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“You forgot your lunch.”
Nagisa looked up from the vending machine he was leaning over, where he’d been patting at his pockets for his wallet and growing increasingly frazzled as the time ticked forward. His class was going to reconvene after lunch and he needed to have some food for energy in dealing with them, so the sudden familiar voice interrupting his thought process was enough to shake him out of his own head.
Standing near him with a smartly-wrapped bento box was Kaede -- or, Akari, her name was Yukimura Akari, Kayano Kaede had been her alias all those years ago; he still needed to get used to that -- with her long brown hair tied back in a half-bun. She had a set of sunglasses resting low on her nose and an ever-familiar, cheeky grin toying at her lips.
He stood straight with a sheepish grin, bringing a hand up to rub awkwardly at the back of his head, “How’d you know?”
He was trying to ignore the faint whispers from the students who were pausing all around them, students who seemed to have noticed Akari’s presence. She had become extremely successful in her acting career, so it was to be expected that the students would recognise her -- he had no doubt that many of them were wondering why she was talking to him of all people.
“Ritsu told me,” she pushed the bento box into his hands, still grinning, “Pretty much as soon as you left your house without it.”
“Glad to hear that Ritsu is still poking in on all of our lives,” Nagisa chuckled, glancing down and unwrapping the bento enough to peek inside of it, “I really appreciate the fact that she didn’t let me know I’d forgotten it at that point when I still had time to go back for it.”
A cheeky, digitized giggle from the phone in his breast pocket let him know that he’d been right in assuming she was listening in. He folded the bento back over and looked back up again, amused and fond in equal measure.
“If it helps at all, she only let me know.” Akari’s smile had softened, and she glanced around at the crowd that was hovering in half-pause nearby. “Do you have time to catch up? It’s been a while.”
“Sure.” he gestured with a small grin of his own, tucking the bento box under his arm and starting to walk toward the doors into the school. “I can show you my mess of a classroom.”
“It’s a mess?” she asked with a chuckle, “For shame , Nagisa. I would’ve thought you’d have picked up the neat-freak trait.”
He held the door open for her, a bittersweetness taking over his smile. “It’s… a work in progress.” he admitted. “Hard to keep up sometimes. My class is… persistent .”
“Wasn’t that Yukimura Akari?”
“The famous actress?”
“Don’t be stupid, why would she be here? And what would she be doing talking to Shiota-sensei?”
The flurry of whispers all converged together as three of the ‘unfortunate’ class that was lumped together and thrown under the ‘newbie’ teacher’s care surged toward the windows to their classroom, sitting underneath and hudding close as they strained to hear what was said inside. If it really was Yukimura Akari, then it would be nigh unheard of gossip that she was seeing someone as unassuming as a high school teacher.
“Shhhh!” Lianora Rira, one of the only three girls in their class hissed, jabbing her elbow into the side of the boy who’d squeezed into the space between her and the other boy. The sound of the door inside the classroom opening pushed all of them into holding their breath.
“Wow,” the feminine voice inside laughed, “You… weren’t kidding.”
“I know, I know--” Shiota-sensei laughed back. “But to be fair, most of the old graffiti is gone. This is all more recent, and much easier to clean off.”
“Have you decided how you’re gonna decorate once it’s gone?”
“Not yet. I’m kind of tempted to go the odd route, myself. Trivia, interesting oddities, that sort of thing. Need to be sure that anything I bring in won’t be broken, first, though.”
“They’re talking like they’re old friends,” one of the boys, Akihara Ryou, muttered.
“Really? I hadn’t noticed,” another one, Fujisawa Kaito, hissed back, rolling his eyes.
“Still,” Lianora muttered, “Where would they have even met? Yukimura-san’s professional schedule must be insane.”
“Says a lot that she’s coming here, then, dunnit?” Fujisawa raised an eyebrow, leaning his head back against the brick wall to try and get a better angle on listening.
“What, no kanji sheets with ‘tentacle’ on them all over the walls?” Yukimura -- if it was Yukimura -- laughed again. “Come on, Nagisa, you know you want to.”
“Ha ha, very funny.” Shiota-sensei had to be rolling his eyes. He had a specific kind of tone of voice when he was treading the line between amused and annoyed, and even if some of the more reckless would-be thugs in their class hadn’t been paying attention enough to notice, Lianora had been. Akihara had to suppress a grin behind one of his hands.
“Still…” Yukimura hummed, and the three of them ducked down a bit more under the windowsills at the sound of chairs being pulled out. “Your class is… something, huh?”
“Kinda reminds me of Class E, except worse.” Shiota-sensei responded with a dry sort of humor. The three eavesdroppers shared glances -- that explained it, if they had met in school then it was a feasible idea that they might have maintained some sort of friendship.
There was a pause and the sound of cloth rustling, then the crackle of plastic chopsticks being snapped apart. “This is quite good.” he hummed.
“Thank you.” Yukimura was probably smiling. “I made it myself.”
“If I had to guess, though, I’d say about 90 percent of them are wanna-be old-Terasakas right now.” Shiota-sensei continued, “Intimidating, churlish, and combative.”
“Then there’s still hope for them!” She chirped, “Even Terasaka turned out okay in the end. Didn’t go off to become a bureaucrat like Karma did, but he did okay for himself.”
“I guess. It’s still been interesting trying to figure out how to establish myself as someone worth listening to.”
You’ve started, sir . Lianora thought, glancing over toward the two boys who were huddled close with frowns on their faces. They were, admittedly, the bottom of the social hierarchy in the class, but the fact remained that a few of them had been affected by Shiota-sensei’s demonstration on the first day.
“Well, give it time.” Yukimura hummed, “It took us a while to start respecting Koro-sensei, too.”
The quiet that dropped over them both was heavy and uncomfortable, and Fujisawa paused mid shift to make sure they weren’t caught eavesdropping. Lianora held her breath. Akihara had his eyes shut tightly.
“Still miss him.” Yukimura mused, into the heavy silence.
“Still miss him.” Shiota-sensei confirmed.
“It never does get easier, huh?” she asked, almost wistful. “We carry so much of what he taught us forward, now.”
“He made his mark.” Shiota-sensei replied. “You know, it’s kinda funny. I actually… might have told my students that, they’re welcome to try and kill me?”
“Pfft.” Yukimura’s laughter was nasal and spontaneous, even as she tried to stifle it. “ Really? ” And the three students who were sitting under the windows paused, glancing at each other, because that was not the expected response. They’d expected some sort of worry, maybe a blithe ‘well, you’re doomed’, but Yukimura sounded like she was holding back the urge to giggle. “Gosh, Nagisa, we all knew you looked up to Koro-sensei like, more than all of us, but still. I’d call that taking a page out of his book.”
“It wasn’t intentional!” Shiota-sensei was laughing again, clearly trying to stifle his own amusement. Lianora bit at her lip, letting out a hiss of amazement at how calmly they seemed to be discussing this. “One of the more vocal troublemakers, Nawatori Touma, tried to intimidate me and said they’d kill me if I tried to boss them around.”
“Ahhh.” Yukimura’s amusement was palpable. “The magic word, huh?”
“I just said they were welcome to try!” there was a fond sort of amusement to the defensiveness of his voice.
“ Really? ”
“...okay.” he laughed again, sheepish, “So I might have stun-clapped him and done the ‘finger-gun to the jugular’ move. Just to make my point that I wasn’t going to be intimidated.”
Akihara let out a brief burst of air in an aborted laugh, pressing his hands to his lower face with a wild sort of grin. That was one way of putting it. Lianora jabbed her elbow into his side again to shut him up.
“Still.” Yukimura was laughing, “Reinstating the Assassination Classroom technique, huh?”
“Assassination Classroom Mark Two,” Shiota-sensei was smiling, now. “Who knows, maybe it’ll have as-good results. There’s a few students I’m pretty sure could grade out of the class if they wanted to, with the proper guidance.”
“Like who?” Yukimura asked, right as Fujisawa mouthed the same words with more than a little bit of doubt.
“Well… Akihara Ryou-san, for one,” Shiota-sensei started, and Akihara stiffened in between his two friends. “He’s got a good grasp of the subjects according to initial assignments, my guess so far is he’s just not great with test-taking. But he’s one I could easily see breaching top ten in the rankings, by finals if not midterms.”
Akihara let out another brief squeak of air, looking from side to side with a sort of giddy excitement forming in his eyes. They’d formed their little trio of misfits to have some sort of insulation from the more violent groups in the class, and the three of them had gotten very, very good at being as unnoticeable as possible. It was a pleasant surprise, then, that Shiota-sensei had noticed them at all, let alone that he had such high hopes for any of them.
“Lianora Rira-san, as well,” Shiota-sensei continued, his voice taking on the more thoughtful, intent tone that he used when he was really into a subject he was teaching. Lianora took her turn to go still and squeak, her cheeks going bright pink and her eyes going wide. “She rather reminds me of Okuda, honestly. Quiet, but very straightforward, and very good at appraising a situation that arises. She’d make a good tactician in war games, and directing people to do what she wants. Her studies are more of the average state, but I feel that’s more because she doesn’t want to stand out as an overachiever.”
“Sorta like Rin-chan?” Yukimura prompted.
“Kind of.” Shiota-sensei confirmed, “They sit together often before class starts with a third student, Fujisawa Kaito-san. Fujisawa seems to be more of a slacker than his friends, and quite a bit more cynical--” Fujisawa let out one brief huff of annoyance, his eyebrows furrowing, before Shiota-sensei continued and his expression shifted into surprised and intrigued, “--but he’s clearly very loyal to the friends he does make, and he’s got a good sense for who to trust and devote time and effort to. If he doubled down on his studies he’d be someone to definitely change the world, I think. The three of them will go far if they stick together. Akihara provides the booksmarts, Fujisawa the people-smarts, and Lianora the situation-smarts. They’re a strong trio.”
The three eavesdroppers shared glances, wide eyed and mildly breathless with a wild sort of emotion mirrored in all of their eyes. It’d been such a long time since anyone had said anything remotely as encouraging as Shiota-sensei’s words, and they had plenty of reason to believe he was being sincere.
“Sounds like you’ve already got big plans for your students,” Yukimura replied fondly, “Keep the rest of us posted, yeah? It might be fun to follow the exploits of some would-be assassins~”
“If my classroom takes on that sort of atmosphere, of course,” Shiota-sensei’s voice was warm. “What about you, Akari? You’ve been busy yourself--”
The end-of-period bell rang overhead, signalling the end of lunch, and the three eavesdroppers heard a faint, disappointed sigh. Shiota-sensei sounded apologetic, “--Oh, uhm... “
“I guess we’ll have to chat some other time,” Yukimura-san allowed, “You have a class this hour?”
“Yes.” There was a rustle of fabric as he wrapped up the bento box. “Starting in five minutes, actually. I’ll call you?”
“Oh, I--” Yukimura laughed a bit, “I actually meant to check if you’d be able to make it up the mountain next month, since you missed this one. But yeah, I’ll be free to talk tonight after seven, we should set a proper meeting time up sometime. Around both our schedules.”
“It’s a date. Once we set the time.” he quickly amended. The pause between them made it difficult for the three to scoot away from the windows -- just enough so that Lianora got to hear one last parting comment before they were safely away.
“I’ll see myself out then. Eyes on the prize, Nagisa.” There was a brightness to Yukimura-san's voice, “You’re going to be amazing.”