The next morning, the classrooms of Minomi High School are bustling as usual. With the opening of the door to classroom 2-2, a middle-aged, semi-bald teacher enters, and the students, who were talking in groups, disperse and take their seats. When the teacher reaches the front of the chalkboard, he turns to the class and says:
"Good morning."
"Good morning, sir!"
"Today, a new transfer student has joined our class. Since he has been abroad for a long time..."
In the back corner of the class by the window, a blonde youth—whose features clearly showed he wasn't Japanese—was watching the teacher with bored eyes, lost in his own world of thought.
"Another transfer student? I left the gang and came here from Russia on his warning, but this place just won't settle down either."
"You may come in, Mr. Ryuzaki."
"What are you doing her—..."
Jon, who had been sitting quietly and calmly, reacted reflexively with a sudden burst of astonishment upon seeing the face before him, involuntarily drawing the attention of both the teacher and the entire class.
"Did something happen, Jon?"
"No, sir. I just thought he looked like an old friend of mine, but I was mistaken. (Thank god, I almost got myself into trouble. But why did he come here? Is he after me? No, no, don't think negatively right away... maybe he didn't recognize me.)"
Accompanied by Jon's explanation, various voices began to rise from the classroom.
"Wait, it's a boy?"
"Look, he's actually quite handsome. I wonder if he has a girlfriend?"
"Yeah, and he's so tall too... he must be at least 1.80."
"Definitely, and he looks like a foreigner, too."
"These girls start drooling over a guy immediately! Let the kid introduce himself first!"
"What's it to you? Do we meddle when you guys talk about girls?"
"Silence!!"
After the teacher angrily silenced the class, he signaled Kael to introduce himself.
"My name is Ryuzaki Kael. My father is of foreign descent, but my mother is Japanese, and I was born and raised in Japan. I only went abroad to my father's homeland a few years ago, but now I have returned to Japan."
"Alright, there is an empty seat in the middle row, one in front of the back. You can sit there. Now, where did we leave off in the lesson?"
Kael settled into his seat amidst the curious eyes scrutinizing him. Not even a few minutes had passed since he sat down when the person sitting behind him tapped his back and called out to him.
"Psst, hey, can you look here for a second?"
"Yes?"
"Your name was Ryuzaki, right?"
"Yes, what is it?"
"The girl in the front row on the far right asked me to request your contact information."
When Kael looked toward the spot indicated, he noticed a red-haired girl watching him out of the corner of her eye. He then turned back to his classmate behind him—a slightly tanned youth of his age with black hair and a buzz cut.
"Tell her I'm not interested."
"Seriously? You're just rejecting the princess of our class like that?"
"A girl who asks for a man's contact information without even knowing if they have anything in common, and without having met him in person, isn't a princess—she's just a bitch."
The dark-skinned boy's eyes widened, and an expression of pride and admiration appeared on his face.
"What happened? Did I say something wrong?"
"No, I'm just extremely happy because I found someone like myself. Everyone is chasing after girls, and besides you, Jon was the only one who rejected that girl, and he doesn't talk to anyone anyway. By the way, I haven't introduced myself, have I? I'm Ichida Sote. You can just call me Ichida, no need for the '-san' suffix."
"Nice to meet you, Ichida. Also, you don't need to use the '-san' suffix either. I'm not used to being addressed with '-san' anyway."
"You're right, you said you were abroad for a long time, didn't you? Which country was it?"
"I had gone to Turkey. I came back for some reasons."
"Are you half-Turkish? I've always wanted to go to Turkey, but I could never manage to learn Turkish. How about teaching me sometime?"
"Turkish isn't a language you can just learn and be done with. Yes, everything is written as it's pronounced, but let me give you an example. Do you know what you can say when you want to get off a bus? Let me list them for you: 'Captain, spit me out,' 'Drop me somewhere convenient,' 'Get rid of me at the next stop.' Or do you know how you'd describe someone who cooks well or speaks engagingly? You'd say, 'This master's hand is delicious,' or 'His mouth is sweet,' or 'His mouth makes good talk.' Turkish people are jokers; when I first went to Turkey, they taught me a word that they said meant 'hello.' A year later, I found out it was a curse word."
"I still think I can learn it; I don't think it'll be a problem."
"Then let me teach you the first word so you don't end up cursing at someone like I did when you mean to say hello."
"I'd be forever in your debt."
"In Turkish, when you want to say hello, you say 'senin ebeni' to the person across from you."
"Then let's introduce ourselves from the start: senin ebeni!"
"And senin ebeni to you, too."
"I just noticed, you're in great shape. Do you do any sports?"
"The sports I'm involved in are swimming and running, I guess."
"Ah, what a shame. There's a kickboxing club, and I was hoping we could get you in there, but it looks like we've lost you to swimming."
"Who said I was going to go swimming? Besides, I'm not planning on joining any clubs. (In reality, I had mastered both of them just to catch fleeing prey and targets. Ah, man... those old memories are coming back. Some lunatic tried to escape from me by swimming; I had to chase him for two kilometers, swimming in my clothes.)"
"(The crazy bastard doesn't know that he learned it just to be able to torture people by making them swim; he had killed a man even after promising to let him go if the man could keep up with him for two kilometers of swimming.)"
"That's a shame, but I'd still say come visit our club sometime."
"Thanks in advance."
Kael turned forward and began to scan the classroom; everything in the class was normal and boring. Just as he was examining everyone one by one, a person at the back left caught his attention. Looking a bit closer, the person he saw caused Kael to get excited and involuntarily snap the pen in his hand in half. When Kael looked back again and confirmed the position of the person across from him, he was completely certain that he recognized them.
Kael leaned slightly toward Jon and uttered a single sentence in Russian, and instantly, Jon's pupils contracted; he began to hold his breath and break into a cold sweat.