I’m Back in the First Grade of Elementary School, so I’m Going to Live Well

The Day Before the Event

Translated by AmaLynne
Edited by AmaLynne

School events are common to all grades of elementary school students.

There are various events such as field day and study presentation.

Orientation, a joint event for all grades, is also one of them.

“Orientation?”

“What’s that?”

Naturally, this was a new event for my first grade classmates. It was understandable that they would be puzzled. But the fact is that a printout announcing the orientation had already been distributed earlier this week, so the teacher’s announcement shouldn’t be new to them.

Well, most of the time, they don’t really look over the printouts and just give them to their parents. The teacher also told us to give them to our parents.

That’s why the only people who understood the orientation properly were the children who read through the printouts and me, who had already experienced the orientation six times in my previous life.

You might think it’s a big thing because it’s classified as an “event,” but in reality, it’s just an extension of the playground for the whole school year. Or you can describe it as a simplified version of a school festival.

The teachers set up playground equipment and quizzes in the school, and the students are challenged to complete a number of tasks, sometimes using their bodies and sometimes their minds.

The event is a joint event for all grades, so the main focus is on interaction with other grades. Of course, it is not an event for only the same grade.

Rather, it was more like an exchange between individuals from different grades.

We first-year students were paired up with one sixth-year student each, and we had to complete these tasks in pairs. Incidentally, second-year students are paired with fifth-year students, and third-year students are paired with fourth-year students. Since the balance of power tends to be skewed toward the higher grades, this combination is designed to keep the balance as even as possible.

In the end, the pair with the highest number of completed tasks wins the tournament.

The tasks to be prepared vary from year to year, and the details of the tasks to be prepared are announced only on the day of the competition. In any case, it’s been over 20 years since I remembered, so I don’t remember which year and which assignment was prepared, so even I, who came from the future, don’t know.

But I’m not so dirty that I would want to cheat in a game like this.

This event is just for the kids to have fun. The only reason why the system of winning is used is to encourage the children’s ambition.

If someone were to take advantage of the fact that he or she had timed the event and cheated to win the game, it would spoil the fun.

“Hey, hey.”

Rinta, who had moved to a seat in front of me during the seat change the other day, twisted his body and called out to me.

“The orientation is for pairs, right?”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“Then let’s pair up!”

“It turns out you didn’t read the handout properly…”

Well, given Rinta’s personality, I didn’t expect him to read it properly.

“The orientation will be held next Monday. Take a good rest on Saturday and Sunday so that you can come to school again in good health.”

When the teacher said the closing words at the return meeting, all the classmates stood up and said “good-bye” in unison as the day duty officer gave the signal to stand up.

I left the classroom, carrying my school bag full of school materials.

It’s not that I don’t like school, but I still feel a sense of freedom after school on Fridays.

Well, it’s Saturday and Sunday. Let’s make good use of it.

◆

…I know I said that, but there’s nothing to do when the holidays start.

When I’m done with my home study and exercise, I lie down on the couch and take a short break without doing anything else. It’s not as hard as you might think to put your brain and body to work for long periods of time in a day, once you get into a routine. Once again, I realized how adaptable humans are.

It’s good that I’ve been able to adapt, but the problem is that I don’t have any way to drown out the boredom during the breaks.

There are no interesting programs on TV during the daytime on holidays, and we don’t have any video game consoles. As an elementary school student, I am supposed to hang out with friends on my days off, but I only have two friends.

So far, Rinta has never come to my house or invited me to play with him. Sometimes I wonder if I’m the only one who thinks of him as a friend. If I was that insecure, I should have asked him out myself, but if I could do that, I wouldn’t have been a loner for twenty-eight years. I can only take a passive stance in matters of friendship!

…I don’t know why I’m so puffed up about it. I’m starting to feel sad thinking about it myself.

My other friend, Mizui-san, has not been in touch with me at all… not at all, but rather she has been in touch with me a lot. Literally.

This is because, on weekends and holidays, I get calls from her, sometimes quite frequently. Most of the calls are about what I’m doing, what I’m thinking, who I’m thinking about, and so on. The answers were always similar to what I would give her since I was spending the same kind of holiday, but she never got tired of calling me at most five times and at least three times in one day.

I don’t know what’s so interesting about my current situation.

――So I’m currently enjoying my boredom, with no entertainment media to pass the time and no one to play with.

It was time for me to make an effort to find some entertainment that I could get into on my days off.

Normally, I should make an effort to make friends with whom I can hang out on my days off, but the idea never occurred to me as a veteran lazybones.

So, I was lying on the sofa in a daze.

“Hey, little brother.”

The same old derogatory term.

When I looked at the owner of the voice, I saw my sister dressed in a sleeveless shirt and short pants, not even a hint of fashion.

“…What’s up, sister?”

The general requirements can be predicted from the fact that she is holding an empty 1.5L plastic bottle with an orange juice label on it.

“I’m out of juice. Go get some.”

“……”

It was the same old errand boy.

If I had just accepted the job, I wouldn’t have been beaten up or strangled.

“I don’t want to.”

But I refuse! One of my favorite things to do is to say no to my sister’s orders!

…I tried to make it sound like a famous comic book, but the bottom line is that I just don’t want to follow my sister’s orders.

It is true that I have a lot of free time on my hands right now, and buying juice is a good way to pass the time.

But more than that, I don’t want to follow my sister’s orders. I don’t care what anyone says about me.

You can call me a child if you want. In fact, my physical age is a child of six years.

Oh well, I guess I’m going to end up being subjected to unreasonable violence anyway.

If I knew that, why didn’t I just take the job quietly? But I can’t help but refuse. Because I’m the younger brother.

I clenched my teeth in preparation for the fist that would come at me as I gave my completely mysterious rationale.

But…

“…Oh yeah.”

That’s all she said and walked away.

“Wha!?”

I was so shocked by the event that it caused my whole world to turn upside down, and I couldn’t help but sit up from my lying position.

We, weird… My sister, who is usually quicker with her hands than with her words, backed down today.

Suspecting that there was something behind the scenes, I watched my sister’s movements from the sidelines, but she went straight to her feet to buy some juice, change her clothes and leave the house.

What the hell is going on?

I was hit with a shock equivalent to a natural disaster as I looked at the doorway where my sister had disappeared, stunned.

It was a shocking event that rivaled the fact that I woke up in the morning and found myself back in the first grade and that Mizui-san is a radio girl. I was overwhelmed.