30 2.7- Exams Over (1/2)
Fast forward...
School days and my part-time work at the Sports Shop occupied most of my week. I was not sorely missed by the Store Manager and was able to outperform myself in whatever tasks handed down by the Store Manager. By entertaining more customers and enticing them to buy the equipment and complete sets of other accessories, I managed to get a bonus of ¥1500 for that particularly busy and profiteering week.
It was now a Monday and the start of the exam week. Lapses of lengthening breaks were given during each paper and we had about 2 sets of exams paper per day. Altogether we had about 10 subjects so it's evenly broken up into 2 exams per day for 5 consecutive days.
We were all cramming during our school days and even to the last minute in preparation of the exam papers. We all hoped to achieve higher results in our academic even though its a mid-term one.
Kagome's mother; Mrs Kuwahara still continued to prepare our bento boxes with an assortment of mouth-watering delicacies every day. I thanked her profusely every time I received her well-prepared bento box early in the morning before heading for school. As usual, Kagome and I would be walking to and fro school together, just like a couple should be... Ahem! Just like a blooming boy and girl in a relationship.
We would eat together at the basketball court, at the same table, discussing the exam papers that we had earlier sat. After exchanging our answers, we found little margin for errors and discovered almost identical answers for all the questions that we faced.
I had decided to concentrate on my academics for the whole week and had spoken to the Store Manager that I would be taking a leave of absence. The Store Manager was kind enough to let me stay off work and concentrate on my exams and thus giving me an opportunity to have a fresh mind and body on the next day.
Every day and every exam papers had been accomplished without many hitches and after the last exam paper had been submitted to the invigilator, we sighed a BIG relief that the ordeal had finally ended. We all look forward to our papers to be assessed and this means for the next 3 days excluding the coming Saturday and Sundays we all are going to have a short break before getting the results on either next Thursday or Friday.
We whooped in joy and the classroom became rowdy once again as the students all prepared to clean up the floor, the chalkboard and arranging the chairs on the writing desks.
Everyone was feeling exhilarated as they knew that they had prepared long for the exams and no one would do shabbily in terms of the results.
Upon completion of all tasks at hand, the students all marched out ready to leave the schoolyard and to celebrate. Yes... We all earned to celebrate right after the exams when it finally ended. The thoughts of the results would not mind as the first thing in our minds was to raise a toast for the end of the ordeal.
”Kenzo... You coming with us for the celebration right after our exams, eh?” asked one of the guys in our group named Itaru. ”Sure, why not? Let's have some barbecue and bring your girlfriends along.” I replied as I waited for Kagome to emerge with her group of friends.
”What are your plans? Where we all going to eat? We all going to walk there right?” asked Chika to the rest of the group. After discussing among themselves, we all decided to head down to Dohtonbori, an Okonomiyaki restaurant in the district of Shibukawa.
It was about 17min walk from school and approximately about 1.4km away. There was a straight path from school leading to Dohtonbori. The prices there are affordable and it is open till 2300 hours. The menu they served was very extensive ranging from 20 over varieties of ramen, vermicelli, yellow as well as glass noodles. There was also a variety of rice menus ranging from typical Japanese to a fusion of Chinese and Japanese types.
The barbeque was also served, by their chefs and definitely in the hands of students or novices. The chefs take pride in their cooking so choices of Karubi and mutton Yakiniku. For those with fat wallets, they could opt for Wagyu; premium cut beef that had been aged between 7, 14 or 28 days in their secret sauces.