Nikko ran.

And ran.

And ran.

And ran.

Through the dark, damp alleyway. Away from that one thing that was chasing her. What was it that was chasing her? Nikko could not make it out. But it was large. It was dangerous. It was demonic.

Nikko continued running, only to fall flat on her face. She woke up, flat on her face.

“H-Huh?” Nikko muttered sheepishly as she pulled herself off the carpet floor of her untidy room. “It was… that dream again?” She glanced at her bedside clock to read the time. 8am. 8am?

Realising the time, Nikko shot straight up and dashed towards the bathroom. “Crap! I’m late for the first day of school!” she exclaimed as she splashed her face with water and seized her toothbrush to brush her teeth. After a couple of quick rinses, she moved to her closet, pulled on her school uniform and messily tied her shoulder-length hair back to a single ponytail. Nikko jolted downstairs, grabbed a slice of bread and sprinted through the hallway towards the front entrance.

“Ni-chan, you forgot your bag,” a calm voice projected from the living room.

“Right. My bag,” Nikko sighed as she made a full 180° turn before making her way back upstairs to retrieve her schoolbag. She returned downstairs and made her way to the entrance. “Thanks mom!’ she shouted as she hopped outside.

Nikko walked along the occupied streets of Kujo, it seemed that everyone was either on their way to work, or to school. Nikko thought about her life over the last year. She had just moved back to her hometown of Kujo in Osaka from Tokyo. The reason she moved back? She did not want to think about that too much. Either way, she had transferred to a middle school within the Kujo prefecture last year, and would be attending her first year of high school at Kujo High this year. The thought of it was quite scary. She’ll be 16 this year. Before she knows it, she’d be graduating from high school. Then attending college. Then looking for a job. It’s too much to think about for now, she thought to herself. All she wanted to do was play video games and watch anime or read manga. If only life was that simple. And if only dragging herself out of bed to go to school was as simple.

She arrived at Kujo High. It was 8:20am.

“Whew! Somehow made it,” she muttered to herself. “Now where the heck is the bulletin board?” Nikko made her way through the school gates and into the concrete corridor. She located her personal locker, which was rather easy to find as it was along the first column of the row of lockers to the very right side of the room. She swapped her shoes out, proceeded towards the main hall and to the bulletin board to look at the class rosters.

“Hmmm… class 1-C,” she spoke to herself.

“I-I’m in class 1-C too,” a quiet, feminine spoke from beside Nikko.

“I was speaking to myself,” Nikko said without facing the direction of the speaker, “But ya know what? I guess we can be friends.”

Really Nikko? First day in and this is how you attempt to make friends? She scolded herself in her mind. Nikko was never great at conversing. She turned to her left to face a timid looking girl. She was about Nikko’s height and had sparkling blonde hair and blue eyes. “S-Sup!” Nikko blurted.

“H-Hi,” the girl replied.

“I’m Sugimura Nikko, nice to meet ya!”

“N-Nice to meet you too Sugimura-san. M-My name is Kazama Arii,” she said, twirling a few strands of her blonde hair.

Dumbfounded, Nikko said “So uh, you foreign?”

“Y-Yeah,” Arii replied. “My father is Japanese, and my mother is from America.”

“Ooh that’s pretty cool!” Nikko said. “I’ve never been outside of Japan before.”

“N-Neither have I.”

“Oh.”

Nikko stared at Arii for a while. Arii stared back.

The ringing of the intercom broke their silence. “All students, please make your way towards the auditorium for the welcoming ceremony for 2018.”

“Righteo Kazama-san, let’s get going or we’ll be late!” Nikko said the moment the announcement ended, eager to break the awkward tension.

“O-Of course!”

The girls marched down the hall and proceeded towards the auditorium. After about 30 minutes of not listening to whatever the principle and council presidents had to say, Nikko got off her seat and headed straight to the exit, with Arii closely behind her.

“Were you listening to the speeches, Kazama-san?” Nikko asked.

“Y-Yeah,” Arii said.

“Of course you didn- wait what you were paying attention?!” Nikko exclaimed.

“Uh… y-yeah?”

“Yeah… so was I… haha.”

“S-Sugimura-san?”

“What’s up?”

“You can just call me Arii. I-I’m more used to Arii.”

“Okie dokie, I guess you can call me by my first name too. And add whatever honorifics you wish as well.”

Arii thought to herself for a moment, and eventually said “N-Nikko-chan is fine, right?”

“Yeah sure whatever, I don’t actually care,” Nikko said bluntly. “Can I call you Ariri though?”

“W-What?” Arii choked on her words. “T-That sounds ridiculous!”

“Too bad Ariri-san, I’ve settled on Ariri.”

To Nikko’s surprise, Arii giggled. “S-Sorry, hehe. N-Nobody’s ever given me such a ridiculous nickname b-before.”

“Well, I’m honoured,” Nikko mentioned as she hung her arm around Arii’s shoulder.

The girls made their way to the stairs that led to the first floor. Stairs huh? It was Nikko’s archenemy. She hated sports. Hated physical activities. Despised stairs. At least it was only a single flight of stairs that she had to climb.

“Almost there,” Nikko said as she seemingly panted her way up. On the final step, unfortunately, Nikko tripped and faceplanted onto the level above her. THUD. Pretty sure the sound of the impact echoed through the corridor.

“Ow.”

“N-Nikko-san, are you ok?” Arii knelt down next to her.

“Never been better.”

“You sure about that?” a soothing male voice said from above her.

Nikko looked up to meet a boy with piercing silver eyes and jet black hair. Silver eyes? Nikko rapidly blinked a few times thinking that she was just seeing things. She looked at him again. He had brown eyes. Yep, definitely seeing things.

“I just smacked my little ol’ face into the ground, of course I’m not ok,” she said, keeping her glance on the male student. Upon further observations, the boy had rather sharp features and piercing eyes, despite them being brown and not silver as she initially saw them. His features were so sharp that they made Nikko feel dizzy. For real.

“H-Huh?” Nikko said as her nightmare from this morning flashed before her eyes.

“Nikko-chan?” Arii waved her hand in front of Nikko’s face.

“I’m ok, I’m ok!” Nikko shook the image of her dreams off. What just happened? She thought to herself. Why does this guy seem so…

“You’re in class 1-C, right? So am I,” he said. “My name is Koduro Daisuke, it seems like I’ll be seeing you around a lot more.”

“Y-Yeah looks like it,” Nikko replied. “I’m Sugimura Nikko. This here is Ariri, or Kazama Arii.”

“H-Hi!” Arii waved shyly.

“Great,” Daisuke said. “Let’s head over to class then.”