Chapter Text
Chapter 1: Arriving at Yamaku
It was the first day at my new school. I stood right in front of the main building and stared at the entrance. A few other students passed me by and entered to get to their classroom. According to my clock, I was a bit early. Then again, being early was important for me now. And so the dilemma presented itself. Should I go in and already get moving towards the third floor or should I wait for the teacher? I awkwardly shifted my weight between my legs and my walking cane.
My lag of confidence in my current walking-speed aside, there were two different feelings competing for my state of mind. On one hand, I was glad to be standing here and going back to some form of normalcy. The emphasis was on “standing”. Not sitting in a wheelchair, but standing on two feet, even if it was with the help of a cane and a slight pain in the hip.
On the other hand, I did feel a bit brushed aside by my parents. I knew, that they didn't mean it, but having to change my school for the last year and not having a graduation with my friends did make it feel this way. To clear my head, I massaged my forehead with the palm of my hand. They send me here, because this school was able to aid me in my healing process, while I finished my education. “Healing” is a very relative term in this context, since the doctors made it clear, that a full recovery was not possible. That cane will not land in the trash until a medical miracle occurs.
This gloomy thoughts were interrupted by a tall figure opening the door from inside the school. A man with messy black hair and pail face walked through and raised a hand to greet me. “Good morning, Furukawa! I hope you got a good nights sleep?”, said Mutou, my new teacher. We already met each other briefly yesterday when I arrived at the school. “Good morning! Yes, it was quite good, thank you.”
“Very good, …”, he said a bit absent-minded, “ … shall we get going?” I nodded. We entered the school and slowly made our way to the classroom. Mutou automatically adjusted his pace to mine and made it look like he voluntary had a relaxed morning stroll in the school. If he walked at his normal speed, I estimated that he could walk to the classroom and back at least twice before I arrived there. That was the reason, why I initially wondered if I should get a head start on him. He could have caught up to me any time.
"Well Furukawa, the head nurse wants to see you. You can drop by his office this afternoon."
"All right. I guess its about continuing my rehabilitation. Where do I find the nurses office?"
“Its in the building on the right side from here.” He waved his hand in the general direction. “That is the auxiliary building. There are the nurses offices, the Yamaku Foundation office and a few other things.”
“Okay, I will check it out in the afternoon.”
“How is it with your education? Do you think you will have trouble this year?”
“My accident happened in the middle of last year. I kept up with my studies in the hospital and the teachers in my old school allowed me to attend the exams when I was in decent shape again. My grades where a bit worse than normal but I still managed to get passing grades everywhere. So I don't anticipate problems.”
He seemed to be happy with this explanation. “I am happy to hear, that you take your education so serious.” Mutou said with a smile.
I nod. “You said yesterday, you are the science teacher, Mr. Mutou?”
“That's right. Are you interested in the sciences?” He asked with an odd glimmer in his eyes.
“I always had an interest in chemistry.”
We finally arrive at the classroom. While Mutou opened the door, I felt like his smile was a bit brighter than before.
We stood in front of the class and I was overcome by a sudden burst of nervousness and discomfort. Because of all the talking I did with Mutou, I completely forgot that I had to introduce myself now. The fact that my new classmates all had various disabilities and therefore were an unusual sight for somebody not accustomed to it, did not help the situation.
Mutou began a little speech, that I barely listened to. There was a girl with two artificial legs, the other girl had only one hand, but after a moment of adjustment I noticed a lot looked very normal . I decided to look in the faces of my classmates, in order not to stare at somebody. A good strategy … until I noticed a black haired girl at the back of the class with burn-scars on her face. No strategy is foolproof after all...
Mutou stopped talking and looked at me expectantly. I coughed once to clear my throat. “Good morning! My name is Asuka Furukawa. My hobbies are cooking and reading. Its nice to meet you all.” I decided to keep it all brief and save. No need to stand out more than necessary right at the start.
The class gave me a brief round of applause. Instead of waiting for Mutous instructions I walked to a free chair right next to a short haired girl with glasses. I took a pillow out of my bag, put it onto the chair and carefully took a seat. The girl looked at me rather curiously, but did not say anything. I was wondering if I should say something to her, but Mutou kept going with the class.
“Now let us vote for the class representative for this year. Last year Hakamichi was our class representative, do you want to do it again this year?” He looked at the girl right next to me. Instead of answering Hakamichi looked at her neighbor. That was a girl with bright pink hair. While I was wondering how open minded the school was, to let a student color her hair like that, she began to move her arms in series of gestures. I realized after a moment of confusion that this was sign language. Hakamichi answered in the same manner and the pink haired girl translated it in a jolly voice: “Shicchan definitively wants to do it again!”
“Alright, does anybody want to become the class representative aside from Hakamichi?” Nobody raised their hand. For one moment I was tempted to challenge Hakamichi on the position just to see what would happen. But ultimately I was not interested in the position. On the first day it was also better to not make to strong of an impression. “So... it looks like Hakamichi is the class representative for this year, too.”
Hakamichi looked quite displeased with that judgment. Seems like she would have liked it, if somebody had at least stepped up. Or did she just do it, because nobody else wanted to?
Lunchtime came rather quickly. Most of the morning was spend on typical organizational stuff, that teachers go through at the first day of school. I was quite bored by the end of it and my hip started to feel quite awful. I was not used to sitting this long yet. When the bell rang, I stood up from my chair and stretched a little bit. As soon as I was done, I noticed that Hakamichi and her translator from earlier stood right next to me, ready to cross-exam me from the looks of it.
Hakamichi began to use sign language and the other girl began to translate with the same loud jolly voice, that she used earlier in the classroom: “Hello Miss Furukawa, as you could see this morning I am the class representative here. My name is Shizune Hakamichi and this is Misha... Ah, I am Mischa... BAWAWAWAH...” Misha brushed over her mistake with a laughter that resounded in the slowly emptying classroom.
“Well, nice to meet you two and congratulations on your victory, Hakamichi.”
“Victory?... Oh, don't mention that.” Misha said, while Hakamichi looked as displeased as before. “Also just call me Shizune. But anyway, we are here because you are new and we want to make sure, that you at least know your way around the school. So do you want to eat with us? After class we could show you around a bit.”
“I would love to. But you will have to have some time to spare. I am not the most mobile.” I was quite grateful for the offer. It would take me a long time, to find a place that I did not exactly know. I was also well aware that those two would have to sacrifice their whole afternoon to show me probably just half of the school.
“Don't worry,...” said Misha, since Shizune did not sign anything this time, “... we have enough time. It's the beginning of the school year after all.”
“Okay, thank you then. Oh, and you will have to call me Asuka if I should call you Shizune.”, I said as I grabbed my bag.