School Girl Crush

I’m the only person from my school on this train. It’s late, not a usual time for the commuter students to be going home from school but I had to stay late. Soft tennis practice always runs late when we’re getting ready for a tournament. I have a long way to commute, there’s a streetcar ride after this. But I’m alone. I take out my keitai and pretend to be texting someone. I hate just sitting on the train not looking like I’m doing something. I try to take out my books but I don’t want to read. I’m so tired that it seeps into my bones, allowing the motion of the train to occasionally toss me around like a rag doll. At the next stop there are more students, a different school, different seifuku*. I don’t know any of them but they seem to take up all the space in the train. They’re noisy, clearly all friends. I can tell by their bags that they are in the same club, soccer or some sort. They don’t have rackets so I can’t ask them if they’re even in the same club with me. It suddenly feels like there is no room in the train for me. I just slump down in my seat and crush myself, making myself smaller to make room for the hordes of genki* girls.
I don’t until I’m safely in my room, alone. I eat dinner that’s a little cold, my mother is imploring my middle school brother to study so he can get into an exclusive all boys school. His school is closer, less of a commute. He could probably ride his bike there, surrounded by friends. I’m a little jealous. I think small, hoping that her ire won’t turn on me for not being home earlier to study. There are college exams, it’s always the press of exams. You take high school exams only to earn the privilege of taking college or company exams. You take college exams so that you can take company exams and not just be a temporary employee. And once you’re a permanent fixture, you don’t have to take formal exams but everyday feels like an exam.
More so now than ever, I feel crushed by everything around me. I have to do well in this tournament or all my practice will be useless. I have to do well on midterms or I won’t get to take college exams early. If I don’t take the exams early then I’ll be smothered by the agony of having to wait until February to take the exams. If I don’t do well on the exams, I’ll be a rounin. I have to be genki so my mother doesn’t hassle me about how my poor spirit will affect my grades.
I know I’m not the only one but I wonder if I’m the only one who feels crammed into a space that’s too small for her; who feels as if all the air is being squeezed from her lungs. Sometimes during cleaning time as I wring out the mop, I can’t help but feel sorry for it, having all it’s vitality wrung out of it. On days like that I am tempted not to ring out the mop in a display of solidarity, but I have to wring out the mop or Yamanaka-sensei will scold me.
But in my room no one will scold me. I give myself the 5 minute luxry of moving outside, of expanding to take up all the room, to make the universe exactly as I want it. It’s glorious but sad because I know it can’t last. I hear the footsteps of my mother’s slippers as they clomp up the stairs and the universe comes crashing down around me. The pressure starts again and I pour myself into my books, shutting my universe out.
Seifuku- school uniform
Genki- spirited, spunky, full of beans, upbeat, outgoing, healthy, you get the idea.
I was on my way back home on the train when I noticed a lone school girl standing apart from a crowd of other girls. At first I thought they were from the same school but there was a sublte difference in their uniform. The group was a bit noisy, as one would expect from teenage girls. The girl would occasionally look up from her phone with some vauge mix of annoyance and sadness.