Grim Trigger Complex
Author's Notes- I uploaded a couple of chapters at once, since nothing much happens in the first. Constructive criticism is extremely welcome.
Disclaimer- I don't own any of the recognisable characters or concepts. No profit is being made and no copyright infringement is intended.
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Tatsumi was taking a class for a maths lesson straight after registration, and so he didn't stay in the teacher's room for long. The other staff gradually showed up and were introduced to him, while he smiled politely and thought he'd managed to remember most of the names. By the time he'd had a moment alone to take one final look over his plans, there were ten minutes to go to the end of registration, and he left the lounge.
He entered the room once most of the class had retrieved their maths books from the lockers outside, a few late students still slipping past him apologetically. It was a pleasant classroom decorated with posters and artwork from past students, still rather dark at this time since the windows faced west. He perched on his desk, deciding to keep it informal, and waited while the last few students came back into the room. Most of them were eyeing him with faint curiosity, wondering who the new teacher was and how much he would let them get away with.
"Good morning," He greeted the class as the noise died down and they watched him, expectantly. "My name is Mr Tatsumi, and I will be taking your maths lessons this year," He stood to face the board and wrote his name in clear sharp chalk lines. "I believe your previous teacher has kept you all very well up to date, so we'll be starting the next text book on time. However, I will be holding revision sessions in a few weeks as many of the topics on the previous book will be of great importance for understanding the work this term,"
He wasn't sure where to go from there. Tatsumi was more reserved than some of his acquaintances like Tsuzuki or Watari, and while he was willing to be a mentor, he wasn't out to make friends with his students. Deciding that was a sufficient introduction, he launched into his first lesson.
They mostly seemed like adept students. He introduced the subject, guided them through a few examples on the board and answered a few questions. While talking them through it, Tatsumi had already spotted a few students who he suspected might need a little extra help. There were two slightly confused looking girls who alternated asking the only questions raised between them, and one rather dumpy boy in the first row who had a hopeless, completely lost expression on his round face. The rest seemed to be following his lesson, at least as well as students ever did on their first day back at school. Once the demonstration was over, he chalked up a handful of exercises for them to practise working through alone, and gave the class ten minutes to complete them.
The two girls' hands immediately shot into the air and waved around to catch his attention. With a faint sigh, Tatsumi went over to answer their questions, and spent another five minutes explaining the theory again. The boy in the front row still looked hopelessly out of depth, but wasn't asking for help, just glancing nervously at the students working to either side of him. Tatsumi sat back down, trying to look approachable, and studied the students while they worked.
The rumoured cocaine addict was there, a handsome tall young man with a blandly innocent expression that made him look as though he'd never so much as smoked a cigarette in his life. So was one of the anorexic girls, working diligently away in the front row and already on the last two equations. Tatsumi thought she didn't look ill at all, but after a second glance he could see swollen cold sores beneath the lipgloss and shadows under her eyes that were probably from malnutrition rather than studying late. He shook his head slightly at the sad sight, and looked away.
From the seating plan, he identified his next problem student. Hisoka was sat to the side of the room, gazing out of the window, his arms resting lightly on the desk before him. All Tatsumi could see from here was a sharp profile turned into the watery morning light and a wash of pale wheat-blonde hair spilling over the boy's eyes. After a moment, Hisoka seemed to sense Tatsumi's curious gaze upon him. He turned slowly back to face the front, meeting the teacher's eyes with cool disdain. Tatsumi automatically opened his mouth to say something, but there was nothing he could fault Hisoka on. His uniform was immaculate and his expression perfectly neutral, with only that aloof look in his eyes marking him as trouble. Tatsumi turned away first.
Once he'd given them enough time to complete the assignments, he stood up and worked through the first one on the board. After that, he asked volunteers to talk through the next few, and was pleasantly surprised to see that none of them went wrong. Of course, they were fairly easy examples.
"Good work," Tatsumi nodded in acknowledgement, and then moved onto the second part of the lesson. This wasn't easy stuff for high school students to pick up, and he was pleased to see that most of them were paying attention. One noticeable exception was Hisoka, who was gazing back out the window, radiating boredom and apathy.
After Tatsumi had finished talking the class through it, he stood up and crossed over to the board, chalking down an equation.
"One example to work through as a class first, and then we'll move onto exercise two individually," He said, then leaned forward and pretended to scan the seating plan on his desk. "Let's see.. Hisoka Kurasaki? Would you care to work through this for us?" He held out the chalk.
Hisoka rose slowly, his expression indifferent and walked to the front of the class. He took the chalk stick without acknowledgement, keeping his back to the class as he examined the equation for a second, and then began slowly chalking underneath it. After just a few strokes he stopped, and stepped back, handing the chalk to Tatsumi.
"Would anyone like to help Hisoka-" Tatsumi began automatically, and then glanced at the board. The answer was written underneath. Hisoka hadn't got stuck and given up, he'd worked it out in his head without having to write down all the equations needed to find the answer.
"Very good, Mr Kurosaki," He acknowledged, his eyebrow raised slightly. "Would you like to explain to the rest of the class how you got this answer?"
Hisoka didn't answer, but wordlessly took back the chalk and turned to the board. For a minute, the only sound was the scratching of chalk, and then he handed it back once he had finished and gazed at the floor, waiting for Tatsumi to dismiss him.
"Very well," Tatsumi said. "You may take your seat," He pointed to the first chalked out line as Hisoka walked past him and back to his desk, his gaze immediately returning to the window and the grey early morning outside. "Would anyone like to explain where Hisoka got these numbers from?"
The rest of the class managed to work through the equation, and after a few more questions he set them to work on the next exercise. Tatsumi was immediately kept busy walking around the classroom answering questions. The boy in the front row finally worked up the nerve to ask for help, and not a moment too soon as he had barely grasped any of the concepts explained in the lesson. A trio of girls he had noticed passing notes in the back row waved their hands around frantically until he came over and spent five minutes trying to help them, wondering why they kept dissolving into breathy giggles over their own stupidity and fumbling with the most simple equations. He didn't realise the answer until he was walking away and heard a short, slightly hysterical laugh from one of the girls, and realised he would be the subject of much avid note-passing in future lessons.
Tatsumi was pleasantly surprised by how fast the lesson had went. He found the work more absorbing than he had expected. Despite the slow pace, it was far more satisfying than balancing accounts and the class hadn't given him any real trouble at all. Most of them appeared to find him quite approachable and there was no more disruption than the odd whisper or discreet note passing.
Since the next class was music, the students would be leaving to go to another room. Tatsumi watched them gathering their notebooks and papers, quite content with his first lesson. The students were rather noisy, but it was the first day back and they had a lot to catch up on, and so he sat back indulgently and let them chat as they got their things together and began to leave the classroom in twos and threes. With the exception of one student, he noticed with a frown. Hisoka wasn't talking to any of them. He stood slowly and picked up his books in silence as he turned to leave.
"One minute," Tatsumi called out, as a thought crossed his mind. "Hisoka, may I have a word?"
Hisoka shot him a slightly baleful look, but crossed over towards his desk and stood there quietly with his pale sandy hair washing into his eyes. Up this close, Tatsumi could see a violet and green smudge on one sharp cheekbone that might be the bruises Watari had been talking about, a mark like a thumbprint that contributed to the permanently sullen set of Hisoka's fine features. Tatsumi didn't know much about teenagers, but the hard, caustic look in the boy's green eyes was the sort of look he'd associate with teenage girls who showed up to school with split lips and smoked behind the bike sheds, or hard faced boys with track-marked arms who spent most of their time wandering the streets.
"Mr Tatsumi?" Hisoka asked in a soft monotone, standing there with his notebooks held neatly across his chest. There was another bandage just showing under his uniform, wrapped around a startlingly thin wrist as though he had sprained it.
Tatsumi glanced up to meet Hisoka's sharp, watchful eyes. "Don't worry, it's not anything important. You're not in trouble on your first day back," He smiled slightly to ease the mood, but Hisoka didn't look amused.
"I noticed you've missed a lot of school time due to illness. It doesn't seem to be affecting your grades at all, but I thought I'd check if you need any extra notes or revision lessons for subjects you've missed?"
"No, thank you," Hisoka said, his tone polite although he looked as though he grudged each word he spoke. Tatsumi could see why Watari found the boy so puzzling. He decided to push things a little further.
"You manage to catch up yourself?" Tatsumi asked. "Or at cram school?"
"I study in my own time," Hisoka said, his voice slightly weary as though already tired with the conversation. He was gazing into the dully gleaming wood surface of Tatsumi's desk rather than meeting the teacher's eyes.
"Well, then your grades are all the more impressive for it," Tatsumi said. "You'll have to consider taking my extra maths lessons once they start. If you're considering one of the major universities, they'll be very useful,"
"I'll keep that in mind, Mr Tatsumi," Hisoka shifted slightly. "I have music class.."
"Ah," Tatsumi said, noticing the class was now empty. "Sorry to keep you, Hisoka,"
Hisoka didn't acknowledge him and left the room. There was a sudden bright dazzle from the hall's fluorescent lights on blonde hair, and then he had disappeared back into the crowds of other students dawdling between classes. Tatsumi watched him go, puzzled. He could see what had confused Watari. He wanted to write it off to an attitude problem or some sort of authority complex, but there was something else there underneath Hisoka's hard eyes. He wasn't sure about the bruises either. Fighting seemed unlikely. Watari had said many of the students were scared of Hisoka and he certainly wouldn't be the first student without a discipline record to be found getting into trouble on the side, but Tatsumi wasn't so certain. He shook his head, dismissing the thoughts for now, and glanced over his lesson plan. He didn't have any classes for the next two hours, and so he left for the teacher's lounge.
He recognised three people as he entered. There was the headteacher, who he had met two or three times for interviews, Watari over by the water cooler in some animated conversation with a biology teacher, and Saya, the young English teacher who had shown him around the school.
"How did it go?" She asked breathlessly as Tatsumi arrived, already gathering up her scattered notebooks and files. "Sorry, I've got to collect some homework in a minute-"
"It's fine," Tatsumi said, leaning over to lend her a hand. "And yes, it went rather well,"
"Uh-huh. None of them giving you any trouble?" Saya asked, checking her reflection briefly in a pocket mirror. "Some of the boys in that class can be so disrespectful-"
He chuckled and handed her the notes he had gathered. "And until I'm a beautiful young university graduate, I doubt they'll give me the same special attention you get,"
"Oh, hush," Saya said, but she looked pleased. "Good luck for the rest of the day, if I don't see you," She scooped up her last files and flipped her light brown hair over her shoulder as she walked away. Tatsumi smiled, and took her vacated seat as she left the room. He liked Saya, and not only because she had been so friendly towards a new teacher. She was young and inexperienced, but genuinely devoted to her students. He had been impressed by how much of their backgrounds she had known when talking him through the more troublesome pupils.
Watari finished his conversation with an exasperated noise that Tatsumi heard across the room, throwing his hands in the air with a dismissive gesture. The scientists turned away from each other, both looking slightly pleased with themselves and obviously convinced they had came out on top. He left the water cooler and crossed over the lounge, flopping inelegantly into a chair next to Tatsumi. "So, how did it go?"
"Not bad at all," Tatsumi said. "They're good students. I can't work out that Kurosaki boy though,"
"Don't worry about it," Watari said. "None of us can, and we've been here a lot longer than you. I probably shouldn't have even mentioned it on your first day. It wasn't really fair to do that,"
"No, it's fine," Tatsumi reassured him. "Hisoka seems to be a natural at maths, so he'll probably end up in one of the extra classes once they start,"
Watari shrugged. "I wouldn't count on it. I've been trying to get him into my science classes ever since I saw his grades, and it's not going anywhere. He's good at everything, but he just doesn't care about anything at all,"
"I'll keep on trying," Tatsumi promised, although he had his doubts. If the more outgoing, friendly teachers like Watari and Saya couldn't get through to Hisoka, he didn't see what difference he could possibly make.