"Happy birthday! How are you?" The other day, I received a call from a friend from my school days. I only see him once every 2-3 years, but he is a very important person to me, and the word "best friend" is appropriate.
During my school days, I was appointed captain of the baseball team and he was the vice captain at the time. Unlike me, he was an excellent person who also served as student council president. He was an important person who shared the struggle of establishing a baseball team in a school that did not have one, and with the lack of an environment to play baseball.
To build up my body, I packed two cups of rice in a lunch box and brought side dishes in another lunch box. For practice, I ran to a place exactly 5km away from the school. I competed with him every day for a 10km round trip.
Looking back, starting a team is not something that everyone can experience, and it was a great sense of accomplishment. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that he was a partner who shared the good times and the bad. What I still remember is that he was a good reader and actively participated in support for disaster-stricken areas. Even back then, we were good rivals, but I learned a lot from him.