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"There is a girl at school who I was sure is a student, but I have never seen her in any of my classes. She hangs around the teachers office on random afternoons and everyone seems to know her, but I have never seen her anywhere else. It turns out that she has difficulties learning in a classroom environment, surrounded by other students, and she has been unable to go to classes since September. She wanted some help with her English from one of my teachers because she was taking her High School entrance test in 4 days and had only just started studying for it. I siezed the opportunity and intercepted her when she was confused by the verb "to be" and proffered my services. I tutored her for 3 hrs straight and became her new friend, and it was three of the best hours I have had here since I returned."

- 22nd Januray, 2006 - "You may not be able to fight like a samurai, but you can at least die like a samurai."

I ran into her at my local station about 5 weeks ago, only the second time I have met her since she has graduated. She was with a boy from her school. When she saw me, she jumped up and down in excitement. We talked in Japanese for a little bit and she told me about school and how much happier she was in Senior High School - it seems all the problems she had had before had worked themselves out. She introduced me to her friend, who couldn't have cared less - probably just another foreigner talking to the girl he likes, intruding on their moment on a quiet train platform in the early evening - and after a little more conversation I told her it was lovely to see her again but I had to get my train. We said our goodbyes and I made my way over the foot bridge to the far side, then I watched them chat between themselves for a little while (I think she was enthusastically explaining who I was and how long it had been since we had seen each other, and he was pretending not to care) before I jumped onto my train.
I had tutored her for about 6 or 7 hours a week after I made the post above, for maybe 2 or 3 weeks, and I felt like we had become friends. When we first started, everytime I talked to her she would go bright red, and she would get so nervous that she couldn't write and I had to do it for her. Eventually, one of the last times I saw her in school, was as she was walking out of the hall at her graduation ceremony. Half the third years were in tears, too involved with their graduation to notice me watching from a chair at the side, and she was the only student to look my way; she shot me a big smile, gave me a cute wave, and we shared a look that told her how proud I was of what she had done.
On that trian, I enjoyed the sunset over the trees that the 6:16 gets in the cool May evening. I watched the view over the mountains as the train made it's way slowly along the path marked out by the river, and I reminisced about the time I had spend with that girl and pondered how much I had meant to her and her to me.


This morning, I was chatting to Fujii-sensei at my desk and asking her about the tennis competition the students had had on the weekend. They had won their games on Saturday, but had lost on Sunday and now were out of the tournament. Then, afterwards, she asked me if I remembered a girl called Seina. I told her I did, and checked that we were both thinking of the same girl, and then she told me that Seina had died in a car accident last week.

Seina was the girl that I had tutored for her entrance exams, the girl that I had met at the station, and the girl that had eventually become my friend.