Disclaimer: I swear to GOD this will NEVER become a mary sue fic. i intend on actually explaining why Tabris/Kaworu has the slightly...passive view of humans he does via an exploration of his past. There will be NO romance between this character and him. there will be NO saving of her ass by him. i swear to god (read: gainax) that if i EVER do this you can flame the HELL out of me. thank you. -soshika, 10/01/02 at 3.23 AM

When the new student entered their class, there wasn't much of a reaction. It was actually fairly normal of late to see new people come and go. Since there were so few kids their age now anyway, most schools were gradually condensing the classes together to conserve space. Some rooms were left like boom towns in the old west of America they read about- completely desolate, chairs and desks stacked in a corner and notes still up on the board, dust filming over everything.

The school was only three stories to begin with, with fifteen windows facing out on each floor on the front, not counting the glass face where the stairwell up was. It was really a nice place, built in the early eighties. It was right on the outskirts of Otsu, nearby the lake. Back before the Second Impact, people could complain about the sun in their eyes early in the morning.

With this few people now, they had been able to move the classrooms back away from the rooms that got a glare. There were about thirty students together in this particular class, give or take on any given day. Their teacher also rotated, switching off for various topics.

During lunch hours, they always had the option of leaving the grounds to go home if it was near enough, or eat anywhere else.

Juni was one of the girls who didn't go home, and didn't seem to fit in normally. That was acceptable at her age...when you were thirteen you were expected to be rebellious and different. It wasn't that she was exceptional in any way shape or form, or that she was particularly interested in anything. It was just that during lunch hour, she hadn't made any friends she could eat with and prefered to remain alone in the abandoned classroom, her feet propped onto the desk listening to music through her headphones.

Her older sister had been deeply into the music scene the year before, and Juni followed devoutly like most younger siblings do in denial. So while other girls were discovering their bodies changing or noticing boys, Juni was noticing music. It gained her a reputation as a tomboy, because she wanted to emulate the artists she listened to in mannerism more than she wanted to be a perfect lady. It wasn't unusual for her to be listening with her eyes closed before the class rep would come by with a ruler and smack her on the shins to put her feet down. And by then it was always too late, and Juni had been sitting around with her skirt open and her feet in the air for a few minutes while the the rest of the class had filtered back in with her oblivious. And it would have bothered her too, if she had cared about anything except music.

And so of course, music really didn't care.

It was the day the new student came in that she was listening to The Pillows, a fairly newer band that appealed to a more classical rock side of her taste. She'd discovered them the night before and was starting to swim deeper into their music when the door to the classroom opened. Not entirely into her listening trance yet, she hurried to put her feet down and scramble for her books to keep up the facade that she was working.

Miss Tatakura the languages teacher came in with an armload of books that Juni knew would have been making ruffling and thumping sounds on the desk if she had the volume on her headphones down just a little bit more. It was early for her to be here, the teacher that was, even though langauges was directly after lunch. And so Juni inched forward on her stomach across her desk, turned down the volume on her headphones just a little bit and listened silently.

"Nagisa-san, you're going to be in class Eight-D with me this afternoon, so you can come in now and get yourself a seat. The other students should be at lunch now, if you want to join them-"

Tatakura's voice became a low drone that got soaked up by the musical spongue and Juni began to rely more on her eyes to deciefer what was happening. Spilling in from the hallway was a gray shadow, one that held itself irregularly ridgid and skulked in the doorway like a gaki.

The track on her headphones switched abruptly as he entered. The song was "Runner's High" and the drums took her offguard. She jumped and moved to lower the volume, missing that critical little entrance moment that might have made or broken her as a typical teenaged girl. Already though, the music was filling her with a cheerful enthusiasm that she was certain she would put into greeting this new student, whoever they were, as soon as Tatakura left the room.

Upon looking up again, she had not only missed the new student's entrance but also his movement from the doorway to the desk he chose, which was far to the opposite wall and in the front. I reason, Juni thought to herself against the onslaught of guitars, That they're the insecure kind. If they're up by Tatakura, they don't really know how to mix in with us. No book to read, no lunch to eat...And the uniform isn't the same either. Not from around here, but deffinitly a weirdo. And that isn't a bad thing- I am too.

The fact that his hair was very obviously a faintly silver white was lost on her, completely unnoticed.


Closing note: i promise a part that actually INVOLVES him soon. as in like, tomorrow. PLEASE bare with me.