Shortly after the store opened, a man wearing a mask opened the door.
And then I looked around the store. It seemed a little suspicious.
"Umm, today..."
Hearing those words instantly brought back old memories.
Maybe T-kun?
When I said that, he removed his mask.
Ah, it's T, my classmate from the university club.
It's probably been 26 years since we last met, since we graduated.
"Um, there's one today, right?"
Huh? What?
"What? A 70th anniversary after-party."
???
That's next week.
"Oh no, I did it!"
The following week, the circle's 70th anniversary party was being held at a hotel in Nagoya at noon, and afterwards, some people were gathering at Bokumo for an after-party.
Apparently, he wasn't attending the party, but had come to Bokumo intending to join us at the after-party.
However, I made a regrettable mistake by mistaking the week. I kept saying "Damn it!"
In the end, we decided, "Since we've come all the way from Mie, let's go for a drink."
While thinking about how I may not have had a proper one-on-one conversation during my student days, we had a lively chat about our recent activities at the counter.
We talked about work, family, and the future. We realized how far we've come since our student days.
After a while, he contacted one of his classmates, N-kun, who lives in Aichi Prefecture. He invited him to come to Bokumo, and 40 minutes later, the nimble N-kun came into the store, laughing, saying, "I wonder why I made such a mistake."
From there, the three of us had a class reunion. We ended up having a great time right up until the store closed. It was so much fun.
Thanks to his carelessness, we ended up having some really intense old man talk.
If this had happened the following week, when there would have been many of my peers and seniors and juniors, I would have been unable to talk so much.
However, what bothered me was that T-kun had come all the way to Nagoya that day, having convinced his wife that he had important business to attend to in Nagoya. As both his wife and I work and have a small child, that was only natural.
However, the question is whether T will actually confess to his wife that he was mistaken.
If I confessed, would I be allowed to attend the original meeting again the following week?
On our way home, N and I kept saying, "See you next week!" but T never nodded.
Leaving his working wife and young child behind and going to Nagoya alone for two weeks in a row is probably something that would never happen in T's family.
This means that the other people who would have wanted to meet T-kun won't be able to meet him this time.
Hmm. That's sad in itself.
I hope that T-kun will work hard at cleaning, making lunches, and other things so that he will be forgiven for two weeks in a row.
By the way, a recent mistake I made was when I went to a bookstore and thought, "Oh! This is a good book," and bought it, but when I got home and opened my computer, I realized that I had already purchased it as an e-book.
He brazenly says, "I've bought the luxury of being able to read both in paper and electronic format."
