Honor of Euroka

Chapter 4 - The First Day of School

Honor sighed. He looked up at the large building that appeared to be larger than the castle. He had no idea how he was supposed to get accustomed to this. The sheer size of the building was the stuff of legends, quite literally. It was talked about often, how the witches needed large rooms to hide all the bodies that were used as test subjects-Honor wasn't really sure he believed it. But he couldn't exactly disbelieve it either.

Honor looked to the ground, the dirt particles only slightly shifting with the wind next to his boots. Yes, the ground would not judge him, he decided. Unfortunately, this decision seemed to want to make him miserable. Almost as soon as he started walking with his head to the floor, someone slammed into him.

Honor crashed to the dirt, and as he faceplanted, yet again, he decided not to get up. The ground had betrayed him. Honor just felt tired of all the humiliation he had suffered in less than a day.

"Watch where you're going!" A girl accused. Honor was too tired to tell her that it had actually been her fault since she had come from behind. After a few hesitant seconds, the girl piped up again. "A-are you alright?" She asked finally. He still did not respond, which seemed to frustrate her.

"It's rude to ignore a girl, you know!" She said to him. He inwardly sighed. Yes, but it's rude to ignore anybody, he thought. He didn't want to deal with someone like her. I'll just pretend I'm mute, he decided. After what seemed like an eternity, he heard her shuffle and knew that she was still there.

"All right. I'm sorry," she said. "But please stop ignoring me." Honor figured that was as close as he could get to what he wanted, so he stood up...

And almost immediately sat back down. By sheer force of will, he stayed standing.

Uh oh, he thought, it's a girl! He wasn't sure what he was thinking. He knew she would be a girl based on her voice. But he had gone his whole life without interacting with girls on a daily basis. In fact, for the most part, the only females in general he talked to were little old ladies who made him cookies because he didn't have a grandmother to do it for him.

He just nodded a little too hastily and had begun to walk away when he felt the girl grab his collar and drag him back.

"Are you not going to say anything? Even if it's just to say you won't forgive me, at least you could say something." Honor frowned. Her voice seemed a lot more fragile, and she looked like she was about to cry. He couldn't ignore her when she was like that, he knew.

"S'okay, I s-suppose," he muttered only just loud enough for her to hear. Why did this have to be so incredibly difficult?

She smiled at him for the first time. He felt so embarrassed. And yet, he was also proud of himself: he was talking to a real girl! He would celebrate this momentous occasion for lifetimes to come. She looked extremely happy now, and he still couldn't be sure why.

Her expression suddenly turned to one of doubt, and he panicked. What if she realized that he was the one who had made an embarrassment of himself? His suspicions were confirmed when she said, "Honor, right? I remember you. You were the clumsy one. Sorry, that sounded rude! Do you, uhh... have any map or something? Any way to navigate around this... school?"

Honor gave her a beautiful smile. "Not a bit!" He said. And so their first day of school had begun.

***

They got lost more times than either of them cared to admit. Certainly more than ten times, at least.

"Why am I following you? You don't even know where you're going!" She shouted. Honor couldn't blame her for being frustrated, but still.

"Because when I followed you, you didn't know where you were going!" He countered.

"At least I tried looking at the maps!"

"Yeah, and we see where that got us!"

The huffed simultaneously and turned away. Honor started walking away, and he could hear her walking away as well. Neither of them turned around.

***

At some point, a supervisor found Honor and brought him to the auditorium. He was about to leave, but Honor cried, "Wait!" The man turned to look back at him with an eyebrow raised. "Uhh, so there was this other girl I was with. We went in separate directions, and I think she's probably lost, too."

"What's her name?" He asked, and Honor hesitated. He didn't know her
name. How awkward. He shrugged.

The supervisor nodded. He wasn't much of a talker, it seemed. He left the room and headed in a different direction until Honor couldn't see his figure anymore.

About an hour later, the principal (at least, Honor thought she was the principal) came onto the stage and cleared her throat.

"All right, we will now explain the rules and the systems and whatever you want to know. But first, you will decide who will be in your apprentice group of three. If you can't find anybody, we will decide your group for you! You have an hour. Begin!" She yelled.

It was a good thing that she assured people she would choose people for them because quite a few people were entirely lost or didn't know anybody.

Somebody bumped into Honor. He sighed. It seemed this was going to be a regular occurrence.

He turned around and was face-to-face with the girl again. It seemed her specifically bumping into him specifically would be a regular occurrence, he corrected himself.

"Uhh... listen, I know we got into an argument earlier, but do you want to be in the same group?" She asked. Since Honor had nobody else in mind, he couldn't very well refuse.

Someone tapped his shoulder, and he whirled around. Great. Face-to-face with yet another girl.

"Could I be in your group?" She asked. Honor was pretty sure she was that one shy girl who had yelled at the king.

"Why not?" Honor and the other girl asked simultaneously.

"I hope you've found your partners because we will now begin!" The principal shouted.