10 years later
Judai often had dreams about the night of the accident. His memories of the event were fuzzy and very vague. He always asked his parents what had happened. All they told him was he wasn't allowed in the woods. Which was a disappointment because their house they've been living in the last 10 years since they moved from Japan to Willow Colorado, had a backyard that lead right to the woods.
With the snow often falling and the weather usually very chill most days in the fall were filled with large patches of snow on the ground or clumps falling out of the trees in their front yard. His red school jacket usually covered up by another even heavier coat just to keep his slender and thin body from freezing. Even being here 10 years he still can't grasp the cold.
His breath escapes him as he pushes the back door open and trudges through the snowbank to their outside garbage can to throw out the garbage. He was in the middle of lugging it over his shoulder as he took short even breaths his breath coming out like a puff of smoke as he walked somehow managing to avoid getting his legs stuck like the last time.
He reached the trash can by the end of the driveway and tossed the bag in before grasping the van itself and hauling it to the side of the street for trash collecting. His brown hair was stuffed under an eskimo style snow hat which was plaid with red and green, his thick overcoat a checkerboard design except it was red and white not red and black. He wore black snow pants and thick maroon boots that had a cross stitching design on it in the shape of a dog.
Under his overcoat was his school jacket which was red and white accordingly and a black turtleneck to keep his neck warm. He wore maroon fingerless gloves on his hands that could easily be shifted to mittens. He blew air on his fingers before putting the mitten cover over his fingers as he returns to walking to the house.
The morning was quiet and the air as always was chilled as his brown eyes gaze towards the woods just over yonder past the edge of his house about 10 feet from his back door. His gaze always leads to the woods since his parents told him to stay away. They said it had something to do with their first day here in Willow, but since he was only 6 he can't recall anything that happened that day.
The reason his gaze went to the trees? It's because he felt like something was in there, watching him. It gave him a cold chill, almost like a stalker, or a serial killer. But oddly enough it made him curious, cause what was so fascinating about his life, or him in general? He shook his heads out of his thoughts as he ran back inside and fetched his book bag from the foyer. He didn't need to be late for the bus again.
"Bye mom! Bye Dad! I'm staying after school for Drama club!" He called out as he grabs his scarf and throws it on, chucking his bag over his shoulder. He pushed open the door and walked out closing it behind him.
He jogs to the driveway and walks down the sidewalk towards the edge of the block where the school bus picked everyone up. He saw 3 of his friends crossing over from the other blocks in the neighbor hood.
A short boy the same age as him with light blue hair grey eyes behind thin glasses greeted him first. He wore a yellow pullover that said big brains have advantage in life. He had blue slacks on with black snow boots on. His bag was hanging from both shoulders and was a lime green color.
"Hi Bro how are you this morning." The boy in question smiled at his short friend before looking at the male next to him, in Judai's case his semi best friend.
The male was taller than the other boy next to him almost matching Judai in height with black hair that went everywhere sharp and deep grey eyes and a all black atire with a black trench coat, black scarf, thick black pants and black tight boots. His bag was a crossover and clung to his chest leaving his arms free to cross over his chest.
"Hi Chazz, hi Sy. You guys get any sleep last night?" The reason he asked was because the town got their local snow plower running last night to plow the streets and their streets were pretty dense with snow after the snow storm that happened over the weekend.
"Barely! That damn snow plow ran down my street at 2 in the morning! If I ever see the man that messed with my sleep I'm gonna stuff yellow snow down his pants!" Chazz grumbled stomping his foot on the ground in irritation. Sy patted the black haired male's arm gingerly.
"Very understandable… My brother wasn't happy it happened either, he nearly got the bebe gun out and shot his tire…" Chazz and Judai looked down at their short friend semi surprise on their face. They didn't know Syrus's brother besides a few hellos whenever the three hung out or when he gave them a ride on his way to college.
"Remind me never to piss off your brother…" The two taller males said Simultaneously as the school bus pulled up in front of them, the doors opening as it pulls to a stop.
"Hello fellas!" Dorothy the bus driver called out as Syrus climbed up first each male giving the friendly driver a hello as they worked their way through the aisle of the bus and took a seat on the left side of the bus.
It wasn't very crowded most of the kids sat in the back to avoid the chatter box driver. For the three boys in general they didn't mind the bus driver, she was a kind lady in her 50s who's been driving the bus since they were in elementary school. "Nice morning right Miss Dorothy?" Judai smiled pulling out a ziplock from his bag and handed it to the bus driver. "Mom made pound cake. Enjoy!" The driver took it graciously a wide smile on her face.
"Your mother and her sweets! She's gonna win the contest again this year, I guarantee it!" She put the ziplock in her bag before shutting the doors as Judai took a seat next to Chazz with Sy across the row. He passed them each a ziplock bag with a slice of pound cake in each one. "Mom said make sure you each got one. I think she likes spoiling people."
Both boys took the bags eagerly. As long as they've known Judai since the boy moved to Willow, the three of them oddly stuck together. It wasn't that they ran in the same group, but more like they were the odd ones out most of the time. Chazz was known to be overly agreesive in elementary school, often biting other kids who pissed him off.
Syrus was a target for bullies because he was really smart even at a young age and read really thick books. And Judai with his broken English at the time had trouble making friends to begin with. Syrus and Chazz didn't mind Judai's attempts to talk in their language and both actually tried to teach him better English while Judai in return taught them Japanese. It was fun being the only three to actually insult their bullies in another language leaving them annoyed and confused.
Judai's parents were estatic when Judai brought the two boys home from school after about 2 weeks into their transition to being in a new town. The three have been best friends since.
"Your stuff is so good Bro. The sweets your mom makes are to die for… n-not literally!!" Syrus blurred out the last part his words catching him off guard because of his own eagerness to enjoy the pound cake.
Chaz rolls his eyes, a smirk on his face. "What's your mom got planned for this year's competition?" Judai scratched his chin thinking or trying to recall if his mom mentioned the contest yet. "Either she's still planning, or she's keeping it a surprise. You know how my mom is. The last surprise she did was those cherry cordial cupcakes." Syrus let out a groan. Judai looked over at him.
"Those cupcakes were so amazing! I remember my mom tried to bribe your mom with a spa day just to get the recipe." The boys broke out into a laugh as the bus goes to a stop at the next pick up as three girls climbed inside.
The girl in front wearing a tan coat with a hoodie covering her golden blonde hair, wearing black leggings and a dark brown skirt down to her knees with ankle brown boots. The girl behind her wore similar except it was light blue coat, black skirt, grey leggings and baby blue boots.
The other girl wore orange coat, red skirt, green leggings and white boots. They walked pass the three of them and sat in the middle of the bus and started chatting after they removed their hoodies. The other two girls had a navy blue hair and a chestnut orange brown hair color.
"The girls looking lovely today, even on a snow day." Syrus commented looking behind him as the bus shifted and continued going. Judai paid no attention to what Syrus said as he was digging around in his bag making sure his homework was there and actually finished this time.
Chazz glanced behind Judai towards the girls before shifting in his seat to face forward. "They're okay. Tho they'll never look at us man." That made the light blue haired male let out a shallow sigh as he shook his head. Changing the subject the same boy spoke up again. "Did you guys manage to finish the homework? We still have time before we get there. I can help you guys finish it."
Syrus didn't mind suggesting his help to his two friends. Judai and Chazz made decent grades in certain classes. Judai was great with science and history while Chazz was better with English and their extracurricular stuff.
Syrus was the only one amongst them who was nearly perfect in math and all other subjects, he wasn't very good with their extracurricular stuff, especially gym. The three of them balanced each other out with their school grades. Even with taking nearly different extracurricular activities the other two would still help the third with whatever they needed help with.
Last year it was up to Chazz to make a banner for the parade in his art class which both Judai and Syrus not being very artistic helped to the best they could and Chazz still made the deadline. While Chazz took art, Judai was a Drama boy and Syrus was in band class.
Chazz and Syrus found out then that Judai had a really good set of lungs and could sing very well. While Chazz and Judai learned that Syrus plays the Violin very well, he once brought the two boys to tears.
"Can you look over it and see if I got it right?" Judai pulls out his math sheet passing it to the short boy as well as Chazz's. Syrus throughly looked them both over, a hum here or there as he pointed out a couple things to the two as they took their papers back and made the appropriate changes to their math homework.
"Do we still have that test in history? Can I borrow your notes Judai?" Chazz asks putting his math homework back in his bag as Judai passes him his History note book.
"It should be the last page I wrote on. I basically copied the board, book chapter and the handout she had us read on the subject." Chazz was always impressed by Judai's diligence. For as much as he slept in class, when it came to notes it's as if his brain was a recorder and he remembered everything and wrote it down with ease.
"Damn I wish I had your brain sometimes, Yuki!" He grumbles looking through Judai's notes. Judai laughs at his friends annoyance but he knows that Chazz is thankful for his good memory.
The bus stopped again this time a long dark blue haired girl walked on a long sleeve thin jacket was on her upper half while she wore snow pants on the bottom with plain sneakers sticking out. Her book bag was a large zipper up purse which hung from her shoulder and she had headphones around her neck.
Syrus grinned as she walked by them. "Hi Blair!" The girl in question looked back waves slightly before returning to walking towards the back of the bus.
"Surprised she even looked at you.." Chazz pointed out both males looking at their shorter friend questioningly. The shorty was turning red waving his hands in the air. "No no! Mrs. Greenwood said to help her with her grades. She was falling behind cause of her cheerleading duties!"
Both boys had no reason not to believe him. They both knew the teachers favored Syrus and often asked him to assist in tutoring the delinquents. That even included some of the boys on the football team. Yusuke Fujiwara was a prime example who was a pure delinquent who used to be in the same grade as Zane, Syrus's older brother but the boy flunked senior year twice. Now he was gonna graduate early before graduation.
The bus eventually reached the school, the doors opening on the bus as the boys get off first the rest of the students climbing out after them. As the three of them walk towards the front of Bastille High, Judai noticed Aster pulling up in a fancy limo and climb out of it. The silver haired male donning a casual grey suit under a thick wool black coat and book bag crossed the street in front of them.
"Who knew the prince of chill actually got cold.." Chazz huffed as the three entered the school. Classes were about to begin and the group split up to head to their classes. Syrus ran off to band, Chazz headed to History and Judai walked to his math class.
As Judai passed the main office he saw three individuals briefly, who weren't familiar to him. He only got a quick glimpse as he passed the office and walked down the first hall heading to the Math wing. 'New students I'm guessing… Hopefully they're nice.' Judai reached his class and opened the door, entered and took his seat just as the bell rang.
He fetched his binder notebook and pencil from his bag and took to writing down the daily equation that the teacher left on the board at the start of class. Each day it was different and at the end of class they had to have a diffinitive answer for the problem. Judai almost never got it because he wasn't academically well with math.
Though he still did his best by writing it down and trying to answer it regardless. Their teacher entered the room a couple minutes later three fellas following him in as their teacher, Mr Malcom makes an announcement.
"Class, we have three new students. Please welcome Mr Cook, Mr Hassleberry and Mr Andersen. Fellas, pick a seat there's 5 open." Ironically for Judai two of the seats were next to him. Nobody wanted to sit next to him in math because he was the barely passing student in class, so he wasn't very good to be copied off of which is what most of the kids in his class did.
"-yuki! Mr. Yuki!" His thoughts were jarred from him as he looked up at the front of the class at his teacher. "Y-yes Mr. Malcom??" The green haired glasses wearing teacher shook his head sighing. "Mr. Yuki will you show the Transfers around?" Judai blinked in confusion as he looked at the three males next to his teacher.
One on the farthest right wore his hair in a dino bandana while wearing a thick military army jacket with matching pants and combat boots, with a bone necklace around his neck. He had a rich skin complexion that Judai never seen before.
The male next to him was wearing a hat that covered his dark hair and half his face with a orange ascot around his collar of his shirt with a thick hoodie covering the rest of his outfit except the tight black pants dual belt and leather boots, he had a knapsack as a book bag same as the army boy next to him.
The last male had bright teal blue hair hiding under a sea green hoodie his emerald eyes looking around the classroom, with dark blue jeans and white boots he had a crossbody bag same as Chazz.
Judai's mouth went dry as he meets his teachers light violet eyes and nodded his head. "Yes sir. I'll do my best." Judai didn't realize how much he'd regret it later.