5. Into the Rabbit Hole? Or out of Neverland?

The second morning of school had been about as boring as the first. The curriculum was logically far more difficult than anything I’d had to deal with in public school. I was already beginning to feel a drowning sensation. I was going to need to go home and study every single day just to get by. What was the point of going to school everyday if you had to work harder when you got home as well?

I was lost in thought, attempting to find a place to sit during lunch. I hadn’t really taken lunch the day before because I wanted to travel the school and figure everything out instead. Taika called me over from a short distance away.

Taika ran up from behind and slapped my back. “Ay Elias, Don’t worry, no sticky notes this time. Just saw you stranded, looking like a lost puppy.”

“I’m just trying to find a good place to sit and eat,” I answered.

“Hey, no problem! Just follow me, I’ve got your back!” Taika shouted a bit loudly, causing others to look over strangely.

“Right…” I wanted to run away. I don’t understand how I got roped into following Taika around. He was easily the most eccentric person I’d ever met in my life and I’d only known him for about a day.

“Where are we going?” I wondered as we traversed through the school.

“The secret spot, naturally.”

“Secret spot?”

He took me to an upper level, it was a pavilion that had a nice view of the courtyard. I still couldn’t understand how this school could be so amazingly…expensive.

“All of the interesting people eat up here,” Taika stated simply.

“Interesting?”

“YO! YO! YO! Taika is in the house, girlies, I brought a friend!” Taika saluted the table in front of us, Juliet and Miya were seated there, staring at Taika with alternate expressions of happiness, and annoyance.

“I have a question,” Taika continued, staring at them quizzically, “why’d you steal my spot?”

“I thought you said the interesting people sit here?” I was confused.

“Interesting is right, this is Miya…uh, Weskaber, I think,” Taika started.

I interrupted, “I know these two, I met them yesterday.”

“Right, then you should know that Miya right there is the boss lady, but Juliet, she is a sweet Angel sent by the gods!”

“If Juliet is an Angel, what’s Miya?”

“Uh…Beelzebub.”

The girls seemed to be ignoring us, but Taika pulled me aside to speak in private. I was getting tired of being dragged around by him.But there was something innately funny about him.

“She isn’t that bad, is she?” I had my doubts.

“Look, if you really love her already, I get it.”

“I never said that!”

“It’s cool, Succubus got you under her spell already.”

“Are you crazy?” Would have believed him if he said yes.

“Dude, it’s fine. I’m just warning you. She’s the empress of the school,” Taika whispered dramatically.

“But that girl!” Taika changed the topic as rapidly as he spoke, he pointed towards a table across the way. A group of people were sitting there, including a beautiful girl; that did, admittedly, seem a bit pretentious at first sight. “She’s more like, a princess from another kingdom trying desperately to usurp the throne, and those are her slave warriors.”

“Slave warriors? Princess? Taika, what are you on about? You’re over exaggerating everything.”

Taika began to laugh profusely. It was a hardy, and exuberant laugh that gained the attention of everyone around. But, it seemed as if the moment someone noticed it was Taika, they stopped caring.

Then Taika stopped laughing suddenly, “I wish I was kidding.”

“Taika—”

“Look, I’ll show you!” Taika interrupted me, and with that dragged me back to the tables.

“Ello there folks, found little Alice here wandering around aimlessly, saved him from the rabbit hole. Or pushed him in, I forget. Was hoping you’d all help give him a warm welcome!” Taika said in a near perfect (to my ears) English accent.

Another girl that was much different from Miya, a bit taller with fuller cheeks and thick glasses, her hair was exceptionally long and chestnut brown, spoke up in Japanese, saying something I obviously didn’t understand.

She sounded cold, and I didn’t quite get the conversation until later on when it was explained to me. She asked Taika basically why he brought me there and they carried on a conversation, brief as it was, in Japanese before switching to English.

“Take a seat, my friend,” Taika pointed to a spot on the table. “They said you’re allowed to be their bag carrier.”

“What?” I shook my head but decided to take a seat. I was really just tired of standing, and I felt as if lunch was going to end soon and I wouldn’t be able to eat. At the same time, I didn’t believe that that was all they said.

“So, were you guys speaking in Japanese?”

Taika smiled happily. “Yep, lots of different students at this school.”

“So, who are you?” I asked the strange girl I hadn’t met yet, and she didn’t answer, Taika did.

“That’s Ayase Namada.”

It felt strange to be sitting at this table with this group of people. Taika was nice enough, and Juliet seemed inviting, but Ayase and Miya. I looked over at Miya, and realized there was something noticeably different about her demeanor today. She seemed happy, satisfied even. She had a cute smile that made her extremely appealing. I had been terrified of her the day before but today she was nearly irresistible to look at. Except that was pointed only at Juliet, as if she was avoiding looking my way.

That was until her smile faded and went back to her normal expressionless face.

“Hey Elias,” Miya looked at me. “So, I hear you’re bad at math?”

What? I stared at her a bit timidly. “How...would you know that?” Then she slid a folder across the table. When I opened it up it had my report cards since kindergarten. “What the hell?” I mumbled to myself. It was just plain creepy.

“Looks like I’m your mandatory tutor.” Miya shrugged.

Mandatory tutor? The school was really something. Mostly just a pain in the ass. The school was willing to give out personal information and assign personal tutors to ensure that students performed to the school’s high standards. But, it was a private academy, so it probably wasn’t illegal. I then thought about how I should be a lawyer, fight for student rights.

“That’s kind of creepy.”

“It’s normal here. The school wants us to be at the top of academics.”

Miya passed a piece of paper over to me. I looked it over and saw that it contained an address and a time. “Be there. After school, four p.m. sharp every day Monday through Friday.” Miya answered the question scratching at the back of my mind. So that was where she wanted me to study. I don’t see myself as a sad person, but I wanted to cry. I couldn’t believe I had to deal with all the studying, I just wanted to go back to coloring. At least it made sense. To make matters worse Miya was my tutor.

Miya was smiling, maybe looking for a response. “Any questions?”

“No...guess not,” I just felt defeated. Had no say in going to this school to begin with. At least I could try and make friends.

“Alright, good. You’re dismissed.”

“Dismissed?” I looked at her.

“You sound like such a queen, Miya,” Juliet giggled, and my heart nearly stopped. Taika was under-exaggerating about Juliet being an Angel.

“Told ya,” Taika mumbled, popping a grape into his mouth.

I started to stand up. If they were telling the truth. I was in for a headache. But I was already confused enough and I just wanted to eat, that’s all I wanted.

“It’s fine, he can stay,” Miya changed her mind.

I stopped and started to sit back down but was stopped by Taika, “Wait! At least make him bring us cookies!”

“You were friends with them the whole time?” I looked at him strangely.

“Who? Me?” Taika asked quizzically.

“Yes, you…”

“Define friends? I’m more of a stray cat. Fed me once, now I won’t leave,” he answered with no sense of shame.

“She said it’s fine, don’t listen to Taika.” Juliet smiled happily and motioned for me to sit, so I did. Can I stop with this up and down please!

I scrambled to start eating before I ran out of time. I was scared that lunch really was about to end.

“Sadly Taika is right though.” Miya looked out towards the other table, “and speaking of stray cats.”

I looked over at the direction she was focused on and noticed the group that had been seated across the way walking over to us. There were four of them. An incredibly thin and tall young asian kid with glasses. He was carrying a laptop case along with his backpack. Then there was a set of twins, two tall blond girls, one with long hair down her back, and the second with short hair that just brushed her shoulders. Lastly there was the girl that Taika had pointed out as a princess from another kingdom. That girl stared at me for a few seconds before she got bored and turned her attention to Miya with a prepared smile.

“You sure do love to take in strays, Miya,” Alice, the girl that was the leader flipped her hair, “First the village idiot, then the lost boy?” I could assume she was talking about Taika and I, but didn’t understand where the bad blood came from. I was just the new kid, why did it feel like I was about to wind up in a war zone?

Alice (Real name: Jun) Yea-Ji was about Miya’s height. Both of them were on the shorter side but seemed to hold themselves above everyone else. In a way, I kind of saw why they might not like each-other. You can’t have two people trying to run everything without butting heads. Alice lived in France for a few years, according to Taika, before that she was born in South Korea. She had moved from France a few years back after her mother remarried her step-father who was some incredibly wealthy financier. Miya was a mix of Japanese and something else. Where Ayase and the skinny kid with glasses, whose name I later found out was Iki were both full Japanese. Or about as close to it as you can get without DNA testing. Never know nowadays. I started feeling a bit out of my element. Everyone around me came from such a different background than my own. My dad may have been a scientist but we lived a middle-class life. I wasn’t rich. Or if we were, I didn’t know that we were. We were not poor, but still. At least Taika was…nevermind he wasn’t relatable at all.

“My such Vulgar demeanor coming from a lady.” Miya smiled nicely, but there was something about her grip that was displaying the anger she was trying to contain. I don’t know what was in Miya’s hand prior, but whatever it was, I could swear dust was leaking out of her grip.

“Your act is so dull, you know that?” Alice said and then turned her attention to me, “piece of advice, Peter Pan, you wanna stick around long enough to make it back to the lost boys, steer clear of her.” She ended with a hair flip and walked off. Her skin glowed and her silky black hair whipped with ease. The twins seemed confused at first but simultaneously did a hair flip of their own and followed, while Iki lingered behind. He stared at Ayase briefly before heading off as well.

The group seemed to be ignoring it. They went back to eating and chatting as if nothing had happened. I was confused again. This school was weird. How could you have warring factions on a school yard and have everything just go according to schedule despite undertones of battle. Miya was either incredibly calm or incredibly calculating. I felt as if it was both. Which made me feel bad for Alice. Like, she made the wrong enemy. And I had only been there two days.