There's a strange feeling that occurs when you wake up after sleeping in class. The first is the exhausting sensation of recovering from your sleep-addled state. You fight the grasping hands of sleep in order to assess the situation around, if only to see if you're safe to return to your slumber. The second is the bewildering sensation of not knowing what the hell is going on. Most likely, someone will be talking and you'll be waking up in the middle of said discussion. At my old school, I would usually look to my neighbor's book to see what page we were on, turn to that page, and then return to my impromptu hibernation. The third, and final, sensation is one of panic as you realize that you're the only one sitting down as everyone else is packing up and leaving.
"Oh, shit!" I blurt out in a volume that's not loud enough for the teacher to hear, but just loud enough to incite giggles from a group of nearby girls. I look to my left and see an empty seat.
She's gone already…
I quickly sling my bag over my shoulder and flee the classroom. If my old school has taught me anything, it's that post-class crowds can kill you. I can only imagine the mobs from this considerably larger school. I bolt through the halls at high speeds; turning whenever I feel like I should. It's only after I descend down a flight of stairs that I feel like I'm dying. My knees feel like buckling, I'm wheezing in between gaping breaths, and I literally feel my body grow hotter at a worrying pace. I lean against the nearby wall and place my hand on my chest. A chill rushes down my spine once I feel my speeding heartbeat. I force my eyes shut, focusing on breathing and not passing out. My skin feels clammy and I start seeing spots.
Eventually, my heartbeat slows down and begins to normalize. I stood there in the empty hall with my shirt scrunched in my hand. I'm sweating bullets and my head feels dangerously empty and light. Wiping my forehead with my wrist, I collapsed onto the floor. My breathing pattern returns to normal and I stare emptily into space.
So, this is what my life has come to, huh?
I can't even run down the school halls…
Resounding stomps from the nearby staircase grow louder and louder to my right. I'm too mentally exhausted to get up and leave, so I just sit there and gaze vaguely in the newcomer's direction. Finally, a girl sprints out of the staircase and screeches to a stop a few feet away from me. She sighs lethargically and puts her hands on her hip. It seems that she hasn't noticed me and I'm not sure whether or not I should make my presence known. She wheels her head to the right, making her long scarlet hair fly in the opposite direction. Unsatisfied with what she sees, she twists her head to the left in my direction.
"Hey, you!" She points at me with a look of superiority. "Are you Roxas?"
"Um… yeah?" I answer hesitantly. I don't know who this person is, but she appears to vaguely know me. Upon hearing my response, her posture physically reclines in relief.
"Good good…" She mutters to herself quietly. She adopts a thinking pose, pinching her chin with one hand and holding it up with her other arm. Looking up at her, I'm confronted by startling blue eyes that match my own. She's wearing the girl's uniform, so I assume that she's a student. "What are you doing on the floor?" She bends over to look me in the eyes. "You weren't planning on… hiding and ditching class… were you?" Her tone of voice suddenly becomes venomous and threatening, sending jolts down my spine.
"No! No, I-… er…" I'm quick to claim innocence, but I realize that I don't have a good excuse. I'm about to blurt out the truth in order to avoid being flayed alive, but my confession comes out as a garbled mess. In the back of my head, an argument between myself and I begins.
Do I even want people to know about my condition?
Sure, the teachers are already clued in, but do I want it to stay that way?
I'd prefer not being treated like a victim in need of help, but it'll be a hassle to keep it a secret for god knows how long.
So do I tell this random stranger about my illness?
Well the answer to that is obvious.
Hell no.
With new resolve, I bolster myself to my feet with the help of the nearby wall. A sudden spike of pain hits me like a knife to the chest. I wince and grit my teeth, biting my tongue in the progress. But as soon as the pain came, it left immediately, leaving me with the slight aftertaste of death. Although I was able to avoid crying out in pain, the red haired girl still notices the indicia of my illness.
"H-Hey, are you okay?" Her murderous voice is replaced with one filled with genuine concern. I open one eye and attempt a genial smile.
"Y-Yeah… I'm okay." The pain finally disperses entirely, so I stretch my arms nonchalantly to convince the stranger of my well-being. Getting a look at her face, I can tell she's not convinced in the slightest, so I desperately try to change the topic. "S-So… you were looking for me?" Her eyes light up in recognition. Zipping open her messenger bag, she pulls out a relatively small notebook.
"Yes… you're right." She starts flipping through the pages, muttering my name under her breath like she's trying to remember something. "Here we are… Roxas. Class 3-B. Age 16. Dorm room 3." She starts rattling off a list of information about me that sounds very similar to a sheet I was given when I met with the school's administration. If I knew what I was hearing, this girl was reading my student recognition sheet, which made me really question who she was and why she had all my info. After listing off information I wasn't even aware of, like my blood type, she looks away from her notebook and at me. "Does this sound like you?"
"Um… yeah, pretty much." I rub the back of my head nervously. "Er… who are you?" I thought it was a normal question, but she finds it humorous.
"Yeah, I guess you must be a bit out of the loop now, huh." No kidding. "I'm Kairi, the female class representative for the third years." While that may answer two of the questions I had, it doesn't answer the other ninety-eight.
"So… why were you looking for me?" I repeat my earlier question, reflecting on how she completely ignored it.
"Oh yeah, I forgot about that." She glances back at her notebook for a few moments before turning back to me. "But before I go over that, there was something I wanted to ask you." She… ignored the subject again…
"What is it?"
"It's this." She turns her notebook around and pretty much shoves its contents in my face. She points to a certain sentence half way down the page.
Transfer student as of December 3. Late transfer due to prolonged medical stay.
"Uh…" I unconsciously mutter, but she interrupts me.
"So, what's this about?" She doesn't sound accusatory in her questioning, rather she sounds genuinely curious. "Prolonged medical stay? You get hit by a car or something?" Her genial smile gives me the impression that this was meant to be a joke, but I must be an unrefined cur because I don't find it funny. No, I wasn't hit by a car. But isn't it common sense that you don't make a joke about someone who's been in the hospital? What the hell is wrong with this girl? I mean, what the hell! Seriously, I mean I… I…
I almost died…
"I'd rather not talk about it." I answer curtly. I hear her sigh of disappointment, but I refuse to look at her. Why? I don't know.
"I understand…" Her voice trails off into awkward silence. We're both left standing there in the empty hallway. "Oh yeah, I forgot." She hits her forehead with the palm of her hand in a comedic fashion – sticking out her tongue for added effect. "I'm supposed to be your guide for today!" She turns around and beckons for me to follow her. "C'mon, we're gonna be late for class!" Although I'm a bit perplexed and worried by her constant changes in personality, I realize that I don't have much of a choice.
"Sure, whatever." With my less than confident response, we climbed back up the staircase from whence we came.
There was still quite a commotion as we treaded through the waves of rushing students. Some were negotiating their lockers while others were talking with friends, but most of them were hurriedly rushing down the hall in whichever way to get to their next class before they were marked for tardiness.
"So… dorm room 3, huh?" Remarkably, despite the bustle of our fellow classmates, I can hear Kairi just fine. "Looks like Sora's getting a new friend!" She giggles to herself, like she'd just made a clever reference to an inside joke.
"Um… what?" Whatever this joke is, I'm certainly left in the dark.
"Oh, yeah… guess you wouldn't know. Sora's just another third-year like you and I." She brushes a few strands of hair behind her ear. "Well, except he's my boyfriend." She briefly smiles to herself, though it doesn't go unnoticed by me. "His old roommate transferred out over the summer, so you'll be his new living partner – I guess you could call it." No, actually. That's not a good phrase to describe a roommate.
"Hm, is that so…" I don't particularly care for this interesting tidbit too much, but I guess it's something good to know. After all, the easiest way to assimilate yourself into a culture is to absorb any and all information.
"Heehee…" She laughs lightly and turns to me with a refreshing smile. "Don't worry, you'll like him! He's really nice…" Her face pinks up a tiny bit as she turns away from me. After a few moments of comfortable silence and walking, we arrive in front of another classroom door. "Welp, here's where your next class is! Hope you remembered the way here." I nod in affirmation and thank Kairi for leading me here. "Hehe, no problem. It's my job!" She gives me a thumbs up and pats me on the back. "After this class is over, you've got lunch next."
"Am I supposed to wait for you again?" I ask in advance, not wanting to be meandering across the giant school again.
"Er..." She purses her lips and looks at the ceiling. "I think I have to go to a council meeting… but don't worry!" She pats me on the shoulder reassuringly. "Just follow the crowd to the cafeteria." The class bell suddenly blares across the school's PA system, making me jump. "Welp, I gotta go! Have fun!" She wheels around on her heel and bolts down the hall, waving me goodbye over her shoulder.
I run my hand through my hair and sigh. "Damn… don't even know where my next class is." I exhale loudly before drifting into the room. I inform the teacher that I'm the new transfer student, he assigns me to a seat in the back of the room, and I take my place in the class.
Right next to a familiar blonde haired girl.
"You…" I hear her mutter in an inquisitive manner. Of course, I could barely hear her so I'm just assuming she's as surprised as I am.
"Hm?" I respond unintelligibly, setting my bag down on the seat next to her. She looks at me for a few seconds before turning around and gazing out the window. I'd normally press the issue about what she wanted, but I'm exhausted. I collapse into my seat and rest my head in my arms once more. The teacher's lessons drone on in the background, nostalgically reminding me of how I spent my time in class at my old school.
Jeez, why am I so tired today? Melancholic thoughts pass through my empty head as I attempt to sort out everything that's going on. I almost had another heart attack, which led to making a "friend", I guess you could call her. More like a legalized stalker, considering how much she knows about me.
I look to my left to see my recurring seatmate getting busy with the same book she was "reading" in the previous class. Except this time, she's not skittishly darting her eyes back at me like a frightened cat. She appears completely engrossed by the novel, her eyes staring intently at the words transcribed on the page – captivating blue eyes, if I forgot to mention. She lightly bites her bottom lip and her eyes scrunch up in reaction to a foreboding event in the book. She doesn't seem to notice me staring again, and I tear my gaze away from her before she catches the reminiscent feeling of a random stranger ogling her.
Wait, I'm not ogling her!
Yeah, you're totally just staring at her eyes and lips in a scientific way.
Wha- shut up! Now, I'm arguing with myself!
I facedesk as softly as I can before scratching the back of my head rapidly. It's a coping mechanism I developed when I was younger. Whenever I feel flustered or exasperated, I scratch the back of my head. It's strangely therapeutic and calms me down pretty quickly. Since my head is already on my desk, I sneak my phone out of my pocket.
When I asked Kairi about what to do for lunch, I'd forgotten I've already got an appointment. I'd completely forgotten due to everything that was going on, but now that I'd finally calmed down, I remembered a certain text I had gotten this morning. A text from someone I already knew at this school. In fact, this person is someone very close to me, so it's only natural that they would want to see me on my first day of school.
Meet me at the big tree in the school's courtyard during lunch.
While I appreciated the gesture of seeking me out first, they neglected to tell me anything too specific, most likely out of fear that my first day would be problem-free. This school has a bunch of outdoor spots – for god's sake, it's huge! Which plot of grass with trees and benches is the courtyard? Are the other fields the school's various lawns or what?
And I'm supposed to meet them at a tree? The only details about where we're meeting is that it's a "big" tree, as if I know what constitutes as big when referring to the local foliage. I can only hope that there's only one tree in the courtyard, but then again, I don't really know where the courtyard is, so I'm screwed either way.
Argh!
My arms instinctively reach up to start scratching when the shrill ringing of the school bell startles me once more.
Wha-? Class is over already?
I lift my head from my desk, and sure enough, the majority of students are copying down some last minute homework assignment that the teacher is jotting down on the board. I ignore the assignment, since I can just pull the strings of "first day jitters" or something. Glancing to my left, I see a vacant seat. I twist my neck quickly to the right and barely catch a glimpse of blonde hair before it disappears out of view. Getting a firm grip on my bag, I leap out of my seat to make chase. But when I get out of the room into the hallway, there's no sign of my mysterious seat mate. A few of my classmates have started filtering out of the room, so I figure I should forget about trying to find her.
Why did I suddenly run after her, anyway?
I scratch my neck, not because I'm agitated, but because it was slightly itchy. My hand thrusts into the dark abyss known as my pocket in an attempt to produce a school map. After rustling through some spare change, my dorm key, and a ticket stub from a few years ago, I remember I left the map at my old house during the scramble to get to the bus on time.
A lot of good that did.
Looking around, I notice the windows that almost take up the entire wall. I take a look to see if I can scope out where I am, when I notice something distinct.
A very distinct tree.
Not only distinct for its size, since it was kinda big, but it was also the only tree. Encircled around its trunk were wooden benches. And on said benches was someone I recognized. A girl with stark black hair, cut short so it wouldn't pass her neck.
My younger sister, Xion.