Since he was little, Akira Sosu had always had a passion for numbers. Unsurprisingly, considering that his Centre resided in them, even though he still did not fully understand it. He was a teenager of average height, with eyes as black as his hair, an impassive gaze, and the attitude of an employee who had just left his house.
He was an orphan, having lost his parents in a car accident when he was a little more than one year old. He had no memory of them, apart from the image of his mother's hand moving towards him and his father's joyous smile, although he thought of them as nothing more than mere dreams.
He had therefore been raised by his paternal uncle and maternal grandfather, two people for whom the only way to recover from such a tragedy was to adopt the little relative.
Haruki sometimes reflected on how strange it was that two introverted people like them had become friends. They had met in kindergarten and it was Akira who had made the first approach, introducing himself to the other child who sat on the sidelines out of shyness. Haruki had mumbled his name and they had started talking.
In the old days what limited Haruki's friendships was his innate shyness, whereas now it was his self-imposed reserve due to the fear that everything would vanish like a mirage because of him and his powers.In fact, when they played as children, it was not uncommon for Haruki to let himself go a little, trying very little to limit his magical energy.
Fortunately, Akira, already quite serious as a child, was never seriously hurt. Another very strange fact was that the two had no particular common passion: apart from numbers, his only love as he called them, Akira played the piano, played chess and draughts and read various science fiction books, whereas for a long time Haruki had been feeling like there was nothing he really liked. Actually, there was one thing: talking to Akira.
At this thought Haruki laughed softly.
"You're in a good mood today, Haru. Did Sakura happen to write you a love letter?"
Akira teased him.
Haruki knew he was giggling internally too, he could hear it, only he hid it better. Very few people knew Akira's true character: to most he seemed an intelligent but very cold guy, while Haruki knew that behind that stern face was a guy who was extremely happy to be alive.
When they talked, he made jokes, discussed his hobbies and sometimes confided in him his state of mind, his thoughts, his feelings and his deepest problems, not to mention his mythical and crazy 'outbursts'. Haruki naturally felt he could do the same with Aki. Lately, it was mostly his upsets that were shared, unfortunately....
"I wish. Even if it was a hate letter, I wouldn't mind. At least I'd have something to do. And anyway, it would mean she at least noticed me, wouldn't it?"
Haruki retorted with a mixture of melancholy and amusement.
"Are you really that desperate, Haru?"
"I don't know what to be anymore, Aki. I do not know what to do, I don't know how to do it or why. How do you do it, Aki?"
Haruki became pensive and brought both arms behind his back.
Meanwhile, on the way the little birds chirped merrily and a few squirrels hopped among the branches in search of food.
"How do I do what?"
"How can you be... happy! How can you be happy with what you do, how can you find pleasure in your actions, how can you find the motivation to keep going, to keep smiling, in short! How can you be happy?"
"If you don't know, with a Centre based on emotions, do you expect me, an aspiring theoretical mathematician, to give you an answer? Me, who sold my soul to whole numbers and my mind to Goldbach's Conjecture? If you like, I could teach you to play chess, it is a wonderful pastime and a great distraction from calculations... or I could advise you to play the piano, with its sound so perfect. But these are all things I like, it is the prime numbers that compose me. Every composite number has its unique breakdown, it's up to you to find what your factors are, that's all I can tell you."
Mathematically poetic as usual, Haruki thought. Akira and his mathematical metaphors always intrigued him when he could understand them, although he was used to it by now.
And indeed he replied as usual:
"Thanks Aki, I don't know what I would do without you. If nothing else, even if I don't understand your teachings, at least I'll have a C with Mrs. Mizuki!" and he let himself be caught up in the wildest laughter, while still maintaining a certain demeanour, without which he feared there wouldn't be much left of that stretch of road, as well as Akira's glasses and white shirt.
"Oh yeah, I have to wash my shirt this afternoon!" remembered Haruki, looking at his visibly wrinkled uniform.
They were still in the hot season, so luckily they were still exempt from wearing the dark green institute jacket, which was very heavy and above all very uncomfortable when combined with the shirt.
At Haruki's remark and his following laugh, Akira too let a smile escape, which lasted until a few seconds later when he turned his head, squaring a white-roofed brick-red building with a huge black emblem of a roaring lion placed beside the entrance.
"Here we go again." Haruki sighed.
"Let's go before we're late. You know how Karuzawa is..." concluded Akira.
The two climbed the vanilla-coloured stairs and entered the right corridor of the first floor, stopping at the last door on the left. They entered the classroom, greeting Professor Karuzawa, and sat in the two desks to the left in the middle row. After roll call, the teacher began his lecture on angiosperms, their characteristics and possible magical applications.
Haruki's bored gaze, as always, wandered around the class for a while and then settled on Sakura, who was at the last desk on the far right and talking to Iri. Akira's joke made sense: in first and second grade, Haruki had a big crush on that blue-eyed and blue-haired girl, always smiling and joking. But he now felt that even that had passed. Now he only felt a great emptiness inside.
Biology lessons, especially botany, were always boring for him. If only they had talked about salamanders...Ah, what extraordinary animals! To everyone's eye, they look like lizards like any other, but in reality they are born in water and only as they grow up do they appear so similar to others. Perhaps he too was destined to be a salamander. Or maybe he would have remained an egg forever, unable to cross that barrier that separated him from the others.
Ah, if only they had talked about salamanders, instead of discussing the angio- he felt he had to yawn, and then he prepared to do so as discreetly as possible- angiosperm- aaaaauuuugggghhh- WOOOOOSSSSHHH.
Dammit! Dammit! He had failed to contain his aura! A conspicuous amount of grey-coloured magical energy - a clear symptom of boredom - had expanded throughout the class, causing a series of yawns and causing the windows to shake severely. For a few interminable seconds, the eyes of the class were all on him; even the professor looked at him sternly. Finally, he resumed explaining, bringing the others' attention back to him.
A few minutes later, the bell for the change of time rang and the students greeted their teacher. After an initial fright, followed by a wave of anxiety about what the others must have thought, Haruki returned to his normalcy, which did not cheer him up much. At least now they would have Professor Kaneda.
The runner, as he was known among the students, always dressed sporty and wore a bandana to remove his dark brown hair from his slightly bearded face. He had a sunny and helpful personality, always ready to help his students with a myriad of advice and proverbs. Too bad they only had Practical Applications one hour a week.... At least his father had had the bright idea not to make him an objector, otherwise, he would have been left in the classroom at the mercy of the substitute teacher, and an extra hour between desks was just not needed.
All the students, except Nemo, Yami and Komi, went down to the school gymnasium.
"Today we're going to do some healthy fighting!" announced Kaneda festively, who was sporting a pair of zebra-print sunglasses that day.
"For those who join our glorious army, it will be a good taste of what awaits you. For the others... well, in this crazy world, a little self-defense doesn't hurt." he added smiling.
To the surprise of many, waiting for them in the gymnasium was class 5B with Professor Rezu, who had always been a rival of Kaneda and was decidedly less likable. Kaneda claimed that the sort of grudge Rezu held against him was due to the time when, in the Empire Student Sports Championships, Kaneda beat him, in his opinion even by a lot.
"OK guys, this will be a joint lesson with the other fifth years, this way it will be easier for you to fulfill your potential. Take care though, no foul play or hitting too hard, we don't want any of you to break any bones in your bodies, understood?" the teacher recommended.
"Yes, teach!" the pupils exclaimed in unison.
As the professors proceeded to draw the names of the fighters, Haruki sat with the others on the grey stairs surrounding the platform on which they would have fought. Although he would have liked to let off some steam, he felt as if caught between two fires: on the one hand, he didn't want to break his nose; on the other, he was very afraid of losing control, of letting himself go too far and becoming... a monster.
It had never happened that he unintentionally (let alone voluntarily) hurt anyone. However, he remembered well the moment when he had begun to fear his powers: he was 11 years old, and he was walking home alone; for some unknown reason, he was very angry and, seeing a large tree nearby, he struck it with force.
Many times he had done this, sometimes even injuring himself, because his father had told him that if he could not control himself, it was 'Better to hit a plant than a person'. This made sense to Haruki, so he had followed his father's advice. Only trees and sometimes bushes, though, because for Haruki, flowers were too beautiful to be destroyed for any reason.
But that big, beautiful tree would remain the same after he had hit it, of course. And so Haruki had accumulated all his anger in his right hand and lashed out a fist at the plant. In an instant, he lost all his livour, which was replaced soon afterward first by astonishment and then by fear.
The tree had not cracked, nor had it fallen. The tree was no longer there. It had been disintegrated in such a way that not even the splinters were left. From that day on, Haruki stopped hitting trees. No matter what he did, it seemed like he could never hope to escape the calm sea, the void within his heart. Never.
"The first one for class 5B is... Taru Akairo!" shouted the Runner. Among the pupils of the other class, a rather fit boy stood up, with long red hair pulled back in a pigtail, an olive complexion and blazing eyes. Over his shirt, he wore a burgundy-red jacket, while his trousers were black with occasional carmine-coloured lines. At the teacher's call, he smiled and his eyes glittered with confidence. And now for the big moment...
"To challenge him, from class 5A... oh, good one... Akira Sosu!"
Haruki flinched slightly. He hadn't expected that in the slightest. Perhaps Akira had also been surprised, as he sat still for a few moments. Then he stood up resignedly but nonetheless calmly, turned to Haruki and said:
"Better sooner than later." And with that, he reached the platform, where his challenger was already waiting for him.