When Nakatomi entered the classroom people stopped talking and turned to stare. Every. Single. Time.

I did too; I couldn’t help myself. The rest of us looked like garden variety high school students. Vaguely scruffy. Hair slightly unkempt despite best efforts. My uniform was never quite right. It didn’t fit me that well to begin with and it always seemed to have wrinkles despite my daily struggles with the iron.

Nakatomi was meticulously dressed. I mean, it was just a standard school uniform, but on him it looked different somehow: black pants with a sharp crease, crisp white shirt, dark plaid tie and a school blazer that seemed made for him. Maybe it was. No one had the right to look that good in school clothes.

He looked like someone who’d taken a modeling job pretending to be a high school student. Unblemished complexion, glossy hair, pink lips, perfectly manicured nails. Nakatomi’s brown eyes had a bit of an amber tint. His lower lip was slightly fuller than his upper lip. A small scar under his right eye only accentuated the fact that his skin was flawless otherwise.

Me? I looked good enough. Not model quality or anything. I just didn’t hold a candle to Nakatomi. Apparently I took after my mom: pale skin prone to freckles, sandy brown hair and gray eyes. I should have gotten a haircut before moving—my hair was already in my eyes.

Nakatomi knew how good he looked, too. I could tell by the smug expression on his face whenever he caught anyone looking at him. I tried to keep my eyes off him. No need to feed his ego. But I was acutely aware of his presence at my side. If I had a type at all, Nakatomi would have fit the bill. But really, gay and willing was my type. Which meant Nakatomi Junichi was one hundred percent not qualified.

Ohara was with us in class 3B for most of the day, teaching more than one of the required subjects. She encouraged healthy competition as a way to improve the overall academics of the student body. Or so she explained. As part of this she posted the names of students with the best test scores on the wall—only the top five.

It was blatant manipulation, but it didn’t matter. I wanted my name up there. Which I figured wouldn’t be a problem. People weren’t any smarter here than they were back home. With one exception.

It took no time at all to figure out that Nakatomi and I would be rivals for the top two. In fact, if I wanted that number one slot I might have to put in some effort. Nakatomi really brought out my unrelentingly competitive side—maybe because I couldn’t stand him.

It was bad enough that we had to share an uncomfortably small desk, but he liked to get to class before me and take far more than his half of our shared space. Here’s how much of an ass he was: he was ambidextrous but chose to write with his left so his elbow would crowd me. Whenever the teacher was paying attention, he’d switch hands.

He messed with my chair so when I sat down it rocked. Constantly. I was forced to shove a folded piece of paper underneath until I could fix the problem properly during one of our breaks, unscrewing one of the feet until it was level again.

I put up with this for a while before I took things up with the management. I left my desk to approach Ohara—no need to shout across the room. I was attempting to behave somewhat appropriately at school, mostly for my dad’s sake. This seemed like the kind of place that would make him come in to speak to the administration if I got in trouble. And I’d hate for him to miss work for that.

“Ohara Sensei, I need a different seat.”

“Williams-san, please return to your desk.”

I hated the way she pronounced my last name. The way all Japanese speakers pronounced it. Something like Oowirriamusu. Oliver was no better: Oree-baru.

“I need to switch places. Nakatomi takes up too much space.” I saw her stiffen at my blatant disrespect for my classmate. I hadn’t done it purposely, it had just slipped out. She narrowed her eyes at me, but let it slide, no doubt because of my recent arrival.

“You and Nakatomi-san are the newest to the class.” She stressed the honorific in a way that made it obvious she was correcting me. “You share a desk. Sit down please.”

It was not a request.

He was on his best behavior for a short time, with Ohara keeping her eye on us. But when I got up to take a drink of water between classes, I returned to find that he had removed all my things from the desk and spread out all his own notes.

When I finally fetched my assignments from my bag, all the papers were wrinkled. It was a new low. When I narrowed my eyes at him, Nakatomi smirked and stretched his legs out so I had to stick mine into the aisle if I wanted any room at all.

“Move your damn legs.” I thought I was quiet enough, but apparently Ohara had preternaturally good hearing.

“Williams-san, please stay after school. And you also, Nakatomi-san.”

No one in the class looked in our direction for the remainder of the day.

I hoped Ohara would forget about us by the time school ended, but before I had a chance to escape, Ohara called both me and Nakatomi up to her desk.

“Williams-san, I have called you here because as you know, you are deficient in a subject.”

I hardly thought she needed to keep me after school to tell me that I was deficient in a subject. I could barely say hello and goodbye in Japanese, and writing was completely out of the question.

“Williams-san of course must practice Japanese. Nakatomi-san will serve as a special assistant for additional after school tutoring. Please bring an afternoon snack to fuel your studies.” Yeah. That was not going to happen.

I stared at Ohara. Nakatomi had no reaction whatsoever. Like it was no big deal.

Well, it was a big deal to me. “Every day? More school? I mean… Ohara Sensei, I’m sure I’ll catch on to the language on my own. Give it some time. I don’t need tutoring. What about math club? I can’t do both...”

Ohara looked at me with a patient expression on her face. “Clubs meet three days each week. Tutoring for two days. Your father has already agreed to this. As has Nakatomi-san’s.”

So it was a done deal. Thanks to my poor language skills and my traitorous father, I had to spend even more time with this smug bastard.