Cooro was once a young, happy boy. Cooro wanted nothing more than to have friends. He struggled everyday, cooking, drawing, building up muscle, basically creating things he'd think his students would like, but no matter what he made no one seemed to like him. Cooro was making cookies. He had cookie dough in a pan, stuffed them in an oven, and waited twenty easy minutes. When they were done, Cooro placed oven mitts on his hands, opened the door and felt a convection heat wave blow in his face, and grabbed the pan with the cookies. He pulled them out to bring out whole wheat, heart shaped cookies.
" Their done!" Cooro shouted whole heartedly when he opened the door. " Their done! Their done! Their done!"
Nana walked in. Back when she was young Nana was a nutcase. She liked to pick fights, liked to see people suffer, and used a wooden bat. The bat she was carrying was smeared with blood from someone she hit in the face. Nana walked to the table, pulled the chair back, and crossed her feet on the chair dropping dirt on the counter.
" Hey, Cooro, what are we having for breakfast?" Nana scoffed as she scraped her feet on the table. " I'm hungry like a wyvern."
" Dinner will be ready shortly, Nana. Please see what I made for everyone in my class room." Cooro ran over to Nana and showed her his heart shaped cookies. Nana looked at the cookies and tilted her head. " These are cookies I'm going to give to everyone in my class so they'll be my friends."
" Cooro, Cooro, you try these stunts every time and they never work. Why can't you just accept there's no one in the school that wants to be your friend. If you want me to I could bash their faces in."
A tick of sweat rolled down the back of Cooro's neck when he saw the sadist look in her face. " Nana, why do you always have to be so scary? You'll never be able to open up a maid café if you're always this scary."
" Nana, you're going to be late for school, " Roxie said in her old cheery voice. Roxie walked in. Back then she was a really sweet girl. She had laces holding her hair in a ponytail, wore the attire of a red skirt and a white shirt
with a red ribbon clipped around her neck. Roxie skipped to Cooro and rubbed the little scamps head. " Hey there, buddy. Anything I can do to put a smile on your face?"
" Roxie!" Cooro held his hands out and hugged Roxie around her chest. He buried his small head in her stomach and smiled. " It's good to see you, Roxie."
" It's good to see you too, Cooro. I really missed you..."
Roxie had what was called a dissociative identity disorder . Whenever she heard loud noises her minds would do what some would call glitch. Roxie took out a pencil from her skirt, spinned around, and threw it at a fly that was flying
behind her. The pencil ripped through the fly's right wing and it fell to the ground. The moment it stopped buzzing Roxie returned to normal.
" Roxie, is everything alright? You seem to be a little edgy today."
" Huh? Oh, it's nothing, Cooro. I'm just a little bit stressed out with school is all. When you reach my grade you'll understand the stress I'm going through."
Canary and Anzu walked in. Just like every day Anzu had her arms around Canary. Anzu was very shy of people and couldn't be near anyone other than her friends-Cooro, Nana, Roxie, Canary-and she didn't know if she'd ever recover.
Some call it social anxiety.
" Hey Cooro, my little man," Canary scoffed at Cooro. " Cookies today? Don't get me wrong, I'm glad one of you can cook, but maybe you should think of something with a little more nutrition. Wouldn't want any of you to get fat, would you?"
" It's okay, Canary. I plan to share it with everyone in my class."
" Why? Why would you give your classmates cookies?"
" Because I want to have friends."
" Aren't we good enough for you? Not many kids your age get to have three hot older girls like us for friends." Canary grabbed the shy Anzu and the innocent Roxie and pulled them to her cheeks. She let them sandwich hug her. " See.
Aren't we just the cutest?"
" You are. But I want friends my own age. Well, I'm off to school."
XXX
Cooro was both nervous and excited whenever he went to school. His school was jam packed with students. Cooro kept his cookies in a plastic container in both his hands. Cooro saw a group of kids talking together and walked towards them.
" Hi guys," Cooro said as he handed the container of cookies to them. " Let's be friends."
All the students scoffed when Cooro mentioned the word "friends". They all walked away from him. Cooro didn't know why they would do such a thing, but he just moved to the next one.
Cooro would have to go inside soon. He didn't know why but he was facing a dilemma where nothing he did seem to work; nobody wanted to talk to him. Nobody... except the big, strong, hateful bully Timon. Timon had red hair the
color of fire, a red jacket that squeezed his ribs, and torn jeans like they were cut by a Exceed from Extalia. Timon smirked at Cooro preparing to clobber him with his fists.
" Any last words, scarf head?"
Cooro held his plastic container up to Timon and smiled. " Would you like a cookie?"
XXX
Cooro had a bag of ice on both his left and right cheek. Cooro had been injured by Timon. He ached all over, his face felt like it was broken, and the only thing that soothed the pain was holding the bracelet with teeth and pearls his
father gave him. Nana was the one holding the ice to Cooro's cheeks.
" I just want you to know I saw this entire thing coming," Nana said while she pushed on the ice. " And like I said, if you want I can beat this guy up for you, little brother."
" I didn't want you to hurt anyone. I just wanted to have friends. I just thought that if I gave them a little food they would warm up to me. But now I don't think anyone will ever be friends with me."
" I see. Have you ever heard of a fish called the Rainbow Hane-Sakana?"
" No. I heard of Hane-Sakana, but I've never heard of a Rainbow Hane-Sakana. What are they like?"
" First, we all know that regular Hane-Sakana live only in the Earth Land, but Rainbow Hane-Sakana travel somewhere close to here this kind of year. Some say that those who eat the meat of a Rainbow Hane-Sakana will find everlasting joy."
" I-I don't understand. I heard that the meat of a Hane-Sakana is suppose to taste nasty. Some pay daredevil's to eat it but even they wouldn't do it."
" Yes, but the meat of the Rainbow Hane-Sakana is different. When their borntheir dropped into a mystifying water that cleans their meat. Some say the taste of it is so plentiful it can make your heart melt with a single bite. If you
feed that meat to anyone they'll become your friend for sure."
" Nana, will you be helping me find this Rainbow Hane-Sakana?"
" No. It's not that I don't want to help you, Cooro, but this is something you have to do yourself. The name of the place they migrate to is Earthora Mountains. Good luck trying to find it, Cooro."
XXX
Cooro followed Nana's directions and reached the bottom of Earthora Mountains. The mountains were made of brown sedimentary rocks. The top biggest mountain, the one the Rainbow Hane-Sakana's migrated to, it was 20,000 ft large.
There was an open crevasse in the terrain, lenticular bad clouds halfway up the mountain, and air so thick it could stop a person from breathing. Rapid ascent would cause altitude sickness. If the mountain couldn't end his life, the
vicious animals hibernating in them would.
" This is it," Cooro thought. " There's no turning back now. I must get that Rainbow Hane-Sakana so people will actually want to be near me-"
Something fell out of the sky. The thing that fell nearly crashed on Cooro, but he caught it before it landed. The thing that fell turned out to be a girl. Her hair was lavender purple like the color of a petunia, she wore a green one piece
dress, ribbons were both on her dress and wrapped behind her hair, and her eyes were silver like the color of the sky. Cooro and the girl both looked each other in the eyes, and then she smiled.
" Hi," the girl smiled after Cooro just caught her. " That was a long fall. Thanks for catching me."
" Uh, why were you falling?" Cooro asked. " Did you jump off the mountain's?"
" Uh-huh. It was so much fun. I want to do it again."
" You shouldn't. Falling from that height will kill you. And even if you did survive it could break your bones, or if your head hit the dirt it could cause brain damage. You should really be more careful, little girl."
" Hehehe."
" Huh? Why are you laughing?"
" Hehehe. Your funny. I like you."
Cooro's cheeks tinted red like the color of a rose when he saw the girl smile. "Uh, thanks. Hey, I'm trying to reach the top of the mountains. Would you like to come with me?"
" Sure. Oh, that's right, I didn't introduce myself. My names Aōyami. Aōyami Raggera."