Chapter 14: I Hate This Term Already

"Hey, isn't that Mashiro Rima?"

"Yeah, yeah. Did you really think…?"

"Oh, I don't know. But just think…"

Those were the whispers that followed me all the way up from the school grounds. Even the usual fans I usually had disappeared among the whispers. When I finally saw Amu and Yaya in the hallways, the whispers were still there.

"Oh my God, you don't really think that she…"

"I swear, that's what she said!"

"Good morning, Amu, Yaya," I said, walking up to the two, who seemed like they were caught up in a deep discussion. Apparently I surprised them, because they jumped and were shaking when they bid me hello.

"Ah! Good morning, Rima!" Amu said.

"It's a new term, Rima-tan!" Yaya said. And it was. The September air was starting to chill and everybody was back to sweaters and jackets. Well, I'm glad that summer is gone. I had too many problems back then. The field trip being one of them.

But before I could answer, a timid girl from another class inched herself away from a group of whispering girls and said, "Ah, um, e-excuse me, but you're Mashiro Rima, r-right?"

"Um, yeah?" I said. "And?"

"Ah, um, um, well, you see, but are the rumors true?"

"Rumors?" I said. I've been absorbed in so much Rei that I'd had hardly any time to talk with my school buddies. Much less Nagihiko, which was good.

"Ah, um, yeah…" the poor girl was starting to turn red. "Are you and Fujisaki-kun in…" the following words came out of her in a whisper, "a relationship."

Surprise and shock don't even begin to describe the thoughts going through my brain. I started to feel warmth creep up in my neck and my cheeks. "No," I said, putting on a smile. "We aren't. What makes you think that?"

"Ah, well, that's what I heard from some of my friends and-"

"Please tell them that they're wrong," I said in the most polite way I can muster at the moment. "Fujisaki-kun and I have nothing in common."

"Ah! Yes!" the girl ran off in a hurry and I turned back to Yaya and Amu.

"What was that all about?" I asked, and immediately Yaya and Amu freeze up.

"Ah, um, w-well…" Amu said. "You remember the field trip, right?"

At the mention of it, I immediately flash to Nagihiko in the forest. I feel my face burn and my body go and as I say, "Um, no…"

"Ah, well, um, the class rep kind of started spreading these um, er, rumors and…" Amu trailed off and Yaya finished for her.

"People are saying that Rima-tan and Nagi are going out and Nagi confessed his love for Rima in the forest and, and…!" Amu clapped a hand over the pigtailed monster's mouth with alarm while I slowly take in the situation.

"What are you talking about, Yaya?" Amu said. "I only heard the part about dating! Where did you get the confession from?"

Yaya then took a deep breath and started to spout out, "Well, Suzuhara-tan told Junko-chi, who told Yuki-chan, who told Nanami-tan, who told—"

"Okay, okay," Amu said, waving her hand to signal Yaya to stop talking. "I get it, I get it. So, um, Rima…i-is it true?"

I blink again and this time the words come out shaky. "…No."

I could see the glint in Yaya's eyes. "Liar!" she sang in an annoying tone.

"Shut up!" I yelled at her. From behind me, I heard a familiar voice. "That isn't nice, Rima-chan."

Shoot. I turn around and there is Nagihiko. I can feel the breath of the crowd stop for a moment, then all eyes and mouths turn towards us. Looking at the purple-haired enemy of mine, I can still feel my cheeks feel a little warm and something tugged at me in my chest. No, not like that, you idiot.

"What makes you think that?" I growled.

"Eh, it's something you pick up over the years," he said simply. Grr, why is he so aggravating?

The unseen crowd murmured further, something about the tension or something, but I ignored them and, with that feeling still twiddling in my chest, I told Amu and Yaya to come to homeroom

~.~.~

Augh, my head hurt. There was so much going on… So many changes, so much drama. Why can't it be Amu with this drama and not me? She's like the perfect person to put as a heroine of a story or drama…

"Class, I'd like to make an announcement," Boring English Teacher said in his same old booming voice. Well, at least that didn't change from last term.

The class buzzed with anticipation, or lack thereof.

"Augh, if it's about a test, I'm going to throw myself off of the school."

"Dude, are you serious?"

Boring English Teacher cleared his throat, drawing our attention back to him. "As you may know, the cultural festival is just around the corner. So—"

"Wait, it is!" Amu said suddenly, jolting from her nap on the desk.

All of the class burst into titters and giggles as Amu turned red as a tomato. I swear Boring English Teacher twitched a little, but before I could ponder about it more, he repeated, "The cultural festival is just around the corner. So, it's time for our class to think on what we should do for the festival. Be sure to be thinking on what our class should do. I'll be waiting next week."

The rest of homeroom passed by in a blur, and soon, Sensei bounced into the classroom. "Good morning, class!" she said with so much enthusiasm, even Wimpy Nakamura twitched with the feeling of something bad is about to happen. "Did you know that the cultural festival is coming up?"

"Um, Sensei," Wimpy Nakamura said cautiously, "S-Sensei—ah! I-I mean the other sensei, um—"

"I don't need you to tell me, Nakamura-kun," Sensei cut Nakamura off, thankfully. "I do hope my class does a café! Ah, so many sweets!" She looked so far off in her own land of who-knows-what, that everybody in the class had a worried look on their face.

I raised my head and said dully, "Sensei, I believe you have to teach us something about literature?"

That did the trick. "Oh, thank you, Mashiro-san," Sensei said. "Um, well… Let's see, ahem, I believe we're on the topic of poetry, no?"

"Yes, Sensei," the class chimed.

Sensei cleared her throat again. "I'd like everybody to turn in their textbooks to turn to page 158. You'll find two haikus listed there." I followed and found myself gazing at poems by Matsuo Basho. (1) I remember reading some of his stuff when I was bored.

Sensei cleared her throat and read off the page, "Another year is gone/and still I wear/straw hat and straw sandal (2)," she looked up and smiled. "Can anyone tell me the meaning of this haiku?"

Amu raised her hand uncertainly. "The narrator is a straw dummy?" she offered to the titters of our classmates.

"Close, Hinamori-san," Sensei said, though there was a little twitch around her eye. More answers got shot up and almost instantly shot down.

"The narrator is cold!"

"The narrator has no money!"

"The narrator is a farmer!"

"I'm telling you, he is cold!"

"Class," Sensei said, "Class… Alright, you all, it's time to settle down! We'll take these guesses all one by one now, and please support your answer with a valid reason."

That sure quieted down the class. I smiled, then slowly pretended to be bored and just lazily wave my hand.

"Yes, Mashiro-san?"

"I think the narrator content with what he has," I said in a dull tone, "because, while most people get decked out on New Year's, the narrator probably doesn't have anything of that kind. However, the narrator is pretty happy with what he has so he doesn't mind at all."

A smile twitched on the corners of Sensei's mouth. "Very good, Mashiro-san," she said. "Any more guesses?"

Class whizzed by and I let myself seem bored all throughout, so much that I nearly jumped when I heard Sensei call me out. "Mashiro-san, please see me after school."

Right after Sensei left the room, Amu turned to me and hissed, "Why do you think you're going to see her? Did she see you not paying attention?"

"I-I don't know," I said honestly. "I sure hope it isn't anything bad."

~.~.~

The bell rang, signaling the end of another school day, and that also meant talking with Sensei. Now, I really respect Sensei for her lessons and the authority she holds over the dumb jocks, but having to see her after school could give anyone a reason to start shaking. So here I was, standing in front of the teacher's room. I took a deep breath and opened to door.

Standing behind a desk full of papers and textbooks—I swear there was a manga poking out of the piles of papers—was Sensei. But that wasn't all that was there. No, standing next to her, in all of his long hair, was Nagihiko. My heart dropped at the sight of him, and he stared back.

"Ah, Mashiro-san," Sensei said with a smile, not noticing the intense staring contest I was holding with Nagihiko, "you've arrived at last. Come now, over here." I inched myself over to her desk, making sure I was out of Nagihiko's eyesight while simultaneously not next to him. That proved to be practically impossible.

"Okay," Sensei said, "you both maybe be wondering why I invited the two of you together at the same time when you both could be making yourself better through clubs, no?"

"I guess you can say that," I said quickly, while in the corner of my eye I could feel Nagihiko eyeing me at the corner of his eye.

"Well," Sensei said with a smile, "allow me to explain. Both of you are very bright, the brightest students in my class, and not only are you two bright, but also very good at obeying orders. Out of the whole class, you two have the highest grades overall. So, I daresay that you have enough in Japanese literature to help me out a little."

"And by that you mean…?" Nagihiko asked. I swear, that purple giant was still trying to get a glimpse at me. Why?

Sensei continued, "I was hoping you'd ask that, Fujisaki-kun. You see, I'm probably the least organized teacher in the whole entire second year. It usually takes me weeks to relocate a paper I graded days ago. So, I need you help to help me organized a little. Student council usually should be helping me, but they hardly got enough time what with all that planning in festivals and whatnot. Besides, I don't trust those popularity-chosen brats anyways."

"And how can we do that?" I asked.

"Well, pop by my desk every day after school and I'll assign the two of you things to do. Perhaps today you can take home of your classmates' papers and help me grade a little. I'll let you borrow my rubric for this. Turn these in faster than I can, okay?" Sensei grabbed a pile of papers and shoved them into Nagihiko's hands.

"O-Okay…" Nagihiko said with a hasty smile. "C-Come along now, Rima-chan."

"I'm not a dog," I said under my breath, and stormed out of the room.

"Make sure you two do it together!" I hear Sensei's voice call out after me.

~.~.~

"So," Nagihiko said, twirling a red pen absentmindedly while frowning at a paper filled with grammar mistakes. We were in the library now, with the stack Sensei had given to us to apparently work together on and grade. "What do you think?"

"That kid should be failed," I said bluntly.

"What about this one?" Naghiko picked up another one and started to read, "Once upon a time, there lived a—"

"Fail," I said.

"What about—"

"Fail."

"I didn't even start," Nagihiko said.

"It already sounded bad," I said, "because you were reading it."

"Why can't you be nice?" Nagihiko asked with a slight frown.

"Why can't you be gone?" I spat back.

Nagihiko sighed, and then picked up the rubric Sensei had given to him to base the papers off of. "According to Sensei, an exemplary folk tale should be one with little to no mechanical errors. characters that you can relate to, a little bit of surrealism to make it seem less realistic, hints to the culture of Japan, and a lesson for everybody to learn out of."

"That's pretty high standards," I said. "I don't think my stories usually fit that standard."

"Oh come on," Nagihiko said, "I've read some of yours before. They're really good."

"When did you-" I began, then stopped. Oh, right, that time in which he took my notebook right off the ground and read it long, long ago. Man, when was that, the beginning of the year? Time flies. I remember all the past blog entries I written, the school trip, Nagihiko—

Nagihiko smiled at me just as I finished off that thought. "Don't you remember Kiyoko and the fat monk? 'Once upon a time, in the Osaka prefecture, there lived a poor hungry girl named Kiyo—"

"That was just for fun," I said.

"For something that was done for fun, it was pretty good," Nagihiko said. "I liked it when Kiyoko cheated the greedy monk of his food and money."

"Kiyoko was a brat," I said bitterly. "I hated creating her. She seemed too perfect."

"Oh, but I can see the flaws in her," Nagihiko said. "She's greedy herself, and pretty selfish, too. Shame that Kiyoko never did feed any starving villagers."

"There were none. All of them were richer than her."

"Is that so? I didn't read that part."

"It's background info. Nothing important for you to know." Actually, I never got around to thinking about the villagers at that time, but Nagihiko doesn't need to know that. I sighed. My body was screaming louder and louder the longer I sat here with Nagihiko, so I tried to make an excuse. Looking at the clock that was conveniently hanging right ahead of me, I exclaimed, "Wow, look at the time. I think I should really get going. Why don't you finish the rest for today?"

"Not so fast," Nagihiko said, turning towards me before I can get off my chair and leave. "Sensei told us that we have to work together on this. I'm not taking all of the workload. Tell you what, this Sunday why don't we meet at my house? Mother will be leading lessons that day and Auntie should be out shopping, so there's plenty of space for you and me. What do you think?"

I could've said no, screamed with all of my heart for him to get out of my face, but I was in a rush so the words that tumbled out of my mouth were, "Sure, why not. Got to go. Bye."

I rushed out of just as Nagihiko said, "I'll be on ReiNet, so you can chat with me anytime about the work."

ReiNet? Sunday? Oh dear, what have I gotten myself into? I hate you, Japanese literature.

(1) Apparently, Matsuo Basho is some well-known Japanese poet whose poems have been translated into many languages. Unfortunately, I haven't heard of him until I googled up Japanese poems. Ah, American schools…

(2) Don't start trying to tell me that it isn't five syllables, seven syllables, five again for the haiku pattern. I just retyped up a translated version of the original romanji one I found online. If you want the romanji, then here it is:

Toshi kurenu
Kasa kite waraji
Hakinagara

Hey guys! I'm really sorry for the long wait, but procrastination is evil and I had NaNoWriMo last month! Thankfully, forcing myself to write a novel definitely helped in the last part of this chapter. I feel no laziness or writer's block right now, and the plot moved forward quite a bit this chapter so I'm pretty happy. Yay for no fillers!

Finished this in Canada, so to all of my Canadian readers, hey! (Don't worry, I appreciate all of my readers equally) Please drop a review! Thank you reading another chapter! Next chapter should hopefully pop up soon!