Newcomers

Hiatus Academy looked less like a school and more like an incompatible cluster of old buildings someone had dropped in the middle of a forest and forgotten to preserve. The main gate was black iron, towering and straight, with bars stout enough to block a car. Someone had scrawled initials and gambling characters into the metal over the years; the etchings layered on top of each other like an unofficial narrative.

Keres stood just beyond the entrance, her carry-on at her heel.

The air stank faintly of moist gravel and cheap cologne.

Students were already striding past her, not admitting her existence except when they had to sidestep her.

A tall girl carrying a stack of chips brushed by. “Move,” she said, curt and bored.

Keres stepped aside. The girl vanished onto the grounds without spinning around.

Inside the gate, Hiatus Academy materialised in uneven pieces.

A cracked stone courtyard.
A fountain that hardly worked.
Patches of silage mingled with grime and cigarette butts.

Students everywhere! Sitting on bannisters, huddling steps, slanting against walls as if the buildings themselves were furniture.

They came from everywhere. Foreign accents. Diverse styles of uniform. Different ways of taking up space. Some wore their ties correctly; others had tooled theirs into headbands. One boy wore his blazer like a poncho. Someone else had sketched playing card symbols on their sleeves with marker.

Objects clicked frequently.
Cards scrambled in restless hands.
Dice clinked in pockets.

Keres stepped forward, changing the sash of her bag. People gaped frankly at her, newcomers were irregular enough to be amusing. Several gossiped among themselves, not bothering to hide it.

“Transfer student?” One of them murmured to a pal.

“She looks too casual. That’s odd.”

“Bet she yields everything today.”

No one suggested help. No one provided instructions.

The main building occupied the centre of the estate.

Elevated, rectangular windows.
Pebble walls striped with age.
Extensive rigid entrances girded with metal strips.

It looked like a dwelling built for order, but now succumbed to disorder.

Keres forced the door open.

The hallway inside was long, striped with geriatric bulletin boards whose tacks and torn paper edges were all that remained of announcements. The lighting blinked scarcely, not enough to be alarming, but enough to be noticeable. Rows of lockers ran along the walls, dented, sticker-covered, many hanging open.

Some classrooms had their doors wide open, revealing abandoned desks and chalkboards with half-erased writing. Other doors were shut tight, as if no one had entered them in years.

Somewhere deeper in the building, a loud cheer erupted.
It was pursued by cries, chuckles, and the clatter of objects striking a table.

Keres followed the noise.

A set of double metal doors stood ahead. They weren’t labeled, but they didn’t need to be. Every student passing by paused to glance at them, like checking on a living thing.

Keres pushed one door open.

The common room stretched out before her, vast, luminous, and overwhelmingly busy. The lighting was firm and unassuming, shining on long tables arranged in messy rows. Students huddled around them, yelling numbers, smashing down money and objects, hollering out bets. Screens on the walls displayed the current names of who was in the common room; the numbers updated so quickly they blurred.

A row of vending machines hummed on one side, not with drinks, but with card decks, dice sets, and chips. A group of first-years sat on the floor in a corner, watching a game they didn’t understand.

And along the upper balcony, leaning casually on the gold-painted railing, stood a girl.

Her presence cut through the noise before she spoke, not because she was rackety, but because she looked like she belonged at the middle of everything. 

Dark braids framed her face in deliberate asymmetry, each strand glossy enough to catch the balcony light. A long veil was tight at her head, but her appealing braids still showed and flew down. Her eyeliner was drawn with precision: a tapered wing that lifted at the corner. Her lips, painted a plum, worked at a slow bubble of pink gum, the swell growing with disinterested patience before collapsing back into her mouth with a gentle pop.

She wore rings. Thin gold bands, stacked two or three per finger, catching the light whenever she shifted her hand. Her nails were short, painted black, chipped at the edges, the kind of imperfection that made them look more dangerous, not less.

A thin chain looped around her throat, disappearing beneath her shirt collar.

Another looped around her wrist.

The lighting seemed to choose her. A strip of white from the ceiling ran right across her shoulders, giving her a faint halo she absolutely did not deserve but commanded anyway.

The students below didn’t need to look up to know she was there.
Her attention was a weight on the room.

Keres knew the name before anyone said it.

Mayoi Busujima.
Leader of the House of Greed.

Mayoi’s eyes anchored on her, a brief, evaluating peek, pursued by a small smile that held no charity at all. A smile that indicated appeal, the way a feline displayed interest in a slow-moving mouse.

Keres looked up and sneered ever so slightly before her eyes flapped down, and she resumed taking in her surroundings. 

A whisper gurgled nearby:

“Who’s the new girl?”
“She’s quiet.”
“Doesn’t matter. She won’t last.”

Keres stepped fully inside.

The metal door shut behind her with a solid, echoing click.

"Hello players, I am Keres. You can call me by my full name. I hate nicknames, or pet names."

Mayoi's eyes flashed with an ephemeral orange ray, but it subsided as her lip tugged at one side into an amused smirk.

"Get rid of her. That blotchy girl ought to leave."