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“But Sojirooo! What if they ask me why I haven't been in schooool?!”
“If they do, tell them you've been in Africa for the last twelve years. Tell them I've been gettin’ my ass kicked by elephants, and I took a job back home for my health and safety.”
Equipped with this extremely poor advice, Futaba Sakura turns away from her father, towards the gates of the grey brutalist school behind her. Human wildlife swarm all over it, a herd of skinny zebra cantering up the grey, brutalist stairs to the glass double doors, bags sitting on their backs like saddles. There's surprisingly little neighing going on, but that's because this is Japan. However, that doesn't prevent the prospect of going to high school from being absolutely terrifying. Futaba swings back towards her debonair single parent, who is leaning against his yellow Porsche, and who couldn't be dressed more differently to the herd. He went to high school and university, and survived, so so will his daughter.
“You'll be fine, sweetheart.” The man leans down for a hug and a kiss. “I'll see you in a few hours, okay?”
“Okay.”
There'll be no more stressful day at school than the first, surely, so Futaba takes it step by step, and once she's past the doors, she pauses, taking her time to look around. She has to meet her homeroom teacher in the faculty office, and luckily there's signs everywhere pointing the away.
“Oh, you must be the new girl. Nice to meet you.” Ms Kawakami, her homeroom teacher, doesn't look especially happy to meet her, the corners of her lips turned down. But then again, she does teach for a living. She shows her new pupil to her class, having her stand in front of it as she introduces her. To allay stress, Futaba counts down from a hundred. “Class, this is Sakura-kun. She'll be joining us from now on as we travel on this learning journey together. Sakura-kun, why don't you tell the class something about yourself?”
“O-okay” Futaba steps forward, and clears her throat. “Ah, hi guys. I'm Futaba.”
“Hi Futaba.” intones the class.
“A-and I used to live in A-africa, where my dad fought elephants for a living, so, b-be kind to me, okay?”
“Okay, Futaba.”
Job done, Kawakami shows the noob to the only free seat, right behind some sort of divinity with bedhead hair and a cat stuffed under his desk. His handsomeness and refusal to pay attention in class causes Futaba to drop her stuff on the ground before she manages to take her seat. He doesn't look away from the window, although his cat meows loudly.
“Psst! Hey.”
Futaba pauses in her incessant pencil case arranging, looking right, directly into the eager, mischievous faces of a blonde girl and blond boy. “Hey, Africa.” says the boy. “Name's Ryuji.” he points to the buxom girl sitting at the desk in front of him. “And that's Ann. She's almost too dumb to function.”
Ann waves and mouths ‘Hi’, her blue eyes vacant.
Futaba grimaces. “Ah, hi. You already know my name.”
“True.” the boy continues to lean over and grin. “Anyway, we saw you eyeing Four Eyes over there, and thought we should warn you. Don't get any funny ideas. Don't let his extreme good looks and ice cold aura deceive you. He transferred here from the sticks only to stab an aristocrat in the eye on his first day at school. He's Japan's most wanted criminal and sometimes you can see him making bombs at his desk. He carries a comfort cat around in his bag but all the teachers are too afraid to say anything about it, even Kawakami, who he's in league with. I heard he's friends with the Yakuza and the Candyman. In his free time he takes down supervillains and AI artists. Also, he only likes older women, crazy bitches, and imaginary girls.”
“What's his name?”
“Ren Amamiya. Cool, huh? Sometimes we call him Joker, cause he's funny."
The boy so named glances over his shoulder at Futaba and her new friends, his expression profoundly confused.
💄👄💋
Having being claimed as a friend by the only yellow hairs in school, Futaba is escorted to lunch by them, where she receives a quick 101 crash course on who the other students are. Most of the tables are of no interest to her, until, that is, Ryuji points out the centre one.
“The worst people you'll ever meet. The Plastics.”
But sitting at the centre table is only a single person, a boy, a handsome boy with hair to rival Ren Amamiya’s. Futaba comes to a standstill as his beauty compels her attention, her new friends going over to take their own designated seats at the table for Outsiders. The boy at the table, his lunch tray bearing a single red apple, looks up, his brown fringe in danger of stabbing him in a russet eye. As Futaba watches, he lifts a hand, a hand clad in a blue sock puppet, and adjusts the position of the apple. Strangely drawn by this odd behaviour, Futaba steps closer, attracting the boy's attention.
“Hmpf. What are you?” he asks, in a morose voice.
Futaba opens her mouth. “I-”
“Hold on.” the boy hails a passing student. “Mishima, where'd you get that shirt?”
A boy Futaba recognises from her class comes to a sudden stop beside the centre table, his cheeks blooming blood red. “Ah, it was my older brother's, A-akechi-sama.”
“It's fetch.”
“Aaah, t-thank you, Akechi-sama!” The one called Mishima bows and then charges off, only to trip and smash himself unconscious on the side of a table. Akechi turns back to the girl.
“Take a seat.” he says, gesturing at a chair opposite him.
Sensing trouble, Futaba glances at her friends. They shoo and urge her to take his offer.
“I said, take a seat!!!” Akechi yells, his eyes bugging out. His other hand rises from beneath the table. It too is clad in a sock puppet, a black one. Both are decorated with googly eyes, and are named Crow 1 and Crow 2 respectively. Futaba takes a seat. He resumes his questioning, while turning his apple back to its original position. “So, what are you?"
“I’m from Africa-”
Akechi's eyes bulge out of his head again. “Wait. If you're from Africa, why are you Japanese?”
The blue sock puppet opens its toothless mouth and begins yapping in a high pitched effeminate voice. “Oh my gosh, Goro! You can't just ask people why they're Japanese!”
The rest of lunch proceeds in similar fashion, with Akechi interrogating Futaba, while one or other of his sock puppets butt in. He leaves lunch early, because he has special permission to do whatever he wants, allowing the newbie to seek clarification from her friends.
“Um. What just happened?” she asks, taking a much less tense seat with them.
“So, you've met Goro Akechi. I should have warned you about him probably.” Mumbles Ryuji, between gulps of pot noodle.
Ann sighs. “He's hot. And seventeen.”
“WHAT?! Traitor! He is not hot!”
“Who is Goro Akechi though?”
The blond boy chuckles. "How do I explain Goro Akechi?”
“Goro Akechi is flawless.” sighs Ann.
“I hear his hair's insured for a billion yen.” says Ms Kawakami, passing by.
“I heard he does car commercials…in Japan.” says Coach Kamoshida, looming behind Ann's chair.
“One time he punched me in the face...it was awesome.” says Mishima, from the nurse's office.
“His dad's totally like the prime minister or something.” adds Ren’s cat.
“He made my sensei cry at his own exhibition.” says a boy who doesn't even go to Shujin.
"He makes insanity aesthetic." says Nurse Maruki.
“He needs to be destroyed.” Ryuji finishes.
💄👄💋
But Futaba has to wait till school is over for the day before she's able to learn more about the boy with the puppets. First she attends volleyball class, which is all about sex, for some reason. Coach Kamoshida stands before a blackboard, and berates the class whilst smacking the palm of a hand with a ruler.
“I know you're all screwed up, hormonally, but don't have sex, because you will get pregnant and die! Don't even look at each other, because you will contract Chlamydia, and die! Don't exchange phone numbers, or you will die! Don't-” he goes on like that for an hour. Futaba struggles to stay awake whenever Ren Amamiya is not in view, remaining aware of reality only because Coach Kamoshida calls out people from the class randomly to demonstrate what death looks like by hitting them in the face with his volleyball. After Mishima is knocked out again, she receives a text from Ryuji, who's sitting a row above her and able to watch her stare at their handsome criminal classmate.
‘Oh, and Akechi thinks Joker's his ex-boyfriend, so watch out. He'll straight up kill you if you try and date him.’
‘I’m not going to try date him.’
‘Alright. Okay. *Wink wink*. OK. Sure. Hahahaha! X to doubt. EVERYONE tries to date Joker.’
After school, Futaba begins walking towards the train station, her dad being far too busy serving coffee to cranks and eccentrics to come pick her up. However, the sound of an overpowered engine pulls up beside her anyway. It belongs to a different type of sports car - a silver Lexus convertible with a license plate reading 'GORO'. It looks sort of like an anti-depressant pill.
Akechi sits behind the wheel, his sad eyes on her. "Get in loser, I'm going to show you my soft toy collection."
💄👄💋
Akechi's house is extremely grand. A mansion in the richest part of Tokyo. Marble and gold coats the multifloor building inside and out, while it's gardens are in the constant care of some of the best horticulturalists and landscape artists in the world. It's gorgeous, and while Futaba is a little confused as to why the solid gold statues of the prime minister which stand in pride of place in every room should turn her into a rat, she soon gets over this. Akechi's luxurious room has no statue in it, so there she can truly be herself.
“And this is Tigger-” Her other new friend is busy showing her his plush toy collection when the Rococo doors of his room open and the highly intimidating Prime Minister himself enters, carrying a silver tray of cocktails. He's very good looking, much like his son, but bald, much like his son will be in a couple years.
“It’s so nice that you've found a friend at last, Goro-chan.” says the man, while mussing his son's thinning mop of hair.
Akechi makes the man an impertinent greeting. “Shido, I’m hungry.”
“Hi hungry, I'm dad.”
"Oh my goooosh. Don't embarrass me in front of my friends, dad!"
The prime minister grins, then shoots an amber glance at his guest. “I'm not a normal dad, I'm a cool dad.” he says, winking.
Son physically shoves father towards the door. “Get out of here, you drunk. I'm showing Futaba my special edition Winnie the Poohs.”
“Alright, I'll see you fabulous kids later. Let me know if you need anything.” The prime minister leaves, only to step in front of one of his own statues and be turned into a rat, a rat with sweet orange tinted glasses.
Akechi sighs deeply. “Anyway, what was I saying? Oh yeah, this is Piglet-”