Persona

His bag was packed and his clothes were picked. Hikaru Ume was ready for his first day of high school! His dorm usually fell silent around 9:00 p.m, and it was 10:00 p.m. Chances are everyone was asleep and ready, but Hikaru was still preparing himself. It was, after all, his first day of school since he moved to Ikebukuro. He was slightly restless. 

As the time passed, he calmed himself and rested his head back onto his pillow. He relaxed his shoulders, and ran his hand through his hair. "Take it easy, Ume..." he mumbled to himself. Hikaru's eyelids slowly came to a close. His body was rigid, his arms crossed his chest as if he was lain in a coffin. This was his way of focusing, and getting a good night's rest. He thought about all the cool new people he would meet the next day, and all the great experiences he would create. Soon enough, he was falling asleep. 

Moments later, he was actually asleep, but something didn't feel right. Probably because he was still awake. What was going on? He was entirely concious, but he couldn't open his eyes or move his body. He couldn't do anything. He was just lost in complete darkness. He started shouting. "Hey! Can anyone hear me? What's going on!?" No one could hear him. No one knew what was going on. Hikaru's efforts were in vain. Soon enough, though, he started seeing things. Bright yellow and blue colours started surrounding him. He could move his body again, and his eyes were now open. He could see his body, and he felt reassured. After a little more time, the colours started to settle, and Hikaru could actually understand what he was seeing. Nothing was a blur anymore, but he started to wish it was. The next thing he new, he was standing in the middle of an intersection in Ikebukuro, in his pajamas. But this wasn't the real Ikebukuro. It couldn't be.  There were no people anywhere. It was too bright, too vibrant. The colours were so bizarre, there was no way any of this was real. He had to be dreaming...

Hikaru jumped. He had only been here for a minute, and yet he was standing on pins and needles. The moment he realized someone else was here, he felt reassured and scared at the same time. He turned around to see it it was, and saw another teenager. She seemed to be around his age, maybe a little older. She was also in her jammies. What could explain this strange occurrence? Why was he meeting with this girl like this? He hoped she could enlighten him on the situation.

He slowly approached her until they were a decent amount of space apart. To Hikaru, that was a meter and half, just about. He liked his personal space, and to get so close to such a cute girl, well, that was out of the question. "Hey there... Do you have any idea where we are?"

"W-whooaoaokay." That was weird. 

Although at first Hikaru wasn't in the mood to go, when he realized he didn't have a choice, he decided to embrace it. He started pacing himself as fast as this mysterious girl so that he wasn't being dragged along like a kite. Once he had finally regained his grace, he realized he might be going on a sushi date with this eccentric girl ... I mean, there were worse fates, right? There probably weren't, but he didn't know that. "So, uh, what's your name? I'm Hikaru Ume."

The mattress of her bed sighed as Shina sat down on it; the springs of the mattress made noise any time she shifted her body, which just goes to show the poor-quality of dorm beds. After spending the last few hours unpacking her stuff, though, it didn't matter how crappy the bed was.
This entire day had been a hassle, actually. Most of the day was spent picking out what she wanted to bring, and fighting with her father about what he wanted her to bring. Neither of them would stand down, so she wound up with double the bags that she would need. It was actually a miracle she had been able to unpack everything in such a small room- luckily enough, the drawers in the provided dresser had been much bigger than expected.
Still. Twice as much stuff to pack and unpack led to a full day of moving. God, her dad was such a pain. When would she need to wear heels and cocktail dresses, anyway? Heck, he'd even made her pack a kimono, even though they weren't a traditional family and she had, of course, never worn one.

Oh well, it didn't really matter. She was out of the house now. She wouldn't have to go home for 11 months! She could finally make decisions without needing approval, do things without a constant nagging. This was going to be great.

It was only a little after 10PM; ordinarily, she would stay up much later than this, but after such a long day of packing and unpacking, she was far too tired to do anything other than sleep. Tomorrow was the first day of school anyway; a good night's sleep was probably a good idea. She changed into her pajamas, went to the communal bathroom to brush her teeth, and then turned off the lights, collapsing onto her bed.

-

It wasn't long before she found herself waking up. It felt like she'd been asleep only a couple of minutes, and yet she didn't feel tired anymore. And... it kind of felt like she was resting on asphalt. Sure, the dorm mattress wasn't great, but it couldn't have been that hard, could it? She opened her eyes, and was blinded momentarily by the brightness of the world around her; she looked up at the sky and saw that it was black and the moon was out, which was even weirder: if the moon was out, why did it feel so... bright?
Wait a minute. She had just looked at the sky. She was outside? That couldn't be right... maybe the dorm had a ceiling that opened up at night? No. That made even less sense. She sat up, and as her eyes adjusted to the brightness, they were finally able to register her surroundings. Yes, okay, she had been lying on asphalt, not in bed. She was in the middle of the street. There were large buildings all around, skyscrapers and the like. This felt familiar to her- it was somewhere in Ikebukuro that she'd been to before- and yet everything was just so vibrant and surreal. There was something else odd about it too, something that she couldn't quite put her finger on.

Oh well, no use worrying about it. This was clearly a dream. The vibrant colours and her self-awareness suggested it was a lucid one, but a dream, nevertheless. She stood up, brushing herself off, and began walking down the streets, to see what was up.

Kaori grinned when the giant man turned back around towards the teenagers, with two plates of sushi. "Yay!~" Kaori squealed loudly, before grabbing a pair of chopsticks and quickly digging into the sushi. Once she had finished eating, she turned back to Hikaru and finally answered his question. "Yup! I'm a second year at Rikkyo Academy, as of tomorrow. What about you?" She gave him an thorough lookover. He looked younger than her, and he was about the same height as her, but it was hard to gauge exactly how old he was. He could just be a late bloomer or something. "You look cute enough to be a first year~" she gave him a quick wink, turning up the charm for the fun of it.