And then something I needed to write as well. Time for some multitasking, eh? Phantasm of Oriense had pretty dark themes, and then I realized I needed some light-hearted themes stories and then… This! Multi-chaptered stories, (once again) AU that based off of a high-school life.

Keep in mind that this take place in Japan, hence the curriculum, terms, and everything will take places around Japanese schools. I've never been into Japan personally myself, but I have some relatives that are living in there. I'll try to elaborate some of the terms on the footnotes with everything I can for those who are still unfamiliar with, of course.

This is a work of a mere fan's fiction. Any similarities or likeness to any events or persons living or dead is purely coincidental. Final Fantasy Type-0 belongs to SE.

"Unreachable!"

Both of them tried to climb it once again, but it was still fruitless. They fell down and then stumbled on their butts painfully. She started to cry, whether because of the pain or the failure, nobody knew.

"I-it's impossible! That's too high!"

He wanted to whine and probably cried just like her, but he didn't. He was a boy, a strong boy. He wouldn't cry. He then shifted his attention to her, clenching his hand in determination as he plastered his face with a confident grin.

"I promise… I'll do it! I'll get it someday!"

Chapter 1 : Welcome to Suzaku High

Honestly, he never felt more uncomfortable than right now.

Standing stiff in front of a mirror, he quietly watched over his own reflection in the said glass. Sure, his face never changed; as calm as usual, but his new uniform… Boy, did he look weird in that. Maybe it was the quality, or maybe it was just the leitmotif, but this Suzaku High's blazer was damn different than his local junior high school's gakuran. Not to mention that his pant was tad longer than he preferred and the necktie was... rather choking him.

This was going to take a time for him to adapt to.

Sighing in exasperation, he decided to not to rumble his mind over something this trivial anymore. Grabbing his key from the table, the young man then walked out of his small house with his bag intact. As soon as he was out of the empty building, he composedly locked the door back, to make sure that nobody would enter his now-empty-house.

Turning around on his heel, he quickly welcomed the bright ray of morning sunshine to his red-colored eyes, although he needed to shield them with his empty hand so that his sight wasn't overwhelmed by the light. Still, he smiled as he closed one eye in peacefulness and stared at the cloudless sky.

As of today, Eight's life as a high-school student had started.

…

It didn't take too long for him to arrive at the station. It was merely five minutes walking from his small depot of a house. After purchasing the appropriate ticket from the ticket machine, Eight slowly darted over to the empty seat on the respective platform. Luckily, while it was starting to get crowded, he could still consider these quantities of humans normal since the young teen was still able to find an empty seat amongst them.

As soon as he was seated, he put his bag aside and changed his attention to the direction of his home. The moment he reached Suzaku High, he wouldn't return here. He had decided to settle in the school's dormitory. Sure, it was actually possible for him to just travel between his high school and his home every day, but that would waste his time and money. Furthermore, there wasn't actually anyone in that small house anymore, because he had lived alone for a while due to his parents working abroad.

With this, he practically muttered a small, unheard farewell to his house.

Just in time, the train arrived and the brunet rose from his seat to embark to his destination.

…

Fortunately he had assumed the worst, because it had needed around an hour of his time to arrive at the gate of Suzaku High. It was far from his house, indeed, but it was worth it. To be able to enroll in this school, the most prestigious high school in Tokyo was every students' dreams.

Eight couldn't help but got mesmerized at the falling cherry blossoms' petals. Sure, he had gone here to check the place after the junior-high national exam, but at that time, the place wasn't decorated with this unbelievable panorama. Not that he hated it, of course.

When he was about to step in through the gate to settle in the auditorium, an arm was slipped on his shoulder, surprising Eight a bit.

"Heya~"

He could tell simply by the man's tone, even more with his action that was quite friendlier than anyone would expect. The only one who would do that to him would be none other than Jack, the closest thing Eight got as a best friend, who originated from the same junior-high school as him. The said brunet let out a sigh that was a mixture of exasperation and relief, while the man with coiffed hair winked back at him.

"Hey."

"Morning, pal~" Jack cheerily countered. "Didn't expect to find you first thing in the morning!"

Another sigh passed Eight's lips, but this one was definitely that of a relief. "Same here, Jack. Nice to be in the same school with you again."

"Yuuup!" this time, Jack grinned ear-to-ear as he pulled his arm back to shoulder his bag in a more comfortable position. "You don't know how happy I was when I was able to pull it off!"

Eight once again smiled. Inwardly, he was as happy as his best friend as well when Jack had managed to earn enough scores to be able to enroll into this school. He wouldn't lie, Jack was… rather lazy back there. Well, Jack was actually not stupid, not that stupid, but his grades were worth facepalming when they were in junior high. How in the blazes that he managed to pass the test was rather questionable even for Eight, but he decided not to pursue those unnecessary things.

After all, Jack's company was always appreciated, despite how much of a nagger he could be.

The two then started their walk toward the assembly hall, where the opening ceremony would be held. Of course, Jack wouldn't let this gone without any conversation.

"Say, Eight," He crossed his arms behind his head, whistling idly at times. "Which class are you in?"

"1-B." Eight responded quickly, as calm as ever. "You?"

Jack let out a noticeable whine at that, and that quirked the brunet's curiosity.

"Aww shucks!" he groaned. "I'm in 1-C!"

Eight couldn't suppress his chuckle at his friend's whine. This was why he always enjoyed Jack's company, he was always fun to interact with.

"I don't really see anything bad with that." He politely inquired. "We're next door with each other, that's all. We should be grateful for that, if any."

That didn't make Jack happier or sadder, but his whining continued. Maybe he even had a series of playful crocodile tears around his eyes already at this point. Not that Eight actually gave a serious attention at.

"Oww, that sounded like you're actually happy that you're able to get rid of me!"

"Actually, maybe I am."

"Hey!"

Jack pushed Eight's shoulder playfully while the smaller teen chuckled again. They continued to converse with each other like two best friends they were as they headed to the school's hall.

…

Seriously, he had expected that every grade were assembled here, but turned out that it was only the freshmen here. This school really rolled way too different than his small, ran-off-the-mill junior high school. In the auditorium, Eight had been separated from Jack since the rule said that everyone had to sit around with their new classmates. Well, he might be surrounded by bunch of new students that he didn't know yet, but that applied to every freshman here so that was actually no different.

Of course he had spent secretive stares to his classmates to acknowledge them, especially the girls. Hey, he was a healthy hormonal teenager, so that made perfect sense if he did such a thing, right? Either way, there were like… a lot of cute girls here. And luckily, he seemed to find a lot of them in his class. Now this was what you call a high school roman!

…Still wouldn't top the girl that he always dreamed, of course. Even in these crowds, Eight could simply lifted his neck a bit and closed his eyes, and her perfect image would show immediately. He could picture her long and smooth hair, with her cute round eyes staring at him, and perhaps giggling like a little girl she was.

Heh, quite a one-sided crush he had since he was small. He never actually knew her name, where she lived, or any little bit of information about that girl. Furthermore, she probably wouldn't remember such a thing anymore anyway.

He was too lost in his imagination to notice that the principal had finished his speech. Now wait a minute, what was the principal's name again? Kariya, Halia or something?

Wow, way to be a good student, Eight. Not even the first hour and he already forgot.

When the principal was walking away from the center of the stage, the crowds weren't dismissed yet though. The gentle principal suddenly called for a certain name that Eight hadn't familiar yet.

"Freshmen representative, Ace of 1-B."

Eight was about to be surprised just like that that it was someone from his class, but sadly, his surprise was raising up to eleven when suddenly a person in front of him stood up from his seat.

"Yes!"

The person in front of him was a young teen with the similar figure as him, even their heights were about equal by the first glance. But what made this person called Ace distinct from him was the obvious shine of their hairs. Eight's was colored shady hazelnut while his was radiant gold. The golden haired teen started his beeline toward the stage as Eight could already hear some more commotions coming from his classmates.

"Freshmen representative… That means he got the highest grade on the entrance exam, right?"

"Amazing!"

Yeah, there were no other words to describe that freshmen representative. Having a good brain would help him for the incoming years here…

"Hey, Inaba, don't you think he's cute?" a girl just right beside Eight squealed to her friend, which was perfectly next to her.

"Y-yes! H-he's handsome!"

…As well as having a good looks would definitely help as well. Ah, Eight could already foresee this Ace had a fan club of him in the near future.

Ace made a quick stop as soon as he was on the middle of the stage. He coughed a little once, adjusted his tie a bit before he started his speech.

"With every respect I could muster," he politely began. "Fellow freshmen, welcome to Suzaku High. As of today, we had passed the very gate that I personally had so admired since long ago-"

Yep, girls would definitely consider him a perfect boyfriend material. Smart, had fantastic appearance, and quite the way with words. Eight would lie if he was going to say that he wasn't jealous here.

"-All the more, I hope we will be able to further our skills through friendly competitions-"

Suddenly, almost every pair of eyes there were locked at Ace, whether it was due to his amazing speech, due to his amazing looks, or even due to how loud he was and disturbed their nap.

…

Located on the second floor of the main building, it was no exaggerations to call the location of classroom of 1-B noisy, especially considering that it was about next to the stairs, where everyone passed through all the time. The good point to that? You didn't really need to rush that much if you were late, and the cafeteria wasn't located too far from the class as well; just exactly one floor down and all set.

The seats were practically free to grab, first one to sit on a certain seat, and that chair was going to be his or her seating position for one year. That was a general, but unwritten rule in every class of Suzaku High.

Eight himself was lucky enough to grab a position he found the best. The second one from the back on the leftmost row, directly next to the window. In that position, the soft breeze of the air would blew, simply calming and comforting.

The most perfect of the most perfect.

He didn't know whether it was a coincidence or destiny, but in front of him was… the freshmen representative, Ace. He had silently observed him for a bit after he arrived in this class, this Ace guy barely spoke a word and he just quickly opened a small literature book and he calmly read that book wordlessly. Eight's first impression on Ace, you asked? Antisocial, perhaps might be cold-hearted, even.

But you know what they said about first impression, they rarely came out true. And so did this situation. Sure, that blond didn't speak a word, but at one occasion, a group of girls approached him and asked something that Eight wasn't really sure of, Ace immediately closed his book and responded to them gently.

Still, maybe Ace did not realize the squeals those girls emitted when they were able to successfully talk to the guy as he returned to his book. Wow, everything about him sure escalated quicker than Eight had originally thought. This Ace was definitely interesting.

Aside from Ace, he had observed some people that were around his seating position. The long-pigtailed girl right next to himself, for one. This one girl sent his 'judging meter' to the weirdest point. Let's point that out, for one, that she kept humming and talking to herself while rocking her head to the side and forth all the time, all in all while she kept smiling like an innocent baby. He didn't know her name yet, but he would put this girl into the category of… adorable-yet-rather-nuts as of now.

In front of the pigtailed girl, there was a cute girl, a very cute one. Her light brown hair was definitely combed perfectly and groomed astoundingly into a small, eye-catchy ponytail. Aside from her appearance, she seemed to be a kind girl altogether. While she seemed to be busy with texting someone by her cell phone, whenever there was someone that initiate a conversation with her, she would stop her attention at her mobile phone as she replied back with a small smile, sometimes blushing shyly a bit. He couldn't count how many boys were already infatuated by that feature of her already.

Hell, he might be one of them.

Then… there was one guy that undoubtedly grabbed everyone's attention. The spiky haired guy with very muscular build, who sat with his legs on the table. Moreover, he didn't seem to care to the eyes of the people that were scared, or even disgusted by his attitude, he merely slept there like that with big headphone covering his ears.

Er… What was the word again? A delinquent, right?

Oddly enough, the four of them (Ace, the pigtailed girl, the chocolate-haired girl, and Eight himself) were the only one that weren't bothered by the boy's attitude. Personally, Eight never had a delinquent such as this guy as a classmate before, but he often hung out with people that were familiar with that type of guy. He didn't really like that brash attitude, of course, but not that he could actually change that.

After all, this kind of variations made a class more interesting.

Just when he was about to avert his attention elsewhere, the main door of the class was promptly opened, surprising almost everyone of 1-B. Before the door now was a tall man looking in his mid-twenties, dressed in a formal teacher shirt. His deep blue hair was pretty conspicuous already, but the true noticeable trait was the scar around his mouth, which made him looked rather enigmatic.

"Good morning, class." his deep, monotonous voice echoed in the class as he walked to the teacher's table.

Nobody knew his exact name, but one thing that was obvious was that this man was their homeroom teacher. Thus, they replied with something appropriate: greeted him back. Some did it enthusiastically, some flatly.

"Good morning, sensei!"

The homeroom teacher gave a small nod indifferently as he put his book on the table, before he opened his mouth to talk.

"I'll be your homeroom teacher for one year, class 1-B. My name is Kurasame Susaya and I—"

Out of blue, Kurasame abruptly cut his own sentences as his gaze slowly trailed over to a certain person, which he stopped right when he acquired his target in his sight. Everyone sans the said certain student moved their heads to see what was their teacher staring at.

Eight let out a small scoff at this. Of course, his teacher was glaring intently at the delinquent boy.

Surprisingly, Kurasame merely sighed as he calmly grabbed a chalk from his pencil case. And as swift as he took it, he launched it right on the sleeping student's head. The said student stumbled back and fell with his back first with a loud 'OW!' coming from his mouth, rolling on the floor in pain while rubbing his poor head after.

"…Now where were we?"

Like a true boss, the homeroom teacher casually ignored the student's pain. He stayed reserved at his previous action and he didn't even look like he regretted it any bit.

"Oi, asshole! The hell was that fer!?"

The delinquent's raucous voice erupted as he rose from his position and he glared back at the homeroom teacher, while still massaging the back of his head, his headphone dropped dead on the floor. However, as soon as his glare met Kurasame's uninterested stare, the student's face started to get painted with every bit of horrors he had ever experienced.

"T-the fuck!? I-I got ya as my homeroom teacher!?"

Okay, suddenly things were getting rather interesting. You know, the moment when you found a supposedly-intimidating-person chickened out by a more-intimidating-person. At the young boy's curse, Kurasame emitted another exasperated sigh.

"Watch your mouth, Nine. You don't want me to flunk you again."

…Oh, that made sense. A delinquent from last year got flunked? Totally not something very surprising, no sarcasm.

Still pale, Nine slowly reached for his chair before he sat back like a good boy. He still grumbled and cursed Kurasame under his breath, though.

Rather satisfied with Nine's response, Kurasame calmly continued, resting his arms on the small podium in front of him.

"As I've said, I'll be your homeroom teacher, as well as your mathematics teacher, 1-B." Kurasame paused a little, gazing at his nervous students a bit before he opened his attendance book. "I'm going to call you by your name. I expect you to raise your hand as well as introducing yourself in response."

That flat and blatant tone from Kurasame only made them more nervous, if any.

"Ace."

Eight raised an eyebrow as the golden haired student in front of him raised his hand. Gee, teachers sure did love to call him first a lot, not in the bad way, of course.

Ace rose from his seat calmly, but he would be lying if he wasn't nervous a little here. On the other hand, Kurasame seemed to already have a mild interest in him. Well, considering Ace scored the highest score on the entrance exam, that was pretty understandable for a normal teacher to be ecstatic about it.

"You can call me Ace. I am from Hosen Junior in Akita. My favorite subject is biology, and I enjoy reading books in my spare time."

As Ace introduced himself, Eight could already hear some commotions coming from the other side of the class. He couldn't tell exactly, but they were probably talking about Hosen Junior High. Eight never knew much about it (it was pretty far from Tokyo, mind you), but rumors said that school got a lot of geniuses enroll there and most of graduates from there mostly earned a guaranteed pass to rated-S high school.

That kinda explained how smart Ace was.

"…That's all, I suppose? I am very pleased to be your acquaintance, class 1-B." Ace awkwardly scratched his cheek, faint nervous blushes appearing on his face. Again, while Ace didn't seem to notice, Eight could swear he heard the girls squealing over Ace's blushing face.

Ace sat down again as Kurasame nodded and returned to his attendance book, calling the next name composedly. "Deuce."

"A-Ah, yes!"

The soft-spoken yet surprised voice came from the cute brown haired girl that was simply breathtaking for the boys. Needless to ask, almost everyone, girls included, paid attention to the said girl's action.

"My name is Deuce. I-I am from Keiai Junior in Chiba." She bashfully introduced herself, swallowing a lump of nervousness as she paused for a moment. "Umm… I love music and I always dreamed of becoming a musician in the future. I also love to make friends, so I hope we will become good friends, everyone!"

Deuce's last sentence was rather cheery unlike the first, but nonetheless, her demureness was already engraved in those normal school boys' hearts, Eight's included.

Kurasame nodded as an affirmation as Deuce sat back again and she exhaled a sigh of relief. He ticked something on the book with a pen before he called the next name. "Akane."

A girl rose from her seat as she introduced herself. The girl was not as cute as Deuce, but still scored pretty high in Eight's dictionary. After she had done introducing, she sat down back and Kurasame called the next student, in which the student raised his hand and stood from his seat to introduce himself.

It continued for another five or six person until Kurasame called for a certain name called 'Cinque'. As soon as he announced it, the pigtailed girl raised her hand enthusiastically and almost rocketed off of her seat.

If that didn't surprise everyone, then there wasn't anything else that could surprise them.

"Heya frieeends~ I am Cinque~" the girl exclaimed in quite a… weird accent as she pumped her fist on the air. "Cinque's from Keiai like Deucey there~ Actually, we were classmates as well! And Deucey was always as shy as this as well~"

…The whole class was speechless, except for Deuce who covered her face in embarrassment while muttering 'Cinque! That's not how you introduce yourself! And don't bring my name with you in that sort of introduction!' under her breaths.

"But that's enough of Deucey! Cinque will talk more about Cinque!" Cinque smiled innocently, and pulled her arm first before pumping it up again on the air. "So~ Cinque really really like to play softball! And Cinque often scored homeruns! Cinque will join the softball club and try her best there!"

Eight made a face, that sort of face. Okay, maybe he had underestimated her about being weird. She was a plain nut job, alright.

Even Kurasame couldn't help but put his face on his palm. He was happy that he got a promising student like Ace, but he had to get Nine and this girl under his care for one year? This was definitely not going to be one of the better years for him.

For the sake of his sanity as well, Kurasame gestured for Cinque to sit down again. The girl pouted a little when her 'little' introduction was abruptly cut, but after Deuce, who was still embarrassed like hell, suggested her to sit down as well, she obeyed. Surprisingly— or not surprisingly, Cinque returned to her humming once again.

What a mood whiplash, but nobody was surprised anymore after that introduction.

Sighing in exasperation, Kurasame called the next student and the respective student would reply by introducing themselves to the class. Once again, the cycle returned for around ten students until the name was mentioned.

"Eight."

Ah, about time.

Rising from his seat, Eight regulated his tie a bit before he spoke. Better try to leave as best impression as possible.

"Hello, class. You can call me Eight. I am from Otsuma Junior in Saitama. As for my hobby, I have extreme fondness on sports and I always do them whenever I have the chance." He stopped a bit, smiling slightly to the whole class. "Pleased to meet you guys. Let's enjoy our high school life together."

Okay, Eight supposed that was good enough so he slumped back on his chair. Now, hopefully he got good responses from that.

In which luckily, he did. It was faint and barely audible, but he managed to hear some girls were chatting about him.

"Hey, he's not bad."

"Yes. Ace, Naoki, Satoshi, and then this Eight. There are four of cute boys already!"

…Yes…!

All of his yes!

Practicing those lines for the whole night yesterday actually paid off handsomely. He swore he wanted to shout 'YAHOOO!' so much for his crowning moment of fabulousness, but he had to keep his image calm and collected for the time being.

Maybe he had to celebrate this later on. Inviting Jack didn't sound too bad as well.

Kurasame gave a small 'hmm' at Eight's introduction. The blue haired teacher checked the attendance list and continued his job on calling all of his students. Just like what their friends had done, every time Kurasame called their names, they would let the others knew about them, albeit it was still short.

But hey, there would be the times to recognize each other better later on.

At least it reached the dark horse's name. Kurasame needed to let out a sigh again as he mentioned the name.

"Nine."

Everyone fell silent. Some stared at him, but some were too scared to even gaze at him. And frankly, the silent treatment they gave to him put Nine in a rather difficult situation.

"Uh… hey." He scratched his spiky hair. "'m Nine. I'm from…"

Silence.

"Uuuuhhh…"

More silence. Nine could only scratch his hair faster in confusion.

"…hell was the name again? Sorry, Kurasame. I kinda forgot my junior high school's name, oi."

The whole class actually laughed at this, meanwhile Kurasame facepalmed once again. Nine didn't even address him with his title, and the obvious forgetting his junior high school's name? He didn't need to deal with this particular idiot right now. The sooner that he could finish dealing with Nine, the better.

"Next, Kazuyoshi."

Nine blinked in surprise. As another boy wanted to stand and introduced himself, Nine started something unsurprising; a childish tantrum, scaring some students of 1-B.

"THE HELL!? YA PRACTIC'LLY SKIPPED ME, OI! I HAVEN'T 'VEN STARTED YET!"

Why in the world this idiot resided in his class, or even existed was beyond Kurasame. Of course, he always had the countermeasure against this idiot. The teacher swiftly grabbed three pieces of chalk and launched it at Nine.

Nine was too late to notice it, and voila! Three chalks straight on the forehead! His big body was sent arched back and the back of his head once again met the cold floor of the surface. The impact left out a big thud, and Nine was probably left knocked out cold on the floor thanks to that.

This was definitely what everyone meant by 'Three strikes, and you're out!".

Kurasame's reaction? He continued his class like there was no problem at all.

The homeroom teacher kept on calling his pupils' name. The process continued smoothly until something very weird happened.

"Cater."

No response.

"…Cater." Kurasame repeated, but the response was still the same: None.

The students looked at each other, trying to find the student named 'Cater', but to no avail. A student wasn't present on her first day? This was rare.

"Anyone knew her already?" he inquired to his students, but no positive response. Nobody recognized this Cater girl.

Except if she was sick. That thing couldn't be helped. This might be rare, but it wasn't like it never happened before.

For now, Kurasame skipped the name and returned to his work on calling his student one by one.

That was when everyone managed to notice the loud steps from the hall. Every student inquisitively turned their heads on the direction of the hall, when the door to class 1-B was abruptly opened by a girl.

A red-haired girl, whose uniform was rather unkempt from all her running, was standing by the door, inhaling and exhaling heavy breaths in exhaustion. While her green eyes radiated the panics and rushes inside of her, they were still emitting an unique light of their own. It was obvious that she was late, she hadn't even changed her sneakers into her uwabaki yet.

"I-I am not late yet, r-right?"

Next: Chapter 2: Room 218

And thus started Eight's life in his new dorm— But h-hey! This was all too good to be a coincidence! Someone must have pulled the strings that he was stuck with this person. Again.

*Gakuran : Uniforms for many middle school and high school boys in Japan. The color is normally black, but some schools use navy and dark blue as well. The top has a standing collar buttoning down from top-to-bottom. Buttons are usually decorated with the school emblem to show respect to the school. Pants are straight leg and a black or dark-colored belt is worn with them.

*Uwabaki : A type of Japanese slippers worn indoors at home, school or certain companies and public buildings where street shoes are prohibited. The shape resembles that of a pair of shoe more than a flip-flop.

As you can tell so far, the main character is Eight. As for pairing, while 84 will definitely be in as you can tell from the characters tag, some side pairings will make it inside. Yanno, I might twiddle with the side pairings a bit. I am not the biggest of a shipper so everyone x everyone is totally fine with me, although I do have my favorites as well: the ever-so-popular shipping quartet of FF Type-0 fandom (I am talking about A2, 84, 35, and MR).

Except I might be kidding. The romance wouldn't be too strong here, probably, because I intended this for more friendship/gen based here. Probably.

Bet you guys think that the plot is predictable, right? I'm just going to tell you this: Keep your eyes open. You can't ignore the obvious humor tag as well, okay? A lot of wackiness and dorkiness will ensue in the later chapters. R & R, yes?