"So..." Honey said with a curious light in his eyes. "Who's who?"
"You mean like who is 'we' right? Well that Ice Queen Barton is my best friend, you know, the one I told you about with the sleepovers. Her English name is Anna Barton, but she has a Japanese first name too. It's Akane. She's Caucasian, but her parents divorced when she was young. Her dad ended up remarrying a Japanese lady, and that's where Akane learned all her Japanese. She was living in America with her parents until they moved after elementary school. Actually, did you know, that in America sixth grade is the first year in middle school?"
"Yeah, America uses that English measurement too." Honey replied with a giggle.
"Yeah, feet and miles. America is funny." I smiled. "Anyway, earlier that was Mickey, the one that was being bullied. And Mina is Minnie. They weren't dating in middle school. It was all thanks to Akane and I that they are dating at all. We PLAYED Cupids, pulled a few strings, and got them together. They're such a cute couple."
Honey's lips curled upwards softly. I rolled onto my stomach to face him.
"What?" I asked, when he CONTINUED to watch me with that warm smile.
"I like it when you talk about your friends." He said. "You seem happy when you do." I blinked and digested his words for a moment, before a SLOW grin spread on my own face.
"That's cause I love them. But I like talking to you too, Mitsukuni. You're a calm presence, you know?" I rolled BACK onto my back.
"What else? How did you get the gang together?" "Okay... Let's CONTINUEthen... The NEXT day, I arrived at class and had to introduce myself to them. The good thing about having only one classroom is only having to do one introduction.
"Hello everyone, I'm Akamatsu Rika. Please take care of me." I bowed to the classroom. The class seemed excited to get a transfer student, considering it was nearly a month into the school year.
In my class, I identified some familiar people from the day before. The Ice Queen, Asari, and those three bullies were all in my class.
Akane looked at me with a calm gaze. I felt like maybe she knew who I was. The bullies certainly did. The leader gulped and immediately looked away from me. The other two ducked their heads down.
"Any questions for Akamatsu-san?" Anzai-sensei asked.
"Why did you transfer so suddenly?" One student said with a raised hand.
"There were some difficulties at HOME," I said with a smile. For some reason, that seemed to attract more attention.
I could hear a group of boys whispering. Their conversation ran something like this: "She's pretty cute."
"Doesn't seem like your type though."
"What are you talking about?"
"Shut up, you guys! She can probably hear you!"
