[Tom Blanc]

<span style=”font-family: ‘Open Sans’, ‘Helvetica Neue’, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 23.7999992370605px; background-color: #f0f3f5;”>”A young girl was sitting in the middle of classroom A-4, roughly two meters down the right hallway in the front of her boringly average high school. She wasn’t anywhere near unattractive, although she didn’t really cake on makeup either. With short black hair and bright blue eyes, she wasn’t really anyone who would be set apart from anyone in the crowd. At the moment she was playing with her Rilakkuma phone charm boredly while waiting for her homeroom teacher to arrive, as if her teacher was ever on time to begin with. There was a group of girls in the corner talking about some celebrity and some guys up front throwing paper airplanes. Her life was so unbearably boring that she’d give anything for something exciting, anything out of the ordinary to happen. Today was going to be like any other, until her homeroom teacher and someone walked into the classroom. In that moment classroom A-4 was no longer boring, and would now be more intriguing than ever. “</span>

 

[Tom Blanc]

A young man looked at his schedule and made sure he was in the right room. It wouldn’t be pretty if he made such a mistake on his first day. The boy sat down, with his backpack still strung around his back, all but empty. He pushed up his black glasses and made sure there were no spots on his new uniform. He sipped from a thermos, not quite paying attention. He noticed the other students, and he suddenly felt out of place.

[Mujinai]

The girl immediately zeroed in on the boy, he looked relatively new to the school and rather comfortable with that thermos of his. He was something new, something much more interesting than her phone charm, and the girl would take this over a silly little bear any day. He looked beyond pristine in comparison to everyone else, and she could tell that everyone else was also focused on him too, not listening to small details their homeroom teacher babbled on about. The girl then smiled brightly, walked to him and held her hand out despite it being against code of conduct “Hiya! The name’s Kumiko, what’s yours? Are ya new here?” This was her chance to break from her boring everyday reality and she surely wasn’t going to let a chance like this pass her by.

[Tom Blanc]

The boy put away his things. He stood up and said, “My name is Shouta. And yes, this would be my first day here.” He was suprised that she talked to him on the first day. Other people usually shied away from him, so at first he couldn’t decide what to say. He put his hand over her’s, “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Kumiko.” He looked at her subtly but curiously. As far as he knew, she held no false intent. He was glad he found someone to talk to among the crowd of sheep.

[Mujinai]

Bingo, she figured out something new about this Shouta kid, he seemed interesting and could probably hold a nice conversation. “Welcome to our humble school, where your life will certainly be enriched with our amazing educational works and where you will find absolutely no disappointment!” Kumiko mock announced, to which she received a couple of laughs and jokes about how bad the school was. Truth was though, the most interesting thing about the school might as well be the students because nothing else about it was anything to admire for longer than ten minutes. You could find every type of student here though, from the ganguro type girls to the sketchy kids who look like they could summon demons. “Do ya need some help getting around? Got questions? Wanna go straight home and never look back?” Kumiko joked, “No really, do you need help?”

[Tom Blanc]

Shouta felt intimidated by the girl in front of him. Not only was she able to talk more comfortably to him than him to her, but he felt that the other laughs were directed at him, and he laughed along too, slightly nervous. He politely said that he was fine and sat down just as class started. He noted that most of the students were all in a rush to leave the room when the bell rang, and he tried to catch Kumiko as she was leaving. He said, trying to feign a more neutral personality, “Oh. I was wondering if I had any other classes with you.”

[Mujinai]

Class was absolutely a bore and Kumiko found herself staring at the ceiling more often than not. But she thought about this Shouta kid a whole lot too, she had a feeling that he would be the one to know and understand the certainly not normal and certainly not regular things going on around this town and the people. Especially a number of students. She was so caught up in those thoughts that she was actually a bit startled when Shouta approached her after class. “Oh! Um I’m sure we’ve got about seven minutes before next class, let me see your schedule” Kumiko smiled warmly and held her own battered and water damaged class schedule out for him to see.

[Tom Blanc]

Shouta didn’t want to pry too much, so he ignored the water damage and only checked her lunch bloc, and by accident rather than search he saw they shared their last class.

“Oh. We don’t see each other until lunch, and then only one more time at the end of the day, ” He thought it was only fair if he let her see his schedule too, since they only met today. He felt too ashamed to look at what her classes were and he only knew by checking room numbers. His read as followed:

1st – science (in common); 2nd – PE; 3rd – english; 4th – music; 5th -History; lunch; 6th – writing; 7th – math (in common)

[Mujinai]

Kumiko nodded and hummed as she read through Shouta’s schedule. As regular as it was, she saw plenty of opportunity between the lines and simply smiled upon hearing that they only shared two blocks together. “Well, I can help you with the ropes of the lunchroom and give you some pointers in both Math and Science if you’d like. There’s some kind of system to the lunchroom that’s kinda freaky” She chuckled after that last part and gave Shouta his schedule back. “I’d like to talk to you after school though, think you could meet me on the roof about ten minutes after last block? There’s some important stuff you’re going to need to know!” She asked and encouraged with a large smile and a laugh, if this Shouta kid was gonna learn about anything the first day would be a great place to start.

[Tom Blanc]

Shouta tried his best to be amiable, but Kumiko seemed a little ominous. She seemed to know a little better how things worked here. The last school Shouta went to was a quiet place in suburbs, and nothing could be described as freaky. “Huh, what’s up about the lunchroom. So I guess, I’ll need someone like you, If I want to know left from right, right? You’re really a cool person, but anyway, during lunch, find me one the table closest to the windows. I’ll be waiting for you, but for now, I think I’ll head to class, ” He said with a bashful smile.

“I really wish we had more classes together, but at least we can meet after class.”