XXIX.
Disclaimer: I do not own Assassination Classroom.
When Sayo left the classroom Karma knew instantly something was wrong. Well, everyone else knew too, that something was amiss, but Karma was the only one who had seen her yesterday after her meeting with that new assassin. It was her frantic pace and the paleness of her face that even alerted the most brainless monkey in their class (namely Terasaka), that she was not alright.
The day before she had been completely out of her mind, talking about meeting that assassin killing and her being unable to do anything. Her panicked state had made him babbling about those few plans he had wanted to do with her on a date. It made him feel, well not directly embarrassed, but a bit self-conscious. Had she actually consented to going to the ice rink with him? That was a thought for another time, but he couldn't help but look forward to it.
He did stupid things when she was not alright, but it sparked the protective instinct inside him, wanting to keep Sayo close to him so she would not and never again be like that. But he knew she would hit him for that and no matter how cute she found it, he would be definitely getting a lecture if he did that.
But it was the better alternative to locking her up behind bullet-proof walls and never letting her out. That would not only make her furious at him, but also take it just a tiniest bit too far (he loved her, but he wasn't obsessed with her and would never go so far to take her freedom away).
He hadn't said anything about it since yesterday, only offering silent comfort and waiting till she wanted to say anything. It was something what they always did, until one of them either puzzled through everything till they were ready to talk or if the other was feed up with the shit the other feed them and confronted their friend. It worked most of the times, except for that one incident when Karma had blown his shit about her just following him endlessly seemingly without reason and in response she had too. Not comfortable but they had worked it out.
His crush on her was a little bit awkward or at least it had been in the beginning. Kana, Sayo's mom, had all for it, while Sayo had been in deep denial until it had been spelled out for her slowly. For Karma it was not some small lived crush, but had been a mix of adoration, love and gratitude in one that had had just developed into what it was now.
He felt just more than a bit disappointed that she didn't feel the same yet, but he had in some twisted way her permission to 'woe' her as the raven had said. It didn't help with his disappointment that much, though he had a chance and he was taking it. It could be a challenge for him, so it made this less disappointing, right?
Sayo had been the first one to accept him, also the first one who stayed and didn't just leave. On some days Karma resented his parents for leaving him alone like this, but then he would just curl up by Sayo's side and be reminded by her that it just wasn't worth it.
She kept him levelheaded in most situations since the beginning of their relationship, though one thing he really didn't like about Sayo were her double standards.
His childhood friend always told him to be careful, but was so damn reckless herself. When he had started to fight, the raven had just joined him soon after, even though she had been terrified of him going ahead and getting injured. Like the damn hypocrite she was.
Karma was not happy with her tendency to regard her own safety, though he hadn't expected such a strong reaction to the assassins. Admitted, they hadn't had any contact with one except for Jelabitch-sensei (he was going to stick with the name, Bitch-sensei was more impersonal than this one and maybe he liked the pun that Sayo always pulled when she heard it), but she had been terrified and it didn't speak particularly well for her state of mind.
There was no way he was not worried, so he scurried out of the classroom as fast as he could, not even waiting for their teacher or anyone else for that matter to say anything. Karma felt slightly grateful when their teacher didn't stop him from reaching Sayo.
Apparently Sayo had just straight-out bolted from the second she could not be seen, since he wasn't even able to see her form on the entire campus. The redhead cursed quietly for a moment, before he began to think about where she could have gone.
His childhood friend loved it to go to sunny clearings in forests despite not being able to stand any kind of bug twenty meters near her. Instantly, Karma had at least three different places where he could check on her, but at least one was too far away to even consider it and the other one was north where he should have been able to see her if she had gone there. There was only one possibility he knew off, since it was not likely that the raven had even left the campus in her panicked state.
''Ritsu,'' he addressed the AI through his phone. She appeared on the screen after a few seconds. ''Can you tell me if Sayo's near that waterfall on the backside? I need to get to her right now.''
''Yes, Karma-kun. She is currently at the location you have just mentioned. Do you need a map to get there?'' she answered him after a few seconds, her face concerned. Hah, wasn't it like Sayo to get an AI like her?
Grateful to the computer girl, Karma hurried to the stream at the back of the whole mountain. He desperately hoped that nothing severe had happened and that he would be able to calm her before anything worse occurred.
Distantly, I was aware that I was running out of breath and my chest began to ache in the worst waypossible. But the only thing I could focus on was not to drown in my growing fear and continue to run. I knew it was illogical to run from something that was not even directed at me, but everything reminded me of that horrible, horrible pain and the feeling of completely being helpless.
The irony of this was almost funny. I, a fifteen-year-old student with the memories of another life where I had died, was susceptible to blood lust and was placed in a place where everything just revolved about assassins and killing intent.
My class was just a collection of different types of blood lust and even Karma and Nagisa always exuded a certain amount of it. I was just so used to it that I thought it wouldn't matter. I wasn't a person, that was so easily swayed or at least I hoped that I was, and finding out that I could be easily taken down by a mere show of force was laughable. It pissed me off in ways it I didn't know it could.
I liked being in control, I liked showing others that I was better or had at least the thought in mind that I was. That was the main reason I liked pranks. Being able to do that right under peoples nose, who thought they were so brilliant gave me some kind of satisfaction. I knew that I was being a hypocrite, especially for that reasoning, but I had only realized that part when I had acted out a number of them with Karma and I didn't want to stop. They were one thing that Karma and I both loved doing and that fact alone was reason enough not to stop that habit.
I guess it was similar to chewing on your nails or biting your lips till they bleed.
How could I have reacted so violently when I should be used to fighting I didn't know. Or maybe I did. It was something I didn't want to admit and liked to avoid.
Possibly it had a lot to do with my disassociation with theses kind of things.
(Possibly? Who are you kidding? It's all just a game for you. A damn game and you think you're the game master.)
I took a shuddering breath and stopped running for a moment. There were so many things I was pushing down alone in that moment. In a way I was a patchwork of myself as weird as that sounded. My memories of another life gave me a different view on life than the one someone at my physical age had and it came with advantages and disadvantages.
...Maybe a load of issues didn't entirely outweigh the whole having an advantage to my peers and so on, not counting in the time I was wasting being bored. Why didn't I skip the first few grades first? Maybe I would. After class E I could try and skip a grade or two. It was still easy now and later on would be a lot more work to do.
My pace had slowed by now, as I was wondering about the possibilities of my future and at the same time trying to cope with my more or less loose grip on reality, since I hadn't thought about it a long time.
Somehow I didn't know whether it was good or bad that the new assassin had reminded of reality once more, but I really didn't like it. I hated it when my mistakes were pointed out, but it was necessary. Otherwise I would never be able to move on.
At the moment I started to see the things in front of me again, I was surprised with the sight of one rather flushed looking Karma waving his hand in front of my face. He seemed to realize that my mind was back and stopped moving his limb.
''Hi Sayo.'' That startled out a laugh out of me. I had been trying to dissect myself the whole time while I had been running and the redhead had just gone ahead and caught me where I wanted to go. ''How about going back? Or getting some food? I'm sure school's actually almost over by now.''
Giving him a tired, relieved smile, I nodded at his suggestion and reached out to grab his arm. My head rested against his shoulder as I started to count his pulse again.
(You're procrastinating again.)
Shut up. Sometimes I hated my mind for thinking too much. Or myself for thinking too much.
''You don't have to tell me anything if you don't want to, Sayo,'' he murmured above my ear. I shook my head at his words and started to resent my reluctance to tell him about my problems. I was so fucking bad at communicating with people about important things, that just couldn't start. There were times I would start to cry for some kind of reason that was just in my head and others just didn't know what to do about it.
Or at least that been in the life from before. But that hadn't changed it seemed.
''I-'' My mouth felt dry for some reason. Come on, it's just Karma. ''I'm getting anxiety attacks from the blood lust of assassins. I think I'm loosing my touch from reality. I hate not being in control.''
My chest felt lighter from admitting these things, even if I knew that Karma was aware of these things. Small steps, I reminded myself. I was going to tell Karma everything step by step.
When Karma and Nagisa asked me to go with them to Hawaii, I was a bit conflicted. In truth I was a fan of hero movies especially Avengers, but I didn't know if I wanted to watch that movie. On the one hand, I wanted to know how the story went on, but on the other the story hadn't been that well done. The animation was nice, but the plot needed a bit of work.
In the end I agreed.
''Have you two even asked Koro-sensei, yet?'' I looked at them skeptically. At least Nagisa had the decency to look embarrassed whereas Karma had none of it. That stupid guy, I thought fondly.
My mood had lifted when I had heard that Lovro had gone back to wherever he had come from and that Jelabitch-sensei was still in class E, though she almost hadn't made it, since for some kind of reason the older assassin had wanted to take her with him. I was a bit fond of the blonde assassin, but it wouldn't have made that much of a difference for me.
The class was a total different thing. Jelabitch-sensei had wormed her way into the hearts of many of our class and seemed equally fond of us as some in our class were of her. The class moral would suffer if she were gone. At least that was that what I was thinking.
''Nope, we hoped that you could convince him with your beauty,'' Karma continued shamelessly, not even caring when Nagisa started to apologize to me. The smaller boy was sometimes still defaulting to bowing and saying sorry, when I was having a particular look on my face. I just had to find out which one, so that I could stop him from doing it.
''I appreciate your compliment, Karma,'' was my dry response, though my lips curled into a smile. ''Well, let's go and face the music.''
Sensei had said yes. Though it was accompanied with a few weird gestures, a box of tissues and some kind of drama about his students finally wanting to spent time with him. I didn't believe a single word, since I knew he was giving almost a third of our class additional lessons in their weak subjects.
''Sayori-kun~! You are so mean to me! I just want to get to know you!'' our teacher wailed, which I deigned with blank face. I suddenly had the image of a sleepover with my teacher and the other girls in my head, which made me want either to giggle or just bleach my mind.
''Maybe if we talk about boys and paint each others nails, it will get better, Koro-sensei,'' I managed to bring out before I buried my head in my hands and started to giggle hopelessly. I bet his nail art would be even better than mine.
When tentacles grabbed my hands in a mock imitations of those girls, who always stood close together and jumped in the air when they found something nice. The smiling face of our teacher was so close to mine, that I wanted to move farther away.
''Really?'' His eyes were twinkling. I averted my gaze and saw almost the whole class looking at me something akin to pity and not very well hidden amusement. In their place, I would have probably laughed, too. There was also the very familiar gleam of killing intent in their eyes and my thoughts wandered to my panic attack from last time.
I grabbed Koro-sensei's tentacles tighter. Firstly to stop myself from panicking and secondly to assure that he wouldn't go anywhere.
''Get the whole class into it and we'll paint each others' nails and talk about our relationships,'' I told him steadily, which reminded me of another thing I wanted to ask him. ''Do you actually have nails?''
That questions went unanswered as the bell rang and gun fire rained upon us. Though I was disappointed when our teacher's limbs slipped easily out of my hands. Mucus was clinging on my hands, as I tried to see where our teacher had gone, but in the next moments my hands were clean again and... was that nail polish?
''Very well! We will hold a sleepover as soon as the class agrees and when there are no tests to disturb you. I look forward to it!'' I took some time to appreciate the color of the polish sensei had applied on my nails and came to the conclusion that I liked it. The dark blue had a really nice shade. Almost like my hair. ''As for you, Sayori-kun, sadly I don't have nails.''
And that led to the full-blown discussion of why having finger and nails was so great, though sensei also lamented that his tentacles were far more superior to hands. Somewhere in the middle of it, it became a biology lesson on how our skin regenerated and the structure of our hands. Right, I told myself, three more hours and we would be off to watch the movie.
''Sayori-san! Down here!'' I looked around to hear the voice calling from somewhere. By the time that I realized where it came from, I had garnered more than a few weird looks from my classmates. Karma was also grinning bemusedly at my antics.
Picking out my phone, I realized that Ritsu had somehow downloaded herself on my phone's system and was currently trying to talk with me. Typing down a message for her to read, my eyes dashed to our teacher, who was still going on about skin with a rosy shade on his face. Perfect, whatever Ritsu wanted would probably work.
'What's the matter?' I typed down in a chat with her and waited for an answer, which came immediately.
'Let's try the sound test now. I'm sure we can gather more data during the flight to Hawaii as well!' Somehow her answer radiated cheerfulness, which was more than my messages would ever be, since I was somewhat lacking in expressing emotions through texting.
'Sure' My answer was read, though Ritsu wasn't answering, yet. Maybe she was preparing the test.
Meanwhile I gauged the awareness of my classmates. Since it was already noon, none of us was as concentrated in the lesson as we were in the morning. Your focus simply dropped during the day – that was normal. I could see Okajima occasionally dozing off and startling awake again by the sudden jerking of his head and Nakamura spinning her pen lazily. The chance that anyone would notice something going on seemed pretty low, though I should know better than to assume.
Koro-sensei's hearing in general was good just as most of his senses seemed to be. He was able to hear us when we were whispering in class or even taking of the safety of our guns. Just his range was the thing that interested me. No one knew if he had the actual rang of a human, of a dog or even like a bat.
It was just so intriguing and would maybe even become useful to us. I felt like I had watched too many action movies, but at least it was an idea to work on.
'I'm going to play out now a frequency of 30,000 Hz in ten seconds. It's just about the mid-range of a dog's hearing and 10,000 Hz above the normal hearing range of a human's. I will record any change. The sequence is saying 'Tentacles suck' on repeat to make sure we have some emotional reaction.'
I read through the message and sent a quick confirmation.
'Now' I read and she played out the sequence. Not that I was able to hear it, but there was definitely a shift in the atmosphere. I could see sensei's head turn from pink to red and the little puffs of hot air appearing that were always there when he grew angry.
''Who said that?!'' he huffed out angrily and a moment of confusion rippled through the class. I hid a smug smile behind my hand and tried not to laugh. Accomplishment was a very nice feeling and something I was going to share with Ritsu.
'Awesome, well done. Let's up the level next time.'
I received a picture of Ritsu with a sunny smile and thumbs up for my effort. Apparently Koro-sensei couldn't locate where the sequence was being played out since Ritsu had roped several phones and speakers into our little project. Perfect outcome, this was going to be funny.
''Sayori-kun, what is so funny?'' Ups, caught. I raised my hands in a placating manner and let my phone vanish in my lap.
''Nothing, sensei,'' I answered him as innocently as I could. He couldn't prove we had done anything and I wasn't even able to hear the sequence Ritsu was currently playing out. Speaking of- On my display was the message that the AI had finally halted the sound and was now gauging the reaction of our teacher.
Almost everyone probably knew I had my hands in this scheme, but since there was no proof nothing could be confirmed. It was like a good prank. The thrill of everyone knowing you did it, but no one being able to proof you were guilty. Even if Koro-sensei tried to take my phone, I trusted Ritsu to either hide or delete our chat.
Lessons continued after a ridiculous amount of scrutinizing on our teacher's end and the occasional questioning look at my face, which I blissfully ignored. I would tell them in our class chat, but not now when our teacher could still overhear us.
Flying with our teacher was an odd sensation. Karma and Nagisa had only realized belatedly how we were going to get to Hawaii and had gotten nervous about it. This flight had not been my first one with sensei, though I had been a bit light-headed the last time I had flown with our teacher.
This time around I was noticing the warmth he was actually emitting and the feeling of the two other passenger constantly brushing against me. The constant movement reminded me of being in a car and I had to squash down the urge to simply yell at my teacher to stop and land. I did not like cars, just like mirrors. It didn't really help that my family lived in a stark populated city, which had a train network that allowed me to get practically everywhere without a car. I had died by a car accident and things like these left scars.
Almost done, come on. You can do this.
By the time we arrived in Hawaii I was already mentally exhausted and not quite in the mood to watch the film, but I followed them into the cinema anyway. The lesson Koro-sensei had taught on the way here or any of the conversations had gone right over my head, which probably had been noticed by the others.
''Ah, I really wanted to watch this movie,'' Nagisa announced as we sat down on our seats and sighed once again. ''Hah... These seats are comfy, but it's quite cold here.''
I hummed at him. Karma was sitting on my left with Nagisa in the seat beside Karma and sensei just sitting beside Nagisa in two seats. They were conversing about a few other things when I noticed a mini-tentacle nudging my side and startled.
''What is that?'' I exclaimed and earned a few dirty looks from other people. Apparently my voice had been too loud.
''Koro-sensei wants to play Google translator by tentacle ear plug,'' Karma answered my question, examining his own tentacle translator in his hand. The redhead's expression was pulled into a funny grimace, which made me smile.
''Well,'' I looked once again at the tentacle and decided against it. ''Thank you for the offer, Koro-sensei, but I'm confident in my English skills.''
Just after saying that I sneezed and began to notice the chilling temperature in the room, as well as the blankets that Karma and Nagisa were carrying. When had they gotten them? In the blink of an eye, I was also offered a pink blanket with hearts, snacks and a drink for the movie, which felt like a really good hotel room service. There was also a tissue for me to wipe my nose.
''...Thanks, sensei.''
''Anytime, Sayori-kun,'' our teacher answered and let me take the offered items. The film was starting any minute now and the people around us had started to quiet down in the meantime. We moved ourselves in comfortable positions and watched the advertisements that were shown at the beginning of the film.
During the whole film I found myself dozing off several times and waking up at particularly loud or exciting scenes. After the probably eighth or so time, I decided to fuck it and pulled my blanket up to my chin, my legs lifting themselves up in my seat. Finally letting gravity win, I planted my head right onto Karma's shoulder and snuggled closer.
Karma, who had been watching the scene intently, startled for a moment, before he just took my behavior with a shrug. He still raised an eyebrow when I removed my glasses from my face to lie more comfortable.
''Let me,'' I grumbled and closed my eyes.
At the end I woke up in my bed with a sticky note on my face that told me to write a review for the movie in English and the tip to sleep more at night. Karma had even added that I looked cute while sleeping.
Eh... I didn't even know how the movie had ended.
Happy new year, everyone. I'm actually updating right now, since I cut the intended chapter in two. Thank you so much for all the lovely support during the whole time.
Check out my tumblr, where I posted a snippet of Sayo appearing in canon and my one-shot 'In his shoes'. This is shameless self-advertising.
Wish you a nice day!
-Yuki
Question: What should be Sayo's nickname during that arc where everyone gets a nickname? I've been thinking of 'old child', but that's too easy.