Chapter 1: Fresh Start

"RIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINGGGGGGGGGGGGG!" The familiar sound of my alarm clock woke me up suddenly from a particularly pleasant dream. I groaned and swatted my hand all over my bedside table in hopes that I would turn the annoying noise off without having to open my eyes. I did eventually, but not without knocking over the little glass bluebird that my mother had given me for my 13th birthday in the process. I slowly dragged myself out of bed and flicked on my bedside lamp before rubbing the crust from my eyes and drowsily looking around the room.

I had just started living in a small apartment by myself when my parents moved up the country for their work. They owned quite a large business together which caused all of us to have to move frequently. By the time I was 10, I have already pretty much seen every corner of Japan. It was fun, but it wasn't for me. When I got accepted into a prestigious private high school, I did all but beg on my hands and knees to try and convince them to let me stay in town. They eventually agreed and I ended up living in this tiny apartment. It was small, but delightfully cozy.

I sat on my bed and stretched my arms before bending down to pick up my little glass bluebird which thankfully wasn't broken. Thank the lord for shag carpeting.

I shakily stood up off of my bed and drew the curtain in my room back just enough to get a glimpse of the usual building complex outside. It was still dark. I checked my clock to see that it was only 5:00am. Great.

This was a bad habit of mine. On the first day of every term, I would wake up stupidly early to get a good start to the weeks of hard work ahead of me, and then wake up mere minutes before school started every day after. But yeah, today was the first day of the 2nd term of my freshman year, so it was kind of a big deal. I stretched one last time before making my way into the tiny bathroom. It was barely big enough to fit a bath, toilet and sink.

I looked in the mirror and almost choked at my appearance. My elbow-length, light honey colored hair was all over the place, sticking out in directions I didn't know were possible. I grabbed my hairbrush and began the painful task of brushing it, making sure to get out every little knot I could. I brushed my fringe which was hiding my droopy, sky blue eyes out of the way and pinned it back with a hairclip before splashing water over my face in hope that it would help me wake up a little more, but really all it did was make my face wet.

What did wake me up was the sound of my cellphone buzzing on my bed. Somebody was calling me. I wiped my face, my fringe still clipped back and checked who it was calling me. It was dad.

I answered it and held the phone to my ear. "Hello?"

"Hey there, Ayumi. How are you doing?" He sounded as enthusiastic ever.

"Dad, why are you calling me now? It's 5am." I groaned.

"Aw, come on kiddo. You think I don't know my own daughter's habits?" I guess I should've seen that coming. "Is everything okay over there? Are you sleeping alright? What about your diet? You're not eating too many sweets are you?"

The never ending wave of questions seemed to jam my brain the same way too many open tabs can jam a computer. In the end, all I could get out was "Yes dad." Before he wished me good luck, said hi to me from mom, and hung up.

I sighed and gently tossed my phone to my bed before heading back into the bathroom to finish cleaning myself up. I finished washing my face, brushed my teeth, brushed through my hair one last time and headed to the kitchen to grab some breakfast.

While my breakfast consisting of a slice of toast and my favorite sunny side up egg was cooking, I got ready for school. I slipped into my navy blue turtle neck sweater, navy blue skirt, tan blazer and knee-high white socks before heading back to the bathroom to tie a thin, red ribbon to the back of my head. It was kind of like my signature look.

I put together my breakfast (just moments before it burned) and checked my clock. Not surprisingly I still had about another hour before I needed to even think about heading to school. I sat down and dug into my breakfast. I wasn't exactly a 5-star chef, but I did know how to make a pretty mean egg and toast.

I was only halfway through my breakfast when my phone went off again. I picked it up expecting it to be dad or even mom calling to check up on me for the hundredth time. To my surprise, it was an unknown number. I barely ever got calls from anyone other than my parents, so to see an unknown number calling me on my cellphone actually made my heart skip a beat.

I took a deep breath before answering the call. "Hello?" I answered with a slight crack in my voice which caused me to facepalm, as if it was a sort of reflex.

"Hello? This is Ayumi Misaka, right?" a gentle voice, obviously female, asked over the phone.

"It sure is. Who's this?"

The voice giggled slightly. "It's Ushio Okazaki. Do you remember me?"

I felt a grin spread across my face from ear to ear. Ushio was a girl in my homegroup at school. I remembered giving her my cellphone number on the last day of term. I wouldn't say we were friends, but she was really the only person I spoke to in any of my classes. It's not like I was shy or anything, but we just kind of clicked the minute we met.

"Hey Ushio, this is a nice surprise. What's up?"

"Not much really. I just finished getting ready for school, so I thought I'd call you." Her voice sounded really enthusiastic. It kind of made me feel happy to know that she'd want to call me in her spare time.

"Well that's really nice of you. How was your break?" I asked.

"It was wonderful! My parents and I took a trip up north. It was a ton of fun. Say, do you want to meet me at the foot of the hill on the way to school? It'd be nice to walk up there together."

"That sounds like a great plan. How about I finish getting ready and I'll meet you at the bottom in about 15 minutes?"

"That's perfect! I'll see you in 15 minutes then."

"Okay, see you later." I hung up my phone. Ushio's enthusiastic nature seemed to be contagious. I felt as though I was ready to take the term head on.

I finished eating my breakfast, checked that I had everything for school for the fiftieth time and left my apartment with a spring in my step, rushing back 5 minutes later after forgetting to lock the door… Again.
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And thus concludes the first of many chapters of Clannad New Beginnings. I know that not much happened in this chapter but I hope that now you have a good idea of what Ayumi is like. I'll be going into more depth with her and the other characters later on but for now I've kept it short and sweet. I hope that you'll all continue to follow the adventures (if you can even call them that) of Ayumi, Ushio and co. Again, this is my first fanfiction and I'm completely open to constructive criticism.