The Forgotten of Kenopsia

Chapter 2 - The Past

April 8th, 2014

I stared into the distance as I was sitting by the window of the rusty train. As the wheels stumbled upon the rails, my body started to move up and down along with it's motion. I glanced at my wristwatch. It was already Six in the morning, and yet there weren't that many people in the side of the train where I was sitting down. I continued looking through the window towards the slightly lightening up yet dark environment, expecting to witness the sunrise.

Supposedly, it's a rather important day of my life. And yet, I had no other option than taking the train. Today is the entrance ceremony for my first day as a freshman at Nuri High School. Nuri high was one of the major academies for Art and Design in the area where I lived in. Or rather, an hour and a half away from the city of Tokamachi and much closer to the Niigata prefecture. The ride was absolutely tiring but it was the cheapest and the easiest way not to be a burden to my mother and grandmother.

My dream has always been to become an artist. Painting was one of the only things that I've ever liked to do. My mother was always against my passion but with my grandma's approval, I was capable of applying and getting into a renowned High school of Art.

I got off the train and entered the station crowded with people. The school was only a five minute walk from the train station, so I decided to take my time since I was already earlier than I expected to be. The weather was rather cold and cloudy. I stared at my new uniform and attempted to fix it once more before I walked towards the school entrance. I glanced at my feet while I was walking, trying to avoid eye contact with anyone else I would see in the street. I looked up and when the school building was within my range of sight, I rushed my pace.

The school building was enormous and was covered in beautiful, colorful paintings. My junior High school was much smaller which only the children in the city could afford to go to. As I was standing in front of the school entrance a feeling of excitement made my stomach twitch.

And in an instance, my excitement transferred into anxiety. In front of the school building was a gigantic poster that said "WELCOME 2014" and underneath it were around hundred students, seemingly first years. I could feel my palms slowly start sweating. I was never an outgoing person to begin with and the thought of meeting new people made me feel nervous.

I started walking towards the crowd of students, expecting to see my only friend from Junior High School who applied to Nuri High along with me.

As I was scanning through the people, I noticed someone who was standing near the big sign, a girl continuously staring at me. When I looked at her again, to my surprise, she still had her sharp eyes fixed on me. When we made eye contact, I forced my head to turn around right away, feeling a bit flustered.

I walked away to a corner looking down when I felt a huge blow fall on my back as if I just got struck by a lightning. Before I could turn my head around, two gigantic arms surrounded my neck in a flash and I had no time to defend my pitiful head. 'Hercules has descended'  I thought to myself.

This greeting was absolute. I could tell who it was without even looking back. The pain in my back continued throbbing even as I was struggling to escape from Ryu's grip.

Ryu is my best friend whom I've known since elementary school. We used to be neighbors for a while before, until his family had to move out to a place closer to where his parents worked. After that, we've gone to school for eight years together.

When I finally managed to release myself, I turned around to face Ryu who had grown slightly taller than me. For a 13 year old, I was rather shorter than people my age. But he had grown since the last time we met and I envied him. He stared back at me with his big hazel eyes which were halfway covered by his wavy, natural dark brown hair.

"Is that how you greet me when we haven't seen each other for two months?"
I uttered as I tried to sound a little angry even though I couldn't hide the slight relief in my heart as I let out a small giggle.

Ryu had a very bright character and even an introvert as myself would start speaking the way he does if spent enough time with him. You know how they say that habits can get contagious if you hangout with someone long enough?

"Aki I think you've gotten a little bit taller than last year??!!!" Ryu claimed as he was struggling to hide his laugh.

"How dare you tease me?! I didn't grow an inch. And don't change the subject!"
I said as we both started to walk towards the board with the list of names of students in each class.

Me and Ryu were in separate classes but since they were only across the hallway from each other, we always met up at Ryu's classroom during the lunch period. We were often joined by Yuma, a distant relative of Ryu, who transferred to our school a few days after school started. Yuma resembled Ryu physically since he had brown hair and hazel eyes just as Ryu did. But I had noticed that Yuma's eyes were much darker in color. Personality wise, Yuma was the complete opposite of Ryu. He seemed very calm almost all the time and he wore glasses which made him appear as an intellectual in our eyes. I got along pretty well with Yuma, since he was in my class and the three of us spent our time together during most of our freshman year.

-------------------------

It was already 12:15pm, and the lunch period was going to be over in fifteen more minutes. And here I was standing on a never ending line to buy food at the school cafeteria.

You could probably say that this place would be my least favorite place to be in the whole entire school. However I could no longer endure the growling sounds my stomach was making so here I am. Places with crowds made me feel sick and I already felt as if I was loosing my appetite. I had to forget my lunch at home and now I have to wait forever just to buy a croissant. But most of all, I hated the fact how noisy this place was. Specially the famous, so called "Witch" who sells food in the cafeteria. Her piercing voice was drumming through my ears and she curses at whoever that tries to buy more than three buns all at once. Somehow I got swept away to the front of the crowd as time passed by.

After I bought food, I rushed to walk away from the crowd as soon as possible. It was already ten minutes before the lunch period ends and Ryu and Yuma were still waiting for me upstairs. They probably started eating without me though.

I started to run back up the stair case to the second floor when I suddenly felt my body thrust against something and I instantly realized that I had undoubtedly run into a person. I lost the balance in my feet and fell backwards down the stair case on my spine with a huge 'bang' sound. As soon as my back slammed the cement floor, I could feel the pain transfer into my bones as if it was an electric current. It was at that moment when a bag of croissants flew and fell on to my lap.

I looked straight in front of me to see a girl leaning on the strait case, a few steps ahead of me, struggling to get into her feet. She had a yellow colored bow tied around her neck, so I knew that she was a freshman like myself. Her long black hair was swept sideways and her eyes had a light blue color. I also noticed her very pale skin and the anxious expression on her face. She glanced at me for a second and then she turned away as if she had just seen a ghost.

It was then when I realized that she looked very familiar and I had seen her somewhere before. She was the same girl who kept on staring at me on the day of the entrance ceremony.