First Fight

The next morning, when I arrived at school, a large group of guys not in my class seemed to be waiting for me.

"Good morning, Kana-chan," they chorused.

I clenched my fists. Kana-chan? Really?

They all wanted to talk to me, especially one guy named Abe, but eventually a fight broke out amongst them as I tried to push past them. I called out to Sawada to help me but he ignored me and walked past.

I eventually got by when Iwamoto, the Physical Education teacher, saw the fight and came to break it up.

When I opened my shoe locker, a ton of letters and trinkets fell out.

"What the…" I muttered as I picked them. They were all addressed to me.

Handwritten letters…what were they, schoolgirls?*

I stuffed them all into a bag and threw them out when no one was looking. I didn't even know these people!

I ran into Uchi on the way to class.

"Yo," he said to me, then slung a casual arm across my shoulder. I gave him a look, but I didn't really care. I was just relieved that he was someone I knew. He noticed, and didn't remove his arm.

"Why are you so happy?" I asked. Something good must have happened.

"Maybe because I have a pretty girl on my arm and I look good," he said, grinning at me.

"So you're using me," I said, looking at him with a cold expression. He stepped back and his expression changed.

"No, Kana, I was just kidding," he said slowly, trying not to make me angry. I shrugged.

"Baka*," I said, laughing at him. He realized that I had been making fun of him, and shoved me lightly. I shoved him back before he replaced his arm on my shoulder.

When we got to class, I saw that Minami and Sawada were gone, but Kuma and Noda were there. I was still pissed that Sawada didn't help me out this morning, but what was I expected really. We weren't even friends.

As if on cue, Sawada slammed the classroom door open, and walked in. He immediately went to the back and grabbed his bag. I saw that he was sporting a fresh cut on his lip.

Before we could ask him anything, Yamaguchi ran into the classroom. "Sawada, you aren't thinking of leaving are you?" she demanded.

"I won't write a reflection essay*," Sawada retorted.

"You're okay with being expelled?" Yamaguchi asked him.

"Expelled?" Kuma gasped. What on earth had happened?

"It doesn't matter to me," Sawada replied coolly.

"Even if it doesn't matter to you, it does to me," Yankumi replied. "You guys would hate it if your friend got expelled, right?"

"Stop calling us friends so easily!" Sawada snapped.

"It's not easy or hard. Friends are friends."

"Let's get along with everyone because we're all friends, is it? We're not kids. Don't make me laugh," Sawada scoffed.

At that moment, Minami stumbled in. His face was swollen, with one black eye and a huge cut running down his cheek to his mouth.

"Minami," Uchi and I both said, staring at him.

But it was as if we didn't exist. Minami and Sawada glared at each other before Sawada picked up his stuff and left.

"Shin!" Kuma called after him.

"Leave him alone!" Minami scoffed. "Even if he gets expelled, he can always transfer to another school. He has the brains for it." And then instead of coming to the back to his usual seat, he began hanging out with the guys who sat in the front. The rest of the class took it as a cue to carry on as usual.

Later on, Noda, Kuma, Uchi and I confronted Minami at lunch.

"Yesterday, I got beat up by these Ara High School punks after you guys left. Then this morning, Shin told me to stop seeing my girl, so I socked him. We got in trouble for fighting," he explained to us.

"Then why is Shin being punished?" Uchi asked, confused.

"Because it looked like he did a lot of damage to me, and that I only defended myself."

I glared at him. "Some friend you are. Sawada didn't even touch you!"

"What was I supposed to do? Tell them I got in a fight with guys from another school? That would have gotten me expelled! Besides, he had no right to say that to me. Who does he think he is, telling me to stop seeing my girlfriend?"

We walked to class back to class in silence. I was angry at the way things were being unfairly carried out. In the class, Sawada was always the quiet one, but without him, it was quieter.

"So what's going to happen to Sawada?" I asked Uchi, Kuma, and Noda during class.

"It seems like they aren't going to let him go to class until he writes a reflection essay. They're giving him until the end of tomorrow. If he doesn't write it, he'll be expelled," Noda explained to me.

I stared at him. Sawada hadn't done anything wrong, but from what I knew about him and the way he acted earlier, I figured he wasn't going to write the essay.

"But why would he tell Minami to stop seeing his girlfriend?" Kuma wondered out loud. "He isn't the type to start fights without good reason." We couldn't come up with anything.

"Then why is Sawada even in this class?" I asked.

They all looked at each other before Kuma responded. "Shin transferred here the second semester of first year. A teacher had accused his friend of smoking and was trying to get him expelled. When the truth came out that it wasn't his friend who had been smoking, the teacher refused to apologize and instead told the friend that it was his fault for associating with trash. Shin was pissed and he started to beat up the teacher during class."

So he does care about friends, I mused.

We all eventually went home, having doubts about whether Sawada would ever return to class 3-D.

The next day, I saw Kuma leading Sawada to the school conference room. Neither of them spoke to me, but I knew that it was Kuma's attempt to keep him from getting expelled. I didn't really understand their friendship, but I thought it was neat.

Later in the day, Minami came back to the classroom in a foul mood. When Uchi asked him what was wrong, he told us that his girlfriend Ayumi had just broken up with him because she was seeing someone else.

"And after she did, Watanabe, the leader of the Ara High School punks that beat me up, told me that Ayumi was actually his girl. The gang told me to meet them at the junkyard by the river after school. He said that if I was foolish enough to try to take his girl, that I would meet them." Minami said, packing up his things.

"You aren't going, are you?" Kuma asked him. Minami glared at him.

"Do you think I have a choice? Of course I'm going, and nobody can stop me."

Everyone tried to convince him not to leave, but he didn't listen and walked out the door.

"He's going to get beat to a pulp," they said, talking among themselves.

"Why isn't anybody going after him?" I asked. I figured that somebody would at least go.

"Do you even know who Watanabe is? You think we stand a chance? You heard him. No one is going to stop him. If we go, we're only going to get beat up like he is."

I stood up. "I'm going to the bathroom," I said. I was pissed. No one knew what it meant to have someone's back at this school.

In the bathroom, I paced back and forth. On one hand, it wasn't like I owed Minami anything. We were just classmates. And I was only here to get through school. I had promised Shun not to start any fights.

But on the other hand…if someone were to threaten me, I knew that I would want someone to stand up for me. That's what Shun and the others did for me. And Minami had no one. It didn't help that I knew this Watanabe, and he definitely deserved to get his ass kicked.

And I wasn't going to back down from a fight, even if Shun was pissed afterwards. I left the bathroom, took the back exit of the school and began to run.

When I reached the junkyard, the gang had already beaten Minami up, and as he lay sprawled on the ground, they walked over his beaten body. To my surprise, Sawada was there as well. He was fighting the gang to the best of his ability, telling them to keep their hands off of his friend. So he did care about Minami. The entire gang was now focused on Sawada, shoving him around and punching him. I angrily made my way over to them and the leader, Watanabe, spotted me.

"Kana," he said, "what are you doing here?" I just glared at him. Sawada glanced at me, clutching his stomach. I had taken off my blazer at school, so the Ara High guys didn't know I went to Shirokin.

"Back off of them," I demanded. "You've done enough."

"Why, these your friends?" Watanabe asked. I couldn't answer. Yes, no, maybe?

"And if they are, what's it to you?" I said finally. He sneered.

"This guy dared to touch my girl," Watanabe said, indicating Minami. "And this one thinks he can take on all of us by himself. They're pathetic," he scoffed. He kicked them both.

"I said to back off!" I shouted, grabbing the leader by the collar, landing a direct punch to his face. All of the gang now turned to me. I stood, breathing heavily.

"You're going to regret that," Watanabe shouted at me, grabbing me by the collar. "You know, Kana, you've really dropped to a whole new low if you're associating with trash like this now."

"I don't want to be told by someone like you," I spat, trying to wrench free as Watanabe asked a guy to hand him a metal pole.

Suddenly, a large wave of water splashed onto the gang. Some of the water caught me, causing my bangs to become stuck to my face.

"What the hell?!" one of the guys shouted, and they all turned.

My eyes widened when I saw Yamaguchi standing there with a huge storage drum. How the hell was she holding that thing up?

"Who the hell are you?" Watanabe spat, pushing his wet hair back. He pushed me away to focus on her.

"Me? I'm their homeroom teacher."

"Yankumi?" Minami groaned from where he lay.

She threw the drum at the gang and began to walk towards us.

"She's a teacher?!" the gang began to laugh. "What the heck?"

"Sawada, Minami, Kana, go," she said. We stared at her. "Go quickly!"

I stumbled over to Minami, but he stopped me from helping him up. I watched Yamaguchi from where I crouched with him.

"Stop messing with us!" Watanabe shouted.

"Shut up!" she demanded. He stared at her. "I'm really pissed off right now!"

One of Watanabe's underlings strode to her. "Teachers shouldn't get involved," he growled, but she grabbed his wrist and twisted it, shoving him to the side. My eyes grew wide. How did she do that so easily?

Another attacked her, but all she had to do was dodge his punch before socking him in the stomach. He tried to grab a metal bar nearby but Yamaguchi stepped on it.

"If kid handles something like this, they'll get hurt," she warned. The whole time, she kept her eyes on Watanabe.

"Are you going to hit me?" he asked.

"If it's to protect my students, I'll do anything, understand?" she said harshly. She continued to walk towards them, and Watanabe kept stepping back before turning completely to run. His gang followed him.

When Yamaguchi turned her eyes on us, we looked away, expecting excessive scolding from her.

"This is what friendship is," she softly said, and I stared up at her. What?

She tried to help Sawada up, but he shoved her hand away, standing up on his own. I pulled Minami to his feet and allowed him to lean on me for support.

"Let's get you guys cleaned up," Yamaguchi said and led us out of that area.

She tended to Sawada and Minami's wounds on a hill by the river.

"You knew, didn't you, that Minami's girlfriend was two-timing him?" Yamaguchi said to Sawada. It finally made sense…At his silence, she continued. "That's your reason for fighting with him, isn't it?"

"So what if it is?" he said.

"You have some good qualities," she smiled.

Suddenly, Noda, Uchi, and Kuma appeared, all padded up and holding janitorial items as weapons.

"You guys," she said.

"Are you stupid, Yankumi?" Uchi demanded.

"Did you really think you could win against them alone?" Noda added.

"You guys are late!" she shouted at them, but grinned.

"Shut up!" they chorused.

"Shin, don't you have to write the reflection essay?" Kuma said.

"That doesn't matter," he said.

"Idiot!" Minami coughed. "What if you get expelled?"

"I won't let that happen," Yamaguchi said. "Whatever happens, I'lll protect my students. After all, I am your teacher."

We stared at her. I didn't doubt the sincerity of her words, but because of my past experiences with teachers and adults in general, I couldn't help but remain skeptical. And I was dying to ask her why she knew how to fight as well as she did.

Sawada stared up at the sky.

"Come on, Sawada, quit being so stubborn. Your friends still need you. We want you to stay," I said, realizing that if it were with these guys, I wouldn't mind being friends.

He looked at me carefully, as if for the first time. I tried to look solemn.

"Friends?" he asked slowly.

"Friends," I said firmly.

He smiled briefly.

"Kana, what happened to your hand?"

I threw my school bag on the counter. "Nothing."

Shun grabbed my wrist. "Were you fighting again? You're going to get expelled if you keep doing this! I thought you promised me not to start any fights!"

"I know! It's just…today, I had a good reason. AND technically, I didn't start this one," I said defensively.

He raised his eyebrow as he treated the scraped skin. I began to tell him a little bit about Yamaguchi and the guys I had met.

"Sounds like just the teacher you need," he remarked, as I winced from the alcohol stinging my hand.

"Maybe."

But teachers had failed me in the past, so even though Yamaguchi was interesting, I was going to hold off on trusting her.

The next morning, I arrived at school to another crowd of guys waiting for me, including Abe. This was the third day in a row and I was getting fed up with this.

"Look I'm not interested in any of you, so stop waiting for me!" I shouted, frustrated.

"Come on, Kana. Just one date!" Abe said, as they all crowded around me, blocking my way.

"Is this how you guys managed to scare off all of the girls who enrolled here?" I asked, pushing against them. "Let go of me!"

"Hey," a voice said behind me. The crowd suddenly fell away and I turned to see Sawada standing there.

"Hey," I said, not sure what else to say. Was he here to help me?

"Come on, we're going to be late," he said, walking in ahead of me. The crowd seemed to part like a wave for him. I didn't know what to do and remained standing there. Sawada turned around. "Are you coming or not?" With that, he seemed to give all of the guys a pointed look, which seemed to instantly deflate their ego. Even Abe took a step back from me.

"Coming," I said finally and quickly caught up with Sawada. "Thanks," I said quietly.

"What happened to being able to handle all of us guys?" he said.

"…Shut up," I said. "…wait, you weren't even in class yet when I said that!"

He just smirked and kept walking.

"So did you write your reflection essay?" I asked him.

He held up a stack of papers that looked like a short novel in response.

I grinned before he disappeared into the teacher's lounge to turn it in.

"Kana was so cool," Minami bragged while we sat in the back before class started. I just rolled my eyes and shook my head.

"It was only a punch," I said, but noticed Sawada watching me carefully. I knew that he was thinking about how Watanabe would even know me in the first place.

"Oh yeah. Now that I am single again," Minami said, running a hand through his hair. He looked at me. "Kana, I was wondering if…"

"Nope. I don't want a boyfriend I have to defend all the time," I said abruptly.

"Oooh!" the guys teased Minami. Sawada looked at me and I swear I saw a hint of a smile.

"But Minami, I will gladly be your friend," I continued. "I always defend my friends."

"Deal," he said, grinning. "Now I have to find another girl…" I smirked. Some people never change.

Uchi patted my head and I swatted his arm.

"But I wonder why Yankumi is so strong," he said suddenly. "She was good."

"Maybe she was a delinquent before too," Noda said.

Noda filled us in that after Minami had left, Yamaguchi had come in and lectured the class about how real friends defend each other, even if it means getting beat up together. She had then taken off, leaving the class feeling stupid for being so helpless.

I looked away, contemplating. Yamaguchi had offered no explanations after that, and even though I wanted to know, she had the right to her secrets. I had mine.

Yamaguchi walked into class, and we all quieted down.

"Good morning, class," she said, showing no sign of holding the events of yesterday over our heads.

"Osu," Uchi mumbled.

"Morning," Minami added.

"Good morning," Noda said in English without looking at her. Kuma saluted her. And for once, Sawada was sitting up and paying attention.

She turned her eyes on me and I nodded to her.

"Let's begin class," she said with a smile.

Cultural Note:

*Girls often write love letters and stick them in the guys' shoe locker in Japan
*"Baka" means idiot/stupid
*Reflection essays have to be written when you do something wrong

Author's Note:

Thanks for reading!

If you started reading this story when I first posted this years ago and are confused as to why so many chapters were deleted, please go back and read from Chapter 1!

My story got deleted on the original site I had posted it on, and I decided that I would go through and re-edit the story and re-upload it little by little. I currently have quite a bit of free time now, so I'm hoping to do this at a fairly quick pace. I'm enjoying fleshing out the characters more and including details that bring out all of the fun unique personalities in Gokusen!

If you commented previously on a chapter that got deleted and re-uploaded, you might have to post comments as Guest. I'm really sorry about the inconvenience. D:

I'd appreciate any thoughts/questions/concerns if you have them! ^^

- Reisa