Socorro awoke to the alarm clock ringing near her. She opened her eyes and switched it off. The time read 7:00 AM. She had an hour before school started. Realizing this, she got up and started to get ready to leave.

She quickly put on her uniform, brushed her teeth and hair, ate some breakfast, and grabbed her book bag. She put her school supplies in the bag and looked out the window. The sun had already risen and the daylight was spreading across town. She smiled and decided it was time to leave. She headed towards the door and opened it, checking the time on her way out; it was 7:30 AM when she left.

She locked the door behind her and walked down the hallway, heading for the stairs. She went down the stairway until she got to floor 2. She walked towards Fujita's room to take him to school. As Socorro got to his room she thought, "That's odd, usually he's up and ready before me."

She knocked on the door. No answer. She knocked again, louder and longer this time. Again, no answer. She knocked one last time, asking questions like "Are you in there?" and "What's keeping you?" while knocking. There was silence once again when she finished.

"Maybe he already went to the school and he's waiting for me there.", Socorro then rationalized. She stepped away from the door and then decided to leave. She walked back towards the stairs. "That is a little strange considering his behavior until now.", she thought as she went down the stairs to the first floor.

After reaching the first floor, Socorro headed towards the lobby and exited the building. She stopped for a moment as she felt the cool breeze and the sunlight touch her face. She felt relaxed and then energized. "It is a nice day, great for the first day of school", she thought before starting her walk to school. She then walked down the street, remembering the way to school from the other day. She then realized that class would begin soon, so she picked up her pace and walked faster on her way.

Socorro reached the school after just only ten minutes, a surprisingly short distance from her home. She crossed the entrance of the front gate and looked around her. There were many other students walking into the school, dozens at least. They all wore the same uniforms and were all doing similar actions with each other. A few were talking with each other, likely friends. They all looked different in some way, with different hair and facial expressions. Socorro got a look at the male variant of the uniform: The ties, shoes, and undershirt were the same as the female one, but they had differences elsewhere. The males had long black pants with a dark green stripe on each side instead of a skirt. The only other difference was that males had a dark green blazer coat that could button up instead of a one-piece top like the females, both had the school's emblem and name on the left side. She liked how they looked and was glad that they didn't look too different. She once again noticed all the different colored neckties, showing the grade level of each individual person.

Socorro noticed how every student appeared to be Japanese, something that somewhat intimidated her. "It will be fine, they all seem like interesting people.", she noted as she walked toward the front doors. She reached the entrance and stepped inside alongside a few other students. She walked nervously, unsure of what to do next.

She then looked in front of her and saw that the students ahead were changing their shoes in the shoe lockers by the entrance. "That's right, I heard I have to do this every time I get to school.", Socorro realized. She didn't know which shoe locker was hers, so she just picked one of the unoccupied ones away from everyone else. She was confused on how she was supposed to do it, so she looked at everyone around her so she could copy what everyone else was doing. "This is probably the best thing to do right now.", she thought.

Socorro kept looking at a girl behind her to see how she was supposed to use the lockers to change her shoes. After a moment, the girl noticed Socorro staring at her and gave her a first confused, then angry look that seemed to scream, "What is wrong with you, weirdo?" Socorro felt scared and gave her a regretful look and then went back to trying to change her shoes.

She finally figured out how to do it after a couple of minutes and she finished changing her shoes. Socorro felt proud of herself and then stood up, getting ready to go to her homeroom class. She remembered seeing it on the tour with Fujita the other day and on her schedule as well; Class 1-A. She remembered it was a little down the hallway to her right after the entrance. She hastily walked there, realizing class would start in a few minutes.

She reached the classroom and nervously opened the sliding door, something she had never seen before. She stepped inside and saw exactly what she was afraid of seeing. There were many students sitting at their desks staring right at Socorro. Most of them were looking at her with a sense of confusion and awe, while a few others gave a look of annoyance.

Socorro looked at them for a moment then snapped out of her daze, shutting the door behind her. The bell then rang right after she shut the door, signifying class was starting. The bell sound was not anything like what she heard before, it was calm and sounded old-fashioned. Socorro realized that she barely made it to class on time, "It took a while, but now I know what to do.", she thought.

She then looked over to the other side of the room and saw the teacher. The teacher nodded at Socorro and pointed to the podium at the front of the classroom, signaling her to stand there. Socorro did as she was told. The teacher then got up from his desk and walked over to Socorro, standing next to her.

"Class, I would like to introduce you to our new foreign transfer student.", he said. Socorro didn't understand what he said. The teacher motioned his hand to the classroom of students in front of him, Socorro knew that this meant she had to introduce herself to the whole class. She was worried because Fujita was nowhere in sight. Socorro didn't know how to introduce herself or say her name in Japanese. She then decided to wing it and say some things in her native Portuguese if she had to.

She stood up straight and briefly prepared herself mentally for the introduction, going over what she was going to say in her head. As she was preparing, her social anxiety levels were creeping up; she felt nervous and her heart rate increased. She felt uncomfortable as she realized the feeling of dozens of eyes staring directly into her soul, it felt like a bunch of daggers were slowly digging into her skin. After a moment, she finished preparing herself and regained her composure.

"I'm...", she started in Japanese. She then uttered her name in Portuguese, not knowing how to speak it any other way: "...Socorro Mota..."

"...Nice to meet you.", she finished, saying one of the only common Japanese phrases she learned in her training.

There was a moment of silence from all of the students. Shortly after, some of them started laughing at Socorro; laughing at her mispronunciations of some of the words. Socorro, realizing she pronounced some of the words wrong, felt ashamed and started blushing a little. This caused some of the students to chuckle and stare at her even more.

After a minute, the teacher piped up and started talking again. "Quiet down.", he said, "As you heard her say, this is our new student, So-." He stopped for a second, looking confused. He tried to continue: "This is our new student, Soc-." He stuttered again. After a confused moment, he tried again: "Socc-, Soccr-, Soccy-, Socco-."

He just couldn't pronounce her first name, no matter how hard he tried. Feeling awkward, the teacher finished his statement off by saying, "...Ms. Mota. Please treat her respectfully and with patience. She came from Brazil and she is going to need help if she is going to adjust to life here. With that, let's start class after she takes a seat."

After he finished, Socorro felt even more embarrassed. She was embarrassed that the teacher couldn't say her full name. She couldn't understand why everyone laughed at her, it wasn't her fault she didn't know how to say everything correctly. Japanese is very difficult to understand, she barely knows how it works. She also found it odd how not even a single one of the students laughed at the teacher for mispronouncing her own name, it was unfair and Socorro felt like she couldn't be taken seriously in this new life of hers.

The teacher then pointed somewhere as Socorro was finishing moping about the incident. He pointed to an empty desk at the very center of the classroom, the only desk available in any way. Realizing that the desk is going to be her seat, Socorro stepped over in its direction slowly, avoiding eye contact with the students along the way. She reached her desk and sat down in it, placing her book bag in the desk with it.

There were students sitting in all of the desks surrounding her, she was in the center of everything. Unfortunately, that meant she had people staring at her in all directions. She could also hear some of the students talking, most of them saying things about her and what just occurred.

"Oh great, an annoying foreigner...", one boy said. "She doesn't even look hot.", another said. "People like her don't belong here in this country.", one girl said. "What an idiot, she can't even speak Japanese properly...", another girl said whispering to her friend. "She should just leave, she's tainting the culture.", the other girl finished. Socorro didn't know what they were saying, but she knew it wasn't good judging from the tone of their voices. Ignoring it, she tried to pay attention to the teacher.

"Now class, today's lectures will be about school procedures and classroom expectations.", the teacher began. He then started to talk hastily about school rules and procedures. Socorro listened carefully, trying to understand what was going on. No matter how much she tried to listen, she just could not understand anything the teacher was saying, not even his name. All of the things he was saying sounded like an alien language to her, not a single word was translated for her.

"Where is Fujita, he's not here anywhere. Why is he not showing up? This is his job...", Socorro pondered as the teacher kept speaking. All the while, she could feel the eyes of other students on her. She felt like everyone behind her was staring directly at her, it made her feel frightened and anxious, and she could never shake the feeling as the lecture gradually continued on.

…

After about four hours, the teacher finished giving his lecture. The bell then rang, signifying that it was lunch time. "We'll discuss what this class offers when all of you get back.", the teacher said after the bell was done ringing. All of the students then stood up and walked out the doors. Socorro realized that it was lunch time by looking at the clock in the classroom. She really didn't know what to do, so she just followed where everyone else was going. Socorro kept a small distance away from everyone else, trying to avoid bringing attention to herself.

Everyone reached the cafeteria after a minute. The cafeteria was located to the left of the entryway at the end of the left hallway. Going inside, Socorro saw how different it was compared to her previous school's. It was much smaller and more opened-spaced, there weren't a lot of tables for people to eat at. She guessed that most students preferred to eat outside in the courtyard, something she was curious about.

When it came time to eat something, Socorro was confounded on what to do. She didn't know what to eat or how to eat it; she also didn't know where to sit down and eat. She then decided to go up to the food counter and get what everyone else was eating. "I wonder if I have to pay for this.", she thought, "No, I think Fujita said something about food being paid for.", she said to herself, shrugging it off. She grabbed a bento box, a common food type in Japan, and grabbed some chopsticks with it.

She then looked around the cafeteria for a spot to eat her food. Most of the tables looked crowded; she decided to avoid those. She then spotted a mostly empty table with only a couple of students sitting at the center. She decided to sit on the far end and eat her food silently there, something she was used to doing. She walked over to the table and sat down, ignoring the students already sitting there.

Ready to eat, Socorro opened the bento and looked inside. She didn't know quite what the food was made of, but it looked like some sort of sushi. Socorro was a little bit excited, having never tried sushi before. "I always wanted to try it.", she thought as she tried to eat it. She picked up the sushi roll and bit into it. Socorro was surprised by the taste: it was good, much different than anything else she had eaten before, it also tasted much more natural and healthy then she expected.

After a few moments of Socorro enjoying the food, she looked over to her left and saw something that made her stop eating. The three male students sitting at the table were staring directly at her with a look of confusion and disgust. Socorro then nearly had a breakdown when she realized that she forgot to use the chopsticks, she just ate the sushi roll with her bare hands. She felt like an idiot and then was extremely embarrassed. She quickly grabbed the chopsticks and attempted to use them. Socorro was then facing the new struggle of learning how to use the chopsticks. She didn't know how to hold them or how to pick up stuff with them, her only knowledge of chopsticks came from stuff she saw on TV in the past. She tried as hard as she could, but for a full five minutes, she could not figure out how to use them. She tried to use her left hand after a while, but this just caused the three students to look even more confused. They started to get angry with her, giving her judgmental harsh looks. "Who uses chopsticks with their left hand?", one of the students said to his friend. Socorro tried to ignore them and kept trying to use the chopsticks correctly.

Another moment passed, Socorro then gave up. She set down her chopsticks. Unfortunately, she accidently set them down crossed together, which is considered extremely disrespectful in Japan. The three students then gave her a hateful expression and the oldest-looking one out of the three said something cruel: "What a fucking disrespectful dumbass alien!", he said loudly to his friends. Socorro had enough of feeling uncomfortable and she got up and walked away, the cruel-looking boy staring at her as she got further away. She threw her bento away as she left, something else considered rude in Japan. "I bet they hated that too...", Socorro furiously thought as she stormed off.

She walked down the hallway while thinking to herself: "Why does everyone hate me here? What did I ever do wrong? I can't help it... Why were those students so offended over little wooden sticks? It's not a big deal..."

Angry, Socorro decided to go visit the courtyard in the back of the school, realizing that class wouldn't start again for a while. "It will help me calm down and clear my mind.", she thought as she headed there.

As she walked to her destination, she remembered where Fujita told her it was located on the tour from the other day. It was through clear-glass double doors located directly across from the school's entryway on the far opposite side.

When Socorro reached the entry to the courtyard, she gazed through the glass-paned doors for a moment. All she saw was a long, gray pathway with some bright green grass on either side. She took a deep breath, composing herself, and then opened the doors.

As she stepped into the courtyard, Socorro was in awe of the humbleness in the scene in front of her. The air was cool and breezy, the sun was shining, and the flora was bright and clean. Soaking in the atmosphere, Socorro immediately calmed down and all the stress and anger seemed to fade away swiftly. She then kept moving forward, taking note of the scenery around her. The path she was on was surrounded by bright green grass illuminated by the noon sunlight. The patches of grass wrapped around the back of the building behind her, adorned with a few fresh cherry blossom trees. Some of the blossoms were even falling off and blowing away in the breezy wind.

At the end of the pathway stood a small monument of sorts, encased in a gray stone-like material that was the same as the path flat on the ground. It stood at the very center of the entire school property, right where the end of the main building stopped. Around it, there was a fence surrounding the circular area where the pathway ends. A few benches also stood in the area, with a few students sitting on them. They were eating and enjoying themselves with each other, Socorro paid them no mind.

She got closer to the monument, examining it. The monument's structure was in the shape of the school's symbol that she saw earlier. It was made of light and dark gray stones for the colors of the symbol. It was not very big, just a little taller than her. Underneath the 3D symbol, it stood on a pedestal that bore a plaque. Socorro leaned in to get a better look at it. Attempting to decipher it, it read:

"Nishikesu High School's symbol represents the encompassing of many odd shapes to form a unity, to accept things of all shapes and types to make one nice and peaceful order. That is our school's motto, and this monument is dedicated to it.

-Principal Kogen Goto

Established April 2002."

Socorro couldn't read it however, since it was in Japanese. She could only make out the date. Dissatisfied, she turned her attention away from the monument and looked around the rest of the courtyard.

Past the monument, there were a few more cherry blossom trees in the area. There was lastly a pathway exiting the monument area that led down to the gym building and sports field a distance away from everything. "This is stunning and breathtaking!", Socorro thought happily to herself as she finished looking around the courtyard, "I didn't even have time to look in this area completely with the tour a while ago!" She smiled, enjoying the atmosphere she didn't get earlier when she came there with Fujita. She walked back to the monument and decided to admire it some more.

Socorro gazed in front of the monument for a moment when she all of a sudden heard a ferocious voice lash out from behind her. "What the hell are you doing!?", it seemed to say in hard-Japanese. Socorro, frightened at the sound, whirled around to see who the voice belonged to.

In front of her, stood a tall handsome-looking male student. He was nicely dressed and appeared to be a third year, judging from the black tie he was wearing. Socorro immediately recognized him as the older student who said rude comments to his friends in the cafeteria about her. He looked very angry, like he was going to explode in fury. "Stop ruining the school!", his voice rang out again.

He took a step closer to her. Socorro, confused, only managed to get out a, "What?", in Japanese in reply. This only made him more angry, "You heard me! Stop ruining the school!", he shouted. Not understanding what he said, Socorro shook her head no nervously. She started to feel scared and walked backwards away from the monument. "You afraid of me? Well you should be, you fucking freak!", the boy said while he kept stepping towards her.

Socorro then reached a nearby bench. Standing by it, the boy approached her. He pointed hard at the bench and said in a threatening tone, "Sit down." She quickly complied and sat down at the far right end of the bench. The boy still stood up and then started to make a hate speech, all while standing over her in an intimidating manner.

"Listen here, you freak.", he started. "Let me get one thing straight...", he continued. "This is MY school, and you're ruining it!", he said while pointing at her. "I own this school and I don't need filthy rats like you tainting its reputation! I am Yurikan Setsuji, the guardian defender of this school! God damn foreign aliens like you ruined Japan's culture and history. You are all invasive rats downgrading Japan, and I won't allow it. Got the fucking message, shorty!?", he finished.

Socorro was bewildered, she looked at him confused and shocked. She didn't understand what he said, but she was sure that it was really bad. "He sounds so hateful...", she thought to herself. "What? You don't understand me?", he continued. "Of course you don't. Dark-skinned freaks like you would never fucking know! Japanese is the only proper language in my eyes!", he shouted.

Socorro was startled by his shouting and looked around the courtyard to see if any other students were reacting to what was happening. Some of the students were looking at what was going on, but most of them were ignoring it all together. None of them were trying to stop what was going on, all of them just did nothing. "Listen here, rat!", he shouted as he slammed his hand on the bench next to her. This really frightened Socorro and her attention snapped back to Yurikan. "NO ONE is ever going to help you!", he continued. "No one likes abnormal freaks, none of them care about you. Now stay out of everybody's way, you shitty rat! Or there will be trouble...", he finished.

After he finished his hate speech, Yurikan swiftly walked away back into the main building and out of sight. Socorro sat there for a moment, her mind and heart racing. "What's his problem? Why is he so hateful? Why did he follow me out here? He seems so aggressive, he wouldn't even listen to me at all. He was so loud, I couldn't even catch his name...", she thought as she realized break time was almost over. She got up and slowly headed back to class as the bell rang, the incident fresh on her mind.

...

Class finally ended four hours after break was over. Socorro wasn't off any better than when she first started. She still didn't know much of what the teacher said due to his fast speech, other than it was some sort of math class. She wondered if she could do well in the class, since she was really good at math. She tried as hard as she could to pay attention to what the teacher was trying to say, but she eventually lost focus due to a lack of comprehension. The incident with Yurikan didn't help either, as Socorro's mind was constantly fixated on it.

"Alright, class. It's now cleaning time, all of you will be cleaning the hallways today. Grab some supplies from the closet and designate where each of you will clean.", the teacher said. After that, all of the students got up and fetched some cleaning utensils and left the classroom. Socorro did the same, knowing what cleaning time was from her pre-travel lessons.

She followed the other students and went to a spot where no one was at. She started to use the dustpan and broom she got to clean the cafeteria hallway. After a moment, she looked up and realized that all of the cleaning students were giving her dirty looks once again. She then realized she forgot to change her shoes in the shoe lockers. Feeling ignorant and embarrassed, she then changed her shoes quickly while trying not to look directly at anyone. She went back to cleaning after finishing.

She cleaned the hallway for what felt like ten minutes. She didn't mind it though, she liked to clean and was trying to be a diligent student so people would respect her more. Hopefully, gaining the teacher's respect as well. "This is not so bad!", she thought while smiling slightly to herself.

Things went well for a few more minutes, everything seemed to be looking up. All of that was changed when Socorro heard an unpleasantly familiar voice shout from behind her, "I told you to fucking stop!" She turned around and was met face-to-face with Yurikan. She was suddenly then met with a forceful push on her chest as she tried to process what was going on. Yurikan had shoved her down hard.

Socorro fell to the floor, the broom and dustpan clattering on the ground in the process. She laid on the ground for a moment, in complete shock. "What's wrong? Get up, you dumbass little rat!", Yurikan shouted. He went over to her and stood over her body. Socorro sat up quickly; panicking, she scooted backwards away from him. Yurikan started to head for her. "Stop.", she managed to get out in Japanese in a nervous tone. She could only anticipate what would happen next.

Yurikan stopped for a second, then he went off on her. "What the fuck did you just say to me!?", he started. "You don't tell me what to do! I can do whatever the hell I want! It's your people's fault that Japan didn't become the empire it could have been!", he continued. His racism and vulgarity just would not let up. "I also see that your pronunciation is still god damn garbage! You'll NEVER be a true speaker and citizen of Japanese! There's nothing you can do about it. And...", he paused, "If you don't like it, go back to your own country! Now stop tainting our beautiful culture.", he finished.

Yurikan then started to walk away after finishing his rant. But not before speaking one last horrible insult after turning away: "Dark, filthy rat..." He slipped away and was gone after a moment.

Socorro kept sitting on the ground for a little while after that. She wanted to cry, she felt so horrible and worthless. She didn't recognize what Yurikan said, but she knew how terribly racist he was. She wondered why he would target someone he didn't know. "Why does everyone seem to hate me for being here?", she said quietly to herself with a frown as her eyes glazed over. No one else seemed to notice the event, or they didn't care.

That's when she heard a concerned, deep, yet fair voice ring out from behind her. "Are you okay?", the voice asked in a clear and emotional tone. Understanding the Japanese phrase, Socorro turned around and looked to see who the voice was connected to...