Steady, steady… just stay right there…

With my hands clenched into fists, I squinted as I concentrated on the bucket shakily moving through the air, hovering into place. Steadily the bucket stopped in place. I just need a little tilt… er…

Fuck it!

I turned my hand up forcefully, palm up, the bucket successfully flipping and pouring the water on Zira’s sleeping face. He sat up, gasping and choking, waking up in shock. “Yes!” I shout; I’m pretty fucking proud of myself.

Suddenly he grunted in pain. Right, I was keeping the bucket up there, oops. Oh well, nothing blew up, Zira’s awake and I practiced levitating like Joyce told me. I am so saving those lollipops on Friday.

“What the fuck, Mika! What the hell is wrong with you?”

“Nah, question’s what’s up with you,” I said, shrugging and leaning back against his desk. “It’s already 7, what’s a nerd still doing in bed. Assembly’s in half an hour.”

Zira shot me a glare. “Whatever, I don’t need that long to get ready. Why are you even up?”

“Made the apartment a no-magic-zone so Lexicon were up super early to get ready. The two can’t do shit but are also loud about, woke me up with them.” Actually it was out of habit from waking up to get Kia’s lunch, snacks and the girl herself ready for the day. My parents are fine doing it but I just want to do it, I mean Kia is everything. But Zira doesn’t need to know all that, best friend or not.

“Anyway, the good thing is I managed to levitate a bucket of water without blowing up your dorm room,” I decided to point out. Zira just shook his head and pushed himself out of bed, him and his bed already dry.

Ugh, mages.

“I’ll go and get ready. Just don’t set anything on fire or anything,” he said with a yawn, combing his fingers through his bed head. “Seriously, it’s too early for your shit.” He’s one to talk. Zira walked off to the bathroom, me sending a middle finger to his back. I can’t believe I have to deal with him all day now with his perfect act. Kill me now.

I looked around the room, my eyes catching myself in his mirror – which had his shirt and tie hanging on one side and blazer on the other. Just looking at myself I knew I wouldn’t fit in, you can tell just by how I dress.

There wasn’t any dress code along with the uniform for the prep school and it wasn’t required to be neat and unmodified, but that was because it mostly went without saying. All the students look smart and proper, the modifications were barely noticeable.

Me, greenish black shirt was untucked, sticking out from the bottom of a dark red hoodie – instead of my signature grey zip-up hoodie, it just doesn’t work with all the desaturated colours. The purple-grey blazer had its sleeves rolled up above my elbows, my hoodie sleeves pushed up underneath. I hadn’t bothered with the tie or formal shoes, I was wearing tan boots. I didn’t look like a prep school kid at all.

Shaking my head, I look around again, Zira’s dorm room had more character than his actual room, and by that you could tell what a geek he was. At home his room was perfect because he kept up the prodigy act whenever any family of people from the priestess’s temple come along. But people who knew him knew he was just a geek with a bad personality, even if he is a genius.

Something on his shelf catches my eye and I went closer. Sweet, he has the new issue. It’s so like Zira to keep up to date on his books. I picked up the latest volume of one of the best manga ever and leant back against the desk as the door opened. “I’m borrowing it!” I waved the book around before opening it.

“I didn’t even bother starting it.” Zira didn’t have much to argue when it came to me borrowing his manga, he might get the Japanese editions but he was pretty bad at languages – funnily enough, they were one of my few strong points. But basically, even if he was half way through, he couldn’t have argued.

BY the time Zira had finished getting read, I had finished the first chapter, even his timing is scary perfect. I closed the book and put it in a blazer pocket – these pockets are massive even by normal standards – and looked up at the clock, it was 7:20. Smirking, I retorted, “Yeah, you def didn’t need me to wake you up.”

“Fuck off,” was his only response, just making me smirk more.

“Clever. Anyways, how’d these things even work?” I ask as I picked up my bag off the ground and followed Zira out of his room. “Haven’t been to an assembly since I was like in elementary school.” Zira wasn’t surprised. I couldn’t help notice his uniform was done very, well, uniformly. Nerd.

“You are going to struggle so much with things. We go main hall and sit with out year, the principle will come onto the stage and we listen to what he has to say. We’ll be done by 8 and then we go to breakfast while younger years go to their assembly. Fifth and Sixth don’t have any until next week so we’ll see a few of them in the food hall.”

That is so confusing. At least I can get another couple chapters in. Who cares about these things anyway, I’ll probably start skipping really quickly. Con just made a fuss about how it would be embarrassing for her if I skipped the very first thing in the school year.

As we walked I saw the campus was now teeming with annoying little lives. “Stars, this is like going to a school full of preppy geeks and rich snobs. Oh wait, that’s exactly what it is.”

“It’s not that bad.” Zira didn’t sound too convinced of himself. But I mean, he spends all his free time off campus with me. “Although, they don’t usually stare like that.”

“Nah, that’s just me. I mean everyone knows I can do the most useless magic. Plus I’m a health hazard. It won’t be long until people work out I’m Lexicon’s younger brother, now that will really get them talking.”

“I still don’t get that,” Zira said, changing the subject. He just can’t get it around his head that when I refer to my brother and sister together, I call them by what they actually are. Of course he doesn’t know about how they theoretically are one person as well as two thirds of the Lexiconikai. Lexicon’s corruption is classified.

“That aside, your guys’ names are pretty ironic. If you put your siblings’ names together, it makes Lexicon. And you happen to be called Malikai, the opposing half.” It was ironic but it was also a pretty sick joke since I was also a Malikai.

“Yeah, let’s just stick with Mika. That name is a misfortune waiting to happen.”

“Even I agree with that. Your life is kinda like the main characters of those stupid cartoons you watch.” Now that I don’t get.

“You read manga, why can’t you appreciate anime and stuff?” He just looked at me as if I was a weeb, I just happen to like Japanese entertainment, it was the same with other countries too.

Wait a second… did he just say that to me? Him? “Dude, you are completely the main character in this story. I mean, come on: famous family heir, magic prodigy with incredible powers but still sort of humble and naïve, a complete genius. I’m the weird best friend with useless talents, like languages.” Zira rolled his eyes at me, apparently not believing that I basically said he was special. Let’s add insecure too.

“Actually, for once your language skill won’t be useless, it’s part of our compulsory curriculum. We learn a language every two year; Spanish, Japanese and the Russian. You have a class you’ll actually be the best in.” So I wasn’t going to be a complete failure, cool.

I suppose it makes sense for mages, or anyone in that field to be confident in the four of the world’s five main languages; they probably don’t expect people to learn Mandarin in two years because that shit is hard. But then again, these lot are mages, they could probably get by with translator spells of sorts. Thinking about it, it’s actually pretty pointless.

That got me thinking though, maybe I wouldn’t be a fail at everything, just the core stuff and magic practice. “What other regular lessons are there?”

“The usual, I guess. Maths, English, chem, bio, physics, magic history and art. Plus languages obviously. I guess there are a few other electives but all of us chose the same things. Convenient, huh?” too convenient, damn stars. But I guess that doesn’t sound too bad overall. “I might actually scrape through things then.”

“You’ve got the last three in the bag.” Zira was right, I was pretty confident with the last three, especially since it was magical history, not any old history. “English is just bullshitting wherever you do it.” Easy for the genius to say. “The rest you’ll have to work on, but do you have anything better to do?” He was right there too.

From the timetable Harrison, one of the Elecon Councillors as well as one of our non-magic teachers, gave to me, Lessons were from 9am to 1pm and then 2pm to 6pm, lunch in the middle. Each lesson was about half an hour long and I guess we’d get a few breathers in between too but still, they were long days.

“I’ll be out of here in a week spending so much time in the same room. I mean, it’s like 8 hours!”

“Only four days a week. Friday’s are half days, either magic or non. Besides, we had late days before anyway.” True.

I suppose they weren’t going to be that different from my normal school days. I skipped roll call most days to drop Kia off and wouldn’t get to school by 9, would end up at detention and get off at half 5. By the time I would meet Zira it would be past 6, later if my parents are out of town and I need to pick Kia up from her after school club.

But I never did work that long, I would skip tons of lessons or even school in general, I’ve never done anything like this. Plus I can’t even skip because Lexicon are basically teachers – no idea how that works really, they’re both dipshits.

I digress. Point was, I am going to die of boredom or insanity.