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Other kids spill past her in crowds as she walks up to the gates of the new school she's going to, but all she can feel is the tense knot between her eyebrows. I think I understand what "alone in a crowd" means, now. Mom's warm hand on her shoulder helps untangle the knots she feels wound up into, just a bit.
"Nervous, Ichika?"
"A little," she mumbles.
Mom crouches down, pulling her close.
"Take a deep breath. It won't be as bad as you think."
She does, breathing out slowly. It helps. Mom stands and nudges her forward.
"Bye, Ichika. Have a nice day," Mom says, smiling, but her voice is thick and scratchy, like she's trying not to cry.
Ichika takes another deep breath in, and out. The warmth of Mom's hand fades from her shoulder, and the building's shadow makes her shiver even though it's warm and sunny out today. She looks up at the school building, back down, and takes a deep breath of fresh, outside air before she steps inside. The inside air hits her as she walks in, too warm and weird-smelling, kind of like old cardboard on top of everything else.
Everything else, like human, ghoul, sweat, fabric, soap, shoe rubber, the awful fake-grape smell from the girl next to her. The girl shakes out her hair, and Ichika feels her nose scrunch as she gets another whiff of it.
Dad always says "don't judge people", but I'm gonna judge her just a bit. That's an awful shampoo choice. Who wants to smell like grape cold medicine?
The other crowd in the entrance hall gets her attention this time. Mixing with the people coming in from the front doors, but like water and oil together, little blobs of people among each other's crowd, without really mixing. Mom said this school is an... experiment, that's the word. Ghouls from the 24th Ward come here, not just ghouls from above ground who blend in with humans.
She's busy watching them spill out of the doors to the stairway that goes underground, because 24th Ward clothes are always interesting to look at. The loose pants and open-sided shirts look very comfy. So, she's not looking where she's walking.
In front of her, a sudden strong scent, right in her face - salty, tangy sweat and the wet-pavement scent that everyone from the 24th Ward smells like. It makes her imagine old concrete buildings covered in moss and vines, for a moment.
But only for a moment. She bounces off someone a lot bigger than her, knocking the breath out of her throat and the picture out of her head.
A strong, very warm grip on her shoulder is keeping her on her feet. Ichika looks up at a girl and thinks of - Brown skin like Mutsuki-chan, and white hair, like mine. Wide and solid and soft, like Saiko-chan. Ichika knows she's not very big, but wow. Is this girl an older student?
"Hey! Uh, are you okay?"
"Yep! Thanks to your big, strong hands," and Ichika can't resist adding, "you're big and strong and I'm a fragile princess~"
The other girl - and Ichika doesn't know her name - laughs loudly, and Ichika can't help but start giggling.
"You're not fragile, I felt your shoulder. But you are funny," she says, grinning.
The other girl pats her on the shoulder as they split up, and Ichika fishes in her pocket for the paper with her locker number on it. 208. She looks around the gigantic entrance hall full of lockers as she slowly walks - 2... 20... 208. She smiles as she swaps her outdoor shoes for indoor shoes.
We didn't even learn each others' names, but maybe... maybe I already made a friend.
The classroom is stuffy, more than the hallway. She can smell how it hasn't been used over the spring break, and she doesn't even have a really good nose, for a ghoul. The tall, chubby girl from the entrance - She's in my class? I thought she was at least a year older - must have a better nose, because she makes an ick noise and goes right for the windows, throwing them open.
Cool, fresh air blows in. Ichika can hear mumbles of relief from behind her. Someone stops the tall, chubby girl as she turns back toward her desk, someone else with light hair, more yellow than the other girl's silvery white. I really need to learn their names.
Ichika can overhear them from her seat.
"Thanks for that!" says the blonde.
"No problem. It smelled like a tunnel nobody's used for months, ew."
Ichika looks back at the blonde girl - and I want to know her name too, but I don't want to just get up and ask - who has a look on her face like Dad with a really interesting new book. Her maybe-friend is spared being read like, well, a book, by the classroom door clattering open.
A tall, wide-shouldered man hurries into the room, tie dangling loosely. He has a flat-pack of waterbottles in his arms, stack of papers balanced on top.
"Hello class! You can call me Nakamura-sensei!"
Nakamura-sensei plunks the waterbottles down on a spare desk at the front of the class, and sweeps his papers up in one large hand.
"Alright class, let's do introductions," he says, with a smile on his face - Ichika doesn't know how to explain it, but it's a Dad Smile - and he keeps going, "and while you're up here introducing yourself, grab a water bottle if you didn't bring one."
Sensei seems to be calling her ghoul classmates first. The girl she bounced off in the hall - and I'm finally gonna learn her name! - pads to the front of the room. Ichika's reminded of Yomo, someone else unfairly quiet and catlike for someone so big.
"Hey everyone! I'm Miki, and I think salamanders are cute."
There's one face among the ghouls Ichika does recognize, up next.
"Take Yuuto, and I'm a big fan of Shiba Inu."
There's a few cheers and some talk about how cute Shiba Inu are. Sensei calls more people from the 24th Ward, and then he starts calling on humans. A twisting, tangling feeling knots up in her chest. Why wasn't I called as one of the ghouls? Yuuto is half-ghoul like me, and Sensei called him up. She takes a deep breath to push it down. The blonde girl whose name she wants to know is up.
"Hello! I'm Shironami Sana, and I like bugs."
Sticking to favorite animals, huh? She's not going to. She has a plan for her introduction. There's something she needs to say, before she has an endless lineup of people bugging her about it.
Most of the names she's heard don't quite stick in her head yet. Maybe she's too tangled right now. She takes another deep breath.
In.
Hold.
Out.
Nakamura-sensei looks right at her. His Dad Smile slips for a moment, and he looks almost sad. Maybe even worried. She stands and starts walking up to the front.
"Sorry for leaving you to last, Ichika-san," he says as she walks.
First name? Is he avoiding saying "Kaneki"... Oh. The knot in her chest is replaced by bubbling grumpiness. Just because she has a pretty good guess why he did that, doesn't mean she's happy about it. She grabs a waterbottle, and turns to face the front of the class.
Licks her dry lips.
Takes a deep breath in. Hold. Out.
"I'm Kaneki Ichika," whispers start among her classmates, "and no, I can't make Dad sign something for you."