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 Posted: Thu Jun 17, 2010 4:53 pm
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Posted: Thu Jul 01, 2010 9:27 pm
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'1-D...1-E...Ah, 1-F!' Sophie couldn't help but grin lightly as she finally came across the small sign extending from the top of the doorway that was etched with her homeroom designation. Because she always gave herself time to get places she knew she wasn't in danger of being late on the first day, but it was always nice to actually see her destination.
Making her way through the school hadn't been the problem. The crowded hallways of the Tokyo college were similar enough to those in the private academy her father had enrolled her upon returning to Japan that she hadn't had too much trouble moving with the flow. No, it was more her sense of direction, which failed her time and time again, that had made it so difficult to find the classroom. And for a small university...this place was still big, which made it all the more fun.
Luckily, a few people had been kind enough to help her find her way. The first had been the secretary at the main desk, who had been the one to help her print her schedule earlier in the week since Sophie preferred to have a copy to hold rather than have to look at it on her computer. The older woman wasn't able to leave the office area, but she had wrangled a nearby junior into helping out. Sophie couldn't help but giggle as she recalled the junior's change of heart, from annoyed at the interruption to interested, as he saw who he'd be helping. He had been very talkative as they walked, actually, and had been very helpful with pointing out the various buildings as they crossed the center of the campus, a large, park-like area with various pathways and benches to sit on scattered along the way. Speaking of which, she couldn't wait to find her way back there when she had some free time. It looked like a wonderful place to get her homework done while lounging outside.
He had escorted her almost all of the way to her classroom, but time restraints and his need to head to his own classroom - in another of the buildings practically across campus - had prompted him to point in the general direction of where hers would be, mumble an awkwardly cute suggestion at seeing each other again soon followed by a quick goodbye, and dash off in the direction he needed to go.
Now finally at the place she needed to be, Sophie couldn't help but lean against the wall for a moment to study the average-looking door, the designation sign being the only thing to make it stand out among all the others. It was rather exciting, the idea that once she stepped through that door she would officially begin her college career.
The sight of others entering the classroom was what finally prompted her to straighten and walk through the door, clutching her few books close to her chest not in a case of nerves, but one of continued excitement. Her eyes dancing about the room, her gaze lit on an empty desk towards the front and close to a window. That would be perfect. |
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Posted: Sat Jul 03, 2010 10:56 am
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SAKURA
It was an odd feeling. Like an endless shove on her chest, the feeling worsened as she walked toward the campus. She had been there a dozen times before and recalled that it was set up much like a bunch of big high schools around a bigger grassy area. She knew the way to her classroom, but something bothered her. She contemplated for a minute and decided that it was simply nervousness, but it still didn't go away. She was, like all the other girls, decked out in the uniform, only worn for special occasions and events. It was a white button-down collared short-sleeve shirt, a gray and blue sweater-vest with the school's crest on the left breast, a blue tie with a single gray stripe near the top that was tucked under the vest, and a gray skirt ending just above the knee. Unlike all the other girls who wore the knee-high white socks and one-inch heels to appeal to all the boys, she wore warm-ups, black with a white stripe, under her skirt with boy's loafers for her shoes. Her hair was fixed in a messy bun with strands all over her face that she had to move out of the way.
Ever the tomboy, she--
"Masato-chan~!" a voice rang out, making the recipient's ear hurt. It was a girl in the same uniform, minus the pants, but much shorter and way too cutsey for Sakura to handle.
"What, Miyu?, she replied angrily, forgetting the honorific on purpose.
The girl started to tear up. "All I was going to say was that you're being too quiet, butbutbut I guess you're just being angry at me! Miyu started bawling and hid her face in her hands.
"Hey," Sakura said with a strong voice. She grabbed Miyu's shoulders and forced the crying woman to face her. She lifted her face with her thumb and forefinger on the chin and looked at the woman. "Don't cry like that... It's embarrassing."
Miyu instantly turned red and looked away, stomping off a few steps. "W-well, we better get to class," she said forcefully. She turned to face Sakura. "What's your homeroom?"
"Oh, right." She looked at a piece of paper in her pocket. "1-F. You?"
The frail girl started crying again. "I-I-I'm in 1-B."
"Hey, Miyu-chan, we have a few classes together, right?" She pulled up her schedule next to the girl's. There were no similarities. "Listen, Miyu-chan, just because we don't have any classes doesn't mean we can't hang out in free time, so don't cry too much, okay?"
"O-okay..."
When the two finally made it to the Freshman Hall, they parted ways at 1-B. Sakura walked down, noticing the increasing letters. Once she found 1-F, she walked in the open door casually and looked around. A few cute girls, some hot guys, but there was nothing that caught her interest. She walked to the back of the classroom, but could only find a seat in the second row, smack in the middle. "This sucks," she said aloud, commenting further in her head that she could neither daydream out the window nor make a run for the door once the teacher said "go". She aimlessly flung her side-bag on the desk and pulled out a pencil and notebook. She wasn't the best in school, but she knew that even homeroom would teach something that would be on a test later. Ten minutes until the start... Go faster, you stupid clock! She giggled at herself. Making time go faster. Stupid Sakura.
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Posted: Sun Jul 04, 2010 4:43 pm
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Mathias Didier 
If there was one thing Mathias hated more than getting up early in the morning, it would have to be getting up in the morning after a sleepless, jet-lagged night. Great. This was just what he needed on his first day back in school in Japan. Not for the first time, and almost certainly not the last, he wondered what had possessed him to study in Tokyo. Not that this school was bad, it was in fact quite a nice university but staying in France with the minimal university fees there would have been far more cost effective. Schooling in Tokyo was cheaper than, say, the US, but it was by no means inexpensive, especially considering rent, board, and the plane tickets back to France to visit his old friends. But, no. He just had to make his life hard by applying for and attending a school in Tokyo.
He could have gone to any university he wanted to in France, but he’d decided to put thousands of miles between himself, his mother, and the many friends he had at home. What had he been thinking? His grades would have gotten him first choice among the French schools his friends had attended, and with the abundance of schools in every city, he should have been able to find one he liked that would have allowed him to stay near his friends.
Yet still he had somehow gotten it into his head to return to the country of his childhood to study. It had been so long since he’d been here, speaking Japanese instead of French, and playing with two military daughters instead of a diverse group of French civilians.
“Quand il me prend dans ses bras il me parle tout bas, je vois la vie en rose.~"
The chorus of "La Vie en Rose" came lilting out from the cell phone at Math’s waist, drawing him out of his wandering thoughts. Merde. That alarm was telling him that he had five minutes to get himself into his classroom or risk being late. A quick glance around told him that he was just in front of the school in question and he was glad he’d taken the time to tour the place and find his classrooms the day before. Taking off at a quick jog, he crossed the central courtyard, heading unerringly through the other hurrying students to reach his class. Room 1-F. Slipping quickly into the room, he grabbed the first empty desk, dropping his bag on it and slumping gracelessly into the seat.
Good. In his classroom and seated with just a little bit of time to spare. He surveyed the classroom, taking in the forty or so other students in his homeroom. About two thirds were Japanese, the rest a smattering of other ethnicities. It was always… interesting being a minority: another thing he would have avoided in France. Well, it wasn’t as if he hadn’t asked for it.
Besides being different isn’t always bad, he thought as he noticed a couple girls whispering and throwing glances towards him, In fact it could be my best attribute at the moment. |
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Posted: Mon Jul 05, 2010 8:20 pm
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Nicholas Wilkins
Nicholas was taking his time making his way to clas, he had been to the university numerous times. Either passing by it, and a few visits while he was in High School and since he applied. He stopped at a store along the way to pickup a bento for lunch, eventually settling on a Noriben. Taking it up to the front the shopkeeper smiled and greeted him. "Ahh, hello, Wilkins-sama!" It always bothered Nicholas a little when someone probably more than twice his age addressed him with the sama honorific. "I picked up American guitar, could you tune it for me?" The man then went on to ask, already disappearing to the back before he could even say anything.
When the older Japanese man came back from the back and handed it to him, he sat his bento down on the counter and took the guitar. Looking it over he strummed a few notes, cringing, wondering when the last time someone tuned it was. Picking a few chords he listened and began tuning it quickly by ear. "There you are Kobayashi-san." Nicholas said, handing the guitar back over the counter and reaching for his wallet.
"Ahh, no no, Wilkins-sama. You no pay, take the bento for free. As thank you for tuning my guitar, maybe you could give me some lessons sometime?" The older man asked and grinned, showing a few missing teeth.
Nicholas bowed, taking the bento. "Thank you, Kobayashi-san, that's very kind of you. If you want me to teach you though, you know my rates." Nicholas added with a grin of his own to which the older man laughed now, the sound following Nicholas out the door as he finally made his way to university.
It was a quick jaunt to the classroom and then he exchanged greetings with a few people he went to high school with, none of them great friends or anything, but it was nice to see some familiar faces. Of course then as he looked around the room he remembered the bad part about coming last, he was stuck with a seat in the front. Sighing to himself he dropped his shoulder bag down onto the floor beside his desk and slid into the desk, glancing at the clock, just a few minutes to spare. |
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Posted: Wed Jul 28, 2010 11:43 am
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A scrawny elderly man with a slight hunch in his back stepped quietly into the classroom. He was white-haired and balding, he had thick glasses through which one could barely see his eyes, and he wore a button-down short-sleeve with a pocket protector and stripped khaki pants with brown loafers. He was the walking definition of a stereotypical old nerd. He stepped behind the podium at the front of the classroom and stood on a footstool so he could be seen. He looked over the students and smiled. They were lively and young. He quickly reminisced to his college days, but snapped back instantly. He placed the brown briefcase he held on the podium and opened it. He looked at the papers inside. Then the morning class bell rang and he looked at the class. Most of them focused on the old man, but there were a few who didn't. He made sure to remember their faces.
"Hello, students. Welcome to room 1-F. This is your homeroom to which you must come every school day, regardless if you have classes. This includes Saturday. In this class, I will teach you basic Japanese grammar and let you use it as a study hall. The class is exactly one hour and forty-five minutes in length and you are required to stay the whole time." He paused. "Any questions?"
The old man smiled. It was a sweet smile, like one of a caring grandfather. "Before we begin, I would like to know my students' names and faces. I have a role sheet here, so when I call your name, stand up and say 'here' or 'present.'" He proceeded down the list. "Didier Mathias," he rang. As was custom in Japan, last names were given first. Once Mathias was finished, he moved on. "Lehmann Sophie." When she finished, he moved one once more. "Masato Sakura." The last name he spoke was "Wilkins Nicholas."
"Forty-six students. All present and counted. Since this is your first day, I will allow you to get to know your classmates. Just keep your volume level down so you do not disturb the other classes." With that, the old man sat down. "Oh yes. My name is Yamato Daisuke. If you have any questions, feel free to come up here and ask me."
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Posted: Sun Aug 15, 2010 4:44 pm
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Mathias Didier
Standing at the sound of his name with an unconcerned "present" Mathias listened carefully to the names being called, and watched his classmates obeying their instructions, much as he had, with perhaps a few variations in their replies. Fixing faces with names, he was taken aback when he heard the names of two of the girls. Sophie Lehmann and Sakura Masato. He knew those names. While Sakura Masato was a common enough name here in Japan, and could be anyone, and not only his childhood friend, finding multiple Sophie Lehmanns was highly improbable in Japan. Sure there was probably a steady flow of non-asian tourists to the small country, but there just weren't that many who had permanent residency.
As children growing up on a military base, they had never really realized it, but coming to Japan as a foreigner was... difficult to say the least. He had spent a good long time before coming trying to decide whether the laws working against foreigners were worth coming to Tokyo to study. The fingerprinting, the website and hotline reporting "suspicious foreigners," the lack of rights within the legal system... Eventually he had decided that getting an education in one of the fastest growing industrial countries with the most competition would give him an edge when he received his degree and he had chosen to come to Tokyo, but honestly, there weren't that many people who were willing to give up their rights to stay in a country as insular as Japan. So this girl was probably the same one he had grown up with then.
How coincidental that they would end up in the same university after so many years apart. It hadn't been long enough for any of them to forget the others, he imagined, but how much would they have changed? It had been five years after all. Would they still get along the same way they had before?
As the teacher finished speaking and sat down, Mathias slowly stood up, pushing his chair back under the desk and removing the light coat he'd worn over the dark grey university uniform. He hung it carefully over the back of the chair, making sure it would neither fall nor block the passage before walking over to Sophie. He hadn't felt this awkward since he first left Japan and had to actually speak up for the first time to make friends in France. He thought he'd grown from that shy hesitant boy who was afraid the native French would laugh at his odd, slightly Japanese accent.
"Hello, Soph," he finally said after a moment of silence. This close, he could tell it was the same girl he'd grown up with. It had only been five years. Her features had changed, but not so much that it was impossible to recognize her. "It's been quite a while since the last time we spoke." |
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Posted: Tue Aug 17, 2010 11:38 am
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Sophie's eyes had danced from person to person as her fellow classmates continued to enter the room, but watching the stream of people attempting to find seats (a rapidly decreasing commodity, especially in the areas they all seemed to flock to) soon lost her interest, and she instead turned her gaze to the window she had so enthusiastically chosen to sit next to. Even through the glass pane, the part of the campus she could see was beautiful, and she couldn't wait to get to know it better. It felt so good to be back. America had been wonderful, of course, but there was something about the town she had grown up in that she continued to be drawn to.
Time passed much quicker than she had expected, and she was startled out of her light daydream by the morning bell. She returned her attention to the front of the room, where an elderly man stood waiting for the class to notice him. There was something about him that made her like him almost instantly, though she supposed she'd have to wait and see how he taught before making a final judgement.
Then again, since she didn't expect him to have any issues with her personally, it was highly likely that her opinion wasn't going to change. It wasn't that she was thinking too highly of herself, but really, he was going to be teaching them all basic grammar. Sure, she had been gone for five years, but that certainly wasn't enough time to forget how to speak Japanese. She allowed herself a small smile at the thought; it had been refreshing to speak the language again, making the transition from English to back Tokyo's native tongue.
Even as her thoughts occupied her, she kept half an ear on the names being called, waiting patiently for her turn. 'L' was close enough to the middle of the alphabet that she had learned not to pay too much attention for the first few minutes of roll call...
Her eyes widened slightly as her ear caught a familiar name, and she carefully turned her head to see who stood to take the credit. 'Mathias?' she wondered. He looked a little different, but...could it be? The boy in question sat back down seconds after vacating his chair, having casually announced his presence, but her gaze lingered on him for a moment, still trying to decide if it was, in fact, the same boy she had been such good friends with when she was younger.
She was still a little distracted when her name was called, but she rose gracefully and smiled at both the teacher and the rest of the class, giving a light, cheery "Present" before sitting back down. First impressions were the most important part of meeting new people, she had always found, especially when moving to a new place. Even if Tokyo wasn't technically 'new'.
Mathias' name being called gave her new reason to actually pay attention to the rest of the names of her classmates. It was a foolhardy hope, but she couldn't help but wonder if she'd recognize any other names. The shock came first when Sakura's name was called, and second when 'Wilkins' was announced at the very end of the list. Surprise riddled her expression, yet at the same time she couldn't help but start to smile. However the miracle had happened...it seemed as though there was going to be a reunion of old friends inside the small classroom. Thank goodness today had been given to them as a study hall, because she didn't know if she'd be able to contain her excitement until the bell rang.
As the teacher sat back down, her eyes were caught by the coordinated movements off to her right. Her smile grew slowly as Mathias approached her, looking adorably awkward, apparently finding their meeting as unexpected as she did.
Hello, Soph. It's been quite a while since the last time we spoke.
Yes, that was the voice she remembered, though perhaps a bit deeper than her memories supplied.
"Yes, it has," she agreed, rising from her seat, a warm look in her eyes. "It's good to see you again, Mathias." Five years ago, she would have hugged him. Even the small distance between them felt strange, considering how close they had all been when they were younger. |
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