---Day Before the First Day of School---
It is orientation day and all the kids moving into the dorms are in a rush. Right now, you are 3 hours away from the student orientation and are now rushing to unpack and get ready.
The time currently is 9:00am. The Day is March 25th, Sunday.

Once Rika and Ryo were able to escape their drunken mother's grasp, they hurried to the school. Ryo grabbed Rika's hand and weaved her through the crowd of students. They were able to cut their way to the Board.
"Aniki, it seems you're on the 4th floor. You seem to have a roommate, but I can't make out the name from here. . . I'm on the second floor, no roommate." Rika said as she tip toed to scan the board.
"Okay, got that." Ryo said as he took Rika's hand again and ran her through the crowd to get to the dorms. They gave each other a hug.
"Meet me here in an hour." he said. Then, they separated and went to their dorms.

Aru Tsuchihashi, the student council president, popped out behind the two. Despite their physical proximity, Aru made no particular attempt to welcome the pair to the school and instead looked up to the board. "4th floor again, huh?" He let out in a semi-amused tone. As he began walking towards the dorms, he half-obliged and half-ignored the various greetings of all the students. Though he didn't have any close friends, pretty much everyone at the school was his friend... at least in name. "When their future dangles by a chain, everyone grabs at the strongest link." He muttered, blinking a few times. The problem with albinism, selective or otherwise, was the sensitivity of the concerned eyes. For instance, his left one.

Rika was one of the first ones to enter in the second floor. She quickly ran down to her room and opened it. Her brother was right to set up the day before. Now, all she had to do was dress up. She closed the door behind her and walked into the bathroom. She undressed and took a quick shower. When she finished, she dressed up into her already personalized uniform. Then, she left the dorms and waited at the gate.

Ryo walked all 3 flights of stairs and went into his room. He scanned the room to check for signs of his mysterious roommate before walking into the bathroom and undressing. He took a shower and dressed up nicely since he will be participating in the Orientation. He looked at himself in the mirror and sighed.
'Why did they have to give me a roommate?' he thought to himself as he closed his eyes to prevent any further headache. Once he finished up, he looked over his flashcards before leaving the dorm.

Shinji walked to school with his uniform jacket slung over his shoulder. He looked at the crowd of rowdy students trying to find their dorm assignments on the board. Right when he stepped foot into the gateway, he could already here the whispers of some of the kids. "Oh, isn't he that gangster guy? You know, the one who beat up a student in his old school." he heard a girl say. "Yeah, you're right. I even heard that he pulled out a knife on the teacher who tried to stop him." he heard the girl's snotty friend say. He turned his head to face them.
"Before you start flapping your lips about me, get your facts correct, freaking brats." he said in a slightly threatening tone before he left to find a less crowded area.

Suddenly, from the cloud of bursting students, a red-haired young man came running towards Shinji. "Oi, Aniki!" He called out to his idol. Akito always hung out with Shinji, whether Shinji liked it or not. He'd once accidentally saved the young man in a street fight and Akito had become his unofficial blood brother since, following him no matter what. "We're in the same dorm! Good news, right?" He let out with a smirk as he caught up to him.

Aru's path to the dorm had been strenuous, at best. Along the way he had to oblige the conversation of ten small groups of students, then inside he had to help the freshmen find their rooms. By the time he made it to the third floor, he had talked to over fifty people. "What a bummer..." He couldn't help but think as he fiddled with his keys. Being dorm supervisor was one of the student council president's responsibilities, so he had the master key. Of course, this "privilege" was limited to the boys' dorm. A female student council member attended to the girls. "Ryo's probably not happy with having a flat mate." He thought as he entered his own room. "It's his fault for having his attendance go down the shitter though." On that thought, he went to take a shower.

Shinji looked up to see Akito. He wasn't in a bad mood, but he just wanted to be alone at the moment. He sighed heavily as the fiery red-head made his way towards him.
"What do you want?" he asked a bit rudely.

Ryo's path to the dorm gates was a bit more like a trek now that the increasing number of students was beginning to condense. He sighed as he swiftly and smoothly weaved through the halls, occasionally bumping into friends. He would just brush them off because he was in a hurry. When he got to the dorm gates, he met up with Rika and sat with her at a bench.
"Okay, I'll start." he said as he looked at his notecards. Rika smiled and listened intently as her brother spoke. She would give a few suggestions here and there, but the speech was perfect.

Akito chuckled. He'd known Shinji long enough to know what his tone of voice meant. "Don't freak out Aniki, just wanted to wish you a good school year. I'll go grab us some colas at the caf. I'll see you in class." Without much more to say, Akito ran off. Though truth be told he wasn't sure whether they'd actually be in the same class or not.

Shinji sighed as he watched Akito run off. He honestly kind of had doubt that they would be in the same class. This school was weird, so he wasn't sure how they were going to sort the students this year. The only reason he knew about this is because he beat up some people from this school. Thinking back to the incident, he didn't actually save the boy by accident. He had a heart just like everybody else. He just doesn't want others to know.

Having realized that he and Shinji would not be in the same class, Akito opted to drop into the 1-A class early so as to drop off the cola he had promised Shinji. He found the desk where his Aniki would take his place. He knew exactly where his savior would likely take place. Once the cola was dropped off, he smiled to himself and - satisfaction creeping upon his face - left the room, he neglected to find his dorm in the time he spent here.

Aru walked out of his dorm with a satisfied expression on his face, he had to head out and direct some of the new students, another of the many important parts of his job as student council president. "I wish that Ryo kid would help share the load..." He couldn't help but think as he bumped into a red-haired young man.

Akito bumped into Aru halfway through the staircase to the first floor. A somewhat surprised expression on his face as the cola he had in hand barely managed to avoid spilling itself. "Y-you're Aru sempai, right? The student council president?" He let out, avoiding an apology to keep his tough guy front.

"You're looking for your room, huh?" Aru simply let out without batting an eye, he'd seen too many freshmen already to pay any particular one special attention. "It'll be on the first floor. The rooms have name tags on the doors so you should find yours without too much trouble. There's the occasional mistake here and there so come see me later in the day if that's the case."

Akito only heard half of what he said, too focused on Aru's left eye. "A contact lens?" He originally presumed, before focusing on the words of his interlocutor. "Oh, alright. Thanks."

And with that, the two boys left each other's company. Aru heading outside and Akito heading off to his room which he found easily thanks to the simple directions of his elder.

Rika sat on the bench patiently as she watched her older brother giving directions to the dorms and giving students advice for the school year. Even though he wasn't as popular as the Student Council President, she understood shy people looked up to her brother. He treats everyone equally, kindly. He can be a bit temper mental at times, but he makes up for that with his charisma. She can already see his female sempais and kouhais already setting their sights on him.
'I'm sorry, that's not gonna happen for you guys. You should give up.' she thought as she watched one of the female sempais hitting on him. Even though he rejected her flatly, she didn't seem to upset. Her brother can never seem to make enemies. Well, except for a few exceptions. When Ryo saw the crowd of students dying down, he decided to take a seat with Rika.
"Well, what do you think? Do you think you can enjoy school here? You'll be more relaxed without ma here." he said to her. She just looked at him and managed a slight nod.
"Yeah, I might." she muttered softly. She couldn't mention anything about the dorms because he knew his brother hated it.

Aru let out a loud sigh as a bunch of people rounded up around him the moment he left the boy's dorm. Since the boys who were excited to meet him rushed in without too much difficulty, the current crowd primarily consisted of female students. Unlike Ryo who rejected his potential suitors flatly, however, the president of the student council refused to even acknowledge the mention of a potential relationship. A faint glimpse of a smile eventually appearing on his lips once the crowd dismissed and he noticed the vice-president and his little sister. "Watari-kun..." He let out with a relaxed tone, his hands dug into his pockets. "...I see you've taken to greeting the newcomers." He uttered, turning his eyes to Rika, a light flash of eerie light going through his red left eye. "That's good."

Rika and Ryo looked up to see the student council president. Rika stood up to give her tall upperclassman a respectful bow.
"Its just Aru, you don't really need to bow to him." Ryo said bluntly. Rika turned around in surprise and noticed the tension he had towards his sempai. She fidgeted a little, but kept her calm and cool stature.
"I'm sorry that my brother was rude. He's just a little nervous. Please forgive him." she said with another bow. She looked up at him again and began to feel nervous. She felt this overwhelming aura from him, but she sensed what seemed like loneliness somewhere deep in there. Ryo heaved a sigh and got up.
"Please take care of me." he said flatly to his sempai with what seemed like a slight bow. She looked at him with a bit of worry as she began to realize that this student council guy might be his roommate.
"Are you my brother's roommate?" she asked, just to confirm her suspicion.

A sigh of aggravation came from Aru as he ran his hand over his left eye and through his hair. "I appreciate how polite you are Watari-chan..." He would let out, the difference in suffix deemed sufficient to differentiate the two siblings. "...but you need not concern yourself, I've grown used to your brother's... temper." Before the last word was spoken, Aru shifted his eyes towards Ryo with a light furrowing of the brow. It was nothing particularly personal, but he had little if not no appreciation for his kouhai. "I am his roommate... technically speaking. Due to a shortness of school staff student council members are assigned dorm supervisor duties. I am in charge of the boy's dorm and another council member of the fairer sex is in charge of the girl's dorm." Digging his hand back into his pocket, he returned a more neutral gaze towards Rika, his expression was relatively stoic but in no way threatening. "In short: I have my own room as dorm supervisor, but I'm also in charge of making sure your brother gets up in time for class and doesn't fool around... has as been too often the case in previous years." He would then turn an ironic smile to Ryo, locking his leg towards him. "You should be pleased, having a two person apartment mostly to yourself is a luxury even I don't get to enjoy. I'll only be bothering you half an hour before class starts, once a day."

Rika was surprised to hear that about her brother. Her brother never goofs off. He's always serious, gets his work done, and compensates for stuff he couldn't do on time. How is that even possible that he, of all people, would goof off. As usual though, Ryo was used to these comments and ignored them on a daily basis. Rika, on the other hand, wasn't.
"Well. . . Uhm, Mister Student Body President, shouldn't it be your job to be considerate of your kouhai's situation?" Rika questioned him rather rudely.
"Hoi, Rika don't-" Ryo managed before getting interrupted.
"Aniki would never, ever, goof off. I admit that he does go to school late, and so do I. But we have a perfectly good explanation for it. Rather than not wanting to talk about it, we're just not in the position to say so. As of right now though, we are free from the situation. Aniki is not a goof off." she said firmly. She didn't seem to care about the power that he held, nor did she care about his weirdly scary aura. She didn't appreciate the fact that he didn't seem to even care enough, or not even care at all, about his kouhais.

Aru smirked coldly. He had not been aware of their personal situation and as student council president was not in a position where he could deem an excuse worthwhile or not. His job was to make people follow the rules, nothing more, nothing less. "I'm sorry, I did not realize excuses made people exempt of the school's regulations. As much as I'd love to ignore your belated arrivals - believe me, it's less paperwork - I can't pardon disobedience in the name of the school. It's the principal's job to decide if your situation justifies absenteeism or not." Those words spoken, his smirk removed itself from his lips and Aru patted the girl on the shoulder. A gesture that hinted to the fact that she should calm down. "That said, I'll believe your word. If you truly no longer have a reason to arrive late then your brother should have no issue making it to class in time and I will have no reason to enforce regulations on him." With that spoken, he removed his hand from the girl's shoulder and turned towards Ryo. "Don't make your sister a liar Watari-kun, she doesn't look like one." Rika would have no way of knowing, but this was as close to a compliment as you could get from Aru.

Ryo's eye began to twitch with fury. Rika could tell with the look in his eyes that he was about ready to pounce at Aru and choke the life out of him. She knew he was better than that and so did he because he took a deep breath and walked away. She was about ready to go after him, but she stopped in her own tracks.
"I just want to let you know, Aru-sempai, Ryo is struggling. I don't care if you don't have any consideration for him, but. . . Argh!" she said, closing her eyes and preventing tears from falling.
"J-Just watch over him for me, please? I can't do that because we're in different grade levels. I know its odd to ask someone I don't even know for this kind of favor, but just please. And if he gets called down by our mom, don't make him go. Just don't." she said. She couldn't believe she was placing Ryo in this stranger's hands. She didn't exactly understand why she was lead into thinking he could be trusted, but she felt like she had to. She didn't want to drag his friends into their situation. They might hate him afterwards, and this guy probably doesn't even like him anyway. She can already begin to feel the marks on her neck and the scar on her head throb with pain.
'Ryo has suffered more because he's a guy. . .' she thought as she tried to hold onto her consciousness. Somehow, she managed to hold.

A loud sigh came from Aru's lips, but it quickly turned into a relaxed smile. "Listen, Watari-chan. I do not hate you, or your brother. I'm just doing my job as student council president. That job is to make sure students follow school regulations, keep their spirits high and are appropriately punished when they fail at either." Those words uttered, the boy slid his hands out of his pockets and stood straighter, raising a hand to cup his temple. "Your brother's a tough kid and if you take his tardiness out of account, he's an excellent student." Scratching slightly his ear, he would lower his hand down to his hip, shifting his weight slightly to the opposite side. "To be honest, I wish we had more students like him." A gleam of irritation came to his eye. "The kind that are quiet and don't annoy me." While that last part he only uttered mentally, he still forced a smile on to make it appear like he was kidding. To Rika, this would simply appear as a gesture of friendliness. "What students do outside the school, be it visit their mothers or go to the arcade, is none of my business and I'd have no right to force your brother to return home unless he is banned from the premises." Those words spoken, the smile would remove itself and he would look directly into the girl's eyes. "I'll make sure you and your brother fit in and have a good time at this school, if that's what you meant by taking care of him, then consider your favor granted."

Rika sighed and looked away.
"That's not what I mean. . ." she muttered quietly to herself. No one understood her or her brother, especially her mom. She looked at him in the eyes.
"If you notice anything strange about him, the first thing you do is inform me. Do not, and I repeat, do not tell anyone else." she ordered, not said, but ordered. She glared into his eyes directly. She kept her composure even though all she wanted to do was cry. She took a seat on the bench and held her head in her hands.
'I'm so tired. . .' she thought as she looked into the darkness her hands created.

"If I think it threatens the other students I'll have to inform teachers..." He muttered to the girl who seemed to fail to understand his duties within the school, but let out a sigh. The last thing he wanted was to appear antagonistic so he would try his best to come off as friendly, if only to calm things down. "...but if not, you'll be the first and only to know. Good enough?" Noticing that the girl was unwell, he would sit next to her, leaning forward to look at her face through the cracks of her fingers. "Are you... alright? Do you need me to bring you to the nurse?"

"I don't think someone's sexuality is a threat to other students. He couldn't do something like that anyway. . ." Rika muttered through her exhaustion. She was really tired and the scars she bore weren't helping the fatigue. It somehow made it worse. She just wanted to roll into a ball and hide in a hole somewhere.
"I think. . . I'm fine. . ." she muttered to Aru's question of what seemed like concern. At this point, she was too tired to even distinguish the tone of people's voices.
"I'm sorry. . . I'm usually more upbeat. . ." she muttered to herself. Even though she was trying to apologize to Aru.

"His sexuality, huh?" Aru paused, he personally was open-minded towards such things, but he also understood how it could be an issue. A lot of people were narrow-minded about such things and it could be a particularly stingy issue in the gym class. "There's no school policy against unusual sexuality, so I won't have to report it to anyone else, unless he causes a scene of some sort." A pat on the girl's back when she apologized was enough to let her know Aru's concern was genuine. Although he never considered himself close to anyone, he subconsciously cared for others. "No need to apologize, you're clearly under the weather... You should go rest."

Rika, just realizing what she had just said, snapped out of her exhaustion. Her eyes grew two times the original size when she realized what she had done.
"Please! I'll do anything! Don't tell him I said anything! Mostly, don't tell anyone else! Please. . . Besides. . . He won't let what happened to him last time to happen to him again." she panicked as she started to imagine what might happen if everyone had found out. Then, she imagined everything that he went through.
"I don't want that to happen again. . . Please!" she pleaded, on the verge of tears. She was on her knees, bowing to this stranger.

Aru stood and took a step back, looking around with an irritated expression. "C-cut that out, will you?" He uttered, a faint blush briefly appearing on his cheeks. "You're going too far for a simple favor..." Running his palm against his face, he rubbed his eye and ultimately let out a sigh. "I have no reason to tell anyone. Gossip is a hobby I leave to the animals and the brain-damaged... so stand up, ok?"

Rika looked at her upperclassman, tears streaking her face. She stood up on her feet and staggered a bit. She wiped the remaining tears with her sleeves. She looked at her sempai as she did so, just to check if he was about to smirk at her.
"I-I'm sorry. . . I just. . ." she said as she hiccupped a bit. A natural habit for her every time she cried. She closed her eyes and looked up in an attempt to prevent any more tears from falling. She gave her sempai a bow for causing him trouble.
"I'm sorry for being troublesome." she managed to say respectfully. She looked up at him and managed to smile.
"I guess you can say I'm bipolar." she said.

The upperclassman pulled out a tissue from his breast pocket and handed it out to the girl. "Don't apologize. It's normal to be emotional about such things..." He let, out, though mentally he had to admit: "I guess, I wouldn't know." before continuing. "Take care of yourself, it's your first year. Your brother will do fine so it would be best you focus on your own studies. Wouldn't want you to fail because you're too worried to perform, right?" He let out before patting her on the shoulder and stepping off. "I have to go, other students must need my help. Let me know if you need anything, I'm almost always in the student council room if I'm not in class."