Soukoku: Country Children

At School

The sun was out on Monday morning and Aku and Gin were waiting outside Chuuya's house.
They were about to meet this "Dazai" person for the first time and had been exchanging theories of what he was like, whether he was bullying their friend or if he would be a generally well-mannered person.
Even though all of them went to the same school, Dazai and Chuuya had been keeping such a distance from everyone so Chuuya could help the guy out with studying that they didn't even know what he looked like. But last time them and Chuuya had met up, he said they'd be able to hang out again like normal.
Suddenly the door opened and out stepped Chuuya and a rather tall, dark haired boy who's arms and neck were wrapped in bandages.
"Hey." Chuuya said, walking towards Aku and Gin quite happily.
On Saturday night they had both seen the thunderstorm and felt a sickening worry about Chuuya's fear for thunderstorms, and how he could stay rather shaken for days on end afterwards. But, today, it seemed as though he had never been scared of thunderstorms his entire life.
"Morning." Aku and gin both greeted, relieved that their friend was happy.
"This is Dazai, my friend I've been telling you two about. Dazai, this is Gin and Aku, my friends that come over often."
Dazai smiled and nodded at Gin and Aku, and they nodded back quite hesitantly.
Across the road Mori stepped out of his house and surprisingly made his way towards the four children, hands in the pockets of his white physician's coat and a smile spread wide across his face. Dazai looked on edge as Mori positioned himself in front of him, and lost all feeling of home sickness as Mori's purple eyes stared down at him from a towering height.
"Just so you know, I'm definitely giving you back your stuff tonight." He smiled, laughing slightly. "Sorry for the week long delay but I never found the time to get it back to you, Dazai."
"It's okay." Dazai mumbled, fiddling with the end of his shirt and looking down at the driveway. Mori was in a rather scary mood by the menacing tone of his voice and the sharp glare of his eyes, and he was trying to figure out why when Mori turned to Chuuya.
"Is he being a bit of handle for you and Kouyou or are you two alright, Chuuya?"
Chuuya was rather taken aback, since Mori had only spoke to him once and he didn't even know he knew his name.
"No, he's alright." Chuuya replied, rather stiffly since the man had always made him feel funny.
"Good.." Mori said slowly, smirking to himself before turning back to the house.
"Who was that?" Gin asked as soon as Mori was out of sight, looking at both Dazai and Chuuya for an answer.
"Mori. He used to by my carer before his workload got too much to look after me." Dazai said, sighing slightly into his words.
"Should we go?" Chuuya quickly suggested, worried that the subject of Mori would upset Dazai. "We won't want to be late."
"Yeah." Aku agreed, as all four children made their way towards the sandy path up to school.

After a while of silent walking, Dazai clicked his finger in realisation.
"Oh yeah! Atsushi is transferring to this school today." He exclaimed, looking up at the clouds that were drifting along the light sky above.
"Oh, isn't he your childhood friend or something?" Chuuya asked, looking up at his friend for a response.
"Yeah. He was at an orphanage Mori helped out at for a while back when we were both pretty young and we stayed in contact. When he was taken in by a Yosana woman nearby, we started to meet up and we're still friends." Dazai explained, waving his hand around and dazing out slightly before looking back down at Chuuya with a questioning look. "How did you know we were childhoood friends?"
"I told him." Aku cut in, rather surprised that this guy had a connection with his best friend. "Me and Atsuhi are best friends."
As Dazai turned to Aku, his face lit up. "Oh, so you're Aktugawa Ryonouske he talks to me about!"
Aku nodded, blushing a bit.

**

The lunch bell rang and the four children met up under a tree on the school field, Chuuya chewing on a granola bar, Dazai drinking a carton of chocolate milk and both Aku and Gin eating two pots of fruit salad. The afternoon had reached the peak of its heat and the shade was still causing them all to sweat uncontrollably.
They talked about their least favourite teachers, Dazai laughing particularly about the math's teacher Kunikida that seemed to hate Dazai the most of all.
"Um.." A small voice from behind the tree broke the conversation and Chuuya turned around to see a boy a bit younger than him with albino hair and golden cat-like eyes looking nervously at the group.
"Atsushi!" Dazai yelled, standing up and embracing the boy in a hug. "I was wondering where you were! You weren't in class, were you bunking on your first day?"
"N-no," Atsushi said, pushing himself from Dazai to explain. "The headmaster Fukuzawa wanted to talk to me about the school and gave me a tour all morning."
"Oh, okay." Dazai smiled, waving his hand towards Chuuya. "This is Chuuya!"
Chuuya waved at the nervous boy, who managed to give a sweet smile back.
"Nice to meet you," Atsushi greeted. "Dazai talks a lot about you, you guys seem to be really close!"
Dazai looked a bit flustered and went slightly red in the face before turning Atsushi's attention to the siblings.
"This is Gin, and you obviously know Aktugawa." Dazai smirked, patting Atsushi on the head who turned unbelievably red, as did Aku who was blushing furiously.
"Anyway, sit with us!" He continued, sitting back next to Chuuya and pointing to a space on the grass.
"Oh, um, okay.." Atsushi sat down and began to talk to Aku, and before long the two boys were in deep conversation.
Gin suddenly saw a girl with short blonde hair tied into a ponytail walking across the field and jumped up.
"I'll see you guys later, I'm going to see Higuchi." She quickly excused herself and ran after the other girl, who waved as soon as she saw Gin running towards her.
"So you talk about me a lot to Atsushi, huh?" Chuuya smirked, pinching Dazai in the arm as the other was still blushing slightly.
"Shut up." Dazai smiled.

**

Aku, Gin, Chuuya, Dazai, Atsushi and Higuchi left the school gates in a golden sunset, each one immersed in some kind of conversation or another.
Gin and Higuchi were giggling and talking about upcoming exams, Aku and Atsushi were looking at photos on Atsushi's phone while Dazai and Chuuya were discussing the fireworks show that was going to happen that weekend.
"Have you ever been to one?" Chuuya asked Dazai.
"Nope."
"Not one?"
"Nu-uh."
"Ever been to a festival?"
"No."
"Will you go to this one?"
"Yeah. Why not."

A/N:
That's the end of today's chapter, and I hope you enjoyed it. I was really happy to introduce more of the character's since I feel like I needed to give them more recognition. Tomorrow's chapter will, as you may have guessed from the ending, be about a fireworks show so I hope you'll be looking forward to it. Thank you for reading!