[IC] Fukushima Uesugi Senior High

[Ookawa]

Just like every morning, Han Ari bounced her volleyball against the wall of her home. She had done the same every single morning she could think of, even when she had been just a child.
Even on a day like this, she would not interrupt her morning tradition. Sometimes, she did even more, like serving practice, though she would not have the time to do so today.

"Ah-ri! Breakfast is ready.", her mother yelled in Korean through the slightly opened sliding door to the garden around Ari's house. It still was early, but her preferred method of transit to her new school would not be the fastest.

Ari grabbed the volleyball and headed inside, cleaning her feet in a basin that her family had constructed because of her tendency to go outside barefoot. She dropped the ball off in a basket and seated herself at the table.

"Are you sure you want to join their volleyball club, Ah-ri? They haven't looked so good in recent years.", her mother said worried. If her daughter wasn't able to shine in a good club, her chances to get to national level were low as well.

"Yes, mother, I know that. But, if I manage to carry a bad team to the top, won't that give me even more of a chance to shine?"
Her mother sighed. "Sometimes I wished, you'd take less risks..."
"No risks, no fun.", Ari chuckled to her mother's dismay.

Soon, Ari was finished and snatched both her school bag and an additional bag with her "good-luck volleyball" inside. To be fair, it also could serve as a self-defence item...
She smirked at that thought, then she left for school. But unlike most students, she didn't go by public transit, or bike, or any motorized vehicle. No, she went on foot. And she didn't walk. She jogged.

Getting her legs moving and her heart pumping in the morning was important. Important for her health and important for her athleticism.
Soon, she reached the school and, exactly on time, entered the classroom 1A without making any fuss about her arrival. Though, as usual, when she had gotten onto the school ground, she had been stared at by students everywhere, something she was already used to, though.

She chose a seat and sat down. Arriving late to the class, her new homeroom teacher seemed a bit... frazzled.
One by one her new classmates introduced themselves until it was her turn.
She stood up, straightening herself to stand at her full height.

"Hi. My name is Han Ari. I'm fifteen years old and play volleyball. My goal is it to compete at international level. So... yeah."
Seemingly bored with her own introduction, she sat down again anxiously tapping her fingers on her desk.

[Spriggs27]

Saito Ryuji

---

Classroom 2-C
@Sazama@Inkarnate

---

Once Aya said her name again he could see the anger in her eyes as she tried to hold back something and spoke, she spoke in a more clear and semi polite voice with her fury welled up in the back of her throat, Ryuji as well held back doing anything that could get him into real trouble today, calling someone by their given name was rude, but nothing that would get him sent to the principle, at least he thinks so, plus he'd have to be a dumbass to get in trouble on the first day back; Ryuji listen to her name as she spoke and when she was finished he nodded and told her." Thanks for being nice to me Naggyhara." He even gave her a smug smile after he said it.

Once he noticed Nishikori look back at him for what he called her, he instantly tried to avert his eyes away from her and look off to somewhere else in a slight panic and turned to look out the window before looking to the door, when she was looking away from the back he began looking forwards again and he looked at her dark hair, to him it really looked like seaweed, he rubbed his stomach wondering if it was just his mind telling him he was hungry.

[Kuro]

---

Uesugi Senior High, Fukushima City
8:35, April 2nd

---

It began somewhat like a normal school day at Fukushima Uesugi Senior High.

Kotone's classmates went forward, one by one, introducing themselves to the classroom. Some were energetic in regards to such an opportunity, rambling off their future goals or how they wanted to make friends with everyone. There were those who seemed nervous, as Kotone expected, for even she was somewhat awkward herself. No one Kotone knew previously from her intermediate years appeared to have been accepted at Uesugi, and even if they did, Kotone likely wasn't super close with them.

Or so she thought.

"Ah... K-Kotone? I didn't know--" A youthful voice chimed, directly calling out Kotone by her first name. Kotone had been listening to each and everyone introduce themselves, but finding out that her own cousin was in the same class was a head turner. Either a trickster god must've been playing tricks on Kotone, or she had considerable, albeit awkward luck on her first day to have already made a friend and have someone she already knew at Uesugi Senior High.

As Yukine dived her head downwards to give her notebook a death stare, Kotone opened her mouth to say something, but before she could, a boy dashed into the classroom, flinging the door wide open and shouting at the top of his voice. "I'M SORRY I'M LATE!" He hollered to the entire class. "MENMA PASSED ON AND I GOT HIT BY A SCOOTER!"

Needless to say, Tanaka-sensei had something to say about the dramatic entrance, especially the fact that one of his students was hit by a scooter on the first day of school. "Why don't we have you see the nurse first," Tanaka-sensei paused, his eyes scanning a chart. "Igarashi-san?" Tanaka-sensei continued, noting his student's disheveled and battered appearance.

However, before their teacher could get a reply from the boy, another student arrived late to class, this time a girl. Contrary to the loud, somewhat chubby boy from before, the girl took her seat silently, and went forward with continuing the class introductions. Apparently the girl was foreign, according to how her name sounded. Outside of the television and the internet, Kotone had never seen a foreigner in person until today.

And it seemed a lot of them were coming out of the woodwork, counting the Americans that Kotone saw at the local diner. Fukushima Uesugi Senior High was a top school in Japan, so they were probably scouted for some sports team.

Despite the fact that Kotone was likely next to introduce herself, there were other thoughts on her mind, namely the battered arrival of Igarashi-san. Looking around the classroom, no one had yet offered to escort Igarashi to the nurse's office, prompting Kotone to stand up from her seat to volunteer herself.

"A-Ah, sensei! I'll help him to the nurse's office." Kotone spoke, taking a moment to glance at her cousin for a split-second. She'd have to speak with Yukine later, likely.

[HachiRoku]

---

Class 2-C, Uesugi High, Fukushima
11:55 PM

---

A whopping 3 hours and 15 minutes of... nothing, really.
It took about 15 minutes for all the students to make their introductions and cement their impressions into Ryunosuke's brain —that is, mostly negative stereotypes—, longer than he predicted. For 20-30 people to say something that would take no longer than 15 seconds at most, these people were painfully inefficient. He shivered, in sheer anticipation of group projects. Although, to be fair, he did like metrics to see how far behind everyone else was. It may be lonely at the top, but it's not depressing to be lonely, is it?

Following the absurdly boring and slow self-introduction of the students came the somewhat less slow, albeit equally boring teacher introductions. Obviously, there was Kurihara-sensei. Then, a blissful silence. One of the advantages of sitting in the same desk all day, combined with his 'invisibility', let him pull off things most others would get caught for- listening to music, reading a book during a test, and in this case, falling asleep. Ryunosuke was quite tired: he had to wake up early on the first day of school to get everything prepared, spilled his coffee on his first set of uniform, and had to speed home and back to school just to get changed. Ugh.

Given that it was the first day, Ryunosuke reasoned that there wouldn't be much to miss. Clocking in to dream-land, he was able to lower his head in the corner fairly easily, and nobody so much as blinked his way (at least, he assumed so- what for)? Before he knew it, the time had come for his beauty sleep to end. His smartphone, which he only really considered a time-killer due to a lack of necessity to actually call anyone, doubled as both an alarm and an alibi. Before his nap, he had set an alarm to 11:55, with the default 'call' ringtone as the alarm. At 11:55 sharp, it buzzed, waking him just in time to shut it off before things got really awkward. Understandably, some heads turned.

"Ah, suimasen...", he muttered, hoping that would be enough to quell any suspicion.

---

---

Uesugi High, Fukushima
12:00 PM

---

The 'bell', a rather pleasant electronic chime to the tune of the Westminster Quarters, announced lunch, as it did the beginning of class at 8:30. This spelled the end of morning classes, as usual. Students were free to eat, socialize, practice sports, hang out, go to the library, or sit at a desk and do nothing by themself.

Asami Kurihara sighed, stretching her arms behind her neck. This was a new bunch, another set of names to remember, another year. Granted, this year's group was far from the worst, but there was still a lot of work to do. Saito, who seemed to revel in others' annoyance, and on the other side of the spectrum, the tired students like Suzuki, who would look away if a meteor crashed outside the campus.

Could be worse.

[Spriggs27]

Saito Ryuji

---

Classroom 2-C

@HachiRoku@Sazama

---

It felt like forever since he talked to Naggyohara and others began introducing themselves to everyone in the class one by one, it gotten to the point where some of the names just sounded like white noise or just mixed together; he was starting to feel that the trip to the homeland wasn't a good idea as some of the names of his mother's side of the family started to sound like some of the surnames here, he shook his head trying to recollect himself and felt as if this wasn't going to end, he laid back in his seat, head far back looking as if this was really boring him before he cracked his neck and pulled himself forwards. Ryuji retook his position of leaning over his desk trying to remember the names being told to him by the others only to forget half of them and remember only a hand full of names.

He scratched his chin going over the names to himself that he remembered in his class." Dircks, Harper, Nishinori, Naggyohara, Suzuki, Koumori, Oshiro." He spoke in a quieter tone to nobody in particular. He repeated their names over and over again to make sure he remembered them and when it hit 11:55 he heard a buzzing sound and his head snapped over to where the sound had come from, it was four eyes' cell buzzing up a storm before he turned it off and apologized, Ryuji chuckled before going back to memorizing the names.

Then suddenly it was lunch, Ryuji didn't feel too hungry and decided to instead get up and go walking around so he could stretch his legs, he went out into the hall and chose to wander around a bit before considering going to the roof and smoking, then the thought came into his head if he smelled like cigarette smoke and it worried him a bit if the teacher could smell it or if anyone else could smell it, he carefully hurried to the to the bathroom and locked himself into one of the stalls feeling a bit worried. He checked his pockets patting them down not for his cigarettes, but for the thing he bought just in chase he smoked his cigarettes in school, he felt the small bottle in his shirt pocket and pulled out a small bottle of cheap cologne, he opened it and dotted his fingers with the stuff and rubbed it into his collar and school jacket's collar before wiping his hands onto his pants and sighing.

Once he came out of the toilet he washed his hands and felt a bit more relief that he didn't smell like a pack of golden bat cigarettes, the moment he stepped back out into the hall he wondered what he was doing before he was worried and rushed to the bathroom, he went back to the classroom and leaned against the window just waiting for the day to be over really, if he didn't have anything else to do he was just gonna wait. While he waited he noticed the green haired girl, Nishikori he remembered that she looked back at him when he called her seaweed head, he took it upon himself to walk over to the girl's seat and sat in the empty seat while it's old inhabitant was off somewhere else." Hey um Nishin-Kori." He corrected himself." Sorry bout' callin' you Nishinori, I didn't have breakfast this morning and I ended up letting my gut talk for me really." He rubbed the back of his head looking away from her." If ya don't mind, you think me an you could start over or something?" He asked her.

[Raging Fenrir]

Yukine Tachibana

Even though it was only the first day of school and most of the material they went over was pretty basic stuff, Yukine didn't let her diligence slip. She wrote down almost every word the teacher said, keeping the pages neat and organized. She definitely wanted to make friends, but her grades came first. It was her first day in a new school, so it was the perfect opportunity to set herself up as an A+ student, building good habits and all that. Lunch time came around, and she quickly checked her phone. There were some heartfelt messages from her friends back in Okayama, and she spent a few minutes texting them back. But, then she stopped herself from getting caught up with messaging them. No, she was not going to become that quiet weirdo who sat in her desk on the phone all day. She took a deep breath and put her phone away, getting ready to make some new friends.

It was a rather nice day, so lots of students were heading outside for lunch. Yukine thought that was a good idea, and she was sure she'd find someone nice to talk with outside, so she grabbed her bento box, found herself a nice bench in the middle of campus, and started eating, keeping an eye out for anyone that looked friendly. Then she realized it had been so long since she had to introduce herself to a stranger, she had pretty much forgotten how. She had the same circle of friends since elementary school, and whenever somebody new came along, her friends always seemed to take care of introductions for her. People would walk by, chatting in their little groups, Yukine completely invisible to them. She tried speaking up when a cute boy came walking by alone, but he didn't seem to hear her. Maybe he had headphones in.

Yukine just let out a sigh and decided to finish eating her lunch in peace. Maybe Kotone or one of her other classmates would hang out with her once she was finished. However, it would be so much easier if someone would actually say hi to her instead...

[Rabidporcupine]

@Sola@Ookawa

Igarashi Renzo

"Oh, um, are you sure, Sensei?" Ren asked, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly. "I mean, I'll probably be fine. It's not like I fell down a mountain or off a cliff or anything like that, n' even then, I only had a crack in my arm. This is all jus' bumps an' scrapes, nothin' too ba-"

However, he was cut off when another student walked around him, picked a seat, and introduced herself.

Hmm, volleyball huh? Might be interesting. He did have the height for it, and he'd seen some Haikyuu. Maybe he should look into it later.

Before he could mull over the subject for too much longer, he heard another of his classmates offering to take him to the nurses office, looking sheepishly around the class.

"Wow, y'all are really worried about me, huh?" He said, a small blush growing across his face at how willing these people he hadn't even met were willing to go out of their way to help him out. And his sister had said city folk were mean… "Well, alright, if ya really think I should. I guess I'll see ya in a little bit, Sensei! Everyone!"

And then he looked down to the girl who'd offered to escort him to the nurses office, a big, goofy grin growing across his face.

"Hi, I'm Igarashi Renzo, but you can just call me Ren! Nice to meetcha!"

[Kuro]

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Uesugi Senior High, Fukushima City
8:40, April 2nd

---

With the teacher's permission, Kotone led Renzo down the hallways and to the nurse's office. It wasn't a far walk, but Kotone was partly worried about Renzo being ran over by a scooter. Renzo swore he was okay, but in the end, he conceded to going to the nurse to be checked out for any injuries he'd have.

"Hi, I'm Igarashi Renzo, but you can just call me Ren! Nice to meetcha!" Renzo spoke, introducing himself to Kotone as they walked down the hallway. Kotone hadn't been sure if she should directly call Renzo Ren-san, for it might've seemed suspicious if the two of them were on a first name basis so early, yet what harm would it be in the end? They were in the same class together, and Renzo seemed friendly enough to Kotone.

"If that's alright with you," A short pause. "Ren-san."

As they rounded a corner, the nurse's office was in reach. Coming to a full stop in front of the sliding door, Kotone turned towards Renzo after opening the door for him. "Well, this is the nurse's office. I have to get back to class, but the school nurse can help you check yourself in." By then, Kotone said her farewells, ready to walk back to class before a light bulb went off in her head. Kotone forgot to introduce herself to Renzo!

"Oh, I almost forgot! I'm Tachibana Kotone, but you can call me Kotone too. Jā ne!"

---

Uesugi Senior High, Fukushima City
12:00, April 2nd

---

Once the clock was nearing noon, the bell for lunch had gone off throughout the school. The students were allowed to scatter across the school campus, free to do as they wish, whether it was to eat lunch, play sports, or even simply socialize. As the class went their seperate ways, Kotone dug into her school bag, pulling out a neatly wrapped bento that her mother had made.

There was the issue of finding somewhere to eat, and also who to eat with, but Kotone was primarily interested in her cousin, having no knowledge that she was attending the same high school as Kotone. Noticing Yukine sitting alone by herself on one of the school benches, Kotone called out to her cousin and waved hello. "Yuki-chan!"

[Ookawa]

She was bored. It kind of always seemed to end up that way, every day that she had to sit through classes. It was not that she was bad at school, but she got bored to tears whenever somebody tried to lecture her. Well, unless somebody actually practically taught her.
So, it was a relief to her that, finally, the bell to lunchtime rang and she could move her legs properly again.

All in all, Ari was happy to be able to move freely again and she showed that freely, very much without any embarrassment. She took through the hallway with a certain elated spring in her step, her lunch packet in one hand and her volleyball in the other.
Reaching the outside, Ari let the sun beat onto her skin, enjoying the light and the heat.

She bounced her ball onto the ground, back into her hand chuckling to herself a little. Then she headed for the benches.
A very slightly familiar face met her there.
"Ah, hi... uhh... classmate... uh... Tachihana? Tachibana? Tachikana?", she rubbed the back of her head, laughing sheepishly and waved. "Sorry, not good with names. Can I sit here?"

Before her classmate would be able to reply, though, the tall girl had already placed her lunch packet onto the table.

(@Raging Fenrir)

[AdmrlStalfos19]

And so the classmates around Hiroshi completely ignored her request to keep things simple and quick, and continued to drag on with their introductions... much to her dismay. Ordinarily, Hiroshi would've shrugged it off, but without having had any sleep at all, each and every little thing was only making her grow more and more irritable. First, immediately after she made her introduction, she caught ear of the two Americans questioning each other why someone wouldn't be able to follow directions. Hiroshi knew damn well that what they said was about her, and thus, she immediately shot a glare of pure venom at the two, as if to dare them to say it to her face next time.

Introductions dragged on as per usual, but this one asshole at the back of the class was making the whole situation worse. Not only did he force the Hatsune-Miku-lookalike in front of Hiroshi to repeat herself, but he had also, albeit subliminally, remarked that the green-haired girl who was yelling at those kids earlier looked to have a whole mess of seaweed on her head... among other things like hit on the one blonde chick in the classroom. All this just to waste valuable time that Hiroshi didn't have.

...

By the time lunch period had rolled around, all Hiroshi had to show for enduring the past three and a half hours of her day was a splitting headache. She wanted to believe that she at least learnt something over all this drama around her... but she couldn't lie to herself. The vast majority of what Kurihara-sensei was trying to teach the class, Hiroshi already knew.

In a bid to relief the stress, Hiroshi went to the library where she'd ideally be away from people, fired up her Nintendo 3DS and played a few rounds of Smash Bros online. Perhaps she could take out her frustrations on some garbage-tier noobs.