Reunion and First Meetings

Khanethael

“Yukki, stop tugging at your Niqab,” her mother commanded from the passenger seat. “It took me way too long to get it right as it is. We don't need you messing it up right before we get to the school.”

“Yes, mother,” Yukki replied, setting her hand down on her lap. Instead, she resorted to wiggling her nose to try to loosen the Niqab strapped around it.

“Do we really need her wrapped up like that?” Her father asked from the driver's seat. “Seems like a bit of overkill.”

“You know exactly why,” Serana said, peeking at her husband from behind her own niqab. “We don’t need to see her on the news.”

“Ahh, you listen to the news too much,” Samson says, waving her off. “One story about a few missing children, and you think Yukki’s going to be the next victim of Jack the Ripper.”

“She could be; why wouldn’t we take every precaution?”

“Because the stories they show on the news are shown specifically because they’re unusual.” The corners of his mouth turn upwards as he moves his left hand from the steering wheel to his wife’s thigh. “Say we’re keeping her safe from the lecherous stars of the boys; that’s a much better explanation.”

“She isn’t old enough for that,” Serana says, ignoring her husband's touch as best she can. “Besides, you keep insisting this is a place for learning. Why would that be something to worry about?”

“Well, it’s only natural,” Samson says, his lips in a full grin. “I mean, if these boys get even a passing glance at her silky golden curls against her caramel cheeks and her lips puckered up in that smile she does when she’s being complimented, like you can see her doing now, they’ll all forget any other girls exist and only be focused on her.” He looks back at his daughter through the rearview mirror, only to see her covering her eyes with her sleeve. “And I really don't feel like batting off an entire middle school's worth of love-struck preteen boys today, so-.” He chuckled at his joke to the disdain of all present, his wife and daughter most of all. His wife stared daggers at him from behind her own Niqab. “What?” he asked, looking at his wife.

“I wish you didn’t make jokes like that, especially now.”

“Wait, you thought I was joking?” he asked, continuing his joke. “I’m half convinced the mix of your eye color and my eye shape will be enough to send half the school into a frenzy as it is.”

“You’re jokes are still unappreciated, Samson,” his wife said, turning away and looking out the passenger window.

“Oof, no pet name? I must be in trouble; Yukki uses those big puppy dog eyes we gave you to ask Mommy to forgive me. You know I can’t stand to have her mad at me.”

“I’m not mad,” Serana said with a sigh. “I just wish you’d take this a little more seriously.”

“Okay, I can do it seriously,” Samson said, clearing his throat and grasping his long ponytail. “Upon the penalty of cutting off my beloved hair. I swear to be serious and to make no more jokes for the duration of the entrance ceremony, so help me God,” He said, then released his ponytail. Serena turned back to him, a pleased smile shining through her fabric-covered face. “Unless they have airline food, then I’m legally obligated to ask ‘what’s up’ with it,” Samson said with a barely suppressed grin, making his wife’s smile disappear as quickly as it had come. “Okay, that was the last one. I mean it, dear, can’t change my mind now that we’ve arrived, can I?” he asked, pulling up to the school grounds. As they approached the entrance, well-dressed men came to valet their car. Samson quickly sprang out of the driver's seat, holding out a hand to stop the valley, and rushed around to the passenger side to let his wife out, holding her hand to help her out. “Yukki, help me get something out of the trunk real quick before these nice men take the car,” he said, opening the door for his daughter as well. She looked at her father, confused, but followed him anyway. Once around the back, the pair ducked into the open trunk, and Samson put one hand on his daughter's shoulder and his other on the military-style medical bag seated lopsidedly in the trunk.

“Feeling nervous?” he whispered.

“What? No, not at all,” she said, staring down at the lower right corner of the trunk.

“Don’t lie; you’re looking down and to the right like you always do when you lie.”

“No, I'm not," she said quickly, adjusting her view to the upper left, meeting her father’s gaze.

“Uh-huh,” her father said, thoroughly convinced. “So, are you wearing your gift from the church?”

“Yeah,” she said, reaching for her necklace —a small silver cross entwined in three overlapping ovals that her church had given her as a good luck charm.

“Well, I’m confident that’ll help you deal with any spiritual harms; how about something to help you with physical ones?” He asks, lifting the military-style aid bag —a small black bag with a small red cross patch Velcroed on it.

“Is that?!” Yukki asks, her mouth widening into a smile from ear to ear.

“Your very own first aid bag,” he says, holding it out. It was a small bag. No doubt, it only carried the most basic of first aid tools, such as a tourniquet, some gauze, maybe an artificial airway or two, but nothing compared to the bag her father had in the trunk. Yukki didn't seem to mind, though; she reached out to grab it like a snake striking its prey, just for her father to yank it back even faster. “Ah ah ah,” he says, holding the bag above her head. “What do you always do before you even think about opening this to help someone?” He asks, switching to a serious tone.

“Call 119 and make sure it’s safe for me to approach the person that’s hurt and that by doing so, I won’t be endangering myself or others,” Yukki says monotone, repeating the rehearsed line.

“And what if you aren’t sure how to use something in this bag or aren’t confident you can use it well?”

“I don't use any intervention unless I’m completly confident it will both help the patient and that I can perform it properly.”

“And what do you do when EMS or someone with more medical knowledge than you shows up?”

“I get out of their way but stay close so I can aid them in whatever way they wish.”

“How many lives are you going to save with this bag?”

“None, I’ll only be delaying death.”

“Good,” Samson says, returning to his earlier cheerful tone, now satisfied with her answers. Yukki eagerly takes the bag and straps it around her thigh, out of sight of anyone else. “Keep that cross on your neck, that bag on your thigh, and a smile on your face, and you’ll be the best representative for the GoKegawa family name, the American nation, and the one true God.”

“I will, Papa,” Yukki says, her smile remaining plastered on her cheeks.

“Good girl,” Samson says, lifting the veil off her forehead and exposing the curly golden bangs on her head. Samson planted a kiss on her forehead before placing the cloth back slightly higher than it had been. “Let’s go then,” he said, standing straight and closing the trunk.

“What were you grabbing?” Serana asked when the pair returned. “And Yukki, fix your veil; your hair is showing.” Yukki’s hands sprang to action, showing the few rogue strands back under her veil, knowing what ire and yanking awaited her if her mother got to her before she fixed it.

“Oh, just doing some pre-mission checks and inspections, you know how it is,” Samson answered. He handed the valet the keys and then took his wife by her shoulder, giving Yukki just enough time to fix her hair.

The family walked to the school entrance along with a myriad of other families. Though each member would undoubtedly stick out in a crowd, together, they draw the eyes of every passerby. Samson was the worst offender. Not only was he more than a head taller than most others on the street, but he also insisted on dressing like Uncle Sam. His blue suit jacket was subdued enough, but any subtlety was lost with the red and white striped pants and tophat he wore. He strolled between the road and his family, looking like a set piece in a war propaganda poster. Serana and Yukki almost looked normal in comparison. Their plain black Niqabas make it easy to fade into the background. Yukki had a little more trouble as the blue highlights on her sleeves and skirt folds made her stand out as a first-year, and the mixed Japanese American flag boldly displayed on her chest and back. As they approached the gate, a few other foreign families entered the mix. It may have seemed strange at first, but once the school name was visible, it made sense. “The Japanese Academy of International Students and Studies- official UN Junior High of Japan,” the board read. As the name suggests, it was a school for the children of diplomats and the well-connected of Tokyo. A place where you could find people and families of every nation, one of which was waiting for the GoKegawas as they approached.

“Well, isn’t it just like the Americans to keep us waiting?” called a tall man with curly red hair as the GoKegawas approached. He stood in front of the entrance ceremony sign with a woman in a dress as blue as her eyes and voluminous blonde hair, with a mousy girl with poofy red hair that almost covered her eyes, but not her thick-framed glasses.

“Well, I wouldn’t want you to cut tea time short on our account now, would I?” Samson said, walking closer.

“Oh, I’m sure they’ll have plenty of tea here,” the man said, grasping Samson’s hand for a firm handshake, only to be pulled in for a pat on the back by Samson.

“It's good to see you, Oscar,” Samson says, releasing Oscar from his bear hug.

“I wish I could say the same,” Oscar says, looking at his friend. “You look like you walked out of a WW2 propaganda shoot.”

“And you look like something I'd like to pickle and put on my ramen,” Samson retorts with a hearty laugh. He turns to the woman standing beside Oscar, his smile never fading. “Nora, it's a pleasure to see you, as always; I must say those earrings look lovely with that dress,” he said, taking her hand and shaking it much more gently than the bear hug he had given Oscar.

“Samson, I see you’re still a charmer, if nothing else,” Nora said, playing down his compliment in an attempt to hide her giddy smile and reddening cheeks.

“Oh, please, any gentleman can give a compliment or two whenever he needs to,” he said, turning to Oscar, who looked back a little confused before nodding his head and turning to Yukki and Serana.

“Serana, you…” He begins looking up and down her entirely black niqab, covering all but her eyes. “You... Your… Uhh.. Yukki looks more like you every time I see her. I’m sure the day when you're mistaken for sisters isn’t far off.” He smiles a bit awkwardly and turns to Samson, who shakes his head in disappointment.

“No, no Oscar, like this,” He says, bending down to the red-haired girl. “Hope, how are you feeling?” he asks, returning to his chipper tone.

“Umm… D-doing fine, I guess,” she managed to squeak out.

“Glad to hear it and glad to see you’re growing into your mane,” he says, tousling Hope’s deep red curls. As he does so, her cheeks begin to darken, becoming almost as red as her hair as Samson continues praising her. “Never thought your father’s curls and color would be a good match with your mother's volume, but I’d say they look as good together as your parents themselves.” He stops tousling and lifts her bangs, revealing one blue and one green eye. “Just like the two little gems you have back here, I’d say you shouldn’t keep them hidden like that, but Lord knows I did the same thing at your age.” Hope's cheeks continue to glow bright red as Samson removes his hand. His grin shallows as he looks back at his wife, her eyes in a thin glare. “Of course, I can only say that because my darling wife insists on handicapping herself out in public,” he says, draping an arm around Serena’s shoulder and drawing her in. “If not for that, I wouldn’t even be able to take my eyes off of her to drive.”

“Way to dig yourself out of that hole, Samson,” Oscar chuckles.

“Well, let’s take the photos and head in,” Nora says, pulling out her camera.

For a while, Yukki and Hope are little more than props as they pose in front of the entrance ceremony sign. Nora insists on getting almost every possible combination, pairing Yukki and Hope up with each other, their fathers and mothers, and finally, all six take a photo together. Once everyone is happy with the pictures, the girls split off from their parents and head to the classroom assignment boards, breathing a sigh of relief as soon as they’re out of sight.

“Glad that’s over,” Yukki says, lowering her face covering to the middle of her nose. “Sorry, my Papa said all that.”

“It’s quite all right,” Hope says, her cheeks finally returning to their usual color. “Not like I’ll be getting compliments from anyone else anytime soon.”

“Oh, don’t say that, Hope, ” Yukki said, bumping shoulders with Hope. “I can compliment you, too, if you’d like.”

“Spare your flattery,” Hope says, holding up a hand. “It’s wasted on me.”

“Oh. My. Gosh.” Yukki scoffed, emphasizing her words. “Why do you have to be so pessimistic? Are you SURE your middle name isn’t ‘Less’?”

“For the last time, it’s not ‘less,’ it’s ‘Lesley’.”

“That’s what I said, ‘Less,’” Yukki said with a grin

“No, ‘Lesley,’” Hope retorted, unamused by Yukki’s teasing.

“Yeah, ‘less’ we’re saying the same thing here.”

“Lesley,” Hope insisted.

“Less,” Yukki teased back.

“Ley.”

“Less.”

“Ley.”

“Ley,” Yukki said, enacting her plan.

“Less,” Hope responded.

“Ley.”

“Less.”

“Ley.”

“LESS!” Hope yelled, finally losing patience with Yukki’s game.

“Alright, ‘Less’ it is,” Yukki said, the edges of her grin peeking out from behind her Niqab.

“What? No-. You-. I-.” Hope stammers, realizing Yukki’s trick. “Ugh,” Hope sighed, grabbing her hair and deflating from Yukki’s teasing. “I swear you're impossible sometimes.”

“I’m not sure who this ‘Impossible Sometimes’ girl is, but my name's ‘Yukki.’ Pretty sure we’ve been over this before.”

“Why you!” Hope began, clumsily swinging her bag in Yukki’s general direction. The swing is slow and packs no power, so Yukki can dodge it without thinking, leaving her mind open to more jokes.

“Careful now, don't want to rip your bag and have your smut fall everywhere.”

“I don’t read smut!” Hope protested, swinging her bag again.

“Really?” Yukki asked, grabbing the bag mid-swing. “Then you wouldn’t mind showing me what you're reading now, then?”

“No, you can’t look through my stuff,” Hope said, pulling her bag out of Yukki’s reach.

“Because I’d see your smut, right?”

“Shut up!” Hope yells, holding it out of Yukki’s reach. It's not a difficult task, given her superior height and reach. The pair continues to make quite a spectacle as they move through the courtyard. Students of every nation can be seen gathering in cliques from elementary school, while new students walk by themselves. Even among the foreign students, Yukki and Hope stand out with their odd pairing. As they make their way to the classroom assignment boards, Yukki cheers, seeing they are in the same class for the first time in 2 years. But as they celebrate, a yell rings out from across the way. It is loud, abrupt, and punctuated by a soft

*THUD*

as if someone slipped and fell on ice.

“I’M NOT IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL!” Yells another voice that, while belonging to a female, none could honestly call it “feminine.”

“What happened?” Yukki said, trying desperately to see the source of the commotion.

“That girl just flipped Takahashi-senpai,” one girl said.

“She made him look like a rag doll,” another said.

“That one with the pixie cut.”

“She’s so small, though? How’d she flip Takahashi-senpai?”

“A girl flipped a senpai?” Yukki questions.

“And looks like an elementary schooler-” Hope continues.

“You don’t think,” Yukki says, already moving through the crowd in the direction of the hair bun. Once the pair was outside the thick portion of the crowd, they could see her more clearly. The short, silky, jet-black hair waves slightly in the wind; her short pixie cut frames her emerald green eyes, a shade darker than Hope’s and much more piercing. Her short stature made her look more like a doll than a middle schooler, and despite her rapid footsteps, her minuscule stride made for slow progress. Yukki and Hope couldn’t believe their eyes.

“YUI!” they called out in unison, their voices compounding upon each other and reaching the girl's ears. As soon as she heard them, her head snapped up, focusing on the pair from across the courtyard. As soon as she sees them, her heels turn, and her legs push off into a full sprint. Yukki and Hope do the same, and all three race to meet each other.

“Oof '' Yukki and Hope cry as Yui tackles both to the ground, knocking the wind out of them, arms hooked around their necks in a deep hug. They eventually manage to catch their breath and return their friend's hug.

“I missed you both so much,” she says, holding back tears.

“We missed you too, Yui,” Yukki manages to say through Yui’s bear hug. “But could you get off of us? I don’t think Hope can breathe.” Yui looks at Hope’s face, and all the red colors from earlier are beginning to be replaced with light blue.

“Oh, sorry,” Yui says, releasing her iron grip and pulling the other two up. “I was so excited to see you, I didn’t realize.”

“It’s fine,” Yukki says, patting down her dress uniform.

“You’ve certainly gotten stronger since last we met,” Hope whispers under her breath.

“I know, right?” Yui says, taking a deep breath. “Must be something about this air. It seems… fuller or something.”

“Well, it makes sense,” Yukki says. “I mean, you were up in the mountains in… Nepal, was it?”

“Tibet, that’s where my uncle's monastery is.”

“Yeah, you’ve been there since- '' The look on Yui’s face stopped Yuki before finishing the sentence. It's been more than a year since the incident. Yukki remembered how excited Yui was to visit her uncle with her mother. It seemed that Yui didn’t want to be reminded of bad memories.

“And when did you arrive back in Japan, Yui?” Hope asks, changing the subject.

“Yesterday, or I guess earlier today, since the plane didn’t land till after midnight.”

“And you still managed to get up in time for this?” Hope asks, surprised, as the trio heads off through the courtyard

The three girls arrived at their classrooms and were assigned seats in alphabetical order. Given that their surnames started with G, Yukki and Hope sat beside each other while Yui sat a few rows away. These three were the only foreigners in an otherwise wholly Japanese class, but they’d spent their whole school lives this way, so it was nothing new to them. “I can’t believe we’re all in the same class this year,” Yui says, skipping to Yukki and Hope’s desks. She stands between the desks, placing an arm on each. “Has this ever happened before with all three of us?” Yukki ponders.

“It had to have happened before? But I can’t remember,” Yui agrees.

“Not since our first year together,” Hope interjects. “Yui transferred in after summer break that year.”

“Oh yeah,” Yui says, recalling it. She hoists her feet off the ground and swings gently between the two desks. “I remember feeling all nervous that I’d stick out like a sore thumb, but then I walked in and saw you two with your red and yellow hair and thought, ‘Oh, guess I won’t stand out too much.’” She continues swinging, her arms never shaking or buckling due to her own weight. It surprised me how much stronger she seemed than when I last saw her.

“I’m just glad you recognized me,” Yukki jokes. “For a moment, I thought you were running to attack me because some stranger had stolen away your ‘hope’ or something.” Yui stopped swinging and looked at Yukki with a puzzled look on her face.

“Who stole my Kibō?” She asked, tilting her head. “Why didn’t you say something when they swiped it from my bag?”

“No, nobody stole anything from you, Yui,” Yukki explains, grabbing her hand to stop Yui from sprinting back to her bag. “I was making a joke; it just went over your head, is all.”

“But you didn’t throw anything? And if you did, why didn’t you give me a warning?”

“Oh, Yui,” Yukki whispers, pulling Yui in a hug. “You really did come back to us.” She holds Yui like that for a moment until Yui begins getting restless and begins to squirm.

“Exactly, how I remember you,” Yukki declares with a delighted smile. Yui sneezes and looks back at Yukki.

“Can’t say I feel the same way,” she says, rubbing her nose.

“Oh yeah, the veil, I know,” Yukki laments, returning to her seat. “Mom said it was time I started dressing like a woman. Can’t have her daughter dressing like a whore, showing off her hair like her friends after all,” she says sarcastically.

“I’ve never understood that. If hair made boys go crazy like she seems to think, then wouldn't they be falling over themselves to get to Hope?” Yui asks.

“Oh, I’m sure she has dozens of secret admirers,” Yukki says, moving behind Hope. “I mean, look at all this,” she says, stroking Hope's fluffy red locks.

“I’m not sure volume is the only important factor for nice hair,” Hope says, deflecting the compliment. “Color, length, style, curvature, texture-”

“Oh, just take the compliment,” Yukki says, interrupting Hope by wrapping handfuls of hair over her mouth. “Although we never did style it like we wanted to, did we?”

“Oh yeah, at your sleepover,” Yui says as Yukki continues to fiddle with Hope’s hair. "We were gonna try braids, pigtails, ribbons… Why didn’t we?”

“Whhh when poor hm on hss har,” Hope tried to say through her prison of hair.

“Hmm?” Yui hums, releasing Hope's hair.

“Bleh,” Hope spits hair out of her mouth. “We spent the whole time styling Uncle Sam’s hair.”

“Uncle Sam?”

“My Papa,” Yukki explains. “You can call him that, too. He prefers it, actually.”

“Nah, I already have an uncle,” Yui declines. “In fact-” She’s cut off by the bell signaling the beginning of homeroom. Yui springs back to her seat, leaping over the desks in between.

The door slid open just as the bell stopped, but nobody walked through. Yukki tried peering around the corner from her seat by the window, but stopped when a small disk flew from the door and landed on the podium. A second later, music began emanating from the disk. I instantly recognized the song from her Samson’s love of playing it at wildly inappropriate times. “Erica” a song from Germany that was associated with Prussian militarism during the first two World Wars. A moment later, a woman marched through the door in perfect time with the music. Her hair curled upwards just above her shoulder, a lighter shade of brown but far from blonde, and bounced as she did in time with the music. Her white shirt and green vest resembled those of a barmaid, but were much more conservative than I had ever seen. Her blouse came up to her neck, showing no cleavage or shoulder. Even her skirt, which fell below the knee, was overlapped with high boots, which clacked loudly with each step. A cherry red smile and matching red sunglasses completed her look.

Once she reached the podium, she set down her books and a pretzel, tapped the disk, and stopped the music. She gazed out at the rows of dumbfounded students, soaking in their disbelief and confusion. When she saw that a few students still had straight faces, she decided to up the ante. “Buenos días, clase, ¿cómo estamos hoy? La primera persona en responder en español recibe un pretzel,” she says in Spanish, holding up a pretzel, much to the bewilderment of all in the room, the students more than us. For a while, everyone was quiet, and you wouldn’t even hear a pin drop because the pin would be confused as well. Finally, Yukki raised her hand, saying.

“Sensi ¿Estás segura de que estás en la clase correcta?” Unsure if the whole situation was actually happening.

“Ahh muy bien, Take your prize… Gokegawa, Yukki,” she says, checking her seating chart and extending the pretzel in her hand. Yukki hesitates to stand, but when the teacher gestures for her to come up, Yukki rises from her seat and cautiously approaches the strange woman, graciously accepts her prize. By the time she turned back to her chair, her classmates were already whispering.

“Why does she have a towel on her head?”

“Why’s she dressed like that?”

“Is she supposed to be a ninja?” Yukki had heard it all before, but she didn’t let it get to her. She sat down as if she hadn't heard anything, as the teacher finished writing her name on the board. “ERICA HOMBERG,” she writes in Kanji, Katakana, and Romaji. Once completed, she turns back to the class and removes her sunglasses, revealing bright hazel eyes. “I’ll be your homeroom teacher for the year,” she explains. “Feel free to call me Homberg-sensi, just sensei, or beautiful sensei if you’re so inclined,” she says with a chuckle. When none of the students laughed, she settled down.

“Ahh, you’ll warm up to my eccentricities as the year goes on,” she says with a wave. “Before you all introduce yourselves, a little bit about me. I’ve been a teacher at this school for two years now. This is the first year I’ve had a homeroom, though. I was born and raised in Monte Dinero, Argentina, near the southernmost tip of the mainland. I teach Spanish, German, world history, and occasionally music.” She takes a second to breathe and gauge her student’s reaction. The class is still in various states of stunned silence, and most are just barely processing the Spanish at this point. Still, she manages to lead the class through introductions with a practiced grace of controlled chaos.