Chapter Two- The Seed Makes a Root
As a matter of fact, that same Eikichi Onizuka, the blonde-haired Japanese man, was sitting just outside the same interview room Jim had exited. The two shot a glance at each other at just about the same time.
Onizuka saw a fairly tall man (in Japanese terms... Jim was only 5'8"), almost as tall as he was. The man was dressed in a traditional business suit, blue, wool, the sign of a man who was trying his damnednest to get along the fast track. But, Onizuka got another feeling from this man. A feeling similar to the ones he got from Ryuji, and Saejima, and Abe, and Umekira, and all his old biker buddies. He wanted to stay outside the system. That look in his eyes... that's what gave him away. That look, the one that showed that he had seen the world, he had experienced it, and then he had just spat in it, and said, "fuck it, I'm going to make my own way". He also had a bit of Azusa-ness, that idea that no stain could go uncleaned (not even the ones in Onizuka's boxers), in him too. Onizuka could tell Azusa's personality even though he had only met the young woman less than an hour ago. He guessed that that was his specialty, figuring out how people ticked before they even spoke to him.
The man's physical appearance was an odd blend, too. His eyes had the traditional Western wideness, probably even to the point of exaggeration. He had those puffy Western lips, too, and the broad shoulders. The suit he wore gave a very artificial impression that those shoulders were huge on top, and cut in deep to a medium-sized waist. Of course, this was just artificial, but still.... His pants had an odd bulge at the top... his legs must have been huge. His black shoes were alright, not Italian or anything, but they were suitable for an interview. He wore no tie. All in all, you couldn't miss him, especially not in Japan. But it was his dark brown hair that attracted the most attention of all.
It had been painstakingly gelled, to form seven huge bangs all across his forehead, all the same upside-down-teardrop shape. The rest of his hair had been positioned by a massive horizontal part that separated those bangs from the back of his head. In the back... that was the most remarkable part. The back was longer than most girls' hair, settling down near his waist. It had been braided, the braid as thick as his head, coming down in plaits two or three inches wide. The hair near the bottom was also shaped like an upside-down teardrop. He looked like that guy from that old TV show, what was his name? That's right. Duo Maxwell. He looked like Duo Maxwell. Well, almost.
Jim smiled when he saw Onizuka and Azusa, who was sitting next to him. "I don't see too many blonde-haired Japanese around, mister," he said, increasing his smile a little more as he took a second glance at Onizuka's hair.
Onizuka thought for a second before speaking. "Yeah, and I don't see too many Americans working at a Japanese school." He smiled too. "You going to a convention?"
Both Azusa and Jim laughed at this. "Nah... I like my hair this way. I've been growing it ever since I was... ever since I was 18. It looks beautiful, ne?"
"Yeah, and you'll end up getting screwed by emotionless mecha pilots. If not, then definitely rabid fangirls." Azusa's smile lessened a little bit, but Jim almost burst out laughing. Azusa wasn't terribly fond of jokes where somebody was getting screwed. Of course, Jim was (Hey, what American guy wouldn't be? ^_^). He shook hands with both of them, and all three exchanged names.
A little man in a suit popped out of the interview room. "Uh... Onizuka Eikichi? You're wanted in here." Onizuka shook hands with Jim again, Azusa wished him luck, and then Onizuka left. Azusa motioned for Jim to sit, but he shook his head.
"Sorry, I don't think my interview went too well... I'm going to the cafeteria to get something to eat."
Azusa gave Jim a shocked look. "I don't get it. You're going to be an English teacher, right?"
Jim smiled. "Yeah."
"Then how could you not be hired? I heard that the English department here was seriously needing somebody."
"I gave the wrong impression in there." And with that, Jim headed for the cafeteria. Azusa tried to make some protest, but she faltered and just settled to watch his long braid bounce away.
Jim went over the interview again. Their confused stares, and his simple rebuttal. Not too bad. A bit arrogant, perhaps. Uchiyamada reading his transcript and application. Unavoidable. I only wrote the truth, which was needed to be heard. Deflecting Yokomizu's questions. Also unavoidable, with my transcript in the shape it was in. His first challenge to Sakurai. Now THAT was mistake #1. My second was trying to intensify that one. Oh well... there are always other schools.
He turned and walked into the cafeteria, which still looked fairly empty. Most people just got an iced tea from the student store and left. There were a couple of small groups of teacher applicants, a group of four sitting in a table in the center and two groups of three in outlying tables. They all talked in hushed tones, showing that many of them weren't too confident about their recent interviews. The cafeteria was standard grey plastic all around, totally emotionless. Jim turned to his left, and saw the closed, ribbed, grey metal cafeteria window covers covering the spaces where the students would be getting food. Finally, to his right, he saw the student store, where the students and teachers could get snacks. It was the only place in the school that was open that day for food.
An old woman worked in the student store, a happy little smile on her face as she served an ugly middle-aged woman a soda. Despite her gray hair, she didn't look all that old.. She had a couple of large wrinkles around her mouth, but that was all. Jim could almost feel her kind aura.
"What can I be doing for you today, sir?" She gave another cheerful smile.
"Do you serve any hot tea here, ma'am?"
She sighed. "Sorry, sir. The heating unit isn't working right now."
Jim could feel another thing from her. The feeling that she was... watching him. Curiously. And not the curiosity that the American mouse gets when he sees the Indian tiger. In fact, it felt like it was the other way around.
"Alright then, I'll have an iced tea."
"Which kind, sir?"
Jim quickly glanced at all the teas she had available. Which was quite a lot. Ah well, just go with something traditional. "Green tea with ginseng?"
She smiled again. "Alright, that'll be 90 yen." Jim paid her with the 100 yen bill, and got his tea and 10 yen back. Jim smiled and left for the table. Green tea was very nice, but not if you were standing up gulping it. He had learned that a long time ago. He sat down alone at one of the tables, back to the table itself so he could continue observing the cafeteria. There was nothing more boring than staring at a table or a wall while you were enjoying something. Well, maybe church beats it, but it'd be close for sure. The best times are when we combine all kinds of sensory data, he thought. That's why it's so good to taste the good tea and see the poor people and listen to them bitch and moan, smell the clean in the room (marked by the lack of stench), feel the air, everything. If you're not indulging your senses, you're brain's turning to mush, and you're not living. Too bad TV and the Internet are suppressing people's brains everywhere. People are starting to surrender their brains entirely.
Soon after, the blonde Japanese man, Onizuka, came back in. He ordered from the old woman at the counter and she started up a conversation. They talked for a while (Jim couldn't quite hear what they were talking about), long enough for Azusa to appear. Onizuka looked a bit disappointed, much like Jim probably had seemed. Azusa seemed happy, but only until she eavesdropped on Onizuka's conversation, when she adopted a look of shock. A little more talking, a little more listening, and she started smiling again. Brighter than before, though. She must have heard something really good from him. Jim couldn't help but smile himself.
Unfortunately, the cafeteria's peaceful nature was shattered by a loud crash and the sound of breaking glass. Jim coughed involuntarily as the tea accidentally went down his windpipe. By the time he had stood up and recovered, Azusa, Onizuka, and the old lady had already rushed outside.
The scene outside could almost have been comic, if it wasn't so serious. Around twenty or thirty middle-aged-to-old-aged men and women, all suited or dressed up, were standing and forming a loose crowd that blocked the hallway. They were facing three teenage punks, one of them wielding a rusty katana, a five-o-clock shadow, and a bad haircut with a really bad dye job. The punks were destroying all of the trophy cases in sight, using the katana, a wooden baseball bat, and a fire extinguisher one of them had probably lifted just a few seconds before. Jim knew that if half of the older group were fit in any way, they could have jumped the three punks and utterly destroyed them, but all of them were ensnared by fear. The only ones that didn't look totally afraid were the Vice Principal, Uchiyamada, and his assistant Yokomizu. Only their sense of duty kept them from wetting themselves.
The one with the katana had been calling out Uchiyamada, and now the two were facing each other.
Katana-boy spoke first. "Hey, Uchiyamada! You remember me? I'm Ebisawa! You threw me out of your freaking school! And now I'm here for payback!!"
Uchiyamada held his ground, but barely. "This isn't your playground. Go back home! Is that an old katana?" Ebisawa swung the weapon several times to show that, yes, it was a katana. Yokomizu called for somebody to call for the police. Immediately after that, everything happened at once.
Jim felt a breeze go by him as Ebisawa moved in for the death stroke but then somebody called out "NO!" and it turned out to be Onizuka who stood in front of Uchiyamada and charged himself with protecting the old man in a ridiculous, anime-esque manner. Uchiyamada gained his courage back immediately, of course, now that there was an expendable body between him and the katana.
"Who the hell are you?!" Ebisawa yelled at Onizuka.. Uchiyamada replied for him.
"This is one of our teachers. He starts work in the spring." Then Uchiyamada whispered something to Onizuka, probably a bribe for a job at the school. Ebisawa snarled, but held his tongue. Uchiymada readied himself for a rant.
"I don't have to take this from you scum! You boys are pariahs! You throttle your motorbikes at night, you use drugs and you threaten everybody around you with violence! You are a disgrace to our school, a cancer that once threatened to suck the life out of it! You are trash! Go ahead, Onizuka, TAKE OUT THE TRASH!!!"
Onizuka didn't take a single step towards the punks. He turned around. He was angry. As everybody watched, he positioned himself so that he was facing the punks but behind Uchiyamada. He grabbed the vice principal by the waist.
It only took a second for the amateur wrestler in Jim to realize what he was going to do. "MATSU! Onizuka-san, nani wa shimasu ka?!?" SHIT! Onizuka, what are you doing?!? Onizuka paid no heed, and turned the vice principal's world upside down. Literally. He lifted Uchiyamada up with his arms as he bent his body backwards into a "U" shape, and as he did, slammed Uchiyamada into the ground behind him.
He had performed the dreaded German Suplex. On the vice principal. There was no sound for a moment, then a horrific crack as Uchiyamada's head struck the tile floor and split two of the tiles. The vice principal's glasses flew off and one of the lenses cracked across the lens before the crack splintered into a delta shape. Uchiyamada himself was alright... there was a little bit of blood starting to pool around his head and he was foaming at the mouth, but he was still conscious.
Everybody else, however, was speechless. The endless silence was broken when Yokomizu screamed out Uchiyamada's name. One of the younger applicants turned to Onizuka as the others helped Uchiyamada up. "Just who do you think you are? You're just a thug like them! A violent monster! How the hell did you ever get this far in the application process? You should be locked up like them!"
Onizuka gave the man an icy stare. Then he spoke in a low, angry voice. "The question is, just who do you think YOU are?" He scuffed the white floor with his shoes before he continued. "What gives you the right to stare down your noses at people like this, call them names like 'scum'? Those names cut deeper than any katana. As long as there are teachers like you, there will be students like this," he said, motioning toward the stunned Ebisawa and his cronies.
"I regret ever wanting to be like you. I regret ever wanting to be a teacher." He turned, spoke a little to Ebisawa, then turned down the hall and began to leave the building. Ebisawa and the other two followed him.
Azusa, the old woman, and Jim followed the four. They were talking in one of the courtyards when Azusa burst out into the glaring sunlight, yelling, "Onizuka! You can't walk out like this!"
Onizuka merely gave her a passing glance, then started to walk away from the school, coat slung over his shoulder.
"You can't quit! What you just said was inspiring! Come back!"
Onizuka turned his head to Azusa, and smiled. "They never were going to hire me. I just realized that." He stopped, and turned his body halfway around. "Hey, Azusa. Be a good enough teacher for the both of us." And with that, he turned and left for good.
The beautiful blue sky laughed down at all of them. Jim was annoyed, and indignant. The old woman looked disappointed, and Jim sensed a hidden emotion within her again. This time, though, he couldn't guess what it was. Azusa was crestfallen. And nobody could blame her. The "punks" were still in a state of awe, just starting to turn into the barest fringes of shock and disappointment at what had just happened.
Jim thought for a while, then smirked. Only the old woman noticed him. "What? What are you smiling about?" She kept her voice neutral, but there was a heavy steel hidden by it.
"I was just thinking about what he did."
She looked at him cockeyed. "And?"
"I don't think he realizes it, but he's one of the smartest men he's ever seen."
All eyes turned to Jim. "Excuse me?" Azusa asked.
"Think about it. To a conventional mind, Onizuka had two choices. He could have gone with his sense of moral justice, that the privileged shouldn't snob out his so-called 'inferiors', and let Ebisawa-san beat the crap out of Uchiyamada, and most probably not gotten a job here because of his interview. Or, he could have gone with his sense of gain, beat the crap out of Ebisawa-san, and gotten the job. However, those consequences interfered with something else he has going on in his head. He couldn't take the job for saving what he hates the most, arrogance. And he couldn't stand by and let the products of a bad system beat the crap out of a small part of the system. That never solves anything. So, he did something unexpected: he went with his own judgement, and his own figuring of his odds of getting in in the first place, and thumbed his nose at the system himself. He showed his disdain for the system, while letting it slide... he saved Uchiyamada's health, career, and possibly life by drawing attention to himself... isn't that fascinating?"
All eyes stayed on Jim. Only the old woman's were not shocked. They were smiling, along with her mouth. "Yes. I find that very fascinating. Very fascinating indeed..." She gave another long look at him, smiled that mysterious smile at him (goofy, but knowing), and slid back into the building. Ebisawa and his crew said a hurried "sayonara" and left, the largest "punk" dropping his fire extinguisher. Azusa took a look at Jim, a little confused one, and followed the old woman's lead. Jim gave a slow smile, and stared out to where Onizuka had left. "I hope I get to see you again, Onizuka-sensei..."
*** Author's Commentary: I'm trying not to follow the books TOO closely, but Jim was in close contact with Onizuka throughout the entire chapter, so it remained exactly like the book. Don't worry, Chapter Three will be mostly original until the end. I'm finally out of school (YES!), so I'll have a LOT more time to write and update my stories more than once every quarter ...
As a matter of fact, that same Eikichi Onizuka, the blonde-haired Japanese man, was sitting just outside the same interview room Jim had exited. The two shot a glance at each other at just about the same time.
Onizuka saw a fairly tall man (in Japanese terms... Jim was only 5'8"), almost as tall as he was. The man was dressed in a traditional business suit, blue, wool, the sign of a man who was trying his damnednest to get along the fast track. But, Onizuka got another feeling from this man. A feeling similar to the ones he got from Ryuji, and Saejima, and Abe, and Umekira, and all his old biker buddies. He wanted to stay outside the system. That look in his eyes... that's what gave him away. That look, the one that showed that he had seen the world, he had experienced it, and then he had just spat in it, and said, "fuck it, I'm going to make my own way". He also had a bit of Azusa-ness, that idea that no stain could go uncleaned (not even the ones in Onizuka's boxers), in him too. Onizuka could tell Azusa's personality even though he had only met the young woman less than an hour ago. He guessed that that was his specialty, figuring out how people ticked before they even spoke to him.
The man's physical appearance was an odd blend, too. His eyes had the traditional Western wideness, probably even to the point of exaggeration. He had those puffy Western lips, too, and the broad shoulders. The suit he wore gave a very artificial impression that those shoulders were huge on top, and cut in deep to a medium-sized waist. Of course, this was just artificial, but still.... His pants had an odd bulge at the top... his legs must have been huge. His black shoes were alright, not Italian or anything, but they were suitable for an interview. He wore no tie. All in all, you couldn't miss him, especially not in Japan. But it was his dark brown hair that attracted the most attention of all.
It had been painstakingly gelled, to form seven huge bangs all across his forehead, all the same upside-down-teardrop shape. The rest of his hair had been positioned by a massive horizontal part that separated those bangs from the back of his head. In the back... that was the most remarkable part. The back was longer than most girls' hair, settling down near his waist. It had been braided, the braid as thick as his head, coming down in plaits two or three inches wide. The hair near the bottom was also shaped like an upside-down teardrop. He looked like that guy from that old TV show, what was his name? That's right. Duo Maxwell. He looked like Duo Maxwell. Well, almost.
Jim smiled when he saw Onizuka and Azusa, who was sitting next to him. "I don't see too many blonde-haired Japanese around, mister," he said, increasing his smile a little more as he took a second glance at Onizuka's hair.
Onizuka thought for a second before speaking. "Yeah, and I don't see too many Americans working at a Japanese school." He smiled too. "You going to a convention?"
Both Azusa and Jim laughed at this. "Nah... I like my hair this way. I've been growing it ever since I was... ever since I was 18. It looks beautiful, ne?"
"Yeah, and you'll end up getting screwed by emotionless mecha pilots. If not, then definitely rabid fangirls." Azusa's smile lessened a little bit, but Jim almost burst out laughing. Azusa wasn't terribly fond of jokes where somebody was getting screwed. Of course, Jim was (Hey, what American guy wouldn't be? ^_^). He shook hands with both of them, and all three exchanged names.
A little man in a suit popped out of the interview room. "Uh... Onizuka Eikichi? You're wanted in here." Onizuka shook hands with Jim again, Azusa wished him luck, and then Onizuka left. Azusa motioned for Jim to sit, but he shook his head.
"Sorry, I don't think my interview went too well... I'm going to the cafeteria to get something to eat."
Azusa gave Jim a shocked look. "I don't get it. You're going to be an English teacher, right?"
Jim smiled. "Yeah."
"Then how could you not be hired? I heard that the English department here was seriously needing somebody."
"I gave the wrong impression in there." And with that, Jim headed for the cafeteria. Azusa tried to make some protest, but she faltered and just settled to watch his long braid bounce away.
Jim went over the interview again. Their confused stares, and his simple rebuttal. Not too bad. A bit arrogant, perhaps. Uchiyamada reading his transcript and application. Unavoidable. I only wrote the truth, which was needed to be heard. Deflecting Yokomizu's questions. Also unavoidable, with my transcript in the shape it was in. His first challenge to Sakurai. Now THAT was mistake #1. My second was trying to intensify that one. Oh well... there are always other schools.
He turned and walked into the cafeteria, which still looked fairly empty. Most people just got an iced tea from the student store and left. There were a couple of small groups of teacher applicants, a group of four sitting in a table in the center and two groups of three in outlying tables. They all talked in hushed tones, showing that many of them weren't too confident about their recent interviews. The cafeteria was standard grey plastic all around, totally emotionless. Jim turned to his left, and saw the closed, ribbed, grey metal cafeteria window covers covering the spaces where the students would be getting food. Finally, to his right, he saw the student store, where the students and teachers could get snacks. It was the only place in the school that was open that day for food.
An old woman worked in the student store, a happy little smile on her face as she served an ugly middle-aged woman a soda. Despite her gray hair, she didn't look all that old.. She had a couple of large wrinkles around her mouth, but that was all. Jim could almost feel her kind aura.
"What can I be doing for you today, sir?" She gave another cheerful smile.
"Do you serve any hot tea here, ma'am?"
She sighed. "Sorry, sir. The heating unit isn't working right now."
Jim could feel another thing from her. The feeling that she was... watching him. Curiously. And not the curiosity that the American mouse gets when he sees the Indian tiger. In fact, it felt like it was the other way around.
"Alright then, I'll have an iced tea."
"Which kind, sir?"
Jim quickly glanced at all the teas she had available. Which was quite a lot. Ah well, just go with something traditional. "Green tea with ginseng?"
She smiled again. "Alright, that'll be 90 yen." Jim paid her with the 100 yen bill, and got his tea and 10 yen back. Jim smiled and left for the table. Green tea was very nice, but not if you were standing up gulping it. He had learned that a long time ago. He sat down alone at one of the tables, back to the table itself so he could continue observing the cafeteria. There was nothing more boring than staring at a table or a wall while you were enjoying something. Well, maybe church beats it, but it'd be close for sure. The best times are when we combine all kinds of sensory data, he thought. That's why it's so good to taste the good tea and see the poor people and listen to them bitch and moan, smell the clean in the room (marked by the lack of stench), feel the air, everything. If you're not indulging your senses, you're brain's turning to mush, and you're not living. Too bad TV and the Internet are suppressing people's brains everywhere. People are starting to surrender their brains entirely.
Soon after, the blonde Japanese man, Onizuka, came back in. He ordered from the old woman at the counter and she started up a conversation. They talked for a while (Jim couldn't quite hear what they were talking about), long enough for Azusa to appear. Onizuka looked a bit disappointed, much like Jim probably had seemed. Azusa seemed happy, but only until she eavesdropped on Onizuka's conversation, when she adopted a look of shock. A little more talking, a little more listening, and she started smiling again. Brighter than before, though. She must have heard something really good from him. Jim couldn't help but smile himself.
Unfortunately, the cafeteria's peaceful nature was shattered by a loud crash and the sound of breaking glass. Jim coughed involuntarily as the tea accidentally went down his windpipe. By the time he had stood up and recovered, Azusa, Onizuka, and the old lady had already rushed outside.
The scene outside could almost have been comic, if it wasn't so serious. Around twenty or thirty middle-aged-to-old-aged men and women, all suited or dressed up, were standing and forming a loose crowd that blocked the hallway. They were facing three teenage punks, one of them wielding a rusty katana, a five-o-clock shadow, and a bad haircut with a really bad dye job. The punks were destroying all of the trophy cases in sight, using the katana, a wooden baseball bat, and a fire extinguisher one of them had probably lifted just a few seconds before. Jim knew that if half of the older group were fit in any way, they could have jumped the three punks and utterly destroyed them, but all of them were ensnared by fear. The only ones that didn't look totally afraid were the Vice Principal, Uchiyamada, and his assistant Yokomizu. Only their sense of duty kept them from wetting themselves.
The one with the katana had been calling out Uchiyamada, and now the two were facing each other.
Katana-boy spoke first. "Hey, Uchiyamada! You remember me? I'm Ebisawa! You threw me out of your freaking school! And now I'm here for payback!!"
Uchiyamada held his ground, but barely. "This isn't your playground. Go back home! Is that an old katana?" Ebisawa swung the weapon several times to show that, yes, it was a katana. Yokomizu called for somebody to call for the police. Immediately after that, everything happened at once.
Jim felt a breeze go by him as Ebisawa moved in for the death stroke but then somebody called out "NO!" and it turned out to be Onizuka who stood in front of Uchiyamada and charged himself with protecting the old man in a ridiculous, anime-esque manner. Uchiyamada gained his courage back immediately, of course, now that there was an expendable body between him and the katana.
"Who the hell are you?!" Ebisawa yelled at Onizuka.. Uchiyamada replied for him.
"This is one of our teachers. He starts work in the spring." Then Uchiyamada whispered something to Onizuka, probably a bribe for a job at the school. Ebisawa snarled, but held his tongue. Uchiymada readied himself for a rant.
"I don't have to take this from you scum! You boys are pariahs! You throttle your motorbikes at night, you use drugs and you threaten everybody around you with violence! You are a disgrace to our school, a cancer that once threatened to suck the life out of it! You are trash! Go ahead, Onizuka, TAKE OUT THE TRASH!!!"
Onizuka didn't take a single step towards the punks. He turned around. He was angry. As everybody watched, he positioned himself so that he was facing the punks but behind Uchiyamada. He grabbed the vice principal by the waist.
It only took a second for the amateur wrestler in Jim to realize what he was going to do. "MATSU! Onizuka-san, nani wa shimasu ka?!?" SHIT! Onizuka, what are you doing?!? Onizuka paid no heed, and turned the vice principal's world upside down. Literally. He lifted Uchiyamada up with his arms as he bent his body backwards into a "U" shape, and as he did, slammed Uchiyamada into the ground behind him.
He had performed the dreaded German Suplex. On the vice principal. There was no sound for a moment, then a horrific crack as Uchiyamada's head struck the tile floor and split two of the tiles. The vice principal's glasses flew off and one of the lenses cracked across the lens before the crack splintered into a delta shape. Uchiyamada himself was alright... there was a little bit of blood starting to pool around his head and he was foaming at the mouth, but he was still conscious.
Everybody else, however, was speechless. The endless silence was broken when Yokomizu screamed out Uchiyamada's name. One of the younger applicants turned to Onizuka as the others helped Uchiyamada up. "Just who do you think you are? You're just a thug like them! A violent monster! How the hell did you ever get this far in the application process? You should be locked up like them!"
Onizuka gave the man an icy stare. Then he spoke in a low, angry voice. "The question is, just who do you think YOU are?" He scuffed the white floor with his shoes before he continued. "What gives you the right to stare down your noses at people like this, call them names like 'scum'? Those names cut deeper than any katana. As long as there are teachers like you, there will be students like this," he said, motioning toward the stunned Ebisawa and his cronies.
"I regret ever wanting to be like you. I regret ever wanting to be a teacher." He turned, spoke a little to Ebisawa, then turned down the hall and began to leave the building. Ebisawa and the other two followed him.
Azusa, the old woman, and Jim followed the four. They were talking in one of the courtyards when Azusa burst out into the glaring sunlight, yelling, "Onizuka! You can't walk out like this!"
Onizuka merely gave her a passing glance, then started to walk away from the school, coat slung over his shoulder.
"You can't quit! What you just said was inspiring! Come back!"
Onizuka turned his head to Azusa, and smiled. "They never were going to hire me. I just realized that." He stopped, and turned his body halfway around. "Hey, Azusa. Be a good enough teacher for the both of us." And with that, he turned and left for good.
The beautiful blue sky laughed down at all of them. Jim was annoyed, and indignant. The old woman looked disappointed, and Jim sensed a hidden emotion within her again. This time, though, he couldn't guess what it was. Azusa was crestfallen. And nobody could blame her. The "punks" were still in a state of awe, just starting to turn into the barest fringes of shock and disappointment at what had just happened.
Jim thought for a while, then smirked. Only the old woman noticed him. "What? What are you smiling about?" She kept her voice neutral, but there was a heavy steel hidden by it.
"I was just thinking about what he did."
She looked at him cockeyed. "And?"
"I don't think he realizes it, but he's one of the smartest men he's ever seen."
All eyes turned to Jim. "Excuse me?" Azusa asked.
"Think about it. To a conventional mind, Onizuka had two choices. He could have gone with his sense of moral justice, that the privileged shouldn't snob out his so-called 'inferiors', and let Ebisawa-san beat the crap out of Uchiyamada, and most probably not gotten a job here because of his interview. Or, he could have gone with his sense of gain, beat the crap out of Ebisawa-san, and gotten the job. However, those consequences interfered with something else he has going on in his head. He couldn't take the job for saving what he hates the most, arrogance. And he couldn't stand by and let the products of a bad system beat the crap out of a small part of the system. That never solves anything. So, he did something unexpected: he went with his own judgement, and his own figuring of his odds of getting in in the first place, and thumbed his nose at the system himself. He showed his disdain for the system, while letting it slide... he saved Uchiyamada's health, career, and possibly life by drawing attention to himself... isn't that fascinating?"
All eyes stayed on Jim. Only the old woman's were not shocked. They were smiling, along with her mouth. "Yes. I find that very fascinating. Very fascinating indeed..." She gave another long look at him, smiled that mysterious smile at him (goofy, but knowing), and slid back into the building. Ebisawa and his crew said a hurried "sayonara" and left, the largest "punk" dropping his fire extinguisher. Azusa took a look at Jim, a little confused one, and followed the old woman's lead. Jim gave a slow smile, and stared out to where Onizuka had left. "I hope I get to see you again, Onizuka-sensei..."
*** Author's Commentary: I'm trying not to follow the books TOO closely, but Jim was in close contact with Onizuka throughout the entire chapter, so it remained exactly like the book. Don't worry, Chapter Three will be mostly original until the end. I'm finally out of school (YES!), so I'll have a LOT more time to write and update my stories more than once every quarter ...