For the rest of the ride, Kazumi gave a little tour of the campus. He showed them the dorms, which they would move into later tonight when the rest of their things arrived. He brought them to the main office where they received their ID cards and receipts for their uniforms, which would be delivered the next day. Finally he dropped them off in front of the school buildings.
"You're coming into the school year a few weeks late, so do your best to catch up. I'll stop by your dorms later today to help you get situated and to answer any questions you have about Alice Academy," he tried his best to ease the tension.
All five girls appeared obviously nervous about going to class. Anna kept breaking out into a hum that stopped a few seconds later and then resumed again. Hotaru cleared her throat more and more as they got closer to the classroom building. Sumire and Mikan remained deadly quiet, and Nonoko couldn't stop bouncing her leg, which produced a vibration that Kazumi could feel from the driver's seat. He laughed to himself. They really don't seem like delinquents.
Kazumi spotted the person he had been waiting for: Narumi, the girls' homeroom teacher. He stepped out of the car to greet him.
"Your fashion sense is eccentric as usual," Kazumi commented, taking in the man's black heeled boots, purple skinny jeans, and half-unbuttoned ruffled shirt.
"I'll take that as a compliment, Principal Yukihira," Narumi smoothly responded. He turned to the girls, who scrambled out of the car. "So these are the new flowers to be added to my garden."
He winked at the girls, leaving them confused. Are all the teachers here like this? Rich schools sure were different.
As if reading their minds, Kazumi answered their question: "Narumi's a special case, but he's a great teacher. I'll leave you in his care." Narumi, pleased by this compliment, hummed in agreement.
Narumi turned to the girls. "Shall we get going?"
They nodded gravely. As the group entered the building, they all kept the same thing in mind: Don't screw this up.
The march to Class 3-A was painful. Narumi helped by initiating a conversation, but only he talked; the girls contributed with "Hm", "Yeah", and "Okay".
They didn't mean to come off as rude or anything. In fact, if they wanted to, they could be the most talkative bunch, with the exception of Hotaru. Back home, they were outgoing and outspoken with their gang.
However, as they continued through the hallway, the girls couldn't help but feel out of place. Imagine five girls dressed with colorful hoodies and athletic leggings while surrounded by Romantic works of art framed and hanging on the walls, glittering chandeliers suspended from the ceiling, and curtains made of a fabric imported from some European country they'd never even heard of before. The picture doesn't look quite right, does it?
"Oh~ Are you boys coming late to class? Or are you trying to skip?" Narumi stopped his conversation with the unresponsive girls to address a group of guys approaching them.
"Welp, I guess you caught us, Naru," a sandy-haired boy laughed with his hands raised as if to surrender. He didn't appear the slightest bit ashamed of his actions. His friends didn't either. The sandy-haired boy stood beside four others: a raven-haired boy, a blonde, a brown-haired boy, and another sandy-haired one. They all looked at the girls with slight interest. The girls stared blankly back.
"Who're they, Naru?" the blonde asked.
"If you attend class today, you can find out," Narumi suggested.
The five boys glanced at each other, silently coming to a decision. Finally, the brown-haired boy shrugged. "What were we going to do if we skipped anyway?"
After shooting one last glance at the girls, the five turned around and headed into the classroom just around the corner.
"Tsk, tsk. Those boys are so mean. How could they miss my class," Narumi pouted and turned to the girls for moral support.
"Narumi-sensei, I'm sure they had some reason. You seem like a great teacher, not like the boring ones we used to have," Mikan attempted to comfort him. It must've worked because he was back to smiling again.
"I love you all already," he declared before skipping ahead to the classroom.
The girls trailed behind, not as eager to start school.
"Okay, before we go in, remember. Be normal. No insults, no fights, nothing," Sumire warned.
"Isn't it funny how Sumire is telling us this when she has the worst temper?" Mikan teased. Sumire glared at her as the others smirked.
"You wanna go, Sakura?"
"Ah, Sumire, didn't you just say no fights?"
"Shut up."
Back in the classroom, the boys sat down in their usual spots, all lined up on the bench in the back row next to the window.
Their reentry shocked their classmates, who wondered what made them come back to class. The girls of the class were happy nonetheless. Them attending class meant more eye candy.
Natsume Hyuuga, Ruka Nogi, Kokoroyomi (a.k.a. Koko), Yuu Tobita, and Kitsuneme (a.k.a Kitsu). The most sought after boys of Alice Academy and also the most unattainable. They maintained a distance with anyone outside of their little circle, and everyone knew better than to try to pass that boundary. The last one who tried was a girl named Luna Koizumi, who was (and still is) lovesick for Natsume; he showed no mercy when publicly humiliating her by doing something that remained taboo to speak about now.
So, to sum it up, these boys maintained themselves as exclusive.
"Hey, hey. Those girls were kinda weird," Koko, the sandy-haired boy, remarked.
"That's rude, Koko," Yuu, the brown-haired boy, reprimanded him.
"But like, for real. They just stared at us."
Ruka, the blonde, intervened. "It's nothing new if girls stare at us. Not to sound conceited or anything."
"No, their stare was different. Look around right now. The girls staring at us basically have hearts in their eyes." Koko added, "Not to sound conceited or anything, of course."
All the boys except for the raven-haired Natsume, who was preoccupied with reading a manga, looked around. Sure enough, the girls seemed starstruck by them.
"Were the other girls' stares different or something? I wasn't really looking," pondered Kitsu, the other sandy-haired boy.
"Yeah. I guess it's hard to describe. If you saw it you would get me. I wonder who they are…"
Narumi entered the classroom, and the students settled down.
"Class, I have some great news! We have transfer students!"
The class broke out into excited whispers until Narumi hushed them.
"Please give them a warm welcome. They came all the way from Kabukicho. Girls, come in."
Kabukicho? Natsume remembered news he saw recently about the gang crimes that often took place there. The class's chatter died out; the others appeared to have recalled the same bit of news as Natsume.
"Narumi-sensei, don't tell me they're yankees," one boy joked. His friends laughed.
"We're not yankees. Sorry to disappoint," a voice reverberated through the room. In walked the five girls from the hallway.
This is something new, thought the entire class, including the boys in the back row.