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He’d turned the classroom overhead lights off, leaving only the soft glow from the dying sunlight to illuminate the crumpled papers he was slowly covering with red ink. The school issues desk chair wasn't the most comfortable thing, so when Anthony shifted to bring a socked foot up to rest on the fake leather and tuck a knee to his chest, it did little to alleviate the ache.
Adding another essay to the (much too slowly) growing ‘done’ pile, Anthony sighed, and, not for the first time that afternoon, questioned the decisions made that put a ‘Mr’ in front of his last name and covered his hands in chalk five days a week.
Anthony couldn't say he was passionate about teaching, truth be told he was passionate about very little in life, it was simply something to occupy his time until the next thing caught his eye but not attention. And with that disposition, he had been the least upset staff member when he’d turned in his resignation letter that morning.
The only reason he was still sitting in his soon to be ex-classroom was that the theatre teacher's attempts to guilt trip him had failed so spectacularly, he’d actually felt bad about letting her stew in the awkward silence; she never did fail to live up to her name. Anthony doubted he would truly miss any of his coworkers- he’d changed occupations enough to figure out the lasting hollow silence that followed leaving them was more getting used to a new routine than missing the people and things that made up the old one. If Anthony knew himself at all, he knew the absence of Dramatic's, well, dramatics, the spilt paint he'd have to clean off shoes from Aardvark's room, the laughter from students in the halls - it wouldn't bother him at all.
A knock sounded from the classroom door, and a shock of pink flashed through the small window.
Anthony sighed and dropped his pen with a dull ‘thud’. Only one more week, only one more. The student didn’t give him any more time to mentally prepare and knocked again, no less cheerily than the first time. Can a knock sound cheerful?
“It's open,” he called out, not bothering to look up when the door swung open, one Valerie Maki stepping through it. Valerie was a bright young girl - literally, her cherry pink hair seemed to glow in the sunlight - but that didn't mean Anthony was particularly fond of her.
She smiled as she opened the door with gusto, a fragile piece of paper crumpling slightly within her grasp, “hello, Mr.Draco! How are you?”
“I was fine.”
“Wonderful!” She clapped her hands together before bounding up to his desk. Anthony had to crane his neck upwards to look at her when she stopped on the opposite side of the worn desk, looking curiously at the unmarked pages that lay on top. Valerie didn't say anything else, but she was practically vibrating in excitement. When Anthony realized she clearly wanted him to initiate, he sighed as quietly as he could manage and argued the sooner he asked, the faster she’d leave.
He raised a brow and pointedly didn't look at the paper she carried, “do you need something?”
Valerie somehow smiled wider and thrust the mystery paper in his face. He went cross-eyed trying to decipher the words printed on it, but he quickly recognized it as the form passed around that morning to order yearbooks. Much to his dismay, he had to pass out his own stack to his homeroom class - the remainder of the class period had been filled with noise and laughter and excitement. The particularly annoying ones proving he was right to resign. A part of him tries to remember if he was ever that excitable when he attended high school, and with a definite shake of his head, he decides he couldn’t have been.
“The yearbook!”
“What about it?”
Valerie lowered the page and turned it toward herself, scanning the letters rapidly as she spoke. “I did not know every student gets a yearbook here! Back home, only the graduating class receives one. Funneh and Gold-” ugh “-told me about the American tradition of friends signing each other’s year books and I thought it was just so much fan!” She grinned as she looked back down at him, clutching the sheet to her chest.
Anthony couldn’t help but feel awkward in the face of her enthusiasm, shifting his gaze away from hers. The sun was setting now, he could just barely make out the pale glow behind the crest of the hill. “Fun,” he said simply, tone dry and uninterested. Just like it always was.
“Hm?” she tilted her head, blinking owlishly at him.
“The word- you meant fun, not fan. With a ‘u’.”
She blinked again before blood suddenly rushed to her cheeks, and she burst out into laughter. Anthony waited for it to die down, but she was still giggling when she resumed speaking. “Ah, I’m sorry, I still, um, flub? I think that’s the word. Flub sometimes. It has been wonderful here, it’s just so different from home; it is hard to get used to!”
He hummed, whether in agreement or simply acknowledgment he didn’t bother deciphering. Ignoring the young girl’s clear excitement over the topic, that still begged the question of why she expressed it to him of all people. Usually, people took the hint and steered clear, proven right when Anthony never put in any effort to prove them wrong. But, from the first day the girl had bounced down the halls of YHS, she had eagerly ignored not only his, but everyone’s hints. Anthony sometimes wondered if it was simply a cultural difference, or maybe a social issue with the girl herself, but he always banished the train of thought swiftly. It wasn’t his business, nor did he care to make it so.
He asked her as such, pointed out she only attended one of his classes only twice a week; had she just run out of people to tell and he happened to be next on the long list? “Why are you telling me?”
“Well,” Valerie said simply, a wistful tone in her voice- usually, the higher pitch would grate on Anthony’s ears, but speaking like this, he found that she simply sounded like a child. “I’ve never had a yearbook before, this will be my very first one. I want to make it special. I want to make them all special. I will have all my friends sign it with lovely messages- Funneh, Gold, Yandere, Senpai, everybody- and I’ll take it back home and show it to my parents, and they’ll be so happy for me.
And to make it special,” she looked him in the eye and something deep in Anthony’s gut twisted at the hope and wonder that filled the cherry pink. He remembers seeing it too once, reflected in chocolate brown, but he had forgotten what it looked like-felt like- for so long now it was jarring to see again on an ordinary Tuesday evening. “I want my favourite teacher to sign it too.”
Anthony waited a frankly embarrassing amount of time for Valerie to tell him who this teacher was before he realized she meant him. His eye twitched in annoyance. “You’re being serious.” He didn’t force a question in his tone, and perhaps he shouldn’t be so freely rude to a student, but what were they going to do? Fire him? Suddenly, all the curiosity melted from him, and he became once again aware of the growing number on the wall clock.
Valerie tilted her head quizzically, a naive kind of spacey look on her face, “why would I joke?”
“You want me to sign your yearbook.”
“Mhm!”
After a moment, Anthony sighed, fringe falling into his eyes as he mournfully shook his head. A part of him had wanted to shoo her out of the room the moment she’d stepped in, another missed the quiet she’d disturbed, and the last wanted to be left alone in his boredom.
It was those three parts that melted together to form words in his throat, words he’d decided didn’t matter enough to be said that morning. His eyes fell to the paper once again, zeroing in on the bold ‘ Printing April 20th ’.
“That’s… nice of you, but I won’t be able to do that.”
Valerie’s brows furrowed slowly, and her smile slid off her cheeks as she digested his words. She looked so put out that Anthony couldn’t help but think that if Dramatic had that look, maybe he would have stayed longer than a week. “What do you mean? Why not? I cannot have everyone’s sig- sign-” her face scrunched in frustration as the word refused to bubble up correctly.
“Signature.”
She smiled her thanks, “sig-na-ture, but yours.”
Anthony shrugged. There was really nothing he could do about it now, and really he had no further obligation to appease the student when he was no longer a teacher. “I quit; I won’t be here by the time you get it.”
“..what? Why? Are you unhappy here?” It was like her vocal cords refused to waver or water down her cheery tone. Anthony truly couldn’t imagine what he would sound like if he spoke through smiles like that.
A voice that sounded vaguely like the pudgy principal shouted at him to comfort the student, but Anthony had never been one to put himself out there for someone else. “Eh, not really. I’m just bored is all.”
Valerie pursed her lips in thought, holding up the paper to her eye-line. “Oh.”
Anthony waited patiently for the cogs to turn in her head, leading her to dead end after dead end of solutions. Surely then, she would leave him be and he would slump over his desk once more. His foot started to bounce in the silence, and he let his mind wander. Suddenl,y a hand shot out, ripping him from his muddled bubble. It reached for his pile, and he did nothing to stop it as it grabbed one from the middle that had been sticking out. Valerie held it up to her face as she scanned the contents. She smiled again, seemingly having regained her gusto. “If you cannot sign my yearbook, sign this! I will keep it just the same!”
She shoved the essay in his face and Anthony couldn’t help but wince at the bright red F that imprinted on the front page, squiggled red lines and corrections littered the remaining text. He never felt bad about marking students poorly, and that wasn’t changed just because one was quite literally shoving it back in his face, and it wasn’t any different for Valerie Maki. It was clear in every assignment that she had something to say, but she just didn’t know how to say it. Misspellings and grammar mistakes: Anthony wasn’t lenient with any student- a bad essay got a bad mark.
But still, having her smile so brightly as she proudly presented the failing grade, asking for his signature as a memento of her ‘favourite teacher’, made him raise a skeptical brow. “This is an F.”
“I know.”
“You’re sure you want me to sign this one?”
She nodded again, pink flyaways dancing around her cheeks. “Yes! It will be the last thing you grade for me, I think it is perfect.”
“Will you leave if I do?”
“Mhm!”
Anthony stared at her a little longer before sighing and taking the page from her. Valerie squealed some high-pitched noise that made Anthony wince as he picked his pen back up. He didn’t think of the perfect place to sign, nor did he deliberate on what to say - it was quick and to the point, just as he was.
Valerie,
Have a nice rest of your life
Mr Draco,
He handed it back to her, and Valerie clutched it to her chest. “I’ll keep it safe. Thank you, Mr.Draco.” She bowed to him so enthusiastically that she almost smacked her face on the desk. She was smiling the whole way out of the room, and she paused at the doorway to turn back and wave at him. He begrudgingly wiggled a few fingers back in response. And then, just as quick as she’d arrived, she was gone, bounding down the empty hallways with a “see you in class tomorrow!” trailing behind her.
As the door swung shut once more, Anthony slumped in his chair. The sun was gone from view, and his pile was scattered on the wooden surface. The red pen burned within his grip, but he didn’t let it drop. It was always like this. A few moments that ignited hope. But, as quickly as the door had shut him away from everything he’d kept behind it, boredom crept up again. It clawed at the edges of his vision, it formed a headache that pounded at the walls of his skull.
His life, as much as he despised it, was just a resounding boredom. He’d tried many different things, but apparently, this wasn’t the cure either. He didn’t regret turning in his resignation, not even when the next week flew by, and not even when he left the building for the last time. He didn’t look back at it, and he hadn’t bothered to lock his old dorm’s door behind him.
Nothing there had made an impact on him. Though apparently, he’d made a splash, however small, of his own.