"I wonder why they don't send someone to go get her earlier, this makes at least three times," the taller girl wondered, following along as her partner headed towards their dorm, "It's not like it can be a fluke if it keeps happening."

As she walked along, the technically armless girl thought about their brief break from school. It was always a bit of a pain being separated from her Receiver for long, but she didn't mind if it was to visit family. Still, not being able to create her weapon...

"Did you do anything interesting in the break? My sisters were a handful, as always."

---

The small upper-year jerked back for a second as if shocked, looking back at her partner with wide-eyes even though she was continuing onwards, wrapping her hand in Keiji's and tugging the larger youth along. "'Caught already!' whispers Momo as Momo keeps following the crowd."

Unless outright picked up, not a hard feat to pull off, upon reaching the room where the first years were due to be paired up, she started raising herself as high as possible and looking around at the... hair of the younger students? "'Finding a match is hard,' says Momo as Momo looks for someone with an ahoge."

Why, exactly, she was looking for hair features within the new intake of students was something of a mysterious proposition.

Ryuuto almost felt bad for the professor that was going to be assigning him a tuner. She was clearly not emotionally equipped to deal with a room full of restless teenagers and didn't think she would be able to enforce any kind of discipline should a student choose to act out. The cynic in him was tempted to ask why she had this job if she was so bad at dealing with people, but he figured that she was a talented scientist and dealing with students was just something that came along with the job. So, he decided to take the opportunity to ask questions in a more academic direction. He raised his hand and waited to be called on... but not every student seemed to have the same idea. "Have you considered a pixie cut?" The question was as stupid as it was rude, somehow managing to insult the professor while completely derailing the context of why they were here. Who cared about something as stupid as fashion? They were going to wear school uniforms anyway, so there was literally nothing that mattered less. He looked over to the girl who asked it so he knew not to get involved with her, and saw that it came from one of the older students. Shouldn't she know better, and what was she even doing here anyway?

Ryuuto shook his head and, since the students had already established the precedent of barking questions like a bunch of rabid journalists, he decided to at least call out something intelligent. "Excuse me, professor," he said, doing his best to make his voice heard above the din of "mingling" students. "I was doing some reading over the summer about receiver-tuner compatibility, and it seems there are a few theories out there. Some scientists believe that personality profiles are most important in establishing a high synchronization rate, while others believe that genetics play a larger role. What criteria do you use at this academy to select our partners?"

---

Keiji couldn't help but grin as Momo dragged him along without hesitation into her usual antics. There was no such thing as "mundane" whenever he spent time with her, and after a long break of trudging through his family's routing, plunging right back into Momo-land was quite refreshing. "So, the target is an ahoge bearer..." he said, not bothering to question why she had selected that particular trait out of all the other personal things they could be looking for. After all, it was natural of humans to seek out their own kind; maybe she just wanted a friend she could relate to in matters regarding hair dilemmas. Then again, maybe it was entirely arbitrary. The one thing he learned after being with Momo for two years was that it was best to just go with the flow.

Keiji stood on his tippy-toes and was able to get a pretty good view of the crowd. Normally, he wouldn't mind giving her a boost, but they technically weren't even supposed to be here and he thought it would be better to at least wait until classes started to get into trouble. Then again, the only trouble that he could imagine getting into trouble with Miss Miki was being politely asked to go to their dorms while she conducted the pairings. He scanned the sea of smooth, round heads looking for an unruly wisp of hair that would make a worthy companion for his partner. However, the hair seemed unusually normal this year and Keiji was about to give up, but finally he saw one.

"Target sighted!" he said as he locked on to the head of one Kazuko Kenzaki. Her ahoge was a difficult to spot at first, as it wasn't nearly as pronounced as Momo's, but that rebellious curl on the front of her head that refused to lay with the rest of her hair definitely qualified. She was on the other side of the room, and there was no way that Momo would be able to spot it herself, so Keiji scooped her up by the waist, lifted her up above the taller students, and pointed her in the direction of Kazuko's ahoge. Miss Miki was sure to recognize them, but at least they would both know who to look for if they got kicked out.

Somehow, Miki felt her heart start to beat marginally less quickly. No one was jumping at her and asking weird questions or anything, so... maybe this was going to be totally fine! Yeah... maybe for once, she had no reason to be so nervous... that was possible, wasn't it? It... well, it wasn't likely... not at all... but that didn't necessarily make it impossible...

This train of thought derailed, fell thousands of feet, and erupted into a fireball that killed every single thought on board horribly, when one of the students, one of the girls who did not yet have a pairing in spite of not being a first-year, asked her about her hair. The actual haircut she asked about didn't have much of a consideration. Instead, Miki felt her cheeks heat up going incredibly red. Someone had looked at her hair... enough to make a comment about it. Someone was thinking about her hair oh no. Her cheeks were almost glowing red as she stood there and trembled. Why would anyone ask that? What was it about? Why would anyone want to look at her hair? It was so messy... wait, that was it. Her hair was terrible so obviously no-one wanted to see it so she would have to cut it down... but even if she had been able to get herself somewhere have her hair cut, sharp objects near her head terrified her beyond belief. It was, in fact, one of many things that terrified her beyond belief.

"... I-I... I... u-um... hair... cut... I..." the researcher averted her eyes and stared squarely at the ground for several moments... until a ray of light burst through the dark clouds of having to talk about any aspect of herself. It was about how they paired Tuners!

"... A-ah! Ah!" Miki looked back up, taking a deep breath, "The Akiyama-Kreuz Academy utilizes personality-based pairing measures. While the theory posited about the usage of genetics in order to engineer a pairing is not without merit due to the Heinsberg principal, relating to the creation of Receivers, it is believed to be marginal when compared to the effects of a relationship between both Tuner and Receiver. This is of course founded on the desire of the Receiver to help the Tuner, but that's hardly a full summation of the responsibility both partners bare in order to reach success. In fact, close genetic relationships can sometimes stifle development of abilities. A protective Receiver keeping a related Tuner from practicing, for example."

Ah, it was so... soothing talking about her work, instead of herself. It almost made her forget that there was a see of teenagers in front of her and one of them had asked about her hair. Almost.

It was only a few moments later that Miki would receive something else to give her a boost in confidence.

This year, there was no deviation from her projected ideal pairings.

---

Responsibility. Of course, Rika did have a responsibility, to be the best Tuner possible. This was also the job of her Receiver, to ensure she could be so. Wasn't that enough? Of course it was. The tiny girl folded her arms firmly, practically giving a glare to the flustered woman. Well, trying to, though all the crowds of people she had to attempt to look through. Why did she always get stuck behind these stupid idiots who were just too tall? he had to try and look for gaps between people to see.

"Hmph, fine, it's not like I had to see or anything," she commented, "... Idiots..."

She didn't want to mingle or whatever. She wasn't here for that!

"... And p-pairings received! Everyone, look towards the front of the room, please."

Rika looked up quickly, in time to see a large, holographic projection appear above the crowds. The woman's voice seemed... less nervous at this point, as well, though Rika didn't particularly care why.

On it, there were a list of names. Each name was in a set of two with a picture by each as well.

She found her own quickly.

'Maki Rika and Masayuki Michi.'

Whoever that was, Rika hoped they weren't stupid.

There were many other names, of course. Among them...

'Jaylen le Ganga and Sean McAster.'

'Kensaki Kazuko and Anjou Ryuuto

'Olivier de Plancy and Sora Jo.'

'Masayuki Naoki and Suniyama Sakie.'

'James Zhen and Akiya Nobuhiko.'

'Rozmonda Arensdorf and Alexis Thorburn.'

'Akeya Kagura and Tatebayashi Eri.'

'Kurihashi Keiichi and Kougami Mari.'

'Celest Romilda with Lucis Gonjake.'

Miki looked up at the screen, and then back to the students.

"S-so... p-please meet with your partner and proceed to y-your dorm room to settle in."

Rika unfolded her arms and looked around. So it was time to find this person...

She better not be an idiot.

---

"Maybe that doesn't make her get here any faster?" Chie asked, with a light shrug. "We don't know what she does before every opening assembly... Though I guess it's likely she's sleeping or playing video games or something, knowing Tomoe-sensei."

Chie sighed. Miki was really an intelligent researcher from what she knew, but having interacted with the woman for several years, well... Well she didn't really seem to be the most collected person. At all. Still, she apparently did her job very well, judging by how high up in terms of the pairing-based research staff she was. She didn't lead that department, but she was the one who arranged pairings to be tested and then applied. Chie didn't know what that meant, exactly, but it seemed important.

"They always are, aren't they?" Chie replied with a smile. Really, six sisters seemed kind of hard to deal with... "My family went to the mountains to meet my aunt. It was pretty fun, I don't see her often."

Sean took one look at the list, and immediately took the path of least resistance.
"Jaylen le Ganga!" he shouted, sticking his arm into the air. "Calling Jaylen le Ganga! Sean McAster to Jalen le Ganga!" He began walking through the crowd, searching for his partner.

---

Determined to be more dignified than shouting across the room, Kagura searched for her partner quietly. At last she spotted a girl with short blonde hair and glasses. Double-checking the picture to make sure she had the right person, Kagura walked over to her new partner.
"Hello? Tatebayashi Eri? My name is Akeya Kagura, I believe we are partners. Pleased to meet you." Kagura said with a small bow.

The appearance of the display above his dead was nothing short of 'surprising', but James found it more apt to not be crushed by a bunch of other students before turning his head up to take a good look at it. The ordering was a mess, for sure, but... Well, no, actually, there was no upside. Geez, the infrastructure for this facility needed a serious overhaul in the future; it was a miracle that they got anything done, even with the equipment that they had. Seriously, it had to take skill in order to goof structure this badly! At least make the damn thing alphabetized!

"Fuckin'... Okay, let's see here... James, James, James... There! Okay, my name's still in English, which saves me a lot more headache. And the winner is... Someone by the name of Akiya Nobuhiko. Hrm. Well, he doesn't stand out too much..."

Sighing, James looked around momentarily before the din of other students searching for their partners started becoming too much for him to bear. Seriously! Whose idea WAS it to set it up like this? Were they TRYING to blow out everyone's eardrums on their first day here?

"Son of a.. Alright, let's see if we can't..." he swore to himself as he slipped his way through the crowd in order to arrive at a somewhat-less overcrowded location in order to... Well, in essence, use the nearby equipment as a platform to get a better look around. Ruining his voice was overrated, and... Seriously, who would be able to see jack shit in this mess?

---

"Oh no. Oh no, it's happening..." Mari sighed, shaking her head as the list of names flashed brightly overhead, lording over the students (as it should); the cacophony that was every pair trying to find one another than soon followed made her instinctively shrink back. That was only temporary, though, as her ears got used to the blaring noise reminiscent to that of a concert (or so she assumed; she'd never been to one, but she'd seen enough online to assume). The listing seemed to be organized by the names of the Tuners, which meant that it would end up being more of a hassle to hunt for her partner that it would him... Or her... Well, whatever worked.

With that in mind, Mari quietly moved to the back of the room and... Well, waited. It'd be much easier to find her partner (and vice versa) if the rowdy ones did their jobs first. Granted, it'd take a bit longer this way, but if it meant not having to shove her way through this sea of people...

Rozmonda raised an eyebrow as the head researcher simply flushed red and looked down at the floor, stammering something she couldn't make out before dropping her question in favor of a more 'on topic' one asked by another student. With a sigh, the foreign student barely listened to the familiar explanation that served as the normally nervous woman's answer. She, personally, held a low opinion and little faith in the personality-based pairing system that the Academy used. That was no surprise, as it had utterly failed to come up with a suitable match for her yet.

So it was with a look of mild curiosity mixed with resigned boredom, and just the tiniest twinkle of hope, that she turned her attention to the pairing results that appeared in the air. Cute, anime, anime, handsome redhead!, cute smile, adorkable, bland, blander, anime, adorkable, bland, bland... The girl gave brief assessments of the pictures shown next to the names as she skimmed through the list, coming to her name and image after a moment. She frowned at the picture of her they had decided to use, thinking it outdated and only useful for identifying her thanks to her atypical-to-japan looks.

Putting that aside, she flicked her eyes over to the name next to her own. Alexis Thorburn sounded foreign to her, making it unlikely she'd have to deal with the particularities of a Japanese upbringing in her partner. Flicking her eyes over once more to the picture beside the name, she concluded that her partner was also positively adorable. Despite her general outlook on the whole situation, Rozmonda found herself interested in meeting her partner to be.

Deciding that it would be far easier for them to find her than the other way around, the tall redhead simply stood off in a patch of shorter students and looked around for any approaching faces that matched the picture.

---

Sora found herself wondering exactly why the researcher did allow her hair to be in such a manner, silently thinking that perhaps a shorter haircut would help her out in at least a purely ease of care manner. The older girl who had asked, clearly, seemed to have aesthetics in mind, though. In any case the question went unanswered, replaced by one that Sora already knew the answer to. She listened intently to the more confidently delivered answer all the same, not wishing to miss out on any new nuggets of information.

Unfortunately, though not unexpectedly, there were no new nuggets to be found from such a simple question. The studious young girl had learned all this long ago, though she personally suspected that genetics played a closer role than the school might think due to it's potential influences on personality. Such theories were hard to test, however, due to the issues of separating the effects of nature from the effects of nurture. In any case, she didn't disagree with the explanation provided nor the dismissal of genetics as ultimately being marginal.

The pairings list was displayed shortly after the researcher finished answering the sole legitimate question, Sora adjusting her glasses slightly as she quickly skimmed down the list in search of her name and picture. A light frown tugged at the edges of her lips as she noticed the glare of her glasses made her eyes hard to see in the photo, rendering her even more generically average than normal. Her partner, a boy by the name of Plancy and somewhat average looking himself, would have a hard time picking her out from the various other girls that had similar looks.

As the students matched up and cleared out, the ease of finding each other would rise. However, due to the mild chaos and sheer number of students, that could take quite awhile to work out. So, there was merely one efficient and acceptable option. Making her way over to the exit, standing off to one side, she raised one arm straight up in the air.

"Olivier de Plancy?" She called out in a clear tone, measuring the loudness to be just enough to cut across the chattering noise of the other students.

Keiichi kept looking at the nervous researcher, before hearing someone comment on her hair. The question made the researcher even more nervous, annoying the emotional boy. As he decided to look away from the researcher, Keiichi noticed the researcher decided to change the topic to the process of pairing Receivers and Tuners together, with a less nervous voice. While he indeed wanted to hear that and the researcher being less nervous is a good thing, it annoyed the boy more at the same time, since he didn't want to have the topic changed without any warning. Soon, the researcher notified everyone in the room that the pairings came, with her voice seeming less nervous just like when she was talking about the pairing system.

Soon, a list appeared in Keiichi's vision, with his name listed next to "Kougami Mari", which seemed to be female from the picture. He quickly decided to start moving to find the woman, which took some time. However, it didn't take long to find the woman, which is exactly the woman in the picture. Keiichi shoved some people to reach the woman, softly smiling as he talked.

"Hello, Kougami-San. I am Kurihashi Keiichi. I am your partner if I am right. Nice to meet you." Keiichi slightly blushed while looking at the woman, thinking of her as a good-looking person.

---

Eri briefly looked at the list, noticing some people have their name in their own language, with a smaller, and transliterated versions of their name that above the name, with the languages for the transliteration varying with their partner's mother tongue, at least from what the girl could see. Among the names, there was the slightly blonde-haired girl's name without a transliterated version of it, meaning she was to be paired with a Japanese person.

Looking at the name next to hers, noticing she was paired up with a person called "Akeya Kagura", with a picture of a girl with a long, black hair next to it, indicating her appearance. The slightly blonde-haired girl looked at the crowd of people which started to scramble around the room, with some of them waiting for their partners to come. As Eri decided to start moving, she noticed the person which was exactly like the girl in the picture found the slightly blonde-haired girl first, proceeding to greet the girl with glasses.

"Yes. I'm Tatebayashi Eri. Nice to meet you, too." Eri kept her reply simple and proper, hoping the black-haired girl in front of her is a kind person.

Michi had crossed her arms over her chest, listening intently to what the researcher had to say about genetic compatibility. It was when she mentioned the compatibility of relatives being stifled by protectiveness that she faltered, almost sputtering a protest out loud. She held her tongue, though. There was no way the researcher had meant her and her brother. She couldn't be that protective of him. Sure she looked out for him and did everything she could to keep her naively innocent brother out of trouble, but she wasn't detrimental to his growth. Was she?

Her brother didn't seem to have noticed the implications of the researcher's words, or possibly just wasn't bothered by it. Instead, he stood on his tip toes look up at the projection with wide, bright eyes, "Ohhhh, Michinee, you're paired with someone pretty cute~ How lucky~! Now to find my name..."

"It's weird to call your-" Wait, wait, wait. Naoki wouldn't call himself cute like that. Furthermore, why would he need to find his name? Michi looked up at the list and had to do a double take. Sure enough, she was paired with a girl she didn't know, "What...? But I thought... why aren't we paired together?"

"Ehhh, its a little disappointing," Naoki mused tapping his chin, "But this way we'll make new friends, right? I think I see my partner, I'm gonna go say hi."

Before Michi could protest, her brother had already wandered away through the crowd of students. She sighed. Dammit, what was she supposed to do now? She didn't want to paired with someone else, but she also didn't want to go against the school's decision.

Well, she might as well take a chance to get to know her partner. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad? Naoki wasn't wrong, after all. The girl did look pretty cute...

While his sister was still having her dilemma, Naoki easily moved to the center of the group and appeared in front of a girl who was standing oddly still. Not that he seemed to notice, as he leaned back on his heels and smiled pleasantly at the much taller girl, "Hello, I'm Naoki, you're my new partner, right?" He barely came up to her chest, but that didn't deter his eagerness to make a new friend.

Fighting her way through the crowd was a pain. Rika had to keep slipping past people, who were all attempting to find their partners. Was this chaotic mess really the best option? She didn't know, but it sure did annoy her regardless. Still, given everyone was in the same room, it didn't take all that long to find her partner. The white-haired girl looked... distracted or something. Which was a state she better not be in more often then this.

The black-haired girl promptly forged her path forward, grabbed the taller girl by the wrist, and began pulling her out of the crowd. Several other students, surprised, clearing the way slowly to allow her a path out. Now they were moving, finally. They probably only noticed because of what she was doing though. Idiots.

"There's no way we'll get to talk in a crowd like this," she said, finally, as she neared the edge of the mass of students, and finally broke free, stepping out into the hall with her new partner. She released Michi's wrist, and turned to face the taller girl, planting her hands firmly on her hips as she looked up at her.

"Now, let's set a few things straight, Masayuki-san" she began, "I'm not here to make friends or anything stupid like that. The deciding factor in our relationship is my doing my best and your desire to help me. That's what will make me the best Tuner possible, and that's what I care about. This is like a business partnership, so I don't need you trying anything stupid."

Kagura smiled, and something inside her relaxed. At least she hadn't offended her partner with being somehow too forward.
"Shall we move on to our room, Tatebayashi-san? I doubt we can hold a conversation here," she said as she stepped to the side to allow a short girl to drag a white haired girl who had to be her partner past them, "and I'd like to get to know you properly."

"Mostly the twins," she clarified, considering that she'd have to go check on Miki next time there was some big function. Chie was probably right about what held the dishevelled researcher up but Yuri felt that someone should at least take the time to check. If it was just games... well, something about the researcher was eminently satisfying to tease. She wasn't entirely bad company from the girl's experience but definitely far too nervous.

As they made their way through the grounds, the redhead took in the sights. Expansive grounds, nice scenery, and an abundance of cherry blossoms. The same cherry blossoms that gave one of her sisters her name. "Sakura was sad you couldn't be around for the flower-viewing. She really looks up to you."

Now that they were away from the new students, the stares in Yuri's direction were vastly reduced. The manifested weapon wasn't that special after a year or more here and the boy's uniform was just one of those easily-explained oddities, even if there wasn't much of a reason for it any more.

---

Hoisted aloft by her larger partner, the girl with the antenna looked hard for the apparent match. It wasn't much of one, in her opinion, but it was most definitely a distinctive rebellious piece of hair! Just as she was about to wriggle free and ask the new girl a question, Tomoe circumvented the need for it and stuck up the pairings, conveniently ordering them as always with the Tuners on one side and the Receivers on another.

"'No way! Someone with an ahoge is a Tuner? Maybe large ones are Receivers because they need to catch Aether from space,' Momo says as Momo is forced to revise her theory." The girl sounded honestly disappointed, sagging in Keiji's grasp and pouting. She'd been so sure that an ahoge was the obvious sign of a Receiver; they were too much like aerials to be anything else!

Eri looked around the room, confirming the fact a conversation is almost impossible in the room she was in. There were lots of footsteps of people trying to find their partner, with people calling their partners making the noise worse, disallowing good conversations from being held. Eri made sure she kept her poker face on.

"Yes." Although she did not want to talk, the mostly white-haired girl did so just in case the black-haired woman wasn't looking at her face.

"I'm glad I'm not paired with a boy... less risk of my partner doing the wrong thing to tighten our relationship." The white-haired girl thought, intently looking at her partner with an intent to follow her once the black-haired girl starts moving.

Cel remained as calm as possible while waiting for the list of pairings. However, once the holographic projection popped up, she began to feel nervous. She wondered whether it was really necessary to see the pairings today. She could just go home right away and come back tomorrow when she'd be more mentally prepared. Don't be so stupid , she chided herself. Taking in a deep breath, she stepped forward to read the list. It was better to just get it over with right now instead of staying in suspense till tomorrow. Instead of scanning straight away for her own name, she slowly studied the pairings one by one and looked around to see if she could find the other tuners. It was pointless,really, at this time to know who was paired with whom in this sea of strangers but Celeste continued doing so. She was, in reality, just grasping for a few more seconds to prepare herself before finding out her own pairing.

'Celest Romilda with Lucis Gonjake.'

Whether Cel liked it or not, she had ended up looking at her own pairing. An anticlimactic wave of relief washed over her. Was this even worth getting worked up over? she wondered before turning her attention towards the list again. She studied the picture of her Receiver carefully before looking around. "Hi! I'm Celeste Romilda. Nice to meet you" Cel rehearsed her introduction in her head before giving herself further instructions. "Act friendly, smile , but not too much- you don't want to come across as a goof. And whatever you do , don't you dare get flustered.". After that, she moved away from the list, waiting for the crowd to thin out so that she could find Lucis.

---

Adrian had entered amidst the eager crowd waiting for the pairings in the room. After having chatted momentarily with the newbies, he left them as they went to see their pairings.He figured it was time he looked for his own partner as well. Adrian knew Shun would be making close to zero effort in finding him, so he looked around the room. Not that this seemed to bother him in the slightest -he had enough enthusiasm and amiability for the both of them . Over time, he had become accustomed to some of the aspects of Shun's behavior. Adrian briskly walked through the heart of the room- there was no point in looking for Shun there. He knew his sourly friend would be sulking somewhere at the back and definitely was not in the center of the room, socializing with others.He looked around for a blue-haired boy not wearing uniform.The thought of Shun appearing in uniform began to seem very strange to Adrian, if not unlikely. Finally locating him, Adrian greeted Shun loudly as he walked up to him."Look who finally made it to school!" he exclaimed with a grin as he punched Shun's shoulder as he often did on meeting him. Adrian noticed he wasn't wearing his uniform again which he had somewhat expected.

Keiji set Momo down once she fell limp with disappointment. Apparently she believed that receivers used their ahoge as literal receivers, but Keiji could see an even more pertinent flaw in that hypothesis. "If receivers need ahoge as an antenna, then how do you explain all of those receivers with flat hair?" He motioned to the monitors with a nice supply of receivers, but woefully few ahoge. "Looks like we'll have to go back to the drawing board with the antenna mystery. But the good news is that since you didn't solve it, you won't be putting any scientists out of work." He chuckled and gave Momo a pat on the head as a consolation.

"Don't worry, we've got all year to test your theories. For now, though, this place is getting kinda chaotic. What do you say we get settled down in our dorm." He was sure that Momo would have trouble pushing her way through the crowd with everybody shuffling this way and that in search of their partners, but Keiji could easily act as a wedge against the smaller students, clearing a path for his partner. "By the way, you never told me what you did during your break. I hope if you went on any adventures without me you'll at least tell me about them."

While it was a bit...odd, the way Tatebayashi-san was just staring at her, Kagura was thought she seemed nice enough, if a little quiet. She clapped her hands and smiled.
"Let's go then." she said, and hesitantly moved towards the door. She walked more normally once Tatebayashi-san started following. Kagura pulled the school map out of her bag and started examining it. "We're here...the dorms are over there...so this way." She grinned back at Tatebayashi-san. "Come on, Tatebayashi-san. Unpacking awaits us!"

Waiting.

Yes, if there was to be one word to describe his experience thus far, it would be that one. Olivier had been told many time before that patience was a virtue, but he had never been a very patient sort. There was only so much eavesdropping, phone-checking, and foot tapping you could do before things got too monotonous, after all, and while the idea of interrogating the obviously distraught researcher with increasingly ridiculous questions would undoubtedly be entertaining, it was likely what many would consider to be a, quote-unquote: "dick move bro."

'...and that is a bad thing,' Olivier mentally reminded himself before continuing to stand in place and people-watch for the remainder of the time. He checked his watch; thirty seconds had passed. Damn, people were boring. For all that talk about mingling, there was hardly any mingling going on. It was fortunate then that he didn't have to wait much longer, for soon after the only question that mattered - he was, of course, referring to the one about hair - the great big list of pairings revealed themselves unto him and the rest of the unpaired masses.

'Oh Christ, it's not even alphabetical,' the youth groaned, after scanning roughly where he expected the P section to be and seeing an assortment of letters that were most definitely not homophonous with human urine, 'But fuck it, at least it's here.' Determining that searching for his name would be far less effective than searching for his face, the Frenchman adjusted his course of action. '...' Olivier stared at himself, narrowing his eyes to get a clearer look. 'I'm not sure I like that picture, it's very unflattering,' he noted the somewhat disdainful expression on the photo's supposed-to-be-emotionless face, 'Though not entirely unexpected; it is a school photo after all.' His eyes moved to the side. Female, short brown-hair, and... shiny anime glasses? He stifled a chuckle in case the girl was close by. 'Right, let's get to findi-'

Making her way over to the exit, standing off to one side, she raised one arm straight up in the air.

"Olivier de Plancy?" She called out in a clear tone, measuring the loudness to be just enough to cut across the chattering noise of the other students.

Oh.

Oh God.

Her voice. Her arm. Her bearing. Those glasses. It all came together to form a perfect picture of the truth: His partner...

...was a nerd.

'AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAokay enough of that, time to meet up.' Making his way through the slowly diminishing crowd and over towards the edge where his life-partner-to-be. "Hello," he greeted stiffly, "That's me."

Yep, this was getting off to a wonderful start.

---

Nobuhiko held his hand to his chin, endeavoring to think of a good question to ask Tomoe-hakase before the pairings were announced and everything would devolve into utter chaos. Or something. Eheh. Well maybe he was being a tad bit overdramatic. What was he doing again? Oh right, questions. Unfortunately he wasn't able to think of one yet, but he'd probably get around to it, maybe. It wasn't that important anyway, and, by the looks of the questions so far, nobody else had thought of anything really cool to ask other than this one green-haired kid with glasses.

The answer was pretty interesting, and gave a bit of insight into the system. Admittedly he hadn't done much studying up, so it probably wasn't as mindblowing to others as it was to him. It was reassuring to know that he'd have something to contribute other than energy. It made him feel less useless than he was. Plus, it was really neat to see the researcher go all 'super serious' in a drop of a hat. He did have to wonder how exactly they managed to calculate personality compatibility, but before he could say anything, the pairings descended from the heavens like angels on high, granting salvation to those blow who had long awaited for the coming.

One quick glance at the screen later, and he found himself and his partner. "James Zhen-san, huh?" Nobuhiko said, continuing to experimentally recite the name a few times so as to get a better grasp on the pronunciation. The western-style first name and the... Chinese? last name provided a little degree of difficulty, but not too much more than a usual Japanese name, he supposed. A bit more difficult would be finding James and vice versa, what with both of their fairly generic asian appearances, but Nobuhiko was confident in his attention to detail. It was, after all, one of the few things he was good for. "Ah, there he is!" the young man remarked, catching sight of his partner climbing atop equipment like a monkey and pushing through the crowd in that direction.

"Heya," Nobuhiko greeted, finally managing to have pushed through the crowd enough to reach his new teammate, "I'll be your partner from now on, Zhen-san. Err... -kun, -dono, whatever you'd prefer. Aha..."

The fact that his partner managed to find him first caught James a tad off-guard; maybe it was trying to get a better vantage point that made him stand out, but... Well, what was done was done. His partner didn't stand out that much, though; the blue tint of his hair, once he managed to see it up close, seemed to stand out from the regular black hair that most Asians had, but...
Eh, that was pretty minor, if anything. It'd take some time to come to recognize his name and face and associate it with his name, but... All in due time.

"Ah... Right. Well, that simplifies things considerably." he said, leaping down from atop the desk he had just moved up on top of and rubbing the back of his neck in nervous embarrassment. Right. he made himself stand out like an idiot in order to find a faster solution to the problem at hand. Well, it worked, at least...

"Heh... Shit. Well, it's a pleasure to meet you regardless. Apparently, standing up somewhere high makes it easier for others to see you just as it is for you to see them. Who'd've thought? Anyways... Akiya... Was it? Or would you prefer me to go by your last name?" he began as he began dragging his new partner through the crowd towards the nearest exit.

"Well, whatever. As for the answer to your question... Mind just calling me James? It feels really... Freakin' awkward to be called for my last name. Seriously can't get used to it."

...
Wait, did his partner have the capacity to understand him through all of his... Well, 'method' of speaking English? Like, it seemed he had some grasp of the language, but... Well, only time could tell.
Aaand he'd probably have to learn Japanese over the next few years, too, wouldn't he? God dammit, Mandarin was bad enough back in America...

Eh, whatever; life was life. Maybe... Icebreaker questions? But that would have to wait until he reached the exit...

Which, thankfully enough, didn't take much more than a minute or so to reach. The crowd thinning out as they walked over helped considerably, at least, for which James was quite grateful for; contests of strength had never been his forte, after all.

"Hell, it's about time. That took too long; where are the dorms, though?" he stated to nobody in particular as he exited the stuffy room, taking in a breath of the not-so-humid air in the hallway before turning back to his partner. "You got any clue?"

---

Oh.
He was one of those people, wasn't he? The blush on his face, that awkward manner of speech, even the stiffness of his body...
Well, she couldn't say she didn't see it coming. She wanted interesting, and boy, did she get it. Just... Not in the manner she expected, at least. Though... It was impressive that he managed to sniff her out so quickly, especially with the crowd still as thick as it was; she had deliberately chosen a location to slip away from the mess around her, but he managed to pick her out, with all these faces to fish through. Was it luck? Quite possibly. But maybe...
No, it couldn't be. It had to be luck; there were too many other girls here with the same hair color, same hairstyle, same eye color... He took a shot in the dark, and hit the bullseye in one go. Impressive; she'd give him that much for now, but no more. First, she had to learn; to probe around, see if there was anything worth getting invested in. With a quick glance at the screen above (and with her face and that of the boy in front of her in mind), Mari silently confirmed the validity of his statement. Not just an odd duck; he was her partner.

"Hello, Keiichi-san. It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance; I'm surprised you found me so quickly, what with all the people in here." she said, bowing her head in a polite show of acknowledgement. "Though... I must ask if we could refrain from moving through the crowd for the time being; I'd rather not be crushed by the stampede of newly-paired students rushing to their dorms as they are now."

Gesturing toward the somewhat-steady stream of students flowing out of the room, Mari smiled towards her new-found partner. It was a slight smile, and one she had faked often to slip away from annoying peers who wanted to drag her on some silly venture. It would do. For now.

Kazuko was standing in the corner against the wall with her arms crossed. She was not interested in any of the idle chatter and was eager to get the pairings over and done with. She heard the woman in front announcing the pairings. A holographic projection appeared for all to see and Kazuko saw it was the list of pairings. She was trying to look for her name when she heard her name being called.

"Kenzaki Kazuko and Anjou Ryuuto"

It was then she saw her name and her picture. Alongside it was another name and the picture of her would-be receiver. It was a boy. Kazuko shrugged as she did not care either way. What is most important was her receiver was competent and able to keep up with her so she could be a strong tuner. Kazuko studied the boy's picture carefully and decided to just wait for her partner to find her. She was not going to go on a hunt in the crowd. The last point about the dorm rooms caught her attention.

"So...I would be sharing a room with a boy?"

Ryuuto hated scenarios like these. He scanned the monitors for his name to see who he was paired with rather quickly, but that was the easy part. He gave one quick glance around the crowd and immediately felt like a pebble being bounced around in a sea of motion. While he wasn't terribly short, Ryuuto was definitely scrawnier than most of the boys his age, and so pushing past people was an insurmountable task. His only hope of maneuvering through the chaos was worming his way through the gaps created when one person moved, but even that strategy was not flawless. As he tried to slither his way to a better vantage point, other students bumped into him, offering passing "excuse me's" as if that actually excused them of their barbaric behavior. One person even backed into him without looking and nearly sent his glasses flying off his face, which would have been the end of them in this tumult.

He had to grab onto somebody's shoulder to prevent himself from falling, but then he saw a ray of hope. The girl he had landed on had the same hair and body type as his partner in the picture. Could it be a coincidence? "Kenzaki-san?" he said tentatively, but when the girl turned around, she revealed a face completely different than the one he expected to see. "Ah, excuse me!" he stammered, backing off before the girl had a chance to push him off. It was no use; he'd never find anybody in this crowd. So he decided to wait off in a corner where his partner could find him.

A couple of minutes passed, and nobody approached him. It seemed like most of the students had met their partners by now, yet it was strange that he hadn't even caught a glance of his. Then, a harrowing thought came: if they were paired up based on personality, then it was very likely that both of them would be inclined to wait rather than seek. He let out a sigh, dreading the prospect of plunging back into that crowd, but he saw it as the only possibility. Since he would presumably be working with Kenzaki-san for a long time, he had genuinely wanted to make a good impression, but the image of her waiting, growing impatient, and contemplating simply meeting him at the dorm sent him into social damage control mode.

As much as he hated it, he walked back into the crowd to give another look for his partner. Fortunately, by letting some time go by, many pairs of student had already met up and were leaving the room, which at least gave Ryuuto some room to breathe. With more space to walk around in, he managed to avoid getting bumped around, and even got a decent view of the room... and there she was! Ryuuto slipped past one of the jocks and finally made his way to the wall where his partner was waiting for him.

He stood there for a moment, just happy that the ordeal was over, but after a silence that was just long enough to be awkward, he remembered that he had to introduce himself. "Oh, um... I take it you are Kenzaki-san? I'm Anjou Ryuuto. Let's work hard together at this school." Ryuuto knew that wasn't the most elegant introduction, but he was so focused on not messing up her name that he forgot to be friendly. After another brief pause, he offered her a handshake, not realizing that the stress from being in a crowded space had made his hand a bit sweaty.

"Ah-hah, sorry about that," replied Chie, rubbing the back of her head awkwardly. She was a bit sad she couldn't have been around for the flower viewing, as well. And knowing someone looked up to her did make her feel pretty warm and fuzzy inside, even if she wasn't entirely sure she deserved that sort of praise. After all, it hadn't been too long ago that she was quite a different person... Oh, but she supposed that didn't matter right now. "I'll definitely be there next time."

Eventually, they reached the dorms. A set of three large, stately buildings, each one for a different year, the Akiyama-Kreuz dorms were rather impressive in terms of facilities. Each room possessed, well... for one, due to the fact that at times both male and female students would inhabit the dorms, there had to be two bathrooms. It had not been a decision undertaken lightly, but it was determined that the best way for abilities to develop was to ensure that students spend as much time as possible together. Even if that meant potential awkwardness. Still, two bathrooms helped with this issue. Each dorm possessed some furniture and storage space, such as two beds, as well as a small kitchen. They were rather elaborate, but given the healthy amount of funding the academy received, they were able to afford this for their students.

As the two girls reached their room, their luggage had already been dropped off. The staff was quite punctual about that, but Chie wouldn't have felt like it was a big deal if they were late.