After ending the call with my family, I felt satisfied with the progress we had made, knowing my parents were seriously considering the idea of sending me to Japan.
The call Nijiro had handled seemed to have gone perfectly, leaving no doubts behind, and now all that remained was to wait and see what happened next.
With a satisfied smile on my face, I headed to my room and joined the private Discord call, where Nijiro and China were already waiting.
"Hey, guys!" I exclaimed the moment I hopped in, my voice loud with excitement. "Great job, Nijiro! You handled that conversation like a pro."
"Yeah, you nailed it," China added.
Nijiro answered modestly, as if it had been no big deal. "I just did my part. If it had all fallen apart because of me, we'd have been in trouble."
I leaned back in my chair, thinking about the number. "Nijiro, quick question," I said. "What number did you give them for Anna's contact?"
"At that moment I wasn't sure what to do; I actually took a few seconds to think," he said. "But then I remembered Yu."
"Yu?" I repeated, trying to place the name.
"Yeah," he confirmed. "Haven't I told you about Yuika, my girlfriend?"
"Ohhh, you mean Yuika. The nickname threw me off for a second," I admitted, feeling a little dumb for not connecting the dots sooner.
"By the way," I went on, a note of worry creeping into my voice, "does Yuika know you gave her number to my family? I don't want any trouble."
"I still have to tell her," Nijiro said. "She'd already gone to bed before the call started. I'll tell her calmly tomorrow morning."
"Anyway, don't worry," he added. "I'm sure she won't mind giving out her number. I've already told her about you and she likes you, so I think she'll be more than happy to help."
China had been quiet, fiddling with the software settings.
"China, you still there?" I asked, noticing he hadn't said anything.
"Yeah, yeah. Just checking something in the software," he answered distractedly. "When Nijiro said your name during the call, it sounded kinda weird. Maybe I configured something wrong."
"It's not the software," Nijiro clarified. "It's me—with my Japanese accent I can't pronounce his name right."
Then, to prove it, he gave us a demonstration. "Kurisuchan, Kurisuchan, Kurisuchan. See? Especially at the end, I end up saying something like 'chan' instead of how you guys say it."
"Now that you point it out, yeah, it's true. Even when I was in Japan you never pronounced it perfectly, but I didn't really notice," I said, thinking back to those days.
"Yeah, unfortunately it's pretty much impossible for me to say it like you do," Nijiro explained.
"It's something all Japanese people struggle with," he continued. "We have trouble pronouncing Western names."
Nijiro spoke excellent English, around a solid C1 level. His pronunciation was really polished—clear proof of how much effort he'd put into getting it just right.
When I heard him say it was something all Japanese people struggled with, a doubt popped into my head.
"So if I move to Japan, no one's gonna be able to pronounce my name right?" I asked, feeling a little shiver of uncertainty.
"They'll probably use a shortened version," Nijiro replied. "I never did because I wasn't sure if you'd be okay with it."
"So what would they call me?" I asked, curious.
"At first, with people you're just getting to know, they'll use Iori-san, which is a respectful, formal way," Nijiro said.
"As you get closer to them, they'll probably switch to Kurisu or something like that," he added.
"So everyone would call me Chris?" I said, trying to picture how it would sound. It didn't totally bother me, but it felt weird.
"Probably, yeah," he answered. "If you don't like it, you can ask them to stick with the longer version, though for us Japanese it feels a bit formal among friends."
"So you have a shortened version too?" I asked.
"Yeah," he confirmed. "My friends call me Niji—it's short and easy to say."
"Hmm, I'm not totally sold on these abbreviations," I admitted. "I prefer full names or at most nicknames."
"Can I keep calling you Nijiro?" I added.
"Of course, call me whatever you like," he said, agreeing.
The conversation continued for a while until Nijiro had to move to another voice channel because he had to practice with his trio for the Apex Legends Global Series finals in January.
China and I switched to the main voice channel on the Discord server and played a few Fortnite matches while I was streaming, going late into the night.
Two days later, on Monday, while I was casually checking my emails—skipping past spam and a message from my internet provider—a notification arrived that I hadn't expected so soon.
My heart jumped into my throat: it was the result of the English language certification, arriving two days earlier than the promised seven.
The day before, Sunday, I had gone as usual to my grandparents' house in Trento Sud.
We were sitting around the table for lunch: polenta cooked by my grandmother, a typical Trentino dish, served with beef stew.
My brother was showing off his German skills, rattling off complex sentences he had learned during a week-long school trip to Kempten, Germany.
My grandparents listened rapt, nodding proudly, while I struggled to follow along.
German had always been a nightmare for me: I had only scraped a passing grade because the teacher took pity on me, and I never understood why I had to study it just because there were German-speaking communities in Trentino-Alto Adige.
"Why do I have to learn a language I'll never use?" I would think, frustrated, in the mornings before school while I studied, because that was the only time of day I had free.
"By the way, languages," I cut in, after swallowing my bite, jumping on my brother's topic. "I took the English language certification. Did it online on Wednesday."
Everyone at the table stared at me, stunned, like I had just announced I had won the lottery.
Especially my parents, who used to hammer on about it back in the day.
"You really should get a language certification—it'll look great on your resume later," they had kept telling me.
I had never listened, always buried in endless Valorant practice and streams.
Even my English teacher had pushed hard: "You're wasting your talent, Christian. You could easily get a C1, maybe even a C2."
To me, though, the whole test thing was pointless—just a waste of time.
I didn't need to prove to anyone how good I was at English, and besides, I had never seen the point of chasing C2: nobody actually speaks at that level.
When I mentioned it, they all told me to show them the results the second they came in, and I promised I would keep them posted.
Now, sitting at my desk chair in my room, I was staring at the inbox with the results email.
Before opening it, I went out to the living room to get my mom, who was watching a show on TV.
"Mom, the test came in," I said.
She got up from the couch and went to call my dad, who was lying on the bed, completely lost in TikTok videos on his phone.
"Francesco, come on! Christian's got his exam results!" she said, grabbing his arm while he was still half-dazed from the scrolling.
We all crowded around the computer, the air thick with tension.
The max score was 120, but you only needed 110 for C2.
I opened the email and scrolled down, my heart pounding.
"Please let it be at least 110," I begged silently. "Otherwise everything I've done for Project Japan goes down the drain."
At the bottom was "Download PDF." The second I saw it, I clicked—the file downloaded instantly.
I moved the cursor to the top-right corner, where Chrome notified me the file had downloaded.
I hesitated for a moment, my fingers hovering over the mouse, but then I told myself, "It's done now. Waiting won't change anything."
The PDF had everything: my full name, the exam date, the certifying institute's details.
And finally, the number that mattered: "Total Score: 112 / 120".
The moment I saw it, I let out a huge sigh of relief, all the tension draining away.
My parents, standing behind my chair, cheered like the certification was theirs—Mom clapped excitedly, and Dad gave me a solid pat on the shoulder.
Right after the celebration, Mom got serious again.
"Christian, you didn't cheat, did you? You earned this score fair and square?" she asked, clearly wondering if I had used my computer skills to game the system.
"Of course—it's an official exam," I said, covering myself. "Cheating would be wrong, and anyway, I was on webcam the whole time with a proctor watching everything live."
I had done it. Now, at least, the principal at the school in Japan would have to accept me, thanks to the deal he had made with Nijiro: I needed C2 in English to get in.
The only hurdle left was my parents, who still hadn't decided on the move.
That evening, before going live on Twitch, I broke the news to China and Nijiro on Discord.
"Guys, I nailed it! Got my C2. My parents were almost happier than I was," I said, laughing, still riding the high.
"Good that your parents know," China said, genuinely pleased for me. "Seeing how hard you're working, maybe it'll help them decide whether to let you go to Japan or not."
"Now I'll let the principal know," Nijiro said. "Send me the PDF file so I can forward it to him right away."
"Sure," I replied, privately sending him the certification.
"At this point, all that's left is your parents' confirmation, and then it's smooth sailing," Nijiro said while waiting for the file.
Once the call ended, Nijiro went to bed—it was already three in the morning for him.
That morning, though, I had planned a special evening, one of those that always drew huge crowds: Grand Theft Auto Role Play.
GTA RP had become a fixed summer tradition, something I scheduled every Monday, and it never failed to pull in a ton of viewers.
Sometimes I would even hit peaks of 400 viewers, a number that still gave me chills of excitement every time I glanced at it on my second monitor.
At the time, Fortnite was the game everyone was watching, the most popular category since its release.
But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't seem to grow there—I wasn't one of the top players like I was on Osu!, so people preferred watching other streamers.
GTA RP was different. If you built a complex character with a solid storyline, you could draw massive crowds just from the quality of the content.
Whenever I set up one of those nights, I always invited China, Bonzo, and Diruz—my three reliable buddies who had the game installed and modded for roleplay servers.
Those evenings were the most fun: compared to games like Fortnite or Osu!, GTA RP offered richer, more immersive entertainment for both players and viewers.
The stories could swing from hilarious to dramatic—botched robberies, police chases, pure improvisation.
Unfortunately, I couldn't play GTA every day: I had to keep grinding competitive titles to stay at pro level.
Plus, those sessions took a lot of prep—coordinating schedules, planning what we would do, sorting out every detail, and handling all the unexpected chaos that always cropped up.
But no matter how much work it was, it was always worth it.
Everyone had a blast, the chat went wild, clips kept popping up everywhere... and my wallet loved it too: subscriptions spiked way higher than usual on those nights.
After an absolutely hilarious session on the Italian server Impero RP, I finally crashed at five in the morning, completely unaware of what was coming the next day.
The following morning I woke up at eight, grabbed my usual protein bar for breakfast, and headed out to train at the park.
That afternoon I streamed the whole time, from one until seven, grinding Fortnite and trying to get better.
After saying goodbye to chat, I went out to the living room for dinner—I could already smell the mackerel from my room.
The moment I walked in, I noticed the vibe was off: heavier than usual, my parents talking in low voices.
I ate dinner quietly, watching the looks they kept exchanging, then took a hot shower to unwind—unlike the cold one I had had that morning after training.
Once I was dressed and had blow-dried my hair, I came back to the living room and saw my parents still sitting at the table.
That was pretty unusual—by that hour my dad was normally already in bed scrolling through TikTok videos.
My mom caught my eye and said, in a serious but gentle tone, "Christian, can you sit down at the table? We need to talk."
I took a seat, feeling a knot in my stomach, and waited for them to speak, my heart racing with anticipation.
"Christian," my dad began, clearing his throat and looking me straight in the eye, "we've decided whether or not to let you transfer."