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Never in my entire life I planned to be a high school teacher, much less fell in love with my own students. Of course, I loved all my students like my own children (which is impossible, by the way, because I'm still single), but this particular student had captured my attention in a whole different level than any other.
Then again, maybe all these years I lived alone had finally got into my mind, and distorted my judgment. Yeah, that should be it, I should've gone insane.
But I could ask the opposite. What if this is actually my destiny, to fell in love with someone almost 15 years younger than me? What if I, Hiratsuka Shizuka, had actually fallen in love with Hikigaya Hachiman, the third year student in Soubu High?
Whichever it is, none of them gave me enough reason to ignore his inexcusable joke in his career planning form. Written in the middle of that A4 form, 'living peacefully with my sister for the rest of my life.'
"Hikigaya Hachiman," I threw my back at the couch, giving him a facepalm "I almost thought you're a siscon for a while, but I think I'd mistaken. Do you love my fist that much? Are you that much of a masochist?"
"No, please, I'll do anything, I would even write the form properly, just don't hit me!" I threw my gaze to the person who sat across the table, slightly bowing at me, face filled with beads of sweat.
"Maybe I won't hit you if you confessed to me" I smiled, I must have actually gone insane to say such thing to him.
"Yeah, well," he blushed a bit. He's too cute, I started to blush myself. "Hiratsuka-sensei, I had always loved you. Please go out with me"
"What kind of confession was that? You didn't put any feelings! Now do it again! Say it like you mean it!" even if you don't, but I didn't say that.
"Hiratsuka-sensei," he looked right into my eyes, startled me "I had always, always loved you. Please be my girlfriend"
"Yes, I will." I answered immediately, followed by an awkward silence. "Rewrite it again, I expect it to be properly written by Monday. See you next week" I stood up and then half-runned towards the staff bathroom.
"Sensei? Hiratsuka-sensei?" he keep calling my name, but I'm already outside earshot. I locked myself and cried at the staff bathroom, cried with tears that I didn't even know what feeling it contains.
I must've locked myself inside the bathroom for hours, because when I came out of the bathroom, there are no one at the school.
Except him.
He stood in front of Counseling room, bag slung in his shoulder, his back leaning at the wall. He shot a normal, rotten and bored looks at me.
"I-I believe I've told you that I'll wait for the form tomorrow" damn, my voice still trembling.
He sighed "Weren't that you who told me to never leave a crying girl? Look, I know you're a teacher, but who knows what will happen if you left alone here? I will be the first person to be suspected if you commited a suicide."
"As expected from you, huh? Let me take you home then." I forced a smile.
"Don't bother with those fake smile. You know I could see through that."
I frowned "Then what did you wanted me to do, huh?!" another tears trickled through my cheek. Much to my surprise, he hugged me. Torrent of tears began streaming in my cheek, wetting his shoulder.
"I love you, Hiratsuka-sensei. I always had. But, if only I was born ten years earlier.... No, that's not a sufficient reason to abandon your love, isn't it?"
"Like I said, what did you wanted me to do?!" I cried again, probably a bit sadistic since my mouth was right beside his ears, but I don't care about that anymore. "What should I do about my love?!"
I wanted to scream again, but a soft kiss in my forehead stopped me. "You don't have to do anything. Just wait for me to be worthy enough of your love." he released me, leaving a paper in my hands. His career planning form, with Tokyo National University written clear on the middle of it.
I spent that night crying. Which is not very teacher-like, but I'm alone at home, so no one would protest me. Except a certain third-year student that came knocking at my door at seven PM.
"What are you doing here?" I wiped out tears from my eyes.
"Ah, I was just passing by, and I guess I would pay you a visit. I think my timing is really bad though."
"Come in for a tea." I lead him into my house, and let him sat on my couch, while I went into the kitchen to make a pot of tea.
"Sensei...."
"You could call me Shizuka when we're alone, Hachiman."
"Wouldn't that, you know, a bit impolite?"
"Let's throw those out of window for a while." I set down the teapot at the table and kissed his forehead. "For now, we're just a normal couple that's madly in love."
"A normal couple with ten years age gap." he muttered "Well, I guess I'm not the one to talk though. If that means I could kiss you, then I'm fine with mmpfh..." his words stopped abruptly as I kissed him ferociously, before he pushed me off.
"..gah!" he gasped for air. "You caught me off guards. That's unfair."
"Our life is unfair from the start." this time, he initiated the kiss, even more ferocious than me, our arms around each other's waist.
And then my two favorite students came at the most unexpected time. We were too absorbed in the kiss to recognize two more person that'd entered the room: Yuigahama Yui and Yukinoshita Yukino. When we broke for air, we finally realized two girls were stood in shock at the doorway.
Now, I'm not that dense to not knowing that both of them had developed romantic affection towards Hikigaya Hachiman. But me being in there, kissed him in front of two person that coincidentally my student and I know loved him as much as I am, I felt like the worst bitch ever existed.
"Sen...sei" Yui had a really sad and dissappointed face, while Yukino had regained her composure.
"Yukinoshita, Yuigahama? I-I, it's not like what you think!"
"I'm sorry to bother you." Yukino turned her back and walked away, while Yui stood still, unshaken from her shock.
"Wait, Yukinoshita! I could explain this! Yukinoshita! I'm sorry!" I yelled toward her, but she already ran out of the door.
Yui fell into her knees, tears dropping. I pulled her into a hug with almost no resistance.
"Hachiman, I'll took care of Yuigahama. You should go chase Yukinoshita." he simply nodded and ran away toward the doorway, while Yui cried even louder in my lap. She ended up spending the night in my home, and we talked a lot. But that's another story.
At the same time, or rather, at almost the same time, Hikigaya was chasing Yukinoshita. "Yukinoshita, wait!"
"Wait for what? What is there to keep me waiting?" even though she somehow kept her voice calm, her words and tears was betraying her. Being a boy with better athletic stats than when he at the second year, Hachiman easily gaining the distance and finally caught up with her.
"I said wait!" he grabbed her shoulder, but she shrugged him off easily. He tried again, and this time, succeeded in forcing her to turn around and pulled her into a hug. "I'm sorry...." Hachiman whispered.
"You were sorry? Sorry for what?! Tell me what you've done wrong!"
"It's, I, I don't know...."
"You didn't even know what you've done wrong! You know why? Because you've done nothing wrong in the first place!" Yukino's cry broke the silence of the night "It's all my fault, to let myself felt that way to you, to selfishly thought about my own feelings...." she sobbed, unable to talk any more words.
In that fragment of night, the only things that matter for Yukino was that she loved him.
When she finally calmed down, Yukino told Hachiman why she was at my home "Yui and me heard that Hiratsuka-sensei cried while running out from the Counseling room, so we decided to check her out. What we found, however, wasn't anything we expected" she smiled a weak and hurtful smile, as she always did. I just realized that while I liked her honest smile, it hurts me when she smiled like that.
How could I know what Hachiman was thinking, you could ask the author. Heck, how could I know what happened on the road in so much details while I was at home comforting Yui was something you should ask them for me.
"I, no, we never expected you to be there, I...."
"Of course you won't expect it." Yukino snapped. She smiled again, a honest one this time. "I hope for your happiness, Hikigaya"
"Hachiman" he broke the hug, hands still in Yukino's shoulder "you could call me Hachiman"
"Well, then you could call me Yukino, but I guess there are not much difference, huh" she chuckled, and then kissed his forehead. "good night, Hachiman, and farewell" she turned around, and continued walking.
"See you later, Yukino." Hachiman walked home.
I hope there will be 'later', but I guess that's a bit of luxury, isn't it?
I received the news the next morning. Yukinoshita Haruno called me at five in the morning, at weekend, but before I poured down my grand collection of curse words, she told me the shocking news: Yukinoshita Yukino, her younger sister, had committed suicide by hanging herself at her apartment.
"Do not tell any of them yet, Haruno, you hear me? No words of this to any of them."
"I know. You're the only one I'd expect to show up at her funeral."
"It was my fault," I talked to Yukinoshita Haruno right after arriving at Yukinoshita Mansion. "seeing me and Hikigaya put a great stress over her mind..."
"It was no one's fault, though if there's someone to blame, it's her mother." Haruno clenched her fist "Yukino was in state of stress for a long time, Shizuka. Seeing you with Hikigaya, although bring the finishing blow to her, wasn't the greatest stress she'd experienced."
"I'm sorry. I trully sorry." I turned my gaze, only to meet Hachiman's eyes "Hikigaya? How? Why are you here? Haruno, I already told you...."
"What's happening here? I was coming to see Yukino's sister but, why are you dressed in all black? No, what are you doing here in the first place?"
"I called him here, but I hadn't told him about her. Now if you excuse me, Hiratsuka-sensei" Haruno turned away and walked into the house. Now you use the honorific? I sighed as I pulled Hachiman's hand.
"We need to talk about Yukino." I brought him into my car and told her about Yukino. His eyes widened in shock and horror as he listened to my story.
"Yukino did what?!"
"Yes." I gave him a hug, tears trickling from both our eyes.
"I hadn't told Yuigahama yet. She'll be really shocked, so I hope that you could come with me later. For now, however...." he gave me a brief kiss before stepping out of the car.
"I have to give her my last respect."
I followed him toward the Yukinoshita Mansion and lighted an incense. Haruno and her mother stayed calm, not even a slightest hint of sadness in their eyes, although Haruno looks like she'd been crying.
"Yuigahama would be devastated when she heard about this," he said before stepped back into my car. "but the faster she deal with it, the better. Let's meet her."
I drove back to my home in silence, neither of us were eager to talk about the recent death of Yukino, but I guess Hachiman felt obliged about her death, because he muttered something about "farewell" under his breath.
As he had predicted, Yui was really devastated when I told her about Yukino. She hugged me and cried so hard with so much pain that I started crying myself. I was really absorbed in the momment, that I didn't realize that I was right in front of the desk where I stored my stationary. Unknown by me, she pulled out several cutters with different sizes from the desk. Hachiman was nowhere to be seen though, maybe he got out to calm himself down.
"Yukinon, she told me about this. About how she would confessed to Hikki, about all her heartache, her farewell, everything," she let out a great scream filled with pain and dissappointment. "and yet, when I was needed the most, I cannot be in her side. I cannot protect the one who trusted me and the one whom I loved the most." her sob began to slow down, it almost like she had calmed herself down. No, it's far more colder than her usual tone, something is definitely wrong...
"That's why I must say farewell to you too, you fucking bitch!" I felt a sharp pain on my back, she stabbed me with one of the cutter and pulled it up along my back, and I screamed. I released her, but with another cutter, she stabbed my stomach repeatedly, one cutter after another. I didn't know if it's her plan or just my blind luck, but none of her stab actually aimed at my vitals.
"Yuigahama, cough! What are you doing?!" blood splattered at the floor. She raised her hands, pointing her last cutter down.
"Farewell, Shizuka." I closed my eyes as her hands moved down towards my left chest. I waited the cutter to tore open my chest, adrenaline rushing through my body as my heartbeat increased (which actually ensured my death even if she missed the heart), but it never touched me. I dared to open my eyes and I saw Hachiman, one arms on Yui's neck, the other on her hand.
"Go. You need a doctor. I could handle her." I grabbed my keys and prayed to whatever god that exist in this world please don't let him get hurt.
Surprisingly, somehow I managed to reach the hospital without fainting, which is actually a great achievement considering I had multiple gaping hole on my stomach.
Hachiman, in other hand, struggled to keep Yui from hurting both him and herself.
"Yui, YUI! Snap out of it!" he suceeded in removing the cutter from her hand, and then turned her around and hugged her. (Now that I think about it, he actually got a lot of hugging these days) She was still sobbing in his arms, eyes all red.
"I practically killed her you know," Hachiman talked to Yui, more strangling than hugging. "I, she told me 'farewell', I didn't understand what she meant but, well, then it happened. Out of the blue, Haruno called me to come to her house. It was pretty usual for her to call me in, but never at her house. I started to wonder what happened, and then Hiratsuka-sensei told me."
"I wanted to hate you, Hikki, I really wanted to despise you to let her die. But in the end...." she looked Hachiman in the eyes "I loved both of you so much, too much that even Yukinon's death can't bring me to hate you and Shizuka, even though both of you practically killed her, I really loved both of you too much."
"You almost killed Shizuka though. I don't think that was a way to express love."
"Yes, I know that was unnacceptable. I think I'll got to spend some good years watching over steel bars." she smiled, and if Hachiman's heart hadn't broken already, it definitely breaking. She kissed his forehead, before going for his lips, and then half-runned towards the exit.
"Good bye, Hikki. And don't worry, I'll get back to annoy you again" she threw a mischievous smirk.