Starting fresh (Nao)

[Yurkio Makiguchi]

Yuri couldn’t stop grinning as they drove up to the school. She looked at Nao who was sitting in the back seat with her, as one of the school officials had kindly brought Nao to pick her up from the airport. “This is so fucking exciting! Isn’t it exciting?” She looked at Nao with hopeful eyes, that he was just as glad she was around now. As the past through the Hammel gate, she couldn’t stop herself, well her power from activating and speeding up time a few minutes. In those few minutes the car was gotten into the parking lot, which wasn’t that far from the gate. How convenient. If Nao would to have looked at her as time sped up, she would have been completely still.



Blinking, she felt tired, and she wasn’t sure how much time had passed between the parking and entering the gate. This was going to be difficult, she could already tell. She looked at Nao, “sorry.” She still wasn’t sure what effect her power had on anyone else, did they feel time speeding up? Or did they not feel anything, and they just didn’t know what was happening? She would have to ask her trainer, the recruiter told her she would be getting one. Now she was completely nervous, “Okay now I’m nervous… How have you been doing at this school?”

[Deleted]

Exciting was...a word for it.

Don't get him wrong, Naozumi was happy to see his sister again. He loved his little sister. He loved all his family and would do anything for them. Let's just say he'd been getting used to living on his own without their watchful eye always on him. He felt like he could relax a little more out here, especially when it came to Ray and his ever growing attracting to the older boy. With his sister's sudden manifestation, and subsequent arrival at Hammel, Naozumi was concerned if that meant he was going to have to start closing himself up again. Yuri-chan knew him as a particular person, and he still was that person...there was just a lot more of him that he'd been able to explore since coming alone to Hammel, and he didn't want to have to put that on hold again.

It was fine, though. They would be fine. Naozumi smiled at his little sister, who was bouncing in the car seat next to him. "It is," he said in his usual soft tone. "Just don't cause too much trouble, okay?" He knew she knew better, but...it was sometimes hard to tell. Yuri-chan was a completely different person than him. Much more lively. Nao envied that, honestly.

He didn't notice much when Yuri sped up time for herself, just that she seemed to be distracted with something. The only unusual thing that caught his attention was that it was quiet for a good period of time, and he wondered what it was she must be thinking about. "Hmm?" He gave her a quizzical look at the sudden apology, not sure what she was referring to. They stepped from the car and Nao rounded about it to meet up with his sister. "I've been alright. The classes are interesting, and the people are nice." He smiled softly down on her, something he hadn't had to do until he suddenly shot up in height last year. "I'm sure you'll fit right in." The driver had pulled out Yuri's luggage and Nao turned to look at it. "Do you want to drop off your bags in your room first? Then I can show you around more."

[Yurkio Makiguchi]

Yuri would have been pretty hurt if Nao felt like he couldn’t be himself around her, and that he was basically faking around her. What type of sister or even friend would she be if he had to hide himself around her? But Maybe Yuri tended to do the same, what did that say about her? She took a deep breath, everything had become a little confusing for her since Nao left. Without Nao she had felt alone, and a little lost but she started to find her own way. And now here he was again, she had like he had gotten used to things without him. If she had known that Nao didn’t want her around, she probably would leave him alone, it would be hard for her to take in, but it was still something she would respect. This was her older brother and the one she had always looked up to since she was very little.

There was a difference between Nao and Yuri though; Yuri wouldn’t let anyone else stop her from being who she wanted not even Nao. Well, as long as it didn’t involve her getting into deep trouble. She was just confused with what she wanted, or felt a lot of the times. She was slowly not being able to relate to girls, and guys, and she wasn’t sure why. Or what that even meant. She grinned at Nao, “Well, I can’t promise anything.” She said slyly and gave him a wink. She probably could promise that, she didn’t want to do anything that would cause pain to her parents, they had enough to worry about.


Yuri didn’t realize that her power hadn’t really effected Nao, or at least he didn’t realize it; maybe. She still didn’t know how it really worked. Then again, that’s why she’s here right? To figure it out, and to learn about it. “so… just a regular high school then?” Well, that really wasn’t interesting at all. She was hoping for something better.. “No like power fights? Or things being burned down, or like maybe earthquakes, or something… Anything?” She poked Nao’s Arm, “you know, I don’t like the fact that your taller than me now.” That wasn’t quite true, it wasn’t the fact that he was taller than her that she didn’t like, but that fact that she wasn’t around to watch it basically happen. She felt like she had missed out on so much. It was hard for her to come to terms about the fact that Yuri really wasn’t a part of Nao’s life anymore… Would she really be able to get that back? And does he want her around?

“Well if it’s like any other high school I’m sure I will. Which is so lame…” She didn’t want to fit it; she kind of wanted to be like the social outcast… Have something interesting happen to her. Fitting in was just boring. “Oh yeah, that would be great actually.” She took her luggage from the driver and gave him a warm smile and thanked him. “Uh… where is my room? Do they have like maps or something…”

[Deleted]

To say he was faking would be a little extreme. Nao didn’t feel like he was faking. It was simply something people did; they acted a certain way in front of certain people and another way in front of other people. Neither was more true than the other, but it was easier for one part to come out around certain people than the other. In this case, Nao friendship with Ray, considering how it’d grown over the past year or so, gave Nao a sort of confidence in himself that he’d been unable to have at home. Not because he didn’t trust his family with seeing that side of him….thought maybe he was worried a little bit. He wasn’t sure how much Yuri knew about the chiding and teasing he’d gotten from his peers when he was in elementary school and junior high. That…probably had more to do with Nao closing himself off than anything else. And it didn’t help that Nao rarely spoke about those sorts of things to his family, so who’s to say if they were even aware of how bad it affected him?

Though, how he acted around his family wasn’t much different than how Yuri did in order to not disappoint them or her brother with any trouble. Nao didn’t want them to worry, so he kept to himself about many things that might be bothering him. Nao smiled at her non-promise and gave her an affectionate pat on the head. It was something he’d done whenever he felt like being affectionate towards his sister. He did miss this.

Nao shook his head at her questions. “No, not regularly. Sometimes the students get into fights, like at any other school, but the staff are generally good at quelling them quickly. They try to teach the students to be more responsible than that with their powers. ” That didn’t always work, however. Naozumi had heard some terrible stories about some kids who let their powers get out of hand and severely injure another student, or destroy school property, or cause freak weather conditions…and then there were the fights which happened off-campus, which the administration didn’t really have any jurisdiction over. Like the fight Nao had with that person who attacked him and Ray. That was another story he was unlikely to tell Yuri-chan.

Nao giggled silently at Yuri’s opinion of ‘fitting in’. “Is that really so bad?” he asked with his usual soft smile. Leave it to Yuri to want to be as different as she could be. Another thing that Nao envied. Yuri wasn’t afraid of being herself, like Nao was. Nao grabbed one of the bags from Yuri, completely disallowing her the chance to carry it herself, and started towards the dorm building. “We’ll check in with the dorm monitors first and they’ll assign you a room. Then we can go upstairs from there. It’s not that hard to navigate,” he said with a small laugh. “Even I can find my way around.” Because everyone at home knew that Naozumi was directionally challenged something terrible. He led her inside, that smile still on his lips. It may have been small, and Nao may have normally been very soft and slight in his expressions, but the difference in how he’d been since leaving home was concentrated in that smile. He was far more expressive these days and he didn’t even realize it.

[Yurkio Makiguchi]

It might not be faking, that Yuri could maybe understand, she ended up being the same around certain people. Yuri was probably just upset that she didn’t know anything that was happening with Nao now, or even before. She wished he trusted her enough to talk to her, she always felt disconnected with him in that way. Maybe it won’t be so bad here at hammel; maybe they could actually talk to each other now that Yuri was maybe older and that the rest of their family wasn’t around. But maybe they would have too many issues of their own to start talking to each other…

That was something Yuri could really understand. Their parents had enough to worry about than them. Which made her wonder if their parents would be okay without them, since they were the oldest… She grinned at Nao as he patted her head, now she really did miss him. “Do you think they will be okay?” They being their family…


Sighing she smiled at Nao, “so boring… I don’t know why, but I always thought this would be.. Different.” She looked at Nao, confused about something “So.. what do you with your spare time? I mean this seems like a pretty small town… And if this a regular type of school, where’s the fun? I mean you have to live here.”

“I mean… there’s no fun in fitting in… I mean.. for me..” She knew that there was a lot of people wanted and liked to fit in, and Yuri had no qualms with that. It just wasn’t her thing. “Okay, that sounds easy, and it’s not so much the dorms I’m worried about as I am with the rest of the school, and town.” Now that she was spending time with him, She could see some slight changes in Nao, and she liked it. As they got into the dorm office, she checked in, and did everything she needed to do for that one. She smiled as she got her assigned room, “I’m in room 212! What room are you in?”

[Deleted]

Nao tilted his head in slight confusion at the question. He was always a little slow on the uptake, but somehow, with his sister and the rest of his family, it was much easier to determine their meanings. Perhaps that was another reason why he had such issues communicating with other people? At home, they spoke Japanese half the time and understanding that language involved a lot of assumptions based on context. Even when speaking English, there wasn’t a whole of need to explain things in detail, though that was probably due to them all being as close as they were. When you lived with the same people all your life, you knew how to draw meaning from even the simplest words.

Naozumi smiled slightly and nodded. “I think they’ll be fine. We’ll call them later, once we get you more settled in, okay?” He gave her a few more supportive ruffles on her head then let his hand fall to his side.

He stifled a small laugh, amused at her disappointment. “What were you expecting? This isn’t a comic book.” Far from it. There’s no way Dr. Neville would let anyone get away with half the things Xavier did in the X-men. He looked up as they walked, pondering her question. “I run track sometimes. Nobody likes to race against me, though.” Wonder why? “And I teach at the local dojo. And then I study when I’m not doing those things.” Often with Ray or a couple others of his friends. “Sometimes I tutor.” Classic Nao. He rarely spent any time simply relaxing. Though these days, his ‘relaxing’ usually involved making-out with Ray. Or cuddling with Ray. Or eating ice-cream with Ray. Basically, doing things with Ray.

Again, Nao had to chuckle. Yuri had grown up, but she was still the same old Yuri. “I don’t think you’ll have too much trouble ‘standing out’ if that’s what you really want. “ Yuri was a lot better at being the one who raised eyebrows than Nao was(Nao obviously didn’t know himself very well). “Hmm…the town is a little complicated, but no more than home. At least it’s small, so if you keep going in one direction, then you’ll hit the edge of town eventually.” That might be how Naozumi found his way back to Hammel after getting lost more than a few times. Nao helped his sister get checked in with the dorm office. As he thought, it didn’t take very long. “I’m on the fifth floor,” he replied, pointing upward. “Room 501.” He knit his eyebrows slightly as he grabbed her bag and started upstairs. “You’re in the co-ed dorms?” That…wasn’t worrisome at all(sarcasm). Maybe he was just being an overprotective older brother, though? It would probably be fine.