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Kyoto was different than Tokyo was. Toru wasn’t a fan of it, he missed his home back in Tokyo and his friends there.
But that was all in the past. HIs family had moved cities due to his mother being transferred to the Kyoto office at her job. As a result, her son and husband followed her once the school year had ended.
Toru had hopes that he would be able to find new friends easily enough. It wasn’t the end of the world or anything, just annoying.
So here Toru stood in a new city, trying to figure out which trains he needed to take to get to his new middle school. It just felt a bit like a waste to learn the way to his middle school only to have to find his way to a high school in a year. Toru thought it made sense for him to just finish middle school in Tokyo, but that’s not the way the cards fell.
Making his way through the morning crowd, he made his way into the school, deviating to the faculty office to pick up his ID that he hadn’t been able to get when his parents were completing his transfer paperwork a few weeks ago.
Toru could feel eyes watching him, sizing him up. They probably at first thought he was a first year since he was a new face, but he could see people shrinking back in surprise as they realized he was a third year.
With his ID in hand, he made his way to view the class assignments and made his way to his classroom.
He took back all of what he said before. He thought it would be fine, transferring for his last year of school. Annoying, yes, but ultimately manageable.
How wrong he was.
It was already finals for the first term and Toru still felt like an outcast in his class. No one spoke to him out of the bare minimum. He was always the last one left when the class was told to pick a partner for a project. Half the time he worked alone, but others the teacher told a group to allow him to join. Toru could feel resentment when that happened.
So, he stopped trying. Why bother when you’re just going to be rejected over and over? HIs teachers even started to ignore him, following the lead that the students had started. He wasn’t being told to join already formed groups when he was left on the sideline, but allowed to do his work by himself.
Contact with his friends back in Tokyo had slowed down until it was near nonexistent. It stung in the beginning, but Toru was numbed to it now and barely noticed anymore.
It was fine, Toru would tell himself. Time passes and people change. Nothing can stay the same forever.
Next year, just make it to next year, he would tell himself. Next year it will be different. It will be a fresh start and he won’t be alone. All he had to do was make it through the year and pass his entrance exams and it would be fine.
The year passed in a blur to Toru. It was horrifically slow, yet the time flew by. Before he knew it, it was once again April and he was standing on the train platform checking on his phone to make sure he was going the right way to his high school.
The day continued in its predictable nature that all school days did. Toru checked what class he was assigned in the courtyard of the school with all the other students before making his way to the classroom.
Class began shortly after he arrived and Toru zoned out for most of the morning, waiting until lunch. That was his moment for changes to begin. He would eat with some people and then gain friends, it would work the same way as it did in elementary school.
Except as lunch started, Toru found himself sitting alone at his desk. No one stopped to talk to him. Everyone already seemed to have their friends figured out.
So Toru sat alone.
And he continued sitting alone for the rest of the school year.
The first day of his second year began the same way as last year. He woke up early, put his uniform on, had a quick breakfast, and made his way to school.
There was no wandering around stations lost like last year. He got up earlier than he normally would for school, figuring the trains would be a mess with so many students getting lost on their way, so he arrived at the school before the masses had even left their homes.
Toru didn’t mind. It wasn’t like he was too early when waiting on friends.
He made his way to see what classroom he would be in, noticing that it was shockingly easier to look when there were less students around. Toru preferred to get to places close to the set time, so he hadn’t experienced this before.
Noticing he was assigned class 2-A with Arakaki-sensei, Toru figured there was no point waiting and continued on to the classroom. He could probably take a nap or something when he got there.
He was actually the first student in the room, so checking the seating chart left up at the front of the room, he moved to his seat for the year.
It was the last seat right by the window, exactly where he prefers to sit. There he wouldn’t be completely surrounded by people all day reminding himself of just how lonely he was.
He set his things down on his desk and proceeded to get as comfortable as a person could be with their head on their desk to take a nap. He had about thirty minutes before class started, plenty of time for a nap.
The door was thrown open in the back and Toru startled out of his sleep. He could hear the murmur around the classroom, so he figured it had been awhile and most students had probably already arrived.
Blinking his eyes open, he glanced around the room. He recognized some people from his class last year, others he knew were in other classes. But they all apparently knew each other as cliques had already formed and were chatting away.
The door in the back of the room slammed closed. Apparently that door was much louder than the front one, so that must have been what had woken him up.
The front door opened and Nakayama-san moved to walk through it before startling back a bit. She must have nearly run into another student and the two were trying to figure out who should go first.
Apparently it was Nakayama-san and she stepped into the hall. She was probably speaking with the other person as the door was still open and no one had walked in yet.
Toru turned to face out the window. It was a much better distraction than watching his classmates.
He heard the motion of someone walking to a desk right in front of him and setting down their bag. He assumed whoever it was would probably just drop their stuff and leave to talk to friends, but he was wrong as a chair was pulled out and they sat down.
“Hi, I’m Chiyo Ueyda. I guess we’ll be seeing each other a bit this year, so it’s nice to meet you,” said a voice he didn’t recognize.
He turned to face the girl, and she was someone she had never seen before. She seemed pretty average looking, dark hair and eyes like most people in Japan, though her hair was cut shorter than a lot of their classmates, making it just a bit shorter than shoulder length. Of an average height and build that someone would expect of a sixteen year old high school girl.
She didn’t seem like much, yet there was something about her that drew Toru’s attention.He couldn’t exactly pinpoint what, but something in her eyes stood out as different from their classmates.
“Toru Fujimura,” he replied curtly, not used to having to introduce himself to his classmates.
She looked at him for a few seconds longer, seemingly expecting something more. Seeing she wasn’t going to get it, she smiled at him before turning around.
Chiyo Uyeda, huh? Well, that was certainly a new name. A transfer student? Well, he certainly didn’t pity her.