Chapter 2

  School Life on Hard Mode

  I missed my own entrance ceremony.

  Apparently, that’s not something most students can say.

  But when you get hit by a truck right before your middle school exams, life tends to go off schedule.

  According to the documents I could read, I was supposed to attend a private middle school.

  Entrance exams.

  Prep school.

  Mock tests.

  The whole elite track.

  Then came the accident.

  Hospital.

  Rehabilitation.

  Memory problems.

  No exams.

  No private school.

  Instead, I ended up here.

  A public middle school in the middle of the city.

  And I arrived two weeks late.

  Which meant I wasn’t an ordinary new student.

  I was a transfer student.

  The school gate stood in front of me.

  Municipal XX Middle School

  I read the sign easily.

  The chatter of students around me, however, still sounded like fast-forwarded radio.

  Too quick.

  Too sharp.

  Too much.

  My new mother said something beside me.

  I smiled and nodded.

  She said more.

  I nodded again.

  She patted my shoulder and walked away.

  …I had absolutely no idea what I just agreed to.

  Shoes off.

  Indoor slippers on.

  I followed the arrows.

  Staff Room

  Class 1-C

  First year.

  So at least everyone was new.

  That helped.

  A little.

  The homeroom teacher led me into the classroom.

  He said something long and complicated.

  Then he wrote on the board.

  Transfer Student

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  And under it:

  Hinomichi Nia

  Thirty pairs of eyes turned toward me.

  The room went silent.

  The teacher gestured for me to come forward.

  I walked to the front.

  He smiled.

  He said something.

  I guessed it was:

  Please introduce yourself.

  I swallowed.

  “…Hello. My name is Nia.”

  The pronunciation came out wrong.

  Too stiff.

  Too foreign.

  The silence grew heavier.

  A boy whispered, not very quietly:

  “Is he a foreigner?”

  A girl leaned forward.

  “But he’s Japanese, right?”

  Someone else said:

  “Why does he talk like that?”

  I wanted to explain.

  I wanted to say:

  I was supposed to take private school exams.

  Then I got hit by a truck.

  Now I live here and I don’t understand your language.

  Instead, I managed:

  “…Nice to meet you.”

  In English.

  The class exploded.

  “Did he just speak English?”

  “He sounds like a movie actor!”

  “Is he a returnee?”

  “Maybe he lived overseas?”

  “His accent is weird!”

  “Wait, that’s so cool!”

  The teacher clapped his hands for attention.

  He said something else.

  Then pointed at an empty seat near the window.

  I bowed awkwardly and walked over.

  The girl next to me smiled and said something.

  I panicked.

  Then I noticed her notebook.

  Nice to meet you!

  I pointed at the sentence.

  Then pointed at myself.

  “Nice to meet you.”

  Her eyes sparkled.

  “He’s definitely half foreign!”

  So this was my new life.

  A transfer student.

  A former British sports star.

  A Japanese middle schooler named Rainbow Love.

  Fluent in reading.

  Terrible at speaking.

  Yeah.

  School life was officially set to hard mode.