It was a disaster, one that would be sure to leave nothing but unmitigated destruction in its wake. The gods themselves would weep, the sun would never shine again, nothing would ever be the same.

I was late to class.

"My name is Adam Coates and this is the story of how my life fell apart." That's how my autobiography that I would write 20 years from now would start, no doubt about it. This was the worst thing that could have possibly occurred.

Now, you may think that I'm overreacting here, but before you pass judgment on me, I'd like to take the chance to fully explain my situation. You see, my one goal in school, no, in life is to remain as unnoticed and average as possible. Why would I want to do that? Well, honestly, that's kind of personal, regardless, you get the picture. If I am to remain unnoticed that means I can't do anything that attracts attention, that includes showing up late.

Thankfully this is only the first time I've ever been late, so the consequences should only last for a while. At best, whispers about me being some kind of secret drug addict or a pimp will only last for a day at most before something else happens that grabs the spotlight away from me. You see, Gensokyo High has a tendency to have many strange happenings occur within its walls.

Just last week, a student was walking down the hall during fourth period break, when suddenly he apparently exploded into frogs. You read that correctly, supposedly, the frogs grouped together and reformed into the complete student shortly after, albeit without any clothes on. What could he have done to earn this kind of accident, you ask? Well, according to rumors, just before he turned into frogs he flirted with a girl.

Yup, that's right, that's all he had done. Now you could say that these two occurrences could be entirely unrelated. However, having attended Gensokyo High for quite a while, I've learned a certain lesson that I always keep on the back of my mind:

At this school, even something as small and innocuous as flirting with a girl or being late to class could easily snowball into something else entirely.

That's the main reason why I'm so nervous about being late, and I remained hyper vigilant through the now empty halls of the school towards class. Thankfully, I had by some miracle avoided the principal on the way in and now all that was left was to reach my first period class.

I slowly opened the door to the classroom, and winced as it creaked, drawing the eyes of everyone in the class towards me.

Well, no point in hiding it now.

I opened the door the rest of the way, and was greeted by the sight of my lovely homeroom teacher, Mr. Wakabayashi, or Mr. Waka as most called him, much to his chagrin. He was a stout and balding Japanese man, who nonetheless commanded righteous authority due to his extreme temper and loud voice. Everyone hated him, but they didn't dare say it to his face.

"Mr. Coates," he said in an infuriatingly nasally tone, "I trust you know that you're late?"

"Y-yes, Mr. Wakabayashi" I replied diminutively. It was somewhat of a hassle to speak his full name, and I don't even think I pronounced it correctly, but I hoped it would get him to go easy on me.

Mr. Waka hummed. "Well, since this is your first infraction, I'll be generous and let you off easy this time. However, I hope that this will not happen again. Now head to your seat."

Success! "Yes Mr. Wakabayashi, of course," I said, thankful for Mr. Waka's rare display of sympathy. However, I wasn't out of the woods yet.

Do you remember those "strange happenings" I talked about earlier? Well, those kinds of strange occurrences tend to be blamed on the youkai student body. Youkai themselves are a very strange species, they're very inclined towards magic, and half the time you can't even tell you're looking at one. This is why I choose to stay away from them at all costs. After all, what hope can I possibly have of attaining a completely dull and normal life if I associate with people like that?

Unfortunately, the person I had been assigned to sit next to at the beginning of the year was none other than one of those youkai. Even more unfortunate, it seemed as though she was very interested as to why I was late today. She stared at me as I walked all the way to my seat. I mean, sure, other students stared too, but when I say she stared, she stared. It was almost like her eyes were boring into my soul.

As a result, what was a short five-second walk to my desk, felt like it lasted years. Even when I finally sat down, she wouldn't stop staring! This is why I didn't want to associate with youkai, they were all strange like this.

I kept my head forward, desperately trying to avoid looking at her, but she continued to stare at me with those damn purple eyes. If she didn't stop soon, there would be no doubt that people would notice, and then my hopes of a normal life would surely be over. Now, instead of me being a drug lord or a pimp, the rumors would shift to me being a youkai, or at least in league with them. Those kinds of rumors didn't just follow you for a few days, they followed you for the rest of your life and I definitely did not need that on my plate.

So I silently prayed to whatever god that had put me in this position. Please make Patchouli stop staring at me, I beg you.

Thankfully whoever I prayed to had listened, and Patchouli turned to listen to Mr. Waka's boring lecture about math or something, but what was really important was that she finally took her eyes off of me. I was far too busy being relieved by this to pay attention to Mr. Waka's words.

After a while, (shorter than most whiles, considering the fact that I was late) the bell rang, and everyone breathed a sigh of relief as they slowly got up from their seats. Me? I wanted to bolt up out of my chair and run to the door as fast as I could, however, that would have definitely attracted attention, and we couldn't have that. So, I settled for packing my things a little more quickly than normal so I could get out sooner. Unfortunately, I just so happened to get ready to leave at the exact same time Patchouli did.

As a result, we were stuck standing next to each other as the students all filed out at an agonizingly slow pace. But it was fine, I figured, surely Patchouli had completely forgotten about me being late by now, right?

"Hey."

I froze, I knew exactly who had said that.

I slowly turned to Patchouli, who was once again staring directly at me. "Yes?" I managed to reply after a bit.

"Why were you late today?" she asked in that natural, bored tone of hers.

"Uh… well, y'know, just an alarm mishap, nothing major you know?" I laughed awkwardly in a desperate attempt to ease the tension coursing through my veins.

Patchouli eyed me suspiciously. "An… alarm mishap?" she echoed.

"Y-yup! Uh…" I not-so-subtly looked toward the line, and was eternally thankful when I saw an opening. "A-anyway, see ya later, Patchouli!" I yelled behind me as I quickly power walked my way out of there.

I hoped to never see her again.


"Bye," Patchouli said with a slight wave, but Adam was already way out of earshot to hear her.

"Yo, Patchouli!" A voice that Patchouli knew very well called out to her. She turned in time to see Marisa Kirisame and Reimu Hakurei walking towards her.

"You all set for later?" Marisa asked.

"I believe I am," Patchouli replied.

Marisa grinned toothily. "Great! By the way, who was that guy?" she asked while pointing down the hall at the male student awkwardly power walking away from them.

Patchouli sighed, something she had always been prone to do. "Nobody. More importantly, I was able to confirm that yes, it is in his lunchbox."

Reimu nodded. "Good, that should make things easier for us."

"Yeah, way easier. Anyway, let's meet up in the club room during lunch, okay?" Marisa suggested.

"Sounds like a plan. Come on, let's head to second period," Reimu said.

"Right, come on Patchouli," Marisa said as she and Reimu walked off.

Patchouli didn't follow them immediately, instead, she stole one last glance in the direction Adam had walked towards. He was far gone by this point, of course. However, Patchouli couldn't help but be worried.

That guy draws a lot of attention to himself, Patchouli thought, I hope he turns out okay.