DREAM: RESTLESS NIGHTS

CHAPTER 1-FIRST DAY

Six AM in the morning, the alarm went off. The door slammed open, "Haruto! Time to get up and get ready, you don't want to be late on your first day back!"
"Just five more minutes..? Please...?" Said Haruto.
"Haruto you have to get up, I'll see you in the dining room." The woman left the room. Haruto groaned, not wanting to get up. He knew that it could be a pretty rough day which made him lose all his motivation very quickly. He changed his clothing and did his morning routine before going into the dining room.
"Morning, Yuki and Tsuki." Haruto said obviously very tired. Yuki and Tsuki were his two little sisters, his two siblings looked very similar to each other.
"Big brother! Good morning! Are you excited for school? I know I am, I can make a lot of friends." Said Yuki optimistically.
"Me too!" Shouted out Tsuki. Despite all the positivity in the room, Haruto still felt just as anxious. Haruto sat down eating his rice for breakfast with his mother and two sisters, as always, it was rice. It was pretty much all that they could afford.
"I should head out now, love you mom, Yuki, and Tsuki. I'll see you later on." Haruto said after washing his dish.
Walking towards the door, he opened it not at all prepared to face the day, yet he had to. Luckily he lived close to his school so Haruto didn't have to walk as much. 'New year, new people, new place. Hopefully nothing terrible will happen.' Haruto thought, immediately realizing that things may not go well. And... he was quite right in that sense. Out of nowhere it just started raining, Haruto questioned why this is happening. Haruto has a long history of bad luck. He feels as if he can't go a day without something bad happening. "Dammit.. I haven't memorized the route to the school fully." Haruto murmured. The reason why this was such a problem is because it's hard to see in the rain, especially with no umbrella, and being soaking wet already. After around 15 minutes he finally found where the school was, and at that point, nothing he was wearing was dry. 'I'm gonna be late! I have to get there in less than 3 minutes' He went from walking quickly to running, which was a terrible idea. He slipped and fell in the mud.
"And please welcome a new student, Haruto Bushida, will you please stand up?" The teacher said, looking around.
"Harut–" She was cut off.
"...present." Haruto was a complete mess, muddy and soaking wet. The whole class stared in his direction and the atmosphere got very awkward, very quickly. His classmates started murmuring to each other, he couldn't tell what they were talking about though, but it was likely him. 'First day and they're already talking about you in a bad way.. great going Haruto.'
"Welcome Mr. Bushida.. ehm–" She cleared her throat. "You will be sitting.. right.... there! Meet your soon to be your new friend." The teacher pointed towards the empty chair next to a girl with dark blue eyes, and brown hair. But she didn't seem to have any interest in Haruto or any intentions to even start a conversation with him.
"Hey look, the freaky girl finally got a freaky friend to sit with her!" One of the guys said, after saying that the class just started laughing in Haruto's and the girl's direction.
"Do they always do this..?" Haruto asked the girl in a whisper tone.
"..." She ignored him.
"Class! Please be respectful towards your classmates, do not poke fun at them! Maybe you should get to know both of them first before you start to make assumptions." The teacher said firmly. 'Glad to know the teacher at the very least gives a damn about us..' Hours passed after that incident, and that's when P.E. came. This is where it really got bad for Haruto.
"Hey look, it's the new kid, bet he's gonna be a little baby when the ball's gonna hit him in dodgeball!" One of his classmates snickered. 'Nothing should be too hard right now in P.E., mean like it is the first day.' Haruto thought, for once hoping that being optimistic will help him this time. Yet as always, he's wrong.
"Bushida, go sit out, you got hit!" shouted out the P.E. teacher. He was first out, his classmates immediately turned their attention towards him and the other girl once the game had started, except the girl is still in the game and somehow getting a lot of people out.
"Rough, ain't it?"
Haruto jumped, he had no idea that someone was sitting next to him. He slowly nodded, as it was painfully obvious that he got spooked by the boy.
"Bushida, right?"
Haruto nodded again with a little more confidence.
"Well, nice to meet you! You can just call me Yukio. Try not to pay too much attention to those idiots who are poking fun at you, I know how that feels too." Yukio said pretty reassuringly.
"I.. I just moved here recently actually.. so I don't really know anyone here." Haruto said, kind of unsure about Yukio. "-Why aren't you making fun of me too? Any special reason?" Haruto continued.
"What, would you rather me bully you? To answer your question, no special reason I just feel like everyone should have a friend to help get them through high school, you know?" Yukio said, not seeming mad at all or sad about Haruto's question.
"Yeah. I agree." Haruto said. It got awkward pretty quickly because of the silence between the two.
"So.... where did you live prior to moving here?" Yukio asked, trying not to make it seem so awkward.
"I moved here from Osaka. It's definitely something new living in the city."
"Is that so? What's it like out there?" Yukio asked with pure curiosity.
"Uhmmm... more affordable I guess?" Haruto said with a sheepish smile.
"Haha, very funny. But actually, what's the climate? The scenery? Those kinds of things, you know?" Yukio said, urging Haruto to talk more about his hometown.
"I guess the food is really good, the temperature was usually pretty nice, oh yeah there's a lotta trees too." It was clear that Haruto had more confidence when he spoke to Yukio, it's just something about him that just makes it so easy to talk to him after a few moments of silence.
"Do you have any siblings?"
"Yeah, two little sisters. Yuki and Tsuki, they're always running around or doing something that requires a lot of energy." Haruto said as he chuckled a little bit. So did Yukio. They started laughing even more when one of the rude classmates got hit with two balls at the same time in dodgeball.
"Serves him right! BEAT HIS ASS KUROKI!" Yukio shouted out, seemingly cheering for another one of his friends. 'Wonder who that is, another one of his friends?' Haruto didn't know which kid 'Kuroki' was.
"Looks like it's just me and you, all your teammates got out freak!" It was one of Haruto's bullies. He got ready to throw the ball, as hard as he could.
"TAKE THIS!" He shouted pretty loudly.
"I'd like to see you try, bitch!" The "freaky" girl had already thrown the ball.
"YOU'RE OUT!"
The ball hit the rude classmate. Haruto began to feel a little more nervous around his classmate, he was starting to understand why that girl wasn't really liked by others.. she seemed very aggressive when it came to certain things.
"P.E.'s over! Remember to get your measurements done and purchase your P.E. uniforms, have a great rest of your day class!" Everyone began to walk back into the main building.
"So, which lunch do you have? I have lunch B, maybe we can sit together if you do." Yukio said with confidence that Haruto would have the same lunch.
"... I have lunch A." Haruto answered with hesitation.
"Oh. Well, at least we still have a lot of classes together. You have lunch next, you should get going. Oh yeah, I think Kuroki has lunch A too, you guys can probably talk and get to know each other! See you!" Yukio said as he was already creating distance between himself and Haruto. Then before he knew it, Yukio was out of his sight. 'I heard Yukio cheering for Kuroki.. but I still don't know who they are so I can't really sit with them.' Haruto was so unsure about Kuroki that he didn't even know their gender. Haruto followed the directions on the map he was given, and he finally arrived in the cafeteria. It was huge and full of other highschool students. There were multiple friend groups, and a few loners. Unfortunately, Haruto was one of those loners.
"Hello Ms, my name is Haruto Bushida, is my name in the system yet?"
"Haruto Bushida........ no. Are you new at this school by any chance?" The lunch lady said in response.
"Yeah, I moved here from Osaka just this year."
"You'll have to wait a day I believe." She said, being very sure of herself.
"Is there any wa–"
"NEXT!" Haruto was cut off, and he had no lunch for the day because of the issue. He also had no one to sit with making his day even more miserable. So he just sat there. Alone, hungry, tired, irritated at this point. Looking at all the friend groups just made him feel even more pathetic and lonely.
"Hey, it's Bushida all alone! Think he's gonna cry from being so lonely?" His classmate said sarcastically as he slammed his hands down on Haruto's lunch table.
"What do you want?" Haruto said, it was clear that he was annoyed.
"Look, he doesn't even have lunch, let alone friends!" One of the guys said, disregarding the fact that Haruto even spoke in the first place.
"Please, just leave me alone." Haruto said, trying to get them to go away.
"And? What are you going to do if we don't? Let's see how well the lil' guy can handle a punch." His classmate formed a fist with his hand, prepared to let Haruto have it until..
"TIME TO GET TO CLASS EVERYONE, THE BELL'S GOING TO RING IN 30 SECONDS!" Haruto's heart dropped to his stomach.
"Looks like you got saved by the bell, but next time you won't be as lucky." All of the five classmates that were picking on him left for class. 'Saved by the bell? Since when have I ever been lucky in these situations?' As shocked as he was, he felt good that he finally had a lucky moment in his life, just when he needed it the most.
"Hey! Bushida!" Someone said as he ran over to Haruto, he was prepared for the worse.
"Hey, how was lunch? Did you end up sitting next to Kuroki? Make any new friends?" It was just Yukio.
"No.. I'm pretty sure I just made new enemies though."
"Oh, damn. Who was it?"
"Five tall and strong classmates, they're the same ones who made fun of me on my first day." Haruto complained, "One was going to punch me, but I was somehow saved by the bell." He continued.
"You got lucky man! Good thing that bell went off, I bet that punch would've definitely left a mark. Glad you're ok." Yukio said with relief. Haruto nodded.
"Hey, race you to the next class! Don't let the teachers see you or me running!" Just like that, Yukio was already starting. He kept his head low.
"Hey! Wait up!" Haruto chased after him.
"That wraps it up for today. Don't forget to do your homework, class." The bell rang right after the teacher said that.
"Pretty interesting first day, eh?"
"Yeah, very. Hopefully tomorrow will be a little better. Maybe new friends if I'm lucky." Haruto chuckled.
"Don't worry, I'm sure you'll be able to do it! See you tomorrow." Yukio said as he began to walk in the opposite direction.
"Bye." Haruto started walking towards his house.
"Welcome home sweety, how was your first day back?" Haruto's mom asked after he walked through the door.
"It was.. something. I guess we have to buy a P.E. uniform though, here's the paper." Haruto grabbed the paper given to him from the P.E. instructor.
"We'll get it today, you should go and take a shower now and get ready for dinner." His mother said in response.
"Sure thing mom."
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–CHAPTER 1 END–