I awoke to someone banging on my bedroom door. "Riku! You have to get up now!" my mother yelled for the fifth time that morning.

Not being much of a morning person, it took much of my self-control not to growl. I was not only awake, but completely dressed as well. I simply hadn't left my room (I showered the night before). I opened your door and grabbed a piece of bacon from the kitchen table. "I'm leaving for school now. Bye Mom!" I called as I walked out the door.

Once at school, I went to my locker and arrived at my classroom twenty minutes before the bell rang. No one else was in the room except the teacher and Shuichi Minamino. When I entered the room, Shuichi looked up and caught my gaze.

I looked back at him cautiously. Although I had known Shuichi since I was born, I still wasn't sure what to think of him. He was a pretty-boy, with long reddish-pink hair and a very polite attitude, which made him extremely popular. Girls in my grade tend to do everything in their power to get him to notice them. The guys all follow him so the girls would think they were his best friend. That annoys me. In fact, I would be completely repulsed by Shuichi Minamino if it weren't for one thing: he was like me.

I have never spoken to him about it, but I know it's true. I sensed it; he too was not human. The problem is, I'm not entirely sure what that means. If I wasn't human, then what was I? I can't seem to figure it out. Time and time again I have contemplated talking to him about it, asking him if he knew what I was, but I never could find a time at school when he was not surrounded by his adoring fans, and I'm not going to follow him home.

That is another reason I don't despise him. Watching him interact with those persistent girls, I've noticed that unlike most popular people, he doesn't seem to enjoy the attention-he hates it. He always seems to get uncomfortable. Even so, he's always polite and never snapps at anyone, which intrigues me. If I had that many people following me around all the time, I would yell at them quite a bit. But I guess that's why he's popular and I'm not.

The classroom began to fill up, signaling that class was about to start. The bell rang, and everyone sat down (with some prodding from the teacher).

Once the room was quiet, the teacher, Ms. Shinomori, began to lecture the class on adding and subtracting matrices. "First, you have to make sure that the matrices are compatible. You do that by…"

Only half-listening to the lecture, I began to doodle on my paper. First I drew a fox, then I drew a fire, and then I moved on to draw a person with fox ears and a tail. Lost in my own little world, I jumped when the bell rang, signaling class to end.

The rest of the day occurred in much the same way. Once school was over, I went to my locker and quickly left the building. I was at the edge of the school grounds when I heard a voice call my name. I turned to see Chiyo, a girl in my class. We weren't what you'd call 'friends,' but we spoke to each other sometimes.

"You dropped these," Chiyo said, holding out some papers. "I figured you might need them."

I thanked her and took the papers. As I turned to leave, something caught my eye.

Shuichi Minamino was walking away from the school, which slightly surprised me, because to my knowledge he always stayed late. The second reason he caught my attention is what made me pause. As he passed under the sakura trees, a breeze caused some of the petals to fall, drifting to the ground around him. The sun streamed softly through the trees, putting the finishing touches on the beautiful portrait. Suddenly, I found myself very jealous of Shuichi Minamino's perfection.