The Day After

Early morning.

A school morning to be more precise.

Not much existed that could be worse. Although some might argue that just simply going to McKinley made those mornings worse.

But of course, there was always a way to make it worse.

My situation was just that.

Standing across from me was a woman with pale skin, white hair, and folded-up wings on her back. She rested her elbows on the desk while holding up her chin with the back of her hands.

She looked like some sort of villain in a fantasy story.

Her jagged eyes turned from me to the other victim in the room with me, Ze’Seki.

“You,” The woman motioned to her, “You’re dismissed. Attend homeroom. Your professor will assign you a seat.”

Ze’Seki nervously nodded, “Y-Yes, Ms.Vernadew.” She bowed shakily before turning a worried glance to me. “Good luck…” she whispered before turning and leaving the office.

With the mechanical hiss of the closing door, the tension in the air nearly doubled—or at least was now directed solely at me.

“So…Tsutsumi…”

“Yes?”

“No. You respond with a Yes, ma'am.”

“I don’t think that should apply in this case.”

The woman’s sharp glare nearly crystallized the air between us.

No matter how you saw it, I was playing with fire. Or no, it was more like playing with a propane tank in a room coated in gasoline with a match about to be dropped on the floor.

Something more akin to that.

In other words, I should really stop.

“Y-Yes, ma’am?” I gave in.

Ms. Vernadew grumbled.

Although no one would believe me if I said this, the woman before me was the director of McKinley.

Her name once spread fear across the entirety of the first years, but just the mere fact only the first years feared her was very telling. That’s because it only took a few weeks for everyone to realize she was closer to a whining child than a professional director.

The number of times we’d all heard about her failing love life was staggering. Especially because I couldn’t care less about it.

Still, she could be menacing when she wanted to be.

“These grades,” she pointed at a sheet of paper on her desk. On it were all my grades neatly laid on in rows. Across the board, they were nothing but nine or tens.

Nearly perfect.

“Oh, you’re asking how I’m so good? Well, you see—”

“Your grade in history is terrible.”

Ouch. Right where it hurt.

“It’s the worst grade I’ve ever seen in this school—no, the worst grade I’ve seen in my entire life. I would say you should be ashamed, but I’m more ashamed for you than anything. If I were you, I would beg forgiveness from every person who’s ever existed on this planet. And even that may not be enough.”

…Now that’s a bit much.

“Isn’t that score like slightly below average for any other scho—”

“But!” she yelled, rudely interrupting me, “We’re not just any other school, are we?”

“I get that, but—”

“We’re McKinley Institute!” she slammed her hand on the desk and stood. “Here we have nothing but the best of the best. Our students are overachievers! Our staff, unmatchable! And the director, yours truly, is nothing less than ma—”

“Lonely?”

A low rumble shook the room. In a flash, an inconspicuous door to the left of the director suddenly opened and I found myself hanging off the edge. Nothing but an, at least, eight-meter drop to the floor.

Ms. Vernadew held on to my collar as I dangled out the door.

What’s with these people and dropping me off buildings?

Ina used to do something similar when I was younger and that librarian had done it a little over a week ago. Was this a trend I was missing out on? Well, I guess I wasn’t missing much since it’d happened twice in about a week.

Anyway.

“I think this is what one would call illegal.”

“And this is what I call having your life in my hands,” she shook me once, “Apologize. Now.”

Could she really be seen as terrifying when she puts it like that? No. The answer was no. If anything, it made me chuckle.

“Alright, I’m sorry for telling the truth—”

And now I found myself falling to my death again.

Really, this had to be illegal right? If not, then why wasn’t it?

I didn’t even have time to scream before I was caught by a dragoon man wearing a security outfit. His large wings were covered in blue scales, and he was stone-faced as he carried me back to the top.

About what I expected to happen.

Regardless, I don’t think that makes it any less illegal. I wondered if I could make a lot of money if I sued…

With three mighty flaps of his wings, my feet landed back on Ms. Vernadew’s office.

“Why…Why do you even have that door that leads to nothing?”

“It’s a shortcut so I can fly up here instead of going throughout the building,” she crossed her arms.

Of course it was.

But getting back on track.

“Why did you even call me here? Was it really just to commit attempted murder?”

She let out a hmph before saying, “It was just for a heads up. I’m sure you realize you only have about a month left to clean up your grades.”

Yeah, that fact hadn’t left my mind for a second.

“So no reason, great,” I turned towards the door, “Next time, couldn’t you just hand me a paper or something? It’s a lot of hassle to come here, you know?”

“No wonder you have no friends.”

“That’s not a nice thing to say.”

“Screw you.”

How had she not gotten fired by now? One would imagine a prestigious academy like McKinley would have someone who wasn’t so…like her.

Well anyway, staying here any longer would be detrimental to my sanity. I pressed the button to open the sliding door and then closed it behind me.

A long sigh escaped my lungs.

“Are you alright?”

It took everything out of me not to jump at the sudden voice. Instead, I turned to the girl standing beside me. Her hands were behind her back and was looking at the ground.

“Yep. Just got tossed out the building, you know, the usual.”

“Huh?”

“Nothing,” I told Ze’Seki. “Don’t worry about it.”

“It sounds like something to worry about.”

“You’d think that, but no.”

“Uh-huh.”

Anyway. Ignoring all of that.

“Weren’t you supposed to be in class right now?”

I distinctly remembered Ms. Vernadew telling her as much a few minutes ago. But maybe my brain got jumbled after being tossed off the side of the school.

She scratched her cheek, “Yeah…but my professor isn’t there yet…”

“So…?”

“I don’t know where to sit.”

“Just sit in a random spot.”

“But what if that’s someone’s seat?!”

“Who cares? No one will confront you about it.”

“N-No! I’ll just wait,” she cutely huffed.

About what I expected her to say.

I personally didn’t care to take someone’s seat, but that’s probably why my reputation could be scrubbed off the bottom of a barrel.

With class not starting for another fifteen minutes, I had some time to kill. Normally I’d just sit in class but with Ze’Seki here, I couldn’t just leave or bring her with me.

We’d only just arrived so she probably hadn’t seen all the school, right? Most importantly—

“Have you gone to the roof yet?”

She quizzically turned to me, “No, why would I?”

I shrugged, “Why not? It’s best to know all the places of your new school.”

Not that I cared too much about that.

I doubt most people cared about that either. As far as I knew, most people didn’t even know the roof existed. At least, they didn’t know it was accessible.

It’s not like anyone was missing much though. Not only was there nothing to do there, but the sun blared down at you hard during this time of year and was usually really cold every other time.

Overall, not a fun experience.

“A-Are you sure we can go?”

“No one will stop us,” I motioned her towards the nearest stairs, “Follow me.”

The roof was ugly to say the very least. The floors were a dark grey. Massive machinery clogged up most of the space, and the giant fence around it felt more like a birdcage than anything else.

Yet—

“It’s so cool!” Ze’Seki let out. She grabbed onto the fence and looked down onto the school campus.

The grass was bright green with patches of multicolored flowers scattered throughout. A gray pathway cut through the green, leading up to the important buildings like the school itself and the massive dormitories off to the side.

Although not much to us first years, starting your second year of high school, you had to move into the dorms right next to the school. We still had a ways to go, but one day Kokoro, Ze’Seki, and I would be in there too.

Hopefully.

As long as I don’t get kicked out.

“Yeah, this school looks pretty good. If only it wasn’t so damn hard.”

I didn’t have too many issues with the school’s difficulty, but I definitely heard stories of people really struggling. Just getting into the school was a privilege not many had.

Ze’Seki, clearly, wasn’t listening to a word I said.

She was off in her own little world, thinking about who knows what.

I scanned around the room while she did whatever she was doing and remembered an important detail. “Oh right,” I tapped her on the shoulder. “If you ever want to come up here, there’s only one place with some shade.”

Between two massive fan-looking things, there was a gap that basically had a roof over it connecting the two machines. It was only big enough to fit around two people sitting side to side at most, but that was still the place with the most shade on this entire roof.

After walking up to it, I sat down and tapped next to me, “Sit.”

She hesitated for a moment but soon walked over and sat next to me.

For as much as I’d said it fit two people, I was only now finding out that it did fit two people…but just barely.

Ze’Seki squeezed in, packing us tightly together.

I cleared my throat as I pointed off into the distance.

“The sun basically never hits this spot. Sometimes a ray or two comes in at noon, but apart from that, it’s pretty—” I turned to Ze’Seki and found her looking at me. We were really close together, but by now this had happened plenty of times before. Enough to where I wouldn’t feel embarrassed by it. “Pretty…” I whispered.

“W-What?” she blurted out.

“—pretty much shaded,” I quickly finished my sentence, “Sorry, I got distracted by something.”

What was I even apologizing for?

“A-Anyway,” I continued, “You can come here whenever you want. No one will stop you.”

“…Do you come here often?”

“No. I tend not to stay much in school if I don’t have to, so I never had much reason to.”

“I see…” she trailed off. “Then how do you know about this place?”

“I explored a bit on my first day.”

I didn’t do much else after that. There were some interesting locations, but none were very useful in any way. To me at least.

“If you’re interested in other school stuff, you should talk to Kokoro. She’s much more knowledgeable about stuff going on here.”

“R-Right,” she said with a nod.

We silently sat in the shade for a bit, simply taking in the mostly ugly view before us. I couldn’t quite put it into words, but simply being here, feeling Ze’Seki’s shoulder and arm against mine, sent a wave of calmness throughout me.

It was like my mind had entirely forgotten we were in school to begin with—

—then the five-minute warning bell rang.

“We should probably start heading back,” I said while sliding out of the small tucked-away spot. “You wouldn’t want to be late on your first day.”

Ze’Seki wordlessly nodded and she stood as well.

I slid the door open to my class and every pair of eyes snapped to me for less than a second. The moment they recognized me, everyone looked away.

Of course, I was used to this by now.

Walking between the aisles, I sat near the far back, avoiding eye contact with everyone. A weird silence filled the room. It was like people were scared of talking near me.

But soon enough the chattering started, and I was drowned out from everyone’s perception.

“Sup Tsutsumi.”

Like if time froze, every person in class stopped. Even I had to retake the words I heard. Thinking of the meaning, the voice, everything. Analyzing every bit to make sure I heard it correctly.

No matter how I cut it, I had definitely heard my name.

I looked up and found a recognizable face. Recognizable only because it’d been ingrained in my mind how rare it was for something like that to happen.

With a twitch of their Pantherian ear, the brown-haired guy I’d come to know as Frey Totoro stood happily before me.

“Haven’t forgotten me already, have you?”

Instinctively, I answered, “You have such a forgettable face I’m amazed I haven’t.”

Insulting people usually didn’t bode well, especially when you didn’t know them well. That’s usually how I broke bonds before they started. I’m sure that’s exactly what would happen here too—

“Wow, you really are more sharped tongued in school, huh?” he crossed his arms, “I heard as much from some friends.”

Huh?

That wasn’t at all how I expected him to react.

Totoro looked around and noticed all the people staring. It was like they were seeing the world’s first alien encounter.

The guy pursed his lips for a moment then his eyes snapped open. He smiled as he brought his face close to my ear.

“I’m sure you have your reasons,” he whispered, “Don’t worry, I can handle a few mean comments.” He raised his head before continuing. “And for the record,” he said much louder this time, “You don’t have the best-looking face either.”

“Hmph, better than yours at least.”

“You wish!”

Before I could retort, the door slid open, and the professor walked in.

Whatever he said was completely overshadowed by my beating heart. I’d never had a discussion like that in class.

It was exhilarating.

I could feel all the stares around me, but I couldn’t even properly take them in. That small interaction had taken so much out of me.

There was no way I could handle any more than this today. This was way too much interaction for one day—

But knowing my luck, that obviously wouldn’t be the end of it.