The unfamiliar is often considered one of humanity's biggest fears. Now more than ever, I understand such a sentiment.

I found myself in the halls of Sakuragaoka High School, the place I'd be attending for the next few years. It's an all-girls school, but under some "special" circumstances, I'd been allowed to attend as per the request of the school's headmaster. I'm a guinea pig of sorts, just meant to test the waters on how women and young girls would react to a boy roaming the premises and being part of daily life. So that's one reason why I'm standing here, unmoving like a deer in headlights. The second, because I'm not actually from Japan.

My name's Leo Katnua, while I am part Japanese, I grew up in the United Kingdom for most of my life. I'd only moved to Japan about a month ago, and while I'm getting used to the language, the customs of this land is kind of another story. So that's why I'm standing here, my knees quaking with every girl who walked past me.

'Where is she?' I thought, impatiently looking down at my wristwatch. There were only so many leering eyes and whispers a person would be willing to take. I didn't mind the view, the girls weren't unpleasant despite me no doubt just being a topic of conversation to some of them. Some of them were even quite cute. But I'd kept my head down and averted my gaze, it wouldn't do well to be mistaken for a pervert on the first day. "Oh!" An audible voice of an adult woman spoke up.

I turned, and let out a sigh of relief. "Oh, thank god." I said in English. The voice was that of the lady who'd be assisting me for the first few days. "Sawako-sensei." I said, giving a modest wave. "Ah, there you are, little Katnua." 'Little?' I hung on that word, I was nearly half a foot taller than her, but whatever, I guess. "As you were already informed, I'll be guiding you around the school and its various facilities over the next week." She said, slowly turning her mug of joe as she watched the brown liquid's waves splash around its edges. "First, we ought to get the most important step out of the way first and get you to your homeroom class. I'll lead the way." She said, taking a graceful turn that I'm almost positive she'd rehearsed several times beforehand to make herself look cooler.

She led me down the school's various halls, as expected, we got looks from the girls we'd been passing the whole time. Some of the looks were curious, some were worried, some were excited, and some were downright terrified. I felt a little bad about the whole thing and tilted my head down in order to avert these gazes. Some girls go to these types of schools specifically to avoid men, so isn't it a bit messed up to bring me here as a student despite that? "Hey, c'mon now." Sawako said, knowing my head was down despite hers not turning. "First days are never the best, but it's important to make a good first impression anyway."

My head lifted slightly, she was right. Even if I cause some discord on the first day, it's important that I do my best now, or I may regret it. "Yeah." I said with a nod. "Anyway…" Sawako's footsteps came to a halt. "We've arrived. Your new home room." She said with a reassuring smile. We stepped into the classroom, one for first-year students. A lecture was already taking place, a black-haired teacher was writing on chalk, before looking at us who'd just stepped in and gasping. "Oh! I forgot "that" was starting today!" She said with her hand covering her mouth. Um, 'That'? They're acting like I'm some top secret experiment by the government. The black-haired teacher cleared her throat, and gestured to myself and Sawako to come in.

At my first footstep, chatter and whispers ensued. "Huh?" "What, a male?!" "What is HE doing here?!" and "It's about time." were the phrases that felt most repeated. I made my way near the teacher's podium, and greeted my new homeroom teacher, Ms. Arakashi. Sawako also stood next to me. "Now, I'm sure you all have a lot of questions…" Ms. Arakashi said, before being cut off by one outraged student who raised their hand. "Yeah, like what's a frickin' GUY doing in this school?!" Her words erupting the rest of the class into an all-out war.

"Now, if we could all just…" Ms. Arakashi started, her words being drowned out by the sound of bickering and protest among her generally peaceful class. "Then I'm sure we could all…" My own thoughts were scattered, as the many incoherent words and voices invaded my eardrums. What followed were the three distinct 'bang' sounds, with the last bang leaving an echo upon a now silent room. The perpetrator of the noise was none other than Sawako, who slammed her hand on the teachers' podium, as if she were some kind of judge wanting court order. She gave a dark smile, sending chills up the spines of the students as if to incur a sort of fear in the students to ensure another outbreak like that won't occur. "Now…" Ms. Arakashi said in a voice that made her seem sympathetic towards her class "Why don't you introduce yourself?"

I took a deep breath, and a step forward. Some of the girls moved their seats back a little, some inched closer. I pushed that detail to the back of my head, not wanting it to distract me from making a decent first impression. "My name is Leo Katnua. I'm a first-year…" I said, my thoughts somehow trailing off. "...Um. I'm half-Japanese and half-British. And I grew up in London for most of my life." A bored looking girl, who seemingly cared about neither my gender nor my heritage, raised her hand and spoke up. "So like, does that mean you can speak English…?" I closed my eyes for a moment and cleared my throat, 'This is my chance to show off.' I thought to myself. I opened my eyes and, in English, I said "Yes, I do speak English." The eyes of some of the students lit up, some gave out impressed shouts and some clapped, though some of the crowd were unimpressed, or chose not to be considering who just said it.

Suddenly, questions came flying in from some of the students. I clenched my fist at the small victory. Though I still had a lot to prove, I could at least ensure my stay in my homeroom wasn't entirely unpleasant. Some of the questions that came in involved me saying phrases in English, to which I obliged, and others were things like how I became bilingual and what it's like. Ms. Arakashi put her hand up, giving a motion for the students to stop with the questions. "Alright, alright." She smiled with the knowledge that at least some of the class had warmed up to me. "If you want to ask Katnua-san more questions, do it after class, okay?"

"Now, about your seat…" Ms. Arakashi said, putting her hand up to her chin and surveying the classroom. "There!" She pointed to a vacant seat near the back of the classroom. "You'll sit next to Hirasawa." The brown-haired girl shot up at her name being called, had she been sleeping through that whole thing. "Are you awake now?" Ms. Arakashi said sarcastically, I'm guessing that this was a regular occurrence for her. Ms. Arakashi turned to me, gesturing to me to take my seat. Before that, Sawako grabbed my shoulder, instructing me to meet her at the faculty office during lunch hour. After that, she waved to myself and the class before skipping out of the room, seemingly proud of a job well done.

I walked down to the aisle to my desk in the back. Some girls stood in place, adjusting to my presence rather quickly, others moved about, wanting to examine me further or stay as far away from me as possible without getting out of their seats. The whole time I was walking, Hirasawa's eyes were fixated on me. Her head wasn't moving, but she made sure that her eyes stayed glued to me. The expression she was making in doing this was honestly kind of funny, in a goofy sort of way. I took my seat and she kept staring and staring. Was I that interesting to her?

"Hirasawa!" Ms. Arakashi spoke up. "Stop that and pay attention!" Ms. Arakashi was more commandeering than I'd thought, huh. "Y-Yes, ma'am!" Her eyes now glued to her scary teacher. Hirasawa's voice was squeaky, yet still a bit mellow sounding. Sort of like a lazy mouse. Since I didn't have a textbook, I was told to simply follow along with the lecture till I could get properly caught up. I'd pretended to pay attention, but my new neighbor kept making trouble for me. Her eyes were quickly off the teacher as she'd kept looking at me, with cautious curiosity in her eyes.

I'd exchanged a glance with her and her head quickly turned 180 degrees the other way, with her whistling as if to say 'I wasn't looking!'. I turned my head the other way and the whistling came to a halt, I'd turned my head back around and sure enough, her eyes were on me once more. Even though she was caught red-handed, her act persisted and she'd keep turning her head around whenever I'd catch her staring at me. Though admittedly, I also started using this as an excuse to get some glances at her.

Hirasawa was cute. Really, really cute. I don't know much about her but I do know that. She has a childlike sense of expression and a sort of rhythm to her that I could really only describe as bubbly, if not clumsy. A lot of girls I'd seen in this school were cute, indeed. But she'd definitely caught my eye the most, though perhaps that was simply because she'd seemed a little less than normal, and I sit right next to her. Though considering the circumstances, I guess it's not really fair of me to say that she seemed too on edge. If you would call whatever she was doing being on edge.

Soon enough, the bell had rang and class was over. It was now the lunch hour, I stretched my legs and slumped back in my chair as the other students dispersed and headed to who knows where. Hirasawa in particular very carefully got out of her chair, before leaving the class in a mad dash. I was exhausted, and really didn't want to get up. But I had to go see Sawako, and I was kind of starving at this point. I exited the classroom, hanging by the doorway, and briefly froze. Wait, where was I supposed to go again? I facepalmed in realization. "She forgot to give me directions…" I said in English. "Is something wrong?" A girl said from behind me, I moved aside as she was exiting the classroom as well. The girl had long black hair and eyes to match, and had a more mature aura to her compared to some of the other girls here. "Ah." I suddenly spoke, now speaking in Japanese again. "I'm looking for the faculty room. I have business there, you see." The black-haired girl gave a smile and turned, "Follow me." She said as she walked.

We walked down the hallways of the school, the place almost felt built like a maze, though I wasn't exactly accustomed to Japanese high schools just yet. Much less an all-girls one. "So…" I began, attempting to make small talk to break the silence. "...We're in the same class, then?" "Yes, it would seem so." The girl answered. "This whole thing is quite weird for all of us. So don't worry too much about the sort of eyes and rumors you'll hear. I'm sure they'll just go away with time." I let out a sigh, saying "Yeah, I hope you're right about that."

The girl let out a giggle, "You were quite the surprise." She said, "I'd never seen the class, well, explode like that!" She turned back to me with a smile as our eyes met once more, I had a brief thought but quickly brushed it aside as the girl once again spoke. "You said you're not from around here, right? Have you been getting used to Japan okay?" I wasn't fully sure how to answer that. I felt bad at how generic my answer was. "Mm, I suppose." Her smile faded, and she turned back around, no longer facing me. "Oh." She said. Come on, did I mess up or something? "To be honest, I still kinda suck with the language. I got lost on the way here because I couldn't read the kanji in the subway." She turned back around. I guess I got her attention back?

"Hm, yes, I've read that foreigners often have a lot of trouble reading and understanding kanji." She turned back around, her finger placed on her lip as her head tilted upward toward a lamp lighting the hallway. "I wonder why that is?" Kanji'd always given me trouble ever since I first moved here. Despite how much I'd studied the language, it was so variable in how characters were structured that I couldn't keep up. I'd often misinterpret the meaning of some kanji, or just not understand it flat out. "I could use a lesson on it sometime…" I thought aloud.

We stopped, arriving at our destination. "Well, you wouldn't be the only person I'd have to tutor." She said, giving an odd look that suggested someone rather annoying was on her mind. "What do you mean by that?" I asked. She stepped away, saying "It doesn't matter…" She began walking away, "Well, I'd better get going. See you around!" I extended my arm, "Ah, wait! Um, thanks...And, can I get your name?" The girl turned, and gave a smile as she spoke "Akiyama Mio." She said, giving a wave before turning around and exiting the scene. That brief thought I had earlier resurfaced as I'd watched her leave. 'Did I just make a friend?'

Questions for later, I suppose. I entered the faculty room, and Sawako was the only one there. Eating lunch as she'd awaited my arrival. I walked up to her, "Sawako-sensei, you told me to come here earlier." She'd spun her chair towards me, folding her arms and crossing her legs, giving a smile. "Indeed I did. I just wanted to see how your first class went, and give you some advice on where to go from here." I nodded, scratching my cheek. "Well, after you left, things went fine for the most part. Some of the girls still gave me glances and stuff, but they minded their business otherwise." Sawako perked her glasses up to her face, "That's good. So long as you're not being given any trouble, I suppose. Have you thought about joining any clubs?" Clubs? That was not so much as a twinkle in my eye. I'd have to learn my way around the school first, and would anyone even want me on account of being a man? "No, not really." I replied, my response on the matter not fully reflecting my actual thoughts.

"Well," Sawako said, putting up a finger, "If you want to make a name for yourself, as well as a reputation, I'd recommend you get on that ASAP. You won't know what kind of opportunities await you till you try." Well, I guess it was worth a shot. The worst that happens is that I get rejected, or get called a pervert or something. "Hmm...Well, you do make a compelling point."

Sawako clapped her hands together, as if to put a definitive end on that topic despite me not giving her a straight answer. "Good!" She said, moving her chair closer to me. "Now then…" Her voice became hushed as she flashed a wicked smile with invasive eyes that wanted to pry my head open. "Who do you have your eyes on?" My face ever so slightly reddened and as my eyes widened and I took a step back in shock. Can't she be fired for even ASKING something like this? "U-Uh, what?"

Sawako grabbed me by the collar and pulled me very close to her face. I could feel and smell her hot breath on my face, it absolutely reeked of black coffee. This would be a pretty terrible scene for someone to walk in on. I gave her a vague answer that ought to satisfy her enough to let me go. "U-um, it's someone in my class!" The answer wasn't really truthful, but it's the first thing she'd believe without prying into the life of a specific student. She let me go, laughing like a mad man. "Hahaha, I should have figured as much." Her grin suddenly widened. Don't worry, I'll get you two hitched real soon."

Does she even know what she's saying? I played along, not wanting another taste of her coffee breath. "Haha, well, yeah. I'll be going now." I said, wanting to make a swift retreat. I escaped the faculty room and leaned on a nearby wall, catching my breath. I wonder why I even gave her an answer? There was nobody in that classroom I had even the slightest interest in.

But then, I recognized the image in the back of my head. An image of that strange girl who sat next to me. I sighed, my thoughts puzzled. "What have I gotten myself into?"

Afterword.

So, this is my first fanfiction. I've always wanted to delve into writing and I figured this would be the right place to get my feet wet. I really love K-ON and it happens to be one of my favorite anime of all time, so I wanted to write about it so I can get better at writing slice-of-life and fluff scenarios.

Feedback would be greatly appreciated!