Second Year Bliss (LJ)

Entering the school for the first time since he left his parents to be his own 'mon'. Lothar enrolled him while Mandrake restocked the supplies for the first aid kit. Now it was the first day and a confused LJ looked around the hallways. Seeing various students going about doing different things from chatting with one another to picking up things they dropped, LJ looked at his class schedule again and the map of the school otherwise the disguised purple Elecmon would be even more lost in the chaos around him.

Somehow he found his class. Maybe some luck was involved but at this point LJ would take it. Pushing the door open he walked calmly into the classroom. 'No problem, Lothar Junior, you got this. This school thing can't be harder than running from much stronger digimon or riding in a car long distances.' LJ thought as he quietly found a seat and sat down. So far so good despite sensing a digimon nearby.

Speak of the devil, the first kid to walk in after Luneth was indeed a new student. He was most likely a foreigner, considering that students of African American descent weren't all too common in Japan. The boy looked nice enough, even if he was tall. And BOY, was he tall. He didn't look out of place among the rest of the fourteen year olds, but he was definitely the tallest of them all. And of course, only one thing could possibly be said once he walked in...

"Wow, you're tall," Kaya said to the student, seemingly unable to hold that back.

"I do not think you can just blurt that out," Luneth scolded his friend before turning towards the new student. "Sorry about that. I am Luneth Kanzaki, and this is my friend Kaya Matsui." Luneth extended a hand out to him as Kaya waved from her desk. There was something off about this new kid, though. Luneth could just sense it, but he couldn't figure out what exactly he was sensing.

After introductions with him were made, two other students would not just walk in, but they would make one of the biggest entrances Luneth and Kaya had ever seen for just walking into a classroom. They were identical twins, named Haru and Natsu Fujisaki apparently, and again their entrance was as if they were being introduced on a game show or something. Didn't help that Haru was basically advertising her sister's relationship status and trying to list off all the things that would probably make boys want to date her. Once their intro was done, Luneth, Kaya, and the rest of the kids there more or less had the same expression on their faces:


Regardless of that though, Luneth still felt it would be right to introduce himself to them as well. "Well um... hello then, Haru," he said to Natsu. "Natsu," he said to Haru. "I am Luneth Kanzaki and welcome to our class. Are you new to this school? Also, why do you two look so similar to each other?"

Wait, what? Kaya asked herself. Did Luneth not know what identical twins were?

And as lovely as her introduction was, there was a surprisingly lukewarm reception. In fact, that tall boy in the back didn't even seem to acknowledge their existence for very long! Welp, not everyone can have good taste in people, Haru supposed. But there was one boy that came up to them and had the common decency to introduce themselves! Sadly, that was about to be spoiled as Natsu covered her face and shook her head. "I so can not believe you right now!" She muttered through her hands as she rushed to the back of the room and sat down next to the rather tall boy. Was this her assigned seat? Well, actually, it was Takeshi-kun's, but he wasn't important enough to acknowledge, really.

"Ah... hey..." Haru called after her, but her sister didn't stop. But there was still someone talking to them... it would just be rude to ignore them! Besides something that boy said made Haru really appreciate this guy. She could talk with her sister after class!

"Hey there, Luneth!" She said without any trace or concerns with honorifics, though she didn't greet the other girl who didn't bother to introduce herself, the jerk. "Good to meet ya!" She chuckled for a second. She just got called Natsu... right? Well, she might as well play along for a bit! After all, he was gonna find out eventually, either on his own or the girl next to him was gonna ruin it for her, but that didn't mean she could see how long she could keep it going!

"Yeah, sorry about that!" Haru waved her hands as if it were some sort of apology. "My sister, Haru, that is, was probably too embarrassed that a boy would come up and talk to her so soon! But don't worry! I'm sure she'll warm up to you soon!" She gave off a friendly smile, that was more from glee that she managed to meet such a clueless boy.

"But for us looking alike, well, there's a reason for that..." She looked back and forth, then leaned in closer so she could whisper to the totally-human boy. "You see, she's actually in training to be my bodyguard... like a the whole body double thing... Did you hear about that whole fiasco last year about the Swedish monarchy? Well, I'll get into a whole lot of trouble if I say anything more about it, but I think you can connect the dots! But you have to promise to keep this a secret, okay?" Not-Natsu held her hand up, pinky-finger outstretched to signify an important promise. It took every last ounce of her mental fortitude to keep a straight face, but she looked at the boy with a serious expression.

One of the advantages LJ had when it came to taking after Lothar when it came to digivolutions was that he got excellent hearing. After all what else were such large ears on an Elecmon were for. Unknown to the girl who called herself Haru when she was whispering to a boy called Luneth, LJ had heard every word but decided it would be best for his cover if he didn't react to it. Though there seemed something familiar about Luneth that was hard to put a finger on. It was like he was different from the other humans. Since Mandrake and Lothar hadn't yet taught LJ how to detect disguised digimon without access to telepathy or an enhanced sense of smell, LJ was confused by the vibes Luneth was giving off but managed to not make his confusion obvious.

As for the girl who sat near him, he asked her "Don't take this the wrong way but is your sister always acting weird?"

Though the concept of a pinky promise was confusing enough it seemed the girl called Kaya decided to put him in the spotlight asking if he was new and where he was from. 'Great now what? I can't just say I'm from the Digital World. Not only would that ruin the purpose of me having a cover story but most humans are ignorant of the fact that there are digimon around them.' LJ thought. Well the only problem he had was mentioning where he was from. Maybe he should just say he was from one of those places he overheard in the hallway and hope it didn't make things worse.

"Yeah, I'm new. I wasn't here last year because I was attending school in California." LJ said. Sure it took a couple of seconds to answer but maybe Kaya would just assume it was the excitement brought on by attending a new school.

"Just because something is the truth, it doesn't make it right to say it," Luneth told "Natsu" in response to her statement defending her actions. "Communication is important, and to me it didn't seem like you communicated with her very well at all."

Of course the real reason Luneth reacted like that to the pinky promise was because he actually did not know what a pinky promise was. "Natsu" didn't seem too confused like this, in fact she acted like she thought Luneth may have been messing with her. She put a hand on his shoulder and insisted that they were gonna be great friends. "Perhaps..."

Luneth's heart skipped a beat when "Natsu" suggested that he invite his brother to hang out with him and the sisters sometime. There were three potential problems with this: one, his brother was a Coronamon who didn't have a holosuit yet. Two, he lived in Rosewood. Three, he may not even want to visit the human world quite yet. The disguised Digimon gulped. "I will, er... talk to him about it."

At the other end of the class, the new kid LJ told Kaya that he had moved here from California. "That makes sense, a lot of American kids are transferring over to Japan lately it seems. Not that I'm complaining, of course."

Then the real Natsumi spoke up. She claimed that her sister's antics weren't out of a want to harm her sister, in fact it was the exact opposite, but according to Natsu she just didn't always live in this world. That phrasing made Kaya laugh a bit in her head, thanks to her own adventures. "Yeah, I kinda get it. Like eighth grader syndrome, right?"

And now the teacher has officially entered the classroom. It was a middle-aged woman with short black hair and an outfit that wouldn't look out of place at an office building. She walked to her desk and placed her papers on top of it. It would be a few minutes before class officially started, after all...

"Eighth grader syndrome?" Natsu repeated aloud. It... wasn't quite like that. Haru didn't think she was special so much as... she didn't care that she wasn't. She was smart and confident to roll with whatever consequences came her way. It was infuriating for the younger twin! It's like Haru knew some secret to life that Natsu hadn't been able to figure out just yet, and wasn't willing to share it! But... she wasn't going to say that kind of stuff aloud. It wasn't cool to vent all your frustrations to a couple new classmates. So she simply smiled back at Kaya and nodded. "Yeah. I guess you could say it's something like that!"

And as for the influx of new transfer students? Well, Natsu had noticed a lot more taller classmates as things went on. But she hadn't shared a class with any of them. Until now. So she tried to forget about her sister and leaned closer to LJ. "I've always wanted to go to California!" She stated. "Hey, what is it like? Did you ever get to meet any movie stars?" It was a little on the shallow side, but there wasn't anything wrong with a little gossip, was there?

"I dunno, it sounds like it'd be a lot easier if everyone just said everything from the start..." Haru pointed out, shrugging. But it wasn't a hill she was willing to die on, either. Arguments were dumb when clearly there were better things to do! But while Luneth clearly seemed hesitant on the whole double date aspect, Haru didn't pick up on it. She simply grinned and gave him a thumbs-up! "Cool! Hit me up when you wanna do it! Oh, and if you want my number, ah..." She looked around for a bit, then moved over to the blackboard in the front of the class and wrote her phone number up there in chalk. "Didn't have a pen and paper handy, so here's my number! My sister's is the same, but her last digit is-"

And it was at that point the teacher walked in. Haru practically leapt over the desk and into her seat before she could get caught. Grinning like a madwoman, she got her stuff ready as class began. And not long after classes had started, she got bored. She could just memorize the information later, so there wasn't any point in paying attention. When she got called on, she just gave a silly answer... which made the class chuckle a bit... and the teacher sent her to stand in the hallway for the rest of class. Apparently her old homeroom teacher had warned her new one about her, and wasn't putting up with any of her shit. So she spent a majority of her time looking out the hallway window. Where she saw something strange.

Something very, very strange.

A blue-furred dog running on two legs, and boxing gloves on its hands was pacing across the courtyard. It ran up to a student that was hilariously late for class, she thought her name was Takeshi-kun or something, and after a brief verbal exchange, the dog gave Takeshi-kun an uppercut to the jaw, knocking him out cold! After that, the blue dog spun its head left and right, looking around and seeming to be in a panic, as it began to drag Takeshi-kun's unconscious body off to an unseen location.

That was... that was real, right? Haru wasn't dreaming? She had to think for a second. No... if she said that there was a dog wearing boxing gloves punching tardy students in the chin, then there's no way anyone would believe her. So she had no choice but to go investigate herself. So she slid open the door to the classroom, cried out. "Sensei! I'm going to go see the nurse about lady problems!" And then slammed the door shut and ran off.

But that wasn't the only unusual thing going on at the moment. For on other side, outside the classroom windows, where any student still within the classroom could look out at, a strange, bronze-skinned impish-looking creature wearing red pants hopped around for a bit, holding a white fur pelt with dark-blue stripes. He stuffed it into a bookbag, then his form was surrounded by a puff of smoke. And when the smoke cleared, a perfectly unremarkable middle-school student appeared in its place as it casually walked around on the school grounds.

Oh Dear, it looked like LJ's mentioning that he was from Califonia was about to cause his cover story to fall in on itself. He should have expected such a thing seeing as humans could be just as curious as any digimon. It was a trait humans and digimon appeared to share but what could he do now? Keeping a calm poker face on could assume he inherited from both parents, he decided to answer with the first random thing that came to his mind. "I'm not from one of California's bigger cities but a little town called Ferndale." he answered. To him the two words together sounded silly for a human town but how was he supposed to know that such a town actually existed in California. "It is pretty warm there though. Maybe that's why my family and I came to Japan. You know to find some less intense heat."

Looks like the teacher wasn't gonna take 'Natsu's' nonsense as she was sent to the hall for the rest of the class but things only seemed to get stranger from there as he heard the thump of someone hitting the floor. Maybe that was the reason 'Natsu' needed the nurse. Then Luneth glanced out the window which peaked LJ's curiosity causing the disguised purple Elecmon to see what Luneth saw. What the stranger wanted with a Gabumon pelt was something LJ was eager to know but how to go about getting out of class? Seconds later Luneth provided the perfect excuse as LJ lifted his hand while fidgeting for good measure as he said "I need the bathroom too, Sensei." After LJ made his way to his feet he followed Luneth. Just who was this stranger and why did he have a Gabumon pelt?