Making Friends and Avoiding Fiends

Tsubaki and Kaori stood at the edge of the entryway while other students passed them nervous glances and muttered to themselves.

“You…you really have no idea?” Tsubaki said, her eyebrow twitching. Kaori simply shook her head.

After a moment, Kaori looked as if a realization struck her. “Oh, but he did say he was the Student Council President, right?”

Tsubaki let out a loud groan. Of course, she wouldn’t know. She literally just got here yesterday, she thought, rubbing her temples.

The two girls started making their way to class. Breaking off from the flow of all the other students, they headed towards the annex where the remedial classrooms were located.

“Ah! But…” Kaori had a deep look of concentration on her face. “Yesterday, a senpai warned me about a person I should stay away from… What was that name…?”

Tsubaki stared at her in disbelief. Not brave. Just an airhead.

“Guu…no, that’s not it…Fre…” Kaori started sounding out the syllables that made up the name she was trying to remember. “Faa…Furr…”

“Fern Greenwood,” Tsubaki answered flatly.

“That’s it!” Kaori said, enthusiastically pounding her fist into her palm. “I wonder what kind of person they are…?”

You just met him!! This girl was going to kill Tsubaki from shock.

“He’s a top student who hates our class because he thinks he’s above us. Honestly, he treats most people in this school that way! But most of all…” She adjusted her grip on the strap of her backpack, debating whether she should continue.

Tsubaki glanced at Kaori from the corner of her eye–she was hanging on to her every word, brows furrowed in concern.

“Fern Greenwood dislikes Awakeners, but he hates ‘half-breeds’ more than anything,” Tsubaki quietly concluded.

“Are you for real?!” Kaori exclaimed. Shaking her head, she crossed her arms. “Geeze… What a rotten bastard!”

Tsubaki was startled by Kaori’s sudden swearing, which completely went against the image she had of her, but couldn’t help but indulge too. “Yeah! Yeah! He’s an absolute dickhead! I hate that guy! He thinks that just because he’s Student Council President–”

“Huh?!” Kaori shrieked. She stopped dead in the empty hallway. “Th-th-that was him?!?”

“Uh…yeah…” Tsubaki replied weakly, averting eye contact. Should she have led with that? She tried to keep moving, but Kaori grabbed her shoulders to stop her.

“Tsubaki-chan!” Kaori said, spinning her around so that they were facing each other. The girl had a look of utmost determination on her face. “I’m not gonna let that guy look down on us!”

“Huh…?”

“I’m absolutely gonna do it!”

“D-do what…?”

Kaori suddenly broke away and started rushing towards their classroom down the hall. “I’m gonna be class rep! I’ll show him…!!”

“Wha…?” Tsubaki stood there stunned for a moment before crashing back to reality. She chased after Kaori. “Hey! Wait!”

Tsubaki picked up her pace when she heard Kaori’s voice echo out into the hallway through the open classroom door.

“Sensei, I would like to volunteer as class rep for the Student Council!”

Tsubaki was just in time to see Doumeki-sensei raise her eyebrows in surprise.

“Come again?”

“This morning, Tsubaki-chan and I were approached by the Student Council President, who told us our class needs to pick a representative,” Kaori explained. From behind her, Tsubaki made an X with her arms and shook her head. “I would like to volunteer for that.”

Doumeki-sensei looked between the two girls with mild confusion. “Is that true, Meadows? Did the Student Council President really say that?”

Tsubaki bit down on her tongue. She had a physiological inability to lie, and this teacher knew that. Tsubaki let out a sharp sigh.

“Yes, it’s true. He really said that.”

“Hmm…” Doumeki-sensei closed her eyes thoughtfully and rubbed her chin. “Normally, remedial students aren’t allowed to participate in extracurricular activities…”

There it was… Tsubaki let out a sigh of relief and shuffled over to her desk. It was better that this transfer student didn’t get mixed up in any business involving that bastard. He was up to something for sure.

“But why? Don’t the students in this class deserve a normal school experience?” Kaori pleaded.

“Everyone in this class is here because they need to get their grades up,” Doumeki-sensei said with a sigh. Tsubaki aggressively nodded in agreement. Things were fine this way!

“So if we all brought our grades up, we could participate in clubs?” Kaori was still trying to bargain.

Doumeki-sensei’s attention was grabbed with that one statement.

***

It had been put to a vote, with the overwhelming majority of the class in favor of joining clubs. Tsubaki and Haruto had been the only two to vote against it.

“It’s settled then,” Doumeki-sensei said, clearing the chalkboard with an eraser. “You all will be permitted to participate in extracurricular activities as long as you maintain passing grades.”

Kaori lit up in excitement. The school may be abnormal, but she was one step closer to getting that normal high school experience she so desperately craved.

“Ah, but there’s a caveat…” The teacher continued speaking, now facing the classroom. Her lips curled into a smile. Kaori swallowed hard in anticipation. “All of you have to be passing. If any of you fail your midterms, then that’s it.”

A chill settled over the class. Those who had been stuck in the remedial class for a long time knew that it would be a tall order.

Kaori’s eyes blazed with determination–she wasn’t one to give up easily. Rather than letting others pull her down, she would absolutely raise them up alongside her.

With a school day full of normal academic classes, Kaori was feeling confident again. Despite being the remedial class, it seemed that the academics were not at a remedial level. While the content didn’t pose any particular challenges to Kaori, it didn’t seem to be at a level that made it too easy either.

She looked around at her classmates periodically, trying to understand the circumstances that landed them all in this class. Some were attentive, while others were not–sleeping or otherwise slacking off during class. Her own roommate and seatmate seemed to fall into the latter camp.

Kaori understood it would take the most effort to motivate the slackers, but first, she would have to figure out what subjects everyone was struggling with. And to do that, she’d have to befriend every single one of them.

What the remedial class currently lacked most was camaraderie.

She had noticed it the day before during study hall. At that time, some of them were quietly reading, while others were slacking off or sleeping. But out of all the students in the class, only two of them seemed to socialize in any capacity.

Kaori watched them closely, trying to absorb some information about them. A boy and a girl who might have almost passed for Japanese people if it weren’t for their pointed ears. They were of similar height, both wore glasses, and had similar facial features. After the lunch bell rang, the pair seemingly got up in unison to leave the classroom together.

“They’re twins,” Haruto mumbled.

Kaori nearly jumped out of her seat. She hadn’t realized he was still there.

“O-oh, really?” she said quietly, as she turned to look at him.

Haruto rested his chin on his hand, looking straight at Kaori with barely disguised amusement. “You were starin’ so hard tryin’ to figure it out.”

“Um…are they…Elves?” Kaori whispered. She couldn’t hold back her curiosity when it came to Elves.

“The Yamamori siblings are Half-Elves. I’ve been in the same class as them since I came to this school,” he explained casually.

Kaori perked up at this. She hadn’t considered the idea that Haruto Akaboshi might have insight into all their classmates. “Th-then what about the rest of them?”

“Hm? Whaddya mean?”

“Wh-what is everyone else?” she mumbled, shifting in her seat. If she could just understand them all a bit more, then it might help her try to befriend everyone.

“That’s kinda invasive…” he said flatly. The words stabbed Kaori.

“I-I-I know that b-but,” she gulped. “I’m c-curious…”

A hiss of air escaped Haruto’s lips before he quickly stifled his own laughter.

“The three other humans are all Awakeners like you,” he explained, counting on his fingers. He pointed to a boy in the next row with his head down–someone who Kaori had only ever seen awake during roll call. “That guy has also been in the same class as me this whole time. He’s a Dhampir.”

“A Dhampir? What’s that?” Kaori whispered.

“A half Vampire.”

She studied the boy’s features. It was hard to tell what exactly he looked like with his head down, but from what Kaori could see and what she knew about Vampires, he looked completely normal.

Just then, something fell on Kaori’s head with a soft thwap. The plastic crinkled as it bounced off her head and onto the table. It was a curry bun, dropped there by Tsubaki.

“This one’s also been in the same class since I got here,” Haruto said, pointing to Tsubaki.

“You shouldn’t gossip about our classmates. Someone might mistake it for bullying,” she said between mouthfuls of a yakisoba bun.

Was that how it came across?

“Th-that’s not it at all!” Kaori stammered, her face turning red. Kaori quickly tried to change the subject. “Anyway, by the same class, do you mean–”

“This one,” Tsubaki cut in. She directed her cold stare at Haruto. “Where all the powerless, talentless, half-breeds end up stuck.”

Haruto glared at Tsubaki. Kaori could feel the tension in the air between the two of them. It was bad enough that her classmates didn’t seem friendly with each other, but outright hostility like this might affect Kaori’s plan. She wanted to intermediate but…

“Tch…” He stood up abruptly and stormed out of the classroom.

“Geeze, what’s his problem?” Tsubaki asked, stealing his seat.

I think you’re part of it… Kaori swallowed that thought, along with a bite from the curry bun, and instead directed a question at Tsubaki.

“Tsubaki-chan, what do you mean by half-breeds? I heard you mention it before as well.”

“Hm?” Tsubaki, who had been booting up her game console, directed her attention to Kaori. “I mean the students who are half human.”

“Oh! Like the Yamamori twins?”

“Mhm.” Tsubaki nodded. Her focus was fully directed at her game now. “Pretty much everyone in our class except the Awkeners.”

“Th-then that means you too?!” Kaori exclaimed, trying not to choke on the bun. She looked closely at Tsubaki. It was clear from her light green hair and purple eyes that she wasn’t human, but her small, pointed ears seemed different from the Elves Kaori had seen.

Tsubaki, as if sensing Kaori’s curiosity, answered the question lingering in Kaori’s mind. “My mom is a human, my dad is a fairy.”

“That’s amazing!” Kaori yelled, jumping up from her seat. The sleeping boy startled awake briefly before falling back asleep. She clapped her hand over her mouth before quietly sitting back down.

“It’s really not,” Tsubaki murmured, not taking her eyes off the console. She furrowed her brow as she launched attack after attack at the enemy in the game. “It’s hard for everyone. It’s embarrassing. We’re not as strong as our full-blood counterparts and…”

Kaori watched Tsubaki’s thumbs deftly push buttons on the console, only for her character to die with a big “GAME OVER” to appear. Tsubaki let out a long, pained sigh before reloading.

“There are also people out there like Fern Greenwood who hate our existence.”

KAORI’S DIARY ENTRY:

Dear Mom and Dad,

My classmates all seem to keep to themselves. I learned that almost all of them share similar circumstances, so maybe that’s why they’re all so shy. It seems really lonely! So I am going to do my best to make friends with each and every one of them by the end of the school year.