Boys' School Shenanigans

A young woman wearing a red sports jersey suit rushed into the room holding a bunch of papers. Her pigtails were messily done and her glasses were askew. So this was Yamaguchi Sensei…

"Rather nerdy looking," I muttered to myself. I hadn't expected her to be so young.

"Yeah, she's 23 but she already looks like that," Noda scoffed. "No sense of fashion whatsoever."

Huh. So she was one of those fresh-out-of-college, super perky teachers. Those teachers were worse than the old stubborn geezers who couldn't bother to teach anything anymore, because new teachers expected to be your best friend.

But what I noticed even more was the immediate shift in the atmosphere in the classroom. The guys had been fooling around and talking amongst themselves until she had walked in, but now they deliberately turned in their seats away from her and began to mess around, almost if on purpose to ignore her. There was an underlying tension that filled the air, almost bordering hatred. I looked around at my classmates, all of them seeming incredibly tense while trying to act as if they couldn't care less that she was in the room.

"Yamaguchi Sensei! You're late AND you have a new student!" Sawatari said sternly from the doorway.

"I'm sorry! I was tearing down all of these ridiculous flyers off of the…new student?" the teacher asked, interrupting herself.

Sawatari scanned the room for me, or rather for the "perfect school girl" I had been ten minutes ago.

"Wait, where is she? Did you fools scare her off already?!" he demanded.

I raised an arm lazily in the air. "I'm here, sir."

The class began to laugh at him. "She's right in front of your face!"

"Hmph. Well, take care of your class, Yamaguchi Sensei! And Nakajima-san, if you are unhappy in this classroom with this teacher, tell me immediately!" Sawatari said with an exaggerated glare and stormed off.

The teacher then turned to me and smiled. "I'm Yamaguchi Sensei. Can you introduce yourself to us?"

I stood up and Noda gave me a thumbs-up with a grin.

"I'm Nakajima Kana. Don't call me Kana-chan…just Kana is fine. I've been expelled from two schools for violent behavior. Anyways, I chose Class 3-D because it was my class number at the last school I was at. I figure I belong here anyways, since you guys seem pretty cool. I can handle all of you," I said, throwing Minami a smirk.

The guys whooped and rose in applause, which was pretty stupid, because I hadn't said much. But I felt welcome. I sat down and waited for Yamaguchi to give me the "lecture" about the importance of school and not getting in trouble or to just stare at me in disbelief.

However, she simply smiled. "Let's hope you won't get expelled again," she said cheerfully. "If you have anything you want to talk about at all, come to me! We women have to stick together after all!"

I stared at her. Most teachers just gave me a look, as if they didn't want to deal with me. How could she laugh off my expulsions like they didn't mean anything? Most teachers assumed I would get kicked out anyways.

"Okay, so today, I found this on the school bulletin board," Yamaguchi began. She held up a flyer with her head photoshopped onto a women's body with enormous breasts – clearly not her own.

The guys in the class all smirked.

And what's with this Yankumi?" she asked pointing to the letters next to the photo.

"It's your nickname, duh!" Minami pointed out.

"We shortened your name Yamaguchi Kumiko to Yankumi!" Kuma explained.

"…I see," she said, as if pondering over it. "It's cute! I guess I like it!"

"What?!" Minami said incredulously. "She likes it? That defeats the purpose!"

"Also, you guys should try your best not to get Vice Principal Sawatari angry," she continued. "He says that the next time something like this happens, he will hunt down the culprit and punish them accordingly."

"He always targets us like that," Minami grumbled. The rest of the class muttered their agreement. I could definitely see that happening. The creepy vice principal seemed incredibly uptight about maintaining a certain image for the school.

I turned my head when I heard someone coming down the back stairs. A guy with messy black hair walked in as if he owned the place. The class seemed to settle down and relax a bit when they saw him.

"Sawada, I told you not to be late," Yamaguchi scolded.

He ignored her and sat down in the empty seat that I had tried to take earlier. He glanced at me and asked, "Who are you?"

"This is Kana," Uchi jumped in. "She just came today."

"It's alright if she sits with us, right?" Minami said.

Sawada didn't even look at me. "Whatever," was all he said as he stared across the room, as if the topic bored him.

I raised a brow but didn't say anything. It was interesting to me that Minami had asked him if I could sit with them, as if asking for permission. What made Sawada so great in this classroom?

"That stupid vice principal pisses me off," Uchi said, kicking Noda's chair a little. Oh, back to this topic again.

"Shall we teach him a lesson?" Kuma said and the guys in his group nodded in agreement.

"So I guess I should start homeroom now!" Yamaguchi said, and then the bell rang. Everyone stood up and walked out of class. I only had a brief look at her dejected form before Uchi grabbed my school bag and dragged me out of the room with them.

At lunch, the guys took me to the parking lot where the teachers kept their cars.

I didn't even have to guess which one was the vice principal's car. Only he would drive a bright yellow Volkswagen beetle as obnoxious as he was.

"What are you going to do?" I asked.

"You don't have to do anything, Kana," Uchi said. "Just leave it to us."

Noda and Kuma came back with a bag full of spray paint, as if they had this all planned.

I sat on the short wall surrounding the parking lot as Sawada leaned against it.

"I'm Kana," I said to him as we watched the other guys "creatively" decorate the vice principal's car.

He looked at me and looked away. Okay then.

"What school did you come from?" he asked.

"Momojou," I responded unhappily.

"Momojou? You?" he asked with a smirk.

"That's why I left!" I retorted, knowing that he was comparing me to the proper schoolgirl image that Momojou girls portrayed.

"You mean you got expelled," he pointed out flatly.

"…Shut up," I said with a huff, coming down from the wall. Sawada's holier-than-thou attitude was so irritating. I preferred him to stay silent. I walked over to where the guys were pretty much done with their masterpiece.

"So why do you guys hate Sawatari so much?" I asked.

"He treats us like trash," Uchi said, angrily spraying his last finishing touches on the terrible drawing of Sawatari. "He always accuses us immediately, whether we did something wrong or not."

"That's why he stuck all of us in the same class," Noda explained to me. "He thinks we're the worst trouble makers."

"No wonder he was so upset I picked this class," I said with a grin.

"Pretty much," the guys responded.

Just as Kuma wrote his final message "Dropping out is fine!" in bright red, Minami came running, telling us that a teacher was headed this way. We looped around the back to get back to the classroom. There was no way we would get caught, right? And even so, there was no way that Sawatari would think that I had anything to do with it.

Sawatari discovered his wrecked car soon enough. Lunch was hardly over when he burst into our classroom, absolutely furious.

"WHO DID THIS?! WHO DID THIS TO MY CAR?!" he demanded, pounding his hands on the podium.

Sawada smirked as the others tried to hide their grins. The rest of the class wasn't even paying attention to Sawatari.

"YOU'RE THE HOMEROOM TEACHER. DO SOMETHING ABOUT THIS!" Sawatari yelled at Yamaguchi.

"Do you have proof that they did it?" she asked innocently.

"YEAH!" Uchi shouted, standing on his desk. "Where's your PROOF?!" Everyone got riled up, echoing his demand.

"BECAUSE OF THAT!" Sawatari yelled, pointing to the paint traces on our classroom floor.

Uchi slid back into his chair as the class fell silent, defeated. I mentally facepalmed.

"Why couldn't you guys be a bit more discreet?" I heard Yamaguchi mutter quietly. I raised an eyebrow at her comment. A teacher was egging us on to graffiti on people's cars?

"Who did this?!" Sawatari demanded again.

"We don't know!" Kuma yelled, hitting his desk.

"Even if we did, we wouldn't rat out anyone," Uchi said.

"Wow, you guys really understand honor and sympathy," Yamaguchi said, impressed. Huh?

"Of course we do," Uchi said proudly. "We're all classmates here."

"Awww, you guys have a good side to you after all!" she said proudly.

"Why are you complimenting them?!" Sawatari demanded.

"It's good that you guys won't rat out your friends," Yamaguchi said, "but if you are the culprit, it's best for you to come forward yourself. It is destruction of property after all."

The class fell silent once more.

"Fine, have it your way," Sawatari said angrily. "All of you are not allowed to leave today unless the culprit comes forward himself. You guys will be held jointly responsible!"

The class erupted into protests. This definitely was not fair.

"Does that mean me too?" Yamaguchi asked.

"Of course. You're their homeroom teacher. Make sure no one leaves," he said as he headed for the door. "Oh and Nakajima-san. You're free to leave whenever you want. I'm sure you had nothing to do with it," he said to me with another one of his creepy smiles.

"…Well I guess it can't be helped, since you guys are all so loyal to your friends…" Yamaguchi began after he left.

Sawada stood up, kicking his desk. "Stop calling us friends so easily," he snapped and left the room.

"…What's with him?" I asked, not that I disagreed with him.

"…Maybe he doesn't think we're all friends yet," Noda said quietly. "It's only the second week of school, after all."

"Yeah, he was only close with Uchi and Kuma before this year, right?" Minami said. "Maybe that's why."

Or maybe because he knew that "friends" usually turned out to be the backstabbing liars, as I had experienced in the past.

Whatever it was, we dropped the subject, but the class refused to give any names so we remained stuck in class, even after the final bell rang. The guys asked me why I didn't leave even though I was allowed to. I told them it was because it was more fun here than at home, which was true, but I also didn't want them to think that I was taking advantage of Sawatari favoring me. I didn't want to give my classmates any reason to resent me, not if I was going to have to spend the rest of the year with them.

And I was determined to make it until the end of this school year.

Minami suddenly got a text and pumped his fist in the air triumphantly.

"I'm going to go meet Ayumi now," he said grabbing his bag and heading up the back stairs. Noda and Uchi cheered him on.

"Wait, where are you going?" Yamaguchi asked. "You can't leave!"

She came toward the back but Uchi, Kuma and Noda physically restrained her to let Minami go. I almost laughed at how comical this looked.

"Don't stop him," Noda said. "He has a date with his girl."

"A date?" Yamaguchi asked, sounding surprised.

"Yeah, he usually goes around picking up girls, but this time, it seems like he's pretty serious about this one girl," Uchi explained, still holding Yamaguchi back.

"Aww, that's so cute. You guys are such good friends," she beamed. Then she threw Uchi and Kuma's hands off in what seemed to be a martial arts group.

I looked around, seeing if anyone else had seen what I had. How did she do that? Uchi seemed to be clutching his chest in pain where her elbow had collided with his ribs. But no one else seemed to have seen, and I wondered if it was because Uchi and Kuma hadn't been putting their full strength into it.

"Alright, now that I've seen how loyal you guys can be, I'm going to let you all go for today," Yamaguchi announced.

"Really?" the class asked.

"If you help me fix the vice principal's car back to the way it was," she said. Of course there was a catch. "Everyone change into your sports jerseys and meet me at the parking lot!"

The class mumbled in response. I grinned. I could see where this was going.

No one ended up meeting her as planned. We all left, leaving Yamaguchi to wash the car. I had nothing to do with the graffiti, but I knew that I wasn't the only one who didn't want to wash it off.

After school, Kuma asked me if I wanted to hang out with them.

"For a little bit," I agreed.

"We'll show you the best places to have fun," Noda said, slinging an arm casually around my shoulder.

"Oi, you got first dibs on the last girl," Uchi pointed out.

"So?" Noda smirked. "Besides, she ended up leaving Shirokin!"

"So I get first dibs on Kana," Uchi said, shoving Noda's arm off to replace it with his own. Noda grabbed Uchi's collar and they glared at each other.

"Hey, I'm not an object to be fought over!" I said angrily. Uchi immediately removed his arm.

"Sorry," he and Noda muttered, and I glared at them.

"I suggest keeping your arms to yourself from now on," I said firmly. "But buy me ice cream and I might forgive you this time."

"Nice," Kuma said, smiling at the thought of food. "Yeah, buy me one too, while you're at it."

Uchiyama and Noda looked at each other and shrugged.

"Sure, for Kana."

"HEY!"

The guys ignored Kuma and began to walk toward the commercial area of town.

We hung out for hours. I don't know how time passed so quickly, but I found myself enjoying myself in the company of others for the first time in a long time. Sawada met up with us partway through. He mostly ignored me, but I was fine with that. Kuma ate for most of the time we were together. He was pretty nice though, despite his incredibly gruff exterior. And even though Noda acted flirty with me, he wouldn't stop talking about older women, especially Fujiyama, the English teacher. He also talked a lot about his beloved electronics, his PC and his headphones.

Uchi and I hit it off really well, as if we had always known each other. We got on each other's nerves a lot by teasing, but it wasn't bad.

"Uchi-chan, who did your hair?" I asked, reaching over to give his blond hair a touch.

"Don't call me Uchi-chan!" he growled. "And don't touch my hair!"

"Uchi-chan, Uchi-chan!" Noda chanted, hopping around Uchi with his hands in his pockets.

"Shut up!"

It was almost completely dark before I realized I should start heading back.

"I'm going to go home," I said, standing up from where I sat, watching them play pool.

"We'll go with you!" Uchi said.

I immediately put my hands up, as if physically stopping them from coming after me.

"No need," I insisted. "I can take care of myself. It's not that far anyway."

"If you say so…" Noda said, but I could hear him and Uchi conspiring to follow me.

As if sensing my distress, Sawada spoke up. "Guys, stop it. Just let her go."

"Fine," they grumbled. "See you tomorrow!"

I waved as I left.

"How was your first day?" Shun asked me when I got home.

"What, were you worried about me Shunnie?" I teased, putting my bag on the counter.

"I told you not to call me that, kid," he warned.

"Then don't call me kid," I whined. "Chiba~ Shunnie's bothering me!"

"Will you both grow up?" Chiba groaned from where he sat.

"I am older than you," Shun pointed out. "So, answer my question, Kana! What happened today?"

"Nothing much, except that I ended up being the only girl at an all boys' school."

Shun looked a little horrified while Chiba burst out laughing.

"So you're going to a school full of guys and coming home to a house full of guys!" Chiba gasped between laughs.

"It's fine, I can handle myself," I said, more to Shun than to Chiba.

Shun was quiet for a moment before he nodded. "I'm sure you can. Anyway, go do your homework, kid."

"I'll do it later," I said. "Make me a smoothie first."

"The princess is so demanding," Chiba joked. "What, did you not make any friends today? Or boyfriends?"

"I don't need friends or boyfriends," I snapped back. "I just need to graduate."

"You can't graduate unless you do your assignments. I'll bring you a smoothie later," Shun said.

"Ha, sucker," Chiba said, as I reluctantly headed to my room.

I didn't end up getting any work done that night anyway. People from the house kept dropping by to ask me how my day was.

"Shun's really proud of you for going back to school, you know," Sho, one of the guys in the house I considered myself somewhat close to, said to me. "He just won't admit it."

"I know," I said.

Shunsuke, or Shun as we all called him, was a huge part of why I was even going back to school. When I had hit rock bottom after being expelled for the first time with nothing left to live for, he gave me a place to call home. And he was the one that reminded me that I had made a promise to my parents to at least graduate from high school.

Pretty much everyone in this house, including Chiba and Sho, had a similar story. Shun had taken each of us and our violent backgrounds and instead of judging us for it, had given us a place to call our own, turning our lives around. Why Shun never ended up helping out other girls besides me was a mystery to me, but I had never asked. I was too grateful to what Shun had done for me and never questioned him since. The rest of the guys in the house also regarded Shun with a lot of respect, even though at twenty-eight, he wasn't that much older than some of them. Shun was one of the only people I trusted with my entire heart and it meant a lot to know that he was proud of me.

I eventually fell asleep, wondering if my parents would be proud of me too.

Author's Note:

So previous readers of my story may have noticed, but there are some major changes to this chapter. I was rewatching Gokusen and I realized I had left out several events and details that I felt were necessary to the story.

I also got a lot of comments on later chapters that they wanted to know more about Kana, and I realized that I should introduce her background earlier on. I hope that this was more helpful than confusing. I realize that this means introducing a lot more characters in the beginning than before.

Also for clarification
*Sawada's close friends call him Shin. Kana calls him Sawada because they're not close.
*"-chan" is a suffix added to names to refer to younger children or girls.
*Japanese high schools are only 3 years. So even though Class 3-D are third years, they're also seniors. This might be confusing for places where high schools are typically 4 years.

Thanks for reading and let me know if you have any questions/thoughts! (: