An unexpected turn

High school is supposed to be the high light of your life, something about blooming spring of love or whatever, I for one never believed that, like do you know how many high school sweet hearts ACTUALLY end up together? like really together without the girl getting pregnant before getting married? less than 10%, and the actually long lasting ones 2%, so unless you are feeling particularly special you have no chance. With that logic I went into my second year of high school life.

The first few days were normal, with all the sappy reunions of friends who didn't get to meet during the vacation etc, I didn't particularly have close friends, I made sure to have a few people I'm friendly with and can sit with but never really close. Well, unless you count "him".

"Annaaaaaa~" he yells as he walks in through the door,

"I can hear you just fine without yelling" I scold him as I seat myself to my usual spot,

"I've missed you and your sarcastic anti-social condescending personality" he chuckles as he comes to rest next to my table

"That was a load of bull, and a very insulting one too" I coldly say as I turn away from him,

"Oh come on, you didn't miss me? not even a little?" he teases as he lowers himself to rest his head on my table

"Considering I've been trying to have a very calm summer, and that you made it your life mission to annoy me and see me every day of vacation, no" I sighed, Kei is a very nice person, in fact he was one of the first people I talked to when I first came here, being the only foreigner in class didn't help me much, oh did I forget to mention I had the pleasure of transferring all the way from new Hampshire USA to Kyoto Japan in the middle of the school term? talk about bad luck.

"So I just didn't give you enough time to miss me huh" he points out in a matter of fact tone

"Didn't you like get a new life over vacation and found something better to do than to annoy me?" I point out 

"Because we are such good friends I know you didn't mean that" he smiled as he got up and moved closer to me "Is that a new perfume by the way?" he asks as he sniffs a bit

"What are you a dog?" I yell  "how can you tell if I have a new perfume on or not? that's just creepy" I continue as I fake a shiver

"It's because I know you well enough to notice when your scent change, it's a compliment" he replies as he walks away "I'll catch you later" he smiles

how did we become so close you ask? well it's a wonder, we don't have the most friendly friend relationships, but instead of me rambling I'll just tell you the story of how we met.

-Day 1-

"I'm late! I'm frigging late on my first day! it's not even THE first day of the school year and I'm late, way to go Anna!" I yell to myself as I race down the street to the bus station and barely make it on the bus headed to my school, I haven't been here long but it's nice, it's different to back home but I think I'll get used to this place quickly, thanks to the Japanese crash course I took for the short time I had before actually coming here, I'm doing well.

I look out the window at the changing scenery as we move further away from the centre of the city, my new school is a private elite school, with it's very own grand premises located somewhere on the out skirts of town assuring its privacy- or so said the brochure.

So to recap quickly I'm late to my new school that is for the super rich and fancy which you probably guessed by now includes me -as my father gets re located to manage the enterprises largest branch in Asia here in Japan- so why am I taking the bus? simple, I forgot to tell the driver that I start my term today. Yesterday was a really messy day for me, I panicked for about 4 hours thinking of what to wear to school before I remembered that my new school imposed a uniform on all pupils, that's when I realized I was prone to messing up more things before getting them right, and due to my poor time management I feel asleep a lot later than I should have and still didn't manage to inform my driver, I was supposed to be able to look after myself for the few days that I've been left unattended to, I probably should have just stayed home but that would have given a bad image of me and I wouldn't want that now would I?

I get off the bus stop which to my luck is a bit far from the school premises that resides on top of a hill a good walk from where I stood, I sigh to myself and start walking, no use cursing now is there, but to be honest it's not so bad, the main building is on top of the hill surrounded by a large forest that stretches from there out wards in all directions, and along the road are the famous sakura trees, of course they aren't in bloom right now, so no adorable scene with all the petals flying around, no that's a luxury for those who attend on time at the beginning of the semester in April.

Eventually my misfortune dwindled and I made it to the student affairs office, no shortage of strange looks on the way though, I guess I do stand out with my light brown hair and blue eyes, sometimes I think they can smell me, from how strong their gazes are, but I'm just probably tired and over reacting.

After the brief chat with the clerk, she hands me a paper with my details on them and I leave her with thanks. I walk out onto the hallway and glance at the paper, looks like I'm assigned to class 1-A. I walk around trying to find my class "2-C, 2-B, 1-C...." I mumble as I browse through the plates on top of the doors until I get to one that reads "1-A" I look at the door and I see a figure standing, a man, he was staring at his watch so didn't pick up on my presence till I got close, at which point he glanced at me "Miss.Belle-rose" he states as he opens the door for me and walks in, I quickly slip in after him and follow suit.

"class" the man yells as all the students fix their gaze on me, which made me needlessly nervous, "This is a new student that would be attending classes from here on out, please be kind to her" he continues before nodding at the teacher, who was a tall handsome man, I admit, but I was too nervous to think about that then.

"alright Miss, how about you introduce yourself to class" he kindly says as he motions me to come forward, I was nervous since even though so far all the dialogue was in English -which goes to show how elite this school is and considerative of the international scene- I didn't know whether I was supposed to introduce myself in English or Japanese, but at that point there was no thinking "Hello, my name is Anna Belle-Rose" I blurt out with a smile "yoroshiku"* as I bowed down, and I could here a few whispers here and there.

"well then take the empty seat next to Nakamura-san by the window" the teacher who I later found out was named Hojou-sensei*announced, I walked up to the back and took a seat, although I had no idea who was the person I'm sitting next to I was confident enough I couldn't have miss-seated myself since there was one empty seat but I could still hear whispers that in retrospect were alarming me of what is to come.

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yoroshiku is a japanese word which I romanized for convenience, it's usually mostly translated into something like "take care of me" or " I count on you"  in this case she's is referring to "pleased to meet you and I look for your guidance"

sensei is the japanese word for teacher, I'll introduce other honorifics when they come up