Disclaimer
I don't own Gravitation.
Chapter 4 – First Day
Eiri stood at the front of a rectangular room leaning casually against the white rectangular board behind him. Between him and the light from the windows at the end stood a military arrangement of polypropylene chairs each stacked neatly on top of a melamine surfaced desk. He ran his fingers through his hair, shorter now and dyed chestnut brown. It had been eight years since he had last entered a classroom, was this really to be his future?
The calm of the room was interrupted by a series of regular, resonant thumping sounds against the linoleum tiles of the corridor, each one moving closer than the last as the army approached. Two boys entered the room, sixteen years a piece, tall, skinny, dressed in black clothing and with dark hair covering their eyes. One of them was dribbling a basket ball with one hand - the source of the thumping sounds – which he passed skilfully between his hands as he removed his rucksack from one shoulder then tossed the ball over the ranks of chairs to his friend. With both hands free he flung his satchel across the room causing it to skid along the back row of tables toppling the chairs like dominoes onto the floor.
Eiri took a few nonchalant steps forwards and picked up the ball which had rolled to the front of the classroom, "Property of Imperial College, Tokyo: Sports Department". He had suspected they weren't really the sporting type. They caught sight of Eiri for the first time as he raised his eyebrows at them.
"I should return that if I were you."
The boys sniggered quietly to each other and took the ball roughly as they walked to their seats at the back of the room. One sat cross-legged on the desk while the other righted a chair from the floor and slumped onto it with his feet on the table. After a minute, realising he hadn't given his students the best first impression, he decided to start a conversation.
"It's nice to see at least two people are keen for our first lesson."
The boys glanced at each other and exchanged a sarcastic grunt. "Not especially Sir" one replied coolly "we got thrown out of the library". Their expressions clearly showed no remorse for breaking whatever rule they had.
Eiri's acute glare forced them to elaborate. "We were playing hide-and-seek-"
"With Naomi's shoe and it got stuck." Interrupted the other.
"I didn't realise it would fall down, I just put it on top of the bookcase and pushed it to the back." He said this triumphantly as though he was proud to have caused so much havoc within only a few hours of the beginning of the new term.
Eiri turned to go back to his desk hiding his amusement at their teenage antics. Obviously the ability to keep a stern look regardless of the comic talents of your students was a skill learned with years of practice. At that moment a girl entered the room. She had long black hair plaited into a single braid that fell down her back parallel to her spine and her deep brown eyes were turned down at the corners from the weight of the tears that had fallen from them. She walked with a slight limp and Eiri looked down at her feet to see that one bare sole was covered with filth from the corridor floors. So this must be Naomi.
She took her place as far away as possible from the two boys. Actually, to say she was as far away as possible from them is not entirely true; she sat on the opposite side of the classroom on the second row from the front. The first row was reserved only for the geeks of the year which she certainly wasn't. She was a dreamer and often found herself lost in the maze of her own imagination during lessons causing her grades to suffer. Eiri watched with curiosity as she unpacked her rucksack and carefully arranged her pencil case, folder and pad of crisp lined paper at perpendicular and adjacent angles to the edges of the desk.
The students were coming in thick and fast now; each one unique and in some ways strangely similar. What mattered to them, fashion or music? Athletics or creativity? Popularity or rebellion? He could see each one was desperate to break free from the mould or normality, everyone fighting against a tide moving in the same direction. If everyone wants to be different what is left to be called normal?
Each teenager took a seat in the classroom as they decapitated the melamine and polypropylene soldiers and conquered their regimental rows to give way to the reign of the chaotic rabble.
Eiri coughed to bring the class to order, it was difficult to decide whether he felt nervous or not. "Welcome to your first English Literature lesson of the new term. As you are all probably aware, from reading the information packs that were posted to you during the summer holidays-" He paused doubtingly as the class muttered to each other. "That this course will be divided into two sections and in total we will be studying four texts over the next year. The first section which we will begin today is post-1914 Prose and Drama; we will be looking at The Crucible by Arthur Miller and Lover is a Cheap Title, an autobiography by Eiri Yuki." There were some distinct murmurs exchanged amongst the female members of the class which caused Eiri to look up and glance around the room.
"Aren't any of you going to note this down?" There was a surge of movement as the students reached into their bags to retrieve paper and something to write with. The only person who had a pen to hand was Naomi and the flowing motion of her hand and absent expression made him fairly certain she wasn't taking notes.
He continued. "And the second section, Pre-1914 Prose and Drama, we will be studying Hard Times by Charles Dickens and Romeo and Juliet by Shakespeare."
The remaining fifty minutes passed in other general administrative tasks and as the bell rang at the end Eiri gladly dismissed the class. They could not have left faster and within thirty seconds the room had returned to a peaceful silence. Only one person was left behind as she slowly tidied her pencil case, folder, and pad of crisp lined paper into her rucksack again. She looked up at him realising she was the only one left and smiled shyly. He acknowledged her with a slight bow of his head.
"I think I'm going to enjoy this course." she said startling him. He had not expected her to be so forward. "I love Eiri Yuki's books, when I heard we were going to be studying it in school I was so excited I read the whole thing in one night!"
It felt bizarre to hear his books spoken about as though he was an outsider but it was nice to know she was enthusiastic and it confirmed that she had been listening earlier even if she had not been taking notes.
"I've never really been able to enjoy them myself; they're very much geared toward a female audience. I'm not a great fan of romance novels." She looked at him curiously for a second - She had been sure he was gay - but dismissed it quickly and went on.
"Really? I can't get enough of them; I've read everything he's ever written."
Eiri felt a twitch, something close to suppressed laughter. He was enjoying this. The bell rang for the start of the next class and Naomi, suddenly panicked, picked up her bag and limped out of the classroom with a hasty goodbye.
What an odd girl? Eiri thought to himself, odd but pleasant nonetheless. He searched his register for her name to make a note of it.
Aizawa, Naomi.