Arriving at school close to six-thirty meant that Kato had to wake up before six, which was an amazing feat for a non-morning person such as him. Like a zombie, he climbed up the wide steps to reach the grand doors of the main entrance of the school.

The first area of contact was the atrium, which was a wide expanse that went up several floors to the glass ceiling windows and housed the great columns of lockers for the students of this institution. From the entrance he would enter a very wide clearing, fit for an assembly of many classes at once, and in the centre was a spiral staircase that reached the floors above. The atrium was where many students gathered during off-class hours, and also where corporal punishment was carried out.

Putting away his outdoor shoes in his locker, he headed towards the west side of the school where the music faculty’s classrooms were. Today, he was in charge of supervising the third music room, which was one of two keyboard and vocal rooms.

Normally, a student from the Activity Council affiliated with the music faculty would be on supervisor duty here. The Activity Council, or the AC, was the student organization that was responsible for coordinating most extracurricular activities in the school, including faculty-specific ones. Unlike the student council, it was not part of student government, but works closely with it to uphold the vibrancy of student life.

It was not the first time he was in the music faculty’s classrooms since Kato did have interest in music, but because of his rigorous lifestyle as a Hearts candidate, he never participated in an academic capacity. So at the very least, he wasn’t unfamiliar with the classroom and its setups.

At the corner next to the door was a small desk at which he would sit, and make sure the students coming into the music room register their names. It was to track student participation for the teachers’ convenience, and to create records for the Records Office of the student council’s administration. A student-run extracurricular system was more efficient as it didn’t require the presence of teachers for routine supervision such as music practice.

Kato sat down in the supervisor’s seat and flipped through the previous two days of attendance sheets, from Monday and Saturday, which both showed only one name: Alice Westgrove. Whoever this person was, she must be a good friend of Mirabelle, as the student council president wouldn’t be on lowly supervision duty for one student.

On the chalkboard, he saw his name written on there in the corner reserved for the daily student caretaker of the classroom. Although the Yue languages used a completely different script from the other languages of the Candoran continent, after centuries of Auxirian dominance, most everyone who didn’t speak a Candoran language nevertheless adopted personal names from it.

As Kato was Auxirian, it was normal for him to have a Candoran name, but his Yue comrades would have both a Yue and Candoran name, of which the Candoran personal name was more commonly used.

Usually, it was Standard Candoran, the national language of Auxiria proper, instead of the other Candoran languages, High Candoran and Rinian, that was used for names. For Avian, though they had their own script, it was loosely related to the Candoran script, so it was easy to convert names between scripts.

He recognized the handwriting without a shadow of a doubt. It was Mirabelle’s. Kato sighed, and laid his head on top of the clipboard on the desk to catch some sleep. After seeing that, he gave up any willpower left in him and consequently, lost the fight to stay awake.

“Excuse me.”

Kato immediately woke to the voice. He needed to sleep in the mornings, but he was also a light sleeper to start with, drilled into him by his training.

Grabbing and fumbling with the clipboard, he looked up to see a tall third-year student with wavy blonde hair. Unlike most other girls in the school, she chose to wear a simple white polo shirt and a plain blue skirt, in contrast to the usual sailor uniform with pleated skirt. She wore a red hair band that complemented with her other colours quite well and a grey pendant around her neck that looked like a shard of Plexiglas.

“I’d like to register with the AC’s attendance.”

Alice said coolly to Kato, making her intent clear with her voice. Obviously, she wasn’t impressed with Kato’s sleeping, so her tone was rather irritable. Her piercing blue eyes reminded Kato of Evie’s, to which he usually submitted to, but it was only because Evie was his sister.

On a separate note, Alice was speaking in New Yue, in comparison to the much more common Old Yue. In Korolev Senior, the afternoon classes were taught in New Yue, but the morning classes were taught and the students spoke in Old Yue.

Morning classes were mandatory and students followed their homeroom classes around, while afternoon classes were supplementary and based on course selection scheduling. Needless to say, afternoon classes were the advanced classes with higher tuition, and were a requirement to graduate with a Standard diploma which afforded them with higher chances at post-secondary entry. Otherwise, those who only attended the morning classes graduated with the People’s diploma.

Kato stood up from his seat to address her.

“That’s fine. Your name and class?”

“Alice Westgrove. Class A.”

“You will be using this room for the rest of the morning?”

“I’ll be the only one using this room.”

Alice said again, with a bit of impatience creeping into her voice. Kato suspected that she wouldn’t be this cold if it were Mirabelle instead of him here.

“I see. Well, have fun. If you need anything, just wake me up.”

Alice almost doubled over upon hearing that, but quickly recovered. She was quite annoyed by the laid-back attitude that Kato had, but held her tongue for now. At least he was doing his job, albeit in a lacklustre manner.

But Alice hesitated before moving on further into the music room. Showing an uncomfortable expression, she struggled a bit before she asked.

“Where’s Mirabelle? Is she here today?”

“Oh, are you interested?”

Alice frowned at the non-response while a grin was slowly surfacing on Kato’s face. She had a feeling she was not going to get along with this boy.

“Yes, she’s supposed to be the supervisor for this room today. Is she sick?”

“Well, before I can answer that, I have a question for you. How come you’re speaking in New Yue?”

Kato asked in Old Yue, finally switching back to the vernacular. New Yue was a more prestigious, formal language than Old Yue, and in the past it actually delineated the upper and lower socioeconomic classes. Today, both languages were equally prevalent and commoners spoke New Yue as well, but much of the historical stigma remained.

Despite the upper class elegance that Alice emanated, she did not display any of the hubris that another privileged student of Class A would. Instead, she shuffled uncomfortably in place as she thought hard about how to answer that.

“I... I’m just better at speaking in New Yue. I don’t have a problem with speaking or understanding Old Yue.”

She stammered as she explained herself, still in New Yue. As if sensing the historical stigma, the air of hostility around her momentarily receded and was replaced with an awkward timidity.

Kato stifled the first laugh and then laughed out the next one, to which Alice showed a bit of confusion. Seeing that Alice understood Old Yue, Kato continued to speak it from here on out.

“I’m so sorry. I didn’t expect that kind of a face or an answer from a Class A student. That is perfectly fine.”

Alice felt her face heat up as she realized he was playing with her. There were no class conflicts here. The muted fiery aura around her returned in an instant.

“Wha—”

“But—I could answer you about Mirabelle, if you were to ask the question in Old Yue.”

Before Alice could make a complaint, Kato’s next remark caught her tongue. She made another difficult face as it flushed with red. Her pride was really strong, and Kato could see the struggle in her thoughts clearly on her face; Alice’s emotions were as clear as day. She didn’t want to speak in Old Yue, but she also wanted to know where Mirabelle was.

“I’ll ask, but don’t laugh.”

A few moments later, she warned as she resolved herself to do the deed, to which Kato watched on with anticipation.

“No problem.”

After a few more moments, Alice asked softly in Old Yue, still red-faced.

“S-so, what happen’d to Mirabelle this mo’ning? How come she’s not ‘ere?”

Kato immediately realized why she preferred to speak in New Yue. Alice’s Old Yue has such a funny-sounding accent that he almost could not keep his promise. Unfortunately, Old Yue was a tonal language and New Yue was not, and with that accent it was apparent that Alice learned New Yue before Old Yue.

“She forgot she had to go with her sisters and their father somewhere this morning. She said she’ll be back by lunch.”

“Ah, I see. That’s fine then.”

Feeling slightly relieved at the news of Mirabelle, she gave a deep sigh to release the tension that she didn’t even know she held onto up to this point. She regained her composure and New Yue quickly.

“See, there’s nothing wrong with your Old Yue.”

Kato couldn’t help but smirk, and clearly enjoyed the hilarity of the garbled words that came out of her mouth.

“Please don’t mind my poor grasp on Old Yue. In fact, I insist.”

Alice cleared her throat stiffly, still very much minding her obviously dreadful pronunciation of Old Yue. Her particular accent was known as the reverse accent, because of that New to Old Yue learning transition.

“No, I won’t mind it. In fact, yours is charming enough that I’d insist you keep speaking in Old Yue.”

Matching Alice’s phrasing and with that cheeky grin still on Kato, the cat caught Alice’s tongue again as another series of flustered expressions flashed across her face.

“Just kidding—”

As Kato took a moment to pause here, she froze, taken aback by the sudden denial. He could see, amusingly to him, the relief take form on the delicate features of her face.

“—you don’t need to wake me up. I’ll stay awake, since you’ve already woke me up.”

Realizing that he wasn’t talking about his insistence, the red in her cheeks returned at once. She could see clearly that he was having fun playing with her emotions. While it frustrated her it also felt surprisingly warm, as if she was always a close friend of his.

“—then I’ll take your word; if I ever need your help.”

Pride not permitting, she had to throw something back at him and in New Yue. Alice gave a pout before leaving Kato behind for her usual seat at the first keyboard, and although she showed her emotions like an open book, she turned around in time so that the small smile that surfaced on her face was out of Kato’s sight.

So from Kato’s side, he couldn’t discern for sure that he left a favourable first impression, but he was pretty sure he did. Not only that, Alice was much easier to make fun of because of her peculiar awkwardness.

He took out the walkman and the earphones from his schoolbag and put them into his ears, then let a tiny thing slip from his mouth.

“Then let’s hope that today’ll be a peaceful one. I don’t want to give Mira a reason to complain to me about a job that she was supposed to do, and she couldn’t because she messed up.”

Alice stiffened as she sat down on the laminated wooden stool. It took a second before she remembered that ‘Mira’ was Mirabelle, and that that was Mirabelle’s pet name. The thought of it tightened her heart slightly, and she knew exactly why.

Alice only moved to her family’s residence in Livia at the end of first-year, so she was a relatively new person and student to the city and school. Because of her rigid personality, it was hard for her to make friends at her new home. On top of that, she only spoke New Yue fluently at the start, and had to learn Old Yue from the ground up.

One of the few who helped her, or perhaps saved her, was Mirabelle, who was a lively and cheerful enough girl to melt through Alice’s abrasive surface. Although they had different homerooms, they shared afternoon classes during all of second-year, so it was more than enough for Mirabelle to teach Alice their vernacular language.

Even though Alice too called her ‘Mira’, and that it was absolutely certain Mirabelle had other people she was close to and cared about, for Alice to hear that for real still struck her numb all the same.

Downcast, she took out her sheet music from her schoolbag and placed it on the music rack. She plugged the headset into the keyboard and wore it to block out outside noise. With her hands ready over the keys, she began playing with a heavy heart, trying to escape from the perennial loneliness from long ago that once again enveloped her thoughts and feelings.

“If I recall, you’re the rep for Class F, isn’t that right?”

“Yeah.”

The two of them walked up the stairwell next to the music room to the third floor, where their respective homeroom classrooms were located. They left the music room before eight, as eight ten sharp began the first period class.

“I never expected you to be Evie’s stepbrother.”

“I never expected you to be friends of both Evie and Mira.”

“They helped me a lot, so I think of them quite highly. I want to see Evie before I go to class.”

“You said that you have home econ with her in fifth period, right? You’ll see her then anyway.”

“You don’t need a reason to see a good friend. You just want to be together.”

“That’s true. I can agree with that.”

The idle chit-chat between the two of them continued, one in New Yue, the other in Old Yue. Now, Kato thought, without a doubt, that he made an acceptable first impression on Alice. It probably did help that he was related to her two friends in some capacity.

“Do you have any interest in professional music, or is this simply a favour for Mira?”

“You mean about supervision duty? Yeah, music is one of many interests, but sadly one I was never able to get into.”

“Who got you into music? Mira?”

“Hah. Mira’s given up on her violin very early on. It was somebody else who kept me in music.”

“I see, I see. I didn’t know Mira played the violin, actually.”

“Apparently, she’s still a genius at the violin. What do you play? You were just at the keyboard the whole time.”

“I play piano mostly, but I can also play most woodwinds. Piano isn’t my favourite, actually. It’s trumpet where I feel most at ease.”

“Then how come no trumpet practice today?”

“It isn’t like I hate piano. Besides, I only play trumpet in a band.”

For some reason, there was a clogged corridor filled with students between their staircase and the 3-F classroom, so they took a detour through the biology classroom and into a paralleling hallway that turned back towards the 3-F classroom.

“Are you taking any afternoon classes?”

“Yeah. I think I have the same physics class as you do. Mr Kiriaku?”

“Oh my god, we do have the same physics class period four.”

The two of them arrived at Kato’s homeroom. It was such a beautifully peaceful and serene scene that it brought tears to his eyes. Small desks were organized neatly in their rows, facing the two chalkboards at the front of the class. Morning sunlight filtered indirectly through the large windows, opposite the sliding door from where they entered through.

It was a quiet Tuesday morning for Class 3-F. As it was not yet first period, many students were still not in the classroom. However, Kato’s group of friends were already here, the three long-time Class F boys sitting together at the back of the classroom.

“Looks like Evie’s not here yet.”

“That’s too bad. I guess you’ll see her in the afternoon then.”

Then the three men at the back noticed the entry of Kato and his new friend.

“Hey, Kato! Who’s that?”

“What have you been up to now?”

Eon and Caius began talking as they all got up from their seats to greet the two of them at the door. Kato thanked them silently for getting up and out so that he didn’t need to escort Alice all the way to the back of the class.

“Ah, this is Alice, from Class A. She’s a friend of Evie and Mira. Alice, this is our circle. Eon, Caius, and—”

“—Franco. Pleased to meet you guys, and Franco once again.”

“Ahaha. Welcome to our class, Alice.”

Franco, the third man of their group, replied sheepishly to Alice’s greeting.

“You know her?”

“She was in home econ last year with me, Evie and Mirabelle. The three of them stuck together most of the time.”

Franco answered Caius’ question, to which Alice nodded in agreement.

“Class A, huh. So, what brings Alice here to the lowly Class F?”

Eon asked in a pretentious voice as he pushed his glasses up in dramatic fashion. Kato silently cursed at Eon for being such a diva at all times, but surprisingly, Alice took Eon’s eccentricity well.

“I just wanted to see Evie before going to class, but it seems like she isn’t here yet.”

Alice told them straightforwardly.

“Yeah, Kato and his household usually are the last ones in. Shouldn’t Evie and Yui be with Kato?”

“Uh, I had to come to school early for supervision duty for the third music room, so they aren’t with me.”

Kato answered as he scratched the back of his head, almost apologetically.

“You don’t have to feel scared, Kato. You used supervision duty as an excuse to evade her. I understand.”

Eon put a hand on his shoulder, apparently empathizing with Kato’s need to ditch his overbearing stepsister. Eon had an overbearing sister as well. It was not a secret to any of them that Evie loved Kato in a smothering way. Not least that they had seen and experienced it at every opportunity since their childhood.

Kato’s eyes narrowed as he continued to speak. He had a suspicion that this empathy won’t last long.

“I didn’t have supervision duty for no reason. I was only filling in for Mira.”

And as he suspected, Eon let go of his shoulder, shrugged, and snickered.

“Does Evie know about that part?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I don’t know why you’re throwing yourself into the fire, but we’ll watch you get burned like always.”

Caius and Franco both grinned along with Eon, whose antics were on-point as always. Among them, the most maverick of the bunch had to be Eon.

“Wait, I don’t get it. What’s going on?”

Alice asked the four of them, which told them that she had no idea what kind of a relationship existed between Kato, Evie and Mirabelle. They looked at each other dumbfoundedly for a few moments before Eon answered for them.

“I think you’ll understand once you see the three of them together.”

Caius and Franco nodded together with conviction while Kato awkwardly avoided eye contact with the people around him.

“What does that mean? Hey! What’s this about Evie and Mira with you?”

Even more confused, she took hold of Kato’s arm and shook him furiously, but he still didn’t turn to face her. Making a difficult face, Alice saw that the other three were still amused at Kato’s behaviour, so clearly there was something between him and her two only friends.

Determined to find out, she quickly pivoted around Kato expertly with the finesse of a gymnast. Startled by Alice’s sudden movements, Kato took a moment before he could recover and spared a scathing glance at his so-called friends.

In that instant before he recovered, Alice saw a flustered and hesitant expression, bordering on embarrassment. That vulnerable face sent her imagination into overdrive, instantly processing through all the possibilities she could think of, but she was interrupted by an unholy disturbance.

“Woah—”

“Ah—!”

Kato caught Alice in her fall by her lower torso, leaning over her like tango partners. Stunned by the sudden loss of balance, she was only able to stare at his face, only inches from hers.

“Are you hurt?”

“N-no.”

She could feel a soft tingling sensation in her cheeks, fully aware that it was turning red. She didn’t let herself be in such an embarrassing posture for long, so she quickly took control of herself and got back up on her feet.

“Evie!”

The person who collided with Alice as they barged through the doorway was none other than Evianna, who still had both hands over her nose with her eyes closed in pain. It seemed like she crashed her nose into Alice pretty hard.

“Alice? How come you’re here?”

Evie opened one eye to see a familiar blonde-haired girl in front of her, who was all smiles now that Evie was here. Evie too smiled at her as they locked fingers like best girl friends do.

“I’m here to see you, of course. I met Kato in the music room because he was the supervisor for this morning, so I got him to bring me to the 3-F classroom.”

“At least he’s useful for something. Did he do anything to you? Like sexual harassment?”

“Ugh, what kind of a question is that?”

Kato put his head in his hands upon hearing that from Evie, while the men behind him continued giggling like little girls.

“Nope. I can handle him by myself.”

Alice smiled brightly at Evie. Maybe it was because of Evie’s influence that she seemed to be accustomed to these eccentrics.

“Since these guys are here, I’m assuming you’ve met the Elites, then?”

“So this is your gang you’ve been telling me about for so long.”

Evie nodded to herself confidently as she confirmed it. The Elite Four, a.k.a. the Elites were a self-proclaimed group of four delinquents from Class F since the days of primary school that grew in number over the years. They were specifically known for going off on strange adventures that earned the ire of their teachers and spent a lot of time in the staff room for their misbehaviour.

“Hey, I’m in the Elites too now.”

Yui waved warmly from behind Evie, who was met with cheers from the three other boys. She was a very recent addition to the crew and a popular one at that.

“You’re Yui, is that right? Evie has told me about you before. I’m Alice.”

“Yeah, I’m Yui. Nice to meet you!”

Yui joined the handholding session between the girls as well, but only moments after that, the bell had rung for pre-first period at eight-oh-five, which signalled the end of Alice’s time here at the 3-F classroom.

“I’ll see you later, Alice.”

Evie said coolly as Alice separated herself from the two stepsisters.

“I’m so sorry. I’ll have to make my way to my classroom now. It was nice to meet everyone!”

She quickly skipped away and down the hall through the crowds, waving back at the Elites who gathered at their classroom door.

“It was short, but what did you guys think of Alice?”

It was the short break between first and second period, and Evie asked the boys and girl sitting to the left of her. As a side note, Eon, Kato and Evie sat in the backmost row on the window side, followed by Caius in front of Eon and Franco in front of Kato, and then Yui in front of Caius.

“She’s a pretty girl. And a pretty nice girl.”

Eon started off with his usual quips. If it was anyone else, there would be eyes rolling, but because it was Eon, no one even blinked. Though his frame and hairstyle was similar to Kato, the difference was that he was a lot more neat and tidy, which was not indicative of his personality at all.

“Yeah, I can agree with Eon here. Are you going to have her join us, Evie?”

Caius said lazily as he leaned back in his wooden chair, combing through his short curly blonde hair with his fingers. He was the shortest of the boys.

“Wait, you guys sound like you already know her. And Franco actually did. Explaaaaaain yourselves nooooow.”

Kato whined as he placed his head on his desk, apparently still tired from the early morning sleepiness.

“Well, the three of them became famous last year because they shared the same afternoon classes the whole year.”

“What? How does that make them famous?”

“They were called the Three Heroines because they were that impressively attractive. There’s probably a fan club dedicated to them by now.”

“That’s a stupid name if I ever heard one.”

Evie snorted as Eon explained to Kato.

“Evie, how are you so calm about this. This is like, so stupid, and you’re in the centre of it.”

“I already know about this story though.”

“Then why did you respond as if you didn’t?!”

Kato slightly freaked out at Evie, who just dismissed him with a wave of her hand. Yui picked up from where Eon left off.

“Calm down, Kato. Only you and Teto don’t know about this because you guys never took afternoon classes before, since you two had to do training, right?”

“Yeah, that’s true. We have no idea what kinds of things happen at school after lunch.”

Kato said glumly. It was unfortunate for him and his sisters to not be able to enjoy life with their old friends as normal children would. Since they came to this city, the deific children of the von Habsburg residence spent the majority of their time training with Master Chang at the hillside temple. They only went to school in the mornings to see their friends. Now that they have completed their training, they were allowed to go to school full-time.

“But how come Evie’s taken afternoon classes last year?”

“She technically finished training a year ahead of me and Teto because she was too good. So she left us to go to school with you guys.”

He answered Yui’s question, still just a bit sad from being excluded from the fun.

“But is that really all it takes to be famous? We’ve got another candidate that fits the description right here.”

Kato pointed at Yui, who turned scarlet and sheepish in response. Yui usually let her bright red shoulder-length hair down around her, but sometimes when she was in school she tied it back in a ponytail.

“Together with the fact that they stuck together for a whole year made them stand out. Imagine the three of them in the same class sitting together for a whole year. Just take that in. You’re just too used to having good-looking girls around you all the time.”

Eon didn’t hold back taking a shot at the harem king. Kato did live with four other girls, and despite one being their grandmotherly homeroom teacher, they were all, for some inexplicable reason, exceptionally beautiful.

“Shut the fuck up. I don’t want to hear that from the other harem king.”

Kato fired back at his oldest childhood friend, who coincidently also had a big family of sisters. Eon had one older sister and two younger sisters, three, three and six years apart respectively.

“Chill out, guys. You’re both lucky bastards, so please share some with me. In any case, only Franco’s been in the same class as the Three Heroines anyway, so he can tell us stories.”

Caius, still leaning in his chair, smirked at both hooligans that started chortling heartily at each other and brought the conversation back on track.

“What. I dunno, there’re no special stories. They just became famous, that’s all.”

Franco shook his head and his red bowl cut from popular culture of two decades ago. Like usual, he wore a clueless expression, and to be frank, he really was a clueless person.

“And I just met you today, Mr Franco Atkinson. God, you’re so stupid. It’s okay; we don’t need to ask him. We’ve got Evie, the primary exhibit.”

Eon sighed with his usual impatience whilst Franco made an even more confused face. His friends around him also had apologetic looks on their faces, knowing Franco was an idiot through and through. It didn’t help his image that he was a tall and strong guy, fitting of the stereotype.

“Did you know about the nickname from before, Evie?”

“Of course. Mira knows about it all and she tells me and Alice about it.”

“Then did you notice that there was something different about the class and the students around you?”

“Well, I could feel that most of the boys in the class were stealing glances at us, but I didn’t know why until Mira told me about the Heroines thing.”

“I bet Evie only knew about it because she’s a deity, and not because she can read the mood.”

Eon said seriously as he interrupted Caius’ interrogation. Evie shrugged.

“I am who I am. But not as low as Franco, obviously.”

“Hey!”

No one missed a chance to wreck Franco.

“Unfortunate. It had to be the two who couldn’t read the atmosphere that were in that class. Well, Franco, any piece of trivia to add?”

“Hmm, I seem to remember that they were really close to each other physically too. They hugged and held hands together and that sort of thing all the time.”

“And how did you know that, Mr Nothing Happened?”

“I sat next to them in home econ ‘cos I’m Evie’s partner for that class.”

Eon took off his glasses, pinched the bridge of his nose, closed his eyes, inhaled, and sighed.

“How does Franco even exist?”

He grunted clearly and audibly, to which Caius and Kato roared with laughter. The idiocy was a bit too much for the more self-aware boys to handle.

“Wait, what do you mean? I don’t get it!”

Franco replied in exasperation as he started to panic, the confusion starting to overwhelm his poor grasp on common sense.

“I feel bad that they’re berating you like this all the time, but I understand why they’re impatient with you.”

Yui too sided with the other boys in their struggle with Franco’s blockheadedness. Her smile was one of pity.

“Not you too, Yui!”

Franco cried again in despair. He also knew that he was kind of a dumbass, so all he could do was take the loss to the face every time.

And the conversation between these children circled peacefully like this every recess, giving life to the otherwise bland and dull ordinary days.