August 12, 2024
As they both woke up, Shu and Kaede got very excited about finally reaching their first day at Rose Academy.
As Shu got out of bed, he saw his roommate for the first time. He was a boy with brown eyes and long brown hair. He seemed to have already gotten out of bed as he seemed to be eating…a sandwich? It looked like one you would buy in a convenience store.
The boy looked at Shu. "Oh, good morning." He said and took a bite of the half of the sandwich he was holding, neatly cut in a triangle.
"Good morning…" Shu answered back, with a tired voice.
He stood up from his bed and started his walk to the bathroom. "I'm going to take a shower." He said as he took some underwear from his suitcase and went to the bathroom, closing and locking the door in the process.
* * *
Kaede had already woken up and taken a shower. Once she got out of it, she quickly brushed her teeth and went to the main room, taking her towel off in the process.
Normally, she obviously wouldn't do something like that, but her roommate had already left before Kaede herself had woken up, so she didn't really care.
She put on her underwear and started to put her uniform on, which was apparently delivered to her room last night whilst they were sleeping.
The girls' uniform consisted of long-sleeved white undershirt and a red blazer with the academy's crest (which itself was a black shield with a red edge and a crimson colored rose in the middle and some other symbols and words that weren't really that interesting), alongside a back skirt and in Kaede's case, a pair of black stockings.
She looked at herself in the mirror and admired her uniform. "This uniform looks pretty cute!"
She got ready by grabbing her terminal in hand and a bag she'd gotten with it, and started her way to the academy's grounds.
* * *
Shu had already finished his routine. He left his bathroom with a disappointed look.
"Wow, so buying all those amenities was useless after all…" She'd gone with his shster to buy new amenities just so they didn't have to take the ones in their house just in case to avoid losing them, but the room already had amenities for all the students. If only they'd known…
Anyway, all that Shu was missing was to put on his uniform. He got out of the bathroom and noticed that his roommate had left the room already. He saw that her uniform was in a bag, so he started to put it on.
Shu's uniform consisted of a red undershirt and slightly darker red long pants, a pair of black shoes, and a long red coat with the school's crest on its left breast.
"This looks…pretty cool." He reacted to himself in the mirror. He then grabbed his terminal and bag and finally made his way towards the Academy.
* * *
Kaede was already within the academy's grounds, and Shu had finally made his way towards the main gate. He started walking inside and noticed all the students making their way inside as well. It looked so…alive. Students conversating with one another, students laughing, running, crying… some of them were even using their magic!
As he entered the main building, he saw his sister.
"Kaede!" He exclaimed to get her attention, her noticing and walking towards them.
"Good morning, brother! How do you feel?!"
"I feel pretty good. I can't believe this is finally happening!"
As Shu was talking to Kaede, he felt something strange. He felt as if though something was…wrong.
What is this feeling…
"Good morning, Shu and Kaede." He heard a voice that took him out of his thoughts, turning around to see the voice's source, Kaede also looking at her.
"Oh, good morning, Sasha." Shu said.
"Yeah, good morning!" Kaede followed suit.
"It's great to finally see you two in your uniforms."
"I know, right? It's great!"
"I know it sounds cliché, but I can't believe that we're actually here!"
Shu kept looking around him, and he couldn't stop thinking about 2 things:
He couldn't take out of his head just how alive the Academy felt. Of course, this was to be expected. His previous school's count of around 1,500 students couldn't compare to Rose Academy's average of 20,000.
But one other thing that he had in hid mind was that he still felt something was wrong. I mean, what was it? Was someone watching him? Was he overthinking everything?
"…do you know, Shu?"
"Huh?" He was taken out of his thoughts by Kaede.
"Sasha's asking if you know your first class."
"O-oh, right. Um' let me check."
As he took out his terminal, Sasha started.
"Shu, are you okay?"
"Hm? Yeah, w-why?"
"I don't know. You seem kind of pale to me…"
"Oh, no, I-I'm fine, really."
He looked at his terminal and went to the "Schedule" option, and the schedule appeared.
"Oh, it seems I have Magic History first class."
"Oh, ok. I have Catalyst Construction." Sasha added.
"Ooh, I have Magic Training!" And Kaede did so after Sasha.
"Hey, come to think of it, what exactly will we do in Magic Training? I don't really understand it…"
"Well, from what I understand, it's a class that specializes on-"
As soon as Sasha started talking, a very relaxing sound was heard throughout the school. It was the Academy's bell.
"Oh, that's the bell. Well, I'll see you soon, Shu, Kaede." Sasha bowed at them and ran away, making her way towards her classroom.
"Well, I suppose this is goodbye for now, Kaede."
As Shu said this to Kaede with a smile on his face, she smiled back. "I guess so. See you soon, brother!"
They both went to their respective classrooms, walking through the multitude of students within the Academy.
Shu took his sweet time to get to his classroom, admiring the huge main building as he did.
The main building had 2 floors, and both the inside and outside walls were colored red, with some accents painted black instead for variety, and the floor consisting of white tiles.
He finally reached his classroom (at least the one his terminal told him to go to), and he opened the door, making everyone look at him because of the door's noise.
He looked around at the classroom and noticed many different things.
First of all, he noticed that the desks were grey, and that they were arranged in the same manner as a regular classroom. Second of all, he saw the white board at the front of the classroom, and he also counted the number of students in his class, with there being 20 including him.
But the final thing he noticed was something that made him feel strange. But not only that…he'd figured it out. He finally acknowledged what it was that made him feel strange.
It was the boys' uniforms.
The boys' uniforms consisted of a red blazer with the school's crest on the left breast, black pants and shoes, and a white undershirt accompanied by a black tie.
But his uniform was different. Instead of a blazer, Shu's uniform consisted of a long coat.
So that's it…As he walked into the classroom, he kept thinking about his current realization.
He sat down in the only desk that was available within his classroom as everyone within his class kept staring at him. He attempted to simply ignore this by looking outside through the classroom's window. H could see the city from there, as well as some cars and people passing by.
As everyone sat down, a teacher entered the room, taking her place in the podium in the front of the classroom, right in front of the white board.
She put what seemed to be some documents on the podium, and she started speaking.
"Good morning, new students! Today marks the beginning of a new Rose Academy year. I am Mrs. Gan, and I will be your homeroom teacher this year. I hope we can all get to know each other quite well!"
She paused and while she did, she fixed herself. "Alright, so I'm going to be calling attendance. Once I call your name, just say "here" or "present"."
She started calling everyone's name, with every respective student saying their version of "present". Once Shu's name was called, he did the exact same thing as everyone else.
Even though everything seemed normal, Shu couldn't help but feel uncomfortable. Why was his uniform different, he thought to himself. Was it a mistake or something?
Of course, he couldn't really do anything about it, so he just ignored it.
* * *
Everyone's name in Kaede's classroom had already been called, meaning that they were already past that phase.
After Ms. Lancaster (her homeroom teacher), had talked about everything they needed to know, which basically included an introduction and other very small topics that you would expect from a regular high school, Kaede took out her terminal and looked through it, but specifically went through her student information.
It was all very basic information. It included a picture of her (which she didn't really understand how they got it, but she didn't pay much mind to it), and other basic information like her name, age, current school grade, physical appearance (particularly her face and hair), and her height.
Even though she considered herself to be pretty social, she didn't really know who to talk to within her class. Of course, she was in 8th grade, so everyone that was in her class was 14 just like her.
As she glanced at her fellow homeroom students, she saw everyone talking with at least one other person. Everyone except one, who was sitting at the desk in the corner of the final row of the classroom, next to the window.
Kaede herself was sitting on the 3rd row (there were 5 rows), on the second seat closest to the wall containing the door.
She proceeded to stand up and walk to the lonely girl with pink hair.
Once she reached her desk, she greeted her: "Hey there, how're you doing?"
As the girl looked out the window, staring at the area with the fountain, she caught what Kaede had said to her, making her look at her with a semi-disgusted face. "What?" The girl responded.
"How're you doing?" Kaede kept the conversation going with a smile on her face, "It's cool that the year finally started, right?"
"Look, just leave me alone, please." The pink-haired girl responded and returned to staring out the window, her light green eyes with an intense glare of what seemed to be something between the lines of anger and annoyance.
"Oh, I'm sorry. I just wanted to ask since you looked so-"
"Look, I don't know if you understand, but I don't want to talk to you. Or anyone. Leave me alone."
"Wow, okay I guess I'll just leave you to suffer or whatever!" Kaede realized what she said and wanted to go back, but she couldn't take it back.
The girl looked more annoyed than before. "What did you just say??"
"No no, I didn't mean that-"
"Don't play dumb. You know you did."
Right after the girl said that they heard the Academy's relaxing bell.
Kaede glanced at the pink-haired girl once again, and she glared at Kaede back and immediately left the classroom once she looked away.
"I already made an enemy, didn't I…?"
Kaede was disappointed that she let herself say something so immature in front of a stranger, but she didn't know what to do to take it back, let alone HOW to.
It was now time for their first class. Shu's first class was Magic History, whilst Kaede's was Magic Training.
Now, it was officially time to begin their new classes…and maybe learn a thing or two that they hadn't learned about before.