Lesson #176 – The one I love likes to play video games. – Featuring Anko Uehara in a 2-page spread.

After the summer holidays ended, I will return to the Year 3 class again and meets with my friends that I haven’t met for a long time. But in the end, it seems that all female students has become more mature and attractive… - Anko Uehara

(Mayuko) Asano is showing her fingernails to (Naoko) Izumi and asked her whether her newly painted nails is attractive or not, adding that she had applied some silvery powder on them. Izumi asked to have a look, and then commented that Asano’s fingers surely look very beautiful, as (Anko) Uehara looks at them silently. She silently thinks that some female students has started to learn to use eyelashes, and a few others are wearing necklaces given by their new-found boyfriends that they have met during the summer holiday. Meanwhile, another unidentified female student strolled in and greeted both Asano and Izumi, and they greeted her back. Izumi then noticed that the student have colored her hair and the student laughed, saying that Izumi surely have a very sharp eyesight. Uehara sees the student’s fingers, and she silently thinks that some of them (the female students apart from her) had also tied the single string good luck charm on their fingers (similar with Hikita Ruruka good luck charm that gives her too much trouble).

Uehara then suggested to Izumi, Asano and the student that they should stay out at town after the school, and tells them that she had heard about a new iced drink has been produced the AT company (webmaster note: the manga have a footnote that say that this company produced the SAZABY brand of tea drink, but personally I never heard this company or tea brand), so they should go and have a try. The student smiled and replied that she is sorry because she can’t go out with her, and Izumi seconded her. Uehara is silent after she hears them, and she started to walk away while the 3 of them started to talk about their boyfriends. Uehara feels that even that she has close friends, she still unable to go out everyday with them, and in every time such things happened, she feels that she has been isolated by them…

In the next scene, Uehara is contemplating her fortune at the hallway, as she commented to herself that everyone seems to have boyfriends now, and while she sees a couple walking beneath the windows, she wondered whether she have to work harder for one herself. Suddenly, a high stack of game discs are shown moving shakily, and it ends up colliding with Uehara and falls down. Uehara turned around angrily, wanting to lash at the person for walking dangerously, when she noticed that the person who collided with her is actually (Noboru) Yoshikawa, much to her shock. Yoshikawa apologized to her while collecting the game discs from the floor, and Uehara started to help him. She asked on why he must brings lots of the game discs to the school, and he replied that it’s because (Eikichi) Onizuka had asked him to, so he brings them all to the school. Uehara is shocked and asked whether all the games are his, and he nodded.

After putting back the game discs in order, Yoshikawa bids her goodbye and started to walk away with them, ignoring Uehara’s calls to wait for her. Uehara can only look at him walking away in exasperation, as she wonders whether playing video games is that fun anyway (webmaster note: apparently she never play games like Final Fantasy and Resident Evil ^_^) and she started to think that Yoshikawa is acting like a child. She then asked herself on why she falls in love with him anyway. Suddenly she noticed that Yoshikawa forgets to take one of the games (the game is Onimusha Warlord for PS2 produced by Capcom) from the floor, and she takes it up and stare at the cover as she wondered on why she falls for him…

In the next scene at her bedroom, Uehara is controlling Samanosuke Akechi (webmaster note: Onimusha Warlord main character – this is my FIRST EVER PS2 game ^_^) against an enemy and she ends up dead in no time. Uehara smashed the controller in frustration as she complained that the game is not scary at all. She becomes angry at the fact that she is defeated under less than a minute game play, and asked herself whether she have to replay the game all over again. Then she started to think that the game intentionally wants to make her pissed, and she stomps on the game cover, saying that the game is surely not enjoyable.; She accused Yoshikawa of wasting his time playing games like Onimusha, and she cursed him before screaming that she is bored. She lashed at Yoshikawa and asked whether he really able to play games day and night, screaming that she can’t stand it anymore and asked Yoshikawa again whether he is not scared that his life will be wasted for playing too many games.

Suddenly her hand phone rings, and she takes it up angrily to lash at the caller for calling her up at such a late hour. She tells the caller that she doesn’t have mood to answer the call now, but she is stunned when she hears Yoshikawa’s voice at the end of the line apologizing to her. Uehara started to blush as she wondered on why Yoshikawa must call a girl at her house at night. She tells herself that she must be calmer and acts naturally, and after she composed herself, she answered the phone and asked Yoshikawa on why he must call her hand phone. Yoshikawa is shocked that Uehara’s voice has changed from the usual angry voice he had heard before to the unusually nice voice Uehara is now using, and he wondered on what he have done. He then tells Uehara that he have a favor to ask from her.

Hearing that, Uehara silently tells herself that she should keep her composure, and she then asked on what is he wants to ask her anyway. Yoshikawa then replied that he wants to go to her house now because there’s something important he wants to really confirm about. Uehara is shocked and blushing and she asked whether he really wants to come to her house, and asked again on the exact nature of the things he want to talk about. She tells him to just tell her what he wants to ask, and explained that he is making her to panic. She then asked again on why he just doesn’t want to tell her on the phone, and he replied that if he is wrong, he will be embarrassed.

She replied that it’s okay for him to talk to her on the phone about anything he wants to tell her, but suddenly she asked him to wait while she catches some breaths. Yoshikawa then tells her that he will ask her about what he wants to ask her, and asked her not to be angry with him. Uehara is waiting expecting that Yoshikawa will ask her something very important, but in the end, he asked her whether she had taken with her the Onimusha Warlord game disc home. Hearing the question, Uehara can only sits suppressing her anger while Yoshikawa tells her that he is not mad at her for taking the game, but he have to ask because Onizuka was bugging him to play the game. He then explained that he remembered that he have collided with her earlier in the day, so he thought that Uehara may have taken the game disc with her.

Uehara reacted sharply, saying that she did take the game disc home, and asked Yoshikawa whether he has any problem with it. Taken aback with her reaction, Yoshikawa replied that if she wants to play the game, she can borrow it as long as she like, and Uehara interjected that no one will like to play such a boring game. Yoshikawa asked her whether she have become angry and she angrily replied that she is not angry, but she is pissed off because he doesn’t understand the feelings of a girl, thus he makes her to panic. Yoshikawa asked her on what the hell she is talking about, and she lashed at him for asking lots of questions, and that he is just a video game freak.

She started to calm herself, and asked herself on the phone about why people like Yoshikawa can even exists who doesn’t understand the feelings of a girl, and also making her panics for no apparent reason. Yoshikawa then commented, that since she doesn’t like the game, he asked her whether she will return the game to him. Uehara replied that she will surely returned the game to him. Hearing that, he then started to guess about the location of her house and tells her that he will arrive at her house in 10 minutes to collect the game disc. Uehara is shocked to hear it, and tells Yoshikawa that the time is already 8 pm (so much for Uehara’s definitions of late hours) but he replied that Onizuka had started to send him spam e-mails containing death threats for Yoshikawa to give the game to him on before tomorrow. He then explained that she can simply give the game to him at the door.

Uehara protested, saying that her mom will surely sees him, and suggested that they meets somewhere outside. As she runs into the bathroom, she instructed him to wait for her at Inokashira park in 30 minutes, but she changed the timing to 1 hour. Yoshikawa is puzzled that she need an hour and she replied that girls need time to apply cosmetics etc. and asked Yoshikawa to just follow what she had told him before. She closed the door to the bathroom in front of her mom and in the next scene, as Uehara applied some cosmetics, her mom asked her on what she is doing and whether she wants to go out. She reminded her that the night is already late, but Uehara replied that she only wants to go to a grocery shop. Her mom is puzzled to hear it, and then asked on why Uehara must wear her (Uehara’s mom) perfume if she only want to go to a grocery shop but Uehara almost lashed at her saying that all girls must be demure…

In the next scene, Uehara is shown cycling out from her house as her mom tried to stop her. As she cycled with panting breaths, she silently tells herself that what she is doing now is for her to really know what actually is his feeling towards her, her feelings towards him and why she is falling in love with him. She narrowly avoids accidents, but eventually she arrived at Inokashira just to be greeted by the sight of a couple kissing on one of the benches. The man’s hand started to creep inside his lover’s skimpy clothes to caress her back, as she tells him not to do it. Uehara can only stared at them while the man asked his lover to let him do it, but she playfully refused. Uehara started to swallow her saliva, as she seems to blame herself of picking such a place to meet Yoshikawa. She then sits on another bench, as she overhears the female lover asking her lover to stop sliding his hand inside her clothes….

The birds are chirping, and the summer night has finally arrived. Now I am here, while carefully wade my way to the platform of womanhood….- Anko Uehara.

FINISHED.