Work Text:
It had been a long day.
First, she woke up half an hour late for work and had to rush out the door, missing breakfast, then she had spent most of her lunch grading homework with only enough time to eat a energy bar, and finally she stayed late thanks to a meeting and several students asking for help. Needless to say, Sadayo Kawakami was famished and far too tired to cook.
Sadayo was stepping off the train at Shibuya when she thought about what she could get for dinner. She didn't want take out, she had eaten enough of that for a lifetime. She didn't want to spend a lot of money and she wasn't really in the mood for ramen, so she settled on wandering around and stopping at the first (inexpensive) place that caught her eye.
After a while, Sadayo found herself looking at a beef bowl shop on Central Street. It looked delicious and more importantly, affordable. She may have more spending money now but that doesn't mean she's swimming in it. But she shouldn't think about that right now, she needs food before she starts eating her arm.
There were five people in the restaurant. One employee, three younger guys sitting together and one older man sitting alone. Sadayo thought there should be more people here but she wasn't complaining. The group was pretty loud, and since Sadayo wanted as much peace as possible she decided to sit at the same counter as the older man, across from him.
Sadayo ordered a large beef bowl with extra meat, for a surprisingly low price, and started to scroll through the news while waiting. She was reading an article about a local politician when a bowl was placed in front of her. But when she put down her phone she realized that what she got wasn't what she had ordered. It appeared to be a medium beef bowl with half as much meat as there should be. She then noticed that the older man across from her looked equally confused with his order, and when she looked at what he got it made sense. That was what she had ordered.
And the puzzle piece fell into place.
Their orders had been mixed up and now she had to talk with him about it, which she wasn't excited for. It wasn't anything personal, she had never met this man before in her life, she just didn't want to talk to anyone right now. But she also really wanted to have her dinner, and this puny serving wasn't gonna cut it. So with a sigh, Sadayo stood up and carried the bowl over to the older man.
"Excuse me, sir." She said,
The older man turned his head, "Yes miss?" He replied kindly,
"I think our orders were mixed up." Sadayo held out the bowl she was holding,
"Oh, you appear to be right." The older man chuckled a bit, "Care to make a trade?"
They exchanged bowls, and Sadayo walked back to her seat before digging in. She was about halfway through her dinner before she heard something.
"Excuse me miss?" It was the older man from before,
Sadayo swallowed what she was chewing before replying with, "Yes?"
"I don't mean to impose, but you look rather tired. Are you alright?" He said in the same sewkindly tone as before,
A bit surprised, Sadayo said, "I'm fine, I've just had a long day. Work, y'know?"
"Of course, sorry, I didn't mean to bother you." He said quickly,
"No no, it's alright. I… appreciate(?) the concern." She said, a little more confused,
"It's just, sometimes I worry too much, especially when I see someone worn out. I think people get pushed too hard by their jobs quite often." The older gentleman was pulling back his already slicked back hair,
"Like I said, it's fine. I was just a little caught off guard by your concern." Sadayo stated before continuing to eat,
"If you're alright with it, do you mind telling me what you do for work? Oh, I'm Toranosuke Yoshida by the way, pleasure to meet you." The older man asked,
Sadayo swallowed some food again, "I'm Sadayo Kawakami, I teach." Hopefully he won't ask where, She thought.
"How lovely! It's very important work, shaping the minds of our country's youth. Do you mind telling me what your experience is with teaching? " Yoshida said.
Sadayo thought for a moment, "Well, um, it's hard work. It's mostly thankless, and draining and the pay isn't great but when a kid comes up to you with a problem, and you give them an understanding of how to fix it, and they leave with a smile, it's all worth it."Sadayo smiled as she spoke, "Even if they don't thank you, the feeling you get from that is amazing."
Yoshida had a smile himself, and he chuckled a bit. "Oh I'm sorry," He said, "I'm not laughing at you, it just fills me with joy to know that we have passionate and amazing educators like you helping the next generation."
"Thanks for the compliment but I'm not that great a teacher. In fact, up until relatively recently I was quite horrible." Sadayo said.
"Why do you say that?" Yoshida asked.
"Well, there's a lot of reasons I don't really want to go into, but to be brief, I wasn't in a great place and instead of trying my best in spite of it, I failed to protect my students and became an uncaring, callous person." Sadayo looked over at Yoshida, who seemed to be thinking over what she had just said.
After a moment, he asked, "The reasons you mentioned, were they external?"
Sadayo hesitated, "A couple, yes."
Surprisingly, Yoshida smiled, "Well if there were external factors, you shouldn't entirely blame yourself. You seem to be a very passionate teacher who loves what she does, which means you beat whatever was holding you back and recognized that there was a problem. While I don't think you should absolve yourself of all responsibility, you should definitely account for the external factors as well as one additional one. You're human. We aren't perfect, and we tend to do the easy thing, which is rarely the good thing. But you are trying to do your best now. You are trying to help your students as much as possible and that is commendable. You have learned from your mistakes and you are working towards something better and that, to me at least, is more than enough. You can't erase what happened, but that doesn't mean you should beat yourself up over it."
For a moment Sadayo sat wide eyed, she wasn't expecting this sort of pep talk from a stranger, nor was she expecting to get such a big one.
Yoshida noticed her expression and looked a bit embarrassed, "Oh my, apologies. I got a bit carried away with that. I stand by what I said however."
"It's alright Yoshida-san, and thank you. I do tend to beat myself up over these sorts of things and I need to be reminded sometimes that I'm better now." Sadayo said.
Yoshida smiled again, "Well I'm glad I could help. Now I think we should finish eating our meals before they get too cold."
They both finished their meals in a comfortable silence, and after they both paid, Sadayo remarked, "You know, you remind me of one of my old students. The way you two talk is really similar sometimes."
Yoshida smiled, "Really? He must have been quite the student."
Sadayo chuckled, "Yeah, he was a real troublemaker."
After exchanging goodbyes, Sadayo and Yoshida parted ways. Sadayo was now smiling to herself. What a nice way to end a long day.