"How're you feeling?" Marion turns the wheel and makes a smooth turn to the right. Her eyes remain on the road, even as she talks to me.
"Uh, a little queasy?"- it seems that not riding in any vehicles for a full four years has made me susceptible to motion-sickness. I don't even feel like answering her question. But there's something intimidating about riding a car with a stranger. Especially if that stranger is the one who's driving. It was her car too.
"Haha, I was asking about going to school, but I guess car-sickness . . ."
"Why'd you dye your hair blonde?", I ask, to change the topic. No one needed to remind me of the sloshing in my stomach.
"So you remember me?", it wasn't so much of a question, than a statement. "Well, I didn't – I just let it grow back to its natural colour. When you saw me that time, I'd dyed it then".
For some reason, Marion never quite registered as a natural blonde to me.
"Moving on, do you have any questions about today?", Marion asks.
"Nope", I answer.
"Well, just make sure that if anyone asks who you live with, you can tell the truth. But if they ask about your father, it's none of their business, or your mother has never told you", Marion instructs. I completely agree with the last part. "And if anyone asks, just say that I'm a family friend. If they ask you for details, I'm someone your mother knows better than you do", Marion adds.
"Right", I answer a little too quickly. I hadn't meant it, but it was difficult to hold a conversation when your head and stomach were both swimming together. The worse thing was that the pain wasn't constant and just wouldn't stay put. It keeps throbbing and pulsating, moving and changing like oil slipping in water. I really wish I hadn't had that extra, nervous cup of coffee that morning.
"What's wrong?", Marion notices my expression.
"Umm, can I walk to school?".
"Not today – we'll be late otherwise", she says after a pause.
Not today. I'm surprised she even considered it. And thankful too, on behalf of my stomach.
The whole of the school is surrounded by a navy-blue metal fence. A white board bears the school's name next to an open, blue book. I'm guessing the blue book is the school logo.
I notice this all from the safety of the car window. A sheet of curved glass; keeping me from the outside world, and the outside world from me.
There's a boy looking at his watch.
There are two girls talking with each other. One is kicking at the grass, and another is laughing.
There's a bored looking woman with her arms crossed, standing near the front gates.
There's even a grumpy-looking crossing-lady with a face like a bulldog.
there's just so many of them
And suddenly the idea of getting out of the car -let alone walking for a whole forty minutes to school every morning- is not a very good one. I can't do it. Not out there.
"Shell-shocked?" Marion grins at me, as if she had expected this.
How do I do this? Will I standout? Will they realise that there's something wrong with me? Will they know I'm not human?
"Come on", Marion's already parked the car and has opened the door for me. The cold air sticks to my cheeks and the wind waters my eyes. I can hear the voices of students mingling like the subtle chorus fading-out at the end of a song.
This time Marion puts her hand into the car and hauls out my bag. It's actually pretty heavy, so I have no idea how she managed to pull it out so easily with just one arm. "We can't be late since it's our first day today- you know what they say about first impressions", Marion pushes the open gap of the car door, wider.
It's freezing, and I can't stop my teeth from chattering. I hate it. Marion tells me I'll get used to it in another two or three weeks. That's fifteen whole days of tremoring limbs and pink eyes.
We almost bump into another student when he slides open the door to the classroom, the same time Marion reaches for the handle. The boy has brown hair much like dried weeds and grass. But it's his eyes that are the most striking. The whites are of a lolly-pink tint and at first I think that that's because of the cold, but then I realise that it can't be. It's cosily warm inside the building with its navy woollen carpet and he was just exiting the classroom.
"So what? I've got an eye-infection; you got a problem with that?", the boy startles me with a scratchy voice.
I realise then, that I'm staring too bluntly. I mumble a quick apology.
"Well, William has a problem, does he?", Marion names the boy and leans slightly, in his direction.
These two know each other? But the look on the boy's face says that he's just as surprised as I am. He quickly recovers and slides the door in our faces, presumably dropping the idea of leaving the classroom - as he had clearly meant to, earlier. Marion just calmly opens the door again. I can't see her face, but her posture remains as straight as ever.
There's a man with steel-grey hair standing in front of a class of bored looking students. To my childish relief, he isn't holding a quinque -or even a ruler.
I can only see the teeth of one student yawning in the middle of the front row. His teeth look much the same as any other teeth I've seen, save for a bit of plaque where he may not have brushed properly. Gross. I think I can see strings of saliva. They are almost invisible in the light, but glisten and let me know they're there.
The boy with eye-infection is sitting at a table furthest to my left, in the back. Mercifully, the tables are speckled grey squares in rows; nothing like the wooden tables and dolls of the classroom in my nightmares.
Frantically, I search the faces in the classroom, to see if any one of them might be familiar -that any one of them might be Eugene. As I accidentally lock eyes with a few, I realise with a sickening sinking of the stomach, that I'm not so sure that I could even remember Eugene's face anymore. Even if I saw a photo of him now, I might not be able to recognise him. I try to console myself with the fact that that he's dead and couldn't possibly be sitting as a ghost in a classroom full of live children. Even so, isn't someone's death a rather grotesque kind of consolation? A small part of me does miss him, and it feels wrong to be relieved that the only human able to recognise me as the old Kiev, is dead.
"Well, you guys have a new classmate now. We know it's pretty late in the year now, so I want you all to be as helpful and welcoming as you can to Kiev", the man with steel-grey hair says. He introduces himself as the principal, and I wonder where the teacher is.
But then the principal continues, "You also have a new teacher; Mrs Elstwick".
I have no idea what to be shocked about first:
1.That she even has a surname.
2.That she is actually married to someone.
3. That Marion is now my teacher.
So, who here, is sick of blonde jokes?
Well I hope you aren't getting sick of the story. Well, Kiev just had to be sent to school, so he could develop as a character through his interactions with others and blah blah blah, that you guys probably don't want me to rant about.
Well, point is, things should get interesting. And I wonder if this is a spoiler, but . . . Kiev will be going on a school excursion soon. It'll probably sound boring when revealed, but trust, me there's a reason for it - No! Stuff that! Right, so about Marion, her credentials as a teacher are actually legit, but more on that later, haha.
And I get that even though this is meant to be a fanfiction, all the characters in here so far are my own TT TT. But I promise that characters from the original Tokyo Ghoul will make an appearance. I guess not using official characters as mains, was a big mistake for my first fanfiction, so I apologise.
Anyway, sorry about the late update - I'll probably have the next chapter ready within the week^^;