“Blade? Still sleepy? Are you feeling all right?”
On the way to school, Earnest, Blade’s friend since kindergarten, shot him a worried look. Her face was way too close for comfort, so he blushed a bit and turned away.
“What, I’m not allowed to worry about you?” she asked. “That’s forbidden, too?”
She was acting unusually reserved, her usual ferociousness mysteriously absent. It made her seem like a completely different person.
“I’m fine. I mean it,” Blade reassured her. “I’m just groggy. I think I had a super-realistic dream. That’s why I thought you were—”
“I was what?” She tilted her head, her bouncy red hair cascading down from her oval-shaped head. “You thought I was what? Tell me! Now I’m all curious.”
“No way. Never.” Blade turned away. Her face was just too close to his.
Eventually, they arrived at their classroom. It was a very small space, crammed with thirty or so people—a bizarre sight.
“Doing okay, Blade?” asked Earnest again.
“Oh… Yeah. I’m fine.”
After a few moments, his unease began to fade. He’d felt the same way in the living room of his house that morning, when he had seen the king—sorry, his father—and mother having breakfast. It felt weird at first, but after a few seconds, it all felt normal again.
“Hey, Blade.”
“What’s up, Kassim?”
Blade and Kassim fist-bumped each other. They were good friends—more like partners in crime, actually.
“Hey,” Kassim whispered, “so I brought something really cool with me today. I’ll let you borrow it later.”
“Something cool?” Blade replied at a normal volume. “What is it?”
“Whoa! Keep your voice down! Shhhhh!”
“Come on, Kassim!” shouted Maria, the class president. “Stop being a bad influence on Blade. You’re on class duty today. Go wipe down the blackboard.”
“I know!” Kassim said, reluctantly picking up the blackboard eraser.
There was some graffiti on the board reading BLADE ♡ EARNEST in big letters. What could that mean?
“Good morning, Blade.” A smiling girl approached him, her beautiful black hair swaying gently. “Did you do your homework?”
“Huh? Homework?” What’s that?
“There’s no way,” replied Earnest with absolute certainty.
“Well, um, I could show you mine if you want…,” said the smiling girl. “I know I shouldn’t, but I’ll make a special exception for today.”
“Oh, really?” asked Blade. “That’d be great.”
“Whoa, me too, Claire! Lemme see!”
“Do your own homework, Yessica.”
“Hey, no fair! Why’re you only helping Blade?”
“Because he’s special!”
“Oh wow! She said it! She really said it!”
“N-no, wait, I didn’t mean it like that! I didn’t! Ahhh!”
“What do you mean by ‘that,’ huh?”
Blade quietly excused himself from the gaggle of girls. His best friend, Clay, was motioning for him to come over, so he grabbed his notebook and started to move. But just then, someone interrupted him.
“Sir! Sir, sir, sir! Please pick me, your high-spec underclassman! With my super-advanced technology, acing quizzes from the year above me is child’s play!”
“Dude, go back to your class.”
It was his annoying underclassman again. She was a year Blade’s junior, but she tried hard to ingratiate herself with everyone in his class for some reason. And she stuck to Blade like glue. She was such a nuisance.
“Hey,” said a student stationed at the door, “teacher’s coming.”
Blade hadn’t finished copying Clay’s homework yet. Five seconds left… Three seconds… One second… Yes! He was done, and just in the nick of time. He didn’t have a chance to give Clay a celebratory high five, but he quickly sat back down at his desk, the very picture of good manners.
“Good morning, students. It’s a lovely day outside, isn’t it?”
Ms. Dione, their homeroom teacher, was popular with the whole class—both boys and girls. You could call her backside “muscular,” and she wouldn’t yell at you for it; her booty was all but bulging through her suit, after all. Her smile was so gentle and free of malice, it was almost frightening.
“Hey, Blade,” said Earnest, sitting next to him. “What’re you looking at?”
“Her ass and legs,” Blade replied succinctly. He leaned to one side of his desk, trying to get a better look at her from across the teacher’s podium. He couldn’t stop thinking about Ms. Dione’s bottom half. For some strange reason, the fact that she had only two legs felt weird to him.
Why, though? How many would she have otherwise?
“So!” Ms. Dione began. “I have some very good news for everyone—especially for the boys.”
The male students began to buzz with excitement.
“As of today, we’re going to have a new student in our class. Come on in!”
At Ms. Dione’s cue, a girl entered the classroom.
“My name is Sophie…,” she said. “I just transferred here.”
The quiet girl bowed slightly, and the boys all hooted in unison. Nearly half of the girls cheered as well, while the other half gave the boys harsh, judgmental stares. Blade, being a normal boy, whooped it up with the others.
He was a few seconds behind the rest of the class, though, because he still wasn’t sure what they were yelling about. Nobody noticed, though. And although she was being showered with praise and encouragement, the new transfer remained bolt upright, her expression neutral.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Hey, hey, so what was your old school like?!”
“What kind of music do you listen to?!”
“What’s your favorite manga?!”
“What kinda guys do you like?!”
“We should follow each other!”
The bell rang, signaling the end of fourth period, and as the teacher’s back disappeared through the doorway, the entire class rushed toward the new transfer student.
“Atten-shun!” A loud voice rang out, and at the Empress’s command, everyone fell silent. “Enough! Stop it, everyone. You’re giving Sophie a hard time. I’m really sorry everyone in class is so stupid.”
“It’s okay,” said the girl. She was as cool as ever and didn’t seem to mind. “I can’t talk about my last school, though. It’s against the rules. I don’t listen to music, but I’ll listen to whatever you suggest to me. I like BL manga. I’m not sure what kind of boy I like, but something about useless, clumsy guys makes me feel very maternal. And sorry, but I’m not on social media. I don’t even have a flip phone.”