The rain was hitting my window hard during this autumn morning, slowly making me less and less excited to go to school. Although, today was a day I had been looking forward to, we get to choose where we'd like to intern for the internship day which is two weeks after winter break.
Mother had already left for work, she had also left a note,
"I'm working late tonight, I'll be home at 11 PM, there are leftovers in the fridge."
As I was already almost late to the bus, I grab an apple for when I get on. Grabbing my hoodie and my backpack, I start leaving the house, after locking the door, of course. Going down our long driveway, I feel the cold autumn breeze hit, it shocks me awake.
"It sure is getting colder..." I mumble to myself.
Getting on the bus, I get to the middle of the bus and sit down in one of the empty seats, immediately pulling up my phone to check the time.
"6:15 AM"
First period starts in 30 minutes, and the internship choice isn't until after second period, I guess I'll try to get some extra sleep while I can.
We're always greeted by the principal in the morning, it's considered a tradition at the school. I always ignore him, staying as far away from him as possible, mostly because I'd rather not be noticed by anyone, staying in the shadows of other people has always been my thing. Never had I been considered a prodigy in anything, average grades, average looks, average skills, nothing about me stood out. While approaching first period, my class president notices me and tells me,
"Hey, Kazo! don't forget about the internship ceremony after second period!" He exclaims, excitedly.
"I won't."
"Great! We have math class first period today, I'll see you there!"
"Mm."
The class president, Corat Filfried, had always been an amazing person and student. Perfect grades, great personality, handsome to the point where everyone either wanted him or wanted to be him, and all the teachers loved him. He had the highest chance of going to a top-grade university out of everyone in the school. Compared to him, I'm nothing but a side character, he's obviously worthy of the main character role.
As always during math class, our teacher holds a quick briefing and then lets us do the problems in the math book. If we have any problems or questions, we can ask him, or of course, Corat. This was due to him already having finished high school math, and instead of studying further, he told the teacher he'd much rather help teach us other students.
Personally, I was never bad at math, but I was an underachiever, so I never went for any high grades. This was mostly due to the fact that I never wanted to do something unusual, I wanted to stay low, unnoticed by everyone, it felt more comfortable that way. Uninterrupted, unbothered, it was how I had always wanted to be, alone. Being alone was the best thing I knew.
After math class had finally finished, I was off to second period, which was history. History wasn't something I was particularly interested in, but I had learned a lot of history from reading books. Reading being one of my favorite pastimes, I would read any and all genres of books, it was my imagination which engulfed me inside the books. Since the history classroom was close to the math classroom, I didn't have to walk far, which was good, but it also meant I had to wait for another five minutes until class started.
Class started, and our teacher started talking about the second world war. As I had already zoned out after the first few minutes of the teacher talking, I didn't learn anything during that whole lesson. But it seemed to be time for the ceremony.
The ceremony was held in the gym, just like when we got to choose our clubs.
"Now class, here we are, there are many different internships to choose from. Choose wisely." My history teacher told my class, in a stern voice.
"Hotel management, restaurant work, tourist guiding.." there truly were a lot of different internships to choose from, but most of them already had a bunch of people gathered. There were only a few with little to no people, and most of these were considered as "nerdy" or "weird" internships, this including, programming, tech support, tech repairing, and a few others that were closely related. At first, I had been planning to choose the internship with the least amount of people, but now, it didn't seem fitting, as it was to work at a daycare. I decided to choose restaurant work, and specifically the cleaning job. My choice being because there hadn't been a single person who had, of their own free will, picked cleaning.
After finally having chosen an internship, I could finally go eat lunch, and then finally go home. It was a half-day because my teacher during third period was sick.
The principal had even arranged for everyone who takes the bus home, to be able to do such, this wasn't normal, usually, we'd have to wait until everyone can leave school.
I got home at 11:15 AM, this was very early, and at that point, I had no idea of what to do, so I started reading a book I had recently picked up at the library. It was very interesting.
Hearing a car pull up on the driveway, I was instantly confused, it was only 6 PM, mother wasn't supposed to be home for another five hours. Getting up from my seat, I go to open the front door, and I'm greeted by someone, who clearly was not my mother. This was a man, most likely in his forties, and our conversation, it was very interesting, to say the least.
"Kazo?" he asks.
"Yes?" I say, confused
"Wonderful, I've finally found you."
"Excuse me mister, but who are you?"
"I'm detective Hoart, I work for the police" he says, showing his badge.
"Why are you here?" I question him.
"Don't worry, I'm just here to ask you a few questions."
Who was this mysterious detective at my door? how does he know my name? why does he want to talk to me? a whole jumble of questions came up in my mind. Nevertheless, I let him in and sat him down at the dinner table.
"Well then Kazo, I have bad news and good news. Which would like you to hear first?"
"The bad news."
"It's about your mother, she got into a car crash, she is not dead, but she is in a coma, and probably won't wake up for at least a few months."
"Mother is... in a coma? and she won't wake up for at least... a few months?" Shocked, I am barely able to utter these words.
A moment of silence is brought in until I remembered,
"What are the good news Mr. Hoart?"
"Your mother's medical bills will be paid for you, so you won't have to worry about making money. You have also been given $20,000 for damages to her and her vehicle. We will also put you in a foster family, seeing as you're still not 18, and this will mean you don't have to be anxious about being able to stay alive without her. As long as you are willing to work through this pain, I believe your mother can recover very smoothly."
"Oh..." I mumble, in a sad tone.
"Who will I be living with?"
"The Filfried family have been kind enough to let you in, you should know of Corat Filfried, I believe he's your class president if I'm not wrong."
"I know him."
"That's great! you should make sure to become his friend. I'll take you there, so you should go pack your stuff."
"Okay."
Did it have to be the Filfried family, I think to myself, I really don't like Corat, he's too obnoxious. Well, seeing as there's nothing I can do about it, I pack the stuff I might need, books, clothes, toiletries, laptop, chargers, instant ramen, and anything else useful. I needed two whole backpacks to take everything with me.
"I'm ready to leave."
Mr. Hoart nods, and we leave, as I lock the door I mumble to myself, as tears start to build up,
"I'll be back soon... I hope."
The Filfried family lived very close to our school, it was only a five minute walk from it. After getting out of the car, we walk up to the house, which was more than twice the size of the house mother and I had been living in.
Corat's mother had opened the door the moment we got close enough to knock, and she greeted me with a hug, saying,
"Oh dear, I've heard what happened to your mother, I felt so bad, I just had to let you live with us."
"Thank you Mrs. Filfried."
"Please, call me Claire" she says, happily.
After having thanked Mr. Hoart, Claire started showing me towards where I'd be living during the stay.
"Here we are" she told me, while opening a door to a room, which was almost double the size I had been living in previously.
"It's not much, but I hope it'll work, there are leftovers in the fridge, the kitchen is downstairs to the right."
"Thank you, but I already ate" I swiftly lie to her.
"That's alright, tell me if you need anything, my husband and I sleep in the room straight down the corridor."
"Thank you."
She left, and I finally had time to process everything, which happened so quick, it had only been an hour and a half since Mr. Hoart had told me everything. I fell asleep.
The morning after, I woke up two hours before school started. I decided to do my homework while waiting for time to pass.
It was finally 6:30 AM, 15 minutes before class started. Walking downstairs, I see Claire in the kitchen,
"I'm going to school now Claire, I'll be back after."
"Are you sure you don't want to stay home from school today?"
"I'm sure, I'll see you later."
"Okay, Corat's already at school, I've told him to take extra care of you if he meets you there!" she almost yells to me as I leave the house.
Luckily I didn't run into Corat in the halls, but we do have the same class again today, which is somewhat annoying.
It was biology class, not my favorite subject, not my least favorite either, but I didn't particularly like it.
As our teacher was going through something about chemical compounds on the whiteboard, one of the girls in the class suddenly starts screaming.
"WHAT IS THAT!!!!"