Chapter 2 - Closer
When Kisa arrived at work on Monday, he found Yokozawa with a stranger guy in the office. The guy was standing in front of the desk, looking at the vice dean with those emotionless eyes, standing Yokozawa's strict look with perfect calmness. Kisa found that quite brave.
"Kisa, glad you came just now," Yokozawa spoke to him now. "This is the new psychologist, Takano Masamune."
Kisa bowed in front of the man.
"Nice to meet you."
"You too," Takano smiled and turned back to Yokozawa.
"You start from tomorrow. We have a few students that might need help. As I've already said, that's the reason I've decided to hire a psychologist."
Takano turned back to Kisa now and smiled.
"Sounds like you're telling it to him rather than me."
"That makes sense, though," Kisa added as he sat down at his table, pulling books and papers out of his bag. "Mid-terms are a pain in the ass. Those kids need reassurance that they're doing okay. And they don't just need these reassurances from well-done tests."
Yokozawa nodded in agreement.
"Well, I'll do my best from tomorrow," Takano said, his voice was kind of toneless to Kisa. He had this weird poker face as well. For a moment, Kisa could have questioned Yokozawa's instincts about this guy.
Besides, Takano looked extremely young.
After Takano left, silence filled the office room. Kisa was getting ready for classes. He managed to correct all the tests on the weekend. He hardly even slept, which was for the better now. Especially because his bruises from the past had been renewed because of that certain brunet student of his. And only his work could make him stop thinking.
He collected his notes for his first class and got up from his seat with a sigh.
"How old is he anyway?" he suddenly asked, and Yokozawa looked at him confused.
"You mean Takano?"
"Yeah."
"Twenty-eight," Yokozawa said. "Not much younger than you."
"Are you kidding?" Kisa frowned. "He looks less than that."
"Well, you should be going to your class, shouldn't you?"
Kisa sighed, and turned around, rolling his eyes. He left the office without a word, and walked past by some students in the corridor to reach the classroom.
Sometimes he wanted to think that teaching English was just a horrible nightmare. Not because he didn't like teaching, but because he had some really dumb students. And sometimes, he still needed to explain basic grammar rules to students in third-year – and students right before graduation. Being a teacher wasn't easy, he kind of expected it when he applied to the right university back when he was still a student himself.
But going back to lessons that should be taught in elementary school was pretty exhausting.
He walked back to the office after class to get the right notes to his next class, just to bump into a very tired and worn out Miyagi professor. The dean was sitting in his chair with a cigarette in his mouth. Sometimes Kisa wondered how it was okay for him to smoke between the walls of the university, but he never questioned it anyway.
"Kisa..."
"Yes?"
"Are you okay with taking 2-B in eight period?"
This day, Kisa was supposed to have only seven classes. And none with 2-B.
"Why? What happened?"
"Well, Yukimura-sensei has a flu or fever or god knows..." Miyagi sighed as he exhaled a big cloud of smoke, "So she's away for a while. Only Kitamura and you are the only English professors right now. Too many classes and Kitamura has his own plus half of Yukimura's. Please."
"Well, I guess it can't be helped," Kisa sighed. "2-B, you said?"
"Yup..."
Kisa reached for his drawer to pull out notes and books, and checked what lesson this class was at. Then he stood up and left the office to his next class.
And in the middle of the deserted corridor, he just realised which class 2-B actually was.
It was the class Yukina was in.
During the last period, the classroom was silent as everybody was busy with taking notes after Kisa gave a long presentation about the origins of English language. He was sitting in his chair with the book opened in his hands, going through some lessons. Just so he wouldn't look at a certain someone. Because during his presentation, he would glance at the whole branch just so he had an excuse to glance at Yukina.
He clenched his teeth as he looked up at the class again. Then he turned back to the book. And his thoughts wandered to the past again. He remembered when Yoshida would struggle with English, his biggest issue was with the word order, and Kisa would happily help him out – in a park, after school or on the phone in the middle of the night as Yoshida was getting ready for tests.
And when he was about to become a teacher and had to choose his majority, he had chosen subconsciously. And years later did he just realised that the roots of his love of lecturing and teaching people English gone back to Yoshida.
Weird enough that ten years later he was teaching a student that could have been an identical twin to his ex-lover.
When the class finally ended – and it felt such a damn long class –, some students walked up to him. Kisa was looking at them, waiting for question or anything they wanted to say. The students looked at each other first, then turned back to Kisa.
"We were kind of wondering if you want to have a drink with us this weekend?"
Kisa frowned, then burst out laughing.
"Going out to drink with my students would cost my job, you know."
Some of the students laughed with him, some just looked pretty disappointed.
"That's a loss," a girl said, tucking her sweatshirt. "You're far the coolest prof here."
Kisa slightly blushed, still grinning.
"Come on..."
"Well, worth a shot," someone else said, and they started to wander out of the classroom. Until only one stayed.
"Oi, Kou, stop standing 'round!"
Kisa's gaze now wandered at Yukina who was still standing right in front of him, smiling.
"I'll catch up," he said, and the others didn't say a thing, just left. And now it was just him and Kisa in the classroom.
Kisa tried his hardest to look at him without blushing or shaking.
"Everything okay?"
"Yeah, I was just wondering how my test turned out one hundred percent."
Kisa got so surprised his brows almost reached the top of his forehead as he raised them.
"You almost always get one hundred percent. Guess it's because you're studying hard."
"Yeah, but no..."
"Are you agreeing or disagreeing right now?"
They both burst out laughing and for a moment, Kisa just forgot who he was talking to. Yukina shrugged and looked him in the eyes.
"Well, I was pretty sure I'd hardly reach fifty percent. For some reason, I don't get the whole thing at all, but on the other hand… I do get it."
Kisa nodded.
"I know the struggle, I used to be like that. But I had to memorise every single grammar rule in order to become a teacher, so… And if you guys get it and you write tests that reach eighty, ninety or one hundred percent, then I think I managed to get over this struggle, and you will, too."
"Awww!" Yukina said with a bright smile, and the first thing that popped into Kisa's mind was that the boy was literally sparkling. "That's so nice of you!"
"I mean..." Kisa scratched his head with an awkward smile, "I'm your professor after all. My job is kind of to support all of you."
Yukina groaned as he walked towards the door. Kisa walked behind him.
"Professor Yokozawa should learn," he said quietly.
"Oi, stop talking about him behind his back," Kisa replied with a small smile. "I'm gonna get sued if he hears us, not you."
Yukina laughed so loud it echoed in the corridor.
"Gotcha!"
"Hey, what's up with that 'gotcha?' Show some respect, I'm your professor after all!"
"Alright, sorry!" Yukina said as he clapped his hands together and bowed apologetically. "See you tomorrow!"
Kisa shook his head with a smile as he watched Yukina leaving, probably catching up to his friends. Then he sighed as he went back to his office to pack his stuff and leave.
He had noticed that he had been spacing out a lot lately. Mainly because of Yukina. Kisa had never completely forgotten about Yoshida, but he surely hadn't thought about him as much as he did in the past few days. Everything Yukina did, every conversation they had was a reminder of Yoshida.
And when would he break out of this one hell of a circle? Maybe he'd be the first one to show up in front of Takano's office tomorrow.
He smiled to this thought as he left the university.
He was an adult and a professor, he didn't need a damn psychologist.
On his way home, Kisa decided to pop into a nearby bookstore. Once in a while, he'd buy a book or two, just so they can sit on his shelves forever. it's not like he had never read any of the books he'd bought. He just didn't really have the time to finish them, and if he did, well, that took a very long time.
As he entered the bookstore, an employee greeted him with a smile, and advertised some new releases and newbie authors. Kisa nodded and started walking around the huge shelves. He had no idea what he wanted to read. Crime? Mystery? Fantasy? Historical stuff? He sighed, and reached for a book. And then something caught his eyes – shoujo manga.
He almost laughed out loud to the idea of him reading shoujo. But he headed towards the manga section anyway, checking out the huge collection of mangas. And before he could have thought about it, he was standing in line with four books of a famous manga series. It was about a girl who was dumped after a few years of dating a guy, and she's trying to get over him. Kisa's first thought was that it was probably written about him.
"Good afternoon, sir!"
"Good afternoon," Kisa mumbled as he stepped ahead, still reading the caption of the books. "Just these."
He looked up and his eyes met the brightly sparkling Yukina Kou.
"Oh, professor!" he shouted in happiness. "Never thought I'd see you here!"
"Holy sh… And I never thought you'd be working here..." Kisa replied with a blush on his face.
"Sooo, shoujo manga, huh?" Yukina started chit-chatting while scanning the books. "Great choice, though."
"Is it?"
"But still, it's weird to imagine you reading these," Yukina laughed, now putting the books into a small bag.
"And you know what?" Kisa reached for the bag. "I'm gonna read them proudly!"
Yukina burst out laughing so loud it echoed, and all the staff members and customers turned towards him. Kisa blushed a little and so did the brunet.
"Well, see you around school I guess," he then mumbled with a small smile.
Kisa nodded.
"Definitely. Make sure you don't exhaust yourself, though. Working and studying will drive you crazy."
"Well, I'm scared now!"
They both smiled, then Kisa left the bookstore. And once again, for a moment, he had forgotten that he was talking to Yukina. His student. His chest was clenching as he held onto the bag tightly, and he felt like he just could breathe the air in.
He shouldn't be getting this close to Yukina. Ever since Kisa had noticed this boy, he had been remembering, and remembering renewed his wounds from the past. For the past few nights, he'd gone to sleep with aching stomach and chest, heart beating like crazy, his thoughts around Yoshida and the past.
Maybe it would be easier to get over it if he knew why Yoshida had broken up with him in the first place.
Right now, right at that moment, as he was standing at the bus stop, surrounded by a small crowd, Kisa was sure he's never going to get over it.
As he was going to get on the bus that finally arrived, a woman bumped into him.
"Oh my, I'm so sorry," Kisa apologised quickly.
"Oh, come on, it's my fault," she chuckled a little as she glanced at Kisa. "I wasn't paying attention. "
Kisa smiled at her as he got on the bus. The woman looked familiar, but Kisa didn't know who she was. Well, probably the mother of one of his students, or someone he saw in a store before. He sighed as he tried not to fall asleep in the seat.
But he did.
And the woman he bumped into appeared in his dream.
A/N:
Hola! Ricchan's here with a new chapter! Yay!
Umm, I really don't have to say much, I'm just happy if you've read it, if you're following and if you like the story so far. :) See you in the next chapter!
