Chapter 2: Mistaken and Confused Identities
Disclaimer: I do own RK
Checking her appearance for one last time on her compact, Kaoru Shinomori headed towards the school's auditorium for the annual Parent-Teacher Fellowship. The administration always held it a week before classes started. The Parent-Teacher Fellowship had made communication better between parents and teachers alike, thus meeting the needs of the students were easier and more individualized. It was a nice get-to-know-each-other slash welcome party and an orientation at the same time.
Kaoru walked towards her fellow teachers. "So, how's the watch going?"
"No such luck." Misao Makimachi, a preschool teacher too like Kaoru, sighed heavily. "All the guys here are married! There is not one single man out here!"
"That's where you're wrong, Misao-chan." Tomoko Yanagi, a grade 1 teacher whispered coyly. "Check them out, 12-o-clock."
The young teachers turned to the "them" Tomoko was talking about. Their eager eyes set upon two very handsome young men, who looked liked they were in their late twenties. The black spiky haired one was wearing a dark blue polo shirt and black slacks. What really caught their eyes was the hanging earring he had on his left ear. The brown-haired guy looked more casual and laid-back, wearing, khaki pants and a black shirt. He was currently grinning from ear to ear, which elicited sighs from the ladies. He had a nice and friendly aura around him whereas his companion had the tall-dark-and-handsome thing going on. They all unanimously agreed that these two guys without a doubt indeed fell into the "Smokin' Hot and Single" category.
"Dibs on Mr. Gorgeous smile!"
"Na-uh! I saw him first!"
"The one in the dark blue shirt has that bad boy charm."
"I know. This is so like high school."
Whilst her colleagues where debating who was cuter, Kaoru was racking her brain where she saw the guy in the dark blue shirt before. "I remember a face." She thought, taking another look at the guy. "Especially a cute face." She grinned to herself.
"Um, hello? Is this thing on?" A middle-age woman tapped the microphone, causing very audible and painful feedback. "Sorry." She smiled apologetically. "Good afternoon." She began formally. I'd like to welcome everyone to the annual Parent-Teacher Fellowship here in Wood Rose Elementary. Now, it is my honor to be introducing you to our own dear administrator, Mr. Katsura Kogoro for our welcome addresses." Everyone clapped politely.
"Thank you Mrs. Kazumi. She's the head of the preschool department. Welcome, teachers and parents. I won't take long because we have a lot planned for our dear parents today. Speaking of the parents let me thank you for choosing our humble institution to educate your children. "
Everything after that was very much drowned out by Kaoru's thoughts. She was still trying to figure out where she saw the guy in the blue shirt. "I saw him before…" then it suddenly hit her. "Leopard print curtains…" She laughed to herself. How could she forget?
Lost in thought, she didn't realize that Mr. Katsura Kogoro started introducing the staff, until she heard her name being called out and felt a painful nudge on her side. After shooting Misao a quick glare, she stood up abruptly and gave a gracious smile to the parents and to her colleagues.
"So that's Tomoe's teacher." Akira whispered to his bestfriend, Enishi Yukishiro. "She's hot."
"Can you please keep your distance from me?" Enishi hissed at him. "It's bad enough that that lady in the registration thought that we," he shuddered, "are together."
Enishi and Akirai were headed towards to the registration to get their name tags and free meal tickets for the dinner later in the evening. They were greeted cheerfully by a small petite woman.
She proceeded to ask their names. "Your names please."
"Enishi Yukishiro."
"Your wife?" She asked not looking up.
"Um, I don't have a wife." Enishi answered politely.
At this answer the woman looked up. "Oh my, I'm sorry." She apologized shifting her gaze from Enishi to Yuri and smiling at the two of them as if they were the cutest things she had ever seen.
Enishi froze at the idea she was implying. "No, it's not what you think." He stuttered. "We're not like that."
Akira, on the other hand, snorted then proceeded to guffaw loudly.
"Don't worry about it, honey." She waved her hand flippantly. "My brother is the same as you are." She whispered to him as if sharing gossip. She handed their name tags and tickets to the so-called couple.
"But.. we're not!" Enishi tried to explain.
"Don't worry. I won't tell a soul. It'll be between us girls. " She promised, holding her right hand up. "It'll be our little secret." Then she winked at them.
Enishi shuddered at the embarrassing memory.
"Let them think what they want to think." Yuri waved off his hand flippantly. "It's not like it's true. Is it?" Akira looked at him suspiciously.
"Excuse me? I didn't know you were that desperate." Enishi retorted, very much disgusted.
"I am very much confident of my sexuality, thank you very much."
"I don't care what they think about me. It's Tomoe I'm worried about. She doesn't have parents like most kids do. Enishi eyes softened at the subject of her sister. "I won't do her any good if the school thinks her brother is shameless homo, bringing his so called "boyfriend" to school functions like this."
"Dude, I know that. Don't worry about it 'cause they won't be thinking that by the time this thing ends." Akira had a mischievous gleam in his eye.
"May I remind you that you promised not to do anything to embarrass me?"
"You think so low of me." Akira sniffed, feigning hurt. "I'm already the one who's trying to make right this disgustingly and perverted situation we are in."
"This is a school, not a single's bar. In case you didn't know."
"School, singles bar. Toma-toe, Toma-tow. Same thing."
Enishi shook his head in defeat. "Remind me why I let you talk me into letting you come with me?"
"I came to support you, seeing your difficult situation being a single parent." Akira said in all sincerity. He saw how Enishi was looking wistfully at the parents that were here. Being around them had reminded him of his loss.
"Thanks, dude. I mean it, but I was asking for the other reason."
"Hot teachers."
Enishi had to admit to that it was true. There were a lot of nice-looking ladies who looked decent enough but one had already caught his eye. Tomoe will be happy that she would be her teacher. He forgot about the little petite lady with the leopard print curtains. She looked nice tonight.
"You were thinking of Tomoe's teacher weren't you?" Yuri grinned at him.
"Shut up. People are looking at us." Enishi countered back.
"Whatever, dude. I knew you were." Akira relaxed himself in his chair, slouching a bit. "So do you plan to talk to her after this thing?"
Enishi massaged his temples. He was beginning to regret bringing Yuri to the orientation. "Look, Akira, let's try to remember why we're here okay?"
"Yeah, yeah, okay." Akira rolled his eyes. "Lighten up, will ya? Just messing with you, dude. You haven't cracked a smile ever since we got here." He looked over his brooding friend. "In fact your facial muscles twitched a bit when you saw Tomoe's teacher," Yuri paused, "You know her."
"We've been friends way too long." Enishi mused.
"Hah. I knew it." Akira looked at his friend in interest. It was rare that Enishi even remembered an encounter with the opposite sex. Enishi had no problems attracting the female species. Heck, he was swarmed by them everyday. It's just that if they weren't after his trust fund, they were not so keen about his sister, Tomoe. "Well, buddy this is your lucky day. All the parents are grouped according to their kid's teachers. So…" He trailed off, giving Enishi a roguish grin.
-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-
"Good evening to everyone. Again I'd like to welcome y'all to our annual Parent-Teacher Fellowship. In this activity we'll have a little getting-to-know-each-other time since we'll be seeing each other a lot during PTCs and other school functions. Start off with your name and then a little something about yourself. Kinda like freshman orientation." Kaoru noticed a few smiles and chuckles from the parents. "Anyway let me start it off by introducing myself. I am Teacher Kaoru Shinomori. I'll be teaching Grade 1 and pre-school this year and yellow roses are my favorite flowers."
"Yellow roses…" Enishi found himself storing the information for future use. He noticed that she looked really nice when she laughed. And just like in the movies, complete with the whole slow motion effect going on and imaginary flower petals floating around her face, Kaoru turned to face him, looking at him expectantly.
"It's your turn, dufus." Akira nudged him hard at his side. Hiding his painful "oomph", Enishi smiled apologetically at the expectant faces and proceeded to introduce himself.
-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-
"Well, that went quite well." Enishi drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. The rest of the evening turned out quite nicely. The prepared dinner was delicious and he made acquaintances with some of the parents and the faculty. He even got to talk to Miss Shinomori.
"Right." Akira snorted. "Dude, I've never seen you so… disabled. Did you forget that you're vocal functions or were you just momentarily paralyzed? What happened to Mr. Ruthless-in-court?"
"Who you calling disabled!" Enishi answered back defensively. "I talked to her!"
"Yeah, you did. You asked her to excuse you because you were coming through and you asked her to please pass the salt. I would hardly describe that as 'talking'. You were given a thousand opportunities. She was assigned to our table. She was assigned to sit next to you! And all you can say was 'Please pass the salt.'!"
"Like you could do better." The frustrated driver narrowed his eyes at the road. Enishi felt that he didn't need to be reminded of his 'disabled moments' earlier that evening. He was already feeling incredibly stupid at the moment. No need to remind him further of that. He still had some consolation though. His mood began to considerably lighten.
"For your information, I actually TALKED to some of the people there, as in I had an actual CONVERSATION with them." Akira said as a matter of fact. "I actually have some of the numbers of the faculty." He grinned impishly.
"Did you tell them that I am not related to you in anyway whatsoever?"
"No. I told them you were my transvestite boyfriend who is currently living with me."
Enishi actually took his eyes of the road to give his best friend a look of disgust and pure contempt. If looks could kill, Akira would be a pile of dust right there and then.
"I'm kidding. Dude, lighten up. Just because your encounter with the opposite sex didn't go too well, it doesn't mean that you're entitled to end your life and mine by not looking at the road while you're driving." Akira warned him seriously.
"Akira, I didn't need to talk to her. I already talked to Katsura-san about everything I need to know." Enishi was trying to redeem himself but doing a terrible job at hiding it. "And all I thought was that she looked nice. You don't expect me to think more than that. She's my sister's teacher. It's just wrong."
"But you wanted to."
"I didn't. Please don't compare me to yourself. I don't go and hit on anything with two legs and a chest."
"Oh, so what about Yuki, Tara, Rachel, Lilly, Uno…" Akira looked over to Enishi. "Shall I go on?" Yuri was grinning to himself.
"Those are different cases, okay? They weren't my little sister's teachers." Enishi gritted out. Yuri was driving him nuts already.
"Yeah, but they didn't exactly like your sister either." Enishi responded to him with a cold stare. "Look, it's the truth. But here's a woman who likes your sister and who's really really hot."
"Can you please stop calling her hot? She's my-"
"Yeah, I know. Your sister's teacher. But you have to admit for a teacher, she's-"
"Yeah, I know. Hot."
"That's why I'm telling you that you should've at least talked to her about something other than salt."
"Shut up."