Ring Ring Ring.
Haruto was woken up by the sound of his alarm clock.
He reached out his hand and turned it off.
Still sleepy he stood up, took out his school uniform from his closet and went to the bathroom to wash up.
Then he looked up, his own face looked back from the mirror.
Sleepy blue eyes, messy black hair.
He hurried up and finished washing up.
After combing his hair he went down to the dining room.
He was the first one again today.
After sitting down, the maid from the days befor brought him a tablet with a typical japanese breakfast.
It was almost the same as yesterday, just the vegetables in the side dishes had been changed.
Still it tasted fantastic.
Soon after, Hina and Daikaku arrieved and after a short greeting they fell back into theier routine.
The twins also came shortly after, looking even more tired then Haruto, who was now fully awake, had done befor.
All three of them finished theier food quickly and went to get theier schoolbags.
Hina and Daikaku wished them a nice day at school and gave the twins a hug.
Maya gave each of them a self-made bento.
Then they hurried outside, there Kazuya, Mayas husband, who would drive them to school today, was already waiting for them.
Kazuya was a man in his late sixties, with grey hair, black eyes, tanned skin and a strict, but kind look.
He was the head butler of the mansion.
After driving outside the village, he just needed to follow the road.
There weren't many roads on the island.
Only three bigger ones existed.
One connecting the village of Hirakawa, there the three cousins lived, with the village Oyama, the only other village on the island.
Then, two roads each connecting a village with the academy.
Besides that, there were only some smaller roads, some of them couldn't even be called roads anymore, connecting some farms.
That was it.
It was harder to get lost then not to on the island.
After a ten minutes drive they arrived at the academy.
Infront of the academy building was a white wall with a wrought iron gate.
Behind the wrought iron gate, decorated with a pattern made of roses, a gravel path leaded towards the front building of the old, big castle.
The only way to describe the castle was magnificent.
Righthanded behind the iron gate was a square on wich carriages had been parked befor but now only cars stood there.
Except the square, green meadows surrounded the castle, cut through by the gravel paths who formed a cross, meeting in the middle, with a fountain standing on the place there they met.
The walls of the castle were turquoise-lightblue with white stucco decorations, catching the color of the horizon of the sea on a spring afternoon.
On each, the left and the right corner, was a round tower.
The ceiling was made of grey iron plates.
The big windows let a lot of light inside, framed with white window frames who also had some smaller carvings of flowers on the corners.
In the middle of the frontside building of the castle, seven stone steps leaded upwards to a wooden entrance gate.
The entrance gate was decorated with carvings of flowers and two rising horses in the middle, each guarding one gate wing.
Students were already following the gravel path towards the entrance gate.
Kazuya parked the car and the three cousins exited it.
Then they followed the other students inside the academy.
After passing through the entrance gate they stood inside a very big hall.
On the ceiling above them was a painting wich was a scene somewhere in a forest.
Left and right were a staircase heading upwards as well as a corridor next to it which went deeper inside the building.
On the opposite, a second wooden door leaded inside the inner courtyard which was a small version of the one outside.
The only real difference was that the fountain was big enough to sit on its edge and had a pedestal in the middle atop wich a rising white horse stood.
Each of the four gravel paths leaded to a wooden door with carvings of flowers.
The twins classroom was on the first floor of the east wing so they normally went through the inner courtyard and then followed the only staircase in the east wing upwards.
But today, they stopped and turned around to face Haruto.
„Should we lead you to the directorate?", Yoko asked.
Taro nodded: „Since it's your first day and you still don't know your way around after all."
Of course, Haruto knew the way.
During his past lifes he had gone it countless times.
But from his cousins perspective it was his first time, entering the building.
He was a bit happy that his cousins offered to lead him there.
Despite that, he still refused: „I looked up the way beforehand. Also, I don't want you to be late because of me. Moreover, the others must be waiting for you already."
His cousins couldn't really refuse that and after eyeing him with a look he couldn't interpret they turned around and left.
Then they passed by the fountain he also turned right and went the staircase upwards.
Afterwards he followed the corridor of the first floor until he reached the right tower.
On his way he passed by some classrooms.
Some of them had students inside who were discussing theier summer holidays, some there empty.
Finally he stood infront of the door of the directorate.
He knocked and only shortly after a voice from inside called: „Come in."
Haruto opend the door and stepped inside.
The directorate was decorated with two old paintings wich were a part of the castle interior befor it became an academy.
Besides them a bookshelf that had been created just for this round room stood at the wall filled with folders full of documents.
Opposite to the door was a big window infront of wich a wooden desk stood.
Behind the desk sat the director, Misses Rin Mizakuchi.
She was a woman in her middle fifties with short grey hair, grey eyes, fair skin and a strict look.
With a sign of her hand she told Haruto to sit down on one of the two wooden chairs with beige velvet upholstery.
„You must be Haruto Kohara. I have heard about your circumstances so I don't think there will be any problem with you entering the school only now. Also, from what I have seen you always had good grades. I hope you will study hard and keep up the good behavior from your previous school in the future to. Your homeroom teacher should be here any moment. You might have already heard it but you will be put into class 1-3."
That moment, someone knocked at the door again.
„Please enter.", director Mizakuchi said.
A man in his early thirties with short black hair, slightly tanned skin and black eyes entered.
„I'm Masao Yano, the homeroom teacher of class 1-3. If you have any problems you can always come to me.", he said to Haruto.
Haruto nodded slightly, but he already knew that he couldn't ask his teacher for help with his actual problem, his Infinitiv regression.
He could ask no one.
After a short talk between director Mizakuchi and Yano-sensei, the teacher and the boy left the directorate and heeded to the classroom.
Once they arrieved there, they entered and Yano-sensei asked the students to quiet down.
After that silence entered the classroom.
The teacher stepped behind the teacher desk infront of the blackboard.
„Classpresident, please.", he said.
Kanae, who sat in the front row, stood up and started speaking: „Stand up…bow…sit down."
The class followed her words since that was the normal greeting routine not only in the class but in the whole school.
Yano-sensei nodded, took out the chalk and wrote Harutos name on the blackboard.
„This is Haruto Kohara.", he introduced the boy, „He will be in our class starting today so please treat him warmly. Kohara, say something about you please."
Haruto nodded and said: „I'm from Shinchoshin a part of Kameoka near Kyoto. I like reading and swimming. It's nice to meet you all and I hope we get along."
Yano-sensei allowed him to sit down afterwards and gave him the free table in the last row next to the window.
Then Yano-sensei started talking about the summer holidays with the other students for a bit, befor he gathered the homework they had needed to do during them.
None of these things concerned him, so Haruto looked outside the window.
But the moment the teacher started talking about organizational things he started taking notes just to be sure not to miss or forget anything.
Afterwards Yano-sensei started with his lesson.
He was the japanese teacher of the class and they started with a new theme today.
Soon the whole class was focusing on the lesson.
But the moment the bell rang and showed the end of the first two lessons all students of class 1-3 gathered around Harutos table.
Just as he had expected they started asking him questions right away.
„Have you been in Kyoto befor?"
„How is Kameoka?"
„How was your old school?"
„In wich club were you in your old school?"
„Do you plan to enter the swimming club?"
„Why did you only transfer here now and not at the beginning of the year?"
That was the question he had feared the most.
Even after countless regressions he still didn't like to talk about it.
It was still to hard for him to talk about.
Just endure it a bit more, then the next lesson starts, he thought to himself.
That moment another voice interrupted the others.
„Could you stop asking my cousin all these questions? I need to talk to him about something so could you please leave us alone for a moment?", Taro said as he pushed through the crowd and stopped next to the table.
Haruto, who was still sitting on his chair, looked up to his cousin.
Why did he help me? In the past he never bothers to, he thought.
Still, he was relieved that the uncomfortable storm of questions had stopped.
He turned towards his cousin, but befor he could ask anything the bell rang and all students went back to theier seats.
The rest of the first half of the day passed by similar.
After japanese was math and then history.
In the short breaks, Taro or Yoko stopped the others from bombarding Haruto with questions.
Then the bell rang and told them that it was lunchtime.
Haruto had planned to slip out of the classroom quietly and eat somewhere outside in the park but that plan was ruined.
Taro, Yoko, Naomi, Kanae, Minato and Yoshi put theier desks around his and set on their chairs.
They all packed out theier bento- boxes and started eating.
„We need to show Haruto the rest of the island this week, since it didn't work out yesterday.", Naomi said.
Kanae shook her head: „During the week we don't have enough time with school, so we need to do it on the weekend."
„Then, how about next Saturday?", Minato replied.
The others agreed right away and started planning out the details.
Does anyone ask for my opinion?, Haruto asked himself.
Still, he didn't say anything.
He let his gaze wander around them.
Right now, it seemed like he was part of theier group, but for how long?
Only listening with one ear he looked down on his bento.
His bento was well-balanced with rice, vegetables and meat.
Even a rice cake was inside.
Then he took it out he remembered something Maya he always told him in all of his past lifes: „Peopel need sweets and sugar to sweeten the day and get over it."
Then, she had always given him something sweet with a smile.
She reminded him of a kind grandmother.
A slight smile scurried over his lips but it disappeared befor anyone could see it.
By the time the bell rang to start the afternoon classes the other had finished planning.
They would meet up at the village plaza on Saturday at 10'o'clock with theier bicycles.
Then, they would drive to the fishermen's death and make a picnic there.
Taro would lend Haruto his old bicycle.
Haruto himself wasn't so sure about the trip.
He wasn't sure if he was ready to go to the fishermen's death, were he had died in his last life, yet.
He didn't know how he would react once he was there.
But he couldn't ask them to go somewhere else or tell them about his regression.
So all he could do was quietly accept it and hope that it would be fine.
The afternoon class in geographic passed by faster than he had noticed.
Finally the last bell of the day rang, telling them that they were freed from school for today.
While the twins already went ahead to the park square Haruto needed to go to the teachers room, wich was located on the ground floor of the west wing, for a moment.
Once he was there he asked for Yano-sensei and was sended to his desk.
„Ah, your here.", the teacher said, „Here is the list with the things you will need for the rest of the school year. Please get them together as quickly as possible. Also, I already said it but you can always come to me if you need someone to talk."
With that, he let the boy go.
Haruto went outside and walked straight to the parking area.
On his way he passed through the entrance gate with the carved horses.
Then he followed the gravel path until he reached the square with the parked car.
The moment he entered and sat down, Kazuya started the motor.
Then, he turned around, drove out of the academy and back on the road towards the village Hirakawa.
Soon after they would arrive back home.