Sylvia got onto her bike and rode back to her house.

“Mom! I’m home!” she yells as she enters the house and looks for her mother. Her mother was in the kitchen making something for dinner.

“Hello sweetie, how was your first day?” She asks her daughter as she peels the outside layer of the onion in her hand and slices it into little pieces.

“It was great!” Sylvia says excitedly, “I met this girl named Anastasia and we are in a lot of the same classes together.” She slows down wondering how to ask her mother about staying on the school grounds for the semester.

Her mother notices the change and says, “What's up Sylvia dear? Do you wanna tell me something?” She prompts her to speak.

“Umm... Yeah… So I was wondering if I could possibly stay in a dorm for the school year with Anastasia. She has no roommate and she came from overseas and is all alone in the dormitories…” She trails off unsure what to say next.

“Of course, you can sweetie, it's great you made a new friend.” Her mother’s response surprised her.

She ran to hug her mother, “Thank you, mom! You're the best!”

“Alright honey, calm down. Luckily you got in with a scholarship so we can afford the cost of staying on campus. Go stay with your new friend. Just make sure to stay safe and have fun. Don't forget to visit me from time to time, and bring her over so we can meet.” Her mother tells Sylvia.

"I will be mom,” Sylvia says.

“Go pack now and we can go and get everything all set tomorrow morning. Get a good night’s sleep later,” she tells her. “Come back down when finished and eat some dinner.”

Sylvia did as she was told and packed up her clothes and other belongings she wanted to bring with her, went downstairs to eat dinner with her mother, and went to bed.

The next day, Sylvia woke up and looked at her clock which read 6:01. It was still too early to get ready for school, but Sylvia was too excited to go back to sleep. Anastasia was the first friend she had since 2nd grade.

She got ready for school and dragged her luggage to her mother's car, then went back inside.

"Are you sure you got everything you need? her mother asked as she came into the kitchen.

"Yes mom," Sylvia replied. "You know, I can always come back here if I need anything. The school is just around the corner."

"I know sweetie," Her mother said, "It's just gonna be the first time that my baby girl won't be here with me." Her mother says with puppy eyes.

Sylvia rolls her eyes and smiles. "Don't worry mom, I can always visit on weekends if they let us leave the school grounds then," She hugs her mom, "I'll call you every night and we can facetime."

Her mother nods then looks at the clock and notices the time. "Oh dear, look at the time! It's already 7:15, where did the time go? Hurry up and eat something hunny, don't wanna be late on your first day of classes. You still have to put everything away in your dorm room." Her mouth says, handing a slice of bread to Sylvia, who ate it while they got into the car and drove to the school.

"Bye mom," Sylvia says, giving her mom a tight squeeze before getting out of the car, "I'll call you later tonight." She waves goodbye to her mom with one hand while holding her bags in the other as her mom drives away. She turns around and heads off to the dormitories and meets Anastasia, who was waiting for her, and together they go off to their room.

The dorm room that they were assigned was pretty nice, it was a 14x16 size room. It had two twin beds along either side of the room with a nice window in the opposite wall from the door that separated the two beds, and there was a desk for them to use to study or get work done. There were also two decent-sized armoires for their clothes and stuff.

"I'm so glad that you can stay here with me," Anastasia says, "Now I won't be lonely because I will have my new bestie with me!" She hugs Sylvia in excitement.

"Me too! We will have lots of fun together." Sylvia says happily. "When does class start though?" She asks Anastasia.

Anastasia looks at the clock hanging on the wall, 7:25. "Oh no, we better hurry. Class starts at 7:30. Luckily the gym isn't too far away from here."

"Oh, well, let's go now. We don't want to be late," Sylvia says, grabbing Anastasia, and together they head off to the gym.

"We should probably check in with the main office to get you your room key later today," Anastasia says, remembering that Sylvia has yet to get her room key.

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"Yes, that would definitely help." Sylvia laughs.

They arrive at the gym and find a few of their new classmates already there. They were all either by themselves off to the side, or in groups of two, mingling together. Soon after they entered the gym, some other new students arrived too.

"Oh great," Sylvia remarks, relieved, as she sees kids entering after them, "looks like we weren't the last ones here thankfully."

Anastasia nodded, "Me too,"

They wait for the teacher to come in and wonder what the gym teacher will be like. "I hope the teacher will be nicer than my last gym teacher," Anastasia said, "In my old school, the gym teacher would make sure to keep us always moving and if we paused for a single breath, he'd call out a detention."

"Wow, that's insane!" Sylvia says astonished," That teacher sounds crazy, how could he make everyone move without letting them take a small breather? And giving you guys detention at that? My old gym teacher was chill. He had us doing our gym activities and let us take a small break if we needed one." Sylvia shakes her head in disbelief.

'"Did you have many friends at your old school?" Sylvia asked Anastasia.

"No," Anastasia said sadly, "Everyone was either too scared of me or my family, or they thought I was a weirdo and stayed clear of me. You are my first real friend I'd say."

"Why did you not have friends before? You're very nice and I love your ears and tail, they're very fluffy and pretty looking compared to other beastmen that I've seen before."

Anastasia blushes, "I've never heard anyone say they like my ears and tail before. Thanks, it means a lot to me. Most people thought I was scary because of them. I was lucky to not be bullied like other beastmen, probably because of my higher stamina and stronger strength, but I was still lonely."

"That sounds terrible, " Sylvia said frowning, "What about your family? Did they try to help you at all? What are they like? Are they nice?"

"Oh yes, my parents are very nice. My dad is a human while my mother is also a wolf beastman. I inherited my ears, tail, and eyes from my mother, but my hair color from my dad. My dad owns this really popular company back home so he made sure that no one would bully me. My parents are the best, and I kinda miss them already, but we can always facetime whenever." Anastasia says happily.

"Ooh, that's good," Sylvia said.

"Soo, what about you? Did you have many friends in your old school?" Anastasia asked curiously.

"No, not since 2nd grade when my only friend moved. I did get along with many other students before, but then around 2nd grade, everyone started to separate into their little friend groups, like rich kids, popular kids, poor kids, and then the nerds." Sylvia said melencolily. "And my mom isn't that rich so I was part of the poor group of kids and nerds."

"That's not cool. I never noticed that really because everyone just stayed away from me, but now that you mention it, I think I vaguely remember getting that sense of people making their own tighter friend groups." Anastasia commented.

"Yeah," Sylvia said, "Though there was this one girl, her name is Savannah, and she stayed by my side and kept me company. Her father was also part of a big company just like your father. She had a twin brother who wasn't always the nicest. His name is Zack, and he'd often come over and say rude things to me while his sister and I were having fun. They left right before third grade though so I was alone until now."

"Well, at least we have each other now though. Let's be best friends forever!" Anastasia says.

"Yes, We can have all the fun we want together, no more worrying about being lonely," Sylvia adds, and the two girls laugh and hug each other.

An adult enters the gym, it's their gym teacher. "Hello class, sorry I'm late for our first class together. I had some things to deal with and lost track of the time. You may call me Mr. Cross. Anyways, let's get started."

Some girls were heard murmuring in the back of the gym, "He's so hot, He's a handsome gym teacher," followed by some soft squeals. The two friends just roll their eyes at each other, thinking that those girls are stupid. Mr. Cross was a tall, thin man with defined muscles, not very buff but you could tell he was still strong. He has short gray hair with black tips and purple eyes.

"The gym teacher continues speaking as if he didn't hear what the girls in the back said. "Today, you will be running laps outside, 10 laps around the field, then doing 30 push-ups and sit-ups. This will be the entirety of gym class for the rest of the month." Some more whispering could be heard in the background, complaining about what they had to do.

"Don't you guys dare think of cheating," Mr. Cross says suddenly, causing some people to jump in surprise. "I will know if you guys try to cheat and say you finished everything even though you didn't. You won't like the consequences if you do try to cheat. You will earn yourself a detention and will have to do your laps and exercises after school instead."

That caused some people to shudder, and immediately get rid of any thoughts of trying to trick the professor.

"Oh yeah," Mr. Cross adds, "I almost forgot one of the most important things, stretching. Before you start running your laps and exercising, you should probably stretch out those muscles of yours if you don't want too many aches and cramps in your muscles after gym class. You will have 10 minutes at the start of class to do your stretches, then after that, you will start running and doing push-ups and sit-ups until the class is over."

When the teacher stops talking, everyone just stays still and stares at him, causing the teacher to get annoyed.

"Well, the clock's ticking," The teacher barks loudly, "those laps aren't going to get themselves finished! Get a move on!"

He blows his whistle and everyone scrambles outside and starts doing their thing.

After class, the girls exit the girls’ locker room.

"Man," Sylvia says, "That was some workout, I've never been this stiff in a long time, I can barely move now." She laughs a little in discomfort.

"It was fun running, but those sit-ups and push-ups totally killed me," Anastasia said.

"You weren't joking when you said you had higher stamina than others, I wish I had the same amount of energy as you." Sylvia says and they both laugh.

The two girls head off down the hallway to their next classes. Sylvia has Mana-sensing class while Anastasia has History. They reach the history classroom first.

"Bye bestie," Anastasia says, "I'll see you next period." She then enters the classroom.

Sylvia continues down the hallway by herself, finding her classroom down the hallway and around the corner. She enters the classroom and wonders, 'I wonder what this class will be like now.'