Chapter 1: Different

Do I really belong here?

I asked myself as I stood in front of my new school, The Thing High school, with its name written in gold letters on the front.

Usually, when someone just passed an entrance exam to the school they wanted, they would feel proud of themselves. But at this very moment, I couldn't feel any pride or happiness. I felt embarrassment and guilt cluttering in my mind. I wasn't worthy of being this school's student. I wasn't supposed to pass the exam in the first place.

This tall building I was about to enter, it was the most recommended school for advanced learning. Only the students with straight As were confident enough to compete and try to win a place at this school, so I was sure there was no hope for me, who was already struggling to get a B or C. I wouldn't have even thought of applying for this school if it hadn't been for my step-mother, whom I always had mixed feelings whenever I thought of her. She made me mad every time she came to my mind, but I was also scared of her. When she was told that I failed to get into a similar school in our hometown, she wasn't afraid to let out the most cruel insults that anyone could ever imagine, saying that I was "the worst of failures". But then, she wasn't the one to give up her pride that easily, so after a year, she forced me to apply for this school. Knowing that there was no point in protesting, I unwillingly accepted, even if it frightened me that the school was over three hundred miles away from where I was living.

How did I manage to pass the exam, you ask? Well, being a "dumb girl" that I was, I couldn't get here by a normal mean.

In other words, I cheated.

How I got away with it, I had no idea, but it wasn't what I cared about. After the day I received a letter of acceptance, my mother was basically jumping in joy and went to every nook and cranny of our neighborhood to boast about it. It was absolutely sickening that she told everyone about how she was always there for me, how she had to stay up every night because she couldn't bear seeing her daughter lose sleep. Lies. She wasn't proud of me. She was only proud of her own self. She just cared for achievements and perfect she said was a damn lie, but I just sealed my mouth was a relief that I passed, so maybe I should just appreciate that fact rather than ruining it.

Taking a deep breath, I gripped my backpack and placed my first step into this school. Seeing the groups of students and hearing their happy chatters reminded me greatly of the old times. Last year, on this very day, I was still walking side by side with my friends, telling each other about the adventures we had during summer break. But now, here I was, alone in the sea of people. The beautiful nature was usually my source of comfort, but hearing the rustling of the leaves right now just seemed to make me feel more lonely. Such drastic change almost made me cry, but I quickly tried to hold back the tears. It was my first day of school in a new city, so I couldn't afford to let anyone see my pathetic crying face.

After looking at the school map at the main entrance, I got a good grip of where the staff room was and was now in front of it. I straightened up myself, holding my right hand up and knocked on the door three times. Right after then, a very familiar voice spoke up from inside the room.

"Come in."

Ah, the principle with his unique, monochrome voice. I entered the room and he was already standing right in front of you in a gray dress shirt, which was worn underneath a gray sweatshirt with lighter stripes, blue jeans and black dress shoes. I met him a few days ago, when I came to school with my step-mother to discuss about the fee, the schedule, etcetera… But that day, at the exact moment when I stepped into his office, his face scared the ghost out of me.

I wasn't saying that he was the ugliest person ever existed on Earth, or that he had a nightmarish, scary face-

…

Okay, that last part was the case. He did look scary.

At the first glance, he looked pretty normal. Slightly tan skin, short dark hair, broad shoulder… Everything about him looked fine until I looked at his face, or his eyes in particular. Both his pupils and eye whites were black – well, in this case, they wouldn't be called eyes whites anymore. They looked… hollow, like a deep void without an end to it. The more I looked into them, the more I felt the chill crawling up my spine.

His eyes already scared me enough, and his voice weren't helping. The first "Come in" he said when my mother knocked on the door wasn't enough to make me realize it until a few moments later. His voice was monochrome without any emphasize to it. Every word that came out of his mouth had the exact same tone, like a voice of a robot. I thought my ears were playing tricks on me for a moment.

Despite all that, my fear toward him lessened when my mother and I actually sat down and talked to him for a while. Although I thought that he was a little too extra, like when he told us that breaking the school rules would get me into detention, he seemed pretty nice in general. So now I could stand in front of him and talked normally without backing away or trying to keep distant.

"You're the transfer student the other day, right?"

"Yes, I am, mister."

Hearing the answer he expected, he nodded and extended his hand to me, signaling me to take it, which I did.

"Welcome to The Thing High school, April Clover." He shook hands with me, giving me a greeting.

"Thank you, mister." I smiled, trying to be polite back.

He gave me the school map and introduced me to my homeroom teacher, Mrs. Robin. Her friendliness made all the tension in me melt away, but they returned as soon as I closed the door behind me. The moment I was in the hallway again, I felt the nervousness creeping up on me again. I still had one more challenge to face before finally deciding if I could survive the first day, and that challenge was to meet my new classmates. I had sworn to myself to try my hardest and make a good impression with them and maybe making some new friends along the way. But at the back of my mind, there was still something I worried about, which was the fear of being bullied. I'd heard stories about students getting bullied when some of their classmates found out that they came from a smaller, faraway area, so now I was scared that I would have to eventually face it one day.

That thought haunted me as I headed to my classroom, homeroom 99.

Well, this hadn't been bad so far.

When I first entered the classroom, everyone was indeed staring at me and I internally begged them to stop. But then, they were nice enough to welcome me in with a genuine smile. Sitting at my seat, which was at the right corner of the classroom, I was greeted by three students: Allen, a boy with light chestnut brown hair; Hannah, who was apparently very good at Biology, and Jessie, who was clearly interested in photography. I got to know their hobbies and interests from when they were asked what they had done in summer. Hearing everyone's stories made me… envy them. Even if they were those people who just lay at home when summer came, they still at least enjoy their time. I, on the other hand, couldn't even have one single day off and had to spend time with books and assignments instead.

If I counted the names correctly, my class had 32 students, about what I expected. Just after she finished, the bell rang, signaling that homeroom session was over. Mrs. Robin left the room for a while to report my class's attendance and returned a few seconds later, telling us that the first period had begun. Well, I didn't know if I should call it a "period", since Hannah told me that on the first day, all classes would have 15 minutes each teachers to meet their students and go through some rules, just like how my old high school did. Mrs. Robin did exactly that, telling us about how she wanted the class to behave and how the class's grades should look like at the end of the school year. I also found out that she taught Biology, and her rules were quite simple. We all were expected not to make too much noises in class, to complete our homework, be polite to everyone and get grades no lower than D.

I met two more teachers in the next two periods, one taught P.E and the other taught Chemistry. Like most of the students in my class, I liked the P.E teacher for who he was. He was in his mid 40s, but he was still a very chilled man who liked to act cool all the time and was still very energetic. The Chemistry teacher was about in his late 20s, a little grumpy and kind of strict about how we should behave to him. But he actually cared a lot for his students and knew a lot in his field. According to Jessie, he knew more than what was written in the textbook, so he usually had many interesting unmentioned facts to tell the class, to engage the students into the lessons and help them understand better, thus making them remember their lessons longer.

The second and third period went through smoothly. But then came the fourth period…

After the third period, we had a 5-minute passing time. I guessed that it was the first day, so it wasn't as long as the usual 10-minute passing time. As I was chatting with Jessie, Allen and Hannah, someone slammed the door open, making most of the students jump in surprise. We all looked at the door, and saw that the said student was out of breath with lots of sweats on her face, keeping one hand on the door while putting the other hand on her chest, trying to calm her heart down.

"What the hell was that for, Ann?!" One student sitting at the front said. "I'm sure my soul just left me a moment ago! Ya trying to kill me or something?!"

"J- James, look… I'm v- very sorry to y- you, as well as anyone i- in class right now, b- but- but this is urgent!" The girl could barely talk, every breath that she just got back was all spent to form every word. "So, I just went t- to the bathroom a moment ago, and when I w- was heading down the hallway back to our class, I s- saw…"

"Saw what, Ann?" The girl sitting in front of me said worriedly.

"I saw- saw-" She stumbled even more, seemingly trying to remember something. "Urg! I- I forgot his name, but it was our bald Math teacher from last year!"

The whole class gasped, but Allen just gave her a long, blank and unimpressed stare.

"Ann…" Allen spoke up immediately after the gasping had stopped. "If you can remember that he's bald, then I guarantee you that you can remember his name using just a tiny amount of effort."

Ann stared into the air for a few seconds before snapping her fingers. "Oh right, I remember now!"

Allen face-palmed. Hard.

"And here I am, thinking that no one could possibly forget his fucking name." He said out loud, sliding his hand down his face slowly.

"B- But that's not important right now!" Ann said right after. "He's heading to our class right now! Everyone, prepare yourselves!"

"Oh my god, I totally forgot about him until now!" One girl said quietly, her voice full of fear.

"I'm totally the opposite." Another girl said. "He's so nightmarish that I literally could not forget him at all!"

"Sit still and stay silent, everyone! He's gonna notice if we're too loud."

"Allen, watch your mouth, alright?" Hannah said, reaching her hand up to Allen.

"I already told myself the exact thing." Allen replied, moving his hand across his mouth in a zipping motion.

I looked around as my class changed 180 degrees. Every single student in the room was practically freaking out, but none dared leave their seat. All the happiness and energy they had were all gone in seconds. I freaked out as well, not understanding what was going on.

"J- Jessie! What is happeni-"

I turned my head toward Jessie, but before I could finish my sentence, she cut me off by putting a finger over my lips.

"Shh, do not muster a word, okay? I'll explain later."

She immediately straightened up her poster as I heard the door opening and came in a fair-skinned, dark-eyed man who was extremely tall, about six feet or taller. The very first thing I noticed was his bald head with just a single strand of hair sticking out. He wore a white dress shirt underneath a green, V-necked, long-sleeved sweater, a black tie tucked underneath the sweater, black pants and black dress shoes. A black messenger bag was swung from one of his shoulders to across his torso, and in his hand was a long, yellow ruler.

I looked down at my hands, my body suddenly freezing. I suddenly felt… something, something so familiar, but also so foreign that I couldn't even remember a tiny bit of it. It frustrated me, but I decided to stop thinking about it when he started talking.

"Summer's over, eh?" His voice was surprisingly very low, giving me the chills. "I bet you all are still hoping that it would last longer, right? I'm not gonna lie, but I'm tired of returning here, too. Oh well, time's up means time's up, you can only decide if you had fun while it lasted."

The classroom was literally dead silent, and I didn't like it. I suddenly realized that I missed the energetic atmosphere that had been here almost an hour ago. The teacher just talked for a very short moment, but it felt like eternity because no one was talking, not even a word, so I didn't dare say anything, although I desperately wanted the silence to end as soon as possible. He stopped for a few seconds to scan his eyes around the classroom and let out a long, tiring sigh as he crossed his arms.

"Alright, I heard that your class have a new student, am I correct?"

My heart skipped a beat. Oh right, I totally forgot about this whole "new student's introduction" thing. And that scared me to no end when I suddenly realized that I was supposed to stand up and talk to him myself. Everyone looking at me, giving me the face which told me that they feared for my life. I exchanged glances at them, sweats starting to run down my face.

"Come on now, hurry up, I don't have all day. I'm sure I'm not mistaken that a transfer student just got into this class." He urged, looking at the area where I wasn't sitting.

At that moment, I knew there was no other way to avoid this.

Gulping hard, I took all the courage I had in me, pushing myself up with my hands in a swift motion, wasting no time at all.

"It's me, mister."

Hearing my voice and the chair move from my movement, he turned his head back to me. I looked straight at his face, feeling my heartbeat quicken in a matter of seconds. I bit my lips, expecting him to give me a bored or cold expression, but what happened next was far from my expectation.

As soon as he made eye contact with me, his eyes widened and his mouth was slightly agape. I didn't know if my eyes was tricking me, but I was sure that his body was noticeably shaking to the point that he nearly dropped the ruler he had been holding tightly in his hand. I felt like he really wanted to say something but was completely unable to. His mouth kept opening and closing, as if words were stuck on the tip of his tongue, and all that came out of his mouth was small, mumbling, meaningless sound. Then, out of the blue, he took a small step back, like he was keeping himself from falling, one hand put on his left chest where his heart was located. And I swore I saw him breathing very heavily.

"M- Mister-"

I reached out one hand and was about to ask if he was okay. But he cut me off immediately, straightening up his posture.

"It's nothing, really n- nothing. J- just ignore that." He coughed as he put his fist in front of his mouth, the other hand holding his ruler and staying behind his back. "What's your name?"

"M- My name is- is April, April Clover."

He froze, looking away for a few more seconds before speaking up again.

"My name is Baldimore, but you can call me Mr. Baldi for short, and I'll be your Math teacher." His serious expression returned. "I'll have you know that I follow rules strictly to every bit, and you're expected to do the same when you're in my class. But…" He trailed off for a few seconds. "Since you're new here, I'll be easier on you for a while, so that you can get used to how I work."

"T- Thank you, Mr. Baldi."

"But…" He suddenly emphasized the word in an even lower voice, making me jump. "Rules are still rules. If you take advantage of this and break the rules, there will be serious consequences. Got it?"

"Yes, Mr. Baldi."

"Good. You may sit down now, April."

"Thank you, mister."

I sat down, letting out a long, relieved sigh. I couldn't believe I had managed to survive that successfully, and I felt proud of myself. Allen was also happy for me, turning his head back slightly and gave me a thumbs-up while Jessie and Hannah looked over me and smiled.