category: AU/comedy
author: Manda
rating: PG/PG-13
pairing: none
spoilers: none
notes: see chapter 1!
The graffiti was the usual round of insults directed at the school, at the administration, and particularly focused on the new teacher who stood in the midst of the hallway, tie straight and jaw wide open.
He recovered quickly by telling his brain to ignore that his name was plastered all over the beige wall.
"Aren't you the least surprised by this?" he asked Principal Hyu, who laughed and shook his head.
"Ah, well, this sort of thing tends to happen a lot here, especially with the fight between the brothers."
"The Elric and Tringham brothers?"
"They're good kids, they're just a little...without guidance right now. Their parents aren't around too much, and we try..."
Masuta reached and smeared a little of the painted kanji that declared him a pervert and a pyro in Japanese. How in the world did they get pyro? he wondered. The grammar was atrocious, and words that they should know by now were misspelled. He blanched as he saw most of the instances of his last name were written in katakana, not kanji and made a mental note to make sure to make a "teacher" box on every test where they'd be forced to put his name - in kanji, or points off.
"We have to figure out who did this," he said, and Hyu pointed at a phrase in what had to be German, because of the weird dots and squiggilies over them that had agonized Masuta in Western Linguistics class long ago.
"Know any German?"
"Absolutely none. I took English in high school, that's similar, isn't it?" He stared at the words, hoping some familiar word would jump out at him. Nothing.
A boy in a pair of overalls toddled by the two adults, a pair of garden gloves in his hand and chains with many keys attached swinging from his pockets. He stopped and smiled at the two adults.
"It says 'Love, the Tringham brothers,'" he said in the slightest Chinese accent.
The two adults looked at each other and pounded their fists in their hands. Masuta paused and looked behind him, but the boy must have turned into a classroom or another hallway somewhere.
"Who was that boy?"
Hyu shook his head. "I have no idea." He let out a most un-Principal-like and very Hyu-like curse. "The Superintendent's going to have our heads!"
And Masuta was dragged along the hallway by the arm - yet again - while mumbling "And what are we going to do about the graffiti?"
He didn't care if it said it was the Tringham brothers; he knew somewhere Elric had something to do with this.
"Make sure you don't get caught," Mrs. Izumi Curtis snarled, hauling Ed and Al up by their collars. Officially every day the pair spent 5th period in the home ec room for "independent study", or goofing off. Izumi had been their babysitter when they and she were both young, long before she married an American and became a self-professed housewife who just happened to teach home economics forty hours per week. Her class had the students walking out vaguely feeling like they had just been in gym or shop after learning the proper ways to wash dishes (in 5 minutes or less!), fix sewing machines, and speed-sew punching bags.
"But Izumi, we didn't-" Al said, before Ed cut him off.
"We won't. We framed the Tringhams."
"Now," she said, "Did you frame them in a convincing manner?"
"Well, we wrote 'Love, the Tringhams,' in German on the wall," mumbled Al.
"They'll feel real smart after they figure that out, except it's wrong," laughed Ed.
"That's not near good enough. You two, if you're going to do things I don't approve of in the first place at least blame other people properly!"
She dropped both of them a few inches to land on hard chair, and whirled around once, twice, then dropped teddy bears with stuffing falling out of them, needles, and brown thread down on the desks.
"Now, as punishment, sew."
"Awww, Izumi, we wanted to play videogames-"
She turned around from the sink and glared. They suddenly found great interest in the sewing. She rhythmically washed dishes and slammed them into the dish rack with such an intensity Ed thought they really should have broken. Then again, Izumi seemed to have perfected the art of slamming things just above their breaking threshold. Including the brothers.
"I thought you'd be mad at us for just writing graffiti in the first place-" Ed started. Izumi started smacking a pot in her hand again and again. Their rate of sewing increased.
"This school isn't being run very well, despite being elite or whatever. I'm letting the administration figure out that you two did it as an exercise for their small brains. And I don't like that Masuta anyway. He's one of those conceited jackasses who've had a college education with a degree name that's something real long and doesn't mean anything."
"I think we should be careful. He seems like he'd retaliate," Al said. "Like-well, you know, like in all those TV programs where the new teacher who everyone hates at first ends up making everyone like him."
"You watch too much Japanese television, Al. I wish we got the better stations from Germany in here. Damn the Japanese and their-"
"Any more about my nationality and you'll be sewing for the whole period instead of only half of it!"
"You have to remember that Mom liked it here," Al whispered to Ed, and Ed sighed. Those were the days when their idiot father was around more than an hour a month, and it felt like they were a real family. Now, it was just excuses, excuses, excuses, not even passed through Hoenheim Elric's own mouth but through the workers in the embassy.
"Your mother loved it here," Izumi said, speed-drying a pan. "She was so thrilled when I showed her how to tie a kimono, and she only wanted to show it to your father."
"That bastard," Ed mumbled.
"Such language, Mr. Elric," said a voice at the door.
Izumi smiled, dropping her loudness level down several decibels. "Ah, Ms. Hokuai. To what do I owe the pleasure of your visit to my domestic dungeon?"
"Forgive me for intruding during your free period, but I wanted to discuss matters with you regarding the new teacher and our group."
"Yes, of course." This is odd, Ed thought. Izumi and Ms. Hokuai did get along moreso than Izumi and most of the other teachers in the school, but what was "our group"? Perhaps it was a group of Teachers Against Masuta, he'd agree with that one except he'd taken the job of torturing the new teacher onto himself.
The teddy bears were snatched out of he and Al's hands.
"Go somewhere else," Izumi ordered, with an afterthought's "Please". "Ms. Hokuai and I have teacher stuff to talk about."
"Oh, all right," Ed mumbled, and he and Al went out in the hallway.
"Now..." Al whispered after the door had shut behind them, and gestured.
"Now is the time to eavesdrop," Ed finished and the two of them, grinning, arranged themselves in the ideal listening arrangement around the door. If plans were to be made against Masuta, he at least should know about them, if not be the head mind behind them.
The Superintendent's office was located a few blocks away. Perhaps he just didn't want to be exposed to what seemed to Masuta to be slight mismanagement of the school's discipline.
"Bradley's a good guy, you just have to get used to his bizarre sense of humor. He's German too, so you don't have to be quite as formal as you're used to," Hyu said, straightening his own tie and pushing Masuta into the office.
The Superintendent sat in duck-covered pajamas in front of a desk strewn with papers. An eyepatch hung over his left eye. Pictures of various settings all over the world - and ducks - hung all on the green wall.
He smiled at the two as they walked in. "Good morning, troops!"
"Ah, good morning, sir," Masuta said. He was used to crazy bosses, although perhaps not this crazy. There was that one that had the plants growing all over his office-
"Good morning, sir!" Hyu said and raised his hand in a salute.
"How's everything going at the school?"
Masuta opened his mouth but was cut off by Hyu's "Oh, fine, just fine!" He glared at Hyu, who shrugged.
The Superintendent smiled again. "Good. How did your first set of classes go, Mr. Masuta?"
Hyu gave him a quick warning look.
"Fine, no problems at all." He paused to think. He hadn't lied this much in a long time. "The students are wonderful."
The Superintendent's grin grew even wider. "Yes, we have some of the finest students here, especially those involved with the German Embassy. Did you know that the German Ambassador regularly donates to us to help the school keep going? The technology we have isn't cheap, you know."
"That's very gracious of him," Masuta said, and thought of an older version of Edward passing money to Bradley and saying "This is for putting up with my son". He had only known the young Elric for several hours, but he was still tempted to shove the child into a wastebasket.
"It is, isn't it? But onto the subject at hand, namely, your pay. I know we've agreed on the actual rate already but there is simply the matter of you signing the final employment document." He pulled a paper out from under a stack of other papers, pulled a pen out of his desk drawer, and tossed it in the air so the pen landed on the paper in the front of the desk.
"Of course you may read it before you sign it," he laughed, and winked at Hyu, who winked back. "Wouldn't want you to not understand what you're signing up to be paid for, right?"
Masuta nodded back, getting the distinct impression there was something going on here he didn't understand, and bent down to read the agreement. Most of it was fairly normal stuff; he'd get tenure after x review containing y tenured teachers who gave him z score, he wasn't allowed to discuss his salary with others, he was able to raise complaints about things but the Principal and Superintendent had final say, et, al. There was a little passage at the end that explained that he would be called onto other duties in the case of what they termed a "special emergency", but that was just the new term for earthquakes or tsunami, wasn't it? Nothing to worry about there, then. All normal.
He signed. The Superintendent grinned and started polishing a sword.
"Welcome to the team."
He didn't process that the Superintendent had started polishing a sword until he was halfway out the door.
"A sword?" he asked Hyu, back outside, with one eyebrow raised.
"Oh, he was in the military a long long time ago and keeps it as a reminder. It's also quite apt to scare the students with, he claims," and here Hyu lowered his voice, "-though I don't necessarily agree with that."
A young girl with brown hair and glasses attempted to hide behind a mailbox as they passed it.
"Shezuka, what are you doing?" Hyu asked in the mailbox's direction and the girl slowly rose, balancing a large pile of books in her two hands. She laughed nervously.
"Going to school?"
Hyu shook his head and sighed. "Why are you late again?"
"....I watched too much TV and overslept?"
"No, you were reading these all night again." He picked up the top book, which was red with embossed gold letters. "New theories on electrons?"
"Let me see that," Masuta said, and snatched it out of the other man's hands. He flipped through it while Hyu lectured the poor girl on the Benefits of a Classroom Education. This was the newest edition; he'd have to see what other books this girl had in her library that he didn't have.
"Getting lost in books again, I see? The nerdiness never leaves you," Hyu said, peering over his shoulder.
"Do you think I got this job in the first place by letting all my knowledge rust over time?"
"And by knowledge you mean nerdiness?"
"Remind me who in our teenage years would spend hours in front of the Famicom, trying to shoot the ducks? And who spend hours in the arcade while I was doing much more relevant things?"
"You mean, like flirting with all the girls in our class?"
Masuta pushed some stray hair out of his face. "At least they respected me."
Shezuka followed several paces behind them reading another book. Then they noticed that she wasn't following them anymore, and was lying several paces behind them, unconscious. She had walked straight into a telephone pole.
The nurse's office was a tiny room right next to the main office, and looked pretty much like every other nurse's office Masuta had seen, including the ones in his own middle school. He and Hyu had carried Shezuka (who was much heavier than she looked) down the street, ignoring the bizarre looks and lolicon comments of passersby, and back into the office. Students crowded around the teacher and Principal, whispering and pointing. The word "bookworm" came up a lot; it wasn't surprising, really, considering the nature of her accident.
They laid her down on the empty cot just as the nurse turned around. He remembered her name as soon as he saw and remembered her eyes - Rasuto. Such beautiful eyes.
"Now, this is why they tell you not to walk and read at the same time," Hyu said as the nurse put an ice compress on Shezuka's head. "And all of this wouldn't have happened if you had actually gone to school when you were supposed to instead of reading all morning."
"But I was reading about what we're talking about in math, just in a lot more detail-"
Hyu patted her on the head while the nurse continued to arrange the compress. "I realize. I know you're smart, and missing class doesn't do you any harm. But I can only cover for your unexcused absences for so long. You of all people should know there are laws that require you to go to school."
The nurse turned around, her black curly hair flouncing around.
"She'll be fine. It's just a minor bump on the head, not a concussion," she said, a brief smile flitting across her face. "She'll be able to go back to class halfway through this period."
Hyu looked at his watch and coughed.
"Oh, dear. Lunch's been over for five minutes. Sorry."
"It's not a big deal," Masuta shrugged, and headed down the deserted halls (some of which were still covered in graffiti; how was Hyu going to deal with that?) to his next class.
It really wasn't a big deal that he wasn't there on time, because classroom 3C was empty anyway.