It was the last day of summer break, I was studying Japanese as always. During my summer break, I spent my whole days learning Japanese instead of enjoying like my friends or classmates.

After studying for few hours, my mom called me for dinner. I went to the kitchen, sat at the dining table. My father was sitting next to me and my mom was serving the food.

After finishing the food, I was about to return to my room. As I stood up, my father said to me, " son, I know you love Japan and you spent your whole summer learning Japanese, but don't forget that from tomorrow your school is starting. Instead of studying Japanese, you should focus on your school life more, you should spend your time with your friends and make some memories." After a pause he continued, " Listen, I am not saying you to stop learning Japanese, I just want you to spend your time with your friends and enjoy your life. Don't just spend your whole days inside your room."

My mother who was sitting besides him said, " I also think the same, you should keep in mind what your father just said. We are not forcing you to stop learning it, instead we are happy that our son is following his dream and learning something new, but you should understand it's not good spending your whole day inside you room right ?"

She continued, " You can continue following you dream in the future too, so there's no need to hurry. Just remember that, you won't get your childhood back, spend your precious childhood with your friends and family" my father added, " it's your life, you should think carefully about it." He continued, " anyway, it's already late night. Since your school is starting from tomorrow, you should sleep early and take a good rest." After a pause he continued,

" now go back to your room and do you your best in school from tomorrow, good night."

All this time, I didn't even said a single word. I greeted them good night and went straight to my room. I closed the door of my room, switched off the lights and fell on his bed. My mind was full of thoughts. I was thinking about what should I do, how my school life will be from tomorrow and many more.

Few moments later, I fall asleep. Then in the morning, I woke up at 5 am as always. I did my morning routine then I studied for an hour after that I put on my school uniform and then I left for school.

Since the summer vacation ended with the summer season and it was already time for the rainy season. The sky looked a little cloudy outside, still the Sunrays could be seen through the gaps between the clouds.

The temperature was also slightly lower but with the little Sunrays that was passing between the gaps of the cloud, it didn't felt much difference in the temperature.

I reached the school and then I went inside the school, passing through the school gate. As I was going inside, I saw a crowd of students near the notice board. Everyone were searching their names with their allotted classroom.

I too went near it and started searching my name and my allotted classroom. After finding the classroom, I went straight to the classroom. My classroom was on the 3rd floor. I went inside my classroom and saw some of the familiar faces from the previous years. Two of them were my good friends. One was Yash and he was mine best friend or the friend with whom I can talk without worrying about anything and the other one was mine online friend, though we never talked in real life but we always chat online. Her name is Shreya, both of us are friends because both of us likes Japan and both of us even likes anime.

The next moment, I went to the place where yash was sitting and sat next to him. Both of us looked at each other with a grin on our faces. We greeted each other and started chit-chatting. We were explaining how we spent our vacation. Both of us were laughing and enjoying each other's stories.

Suraj doesn't talk much, but when he is with yash he doesn't stop. As they were chit-chatting, their class teacher entered the class. When Everyone saw the teacher entering, everyone stood up and greeted her good morning. The teacher's name was miss.keyora, she told everyone to be seated before make an announcement.

She turned her head towards the classroom gate before calling someone to enter. As called, a beautiful girl of our age entered the class. She didn't looked like she was from here, she was a transferred student. Everyone were staring at her with curiosity.

When I saw her, I understood at a glance that she was from Japan. I told this to Yash that she looked like she is from Japan but he didn't believed me and said as a joke that even Chinese looked same. I don't know why but after saying this, we both started laughing. Both of them were scared that teacher would shout at them so both of them controlled their laughter and tried to listen what teacher had to say.

Miss.keyora was saying that, " please welcome your new classmate, she is from Japan. Her father got transferred here from his company. She will be studying here with you all, she can't speak hindi or marathi but you can communicate with her in English " after saying this, miss.keyora looked at me before saying, " if I am not wrong you are Suraj right? " I stood up before saying, " yes mam " miss.keyora continued again, " I heard you learn Japanese and you know how to speak Japanese " as she said this everyone started looking at him. I felt a little weird but I replied, " yes, I can speak and understand Japanese but I am not that good at it. " She continued again, " that's fine, I just want you to help her if she needs anything or if she can't understand anything. It's just a little request from me."

I saw that the girl was staring at me, we made an eye contact for a moment. I hurriedly looked at the teacher before say,

" I will try my best " after that miss.keyora told me to sit. Then she looked at the girl besides her before saying her to introduce herself.

The girl bowed a little before saying, " Myself Hanabi Ito, nice to meet you all. "

After that, miss.keyora told her to sit next to Ankita. Btw, Ankita is my cousin.

Then, Hanabi went near Ankita before saying, " nice to meet you, I hope we can get along. " Ankita replied, " sure."  then Hanabi sat on her seat, everyone near her were asking so many questions to her. Miss.keyora told everyone to be quiet and told to focus on the lecture.

During lecture I thought someone was looking at me, I turned my head to see and I saw it was Hanabi who was looking at me. We made an eye contact for a second, after realizing that we were looking at each other, we hurriedly turned our head to look at some different direction. It felt so awkward.

Ankita who was sitting next to Hanabi, saw the reaction of her face. She noticed that Hanabi was constantly looking at me. She asked her slowly with a smile, " yo! Do you know that, he is my cousin? " Hanabi looked at her because asking softly, " who "

Ankita replied, " Suraj, the boy whom you are starting at. " listening to this, Hanabi turned her face and replied shyly, " no..I..I. you are having misunderstanding, I..I..am not staring at him. " Ankita replied laughing lightly, " oh really, I am sorry then. Maybe I have  misunderstood."