A/N: YUUSHI APPEARS IN THIS CHAPTER! (For those wanting PoT character action! Haha)
Like my A/N for the previous chapter:
The first few chapters focus on the main OC a lot. Pairing is still undecided (or is it already decided but I'm just refusing to tell because I want to keep up the suspense?). Yeah, err, I think I'll just get on with the story before someone starts chucking tomatoes at me!
Disclaimer: I do not own Prince of Tennis or any of its characters no matter how much I want to. I do, however, own Hyo...and the secretary XD
Chapter Two: Academic Mentor.
Walking through the school gates, Hyo could feel people's eyes on her. Some were pointing, some were sniggering.
'Okay, so maybe my hair does look really bad. After all, even our maids were looking at me in a weird way. Even Grandma Kasumi, head butler Grandpa Honjo and Nishino our chauffer looked at me funny. But what can I do to hide it?'
Shrugging it off, Hyo headed toward the learning centre situated beside the administration office. She opened the door and walked to the secretary behind the counter.
"Hello, how may I help you?" the secretary said smiling at Hyo warmly.
"Good morning, um, I would like to apply for an academic mentor…" Hyo replied, sounding just a little hesitant.
"Alright, for what subject?" the secretary replied, still smiling.
"All." Hyo answered without a second thought.
Maybe it was because this was Hyoutei and none of it's students have seriously struggled with every single subject before –and she was the first, but Hyo couldn't help but notice the look of shock which appeared momentarily on the secretary's face.
"What year level are you of which division?"
"Third year, senior high school." Hyo replied.
At this point, the secretary did not bother hiding her look of surprise.
Hyo could see the headlines of Hyoutei's school newspaper now; 'First ever under achiever at Hyoutei.'.
Hyoutei was a school established by the prestigious, for the prestigious. Naturally, the academic standard of students were outstanding. Third year senior high students have always been tutors to their underclassmen, and were generally not the ones being tutored!
After a few taps on the keyboard the secretary spoke up.
"I've found one student that can tutor you in six of your subjects. Everything except Home Economics."
"Oh that's fine." Hyo replied, satisfied that she didn't need a different mentor for each subject. That would be too troublesome.
"But he's currently tutoring someone with English." The secretary said, much to Hyo's disappointment.
"I can, however," she went on "get another mentor for his current student since it's only the beginning of the year."
"Oh, yes please! That would be great if it's not too much trouble, Then it'll be like a six in one." Hyo said happily.
"Pardon?"
"Nevermind. I'll take him –her –him…? Her?" Hyo struggled as she was having trouble recalling the gender the secretary had addressed the person as.
"Him." She laughed softly. "His name is Oshitari Yuushi. If you come here after school, you'll be able to start tuition today. Oshitari-kun will be notified."
"Thank you so much!" Hyo said as she smiled at the lady.
"No problem." She replied.
"Hey, hey, Chiharu!" Hyo said, tugging at Chiharu's sleeve.
"Hm?" she responded and when she saw Hyo's hair, suppressed a laugh.
"Who is Oshitari Yuushi?" Hyo asked.
"You don't know who he is?" Chiharu replied sounding astonished.
She had misinterpreted Hyo's question; or rather Hyo hadn't phrased it right.
"No," Hyo replied shaking her head. "I mean, I know who he is, he's been the genius tennis player of Hyoutei ever since junior high, right?"
It was pretty hard not to know about the regular tennis players of Hyoutei. Some days, they were the only topic of discussion between the girls (and even boys). To have never heard about them was impossible.
"Uh huh." Chiharu nodded.
"Yeah, okay, I know who he is, but I've never seen him before." Hyo explained.
Chiharu looked at her in disbelief.
"Hyo!" she exclaimed, in complete awe. "Where have you been, Pluto? He's in our homeroom! He's in this room, right now. Have you been listening to anyone's names when the roll gets called out?" Chiharu raised a skeptical eyebrow.
"It's only the second week of the first term of the year!" Hyo replied pointedly. "And I do listen to the roll call. Just that I kind of stop listening to it after my name gets called. 'M' comes before 'O' so…you know."
Chiharu still had her eyebrow raised.
"I guess it's a good enough excuse." She said lazily, dropping her eyebrow. "If you still want to know, he's…that one there by the window talking to Asakura." She said nodded in the direction of Oshitari.
"Ooh, blue hair, round glasses, cool-looking one?" Hyo asked.
"That's the one." Chiharu confirmed. "Why do you wanna know anyway?" she asked curiously.
"He's going to be my mentor," replied Hyo.
"Mentor?" Chiharu asked, eyebrow raised once again.
"Either that, or it's tutors. Remember the extremely old and lethargic tutors Father hired to tutor us when we were in elementary school?" Hyo said, cringing at her memory and Chiharu laughed.
It was a good thing students didn't stay in their homeroom for classes, or else Hyo would never get to be in the same homeroom as Chiharu since she did better than Hyo in academics by miles.
The homeroom teacher came and took the roll. When the bell rang, the class was dismissed and all students filed out the door. Hyo had physics on the third floor while Chiharu had Japanese on the ground floor.
"See you at interval!" Hyo called as she headed upstairs.
"Morita-san! What is the formula used to work out kinetic energy?" Mr. Uemura shot at Hyo.
Taken by surprise, she stood up clumsily.
"Er…kinetic energy is…half mass times velocity…squared?" Hyo answered slowly with extreme uncertainty.
"Correct. You may sit down."
'Phew.'
Hyo let out a sigh of relief and sat back in her seat. Clearly she hadn't been listening and the fact that she even answered that question right was a complete fluke. Thinking that she had already been picked on by the teacher and would not be asked another question, she left her mind drift back to the piano piece she had been working on before she was called upon.
"Morita-san!" Mr. Uemura practically yelled in Hyo's ear.
"Yes, sensei!" she yelled almost as loudly, standing up.
"What are the units used for impulse?" he barked.
'Uh oh. Looks like I was wrong to make assumptions. Ah, what do I do...what's the answer?'
"Um, the answer is...um..." Hyo stuttered.
Then she heard someone whisper.
"Newton seconds?" she repeated what she had heard.
Mr. Uemura gave her a look of disapproval but told her to sit down since the answer was right.
"Thanks Ayumi, you saved my life." Hyo whispered to the girl seated beside her.
"No prob. Anytime." She whispered back.
For Hyo, physics dragged on and on, so did chemistry. But finally, it was break time.
Hyo packed up her books and stationery and headed to her usual meeting place with Chiharu, the music room.
Hyo spent most of the break playing the piano and talking to Chiharu. Fifteen minutes later, the bell rang, signaling them to head back for class.
Math. Hyo hated math.
"Morita-san, please answer question 10 of page 124 in the textbook." Hyo's math teacher asked. "Morita-san? Morita-san? MORITA-SAN!"
A piece of chalk was sent flying toward Hyo and hit her smack in the middle of her forehead.
"Morita-san, I called on you three times!" Mr. Ohira said sharply.
Hyo rubbed her forehead to remove the white chalk dust as she snapped back into reality.
"Sorry, sensei." she muttered apologetically.
"Please come and see me after class."
"Yes, sensei." she muttered once again.
Mr. Ohira decided to ask someone else to answer the question since it was obvious Hyo had not been paying attention at all.
Hyo sighed inwardly.
Although music was her biggest strength and one of her best qualities, it was also her biggest shortcoming, the thing that caused the downhill trend in her grades. Sometimes, being too passionate about something wasn't always good.
When the bell rang to signal the end of class, the students gathered their belongings and headed off to their next class. All, except Hyo who stayed behind as she was instructed.
"Please pay attention in class, Morita-san. It is vital that you listen or else you'll fail! Your parents don't pay these expensive school fees for you to flunk all the tests and examinations. I don't know what your wishes are, but I think I can safely assume that your parents want you to attend university. I have been your teacher long enough to know that you're not one to want to disappoint your parents. Either discuss with them what you would like to do after high school if university isn't what you want. Or else, you better pull your grades up by the end of this semester." Mr. Ohira lectured.
Hyo had stood there silently, biting the inside of her bottom lip.
"Now, off you go to your next class."
"Yes, sensei." Hyo replied softly and headed to her next class which was biology.
"Morita-san, you're five minutes late! Stay back after class to dust the blackboard." Mr. Sano said as Hyo slipped into the room and tried to get to her desk as quietly as possible.
"Yes, sensei."
'Thank goodness my grades for biology are still satisfactory enough for Sano-sensei.' Hyo breathed out of relief. 'All I have to do is dust the blackboard. I don't know if I can survive another lecture like the one Ohira-sensei gave me just then.'
As usual, the cafeteria was crowded. Chiharu was already seated when Hyo arrived. She pushed towards Chiharu through the sea of Hyoutei students. Elementary students and junior high students both had separate buildings but once in a while, some junior high scholars would smuggle themselves in. Protecting her lunchbox, Hyo shoved through students.
"You'd think students of Hyoutei to have better etiquette and actually give way to their seniors." she grumbled as she reached our usual lunch table.
Chiharu laughed playfully
"Got kept in again?" she asked.
"Yup." Hyo replied, opening her lunchbox.
"What for this time?" Chiharu asked again, she had already started eating and took another bite out of her riceball.
Hyo recounted what had happened in each class and upon finishing, stuffed a piece of sushi in her mouth.
"Does that explain the white chalk dust in your hair?" Chiharu said through a mouthful of rice.
"Are you serious?" Hyo groaned. "I thought I had cleaned it all off."
"I'm afraid you haven't." Chiharu said in a grave tone, mockingly, not helping the situation at all.
"I know, I know…" Hyo nodded knowingly.
Suddenly, a girl screamed.
If looks could kill, she'd be on the floor that very instant because Chiharu glared daggers at her. She hated being disturbed while eating. Hyo turned her head to the entrance of the cafeteria. Seven guys had walked in.
Uh oh. Hyo exchanged a nervous look with Chiharu.
They packed up their lunches, grabbed their bags and ran for the door of the cafeteria. Whenever the tennis regulars arrived in the cafeteria, there would be a stampede of excited, screaming fangirls. Chiharu couldn't stand having her lunchbox being carried away in the flood of girls and Hyo couldn't stand being pushed and shoved.
The field was peaceful and the wind was blowing gently occasionally carrying the odd fallen cherry blossom petal. Hyo collapsed under a tree from the running while Chiharu wasn't puffed at all.
"Glad we got out of there in time!" Chiharu said, relieved. "After what happened last time, there's no way I'd stay in there after they came in. I'd be left with no lunch again!"
Hyo nodded her head vigorously.
"You got that right!" she agreed. "Last time, I had my head pushed down onto the table so hard, I swear that it didn't return to its original shape until a week later."
They ate the rest of their lunch in peace on the field.
After two more classes in the afternoon, it was time for Hyo to go and meet her mentor.
"Ah Morita-san, you're here!" the secretary greeted as Hyo walked in. Beside the counter stood Hyo's mentor. Tall, blue-haired, round glasses, handsome, popular. Oshitari Yuushi.
"Hey," Hyo greeted back as she approached the counter.
"This is Oshitari-kun, your mentor." The secretary informed her.
"Nice to meet you." Hyo said as she bowed.
He smiled and the young secretary nearly fell off her chair. This left Hyo wondering what had gotten into the secretary.
"Pleasure to meet you, Morita Hyo." He said smoothly, returning a bow. "Shall we get going then?"
"Uh, yeah, of course." Hyo said and they headed out the door.
The chatter of students filled their ears. They had reached the Hyoutei library for senior high school students.
"Hm, it's rather noisy today." Oshitari commented.
"Yeah…" Hyo agreed. Then she thought of a place that would most certainly be quiet and unoccupied. "Oshitari-san, I know a good place we could go! Follow me."
Without waiting for him to respond Hyo headed out the door.
"Where?" he asked when he caught up with her. "And please, call me Yuushi."
"Okay, Yuushi-san."
"Please, Yuushi-kun." He corrected.
Hyo lead him up to the fifth floor of the music building, then into the music room that she occupied frequently.
"Unused, as usual!" Hyo said happily as she presented the music room to Yuushi.
"You do music, right?" he said, one eyebrow raised.
"So, shall we start?" she replied, not answering his question and trying to avoid the topic of music.
"Of course." Yuushi sat himself down on the table in the middle of the room. He took out a notebook which Hyo presumed he used especially for tutoring and started jotting something down in it.
"Let's start with math." He said when he finished, passing Hyo his notebook. She looked at it and saw ten maths equations. "Try your best."
Hyo took out a pen and started working out the equations. On the sixth question, she bit her lip.
Yuushi must've seen that she was stuck because he took the pen away from her and looked through the equations she had done.
"I don't know how to do the last five questions…" Hyo told him sheepishly.
He chuckled, making her feel kind of stupid.
"Don't worry, the last five are questions we are currently doing in accelerated maths. You don't really need to know them until later on." He informed her. "Hyo-san, not bad. You got four questions right. The fifth one you got wrong because you were careless with the change on signs when you moved something to the opposite side of the equal sign."
'Four out of ten. That's kind of depressing.' Hyo thought, scratching her head.
"Take out your textbook and notebook." Yuushi said gesturing to Hyo's bag. She did as she was told and the math tutoring began.
Yuushi asked Hyo what she needed help with then explained how to work out the equations in great detail. Hyo would nod once in a while to show that she was listening.
" –and then you just take the square root of that number and you have the answer!" he said as if it were as easy as 1-2-3 –which for Hyo, it wasn't. "Do you get it now?"
"Mm, yeah…" Hyo said slowly and he laughed.
"Really? You sound kinda unsure." He said. "It's okay if you don't get it. I can explain again."
"No, no, I get it. Really." Hyo said firmly. She really did get how to do it now. After 45 minutes of intense explaining by Yuushi and she wasn't that unintelligent.
They were then interrupted by someone's phone ringing. Hyo took her phone out of her cardigan pocket but it was as silent as a rock.
"Excuse me," Yuushi said as he flipped open his phone. "Yo, Yuushi speaking."
Hyo tuned him out since she didn't want to eavesdrop on his conversation. She started to wonder where Chiharu could be since she didn't come to the music room like she usually did after classes.
'Ah, it feels awkward just sitting here by myself. I wish I could play the piano right now and check over some compo-'
"Hyo-san?" He tapped Hyo on the shoulder and she broke out of her thoughts.
"Yes?" Hyo responded.
"I'm sorry, our lesson must end here today. Club activities start in 10 minutes and that was just my captain calling me, unscheduled meeting." He said apologetically.
"Oh, it's okay!" Hyo said waving her hands in front of her. "Thanks for explaining everything. You do a better job than Ohira-sensei!" she said, smiling for the first time during this afternoon with Yuushi-kun.
The awkwardness she was felt was slowly wearing off. Yuushi gave her a peculiar look before he took his bag from the chair and smiled at Hyo. Hyo accompanied Yuushi to the door and when they arrived, he held it open for her.
"Oh, no. I'm going to stay here for a bit." she said taking a step back from the doorway.
"Very well, I shall leave you to it then." He said taking a few steps out then turned around to face Hyo again, "Oh, don't forget what I explained to you today, Hyo-chan."
Hyo blinked in confusion. He just changed her honorific. When she recovered from her 'daze', Yuushi was gone.
A/N: I know the past two chapters have focused a LOT on Hyo…but that's because I want readers to get to know her situation…it's just easier this way…for me. But if you've stuck with me this far, THANK YOU and I promise more Hyoutei regulars in action in upcoming chapters!
A lil' note about honorifics. If you're unfamiliar with someone, you use ' –san' regardless of gender. Teachers generally use '–kun'/'–san' to address students, regardless of gender. If you're familiar with a person who is a boy, you use ' –kun' for female it's still ' –san' or if you're really familiar with someone, ' –chan' . So here, Yuushi told Hyo to address him using '–kun' and Yuushi changed from addressing her as 'Hyo-san' to 'Hyo-chan' and has already used Hyo's first name… O:
Please read and review! (:
