The first time Seiichi had ever seen her was in a hospital where Seiichi had went there once for a body check-up. The meeting was abrupt and short.
Seiichi peered down the white hall of the hospital, and wondered which one was Doctor Oshitari's. Just then, he felt something hit his foot. Looking down, he found a black and white cane with a red tip shuffling around his shoe.
It was a girl who hit him. A girl with silver hair braided up in thin strands, wearing a white one-piece summer dress and dark, dark shades.
It wasn't sunny.
The girl appeared to be blind. She mumbled a 'sorry', and kept walking, her cane whacking left and right down the hall.
That was the simple meeting that they shared, a meeting both soon forgot afterwards.
The second meeting was a bit longer.
It was a very beautiful day at Rikkaidai. The cherry blossoms fell like snow, and the pale pink petals decorated the ground. They were easily the most beautiful cherry blossoms in the whole of Kanagawa, with the help of the old gardener, Kashigawa-san, who often shared a few chats with Seiichi.
It was quite early in the morning -just six o'clock, in fact- that there was almost no one in the school. Seiichi stood beside his classroom window for a while to take in the pretty flowers. He had always had a soft spot for gardening, and beautiful flowers tended to hold his interest.
There was a dog barking behind him. Surprised, Seiichi turned his head to the noise. He saw a really tall boy, wearing some sort of white jersey, with black skin and white scruffy hair. But it was the girl who held his interest. The girl had silver hair slightly longer than shoulder length, thin strands of her hair braided up. Despite that it was a bit cloudy that day, she still wore dark shades. She was stroking a golden retriever, and laughed when it licked her face.
After a while, she kissed the golden retriever and stood up. The boy standing beside her automatically handed her a black and white striped cane with a red tip. A blind man's cane.
"Good boy, Google. Stay." The silver-haired girl commanded Google, the golden retriever. Then, gripping the white-haired boy's arm, the boy carefully guided her into the school, not without the cane's tip clacking against the floor.
Seiichi felt a strong sense of familiarity towards the mysterious, blind, silver-haired girl, but he couldn't make heads nor tails of those feelings. He turned away from the window to find his childhood friend standing at the doorway, waiting expectantly.
Seiichi smiled at Sanada, took up his tennis bag and walked out the door for morning practice.
Kirihara was in big trouble. He'd fallen asleep on the bus -yet, again- and found himself in the middle of nowhere. He somehow managed to follow the bus stop signs and made his way back into the city, and was taking a taxi to fly back to school. He'd left house this morning extra early, just to be sure not to get on Sanada-fukubuchou's bad side on the very first day of school. The universe just loves making fun of him. And Sanada-fukubuchou was going to murder him.
When the taxi pulled up at Rikkai Dai Fuzoku, Kirihara thrust the taxi driver the money, and without waiting for the change, he dashed for the gate, only to find the disciplinary teacher, Kanda-sensei standing there, looking none too pleased.
"Well, Kirihara-kun. It's you again. I hope you're not using the same feeble excuse that you fell asleep on the bus. Anyone with brains won't believe you." Kanda-sensei pushed up his glasses. "Come with me to the principal room. The principal should very much like to see the first latecomer of the year. I swear you must have broken our school's record of coming to school late so many times."
Principal Yoshizawa was not very nice, but he was tolerant. He tolerated Niou-senpai the time he spread a false alarm of fire and the whole school missed half a day, waiting for the firemen to arrive and check the whole school thoroughly. He tolerated Marui-senpai when he was found trafficking sweets into school and making money off them. He tolerated the time Sanada-fukubuchou accidentally slapped the principal when he meant to hit Kirihara, but Kirihara dodged and the slap landed on poor Principal Yoshizawa who had come down to observe the tennis training.
Principal Yoshizawa was an old man who loved tennis, which was why he often tolerated the tennis team which caused more trouble than any other sports team in the school. Or perhaps it was because the tennis team was the only team that managed to secure two consecutive champions in the Nationals. Other sports team claimed awards, but none able to achieve two golds in a row.
But if there was one thing the tolerant, tennis lover principal could never tolerate, it was latecomers. And when people say 'not very nice', they mean the ninth circle of hell. And Kirihara tried not to gulp.
When they entered the principal's office, there was already a girl sitting there, with silver hair braided into thin strands. "Oh, Kanda. What has Kirihara-kun done again?" The principal chuckled. It appeared that he was in a peculiar good mood.
Kanda-sensei was not very enthusiastic to report. "Kirihara-kun here was late today. Again. On the first day of school. This is his eighty-third time."
"You can leave now, Kanda." The principal waved a hand, and Kanda-sensei left.
"Kirihara-kun. Punctuality is one of the virtues we honor most here at Rikkai. I wish you will learn to respect that in the future days. Now, if you will, please sit down right beside here." Principal Yoshizawa gestured to the seat beside the silver-haired girl who has made movement up until now. "Well, since you're both here, and you're from the same class, I might as well introduce you two. Kirihara-kun, this is Mifune Yukiko-san. Mifune-san, this is Kirihara Akaya-kun. As you can see, Mifune-san suffers from blindness, and requires someone to show her around before she knows the way. Kirihara-kun, can I trust you to be her chaperone? Show her around, and take care of her. Today's a big day for new students, aye? Now, hop along, you two youngsters. And don't wander off somewhere else. Your classroom is 2-D, don't forget!"
Much to Kirihara's surprise, Mifune did not appear to require an accompaniment. In fact, she seemed to fend for herself pretty well. Kirihara just had to tell her to go left or right and she would turn accurately.
"So, Mifune-san, have you decided which club you're going to join yet?" Kirihara fired an attempt at conversation with the girl. He was a bit afraid to touch a sensitive nerve and piss the blind girl off. He decided clubs were a neutral topic.
"I don't see how that is any of your business." Mifune replied coolly. "And no, I haven't given it much thought."
Kirihara decided that he officially sucked at making communication with blind girls. "What about hobbies? What do you like to do?" Hobbies were another neutral topic, Kirihara decided.
"Tennis." Mifune said simply. Kirihara was dumbstruck. Then he burst out laughing.
"Tennis? Mifune-san, how do you play tennis when you can't see? Don't kid with me. I'm one of the best tennis players in Japan, you know." Kirihara said smugly. Suddenly, Mifune stopped in her tracks, and ripped off her dark shades. Her cloudy, white eyes seemed to bore into Kirihara's. "Do you know who you're talking to?" She said dangerously, intimidating Kirihara. At the moment, class 2-D's door slid open, revealing a not amused Kobayashi-sensei standing there. In a quick flash, Mifune's shades were back on, once again hiding her blind eyes.
Kobayashi-sensei crossed his arms. "Ah, there you are. I've been waiting for ages. Now, class, we have a new student…"
Author's Note: Okay, that was a really bad ending. But I really hope you're enjoy this. The second chapter's coming out really soon, so please stick with me.
Oh, and if you hadn't already known, I have another story, Broken Genius. If you want to, you can go and take a look.