High School Memories 1

Because I did well in middle school, I was able to get into a prestigious high school, which made my academically-minded parents very happy.
I went from a middle school where school violence was rampant and the school and teachers were very strict, to a prestigious high school where I felt much more liberated, both mentally and in terms of the school atmosphere.
I participated in club activities and also started a part-time job at a local shop to earn some pocket money.
Regarding schoolwork, I started to feel the effects of being forced to study at cram school since elementary school, and I stopped studying altogether, resulting in my grades falling to the bottom of my class.
Since it was a prestigious high school, there was a strong atmosphere of academic competition for university entrance exams, but I withdrew from that competition, treated my poor grades as a joke, and became popular as the funny guy in my class.
I was happy to be popular, I enjoyed high school life, and I had many dreams.
However, after a while, I became tired of my social life, or rather, I started to feel aversion towards it. I remember feeling like my popular and sociable behavior was artificial, and I wanted to stop it and withdraw.
I remember having a demand like, “I’ve always been fun and entertaining to everyone, so now that I’m feeling down, I want everyone to be kind to me and cheer me up.”
From around this time, I became unable to interact with people naturally.
When I was in a good mood, I could be funny, sociable, and behave like a popular person, but when I was in a bad mood, I would become misanthropic, withdraw into loneliness, and distance myself from social circles; I was split into two.
Throughout high school, my sociability peaked when I became popular at the beginning of my first year, and although there were ups and downs, it generally declined.