01

Yukine

High school had always been hard for Yukine. Not because he was stupid—he was actually very smart. It was because he was what most would call 'weird.' Not in the 'sniffs people and kidnaps babies' way, but in the 'sits alone and never talks to anyone' way.

People usually wrote him off a loner and a nerd, and they either ignored him completely or started bullying him...

Usually, it was the latter.

Which was why he was switching schools. For the third time in a year.

But the new one was going to be different. He was allowed to choose his own school, for once, and he'd made sure that it was as far away as possible from the previous ones. He had to take two trains to get there, but it was worth it for a fresh start.

Yukine had carefully planned out everything, even his introductory speech. He was going to be upbeat and outgoing—and for once, he'd definitely make friends.

At least, that's what he was hoping.

He'd thought it would be a lot easier than it really was. Standing in front of the classroom door, it felt a lot less exciting and a lot more like he was going to puke.

Then again, sometimes that was a form of excitement, right? But usually, you didn't feel a crippling anxiety along with excitement...

You need to stay positive, he scolded himself, fingers tightening on the straps of his bag as he forced himself to take deep breaths. It would suck to have to switch schools again, and he was running out of new ones, anyway. You can do it, Yukine. Get ready. Make sure you smile. Smiling is the most important part.

That advice didn't really help him all that much. It took all of the courage in his body just to push open the door and step into the classroom. As soon as he did, the chatter of the students stopped and they all turned to stare at him.

Great... Yukine skillfully avoided eye contact and shuffled to the teacher's desk. He turned to greet him, the classic glasses-and-suit-wearing, smiling, I-want-to-help-you teacher.

Ugh. Be nice, be nice, be nice... This is harder than I thought.

"You must be our new addition!" Yukine's hand was shaken with far too much enthusiasm. "I'm Mr. Kazuma. Welcome to our class!" He turned to his students, forcing Yukine to move with him. "Class, this is our new transfer student. Please give him a warm welcome." He smiled. "Would you like to introduce yourself?"

Here it goes. Smile.

"Hello, everyone." Yukine's face fell into a well-practiced smile as he waved to his new classmates. "It's a pleasure to meet you all. My name is Kaji Yukine."

Good enough. Cut it off now. Don't tell them anything else.

He bowed to hide the sweat forming on his brow. "Please take care of me. I look forward to getting along with all of you."

"Excellent!" The teacher clapped his hands together as Yukine straightened up, relieved that his introduction had gone well. "Kaji-kun, you can take the empty seat over there, beside Kamiya."

"Thank you, sensei."

Following his pointed finger, Yukine felt like he'd slammed into a brick wall, stopping mid-step as he locked gazes with a pair of intense ice-blue eyes.

When Yukine was a child, a boy had saved him.

He was in elementary school, still at the age where he didn't know how terrible the world could be. Things that were dangerous utterly escaped him.

He remembered the day it happened like it was only yesterday… It was lunch, and he'd had gone out to eat under a tree; the same tree he ate underneath every day back then. He hummed to himself quietly, smiling and eating the bento his mother had carefully packed for him that morning. It was a normal, perfect day.

Then, everything went wrong.

Something hard smacked him in the back of the head and Yukine fell, dropping his lunch and spilling rice across the grass. His head hadn't even stopped spinning when someone grabbed his arm and twisted it behind his back, a foot pressing into the side of his head.

He remembered crying and screaming for help, but there was no one nearby to hear.

Someone ripped off his jacket and searched the pockets while Yukine was still being held down, sobbing in terror. They threw it on the ground with a growl when the jacket yielded nothing and searched the rest of his clothes and his bag, but he had nothing except his school supplies.

Yukine could remember saying something—maybe begged them to let him go. Whatever it was, it made them mad, and the next thing he knew, he was standing up again, hands wrapped around his neck, holding him up and strangling the air out of his lungs.

What losers would rob an elementary school kid? Well, when you're desperate enough, you'll do anything. And he guessed they didn't like the fact that their last resort had no money. He was almost killed. (Keyword; almost. That was when the boy came in.)

In a flash of black, Yukine was on the ground, trembling but breathing, and he caught a glimpse of something beautiful.

He was like a wild animal, a whirlwind of ebony hair and eyes like icy blue fire.

Somehow, even though he couldn't have been much older than Yukine was, he beat them. He beat them bad.

Yukine had never seen someone fight like that; so desperate and frenzied, as if he were fighting for his own life and not someone else's. It was... breathtaking.

Eventually, the two men ran off, and the boy cast one fierce look back at Yukine, wiping the blood from a cut on his cheek. He was gone just as quickly as he had appeared, disappearing without a word.

Later, Yukine would think he'd dreamed him up, but the dark blue bruises around his neck that he had to hide from his mother and the newly-developed anxiety made that pretty hard to believe.

His angry eyes haunted Yukine's dreams for years afterward. He could never forget him, even though he knew nothing about him. He just couldn't shake the feeling of debt in his chest, like he owed him... something. He'd saved his life, after all.

Or maybe the feeling wasn't debt, but admiration. He was strong and beautiful while Yukine definitely wasn't.

Eventually, he'd given up on him and told himself he would never meet him again. After all, at that time, he'd lived in an entirely different part of Japan and moved around so much, it was hard to remember himself, let alone some mysterious heroine from early childhood.

If he hadn't given up on him, Yukine wouldn't have been so surprised to be staring straight at him.

For a moment, he felt like the floor was tilting under him.

By the time he realized it wasn't actually moving, several seconds had passed, and he remembered that he should've been moving to take his seat. He did so with shaking legs and a lump in his throat, unable to keep his eyes off the boy. He wasn't looking up anymore, focused on the pencil he was twirling between his fingers with an air of indifference.

Yukine had to admit, the resemblance was uncanny. Even though he'd only seen his savior for a few seconds, the picture of his glowing eyes was burned into his mind like a glaring afterimage.

The boy's eyes were the same icy blue as back then. But that couldn't be right. That was so long ago, there was no possible way he could correctly remember someone he'd only seen for a moment… right?

Yukine forced himself to turn back to the front, placing his bag on the floor and removing a notebook and pencil. His movements still felt wooden, so he forced his muscles to relax, giving himself a harsh internal scolding. It's not him, so get a grip, Yukine! This is your second chance: Don't start acting weird now!

"Kaji-kun, right?" a voice asked, startling Yukine so much he nearly stabbed himself with the pencil. A girl was sitting ahead of him and had turned around, now smiling warmly, like they were old friends. She was pretty, with friendly magenta eyes and dark brown hair.

Yukine decided she looked like a good first-friend candidate and tried his best to smile invitingly. "Yes, I'm Kaji Yukine. But you can… call me Yukine, if you want to."

She laughed; a sound equally as pretty as her face. "Nice to meet you, Yukine! I'm Iki Hiyori, but you can call me Hiyori." She winked in an easy-going, friendly way. "I can already tell we'll be good friends. In fact, how about I show you around the school during lunch? It's the least I could do for a new student."

"R-really?" Yukine was slightly shocked. He really hadn't expected to make a friend that quickly, let alone so easily. He could feel himself smiling back. "Thank you so much… Hiyori! I'd love a tour."

Maybe pretending to be cheerful won't be so hard, after all. She seems like a really nice person. This year is already off to a great start.

When lunch came, Yukine felt significantly better, despite the mishap with the blue-eyed boy that morning. Hiyori really went out of her way to show him around, giving a detailed yet helpful tour of the entire school, ending in the lunchroom. She invited him to eat with her and her friends, but he decided to take his food outside for some much-needed alone time.

Being cheerful and outgoing was much harder than he'd thought it would be, even if Hiyori was super nice. Yukine felt like he was a battery that had been drained: He really just wanted to take a nap. And he would've... if he wasn't starving.

His mother had packed a bento that morning, just as she'd done every morning since he first began school. That day it was curry rice and onigiri; one of Yukine's favorites. She must've made it to cheer him up since she knew he got nervous on first days.

He felt so horrible for constantly making her uproot her life for him, just because he couldn't seem to fit in. That was partly why he'd made a promise to fit in at his new school: so his mom could finally settle down.

Luckily, things were going well thus far. A few people even smiled and waved at him as they passed by. Yukine returned each gesture, feeling his mood improve as he took a bite of curry rice.

The school really did seem like a good chance at a fresh start…

"Oi, you. New kid."

Yukine felt his heart skip a beat as he looked up, nearly dropping his chopsticks when he came face-to-face with the blue-eyed boy from before. He was standing directly in front of him, scowling with his arms crossed in clear annoyance.

Yukine flinched, even though he knew he hadn't done anything to aggravate him. It's fine. Be cool, Yukine, be cool. "That's m-me. Um… who are you?"

His scowl deepened and as he shifted, strands of black hair fell in front of his eyes. His hair was long for a guy, nearing shoulder-length. Pretty.

"Yato. Kamiya. Call me whichever you want." His icy eyes narrowed as he shifted closer. Yukine had to bury his hands in his lap to keep them from shaking. "Your name's... Yuki something, isn't it?"

His head bobbed up and down uselessly. "Uh, y-yeah... Yukine." Yukine studiously avoided eye contact with him. His heart felt like it might break his ribcage open in a few seconds. "Nice to... m-meet you, Kamiya-kun."

"Hmm… I change my mind." Yato smirked and knelt next to him, sending a spike of coiled nerves down Yukine's spine as their forearms brushed. "Call me Yato, instead."

Yukine gulped. God, I'm in way over my head here... "Okay then, Y-Yato-ku—"

"Ah," he held up a hand and Yukine nearly smacked his head against the tree.

Why am I so jumpy? This is bad. Bad, bad, bad. He was totally losing it.

"No honorific," Yato continued in a drawl. "Just Yato." The way he was staring at Yukine was unsettling, and Yukine kept his gaze on his lunch fixedly, feeling a bead of sweat drop down his neck.

Stop staring. "Did you want something, then... Yato?"

He rested his hand on his crooked knee, the edge of his mouth twisting into a smirk. "I just wanted to say 'hi,' Yuki-chan."

Yukine flinched at the nickname and turned to stare at him with trepidation, though he quickly gave up when Yato's intense gaze broke right through his composure. "Um, thanks...?"

Things were getting awkward quickly. Yukine did the honorable thing and decided to chicken out early, beginning to pack up his stuff, feeling Yato's eyes on him all the while. "Lunch is going to end soon. I should probably... go."

"Not with this, you're not." Before Yukine could even think, Yato snatched the bento from his hands and tucked it under his arm.

The smile he wore was that of a hunter stalking its prey, and Yukine was way too scared to say anything about his lunch being stolen. However, he managed to stammer out a simple question: "W-what are you doing?"

Yato walked past him, shooting a wink over his shoulder. "I have a feeling we'll be seeing a lot more of each other, new kid. Until then, I'll keep this." With that not-answer, he skipped off—literally—with Yukine's lunch under his arm.

Maybe I spoke too soon when I said this would be a good year...