In my last year of highschool, some of the Japanese exchange students who had been with us since grade 9 were going back to Japan for good. A particular guy was in the orchestra who I became (or thought i did) friends with. I'd known him since he came in grade 9 all the way up to the end of high school since he was pretty much the only other guy who played an instrument relatively well in the orchestra along with me.

We had over 3 years of memories (including touring all of Europe and Dubai together) but everyone knew it was inevitable that all the exchange students would have to leave for good at the end of their 3 year exchange so times were getting quite tense and gloomy.

In the last week, a lot of the other students were hosting little farewell parties/events so I thought why not, fuck it i'm never going to see him again. So I take him out with another couple of friends (also knew him as good friends) one night and we're all just talking about memories and music. After the dinner, I got his bill so the other two guys walked out first. Then he turned to me and asked me in a serious voice, something that I'd never heard before, if I thought I was better than him at violin. This is already getting really awkward since none of us had any drinks so I replied with "I think we're good at different parts" etc, trying to avoid the question (I was better by a fair margin).

This is where it got cold and fucked up. He tells me that if I was in Japan, I wouldn't even get into the junior orchestra. I'm pretty taken a back now and we're still in the restaurant so I signal him out. We're walking in the city night sky, neither of us talking to eachother. I was too surprised that he'd say something like that. The next part was even more fucked up. Most Japanese students would exchange facebooks etc but this guy told me that he didn't want anything to do with me after he left. By this time, I was getting quite annoyed so I asked him what his problem was.

"I always felt you were arrogant" is what he told me. He told me how I didn't deserve the concert master position in the orchestra and how he was being polite for 3 years because he didn't want me to demote him to a lower section. We caught up to my two other friends and everything went back to normal except I didn't talk.

At the end of the night, he offered to shake my hand.