Taking Risks

Author's Note:

This particular chapter ended up being a little bit longer than the previous ones, so it's okay to take your time reading it! I probably won't be able to post until sometime this weekend. Happy reading!

Also, sorry for the re-upload. I keep catching grammatical mistakes and it bugs me when I don't fix them. I wish I could catch them all the first time! D: I'm sorry if there are some I didn't catch!

The next day, I left the house super early in the morning. I had barely slept and because of crying, my eyes were super puffy. Shun was probably still mad and disappointed with me and I didn't want to face that.

I was the first one in class, as no one came that early, so I put my head down on my arms and went to sleep.

I awoke when I heard voices around me.

"Is that a new girl?"
"But she's sitting in Kana's desk."
"But Kana has black hair."
"Do you think she's okay?"

I sleepily raised my head to see my classmates staring at me.

"Whoa! Kana! You dyed your hair?!" Noda exclaimed.

Huh? Oh yeah…I had. I tugged at my braid, staring at the brown strands.

"Uchi did it for me," I said quietly.

"Uchi?!" the guys all said.

When Uchi entered the classroom, he was bombarded with questions.

"Did you dye Kana's hair?"
"Why did you dye her hair and not mine?"
"That's not fair! When are you going to do mine?"

I looked at Uchi apologetically. I didn't realize his hair-coloring skills were so highly coveted.

"I helped all of you out the first time!" he shouted at them. "It was Kana's first time so of course I'd help her!"

The class shut up, and because they had incurred Uchi's wrath, they all began to compliment my hair as well as my earrings, which I had left off for a while now.

Sawada walked in, borderline late as usual, and stared at me. "Who are you?" he asked.

I gave him the finger and he smirked, taking his seat.

Yankumi even told me that she liked my new hair, that it seemed to brighten up my face. She also asked me if I would teach her to braid her hair. I told her to ask Uchi. Braiding a teacher's hair seemed too weird to me.

Sawatari gasped when he saw me later on in the day, but seemed to buy it when I casually told him that this was closer to my natural hair color.

"As long as you don't make it blonde," he said, glaring at Uchi who stood at a distance.

But every time someone mentioned my hair, though, it was a reminder of what had happened with Shun. I knew that I was in the wrong; that I had taken out my frustration about Uchi's situation and the display of parent-child affection that followed out on Shun, but I was too stubborn and maybe a little too scared to bring it up.

This went on for a few days, where I left home early in the morning and returned when I knew Shun wouldn't be there. The guys at school, after bugging me about it, seemed to accept my brooding as a "girl thing" and I was in no mood to tell them off.

I was pulling on my shoes one morning when Chiba came around by the entrance and leaned against the doorway, watching me.

"You and Shun had a fight, didn't you?" he asked.

"None of your business," I said, picking up my school bag.

He laughed. "It's so easy to tell when you guys have fought. You guys act so alike, after all."

"Can you please move?" I asked, ignoring him. I didn't want to hear about Shun right now.

"What, you have to get to school?" he all but scoffed.

Chiba was an okay guy, but we did disagree about things, one of them being my attending school. He thought it was a waste of time for me to even try to graduate, even though I only had a year left.

He rested his arms on my shoulders, uncomfortably close. "There are more fun things to do with your time," he said, giving me a look.

"I'm going to be late," I said, trying to walk past him.

"The other guys in your class don't know about you and us, do they?"

I stopped at his words.

"Of course not," I answered briskly.

"I wonder what they would do if they knew."

I turned to glare at him, but before I could voice any thoughts, Shun spoke from behind me.

"Chiba, stop harassing Kana and let her go to school."

I turned around again and saw him eyeing Chiba sternly.

"I'm going now," I mumbled, but Shun's words stopped me.

"I need to talk to you when you come home," he said. I nodded without looking at him and fled.

As I neared school, wondering what Shun would even say, someone hopped up next to me.

"Good morning~!" Noda greeted me with a huge grin.

"You sure are cheerful today," I said. "Win the lottery or something?"

"Even better," he grinned. "First period is ENGLISH TODAY!"

I groaned. One of the few things that rivaled his love of photography and his PC, was his huge crush on Fujiyama, the English teacher. In fact, she was the subject of many of his photos, paparazzi style.

"See you in class!" he said with a wave, running towards our classroom so that he could get the "best seat".

Sure enough, when I finally trudged to class, Noda was sitting front and center, face full of anticipation. The rest of the guys were all reading their English text books, reviewing so that if Fujiyama called on them, they would be ready to impress her.

I walked to my seat in the back and sat down, watching all of the guys crowd their desks to the front. There was a great space between my desk and theirs.

The only person sitting near me was Sawada, who always slept during English anyway.

"Jealous?" he asked with a straight face.

"As if," I responded, resting my head against my arms on the desk. Besides, Fujiyama wasn't particularly gorgeous. Honestly, I thought Yankumi had the potential to be prettier if she didn't wear those nerdy glasses all the time. These dumb boys didn't understand that Fujiyama wore skirts that showed off her legs so that they would pay attention. It was clearly working because it was the only class they paid attention in.

The door opened and Noda's face fell when Yankumi walked in.

"What are you doing here?!" he demanded amidst the other guys' groans.

"Fujiyama Sensei doesn't feel well," she answered, surprised by the class outburst.

"Is…is she alright?" he asked.

"I'm sure she'll be fine. I'm temporarily taking over for her, so first period will be math today," Yankumi explained.

"Boring~! Alright guys, scoot back," Minami commanded, and everyone moved their desks away from Yankumi.

"Hey!" she protested, getting frustrated.

I smiled. I'd rather have Yankumi teach anyways. Glancing over, I saw that Sawada thought so too.

"I'm going to go see Fujiyama Sensei," Noda said at lunch. Minami and Uchi also jumped up. "No! You guys can't come! I'm going to ask her questions about English," he said firmly before walking towards the teacher's lounge.

"That's not fair!" Minami shouted after him, knowing very well that Noda wouldn't be concentrating on English while he was there, but they stayed put anyways.

I wasn't really paying attention to what everyone was talking about until Uchi sat back down next to me and waved a hand in my face.

"Are you okay?"

I blinked at him, until his question finally registered in my head.

"Tired," I said, brushing off his question.

"Not getting enough sleep?" he asked, patting my head.

"I'm fine," I mumbled, wishing that everything really was. I couldn't stop thinking about what would happen after school.

"Stupid Sawatari," Minami grumbled off to the side. "Bothering us about crap like midterms all the time."

I sighed. Another thing to worry about…I had never failed a class before, but there were times when I barely passed. I wanted to maintain somewhat decent grades so that I didn't have to worry about whether I would have enough units to graduate or not. Getting expelled put me on the very edge of having only just enough, because I had missed enough days transferring between schools. I glanced over at Sawada, who apparently had exceptional grades. If only I could be a genius like him...

After school, the six of us walked through the park on the way home. Noda's attention was captivated by his textbook.

"So so diligent, you are," Uchi teased.

"So are you going to ace the test and capture Shizuka-chan's heart?" Minami joined in.

I snorted. I never understood the appeal of calling a teacher by their first name. It'd be like calling Yankumi…Kumiko. I began to laugh at the thought.

"Haha! Kana's laughing because you have no chance!" Uchi taunted Noda.

"It's true. It's not like I don't have a chance anyways," Noda said pleasantly.

"You should give her a present! Women love presents!" Minami said.

"Leave me alone, guys!" Noda protested, laughing it off.

However, when Minami and Uchi ran forward to try to talk to some girls from a nearby school, Noda lingered behind with a secret smile on his face. He stopped when he saw a girl by the walkway selling jewelry. He picked up a necklace with a small pink charm.

"How much is this?" he asked the girl, who smiled.

"It's 1500 yen*, but I'll sell it to you for 1000 yen," she said.

"Thanks!" he said with a grin as she wrapped it.

"Is it for your girlfriend?" she asked as she handed the package to him.

"Well…she's not my girlfriend," Noda answered, blushing.

I saw Sawada watch this exchange with a smile. I nudged him.

"Is it okay to have him acting like this?" I asked. After all, what could come out of having a crush on a teacher?

"Leave him alone. He'll get over it," Sawada replied. I nodded, trusting his judgment.

"Kana, what do you think? Do you think she'll like it?" Noda asked me earnestly.

I had no clue what Fujiyama liked, but I could only smile at how excited Noda was. "I've seen her wear pink, so probably..."

Noda grinned and clutched the package tightly in his hands.

"Hey, I'm going to go now," I said, glancing at my watch and realizing that I had put it off as long as I could. I began to walk away when Sawada suddenly called my name.

"Is everything okay?" he asked me nonchalantly.

"I'll let you know," I said after a pause. I didn't even know if I would be okay. What else could I say?

"I'm home," I said, walking into the place I called home.

"Kana," Shun said, standing in the common room.

I stood my ground. If he was going to be angry, I wanted to be ready.

"I'm not mad," he said, reading my mind. "I just want to talk. Sit."

I reluctantly sat across from him at the table.

"Look, I didn't want you to dye your hair because even though the principal at Shirokin seems like he'll let you do whatever you want, that Sawatari sounds like he has it out for your class. By dyeing your hair and wearing all that jewelry, he's going to start seeing you as one of them. You know that having been expelled twice is already tough on your record. I don't want to see you make it even harder for yourself to graduate, not when you're so close."

I closed my eyes, feeling ashamed. Shun always thought out everything really carefully, and in the end, it always made sense. I always jumped in to things based on how I felt, which didn't always turn out so great.

"But it's not like you to deliberately disobey me like that either," Shun said a little less sternly. "What's going on? I haven't heard you bring up your dad in a long time."

"…Uchi wanted to quit school because he wanted to work to help out his mom," I said finally. "And his mom is always willing to apologize on his behalf…"

"You wondered if you had someone to do those things for you, whether things would be different now, right?" Shun said, more gently than I had ever heard him speak to me. I couldn't speak. Shun knew me too well. "Look kid, we can't change what's happened in the past. But as long as you're focused on your goal, I'll help you get there. No more of these rule-breaking shenanigans, okay? Be tough, Kana."

Be tough.

It was something Shun said to me a lot, especially recently. I knew that part of being tough would mean not getting carried away in doing my best to fit into Class 3-D. I had to maintain that distance.

"Shun, I want to start working at the café again," I said.

"Are you sure? Of course I appreciate it, but you know the risk, Kana."

"I promised you that once I got settled at my new school, I'd work again," I said stubbornly. If the school caught me, I could get expelled, suspended at least. Students weren't supposed to have jobs without permission. But if I asked for permission, they'd look into where I was working and who I was working with, and I couldn't have that.

"Only if you're sure..."

I nodded.

"Okay…so are we cool?"

"…yeah, we're cool," I answered.

This was the way we ended all of our arguments, because we knew no other way. All we could do was try to understand each other. We were all on the same boat anyways, Shun, Chiba, the other guys and I. It made sense that we'd stick together because we were, to borrow Uchi's words, the people that no one wanted.

Shun was the oldest in our group, at twenty eight years old. Most of the other guys were scattered in the age range between my age and Shun's. There were about twenty five of us, banded together for the sake of wanting to belong somewhere. To us, we were a justified group of similar outcasts in society. The general public, however, labeled us a gang. It didn't matter that we didn't go around picking fights, or that we generally stayed out of trouble as long as no one bothered us. Our situation was unnatural according to society, and the only word they could come up came with a stigma: people who deliberately broke the law and were nothing but nuisance to the rest of them.

In short, people who found out about me would see a gang member. And that was what I couldn't tell my new classmates, no matter how close we became. No matter how much I wanted to belong to 3-D, I didn't and wouldn't completely. No one would understand, and I knew that. But because of all we had been through together already, it was going to a challenge to push them away.

The next morning, Noda seemed particularly cheerful. I figured he had delivered his present to Fujiyama. During break, he began to upload his most recent paparazzi style pictures he had captured of Fujiyama, and the other began to crowd around his PC, nodding in approval.

"There's something alluring about older women," Uchi sighed. Oh gosh, not this topic again.

Kuma looked up, puzzled. "Does that include Yankumi?"

Sawada smirked. "She's definitely excluded." We all snickered.

I saw Yankumi sneak behind Sawada, oblivious to the conversation. She tapped Sawada's shoulder, then stuck her finger out when he turned, poking his cheek.

"Stupid," she laughed. "You fell for it!"

Sawada glared at her before looking away.

"Oh, what's that?!" she said, hopping over to see Noda's pictures. "Wow, they're so well taken!"

"Don't look!" Noda frantically pleaded, but she held his arms back.

"What's there to hide?" she kept saying, as Noda tried to fend her off. "So you like older women, huh?'

I rolled my eyes and stretched, hoping that the day would be over soon.

"Feeling better?" Uchi asked me, and I nodded. Fighting and being nervous around Shun had left me exhausted.

But now that I would start working again, I wondered about how much time I would get to spend with these guys outside of school. It would probably become very limited. For some reason, that thought made me really sad.

"Hey, it seems that Fujiyama was working as a hostess in a Ginza club," Ochi, the class gossip, announced to the class as he wheeled in on his scooter, "and someone ratted her out to the staff and now Sawatari's pissed off."

The class began to exclaim loudly in surprise. I sat up. I knew I wasn't the only one risking working a job without permission, but Fujiyama? Teachers weren't allowed to have second jobs, and something especially questionable like a hostess could get them in serious trouble.

Then again, it honestly didn't surprise me about Fujiyama Sensei working as a hostess, since she always daydreamed out loud during her English classes about all the exotic locations she wanted to go to. There was no way she could go to all those places on a teacher's salary.

But what did surprise me was Noda's reaction.

He was sitting there with a blank look on his face, for once without his computer, and even though this news should crush him the most out of everyone, he didn't look fazed at all. Instead, he sat there, hunched over.

The class hushed when Yankumi walked into the room, and she headed straight for Noda.

"Did you do it? Did you send those pictures to Vice Principal Sawatari?" she said sternly.

"And if I did, so what?" he responded nonchalantly.

"Why?" she shot back immediately.

"It's the truth, isn't it? She's working as a hostess!" Noda said.

"And so you can do whatever you want?"

"And teachers can do whatever they want?!" he demanded angrily, standing up. "She…she took my present and…threw it in the trash!"

I stared at him. When I thought of how excited he was when he had bought that necklace, I knew that I could only barely begin to understand how much it must have hurt him to see her throw away what represented the entirety of his feelings for her.

"…She deserves what she gets, doesn't she?" Noda said to Yankumi, almost pleadingly as if asking her to acknowledge his pain.

Yankumi suddenly punched him with enough force to knock him down, and he fell to the classroom floor, blood immediately appearing on the corner of his lip. She stood over him, grabbing him by the collar as we all sprang to our feet. What the hell?

"It doesn't give you the right to do what you did!" she shouted at him, before Sawada grabbed her swinging arms to hold her back, asking her to stop. The rest of the class stood up in shock. I couldn't believe what I was seeing.

"You like Fujiyama Sensei, don't you?!" she continued. "Just because she hurt you and everything didn't go as planned, you'll ruin the woman you have feelings for? You're the worst! When she trashed your present, it hurt you inside, didn't it? I bet it did! And to spite her, you rat her out! Did that ease your pain? Did the hurting stop? Because if it did, you have no right to fall in love!" she yelled at him before wrenching her arms from Sawada's grip.

I could see tears appearing in Noda's eyes, but when I reached over to help him up, he pushed my hands away.

"Shut up!" he said and pushed his way out of the classroom. An awkward silence fell upon the class.

"It's true that what he did was the worst, but I also know how he feels," Sawada said to Yankumi, who just stood there.

Without a second thought, I ran after Noda. He ran fast, but I caught up to him when he stopped at the park, breathing heavily.

"Noda," I said, trying to catch my breath at the same time.

He glared at me. "What?"

I could see the pain in his expression, the pain of rejection that I knew all too well.

"…Come with me," I said. He stared at me confusedly. "Just do it," I said, tugging on his arm.

What I was about to do ran a big risk, but I thought that Noda might need it. And maybe I did too.

Author's Note:

*1500 yen is roughly 15 USD and she sold the necklace to Noda for about 10 USD

Thank you so much for reading and keeping up with the story so far!

Let me know what you've liked/disliked so far, and what you're curious about!

I've been trying to reply to individual comments, but some of you have the private messaging function turned off (which is totally fine!) I'll just try to address some common observations/questions here.

Hopefully this chapter cleared up a little bit of the Shun x Kana relationship. It's definitely not a definitive answer and there's more to it than what's been said, but it's a start. It will for sure make sense in the future, but know that it's definitely not a romantic relationship haha.

As much as I loved writing the last few chapters and giving Kana more of a foundation in 3-D, I think this is where the story starts to get interesting because she's already hitting a point where she has to decide whether to build on that foundation or tear it down.

And Noda is like an overeager puppy...that got kicked by his love. T^T Narimiya Hiroki portrayed him so well!

Oh! Let me know in the comments if you have a favorite character. I have one from every season but I hope my bias doesn't show toooo much. hehehe...

- Reisa