Observant || Oikawa Tooru ff

3. Staying entertained

Ume had always enjoyed first day of school. Her classmates always changed volumes over summer and she'd like to see it all. They also had many interesting developments this year. The formal opening ceremony was held in the auditorium. Ume was also heading there when she saw a loud bunch of giggling girls asking for directions from a handsome senior while standing right in front of the auditorium. Ume was rather amused by the situation. 

She leaned against the wall as she observed the ongoings. She noticed that the bunch mainly consisted of newly arrived first years. Many of those girls had already shortened the skirts from the allocated length and had blouses that were a size too small than what they actually needed. Ume's eyebrows shot up.

'Ah.. tightens the chest area ,silly ,silly me'

She felt she had had enough of the cringe and continued towards where the second years stood. The opening ceremony followed it's usual schedule. As the head mistress droned on with her forever unchanging start of the term speech, Ume's eyes kept wandering up and down the rows of teachers. She noted the chemistry teacher looked less gloomier than she usually did, she even had a slight pink tint on her cheeks and the physics teacher would break out in stupids grins without warning.

The headmistress seemed to have managed to grow plumper during the holidays. The disciplinary teacher seemed to have a sour face on rather than his usual cheerful smiles. Ume's eyes travelled to his breast pocket and sure enough, the rectangular bulge usually present there was not seen. Ume remembered him mentioning wanting to give up smoking last term and made a note not to get on his bad side one of these days. He tended to grow moodier without a cigarette.

After the ceremony, she pushed her petite figure through the swarm of bodies buzzing around the notice board. Everyone wanted to find out which class they were allocated only when they needed to head to their classrooms. This is why she had made it point to leave home earlier today. Unfortunately for her, Ushiwaka made her pull a pitstop.

It took her quite a while to find her class. As she scanned the list for the names of students who would be her classmates for the rest of the year she found they were going to make quite a peculiar bunch.

Their year boasted four regulars on the school's volleyball team. Out of four, two -Matsukawa and Oikawa were in her class. In addition they also had their year's social butterfly to provide them with her pleasant company. Thankfully she was separated from her two best friends or else it would be less of a classroom and more of a fish market. The infamous delinquent and his sidekick also made it to their class list somehow. Ume could only imagine how much more of a hodge podge of people this simple piece of paper could create.

She strolled into the class and made her way to the seat at the very back of the last row. She could watch everybody this way and get plenty entertainment.

She jumped as the door was banged open and a tall boy with blonde highlights stomped in. He was followed by a shorter boy who looked ready to cause anarchy. His eyes glanced at the class almost full of people with a mischievous glint. The angry boy made his way to one of the last seats in the adjoining rows. His little friend shrugged and took the seat ahead of him.

Soon the the wonderful miss butterfly came in. She had already gathered a clique of girls who were members of this class. They were chattering away without a worry in the world. The whole group occupied few of the front row seats. 

Ume was rather surprised to find the Sato-Ito couple walk in right after. She missed out on their names when going through the list afterall.

Sato Miyoko and Ito Hideo had attended Chidoriyama with Ume. They had been in love for as long as she could remember. Noya had claimed that they had gotten together on the first day of kindergarten and that he had been there to witness it. Ume didn't believe one word that came out of his mouth after that. The couple made it to one of the farthest rows and claimed succeeding seats by the window.

The volleyball players had appeared at the doorway a miniscule of a second before the homeroom teacher and hastily took their seats, the only remaining ones, rather far from Ume.

Ume's eyes darted from left to right and right to left as she watched her classmates. God, she should visit the shrine sometime and ask for a thousand blessings to be bestowed on the person who put her in this class. 

Colour had returned to life and Ume's eyes had opened wide. The bell had rung and as a scorching gaze filled their depths, they shone.