After Rusty’s class got back to their classroom, nothing interesting or out of the ordinary happened for the next two days, and nothing happened until three days after the test at the graduation day for the upper class of the academy, Rusty’s class.

Rusty’s morning started like any other morning, except for the fact that it went nothing like any other he'd had as he was woken up early in the morning due to a female Youn breaking into his house with the spare key he kept under one of the rocks in his garden, and kicking him in his crotch while he slept.

“Get up you dumbass! We have school! And I’ll be damned if my best friend misses getting his graduation diploma because of oversleeping!” Youn shouted at him, but Rusty was in too much pain to hear her words. In his pain Rusty accidentally rolled and fell off his bed, feeling she wasn’t being heard, Youn began kicking him in the side and repeated her message.

In between kicks Rusty managed to say, “Please! Stop! Kicking me!” To which Youn promptly kicked him once more and then sat down by a chair near the window.

“Get the fuck out of my house Youn!” Rusty shouted in a mix of both anger and pain.

“Until you’re ready to go to the academy, I refuse to leave you alone! Now get ready!”

Rusty noticed that Youn, unlike Rusty who was only wearing dark brown pants and black socks, was fully dressed wearing a bright orange shirt along with a black skirt that went to her the middle of her knees and a black bag slung over her shoulder.

Slowly but surely Rusty got onto his feet, gave Youn a dirty look of disgust that didn't phase her in the slightest, and grabbed a light brown shirt and belt that were on his floor and rolled up his sleeves while knocking over the bottle he had set for that morning, “I am now dressed,” he stated, walking over to his closet.

“That’s your whole outfit?!” Youn gasped in shock at its simplicity, as if she hadn't realized his lack of style until now, “But wait, don’t you usually carry around a bottle of blood on your belt?”

“Well, usually I fill up a new bottle each morning, but because you woke me up, I’m no longer in the mood to fill one up,” Rusty replied, grabbing the handles of the closet.

“Wait, new bottle? I thought you'd been using the same bottle of blood the whole time!”

Rusty opened the closet to reveal several rows of bottles, each containing his hardened blood, “There’s about twenty bottles in here closet, when they're all full I...well...let's just say that the red paint on the roof and walls of my house...well... it's not paint.”

Youn, who was leaning on the wall, looked at her shoulder which was touching the 'paint', promptly screamed, slapped Rusty, and ran out the door.

“Well that solved that problem” said Rusty, now fully dressed with a singular filled bottle hanging from his belt, “I’d go back to sleep, but now that I’m fully awake thanks to Youn…” Rusty shuddered at the thought, still feeling some pain from below, “There’s zero chance of me being able to get back to sleep.”

Rusty headed out to his kitchen to find Youn sitting at his table with a sandwich on a plate with several of his precious vegetables on it in front of her, at first Rusty thought that the sandwich was for him and that this was her way of apologizing for her rude awakening, that is until she took a bite out of it.

“Please stop eating my valuable vegetables!” Rusty cried.

“If you would get a job already you wouldn’t care so much” Youn replied.

“Wait outside, I’ll be out in five minutes” Rusty exclaimed in annoyance, to which Youn walked out, still eating his food. After four minutes passed, Rusty walked out of his house with a half-eaten cheese sandwich in hand.

“Alright! Now let’s head to the academy!” Youn said, sending both her arms in the air in excitement, much to Rusty's dismay.

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The walk to the academy from Rusty’s house wasn't long, the walk itself being silent, the silence occasionally being broken with small talk from Youn. As shuffled along after Youn Rusty noted that they hadn't passed any of the stray animals that he normally saw on his walk to the academy. After reaching the front gate, Rusty was surprised to find that it was still locked, as the principal locks the gate every night before he leaves the empty building for the night.

“Wha-?! Why’s the gate locked? Does the academy want us to miss the graduation?” said Rusty

“No silly, you should know that the gate isn’t unlocked until eight which, as you should know, is half an hour before the classes start for the day” replied Youn

Rusty became ominously silent and put a hand on Youn’s shoulder, “Youn?” he asked, “What time is it?”

Youn looked up at the sky, and after a short pause said, “About seven I think.” Rusty began to stare at his hands in disbelief. 

“You alright there buddy?” Asked Youn

Rusty fell to his knees and then proceeded to make a screeching noise before falling face-first into the dust on the road in front of him and started to sleep in the middle of the street.

Youn, after realizing that Rusty had fallen asleep, promptly walked over to him and began lightly kicking him, repeating the words, “Get up!” With each kick.

“I refuse...” Rusty groaned from the ground, “Wake me when the gates open...”

Youn, tired of kicking Rusty, walked over to a bench beside the gate, pulled a book out of her bag and began to read it to pass the time.

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After the gates were open, Rusty was kicked awake by Youn and everybody else arrived. he students in Rusty and Youn’s grade were taken to the academy’s courtyard where a decently sized podium was set up with a stand at the front for speeches along with several rows of chairs in front of the podium which were semi filled with most of the other student's parents. After waiting off to the side for about ten minutes while more parents arrived and the staff finished getting everything in order, the graduation ceremony began. The ceremony was basically what you would expect from a graduation ceremony, the principal standing on a podium, starting with a heartwarming speech, then one by one students were called to the podium and given a graduation certificate and a firm handshake, and then promptly left the stage for the next student to be called.

When Rusty was called up, he walked up to the principle, took his handshake and certificate simultaneously searched the audience. Rusty wasn’t looking for his parents, unless he believed in ghosts that is, which he didn’t, he was instead looking for Youn’s parents whom he found sitting near the back, they both looked like an older version of Youn herself, while Youn was eaches respective gender of course. Youn’s parents ran a flower shop across the street from Rusty’s house that used to belong to his parents, which is why Youn doesn’t have to worry about getting a job after graduation because she already works at her parent's shop. Youn’s parents were also the reason that Rusty and Youn were friends at all, if they hadn't known Rusty's mother then he would have been sent to an orphanage after she died when he was four, so they looked after him and were given his parents house as a sort of inheritance, which Rusty now lived in on his own. They told Rusty they didn’t feel right using it for anything so they gave it to him to live in around when he became fourteen.

After Rusty got off of the podium he headed to the back of the rows of chairs to wait for Youn by her parents. After Youn headed off the stage, she walked towards Rusty and attempted to hug him in excitement, but Rusty made her settle for a neck level, or for Youn, a head level high five.

“We graduated!” Youn said, full of excitement.

“Woo hoo.” Rusty exclaimed, not full of excitement. Just then You’s parents walked up to the two of them.

“We’re so proud of you both!” said Youn’s mother, giving Youn a hug.

Youn’s dad put his hand on Rusty’s shoulder, “Your parents would’ve been proud.”

“Thanks,” Rusty replied with a slight smile, although never really got to know his mother and was told he never even met his father, he appreciated the sentiment behind the words.

The rest of the day went how they usually do on holidays where Youn insists that Rusty hang out with her for the rest of the day and eventually Rusty eats dinner with her family and heads home.

Before Rusty went home though, Youn wanted to know where he got all of his bottles, to which he told her that they were chipped bottles from a nearby store that he bought at a discount with the remainder of the money that her parents gave him to live each month.

After getting home and lying in bed, Rusty felt as though his ceiling was too high and so he touched his hand to the wall, the roof suddenly lowering to a level that he approved of. As this happened he remembered how his house used to look when he was a kid, barely standing, hardly worthy to be even considered a storage warehouse, but thanks to some hard and painful work Rusty managed to fix the house up into tip-to shape, how it was now he was fairly confident that the building could survive even a dragon if they still existed that is, but sadly with dragons being extinct for over a decade Rusty would never get to test his theory.

After this thought passed through his mind he remembered that he still needed to get a job in the next month or else he would be drafted into the military, but proceeded to push the thought aside and sleep, thinking to himself, "A tomorrow's problem for a tomorrow's me."