Chapter Text
I hate him.
She’s startled by the suddenness of the thought, and how naturally it occurs to her.
I hate him, she repeats to herself, with a sort of awe. She didn’t think she was capable of an emotion this powerful. Her head is throbbing. She feels like she’s about to explode.
I hate him. More than anyone. More than anything. I hate him.
I hate him.
:::
It starts the first morning that she is excited to attend Literature. Their teacher had gotten ill, or quit, or something; the point was, they were gone, probably for the rest of the year, and Touka is ecstatic.
No more tests! No more exams!
Which means it isn’t too important for her to make it to class on time, either. She wakes up, changes into her uniform, and goes downstairs to take her time making herself coffee in the cafe. As she walks she sips it slowly, finishing it at her leisure outside the school gate. Once she’s done, she climbs over and ambles in, feeling warm and pleasant and good. Everything is going to be great. Everything is going to be —
“You’re late, Kirishima-san.”
Touka winces and turns back. She’d been hoping to race past Principal Arima’s office without catching his attention; but now his office door is open, and he’s leaning out of it.
“Not by that much,” she replies, weakly.
“By six minute and a half minutes,” he replies, without checking a clock.
Touka suppresses a sigh and dips into a bow.
“I’m very, very sorry,” Touka she says, not quite managing to make her voice have more than one tone. She straightens.
“Well, I’m off to class, excuse me,” she announces, and she flees, before Arima can call out a punishment. She races, glancing behind her to make sure he’s not following, and that’s why she crashes full-on into someone else.
“Oof!”
“Ooww!”
Her knees and palms scrape across the floor. Papers flutter; books thunk and slide.
“Please excuse me!” Touka gasps. She looks up at who she hit, and blinks.
Glasses — whitish hair — and young, compared to their other teachers. In other words, it’s no one she recognizes.
Maybe they’re…some kind of official? Touka bends down and begins to gather the paper into messy stacks.
“It’s — it’s alright,” the person says, “please don’t worry about it,” but Touka shakes her head.
“Are — um — you alright?” they ask, once everything’s gathered, and Touka says, “Yeah, yeah, I’m fine.”
They smile. “Thank goodness.”
Everything’s gathered; both of them stand. Touka bows again, and continues to class, this time at a walk, since that person is here watching her. She waits for him to go off in some different direction, but he makes all the same turns she does. She gets to her classroom door, and as she stops, they do as well.
“Oh,” they say, and then laugh a little. “It seems that even though we lack punctuality, we have the same period.”
Touka stares. “Um…what?”
“Oh, well, it’s just, because a period is a type of…” They cough. “Nevermind. Let’s just go in.”
They gesture that she should enter first, and she does. The room’s chatter quiets.
“I’m very sorry to be late, everyone,” the person announces, setting their things at the desk at the front of the room. Touka takes her seat, in disbelief, as they continue.
“My name is Sasaki Haise. I’ll be your Literature teacher for the rest of the year, and I’m very pleased to meet you all.” He looks around, as if waiting for some response, and when the students do nothing more than stare at him and exchange glances, he clears his throat.
“Well, then…without further ado, let’s get started.” :::
Sasaki-sensei’s idea of “getting started” turns out to involve distributing an exam.
“B-but we haven’t even learned anything from you,” Touka protests as he hands her his, and he smiles at her, reassuringly.
“It’s alright. It’s just an assessment test, to see where you’re at.”
Touka looks down at the paper, feeling ill. There are a lot of complicated questions about storyline summaries and concepts like whatever the hell a connotation is. There are characters written that she’s not sure of at all.
I don’t know any of this. Her stomach is churning. She pencils out her name, very slowly.
Part of the paper is scuffed up a bit. She rubs at it, and then realizes. These are the same papers that she helped him pick off the floor earlier.
Fuck. If only she’d known. She would have torn them all in half when she had the chance.
Sasaki-sensei lets everyone leave early to take a break once they’re finished. A couple students head out after a handful of minutes; the rest begin trickling out steadily.
Help, Touka begs silently as Yoriko stands, and Yoriko mouths Sorryas slides her test onto Sasaki-sensei’s desk and exits.
Soon, Touka is the only one left. She hasn’t even managed to read through parts of the first page. She pretends not to notice Sasaki-sensei watching her, and when the class bell rings, she stands stiffly, and strides, and smacks the paper onto his desk. She returns to her own desk before he can say a word just as people begin returning to the classroom. :::
There’s no chance to talk until lunch. She and Yoriko’s favorite spot to eat at is a shaded bench against the back of the building; once they reach it, Touka drops down, and continues seething.
“I can’t believe it! An exam! On the first day?”
“Yeah, it, um, was pretty unexpected…”
“It was definitely unexpected! Who does he think he is? He hasn’t even taught us anything and he’s already testing us?!”
Yoriko hands her one of the two lunch boxes that she’s been holding on her lap. It’s clearly meant to distract Touka, and it doesn’t work.
“What did everyone else think?” Touka asks. “Did you overhear anyone else talking about him? Didn’t they think that testing us this soon is fucking ridiculous too?”
“Yeah!” Yoriko says. “Yeah, they thought it was kind of weird. Um, though, to be honest, everyone’s mostly talking about…”
She trails off. Touka nudges her shoulder.
“About what? Yoriko! About what?”
“Well,” Yoriko says, rubbing her cheeks, “about how…good-looking he is.”
Touka blinks. “You’re joking, right?”
Yoriko is flushing. “You don’t think he’s attractive? For a teacher?”
“No! Not at all! Even if he was, doesn’t personality count for anything?”
“But that’s the thing,” Yoriko says. “He’s really nice too. He let us all out to have a break today. And some of the upperclassman have been talking about how during second period, Yonebayashi-senpai was almost falling asleep, and instead of yelling at her, he told her to go take a nap in the infirmary so she could be awake for her other classes. Not to mention that he didn’t cite you at all for being late today.”
“I should have cited him for being late,” Touka mutters. “He’s the teacher, after all.”
Yoriko looks down. Seeing it, Touka sighs and makes a smile and opens up her lunchbox.
“Nevermind. Maybe it’s just a bad first impression,” she says. “I don’t want to think about it anymore. I just want to enjoy this beautiful lunch you made in peace.”
Yoriko smiles. “It’s all your favorites,” she says, shyly, and begins pointing and describing them all. There’s even a little bunny formed out of rice and delicately-cut seaweed, and Touka eats this first, beheading it and chewing with satisfaction.
“I know how nervous you get about tests,” Yoriko says. “But I’m sure you did fine.” :::
“You’ve failed all the tests in the past two weeks, Kirishima-san.”
Touka’s lips purse. Her fists clench at her sides. She says nothing, and Sasaki-sensei scratches his head. The rest of the class is gone; he’d asked her to stay back, and now she’s just standing here, listening to him remind her of how stupid she is.
“I know this is…kind of an uncomfortable situation,” he says. “But…I’m here to help you. Is there anything you want to tell me? Maybe any special conditions you have? Or — or something in particular that you don’t understand?”
“Something I don’t understand? Sure.” Touka glares. “For one thing, Sensei, I don’t understand why you’re so obsessed with exams in the first place. Maybe I wouldn’t be failing them if you didn’t give them out at all.”
Her voice is dripping with venom, but Sasaki-sensei seems unfazed.
“As far as I know, you’re the only one struggling with these tests this much,” he tells her. “I could try and change them, but I think they’re helping everyone else. I’ve been speaking a bit with Ari — um, I mean, Principal Arima — and it seems that you’ve always had some trouble with Literature. Is that right?”
She raises her arms and crosses them, hard. It takes her a while to strengthen her throat enough to speak. When she finally does, her voice is still softer than she’d like.
“Are you going to hold me back?”
If she couldn’t graduate with Yoriko — and attend Kamii with her, like they planned —
“What? No. No,” he says, firmly. “Well, I don’t want to. But — to be honest, it’s looking pretty bad for you. So I was thinking that maybe you and I should have a couple tutoring sessions. To help you catch up.”
Touka frowns. “Tutoring? You mean, after school?”
“Yes. Just for an hour or so.”
“I can’t do that. I have work.”
Sasaki-sensei grimaces. “I’m really trying to help you, Kirishima-san. It can be just until your grades improve. I don’t want to recommend that you be held back, but if things don’t improve soon —”
“Fine! Fine. Alright. I’ll do it.” Touka looks away. Hopefully Nii-san won’t be too upset.
“Great!” Sasaki-sensei says brightly. “Great. Let’s start tomorrow.” He rummages through his bag, and he pulls something out, and hands it to her.
“This is one of last year’s required texts,” he tells her. “Based on your answers on my first assessment test, I’m pretty sure you haven’t read it. Or, well, maybe you just totally forgot it. In any case, why don’t you try reading as much as you can tonight, and we can discuss it tomorrow?”
“Alright,” Touka mumbles. More work. Great. At home, she looks down at the book, and steels herself.
“What’s that?” Ayato asks, peering over her shoulder.
“A book.”
“A book?” He snorts. “Where did you get it from?”
“It’s for school.”
Touka opens the book and both of them frown at the tiny lettering.
“Looks annoying,” he remarks.
Touka’s response is a mutter. “Not as annoying as the teacher that assigned it.”