全塾留年生扶翼会
The boy once hailed as a genius in his hometown
is instantly knocked out by Tokyo’s packed trains
and the capital’s relentless academic flexing—
leading to an unbelievable setback: repeating a year.
But at rock bottom, he awakens to a new truth:
“The world is bigger than I thought.”
Now he makes a lightning‑fast decision to study abroad!
“Repeating a year isn’t defeat—it’s a takeoff run,” he declares.
Will K.R truly achieve the “Return of the Prodigy”?
To be continued—
—Yet he will come to know the true blue of the sky.
The frog in the well knows nothing of the great ocean
“K.R: Went Straight Through College…
but Close Enough to a High‑School Grad.”
Chapter 1 — The Boy Once Called a Prodigy
I was once known as a “prodigy” in my rural hometown surrounded by mountains and rice fields.
I always ranked at the top in every school exam.
As I soaked up the irresponsible praise of the adults around me, an unfounded belief that I was somehow “special”
grew inside me like a snowball.
Then came my first major achievement since high school: I passed the entrance exam for Keio University.
Friends, teachers, relatives, and family all called me “the hope of our region.”
Carrying that pride with me, I moved to Tokyo, never doubting for a second that a brilliant campus life awaited.
Chapter 2 — The Prodigy’s Fall
However, that tiny bit of pride I carried with me was shattered into pieces just a few weeks after entering the university.
The labyrinth‑like train stations, the packed commuter trains arriving every few minutes, the skyscrapers towering above me, the city that never quieted down, and the sheer number of people moving like schools of fish—every one of these overwhelmed me.
Some students said they had been “failures in high school but still got into Keio,”
others claimed that “anyone can get into Keio as long as they write their name,”
and the belief I had held—that Keio was the ultimate goal—crumbled instantly.
Then there were people talking about “taking the entrance exam again while enrolled,” a phrase I had never heard before.
Having no idea what KAMEN RONIN（note:people preparing for entrance exams for universities for another year. while enlist another university;in order to enter "better-rank" university) meant,
I honestly thought they were talking about Kamen Rider.
Keio, I realized, was a place that exposed just how ordinary I truly was.
Standing before my classmates, I was forced to confront the fact that I was nothing more than a frog in a well.
The overwhelming differences in knowledge and experience, the way entirely unfamiliar worlds seemed perfectly normal to them—
all of it crushed me with an intense sense of inferiority.
I stopped going to campus, and before I knew it,
I was facing the harsh reality of repeating a year.
The former glory of being called a “prodigy” had completely fallen to the ground.
Chapter 3 — A New Hope
Yet human beings are strange creatures; when we hit rock bottom, there are moments when we suddenly regain a certain calm.
In the vast stretches of empty time I now had, I realized something important.
My failure hadn’t happened because I lacked ability.
It was simply because I had never understood the fact that “the world holds standards and values I’ve never known.”
I had only carried the narrow measuring stick of school rankings from my hometown—and that was why I broke so easily.
“If the world is full of things I’ve never seen, then I want to see more of it.”
With that thought, I decided to take a leave of absence and venture abroad.
I am set to study overseas next year.
What awaits me across the sea may be a world so diverse and free that even the shock I felt at Keio will seem small in comparison—
a world filled with people of different ages, different nationalities, and completely different ambitions.
I expect all of that to bring me new perspectives and fresh values.
By society’s usual standards, “repeating a year” is an obvious failure—
a derailment from the expected track of life.
But I want to turn it into the best possible preparation period,
a time to discard old values and discover a new path for myself.
～Chapter 4～
The Return of the Prodigy
To be continued？