Alfred grumbled light-heartedly to his brother as they walked down the drive to the school and towards the form rooms, pulling down the sleeves of his maroon blazer as he did.
The pair of them kept pace with each other, Alfred moaning about the uniform and school in general until they were forced to go in different directions. The twins had been placed in different forms – probably so people could tell them apart a little more easily.
"See you, Mattie!" Alfred waved at his brother before running towards his form room. As he heard the bell ring he ran faster, wanting to be in the classroom before the corridors filled with people moving the other way. He almost crashed headlong into Gilbert, one of Matthew's closest friends and called a quick apology over his shoulder to the older boy as he kept running.
Alfred skidded to a stop outside his form room and took a brief moment to catch his breath, knowing he had a few minutes until the next bell went and the corridors would fill properly. He thought he'd be the first one there but his form tutor was talking to a boy who looked a little younger than Alfred with short, black hair.
"Ah, Alfred," his tutor looked up and smiled at him, "This is Kiku Honda. He's just moved here and I was hoping you'd keep an eye on him for the next few days, just until he settles in and learns his way around. Kiku, this is Alfred Jones. If you have any trouble finding your way around or any questions then you can go to him."
Alfred grinned, "Sure thing. Kiku, just remember that I'm the hero!"
Kiku looked up at Alfred and nodded slightly, "Hello, Alfred." His dark brown eyes felt to Alfred like he was looking into him rather than at him. It was a bit unnerving.
"Go sit down and get to know each other," the teacher prompted and after a moment they did, Alfred sitting in his usual seat with Kiku beside him.
"So how long ago did you move here?" Alfred slouched back comfortably, his blue gaze resting on the new student from behind his glasses.
"Only last week, though I've lived in your country for many years."
"Cool," Alfred grinned, "So let's see your timetable then. You're kind of lucky, when we started at the beginning of the year they made us write out our timetables onto the back of the planners by hand but you get to just glue yours on. It's so much easier, I don't see why they don't just let us all do it." He reached out and plucked Kiku's clean, green planner out of his hands before fishing out his own and started to compare the timetables. His planner was scruffy and dog-eared after almost a year of being carried around in Alfred's 'care'. The corner of most of the pages had been folded down, marking what week in the calender it was.
"Cool!" He exclaimed after a moment, "We have English, History and PE together. And I think you're in my brother Mattie's classes for Maths and Sciences. You're doing Japanese? That's really cool, Papa insisted that Matt and I both take French. Other than PE that's the only class we're in together and I don't even like it that much."
As he'd been talking the second bell had rung and the room had slowly filled, Alfred's group of friends being predictable the last to arrive. Before they had a chance to greet each other the teach called for quiet. Once they were settled he gave the usual announcements. Alfred leaned on his hand, the only interesting one was that Kiku had joined and he already knew that.
As the final bell went to signal the start of lessons and people started to leave.
Alfred turned to Kiku again, "Hey, I just remembered. There's a map of the school in the back of your planner if you get really lost. I'll meet you in the canteen at break, okay?"
He waited until the Japanese student nodded his agreement before turning and moving towards his friends, talking and laughing with them as they all went towards their classes.
Author's Note: Sorry for not updating for so long, been really busy with university assignments at the moment but I'll be finished by this time next week so updates will be more frequent.
The school they go to is based on my school. It's an English school because I'm English. Alfred is 14 and Gilbert almost 16 so is in the year above them.