"Shyness is a double-edged sword; it can be adorable... but it can also ruin lives." - Sachi

A couple of months earlier…

While writing down notes to take home I was starting to realize how repetitive and boring my days were becoming, but that wasn’t going to stop me from focusing on my goal, which is to graduate from this dumb school.

“Aaah!” Yelled a student as if they were torturing him.

“Hey, that’s my homework!” Pencils, paper airplanes, all kinds of school objects were thrown across the classroom. This is precisely why I choose to sit at the back. I sighed as if I lost all hope in humanity. This is not a school; this is more like an insane asylum.

For being just a high school junior student, sometimes I felt like I was way older than my peers… but I wasn’t.

“Alright class, I would like all of you to sit quietly for a moment as I do the roll call” The teacher said; he had silver hair and wrinkles all over his face, sometimes I even wondered how he was able to also see a fly, but I guess that’s why the class was crazier than a prom night.

Even as all this chaos was happening in the background, I still managed to write down the notes that were on the board; you know that automated feeling when your arm just starts copying on its own without even thinking about it? That’s kind of what was happening; that’s probably why sometimes I still don’t understand things after I copy them, but I wasn’t writing the notes for me.

“Ryukaito Nukuwa” yelled the teacher. Say what again? “Ryu—kaito—no”

“It’s Rukito Nokuwa, Mr. Ender.” The other students started giggling, but I was used to it, I do have an uncommon name after all; I always say ‘here’ before he even mentions my name, but today I was too in my head.

My name is Rukito Nokuwa, I have natural red hair and golden eyes, I’m 17 years old, and I’m currently attending Akirei Private High School as a junior. My dream is to help those who are in need of the most… nah who am I kidding, I have yet no idea of what I’m going to do with my life.

Minutes later, he finished the roll call and said,

“For all of you that are here, I would like you to welcome a new student to our school.” New student? I thought I had enough dealing with these maniacs, now comes a new challenger? Give me a break… hopefully, he is calm and collected.

“Where is he?” I asked,

“Young lady, may you walk up to the front of the classroom?”

“Yes, sir.” I heard a faint voice right beside me. What?! As I looked to my side there was a girl all along; the fact that I or anybody in the classroom never noticed her gave me chills, everyone else was as shocked as me.

She had short wavey jet-black hair, some over her eyes as if she was trying to hide them. As she got up and walked over the teacher’s desk, I was able to faintly smell her aroma for a couple of seconds. I’m no weirdo or anything, but it was quite the unique smell; if I would guess her perfume cost around the thousands.

“H-Hello, everyone.” She said while bowing. “My name is Sachi, I’m 17 years old, and I come from East Greenterra.” The name sure sounds like an eastern name.

“Welcome, Sachi!” Said the other students.

“Class president, if you don’t mind.” Said the teacher while looking directly towards me.

I got up and walked in front of the classroom with confidence, as the head of the classroom I can’t show any insecurity. I stood beside the new student.

“Welcome to class 1-X, Sachi.” I offered my hand for a handshake; this is something that the class president must do to every new student that arrives. She seemed very agitated; I could easily tell that being in the center of attention wasn’t her favorite thing. After some awkward seconds of pure silence, she decided to shake my hand, and as soon as our hands touched, I felt a light shock in my head, but it wasn’t pain, it was a bizarre feeling I haven’t explored, almost as if I’ve known her before; I was expecting her to say the usual, ‘You don’t remember me?’ type of question.

“Thank you, Rukito.” She mumbled. Well, besides the fact that she didn’t mispronounce my name, I was confused about how she knew my name.

“How do you know my name?” I asked with a puzzled look.

“Huh? Oh, the roll call of course.” She said while cracking a smile. “Right… the roll call, how could I forget.” It was a bit weird that she specifically remembers my name, but the teacher did make a fuss about it.

We both walked back to our seats and kept going with the class, I didn’t overthink about that familiar feeling, I had more important things to do, but curiosity did kill the cat after all… so I approached her after school.

As I was walking through the hall, I was looking for the locker with her name. ‘Maki, Ely, Sora… hate that guy, oh! Sachi!’ I found her locker, but obviously, she wasn’t there. I decided to wait for her; I didn’t have a problem playing the waiting game. While waiting, I started thinking of what I would do at home.

I have foster parents, so I also live with another girl around my age; luckily my ‘parents’ are wealthy, so I don’t have to worry about not having food to eat, that’s also why I go to this private school.

While I was indulged in my thoughts, I managed to get a short glimpse of Sachi from far away, she seemed hesitant to walk towards me, so I decided to walk towards her.

“Hey, Sachi! Sorry if I look like a weirdo. I’m not trying to sell you ‘free candy’ or anything; I’m sure you’re too old for that anyway.” The first instinct I have when making friends with girls is to make them laugh, as with guys you can talk about games, sports, and all those ‘male things,’ I’m never too sure on what to discuss with girls, especially if I don’t know them. She giggled for a couple of seconds; I wasn’t too sure if it was because of the joke or her anxiety.

“H-Hey Rukito, is there something you need?” At this point everyone went home, so the hall was empty; therefore I asked,

“Want to go for a walk around the school? We’ll get to know each other, and I will be able to show you around.”

“Oh, sure thing.” We started walking outside as the sun was setting. Now, this might look like your usual run-of-the-mill soap opera, but I wasn’t interested too much about her, but it was also my job to get to know my class and make sure they know what they are doing. But I’m not going to lie, she is gorgeous.

“So where do you come from?” I asked.

“I-I’m from a rural town in east Greenterra, nothing extraordinary heh,” she said while smiling. As much as she was trying to play it off, I could see that she was extremely nervous in this situation; I would be obnoxious and say that it’s because she likes me, but I’m sure it was because she is a timid person.

“Oh really? I always wanted to visit east Greenterra, but I never really had the chance to, I’m usually busy at home with things…” I tried inserting pauses between my sentences so she could get a chance to speak; most shy people are obviously too shy to interrupt you or talk right after.

“Oh, where you going to do something right now? Sorry if I took your time.” She said.

“No, no! I have nothing to do, after all, what I’m doing right now is my role as a class president.” After I said that, her expression turned sad. “But don’t get me wrong! I also want to be your friend.”

“Really? Not many people want to be friends with me…”

“How come?”

“Well…” She looked down and said, “I… I’m different.”

“Huh?” My mind was running with hundreds of different thoughts, but I couldn’t see how she was different.

“Well… can you promise me that if I show you, then we will still be friends?”

“Of course! I don’t see what you could say that would make me stop talking to you.”

“Ok…” She looked up at me while raising her hair that was covering her eyes all this time.

“W-WHAT?!” I’ve never seen anything like it, all of her eyes were pitch black, even her sclera! “Ooh! I get it, that’s a scleral contact lens, right? You know the type that covers everything except the pupil.”

“N-no Rukito… these are my real eyes.” I’m not going to lie, I was a bit creeped out by it, but I tried to seem as acceptable and understanding as possible.

“Is it like… a new birth defect?”

“I don’t know; I can barely remember anything of my childhood.”

“Huh? Just ask your parents.” As the idiot as I am, I couldn’t count in the fact that she might not have parents.

“I wish I had parents Rukito.” She said while sitting down on a nearby bench. “Right now, I live in an inn not too far from here, and I barely manage to get the money from working in a nearby guild. I go to this private school because my boss is the principal, he offered me to come here for free.”

“Oh… I’m sorry for-”

“No don’t be sorry. It’s not your fault.” I walked towards her and sat next to her with a smile.

“I understand you know, I don’t have parents either; it’s nice finding someone that can relate to me in some sense, after all, this is not that much common in this school specifically.” She glanced at me with a smile and said,

“Well, it’s not that common finding someone that has red hair and yellow eyes.” She started giggling.

“Hey! It wasn’t my choice. I didn’t dye it. People back in the orphanage said that it was like this since I was a kid, the eyes too!”

This made me happy. Most people think that us teens that have no parents are all depressed and down by that fact, but that’s not true; we learned a long time ago to just accept it and go through life without remorse or sorrow, we managed to make friends that we see as family, and that brings us closer more than anything. It’s nice to find someone that doesn’t pity me for my past. She started laughing and said,

“You know, maybe if you make your teeth green you can look like a traffic light!” I’m not going to lie… that joke was pretty funny.

“Ha-ha, you think you’re funny huh?” I said with a smirk on my face trying not to laugh. She was still laughing. It was the cutest thing ever; she is a weird mix between cute and creepy… it just works. She lightly tapped my shoulder and said while smiling,

“Rukito, it’s fine not being serious for a while just let yourself go, Mr. class president.” I chuckled and said,

“You’re probably right.” From there I noticed that once she gets to know the person, she isn’t too shy about it anymore. “Hey, you ever tried using white sclera contact lenses? Your pupil will be extremely black but, it’s better than nothing right?”

“Hmm, I’m not going to lie to you. I didn’t even know those things existed.” She giggled again.

“Really? They are not even that expensive, probably around 20 Crystalis.” While I was talking to her, a girl with cherry blossom hair color and green eyes trudged towards me and said,

“Rukito! I was looking for you everywhere!”

“Shizuka? Oh crap! What time is it?!” Yes, this is the girl that I live within my foster home. I’ve been living with them for almost a year now.

“It’s 7:15!” We have school from 11:30 AM to 6:30 PM

“Oh!” I quickly got up and said, “Sorry Sachi, I’ll catch up with you another time ok? I’m going to miss my train in 5 minutes.” While I glanced at her, I saw her looking at Shizuka with a hostile look, but she quickly changed to a smile in a split second and said,

“Oh, that’s no problem; we’ll talk tomorrow ok?”

“Yeah of course!” I felt terrible leaving her like that, but if I didn’t go then I would have missed my train, and I’m not walking 200 miles. Yes, the house is that far.

“So, who was that girl?” Shizuka asked me.