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 twenty 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 judge 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 and it involves a lot of different variables, but I think you'll get the picture in due time. Anyway, if I am to remain unnoticed that means I can't do anything that attracts attention, that includes showing up late.

Thankfully, this is 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 few hours at most before something else happens that takes the spotlight away from me. You see, Gensokyo High has a tendency to have many strange happenings occur within its walls, and sometimes outside of its walls.

For example, just last week, a student was walking down the hall during fourth period break, when suddenly he apparently exploded into frogs. Yes, you heard 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 get into 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 did. Now you might say 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 can easily snowball into something else entirely.

That's the main reason why I was so nervous about being late, and why I remained extremely vigilant as I snuck through the now-empty halls of the school towards my homeroom. Thankfully, I had by some miracle avoided the principal on the way in, but I knew my luck wouldn't last forever. After a while, I finally made it to my objective without alerting anybody and slowly opened the door... then winced as its old hinges creaked loudly, instantly drawing the attention of everyone in the class towards me.

Well, I guess trying to Solid Snake all the way to my seat wouldn't have worked anyway.

I opened the door the rest of the way, and was greeted by the sight of my lovely homeroom teacher, Mr. Wakabayashi, scowling at me. A stout and balding Japanese man, Mr. Wakabayashi was someone whose extreme temper, overly strict guidelines and gratingly loud voice made just about everyone at school hate him. But they didn't dare say it to his face, out of fear of his divine punishment. Also, most people, including me, just called him Mr. Waka as a shorthand, much to his chagrin.

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

"Yes, Mr. Wakabayashi, I apologize." I hoped he would go easy on me if I used his full name this time, even if it was a hassle and I don't even think I pronounced it right.

Mr. Waka humphed. "Well, since this is your first infraction, I'll be generous and let you off easy this time. However, I hope for your sake that this will not happen again. Now go 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, most of the unusual things that happen around here tend to be blamed on the youkai student body. Youkai themselves are a very strange species, they're very inclined towards magic and cause trouble all the time, sometimes you can't even tell you're looking at one until they pull some freaky trick. That 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 a youkai. Even more unfortunate, it seemed as though she was quite interested as to why I was late today, because she stared at me the entire time as I walked to my seat. I mean, some other students stared too, but when I say she stared, she stared. It was almost like her eyes were boring directly into my soul.

As a result, what was supposed to be a short five second walk to my desk ended up feeling like it lasted years. Even when I finally sat down, she wouldn't stop staring. This was why I didn't want to associate with youkai, all of them were 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, people would no doubt start to take notice, and then my hopes and dreams of a normal life would absolutely be over. Now, instead of me being a drug lord or a pimp, the rumors would shift to me being a youkai, or at the very least in league with them. Which was definitely something I did not need.

So, I did the only thing I could think of, I prayed to whatever god had decided to put me in this position. Please make Patchouli stop staring at me, I beg you.

Thankfully, it seemed that whoever I prayed to had listened, and Patchouli turned her attention 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 to listen to Mr. Waka's lesson and after a while, (shorter than most whiles, considering the fact that I was late) the bell rang. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief as they sluggishly got up from their seats.

Now, me? I wanted to bolt up out of my chair and run out the door as fast as I could. However, that would have definitely attracted attention, and we couldn't have that. So instead I settled for packing my things a little faster than normal and hoping that I would be out of this hellish nightmare soon. Unfortunately, I just so happened to get ready to leave at the exact same time Patchouli did. There was no way I could just sit back down and pretend I was still busy without Patchouli noticing. So, as a result, we were stuck standing next to each other as the remaining students all filed out of the class at an agonizingly slow pace. I figured it was fine though, surely Patchouli had completely forgotten about me by now, right?

"Hey."

I froze. I knew exactly who said that.

I slowly turned to Patchouli, who was once again staring directly at me with those half-lidded purple eyes.

"Yes?" I replied after a bit.

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

"Uh… well, just an alarm mishap, nothing major," I laughed awkwardly. Get me out of here, get me out of here, get me out of here.

Patchouli eyed me. "An… alarm mishap?" she echoed, obviously suspicious of me.

"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 dismissed myself from the conversation and 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 her friends, 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, ze," Marisa said in a way that made Patchouli question whether or not she was being sarcastic.

"Anyway, let's meet up in the club room during lunch, okay?" Reimu suggested.

"Sounds like a plan. Come on, let's head to second period, ze. I bet Yuyuko's gonna have us make somethin' real yummy today," Marisa said.

"Right, let's go then. See you later, Patchouli," Reimu bid her friend goodbye before walking off with Marisa.

Patchouli would have headed to her next class as well, but she stopped to steal one last glance in the direction Adam had gone. He wasn't in sight anymore, of course, but Patchouli was still bothered.

Adam drew a lot of attention to himself today, didn't he? Strange, I wonder if something happened. Patchouli thought.