Author's Note: I just remembered that Kuroda teaches Literature, not Math, so . . . let's just pretend he teaches math for the sake of this story, m'kay? And I also know that Tokine's out of character here, but I actually wrote this for a short story project for my junior Lit. class and just based it on Kekkaishi because me and my partner were totally obsessed with the anime then. Yoshimori's character was the only one I really kept, and just adjusted the 'Tokine' character to fill five pages of double-spaced, size 12, Times New Roman goodness. Anyway, here's the new and improved 'If They Were Normal' (2011 Revised Edition)! Tokine's still out of character, and Kuroda's still a Math teacher, but Yoshimori is still Yoshimori (hopefully)!
And a LIGHTYEAR is the distance traveled by light in one year; hence, it is a measure of distance, not time. You'd get why I'm pointing this out if you read this till the end. :D
Kekkaishi and all related characters and events belong to Yellow Tanabe.
If They Were Normal
(2011 Revised Edition) If they were normal, well . . . things would still be pretty much the same. Yoshimori/Tokine Oneshot.
Kuroda-sensei counted exactly twenty-seven steps from his desk at the front of the classroom all the way to the lone boy at the back. He stared down at the mop of messy black through his thick-rimmed glasses.
"Hm . . . "
The Algebra teacher thoughtfully tapped a pen against his cheek, contemplating on whether to waste his class time attempting to wake up his prized (yeah, right) student or not. In all honesty, it surprised him that Sumimura Yoshimori managed to reach his current level of education at all. Kuroda-sensei rarely the saw the boy awake, only witnessing the usually inactive narcoleptic actually moving around during lunch, in which said narcoleptic boy typically erupted with bursting energy to get his mandatory drink of coffee milk (which obviously didn't have any caffeine inside of it all, since Sumimura still dropped dead like a zombie after drinking about ten cartons).
"Ah, well," Kuroda-sensei sighed. "Class, turn you book to page forty-six and answer the exercises there. And somebody please tell Sumimura to see me after class."
The afternoon bell rang, signaling the end of classes and mental torture. A certain Sumimura Yoshimori of Class 2-2 rose up automatically from his seat and grabbed his (almost empty) yellow and black bag, heading towards the classroom exit in an almost routine manner.
"Oi, Sumimura," one of his classmates called out. "Kuroda wants to see you after classes."
The dark-haired boy yawned and blinked in reply. "Waaffor?"
His classmate simply shrugged, having been well-versed in the language of Sumimura-after-he-just-woke-up. "Dunno. Find out yourself."
"What a pain . . . " Yoshimori grumbled as he walked out the door. On a simple whim (and the thought that he didn't want to bother to get into trouble), instead of walking to the building exit, he headed towards the teachers' office. He stopped at the door to the faculty room, knocking twice before entering, not even bothering to wait for a reply.
Kuroda-sensei raised his head as his favorite (yeah, right) student walked straight towards his desk, practically dragging along his poor and abused backpack on the tiled floors.
"You wanted to see me, sensei?" Yoshimori asked, his sentence merely a string of incomprehensible words.
"Yes. It concerns your grades," the Algebra teacher stated as he took a piece of paper from a small stack on his desk, holding it out to the boy in front of him. "Sumimura-kun, what do you think this is?"
Yoshimori cracked open one eye and stared at the paper Kuroda-sensei was hanging in front of his face. The first thing that registered in his mind was that the paper was littered with red marks. Ten seconds later, he realized that it was his latest test paper. A large '6/25' was lazily scrawled in red ink on the top-right corner.
"Um . . . my test paper?" The dark-haired boy honest-to-goodness did not realize what the big deal was. He always failed in tests. This was so not the first time he got a grade below 50 percent. Still, he managed not to get held back because he always did well enough on the final exams, and did enough extra-credit work to pull up his hideous quiz and class participation grades.
Kuroda-sensei could feel his eyebrow twitching at the nonchalance and indifference in his student's reply. Didn't Sumimura care whether he passed or not?
"My problem with this paper, Sumimura-kun," Kuroda-sensei stated, "is that the theories and formulas you use are correct, but your answers are completely wrong."
It was a brief five-and-a-quarter seconds that teacher and student exchanged very blank stares until the fourteen-year old finally uttered a very intelligent one-word reply:
"Huh?"
The Algebra professor was just about ready to smack his head onto something very, very, very hard. His subconscious knew that Sumimura Yoshimori was a smart boy—as a teacher, he refused to believe that there was any student who was too dumb to teach—he just didn't put in any effort into his schoolwork. For example, Sumimura wrote down that 5^2 = 10 in one of his calculations. It was a relatively common mistake for students to make because of carelessness. The boy could simply not care any less about his performance in school. And that was what really irked the professor.
"Either bring your grades up, or I will have no other choice that to fail you, Sumimura-kun," Kuroda-sensei said with a tone of finality in his voice. "End of discussion."
Sumimura Yoshimori, age 14, walked down the streets with more of a slump in his shoulders than usual. He didn't really get why Kuroda insisted on pestering him about his grades. He managed to get as far as middle school even with his abnormal sleeping habits, didn't he? None of his other teachers acted like this, so why was Kuroda so insistent about it? At the end of the day, all that mattered was that he passed his final exams and managed to get bumped up to the next year level. Whatever he did in the nine-month duration in which he lugged his lazy butt to a little something called 'school' to get a little something called an 'education' was none of Kuroda's concern.
Right?
"Sheesh . . . I so do not want to understand what that creepy teacher thinks about," the grumpy dark-haired boy muttered as he shouldered his favorite yellow and black backpack. Turning at the street corner, he wondered if he'd see his neighbor-slash-childhood-friend-slash-long-time crush Yukimura Tokine. They typically went home at the same time, but unlike his over-achieving love interest, Yoshimori didn't have any extra-curricular activities to keep him in that dreaded place called 'Karasumori Gakuen' any longer than what was required by the Japanese Department of Education.
So, upon seeing his neighbor-slash-childhood-friend-slash-long-time crush walking down the same street he was traversing, the dark-haired boy's heart rate sped up to a million-billion-gajillion lightyears per half-second. He was happy to say that despite their grandparents absolutely hating each other's guts, they were good friends. Though it was probably because they were the only ones within each others' age range in the neighborhood, Yoshimori liked to think it was because of his good looks and charming personality.
Anyway, being an only child, Tokine was the lone kid in her home, so she naturally looked for friendship and companionship elsewhere. Yoshimori himself was a middle child and was not the only kid in their household. But the Sumimura siblings had admittedly large age gaps between them, so Yoshimori didn't really take to playing with his brothers. His elder brother was seven years older than him and was already away for college—a fact that he took great joy in; he never really did like Masamori. On the other hand, the youngest of the Sumimura siblings was currently only in the fourth grade, and Yoshimori, as a rule of thumb, concluded anything that Toshimori did was 'immature' and 'childish' (though, the youngest son was admittedly the most mature of the three brothers, as their grandfather like to point out).
He jogged ahead and slowed down once he was walking beside her. Yukimura Tokine was one of the star students in Karasumori High—yes, she was two years older than him and already attending high school; so what?—who everyone absolutely adored. She was a straight-A, model student, with her record as flawless as her creamy white porcelain skin.
"Oh. Hey, Yoshimori," Tokine greeted with a small smile.
Oh, every time he saw that million-watt smile, Yoshimori thought that he would die of electrocution. He returned her greeting with his own signature crooked grin which showed off his dimples. He still remembered the moment when Tokine called them 'absolutely adorable', which was mainly why he showed them off.
The fourteen-year old was constantly mesmerized by the older teen's beauty every time he laid eyes on her. Her long, silky black hair was usually tied up in a high ponytail to keep the strands out of her face, but it still shined like a brilliant jewel of the night sky. Her movements were lithe and graceful, thanks to gymnastics. She was called the 'Florence Nightingale' of their time because of her kindness and all-around sweetness. Practically all of the male population of their joint middle school and high school campus adored her, not to mention the teachers, too.
"How's school?" Tokine inquired.
As she asked that question, figurative lightning struck Yoshimori and the figurative light bulb floating over his head lit up as bright as his long-time crush's megawatt smile.
"Actually, Kuroda's been all 'I'm going to fail you in my class unless you pull up your grades!'," Yoshimori started in his best Kuroda-sensei impression, but still keeping his regular composure. He had to get this right if he wanted his desired results. "I'm having a really tough time in Algebra."
"I'm surprised it's only in Algebra," Tokine said, if not, a little dryly. "I hear you sleep in every one of your classes."
"Well, I was wondering if you could tutor me," Yoshimori asked. He decided that just throwing out the question would be the best way to ask her—no more fancy words, no more beating around the bush. Just straight out. Plus a little insurance. "You're good in Algebra, right?"
He warily glanced at the dark-haired girl from the corner of his eye. He saw that she seemed to still be pondering whether to agree or not. She was probably busy with other stuff since it was almost the end of the school year, but he rarely got to see her because of this anymore.
"Sure, I guess," she finally said. Yoshimori let out a sigh of relief that he didn't realize he'd been holding in. He was honestly afraid that she'd say 'no' and turn down his request, like a lot of the other requests he'd made to her before.
"Thanks. You're a great help," Yoshimori said, practically grinning from ear to ear. He was fighting hard to keep his composure. Inside, he was practically leaping around, dancing and shouting in joy. But that would be terribly embarrassing to do, especially in front of Tokine. "So, when can we start?"
"Well, I don't have anything planned for tomorrow yet," she said, tapping a finger against her chin. "How about we meet at the library after class?"
"Good for me," Yoshimori replied. His feet were itching to dance already.
"Alright, then. But make sure your grandfather doesn't find out about this," she said warningly, putting a finger in front of her lips and with a tinge of worry in her voice. "I'll have to keep quiet, too. Obaa-chan is gonna pop a vein if she finds out."
Yoshimori nodded vigorously. "My lips are sealed."
"Good," Tokine smiled. "See you tomorrow, then, Yoshimori." And with that and a small wave afterwards, she entered the gate of the Yukimura compound.
As soon as Yoshimori registered the fact that he had a (study) date with the Yukimura Tokine into his head, he promptly started jumping around and dancing all the way to his room with only one thought in his head:
"I have a (study) date with Tokine!"