My Obsession

I stepped off the bus and looked up at my new school. Above the doors were the words 'Carpe Diem' in large silver letters. I sighed and headed towards the school. I opened the door for the people coming in behind me. Everyone just walked past without so much as a nod, except for one boy with flaming red hair.

"Thank you sir" he said and grabbed the door motioning for me to go in. I looked up at him and right away I noticed his beautiful cerulean eyes. I realized I was staring and walked in without a glance back.

I checked the list outside the office to see which homeroom I was in and headed to it – room 301. I went in and took a seat at the very back in the close corner. Within five minutes the class was full of chattering students. I looked around the room at the people who filled it and saw a boy with longish blue hair staring at me. He saw me look at him and he quickly looked away. I just ignored it and took out my book to read.

The bell rang a few minutes later and everyone took a seat. The boy that had been staring at me took the seat ahead of the one I was in.

"Hi, I'm Tyson." He said and stuck out his hand for me to shake.

"Kai." I replied shortly hoping that if I ignored it long enough, it would go away.

"So what book you reading?"

I held it up so he could read the title. I didn't feel like talking to this kid much.

"Oh." He paused. "Is it good?"

Persistent brat…

"I wouldn't know. I can't read it with you bothering me." I said loudly.

"Oh…ok then."

It seemed as if he had finally gotten the message and stopped bugging me.

A tall lady walked in shortly after and stood at the front of the classroom. She had shoulder length dark brown hair and was wearing a long purple skirt and a white, loose blouse.

"Good morning everyone. My name is Ms. Hayashi. Nice to meet you all. When I call your name, please come up and get your schedule." She told them and began to call out names.

When I got mine, this is what it said:

8:30 – 9:45 Japanese

9:45 – 11:05 Phys Ed

11:05 – 12:00 Lunch

12:00 – 1:15 Science

1:15 – 2:35 Music

Not too bad except for Jap first think in the morning. I've always hated Jap class.

"What do you have?" Asked the ever so annoying Tyson.

I sighed. "Jap, gym, science, and music."

"Really!" He said a little too enthusiastically. "We have all the same classes!"

Oh no…

Almost immediately after he finished talking, the bell rang, telling us to go to first period.

I grabbed my bag and left the class as quickly as I could in hopes that I could get away from Tyson. In my rush I accidentally bumped into someone as I was going out the door.

"Oh sorry…wasn't watch…" At this point I looked up to see the redheaded boy from this morning.

"Ah, we meet again. And it's quite alright. My name's Tala by the way." He held out his right hand.

Those eyes…

"I'm Kai." I said and shook his hand.

"Well, I best be going. Don't want to be late on the first day now do we?"

He's right. The hall was almost empty now. I hurried off down the stairs to my first class. Luckily, I wasn't the last one. I took a seat in the far, back corner. I'm not sure why, but corners have always seemed to call to me.

When the last few people had arrived and taken their seats, the teacher went to the front of the classroom and introduced himself.

"Hello, and welcome to Japanese. You will address me as Voltaire. You will speak only when spoken to. If you have something to say, put your hand up and wait until you are addressed to speak. Any questions?" He finished and looked around. When no one put their hand up he turned around and started to write on the board.

"For tomorrow, you will write a 5 page essay on a topic of your choosing and will be presenting it in front of the class. It must be written in Kanji and or Kana. Begin."

Whispers erupted among the class.

BANG! Voltaire threw a book down on his desk.

"Quiet! There will be silence in my classroom."

For the rest of the period the class was silent. After what seemed like hours, the bell finally rang. I packed up my things and headed to my next class – gym. The change room was locked so we headed to the gym and waited. A few minutes later a man with purple hair and a big nose walked in and sat on the stage.

"Ok everyone. Come take a seat on the floor please."

Everyone obeyed and sat on the floor in front of him.

"This class is Physical Education, as you know. I will be your teacher for this semester. You can call me Boris or Mr. Balkov. For this class, you are required to wear a gym uniform consisting of shorts and a t-shirt. You can buy them from me for 1500 YEN. Since none of you have them today, we'll just play a game to get to know each other.

So everyone get in a circle. It's going to be like hot potato. I'll play music and you pass the ball around the circle. When I stop the music, whoever has the ball has to stand in the middle of the circle and tell us about yourself. Your name, age, interests, anything. Alright, let's go."

Luckily the ball never got stopped on me.

80 minutes later came lunch. I bought a sandwich from the caf and looked around for a place to sit. It looked like every table in there was full. I was still looking around when I felt a hand on my shoulder. I looked up to see Tala looking down at me.

"Need a place to sit?" he asked.

"Yeah…" I said looking at the full tables.

"That's why I never eat in here. Follow me." He turned around and walked out of the cafeteria.

He led me down two flights of stairs and into a room marked 'No Entry'. He pushed open the door and told me to go in. He flicked on the light and I was that it was the boiler room.

I gave Tala an inquisitive look.

"Not here." Was all he said and led me through a small door at the other side of the room. Inside the door was a hallway and another door. He opened the door and it revealed a beautiful courtyard.

The grass was as green as it could be. There were huge trees scattered around and many coloured wild flowers. There was a stone path leading from the door to the middle of the yard, where there was a picnic table under an umbrella of trees.

"We're here." Tala said and started towards the picnic table.

I just stood in the doorway shocked.

"Are you coming?" he asked.

"Oh, yeah" I shook my head and followed him to the table. We sat down across from each other and began to eat our lunches.

"How did you find this place?" I asked him.

"I just stumbled upon it one day. How do you like it?" He seemed to want to change the subject.

"It's really nice. Everything is just so…perfect."

"Yeah. You know, it's actually inside the school." He said an pointed up.

I couldn't believe it. I looked up and sure enough, there was a ceiling painted blue with clouds.

"Wow. How did all this grow in here? It's amazing."

"Yeah…"

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o

For the rest of lunch we just talked. I learned that Tala is in grade 11. He also told me that his parents died when he was small and is now living in a house with 3 other boys. He also said that he plays trombone in the band. I was thinking of playing the trumpet for music class. Maybe if I am good enough, I will join the band too.

Science was pretty uneventful. I ended up having a guy name Max as my lab partner. He is very happy and hyper. Seemed nice though.

Then it was time for music. I headed downstairs to the music room on the bottom floor. I walked in. It was a fair sized room with a carpeted floor and chairs scattered around messily. In the back corner was the drunk kit, the chimes, the timpani and the bells.

"Come in everyone and take any seat" Said who I assumed to be the teacher. He was tall and mostly bald, with a little bit of hair around the side of his head.

Once everyone was settled he spoke again.

"Put up your hand if you have played an instrument before."

Eight people put their hands up.

"Ok, not too bad. So, everyone go to the cupboard over there and choose the instrument that you want to play, and then come sit back down. If you want to play and percussion, just go sit by the kit."

Everyone got up and grabbed their instruments and sat back down. Kai grabbed a trumpet. There were three other boys who had also grabbed trumpets. One with red spiky hair, one who was really tall and who seemed to be into sports and one wearing a bandana.

We didn't really get to play out instruments today. We mostly just spent the class recording which instruments we were going to be playing and trying to make sounds on them. I got the buzzing technique down pretty quickly, which I was happy about. If I kept practicing I could be in band with Tala.

At 2:30 the bell rang and it was time to go home. I decided to walk home with my trumpet that night. When I got in, there was a note on the table:

Gone out. Be back later.

That's good. I can practice now. He is never home anyways. I practiced making noise on my trumpet all night, and I was successful. All I could think about was Tala. With his beautiful eyes, and soothing voice. When I was tired of practicing, I decided that I should go to bed, after all, it was almost 12.

End Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters.