Author's note: Last time I rewrote the chapters of TH, it wasn't an actual rewrite. More of a touchup. Trying to do more of a genuine rewrite here. I'm not tossing out the original, don't worry. I'm keeping the good parts, tossing the bad parts, and adding a little something extra where necessary.

---

Tsubasa-Hime:

Chapter one (v3):

The nightmare that is my life

---

You know, everyone is born unique. With quirks, flaws, imperfections...

Well, I hit the genetic jackpot.

At 5'7 1/2, I'm pretty tall for a Japanese teenager. My hair is a very unusual color. Orange. Bright orange. I often refer to myself as a red head, but the truth is my hair is orange. It's not frizzy, or particularly wavy, but it won't straighten. The only thing I can really do with it -besides just leaving it alone- is put it up, and it doesn't even do that right.

My eyes are purple. Do not adjust your computer screen, I really did just say purple. Oh, what? That's more surprising than orange hair? Pshh.

My figure is the definition of ruler-shaped. Curves? Ha, what are those? But seriously. I am flat as a board up top, and my rear isn't much better. I barely even have hips.

I'm not very athletic. I'm a decent swimmer, but that's pretty much it. Y'see, I'm kinda asthmatic. I've had to carry an emergency inhaler to school every day since sixth grade. Really bad attack. Not fun.

Well, there's the physical traits and problems out of the way. Now for the fun stuff.

My grades are less than stellar. I suck at math and science. I'm good with history, and classic literature, but I'm terrible with english. Guess foreign languages just aren't my thing.

I'm pretty much a social mess. Probably because I'm the teensiest bit anti-social. The in-crowd has hated me since pre-school, that horrible place that determines your social standing for the rest of your life. Heck, even after you die. Mine will be the least popular headstone in the graveyard if my peers have anything to say about it.

I have no luck with guys. Sure, it may be because of my personality. I might scare them off. But it's mostly because they don't find me attractive.

I've had a grand total of one real friend my entire life. She moved to the Ishikawa prefecture when we were fourteen.

So, those of you who read manga or watch anime and think, "Oh, I wish I could go to school in Japan! It seems like so much fun."? No. No you don't. It is not fun, stop it. High school in Japan is just as clique-y and annoying as it is wherever you live.

Oh, I haven't introduced myself. Where are my manners?

No, seriously. Have you seen them? They ran off when I was seven, and I haven't been able to find them anywhere.

No? Too bad.

Anyway, my name is Hirotomi Yuki, and you are about to enter the nighmare that is my life. Please remain seated and keep your arms and legs inside the ride at all times.

Enjoy.

"YUKI!" My mother shouted from down stairs. "WAKE UP AND GET DOWN HERE THIS INSTANT!"

Surprised by this shouting, I promptly fell off the side of my bed.

Ow.

My pajamas - if they could be called that- consisted of a long shirt and a pair of gym shorts. It was May, it was hot. I honestly didn't care what I wore to bed. Aside from the characters of my dreams, no one would see me. And dreams didn't care what you wore.

I shuffled through the clutter on my dresser, knocking off random junk as I searched. At last I found the treasure I sought: An old hairbrush. I plucked some orange strands from the bristles - noting some black mixed in. Mom stole my brush again.- before running the brush through my orange, bed-heady mop.

... Ow.

My school uniform is a pretty simple one. It was around summer time, so I ditched the brown sweater-vest that usually accompanied my button-down white blouse and long brown skirt. The summer uniform's skirt was made of lighter material than the winter one, so having a long skirt wasn't a problem. Hm... Light hair, long skirt... Thin my brows and wear a mask, I'd be the spitting image of a yanki!

... sigh.

I looked around my room. Western styled bed- a mess. Video games and systems scattered all around my tv. Books with dogeared pages about to fall out of my bookshelf, clothes sticking out of drawers...

Hmm... Maybe I should clean up a little before I-

"YOU'RE GOING TO BE LATE FOR SCHOOL!"

... Guess not.

I groaned to myself. Stayed up way too late playing video games last night. I dragged myself down the stairs, feeling much less than enthusiastic about my day.

I glanced at the empty table in the living room.

"... No breakfast?"

"There's some riceballs in the refrigerator, you can eat them on your way to school." My mother said. "If you want a real breakfast, you need to start waking up earlier."

My mother -who was quite irritable at times- was the perfect image of pure Japanese. Straight black hair -drawn into a loose bun at the back of her head- and dark eyes. My father's hair and eyes were a little bit lighter. I had to wonder where I got my unusual appearance. I never had asked them. I had always just assumed I was some genetic quirk, or just adopted.

I grabbed a couple of riceballs from the fridge, noting the abscence of my father from the room. Mom hadn't yelled for him to wake up. It just wasn't fair. His work hours started way later than my school hours, so he got to wake up at a civilized hour.

"You'd better get going-" My mother began.

"Yeah, yeah. I'm heading out."

Walking out the door, I noticed the grey skies and churning clouds. Oh, yippee. It's going to rain today.

Rain and I are not the best of friends. Oh! There's something I didn't list with my physical problems! Rain makes me sick. Yep. Rain makes me physically sick.

Well, I was gonna have a pleasant walk to school.

My day was fairly uneventful. Sat on some gum in my algebra two class, almost choked on some rice in my boxed lunch (no joke)...

Then came the most dreadful hour of my horrible day.

GYM.

G-Y-M, GYM. Hell on earth for an hour. A whole hour. I thought about sitting it out- I mean, all I had to do was wave my inhaler around a couple of times and I'd be set. But I decided to participate today. I was going to get sick anyway if the rain didn't let up, so it didn't really matter if I overexerted myself in gym. And besides, I thought, how bad could it be?

Pretty bad, as I soon found out.

We played dodgeball. I swear, if the devil ever played any sport, it was dodgeball. I was doing my best dodge-and-weave for the first ten minutes of the game, my lungs doing their damnedest to keep up. I had actually managed to hit some of the girls who particularly disliked me with the yellow sphere. But before I could make fifteen minutes (a personal record), I was tagged in the gut by the dreaded yellow hell ball and fell very ungracefully on the hard court.

...Ow.

I was really, really hoping it was one of those days when everyone ignored my existence, and not one of those when everyone went out of their way to torment me.

No such luck.

"Smooth move Hirotomi!" Kiriya Ayu, the princess of the in-crowd (Who was on my fricking team, by the way.), laughed. "Too bad you didn't have anything to cushion your fall!" The princess' loyal servants burst into laughter. Every. Last. One of them.

Okay, that hurt. Couldn't one day pass without someone insulting my non-existent behind?

...Guess not.

Oh well. My asthma was about to get me, anyway. And getting tagged out earlier meant that I could shower earlier. The popular girls always claimed the first showers and used up all of the hot water. I doubted any of them were willing to get hit on purpose just to claim the stalls before I could.

I turned the shower knob, allowing the water to heat up as I undressed. I made sure to keep an eye on my clothes as I showered, not wanting to repeat last semester's clothes swiping incident.

I toweled off and got dressed, leaving the shower head on and using up the hot water just to spite the clique girls.

As I turned the water off, the shower knob fell to the tiled floor. I sighed, grumbling something that basically translated into, "misappropriation of school funds" as I picked up the fallen knob. I never got to put it in its proper place, though. I dropped it as a blinding flash of white light assaulted my vision. I blacked out.

"Y'think this is her, Nao?"

"It should be, but we won't know until she wakes up."

"I've never seen a girl with orange hair before. I wonder-"

"Don't even start Jinto."

I opened my eyes to see three young men with wings standing above me. I was rather shocked.

"Who the hell are you?!" I shreiked.

---

Translations and miscellany:

Manga (Mahn*gah): Japanese-style graphic novels

Anime (Ah*Nee*May): Japanese-style animation

Yank (Yahn*Kee)i: Delinquent. Usually with bleached hair, thinned eyebrows, and long skirts if female.

"Western styled bed": Typically the Japanese sleep on pallets on the floor. Yuki's bed is like beds in the U.S., UK, etcetera.

English as a foreign language: Well obviously they speak japanese in Japan. Although english is a required class. When Yuki says she's bad at english it doesn't mean she's a bad reader or bad at grammar, like someone in, say, the U.S. who was "bad at english" would be. Japan's english classes are more like our spanish or latin classes than our english classes. It's less literacy skills and more a foreign language class.

Tsubasa (Tsoo*Bah*Sah): Wing/wings

-Hime (Hee*May): Princess. (This is the honorific version. A princess can also be called "Hime-sama", or, "O-hime-sama".)