Chapter VIII (8)- Beach Party

When Kizu awoke, the first thing he noticed was that some of the piles of clothes had shifted places. Basil, he figured. His roommate had likely visited the room in the morning while he and Mort slept. But the bed opposite of Kizu’s showed no sign of use. It looked like Basil had only stopped by to change clothes.

The clock read one in the afternoon. The beach party had already started.

He stretched and reached up to scoop a sleeping Mort out of his little nest of cloth. Then he took out his orb and had it guide him out of the academy.

The path it took him led him through one of the academy’s gardens. The sweet scent of the flowers gave him pause as he walked by. After a moment, he begrudgingly admitted to himself he should try to keep to his commitment. There would be time for flowers later.

The academy’s front gates were extravagantly designed. Lined with silver and gold, the walls appeared to glow slightly, and the gates were decorated with flourishing tiled tops. James — one of his clones, anyway - opened the small door to the side of the gates and allowed him to exit, but reminded him to return to the academy before ten at night.

After exiting the campus grounds, Kizu took a moment to get his bearings. A massive mountain rose from behind the academy, lush with green vegetation all the way up to its flat top. Despite the thick flora, the island lacked the expected noises of a jungle. There might have been some monsters further inland, but he saw no obvious signs of anything dangerous nearby. Which made sense, as the town was in view. The settlement was just down the trail, situated alongside the sandy beach and the sparkling sea.

“Had me worried there,” Harvey said, leaping to his feet from a stump he’d been sitting on. “I thought maybe you forgot or overslept.”

“Well, here I am,” Kizu said, trying and failing to sound excited.

“Cheer up! We’re going to our first party! Think of the possibilities! Girls, food, sun, drinks. What else could you ask for?”

“A hammock and a book?” Kizu offered.

“How’d you manage to get placed the worst in every class with that kind of outlook on fun?” Harvey shook his head.

“I was raised by a witch.”

Harvey stopped walking and stared; his already large eyes even wider than usual.

“What?” Kizu asked, exasperated. A small piece of him hoped Harvey might find the revelation uncomfortable and run him off.

“Amazing! That explains everything! Green hair, monkey familiar, not sleeping in the normal dorms!”

“I’m in a normal dorm. It’s just the third years’ dormitory is all.”

“You seem pretty normal though for being raised by a witch in the jungle. Like, not as weird as I would have thought. You can hold a conversation.”

Kizu shrugged. “The crone had people from all over Hon visit her over the years. Some were borderline normal. I’m not very great at socializing, but I know how to talk.”

Harvey resumed his pace again. “You know, I had a cousin who had a fling with a witch, once. Nearly took his head off in an argument. The whole coven hunted him for like a year. Still checks under his bed every night before he goes to sleep.”

“The same cousin who invited you to this party?”

He waved a hand dismissively. “No, no. Different side of the family.”

As they walked, Harvey continued chattering on about how the witches had attempted to hunt down his cousin, along with his cousin’s deft deceptions and evasions. A few other students passed by on the trail, but they paid them no mind.

Once they reached town, they found a plaza that exuded an energy of complete chaos. Students were everywhere, filling the little shops and cafes that dotted the streets. There were more students in the small plaza than Kizu had seen in the entire school so far. Locals sold fish and fresh juices from little stalls and small children ran about the place, playing games and frolicking. Kizu noticed a chubby bald man looking self-important in a uniform and watching the kids with disdain, as if suspecting them of mischief.

They had to shove their way through the crowd. It reminded Kizu of something between swimming and dancing as he pushed past the cluttered groups. Eventually, they emerged on the other side of the square and slipped into slightly quieter streets. However, as they approached the villas down at the beach, the noise ramped up again. Both music and voices rising over one another.

“This is the place,” Harvey announced, walking up to the loudest building. Then he pushed open the door of a villa.

The villa’s interior was just one large room with a loft overhead, but students filled every available space, wearing all sorts of outlandish outfits. One girl wore an outfit made only of multicolored feathers. Another boy barely wore more than paint. As he looked around, Kizu spotted only one other human like himself. It was one of the large students he’d seen at the library. Everyone in the room gave him space as he scowled and ground his teeth. Other than him, every other person there had the same scaly complexion as Harvey.

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Music boomed from within the walls. It wasn’t a tune Kizu was familiar with. His parents had always enjoyed classical music, whereas the crone had favored ominous chants and bog rhymes. This style was completely unique to that. It had an energy to it that was unlike anything he’d heard before. The beat of it thrummed through the entire villa.

The countertop along the wall was piled high with fruits, meats, and desserts. Harvey walked over and snatched up a stick of meat and began gnawing on it, his sharp teeth leaving indents.

Kizu regretted not asking his orb what region Harvey was from. Most of the people in the room had more outlandish hair colors like red and blond, but they looked naturally grown alongside the scales on their faces. The scales appeared to match their hair colors, only in a far more muted shade. He wondered what race these people were.

As he joined Harvey at the food table, Mort peeked out of the satchel and yawned. As soon as the monkey showed his face, heads began turning their direction. Kizu had only barely put a caramel sweet in his mouth, before a girl who looked about his same age approached him.

“This is Kizu,” Harvey interjected, forcing himself forward. “Kizu, this is my cousin, Emilia.”

Emilia smiled, showing her sharpened teeth and causing Kizu to take an involuntary step back.

“Kaga Kizu,” he said, regaining his composure and offering a hand.

“Nice to meet you,” she said. “You’re a first-year as well?”

Harvey leapt at the opportunity to start explaining about Kizu’s background. He made it sound far more exciting and interesting than reality. Not wrong, per se, just embellished in a way that Kizu wouldn’t tell it. But Emilia nodded with interest and her eyes seemed to linger on his green hair.

“Come on, Emilia,” another older student said, breaking into the story just as Harvey began to explain how they had met yesterday. “Braxton just bet his father’s best horse that he could drink an entire bottle of renegade rum without burping up a single spark.”

“Excuse me,” Emilia said, humor glinting in her eye. “Pressing business to attend to. I look forward to seeing you around, Kizu.”

“I’m impressed,” Harvey said as Emilia walked away. “She remembered your name at the end. I don’t think she even remembers my name.”

“Aren’t you her cousin?” Kizu asked.

“Yeah. That’s how we usually call each other. Cousin.”

Mort climbed from the satchel up to his customary position on top of Kizu’s head. Just as Harvey had predicted, girls kept coming over to see the little monkey, and Harvey profited greatly off the exchange. Each time a girl agreed to meet up later, he got out his orb and the girls would give it authorization to message them. Kizu had assumed he’d been given his as a means to catch-up. It was surprising the academy was willing to issue every student such a valuable item. Especially after he witnessed two students hurl their orbs at each other, in a contest to see whose would crack first.

A few people talked to him, asking about his hair or who had invited him. They all appeared significantly more pleasant than any of the students up at the academy. Maybe on-campus students were just stuffy. Or maybe the drinks relaxed their stuffiness. Either way, Kizu was grateful.

“Kiizoo, right?” A girl sidled up to him. She reeked of a pungent perfume and swayed slightly as she spoke. “Heard about you from Emilia. I think we’re in the same Enchanting class. C, right?”

“Yeah, that’s the one.”

“Awesome.” She snapped her fingers and pointed a wobbling finger at him. “I might bum some help off you for the homework. Barely scraped by last semester. Thankfully I got boosted in the rankings by the new first years, just barely enough to get into C this time. No thanks to you, ha!”

Then she staggered off and bumped into someone else, starting a different conversation.

After only an hour, everyone in the villa seemed to know his name, whether he’d spoken to them or not. He felt at a severe disadvantage, trying to figure out in every conversation whether he’d already met the person earlier or not. At least Emilia didn’t seem to be spreading anything particularly bad about him. Everyone at the party seemed affable whenever they approached.

Eventually, he decided he’d had enough of being cooped up inside and slid out the back door with a handful of sweets stashed in his pocket. For a minute, he just stood on the marble steps and looked down at the beach. The party spilled out even there, students swimming in the sea and using elemental magic to blast a ball back and forth. He saw a small child crafting a sandcastle alongside a student and having tiny little sand soldiers attempt to besiege it. Chubby sea lions lay scattered about the beach, lethargically sunbathing amongst the students.

The sun beat down on them from above, and already Kizu noticed pink skin on many of the students lounging on the beach. They had all fully committed to the lackadaisical attitude. Nobody seemed to care about the coming school year, let alone tomorrow. No one studied or practiced or memorized. They blithely enjoyed themselves.

Kizu walked down the beach until the music faded, and he found an old driftwood log sticking out of the sand. Sitting, he kicked his feet up and watched as sea lions dove in the water. The tide ebbed and flowed, slowly progressing. A wave of nostalgia washed up on him, coinciding with the tide. It felt so familiar, so peaceful.

Mort had fallen asleep on his shoulder and the sun had dipped a bit when Kizu finally stood up and continued his seaside stroll. Kizu scanned the villas lined up on the beach's edge, seeking out his family’s. He spotted it after a few minutes. The building was made of white stone with a Hon flag billowing off the back porch. Finn was likely relaxing inside, enjoying his own space. Not wanting to disturb or irritate his brother, Kizu simply stared at the building from the beach and let old memories wash over him.

Anna and him had spent countless days playing and hiding all about the villa. His favorite hiding spot had been under the house’s floorboards. He’d needed to peel up one of the back deck’s wooden planks to get under. The entire area had been riddled with spider webs and mice, and it had always taken Anna ages to find him down there. She, on the other hand, had usually hidden up on the roof. There was a nearby tree leaned toward the villa, providing easy access to the flat-topped roof. Once, while climbing up there to find her, he’d fallen and sprained his ankle. Anna had never hidden there again after that.

Kizu itched to climb up it now. Instead, though, he turned and walked back to the party on the beach.

He spent the rest of the day eating and drinking with everyone. He chatted and even attempted — and failed at - dancing. Someone convinced Harvey to eat a mysterious candy and he spent the rest of the night hiccupping bubbles. And then, at the end of the night, Kizu scattered with everyone else when the local constable showed up to shut the party down.

All in all, he felt drained but surprisingly fulfilled as he and Harvey made their way back up the winding trail to the academy.