Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

A new school year was supposed to mean new beginnings, new classes, new uniforms, new teachers, and, perhaps most importantly, an entirely new collection of opportunities to embarrass yourself in front of people you would still be seeing every day for the next three years.

For the first-year students arriving at Tokyo Metropolitan High School, however, those new beginnings came with the immediate challenge of navigating a campus that seemed far larger than it had during orientation, memorizing schedules filled with unfamiliar room numbers, and pretending they knew exactly where they were going even as they wandered through hallways that all looked frustratingly identical.

By eight in the morning, several students had already walked into the wrong classroom, one unfortunate boy had somehow found his way into the teachers’ lounge and remained there long enough to be offered coffee, and another had spent nearly ten minutes searching for a staircase that had been directly behind him the entire time.

There were hurried footsteps echoing across the polished floors, nervous introductions exchanged beside rows of shoe lockers, and clusters of students comparing schedules as though one of them might suddenly reveal a hidden map of the building.

In other words, it was a perfectly normal first day of school.

Still, before the morning announcements had even finished echoing through the school's speakers, the first-year students had already reached one unanimous conclusion.

Mr. Fushiguro was terrifying. Not because he was loud. Not because he was cruel. And certainly not because he was the type of teacher who slammed textbooks onto desks or barked orders across the classroom whenever someone whispered to a friend.

In fact, he never raised his voice at all.

There were no dramatic speeches about discipline, no impossible threats of mountains of homework, no icy lectures meant to scare students into obedience. He didn't need any of those things. Somehow, his quiet demeanor accomplished far more than shouting ever could.

He simply stood at the front of the classroom with one hand resting lightly beside a perfectly organized stack of lesson plans, his dark hair just untidy enough to suggest he'd run a hand through it on the way to work, though every other part of his appearance was impeccably neat. His white dress shirt was crisply pressed beneath a charcoal cardigan, the sleeves rolled neatly to his forearms, and not a single paper on his desk sat even slightly out of place.

When he looked up, it wasn't a glare. It wasn't even particularly stern. It was simply the calm, unreadable expression of someone who had long ago decided that his classroom would be a place for learning, and anyone who wished to test that expectation was welcome to try.

The chatter that had filled the room only moments earlier gradually faded until the classroom fell into complete silence. "My name is Fushiguro Megumi," he introduced himself, his voice low and even, carrying effortlessly through the room without the slightest need to raise its volume.

Somehow, that was enough. Backs straightened. Phones disappeared beneath desks. Even the students who had been whispering only seconds before suddenly found the ceiling, their notebooks, or literally anything else more interesting than risking being caught talking.

"I'll be teaching your first-year Japanese History course this year." He turned toward the chalkboard, picked up a piece of white chalk, and wrote his name in neat, deliberate characters.

伏黒 恵

Beneath it, in smaller letters, he wrote the day's lesson.

Introduction to Japanese History — From the Jōmon Period to the Foundations of Early Japan

Only after setting the chalk down did, he turns back to face the class. There was no welcoming speech about making memories together. No cheerful icebreaker. No attempt to convince a room full of anxious teenagers that history was secretly fun. He didn't ask everyone to introduce themselves or share an interesting fact.

Instead, he folded his hands behind his back and regarded the classroom with the same composed expression. "My expectations are simple," he said. "Arrive on time. Come prepared. Respect your classmates while they're speaking and put genuine effort into your work."

His tone never changed. "If you do those things, we'll get along just fine." Silence lingered for another moment. Then, almost instinctively, every student reached for a notebook. No one had been told to. No one had been asked. Yet somehow, everyone suddenly felt that taking notes was probably the safest decision they could make.

Mr. Fushiguro continued as though he hadn't noticed the nervous expressions staring back at him. "I don't accept late assignments without a valid explanation. I don't grade based on effort alone, and if I discover that you've copied another student's work, both assignments will receive a zero."

There was no threat in his voice. No dramatic pause. No attempt to intimidate them. He simply stated the rules as though they were obvious facts, as unchangeable as the dates in a history textbook. Somehow, that made them all the more convincing.

A boy seated near the back of the classroom leaned ever so slightly toward the classmate beside him and whispered beneath his breath, "...I think he can smell fear."

Without taking his eyes off the front of the room, his friend whispered back, "I don't think he can smell it..." A beat. "...But he can definitely hear you."

As if summoned by the comment alone, Mr. Fushiguro's eyes slowly lifted from the attendance sheet resting on his desk. His gaze drifted across the classroom with infuriating calm before settling, however briefly, on the two boys. He didn't frown. He didn't glare. He didn't say a single word. He simply looked at them.

The effect was immediate.

Both boys straightened so quickly their chairs squeaked against the floor, their eyes dropping to their freshly opened notebooks with the kind of determination usually reserved for final exams. The room remained completely silent. Mr. Fushiguro lowered his gaze back to the attendance sheet and continued calling names as though nothing had happened. Nothing else needed to be said.

By the time the first-class period came to an end, the newest students at Tokyo Metropolitan High School had already reached a unanimous conclusion.

Mr. Fushiguro was strict. He was serious to an almost impressive degree. He seemed to possess exactly one facial expression, and no one in the room had yet discovered what it took to change it. More than one student quietly wondered if he had ever laughed in his entire life. Another privately concluded that he probably hadn't.

At least... not in this century.

If the first thing the new students learned was that Mr. Fushiguro was terrifying, the second came only a few hours later, when they discovered that Nurse Itadori was, without question, the nicest adult they had ever met.

The realization began shortly before lunch, when a first-year girl named Saki misjudged the last step of a staircase, stumbled forward with an undignified yelp, and scraped her knee against the concrete hard enough to draw blood. The injury itself wasn't particularly serious, but first days had a way of making every mishap feel like the end of the world.

Within seconds, three of her classmates had rushed to her side, insisting on escorting her to the nurse's office. Whether they were motivated more by genuine concern or by the convenient excuse to escape class for a few minutes was anyone's guess, though the fact that none of them actually knew where the nurse's office was suggested it might have been a little of both.

Together, they wandered through the unfamiliar hallways, stopping twice to ask for directions and accidentally walking into the counseling office before finally finding the small plaque that read Health Office. The moment the door slid open, the atmosphere changed completely. Gone were the pristine hallways, the rows of identical classrooms, and the nervous tension that seemed to cling to every first-year student on their very first day.

Instead, warm afternoon sunlight poured through the wide windows, bathing the room in a soft golden glow that made it feel less like a medical office and more like a cozy place to catch your breath. Small potted plants lined the windowsills, their leaves swaying gently whenever the late summer breeze slipped through the cracked-open window, while colorful posters about health, nutrition, and stress management decorated the walls alongside handwritten reminders that had clearly been made with far more enthusiasm than artistic talent.

Everything was meticulously organized without feeling clinical. The cabinets were neatly labeled. The examination beds were freshly made. Bandages, disinfectants, and medical supplies were arranged with almost impressive precision. Yet somehow, despite all of that order, the room still felt wonderfully lived in. Perhaps it was because nearly every available surface had been claimed by plush animals.

A pastel pink rabbit sat proudly beside the blood pressure monitor as though it had an important medical position. A tiny striped tiger occupied the windowsill, gazing dramatically out toward the athletic field. There was a sleepy-looking penguin tucked between two stacks of medical journals. A fluffy corgi guarded the candy jar near the entrance.

And perched atop one of the filing cabinets sat an impossibly small frog wearing what appeared to be a tiny handmade nurse's cap, complete with a little red cross stitched carefully onto the front.

It was ridiculous. Completely unprofessional and somehow, unbelievably comforting. Standing behind the desk was the person responsible for all of it.

Itadori Yuji.

The school nurse looked far too energetic for someone who had already spent the morning treating a bloody nose, calming down a panicked student convinced they had forgotten every piece of knowledge they'd ever learned over summer break, and explaining, for what was almost certainly not the first time, that drinking nothing but canned coffee did not, in fact, count as eating breakfast.

Yet somehow, his smile hadn't faded once. It was bright, effortless, and so genuinely warm that the nervousness Saki had been carrying since she scraped her knee began to disappear almost the moment, he looked up and noticed the four freshmen standing awkwardly in the doorway.

The moment Yuji looked up from the paperwork spread across his desk and noticed four nervous first-years lingering uncertainty in the doorway, his entire face lit up. "Oh, hey!" Yuji greeted them with an easy smile, setting his pen aside almost immediately. "Come on in. What happened?"

There wasn't a trace of annoyance in his voice at being interrupted, nor the slightest hint that they'd caught him in the middle of something important. Instead, he sounded genuinely happy to see them, as though they weren't anxious freshmen apologetically hovering by the entrance but old friends he had been expecting all morning.

His warmth was almost disarming. The four students exchanged uncertain glances before Saki awkwardly stepped forward. "I... um..." Saki pointed sheepishly toward her knee. "I kind of fell down the stairs."

Yuji's eyes widened ever so slightly. "Ouch," Yuji murmured. Not That was careless. Not You should've been paying attention. Just simply... Ouch.

He rounded the desk without another word and crouched in front of her, his movements calm and unhurried as he gently examined the scrape. "It looks like you hit it pretty hard," Yuji said, carefully checking for anything more serious before giving her an encouraging smile. "The good news is that it looks a lot worse than it actually is. We'll get it cleaned up, put a bandage on it, and you'll be back to showing those stairs who's boss."

A reluctant laugh escaped Saki before she could stop it. "Although..." Yuji continued as he reached for the antiseptic. "This part might sting a little."

He paused thoughtfully before gesturing toward the windowsill. "You can hold the tiger if you want."

Saki blinked. "The tiger?" Saki repeated.

"The tiger," Yuji confirmed with a nod.

She followed his gaze toward the small striped plush sitting proudly by the window and looked back at him with visible confusion. "...Why?" Saki asked.

Yuji answered as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. "Because he's very brave."

One of Saki's friends wandered over, picked up the plush tiger, and turned it over in her hands. "...Respectfully," one of Saki's friends said after a moment, "he looks absolutely terrified."

Yuji gasped dramatically. "That's because he has anxiety," Yuji replied with complete seriousness.

The room fell silent. "But," Yuji added with a solemn nod worthy of a motivational speaker, "he's working through it. Every day is a little easier."

For exactly one second, the students simply stared at him. Then all four of them burst into laughter. Even Saki, who had nearly been in tears only minutes earlier, had to wipe at the corners of her eyes as she laughed.

"There," Yuji said triumphantly. "See? You're already smiling."

While the girls were distracted teasing the stuffed tiger about his emotional support journey, Yuji quickly cleaned the scrape, carefully disinfected it, and covered it with a colorful adhesive bandage decorated with tiny yellow stars. "All done," Yuji announced.

"...That's it?" Saki asked in surprise.

"That's it," Yuji replied with a grin. "You're officially certified stair-proof."

"I don't think that's how injuries work," one of the girls deadpanned.

"It is now," Yuji replied without missing a beat.

As the students prepared to leave, Yuji stopped them just before they reached the door. "Wait," Yuji called after them. "I never got your names." One by one, each of them introduced themselves. To their surprise, Yuji repeated every name back perfectly the first time.

Then, as though committing them to memory was the easiest thing in the world, he smiled and asked, "Have you all managed to find your classrooms, okay? The first day can be kind of overwhelming."

The four exchanged guilty looks. "...We got lost twice," Saki admitted.

"And accidentally walked into the counseling office," another girl added sheepishly.

Yuji laughed so hard he had to lean against his desk. "I did the exact same thing on my first day working here," Yuji confessed.

"You did?" Saki asked, eyes widening.

"Mhm," Yuji nodded. "Except I also managed to get locked in a storage room."

The girls stared at him. "...Really?" one of them asked.

"...No," Yuji admitted with a laugh.

The girls groaned dramatically while Yuji laughed at his own joke. Before they could leave, he reached into the large glass candy jar sitting on the corner of his desk and dropped a piece into each of their hands. "A first-day survival reward," Yuji declared.

"You don't have to..." Saki began.

"I know," Yuji interrupted gently with another warm smile. "I wanted to." By the time the four freshmen stepped back into the hallway, Saki's knee barely hurt anymore.

Somehow, in less than fifteen minutes, Nurse Itadori had cleaned her wound, remembered all four of their names, made them laugh until their stomachs hurt, reassured them that getting lost was perfectly normal, and sent them on their way with star-covered bandages, candy, and the comforting feeling that if anything ever went wrong again, there was at least one place in the school where they'd always be welcomed with a smile.

By the time the lunch bell rang, the story had already spread through nearly every first-year group chat with the astonishing speed that only school gossip seemed capable of achieving. It started with Saki's friends then it reached their classmates. By lunchtime, students who had never even stepped foot inside the nurse's office were confidently telling everyone exactly what Nurse Itadori was like, each retelling becoming just a little more enthusiastic than the last.

Nurse Itadori is really nice.

He remembers everyone's names.

He has plushies in his office.

He gives out candy if you're having a bad day.

The bandages have little stars on them.

Apparently one of the stuffed animals has anxiety.

Nobody could quite agree on that last part. Some insisted the tiger had anxiety. Others swore it was the rabbit. One student somehow became convinced that all of the plush animals attended weekly therapy sessions. No one knew where that rumor had come from. No one questioned it, either.

By the end of lunch, however, one conclusion had become universally accepted.

Nurse Itadori was friendly, funny, and somehow made scraping your knee feel like a pleasant experience. He handed out colorful stickers, snacks, and words of encouragement with equal generosity, and after spending even a few minutes in his office, it was almost impossible not to leave feeling just a little bit better than when you'd arrived.

As far as the first-years were concerned, Nurse Itadori was quite possibly the safest adult in the entire school.

For the next several days, nothing happened to challenge that growing reputation.

Mr. Fushiguro continued teaching Japanese History with the same composed expression he wore on the first morning, his lessons organized down to the minute and his expectations remaining as unwavering as ever. Students still straightened instinctively whenever he looked in their direction, and whispers still died the moment he began speaking.

Meanwhile, Nurse Itadori remained exactly as cheerful as everyone claimed. He greeted students by name in the hallways, waved enthusiastically whenever someone passed the health office, somehow remembered who preferred dinosaur bandages over star-patterned ones, and never seemed to run out of candy, terrible jokes, or genuine smiles.

To the students, the two teachers couldn't have been more different if they tried. One was quiet, reserved, and impossibly difficult to read. The other laughed so easily it felt contagious, spoke to everyone like they'd been friends for years, and somehow made even the most nervous freshmen feel like they belonged.

They worked on opposite sides of the school. They had completely different personalities. They inhabited entirely different corners of campus, as though they existed in two separate worlds that simply happened to occupy the same building.

At least, that was what every first-year student believed. And they believed it right up until Thursday morning. Classes at Tokyo Metropolitan High School officially began at eight o'clock, but by the end of the first week, nearly everyone enrolled in Mr. Fushiguro's first-year Japanese History course had adopted the same unspoken habit.

Arrive early. Very early. It wasn't because he'd ever assigned punishment for being a minute behind or embarrassed students in front of the class.

Quite the opposite.

On the first day, Mr. Fushiguro had simply informed them, in the same calm, matter-of-fact tone he used for everything else, that the moment the clock struck eight, attendance would be taken and the lesson would begin. Anyone entering after that would be marked late unless they had a valid reason.

He hadn't threatened anyone. He hadn't even looked particularly stern when he said it. Somehow, that had been enough.

By 7:40 that Thursday morning, nearly half the classroom was already occupied. Students quietly reviewed notes from the previous lesson, compared homework answers in hushed voices, or simply sat waiting, too wary of disturbing the almost sacred silence that seemed to settle over Room 1-B whenever Mr. Fushiguro was present.

At the front of the room, Megumi stood behind his desk with a neat stack of papers in one hand and a red pen in the other, methodically reviewing the previous day's assignments. Every now and then he made a small notation in the margin before moving on to the next paper, never appearing rushed, yet somehow making steady progress through the pile. The only sounds in the room were the soft rustle of turning pages, the occasional scratch of a pencil against paper, and the faint murmur of conversations kept deliberately quiet.

Suddenly, the classroom door slid open. No one knocked. Several students instinctively looked up. Standing in the doorway was Nurse Itadori.

He wore his usual light blue scrubs beneath a lightweight cream-colored jacket; the school identification badge clipped to his chest swaying gently as he stepped inside. In one hand he carried a paper tray balancing two takeaway coffees, while the other casually nudged the door shut behind him with practiced familiarity.

There wasn't even the slightest hesitation. He walked into Mr. Fushiguro's classroom as though he'd done it a hundred times before. "Morning," Yuji greeted cheerfully, already making his way toward the teacher's desk.

Without lifting his eyes from the paper he was grading, Megumi replied in the same even tone as always. "You're late." A few students blinked.

Yuji glanced at the wall clock before looking back at him. "It's only 7:40," Yuji pointed out.

"You usually arrive at 7:35," Megumi answered without missing a beat.

Several students exchanged confused looks. Usually?

Yuji placed one of the coffees on the corner of Megumi's desk before letting out an exaggerated sigh. "I had to stop a second year from trying to treat a blister with packing tape," Yuji explained.

For the first time since he'd entered the room, Megumi paused what he was doing. He finally lifted his head, meeting Yuji's eyes over the top of the stack of papers. "Did it work?" Megumi asked.

Yuji stared at him for a moment. "...No," Yuji admitted.

Megumi gave a single thoughtful nod before returning his attention to the assignments in front of him. "Then I suppose your intervention was necessary," Megumi said simply.

A grin spread across Yuji's face almost instantly. "I knew you'd understand," Yuji replied. He sounded absurdly pleased with himself. The students, meanwhile, could only watch in stunned silence.

Not because Nurse Itadori had walked into the classroom. Not because he'd brought Mr. Fushiguro coffee. But because Mr. Fushiguro had accepted it as though this happened every single morning.

The students watched the exchange unfold in complete, stunned silence. Not a single person spoke. Several had unconsciously stopped pretending to study altogether, their pencils hovering motionless above half-finished notes as every pair of eyes in the room followed Nurse Itadori's movements with open curiosity.

Yuji reached the teacher's desk and, without needing to ask a single question, carefully set one of the takeaway cups beside the stack of papers Megumi was grading. Black coffee, no sugar and no cream. Exactly the way Mr. Fushiguro liked it.

He didn't ask if it was the right order. He didn't double-check the label. He didn't even glance at the cup before placing it down with the quiet confidence of someone who had ordered the exact same drink so many times that getting it wrong simply wasn't a possibility anymore.

Megumi, meanwhile, barely paused in the middle of marking an assignment. Without looking up, he reached into the canvas bag resting beside his chair, retrieved a neatly wrapped lunchbox, and slid it across the desk toward Yuji with the same effortless familiarity. Yuji caught it one-handed before it had even traveled halfway across the desk.

Not once did either of them say thank you. Neither of them asked what was inside the lunchbox. Neither commented on the coffee. There was no polite exchange of favors. No explanation. No hesitation. No trace of the awkward courtesy that usually existed between coworkers. It was simply a routine. The kind of routine that only existed after countless mornings repeated often enough to become second nature. As naturally as breathing.

Megumi finally picked up the coffee and took a small sip before returning his attention to the paper in front of him. Then, almost as an afterthought, he spoke. "Did you actually eat breakfast?" Megumi asked, his eyes never leaving the assignment he was grading.

Yuji looked personally offended by the accusation. "I’m drinking coffee, am I not?" Yuji replied.

"That isn't breakfast and you know it," Megumi said flatly.

"It has milk in it," Yuji argued.

"Milk doesn't make it food."

"It came from a plant." Megumi slowly lowered the paper in his hands. For the first time since Yuji had walked into the classroom, he looked directly at him. "...Coffee beans are plants," Yuji continued confidently, clearly convinced he was making an excellent point.

"That isn't how nutrition works. You’re a nurse, you know this," Megumi replied.

"I also drank water."

"You've somehow made your argument worse."

Yuji pressed a hand dramatically against his chest. "I came here looking for support."

"You came here looking for validation in your stupidity."

"...Is there a difference?" Yuji asked.

"There should be."

Yuji stared at him with exaggerated disbelief. Megumi met the look without the slightest change in expression. For several long seconds, neither of them said another word. The silence wasn't uncomfortable. If anything, it felt... practiced. Like this exact conversation, or one remarkably similar to it, had happened dozens of times before.

Then Yuji sighed the sigh of a man who had clearly lost this particular argument many times already. "...Fine," Yuji muttered as he opened the lunchbox. "I'll eat."

Only then did Megumi take another sip of his coffee and return to grading papers, looking completely satisfied with the outcome. The first-years, meanwhile, could only stare. Nobody exchanged notes before class. Nobody whispered. Nobody even remembered to be confused.

Because every single student in the room had just watched the strictest teacher in the school remind the school nurse to eat breakfast, and somehow that was the least surprising part of the entire interaction between them.

For a long moment, neither of them said anything. Megumi simply regarded Yuji across the desk, his expression as unreadable as ever, while Yuji stood there looking entirely unapologetic about the fact that he'd apparently attempted to survive the morning on nothing but caffeine and optimism.

Finally, Megumi let out the faintest sigh. It wasn't dramatic. It wasn't exasperated. It sounded, more than anything else, like the quiet resignation of someone who had already accepted that this conversation was one he would continue having for the foreseeable future.

Without another word, he opened the top drawer of his desk and reached inside. The students watched with undisguised curiosity. After a brief moment of searching, Megumi withdrew a neatly wrapped rice ball and held it out toward Yuji without so much as looking up from the stack of papers still resting on his desk.

There wasn't the slightest hesitation. As though he'd known all morning that this would eventually become necessary. Yuji's entire face lit up. His smile somehow became even brighter than it already was. "I knew you loved me," Yuji declared triumphantly as he accepted the rice ball.

Not a single muscle in Megumi's face moved. "I don't want you passing out in the hallway again," Megumi replied in the same calm tone he'd used all morning.

Yuji immediately puffed out his cheeks. "That happened once," Yuji protested.

"Twice," Megumi corrected without hesitation.

"The second time was technically dehydration."

"That does not help your argument."

"It feels relevant."

"It isn't."

Yuji looked as though he were preparing another defense before glancing down at the rice ball in his hands. Instead, he smiled. It wasn't the playful grin he'd worn throughout their conversation. This one was softer. The kind of smile that appeared so naturally it almost seemed unconscious. "Thanks," Yuji said quietly.

Megumi gave the smallest nod. It was subtle enough that anyone who didn't know him well might have missed it entirely. "Eat it," Megumi reminded him.

"I will," Yuji promised, already beginning to unwrap it. He took a step backward toward the classroom door before looking back over his shoulder. "See you at lunch, Megumi."

"I'll be there," Megumi replied simply. Yuji smiled again. "Don't be late," Megumi added, returning his attention to the assignments spread across his desk.

Yuji placed a hand dramatically over his heart. "I wouldn't dream of it," Yuji declared.

With that, he turned toward the door, still unwrapping the rice ball as he walked. Only then did he seem to notice that nearly twenty first-year students had been silently watching the entire exchange unfold. He blinked then, without the slightest embarrassment, he flashed them the same bright smile he'd greeted them with in the nurse's office.

"Morning, everyone," Yuji said cheerfully, lifting the hand that wasn't holding his breakfast in an easy wave.

A few students managed awkward little waves in return. One quietly squeaked, "Morning..." The rest remained completely frozen. Yuji, apparently oblivious to the emotional damage he had just inflicted upon an entire classroom of teenagers, gave them one last grin before sliding the door shut behind him.

For several long moments after Nurse Itadori disappeared down the hallway, the classroom remained wrapped in complete silence. No one reached for their textbooks. No one resumed the quiet conversations that had filled the room only minutes earlier.

Instead, nearly every student sat perfectly still, staring somewhere between the closed classroom door and the front of the room, as though their brains were still trying to process what they had just witnessed.

Finally, somewhere near the back of the classroom, a hesitant voice broke the silence. "...Wait," one of the girls whispered. The student beside her slowly turned to look at her. "...Are they..." she began, lowering her voice even further. "...Together together?"

The question spread through the room like a single spark landing in dry grass. Heads slowly turned. Eyes widened. Expressions shifted from confusion to realization. Because now that someone had actually said it out loud, it suddenly made an alarming amount of sense.

The coffee and not just coffee. His preferred coffee ordered without asking. The lunchbox that was prepared in advance and handed over without explanation. The effortless use of first names. The argument about breakfast that sounded suspiciously like it wasn’t the first time being said. The casual mention that Mr. Fushiguro had apparently witnessed Nurse Itadori passing out in a hallway more than once.

And perhaps most damning of all, the rice ball. Mr. Fushiguro had not gone searching for something to eat. He had simply opened a desk drawer, and somehow already had emergency breakfast prepared for Nurse Itadori. Who did that?

The answer seemed painfully obvious.

The freshmen had known each other for less than a week. Most of them had never even been in a relationship. And yet every single one of them recognized that level of domestic familiarity when they saw it.

It looked dangerously similar to marriage.

A boy seated near the center of the classroom slowly raised his hand. Several classmates whipped around to stare at him.

Haruto.

Haruto, apparently, had reached one of two possible conclusions. Either he possessed extraordinary courage or absolutely no survival instinct whatsoever. At the front of the room, Megumi looked up from the assignment he was marking. "Yes?" Megumi asked.

Haruto immediately seemed to regret every decision that had brought him to this exact moment. He swallowed. His classmates silently begged him to stop. He didn't. "Um..." Haruto began cautiously. "Mr. Fushiguro..." Another swallow. "...Are you dating someone?"

The classroom froze. Someone in the back actually stopped turning a page halfway through. Another student visibly covered their mouth. Nobody breathed. Nobody blinked. Even Haruto looked like he wanted to apologize to his future self.

Megumi regarded him in complete silence. His expression didn't change, not even slightly. He simply looked at Haruto with the same calm, unreadable face he'd worn since the first day of school. A few seconds passed. The silence stretched just long enough for Haruto to mentally compose what he hoped would be a heartfelt apology letter to his parents after his inevitable academic demise.

Finally, Megumi placed his red pen neatly on top of the stack of papers. "I will only answer questions related to the material we are studying," Megumi said evenly. "Please refrain from asking personal questions during class."

That was all. No embarrassment. No denial. No explanation. Just a polite refusal.

Haruto slowly lowered his hand. "...Yes, sir," Haruto mumbled.

Megumi picked up a piece of chalk and turned toward the board as though the interruption had never happened. "Now," Megumi said, writing the page number in clean white strokes, "please open your textbooks to page twelve."

The sound of pages turning gradually filled the room. Students obediently opened their books. At least, their hands did. Their attention was somewhere else entirely. Small, cautious glances darted across the classroom. Eyebrows lifted. Shoulders shrugged.

One student subtly mouthed, Well?

Another quietly shook their head. That had definitely been a no, right? It certainly sounded like a no. Probably. Although now that they thought about it, he hadn't actually said no. As Mr. Fushiguro resumed the lesson as though nothing unusual had happened, Haruto found it increasingly difficult to focus on the history textbook lying open in front of him.

At the front of the classroom, Megumi wrote several dates across the chalkboard in neat, precise handwriting before drawing a simple timeline beneath them.

14,000 BCE — Jōmon Period

300 BCE — Yayoi Period

Turning back toward the class, he rested the chalk on the tray and folded his hands behind his back. "The transition from the Jōmon Period to the Yayoi Period marks one of the most significant turning points in early Japanese history," Megumi explained, his voice calm and steady as always. "Rather than a sudden replacement of one culture by another, historians generally understand it as a gradual process of migration, cultural exchange, and technological development."

He picked up another piece of chalk and circled the word agriculture. "The introduction of wet-rice cultivation fundamentally changed how communities were organized. Permanent settlements expanded, populations increased, and social hierarchies gradually became more defined. When studying history, avoid thinking only in terms of dates. Ask yourself why change occurred and how it affected the people living through it."

Normally, his students might have found the lesson surprisingly interesting. Unfortunately, at least half the classroom was still mentally replaying the image of Nurse Itadori casually handing him coffee while Megumi scolded him for skipping breakfast.

Haruto tried. He really did. He even managed to write Wet-rice agriculture → permanent settlements before his attention drifted back to the conversation from only a few minutes earlier. Slowly, and with all the subtlety of someone making an exceptionally poor decision, he lowered his gaze beneath the edge of his desk.

His phone was already unlocked. He opened the first-year group chat. His thumbs hovered over the keyboard for a moment before he typed a single message.

Haruto bit the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing. He risked a quick glance toward the front of the classroom. Megumi was in the middle of explaining how archaeological evidence from Yayoi settlements had reshaped historians' understanding of early Japanese society, occasionally writing key terms across the board in the same perfectly legible handwriting as before. Completely composed. Completely focused.

Entirely unaware that, somewhere beneath a desk in the third row, his personal life had just become the single most discussed topic among the first-year students. Haruto looked back down at his phone. Another notification appeared.

Haruto quietly locked his phone just as footsteps approached his row. When he looked up, Megumi was standing only a few feet away, continuing his explanation without the slightest indication that he'd noticed anything unusual. "...Which is why archaeological evidence should always be interpreted alongside written records," Megumi said, gesturing toward a map of ancient Japan. "Neither source tells the complete story on its own."

Haruto swallowed. Maybe now wasn't the best time to get caught texting.

By the time the lunch bell finally rang, the rumor had already spread beyond Class 1-B. Students repeated the story in cafeterias, hallways, club rooms, and stairwells with the kind of enthusiasm usually reserved for celebrity gossip, each retelling adding another tiny detail that no one could quite verify but everyone chose to believe anyway.

By lunchtime, second-year students had already begun hearing whispers about the intimidating history teacher and the impossibly cheerful school nurse. By the end of the school day, the rumor had traveled through nearly every first-year classroom. And sometime before the final bell, someone created a new group chat. Its title was wonderfully straightforward.