Ore no Gakuen (My School)
Chapter One: Meet the Teachers
Once upon a time, there was a school. A boarding school, no less. It was divided up between the boys dormitory and the girls dormitory. At this particular school, it prided itself in its outstanding achievement of the academics, arts, and sports. It had a strong English and Math program, a beautiful orchestra, and a kick-ass basketball team.
But, as perhaps like all schools, each subject had its opposite: Science with Social, Art with Music, and of course, Math and English.
So it wasn't surprising that the young teachers at this prestigeous school did not quite know each other. In fact, both the Math and English novice teachers hadn't even met before. And just coincidentally, both the Math and English teachers were bachelors.
English Class,
3:14 PM.
Ryou Whyte looked up at the bell. He blinked at it with a slightly surprised expression on his face.
"Well - time does fly by," he said, smiling mildly as he closed his book. "Alright. Just a reminder, your reports on Twelfth Night are due Monday. If you have any questions or concerns, please stop a letter in my office or send me an e-mail." Ryou looked up at his class; thirty young faces of middle-school girls looked back at him. This was his only all-girl class - their previous teacher had left abrupty for a maternity leave and there was only one other teacher who had a spare at the same time. So Professor Ryou Whyte, age twenty three, was stuck with this class.
Not that the girls minded...
They all got up at the bell, shuffling their chairs into their desks and packing up their books. As they began to file out, each one twittered a shy "Goodbye, Professor Whyte" or a "Have a good weekend." As the last few girls began to dwindle away, a little one with thick braids and large, round glasses came up to Ryou's desk. He looked up from his own packing and faced the girl with his usual, gentle smile.
"Yes, Maddy?"
The small, thirteen year old girl with the thick braids flushed a faint pink. Hearing their Professor's voice, the last few girls (taller than Maddy, mind) all turned around to see what was going on. Jealous gapes and envious sighs chorused when Maddy slowly held out a gift-wrapped package, extremely red in the face and unable to look at Professor Whyte.
Ryou blinked, an adorably cute gesture with his wide, brown eyes. He looked at the package.
"Maddy..."
"It's for you," Maddy said, in a squeaky voice. She bit her lip, bowing her head to stifle a giggle. "I...er...I heard it was your birthday soon..."
Again, Ryou blinked. He was about to say something when Maddy jumped forward and shoved the package at him. "It's for you!" she said very quickly, blushing furiously but looking very bashful and happy at the same time. "Happy Birthday, Professor Whyte!"
Without another word, Maddy grabbed her books and ran off out of the door. The other girls gawked and suddenly began talking among themselves. They all looked back to Professor Whyte, who was staring at them like as if they were total enigmas, and on cue, the rest of the girls chorused "Goodbye, Professor Whyte!" and disappeared faster than a pack of bulls out the door.
Ryou was left alone, with the package. Looking at it skeptically, he uncertainly untied the red ribbon and took a peek under the lid - chocolate.
Slowly, Ryou closed the package. He stared at it a little bit, looking totally befuddled.
"My birthday isn't for another month yet..."
Mathematics Class
3:20 PM
(-scribble- 15:30 PM by 24:00 clock!)
"And so," the teacher said patiently, slowly but strictly drawing out a tangent line. "Based on the tangency radii theorem, you'll get the equal tangence theorem...does that make any sense?"
The student being tutored, little black-haired Kazuhiro slowly nodded his head. But the professor instantly noted the gazed look and tapped his pencil sharply. Kazuhiro quickly snapped out of it.
"No sir," Kazuhiro admitted. "I still don't get it."
The dark amethyst eyes looked at him cynically, and Kazuhiro felt himself feeling quite ashamed at not admitting that he did not understand. But who could blame him, after all?
Nearly all the boys at Westhall school admired the Egyptian mathematics teacher. He was tall, handsomely built and strong. His skin was a healthy, luscious tan, and his eyes were a unique yet awesome shade of amethyst. His golden hair was spiked into the air ('naturally', he claimed, for the nth number of times he had been asked.) and he was always immacuately and pratically dressed. He always wore a white shirt that fitted his built chest nicely with a dark black tie, tanned khaki pants and black shoes. One certain occasions he would dress deferently - Awards night he wore his custom-made tuxedo, Sports Day he'd wear a blank muscle shirt instead of his white shirt.
He was disciplined, strict, and confident. He was aloof and emotionally unjarred. He was the epitome of man, radiating manliness for hundred thousand meters radius. He had a charm about him, that manly charm that boys wished to possess, as many of the female teachers swooned at his presence.
Plus, he was the only professor in school who wore a shirt and tie but owned the damnest, hottest motorbike on this side of England.
Professor Ishtar sighed the quietest of sighs, and handed Kazuhiro a sheet of formulas and proofs. "Do you understand these?"
Kazuhiro looked at the sheet, and recognized them as the simpler questions. "Yes sir."
Professor Ishtar nodded. "Do the ones on the back tonight, and come see me on Monday." Kazuhiro looked up at Professor Ishtar's tutoring schedule - and realized that Fridays weren't usually open. Immediately Kazuhiro felt ashamed again, but Professor Ishtar helped him hedge that feeling by sliding him two more sheets of homework.
"I'm positive that with a little more practice, you will understand it by Monday," Professor Ishtar said. He stood up from his wheelly chair (the boys all debated if in his spare time, Professor Ishtar would spin around in it to feel less tense) and picked up his briefcase and leather coat. "If you still don't understand, e-mail me and we'll arrange some tutoring time before the test. Understood?"
Kazuhiro's eyes widened, and he nodded excitedly. "Thank you, Professor Ishtar!"
The professor merely waved a hand. "Yeah yeah. Get going."
Smiling brightly, Kazuhiro picked up his school bag and bowed at the waist (a custom that only Kazuhiro did, because he was Japanese and everyone else at Westhall was of different cultural background). Professor Ishtar said nothing, and watched as the boy say goodbye again, and leave with a bright smile on his face.
Marik rolled his eyes and slid his chair into the desk, which was empty. There were no family pictures, no baby pictures, and no spouse or affectionate letter from an admirer. The desk was clean and empty. "Kids." Then he headed out the door.
3:30PM
The Gymnasium.
"RUN! RUN! RUN DAMN YOU!"
One of the sweating team members, sitting on the bench and lurched forward, panting, weakly looked up.
"Swearing-at-a-team-member-isn't-very..."
"Nice?" the coach sneered. "Screw nice, THIS IS COMPETITION! GET OUT THERE, YOU LITTLE JERKS! YOU CALL YOURSELF A BASKETBALL TEAM? DEFAULT DEFAULT!"
But no one took the coach seriously. He was after all, with his attitude, nearly one of them.
"Coach - My ankle -"
"Get back out there, Johnson!!"
Johnson rolled his eyes and adjusted his ankle. "Yes sir!"
But just as Johnson jumped into the court, their team, wearing red and white muscle-shirts just scored the last point. Cheers erupted from both sides of the room - after all, it was just practice.
"YEAH! WAY TO WIN ANOTHER POINT IN THE LAST FUCKING MINUTE! YEAH!!"
The team, exhausted but filled with adrenaline, all stopped as the bell rang. They all leaned over their knees, breathing heavily. Johnson was on the floor nursing his ankle. The coach ran onto the court.
"Who's the baby with the broken ankle? Oh yeah, hey Johnson..."
The team snickered and watched their coach make his entrance. It was almost hard to tell that he was their coach, excluding the fact that he swore like a trucker and pushed him hard like one. But he was so young and energetic, it was hard to differentiate him between coach and team member.
Coach Touzoku Torao was a tall man - muscular, coarse-tongued, and with strong, powerful legs that could jump higher than any other members of the basketball team. He could run faster than any teacher at school, and always won the teacher track competitions on Sports Day. His brown-red eyes were usually alit with some excitement for something or another, and his voice was always loud - booming, cheering, bellowing bloody hell. His white hair was cut short and was spiked around his cheeks and up in the air, and it always bounced whenever he was talking. His skin was tanned from all the time he had spent outside. He was a very animated and excitable person, which always made him seem not really much of a professional teacher, but almost another student at Westhall.
Even though he was twenty-six (going on twenty-seven) Touzoku still hadn't looked like he had even graduated yet.
Plopping a first-aid kit down, Touzoku knelt down to examine Johnson's ankle. He held it expertly, not wasting any time to find theh sprain. After a few seconds (in between saying "Babies don't wince") he had the ankle wrapped up sufficiently. To finish it off, he added an ice-pack like as if it was the cherry on top of an icecream.
"There. Done."
Experimentally, Johnson rolled his ankle. He grinned.
"Much better coach. Thanks."
"Yeah, shut it with the sappiness," Touzoku waved a hand and stood up. "Next time you have a sprain, you're going to the nurse, understand?"
Johnson nodded. Touzoku looked pleased. "Good."
Turning back to the students, he noted how each and every one of them was looking exhausted. He rolled his eyes.
"Good play out there," he said gruffly. The boys all looked up, some very surprised. Touzoku rolled his eyes again. "GOOD, I said, not terrific. We still have some plays we need to work on. Williams - bend your knees when you jump, damn you! You look like a friggin ballerina out there with your tippy-toey leaps. Scot- you gotta look around you before you toss the ball. That thing isn't a bomb about to go off. If you do it again, I'm going to explode, understand?"
The boy named Scot (with green eyes and brown hair) nodded, but he didn't appear to be afraid of his coach's threat. Everyone knew Touzoku's temper was as quick as it vanished, so no one really took him seriously.
"You better. McQuiggle...I keep telling you. Run, man, run! If we were in Africa right now you'd be left alone on the Sahara for Scar to wallop you up."
"That was a terrible analogy, Coach."
"Shut up, Williams."
Seemingly ending with his rant, Touzoku stood back and crossed his arms over his bare chest. (He never wore a shirt to practices, but by law and policy of the school, he couldn't violate the "public decency" policy during school hours. So during classes he wore a muscle shirt ripped to his abdomen (because it got too "friggin' hot" during school)).
"Okay. Practice is over. Get your butts out of here and we meet on Monday."
The boys all nodded, and exhausted, dragged themselves off to the locker rooms. As they left, Touzoku bellowed at them, "KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK TEAM!"
"Well," a low voice chuckled from behind Touzoku. "A praise, aren't I ever surprised."
Spinning, Touzoku whipped around and saw Marik standing behind him, leaning against the brick wall. The suitcase was gone, and so was the leather jacket. Now the professor was donning a black muscle shirt, but his usual khaki pants. A smirk was on his lips. "It's 15:31, you know."
Touzoku snorted. "Oh please. So I'm a minute late."
"If we're a minute late, they might give away our table."
"A likely story," Touzoku said, waving his hand. "Alright alright. If you want me to leave, then just let me get changed."
"You actually get changed?" Marik remarked, his smirk widening.
Touzoku scowled at him. "NO, I just normally walk out in broad daylight without a shirt, dripping with sweat, stinking of prespiration, and with my shorts down to my hips. Geez, Marik."
Laughing, Marik stopped teasing his friend and stepped away from the wall. "Gosh, like as if that sounds totally unfamiliar...I swear, wasn't it just yesterday the Headmaster was complaining about a salty stench in the air? Oh, right, and wasn't it just last night that the female side of the school screamed in fright because of what was it... public indecency?"
"Oh please," Touzoku snorted, cranking open the shower room door. "They weren't screaming in fright, Marik. They were screaming in fangirlish glee."
Marik laughed. "Yes, yes, because you have fangirls, Touzoku. Fangirls."
Touzoku grinned. "At least they're not fanboys."
He shut the door. Marik glared at the door.
"YOU BETTER NOT SING IN THE SHOWER AGAIN, TOUZOKU!"
Music / Bandroom
3:45 PM
Inside, the orchestra was playing "God Save the Queen." At the first glance, one would assume the students were concentrating very hard - they were after all, looking at their sheet music with great intensity. However, at second glance, one would notice that a few of them were shaking, and their eyes occasionally darted to the conductor in the front.
The conductor was one Japanese-born Bakura Akako. A thin man, slimly built, and quite young-appearing at the age of twenty four (going on twenty five). He had long white hair, cut into sleek layers to his midback. His eyes, when open, were a deep red color, rich with passion and intensity. His face and skin were quite pale, nearly pallid. His fingers were long and slender, and he was always elgantly dressed - white shirt, black jacket (finest quality, of course) and black pants and shoes.
But it wasn't how he dressed that scared the children...
By tradition, he was to be called Professor Akako, or Akako-sensei. But for whatever reason, every student called him by his first name, and Bakura didn't mind.
One of the students in front was shaking in his seat.
"STOP."
The voice was clear, cut and succinct. It was loud but it was soft at the same time. It was kind, but deadly as well. The music halted instantly.
Professor Bakura opened one eye to survey the room. Everyone started to noticeably twitter.
"...Somebody..." The other eye opened, and both eyes now began to rummage around the room suspisciously. "Is. FLAT! YOU!!!!"
He pointed his stick at the shaking boy with the tuba, as though to stab him with it. The boy whimpered but said nothing.
"...ARE FLAT! DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?! YOU ARE FLAT! CAN YOU NOT HEAR A SHARP NOTE FROM A FLAT NOTE, A MELODY FROM A CRESCENDO?! DO YOU EVEN KNOW WHAT INSTRUMENT YOU ARE PLAYING?!"
The poor little boy began to shake. Bakura snapped his stick against the stand.
"ANSWER ME."
The boy shook greatly, and finally whispered, "...a tuba..."
"IT'S NOT JUST A TUBA!" Professor Bakura snarled and whipped around. "I'll give you one last chance. From the last bar, please. One...two...THREE..."
The orchestra began to play. When it came to the little boy's note, he was shaking so badly, this time, he cracked.
"OUT!!!!!" Bakura violently tore away from his stand to yell at the boy. "OUT! YOU DO NOT BELONG IN MY ORCHESTRA, DO YOU UNDERSTAND?! YOU DO NOT DESERVE TO PLAY THE TUBA, YOU DO NOT DESERVE THAT SEAT WHERE YOU'RE SITTING ON, AND YOU DO NOT DESERVE THIS MUSIC! OUT!"
The boy whined but scrambled out of his seat immediately, quickly hurrying down the steps with his tuba. Bakura began to head over to his piano.
"OUT! THE QUEEN WOULD BE ASHAMED TO HEAR YOU PLAY ONCE MORE! THE NEXT TIME YOU GET IT WRONG, I'LL THROW THIS PIANO AT YOU, DO YOU UNDERSTAND? NOW GET OUT! OUT OUT OUT!!"
The boy choked and instantly crashed out the door.
Heaving, Bakura collapsed onto his bench. He looked up and briefly noted the clock.
"Shimatta," he cursed lightly under his breath. Professor Bakura had a tendancy to swear in Japanese whenever he was particulary stressed. And who could blame him? They had a performance three weeks from now, and they still were nowhere ready...
Bakura waved an ignorant hand. "Practice dismissed," he said offhandedly. The other hand was poised down at the key of his beloved piano. No one moved, and Bakura turned to look at him. "Do I have to hold each of your hands to get you to go out? OUT!"
Instantly, the whole room was at an uproar, and in five seconds flat, the students had disappeared.
Sighing, Bakura groaned, and slowly began to tap his fingers against the keys of the piano.
And so forth, the lovely start to a new story. It was a Friday afternoon - a typical Friday afternoon - in the school of Westhall.
A/N:
So, this is an AU fic, but I'm trying to keep everyone sort of in character. Well, I guess I'm exaggerating them a little bit, cause I have to put them in modern context. Marik's based (once again) on Japanese Marik, who's really quiet and stern all the time. He's like, so unmoving.
Touzoku is (also) based on Japanese Touzoku, who swears like crazy and can't seem to sit still for one whole episode. (Watch the AE arc and Battle City and compare the two - Marik doesn't move at all except for his arms and when Obelisk knocks him over, and Touzoku's jumping from floors to sarcophaguses to heck...I don't even know how he got onto those pillars and the friggin roof in episode 20...7?)
Bakura is based on a weird juxtaposition of English Bakura and Japanese Bakura. He's got the Japanese Bakura's temper (what with the whole spazzing thing) but he's got a music affinity or somewhat grace akin to English Bakura. His character's going to be further extended, so he's not always going to be spazzing. This is just Bakura in his worst mood. Because of him being a 'music teacher', I was THiiiiiiis close to calling him "Bakura Matsumoto", but then I thought ppl might thought me just a tad bit obsessive. XD
More to come, I hope you enjoy this story. It was inspired and a bit of a collaboration with darktenshi17...so darktenshi17, this is for you!
-AL