“You have a new classmate starting today.” spoke Mr Takeuchi, while a girl with short pink hair and brown eyes walked into the classroom. He asked the girl to introduce herself, while we listened, awaiting her response. However, she did not respond. She stood there staring at us, smiling as though she had not heard the teacher and was still awaiting his instruction. Mr Takeuchi tapped the girl on her shoulder. With a look of realisation, she pulled out a notebook. We began to read the words written on the notebook. ‘Nice to meet you. My name is Shouko Nishimiya. I would like to know everyone through this notebook. When you want to talk to me, please write what you have to say in this notebook. I can’t hear.’ “Holy crap!” I yelled, when I realised what I had just read. Our new classmate who seemed to be perfectly normal, was actually deaf.
“Nice to meet you, Ms Nishimiya. My name is Miki Kawai.” spoke Miki Kawai, as she wrote it down in the notebook. Miki Kawai is a girl with blonde hair, glasses and green eyes. “Hey, can you speak Japanese?” asked Ueno Naoko, a girl with black hair and blue eyes. “That’s not a nice way to put it., Naoko” replied Miki “Do you have a nickname?” she asked. Shouko began writing in the notebook. “Sho.” read Miki. I looked up. “That’s the same nickname as Ishida.” said Ueno as she looked at me. “So, what?” I responded, while I continued to tackle Hirose.
I stood, staring at the bridge where I used to do tests of courage. My friends and I would often come to this bridge to jump, however recently they have stopped coming here to jump. They said that they no longer wanted to do it anymore and that they had matured. I sat there bored, wondering about things I could do.
Classes were a lot slower recently as the teacher would write up whatever he wrote, so that Shouko would not fall behind in class. I began to get even more annoyed and restless in classes. I needed something to help entertain myself. So I decided to start bullying Shouko. I would scribble things down on her desk, chuck and graffiti her notebooks. The others would tell me to stop, but I wouldn't.
"Stop bullying Shouko," spoke Ueno while she was rubbing the message I had just written on the board, off "you're going to get yourself in trouble." "Shut up." I responded, and walked away.
The next day the principal came into our class to tell us that Ms Nishimiya would be leaving our class due to being bullied and requested that the culprit should stand up. "Stand up, Mr Ishida! We all know it was you!" yelled Mr Takeuchi. I stood up and was sent to principal's office. I was suspended from school for a week and forced to write a letter of apology to Ms Nishimiya.
This scene shows what would have happened if the teacher provided support for Shouko Nishimiya. Instead of everyone bullying Shouko, only Shouya and his friends would have gotten in trouble instead of the others, as there anger only existed because they were falling behind in class.