Shiori nodded and opened her textbook while reading the printed sheet of paper she, and everyone else, was handed. "There are 60 problems regarding chemical reactions and the chemical equations for it. The point is to split up the work amongst ourselves and turn it in as an entire group for a both individual and group participation grades," she said, handing everyone else the worksheets. "Though, what is left to decide is who does what," she said, looking at everyone, seriously. "The best course of action would be to split up the work evenly, and all of us work simultaneously to work the most efficiently."

---

Yuusuke smiled when Azusa let him press his desk to hers, and would stand up, bringing his desk over to hers and placing the front of his desk to the front of hers, so they could both face each other without any unnecessary movement, and to avoid any mistaken touches. Yuusuke grinned and smiled when Azusa asked him about what they were doing. "Ah, well, the worksheet says to fill in the definitions, and then label the parts of the atoms. Then, there's an activity with matching the atomic structure to the correct element," he said, showing Azusa.

When Kaori sat next to him and introduced herself, he smiled and said, "Hello, Mori-san." After, he looked at her tablet, seeing she really did have detailed notes of class from every class so far this week. She also had a really cute, and rather well done, picture on it as well. "That's a really nice picture, Kaori-san," he said with a sweet tone. "It reminds me of a children's story of how three little piglets built houses to protect themselves from a wolf, one of straw, one of sticks, and one of bricks, and the wolf went in that order, blowing them down until they all three went to the brick house and the wolf failed to blow it down."

Yuusuke then realized he'd gotten off track of the work. "Anyways, Azusa-san, Kaori-san, sorry," he said, handing a worksheet to Kaori. "There's a front and a back, with definitions, part labeling, and matching, for atoms and elements. There's a periodic table in the back of the textbook that we can use," he said, opening his textbook to the very back, looking at the table of elements. "It'll be really useful for the last activity."

The dark sedan skipped over a bump in the road as it pulled up to the gates of Yamaku Academy, the driver, a portly middle aged woman from the Child Protection Agency, distracted by her very one sided conversation with the two youths sitting in the back. Nozomi was too shy to provide the woman with any real diversion and Hakuya just flat out ignored her. He stared uncaringly out the car window, not even seeing the passing scenery, only turning his attention into the vehicle when his sister managed to muster the courage to say a few quiet words in response to the woman's endless verbal diarrhea. He would look at the girl sitting next to him and squeeze her hand reassuringly before returning his gaze to the window, his face falling back into the perpetual scowl that he wore so often nowadays.

Finally they had arrived and Hakuya stepped out of the sedan, not even waiting for the woman to open the door for them, and help his sister out. The first thing Nozomi noticed was the smell. They had grown up in the city and the clean mountain air of Yamaku was a jarring change, but a pleasant one. The social worker hurried them through the gates and towards the main buildings, making small exclamations about how nice the place looked and how she was sure they'd like it here. Hauya didn't care. As long as Nozomi was with him, her small hand clasped in his, he didn't care what kind of place the school was.

The hand over was all very rushed, papers signed and stamped, and then the woman was off back to her sedan as the twins were guided through the building by a faculty member whose name Hakuya had failed to take notice of. The staff member lead them up to the second floor, to a specific door and told them to wait there until their teacher, a man named Mutou, called for them to enter and introduce themselves. Faced with the prospect of standing up in front of a room full of strangers, Nozomi had quivered nervously and clutched her brother's arm. "H-Haku-nii, I don't want to do this..." She said uncertainly, staring with sightless eyes. Hakuya turned to his sister, his scowl giving way to a gentle smile as he placed a reassuring hand on her head, tousling her hair a little. "Don't worry Nozomi. just leave everything to me, ok?" The girl seemed be somewhat reassured by his words and they settled in to wait, the scowl once again clouding Hakuya's face as he stared at the opposite wall.

---

Once Mutou had handed out his assignments and assigned the groups, he stood staring at the mess of papers on his desk, feeling like he was forgetting something. He pushed some of the less relevant papers aside and found what he was looking for, the memory coming back to him the moment he glanced at the sheet. The memo informed him of the new transfer students that would be arriving today, and he'd let it slip his mind. With a sigh he coughed to get the classes attention and appologised for the interruption. "It slipped my mind before, but it seems that we'll be getting a few transfer students joining the class today. they're probably waiting outside now, so please be sure to make them feel welcome." He strolled over to the door and slid it open, finding two youths waiting outside, and beckoned for them to enter.

Hakuya squeezed his sister's hand to let her know it was time to move and lead her into the classroom, moving to stand at the front as the teacher directed. Nozomi couldn't see anyone, but she could feel all the eyes that were upon her and she stepped back, almost hiding behind her brother. "Please introduce yourselves." Mutou prompted after the silence had dragged on for a few seconds, and Hakuya looked out at the rest of the class, studying them with a baleful expression. Finally he cleared his throat and spoke, his tone curt and almost resentful, seemingly wanting to get through this a quickly as possible.

"My name is Kochizuki Hakuya. this is my sister, Kochizuki Nozomi. We're both sixteen years old." He turned to look at the teacher. "Is that all?" Mutou cleared his own throat a little awkwardly and nodded. "Yes that should be sufficient. Please take any free seats you can find and if you have any question, don't hesitate to ask your classmates." Hakuya didn't bother responding to this and simply lead Nozomi over to a pair of empty desks that were side by side. He gently helped her into one and dragged the other closer to her side before sitting down.

"Oh you could just play it off as a mercy kill. Killing the boy who was slowly dying to prevent him from having to live through more pain. It would bring about controversy about whether euthanization should be legal. Then all you have to do is make sure you play it off as a total sob story and them look at that your free." Ueda suggested to Fiona with a small smile on his face.

Fiona's willingness to seemingly tolerate his rambling automatically placed her in the upper quartile of people that Ueda had met before. He made muted gesture towards the textbook and then picked up his pencil and began to go at it. It was at this point that Ueda forgot that he had a pattern for a moment and just went into his so called "robot" mode. Ueda was the type of person that got very bored with things very easily for when a mind treated everything like a puzzle waiting to be solved, and when such puzzle is evidently solved it loses the spark and challenge. Mathematics as a whole was a puzzle that Ueda had solved in a matter of speaking and in a sense had lost an element of fun. To become lazy and dislike a class for the lack of challenge was an oddly common occurrence for the boy with the cane. So his hand went as he went from problem to problem, his hands occasionally darting to his calculator and then going back to his paper, and he had just about finished the first thirty or so problems that were assigned when he heard the mummer of classmates around him and he was dragged out of his own little bubble. Oh right we are supposed to be doing group work. Ueda turned his head towards realzing that yes in fact that there was a one armed red headed girl next to him, also seemingly doing math and probably quite puzzled at his sudden zoning out and mathematical fury.

"Oh right group work.... Sorry about that I have habit of zoning off: occasionally, sometimes, all the time. Do you need any help or anything?" Ueda asked as he stumbled about with his words for as great of a mind academically and scholarly he had. He was still pretty much a bumbling cavemen who had not even discovered rub two sticks together to make fire yet, when it came to social interaction with other humans beings.

...now what?

Everyone having introduced themselves an awkward silence started to hang in the air, it was uncomfortable at best, but it definitely made Kyle feel more than a little anxious. Mizukimura, thankfully was the one to break it, though everyone still seemed at a loss as to what to do next. Hanari, however was the only one without her head up her ass as she calmly and concisely explained the assignment situation. This was all well and good, if Kyle wasn't so damn confused at the slurry of equations pasted to his paper. He sighed disdainfully, scratching his head, ready to plow through the work when suddenly Mutou piped up.

"It slipped my mind before, but it seems that we'll be getting a few transfer students joining the class today. they're probably waiting outside now, so please be sure to make them feel welcome." He strolled over to the door and slid it open, finding two youths waiting outside, and beckoned for them to enter.

Two students walked in, a boy and a girl, hand in hand, siblings? Probably. They stood at the front of the class and...there was that damned awkward silence again as a dozen eyes stared at the newcomers. Mutou coughed, prompting them to introduce themselves.

"My name is Kochizuki Hakuya. this is my sister, Kochizuki Nozomi. We're both sixteen years old." He turned to look at the teacher. "Is that all?"

"Damn," Kyle uttered under his breath. It was one thing to be irritated, but this guy just plain had a massive stick up his ass, so much so that the quick and almost harsh question to Mutou even took the teacher somewhat aback. Awkwardly he told them to take some empty seats, they both did, but they were extremely glued together having pushed the desks completely near each other. While most would probably question their relationship, Kyle once knew a pair of siblings who acted like these two did. Both had grown up in a broken household, so really they only had each other...he wondered if...

"Now, as I was saying before," Kyle's thoughts were interrupted by Mutou getting back into the groove of things, having such an abrasive encounter, he couldn't really blame the guy. "We'll be doing group assignments today," Mutou looked around and his eyes rested on Kyle's group, "Mr. Kochizuki, you can join Todoroki and Hanari, and Ms. Kochizuki you can join Parker and Mizukimura."

Kyle quickly scanned the room, most of the groups were already in threes, so their group of four made it the most likely choice to be resplit with these newcomers. Kyle shrugged and couldn't help stifle a chuckle, "guess it was nice working with you guys while it lasted, eh?"

Azusa

The explenation of what they were doing wasnt that clear to her but she would want to give it a try. A girl came over to join them she must have been the other person she would need to work with It looked quiet trobbeling when the girl needed to move her desk over to them since both her legs were amputated so it was pretty awkward to do these sort of things but she still managed to do it. When the girl finally sat down she showed some of her notes that looked all pretty good. It even looked like she had some free time while writing the notes since there was a really cute drawing on one of the pages. In the past Azusa tried multiple times to draw a manga figure but she couldnt do it very well. Her chest felt tight and it wasnt easy to breath she felt really scared about the situation that they would need to rely on her for a part of their work. Azusa didnt want to feel that way but she couldnt get it of her mind and kept thinking about it. A way to relax about it was very handy right now. She tried to calm down a bit by breathing slowly in and out of her mouth and relaxed a bit. The other groups had already started to work and they were still talking about a drawing. She didnt really mind tough since she wouldnt be any help at all with science "You two should just go ahead with working Im not that fast with science." She opened up her science book and scanned through it but nothing was very clear to her. She sighed and tried to understand it by reading through the page multiple times.

"Well, yes, that is what we're looking at today, Yamauchi. Gold friggin' star. It's quite literally listed on the printout which page it is."

Pausing for a moment, Junpei coughing before tapping a section of the page again, “…this here, these are parts we could work on individually. We could have this all done faster this way, and swap quick notes afterwards.” Pausing for a moment, “Alternatively, we could work on everything together, but the pace would be slower if we take our own notes at the same time. What do you want to do?” Waiting a little while for any one of the two to answer, he started making a chart for one of the questions, and jotted down helpful side notes into the margins his notebook. The questions...weren't actually too much. So, without waiting for a response, Junpei just went on to work on and answer what he could, on his own.

For high school, like he observed last year, it seemed pretty standard to just work on your own and sometimes compare notes later. If there was anything he learned from switching from tutoring to actual high school, there was so much more to be learned from the perspective of others than working just on your own. Than again, the most harm came from lack of understanding of perspective, lack of empathy...the easiest way to avoid that sort of hurt would be to lock ones self away from the world. Without realising it, Junpei went on autopilot, the surface self deeply engrossed in his science assignment, while his inner self...even more so engrossed in thought and feeling. Pausing both trains of thought when a particularly hard question reared it's ugly head, he drew a small smiling daisy in the margin beside a notebook rewrite of the question, before answering it to the best of his knowledge. He'd get back to that one...later...

Tomohina listened quietly, her fingers moving slowly over the problems on their assignment, as well as the paragraphs in the textbook. Everyone seemed to be rather moody today. She wondered why. Humming softly to herself, so quiet that most would not hear, she focused on the assignment. The problems weren't too much of a problem, it was just a bit tedious having to go back and forth form the book to the equations. All it took was a bit of patience. But her steady pace was broken momentarily by additional students joining the class. Staying still she listened.

Yes, everyone seemed to be quiet on edge today. It really was too bad. It was a pretty day, not too hot with a gentle breeze. It was actually quiet a tranquil day, if only they'd relax. But she supposed they were all a bit more high strung, having their own problems and difficulties, surely. Personally she was a bit worried at how to translate her notes for the members of her group... which seemed to have been changed. She hadn't quiet been paying attention to the new additions, but from Kyle Parker's reaction, they did not seem to be the pleasant kind. Well, at least not the boy anyhow? It seemed his sister would be now in her group and she hadn't said much. She regretted not being able to talk to the other two former members of their group a bit more, but there was always plenty of time.

Well no reason to be unpleasant. Tomo smiled as softly, warmly just like the sun streaming through the window behind her next to her desk. Tilting her head slowly in a gentle bow, she greet the new addition. "Welcome to our class and to our group, Kochizuki-san," she greet serenely, "I believe we had divided the assignment among one another, though each portion shall be added to since we are now three and not four." She gestured to herself and then to Kyle. "I am Tomohina Mizukimura. This is Kyle Parker." She seemed to flush a bit and turned to speak to the foreign boy.

"Oh, I apologize for being presumptuous," she laughed sheepishly, "I just thought you might be a bit tired today, is all." She turned back to the girl, her unseeing lavender eyes falling more on the table than the girl herself. "I believe the textbook pages are written on the assignment sheet. If you need help, please to not hesitate to ask. I can take the last portion, if you and Parker-san would like to decide who will take the first and second?" She ran her fingers over the paragraphs on her textbook as she wrote with her other hand, making indents on the soft grain of her paper. It wasn't a typewrite, but it was far easier to carrying around a notebook than a big machine.

"I can translate my solutions for you once you both are ready," she smiled happily, "But please take your time and do not feel any need to rush. We should work well together if we take this at a relaxed pace, I'm sure." She dipped her head down, hoping her eyes hadn't made the girl uncomfortable. "There is no need to rush and stress on your first day," she said gently, "I know it must be taxing and worrisome. You as well, Parker-san," she smiled down at her paper, "I'd rather you feel at ease than over work yourself and become ill due to stress."

First impressions of Hanari; brisk, diligent and a zero on the friendliness scale. Either the girl was seriously keen on chemical equations, or getting to know her classmates didn't register as a priority in her books. Eager to pass the time, eh? Miss your precious little brother that much? Considering the marked difference between her attitude here and when with her brother, it was clear that she was also not friend material. Perhaps Hanari junior would be more open to conversation..? Not that it mattered for the moment, as Mutou's mind finally caught up with him. Transfer students were not uncommon at Yamaku; indeed two of the four he was supposed to be working with had enrolled as second years. But it was rare for students to transfer in so early in the year. Maybe they had one too many punch ups in their last school? This Hakuya certainly seemed the sort to start a fight, but his sister was yet another meek mouse type... Let's say they're Type 2 incestuous siblings, he thought bemusedly. If the Hanaris were Type 1 with their extreme love and affection, then Type 2 could be the overprotective Onii-chan that beat the shit out of other guys for talking to his sister. Perhaps not the type of guardian she wants, but definitely the one she deserves. Sufficed to say, Fuyuki spared no time for those unable or unwilling to take care of themselves.

Perhaps it was fate that their fledgling study group would be split, but it was downright unlucky how Mutou had decided to do it. Fuyuki didn't particularly want to deal with either of the Kochizuki twins but the boy was by far the worst of the two. Perhaps it was his mean eyes or just the fact that he was a complete unknown, but Hakuya was flat out intimidating. Fuyuki decided to keep his head down and eyes averted as Kochizuki took his seat, giving him a polite nod of greeting while edging almost imperceptibly toward Hanari; at least he was sure she wouldn't hit him... He kept silent and threw himself into his work, attempting formulas that he was convinced had never come up in class before and predictably failing miserably. After a few minutes of working in silence, he came across one that he couldn't get his head around no matter what and turned to Hanari. 'Sorry to bother you, but could you help me with this question? Something about HnUUgcjkcms...' His PDA didn't have English characters so trying to type the formula aloud failed hard.

Mori, Kaori

The boy, Hanari-san, caught right away that her drawing was of the American story 'The Three Little Pigs'. It was nice to know that he appreciated her art even if it was only a simple doodle. Most people had never seen what she can really do when she puts her heart into making art so she had never gotten a lot of praise from anyone other than her parents. Azusa-san seemed more nervous than anything, Kaori assumed she had some kind of social anxiety that made her that way. She made a mental note not to pressure her about the work. Kaori was a bit disappointed when Azusa-san explained that science wasn't a subject she was good at since Kaori wasn't the best in science either but the work seemed fairly straightforward. "It seems like most of the stuff we can just copy over from the textbook so if we just find the relevant pages it won't actually be that hard." Kaori put her tablet down so the others could use it if they needed to. She shuffled through the pages until she ran across an atomic diagram. "I guess I'll get started on this one." She pointed to her worksheets' part labeling section. This part should be easy so once I'm done I can help you with your part if you need it Azusa-san."

Yamauchi's little I'm-going-to-pretend-I-didn't-hear-that cough made Mariko pause. Had that been too bitter? Had she missed the mark? Coral hadn't even laughed at the little joke she'd made, merely treating it like some kind of conversational aberration she wanted to sweep under the carpet as fast as possible. Not the best first impression, she privately admitted. Even though technically they'd already met. It was a figure of speech, she didn't need to read that much into every tiny thing. She thought about Princess Tomo, and her infuriating nice girl demeanour, and about how wide a social circle she'd ended up having in a week. She'd hate her for that, if she wasn't so likeable. What was it about her? Her speech? Was that it? Mariko opened her mouth, and began.

"I'm aware of that, Yamauchi, but thanks for speaking. And i'm in favour of the individual appreach, too. Well, there are two different ways we could divvy up work. Either divide the questions into three distinct blocks , or we each take one of every three questions. The former is fairer on paper, but these sort of questions have a tendancy to get harder as you progress, which is a major disadvantage to whoever takes on the last block. The second method has the advantage of fairness, but can also lead to situations where someone takes on an extra question or less, simply because they're not divisible by the number of people within that group. But that isn't nessecerialy a bad... eto..." Mariko became intensely, profoundly aware, that her impromptu speech was not being listened to. Yamauchi and Coral both had their heads down, pencils scratching paper fast enough to leave rubber marks if the graphite wasn't enough. She bent her head, chose a question at random, and began writing in earnest.

Kyle had to give Mutou some credit, the man was pretty ballsy. The Kochizuki boy, when asked to split from his sister, almost looked pissed enough to kill their teacher, but reluctantly he parted ways with his sister who took her seat with Kyle and Mizukimura. The girl's movements were pretty stilted, almost like she were walking on eggshells, to some this would probably seem pretty amusing, but to Kyle, were his suspicions not so high, he might have thought that way too. From the way she walked to her desk, to the way she had seated herself, along with the unusual cloudiness in her eyes, Kyle suspected she might be blind too. Mizukimura was the one who brought Kyle out of his thoughts though as she greeted the new girl with warm gentleness, but despite the softness in her voice, the girl seemed extremely timid, if not terrified.

"I am Tomohina Mizukimura," she spoke before gesturing to him, "this is Kyle Parker."

Kyle grinned at the girl a bit before realizing how futile that was and instead opted with a small hello.

"Oh, I apologize for being presumptuous," she laughed sheepishly, "I just thought you might be a bit tired today, is all."

"Hm?" Kyle raised an eyebrow, while it was not unusual for someone to introduce themselves along with others, maybe it might have been with Japanese people? He didn't really delve on the thought further, instead choosing to examine this angelic presence before him. Long violet hair, lavender saucers for eyes, she had ample poise and the way she carried herself seemed extremely fancy, but perhaps it was a respectful thing here? She had the same cloudiness in her eyes as the new girl, but Kyle already figured Mizukimura was blind days ago. Kyle had heard that looking into a blind person's eyes was...jarring, but for some reason, her's were almost mesmerizing. He might of even felt somewhat bad for staring into them for so long were someone to call him out on it, but where it was two blind girls in his group...easy now. He shook his head a little as she was getting to the last portion of her conversation with them.

"I can translate my solutions for you once you both are ready," she smiled happily, "But please take your time and do not feel any need to rush. We should work well together if we take this at a relaxed pace, I'm sure." She dipped her head down. "There is no need to rush and stress on your first day," she said gently, "I know it must be taxing and worrisome. You as well, Parker-san," she smiled down at her paper, "I'd rather you feel at ease than over work yourself and become ill due to stress."

That last sentence made his heart dip a little and he scratched his head out of embarrassment. Obviously the incident monday had gotten to most everyone's ears, even to his group members, he sighed a little, "Am I worried? Not really, stressed...that's a whole 'nother story. I made a mistake monday, I won't lie, though I'm sure you've heard the gossip yourself, obviously I'm paying for it now." He tapped his pencil on his paper before continuing, "In any case I'll be fine," he tried giving her a reassuring smile, though he forgot how futile it was, "thank you...for worrying though," he grinned.

"Anyway, we should probably get this work done, Kochizuki?" The girl startled, started up a bit, "I'll take the last portion, you take the center portion, deal?"

Though startled she nodded a bit and immediately got to work as Kyle did, "Oh and um...Mizukimura? As for the *ahem* equation translation part, I think you're only going to have to worry about translating to me." He started working, smiling a little at the thought of what it must be like for a blind person to not realize they were talking to another blind person.

---

The belltower chimes to inform Yamaku that morning classes are over, not minutes later the grounds are bustling with the students and activities. Today is Saturday and the weekend has officially started, students feel more than a little relieved that their first week of classes are over and now have some time to themselves. While some students might take the opportunity to interact with others and join student clubs and sports, Kyle finds himself more than content just placing himself out by the fields. Here students who joined sporting clubs practice for upcoming matches and competitions in the year.

Kyle felt more comfortable watching the other students practicing than training like he usually did. While Kyle usually did get up early enough to do his own training and even used to go to lengths to continue training throughout the day, it almost felt embarrassing now since his accident to do his usual routine. He speculated on this thinking it might be because he could never fight again, but yet he continued his usual training routines in the morning so that clearly wasn't it. Perhaps it was because he only had one arm? That's all well and good, but its not easy to hide that you don't have an arm and he didn't really mind having his sleeve tied up to indicate he had a missing arm. So far...he was stumped, so he just...watched other students while sitting under the shade of a tree.

All in all he wasn't entirely sure how to feel about this so he just dealt with whatever as it came along. That being said he still avoided Ami and he felt somewhat put off for having cut off whatever beginnings of a conversation were starting with Mizukimura. It seemed like no matter who he talked to, he seemed to make things somewhat worse, whether it was careening down a flight of stairs or yelling in a girl's face, no one was really safe. He felt bad about everything, but something was holding him back from actually...talking to these people again afterwards. Maybe whatever was preventing him from talking to them further was also causing whatever incidents he had so far been involved in. The entire situation really was off-putting and there he became lost in thought.

"Bye bye!" Mariko called back to her acquaintances. The speed with which she'd managed to pack her bags might've surprised anyone who didn't know the velocity of the average teenager desperate to leave the last class before weekends began. There had been mini sonic booms as parts of her skin broke the sound barrier.

Mariko paused outside of the front gates, breathing in that fresh country smell artists were fond of calling 'pastoral' and cynics called 'cowpats'. A full year at Yamaku had trained her, like a Pavlovian dog, associating that smell with freedom. She took a few, tentative steps down the steps, and joined the quickly thriving crowd of people who swarmed like cicadas in june, and made her way through the thick iron doors and down the hill path towards the little anonymous village where she could stock up on breads, meats, assorted vegetables, pills, and a few little indulgences.

As she walked, she idly undid her ribbon. The ghastly thing had been rubbing against her all day, and her own attempts to correct it consistently made things worse. At least a guy's uniform had collars that weren't stiff as all hell, even if neckties were some strange alien mystery that TV constantly said needed two people to unravel. Or weird seams on the blouses that made Mariko's already ruler-straight figure even more obviously lacking.

The view in june was nothing special. She took long strides on the path, enjoying the walking more then the actual journey, shivering at the slight breeze coming in from the east, and humming a simple little ditty no one would ever bother to write down.

The rest of the week passed relatively easily until finally she would have some free time. Kaori hadn't been given clean-up duty so she could leave as soon as the classes were out, which was good since she only had a limited time to take some shots with very particular lighting. From class she went to her dorm quickly to pick up her tripod and drop off her schoolbag, afterwards she made her way to the fields where all the sport clubs would be practicing. There was a particular place she had spotted while exploring the grounds before that would give her a good view of the surrounding landscape.

Once she made it to the fields she noticed there was someone sitting under a tree right next to her spot. She couldn't tell who it was at first but he was obviously a student. She moved a bit closer, being careful not to alert him to her staring. From the look of things this student was probably a senpai and obviously a foreigner. In fact, she had seen him before in the halls during lunch time. She didn't know his name but she was sure he was a second year student. He was quite handsome and it seemed as if he was lost in thought. He seemed so contemplative that Kaori couldn't help but capture the scene. She sat down some distance away and readied her camera. Just before she snapped the picture she thought. He's really handsome...

Azusa

Working in a group was a lot easier then she tough it would be and they already quickly finished the project they needed to make. She felt closer to these two classmates now they had some fun conversations while they were working on the project but Azusa still didnt leave her shell completely. After that the next few days she didnt speak to anyone in her class now the hallways as it quickly became weekend.

Morning classes had just finished. Multiple people where doing some sort of running competition inside the school. As the bell rang they all seemed to start running and dashing out of the school but Azusa was one of the people that would just slowly walk over to wherever she wanted to. The sun hit her eyes as she left the building making her arm react to protect her eyes from the hot sun. A small breeze flew past her making her skirt wave along with the breeze. It felt nice to finally be free again from that hell hole, she could finally lock herself up again in her room reading manga and lying around all day.

She walked over to the dorm she was in and did as she as she mentioned earlier, lock herself into her room reading manga while lying around on the floor. It was however very boring to do it the whole time so she took a breather after 10 short minutes. Most of the students seemed to be having fun with their clubs and some of them would walk over to the city. Azusa however wasnt into clubs so much, she would need to socialise with strange people and she would probably even have a panic attack along the way. Going towards the city wasnt the best thing to do either, It would take a long while to reach it since she was so god damn slow and traffic wasnt one of her good points either.

So she decided to go sit somewhere alone enjoying the sun by herself. She got over to one of the vending machines and picked out an ice tea from the machine. Walking over to one of the walls of the buidling she opened up her can and sat down in front of some graffity on the wall as she took a sip of her can and placing it down onto the ground next to her. It was immediatly noticable that a girl was taking a picture of something. Her eyes were folowing where she was pointed towards and she seemed to be taking a picture of a, Guy?

A shutter clicking brought Kyle out of his thoughts as his head snapped towards its culprit; a camera in the hands of another student, another girl. He quickly scanned her features before making eye contact with her, deep red hair, eyes nearly the same color, a shade different, pale skin and a particularly small frame. He didn't know the girl sitting a bit away from him, he hadn't had any classes with her and she looked a bit younger than the girls in his class, a 1st year perhaps? His eyes slowly went down to the camera in her hands, it looked pretty nice, like one of the more expensive cameras he had seen back home, was she a photographer? A brief, dark thought went to his mind as his eyes wandered back up to hers, "I hope she's not in the school paper, I've already got a bad rep and don't need it publicized." After debating this in his mind, he decided he was giving her a hard time, she was probably taking his picture for...what exactly? Art? Maybe she was a photographic artist? Somewhere in the cycle of questions his mind suddenly realized that he was staring for too long and should probably say something.

"Hey, um...did you just take my picture?" That's a dumb question...

The class ran just as slowly and awkwardly as Fuyuki had expected, each second feeling like an eternity. If there was one thing he truly feared, it was dealing with someone he knew absolutely nothing about and both of his workmates fitted the bill. Not to mention Kochizuki still looked like he might lash out at any moment... When the bell rang signalling the end of the lesson, Fuyuki rapidly gathered his stuff and left the classroom at a near-run; anything to get away from the oppressive atmosphere that Mutou's idiotic grouping decision had created. He spent the rest of the day holed up in his room, resentfully stabbing at a poorly drawn effigy of the teacher...

---

Saturday was Fuyuki's special day.
He had skipped morning classes altogether, sneaking out in the early hours hauling a dufflebag. He worked his way down to the town, surreptitiously avoiding those few students who commuted to school and booked into a small hotel near the train station. And in his little hotel room he began to set up a vast array of makeup kits, mirrors and clothes. Saturday was his special day, the only day of the week when Fuyuki became Yuki. This week he had picked out a rather frilly pink dress, matching ribbons for his long hair and some classic kneesocks. The plan was to head into town after the school rush ended, hop on a train to the next city over and go splurge this week's earnings on that cat-girl school uniform. Maybe have a crepe too.
It was all going accordingly to plan, until he got off the train back at Yamaku and glanced up at the station clock. Morning classes had already ended. The town would soon be swarming with students.
Some would recognise him.

It took all of his formidable mental fortitude to stop from going into full panic mode and he headed resolutely toward the hotel. Unfortunately, history has a way of repeating itself. As he turned the last corner, just metres from salvation, he once again walked headlong into someone. This time Fuyuki managed to keep his footing, falling half against the wall; a dozen warnings blared through his head until he took notice and saw with mounting horror that he had walked into another Yamaku student. He processed the situation and its possible outcomes in an moment of impressive mental agility, trying to come up with the best bullshit he could feed to this girl... He decided on an unconventional tack, thanking his past self for removing his glaring PDA that morning. He made a few complex looking gestures in a faux-flustered manner, using what little sign language he knew to apologise profusely. With any luck, the girl would think him deaf; he was sure he could blag his way into being a lipreader too. After a moment of thought, he gave an exaggerated motion of inspiration and pulled a little notebook from one of his many shopping bags. I'm so sorry, he wrote. Are you ok? He passed the notebook over gingerly, doing his damnest to look as meek and feminine as possible, even giving the taller girl a nervous upturned glance.

When the boy turned his head to look at Kaori she practically froze and her heart almost jumped out of her chest. His eyes were fierce and he seemed to be looking at her as if she had committed some crime against him. In her mind there were alarms blaring and her instincts told her to run away while on the outside she had gone red with embarrassment. His gaze kept her immobile as if she were caught in some kind of tractor beam. For a moment it was as if she had walked into a proud lion's den, then he seemed to be deciding what to do with her. What am I going to do? What is HE going to do? Is he angry? Kaori was trying to find a way to escape when he finally spoke.

Handsome Gaijin Senpai: "Hey, um...did you just take my picture?"

He asked a question! In Japanese no less! Kaori hadn't even considered the fact that he may not even speak Japanese, what a relief it was that he did. His accent was very apparent but it was almost cute in it's own way. That eased her mind slightly but he had asked her a question. A few seconds passed and she had only managed to barely let out a clear indication that she was trying to find an excuse. Finally she forced a small laugh as she tried her best not to be misjudged as a stalker. "Of course not! I uh... was calibrating the lens... to find the uh... ratio of... uh... well... it's... the lighting.... I mean maybe I did... you just looked... so..." Kaori couldn't say the word. What if it was much too forward? She didn't even really know this person. Finally she gave up and decided she would run away after all. She stood up quickly and bowed to him respectfully. "Have a nice day Senpai." With that she made her way to the dorms using the fastest walk she could muster with the intention of hiding out. She was in such a rush to escape that she even left her tripod behind.

Mariko was looking up at the sky when she was struck. It was blue. Not Mariko's favorite colour for a sky. The skies of her youth were greyish things, dense with cloud and dancing with sleet and lightning, a sky that put on a show. Blue kept feeling weird on her eyes, like she was trapped under the gods' soup bowl. The plastic bags she'd been carrying with her ached on her fingers, threatening to cut them apart like so much cheese wire. And someone had just run into her stomach. Head first. It wasn't that big of an impact, but it pushed her juuuust far enough for her to lose her balance, which was all took to leave her sitting down on the pavement with a sharp pain dans sa derriere.

"Oww..." She grumbled, letting go of her plastic Aura Mart bags in order to massage that tender area. "I think i might've broken my coccyx...." She looked up, at the girl she'd just bumped into, Even from her reduced height, the girl looked small, even borderline dwarf-sized. A local girl? Or one from school? She doubted the girl was old enough to be in her class with all that pinkness, maybe a first-year? In either case, better not to joke about breaking bones. She'd already been in one embarrassingly painful misunderstanding about disabilities this week, no need for someone to go around thinking she had early onset osteoporosis as well.

The girl was frantically waving at her. No, wait. There was a pattern to it. Was it sign? Mariko had heard about it, but had never bothered to learn. Her eyes would go kaput far earlier then her ears would, anyway. And the whole exercise struck her as needlessly invasive and energetic, in any case. She smiled, in what she hopes was an apologetic manner and brushed a few stray strands of dirty blonde hair out of her face. The girl stopped windmilling her arms about, reached into a bag, pulling out a block of notes with a plastic spiral holding them together, wrote something down, and handed it to her.

" I'm so sorry,"

it said, in the unnaturally neat handwriting of those with steady hands.

"Are you ok?"

So, what, deaf-mute? That was probably not true. Mariko had seen Zorro as a kid once (Both the NHK version and the 1957 series, if you care about that sort of thing) , and what she'd see- uh, experienced at Yamaku had only reinforced the idea that most of the deaf weren't mute; like Zorro's sidekick Bernardo, or that one wierd kid in third year with absolutely no sense of balance or hearing because of some inner ear trouble yet still spoke passable Japanese, if he wanted to. Or that one techy boy in Mariko's year who had a text-to-speech program on his phone. So, probably mute, if anything, and shoved into the deaf classes in first year because it was easier She opened her mouth and responded "Yeah, I'm okay, thanks for asking" before putting a hand on the wall, lifting herself upright and smoothing out her skirt. "Might i ask why you bumped into me, or where you were even going in such a hurry?"

She seemed somewhat flustered by his question, and again another long silence was hanging in the air...shit how intensely was he staring at her? Maybe she was scared? Was he coming off as angry? Did she know about Monday...? That last thought lingered with him dismally before she finally answered him. It was a lot of stuttering, nervousness probably, its not everyday that you're caught taken unexpected pictures of someone.

"Of course not! I uh... was calibrating the lens... to find the uh... ratio of... uh... well... it's... the lighting.... I mean maybe I did... you just looked... so..."

Her face had already been a deep shade of crimson, but stopping on that last part, her face seemed to redden even more. So..what? What was it? He waited for an answer expectantly before she bolted up off the ground, bowed and ran off...more like quickly walked off, but it was still incredibly off putting.

"H-Hey wait!" He reached his arm out as he called after her, but all he could do was stare somewhat helpless as she quickly became out of sight. He gritted his teeth and slammed his fist down into the dirt, "DAMN IT!" Again, another helpless victim in his attempts at talking to people, did everyone seriously believe him to be such a bad person, did he just give off that aura? Was he just so damn terrifying that people would actually leave their stuff behind, he noted towards the tripod on the ground. He was getting so sick of this, first Todoroki, then Ami and now this girl, he didn't even know her name; somehow that pissed him off even more. A fire suddenly lit up inside of him, it was time to stop running away from this and confront it head on, that's the fighter's spirit he always knew.

With the energy of a thousand suns he slammed his hand into the ground, "I AM SO SICK," he pushed himself off the ground, "AND TIRED," his left foot planted itself firmly into the earth, "OF THIS GODDAMN," he was ready, the fire was to be unleashed, "BULLSHIT!!!!"

And off he went, with all the strength and energy he could muster, plus threefold that, he pushed himself forward into a full sprint, quickly grabbing the tripod and swinging it on his shoulder. He wouldn't let this one go, he had to at least go to the girl, give her the tripod and apologize to her for whatever it was he had done to upset her. That fierce determination gave him the strength to push himself forward on this one, tiny goal, to the point where, if he were in an anime, he'd probably be shooting out waves of energy with each step. Soon enough she came into sight, she was remarkably fast for someone who was literally trying to walk away from whatever danger Kyle had presented.

"Heeeeeyyy!!!" He called after her. He hadn't exactly gauged his speed though and had quickly overtaken her before skidding to a complete stop right in front her. He breathed heavily, that short sprint had taken quite a bit of energy from him and he could feel a thin sheet of sweat forming on his brow. He took a couple of seconds to compost himself before saying, "You *breathes* forgot this *breathes*". He slowly presented the forgotten camera tripod, "I'm sorry *breathes* for bothering you, *breathes* but I figured you'd be wanting this back." He handed it to her, "also" he pointed to his right cheek, "this is my good side."

He cracked a somewhat goofy smile, he wasn't entirely sure if that lame joke would break the tension she was feeling or not, but he at least wanted her to know that he wasn't a bad guy, returning something that belonged to her would hopefully relay that message.

Kaori froze when the handsome gaijin senpai called out. He had practically exploded after her. At first she thought he might be angry but instead he handed her the tripod she had left behind. She hadn't even realized she had left it until he handed it to her. Kaori was stunned, she looked down at the tripod and then back up to him. He seemed to be really upset but then he made a joke and she couldn't help but laugh. "Thank you Senpai." She gave a courteous bow in response to his gesture. He really put her at ease for some reason, she couldn't tell why. She smiled up at him as he was considerably taller than she was. Kaori was only 155 centimeters and the handsome gaijin senpai seemed to tower over her. Despite this he didn't seem intimidating in the least. In fact, he seemed almost like a proud warrior displaying his chivalry. He's even better looking up close... This wasn't a handsome gaijin senpai like she thought before, this was a man. Kaori's mother always told her that the way to a man's heart was through his stomach. Right then she decided that she wanted to know him, and to do so she would gladly fill his belly. "I'm sorry I ran away Senpai. I didn't expect you to notice me and I got scared. It's just when I saw you there... under the tree... you looked so... serene. I wanted to capture that moment. I hope you're not angry." Kaori put on her cutest face. Here goes... "Do you want to... um..." Her confidence wouldn't hold out much longer. "...maybe I can make it up to you?... I can make lunch." She surprised herself having asked him out so suddenly. "Not like a date or anything! I just want to apologize!"