Kido adjusted the skirt of her new uniform, unable to keep a hint of pride from showing on her face. This year she was going to a new school, the same as her elder sister Ayano. It had been no surprise that she'd made it in; sad to say, as much as she idolized Ayano, the older girl's grades weren't that impressive, and if Ayano could get in, so could Kido. In fact, Kido was by far the best student in the family, followed by Kano (when he cared enough to show up). Ayano and Seto brought up the rear, both hard workers but absent minded, and far too honest to cheat, much to Kano's disappointment.

But they'd all made it in, and now were all going to the same school. Kido had never been willing to accept the possibility of the three of them being split up, not in the orphanage and not now either, though the stakes weren't quite as high. She'd forced the the boys to study until they were passing practice exams, and it had paid off.

With a tiny smile that she tried to hide, Kido buckled the clasp shut on her bag and slung it over her shoulder. She could see Ayano outside waiting for them through the window, so she made her way into the hallway, pausing to kick the nearest door with such precision and force that it flew open but didn't break. Cries of outrage sounded from the room.

"What if I'd been dressing?" Kano demanded from the floor, where he was not dressing, but in fact eating from a bag of cookies and paging through a week-old manga magazine. Seto was struggling with his bag by the desk, and he paused to grin sheepishly at Kido.

"We're a bit late, aren't we?" he asked, wrestling with the clasp. She came over to help him, whacking the back of his head. "Thanks," he replied, grateful.

"We're keeping Ayano waiting," she reprimanded, and Seto cringed guiltily. Kano didn't seem half as bothered, rolling to his feet and stretching.

He was wearing a jacket over his uniform, and she thought about telling him it was too warm today, but really she had no room to talk. She too wore a hoodie, oversized and lavender, a close match for a sentimental article of clothing from her childhood. Even Seto, though she thought he would be the odd one out, grabbed his white jacket from the back of the desk chair and jogged out the door, leaving the two of them behind.

"Got everything?" she asked Kano, trying to sound stern. He grinned crookedly at her.

"You're nervous," he guessed, not answering her question but sticking a pin right through the center of her whirling thoughts as always.

Not dignifying his apparent wizardry with an answer, she stuck her chin in the air and marched from the room, joining Seto and Ayano by the gate. Kano wasn't far behind, and then they left for their first day of school.

…

At the school gates, Ayano wished them goodbye.

"Have a good first day!" she said, straightening Kido's collar and combing her fingers through Kano's bangs, which refused to lie flat. She reached up and Seto bent down obligingly so she could take the clip from his hair, holding it in her mouth as she re-parted the black strands and then clipped it in again. She looked the three of them over, and then clapped her hands, satisfied. "If anyone gives you trouble you tell your big sis and I'll take care of 'em, okay?" She struck a heroic pose, hands clenched into fists, and they laughed. All of them had outstripped Ayano in height years ago, but the idea of her standing up for them still brought them comfort.

She waved and left to join her classmates, immediately pinching the cheek of the closest and pulling his face into a smile. It was nice to see that her motherly tendencies were universal, Kido thought.

"Okay, so we've got to find the listings for our grade," Kido announced, looking around.

Kano pantomimed a ridiculous frown, tapping his chin. "What'll we do if we're in different classes?" His tone was joking, but Seto suddenly seemed worried, looking to Kido for comfort.

"They wouldn't do that, right?" It was random, but it seemed a great injustice to separate them based on some classroom-filling formula.

Kido shrugged. "We won't know until we check, and we've got to find the list to do that. We're probably looking for a gaggle of lost-looking first years, in higher concentration than normal."

"Wouldn't that make us lost-looking first years ourselves?" Kano asked dryly, glancing around. Kido opened her mouth to reply but Seto cut her off, pointing excitedly.

"Is that it? Over there?" She followed his gaze and saw a series of large posters attached to bulletin boards. Students milled around, trying to get close enough to read it.

"Yeah, it is," Kido replied, zeroing in on it. "I'll go check it for us." she turned her body sideways so she could fit through the crowd, elbowing and shouldering her way through to the front. She squinted up at the boards, trying to find their names.

As she scanned the lists, a hand grabbed her shoulder, and she jumped. "Right up there," Kano said in her ear, just a touch too close for comfort, and she pulled her shoulder from his grasp, scowling. She followed his pointing finger, and there was her name, under class A. She kept looking. Kano too came up class A, and though it took her a second longer, she finally found Seto's name, also labeled A. She heaved a sigh of relief, and Kano patted her back.

"How did you get up here?" she asked suddenly, remembering how difficult it had been to force her way to the front.

"You're too harsh," he replied, putting a finger to his lips, and before she could decide if that was an answer or just a general statement, he'd taken a step backwards and vanished into the other students, as easily as if he'd walked through a curtain. She sighed and prepared to force her way back to where Seto hovered in the distance, but found that it was far easier going the other way. Relieved, she rejoined the boys.

"We're all class A," she informed him, and Seto grinned and punched the air, delighted.

…

When they reached the classroom, it was only half full, and she realized they weren't running as late as she'd thought. They went straight to the back, picking out a set of three seats; Seto in front, Kido behind him, and Kano off to her left. It was a formation perfected over the years; initially created to ward off bullies and keep Kano in check at the same time, it had become force of habit.

After they'd chosen seats they watched the rest of the students meander in, hanging their bags on the provided hooks. Kano was already making himself at home, tilting his chair back and resting his feet on the empty chair in front of him. Kido fought her instinct to kick his chair out from under him. Class hadn't even started yet. There would be time for that later.

A group of girls in the front were giggling, and Kido eyed them uneasily. She didn't mean to be hostile to outsiders, of course, but after she and her brothers had been rescued from various bad situations, she found it difficult to trust newcomers right away.
Well, it's not like she was here to make new friends. She had everyone she needed, in the form of her adoptive family. If she ever felt like something was missing, like she should have more friends that were girls, she didn't let it show. There was no use in bothering anyone else.

She'd taken a pencil from her bag and was fiddling with it, twirling it between her fingers, when the teacher walked in. The students stood, and Kido leaned against her desk, already bored.

Chairs scraped as everyone sat down again, and she planted her elbows on the desk, sighing. The teacher introduced herself, and then announced, "I'm going to call roll, and when I call your name you can stand up and greet the class. Also, it's fine where you're sitting for now, but I'll rearrange you soon."

Nerves burned in Kido's stomach. It wasn't because of the change of seating arrangements. She could handle that easily enough, especially since it would essentially make Kano not her problem and she could wash her hands of the job of keeping him under control all class. She just hadn't been expecting having to talk in front of everyone so early. What was she supposed to say? It was with a rush of relief that she realized she wouldn't be the first of the three to speak.

In fact, it seemed Kano was being called right now. He got to his feet, stretching lazily. Kido saw the teacher bristle out of the corner of her eye, and knew she was marking him as a troublemaker already. Good for her. Maybe she'd fare better than their other teachers had in the past.

Kano grinned at the room. "It's good to meet you," he said, somehow sounding perfectly angelic, and Kido frowned. What was he planning? "We're all going to have a great time this year," he said, spreading his hands, and if you didn't know him that would sound perfectly innocuous. But Kido knew him well enough to know that his tone of certainty was a sentence being passed down on their classroom, and that his definition of a 'great time' might not be 'great' for everyone.

Some of the girls up in the front row were staring at them, and Kido took a deep breath, ready to be called on. When the teacher said her name, she stood up a bit too fast, her chair scraping the floor loudly. She could hear Kano snickering, and Seto turned all the way around in his seat to give her a worried look. The girl in the front row was still staring, and Kido squared her shoulders.

"Hey," she said, letting herself smile a bit. There was no need to scare off the whole class before the year even started. "Hope we have a peaceful year," she added a bit lamely, hoping her wish would balance out Kano's. She sat back down, her cheeks a bit warm from the attention.

A girl in the front was next, and she stood to give her introduction, but Kido couldn't keep her attention on her. She tried, of course, wanting to be a good classmate, but her eyes kept sliding away from the stranger, and soon enough she found herself staring at the wood grain of her desk. As she stared, a square of paper entered her vision.

It came from the side of her desk where Kano sat, so she gave him a suspicious look as she unfolded it. 'an unexpected sight!' it read, 'Kido's smile was so heartwarming, I can't help but think this will be a wonderful year after all.'

Was he serious? Kido glared over at him, and he wriggled his eyebrows. Since violence in the classroom was generally frowned upon, Kido had to make do with slowly crumpling the ball of paper, all the while staring him in the eye so that he knew she was picturing it to be his head.

She was so intent on her task that she missed Seto being called, and soon the teacher was done with the roster. She dropped the crumpled ball of paper into her bag to throw away later and leaned on the desk, returning her attention to the front of the classroom as the teacher began to speak again. It was going to be a long year.