The two days of exams passed in a flash.
The "high school entrance exam" taken by third-year middle school students in Japan is usually divided into two main stages.
The first stage is the unified academic ability test, which typically lasts for one day in most schools and includes subjects like Japanese Language, Mathematics, English, Social Studies, and more...
Tsuna and the others had already taken this in late January.
The final stage is the secondary exam, which includes interviews, short essays, practical tests, and so on...
It lasts for two days, but most schools only have it for one day.
Tsuna lay on the sofa, snapping out of his daze. Today was already the first day of spring break.
The printing of Anohana was still proceeding steadily. Shouko and Takagi had gone to the Chickenzilla exhibition, leaving him alone at home.
Shizuka and Yaeko went out shopping, while Daisuke had arranged to go fishing with his friends.
And Yuzuru had already taken Hachiko out to play with friends.
No way! Spring break can't just pass by like this. I have to find something to do.
He suddenly sat up from the sofa.
He zoned out for a while, then leaned back again, unable to find anything to do—truly, not a single thing.
Anohana was being printed steadily. If all went well, it was expected to be released in late April, by which time he would have already been back in school for almost a month.
As for doing a part-time job... his age was suitable, and he had graduated from middle school, fully meeting the requirements for minors working part-time in Japan.
But it required parental consent, although his family situation didn't necessitate him working.
In terms of pocket money, if he wasn't extravagant with his spending, it was completely sufficient.
Furthermore, his advance payment for the light novel would be released in a few days.
As for going out with friends...
Shin-chan's family went on a trip to Osaka during the ten-odd days of spring break. Bo had to help his sister look after the shop, and Masao was busy with something unknown.
Kazama was even less likely. He'd heard his mother enrolled him in three cram schools during spring break. Truly, studying until you die...
Nene, Miu Matsuoka (Matsuoka Miu), and Chika (Ito Chika)... Since Shouko wasn't here, he didn't dare ask them out. Besides, during this spring break, Nene would likely spend it with her new boyfriend.
"Ding..."
Feeling a vibration from his phone in his pocket, he took it out, unlocked it, and saw it was a message from LINE.
["Miyamura, wanna come out and hang?"]
Tsuna paused when he saw the message was from Nishikata. He clearly remembered this guy telling them after the exam yesterday that he was going to work part-time during this spring break...
["Weren't you going to work part-time? Got fired on the first day?"]
["(speechless and wiping sweat.jpg)"]
["The manager said it wasn't busy today and told me to rest and come back tomorrow."]
He recalled yesterday's conversation. Nishikata seemed to be working as a waiter at a sushi restaurant, and today was the first day of spring break. Would it really not be busy...?
["Okay, where to?"]
["I don't know, let's figure it out when we're out."]
["..."]
["Alright."]
["Then let's meet at the school gate?"]
["Okay."]
Tsuna put his phone back in his pocket, grabbed the thin black jacket from beside him, put it on, and headed towards the meeting spot.
It was a little past two in the afternoon. Mid-March still carried a slight chill. Tsuna and Nishikata met at the entrance of Wave Wind Middle School.
The two eventually decided to go browse around Akihabara by rolling dice.
In the blink of an eye, the two arrived at Akihabara Station. The electronic announcements and noisy sounds from the subway gradually faded as they walked out of the station.
"Nameko, didn't you say you were going to see 'Yonezu Kenshi' in concert? How was it? Did you get tickets?"
"No... Those tickets were really hard to get, and I didn't want to spend a lot of money buying resale tickets..."
Tsuna and Nishikata withdrew their gaze from the two girls walking past them and continued planning where they would go next.
As for the conversation between the two girls, it was instantly forgotten. If he had still been in elementary school at the time, he might have been shocked.
However, as time passed, he had gotten used to it.
He had initially always thought he had been reborn into a parallel-world Japan, believing that in terms of music, film and television, the literary world, etc., this place was relatively backward compared to Japan in his previous life.
But when he was in elementary school and heard the name Yonezu Kenshi from someone else for the first time, he was still greatly shocked.
The first thing he did after returning home was borrow Shizuka's flip phone to look up some information.
The result was a little different from what he had initially thought, but there were still some similarities.
Apart from the backwardness in modern literature (post-war to present) and anime/manga here in Japan, other aspects hadn't changed much compared to Japan in his previous life and were slowly developing.
However, works from before modern literature still existed. For example, in classical literature, works like Murasaki Shikibu's The Tale of Genji and Sei Shonagon's The Pillow Book from the Heian period.
Also, Jun'ichiro Tanizaki's A Portrait of Shunkin and Katai Tayama's Futon from modern literature (Meiji to pre-WWII).
As for modern literature, compared to his previous life, it had developed in the completely opposite direction, with few works worth reading.
For example, in the field of Japanese mystery novels in modern literature from his previous life, the famous Keigo Higashino and Seicho Matsumoto.
Their identities here turned out to be a private detective and a forensic pathologist...
And since these three areas here were so backward, music, film, and television must have also been affected to some extent.
However, the impact wasn't very large. Movies and TV dramas adapted from anime or novels from his previous life hadn't appeared here, so the songs used as soundtracks for those adaptations would naturally be missing from the singers' albums.
As for him carrying the banner of modern Japanese literature?
One could only say that anything was possible in a dream. In his previous life, he had only been 'somewhat' involved in the Japanese light novel circle and knew 'a little bit' about anime, but not much.
Make him replicate those mystery novels? He'd rather obediently choose to inherit his old man's office, alright...
"Miyamura, are you listening...?" Nishikata raised his hand and waved it in front of Tsuna.
"Sorry, sorry, I spaced out." Tsuna came back to his senses, chuckling as he tried to brush it off. "What did you just say, Nishikata?"
"I said..." Nishikata paused for a moment. "If you keep staring at those girls across the street, Nishimiya will get angry if she finds out."
Tsuna followed his gaze to the 'landmine-type' girls leaning against the railing across the street. Unluckily, his eyes met with the one in the middle.
He politely nodded and looked away. These girls were not to be messed with; they could 'modify' things, the kind that modified both sides...
"Let's go. Have you thought about where you want to go?"
"Hmm..." This question stumped him. He hadn't actually thought about it either...
"Let's just wander around first. It's not too late to go in if we see something interesting." Seeing his somewhat hesitant look, Tsuna simply took the first step.
Nishikata reacted and quickly followed his steps.
Standing still wasn't a solution either, and since the New Year had just passed, everyone still had a 'little bit' of New Year's money.