2 Days Earlier    

I awoke to a paining sensation in my chest. 

I groaned and opened my eyes and saw my brat of a little sister sitting cross legged on my chest, wearing her school uniform, holding a clock with a suspicious smile on her face. She must’ve jumped onto me while I was sleeping.

 

“You might want to get up, big brother.” She said while snickering mischievously. She shoved the digital alarm clock in my face.

   

Through her long, messy brown hair that was currently being smothered against my face, I read it.

 

“8:05”

 

I panicked for a second, fearing that I was late for my first day of my new life. School started at 7:50. If I was late, it would be the worst way to start off high school. Then I realized, this is my sister we’re talking about. The one who pulls endlessly pranks on me. Knowing her, if I was late, she wouldn’t be the one waking me up. No, she’d be the one laughing at me as I hurried out the door with my uniform half on.

 

“Is this another one of your pranks?” I asked her groggily. “Because if it is, get lost.”

 

“Why would you think that?” She responded slyly. “I’m just trying to make sure that my dear older brother who I love so much, isn’t late for school.”

 

“Yeah right.” I said as I pushed the clock away and closed my eyes. “You probably just played around with its settings and changed the time. I’m not falling for your little antics anymore, Elise.”

   

“Oh?” She giggled a little as she readjusted herself on my chest. “If you think I’m lying, check your phone. It’ll show you the same time.”

   

I wasn’t going to at first but then I factored in the 0.001% chance that she wasn’t lying and truly was trying to look out for me. So reluctantly, I opened my eyes, reached for my desktop the stood next to my bed and without looking, grabbed my phone, woke it up and pulled it to my face. 

 

“8:06”

   

I couldn’t believe what I just read. I quickly wiped my eyes with my balled up fist and looked at it to confirm.

 

“8:06”

   

She laughed again. “No matter how many times you wipe your eyes and check, the time is still going to be the same.”

   

Instead of panicking like she expected me to. I responded with a laugh myself, leaving her with a confused look on her face.

 

“Oh, dear little sister of mine. Did you actually think you can fool your brother with such an easy prank? Have you forgotten that I’ve known you since you were born?” I let out an evil sounding laugh again.

 

“Hmm?” She let out as she turned her head, even more confused. “What makes you think that I’m playing tricks on you? The time on the clock and the time on your phone are the same aren’t they?”

   

I put my hand on my forehead and shook my head narcissistically. “Oh it’s quiet simple how you did it, little one. All you did was change the time on the clock and change the time on my phone.  You actually thought I would fall for it? Oh please, a grade schooler could see through a little trick like that. It seems like your pranking skills are deteriorating.”

   

I thought I had caught her. I expected her face to turn red with embarrassment and her to start crying like she usually does when I figure out her mischievous acts. But all she did was laugh a laugh even louder than mine.

   

“You really are an idiot, aren’t you?”

 

“Oh? Please, enlighten me, little sister. There’s no need to continue, I’ve already figured it out. Do tell, how a genius like me, is an idiot.”

   

“If I wanted to change the time on your phone, I would need the passcode to unlock it, wouldn’t I?”

 

“You’ve must’ve seen it when I put it in some other day.”

 

“But didn’t you boast to me that you changed it yesterday because I pranked you before that way?”

   

“Huh?” 

   

And then it came back to me. I did change it. Yesterday I was supposed to pick up my new high school uniform from the store at a specific time but my sister changed the time on my phone, making me an hour late to pick it up. I almost didn’t make it since by the time I scurried out the house and made it to the uniform store, they were about to close. So after that little stint, I changed my password from “000000” to a different one before I returned home. And I haven’t unlocked it since so there’s no way she knew what it was.

 

 A bead of sweat started to trickle down the side on my head.

 

“Y-you probably guessed it or something!” I responded flustered. “Yeah that has to be it! I’m not falling for it, Elise.”

   

“I didn’t guess it. That would be too hard. Even I’m not smart enough to figure it out.”

   

“Then how did you change the time?”

   

“Easy. I didn’t”

   

“W-what do you mean you didn’t?! There’s no way that I didn’t wake up on time. I set an alarm on the clock! Unless you...”

   

She snapped her fingers. “That’s exactly it! I didn’t need to figure out the passcode on your phone. All I needed to do was turn the alarm off on the clock!”

 

“You little brat!”

 

She puffed up her chest and threw her head back, filling the room with even more laughter.

 

“You’re so dumb big brother, it’s almost too easy! Another victory for me! That marks number 204 to your 28. You’ll never catch up-“

 

She didn’t get to finish her boastful remarks because I threw her off my chest onto the wooden floor of my room, making a resounding thud noise. I jumped up from my bed and grabbed my uniform.

 

“Ow, ow, ow,” She expressed while rubbing her backside. “Hey that hurt!”

 

“Oh you’re so dead when I get back from school.” I told while ripping off the shorts I slept in.

 

“Yeah, sure I am.” She responded sarcastically. She turned around to me, who was currently wearing nothing but a pair boxers and immediately her face flushed tomato red.

 

“W-W-W-What are you doing?!” She exclaimed as she put both of her hands to her eyes, covering them.

 

“If you didn’t turn off my alarm, you wouldn’t be in this situation. Get out.”

   

“P-Pervert!” She screamed as she got up from the floor and ran out of my room.

   

After I finished threw on my black pants and white shirt, I grabbed my black blazer off the door, slung it over my back and ran down the stairs where my mother and both of my little sisters where eating breakfast in the kitchen. I ran past the kitchen door and went to the front, plopped down onto the floor and grabbed my brown shoes.

 

“Arata, aren’t you going to eat?” I heard my mother call out from the kitchen.

 

“I’m running late.” I replied while hastily putting on my shoes and putting on by blazer.

 

“Okay well, have a good first day of high school.”

 

“Thanks.”

 

“Have a good first day at school big brother!” My other little sister, Kana, yelled from the kitchen.

 

“Thanks, you too.”

 

“Have the worst day ever!” Elise screamed.

 

“You too.” I muttered as I grabbed my blue bag and burst out the door.

 

I walked to the school before so I knew the way there. It was about a 15 minute walk give or take. Me running there at my fastest speed made it about a 12 minute run. Yeah, I’m not very fast. No, I’m not fast at all, not by a long shot. I ran through the crosswalks and pushed past dozens of people, not turning around and apologizing. Sorry but there was no way I’m being late for homeroom. 

 

The teachers explained to us what the first day would be like when we went to go check who passed the entrance exams. We would arrive at school then go straight to homeroom. Then, we would attend the first year orientation. After, we would return to home room, introduce ourselves to our new classmates and walk through the entire school day. I even practiced my introduction in my mirror two days ago, ignoring my little sisters’ constant laughing and mimicking of me.

 

Eventually, I made it to the school gate where to my surprise, students were still entering the school. I thought I’d be the only one. There was a teacher outside of the gate trying to quickly usher them inside. When tried to walk through, she stopped me.

 

“You there, stop.”

   

I immediately stopped walking and faced her.

 

“What do you want? Why couldn’t you just let me inside like all the other students? I’m already running late thanks to that little brat. I don’t have time for this. You know what? I’m gonna give this lady a piece of my mind.”

   

“Yes Ma’am?” I asked her with a smile while clasping my hands pleasantly.

 

“You’re a first year right?”

 

“Yes.”

   

“Why are you late on the first day of school? Let alone your first day of high school?”

 

I couldn’t tell her that my little sister turned my alarm clock off and made me late because I didn’t think that she would believe me. So, I used the oldest excuse in the book.

 

“I overslept.”

   

She looked at me for a few seconds before sighing and hit me with another question.

 

“Where’s your tie?”

   

“Huh? What are you talking about?”

 

I looked down at my chest.

 

“It’s right ther-“

 

It wasn’t.

 

“Did I forget it?”

 

“Honestly you first years are still so careless.” She complained. “This isn’t middle school anymore. You have to be on top of the little things.”

 

She continued her nagging for about 3 more minutes and I continued to let go through one ear and out the other.

 

“Well, homeroom is already over. The orientation will be starting soon so go straight to the gym. Don’t be late for that too.”

 

“I’m already even more late thanks to you.”

 

“I won’t.”

 

With that, I continued running up the school stairs and into the school building. To get to gym, you’d have to walk past the club hallways and reach the connecting hallway that leads to it. As I was running through the halls, I saw no one, aside from the people who were running late like me. I guess everybody was already in the gym. Or so I thought. As I reached the club hallway and started making my way through it, I noticed that out of all the doors in the hall, one was open. It was the science club. Curiously, I looked inside and saw somebody that I knew from middle school. A girl with long, messy, earth-green hair wearing a white long lab coat over her school uniform.

 

“Miyuki?”

 

She casually turned around holding two test tubes filled with some mysterious looking liquid in it.

 

“Oh, Arata. Good morning.” She responded nonchalantly and put the two ominous tubes onto a tube rack.

   

Miyuki has always been pretty smart. She aced the entrance exams with flying colors. And let me tell you, this school is not easy to get into. It took me endless amounts of days studying rigorously to get in and I barely scored higher than the cutoff point. Since she was so smart, the principal made an exception and let her become the president of the Science Club before school officially started. 

 

“What are you doing still doing here?” I asked while trying to catch my breath from all the running I had been doing. “Isn’t the orientation about to start?”

 

“I was just finishing up an experiment.”

 

“An experiment on the first day of school? You never change do you?” 

 

I noticed a water bottle just sitting idly on the long table of the lab room. 

 

“Do you mind if I drink that? I’ve been running ever since I woke up.”

 

I didn’t wait for her to answer. I picked it up and emptied its contents into my stomach. It tasted a little strange but I didn’t care along as it quenched my thirst.

 

“No that’s not water- well, whatever. I needed someone to test it anyway.” She took off the lab coat revealing her plain white dress shirt tucked into her grey skirt, and pushed me out the room.

 

“Let’s head to the orientation shall we?”

   

Little did I know, it was that water bottle that changed my high school life, forever, and I’d be finding that out the next day.