Sixteen-year-old Kael Nitsuharu felt a bead of sweat drop from his head as he stood outside the classroom door. His face was still frozen from the cold, but now he felt his insides begin to squirm. He always hated being the new kid, but he figured he'd better just put up with it. He brushed his fingers through his long brown hair and tried to neaten it as best he could and beat the snow off of his navy-blue jacket.
Why'd my grandfather have to move to this town just so he could set up that bookshop of his? He thought bitterly. Taking a deep breath, he knocked on the door. From behind it, he heard an older man announce his coming and the door opened. A tall blonde hair blue-eyed and light bearded man wearing a dark-blue work shirt smiled at him from the threshold.
"Class, I'd like to introduce you to Kael Nitsuharu, a transfer student from Japan." The man said, guiding him to the front of the class. The teacher stood behind a podium and looked at him. Kael looked nervously at the rest of his class staring at him, some with bored expressions on their faces. "Tell us a bit about yourself. Oh, yeah! I'm Mr. Laslie, pleased to meet you, Kael."
Kael nodded and turned to the class, unable to ignore piercing gaze of most of the room. "No story, really. I live with my grandfather, who owns a store mostly stocked with antique books. We used to live in Nagasaki, but business was bad and he hated the city, so we moved here about a month ago."
"What happened to your parents?" someone asked loudly. Mr. Laslie turned sharply toward him.
"Marché!" He said with a raised voice to a boy with long blonde hair and sharp blue eyes. "Don't ask questions like that!"
"Sorry! I was just curious."
"It's okay, Mr. Laslie." Kael said, and he turned to the blonde hair blue-eyed boy. "I'm not native Japanese, and my parents were both from America. But they died 'under mysterious circumstances' when I was young, according to the police."
"Thank you, Kael. Take your seat behind…let's see…behind Mewt, over there in the middle seat." Mr. Leslie said, nodding in its direction. Kael did as he was told. He felt the eyes on him slowly move to the toward the blackboard, where Mr. Laslie had taken his place at the podium.
"I'm sorry." Marché said to him as he sat, who sat adjacent to him. Kael shook his head and smiled at him.
"It's okay. You gave me something to talk about," he replied.
Mewt, the boy with wild brown hair and equally sharp eyes who sat in front of him, turned around in his chair to face him.
"What store is it called?" He asked casually. "I'm Mewt, by the way!"
"Hi, Mewt. It's called 'Takata's'," he replied.
"Really!" Mewt asked loudly. Kael jumped back slightly. Then, dropping his voice to a whisper, he said, "I bought an old book from there two days ago." A girl with snow-white hair and skin with bright blue eyes suddenly looked at them from the corner of her eye a few seats away. Jeeze, they all have blue eyes, Kael thought.
"Really? What book?" Kael asked, not really interested, wondering if they should be concentrated on the teacher, who had begun lecturing about the Crusades with the textbook in his hands.
"It's called The Grand Grimoire. You're grandfather couldn't even read it."
"Oh, that book," Kael said, nodding. "Yeah, it's written in some unknown language. Do you like it?"
Mewt didn't answer. Marché looked from Kael to Mewt, to the girl with white hair, and then back to Kael. Feeling slightly confused, Kael raised an eyebrow and asked, "Well?"
"It's interesting, that's for sure," Marché said. "Would you like to come over to my house after school?" Kael could hardly believe his ears, wondering very little about the sudden offer. From the looks of things, he didn't really know if he was going to like them or not, but he figured he could take a chance. Maybe I can make friends in this small town. But I don't really know them…then again, isn't that how I made friends in Nagasaki?
"Ummm…sure, why?" Kael said, nodding.
"Just for fun, and we'd like you to look at something for us. We should hang out for a bit before though…there's gotta be something to do before we go to your place, Marché!" Mewt said, smiling. Suddenly, a book slammed on Mewt's desk, making them all jump. Mr. Laslie was looking down on them with a grin.
"I know you're all getting acquainted and everything, but could we please pay attention, hmm?" He said in a fun tone. Kael bowed his head.
"Sorry! Sorry!" He said in a bow, wishing he had kicked that habit before getting here. The class laughed lightly as Mr. Laslie went back to the front.
That afternoon after classes, Kael followed both Mewt and Marché outside onto the playground area of campus, watching from behind a tree as other kids were having a snowball fight. The day had grown warmer, and the sun was shining brightly down on them without a single cloud in the sky. The three of them had so much small talk about random things that Kael had almost forgotten it was his first day. He liked the sound and attitude of both of them, hoping that they could become better friends making him much happier. The buildings around the town had a beautiful collection of snow on the roofs and the windowsills.
"Wow, at first I thought you just talked normally, Kael," Marché said after Kael told them about an incident in Nagasaki where he and his old friends played pranks on other highschool girls, and another time where they accidently made his old math teacher look like a pervert when he went into the girl's bathroom by switching the signs.
"You haven't seen what me and my friends used to do in the city Nagasaki," Kael finished. Marché and Mewt were finally starting to stop laughing.
"You talked so normally in class." Marché said. "But it's great to see your true side."
"So what's your story Marché? Mewt?" he asked, getting curious about them. Mewt started first.
"My mom died a while back, but I'd hate it if I lost both my parents," Mewt said. "At first, he gave up on work after mom died. But then, he jumped right back up yesterday and got another job. It's a desk job, but he says he likes it." Mewt's and Marché's eyes met.
"I still have both parents," Marché began. "But dad's always busy and working in California. My brother, Donned, has a sickness. He can't walk, yet anyway, and we take him to the hospital every now and then. Not much else."
Kael nodded quietly. "Wow, so technically, we all have our problems."
"Heh, yeah, but we're fine, aren't you?" Mewt said.
"Of course," Kael said happily. "My grandpa thought I was crazy when I started talking to mom's pictures, though. That's when he signed me up for kendo in fifth grade. He thought I was going insane."
"Kendo?" Mewt and Marché asked at the same time.
"Ah…" Kael said, scratching his head. "Kendo is…lessee…Ah! Kendo is like European fencing, just Japanese. We use bamboo swords to simulate a katana, and we hit parts of the armored body to get points, just like fencing."
"Sounds cool," Mewt said. He now had a teddy bear in his hands, but Kael didn't ask.
"Are you good?" Marché asked.
"I'm told. My sensei gave me my own katana when I got to first kyu. I still have it packed away somewhere in our stuff."
"Can you show it to us before we go to Marché's?" Mewt asked hopefully.
"Sure!"
"Well, aren't you the little happy bunch?" a soft but sharp voice said casually. The girl with white hair came from around the tree.
"Hey, Ritz," Mewt said. "This is Kael."
"Hi Kael." Ritz said turning and grinned at him, but then turned her head back to Marché. "What are we doing today? I thought we were going to discuss the book."
"What's wrong?" Kael asked, blinking at her. She was rather pretty, and the white hair even added to it. He noted the look in Marché's eyes toward her and grinned slightly. There was no mistaking that look.
"There's a…there's a…" She began, but she couldn't find the words. Marché shook his head.
"We should be patient. The book can wait a little bit."
"What's wrong, is it acting weird again?" Kael asked casually. All three of them turned to look at him.
"Again?" Ritz repeated. Kael nodded.
"Yeah. It used to give off weird lights and would flip pages randomly. My grandfather even tried some Shinto magic—you know, those paper things with kanji written on them—to make it stop, but it didn't work," Kael said. They all continued staring at him.
"So you know?" Marché asked.
"Know what?" Kael was starting to get confused and irritated by the sudden seriousness.
"Your grandfather…he does magic?" Mewt asked.
"Tries to. I don't think any Shinto magic actually works though, but he taught me some simple incantations. I didn't really believe in magic, until the book started giving me weird dreams about the illustrations and writings in it," Kael said truthfully. Each night, he really did see flashes of the illustrations of odd-looking humanoids and writing with clarity, but he didn't think much of it. And the one nightmare that he refused to continue thinking about.
They all looked at each other. Marché sighed and then started walking toward the street, the rest of them following.
"Well, let's think about it later," He said. "How does the mall sound?"
"Yay! I saw a new dress that I want! Marché, how much money do you have?" Ritz said, suddenly cheerful.
"What? I can barely afford a Coke!"
"Liar!"
"Come on you two," Mewt said, sweat dropping. "Let's go get some new books!"
Kael was slightly shocked by the sudden change in attitude, but he liked it. He ran up next to them all. "Any of you read manga?"
"I do! I can't stand regular books," Ritz said. She started listing the ones she had, and then Kael replied. They even made agreements to start letting each other borrow ones they didn't have.
"Of course, mine are still in Japanese," Kael said, laughing. Ritz whapped him on the head, making him laugh.
"Well that's not much help! Translate it for me!"
"Okay! Okay!"
I may just have fun in this town. He thought, smiling. When they rounded a corner into the parking lot of the mall, a chill swept over Kael and he became dizzy. He staggered slightly, unnoticed by the others. Looking up, he gasped and held his breath, stopping in a mid-step. In the middle of the cleared parking lot stood a towering, brown robed figure with a hood pulled over its head. It was standing as still as a stature, but looking directly at Kael with visible glowing eyes. Kael blinked. All that was there now was the empty parking lot. A rush of cold wind buffet their hair slightly, but the others moved on as though nothing happened.
"Did anyone…?" Kael said, but stumbled again. Marché kept him from falling, pushing on his back.
"What's wrong?" Mewt asked. Kael scanned the entire parking lot, the dizziness gone and the cold more tolerable.
"Nothing. Nothing at all," He lied.