this one is a little more angsty but not too much more than normal
"We're going to set some rules." Viktor said, pushing himself up from his teachers' desk and pacing up and down the room in a way that all nervous teachers did. None of his students looked the least bit interested in reading Act One of Macbeth, with the interesting exception of Otabek who was nose-deep in the play, therefore he decided now would be a good idea to put his plan into action.
It had taken him all of ten minutes to come up with, and though it wasn't perfect or fool proof, he hoped it was a step in the right direction in his attempt to get them to listen to him. Or at the very least stop throwing things at him while his back was turned.
"Rule one: thou shalt not kill." A sarcastic voice came from the back of the classroom, which Viktor quickly pinpointed to be Jean-Jacque's. He was a mouthy kid, and seemingly unafraid to start drama, which could prove to be a problem. Especially since he had some kind of personal vendetta against Yuri. Viktor simply rolled his eyes.
"Well, yes, that goes without saying. But there is clearly no sense of respect in this classroom; none of you listen to me, none of you seem to care about passing your exams. So I thought by establishing some basic rules we could work towards making you enthusiastic again." He picked up a board pen with a flourish and looked around to see the response.
"Are you fucking high?" The redheaded girl- Mila- said, resting her chin in her hand and raising a perfectly sculpted eyebrow. Michele snorted in amusement next to her. "Make us 'enthusiastic' again? Do you understand how little any of us care? Yuri falls asleep at least twice per period and Sara hasn't even turned up."
"Look, I know your previous teachers haven't stayed for long. But I'm different. And I think these rules are going to be surprisingly easy to follow."
They expected him to recite the general expectations that were listed on a poster in every classroom: no mobile phones, shirts must be tucked in at all times, listen while the teacher is talking, that kind of thing. Of course, that would be useless. No phones? Minami was Snapchatting as he spoke. Correct dress code? Tell that to Otabek's jacket or the piercings that marched up Mila's left ear. Respect the teacher? Viktor almost laughed.
Instead, he had evaluated the behaviour that he had witnessed already, and came up with some rules that any idiot could follow. His boyfriend had assisted with some tips on how they calmed an angry student in therapy, and in the end he had a nice recipe for a marginally more peaceful classroom. He uncapped the pen and started writing in the corner of the board.
"Rule one." He began, raising his voice so they could hear him clearly, "no bodily harm in the classroom. That includes to others and yourself." The second point was clearly needed after he spotted Leo absentmindedly running up and down his palms with a compass point. "However many fights you get into outside of my care has nothing to do with me, although that leads me to the next rule."
The squeaking of the whiteboard pen didn't get any less annoying no matter how much he heard it.
"Rule two: any student who is provoked or angry in any way must leave the class immediately. Go to the therapy room, go down onto the field, cut the rest of the class for all I care. If you think you're going to lash out, I don't want you in my classroom."
Yuri glared at that last point, clearly feeling like it was directed at him. Biting his lip, he pushed down the cutting remark that sat heavy on the edge of his tongue, settling on a dirty look that could turn a man to stone. Viktor pretended not to notice and carried on.
"Rule three: try to listen in lessons, and if you can't, at least pretend to. I know it's boring, but I'm here to help." Their blank faces were enough to tell Viktor that they weren't getting the message. "Basically, stop throwing things at me, stop insulting me, and if you're going to text in class you could have the decency to hide it under your desk. Yes, Minami, I'm looking at you."
That rule was more for him than them, just a little something to take away the tension in his shoulders and make his day less painful. Emotionally and physically; paper aeroplanes could hurt if the tip was strengthened with sellotape and caught you on the back of the neck.
"Rule four, and I know this one is probably going to be lost on a lot of you, but I'm here if you need me. I'll be in this room most of break times. Come and see me if you need help with the work or just want to chat." Obviously this one was more advice than a firm rule, however Viktor felt like it needed to be said. He'd have to tackle this class from all angles- firmly, strictly, and kindly.
"Are you done?" Emil said with a yawn, glancing at the clock as if it were anywhere near time for the lesson to be over.
"Nope. One more rule." This was going to be the one they hated most. Viktor could feel it.
"Fifth and final rule: you show up. Unless you are sick or have a very good reason for being off, you show up to school. No truancy, no leaving in the middle of the day because you can't be bothered to do math, no turning up only when you feel like it. I am legally obliged to contact your parents or carers if your attendance falls below a certain percentage."
The effect was immediate. A chorus of groans echoed around the classroom, each pupil protesting with a different excuse and complaint, as if going to school was the most difficult thing in their lives. Viktor had had a look at their records while they were out of the room, and as expected, every single one of their attendances were awful. It was no wonder they hadn't passed their exams if they weren't there half of the time.
"Yes, yes, I know, the teacher is a demon. I don't care. I'm expected to come in every day, so you are, too. Any questions? And I mean constructive questions, not a list of reasons why you'd rather stay at home playing Xbox instead of coming to school."
"Xbox? Do you fucking understand who you're talking to?" When Yuri spoke in class, Viktor was always taken aback. He remained mostly silent in lessons despite his evident anger problems and confrontational attitude. Granted, he was usually on his phone or doodling or doing anything other than the work, but at least it was better than mouthing off constantly.
Now, though, Viktor found himself gulping as he looked into those green eyes. Eyes that were narrowed with a rage that Viktor couldn't place.
"Excuse me, Mr Plisetsky? Care to elaborate?" Sounding weak in front of him would have been suicide.
"You think we bunk off school because it's cool? Because we'd rather hang out around town or go home and play video games?" He had pushed himself out of his seat now and stood with his hands planted on the table in front of him, leaning over slightly, not breaking eye contact. The rest of the class was silent and Yuri felt like he was speaking on behalf of all of them.
"Do you have any idea who you're dealing with, teach? We're not a bunch of kids who got kicked out of class because we backchatted one time too many. We don't misbehave because we love to see how frustrated we can make the unfortunate bitch who's covering us. And its people like you, who constantly patronise us and treat us like charity projects and- fuck it. Fuck it, I need a smoke."
The blond kicked over his chair in his desperation to get out of the classroom, leaving Viktor stunned and the rest of the class smirking and Otabek frowning in concern.
(line break)
"Well, at least I'm fucking good at rule 2." Yuri muttered bitterly to himself, shouldering his way through the doors and dragging his shoes along the grass of the field until the familiar sight of his wall came into view. Stupid really, how a dumb wall could become sentimental to him. Here was where he talked with Otabek and ate food that wasn't out of date. Probably the closest thing he had to a home.
He roughly pulled his packet of cigarettes and lighter from the inside of his jacket once he was seated atop the stone bricks. They were most likely stale and tasted bad, but he didn't care. The nicotine rush and knowledge that he was slowly killing his lungs was all he needed.
Although he hated to put the blame on someone else, it was Otabek who had first made him start smoking. Well, not made exactly, but the Kazakh had been doing it since he was 14 and Yuri was always fascinated with the concept, so one evening when Beka offered him one he didn't refuse. It ended in him embarrassingly coughing and needing a drink of water afterwards, something that Otabek chuckled fondly at, though even after the first puff Yuri could feel himself involuntarily relaxing. So he accepted another, and another, all on different occasions, and soon the two of them were making a habit out of smoking behind the dumpsters before and after school.
He was always told that smoking was dirty and unpleasant, and it was, he supposed. But it helped. Just another unhealthy coping mechanism to add to the list.
"Fucking geezer." His words were lost in a puff of smoke as he exhaled the poisonous gases, knowing the scent would cling to him but too lost in thought to care. Sympathy and anger swirled around in his brain, an ugly battle that gave him a headache. On one hand, he felt sorry for Viktor; he was trying his best and didn't ask for a class of useless kids. On the other hand, he was just mad. It wasn't even the overwhelming madness that consumed him at every inconvenience- it was a frustration that sat numbly in his temples and was ready to spill over any second.
He was mad at how clueless everyone was, how adults thought they were better just because they had lived longer, how they were written off as delinquents without even a question about why they were so fucked up.
None of their stories were huge secrets. Some kids, like Minami and Emil, were just classic examples of bad luck. Minami had ADHD and had trouble concentrating, Emil was just a weird little attention-seeker with no self-confidence who relied on making people laugh to feel good about himself. Seung gil had recently moved from South Korea and was still learning English, resulting in him being incredibly asocial and aggressively against making friends. Even JJ could be calmed and knocked down a peg or two if only he could control his damn ego.
Others were more of a challenge. The reason why Michele was so protective over Sara remained a mystery, though it was generally agreed that the two of them must have gone through some rough shit. No-one became that possessive for no reason. Sara herself was desperate for independence and went to extreme lengths to get it (the town youth centre had never given out so many free condoms to a single person). Mila had got into a rough crowd from a young age, Guang Hong had panic attacks every other hour, if you glanced at Leo there was a 50% chance he was listening to what the teacher was saying and a 50% chance he was dissociating and pinching himself.
Otabek's business was cleverly concealed under his stoic attitude. If you asked anyone about Yuri's problems, the answers differed from block to block. Some of the truth had been twisted by rumours, often so unbelievable that Yuri couldn't help but snort when he heard them, but some things remained as well-known facts. It was a fact that Yuri had anger problems like it was a fact that Jean-Jacques Leroy was a certified moron.
And the rest…. Yuri didn't like to think about them. The life of drug abuse and trafficking was fortunately a grey area in his life, even if he had been through hell and back already. All he knew was that the class of E2 used to have a lot more people than the 11 that remained.
"And that's why you don't assume we stay at home playing Xbox all day, Nikiforov." He said to the empty field, his mind running over the things that had happened inside of that classroom alone. The time that someone had grabbed a pair of scissors and cut themselves in the middle of a presentation about Napoléon. The time a kid named Sydney had turned up high and didn't make it to the bin before throwing up everywhere. The time an anorexic boy passed out and didn't wake up until the paramedics were over him with a defibrillator.
Yeah, class E2 hadn't always looked like such a barren wasteland.
Yuri sighed deeply, letting the back of his head hit the tree trunk behind him. He had been out here long enough, the cigarette had helped him calm down; it was probably time to go back into class, even if his only reason was so Otabek didn't have to sit alone.
He didn't even realise he had put the cigarette out on his arm until he noticed the cool breeze on his bare skin.
(line break)
"Give me a quote. Anyone, anything. Just give me something to work with."
Back in the class, things weren't going much better than they had the previous lesson. Sure, they weren't shouting out as much or assaulting him with flying paper, but Viktor was struggling to get them to pay attention to the work at hand. The mindmap on the whiteboard was pathetically empty, no more than a few words on each of the four sections: Power, Ambition, Gender, and the Supernatural.
"Macbeth, Macbeth, where art thou Macbeth." Emil said dramatically, leaning back in his chair and waving his hands about.
"Wrong play, Emil. Anyone else?"
"How are we supposed to understand this bullshit? 'When the hurly-burly's done, when the battle's lost and won'. What the fuck is a 'hurly-burly?'" Mila spat, brown furrowing in disgust as she aimlessly flicked through the play in front of her. "Whatever Shakey was smoking, I want some of it."
Viktor sank down in his seat, utterly exhausted. The syllabus had listed that they were to study Macbeth in detail, as well as a handful of poems. Language analysis and creative writing were the main focuses of the exam, with small sections dedicated to spelling, punctuation and grammar use. At the rate they were going, they might have finished reading the play by the time Viktor was retired.
"Guang Hong? Leo? Do you have anything written down?"
"W-well… I have a list of things Lady Macbeth said. I only wrote them because I understood what they meant." Guang Hong whispered, embarrassed to be singled out- not that he needed to be, since it was clear that nobody else cared enough to listen. Seung gil was slumped on his desk in a way that meant he could either be texting under the table or fast asleep. Quite frankly, if it was the latter option, then Viktor couldn't blame him.
"Great! Well, that's something."
Until Viktor glanced at his paper and saw that the 'quotes' consisted of two or three-word-phrases that made no sense on their own.
The good news was that it was five minutes until the school day was over- Viktor had arrived in the middle of math, the second period, and literature was the third and final lesson of the day. The bad news was that he had made no progress, and if he was this tired after one attempt, he wouldn't be able to keep his sanity for long. Being a cover teacher certainly had its advantages, however they usually depended on being able to switch from one class to another as needed. Teaching one class for every period would require a lot of improvising, a lot of patience, and a lot of marking.
Just as the bell rang to signify the golden time of 3pm, the door swung open, and in walked a very pissed-off Yuri Plisetsky. Not that his face visibly looked any more annoyed than it usually did, but Viktor could see the way his eyes were unblinking and his lips were pressed into a thin line. Tell-tail signs of someone who was holding back the urge to punch something.
"Alright, all of you get out. Don't get into trouble. I expect to see all of you here tomorrow. Bring your textbooks if you have them, at the very least show up with some basic stationary."
Their quick response to pack up the little they had and bolt out the room was perhaps the most obedient Viktor had ever seen them. He shook his head in disproval and turned his attention to the two students in the back corner.
"Yuri. Stay behind, please." Viktor said curtly, making brief eye contact with the teen. "Otabek, 'all of you get out' includes you as well I'm afraid. I won't keep him back for long." Surprisingly there were no rude complaints from either of them (save from another glare in his direction), and soon Viktor was left alone with the person who currently hated him most.
"Alright. Alright, Yuri. I get you don't like me. I get that I might have gone about things the wrong way. But I just want to help." He said carefully, picking his way past upturned chairs and crumpled balls of paper before seating himself opposite the blond. "I don't think you guys are charity projects at all. You clearly know the class better than I do, so I'm going to ask for your help. What can I do to make things easier?"
Yuuri would be so proud of him. Asking the students what they need and how they can be helped was one thing he constantly drilled into Viktor's brain; there was nothing more patronising, he had said, than someone assuming how you feel or how you can be helped. Always let the young person talk first.
"First of all you can get rid of this crap." Yuri said, gesturing towards the pile of Shakespeare plays that sat on the table to the right. "Half of us are dyslexic and the other half haven't read anything more advanced than 9th grade Animal Farm." Other than Otabek, of course. The nerd was always reading something or other. He had said that it was a good way to escape when things got bad at home, which Yuri never understood, but didn't criticize. That's what friends did.
"Okay. I'll have a talk to Mr Feltsman."
"Good. Fuck Shakespeare."
"Like you said, I don't know much about you lot, but I promise you're all very talented individuals. You can do it, I know you can-"
"Teach, stop. Stop it. Don't try to strike non-existent inspiration into us." That same glare was back on Yuri's face, and Viktor knew he had to back off.
"I just… Okay. Okay, I'm sorry." He sighed again, running his hands through his hair. Being so relentlessly optimistic wasn't going to be useful in this environment. Not if he wanted to get them on his side.
"And… how about you, Yuri? How can I help you?"
That was the wrong thing to say. Viktor knew it as soon as it left his lips, knew it as soon as he saw the panic flash in Yuri's eyes, knew it for certain when the teen stood up and defensively crossed his arms. It was so hot outside, yet half the class insisted on wearing long sleeves. Weird.
"I don't fucking need your help! Stay out of my head!" He snapped, bending down to grab his near-empty rucksack, ready to make a quick departure. Otabek was waiting by the door and Viktor swore he could see the older boy wrap his arm around Yuri's waist as the two of them left.
Well, that could have gone better. Could have gone much worse, too. At least now he had a starting point.
He picked up the pile of Macbeth books and carelessly slung them into the storage draws, muttering to himself quietly.
"Yeah. Fuck Shakespeare."
sorry about the shitty line breaks again
please review! i love your feedback! thanks for reading :~)
