Fool's Love

I can't just watch him.

We also watch comics and short plays sometimes.Masumi is always very involved, and at times like this, he acts like a true Kansai native—obsessed with being funny, and familiar with comedians of all styles.

Masumi seldom says what he "dislikes". He doesn't reject dirty jokes, and can accept some jokes that sound "too spicy" to me.

Even if he can't say it himself.He said that he hadn't been to the theater to watch manga or short plays for a long time, until I invited him last time.

But he actually likes the form of theater very much.I asked him why he didn't go there more often, and Masumi replied that he no longer had as much time as he used to, and his interests had changed.

"After high school, there are more and more things to consider. But I still miss the experience of going to the theater to watch manzai short plays.

I go to Namba Kagetsu a lot, where you can meet mangashi who are often on TV.

Sometimes I also go to the theater in Shochiku.There is a group of short dramas that I have followed since their debut. At that time, I thought the talent for writing jokes was really surprising.

I keep an eye on them.That group is called "SARABA!", have you heard of it?They have become very famous now. "

I've seen them on TV, they are two unremarkable short dramatists, they are not tall, they don't look like stars, they look like actors in pornographic videos.But Masumi is right about one thing, they are indeed talented.

Sometimes I also feel uncomfortable with Masumi's enthusiasm that seems to be born in him.

He rarely said "no" and had difficulty saying no to people.One Sunday afternoon I thought it was odd that he was taking a lot longer than usual to do his homework.

According to the usual rules, he can always finish the homework at least an hour and a half earlier than me. Even if there are occasional situations where the teacher assigns too much homework, he will not finish the homework until I finish it. so abnormal.

I got up from the seat and looked at the textbook spread out in front of him, only to find that it was not his homework, but the homework of a person surnamed Xiao Lin.

I also know the person surnamed Kobayashi. He is from the second class. I have met him a few times in the comics research department. He is a young man who looks cynical.

Several times I heard him and others complain that his homework was boring and he wanted to play something exciting.

He is a bit of a punk in spirit, but also a bit smart, and he has some spare money at home.I keep my distance from such people.I didn't expect Masumi to have an intersection with him.

I asked Masumi, "Are you familiar with that Kobayashi guy?"

"Not really. Come to think of it...I probably can't count on one hand the number of times I've talked to him."

That is unfamiliar.It seems that Masumi has never lied to me, so this sentence should be believable.

"Then why did you help him with his homework?"

"Because he came to me suddenly last week and said that there was an emergency at home, and he might not be able to spare time to finish homework on weekends. He asked me if I could help. I agreed."

——This sounds like a lie.I said.If there is an urgent matter at home and you can't finish your homework, just tell the teacher. There won't be a teacher who is so unreasonable that he can't even understand this, right?But Masumi can't even see through this, he is not a stupid person.

"That's a lie," I said.

"I think so too. What if what he said is true? Besides, it's not a big deal, so I agreed to him."

In his eyes, nothing seemed to be a big deal.I can't educate him about it, he's just the kind of guy—

He usually will not refuse other people's requests, unless it involves principles.If something worse than this time happens——

For example, one day he accepted a request from six or seven people to help with his homework, and I might help him share some of it.

Just like how Masumi treats others, when Masumi encounters any problems, I will try to help Masumi as much as possible, I can't just leave him alone, even if the trouble may be caused by himself.

But if Masumi agreed to the homework of 30 people in one go, I would be annoyed too.I would say "Masumi, enough is enough!", and help with homework with him until the next morning.

Of course, all this only happened in my imagination.Hope this doesn't happen--

It also really didn't happen until high school graduation.This sounds like an absurd thing, absurd does not mean that it will not happen——

It's not that I haven't encountered even more absurd things, but incidents like this really haven't happened.

I think Kobayashi must have regarded Masumi as a fool who trusts others. After that, he used the same reason to ask Masumi to help with homework, about three or four times, and then this situation no longer happened.

Of course, it wasn't Kobayashi's own conscience who discovered it, but the teacher discovered the traces of his ghostwriting.

I also often ask Masumi for advice on my studies.Thanks to his help, even though I hadn't taken cram school, my grades didn't sound like the sirens that sounded like last semester.

When there are exercises that I don't understand, I will ask Masumi.Sometimes he is writing his homework, and sometimes he has finished his homework and takes out his notebook to paint and draw - he is studying other people's storyboards recently.

In painting, he has learned to generalize shapes and draw objects.Since I said before that I want to collaborate on manga, Masumi is responsible for the screenwriting part, so he is supplementing knowledge about storyboarding.

When I asked him how to do a certain exercise, Masumi would immediately put down what he was doing.

One gloomy afternoon, when Masumi was speaking an English question, I stared blankly at his lips.

I have no intention of being rude!But I think his English pronunciation is very correct.Speaking of which, at first I was attracted by his standard accent when he spoke.

"My English pronunciation? Ah, it's because my family hired an English teacher before, and I usually watch some foreign TV dramas. Want to start learning from here?"

I nod...

"That starts with the most basic phonetic symbols. I'll look for it..."

Masumi flipped through the phone, transcribed the phonetic symbols found on the Internet into a notebook one by one, then pointed to those individual words, and read them to me one by one like teaching a primary school student.

I read it after him and it didn't look like it at all.Between the previous pure Japanese accent and the standard pronunciation, it has become nondescript.Especially the sound that requires the tongue to be raised, which I can't read at all.

"It's so difficult..."

"No. Look, like this—" Masumi motioned me to look at his mouth, and then read, "/r/."

He put his index finger under his tongue, motioning for me to lift it up.

"Yes." I tried to pronounce the syllables like him, but it didn't work.

"Don't say it in Japanese, try again."

So I tried it again, and this time the effect was significantly better.Masumi looked very happy, "Good! This is good." He said with a smile.That looks very charming to me.