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Gakushuu sighs softly as he finally gets the kids to go to sleep. He double checks everyone in the classroom, then quietly shuts the door.
He goes and sits in one of the beanbags in the play area, sinking right back into the soft cover. Gakushuu sighs again.
He loves his kids, he does, but they’re just so… rowdy .
He hears a noise and looks up. Oh, don’t tell him one of them got up…
To his shock and horror , it’s not that, it’s a bloody man rolling in through one of their windows.
Gakushuu darts up and snatches up his broom to brandish it defensively, standing in the hallway between the kids room and the stranger.
The man groans and slowly pushes himself off of the floor. He’s holding a suitcase. He sits up and runs a hand over his face. Then glances his way and freezes.
“Get out,” Gakushuu demands simply.
“Uh,” the man says, “I… kinda can’t?”
Gakushuu smacks him with the broom. “Ow! Can’t you see I’m already injured enough?!”
“Shhh!” Gakushuu hisses, “Keep your voice down!” He points behind the man. “The door is down that hallway. Now go!”
“I need a fuckin minute to-“ and Gakushuu smacks him with the broom again, “-ow! Quit that, you madman!”
“No swearing either,” Gakushuu scolds, “Do you even realize where you are?”
“No!?” The man hisses, standing up on wobbly legs and wow , okay, he’s tall, “I was being fucking shot at and-“
“Shot?!” Gakushuu hisses, “You’re in a fucking daycare! Get out before whoever is chasing you decides to check here!”
His mouth opens, then closes. “…daycare?”
“The kids are having their nap time,” Gakushuu growls, and swats at him with the broom again, “So go . I don’t need you bringing trouble here.”
He stares at him. Then sighs. “Can I at least use an emergency kit?”
Gakushuu squints at him. Then lowers the broom. “In the bathroom under the counter. Just take it and go, I’ll replace it.”
The man dips his head gratefully and trudges off to where Gakushuu points. Gakushuu sighs and glares at the bit of blood on the ground. Great. More cleaning.
The man comes back out bandaged and stitched just as Gakushuu finishes cleaning and… sits down on the beanbag . The suitcase is gone.
Gakushuu grabs his broom and raises it menacingly. “Hang on!” The man hisses quietly, flailing his hands a little, “I have someone coming to pick me up, dammit! Just let me rest until the car gets here!”
“That defeats the purpose of having you get out!” Gakushuu hisses back, “I don’t want a dangerous man anywhere near my kids!”
“Then I’ll just sit quietly while they nap!” He argues back, “And I’m not dangerous to them! I don’t want to hurt them. I didn't even know this building was a daycare! I wouldn’t have come in if I did!”
Gakushuu glares at him. “You can wait on the pavement .”
The man gawks at him. “You’re joking!?”
“Do I look -!”
“Shuu-sensei?”
Gakushuu whips around, clutching the broom close. The man startles.
Despite their attempts to quietly yell, it seems they managed to raise their voices a little too high.
Nico peers at him from around the corner, holding his stuffed bear close. Gakushuu drops the broom and rushes over, scooping the boy up. “Hey,” he coos softly, “It’s still nap time, remember? You should have stayed in bed.”
“I heard noises and couldn’t go back to sleep,” he mumbles, curling into his neck. Gakushuu brushes a hand through his hair, carrying him back towards the nap room.
“Then let’s try again, okay?” He says softly, quietly sneaking into the room and manoeuvring his way between little cots to get to Nico’s. Nico smiles at him tiredly.
Gakushuu tucks him back into bed, making sure he’s comfortable. Then he sings a soft lullaby. Nico hugs his bear close, eyelids drooping. They close after a minute or so, and Gakushuu gently and quietly finishes his song.
He stands slowly and glances at the door. The man is there, leaning against the frame and watching him curiously. Gakushuu glares. He just smiles at him.
Gakushuu makes his way back over, quietly shutting the door. Then grabs the next closest thing to him—the tiny brush he’d used to help braid little Hima’s hair.
The man raises his hands in surrender. “Got curious,” he says softly.
“Get more curious about the cement outside,” Gakushuu snarks, and starts shoving him. He yelps quietly, then plants his feet. Gakushuu grunts, and glares up at him.
“I won’t do anything,” he says, exasperated, “Just- I’ve had a rough day, dammit. Let me sit in a comfortable chair for a little while.”
Gakushuu smacks him with the brush. He bites his lip to stop from yelling, then grabs his wrist and attempts to wrangle it from his hold.
They struggle for a bit, Gakushuu pulling them away from the nap room. He passes by the broom and abandons the brush to grab it instead. “No-!” The man yelps, hands raised, but it doesn’t quite help when Gakushuu begins to smack him with it.
He manages to grab the handle and yanks, but that makes Gakushuu crash into him and they both tumble to the ground.
Gakushuu grunts, then glares. The man throws the broom away and quickly flips them so Gakushuu is now the one pinned to the ground.
He tries to struggle, but the man quickly pins his wrists above his head. They’re both panting a little. “Let me go!” Gakushuu growls.
“No!” The man says, “You keep attacking me with inanimate objects!”
“Because you’re a criminal!”
“How do you know?! I could be a cop!”
“Like a cop would refuse to leave if I told them they were making me and the kids feel unsafe.”
The man opens his mouth, then closes it, wincing. “Alright, fine. But it’s not like I’m a threat to them! I just want to sit inside for a goddamn minute!”
Gakushuu, fed up, manages to wiggle his leg free from where the man is pinning them with his feet and kicks up right between his legs.
“Fuck!” He yells, and rolls off of him.
“Fuck!”
They both freeze. Gakushuu turns, slowly, to see more of the kids are peering around the corner. Hiro, grinning from ear to ear, happily repeats, “Fuck!”
Gakushuu glares at the man, hard, and he hides his face in the floor, accepting the shame. Gakushuu quickly darts over to the kids. “That’s a bad word,” he scolds, “Don’t repeat that. Any of you.”
Hiro pouts. “But why did he say it then?”
Gakushuu glances back at the man. He hasn’t moved. “Because that’s a bad man,” he says, “So don’t go near him or repeat anything he says.”
“A bad man like in the movies?!” Aki says, excited, and darts past him.
“No!” Gakushuu yells, but it's too late. Aki has jumped on the man’s back. He groans, loudly.
“Say something evil!” She demands, and Gakushuu yelps as the rest of the kids charge after her.
The man shoots up, startled, hands in the air as the kids crowd him. “Uh,” he stutters, and looks at him with wide, pleading eyes, “Uh, surrender?”
The kids laugh. “That’s not evil!” Aki yells, smacking his leg(“Ow!”), “Say something scary!”
“Huh?”
Gakushuu stares, bewildered. The man looks completely lost. And a little afraid.
The absolute insanity of it all has Gakushuu laughing. “Oi!” The man yells, “Don’t laugh, help!”
The kids are climbing his shoulders and tugging on his hair. “He has a picture on him!” Tara says excitedly, and Gakushuu blinks.
The kids tug at his clothes to try and get a better look. “That’s impolite,” Gakushuu finally says, as the man scrambles to keep his clothes on, “We don’t do that to people.”
“B-But Gakushuu-sensei!” Hiro whines, “It looks cool!”
Gakushuu smiles. “Maybe,” he says, crouching down to their level and extracting Kato from the man’s hair, “If you all run and get the arts and crafts things ready, you can make pictures to show instead.”
“Can we use the glitter glue!?” Fumiko pleads.
Gakushuu sighs. “Oh, alright.”
The kids cheer and run off, digging through the cupboards and tugging out various things. They drag the man along with them, who stares at him pleadingly.
Gakushuu looks the other way.
He laughs a little as the kids drag him into collecting all the things on the high shelf, sitting back and waiting for them all to return. They do so slowly in groups, setting out all their craft things.
The man gets dragged back to sit at one of the tables. “Um,” he stutters, and Himura gives him a crayon and a paper.
“Draw something evil, bad man!” She demands, then quickly turns to begin making her own masterpiece of glitter.
Gakushuu doodles on his own paper, taking gentle strokes with his pencil. The man begins to carefully draw, tense and confused.
“What’s your name, bad man?” Hiro asks, curious.
“Uh… Akabane Karma.”
“What does fuck mean?”
Gakushuu whirls on him. “Hiro!”
“I wanna know!”
“It’s a bad word,” Akabane says, “You, uh… shouldn’t say it. Or else it’ll make you a bad man like me. And your parents would be sad if you ended up as a bad man, right?”
Hiro pouts, but nods. “Yeah, okay…” and he perks right up again, “Are there other bad words?”
“Hiro,” Gakushuu says sternly, “Go back to drawing.”
“But what else can I ask the bad man about?”
“Ask him about his favourite animal.”
Akabane blinks. The kids look at him expectantly. Gakushuu smirks at him, and raises a brow.
Akabane gulps a little. “…a…cat…?”
“A big cat?” Aki interrogates, “Or just a boring old house cat?”
“Um… a black… panther…?”
The kids cheer, satisfied. The minds of children still allud him. And Akabane, who is now staring at him again pleadingly as Nico clambers into his lap.
“So,” Gakushuu says, and watches the look of relief fall into one of horror as he says, “Why don’t everyone show the bad man what they’ve drawn?”
The kids all shout and yell as they attempt to get Akabane’s attention and proudly present their drawings. “U-Uhm,” Akabane says, “They’re all… very nice?”
“What about yours?” Hina asks quietly, reaching over to peer at his paper. Gakushuu leans closer too.
It’s… a very poorly drawn dragon. “You said to draw something bad,” he murmurs, a little embarrassed. Gakushuu hides his laugh behind a hand.
“But dragons are cool!” Hiro protests, “You should’ve done a scary monster with blood dripping from its fangs!”
“Don’t scare the others, Hiro,” Gakushuu scolds lightly.
“But Shuu-sensei!” He whines, “The dragon’s not bad at all!”
Gakushuu hums thoughtfully, tilting his head this way and that. “Then, why don’t we play…” he makes his hands into claws in front of him, “The monster game!”
The kids all cheer loudly, excited. “I know! I know!” Aki yells, and takes Gakushuu’s hand to drag him to one side of the room, “We’ll play damsil and disrest!”
“Damsel in distress,” Gakushuu corrects absently, and easily sits down in a beanbag as Aki digs through a toy chest. The others are tugging Akabane over.
Aki pulls out a fake tiara and puts it on Gakushuu’s head. He straightens it absently as she then gives Akabane a black cape. The rest of the kids get little, foam toy swords.
“You’re the bad man,” Makoto, the expert storyteller, declares, “So you’re gonna be keeping the princess locked up, and we’ll be the knights coming to save the day!”
Akabane looks at him with wide, pleading eyes. “Oh no,” Gakushuu says, completely monotone, not once breaking eye contact as he lounges back, “Please, won’t someone come rescue me from this bad man?”
The kids charge forward and tackle Akabane to the ground.
And that’s how two strangers find them, Gakushuu with his head in his hand and legs crossed, watching Akabane as he lies defeated on the floor, twenty tiny children surrounding and on him whacking him with foam swords.
“Um,” the smaller of the two says, “…Karma?”
Akabane’s head shoots up. “Nagisa!” He shouts, “Save me!”
“Are they more bad men?” Aki asks.
“I think they’re here to pick up Akabane,” Gakushuu finally says, taking mercy on him, “Which means it’s time for him to go.”
The class whines and cries, but Gakushuu ushers them all off and away. “I want this room spotless by the time that big hand on the clock hits the six,” Gakushuu orders, “And then maybe everyone can have lunch early.”
The kids scamper off, giggling and yelling at each other. Akabane tugs the cape off and drops it on the floor, groaning. “Go get that suitcase you had,” Gakushuu orders him, pulling the tiara off his head, “I dont want whatever’s in there to stay here.”
Akabane obediently walks off. Gakushuu stands and makes his way to the front, where the two gentlemen eye him warily. “Um,” Nagisa says, “Hello.”
“Hi,” Gakushuu greets, “Take your bad man and don’t come back here.”
The two blink. The tall muscled one gruffs out a quiet laugh.
Akabane trudges back out, quickly making his way to them. “Let’s go,” he grumbles.
“Next time I tell you to do something,” Gakushuu says, “Maybe do it?”
Akabane nods miserably and walks out the door. Nagisa glances at him one more time, then politely bows and hurries after him.
Gakushuu sighs, then turns and heads back to the kids. “We finished before the hand went to six!” Nico says proudly.
Gakushuu claps, smiling. “Then I suppose everyone deserves a treat with their lunch.”
The kids cheer loudly.
Gakushuu comes into work the next day and stops short at the sight of Akabane awkwardly standing outside the building. “I thought I told you to scram,” Gakushuu says.
Akabane turns to him, a tad startled. “Ah, yeah…” he’s holding a bouquet.
Gakushuu raises a brow. Akabane clears his throat and offers the flowers to him. “I just came to apologize,” he explains, “And, uh… repay you for the medical stuff I used.”
Gakushuu takes the flowers, smiling a little. “Mhm? You could always come in again.”
Akabane stares at the building like it’s on fire. “…no, I’m okay.”
Gakushuu rolls his eyes. “The kids aren’t here yet,” he says, unlocking the door, “So it’s fine if you come in for a moment. I need to put my things down anyways.”
Akabane hesitantly follows him inside. Gakushuu heads to his little office room and puts the flowers and his bag on the desk. Then he turns and leans against it, arms crossed.
Akabane drops an envelope and card on his desk. “That’s the money for anything I used or broke,” he says, “And, this is a number you can reach me by if you ever need anything.”
“Why would I call you?”
Akabane shrugs. “I usually give it to people who have had extended contact with me just in case,” he says, “It’s… a precaution, I suppose.”
Gakushuu hums, nodding in understanding. “Well thank you,” he says, and shoos him away, “The kids will be here soon.”
Akabane quickly turns and speed walks out of the building. Gakushuu laughs at him for it.
He looks at the bouquet again. The flowers are roses. He thumbs a petal absently.
How cute.