One Way or Another

Pieces

(Uruha's POV)

(Four years later.)

I never thought 7th grade would be so tough. I practically breezed through all of my previous grades with straight A's but now I have a C in English and almost a D in history. All of my other grades are fine but I'm struggling in those two. I must be slacking off too much. They're going to kill me.

When I first moved in with Reita, Grandma, and the others I was super scared. You never know what they're thinking and Granny always has these super bad mood swings. Honestly, it was a total nightmare, but I think I've gotten used to them now. Reita's a great big brother after all. He usually helps me out even when it seems obvious that he doesn't want to.

I let out a small sigh as I started to head out the door walking to school, since it's not that far from home. Reita and I used to walk to school together all the time but now that Reita is in high school he has to leave earlier than me. Kinda lonely without him.

Once I was about halfway down the first street I finally noticed that someone was following me. As soon as I turned around to me who it was the stranger immediately yelled, "Hi!" He seemed surprised that I noticed him. Based on looks I'm guessing he's about my age, a dork with the way he just approached me, probably a newbie.

"Umm... hi. Who are you?"

"Oh, sorry. My name is Aoi, nice to meet you. What's your name?"

"Well, uh... my name is Uruha, but... why were you following me?"

"Sorry about that. I just moved in recently. I but forgot my way to the school. When I saw you seemed to know where you were going. So I thought I'd ask you for help, but you looked like you were deep in thought by the time I got near you so I decided to just tag along." I didn't even realize I was that deep in thought to not notice someone following me. I need to get my head together.

"Oh... well. You are heading to the middle school, right?"

"No, I'm actually in the 9th grade. I go to the high school."

"Dude! My brother goes to the high school. It will only take an extra five minutes to walk from the middle school to get there, but your classes start in less than twenty minutes. If you don't hurry you'll be late.

"Really?!"

"Yeah! I'll show you the way but we'll have to hurry. Come on!" Right then I started to run as fast as my heavy backpack would allow me to. I have no idea why I want to help him so much. I just met the guy, but for some reason I feel like it'll be fun hanging out with him. Guess I'm in a good mood.

Of course we weren't able to run for that long. We stopped only after a few minutes but luckily the middle school was within sight, just around the corner. Oh great, now I'm early. The only reason the high school even starts early is because they thought they should have more time in school to study. My classes don't even start for almost another hour. Now I have to deal with my own early bird classmates longer than necessary.

" If you keep heading down this street the high school will be on the end of it to your right."

"Okay. Thanks. See you later?" he said kinda shyly implying that we'd meet again as friends based on his stance.

"Yeah. I guess I'll see you later, but you need to hurry."

"Okay. Thanks again. Bye," Aoi yelled while running down the street. Really don't mind meeting up with the weirdo again. I turned back around to see my own school.