Chapter 1 - That Singer Girl.

I walked down the corridor, slightly worn out from the performance. I finally found my form room. To my pleasure, the door was yellow; my favourite colour. I pushed open the door, seeing my new class sitting down with sour faces. It looked like they weren’t happy about the seating plan. I asked the teacher where I was to sit, and he pointed to the empty seat next to a boy. According to his coursework folder, I assumed his name was Tetsuya. This Tetsuya had shoulder-length black hair, but that’s all I could really see, because he was hiding his face behind his hair as he twiddled his thumbs, looking at his feet under the desk. I stopped thinking about him and went and sat down. I placed my bag carefully next to my chair and flicked my hair. The teacher placed my coursework folder in front of me, my name written in messy writing, “Sachiko Kuroda”.
I dislike my name quite a lot.
“Hello there, Tetsuya,” I chirped cheerfully.
He looked up, and did a sort of double take. His cheeks went bright red. I found this quite amusing.
“H-how do you know my name?” he said foolishly.
“It’s on your folder,” I pointed out, tittering.
“Oh – oh yeah,” he said dumbly, which made me giggle even more.
“So Tetsuya,” I smiled, “you like making a fool of yourself, then?”
His face reddened a little bit more. I supposed it couldn’t go much redder than that.
“Sorry, Tetsuya, I won’t embarrass you any more than needs be,” I laughed.
“I’m not embarrassed,” he muttered. He moved my arm to look at my name on the folder. “Sachiko Kuroda…so you are that singer girl.”
“Why, yes,” I smirked, “What of it?”
“Nothing, I was just saying,” he frowned, and then he looked back at his feet.
We sat in silence for the rest of the hour in form, till the bell went for our first lesson. I was nervous about it, I actually hate meeting lots of new people. I glanced at my timetable, and saw I had Maths now.
“Ugh.”
Tetsuya was stuffing his timetable into his bag with a frown on his face. I watched him do this, until he looked up, flicking his fringe.
“What are you looking at…?” he said quietly.
“Nothing,” I said, looking away quickly. I felt myself going red this time.
“The tables have turned,” I heard him laugh, and he got out of his seat, and started to leave like everybody else.
I got up and followed the group of classmates slowly. Tetsuya turned around suddenly, grinning.
“Hey Sachiko,” he called. “What class have you got now?”
“Uh, Maths,” I replied.
“Same here, come on,” he beckoned me. I scuttled along behind him all the way to our Maths class, where, predictably, we were placed next to each other again. It showed most teachers just used the alphabetical order seating plan.
“Well,” the teacher smirked, “Since it is your first day, I’ll let you off easy today. Do whatever you like. But try and keep quiet, I have a hell of headache.”
“Soooo,” Tetsuya said, getting up. “I might go sit over there with my friend.”
“Oh, okay,” I said sadly, glancing down. In all honesty, I had no friends. And now, I felt like I was never going to have friends. I couldn’t really have friends anyway. To have a friend would be to lie to them day after day. I have never told anyone in my life about my secret, apart from my family, obviously. My family are the reason I have this secret. Okay, so now I’m rambling, and I should really explain what my secret is, it’s just the fact I’ve never told anyone, so I don’t know how to put it.
“What’s wrong?” I jumped as Tetsuya looked at me with genuine concern.
“Nothing,” I replied hastily.
“Obviously there is,” he said, sitting back down next to me.
“I’m just scared that’s all,” I mumbled.
“Scared of what?”
“It’s doesn’t matter all right? I can’t tell you. I can’t tell you anything. I don’t even know you.” I said, getting wound up.
“God, sorry,” he said, getting up and going over to his friend.
Well done, Sachiko, you’ve really blown it this time. No friends for you.
I kept looking over at him and his friend laughing with two girls, Aaliyah and Aya, sitting behind them. I wasn’t jealous as such, I was just irritated. After a while, I began to notice Tetsuya glancing at me quite frequently. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him gesture towards me, then he stood up and walked over to me, and ruffled my hair. Sitting next to me, he looked intently at me. I met his gaze, but looked away again. I didn’t like eye contact. He watched me for quite a while, and I could feel those girls’ eyes on me too, until he sighed loudly.
“Sachiko, I’m sorry,” he said remorsefully. “Really, I am. I guess it wasn’t my place to be so nosy.”
“I was upset because you went over there,” I said childishly. “But it doesn’t matter, I’m over it.”
“You were bothered that I went over to sit with those guys? Why?” he said, his head tilted to one side.
I was quite knocked off guard at the fact that he was acting like he cared so much. I’d never been treated like that by someone at school before.
“I don’t know why I was bothered,” I said, smiling slightly. “I guess I wanted to get to know you.”
“Well. I like video games, deathcore, rave, J-pop and techno music, cuddling and sleeping.”
“Cuddling?”
“Yeah, it’s cute,” he grinned. “I haven’t cuddled for a while though. I wonder what the withdrawal symptoms are.”
I was surprised how talkative he was when motivated. He started telling me about how he cuddles lots of his friends, and how he cuddles when he drinks.
“I have never drunk alcohol before. I’m not allowed, it could affect me greatly.”
“Affect you greatly?” he mocked me. “What are you, a posh lady from Landan?”
“No!” I said defiantly.
“What do you like, then?”
I thought for a minute. I like many things. I like bright colours like yellow, I also like J-Pop and rave music. I love to draw, and I love tidy rooms. I love flying. I love my family and I also love fire.
Tetsuya poked my arm, looking at me expectantly.
“I like lots of things. Bright colours…singing…j-pop…flying…fire,” I said.
“I can tell – the way your eyes were when you said that, it was cute.”
We carried on talking for the rest of lesson about silly little things. But it meant a lot to me, since it meant I was getting closer to someone. But I also got scared, because it meant I had to lie, sooner or later.
I couldn’t possibly tell anyone my secret though, could I?

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