Fire Flyers: Wings of Passion

Chapter 8: New Lands Part 1

It was a beautiful Tuesday morning in Hayakami, Japan. The small town was waking up. Warm rays blessed the sky after a wet night and coated the town's many buildings and houses. One of those houses was a large mansion. Inside that mansion was a young teenage girl sleeping peacefully. Her alarm rang and she woke up and got out of her bed. She had her own bathroom with everything she needed to start the day. She cleaned herself up as she got ready for high school. She went downstairs to have breakfast with her family. The girl greeted her parents in Japanese. She had breakfast and took a peek at the news. She didn't have time to wait, however, as she needed to go before she was late. So she grabbed her backpack, put on her shoes, and drove to school in her nice sports car. She arrived at Hayakami High School 40 minutes early, meeting up with her friend circle. When it was time to go to homeroom, everyone got inside their respective classrooms.

...

At the same time, two very tired pilots woke up to someone knocking at their door. They could hardly recognize the voice trying to come through.

???: C'mon you two! We gotta get to school!

Kevin: H-Huh...

Kevin eyeballed the alarm clock and noticed that it was almost time for class.

Kevin: OH SHIT!

The sudden shout shocked Jeremiah awake.

Kevin: Jeremiah! Jeremiah! We're late!

Jeremiah: OH SHIT!

Kevin: I know! That's what I said!

The two pilots rushed to put their outside clothes on, grabbed their backpacks, and bolted to the door.

Marcy: Took you long enough! Let's go!

The four of them race-walked to the lobby. Outside they were greeted by a small passenger van dedicated to them. They boarded the van that took them to Hayakami High school.

When they arrived at the school, they disembarked and walked inside. When they entered the building, everything they ever knew about high school was about to get thrown out the window. Everything was different. All the classes looked the same. All forms of signage was in Japanese, and none of them could read it. The only thing they could understand was the numbers. The best they could do was match the characters on the paper they were given. That took them some time but they managed to stumble into their homeroom. Everyone that was already there stared at the outsiders. The four Kestrels felt very awkward.

Teacher: You're late.

Kevin: You can speak English?

Teacher: You can thank tourism for that. Take your seat.

The stern tone in the teacher's voice made Kevin die inside. The teacher pointed to him.

Teacher: You're going to sit over there.

She pointed to a vacant seat next to the young girl. Kevin walked and sat down in embarrassment. The teacher did the same with the others, and the end result was the Kestrels being made to sit as far away from each other as possible. To Kevin it felt deliberate, even though he knew there were literally no other available options.

Teacher: We just got these for you this morning.

She handed out papers of work for the Kestrels to do. Kevin thanked the teacher, she smiled in response. He wasn't smiling however, because it was algebra, specifically the quadratic formula. Kevin sighed sadly.