Chapter 4
The Joys Of Teaching
Zell stared at the reflection of himself in the Rinoa's bathroom mirror, every now and then adjusting his skirt so that it would be longer and cover more of his thigh; he wanted a respectable look for his first day of teaching. He had never realised it before but the female SeeD instructor's uniform was not really the most 'covering' of things in the leg region. Perhaps he should get a petition started to allow trousers in the uniform.
"Zeeeell, you still in there?" Shouted the ever-happy voice of Rinoa from behind the door. "5 minutes until class starts. An instructor should always be there before her pupils." Zell rolled his eyes and opened the door of the bathroom to find Rinoa grinning in the next room. For some reason she always seemed to be grinning and for some reason it annoyed Zell a great deal. Probably because he thought that Rinoa should still feel extremely guilty for what she had done to him.
"Oooh, you look pretty Zell." Apparently Rinoa, over the last two days, had forgotten the mishap. Zell merely stuck out his tongue at her, indicated that he was leaving and slammed the dormitory door with Rinoa still grinning at his side.
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
"Miss Avis Delavy," said Quistis Trepe, the head of the Garden staff and a close friend to Zell although she didn't know it, "your class is allocated in Training Room D on the second floor. You will be in charge of Mr Dincht's martial arts class."
Zell nodded even though he knew perfectly well where his class was and whom his class was with, he had been teaching them for nearly a year now. After making sure his name, or Avis Delavy's name to be more precise, had been ticked off the staff attendance list he made his way up to the second floor.
"Wait Miss Delavy," it was Quistis again but this time her voice was less professional. Zell turned to face her and saw a curious look in her eye.
"Have I… seen you before?" She asked.
"Um," Shit…how can she recognise me? "No I don't think so, why?"
"You just seem very familiar that's all," Quistis answered, tilting her head to the side as if doing so would help her remember just where she had seen this girl before. She had thought she was good with faces but apparently not. "Sorry to waste your time."
"That's okay," Zell replied and turned to continue on his way. Training Room D on the second floor.
Training Room D was one of the smallest in the whole of Balamb Garden. Zell had already tried countless times to try and reallocate himself but without avail. It seemed that the larger Training Rooms were to be occupied by an increasing amount of gunblading wannabes who, thanks to the defeat of Ultimecia, wished to follow in the hero Commander Squall's footprints. Zell sighed and rolled his eyes, apparently nobody realised that Squall and Rinoa weren't the only ones to fight that witch. At least his class was small.
As Zell opened the door to his class he was surprised to see Seifer standing in the corner of the room with his all too annoying smirk on his face. After Zell's last confrontation with the narcissistic blond he wasn't in much of a mood to see him again; but obviously his moods made no difference to the outside world.
Zell cleared his throat and looked towards the rest of the class only to find them all staring back at him. Of course they were all staring at him, he had been stood by the doorway for god knows how long.
"Um, morning class," Zell began, slightly startled by the highness of his voice. He still had not gotten quite use to having such a feminine voice come out of his mouth. "Mr Dincht is not available to take this class so I'll be taking his place-" a snicker escaped from Seifer but Zell ignored it, "I'm Instructor Avis Delavy."
Zell gave each person a warm-up task to do before he walked over to Seifer, who was still, to Zell's dismay and irritation, trying to suppress a laugh.
"What do you think you're doing here Almasy?"
"Observing your teaching techniques," replied Seifer. Then adding as an after-though, "you don't mind, do you Instructor?"
Zell was about to retort back when he heard her shout of 'Instructor Delavy' from behind. He turned to see one of his male students on the floor clutching his leg as if it would wall off if he didn't.
"What's wrong?" Zell asked as he crouched down in front of the student, Jin was his name. Zell knew that something bad must have happened; Jin wasn't the type of student to collapse from something as trivial as a pulled muscle in the leg.
"I pulled a muscle in my leg," or apparently not.
Zell tried his best to hide his annoyance and merely suggested that Jin should rub some muscle salve on his leg to ease the so-called 'pain'.
"Instructor Delavy, could you do it for me," Jin looked up at Zell pleadingly and held out a tube of muscle salve to the bemused Instructor. Zell stared down at the boy as if he was crazy, there's something wrong with this kid. Even so Zell did as his student requested. After all he didn't want his student to dislike him on his first, sort-of, class. He looked up to see gratitude in Jin's eye but instead he saw something else like… lust?
"Instructor Delavy Instructor Delavy," another shout erupted from the other side of the classroom and Zell turned to see another male student lying on the floor clutching his leg. "I've pulled a muscle Instructor."
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
Zell was exhausted when the bell that signalled the end of class finally rang. He wasn't exhausted because of extreme physical workouts though, he was used to that, but instead it was because he had to help a fallen student every five minutes, all of those students being male. He felt a shadow behind him and turned to see a still-smirking Seifer, he had forgotten that Seifer had been present throughout the class.
"Have fun turning on horny teenagers?" Seifer asked as he followed Zell out of the Training Room.
"What the hell are you talking about Almasy?" Zell decided to quicken his place. Being around Seifer felt rather uncomfortable. Unfortunately the taller blond could stride easily beside him. Damn these short legs.
"You do realise that now you're a girl you have two new and rather round additions to your body?"
"And I've lost one part of my body that I would have definitely preferred not to lose." Zell retorted.
"That wasn't my fault," Seifer said in a voice very much unlike the one Zell was used to hearing, "and remember I still haven't told anyone about you."
Zell was taken aback by Seifer's new tone but he decided it was best to ignore it, he walked away and this time Seifer didn't follow.
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
Seifer kicked the dirt as he stood in the Training Centre, gunblade in hand. He had hoped to stumble upon Zell again but apparently she must have been busy with lesson plans. Wait… she? Damn it Seifer what is wrong with you? He heard voices at the entrance and saw one of the students from Zell's class (Jin was it?) enter with some other guy.
"So what are we doing here again Jin?" said the other guy as they entered the jungle-like area.
"I've told you already, I'm practising." Jin answered. He was doing a few kicks and punches at the air; looking somewhat stupid as he did.
"You never practise martial arts, you say it's a waste of time."
"Not anymore it isn't, we've got this new Instructor." Jin's voice grew louder with elation at that point and he gave out a low whistle, "You should see her. She looks even better than Instructor Trepe does in the uniform."
"Maybe I should join the class and see for myself."
"Don't you dare" Jin shook his fist mock-threateningly in his friend's face, "Instructor Delavy is mine."
The two SeeDs-in-training continued their practising as Seifer exited the Training Centre. He had felt an urge to slice Jin's arms off but he overcame it, however he still felt it was best to leave before the urge came back and he could no longer control it. It was an interesting conversation he overheard but knew that if he told Zell then he would most likely have his balls shattered and since Zell no longer had any left the small blond would feel no worry in receiving any retaliation. Yes Seifer agreed with himself that it would be better to keep this information to himself. Perhaps there will be a group of 'Delavies' in the near future to rival those annoying 'Trepies'. Maybe I should join them, Seifer thought but quickly dismissed it when he realised how completely inappropriate a thought like that was.
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
Yay I'm finally done. Sorry it took so long for me to update but I have my GCSEs coming up very shortly and I have this thing called revision I have to do, damn it. Anyway because of my GCSEs you'll probably have to wait a while for my next update too. Really I am sorry.
Please still review though because I wouldn't have anyone egging me on without all your lovely reviews. Go read PodSara's story too, which was my inspiration for this one.