"I am the student council president, Horikita, Manabu. As a representative of the upper classes, I would like to extend words of welcome to our newest students..."

Ayanokōji blinks at the imposing president, only half listening to his speech. Not thirty minutes ago, he was quietly admiring a very prickly girl's eyes, and now he's seeing the same eyes on a different face.

If he looks just to the right he can see the girl at the front of her line, staring straight ahead, completely tense as the president speaks, her earlier resolve withered to nothing. Relations aside, she seems to know him. Whether she's nervous or terrified, he can't tell. Maybe it's both.

Ayanokōji doesn't let himself think too hard about that though. After all, despite her doubts, they ended up in the same class.

And so did Tsujihara, he notes, eyes sliding further right and meeting deep blue.

She was already looking at him.

It's not a challenge or even a threat from what he can tell, but he should've felt her gaze in the first place. For a long moment neither of them blink, lost. Ayanokōji isn't sure what to do about this development and he can assume she's thinking something similar.

Tsujihara breaks the stare first, taking the time to appraise him much like he did her on the bus, a silent way of "catching up". Or she's sizing him up, but at least she's being polite about it.

Ayanokōji follows her lead, seeing what he couldn't on the bus, like her untucked shirt and baggy blazer, her skirt that rises higher than most in the back, the athletic socks artfully wrinkled below her calves, the white sneakers, the long necktie — everything really.

Tsujihara's already got the attention of many students from her customized wardrobe alone, he knows. People are more sensitive about a woman's appearance than a man's. And today's orientation.

Ayanokōji thinks the look fits her. It certainly fits the Tsujihara he remembers.

Their eyes find each other again and the staring continues for another ten minutes straight, neither knowing where to go from there. If Tsujihara couldn't relearn social skills after escaping what hope is there for him?

He decides to initiate, addressing the elephant between them with an offered hand, much like she'd done with the old lady earlier.

Tsujihara follows the gesture with her eyes, and he scans her face for any sign of displeasure. If civil is all she can be, he'd have to respect that. He would respect that.

She takes his hand in a soft grip and Ayanokōji's hindbrain quiets, no longer whispering hypothetical means to preserve his new freedom. If he can solve things the normal way, he will. Resorting to "other methods" is something he'd like to avoid.

Especially considering his opponent is an unknown. Three years is a long time.

He could investigate, but his eyes will never follow her without her knowing. She never voiced any complaints about his staring back then, but in hindsight the two black eyes and concussion he received was definitely planned during their last fight. Everything else was secondary.

Tsujihara's instincts and intuition were foolproof in and out of a fight, and the depth of them is something he can't learn because they're illogical and emotional — two concepts that'd been beaten out of him in his early childhood. The closest thing he has to instinct is carefully calculated probability, a method he seldom ever uses because he was taught to know, and that to not know is failure.

He wonders if it was reason or intuition that made Tsujihara shake his hand.

He asks her as much once they're dismissed from the gym to homeroom.

"Both." She answers and he isn't sure if that's flattering or not. "And because I couldn't think of a good enough reason not to."

"Isn't that a good thing?" He asks, moving to open the door for her.

She nods her thanks, stepping through. "Not if you'd been walking around with scrap metal up your sleeve again."

"I'll try not to make a habit out of it."

Tsujihara snorts and leaves it at that.

The journey to the classroom is walked in surprisingly amicable silence. Ayanokōji takes in the campus scenery unbothered by the noisy undertone of music blasting in Tsujihara's earbuds. He likes the white noise.

On the hall of their shared classroom, he's over 20 feet from the door when he can't hear it anymore. Tsujihara only makes it another 3 before she's sighing and pulling her buds out.

"Koji-kun..." She mumbles, looking minorly irritated, and slowing her steps to a snail's pace. "...how much do you know about normal teenagers?"

"Not much. Why?"

"Integrating into normal life is hard." She sighs again, deeper than the last one, as if she's spinning the earth on its axis with every drag of her feet. "Integrating into a normal teenage life sounds like hell."

"Don't jinx it. I'll have a hard enough time as it is."

Tsujihara hums, watching their class through the windows. Her reflection looks utterly unimpressed. "You're socially inept, not mean. You should be fine by the third month."

"Thanks. I don't think I have that much faith in myself."

"I don't have faith in you either." Oh. "But that's about how long it takes for acts to fall and for the last of the smarter idiots blinded by the novelty of friendship to have their own opinion again."

Ayanokōji didn't hear anything beneficial to him in that answer. "And they'll automatically become my friend?"

Tsujihara turns around then, a single arched brow conveying her feelings for his toneless snark. "You're a tall, cute, social disaster. Some extrovert is going to adopt you whether you like it or not."

Ayanokōji blinks. "I'm cute?"

They're in the doorway when he asks, and Tsujihara comes to a hard stop just to stare at him.

Eventually she answers. "Yes. Probably by most girls' standards. Hopefully you get a good grasp of that before some chick tries to eat you."

Eat him...?

Tsujihara offers no further explanation and leaves to hunt down her chair. He does the same, finding his seat in the back beside a window and not a wall.

Intentional or not, whoever assigned seats has his eternal devotion.

Tsujihara is seated on the opposite side of the room, one row up, and he can tell she has her music back at full blast as she puts her head down, trying to drown out the class' noise. He doesn't think it's working.

Then he sees who he's sitting next to.

"An unpleasant coincidence." She says, resolve reaffirmed and prickly attitude still intact. A cactus would be more personable.

He takes back his eternal devotion.

"I feel the same way." 

//

They're doing introductions now, the class, since the teacher hasn't come in yet and Ayanokōji can't decide how he wants to go about this. His social standing in the class is on the line, not that he cares, but his high school experience will be that much easier.

(And an extrovert might adopt him. The sooner the better.)

Yosuke and Kushida were perfect examples to make or create out of, but he has no disillusions to how well versed in socializing they are, and he is not.

He's going to fail. At least a punishment won't follow.

No one seems to share the same dread he does. On the contrary, he could argue that most of them are downright enthusiastic about it. He envies their confidence.

"Me next! I'm Ike Kanji!" The guy, Ike starts spontaneous and silly, the perfect premise to his  cracky introduction. "I love hot girls, hate hot guys, and am always open to accepting new girlfriend applications!"

Ike earns a classroom full of laughter for his openness and basks in the social benefits of his success.

From introductions alone, a lot can be told about a person if done right. Ayanokōji learns several students' personalities and priorities, which is the point of an introduction he knows, but with no practice and no prep time, his best chance at success is to lie. He'd go through with it if the idea of maintaining whatever web he spins didn't sound like a mountain of work.

His next best options are either playing deaf or jumping out the window.

"-...how about you!" Ayanokōji turns to check how far along they are and promptly wishes he hadn't.

All eyes are on him.

But to be sure. "Me?"

Hirata's answering smile feels vaguely mocking, but maybe that's just him.

Reluctantly, he stands for the sake of his high school life. "Uh... I'm Ayanokōji Kiyotaka. I- uh..."

Background is a no go and he doesn't know any jokes. "I look forward to studying with you all. I'm not particularly good at anything, but I'll work hard to get along with everyone." And he's going to stop now. No need to make things worse for himself.

He receives a pitying clap in response.

He blew it.

"Nice to meet you Ayanokōji-kun." Hirata greets and somehow that makes him feel worse.

Before he sits, he catches Tsujihara's shaking shoulders and after he sits, he sees a small smile on his seat neighbor's face.

They're laughing at him.

A sudden crash herds the room's attention towards the back of the room where some guy has kicked his desk. "Introductions? Please. What are we, little kids? Do that if you want but leave me out of it."

Ayanokōji blinks, silently stupefied. It never occurred to him that he could decline.

"Everyone take your seats." A smooth, authoritative voice cuts across the room, followed by the clicking of heels. "I'm Chabashira Sae, and I'm the homeroom teacher for Class D."

His sensei is a tall woman, with brown hair and eyes, and a presence that feels familiar – detached – as she gives them a rundown of the next three years of their lives.

She's their homeroom teacher for all those years, and outside expulsion, these people will remain his classmates since class switching is prohibited. They don't even switch classrooms.

So, his social standing is shot forever, and he's stuck next to her. Nice.

"This is the school rule book." She lifts a booklet from a stack on her desk for everyone to see. "Take one and pass it back."

Ayanokōji stares at the book when he gets it. Do all school's hand out mini versions of their curriculum's constitution? Can he keep it? He should memorize it just in case.

Chabashira-sensei then goes over the more specific rules of the school that don't really apply to him. No one he knows off campus is worth contacting and too many he knows would try to drag him back to that place the moment he steps out of the school's reach. He'd like to keep his autonomy thanks.

The facilities on campus aren't for just school use, but for entertainment purposes as well. He knows there are eateries and shops too because most of what she's saying can be found on the internet, in a pamphlet, or just by looking.

"To buy things, you'll use points stored in the school's official computer system." She says calmly, but the idea of the word 'points' being used to label monetary value isn't calming at all.

She waves a replica of the phone the school sent them. If he hadn't sent his phone to a different mailbox, he would've never got it.

He pulls it out.

"Points are allotted on the first of each month. One point is worth one yen. You have already been allotted 100,000 points for this month."

Even as she said it, and he saw it, he still couldn't believe it. And neither did the rest of the class apparently.

"A hund- thousand?!"

"Are you serious?"

"Are you surprised by the size of your allotment? This school judges students based on merit. You are attributed a significant value just for being accepted here."

At those words most of the class is mollified. Joyful even. But clearly not Tsujihara who waves a lazy hand for the teacher's attention.

"Yes, Tsujihara."

"Is the merit judged individually or uniformly?"

He'd like to know that too. The question also catches Horikita's interest.

"Uniformly." She answers and Tsujihara nods her understanding, relaxing in her seat.

Ayanokōji stares patiently.

Feeling his gaze, Tsujihara turns his way. He purposefully fingers the sleeve of his blazer where she can see, and she catches on immediately, looking at the class like their stupid and shaking her head.

He repeats his previous action, then reaches into his sleeve, looking at her pointedly.

She smirks, pillowing her head on a fist, amused and unbothered.

So, she has no faith in their classmates, and she either doesn't care if she suffers for it, or she has a plan to work around it -- the latter more than likely.

Ayanokōji's pondering a signal to refer to himself when the teacher's words catch his attention.

" You can buy anything with points. "

Anything huh?

Tsujihara switches her crossed ankles and soundlessly taps her phone against her desk, but Ayanokōji likes his seat – mostly – and he doesn't want to give up his window.

But maybe she can help him he can get rid of a certain problem another way.

He only meant to slide his gaze to his prickly neighbor's seat briefly, for a signal, but he gets caught up in a glare that pierces souls and makes little kids cry.

"You're thinking of something rude, aren't you?"

Yes. 

"No." 

Across the room, Tsujihara snorts and offers him no help at all.