Calophi - I guess we all owe our thanks
for getting this category up. So thank you! I’ll be posting the whole thing up
in one go or at least in the next two days. Thanks again for the feedback!
True Confessions 2
“Eh? What’s this?”
“Operation Stop Love?”
Yankumi had the grace to
blush as the two women leaned over her shoulders to peer at the paper she tried
so desperately to hide. She had spent all night thinking up a plan to stop
Sawada’s advances and she was quite proud of the list she had compiled. Short
of threatening the teen with a sound beating, she would have to make do with
these smaller but no less effective tactics.
“Ah, this…this is
nothing,” she said quickly, laughing as she began to stuff the paper between
her text books. “It’s just plans for a…a…book I’m writing.”
“What’s that?”
Kyoto-sensei asked loudly. The head teacher was always quick to take notice of
matters that concerned Yamaguchi and her delinquent students. His plans to get
rid of that class had so far fallen short each and every time, but he was going
to succeed someday. It was only a matter of time. He smirked knowingly as he
walked towards the flustered woman. “You are writing a book, Yamaguchi sensei?”
“Ah…uum…” Shit! What
have I gotten myself into! How am I going to tell them otherwise!
“You do know that
teachers in this school are not allowed to write books, at least while on the
job until they are fired…eh…out of the school.”
His smirk grew wider and
Yankumi could feel her jaw beginning to ache from having to force a polite
smile on her visage. “Ah…I didn’t know that, Kyoto-sensei. I’ll stop writing
the book then.”
“Eh?”
“Oh, would you look at
the time! I have to be at my class now!”
And hardly giving the
others a chance to say anything else, she bowed quickly and fled the teacher’s
lounge.
“Whew…thank goodness I
managed to get out of that one,” she said with a soft laugh as she walked down
the corridor. “It would have been trouble trying to explain that to anyone.
Geez, trust
“Shin! Oy, Shin! Wait
up!”
She froze at the sound of
the name; her stomach doing a nervous flip-flop as the memory of Sawada’s lips
against hers came rushing back to her mind. Her fingers tightened around the
textbooks as she took a tentative step forward. Leaning over the rail slowly,
she could make out the figures of Uchiyama and Noda walking towards the
dark-haired boy waiting for them. As usual, Shin looked cool and collected; a
hand within the pocket of his pants and some t-shirt with a rock band logo on
it hidden beneath his school jacket. He gave a small nod towards his friends as
they approached. They were beginning to talk about something rather earnestly
and being the curious woman she was, Yankumi found herself leaning closer and
closer to…
“Aieee!” The books fell
to the ground below with a loud crash and for a heart stopping moment it seemed
as if she was suspended above the rail about to join her books! How in the
world had she managed to lean out this far?
“Yankumi!” Uchi and Noda
yelled out in surprise and mild panic as they noticed the person responsible
for the noise.
Damn it! I’m going to
die in front of my students like a peeping tom! If only I hadn’t stopped to
look at…eh?
A strong arm was wrapped
around her waist, pulling her back to safety. She didn’t need to turn around to
know who her rescuer was. She could feel her cheeks flaming with embarrassment
as well as another emotion she had only thought she could have for Shinohara.
“You just don’t know when
to give up, do you?” Shin muttered softly into her hair, making no effort to
release her just yet. “Do you want to kill yourself?”
“Ah…I…I was just…” With
an effort, she pulled herself away from his embrace and held up her hands
before her as if warding off the devil. She couldn’t get herself to look him in
the eye and settled for staring at a spot on his forehead. “I was just about to
tell you boys to start heading to class. If you had been late…”
“…I would have to scrub
the toilets,” Shin finished with a small smirk while trying to hide his
disappointment at how quick she had pulled away.
“Bu…but of course!”
“Shin! Yankumi!” Uchi
cried out in concern as he and Noda ran towards them. They both held Yankumi’s
books in their hands. “Are you okay?”
“Yes,” she said with a
relieved sigh, glad that she was no longer alone with Shin. He really was
beginning to make it difficult to think these days…or maybe since yesterday.
“Ah, thank you for picking up my books…crap!”
She watched, as if in
slow motion, as the dreaded paper filled with her plans began to fall from the
book Noda was waving about. Eyes widening in horror, she reached out to snatch
it from the air, but someone else was much faster and now held it in his hand.
Oh…shit.
Shin stared at the
hastily scribbled words finished with a comical picture of Yankumi with a fist
pump in the air at the bottom of the page. “What is…?”
“Nothing!” Yankumi cried
out with a laugh that felt a bit forced. She grabbed the paper and her books
from the boys quickly and began to shove them onwards. “Now, now, let’s not
stand around here doing nothing! It’s time for class, okay? Class!”
Shin spared her another
quizzical look, allowing himself to be pushed towards their homeroom. Operation
Stop Love? What the hell did that mean? Geez, just when he thought he had
managed to figure her out, she turned around and did something completely new
and different.
As usual,
the room was noisy and boisterous – that was until Yankumi bellowed at them to
shut the hell up. Not exactly the way a teacher ought to speak to her students,
but then again, they had come to know of her background and were quite used to
her mood swings and sometimes foul language.
Shin settled into his
chair and promptly laid his head on the desk with a soft sigh. It felt
relatively cool against his heated forehead as he tried to convince himself
that it was only because of having fled up that flight of stairs to rescue her.
Just how many times had he done that now? It seemed that he was either helping
her get out of trouble or she was the one saving his hide. Of course it was a
blow to his pride that a woman had to help him out in fights, but he had come
to find out that he didn’t really mind having Yankumi by his side…to fight with
and for him of course.
His lashes grew heavier
as her voice droned on although the soft murmurs from the students were
beginning to rise in tempo. Kuma was saying something to him now, but he could
barely hear a thing.
/Do you like me?/
Geez…what kind of a
question is that? What had she expected him to say? Did she think he was going
to blurt out his feelings for her just like that? Of course he still wasn’t
really sure of what to think of Yankumi anyway. She had shown she was
strong…and smart – when she wasn’t too busy spacing out and dreaming of that
lawyer guy. He groaned and closed his eyes. That was another problem too. Not
only did he have to deal with being treated as a student, he knew he had his
work cut out for him since Shinohara was in the picture.
/Sawada…kiss me…/
His cheeks felt hot and
he had to clamp his thighs together quickly. No, he hadn’t been imagining
things. He was sure she had said those words to him yesterday on the roof top.
And to make it even better, she had asked him – Sawada – to kiss her not Shinohara. It was a pity he had chickened
out at the last minute. He had gotten so nervous at the thought of actually
kissing her completely that he had backed out. He sighed again. She really was
cute when she chose to be and that unfortunately, was more than half of the
time.
“So…anyone know the
answer?”
He opened his eyes
slowly, listening to the restless shuffle of feet and heads being scratched. He
lifted his head to stare at the question on the board, his mind processing the
equation and coming to an answer just as quickly. He figured he’d wait a little
more for someone else to give it a shot.
“Eh? No one knows the
answer to this?”
He almost felt sorry for
her, standing alone before the class - looking so small and helpless like a
sheep thrown in the lion’s den. He almost felt like knocking his classmates’
heads together to make them think! It wasn’t that difficult of a problem. This
was elementary school stuff.
Come
on…someone…answer…
Her shoulders slumped a
little and he felt something hard twist within his chest. Shit! Why did he have
to give a damn so much? With a soft sigh, he began to lift his hand to reply
but to his surprise as well as every one else’s, Kuma’s hand shot up quickly.
“I know! It’s…eh…two,
right?”
Way to go, Kuma, he thought as a smile – almost
proud to an onlooker – came to Shin’s lips. He listened to Yankumi’s whoop of
delight and the subsequent round of applause and cheers from the rest of the
students. Kuma was a good kid at heart. Sure he was heavy-set and had a brain
the size of a pea, but he had his moments every once in a while.
“How did you get it
right, Kuma?” Yankumi asked with unbridled joy. It meant that her lessons were
finally getting across.
“Ah,” the blond began
with a sheepish smile. “It’s because Shin teaches me after school sometimes.”
Shin groaned and laid his
head on the desk again. Did he really have to say that?
“Eeeh! Is that true,
Sawada!” Yankumi cried out in pleasure. “You should become a teacher too!”
The next thing he knew,
she was ruffling his hair and he was trying to swat it away, trying hard not to
blush at the contact. Everyone else was beginning to cheer him as well, but all
he could see and feel were the warm eyes, her brilliant smile and the soft
touch of her hands which sent pleasant tingles down his spine.
She
groaned in dismay as she stared at Operation Number Two: Do not encourage
him in class.
Well, she had definitely
not kept that end of the bargain. She had gone to praise him for teaching Kuma
and had even touched him! She stared at her hand as if it was guilty for making
her go against her own rules. This would never do. She would have to really
make Sawada hate her or he was going to keep falling in love with her.
“Oh!” She slapped her
hands against her cheeks and stared at her flushed features in the mirror. “I
shouldn’t be thinking about that!”
“Thinking about what?”
Kawashima sensei asked as she walked into the restroom to stand beside the
smaller woman. “Why do you look so red?”
“Red? I do?” Yankumi
gaped at her reflection again and shook her head. Goodness! She hadn’t even
thought of Shinohara sensei all this time and yet she was feeling this out of
sync!
“Uh huh,” Kawashima
powered her face as she spoke. “Fujiyama sensei and I are going to the bar
tonight. Do you want to join us? Then you can tell us all about your Operation
Stop Love.”
“Ah…that…”
“You weren’t planning on
keeping it a secret from us, were you? If it’s a way to snag a good looking
guy, then I’m all for it.”
Snag? I’m trying to
keep him away!
“So will you join us?”
Kawashima asked again.
Deciding that she had
nothing better to do anyway and could do with the time away from her turbulent
thoughts, Yankumi found herself nodding in agreement. “Yes…I’ll be there.”
At the end of the
get-together, Yankumi was just about ready to crawl into bed and never wake up
for the rest of her life. Not only had she been forced to drink more sake than
she would have liked, she had had to deal with the advances of the man
Kawashima sensei had set her up with. Why hadn’t the nurse told her that she
was bringing two men along? If Yankumi had known, she would have steered clear
away from them.
“With that sigh, it
doesn’t look like you had a lot of fun.”
“Like hell I had a lot of
fun,” she replied automatically, barely aware of slipping into the cruder
language of her roots. “I could have bashed his face in if he had come on to me
one more time…eh?”
She blinked and gaped at
the smirking teen walking past her. As usual, Sawada was carrying yet another
bag of his dinner perhaps and although she had told him he could come to her
house anytime for a meal, he was being such a stubborn brat.
“What are you doing
here?” she asked rather dumbly.
He held up his bag,
hardly waiting for her to catch up to him. “I’m going to eat. I’m hungry.”
“You can come over to my
place, remember? My grandfather has wondered why you’ve not come in a while.”
He shrugged lightly and
turned his face away, hardly breaking his stride as they crossed the street.
“I’ll come…I just don’t feel like imposing myself on you.”
“Imposing yourself on
us!” she cried out, slapping his shoulder with a force that had him wincing.
She really didn’t know her own strength, did she? “You’re not imposing! We told
you that you’re welcome anytime! But come to think of it…this isn’t your usual
route.”
His blush darkened and he
quickened his steps. No need telling her that he had been following her all
evening. “I met up with Uchi and the others,” he lied quickly. “So we had to
come down this way.”
“Oooh, is that so?” Hold
on a minute! What am I doing! I’m not supposed to be encouraging him, remember?
So why am I inviting him over to my house? Why am I even walking with him!
He stopped as he noticed
that she wasn’t keeping up with him anymore. He cocked his head to the side and
eyed her warily. “Yankumi? What’s wrong?”
“No…nothing,” she said
quickly and with a small bow. “I’ll just be heading home now. I go that way,
remember?”
He felt something heavy
fall to the pit of his stomach and he grit his teeth for a second, wondering
why he had put so much hope in her coming over to his place again. He had even
bought an extra pack of noodles for that purpose.
“Ah…so…”
“I’m tired,” she said
with a small smile of apology. “All that drinking and partying with the grownups
is making me sleepy.”
He felt something cold
creep down his spine at the deliberate jab, his hand tightening around the bag
as he watched her carefully. That’s right. He wasn’t a ‘grown up’ yet. He was
just another kid in her class after all. How dumb had he been to think that she
was the only one who could understand him?
“I see…” he said coldly.
“Well…don’t let me keep you.”
Without another glance,
he spun on his heels and walked away leaving Yankumi shivering beneath the
warmth of her jacket. It would seem that without even trying much – she had
somehow pushed Shin away.
Operation Stop Love – Success!
So why didn’t she still feel happy about that?
He let himself into his
apartment and didn’t even bother turning on the lights. Of course it helped
that the neon lights from a building outside illuminated the room a little, but
it was still relatively dark and he was grateful for it.
He half-stumbled towards
his bed and fell heavily upon it, closing his eyes tightly as he tried to will
away the burning sting in his eyes.
God, how could he have
been so stupid! He cursed his age over and over again, pounding his fists into
the pillows in frustration. It couldn’t be helped really, he thought after a
while. As long as he remained in her class, he was always going to be a student
to her and nothing more.
He rolled onto his back
to stare blindly at the ceiling for several long minutes. What could he do now?
How could he keep up with her? The more he thought, the more one possible
solution came to mind. He knew it would hurt her…but if he hoped to make a statement,
he would have to pull this off to perfection.
He would give her the
cold shoulder – ignore her completely if need be – until she would come running
back to him begging for forgiveness.