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Prologue: A Cold Start

Prologue: A Cold Start

Life is quite boring for Josef, a seventeen year old australian boy attending high school in America, with no special attributes or talents, he is quite a normal person. His height was slightly taller than his peers, his build was average, he had no muscles but he wasn't thin either, and his face wasn't that handsome, but it had distinct features that made him stand out from the average mob.

He was quite comfortable with his everyday life, not asking for much but, if he did get a chance to get a wish granted, he would certainly wish for the blizzard to cease. His life was average and boring, but never did he expect that one day his entire life would change in a way he did not expect.

It was a cold winter, with particles of white drizzling down and piling up, creating a blanket of endless frost that enveloped the scenery, showering the trees and masking the atmosphere in an illusion of fog, resulting in a winter wonderland with barely any visibility. The frigid breeze bombarded those who foolishly attempted to conquer the season by forcing their way out of their snow-blocked doors and into the cold of the winter, scraping away the frost from their car's windshields or defrosting the tires of their bikes in order to have a mode of transportation in the harsh environment.

Unfortunately for Josef, he did not have the luxury of cars nor the balls to commute on his bike on a road where visibility is near to none, where he wouldn't know what could quickly approach him from behind, like a truck perhaps. He thought it would be funny if he did get run over by one and magically woke up in another world where he is the hero trying to protect the peace of the imaginary land with his overpowered and generic powers, accompanied by beautiful girls, but that was all wishful thinking in order to escape the blistering cold that will envelope him whenever he sets foot outside his warm and cozy home. Having finished breakfast, specifically a piece of toast if you can even call it breakfast, Josef quickly heads to the front door, where he will challenge the cold once again in order to attend school. He didn't really want to go, he was pissed when he found out that the school he attended still forced students to attend even with the harsh weather, he simply wished to stay in his warm and cozy home, but he couldn't. Not attending would result in him standing out and getting attention from his sudden disappearance, people would gossip about him and maybe even spread rumors that could potentially ruin his desired normal school life, he simply wished to be normal, like that one guy in every school who just blends in the background.

With only a backpack and the clothes on his back, Josef clenched his fist and started to brave the snow, tiny white particles piling on his messy nest of black as he walked slowly in the direction of his school. He wouldn't know if he was going the right way due to the fuzziness of the surroundings from the fog, it was all speculation, but if his memory doesn't fail him there and then, he would be able to barely make it to first period... just maybe not on time. It was like a maze of sorts, crossing streetlights, passing through tight intersections, and even hopping a fence. Josef was taking his usual route to school; it was a bit unorthodox, but it was his way of making the journey more fun and exciting in order to delude himself that the school day would be as fun as the trip itself, and hopefully not as cold. He would always casually wave to the street cats that could be seen whenever he passed the third corner, but because of the sheer cold, they were all hiding from the harsh environment, hopefully in warm homes. Josef was a bit saddened by the absence of his furry friends, but that did not stop him from continuing on his epic quest to go to school.

After a few minutes of walking, he was getting close, and he could finally see the convenience store that was only a few blocks away from the school. The green and red glow of the store's sign gave him hope in the midst of the never-ending blizzard that his day would get better by the end of it, hopefully.

As he approached the gate, the P.E. teacher, Mr. Fatmouth, was already waiting by the edge of the gate, awaiting for the clock to run out and locking out any student who dared show up late. Josef was intimidated when he first met Mr. Fatmouth. He was huge and had a large belly to compliment his height, he almost looked like a ball, he had a classy moustache and a nice british accent to go along with it. Because Josef likes to sleep-in and comes to school around ten to twenty minutes before first period starts, even though his walk to school takes around 15 minutes, he was one of the problem children when it came to being on time, and he was more or less a regular face to Mr. Fatmouth. Luckily today, that wasn't the case. Josef crossed the school gates with little to no problems since Mr. Fatmouth felt especially kind today and allowed Josef to pass on through despite him being five minutes late, while the only difficulty that he encountered was the shivering of his hands from the cold due to his lack of mittens that he had forgotten due to his absent-mindedness.

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He quickly entered the front building and was met with a wonderful surge of warmth from the heater that was installed near the front entrance. His shivering stopped as all the cold left his body, he breathed deeply in relief, it was like heaven when he entered. He stood near the heater for a couple minutes, forgetting that the clock was ticking and class was about to start. When the bell rang, Josef was woken from his daze and quickly rushed to the lockers to switch to his indoor shoes, but unfortunately, he slipped on a puddle of some sort of liquid assumed to be melted snow. He bashed his forehead on the locker doors, he yelled in pain internally cussing as loud as he can in his mind while his hands covered the site of impact, he was a bit nervous as he checked to see if blood was leaking from his forehead by wiping his hand on it. Luckily he was safe, he sighed in relief as he saw the absence of blood.

Mr. Fatmouth had already closed the school gates and saw the entire occurrence as he entered the main building. He was rather pleased to see Josef hurt himself, secretly of course, like most people do. He did however try to help Josef stand up and asked him if he needed any help in order to cement his status as a respectable teacher, but Josef wasn't buying into any of that and casually refused the hand that Mr. Fatmouth extended towards him. He instead, grabbed the gray handle on one of the locker doors and stood up with the help of it, standing himself up by pulling on the handle. Mr. Fatmouth paid no mind to Josef's refusal and silently walked away.

With the whole incident resolved, Josef finally switched to his indoor shoes, putting on the right shoe then the left, and placed his outside shoes in his locker, closing the door, only to be opened again whenever he would go outside or when it came time for his very special and important club activities, the going home club. He quickly rushed through the hallways, almost bumping into a teacher and almost making the same mistake of slipping and falling a few seconds ago, but he was able to recover by grabbing a door frame before he lost balance. He rushed up the stairs while skipping a few steps because his slightly tall height allowed him to. He traversed the long hallway, reaching the far right side of the main building. He was finally facing the door to his classroom, class 1-F, the most detached room in the entire school that is found at the end of the right hallway on the second floor, void of any interaction from the other classes due to the sheer distance from the other classrooms.

The Hanamaru Gakuen is an elite, prestigious school where all the students are expected to excel in one thing or another. Everyone was either an athlete, an academic nerd, or talented in a certain field. Josef didn't fit any of those categories, he simply passed the entrance exam by sheer luck bycorrectly guessing the multiple choice questions, and with his amazing track record of a fifty percent chance of being late to first period, he was placed in the losers' class, as the others would say, a class where all the delinquents and tardies were gathered, a place for all the problem children, class 1-F.

After all the hardships and suffering from the trip to school, he finally opened the door to his class, walked in without a care in the world as the other students who were already seated stared at him, while the teacher in charge of first period gave a menacing glare. He paid no attention to anything in his surroundings and proceeded to sit on his chair, which was at the very back window seat in the room, and placed his black backpack on the floor. With only a few seconds of sitting down, he could already feel the boredom seeping through his flesh, as he had the whole day to endure another cold, normal, and boring day of school, or so he thought.

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