Author's Log: Well here's the first real chapter of my first ever fanfic! It seems like my prologue was not that well received seeing as it gained me no reviews, favorites, or followers but that just means I need to step up my game. The prologue was just to get a start and get some preliminary info and exposition out and totally understand why it wouldn't get me any real response. Let me state now that this is gonna be a LOOOOONNNGG fic and I'm trying to set up my own little world and because of that its going to be a little slow in the beginning as I lay the foundations. Every long story needs a strong base and while I'd love to just to jump into the Shinji, Asuka, Karou, Gendo, Angel action I can't just thrust my own original characters in there without out any introduction. There are going to be a lot of original characters in this story but since Roy is the first and I need to do some world building you'll just have to just bear with me as I lay my bricks or go find another EVA fic that focuses entirely on established characters if that's what you're craving. For those of you willing to stick with me I promise all of the characters you know so well will be appearing at some point in this story. Please leave reviews and favorite/follow me as they'll motivate me to write faster and more often. Even if no one reads this I'll still be writing it, it'll likely just be a lot slower as right now I'm mainly writing right before I go to sleep in the AM.
Now enjoy my first ever full chapter!
Chapter 1: Dipping A Toe In
Wednesday September 9th, 2015 19:47
Roy Mara suppressed a groan as he entered and scanned the vacant interior of his new apartment. On the small side by Western standards, the one bedroom apartment was completely unfurnished aside from the stove and refrigerator crammed into the tiny corner kitchen. Roy had been hoping to find some furnishings but the previous occupant of apartment 309 had taken everything with them when they had moved out. Lack of furnishings aside, overall the school teacher was satisfied. Located on the fourth floor of a government employee housing complex, the apartment was at least clean and free of any glaring defects. The bathroom was sizeable and came with a generously sized bathtub. With a little imagination he could see the dimly lit space's potential to become a cozy home. On the plus side the building was rent controlled and his neighbors were supposed to be younger unmarried employees of the government like himself, which hopefully meant no screaming infants.
Roy unslings his duffle bag from his shoulder and sets it down gently on the carpeted floor of the main room along with his worn shoulder strapped leather briefcase. Until the movers came tomorrow with his belongs from Kagoshima City, he would be living out of the large olive drab bag and its contents. After he had taken a seat on the soft beige carpet, there being no place else to sit, Roy takes the chance to finally unlace and remove the stiff black leather dress shoes and navy dress socks that he had chosen to wear along with his charcoal three piece suit. Japanese would doubtlessly have disapproved of his failure to remove his outside shoes in the foyer upon entering but the little rebellion made the gaijin in him feel a little more at home in the alien apartment. With his shoes and socks now comfortably off, Roy lies back on the carpet and stares up at the foreign white ceiling.
As he stares at the ceiling his mind flits through the day's events. The meeting with Principal Enshirou had gone well enough considering the grey haired educator's stern demeanor. His tour of the school, given by a plump older secretary, had been pleasantly brief and concise. The small mound of registration paper work he had been required to fill out afterwards had proved to be less enjoyable, unavoidable though it was. By the time he had caught the train to his new apartment complex, filled out even more paperwork, and gotten his new keys night had fallen upon Tokyo-3.
Feeling slightly gross from the day's heat and his exertions Roy forces himself to get up off the softness of the carpet, change out of his suit, and head off to the bathroom with a small towel I hand. He wanted a quick shower and soak in the tub before going to sleep. He was going to need all the rest he could get because tomorrow would be his first day teaching at Tokyo-3 First Municipal Middle School.
Thursday September 10th 2015 08:45
As Roy entered Classroom 2-A he found the room a little over half-filled as a bright eyed pigtailed school girl, who he assumed was the class representative, went about the business of getting the rest of her classmates to stand at attention. While most of the children seemed to be as wide awake as the pigtailed girl, Roy was pleased to see that a few of his students looked as bleary eyed and tired as he felt. He had never been a morning person, his poor night's sleep on his new apartment's floor aside, and was glad to see a few of his students were suffering along with him during first period. Misery likes company after all. In no time at all the class rep and the rest of the class had given him the customary bow given to all teachers prior to class.
"Take your seats everyone," said Roy, trying his best to sound more awake and upbeat than he actually felt. At his prior teaching jobs, his students had quickly learned to expect less from his first period lessons compared to his later scheduled classes. Wordlessly Roy places his briefcase under the instructor's podium before taking a second to straighten his tie. He had worn his suit again though he had swapped his used white dress shirt out for a fresh pale blue shirt of similar make. Satisfied that he looked professional enough Roy moves to the chalkboard and swiftly writes out his name on the chalkboard in both Roman script as well as its rough katakana equivalent, the later for the children's benefit.
"My name is Roy Mara and I'm your new English teacher. I know that many of you were probably fond of Nakamitsu-sensei and I want to let you know that I'm going to try my best to be every inch the teacher he was. I'll ask that you go easy on me today as it's my first day on the job and I'm not an early riser." Roy pauses for a moment to look out on the children's faces; they more or less seemed to be paying attention. "Let's start out with some introductions. First I'll have each of you quickly stand and introduce yourselves but I'll ask that you keep it brief. After you're all done I'll tell you all a bit about myself and even answer some questions if you have any about me, this class, or anything else."
He paused again. He saw no questioning looks so he plowed on. "Alright let's start the introductions at the front left corner and then we'll work our way round from there." He took a moment to grab the class's seating chart and give it a quick glance. "So that means we're starting with Takamura-kun. If you would be so kind as to start us off," he said to the small boy with the close cropped hair sitting in the front corner desk.
Introductions took the better part of the next ten minutes, though they would have been longer if the class had been fuller. Principal Enshirou had warned him that morning that a large number of students had abruptly been taken removed from school and their families were moving away from the city in the wake of the crisis/attack that had occurred the week before. Other students were still absent for one reason or another in the wake of the attack but were gradually returning to school more and more each day.
Overall the student's introductions were fairly typical, being of the same kind he'd heard from dozens of classes over the years. The only child who really stuck out was a young bespectacled boy named Kensuke Aida, who had proudly professed himself to be a military otaku. The teacher also committed the name of the pigtailed class rep Hikari Hokari to memory, seeing as he would be dealing with her more than the rest of the children in the class this coming year.
With student introductions complete it was time for him to introduce himself to the class. "Those were all good introductions. I'm looking forward to getting to know you all better over the course of this year and next year as well if my bosses like me enough to keep me around," he said with an amiable smile. "As I said before my name is Roy Mara. You all should address me Mara-sensei. As you can all probably tell I'm not from around here originally. I was born and raised in America. More specifically a small town near York Pennsylvania which I can guarantee none of you have ever heard of before. I first became interested in Japan when I was nine when my parents let me join a Japanese martial arts dojo that had just opened up near my house. I was twelve when the Second Impact occurred but luckily both me and my parents came through it more or less unscathed. I went to college at the University of California Berkley and got my bachelor's degree in Japanese studies. After that I applied and was accepted to the revived JET program and worked as an assistant language teacher in Kumamoto Prefecture for three years. Before my visa expired I was able to get a job teaching English at a school in Kagoshima City. When I heard about the vacancy here in Tokyo-3 after Nakamitsu-sensei's passing I thought the time was right for a change of scenery. So here I am. Any questions?"
Unsurprisingly a wave of hands shoots into the air almost immediately after the words left his mouth. His sudden arrival alone would have been enough to attract plenty of interest from the class, but his gaijin background peaked the young student's curiosity even more.
Roy spent the remainder of the class period answering his new students predominately inane and childish questions. The topics of the inquiries varied greatly, with questions about different aspects of life in the United States were like being a popular choice. One of the girls nervously inquired to whether he had a wife or girlfriend, and there was a smattering of giggling when he begrudgingly made it known that he was single. A shaggy haired boy named Ryuji invited him to stop by judo club the next day after he found out that he'd helped advise judo clubs at his past schools. Another girl merely stated that she though his long hair was cool. The class representative Hikari asked a number of pointed questions about what changes English class would undergo now that he was teacher. Roy replied to each question in turn until the bell rang sparing him from answering anymore unwanted inquiries into his personal life just as he had been about to answer Kensuke Aida's inquiry into his family's history of military service. He had never been fond of sharing the details of his personal life but it had been his experience that sharing some basic personal information was preferable to trying to remain an impersonal enigma to his students. Give them no information and he'd almost surely be the focus of all kinds of fantastical rumors for the rest of the year. Sure there would still be rumors anyway, but hopefully they'd be grounded in some kind of fact. The rest of the day passed much the same as first period had, with introductions taking place in the remaining five sections that he would be teaching.
Roy left school shortly after last period ended, needing to get back to his new apartment before the movers arrived along with all of his worldly belongings. Before he was able to extricate himself from the campus he had been forced to decline almost a dozen invitations from his new colleagues to go out to a karaoke bar and celebrate his arrival in Tokyo-3. He'd only gotten away after he'd promised that he'd go out with his fellow teachers one night as soon as he had finished settling into the city and his apartment.
Roy arrived back at his apartment in time to receive his belongings without incident. He spent the rest of the night unpacking the stack of duck taped boxes that were now crowding his living room, only taking a break to eat some convenience store ramen that he'd bought on the way home. By the time Roy was ready to go to sleep his kitchen cabinets and drawers were filled with all the cooking essentials a young bachelor required and his closet was packed with his not insubstantial wardrobe. He'd also unpacked almost a dozen swords of both the metal and wooden variety, along with the disassembled racks that would soon be storing and displaying them once again. Everyone had a hobby or something they liked to collect, for Roy that something was katanas and bokkens. Having the blades spread around his past apartments had always helped make him feel secure and even at home wherever he happened to be living at the time.
That night Roy slept on a futon that he'd sent up from his previous apartment. He preferred to sleep in a Western style bed but he'd learned that it was always good to keep a spare futon around in case he had company over for whatever reason.
His first real day had gone as well as could be expected. He still wasn't sure what he'd gotten himself into by coming to Tokyo-3 but at least it was a start.