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CHAPTER ONE: FRIENDLINESS

NANA

"The clothes he wore, the sound of his voice, the expression in his eyes, all made her feel that she had a momentary glimpse into another world—and she longed passionately to see it again, it only for a brief while

Kathleen Winsor

IN MY CHILDHOOD, I was always afraid to be away from home for too long.

I was one of those clingy children who couldn't go out to sleepovers. It was too difficult for all parties involved; there wasn't a night where I didn't wake up looking for my mother. Just knowing she was in the same place was me was enough to curve my nightmares. It had forced the trait of co-dependency into me because of that.

My decision to move out after graduating high school was a shock to everyone. I was such a baby bird in that sense. Leaving the nest had always terrified me. There wouldn't be anyone to chase my fears away. But, that was a major part of growing up, I realized. At the age of eighteen, I had decided that the best way for me to develop a tolerance for everything would be to face it head on.

My mother wasn't too much against the idea. She had done her part already. She had gotten me through my diaper stages, through my awkward preteen years, and through school in one piece. She knew her time as a caregiver was done when I got accepted into college. In fact, she seemed happy about it. Every baby bird needed to spread their wings. Thankfully, my time was sooner rather than later.

There were a lot of teenagers that chose to stay at home opposed to leaving for college. That option was always a choice for me, but it wouldn't be the best one in the long run. If I wanted to grow, I needed to grow on my own. My mother wouldn't always be there for me.

Because that was the kind of world we lived in. We lived in a world that didn't want people to mature. It didn't wait for people to crawl, or walk, or even run. It didn't wait for parents to decide when to let their children go. The world decided when it was time to leave. It gave everyone everything, and it took everything when it was done. What people chose to do with that time—whether they made the most out of it or not—was all up to them.

It had been during the cool month of April when I found an apartment. It wasn't too shabby. A studio apartment with a nice-sized kitchen and a modern-looking bathroom, it was placed a few blocks away from the campus of my new university. The rent was acceptable for my budget range. The landlord was an elderly woman kind beyond her years. The surrounding neighborhood didn't seem too rough upon further inspection. It was the perfect place for me to start my life.

My mother had claimed that it was too good to be true. It was nothing more than a gem place conveniently in Nerima, Tokyo. The only thing that I had to complain about was that the neighbors were said to be very quiet. The silence tended to get sort of irritating after a while.

My mother was sweet enough to help move in after I had been approved. With her dark hair secured up in a tight knot, and her thick glasses sitting comfortably on her face, she assisted in hauling my belongings up to the third floor apartment. She was thankful that I was moving in spring rather than the summer. The move surely wouldn't have been as pleasant, then.

I had placed one of the moving boxes in the corner of the room with a sigh. My hands made work of dusting themselves off against each other, hoping to get rid of the stinging sensation that came along with manual labor. There wasn't a lot to bring in. However, the things that I did have were on the heavier side. It was starting to make me regret not enlisting in the help of a moving agency.

The two of us had been moving in boxes for a little over an hour now. It would have gone sooner if it weren't for our constant breaks. The thought of water was far too tempting to pass up every now and then. Of course, that, and the fact that communication wasn't as easy as it would have been for anyone else. It dragged things out since we had to stop what we were doing to talk to each other.

My mother looked about as roughed up as I did. Graying strands of hair were popping out of her hairstyle on the sides. Her glasses kept threatening to slide down the bridge of her nose. Her hands were dirty from shuffling things around the moving van all day. Her eyes, once a radiant hazel, were tired and half-lidded. Her tongue darted out to wet her chapped lips as she gazed over our hard work. Half of the truck was down. Now we just needed the other half.

There was no doubt that I didn't look any better. My purple-black hair had been pulled up into a sorry excuse for a ponytail, attempting to keep it out of my face. My white t-shirt had been streaked with dirt smudges from climbing in and out of the truck. My jeans weren't any different, and I felt myself sigh when I wiped sweat off of my forehead, getting it even dirtier with my hands. Surely I looked like I had just escaped from a plane crash.

My violet eyes glanced over to my mother, my hands moving to sign words to her. "Are we halfway there?"

"Almost," she signed back to me. "A few more trips and we should be halfway done. Do you want to take another break?"

I sighed again. "No, let's keep going."

It probably would have been easier on my mother to simply speak her words. But, since that was no longer an option, we had to make do with what we had.

I followed her back out of the apartment to the truck. Whereas it would have took movers about two hours to get everything, it was going to take us around three and a half. It was a good way to save money, though. A majority of my earnings throughout high school went into renting the apartment in the first place. I was now facing the consequences of my wallet running dry.

My mother climbed onto the truck after smiling at my shocked face. There was so much stuff to get through. From furniture and small appliances, to clothes and decorations, we were going to be making several more trips to the third floor. My knees nearly buckled at the thought of it.

She shuffled through a few cardboard boxes until she slid two boxes my way. The second one was smaller than the first. They were light enough for me to carry up the stairs at the same time. Sending her a nod to let her know that I was heading back up, I turned around and left for the steps. She'd be following after me shortly with her own set of cargo, I assumed. She worked far faster than I did despite our eighteen year age difference.

It would only be a matter of time until I ran into one of my neighbors. We were going to be in and out of the third floor, anyways. The landlord told me that everyone on this floor was more on the quiet side. That being said, I had figured that I was going to be surrounded by people four times my age. Yet, that wasn't the case, for when I came into the third floor walkway, a young boy was just coming out of the apartment to the right of mine.

He was far from being a man in his sixties. Rather, he appeared around my age range, if not slightly younger. Not only that, but he seemed a bit startled to see me standing there. I must have been the last thing that he expected to see outside of his apartment. His eyes widened as he stared, and I stared, too, having been shocked to see someone so young living on my floor. Both of our bodies froze up with the newfound silence; the situation may have been funny for on-lookers, but not for me. It made for a more awkward meeting than not.

His eyes glanced from my open apartment door, then to the boxes that I was carrying. His lips moved—he was trying to ask me something, I assumed. Sadly, and to make matters even more awkward, he didn't know that I couldn't hear him. He had tried to initiate small talk without knowing.

A part of me had hoped meeting the neighbors wouldn't have happened so soon. My appearance wasn't something pleasant to look at, after all. His own appearance made me look ten times more gross than I already felt.

His black hair was neatly combed and cut to allow his bangs to hang into his large, doe eyes. His clothes were neat and proper—he was wearing a collared shirt, for goodness sake. He held nothing but his house keys and a thick book in his hands.

I felt a bead of sweat run down my back. Nothing could make this more embarrassing for me than it already was.

My brows furrowed in attempt to focus on his lips. The fastest thing to do would be to try and read them, but they moved too fast, and I couldn't understand anything that he said. I guess he took my expression as me not wanting to talk, though, for a light blush settled across his pale cheeks.

While I may have been hoping not to meet anyone today, I always made sure to be prepared for incidences like this. My body bent at the waist to set the two boxes to the side. The pinkness in his cheeks shifted to a light red as he watched me dig into my back pocket. The blush only grew larger once I retrieved a folded sheet of paper, unfolding it and holding it up so that he could read the handwriting sprawled across it.

'If you're reading this, you're more than likely trying to talk to me right now. I'm sorry, but that isn't possible. I'm borderline deaf. I cannot hear you.'

The guilt was evident in the way his whole face now stained red. He mouthed something else, bowing down at the waist to me. It was an action that I had seen several times in my many years. He was trying to apologize for his ignorance.

I wasn't upset. I couldn't be upset. It wasn't his fault; he didn't know. It was no one's fault, really. My hearing had always been spotty from the day I was born. It was hereditary, a trait that I had been born with because of my mother. She had it, too. But, while hers was able to be fixed with a hearing aid and several doctor visits, I wasn't the same. My conductive hearing loss had went beyond that point after my eleventh birthday.

I had ostosclerosis—a disease that caused the bones in my ear to knit together and block off my eardrums. My mother had it, and my great grandmother had it. My mother figured that it skipped generations when her own mother didn't receive the trait. In the end, that wasn't the case. Genetics were always a toss-up, and my hearing had been proof of that.

My primary school days had been spent learning sign language in fear of me completely losing my hearing one day. It got worse, of course, but not entirely deaf. Thankfully, it reached to where it was now—seventy decibels being the highest I'd ever reached—later on in my childhood. I had already learned to speak and do things that I needed. If that wouldn't have been the case, I would have struggled with speech even though it was only my hearing that was compromised. Now, the only things I heard were the occasional vowels and noises.

The guilty looks were a norm. There were also the sympathetic looks, the saddened faces, everything in between, and I had witnessed it all. It was a daily occurrence for me. Because of that, my new neighbor's reaction was to be expected.

I flipped the sheet of paper around to the other side to show him that I had already prepared for this, too.

'It's okay, don't worry about it. My name is Akamine Nana. What's yours?'

He watched in almost shock as I took out a pen from my pocket, and held it out to him. Hesitantly, he accepted it, using his book to steady his writing before passing the paper back.

'I'm Ken Kaneki.'

I glanced up at him before nodding. Kaneki . . . he was named like the days of the week. It was an interesting name for sure. I didn't recall ever meeting someone with a name similar to his. Then again, I hadn't been planning to meet him in the first place.

I wrote something else down when he passed the pen back to me. 'I look forward to being neighbors.'

Adding another warm smile for good measure, I hoped my words were enough to clear away any lingering guilt he had. The last thing I needed was for my neighbor and I to be on uncomfortable terms. Especially because of something that neither of us had control over.

Taking the pen from me once more, he wrote, 'Same here.'

All of the previous awkwardness had dissipated, then. With our greetings established, there was no reason we should be as embarrassed as we first were. We'd kick things off on a good note, at least. And it was good to know that one of my neighbors wasn't an elderly man, but a well-kept boy who looked sweet enough.

I sent him a wave before picking the boxes back up, and he returned it as he walked past me to the stairs. It made me wonder if everyone on the third floor was young. Perhaps they were all quiet people; we were close to a university. It would suck for me if it was true, though, for noise was something that I didn't get too often.

I set the boxes down inside of the apartment. There were boxes everywhere. They occupied the corners, the counters, the open spaces, and just about everywhere else we could stick them. It was going to take a while to get everything inside. It was going to take an even longer time to get everything to where it needed to be.

My mother came in holding two boxes similar to the ones that I had. Her arms had yet to start wobbling from the strain of the load. She was ever the hard-worker. The amount of determination in her system never ceased to amaze me.

She placed the two boxes down before blowing loose strands of purple-black hair out of her face. Without so much as a hand sign, she began digging through the boxes in search of something, and one of my brows raised in question. What she was looking for . . . I didn't know. I had packed up all of my belongings by myself, so there was no way I was missing something.

After rummaging through the things, she turned toward me, signing with her hands, "Where is the good luck charm your grandmother gave you?"

My brows furrowed in the middle. The good luck charm was nothing more than my grandmother's vintage brooch. She wore it when she graduated from university. She wore it when she met my grandfather. She wore it when she got married. She even wore it during both mine and my mother's births. It was said to be good luck because of all of the fortune it had been witness to.

When she heard that I was moving out, she gave it to me. Sadly, she hadn't gave it to my mother when she was younger, which—and she claims—was the reason why she met my no-good father. She didn't want to make the same mistake with me, hoping to fend away the bits of sing that lingered in the world.

That was what she called it; ghouls were sin in her eyes. They were creatures that survived off of human flesh. They tore at us, made meals out of us, and preyed on the ones that were unsuspecting. They were said to be strong and vigilant monsters. Their sole purpose was to feed on us. It didn't matter who it was, what we did, if we were married, had children, if we couldn't see, or if we couldn't hear . . . they wanted us on their dinner plates.

It was what the mass media promoted. They repeatedly told stories of children having to watch their parents die in front of them by the hands of ghouls. They told the theories behind them, and the things they were capable of. It did nothing but strike fear into the hearts of the everyday citizen. My grandmother was included. She herself was a firm believer in good luck, and the avoidance of the creatures that plagued her nightmares.

But, of course, where there was fear, there was a protector. The Commission of Counter Ghoul was the agency set out to destroy every last one of the them. Humans with weapons and skill, they did their best to save whoever they could. Even if that meant a few casualties. They were a strong and trained group of professionals that organized right here in Tokyo. Having connections to them was the only thing my grandmother could praise my father for.

Having never encountered one, I wasn't too shook up by the mention of them. It didn't strike fear into me like it did my grandmother. Though it was mostly due to the fact that she watched far more television than I did. Surely the constant warnings were sure to teeter anyone to the edge.

Still, my mother wasn't going to let it go so easily. She was going to blow a fuse if I didn't find my good luck charm. In a quest to ease her troubles, I dug around in one of the boxes I was carrying moments ago. Funnily enough, the vintage brooch was placed right on top of the pile of items. I held it up to show her that the brooch was accounted for. She let out a sigh of relief.

"You had it this whole time," she signed. "Don't scare me like that."

I smiled and signed an apology. As crazy as it sounded, good things did generally tend to happen when I kept the charm with me. I had been carrying it in the box when I found out that my neighbor wasn't some old man who didn't like ruckus. Perhaps it was a good thing I actually brought it to my new apartment with me.

My mother motioned that it was time to get back to work. We could converse about things that I might have forgotten later. Right now, we still had half a truck to unload. I still had a whole apartment to unpack, and on top of that, classes at the university were going to start up next week. If that wasn't more stress than accidentally losing a brooch, I didn't know what was.

THE HABIT OF being extremely early was something I had inherited from my father, as my mother liked to say. I had always thought her ramblings were a little bit dramatic. However, as I sat in the front row of my psychology class, I realized she'd been right this whole time.

I was a full forty minutes early to the class. Everyone else was out loitering around campus to make sure they trickled in at the last few minutes. I wasn't the same as them. I had rushed out of my apartment an hour ahead of time to make sure that I got a spot in the front. I should have known that college was filled with a bunch of teenagers testing the waters of no longer having parents control them. Hardly any of them were responsible.

I supposed I should've felt silly about it. It was the first day of classes and I was already making myself seem like the class pet. I was far from that. I was just trying to make sure I didn't get a seat in the back if the classes filled up. If that happened, I wouldn't have been able to see the interpreter by the professor. If I couldn't see them, then I couldn't hear the lesson, and there wouldn't even be a point in me coming to class.

The professor stood in the front behind a wooden podium. He was an elderly man, his balding head containing wisps of gray hair that did little to conceal his scalp. His glasses were wire-rimmed and hanging low on his crooked nose. Albeit wrinkled, his skin wasn't as bad as it could have been; he took good care of himself from the looks of it. His suit was adorned neatly and professionally. The aura around him was sweet—he must have been glad that someone was enthusiastic for the inner works of the human mind.

Compared to him, I felt a little under-dressed. I had read in books that it didn't matter what you wore to university. It was more laid back than high school was. There were no skirts and blazers that were required to walk the halls. It was entirely free-dress.

That being said, I eased up on sorting out my clothes at home. Some of them were still thrown around in heaps yet to be put away. I had managed to put just about everything else away in the span of a week that I had been living there. However, clothing was a whole other challenge to face. If my mother were to see it, she wouldn't have hesitated to lecture me for it.

So, I sat there, dressed in a pair of shorts I found on my floor, and a sweater I earned from a charity walk two years ago. I looked inferior in comparison to the teacher, yet blended right in with some of the freeloaders who surrounded the benches outside. I didn't know which scenario was worse.

The interpreter came in twenty minutes before the class was supposed to start. She strode into the classroom looking just as classy as the professor. Curvy, blonde, and squeezed into a tight, blue pantsuit, she moved to talk to the man about today's lesson. The permanent scowl that she drew her eyebrows in was off-putting at first, but the smile she graced seconds later canceled it all out. She was American—in her late forties, if I were to guess.

The professor motioned to me, and she turned her attention my way. Like he had, she sent me a kind wave. I returned it with a smile of my own. She seemed nice enough. A little scary, sure, but nice nonetheless.

"Are you Nana?" she signed to me, and I nodded. "Nice to meet you."

I signed a greeting back to her. She then used her knowledge in sign language to spell out her name for me. M-I-T-S-U-K-U-R-I . . . her last name was Mitsukuri. Judging by the sparkling diamond on her ring finger, she was married. Mrs. Mitsukuri it was, then.

"Tell me if you have any questions or problems, and I'll do my best to help you," she explained with her hands.

I nodded once more. She really was a kind person, after all.

It wasn't too soon after did students begin to slowly pile into the classroom. The middle rows were filled out the fastest. The first couple rows were occupied mainly by people who wore glasses, and people who showed a genuine concern for their grades. The students who came in laughing with their friends fled to the back rows. While it had been sort of lame to come as early as I did, I was more than happy that I hadn't found myself trapped back there.

The class itself was supposedly a medium-challenged one. All the higher ranked psychology classes had been stolen by the school geniuses who picked their schedules the moment they got through graduating high school. I was not of that category in the slightest.

The class went on when the scheduled time struck. The professor did tiny paces around the front of the class as he went on about his syllabus and expectations. My eyes bounced back and forth between him and the interpreter. I was trying to get the most information that I could. My hands rushed to jolt down notes, my brain trying its best to work on three different things.

It was about thirty minutes it did I become aware that there were eyes on me. Well, in particular, one set of eyes. My gaze traveled to the right of me to see a girl no older than I was. Her dark eyes widened when she saw that I caught her staring until they shifted back to the professor. A slight smile graced my lips while I chuckled. It was only the first day of class and people were already starting to get curious.

The two of us made work of sneaking glances at each other. She had caught my interest with all of her insistent staring. I couldn't figure out for what reason she was doing what she was. She was far prettier than me by miles. Her red hair was bluntly chopped in spikes around her shoulders as if she had walked out of a magazine. Her outfit was fashionable; she no doubt put more time into her appearance than I did this morning. The thick, black, hipster-like glasses on her face were obviously prescription for her brown eyes. Her nose was littered with tiny moles that made her that much more pleasing to look at. What a girl like her would want with me, I didn't know.

I had been paying attention to Mrs. Mistukuri's translations when something touched the side of my hand. My wide-eyed gaze glanced down almost immediately, catching the sight of a piece of lined paper. Words in red ink had been scribbled onto its surface. Someone had passed me a note while I wasn't looking.

It had most definitely came from the girl next to me. Her eyes were trained on the professor as an innocent smile tugged at her mouth. If there was any sign that proved it was her, that was it. There was no doubt that she had been the one who sent me the messy note. So, gazing back down at it, I read its contents.

'Hi, you have pretty eyes.'

My face heated up on instinct. It wasn't every day that I was complimented out of the blue. For that, my sudden embarrassment should have been justified. Regardless of that, I wrote down a response, and passed it back to her.

'Thanks. I like your hair.'

She smiled at the returned compliment, and wrote something else before she passed it back. 'Thanks! I'm Shida Yumiko. What's your name?'

'Akamine Nana.'

'Jeez, you never really hear those type of names anymore. It's cute.'

I smiled at the small sheet of paper that we had been passing back and forth. She was far on the friendlier side. It was good to know that some people were willing to be nice on the first day of school. Some of the students that I saw were very standoffish—like they were too cool to talk to people they didn't know. But, not Yumiko. She was happy to pass notes to me as a form of quiet communication.

It was thrilling at first. Passing notes directly in front of the professor was something that would've easily resulted in detention in high school. However, we were passing it off pretty well. She'd scribble something down, and pass it to me under our arms. I smiled each time I passed it back to her.

She asked simple things. Questions wondering what high school I was from, if I was new to this part of town, and if I already knew people who went to this university. She seemed shocked to know that I didn't have any acquaintances. She went on to tell me how this was her second year here, and that she finally decided to take up psychology this year opposed to biology. While I was a psychology major studying to become a psychologist, she was studying her hardest to become a physical therapist.

Since she was a second-year, she insisted that she gave me a small tour around the campus. I didn't have the heart to tell her that I had wandered around enough in the past week to know my way around a majority of the area. Instead, I agreed to her proposition. At least I'd be making a friend in the process. Besides, I would have another two hours to kill before my next math class.

She led me out of the class when the lecture was over with. I didn't put my notebook away for obvious reasons. I doubted she knew sign language, and I had neglected to bring up the fact that I was hard of hearing during our note passing. It would be easier to jot down phrases to her when she tried to communicate.

Students had filled the hall in maddened frenzies. A few of them were smiling; they were either happy that the class was over, or happy that they picked a class that they liked. I hoped that it was the second since the material we went over wasn't too boring. At least, for me it wasn't.

I did my best to follow Yumiko through the crowd. She was bobbing and weaving her way through, no doubt used to the flood by now. Her lips moved to exchanged quick greetings to a few people that she passed. Despite that, her eyes would glance back in my direction every now and then to see if I was still following. She didn't want me to get lost.

When we reached the outside of the building, she turned and said something to me. All that I heard were the occasional vowels tangled up in her sentences. It was nothing that I could make sense of at all. Feeling guilty for not telling her before, I used the notebook that I was carrying to write something down.

'Uh . . . sorry I didn't tell you. I can't hear that well.'

Her eyes chose that moment to go wide. That was, until she sent me a smile that caught me totally off guard. There were no guilty gazes. There were no sympathetic smiles. She didn't appear to be shocked about it, either. For one of the first times ever, my hearing problems hadn't thrown anyone off.

She took the notebook from me before writing down, 'Oh, it's no problem! I took ASL as a foreign language in high school. I'm not great, but maybe you can help me with that some time?"

The smile on my face was undeniably warm. I nodded to the taller girl to show that I'd enjoy that. She was really a unique person if I ever saw one. Not many people declared to learn sign language to help communicate with me. Most simply stuck to passing notes my way.

The building she brought me to first was across from the one we were in. There were a few students lingering around chatting up storms and socializing. Healthy trees decorated the outside of it, casting shadows onto the concrete. There were brick stairs that led up to the glass double doors of the building. I never got the chance to ask her where we were. She motioned a slim finger a sign hanging on the side of the building. She had brought me to the Department of Pharmacy.

She held out her hand with pleading eyes. She must have been asking to borrow the notebook. I nodded and handed it to her, watching as she used the pen to jot down sentences.

'This is where I have one of my other classes. It's very advanced in here. You're sure to meet a lot of pretentious douche bags if you hang around here.'

I chuckled at the explanation she displayed. As if her words had summoned them, boys sporting slicked back hair and cardigans with the sleeves tied around their necks walked past us. She motioned a hand to them to further prove her point; I nearly laughed at the perfect timing.

One ground of males, in particular, walked out of the building moments later. Their mouths moved as they discussed who knew what, and Yumiko's face scrunched up a sour note. I followed her eyes to the boy walking in front of the group. He wasn't too distinctive. His chestnut-colored hair was cut into a bowl-type style with heavy bangs that swept to the sides, and the ends of his hair curling outwards. His eyes were thin and focused behind wire-rimmed glasses. He was carrying a few books about pharmaceuticals under his arm; there was no trouble for him in supporting their weights.

Yumiko wrote something else on the notebook. 'That's Nishio Nishiki. He's a rude asshole, and I've had a few classes with him last year. He and his friends are in some type of club I honestly forgot about.'

I could do nothing except nod as the boy in question looked over. The constant usage of 'Nishi-' in his name was sort of strange, but not as strange as the murderous look he shot Yumiko. His already thin eyes narrowed even further into a glare. My red-headed companion simply stuck her tongue out in response. He showed his irritation by rolling his eyes, and leading his group down the stairs away from the Department of Pharmacy.

The next stop on the tour was the Department of International Studies. I knew where we were since it had been one of the places I visited already; I had a class in that building. In the field of becoming a psychologist, fluency in English was greatly appreciated. The Department of International Studies was where the students who required English courses flocked to. That said, it was a frequent stop for the first-years.

A few of the previously mentioned students sat around the brick steps in the front. One boy was typing on his phone as he bounced his skateboard around between his legs. A ground of girls sat on the other side of the stairs, smiling about things only the heavens knew. The wind blew around the trees with the cool spring air. The glass double doors of the building opened and closed as two girls walked out carrying English books. This was where my class after my next one was to be held.

Yumiko explained to me that since I was a first-year, I probably had a class here. That meant that I knew about the Department already. The truth was that she was actually taking a detour in our trip to pick up papers for another teacher in her next class. I saw no reason to complain. The way I saw it, she was only trying to get on the good side of her professors, which could come in handy when combined with university life.

The inside bustled with excited first-years. Their grins weren't things that I saw in my psychology class. Like me, they were glad that their studying paid off, and that they had gotten into Kamii University at all. I kept my eyes trained on Yumiko's bright hair while she ascended up a flight of stairs to the second floor. It was less hectic than the first. Yet, the student still lingered around to converse among their friends.

The classroom she led us into was at the end of the hall. The door was already wide open when we approached. There were students inside gathering their things to leave. I assumed that their class had ran a little later than ours.

The two of us searched around the room in hopes of finding the professor. Thankfully, we spotted him—a man with a head of thinning, black hair—standing beside a podium. His small lips were offering smiles to his students as they left for the day.

I followed Yumiko over to him. He grinned at us, telling us something I couldn't make out for the life of me. But, I could make out the word hello being formed. He must have been greeting us. I shot him a smile while Yumiko exchanged words with him. Suddenly, realization came across his face. He held up a finger to tell us to wait before shuffling out of the classroom.

'Where did he go?'

Yumiko read my handwriting, sketching her own reply down. 'He said he left the documents in the staff room. He went to go get it.'

Ah, that made sense.

I glanced curiously around the classroom. The number of people inside were dwindling down to numbers lower than twenty. Everyone made it their missions to flee in time for their next classes. Or, all except for a few. While Yumiko may have been unaware, I was very aware of the boy walking over to us. He didn't resemble the bland, rushing students that were in the room. Rather, he was the exact opposite.

The sound of his footsteps made Yumiko turn to look at him. There was a friendly smile etched onto his face. It was bright enough to compete with his blond-orange, messy hair, dark roots threatening to grow at the base of his head. His brows were tick, his excited eyes were brown, and he sported a pair of red headphones around his neck. Perhaps he was a music major.

Yumiko must have known him. Her lips tilted up in her own smile when their eyes met. The two of them conversed in a happy atmosphere. They had even gave each other a high five to further my assumption. Though they may have knew each other, it was beyond me who the boy was.

Realizing that, Yumiko said something to him, then motioned to me. My best guess was that she was introducing us. Either that or explaining that I couldn't hear. It was a good thing. I wouldn't have to go through the process of writing it down myself.

She wrote something in the notebook for me. 'This is Nagachika Hideyoshi. I met him two days ago. He's a freshman like you. He's majoring in English, I think.'

I extended my small hand to him. His big, brown eyes went even wider. His hands were hesitant as he gripped onto mine, shaking it in a silent introduction. I moved to seal the deal with a smile. Instead of giving me one back like I had been expecting, his gaze tore away from me, finding the wall far more interesting. He scratched the back of his head. No doubt there was an awkward chuckle that followed his actions.

His lips moved to ask Yumiko a question. She answered by shrugging her shoulders a few times. It didn't take long for them to get engrossed in a conversation. In fact, they were so wrapped up in it that they didn't notice the second boy coming up behind Hideyoshi.

This one was familiar. Yumiko and Hideyoshi stopped talking as my eyes looked up into the new set of gray ones, our gazes meeting almost as awkwardly as it had that day. It was how I recognized him so fast. He was the boy I had made a fool out of myself in front of. Suddenly, I felt inferior to his—yet again—primped clothing choices.

He opened his mouth to say something to me. However, he quickly shut it, extending his hand as if silently asking to see my notebook. I gave it to him after a questioning glance. He wasted no time in using the ballpoint pen to write something down. Even Hideyoshi's eyes had went wide once the boy turned the paper around to show me.

'Good morning, Akamine-san.'

My jaw nearly went slack. If there was any questioning whether he remembered me or not, he had gave me the answer. He remembered how we had communicated in front of our apartments. I didn't need to tell him to write things down, either. He just . . . knew.

I took the paper, and then showed him my response. 'Hello, Ken-san. I haven't ran into you in a while.'

He gave me a polite smile. Was it a kind of coincidence for me to run into my neighbor at the university I went to? It was a large campus, and he just so happened to turn up here. I hadn't seen him since the day he cught me moving in. Yet, here he was, smiling as if us miraculously turning up in the same place, at the same time, because of mutual friends wasn't strange in the slightest.

Hideyoshi's lips moved rapidly to speak to the black-haired boy beside him. I could only guess that he was asking how we knew each other. The boy's reply was hard to read, but I detected the word 'neighbors' slide across his lips. That just served to make Hideyoshi's eyes go wider.

I let out a quiet sigh. Before much else could transpire, the professor came back into the classroom, holding a folder containing Yumiko's documents. She made work of telling the two boys goodbye once she received them. Hideyoshi glanced in my direction. I assumed that he wanted to say goodbye to me, too, but didn't know how he went about doing it.

My hands moved to make three signs. 'See you later,' I had conveyed to them. Thankfully, they picked up on my form of communication pretty fast. Hideyoshi made similar sign, though it was a bit clumsy where it didn't need to be. Kaneki's was slower, but it still wasn't enough to be considered readable. Regardless, I appreciated their attempts. They were being nice enough to try. That was all that I could ask for.

I chuckled, shot them a wave, and left the room with Yumiko. We were to be returning to our grand tour of Kamii University.

Jeez, maybe my grandmother's lucky charm wasn't doing so bad after all.

To clear any sort of confusion that may arise, everything has been tweaked to start in April whereas it was centered around October in the story. That way, it'll be the start of the Japanese school year. Also, Neruma is also known as the 20th ward. I just thought it'd be easier to go by the actual names :)

Fun Fact of the Chapter: Nana's name was originally going to be Rei.