Everybody knows that high school is terrible. It's terrifying, overwhelming, and just plain miserable. But it's a hundred times worse for a new kid, who doesn't know the town or the school or any of the students. And it's over nine thousand times worse for a foreign exchange student, the most extreme version of a new kid, who barely even knows the language.
That was the situation on a snowy January morning for Marik Ishtar, foreign exchange student. He had spent the first sixteen years of his life in Egypt, serving as a grave keeper with the rest of his family. But he was finally getting out. On January 2nd, just 10 days after his sweet sixteen, he had flown half way across the world to spend the second semester of his sophomore year in the United States. The only things he would miss would be his beloved siblings, Ishizu and Odion, his partners in crime, who had spirits as adventurous as his.
This was what he'd been waiting for his entire life. He was thrilled. He was ecstatic. And he was scared. Marik had never been out of Egypt before, and now it was too late for trial and error. There was no turning back.
The plane ride in itself was fascinating; he had never flown before. But even more fascinating than the aircraft was its wide variety of passengers. Those returning to the states stood out drastically from those born in Egypt. Like Marik himself, the Egyptians had dark, warm skin, contrasting sharply with the nearly translucently white Americans. When he spoke in his native tongue his voice was controlled and fluent, and English consequently sounded choppy and random to him. Every printed item on the plane appeared in both languages, and they looked odd together, like they were lost, like they didn't quite belong.
That's how Marik felt on the plane; out of place, almost as if he was trying to be something he wasn't. His eyes rolled comfortably over the flowing Arabic symbols but paused, confused, upon hitting the English sections. There was a moment of panic when the young explorer realized that the aircraft was flying him right out of his comfort zone.
However, it didn't last long. The anticipation outweighed the hesitation, by a long shot. And anyway, he wasn't completely inept. He had learned some English. He couldn't speak it perfectly, but he could communicate. The teenager had begun teaching himself the language as soon as he decided he wanted to go to America.
That was a decision that he made when he was thirteen-and-a-half. Now, he always wanted to escape of Egypt, out of pure curiosity. His entire extended family lived within 20 miles of him; no Ishtar ever came from distant places with presents and stories, and no Ishtar ever went to strange, exotic paradises. Marik wanted to be the first to reach out. Not to mention, he wasn't exactly thrilled to inherit the family tomb keeping business.
But he set his heart on running away to the west when his clan went on a rare vacation slightly north of his home, to a middle-class resort on the banks of the Red Sea. There he met some American tourists who spoke of their homelands, and fell in love… not with one individual tourist, but with the charm of entire culture. Marik fell deeply in love with the choppy accents and the loud laughs, the light skin and most of all the beach blonde hair that cascaded down some of the tourists' engrossing backs.
Marik himself had long, voluptuous blondish-yellowish hair, but nowhere near the shiny white shade which the foreigners possessed. He was decently taller than most boys his age, and although he was skinny he was strong. His golden shoulders in particular were muscular from long hours of digging graves. His equally strong back wore a series of tattoos that streatched from the base of his neck to his waist. He had bold purple eyes that lit up then he laughed, and a wide face to house his wide smile.
Marik was outgoing and rambunctious and loved to meet people. A smarter-than-average boy, he enjoyed science and won his way into a foreign-exchange program by writing an essay. He was a natural adventurer, a passionate lover of the world.
And now, finally, he was going to see the world. Or at least, he was going to see an average suburb in the Midwestern United States. But that was more than he'd ever seen before, and he was thrilled. He would meet his exchange family just a few hours after the plane landed, and destiny would take it from there. Marik was convinced, this four-month trip would completely affect the rest of his life. And he was so ready.