Ever since kindergarten, Hiroshi was a child whom everyone loved at first sight, a model child. Neighbors recall turning around the street corners and hearing his small voice brightly say, �Konnichiwa!� They also remember seeing little Hiroshi and his older brother walking to school hand in hand. One teacher recalled that when the kindergarten borrowed a plot of land from a neighboring farm to plant taro, Hiroshi went about the entire process, from hoeing the soil to planting the sprouts, very seriously and with great concentration, getting his face smudged with dirt in the process. In autumn, when the taro was harvested and a �Results Party� was held, everyone roasted or steamed the tubers. Hiroshi happily told his teacher, �Taro you plant yourself is really delicious!�

At the student assemblies in December, the class would perform some songs. Hiroshi was extremely shy, and would turn red as soon as he got up on stage. A little girl in the class above asked him, �Why are you embarrassed? Hiroshi-kun, you sing very well!� But no matter what people said, Koshi would still duck his head. He once told a friend, �Because I always felt so embarrassed, I never thought I�d have to sing in front of other people. From kindergarten to junior high I only liked sports. I don�t know why life turned out like this!� Well, what can we say? Destiny.

There is also evidence that Hiroshi's visual beauty gave him valuable early experience with fangirls-in-training. On a field trip in 5th grade, some girls from a different school allegedly spotted him, and with unusual good taste, started shouting �Kawaii!� right there. Later several sorties were made to their room, with pointing and whispering.

Sometimes, sitting on a hill, Koshi would look down and wonder, �When can I leave this small town and see all the different things outside?� Perhaps partly because of such sentiments, in form 5 of elementary school, he asked his mother to buy him a stereo set. Through his older brother�s influence, Koshi began listening to Western music like The Beatles. Hiroshi and his brother shared a room, and when Hiroshi's friends came over, they would listen to the Carpenters and other Western music together. Friends would ask, "Hiroshi, do you understand the songs?" and he would reply, "Not really, but my brother listens to it, so it must be good and it is!" Sometimes Brother 178 would walk in and they would all discuss the different records. Clearly, Koshi and his brother had a very good relationship. From listening to so much Western music, Hiroshi's English became quite good.

In the second year of junior high, he passed the Level 3 English exam, and at the science exhibition, he won the �Science Methodology Head Prize.� His academic record was always excellent; he was a very talented little boy. That sounds nerdy, but besides grades, he was also adept at sports, and played 3rd base in softball. I told you he was good at everything.

In high school, Koshi played a lot of tennis. His �Koi Gokoro� was a girl he met playing tennis! �Wasurenai�.Koi gokoro! Itsumademo! Koi gokoro!� By then, of course, he wasn�t little any longer. But before we say goodbye to little Hiroshi, let�s revisit what those who knew him had to say.

The old ladies who live around Koshi�s hometown all love him very much. When one writer went to Tsuyama to investigate, they were all unified in declaring Koshi �A very good boy� �He�s always had good manners since he was small, and now that he�s a big star he�s still the same� �Good looking even as a child� �Always meant to be special� and so forth. When his older brother married, Koshi said at first that he didn�t think he would be able to make it. However, on the wedding day, he showed up. When everyone clamored for him to perform and sing a few songs right there, he became very shy and ended up not singing. But he was completely ego-less and snobbery-free, greeting everyone there in a very friendly and familiar way. When Koshi goes back to Tsuyama today, he still meets up with his old friends, and they treat each other no differently. He is described as �yasashii� by some of them. So in a way, that sweet little Hiroshi is still a part of today�s mega rock star Koshi Inaba. That�s kind of nice to know, isn�t it?

For more on the Inaba family and Tsuyama, click here.

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