Conquering the Crests of Life

Turn 2 | Getting Started

"Miss Roka, it's time to get up."

You can distantly hear Emerald and your loud alarm over the sleeping music. Emerald gently nudges you again. You slowly drift away from dreamless sleep. Once you come to, you sit up and stretch your arms up high. No dreams means today might be a good day.

You cover the huge yawn that falls from your mouth with one hand and pop out your wireless earbuds with the other, all while scooting off the edge of your bed. You put them back in the case on the table next to your bed.

Emerald patiently waits for you to rub the sleep out of your eyes. She follows you into your closet and talks as you pick out your clothes for the day. "Good morning, miss. Breakfast will be ready as soon as you arrive downstairs. I've sent reminders of today's tasks to your phone."

"Alright. Hey Emerald? How far is the school from here by bike?"

"It is fifteen minutes by bike."

"Nice. I'll go there first thing." Thinking ahead to the school year, that works really well for you. You bypass the robot in the closet's doorway and move into the spacious bathroom. You place your clothes on a hook against the door and gaze at your reflection in the mirror.

Your light amber eyes look straight back at you. You close them, and breathe in.

One, two, three.

And breathe out.

One, two, three.

On the count of three you open your eyes and plaster your best civil smile.

You almost look a bit comical, with a bunch of white strands sticking out in a bunch of directions from your bed hair.

Your shaky smile drops. You are not looking forward to brushing through that monstrosity.

With a sigh, you grab your toothbrush and get ready for the day.

——————

Oh my god.

Den City High School looks like a mini-university! You lock your bike in the rack as you ogle the building. It actually intimidates you a little, despite there being very few people around. The budget for a school this size must be huge!

You trek up the many steps and push open the front door. Automatically, you look for the front office and find it on your left. You walk inside and approach the front desk, where a woman taps furiously on her keyboard.

"Um," you squeak to get the receptionists attention. Once her eyes land on you and she stops typing, you clear your throat to talk in a more stable voice. "My name is Teruko Roka. I'm here to pick up my schedule and uniform for the school year, please." You hope you're using the right formal language to address her. You've mostly only ever spoken Japanese with your mom.

If there is anything wrong with your speech, she doesn't seem to notice. She gives you a polite smile and pulls out a scanning device. "Sure! Do you have an ID I can confirm your identity with?"

You're prepared for identification. "Yes, I have my passport with me." You hold it out for her to scan. Upon seeing the blinking green dot on the scanner, she puts it away and brings out your school ID and schedule from a drawer. She hands them to you and starts to leave.

"I'm going to get your uniform for you, I'll be back in a few minutes."

You simply nod and sit onto a nearby chair to scan your schedule. You skip straight over the required core classes and move to the bottom. You're mainly interested in seeing whether you got your requested elective classes.