It was a day unlike any other day of summer, one in which the tepid heat of the dog days gave away to a cooler warmth, where the sun shone brightly, but did not melt away those underneath it. Late August was a pleasant and yet, regrettable period of time. Summer break had ended and freshmen were popping in all over the place. A second year himself, Ren Akimoto found the scenes of new students dragging around heavy boxes full of luggage slightly endearing. It reminded him of himself, before he realized that it was smarter just to pack light and buy what you needed. Maybe it could be considered the logic of a rich person, but he had worked during the summer in order to get enough money to finance all his needs for this year.

Well, depending on how it goes, perhaps it’d only be enough for this semester. Ren didn’t have much of anything in terms of meeting old friends or going partying during the national holidays, so it was pretty obvious that he’d probably blow it all away one night. Not that he liked thinking that far into the future. Stuff like that only stressed him out.

The raven-haired youth took in a deep breath of the autumn air, enjoying a transient moment of silence, before the noise of the crowd collapsed on him once more. The many trees that circled the courtyard of Chiharu were turning ablaze, becoming red and orange in response to the creeping autumn. The Dean of Admissions, a lovely lady that looked more like a model than an academic, was beginning her speech with the same cheerful, energetic manner in which she conducted herself last semester. Looking at her face, he managed a small smile. It must have been one of the highlights of her life, seeing the faces of those that survived the tribulations of Chiharu entrance exams.

But he wasn’t here to listen to Asako’s speech.

Flicking open his IPhone 12, complete with multi-touch and a 6G Network that allowed for light-speed processing, he exited his Puzzles and Dragons application and checked his e-mail once more for confirmation. FJA 531, the only class that was starting on the very first day. Going all out in the beginning, huh? Sounded interesting, if nothing else. Maybe they’ll do an icebreaker between classmates, cause from what he had heard, the class size was remarkably small for what appeared to be a GPA booster course.

It wasn’t hard to find the ‘classroom’ as well, considering how easily the FJA sign stood out. Cute, little thing, reminded him of something that one would see in a fantasy war anime. The man sitting in front of the flag was a foreigner as well, one that Ren hadn’t yet seen around in campus. Walking up to the professor with a harmless little smile, he asked cheekily, [b]“How does my tuition taste, Prof?”[/b]