"Welcome to Hakone Academy Miss Akiyama, Miss Murakami, Shall I show you to your homerooms?" A lady from the office asks me and my cousin. We stand side by side in our new school uniforms, inside our new school for our last year of school. My stomach flutters with excitement and my heart races.

"Yes thank you" We say in an odd unison like identical twins that you see on TV. While we are cousins, we do look quite alike in a strange way, I guess that's what happens when your mothers are twins. Although we looked almost identical when we were younger, Kumiko's hair has become a much lighter, sandy brown compared to my dark brown hair. She also cut it shorter to above her shoulders right before the start of school for a "fresh new start" in her words.

"Alright then, follow me" The lady says holding an arm out to a glass door. We follow her out and walk through the empty corridors with our school bags in hand. We climb up stairs onto the higher floors of the academy where our new classrooms would be. This school seems so much bigger than our previous school, much grander and brighter. Large arch windows line all the corridors letting in lots of natural light and a slight breeze that is creeping its way through. From what I saw earlier, the inner corridors look out over a large outdoor courtyard the leads out into the grassier sporting areas.

As we walk past each of the classrooms, the murmurs of students and teachers can be heard as their last first day of school has begun.

The lady walks over to the first classroom in the corridor which has a sign saying '3D' and opens the door.

"Miss Murakami, this will be your classroom" She says to my cousin with a smile. My heart begins racing more as she turns to head into the classroom, now I'm going to be left all alone, heading to my own classroom soon.

"Good luck Kumiko" I whisper to her as she walks over to the parted door with the office lady standing next to it. I give her a broad and reassuring smile and she smile back just as big, if not bigger.

"You too, I'll meet you after school" she replies, turning and walking into the classroom with her bag clutched in both hands. The tight grip on her bags suggests that she is quite nervous also. The lady that showed us in closes the door and I can hear the teacher introducing Kumiko to the class.

"Let's head to your class then" The lady says as she walks down the hallway past another classroom, some students turned their heads as we walk outside their classroom. The lady opens the door to the next classroom which has a sign saying '3A' and invites me in. This is it, there's no turning back now. I thought it wasn't possible but my stomach almost seems like it could fly away with amount of butterflies inside. I just have to make sure that I don't make a fool of myself and trip over my own feet and collapse in front of the whole class. The homeroom teacher invites me in with a kind and sweet smile; she looks really smart and caring. Hopefully this assumption turns out to be right.

"This is Akiyama Yuu, she has just transferred here, please make her feel welcome in this class", the teacher announces. Everyone just stares at me silently, possibly judging me as I just stand here at the very front of the class. It's quite daunting and yet exciting to be starting somewhere new, but even more so when you're transferring schools in your third year of high school.

"Here is your assigned seat", the teacher says pointing to a desk in the second row by the window, it was the only empty seat in the classroom. Everyone must have been expecting me to walk in this morning, maybe that's why they didn't look all that surprised. I walk over, each step sounding loud and feeling like an eternity while the heads of students turn to watch my every move as I go to my seat. Somehow I managed not to trip over with the weight of a few dozen gazes. At least once class starts, I slowly become less and less obvious and start to blend in as if I've always been here.

The first few classes seemed to go by in a blur, all the nervousness and excitement gradually faded as the day rolled on. Before I even knew it, it was lunchtime and as soon as the bell went off, everyone got up and started moving around.

It's a nice day outside, maybe I should go find Kumiko and eat lunch with her outside. The only trouble would be us possibly getting lost as we don't really know how to get around the school yet. It'd probably be better for me to just eat here today, there will be lots of other opportunities to eat somewhere else when I know the layout better.

"Hi Akiyama-san was it?", a voice says next to me. I turn and see a girl standing there with her dark fringe hanging off to the side. She looks fairly average in height and has a slender, athletic body., "I'm Hamasaki Chinatsu, nice to meet you"

"Yes my name is Akiyama, nice to meet you, Hamasaki-san" I say smiling. Hamasaki pulls up one of the now vacated seats from the desk next to mine and sits down on it.

"So how have you found your day so far?" She asks and starts to open her lunch.

"Yeah it's going fine, it still feels a bit weird being in a new school but I'll get used to it soon enough" I say with a slight laugh which she joins in with.

"You know what club you're going to join yet?" She asks. I can't really explain to her that one of the main reasons I moved here was for the cycling club, it just seems a little too weird.

"Well… the cycling club I hope" I reply albeit a little hesitantly

"Really?! That's awesome! I knew you would be joining an athletic club with muscular legs like those! It's just a shame that it isn't the athletic club!" She replies in a light tone and starts eating some of her lunch, I'm actually quite shocked by her energetic answer.

"Yeah, my cousin who also moved here is joining too. We've been riding together for a number of years."

"Oh wow! That's so cool!" She replies after swallowing a mouthful of food, I glance around the room in-between talking and eating, only to find someone looking at me. I continue my line of sight around the room to pretend like I didn't notice him looking at me

"Hey, Hamasaki-san, who the guy directly over to my right?" I asked and tried not to look suspicious and seem like I was talking about him. She secretly glances to my right without anyone being able to see.

"That's Fukutomi Juichi, he's the captain of the cycling team, he must have overheard our conversation" She replied in hushed tones so he couldn't overhear.

"Ah okay, this is a bit awkward now, I kinda feel like he may be judging me now"

We talk for the rest of lunch and she also introduced me to her friend Takada Rika who was in the athletic team along with Hamasaki. She was a bit shorter than Hamasaki and had short and wavy fiery orange hair that matched her tomboyish energetic personality. They're both very cheerful, funny and very friendly towards me which is quite a relief. At least now I have friends who seem really awesome to hang out with. The bell for the rest of our classes interrupts our conversation so we all move back to our seats to start the lessons for the rest of the day

Hello,

I have some spare time so I've decided to update and finish this story. Chapters 1-5 are only slightly edited from the original but chapters 6+ are being rewritten or are completely new.

I don't have a planned update schedule but hopefully they will be relatively frequent. Several later chapters have already been written so now I'm trying to catch up to them.

I hope you enjoy my story!

- Razz