Chapter 1

"Room 233," I told myself as I quickly made my way up the stairs with my empty black binder in my right hand and my dark blue pencil case in my left.

It was the first day back to school and I was anxious as ever. Though I was glad that I had only one more year of high school to deal with, I could just feel it was going to be a crazy 10 months. Everyone's grade 12 year was bound to be eventful... and certainly stressful.

My first class of the day was Grade 12 English Literature, with Mr. Cameron in room 233. I had never had Mr. Cameron as a teacher in any previous school years, but I had heard that he was a relatively laid-back teacher who was pretty understanding. The only bad thing I heard about him was how the students sometimes thought he was deaf because of how loud he would speak to the class.

"233, found it." I said to myself. Before entering into the class, I found myself feeling just a little sick to the stomach. It was my anxiety working up as always. I briefly closed my eyes and took a quick deep breath before entering into the class.

As I entered the class there were a few (about 10 or so) students already seated in desks. The classroom was nothing special. It looked like your average English class with novel posters on the walls and a couple bookshelves on both the left and right sides of the room. I noticed that the desks were arranged in pairs. I hated that. I wished all teachers would just arrange the desks so that each desk was independent and not right beside another. I suppose there wasn't much I could do about it, though.

Mr. Cameron was sitting at his office when he saw me walk into the classroom.

"Hey! Grade 12 English Literature?" The teacher asked me in a blatantly loud voice.

I nodded gently.

"Perfect. So there's assigned seating by last name in this class." He said as he stood up. "Your name?"

"Kiera Scott," I told him.

He took out a piece of paper where I suspected the seating plan was written. He then guided me to the far left side of the classroom where he pointed to my desk.

"You're right here, Scott." My desk was the far left row, right up at the front. I made my way there, put my things down onto the desk, and took a seat. There was nobody seated in the desk right beside mine yet.

A few minutes later and some more students came into the classroom. Most of them, I knew their names and had been in their classes some previous years.

Mr. Cameron got them all to their assigned seats when another student walked in. He was tall, had raven black hair, and dark brown eyes. His name was Kazue, I had been in his class a few times since grade 9, and he seemed nice, although I never really talked to him...Well, I never really talked to anyone if I didn't have to.

"Your name?" Mr. Cameron asked him.

"Kazue Sato," He answered. I had always subconsciously liked hearing his name being said. There were very, very little Japanese people at our school, so I thought it was a unique name. But I suppose in Japan it was a pretty common name.

Mr. Cameron looked down at his piece of paper where the seating plan was written. "Got it. Kazue, you're here next to Kiera."

The teacher directed Kazue to his seat beside me, and he sat down.

Little did I know that this guy sat next to me, would absolutely change my life...