Cady laughed as Emi puffed her cheeks in annoyance. It seemed as though this girl she’d just met was getting some sort of kick out of seeing her all flustered.

“Honestly…” Recalling her hankering for a morning beverage, Emi turned to face the vending machine. “Say, I was going to grab a coffee, you want anything?”

“Hm? Oh! Sure thing, since yer offerin’!” She then put a hand to her chin. “Hmm… Ah.” 

The young pup’s smile quickly faded when all of a sudden—

“OH, MY GODS!!”

“Wah!!”

—she gasped loudly, slapping her hands hard against her cheeks. The red-haired girl flinched, nearly dropping her books for a second time.

“Whoa! Take it down a notch, why don’t you?” Emi scolded as she watched the dog girl wag her tail in excitement, her cheeks visibly burning between her hands. “Didn't that hurt?”

“It did.” As Cady said this, Emi simply shook her head at the matter-of-factness in her voice. 

“Yeesh. Well, you startled me.” 

“Sorry about that, Emi,” she apologized, bouncing up and down as she did so. “I got so excited cuz I just remembered why I ran over here!!”

“Hm?”

 Cady pointed up at the feline resting atop the vending machine beside them. Even with her spectacles, Emi had to readjust them as she gazed up at the tiny beast with light blonde fur. 

“Oh… a cat?” 

“Ain’t he just the cutest li’l thing??”

“I didn’t even see him there. He must’ve come over here to get out of the sun,” Emi observed. “Looks like his body is pretty beaten up, too. Poor little guy.” 

She took out a couple of Gram dollars and inserted them into the bill acceptor, which promptly accepted the cash. Cady, meanwhile, was panting heavily and wagging her tail wildly as she gazed at the sleeping cat.

“Oh. Cady, what did you want?” Emi asked. “Perhaps the rumbling inside this thing will get Mr. Kitty here up and running.”

“I’ll take an espresso with cream, please! Oh…” With a sudden halt of her tail, Cady's eyes lit up with realization. “Mr. Kitty… I like it!” Her gaze returned to the cat. “That’s what we’ll call ya!”

Emi couldn't help but smile at the girl's upbeat attitude. Perhaps, against her initial expectations, the idea of going to secondary school wasn't as dreadful as she had anticipated.

“Halt! You are not getting away with this!!”

Just as Emi grabbed two canned coffees dispensed from the vending machine (which failed to wake the cat), the sound of an older man’s voice reverberated throughout the halls.

“Huh?”

After handing Cady her drink, Emi turned to her left, casting her dark brown eyes to the source of the commotion. A young boy around her age was running about the crowded schoolyard. Giving chase was a grown man wearing a white shirt with a red necktie and gray pants, presumably an instructor if Emi had to guess. 

“Come back here, you brat!!” The man was gaining on the boy fast. The boy peered back at the angry adult and flipped him the bird. 

“Up yours, old man!! You’re just gonna pop me if I do!”

“You’re darn right I’m gonna pop you!” the man yelled back. “Enough is enough, Gayle! It’s high time you stop it with these shenanigans of yours!! ” 

“Lay off, will ya?!” the boy bit back. “Those asshats got what was coming to them!!”

Emi took a sip from her can as she watched the incident unfold. The boy tried to shake the older man by running around in a circle. And when that didn’t work, he zig-zagged around a few students, which finally allowed him to gain some distance from his pursuer. 

Cady's eyes widened in innocent curiosity as she watched the commotion unfolding before her. “Hmm, what's going on over there?” she wondered aloud, turning to Emi. “What do you reckon?”

Emi shrugged. “Beats me.”

Marlia City was a well-known “melting pot” of sorts, so Emi figured it was only natural that the school was bound to have a troublemaking idiot or two. Even so, she found herself to be quite impressed with the boy’s speed and body control. Her brief admiration quickly faded as soon as the boy glanced over to the canopy where she and Cady were standing. 

No, no, no. Don’t come over here! Anywhere but here!

WOOOOOSSSHHH!!!

Without warning, a powerful force rushed past her. Looking ahead, she noticed a large dust cloud had formed in the distance, causing the instructor and nearby students to cough uncontrollably.

The girls gawked at the phenomena unfolding before their very eyes. The older man stumbled out of the dust cloud, breaking away from the crowd of exclaiming teenagers. After his coughing had ceased, the man looked up to see that he was standing under the canopy, facing the girls. He produced a handkerchief from his breast pocket and wiped the sweat from his balding head.   

He looks exhausted…

“E-Excuse me. Y-You ladies wouldn’t happen to know where I could find a sapphire-haired boy with a yellow strand, would you?” He asked with a sheepish grin, waiting expectantly for their answer. 

The girls shook their heads. 

“No, sir.”

“Uh-uh!”

The man tightened his lips, a clear look of disappointment on his face. Emi couldn’t help but feel sorry for him. But what else could they possibly say? The boy had been there only a moment before, but he was now gone. A troublemaker he may be, but Emi had to admit that the kid was a formidable speed mage.

“I-I see,” he said with a slight nod. “Sorry for bothering you. Carry on.” He pulled a mana crystal-powered (MCP) smartphone from his breast pocket before turning on his heel and heading down the cobblestone walkway that led into the main building.

Emi’s eyes watched the older gentleman until he disappeared from view. Her thoughts soon returned to the boy they’d briefly seen. She couldn’t help pondering what he could’ve done to land himself in such hot water on the very first day of school. Finally, after a brief moment of reflection, Emi dismissed the thought and simply shrugged it off.

Ah, well. Hopefully, I won’t have to share a classroom with that clown.

She raised her can to her lips to take another sip from her can of coffee… Or rather, she would have, had it still been in her hand.   

“Huh? What the…??” 

Bewildered, she searched around her person. With her books hoisted in her left arm, there was nowhere else it could be. She was empty-handed, simple as that. Her coffee had seemingly vanished without a trace, leaving her feeling perplexed and disoriented.

Where’d my coffee go?!

Her thoughts were answered no more than a second later. Another strong gust of wind washed over her. Suddenly appearing before her, was the young boy that the instructor had been chasing after not too long ago. He was a few inches taller than Emi and had short blueish hair, sporting a yellow strand shaped like a familiar-looking lightning bolt, and round, golden-brown eyes. 

Where did he even come from and how’d he get here so fast?

The boy stood face to face with Emi, so close that she could pick up the faint smell of black coffee on his breath. Feeling that he was a little too close, Emi backed away from him, shooting an annoyed scowl.   

“H-Hey! Ever heard of personal space?” 

The boy stared at her with a look of disgust on his face. He held up an open canned coffee for her to see.

Emi let out a gasp, and her eyes widened. My coffee! When did he…?

“Oi! What the hell is this?!” the boy demanded angrily. 

“Huh?” 

“You heard me, four-eyes!” He turned to scrunch his face before he spoke again. “Blegh! What the hell is this, and why does my tongue feel like it’s about to twist out of my mouth?!”  

“It’s just canned coffee, dude,” she assured. “You’ve never heard of…?” Her face grew hot. “W-Wait, you…drank from my can?!”

“Ugh! Coffee?!” He repeated. Sharing an indirect kiss with a girl he just met seemed to be the least of his worries. “What secondary schooler on Gaia’s green Terra is drinking coffee first thing in the morning?! Tch, it’s a wonder why you’re so damned short!”

“Hey!” Emi had heard just about enough. She loosened her tongue. “Okay, first of all, clearly students are drinking a ton of coffee here, otherwise, the school wouldn’t bother ordering so much of it. Second, five feet, one inch is a reasonable height for a girl my age. And third, no one told you to go nabbing other people’s stuff!” 

“Emi, Emi!! Mister kitty’s wakin’ up!” Cady’s voice caught Emi’s attention as she broke eye contact with the boy and peered up at the cat. Sure enough, the feline yawned as it stood up and stretched its forelegs.  

The boy walked up to the vending machine in between the girls. “Ah, so that’s where you’ve been, Kat,” he said, sounding less brash than he did just moments prior. 

The cat peered down at him with a slight tilt of the head. “Mrow?” 

“Yuki’s been looking all over campus for you. You could’ve at least left a note or something before wandering off.”

“Meow.”

“Um…?” Emi furrowed her brow. Just from her prior exchange with the boy, she could tell that he was a few eggs short of a dozen, but this was pushing it. 

“Heh, now that Cuthbert’s off my tail,” the boy continued, tossing the coffee can into a nearby recycling bin with impressive accuracy. “I’m aching for a spar. What say you and I have a go until the first bell?”

“Huh?” Emi could hardly believe her ears. 

“Meow.”

“‘Fine by me, old friend,’ Mr. Kitty says, ‘It has definitely been a while’.” Cady translated the cat’s cry with brimming confidence. The perks of being a beastkin, Emi assumed. 

“W-Wait just  a minute!” The more that was said between each party, the more this situation made Emi’s head spin. Turned to the sapphire-haired boy and cast a judgemental glare. “You’re going to spar… with a cat?!”

He shook his head. “Kat’s no cat. He’s my best friend.”

“......”

“......”

Okay… What? 

“Um… Sure, that makes sense.” Emi crossed her arms. 

“What’s your problem? We do this all the time!”

“—!”

Wait… Sparring with a cat… Then, that means, he…

As her mind processed the implications behind the boy's statement, an image of the injured catgirl whom she’d encountered earlier suddenly flashed in her mind’s eye. A surge of anger coursed through her body as she clenched her fists and fixed her gaze on the sapphire-haired boy. Before she knew it, her body began moving on its own. She dropped her books and strode towards him, her eyes blazing with fury. In no time, she was standing right in front of him, giving him a menacing stare.

“…?” The boy glared at her with annoyed confusion. 

“You…” Emi’s voice came out like a calm before the storm. “Are you…using this cat as some sort of training dummy? Is that why he’s all scratched up…?” 

“Huh? Training dummy?! I mean, sure, he’s a bit banged up, but I didn’t—”

“And that feline beastkin. Did you hurt her, too?” 

The boy shook his head. “Okay, now you’re losing me. What the hell are you trying to—”

“What kind of monster would do such a thing?!!”