Disclaimer: I do not own Gokusen.

Author's note: As of March 22, 2011 I've decided to edit the story and adding a bit of things here and there. I have the rest of the chapters mapped out and planned though and all I can say it'll end around 13 chapters.

Okaeri - Welcome Home

Okaeri ~Reunions~

By: Higasa

Chapter 1 – From Japan

Sawada Shin didn't know when, but he and Yankumi had stopped exchanging letters after about a year being in Africa.

At first the sight of letters felt welcoming as he read about everything that was going on in her life. Her newest troublemaking students, Kyou-san finally got himself a girlfriend (even though the Kuroda household kept telling him to bring her around for dinner, he never did), and so many more.

And he had return wrote to her about Africa and his volunteer work. It had been nothing like Tokyo University, but still it was refreshing to help out the little kids.

They had never talked about Shin's confession to her. Things then started to get busy for the both of them and their letters were stopped. Shin did call once a month, but their conversations were brief and straight to the point.

He sighed, as he ran his fingers through his hair and took a sip of water.

"Shin! Are you done with your break yet?" a voice called out to him.

"Yeah, I'm coming," he answered back. He put back the lid on the bottle and walked back into the tent.

...

The two colleagues couldn't believe their eyes that Yankumi was perhaps the only one that was still soundly asleep as their plane was hijacked by terrorists. And ever so more frightful when they saw that she stretched her arms in the air, yawning loudly if the plane has landed.

It was supposed to be one of the best vacations of relaxation, spas, and no Sawatari to lecture them about delinquents and such. However this was totally unexpected as they had already been landed and a voice over the microphone from the pilot telling them that they were hijacked.

"Yamaguchi-sensei," they hissed fearfully, trying to get her to notice what was happening on board.

"Hey, you three didn't I tell everyone just to shut up?" He pointed their gun at them threateningly and then proceeded to walk down the aslie.

"Excuse me," an old woman several seats away from them said. "May I please have a glass of water?"

His reaction was swift and aim his gun at her. "Shut up you old hag!"

Yankumi was livid. Nobody disrespected the elderly and certainly not that scumbag. She stood up in her seats and called out, "Hey you!"

He swerved his head again and she was in the aisle with her hands on her hips. Her lips pursed in a frown.

"Yamaguchi-sensei!" the two colleagues pleaded in a whisper loudly.

"You asked for it," he said, nodding to his henchmen.

...

The news of the hijackers from Japan reached the village in Africa where Sawada Shin worked. It wasn't a big village, but it wasn't too small either. The tents were located in the middle of the desert and about half an hour away from the nearby town.

"Shin! Shin!" a female voice cried urgently, running towards the red haired man, who was sitting next to a young boy of about eleven years old. The flap to the tent opened wildly, as she rushed in with the day's newspaper in hand.

Shin stopped reading to the little boy and looked up to see one of his colleague. Her usual frizzy hair was even more tangled. "What is it?" he asked in alarm. "Did something happened?"

"Didn't you mention Yamaguchi Kumiko was your former high school teacher?" she asked.

"Yes," he answered. They only spoke of her once or twice, but he was surprised that she remembered since they had discussed it about a year ago and never spoke of it since then,

"Here, I think you might be interested in this…" the girl said, putting the front of the newspaper down onto the bed. Shin read the newspaper aloud.

"Three hijackers defeated by Akado High School math teacher, Yamaguchi Kumiko." Shin felt his heart leapt to his throat as he saw her picture in front of him. It wasn't a big photograph, but it wasn't a small one either. The three hijackers were in a bowing position and Yankumi, with her usual pigtails (although not the usual jerseys for once), was right in the middle of it. "Here." Shin said, folding the paper and handing it back to her. He continued to read to the little boy as though the girl didn't interrupted them.

"So…that's it…?" she blinked in surprised.

Shin looked up. "What are you talking about?" he asked.

"You're not going to book a ticket and hop on the next plane to go see if she's alright?" she asked incredulously.

"Yankumi is Yankumi," Shin said, shrugging his shoulders. "She can take care of herself."

"But she was your first love," his colleague, Sara Sakamoto sputtered. "Aren't you at the very least worried? From what you told me, she seems like a reckless person – always the one for action. You should call her and see if she's okay."

"The paper said she was fine," he said with finality. "And that was, Sakamoto, not is."

"Look Shin," Sara said, lips purse and her hands on her hips. "For the past three years you've been working here, you never…I mean never, took some time off and go back to visit. Marty does, so does Kyohei and Elizabeth." She ticked off the names of their other colleagues. "Everyone, but you." Sara emphasized, hoping that she got the point across.

"I don't need you to lecture me, Sara," he growled.

"Excuse us for a minute," Sara said to the boy, taking Shin's hand and dragging him away from the bed and out from the tent.

It was the middle of spring, yet it was as hot as ever in Africa. There wasn't a working AC in the tent, but it was cool every now and then with the wind blowing.

"It's easy to run away from your problems, Shin," Sara continued, as if there weren't any interruptions before. "But running away isn't going to solve anything. It never does."

"I am not running away," Shin muttered, putting his hands inside his pockets. "There's still a lot of work to do at the village. I can't go home yet."

Sara sighed. "Elizabeth, Kyohei, and I can increase our work shifts. And Marty can too when he comes back from his own vacation. You can go home…see your family, friends, Yankumi….You're a hard worker Shin, but you can't just work to suppress your feelings for her. I'm sure she'll be happy to see you too." She added.

Shin looked back at the tent and then to Sara, whose eyes were looking at him fiercely. "You haven't even gone to your best friend's wedding either. So I suggest that you take a month off and then come back."

The tent flap opened again. "I suggest you take Sara's advice as well," a tough looking male, Kyohei, agreed.

"Go get 'em, Shin," The female said, slapping him on his back. "Don't worry about the work here. The three of us can handle this. Don't forget to bring us back a souvenir or two."

"Fine. I'm sure Sara put you guys up to this as well," Shin grumbled.

"Who wouldn't be convincing with a box of chocolate all the way from Hokkaido?" Elizabeth gushed with delight. "Strawberry mousse, Chocolate creame…"

Kyohei shook his head. "You and your glutton. Make sure you don't bring back anything edible, Shin, otherwise Elizabeth might eat it all before we can try something."

"Hey!" Elizabeth pouted. "I'm a growing girl, who needs food."

"Who's growing?" Shin smirked. "You're already past your teens."

"Not you too?" Elizabeth groaned and turned to the other girl. "Sara, help me out here."

Sara just smiled and pulled out an envelope from her pocket, handing it to Shin.

"What is this?" he asked, raising his eyebrow.

"Your flight ticket. The plane leaves tomorrow at noon. Steven is going to take you to the airport."

"I can't accept this," Shin said, trying to push the envelope back.

"You can and you will. We know that you probably just say yes just so that I don't have to nag you to go on vacation, but you probably won't buy a ticket anyways so we did the work for you," Sara said firmly. "It's on us. Everyone helped chipped in."

"Well it was Sara's idea, actually," Kyohei said amicably. "We just went along."

"Actually Sara lost on the heads and tails game…"

"Shut up, Elizabeth, Shin doesn't need to know," Sara said, clapping her hand on the girl's mouth quickly to keep her quiet. Her cheeks were pink.

"What was that about?" Shin asked.

"Nothing," Kyohei said hastily and laughed nervously. "Nothing at all."

Shin sighed. "Alright, you win."

And that was how Shin boarded the plane the next afternoon. Three years working in Africa had changed Shin, but he was still the same Shin that left Japan three years ago. As he looked out at the clouds he just hoped that Yankumi was still the same old Yankumi before he left.