I don't know what keeps driving me to sit beside the blonde—maybe its our shared liking of window seats, maybe chance—but I make my way over to the back corner of the room. When I set my supplies down on my desk, the slight noise seems to draw her out of her reverie. I see her reflection in the window shift, a mirrored hand rising up to her mouth to cover a yawn.
She doesn't turn to look at me, and after a moment, I feel weird for still looking in her general direction. I scan through the room, looking at the others filing into the room. There are a few more faces that I can recognize coming in.
Daisuke enters the room as part of a pair, engrossed in conversation with the girl who accompanies them. I don't recognize the girl, but the two of them have a clear chemistry together, and their profiles come together in a cute blend. I remember from lining up by height in choir that Daisuke is six-foot exactly, meanwhile the girl beside him looks to be around half a foot shorter.
Daisuke has an athletic build, and even in the casual sweater he's thrown on, its visible. The off-white waves of his sweater contrast brilliantly with his thick, shoulder-length curls, pulling attention to his tanned skin and the prominent angles of his face. The girl beside him has a much slenderer build, and it wouldn't surprise me if she had a background in gymnastics. Her hair, a bob of golden curls with prominent black undertones, shines beside his; that shine carries on to her eyes, where a teal glitter glistens as wings set beneath a sunset of red eyeliner.
They make their way over to Reiji, taking the seats beside him, and quickly Reiji and Daisuke begin to chat. It's a bit surprising to me, seeing Reiji and Daisuke talking with each other; I had never pictured the two of them as close. I'm too far away to hear what they're talking about, and I can't tell if that's a blessing or a curse. Daisuke tends to be an interesting conversation partner, but talking to Reiji…
There are some more people that I don't recognize coming into the room, following Daisuke and the girl who entered with him.
A heavyset, but healthy-looking girl, enters into the room. She's wearing a cute floral blouse in blue that bounces freely as she walks, paired with a pair of light-wash jeans that emphasis the shape of her legs and thighs. There's some space between where the blouse ends and where the jeans begin, and in that space, lines of colorful henna depict great bounties of flowers and fruit. With each step she takes, she has this kind of jive and bounce as if she were dancing along to an up-tempo beat.
She ends up sitting down beside Sayumi, and the two of them quickly engage in a conversation. I can tell that they recognize each other, but it's also easy enough to see that they aren't very close of friends. Sayumi's body language is much more closed-off than her body language from earlier, when she was talking to Reika, Makiko and me.
The last two students to enter the class again enter as a pair, though they aren't as close seeming as close as Daisuke and the girl he came with were. They're a pair of girls, both around the same build—somewhere around 5'5" and of distinctly athletic builds—but that's where the similarities, for the most part, stop.
One of the pair is a redhead, but not of the natural type; her hair is kept in two distinct colors, one a vibrant red and one a dark brown. Kept in a long mohawk-ponytail, the bright and vibrant reds make up the mohawk's curves and curls, while the dark brown provide a grounded base. It's definitely a high maintenance hair style, but it looks stylish and it commands attention. She's wearing a bright yellow cropped sweatshirt spotting the signature Nike swoosh and a dozen hanzi symbols that I can't read, along with a pair of primarily black leggings, lined with bright orange hanzi.
The other girl has dark brown hair, kept in a much more traditional hairstyle. My eyes are drawn to the straight cut bangs and her waist-length mane of perfectly straight, perfectly evened brown hair. Her haircut draws attention to her face, specifically to her prominent, gently glossed and neatly lined lips. She's wearing a neat red jacket, marked by its prominent golden buttons and pockets, and with the jacket a pair of black denim jeans, marked with visible golden stitch work.
They make their way to the open chairs in the back right of the room, and with my placement in the back beside Kagome, they end up sitting fairly close to me. They don't really seem to notice anyone else in the room as they enter, preferring to talk to each other; and as they get closer, I recognize that they're not talking in English or Japanese, but in Mandarin.
With all of the students having filed in—this class was smaller than the class I had earlier, having only around twelve people—one last woman enters the room. I realize quickly why she chose to come in last; with her height and build, I would have mistaken her for a student.
Miss Okamoto, as my syllabus introduces her, couldn't be more than twenty-five. More than that, she couldn't be more than 5'3", and that put her in a dangerous territory. She's wearing a striped white dress that stretched down just past her knees. The dress was covered with a denim jacket—preventing her arms from being exposed by the otherwise sleeveless dress—and a pair of open-faced, black laced heels.
She slowly pulls the door shut behind her as she enters the room, then she waves to the class and makes her way to her desk. Sayumi, sitting by Miss Okamoto's desk, perks up on her approach, watching her intently; as far away as I am, though, I can't make out much more than that.
Miss Okamoto sets down her handbag on her desk, and I almost double-take. It's a Chanel bag, of their newest line, and that's something far outside the teacher budgets of anyone at Magdalena. She turns to the class, opening her mouth to speak—
—but it's Kagome's voice that I hear, coming from beside me.
"Hi, class. How was your winter break?"
My eyes flick over to Kagome, and she has a smirk on her face. Then, from the front of the class, I finally hear Miss Okamoto speaking—
"Hi, class. How was your winter break?" As Miss Okamoto speaks, she scans across the room, giving an inviting smile to the room. Her gaze settles on Reiji, after a brief scan, and Reiji quickly adjusts himself in the chair, sitting up to full attention and letting words stumble out of his mouth.
"Oh, uh, it was great, one of my best winter breaks yet. My dad, uh, he came through with this big—" I'm not consciously trying to tune Reiji out, but when he talks like this, he doesn't change his intonation between his words at all, and everything ends up coming out of him as this one-word sounding mess. Luckily, Kagome's voice returns, giving me something more interesting to listen to.
"Oh, that's great to hear. Sayumi, how was yours?" As Kagome speaks, my eyes flick over to her again. She's still smirking, but it doesn't seem a hostile smirk, and she's definitely looking at me and not anyone else in the class.
At the front of the class, Miss Okamoto speaks again. "Oh, that's great to hear. Sayumi, how was yours?" As she turns away from Reiji, he glances around the room, blushing furiously before he buries his head into the cover of his textbooks. Daisuke pats him on his shoulder twice, but it didn't look like a very comforting pat.
"It was great, Hana, but I'm happy that it's over," Sayumi says, smiling at Miss Okamoto—apparently, Okamoto Hana. "How was yours?" When Sayumi asks the last question, Miss Okamoto gives an exaggerated sigh, lifting up her arms. Her denim jacket sags back in the movement, sliding down her back a bit and giving a full view of her shoulders and upper arms.
Kagome starts to speak again, her voice quiet enough that I think I'm the only one in the room who could hear it. "Oh, it was terrific, but I'm glad to be back at school making a difference and spreading the joys of language to all my favorite students." As she speaks, Kagome even copies the way Miss Okamoto intones her words—honestly, it's a bit frightening how well she does it.
At the front of the class, again on cue, Miss Okamoto speaks. "Oh, it was terrific! But I'm glad to be back at school, making a difference and spreading the joys of language to all my favorite students."
I flick my eyes towards Kagome again, and she shakes her head, putting a hand over her mouth to cover a laugh. Then she looks back out the window, returning to her earlier stance of ignoring everything going on in the class room.
"We have some new students in class today, transfers from several different schools in the area." Miss Okamoto smiles at me, directly, as she says those words, before her face flicks over to the other transfer students in the room. "Now, we don't want to embarrass them too much, class, so we're just going to go around and have everyone say their name and what school they're from. Starting with… well, Sayumi, you might as well go ahead."
Sayumi glances at Miss Okamoto, but I can't really see what facial expressions she might be making from where I'm sitting. After a moment, she shrugs, and speaks aloud: "Right! Well, like Hana said, my name is Sayumi. Hattori Sayumi. I've gone to Nara West all of my life."
Moving on from Sayumi, the girl who sat down beside her begins to talk. Now that I can hear her speak, I realize she has a really pleasant voice, and one that I can almost recognize. I don't think that I've ever met her, but I think she's performed at some of the recitals I've performed at. "I'm Sugi, Yokoyama Sugi. I've gone to Nara West for…" She pauses, for a moment, making a show of counting on her fingers. "Yeah, all of my life."
The next person to talk, after Sugi finishes, is the girl who came in with Daisuke. She sits up a little straighter in her chair before she speaks, glancing around the class room. "Hi, um. My name is Sumire, Kojira Sumire. I've gone to Nara West for the past six years, but before that, I went to Magdalena Youth."
Sumire glances over to Daisuke. Daisuke's already sitting straight in his chair, and he doesn't miss a beat before he starts to talk. "Hey, I'm Daisuke. Sawada Daisuke. I've gone to Magdalena all my life, so this is a bit of a change." He lets out a gentle laugh after his words, even though they weren't really funny, and a few people in the class laugh along.
"Reiji Okumura—sorry, uh, Okumura Reiji." Reiji is talking before people in the class are done processing Daisuke's words and laugh, hurrying along into the next introductions. "Magdalena. I'm Reiji from Magdalena."
Going around the room, I catch the names of all the students present. The lookalikes are a pair of identical twins, Murata Haru and Murata Seiichi, and they have voices and intonations that are almost exactly the same. They've gone to Nara West all of their life. In the back of the room, the two Mandarin-speaking women are transfers from the refuge school in Nara's Chinatown. The girl with the flamboyant hair is Tian Jiayang, and her friend is named Shao Suyin.
Eventually, it gets to my turn to introduce myself. Sitting up confidently in my chair, I smile to the classroom. "I'm Felisa, Yamada Felisa. I've gone to Magdalena for all of my life." Sayumi, seemingly noticing me just now, smiles at me. But the smile is short, replaced by curiosity as she notices Kagome sitting beside me.
With the class's attention turned to her, Kagome takes her time for a moment, still staring out the window. When at last Miss Okamoto opens her mouth to reprimand her, Kagome speaks, turning to the room and fluttering her eyes to all those who would watch.
"Hi, I'm Kagome," Kagome pauses after her first few words, as if she was considering what to say next. "Chiharu Kagome. I'm originally from Osaka, but I've been going to Nara West for the past three years."
I recognize that name, but I'm not in a position to ask any questions right now. Miss Okamura, happy that everyone in the class has gone along with her introductions, takes back the attention of the class and starts to talk in her cheerful voice.
"Well! It is nice to meet all of you beautiful new faces, and it is wonderful to see all of you that I've already met once again." Hana gives a wink to the class—or maybe she just blinks weirdly? It's hard to tell exactly. "My name is Hana Okamoto, but really, I'd prefer it if you just called me Hana. The school says that I teach International English, but I like to think that I teach international friendship, and all the ways that that can be communicated."
As Hana speaks, she makes her way over to the screen at the front of the room and clicks her blue, freshly painted nail against it. It lights up, revealing a prepared PowerPoint slide.
"It's the first day of the term, so I'm not going to go over anything too strenuous today, but we are going to be taking some notes. There's no homework assignment tonight, and if you've done your readings, a lot of this should be review today. I know that may sound boring, but once we get a few class periods like this out of the way, we can move into a lot more interesting discussions."
Hana doesn't stop talking after that for the rest of the class period, but she's an interesting enough speaker, and I only lose focus a few times throughout the class period. Kagome spends the rest of the class period staring out the window, and I don't see her taking a single note. Reiji is surprisingly tame throughout the class period, not asking any of the stupid questions that I've come to associate with him. When Hana asks questions to the class, Sayumi is generally the first to respond, but Daisuke and I manage to contribute a few times as well when the answer doesn't immediately come to her.
Eventually, after a long but not all together painful hour of class, the bell rings. Hana dismisses us with cheer, encouraging us to have a great rest of the day and reminding us that she's here to chat if we need any help adjusting to the new school environment. I thank her as I leave the classroom.
…
The next class period that I have is a study hall, which will be nice later on in the term, but today seems close to useless. It's on the third floor of the school, and it takes me some time to navigate to it, but I get there in a timely enough fashion.
The room for the study hall is in a different arrangement compared to the rooms from earlier today. Instead of desks, it features circle tables spread throughout the room, each with a power strip in the middle and a stack of Sony touchpads. There are five of these tables throughout the room, and each of them has at least one student present at it.
The first of these tables, closest to the door, has the pair of Chinese girls from my last class sitting at it. Suyin is drawing on a large white canvas at the table, while Jiayang is engrossed in her phone, apparently on a video chat with some friends elsewhere—though she isn't really talking, and she has Air Pods clearly in. If I sit with them, I'm sure they'll ignore me and give me free range to do as I like with my time—unless I initiate a conversation with them, anyway.
At the next table, I can see Raahithya, sitting across from the Murata twins. The Murata twins both have laptops out on the table and are clearly playing some sort of computer game. Raahithya seems somewhat left out at the table, almost lost without Miyuki, and he isn't really doing anything. If I sat at that table, Raahithya would -probably- expect me to talk with him, and I'm not sure how well that'd go in a one-on-one conversation.
The third table, which is the last before the tables loop back around and start getting closer to the door, has the leather boy and sweater girl from my first period sitting at it, as well as another girl that I don't recognize. She has voluminous blue hair, and while it's obviously dyed from the color, it almost looks natural. I have no idea how sitting at that table would go.
The fourth table, looping back around towards the door, has Makiko sitting at it. She's sitting next to a boy who I don't recognize, but the two of them are cheerfully chatting and both seem to be in good spirits. The boy looks to be short, somewhere around 5'5", but it's a bit hard to tell as he's sitting down; he's a bit overweight, but he has an attractive floof of blonde hair and his otherwise unremarkable clothes are neatly fitted. Sitting here would mean a nice chat with Makiko, but I don't want to intrude on her and the guy's chat.
The last table, circling back to the door, only has one person sitting at it: Shinju. That's probably not the best option for me to sit down at.
Considering my options, I decide to go and sit down at …
[x] Table 1
[x] Table 2
[x] Table 3
[x] Table 4
[x] Table 5
For my study hall period, I intend to…
[x] Socialize with my table.
-[x] If you have a particular topic you'd like to discuss, feel free to do a write-in here.
[x] Study something.
[x] Text! I have friends, and family, to keep up with.
[x] Daydream.
[x] Think about what happened between Shinju and I...
[x]
Write-in.
