History Is Written By The Victors
An Azumanga Daioh fanfiction by Flower of Paper

Summary: The class studies oxymorons, Yukari brings in another new student, and Kagura listens to one of Osaka's ideas.

Today in Yukari's English class, the class was working on the concept of "oxymorons", pairs of words or phrases that contradict each other.

Osaka's paper: Chiyo-chan's pigtails——taiyaki
Kagura's paper: Sakaki——not getting bit by that damn cat
Sakaki's paper: me——cute
Tomo's paper: Ryouko Hirosue——un-sexy
Yomi's paper: Tomo——shutting up
Chiyo's paper: ostrich——flight
Yukari's paper:

Yukari began casually walking around the room, ostensibly to check on her students. (Or perhaps to copy one of their answers. Hmm, Chihiro's answer seemed interesting...what would Kaorin think if she saw that?)

Annoyed at not finding a suitable answer to write on her paper, Yukari strode back to the front of the room.

"OK class, put your pens down for a moment. Let's go over last night's homework. Did any of you manage to translate the English proverb last night?"

Sakaki did, but she was busy staring out the window. Eh? That was the fourth cloud that looked like a penguin...must not forget, the panda book comes out today...

Yomi did, but she was busy pulling Tomo's cheeks. Why'd that idiot Tomo have to go and call her "waffle-thighs"? As if Tomo never had any cellulite to deal with!

Chiyo did, and she correctly translated the proverb into Japanese: "History is written by the victors".

"Excellent, Chiyo-suke! Maybe some day you'll write history!"

"Eh-heh, thank you, Yukari-san."

"But if you're not victorious, well, sucks to be you, then. Anyway, class, we have a new transfer student from America! Let's bring him in now!"

Tomo jumped up. "We don't need another American! We've already got Sakaki!" Sakaki snapped out of her thoughts, realized what Tomo was getting at, and turned pink, trying to hide herself in the corner.

Osaka spacily joined in. "Yeah...I told ya there was an American among us..."

Yukari didn't like the attention turning away from her, and she let it be known. "Hey! Eyes up front! Tomo, sit down before I throw chalk at you!" Tomo sat. "He's an American named Victor Mitchell. And don't worry, he speaks decent Japanese...I hope." She turned to the door and yelled in Japanese. "Victor! Get in here!"

The door opened, and a teenage guy shuffled in uncertainly. He introduced himself in Japanese. "Uh, hi. I'm Victor. My Japanese is bad, I'm sorry. By the way, it's nice to meet you." He bowed.

"It's 'anyway', not 'by the way'. Anyway, I'm your teacher, Tanizaki Yukari. Go ahead and take a seat behind that tan girl." She pointed at Kagura, and Victor headed in her direction.

"Hey, you're that historian guy!" Osaka piped up as he walked by. At the Osakan's random statement, Kagura threw a confused look at Osaka, Chiyo's eyes glazed over, and Victor didn't react. (He didn't understand the Japanese word for "historian".)

Kagura paused. Yeah...his name was Victor, wasn't it? Worth a shot.

When Victor sat down, Kagura turned around and started speaking in Japanese. "Hey, I'm Kagura. Nice to meet ya!"

"Um...hello, Kagura-san."

Then Kagura got an idea. "Hey, considering that proverb we were just talking about, and since your name's Victor and all...did you write any history at all?"

Victor blinked, trying to piece together Kagura's statement given his limited knowledge of Japanese. The fact that he didn't know what proverb she was talking about (nor did he understand the Japanese word for "proverb") didn't help him. "I wrote...historically?"

Kagura tried English, hoping she wouldn't embarrass herself in the process. "Your name...is...Victor. Victors...write...history. Did...you...write history?" Her flush was mostly invisible beneath her tan, and she was grateful for that. So embarrassing! She knew her English sucked, but hopefully he understood.

Kagura waited. She hadn't made a fool of herself, had she?

Victor answered in English. "No. I did not write history."

Kagura translated that, and blinked. But his name was Victor, and wasn't history written by the...uh-oh. Hadn't Osaka been the one to put that idea into her head in the first place?

Kagura turned back around, muttering to herself. "I'll never, never, never listen to Osaka again! That girl's in trouble now! She may be the most adorable idiot on the planet, but she's still in trouble!"