章 104: First Period
Ranko peered around the corner into a long hallway full of silver-colored lockers, as if she was worried there might be a dragon or something waiting for her instead of a few dozen high schoolers going about their first day of school. She could wear something twice as revealing in front of 200 grabby, drunken guys on stage and not flinch, but right now, wearing a red and white girls' high school uniform and needing to convince a bunch of kids that she belonged in it, she felt positively naked.
Walking down the hallway, she listened as friends reconnected after the just-ended school break, catching up on family vacations, the latest with their dating lives, and the movies they'd seen recently, but Ranko felt entirely alone amid the din of voices and the bustling slamming of metal locker doors. Clutching the handle of her black school bag in both hands in front of her, her eyes scanned the long corridor for a friendly face. The smell of fresh gray paint still lingered in the air. Even setting foot in a school again after over a year felt surreal – beyond the fact that she was doing it as a girl now, it was almost as if she'd been thrown back into a bizarre alternate version of her own past like in that weird old English TV show Nabiki liked with the old guy and the phone booth.
Reaching into the pocket of her red skirt, grateful that unlike the Furinkan uniform she narrowly avoided, the Yusue ones even had such conveniences, she pulled out a small yellow printout and refreshed her memory of what room she was supposed to find for her first class. If the ascending numbers on the little brown placards hanging near the ceiling were any indication, she was almost there.
She slipped into the indicated door, finding a desk in the back corner of the room by the window and taking a seat. Perhaps if she sat quietly enough, no one would notice her. Ideally, until next year sometime. The chalkboard was decorated with colorful hand-drawn flowers and a welcoming note identifying the room as Mrs. Tanaka's 11th grade English class. The walls were dotted with travel posters from other countries and postcards from far-flung destinations. Closest to Ranko's desk were a postcard from the Great Pyramids of Giza and a mockup of a street sign for Abbey Road.
Ranko's new classmates had largely settled by the time their teacher entered the room, the girls in red pinafore skirts over white blouses with red bows at the collar like Ranko's, the boys in long-sleeved black shirts and matching slacks. A few of the guys had red jackets to wear over their shirts, but it seemed from the inconsistency of them that it was optional in the uniform code.
The teacher was a young woman, not likely much older than Ayako, with thin-rimmed glasses and straight brown hair, wearing a yellow business suit that had seen better days. "Hello, everyone," she said in English. "Welcome! We have a lot of new faces from last year. Why don't we go around the room and have everyone introduce themselves?" Ranko wasn't sure she quite understood everything she said, but as she watched how the other students reacted, she put the instruction together well enough.
One by one, the students stood, giving their names and a fun fact or two about themselves. I'm not here, you don't see me, Ranko thought. But, as the last of the other twenty or so other students in the room had finished, the teacher stood on her tiptoes to look across the room at her. "And you, miss, in the corner," she asked in Japanese.
Ranko stood from the little wooden desk, unable to separate it from the blue plastic chair that was attached with an aluminum bar along the left side. She bit her lip nervously and cringed at the annoying scraping sound the desk made on the linoleum floor. Nearly all of her English speaking came in song form, and while she'd managed to pass the written placement exams to catch up to eleventh grade in all the key subjects, she hadn't had much practice actually formulating and speaking sentences on the spot. "Uh, Hello. I am Ranko Tendo. I have four sisters. I like to sing."
The teacher smiled, opening her brown leather briefcase and withdrawing her lesson plan. "Welcome, Miss Tendo. Is that everyone?"
Pulling out their thick green textbooks, the students followed along with Mrs. Tanaka's lecture, mostly covering transitive verbs. Compared to Japanese, English was just weird. Sure, Japanese had kanji to memorize, but at least you couldn't mispronounce anything and things followed relatively consistent rules. At least, once the work began, Ranko was able to focus on it and not worry so much about, well, existing.
When the bell rang announcing the end of her first class, a girl with short black hair and thick glasses walked over from the desk next to Ranko's. "You have such pretty handwriting." Ranko blushed; her penmanship had indeed improved quite a bit since becoming a girl full-time, though she wasn't sure if that was because of her transition, or whether it was that she was actually doing school work on a consistent basis for the first time in quite some time and getting more practice writing.
"I'm Kumiko," Ranko's classmate said. "It's good to meet you."
Ranko managed a small smile, shaking her head amusedly. She didn't understand what the point of making everyone introduce themselves was if they were just going to introduce each other again afterward anyway. "Yeah, you too."
"I haven't seen you here before. Are you new to Yusae High?" The girl fidgeted nervously, and Ranko recognized the nerves in her eyes. Putting yourself out there was hard.
Ranko nodded. "First day. It's… a lot."
WIth a smile, Kumiko nodded. "Makes sense, then. You look scared out of your shoes." She scooped her notebook and textbook into her hand, carefully inserting them into the pink leather messenger bag strapped across the back of her chair.
Blushing, Ranko looked down at her yellow spiral notebook, having not yet started to pack up her things. "Is it that obvious?"
"Just a little. But you'll be okay. We don't bite." Kumiko giggled.
Ranko gave a little chuckle. "Well, that's a comfort. And I know, I just… I don't have any friends or anything here, and it's just awkward, ya know? I've been out of school for a long time and I'm still trying to get used to it again."
Kumiko offered her a bright smile and her right hand. "Well, you have a friend now, Ranko."
Ranko took it with a blush, giving it a little shake. "Thanks, Kumiko." She quickly dumped her belongings into her bag and stepped out into the hallway with Kumiko, who almost got knocked over immediately by a group of four guys in matching black uniforms running down the corridor.
"Damn jocks. They think they own the place, and most of the girls in it, too. I hate those guys," Kumiko said, rolling her eyes. "Between the basketball, baseball and soccer teams, and the cheerleaders and volleyball team on the girls' side, it's like this place has its own weird caste system or something."
Kumiko motioned her head to a tall, muscular guy walking down the hall. From the way the crowd parted for him, Ranko judged he had to be popular, and probably an upperclassman. He was handsome enough, with messy blonde hair and stubble to match. He kind of reminded Ranko of a younger Crash. "That's Eiji Kanda. Captain of the school basketball team. Keep clear of him, Ranko. He's a total jerk, and everyone treats him like a king." She spoke with a resentment that made Ranko wonder if she'd ever dated Eiji and had a bad experience, or maybe just fantasized about it and was bitter that her infatuation had been unrequited.
Ranko nodded, biting her tongue. She wanted to say that she'd known a guy just like that in her last high school. That he'd groped her and her girlfriend both to no end, and made Akane's life a living hell of daily combat for the right to make it to her first period class before the bell rang. That, a few months ago, she'd almost died beating him in a fight for her own hand in marriage, having gambled it on the duel in order to save her girlfriend from the same cruel fate. She decided it was safer to keep the details to herself.
"Thanks for the warning, Kumiko." Ranko faked a smile, instantly regretting that she and Akane had decided that Yusae was the better option than the all-girls' school a few blocks further away. The last thing she needed was some grabby, entitled guy in her life, especially if it was discovered that she was something of a local celebrity. She wondered how the teens would react if they knew she worked in a bar, and thought they could use her to get served alcohol while underage. It would be a shortcut to popularity, but she wouldn't dare risk Hana's bar license to get a few more kids sitting at her lunch table.
A shrill beep from the recess-mounted white speakers of the public address system warned that the ten-minute class change period was half-over. "Hey, Kumiko, do you know where room 119 is? It's my next class," Ranko asked, looking at her crumpled yellow schedule slip.
Ranko's new friend smiled excitedly. "That's Mr. Nishi's class! History, right? Mine too! C'mon, I'll walk you."
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