Today is a grand day for a girl named Shirahama Honoka, nine years old. After all it's not every day that she's allowed to go walk to school on her own instead of her father driving her there.

In Honoka's opinion, her father worried too much, but considering that her brother was a bully magnet it's not too unreasonable to be watching for his little girl. Her brother could take the bullying to some degree, and in a sense he never allowed his parents to help him in that regard, but Honoka's father would never in a million years let anyone touch his precious little girl. Then again, the school she was attending were watchful for cases of bullying and she also had plenty of friends in class so the chance of her being a bullying victim was quite low indeed.

Quickening her pace she set to a light run, not wanting to be late and not catch her friends on the school entrance. She had made sure to wake up earlier than usual in order to walk to school, but she wasn't used to that yet and didn't knew how long it would take.

Deciding to sprint to get there faster, she couldn't help but wonder why the streets where unusually empty of passerby. She knew this route lead to several other school mates of her since she saw them on her way from her father's car. She didn't had much time to ponder about that since after only a minute of run she was already panting for breath. Fortunately for her she was already near the park, deciding to drink some water on the fountain before resuming her run.

Just before she started drinking, she spotted someone crouching on the roof the bathroom smoking. It was a well built man, with toned muscles, long black hair tied in a ponytail and sharp features, wearing a hawaiian shirt unbuttoned, black shorts and sandals on his feet.

"Hey you!" She tried to catch the man's attention. He turned his face down, taking a drag from his cancer stick. "Don't you know it's bad for your health if you smoke? That's what my father always tells me, and what are you doing on the roof?"

He just stared at her for a moment before taking yet another drag from his cigarrette. "Good for your father then brat."

"Don't call me brat you meanie! My name is Shirahama Honoka! Remember it!"

"Sure you are princess", he replied with mock reverence before pausing to take a closer look at Honoka, stroking his chin in thought. "Why are you wearing your bag? It's Saturday."

She just stared at the man in front of her. "We go to school on Saturday", she said as if talking with a particularly slow kid.

"It's the second Saturday of the month. Schools are closed today."

Honoka's thought ground to a halt, before she dropped to her knees in despair.

"NOOOOOOOO!" She had been had. Her father probably just forgot about it, while her mother was acting somewhat suspicious by giggling every so often when Honoka mentioned how awesome it would be to go to school alone. She should have knew better when her brother woke up late for breakfast and her mother didn't berate him for it.

She heard the man laughing and snapped her head up, but he had disappeared from sight, confusing the little girl. "Where did he went?"

"Here", he said from behind her, startling Honoka. She turned around and gave what she thought was a menacing glare at him, but she only managed to look adorable in doing so. "Well, looks like you wasted the morning midget. Pay more attention next time alright?" He pulled her yellow hat over her eyes, his laugh still echoing on Honoka's ears.

"I'M NOT A MIDGET AND MY NAME IS HONOKA!" She yelled back, but somehow he had already disappeared from sight. Once more this confused the girl. 'How did he disappeared? How strange...'

It was with those last thoughts that she returned home, the incident already half forgotten aside from a minor prayer not to ever meet someone as rude as him again.

~~O~~

"Good morning class", said the teacher cheerfully in front of the class, "due to Suzuki Yuri-san pregnancy leave I will substitute you as the new english teacher. My name is Kanten Wu, nice to meet you all."

There was a loud bang on one of the desks near the rear, and a couple of students turned around to see what it was.

Honoka had just banged her forehead on the desk, unable to cope with the absurdity of it all. Not only that rude man from before had reappeared, but now he had the gall to be her substitute english teacher? At least he was wearing proper pants today and his hawaiian shirt was buttoned all the way up this time.

"Oh, I didn't knew you were in this class squirt." He said in a light tone, as if it was an afterthought.

A vein was almost popping up on Honoka's forehead due to her anger. She was respectful of her teachers as a proper student should, but for him she would open a little exception. "I'm not squirt! My name is Honoka! Do you hear me? Ho. No. Ka."

The man just laughed it off and put his hands in a placation motion. "Alright, alright, just don't burn yourself ok? Since you're my student now, we better get along, right?"

Honoka doubted she would ever get along with him, but held her piece.

"This is going to be a long year", she muttered under her breath, dreading what trials would await her.

She were right in being wary of the future, for the entirely wrong reasons.