Above is Hana's outfit for her first day!

Hana woke up at 5:30 am that morning and anxiously got ready for school. She decided on wearing a blue shirt with lacy accents, peach colored jeans and a matching scarf, pulled together with various accessories.

She walked out of the elevator and down the stairs to see Subaru lacing up his sneakers. "Good morning, Subaru!" Hana chirped as she practically skipped across the living room.

"Er, good morning." Subaru relpied sleepily. Hana opened the door to the kitchen to see Ukyo making something on the stove and two plates of eggs and toast sitting on the table.

"Good morning, Ukyo!" She beamed at him. He looked up from the eggs he was frying to smile at Hana. "Good morning." He answered back. "Are you ready for your first day of school?" He asked her as she sat down at the table.

"Yep." She answered, popping the 'p'. "I'm glad to hear that." Ukyo said as Subaru walked through the door. "And I called administration last night, and they can't get you out of choir for a few days." He told Hana, looking worried. "Are you going to be alright?"

Hana smiled at Ukyo. "It's okay." She answered, looking nervously at her eggs. "It can't be that bad, right?" She asked him, but in her mind, she was really asking herself.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Subaru and Hana, after a train ride that seemed to take forever, finally arrived at the university. Hana beamed as they walked around the campus, taking in the large buildings and extensive grounds like a sponge.

"Hey Asahina!" Someone shouted as they neared the Fine Arts building. They both turned to see two tall boys running over to them.

"Hey, guys." Subaru answered, stepping slightly in front of Hana. "Man, since when do you hang out around the Fine Arts building?" The one with dirty blonde hair asked teasingly.

The one with dark hair peaked around Subaru to look at Hana. "And who is the cutie?" He asked with a sly grin. Hana brightly smiled and stuck out and friendly hand to him.

"Hello, I'm Asahina Hana." She introduced. The boy took her hand in his. "Hi, I'm Kato Hitashi." The boy said as the other boy bowed to her "And I am Nori Akiama." He told her as Kato laughed loudly.

"Very nice to meet you two." Hana stated with a closed-eyed smile. "You too Asahina. Anyway Asahina did you skip out on layups last ti..." Nori started, but slurred to a stop when something dawned on him.

"You're Asahina," he said pointing at Subaru, "and you're Asahina." He continued, pointing to Hana. Hana nodded to him, still smiling.

"She your cousin or something?" Kato asked Subaru, slightly amused at the look in Nori's face. Hana shook her head.

"I'm his sister." She informed them, and was met with slightly bewildered faces.
"But aren't you supposed to be 17, in high school and a brunette?" Kato asked. "And not IRISH?!" Nori added with 'slight' emphasis on "Irish".

Hana snickered, "You're thinking of Ema, my older sister. I'm 16, not 17, and I was recently adopted."

That statement only seemed to confuse them more. "Wait, you're 16? Geez, that family is full of prodigies." Nori sighed with a smile as Kato checked his watch.

"Dude, we gotta go. Coach will blow if we run late again." He told Subaru. Subaru nervously ran his hand through his hair.

"You think you'll be ok?" He asked, glancing down at her with a worried expression.

"I'll be fine! Have a great day!" She told them, waving as the boys ran in what she assumed to be the direction of the gym. Hana turned to the building in front of her. She looked down at the schedule in her hands.

"First up, Music theory." She reminded herself, taking a deep breath, and walking confidently in to the building. She found the class, and quietly stepped in just as the professor was stepping to the front of the class.

"Good morning class, today we have a new student, her name is Asahina Hana. Please make her feel welcome. Now today we are going to review specific intervals."

The professor droned on about the ascending and descending octaves and why the 4th and 5th intervals were perfect instead of major. The class went off without a hitch. After class a few people introduced themselves, but the class was altogether uneventful. Education afterwards was even more so, but Hana was content.

After Education, was musical theater, Hana was just fascinated by lighting design since she read a report on it two years ago. As she walked through the auditoriums huge double doors she saw two teachers standing in front of a large group of students.

As heads turned toward her, her cheeks flushed in embarrassment. She had gotten lost and was late to the class. But the two teachers at the front of the class teachers greeted her with bright smiles and beckoned her toward them. Hana silently obeyed.

"Guys, this is Hana, she is going to be working with Tani in lighting. Please welcome her into our family!" The teacher told the class. She then turned to Hana, still smiling.

"Hi, I'm Mrs. Koro, and that's Mr. Beloat. You can sit right over there next to Tani. Tani! Wave for us!" She yelled over the chatting students. A girl slightly shorter than Hana with short dark hair waved at the two with a smile.

"Thank you!" Hana told Mrs. Koro as she bowed and ran to meet Tani. She stopped just short of colliding with the girl, holding out her hand.

"Hi, I'm Hana. It's nice to meet you!" She greeted the girl. Tani returned Hana's smile and shook her hand. "I'm Tani. Nice accent." She complemented with a charismatic wink.

"Let me show you around." Tani offered, motioning for Hana to follow her as she started to walk.

"This is the auditorium, we meet up here everyday for announcements and stuff." Hana followed Tani up a few steps to the stage, they took to the middle of the stage so that they were overlooking all of the goings on around the auditorium.

She then told Hana where everything was, and who does what where. Tani also told Hana that the musical they were putting on was "Les Miserables". 

As soon as Tani mentioned the name of the play Hana's eyes lit up like fireworks. "I've always loved Les Mis! I dreamed that I was Cosette, and I would sing that little castle song all the time. My father hated it." She told Tani with a smile, up until the end when Hana's smile faded slightly.

At that moment the bell rung for the end of class. Hana and Tani said their goodbyes and Hana set off to jazz band.

In her next few classes,  nothing occurred out of the ordinary. Well, ordinary for the other students. To Hana, this was all a wonderful adventure through dreamland! Up until the dream came crashing down on top of her right before the last class.

Choir.

She stood outside the classroom doors building up the courage to step inside. After a few minutes, she took a big breath and stepped inside.

As soon as the door closed behind her, she could hear the voices from a room full of people glide through her head. But all too soon, the voices stopped, and only one voice could be heared.

"Hello dear, you must be Hana, right?" A middle aged woman who stood in front of about thirty five young adults.

Hanna nodded and the woman smiled kindly. "I'm Mrs. Fujiyama, welcome to concert choir. What voice part are you?" Mrs. Fujiyama inquired.

"I don't know, sorry." Hana answered quietly. Mrs. Fujiyama furrowed her brow. "We don't have time to test you, let's just play it safe and put you into mezzo soprano until later." Hana nodded and looked toward the chorus of students.

A group of about 10 girls waved at her, motioning to where she was to stand. Hana approached with a shy smile and took her place between a short curly haired brunette girl and taller brunette with straight hair.

"Hi!" The shorter girl greeted as she handed Hana a packet of sheet music entitled "Sebben Crudele".

"Thanks." Hana said, returning her smile as the rest of the class started vocal warm ups. The brunette spoke next. "I'm Kara Tumoki and this is Aki Katoko. Nice to meet you." She introduced in a flirtatious, and surprisingly kind voice.

"My name is Asahina Hana, it's very nice to meet you too." Hana replied quietly, still unsure of what exactly to do in a choir.

The girl named Kara stared up at Hana with wide eyes. "Asahina? Like Subaru Asahina? Are you related?" She asked, as Aki teasingly raised her eyebrow at the short brunette.

Hana nodded, "I'm his sister." She said simply, looking through the sheet music in her hands.

"You are?" Asked a blonde standing behind them. "What is he like?" Asked a black haired girl next to the brunette.

"He's been very nice so far, but I've only known him for a little over a week." Hana told them, hiding some of her face in her sheet music.

"What do you mean?" "You've only known him for a week?" "Didn't you say you were his sister?" The girls around her asked, she didn't pay much attention to who said what, she just wanted the conversation over with.

"His mom ad-adopted me a little while ago. So I guess I'm not actually his sister, but everyone's been so nice, I guess that I really felt like part of the family." Hana blurted without thinking.

As soon as she finished, she realized what she had said and her face turned beet red. She tried to cover her face with the sheet music in her hands, but before she could, Kara pulled her into a tight hug.

"Sorry, but you're just so darn loveable!" She jeered, causing Hana to smile and chuckle just as Mrs. Fujiyama walked past.

"Focus, ladies." She ordered with a small grin. And so it went for the rest of the class, the girls talked quietly while they ran through the song over and over to get it perfect.

Hana realized that even though she was afraid to let her voice be heard alone, she was really happy to be part of a group that really enjoyed having her around.
___________________________________

After choir Hana said goodbye to her new friends and went for a stroll around the grounds. She had about 2 hours before Subaru got out of basketball practice and she didn't know how to get home by herself, so she decided to try and find the library.

She was walking down a sidewalk near the sports fields staring intently the map of the school grounds when she heard a far off voice yell, "HEADS UP!" She looked up just in time to see a baseball flying toward her face.

The ball hit her hard in her right eye, causing her to fall back onto the ground, sending her messenger bag and violin case out of her hands and crashing onto the pavement.

Hana could feel her throbbing eye swell shut, rendering her completely blind. She felt the violin case near her hand, so she grabbed it and started frantically searching blindly for her book bag as she heard footsteps approaching.

"Are you ok hon?" She heard a worried sounding women's voice ask as she felt along the ground for her bag. "I'm so sorry! That was totally my fault, can I help you at all?" She heard a very apologetic male voice say.

"I'm absolutely fine, no worries! I just can't seem to find my book bag." Hana said half to herself, trying to calm down as she heard more people coming toward her.

"Um here, it was like a foot in front of you. Are you sure you're alright?" Hana heard a female voice to her right ask, the owner of which she assumed was holding her bag.

She reached out toward the voice with her still bandaged right hand, her fingers felt the coarse fabric of her book bag and she carefully lifted up the bag from the girls hand while getting to her feet.

"Thank you very much." She said timidly, bowing in the direction she hoped the girl standing in. She then turned around and started briskly walking in the other direction, hoping to convince anyone watching that she was fine.

That was a mistake. After about 3 steps she collided with a brick wall and fell to the ground again. She groaned and rubbed the shoulder that had hit the wall.

"You are not okay, what's wrong?" The male voice from before asked, sounding even more worried than before. Hana moved her hair to cover her swollen eye.

"I'm absolutely fine, don't worry about me." She told them, carefully getting to her feet, firmly planting them on the gound as not to run into anything.

"Asahina?" She heard a  familiar voice call out. "Nori?" She called back, slightly confused. "What happened?" Asked another familiar voice. This one belonged to Kato.

"Nothing happened, I just got hit with a ball. Nothing to freak out about." Hana told them as a small stream of blood trickled down her face. To her surprise she had apparently cut her forehead on the bricks when she bumped into the wall.

The woman who had first asked Hana if she was okay pulled Kato and Nori aside and told them in a low voice about the ball hitting her, her not seeing the bag that was right in front of her, her running into the brick wall, and her refusal of help.

"Sunumi," Kato said, referring to the woman, "can you please get rid of the crowd? Hana looks petrified." Sunumi nodded and ran over to Hana, dispersing the crowd of people.

"I'll stay with Asahina, and you go get Asahina." Nori directed Kato, who then nodded and took off towards the basket ball gym as Nori walked over to Hana, who was struggling to hold back tears by now.

"Hey Hana, do you want to sit own for a bit?" He asked nonchalantly, Hana nodded and Nori took her hand, gently leading her to a nearby bench.

Once they had at down, Nori made quaint small talk with Hana, very careful to keep her calm until Subaru came, because he didn't want to make whatever was wrong worse.

~~~At the basketball gym~~~

Kato ran through the doors of the gym and down to the floor where Subaru had just started his warmup for practice. "You're late!" The coach yelled as Kato passed by, but he didn't pay much attention.

"Asahina! Something's wrong with your sister!" He yelled, Subaru immediately dropped the ball and ran to Kato.

"What's wrong?" He asked in a worried tone. "She got hit in the face with a baseball and got bruised a bit, but something else is wrong and she won't tell us anything."

Subaru looked to his coach as if to ask if he could go to Hana. The coach nodded and the boys dashed across the gym, out the door, and in the direction of Hana.

They found Hana and Nori on a bench near the baseball field. Nori was telling Hana a joke about a snobby criminal going down a staircase when Subaru and Kato walked up.

"A condescending con, descending!" Nori delivered the punch line and looked at Kato and nodded. "Hana, are you okay?" Kato asked her, Hana jumped in her seat as if she had no idea he and Subaru were standing right in front of her.

"I told you, I'm absolutely fine!" She told them as she started to nervously play with her hair, moving the hair that had been placed over her injected eye aside.

Subaru took one look at her eye and his brow furrowed. "You're blind." He said frankly, startling Hana, who had no idea Subaru was there, and thoroughly confusing Nori and Kato.

"But her left eye seems perfectly fine." Nori said, trying to make sense of the situation. Subaru shook his head with a grim expression.

"She's been blind in that eye for a long time." Subaru explained plainly as the fact that Hana was blind sunk into Nori and Kato's minds.

"Yes, but I'm still ok." She told them.
"I'll just wait here until the swelling goes down, and I'm only bleeding a little." She said, trying to rationalize the situation.

"Coach has ice in a little freezer under his desk in case a player get hurt! Let's bring her to practice." Nori suggested, Hana couldn't see, but Subaru nodded.

"Can you walk?" Subaru asked, a little worriedly. "Yes." Hana answered, getting to her feet and blindly walking in a random direction. She only took five steps when her foot landed on the very baseball the blinded her, causing her to loose her footing and fall towards the pavement.

But before she hit the ground, large hands circled around her waist, pulling her up into the air. She landed princess style in the arms of the person who had saved her.

"Nice catch, Asahina!" Kato said, sounding slightly shocked. "Thanks you so much Subaru." Hana thanked, turning red in the face from embarrassment. "I'm sorry for troubling you. You can set me down now." Hana told him, getting ready to stand.

"No." Subaru said simply, as he started to walk back to the gym with Hana in his arms. Hana was too bewildered to say anything back, so she sat still in his arm as the four of them entered a building.

Hana could hear the sound of basketballs being dribbled across the court and smell the scent of rubber, she concluded that they were on a basketball court.

"Hey coach! Asahina's little sister got beat up by the baseball team! Can we get some ice?" Nori shouted across the gym, the pounding of basketballs immediately stopped and Hana could feel eyes on her.

Hana heard a lot of footsteps coming toward her, and she could hear mumblings about 'giving the baseball team what they deserve' and 'teaching the baseball team a lesson.'

Nori kept egging them on, saying things like "She's only sixteen! Who picks on little girls?" And "Who knows what they'll be after next?!" From the sound of it he seemed to be thoroughly enjoying himself.

The boys worked up quite a riot when the voice of a middle aged man rang out over the shouting team members. "QUIET!" The man's voice bellowed, causing silence to befall the players and thoroughly terrifying Hana.

"Now, young lady," the man's voice went on, "it's not that Nori here is untrustworthy... But I don't trust him. So in your own words, what happened?"

Hana, still terrified, complied. "I just finished with choir, my last class, and there was a while before Subaru got out of practice to go home, so I decided to look for a library. I was walking by the baseball field, staring at a map,  when someone shouted 'heads up' so I looked up to see a baseball hit me right in the  eye and knock me to the ground. I'm already blind in my left eye so when the right one swelled shut I was completely blind. People asked if I was ok and I said yes, and I tried to prove it by getting and walking away. But I ran into a wall and cut my forehead. Then Nori and Kato showed up and Nori talked to me while Kato got Subaru. So Subaru got to me and figured out that I was blind, and Nori said that somebody had ice at the basketball gym. Subaru asked if I could walk and I said yes but I fell after about two steps but he caught me and started to carry me to the gym. When we got here Nori riled everyone up about the baseball team and I still don't have much of an idea what exactly is going on, but the baseball team didn't beat me up. It was an accident! I promise!" Hana explained, realizing her yet again loose lips and flushing pink in embarrassment.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to babble. I tend to babble a lot when I'm afrai-nervous! I babble when I'm nervous!" Hana added, her cheeks flushing ever redder.

"Nori, run to my office and get an ice pack." The man who she assumed was the coach ordered. The words were followed by running footsteps of one person, most likely Nori's.

"Now young lady, may I ask what your name is?" The coach asked as Subaru set Hana down, making sure she was stable on her feet.

"Asahina Hana." She answered, bowing in the wrong direction. The coach chuckled as she heard Nori's footsteps coming towards her.

"Hana, hold out your hand." Nori directed. Hana did as she was told and Nori placed a bag of ice in her hand. She thanked him  and put the ice to her swollen eye.

"Asahina, er, Asahina Subaru. Take Asahina Hana to the bench. She can stay until the swelling goes down. The rest of you get back to work!" The coach yelled as Subaru  took Hana's hand and lead her to a bench.

"Are you ok?" Subaru asked yet again. "Yep. Thanks." Hana replied before Subaru ran off to join the rest of the team.

After a while if sitting and listening to the sounds of feet running and basketballs bouncing Hana could feel that the swelling had gone down quite a bit. She removed the ice and blinked in the bright light.

After adjusting her vision, she looked to the court. She could see Subaru running down middle court, the ball bouncing from the floor to his fingertips. He swiftly weaved around other players as he made his way toward the net.

Just as he passed half court, however, two other players blocked him and he couldn't maneuver around them without loosing the ball.

He looked all around him, seeing that he had nobody to pass to, he took a deep breath and shot the ball toward the hoop. The ball seemed go glide through the air in slow motion as Hana watched. The ball finally approached the net...
And it bounced off the rim.

"YAY! GO SUBARU!" Hana cheered as she clapped loudly. The players stared at her in confusion. Nori chuckled as he and Kato walked up to her, Subaru following behind.

"Glad to see that you can see, but you don't know much about basketball do you?" Nori asked, smiling cheerfully. "How did you know?" Hana asked in utter confusion. "Just a hunch." Nori replied, chuckling to himself.

"What do you think happened back there anyway?" Kato asked with a slightly amused expression. Hana knitted her eyebrows together, thinking hard. "Subaru threw the ball and it hit the goal, so he got a home run?" She told them as more of a question than an answer.

To say the least, the boys thought that her statement was very entertaining, but before any one of them could correct her, the coach saw them chatting.

"It's fine and dandy that your friend can see again, BUT GET BACK TO WORK!" He yelled across the court. Nori and Kato ran off to practice but Subaru stayed behind.

"Keep the ice on your eye." He told her. She nodded and replaced the ice on her still swollen eye as Subaru joined the other players. Hana kept the ice on her eye for the rest of practice, peeking out now and then to watch the players.

~~~At Sunrise Residence~~~

As Hana and Subaru approached the condo, Hana suddenly thought of how her siblings would react to her injured eye.

Fearing that one of her brothers (Tsubaki) might go on a rampage, she covered her eye with her hair as they entered the elevator.

As the two exited the elevator, they saw Kaname, Iori, Ukyo, and Wataru in the entryway. They appeared to be looking for something.

As Subaru asked what was going on, Hana saw her chance to sneak away without anybody noticing. She tip-toed to the staircase as Wataru told Subaru about a squirrel hiding in the couch.

But just when she was almost to the top stair, she heard Tsubaki yell, "Hana's home from her first day of school!" And start bounding up the stairs.

Hana panicked and turned a sharp right, running into the wall, and reopening the cut on her forehead. The force of hitting the wall caused her to fall backward onto the floor, shifting her hair from her face as she fell.

Tsubaki rounded the corner yelling "Smile!!" He blindly snapped a photo just as Masaomi, Ema, and Azusa walked out of the elevator.

Julie jumped out of the couch to see Ema and all the brother staring in shock, (or in Masaomi's case, turned away trying no to faint) Looking at Hana, who was on the ground with a black eye and blood streaming down her face as Tsubaki stood over her with a camera.

Hana looked from a squirrel that was yelling at her in fluent Japanese to Masaomi who was turned away and struggling to stand. (For those of you who don't know, Masaomi is not comfortable around blood.)

Horrified that she'd caused so much trouble, Hana picked herself up off the floor and ran down the stairs into the kitchen, Ema following close behind, leaving utterly gobsmacked brothers in their wake.

Sitting on the kitchen counter, Ema helped Hana clean the blood off her face as Hana hung on every word that the squirrel called 'Julie' rattled off. He ranted about how she should be careful around the 'wolves'.

As Ema applied a Snoopy band-aid to Hana's forehead, they heard a knock on the door and saw Masaomi's head poke through the door. He smiled as he  saw that the blood was cleaned up and walked over to Hana.

"Subaru told us about the baseball incident." He said with a slight chuckle as he put clear fluid on a cotton ball and dabbed it onto Hana's eye.

Tsubaki hopped through the door. "Now lets get that picture! Smile!" he shouted as he held the camera to his eye. Hana shot him a closed eyed smile and held up a peace sign as Tsubaki snapped the photo.

~~~That Night~~~

Hana was reading a copy of the Les Mis script when she spilled some of the tea that she was drinking onto her pajama shirt.

"Carbonated cheese flutes!" She whisper-yelled at herself, checking the clock on her desk and realizing that it was 12:36 am.

She tiptoed her way down the hall toward the bathroom when she passed by Wataru's room and heard quiet whimpering.

She stopped in her tracks and slowly opened the door to his room. After a moment her eye adjusted to the darkness and she saw Wataru curled into a tight ball in the middle of his bed, shivering and crying.

She turned on a lamp, flooding the room with a warm glow and pulled Wataru into a tight hug. She wrapped her arms and legs around him as of to shield him from the world.

"Hush, it's gonna be okay. I'm here for you." She whispered to him as she stroked his hair, rocking him back and forth until his tears were reduced to a few sniffles.

"Hana..?" He asked in a shaky voice, his head still nestled in her shoulder. "I had a nightmare where we were all at a party together, and then a moster came and broke everything and took you away! And I couldn't stop it!" He sobbed in frustration.

Hana held him closer. "It was just a bad dream. I'm here now and I'm not going anywhere." Wataru looked up to her with a tear streaked face.

"You promise?" He asked holding up a pinky finger. "I promise." She told him, hooking her pinky around his.

She broke their hug and stood up. "Time for bed." She said and turned toward the door. "No, wait." Wataru said as Hana took a step away.

Hana turned around and gave Wataru a questioning look. "You promised that you wouldn't leave." He pleaded, Hana gave him a soft smile.

"Want me to sleep in here with you?" She asked, Wataru answered with a nod. Hana hugged him again and noticed that she still had tea on her shirt.

"Let me go change, and then I'll come back." She said, turning toward the door yet again, but before she could take a step, Wataru grabbed her hand and pulled her toward his closet.

"You can borrow one of mine!" He told her, back to his usual cheery self. He handed her a mint green button down pajama shirt decorated with white bunnies. Hana just couldn't refuse.

She took the shirt from Wataru and stepped into the coset, closing the door behind her.

She quickly put it on and left the dirty shirt in the hamper as she walked out of the closet and over to the bed, where Wataru was already waiting under the covers.

Hana turned off the lamp and slid into the bed with Wataru. They both easily fit on his twin bed. He snuggled close to her, but after 15 minutes, Hana noticed he still couldn't get to sleep. So she began to sing a lullaby.

Huis, huis, air an each,
An t-each a' dol a Bhàlaigh.
Beiridh a' muir-làn oirnn,
Beiridh e air chasan oirnn,
Beiridh e air chinn oirnn
Huis, huis, air an each,
An t-each a' dol a Bhàlaigh.

As she sang, Wataru closed his heavy eyes, falling asleep in her arms. Hana kissed his forehead, laid her head on the pillow. And closed her eyes.