I had known Daniel for years, 8 or 9 now, and I had definitely noticed the massive downturn in his performances and effort since probably the first year of middle school. Something had gone awry in him 3 years ago or so and that had yet to be fixed.
He had never once truly spoken to me about anything relating to this, when he moved out of his parents 'house' in the third year of middle school, it got much worse. With his
motivation running on empty I could only assume what he was going to do when it came to school, and that was that he was going to half-ass it.
Daniel always had a side to him that screamed mysterious to me, his
family situation, his mental state, his true abilities, all were left mostly to my imagination as I well and truly had never been told about anything by him, despite being his best friend. It's not like I couldn't help him, everyone has their struggles and I can definitely relate to them personally, if only he would tell me what his problem
was, then maybe I could help him?
I know what happened three years ago, pretty well too, but he had never spoken to me about it since, so what could I do when I don't know?
The main issue I held with Daniel at this point in time was one thing major, I had no idea what he really was like, while he seemed relatively outgoing in the friend group, that ended when he was alone with me, I had always thought that was what he was actually like but now I doubted by thoughts. He seemed like he was acting very
differently around Sakurako Egawa, not like I suspected anything was happening there, but he seemed to have a strange attitude with her I couldn't replicate with him being with me.
I always say I'm an introvert, and I clam up in my mind in social situations, but I scam my way through them and nobody seems to notice but him. Daniel always saw through me when I did that and we shared a laugh together over it. This was something I found rather extraordinary about my friend, but none-the-less he had increasingly walled himself in over the last few years, and I had no clue how I could even broach the subject with him. I had decided that I would let him decide when he was ready himself, but seeing that recently he had been rather
secretive and unpredictable I feel it would be wiser to attempt to pull him out of this, but how do I do something like that?
He had still beaten me in his academic ability, getting an 80, but there was no way he should be that low, and even hearing that number made me worry about how deeply he was hurting or suffering to have an
impact this severe on him. Really he should've gotten at least an 88 for that in the past, but I guess his steadily deteriorating grades had contributed to this score.