Ch 60
V 1.0
A/N 1: This is going to a mostly Sarah chapter, so you have been warned. Next chapter is going to have Keitaro in it… interacting with Sarah. :D There is also an upcoming section of Keitaro interacting with Natsumi and Miyuki and some of his Roanapur issues will become apparent.
Disciplinary Office
Kanazawa High School
Hinata City, Kanagawa Prefecture
Metro Tokyo, Japan
mid February, mid Monday afternoon
Sarah McDougal was sitting on the hardwood bench outside the office, visibly trying not to fidget too much. Sitting still for long was a problem for her, especially since she knew it was bad form to be reading a book or a tablet. She just hoped that this was not the punishment itself, which would be far more effective than most people would give credit for. The blonde tried to keep herself entertained by imagining her vengeance upon Sensei Wada; in fact she had already put in a preliminary order with Su to get some stuff for her.
"McDougal-san?" Sarah looked up to see the youngish secretary standing in the doorway. "If you could please come inside, the vice-principal wishes to speak with you." Hefting her school bag, the girl walked into the office and after dropping her bag at the indicated spot stepped into the inner office, coming to a halt about half a meter in front of the desk where the school official was sitting, his older female secretary standing behind and to the side of him.
Reminded of more than a couple scenes in movies where a soldier was reporting to an officer in an office, Sarah decided to go with it. Straightening up to a visible position of attention, the blonde kept her eyes focused on the back wall, giving a brisk half bow before announcing in a clear voice, "Sarah McDougal reporting as ordered, sir."
"At ease, McDougal-san." Apparently the vice-principal has seen some of the same movies as he gave the military response. Sarah relaxed slightly as she stood with her feet slightly apart and her hands crossed behind her back, although more in the rigid 'Parade Rest' than the relaxed 'At Ease' stance, keeping her eyes focused on the back wall as he continued to speak. "As you know, I am in charge of discipline here at school and part of my job is to review all demerits and punishments assigned for rule violations. After doing so in this case, I am going to let your demerits stand but I am canceling the detention."
Sarah's eyes dropped down to the vice-principal's face in surprise. "May I ask why, sir?"
"Because one in-class punishment and one violation of the uniform regulations is not sufficient to issue a detention. Under school policy detentions are issued after three non-physical incidents or twenty demerits, neither of which apply here. We do ask that you wear your uniform correctly, though." The vice-principal smiled slightly.
"Yes, sir." Sarah was surprised that the official was cutting her slack; she was under the impression that he did not like her very much because the problems she had been stirring up since she arrived here, but she was not about to argue. "Is there anything else sir?"
"Yes, there is." The older female behind the vice-principal stepped forward and placed a cloth on the desk between him and the student. Reaching down, Sarah picked it up to see that it was a red armband with black hiragana printed on it. It only took her a moment to translate the characters: classroom representative.
"The school administration has noticed that you have been protective of both your friends and other students." The grey-haired female spoke. "Due to the current political situation we do not have the necessary authority to enforce all the rules currently in place, the most we can do is try and protect students physically. Unfortunately we haven't been able to do a good job of that. We were hoping you could help us with that."
"You want me to become a class rep?!" Sarah's eyes went wide.
"Most students don't have the physical or moral courage to confront their classmates, and some of them react negatively to the enforcement of the rules." The woman explained. "You have been able to do so, more than most students."
"Well, yeah." Sarah was barely able to contain the sarcasm in her response. "This is a bad idea, a lot of the students don't like me very much, I could just imagine how they will react if some iteki gaijin tried to pull the rulebook on them."
"We would not expect you to do full rules enforcement, merely physical protection." It was the vice-principal that spoke this time. "As much as we would want to, we can't protect everyone the way we would like to. You can help us with that in order to reduce many of the incidents we know occur but can't punish because we have insufficient proof."
"You've got to know how I've dealt with the crap that happens at this school, and you still want me to do this?" Sarah was fingering the safety pin attached to the top of the cloth when she noticed two smaller characters were printed alongside the larger ones, 2-A. "Wait, this is for the class rep for my homeroom, what about Hikari-san?"
"She resigned." Sarah's eyes suddenly focused on the secretary. "Horaki-san informed us she felt she was unable to continue as Classroom Representative and turned in her armband. When asked who she thought should replace her she suggested you, and we agree. There is no other student in Class 2-A that we feel would be able to do the job honestly and well. Otherwise we would have to leave the position unfilled and that would make it more difficult to maintain order in class."
"Yeah, right." Sarah muttered, her thoughts racing. She had known that most of the students did not treat Hikari well, but she did not think things were affecting her so badly. After a few moments her eyes came back to the vice-principal. "You know I'm not going to treat the little bastards with kid gloves if they try anything physical on me or other students, right?"
"Of course. We just ask that you act reasonably and that you not start any physical altercations," the vice-principal smoothly replied.
"Those two requests may very well be mutually exclusive, sir." Sarah looked down at the cloth band for a few moments before looking back at the pair behind the desk. "I think you need to specifically outline what my duties would be."
"This position, should you chose to accept it," Sarah gave a mental snort at the man's semi-familiar words, "would consist of you helping to enforce the rules and regulations of this school, at your discretion, subject to review by the disciplinary office. Should you come across any physical altercations taking place, you may either call for staff assistance or intervene yourself, also at your discretion and subject to review."
"By 'at your discretion', you mean I can pick and choose what rules I'm going to enforce?" Sarah asked doubtfully.
"As much as we would prefer otherwise, the discipline of our past is not deemed acceptable today," The vice-principal answered. "All we are trying to do is maintain a safe learning environment for our students. Strictly enforcing the dress code is not going to help with that."
"If you know that students aren't going to follow the dress code and the other rules, why even leave them on the books?" Sarah asked curiously. "If the students are all breaking the rules they're just going to lose respect for you not enforcing them."
"There have been some motions to revise the rules for some time now, but they have been mired in the bureaucracy both at the district and ministry levels. For right now we can only proceed as best we can." The secretary was the one to reply now.
Sarah nodded her head and looked down at the armband in her hand for a few moments before looking up again. "Do I have to give an answer now? I really want to have some time to think about this," the blonde asked. And to talk to a couple of people about it, she thought to herself.
"You have until tomorrow, we would like to know by the time classes start in case we have to make other arrangements." The pair watched as Sarah moved to put the armband back on the desk and the secretary spoke again. "You can hold onto that until you make your decision."
"Thank you sir, ma'am. Is there anything else?" The administrators shook their heads. "By your leave?" Sarah came to a position of attention again, asking for permission to leave.
"Granted." The vice-principal replied. "Good day, McDougal-san." They watched as the girl bowed briskly and left the inner office, picked up her school bag and leaving the outer office as well. Once she had done so the secretary closed the inner office door and sat down in the so far unused chair in front of the desk.
"Are you sure this is a good idea, Uehara-san? McDougal is a wild card, outside of our control." The vice-principal opened a lower drawer of his desk and pulled out a bottle filled with clear liquid. Filling two small shot glasses he also produced from the drawer he passed one to his secretary.
"Like you said Watanabe-san, she is outside of our control, especially given who her guardian is." The woman took a sip from her glass before continuing to speak. "She will either help calm down some of the violence here at the school we cannot deal with without a massive crackdown that will call too much attention to us or she will get in over her head and the Urashima will help cover it up and deflect attention from us. If we are really lucky it will result in the girl being transferred out of this school. In any case, it is a win-win situation."
"I don't like that she is so close to the Urashima. Short of going up against a yakuza oyabun…" The vice-principal did not have to finish his statement but the secretary nodded.
"I agree, but we've come too far now, unless you look forward to retiring on a civil service pension?" The woman watched as the man gave a not-so-fake shudder.
"Thank you, but no." The man took another sip before asking, "And what do you think we should do about Wada? It's her long nose being out of joint that got us into this situation."
"We'll give her one more warning. After that, we start to encourage her to leave." The grey-haired woman watched as the man nodded before she tossed down the rest of her drink. "She should still be in the teacher's lounge, I'll summon her for you to talk to. Meanwhile the budget memo is in your email, please look through it while I go get Wada." Placing the empty shot glass on the desk, the secretary left the office as the vice-principal sighed and keyed on his computer.
Horaki Residence,
Hinata City, Kanagawa Prefecture
Metro Tokyo, Japan
mid February, late Monday afternoon
Sarah stared at the front door for a long moment from the sidewalk before going up the steps and pressing the doorbell. After being released from the school admin office the blonde had made a couple of phone calls. The first had been to Keitaro to tell him that she had been released from school earlier than she expected but that she need to run an errand before returning home for dinner. The second call had been to Kaolla Su for some information that took her all of thirty seconds to obtain, which was why she was now standing at this door.
The door opened after a few moments to reveal a girl that looked to be a couple of years younger than she was, with brown hair in stand-out pigtails and features that strongly resembled her classmate's. Presumably this was Hikari's younger sister.
"Can I help you?" The girl was eyeballing her pretty hard, enough to give the American girl some pause before speaking.
"Yes, is Hikari-san home? My name is Sarah McDougal, I am one of her classmates and want to speak to her for a few moments." The younger girl looked her up and down once again before stepping back from the door but leaving it ajar.
"Wait here a second." The girl turned and started toward the stairs behind her, yelling out, "Kari-chan! Some cute boy is at the front door to see you!" The girl looked back at her and flashed a mischievous smile before walking away.
Sarah barely had enough time to realize that she may have been mistaken for a boy because of her gakuran uniform before there was the clatter of someone rushing down the stairs. Hikari came to a halt at the foot of the stairs and her eyes widened when she saw Sarah standing at the door. The former class rep was wearing a pink t-shirt over beige sweatpants and for once her brown hair was out of her normal twin pig-tails and loose over her shoulders.
"Sarah-kun! What are you doing here? And please excuse my sister Nozomi, she acts like she was raised in a barn sometimes." Behind Hikari the blonde could see the aforementioned little sister peering around a doorway and sticking her tongue out at her older sister. "Please come in, can I get you something to drink?"
"I'm OK, you don't have to do anything. I wanted to talk to you for a few minutes if that's alright." Sarah stepped through the doorway onto the tiled genkan landing and removed her shoes before putting on the visitor slippers sitting there and opening her black windbreaker jacket, as the house was much warmer than the windy street outside.
"Talk to me about what?" Hikari watched as Sarah pulled the red armband out of her jacket pocket and held it up.
"This. Pardon my French Hikari-san, but what the hell?" Sarah asked. "Not only you resign your position, you suggest for me to take over? What makes you think I can do your job?" the blonde said incredulously.
Hikari made shushing motions with her hands. "Can you please keep it down, I don't want everyone to hear about this yet. I was going to tell my family about this at dinner."
"I think it's a little late for that." Seeing the incomprehension in her friend's eyes, Sarah flicked her eyes toward the partially open door behind her. It only took a few moments for the message to get through, but when she did the brown haired girl moved swiftly but silently on sock-clad feet to the door and pulled it open, revealing not only the younger sister from earlier but an older girl a couple of years older than her friend and a woman in her later thirties wearing an apron stacked up behind the door obviously eavesdropping, all three females resembling each other and apparently related.
"Nozumi-chan. Kodama-chan. Okaa-san." Hikari was standing with her arms crossed, only a few moments from tapping her toe on the carpeted floor.
"Hello Hikari-chan. Won't you introduce your boyfriend to us?" The older girl was the one to speak while the mother smoothed her clothes with a smile on her face while the younger girl grinned impudently.
"Sarah-kun, this is Yume my mother, Kodama my older sister and Nozumi my younger sister. Everyone, this is Sarah McDougal, a classmate from school." The blonde smiled politely and bowed at the introduction and the three other women bowed in return.
"Wow nee-san, he's so cute! He looks a lot better than that dufus Touji you keep mooning over!" The youngest girl was grinning as she spoke. "You didn't tell us you had a boyfriend, and a yankee too!"
"Nozumi-chan! Sarah-kun isn't my boyfriend!" Hikari had flushed at her sister's declaration, both that the blonde was her boyfriend and revealing to said blonde who her crush was.
"Don't be upset Hikari-chan, I never get mad at girls calling me cute." Before Nozumi realized it Sarah was standing before her and had taken hold of her hand. Bringing the smaller hand up to her lips she kissed it softly and smiled full force at the younger girl, causing her to turn brick red and stutter, making her oldest sister and mother laugh even as her older sister cracked a smile at the sight. "But there is something you need to know, Nozumi-chan." Sarah gave a dramatic pause as she took the girl's hand and pushed the back of her knuckles against her own chest. "I'm a girl."
The brick red color on the youngest girl's face faded out to a faint pink color. Her hand pushed against Sarah's chest a couple of time to confirm the softness under the tunic before she pulled it back and glanced at her older sister. "She's still a better boyfriend than Touji-baka," Nozumi sniffed before turning and walking out of the room, her oldest sister and mother smiling widely even as Hikari's face now took on the faint pink tinge.
"Anyway, I wanted to talk to you Hikari-san. We can do it here or we can go for a walk outside." Sarah watched as the brunette frowned for a moment before looking back at her.
"I think it's better if we talk outside. Give me a couple of minutes to change into warmer clothes and we'll get going." Hikari glanced at her mother who nodded in agreement.
"Don't take too long, dinner is in half an hour." Hikari nodded before quickly walking up the stairs. Yume turned toward Sarah and asked, "Would you like a cup of tea while you wait, McDougal-san?"
"No thank you, Horaki-san. Unless Hikari-san is one of those girls that takes forever to get dressed." Sarah raised an eyebrow and Yume laughed softly.
"No, if anything Hikari-chan is a little too unconcerned with things of that nature. I have to say, you name sounds familiar, although I don't know why." Yume was tapping her index finger to her chin.
"It's probably because I was the one to invite Hikari-san to come to the Hinata Inn the other weekend," replied Sarah. "I invited her and Aki Wakirihara and Shinji Kazama from school to use the hot springs there."
Yume's eyes suddenly widened. "You live at the Hinata Inn? Urashima-sama is your guardian?!" Sarah nodded uncertainly, she and the older sister were shocked when the woman started bowing deeply. "Please forgive me for not recognizing you! You honor us by being in our house! Please sit and I will get you some tea!" Yume was about to run out of the room when Sarah put her flattened hands up.
"Whoa whoa whoa!" The girl almost shouted, causing Yume to halt in place. "I am not a Urashima and Keitaro-san doesn't like being treated like a noble, so please don't do that." Once Yume calmed down some, the blonde continued talking. "Keitaro-san does not expect people to go out of their way to 'honor' him," here Sarah made finger quotes, "just because of his family, and he won't be happy to hear that someone is freaking out toward me about it either." Here the older woman visibly swallowed but stayed silent. "So treat me like you would any one of Hikari's classmates, please?" Sarah finished by saying.
"Yes McDougal-san, I apologize for my behavior." Yume gave a deep bow, but not as deep as a few moments ago when the bow was almost horizontal.
"Please call me Sarah-kun, McDougal-san is a bit too formal to be used by a friend's mom." The blonde smiled encouragingly.
"Sarah-kun," Yume said uncertainly, only to see the blonde nod, "may I ask why you need to talk to my daughter?"
"Sure. Something happened at school today that was partially my fault and Hikari-san made a decision because of it. I want to hear what she was thinking when she did and see if I can change her mind about it," Sarah replied. She caught a movement out of the corner of her eye and saw that Hikari was standing there wearing a puffy jacket, jeans, and a stocking cap, her loose hair flowing out behind her head. Given the look on her face, she had been there for the last few moments to hear Sarah talking to her mother. "Ready Hikari-san?"
"Yes, I'm ready." Hikari replied before turning to her mother. "Okaa-san, we'll be back in twenty minutes at the most." The older woman nodded and watched as her daughter and her friend put on their outdoor shoes and walked outside.
Once the pair had reached the sidewalk and started walking along the street Sarah turned toward her friend. "At the risk of repeating myself Hikari-san, what the hell? Why did you resign as Class Rep, and why do you think I could do it?"
Hikari glanced over at the blonde before she spoke. "It's because I'm tired. I'm tired of being laughed at, of being ignored when I try to do my duties, of being alone. No one wants to be friends with me, not that I want to be close to most of the girls at school, and this thing with Sensei Wada was the last straw. I'm used to not being respected by the students, to not be respected by a teacher is too much."
The two girls walked for a few meters before Sarah responded. "You don't have any friends? What about the other class reps?"
The brunette pinked up again. "I hate to say it, but most of the other class reps are busy-bodies or budding control freaks, or," Hikari's complexion darkened some more, "brown-noses. They are doing it to have some power over students or to get extra credit for college applications. I did it because my okaa-san and her family before her were class representatives in school, and they would talk about the respect they would get from the staff and the students. Things aren't like that anymore, so after class today I handed in my armband and I felt so much better for it."
"And foisted it off on me?" Sarah raised an eyebrow.
"You're much braver than I am, Sarah-kun. I was so happy when I made Class Representative in high school, but the first day of school all the students did was laugh at me." Hikari's head was drooping as she spoke. "For the first three days the teacher had to call the room to attention, and it wasn't until the teacher started handing out detentions that they listened to me. I had to keep my bag and shoes in the teacher's lounge for weeks after that because the students would vandalize my things." Hikari looked over at Sarah and then looked away again. "I had pretty much given up on my duties when you first came to school, I don't really try to enforce the rules anymore without the teacher there. But I've seen you stand up to bullies and gropers, even the teachers, you're so fearless. You're better off as the Class Rep than me."
"I'm not fearless, Hikari-san." The brunette came to a halt and looked over the blonde, who had stopped but kept looking forward. "Most of the time I'm just angry with the perverts, my anger is a shield that I use to bash against people. I've been angry for so long and against so many people that's it's gotten to be a habit. I was angry for my family dying on me, for leaving me alone in a crowd, on me being in some foreign country, for being alone and scared in the dark." Sarah took a deep shuddering breath. "It wasn't until Keitaro-san took me in and made me part of his family at the Hinata Inn that I stopped being angry so much." The blonde glanced over at the silent brunette. "You got family and friends that love and care about you, you've had a lot more than I've had for a long time until recently."
"If you don't mind my asking," Hikari asked timidly, "what happened to your family?"
"I don't know who my actual father is, my mom was single when she had me." Sarah kept staring ahead. "We lived with my grandpa, my mother's father, by Lake Tahoe in California. My grandpa died when I was ten years old, heart attack, and then my mother died of ovarian cancer when I was twelve, she didn't know she had it until it was too late to treat. She contacted Seta, an old boyfriend of hers, and asked him to take care of me, but it took a while for the paperwork to go through. I had to live for a year and a half in San Francisco with my uncle, my mom's younger brother, who wasn't happy that he had to take care of a bratty pre-teen when he was busy working as a design engineer in Silicon Valley during the week and making his way through the club and party scene on weekends. Finally the adoption paperwork went through and I joined Seta in Thailand." Sarah took another shuddering breath. "Once everything was done there I came to Japan." The blonde looked over at her friend with a small smile. "Things have been getting better since I started living at the Hinata Inn. But what about you, you've got to have some friends, what about that Touji guy? Do I know him?"
Hikari's face turned pink again. "No, I doubt you know him. He was one of Kensuke-kun's friends." Sarah's eyes flashed but she stayed silent. "Since Kensuke-kun left Touji-kun has been mostly hanging out with the basketball players, he's on the junior varsity team. He wants to play basketball in college so he's working hard to make varsity in his junior year. I don't know why Touji-kun hung out so much with Kensuke-kun, they really did not have that much in common. Kensuke-kun was interested in photography and anime and manga, you know the hentai stuff. Touji-kun is more into sports than anything. I don't think he's even into girls, to tell the truth."
"What, you think he's gay?" Sarah asked curiously.
"I don't know. All I know is that he doesn't act like other boys do around girls. That's one of the reasons I wanted to get closer to him, because he's never leered at me or tried to grope me, but he's never shown interest in me or other girls," Hikari said in a depressed voice.
"You know you do have other friends. What do you call me and Nyamo and Su-chan and Shinobu-chan? Chopped liver?" Sarah smiled at Hikari, who returned it. "Even Aki-san is your friend."
"Aki-san?" Hikari asked doubtfully. The taller female upperclassman was almost her polar opposite in both looks and temperament. "That girl doesn't have a serious bone in her body." Looking at the blonde, the brunette could see something resembling a spastic smile form on her face before she finally responded.
"Aki-san so does have a serious bone in her body, it's called Shinji-kun." Sarah tried to keep a straight face but failed miserably and busted out laughing out loud at the wide-eyed look on Hikari's red face.
"You're disgusting Sarah-san!" The blonde teen kept laughing uproariously and after a few moments Hikari joined in on the laughter, albeit reluctantly. "What would Shinji-san say about that?"
"He'd probably turn as red as you are now. Aki-san would totally agree with me though." Sarah said in between guffaws. Slowly the pair's laughter slowed and came to a halt, although Sarah still had a wide grin on her face. "But to get back to business, you really want to give up being Class Rep?"
"I did like some of the privileges we had, and I don't mind doing the paperwork involved, but I wouldn't miss the disciplinary duties at all," said Hikari "But the big thing is that my mother is going to be disappointed in me for giving it up. She'll understand after I explain it to her, but it's not something I'm looking forward to."
Sarah had taken the red armband out and was bouncing it in her hand. "Let me ask you something, do you have something like temporary or assistant Class Reps, someone that fills in if someone is out sick or resigns like you do?"
Hikari blinked. "Well, I heard that there used to be Substitute Class Representatives, but they don't fill those slots anymore, they barely have enough volunteers to fill the regular positions. Why do you ask?"
"When I was offered the Class Rep job by the vice-principal, he said that all I had to do was enforce the rules that applied to protecting students, that I could pick and chose what rules to enforce and either step in or call for staff back-up in case of a fight." Sarah looked over at Hikari. "How about this, I go back to the VP and tell him that you and I will split the job, you do the paperwork stuff and I do the arm-breaking stuff, with Nyamo and Su backing me up as deputies. It'll be a fair division of labor." The blonde grinned at the brunette teen.
"I don't know…" Sarah could see that Hikari was tempted.
"Plus, you don't have to do the whole 'Sit Up! Roll Over! Play Dead!' routine at the beginning of each class period." Sarah saw that her friend needed just one more push. "And as the cherry on top, imagine the look on Sensei Wada's face when she sees me as Class Rep?" Hikari could not help herself, she broke out in laughter at the thought.
"Deal, Sarah-kun. But you are the one that has to convince the administration to accept this." Hikari was surprised to see Sarah hold a finger up in the universal 'wait a minute' sign.
"Two things though. First, I am not wearing the bloody armband at school." Sarah could see the confusion on her friend's face. "I'm wearing a nearly black uniform and I have blonde hair and blue eyes, the last thing I'm going to do is wear a red armband." Seeing that the brunette did not understand, Sarah cocked her head in a sardonic manner and raised her right hand to shoulder level, palm flat and facing out. "Sieg Heil." Hikari gave a shudder and nodded furiously. It had never been an issue at school because all the Class Representatives were girls wearing white blouses, but she could see Sarah's point. "My grandpa fought the Nazis in Europe during the war, the armband is a deal-breaker."
"No one wears the armband at school, it's a ceremonial thing. At most we have to wear them at the big assemblies at the beginning and end of the school year." Hikari explained.
"Well, when we talk to the vice-principal we're going to make it clear to him. I'll wear a lapel pin or a badge, not a red armband." Hikari nodded again, and was surprised when Sarah smiled and extended her hand in a Western handshake, but after a moment she put out her own hand and accepted it.
"Last thing Hikari-chan, since we're going to be working so close together." Sarah's voice had dropped into that purr from before, causing butterflies to form in Hikari's stomach. "Did I really turn you on earlier today?"
"Sarah-kun!" Hikari could not help but flush dark red again, even as Sarah's warm hand held onto her own.
"Don't worry, Hikari-chan." Sarah let go of her hand, and the brunette immediately began to miss it's warmth. "If I do anything with you, it'll be because you want it." The blonde grinned at her and the butterflies went into overdrive.
Looking down at her Casio watch, Sarah looked back at her friend. "We've been out here for fifteen minutes, it's time to get you back home to dinner. Don't want your mom mad at me."
"Considering how okaa-san feels about the Urashima, I don't think she would be much opposed to you sweeping me off my feet," Hikari muttered. The two girls turned and walked back toward the Horaki household.
"Like I said Hikari-chan, you're going to have to ask me for that." Sarah gave a crooked grin toward Hikari, who merely huffed and continued on her way.
Disciplinary Office
Kanazawa High School
Hinata City, Kanagawa Prefecture
Metro Tokyo, Japan
mid February, late Monday afternoon
Yukari Wada paused for a moment outside the administrative office checking her appearance. It was not a full going-over in front of a mirror, but more of a quick pat-check where made sure her business clothing was smoothed and buttoned properly, her hair was mostly in place, and her thin gold necklace and cross were tucked under her blouse instead of being in plain view. Taking a deep breath, Wada knocked at the vice-principal's door and after a few moments heard a muffled voice telling her to come in.
Stepping into the office Wada could see that the vice-principal was sitting behind his desk and his secretary was in her usual place standing behind and to the side of him. The teacher never did feel confident when she was summoned here, since her superior was not the type to call her to his office to tell her what a good job she was doing.
"Watanabe-san, Uehara-san, good afternoon." Wada gave a medium bow and stayed standing after coming back up. Watanabe was infamous for never offering a seat to visitors in his office. "You summoned me, sir?"
"Yes Wada-san. As you know, the senior administrative staff is always glad to see staff members go above their required duties in their work." The three people in the office knew those words were not the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth; Arata Watanabe very much preferred for his underlings to only do what he ordered, and to not go beyond that level of direction as it occasionally resulted in more work for him. "Therefore I was pleased to see that a staff member had without prompting taken an interest in doing disciplinary enforcement work."
The music teacher stiffened slightly. She had issued only issued one disciplinary action recently, the detention given to that shameless disruptive gaijin Sarah McDougal. Word had previously been quietly passed around by staff members that the blonde American was not to be harassed, especially for minor issues. Wada had known that this certainly applied to her since she had been trying to get McDougal to join the choral club in spite of her reluctance, but seeing the iteki acting in such a unashamed manner with another girl in her classroom had annoyed her to no end and she had issued the detention for an infraction that was pretty much ignored by every other teacher and staff member at the school.
Watanabe continued speaking. "Since you are presumably interested in doing such work, I thought you would be interested in applying for the disciplinary staff member position in the administration that is currently vacant. You certainly meet the academic requirements, and your kind of enthusiasm would certainly make a difference among our young students." The vice-principal smiled at the paling teacher, and the expression was not a nice one. "The pay would be the same as your current posting and you would be relieved of your other duties, such as your club adviser assignment."
It was all Wada could do to stay steady on her feet at the 'offer'. Besides taking her from the music studies that she loved teaching and the choral club that was one of the few bright spots in her life, school disciplinary duties were not without risk. The reason the position was open was because the last faculty member involved in that job somehow managed to break one of his legs in three places falling down a single flight of stairs one day while alone after school and was knocked unconscious; it was not until the janitorial staff came around later that he was found. The injured staff member never did give a complete explanation as to how he fell that day, and after being on medical leave for over a month he submitted his resignation and transferred to a school out in the countryside.
Looking into the older man's eyes and at the older woman behind him, Wada had no illusions as to what this was about. It was an open secret that the Urashima heir had come and expressed his displeasure as to how his brat of a ward had been treated by the staff and students at the school. Word had gotten around fast that she had the same protection as the hyperactive blonde islander girl, but seeing that yankee hussy acting so brazenly with another girl while wearing a boy's gakuran uniform had caused her temper to flare. After a few moments to calm down Wada realized that she had made a mistake in issuing the detention and reprimanding the girl; seeing the cold look on her superior's face made her realize how serious that error was.
"I… I am honored that you are making this offer to me, Watanabe-san, but teaching music is my passion in life. I would much rather continue doing that instead of changing my duties." Wada tried to smile politely and failed miserably.
"Are you sure? I could leave you in your teaching duties and assign you part-time duties in disciplinary enforcement. I would have to still relieve you of your club adviser assignment though." The cold look in the vice-principal's eyes had become icy.
"No, I'm very sure. I don't want to let down the girls in my club, we have a decent chance in the upcoming competitions coming soon." The choral club did not have a snowball's chance in hell of advancing in the regional competitions, but the absolute last thing Yukari Wada wanted to do was patrol empty school hallways looking for rule breakers and delinquents and suffer an 'unfortunate accident.'
"Very well. We will let things go on as they are now, but should circumstances change you're be on the top of our list of people available for this assignment." The vice-principal's lips moved into a configuration that resembled a smile, but was anything but friendly. "I suppose we are done here, you are dismissed." The two administrators watched as Wada bowed before unsteadily walking out of the office. Uehara walked around from behind the desk and paused at the door to look at her boss. He merely nodded to her before she stepped out of the office and he turned back to the work on his computer.
A/N 2: As I mentioned at the beginning, this chapter is about Sarah; I am finding I am getting more mileage writing about our favorite blonde than about the titular main character of this story. Part of this is because Sarah has more going for her being a fish out of water in Tokyo than Keitaro slowly cracking up. That is not to make light of what is happening to him or to say I won't cover what happens with the dorm manager, but it's going to take less words/segments to cover what happens to Keitaro than what happens to Sarah. I want both sub-arcs to end at about the same time so we can then bounce back to Roanapur.
I do hope that everyone did enjoy the glimpse of Sarah's life before she came to Thailand and Japan. It helps explain why she acted like a brat on the island, and why she is more happy now at the Hinata Sou. Sarah had to mature the hard way due to her time in Roanapur, which is not to say there are not some cracks on her hard façade.
As to Nozumi mistaking Sarah for a boy, the reason she did that is because she was wearing a jacket over her male uniform and hiding her feminine figure and Nozumi was not familiar with Western names. There are quite a few names that are used for both girls and boys in both Japanese and English, and this was the first time the younger girl had interacted with someone with that name.
The issue that came up with Sarah wearing a Class Rep armband with the garukan uniform is not something that really struck me until I looked up Class Representatives on TvTropes. I came across the trope page for Red Armband of Leadership, which mentioned that outside of Asia red armbands have Unfortunate Implications, and since Sarah's grandfather fought in Europe during World War II (and she had seen how much the war tore him up) she would refuse to wear one. Like I said in the chapter most of the time when we see students wearing a red armband in anime it is a female student wearing a white blouse (think Haruhi Suzumiya), not a male student wearing a paramilitary dark navy uniform.
And as to who I based Sarah's new hairstyle one, the correct answer is... Edward Elric from Full Metal Alchemist. If you Google his picture you can see that he usually wears a dark blue uniform under a long red coat with a sleeveless shirt under his tunic (the better to show off his automail/prosthetic arm) and wears his blonde hair in a French Braid with chin length bangs framing his face. The only real difference between him and Sarah is that Edward has gold colored eyes and Sarah has blue. So the winners of the virtual Christmas chocolates are TenchiSolutionsForAll and Lucky. A Close But No Cigar goes to Zhou-Mak, who guessed Alphonse Elric (unless he got the two names confussed).
This month's Most Unusual Place Reading My Story Award goes to the Philippines, who also had the World's Wackiest National Leader up until a certain orange haired billionaire got sworn in at the beginning of the month (Life is Stranger than Fiction, no?). Runner Up is Slovakia.
Many thanks to my beta readers AZ MII and PCH and my FFN beta reader WalkerOfDarkness.
As of 0000PST 30Jan2017 this story has 367K Words, 809K Views, 927 Reviews (getting closer to One Thousand Reviews!), 61 C2 Listings, 1400 Story Favorites and 1270 Story Alerts.
Thanks to all my faithful readers. *victory sign*