Watashi Tachi no Tamura kun:Volume1 Chapter1

I was once called the reincarnation of Jean-Henri Fabre, the father of modern entomology by everyone.

When I was in grade 3, my observation diary on the life cycle of cicadas won the town’s fair’s top prize. I think in my whole life, I have not been as popular as that time. Everyone called me the Insect Professor, and they all have their spotlights turn on me.

The reason that I got such a fantastic nickname is all because of my family.

That’s right- The Hamira family has three sons.

Everyone in my town knows about the genius and nice eldest son, the master-of-all-sports youngest son, and the ordinary middle son. That ordinary middle son is indeed me.

My smart and wise older brother is the pride of my parents; my active and cheerful younger brother is everyone’s darling. Of course, with these two captivating sons, my family is always very busy.

Whenever our family is in these sorts of events, however, the ordinary me always stand aside. No matter which photo albums you opened, you would see the young me, with my arms on my chest, one finger on my chin looking at my brothers and my parents(who had their heads made spinning by my brothers) aside.

Now that I think about this in details, the one thing that I learned by being in the Hamira family, is my sharp observation skills…I think.

And it is this observation skills that made me the reincarnation of Fabre…I think.

Unfortunately, time is cruel. As my age increased, one by one my friends moved away from the young insect-loving hobby. Instead of trading beetles, they now trade monsters in video games; Instead of trading news where one could catch grasshoppers, they now trade news on which bookstores have the newest manga and magazine. Finally, insect identification (Trans note: taxonomy, picture) books have been replace with “The mystery of human body- The Guide To Identify Male and Felmale Body Parts”….

I lost my only medal.

It probably started around that time! I don’t know whether my elderly relatives are doing this out of kindness to comfort me or what, the number of time this being said to me increased linearly:

“Yukisada will definitely grow up to be a very impressive man!”

The neighbor aunties also said:

“You are definitely going to be very successful one day!”

Even my homeroom teacher said:

“Yukisada, I know very well that you have much potential…”

…in another word, “even through you haven’t amounted to much right now…”

• sneeze*, I don’t need you people to tell me that. I know the truth myself. Anyway, after studying insects, my second hobby now is studying ancient folk stories and customs.

By the way, the customs of Kamakura Period is my favorite historic period at the moment- something like a tea color-dyed hitatare (Trans note: a kind of robe/outer garment), along with a samurai-eboshi (Trans note: a kind of hat). And you can’t discuss this topic without mentioning the armor, helmet, and the 白糸緘 (Trans note: shiroo toodoshi- I don’t know the English term of it) and the 赤糸緘 (Trans note: akai toodoshiあかいとおどし -this one as well)…the beauty of this clothing, extravagant yet mightily unyielding, the beauty of it all is just indescribable. “The true spirit of Japanese man”, you can find it all in this clothing style.

Ah ah, hmmm…Hmm?!

Let’s pretend I am a samurai!

And then, tragedy striked.

It happened last night.

At first, I was only flipping through the ancient custom data book. As I was reading it, I naturally became nostalgic about that time period. Before I realized it, I was holding my older brother’s bamboo katana, in front of my room’s mirror (in the middle of the night), and was busy getting into a samurai pose-

I pulled out the bamboo katana in my hand:

“I am indeed Tamura Yukisada. Come, let us duel!”

I uttered under my breath.

Just at that moment, my room door suddenly opened. The owner of the bamboo stick- my elder brother appeared at the door:

“Hey~Is my dictionary…What are you doing?”

Kya-

I almost screamed last night.

Whenever I think about that accident, my face becomes red hot, I am so embarrass that it is as if I am going to act like a girl and cover my face with my hands. I can only comfort myself by saying: It is already fortunate for me. I have done something even more shameful…ah.a…but….

“…Tamura. Are you listening to my question?”

Someone shook my shoulders a few times and pulled me back out into reality. When I lift my head, a common, yet familiar face appears. He is Takaura. He has my good friend since when I was called the insect professor.

“Hey Takaura.”

“…Haa. You didn’t listen to my question at all!”

Takaura sighed exaggeratedly, and then point his finger towards my nose.

“I will repeat myself again, listen to me this time. Hmm- ok- Do you know what “time” is it?”

Not only is the way Takaura, with his head slightly sideway and has an hesitant expression, looks dubious; What he is trying to accomplish with the question is a mystery to me as well. But I don’t want others to think that I have Alzheimer's disease or something, therefore I tried to answer his question:

“Right now it’s the second half of the lunch break.”

“I am not asking you this! Can you think, like, calendar-wise?”

“Calendar? Then it is July?”

By the way, two weeks later is the final exam. After the final exam is the summer holiday. In entrance exam’s examee’s lingo, that time period is the Crucial Moment.

“No! You really are such a dummy! You don’t understand at all, do you. The correct answer is “The last summer of junior high school life”!”

“…mu~n…”

I fell into a daze and habitually start to chew the pencil. I move my gaze towards the windows.

The last summer of junior high school life? In this world, there is no calendar that is affectionate enough to have this listed.

Outside the windows, the summer noon sky is boundlessly clear. The bright and clear light blue sky makes one feel refresh. Cicadas screech from afar to near…oh, what a scene! The symphony of cricket and cicadas.

As I listen to their summer symphony, my hand started to play around with a pencil. On my table is a half finished potential school/career survey form. Today is the hand in deadline.

As I got halfway through filling the form up, the scene last night suddenly appeared in my mind. Because it was too embarrassing, I couldn’t write anything anymore.

I already wrote down the #1 potential senior high school’s name. What are left to fill in are my class year, class name, seat number, and my signature.

Ta(tome!) mura(ten!) Yuki(tome!) sada(zubatsu!).

…Not that I am boosting, but I have to say this: what an impressive name! Even though no one has ever told me that, I always think to myself: This name sounds a bit like a samurai’s name.

After I filled in everything, I gave my form to Takaura. Honestly, he always wants to be the class representative (and he is actually a candidate for the job). He is a sick person (Trans note: or psycho/sicko) who can even enjoy boring works like collecting survey forms.