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"English Names vs Japanese Names (which do you prefer more?)"
Tai dropped himself into his seat, basically slamming his lunch tray onto the cafeteria table. Normally, he tried to avoid being so dramatic, but he was annoyed on this particular occasion. Regardless, his display caught Sora and Izzy's attention, prompting a pair of raised eyebrows in his direction.
"I think the new teacher hates me," Tai declared, deciding to seize his moment.
Sora sighed. "You mean Mr. Nishijima?"
"Who else?" Tai answered their raised eyebrows with his own.
"What did you do to upset him?" Izzy asked as he tried to return to his lunch.
"Why do you just automatically assume it was my fault?" Tai asked back, instinctively slamming a fist on the table.
Izzy shrugged. "Law of averages."
Tai sat back and crossed his arms. "Well, I didn't do anything!"
"I've heard that before." Izzy glanced in Sora's direction.
"To his credit, he hasn't done anything directly to Mr. Nishijima," she clarified.
"Thank you, Sora," Tai replied, relieved someone could see reason.
Sora placed a single finger on her chin. "Indirectly, on the other hand-"
"Oh, come on!"
"-it could be any number of things."
"Like what?" Tai shot back, sitting up straight again.
"You're not exactly the most attentive student, for starters." Sora pointed disapprovingly in his direction.
Tai grumbled under his breath. She was clearly referring to her claims that he didn't pay attention and occasionally fell asleep in class. Tai couldn't recall any of these instances, however, so he still wasn't convinced she wasn't making them up.
"Let's rewind," Izzy interjected. "What makes you think he hates you?"
"He keeps getting my name wrong?" Tai answered. "For some reason, he thinks my last name is 'Yagami'."
Izzy shrugged again. "Could be an honest mistake."
"Yeah..." Tai paused to consider and then shook his head. "I'm not buying that."
"What do you buy then?"
"That Nishijima is a jerk!" Tai shouted, again his annoyance was overriding any desire to not make a scene.
"He's seems really nice to me," Sora claimed, her tone somewhere between mocking him and being completely genuine.
"Then he just flat out doesn't know how to read!"
Tai paused, waiting for some kind of remark from either of his friends. Instead, though, they simply looked back at him with weird looks on their faces. Not scared or even nervous, but more cautious than anything else. Eventually, he double checked their eyelines, realizing that they weren't looking at him, but past him instead.
"What's..." Tai spun around to see what they were staring at. "...wrong?"
There, standing right over Tai's shoulder with a lunch tray in hand and a slight smirk on his face, was none other than Mr. Nishijima.
"I heard my name and the word 'jerk' in the same sentence," he said calmly and casually.
"D-Did you?" Tai felt his eyebrow twitch.
"Yep, kinda reminded me of my college years." Mr. Nishijima then focused entirely in Tai's direction. "So, what's up Yagami?"
"My last name is Kamiya, sir," Tai answered through his teeth.
"Is it?" Nishijima asked with a mostly innocent look on his face.
"Uh-huh..." Tai was not enjoying being mocked. "Has been since the first day of class."
"Do me a favor." With one hand, Nishijima reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a pen and a hand-sized notepad. He flipped it open to a blank page and gently set it down on the table. "Write your name down for me."
"Okay..." Tai was confused, but did as instructed.
Once done, Nishijima spun the notepad around for Sora and Izzy to see. "Now what do you kids see?"
They both stared at the pad for a couple seconds before both their expressions sank in unison. Izzy pinched the bridge of his nose while Sora just flat out covered her face with her hand.
"What?" Tai asked, completely lost as to what was going on.
"Every time you put your name on an assignment, you basically write your kanji on top of each other," Nishijima explained. "I can barely decipher it on some days."
"Your handwriting has always sucked," Sora quickly pointed out.
"It's not that bad!" Tai felt his face start to heat up.
"Yeah, sure, for a six year old." Nishijima ruffled Tai's hair with the palm of his hand. "Keep at it though, Tai. You'll write like a big kid one day."
With that, Mr. Nishijima took his leave of them before anyone could respond. Tai spun back around to face Sora and Izzy, finding both of them looking like they had comments to make.
"Not a word," Tai ordered, glaring at them to get his point across. "Either of you."
They finally stopped holding in their laughter, to which Tai responded by sinking into his seat. Turned out that Mr. Nishijima wasn't the only jerk he knew.