaches of friendship disputes.

I’ve never even had a girlfriend.

Indeed, in this life, as in the previous life, he is training his muscles without regard for others; the ‘study’ of the previous life has merely changed to ‘muscle training’ in this life.

If my status doesn’t improve, I might get bored and quit.

For example, when I was growing up, I often regretted that I should have made more friends and improved my communication skills. I often imagined that if I could do it all over again, I would have lots of friends and a highly socialized life.

In the end, people’s personalities don’t change even if they die or are reborn. Their strengths and weaknesses don’t change either. Adults who say “I should have studied harder” won’t study when they are reborn because they essentially hate studying. If they were motivated, they would have studied at any age instead of lamenting.

At least in my former life, my dad started studying to be a tax accountant when he was over sixty.

But there’s one thing that’s different about my life before.

That’s me in this life. I know what’s inside of me—Ichika-chan.

I’ve been with her since I was little. I’ve played with her a lot, and I think I’ve spent more than half of this life with her.

So in this life, I like her not only because she is Ichika-chan of my previous life and because of her stunning appearance. Whether it’s her personality, her kindness, her cuteness, or my love for her that has grown as we spent time together, all of it, I can say with certainty.

‘I love you, Ichika! I hate that I can’t go to school with you anymore’

The usual way home.

I’m walking with Ichika-chan down to school. Pulling her hand, I say, “Hey, Icchika! Do you want to take the entrance exam together?”

“… Hetare.”

(T/N: Hetare- Coward, Whimpy, Loser )

“What?

But if I tell Ichika that I love her, and she rejects me by saying, “No, I just think of Yasu-kun as a childhood friend,” I’ll be crying my eyes out at a good age.

I think this is the best I can do right now. .

… Huh? Maybe she knows how I feel?

… Huh? Maybe they know how I feel?

No, Ichika-chan has a “wise eye.” It should not be surprising that she knows about it.

I mean, after saying “hetare”, maybe she really is aware of it already? If so, I’d like to confess that I like her …

“Well, it doesn’t matter. Yasu-kun, let’s do our best in the exam together!”

“Uh, yeah…”

Ichika-chan smiled teasingly at me as I slumped and puzzled.

“I have a confession to make to you, Yasu,” she said.