Not So Good First Impressions: Class #1
~oOoOo~
Life at Suzuki, it turned out, really wasn't so bad after all. The principal had scared the hell out of the boys the first day, giving them nightmares, but with the principal safely located in his office, life at Suzuki was quite comfortable. The dorms were modern as promised— rooms well equipped and reasonably spacious. Bluish carpets hugged wooden floors of long, narrow, but well lighted hallways. At either end of the hallway were enormous windows, allowing sunshine to seep in. The boys spent the weekend getting settled into their rooms and trying to break the ice with their new roommates, except for Shinji and Kamio who got to skip the latter step.
Classes started the following Monday.
Kamio's first class of the day was Physics. To his disappointment, there was only one other person from Fudomine in that class. The only other people he knew were a few random guys from Hyoutei and Kirihara. That didn't stop him from determinedly ignoring the latter, however. It was with a considerable level of trepidation that Kamio entered the classroom at the beginning of the week, genuinely not knowing what to expect.
The physics teacher was one of the shortest women Kamio had ever seen in his life, a little squat, with square glasses and long hair. On the board behind her, she had written the words, "Welcome to Physics with Mrs. Shiosake", and under that, "Don't Screw Around".
When everyone was seated, she cleared her throat and spoke to the class in a sharp, irritated voice.
"This is physics, the study of matter, energy, motion, and force. Some consider it to be the most difficult of all sciences. In this class, you will find that there is only one rule." She pointed to the words written on the board behind her.
No one said anything, which seemed to please her marginally.
"You might think that it makes sense for me to take roll and then start with an introduction to physics. I myself did. But that was before I came into this class this morning and found that the photocopier was broken, so I couldn't give you any notes."
At least that seemed to explain why she looked like she wanted to kill someone.
"This means that we cannot start out the conventional way. Instead, you will begin by doing a little lab to get into the feel of physics. I originally created this lab for my own enjoyment, but then I realized it could also be used to occupy a class where no one understands anything about physics. Directions are at each lab table. Just read and follow them and when we are finished gathering data, I will explain what the point of the lab was. Pick a lab partner at your free will. Maximum of three people per group. If you have four people wanting to work together, split up into two groups of two, geniuses. The procedure is also on the lab table. Any questions?"
Kamio snapped back from his zoning-out spell at these words.
He had loads of questions, but he couldn't reasonably ask any of them without getting called an idiot. It was one of the hypocrisies of school.
"Right then, everybody split up." she said. "Just get the lab done and don't screw around!"
Kamio groaned. Was "don't screw around" going to be her new catchphrase? He hoped not. Though it was marginally better than "don't let your guard down".
Kamio automatically turned around in his seat, expecting Sakurai to catch his eye and affirm that they would be working together. However, it seemed that someone had beat him to it, for Kirihara had already claimed the seat next to Kamio, smiling in his usual predator-before-prey manner.
"Want to be my lab partner, Kamio kun?"
"I'm partnering with…"
Kamio scanned the room. Sakurai had paired up with Touji.
"Bastard!"
"It seems you don't have a partner either; we'll have to work together. Don't worry, we'll accomplish great things." Somehow, with that leer, Kirihara seemed like he was asking Kamio to join the Dark Side.
Kamio ground his teeth. He wondered vacantly how much Kirihara had paid Sakurai to desert him, so that he could swoop in. Clearly, however, Kamio did not really have much of a choice. Everyone else had partnered up, so he swallowed his anger, damn near choking on it, and followed Kirihara to the same lab table as Touji and Sakurai.
Shoot the Bullet into the Can lab. How very appropriate.
Kirihara immediately picked up the gun when they arrived at the lab table. Kamio snatched it back.
"No playing around!"
"I'm being careful."
"How the hell do you do this lab?" Kamio squinted at the directions, trying to understand the procedure.
Kirihara fooled around with the gun.
"Could you at least pretend to be working?" Kamio snapped.
"I'm just making sure it's safe for you." Kirihara said, tossing the gun into the air before pulling a James Bond pose.
"Don't screw around!" called the teacher from the front of the room.
"She's talking to you, screw off." Kamio informed Kirihara.
"Does Kamio seem a little tense today?" Touji asked.
"Maybe he's upset that he has to work with Kirihara." Said Sakurai.
"Maybe he's upset that this lab focuses on momentum and not torque." Suggested Touji.
"Maybe he's upset because people talk about him like he's not there!" Kamio shouted.
"Yeah, he's definitely tense." Said Kirihara happily.
"I'm not tense! I'm very happy! Can't you see that I'm happy?" Kamio ground his teeth. "Give me the gun now. We need to shoot the can."
"Wait, I'm not done." Kirihara whined.
"Goddam it, Kirihara, hand it over!"
"In a minute!"
"No, now!"
"In a minute!"
Kamio made a lunge for the gun and Kirihara stepped back and tripped over a cord on the floor and then Touji grabbed Kirihara to keep him from falling and this freaked Kirihara out so he jumped and pulled the trigger of the gun in self-defense.
The rubber bullet whizzed out and nailed Hiyoshi, who was working nearby, directly in the crotch.
Hiyoshi gasped in pain and collapsed into a heap on the floor, curling into a fetal position. Everyone stared at the palpitating boy, unsure of whether to freak out on Hiyoshi's behalf or laugh.
Sakurai convulsively locked his own knees together in self-defense, gazing on in horror.
Unfortunately, at the noise of contact, the teacher had come running over to see what had gone down.
"What happened?!" she shouted, although it was pretty obvious, with Hiyoshi lying in a heap on the floor, whimpering softly. The rest of the class was beside itself with laughter.
"He—" Kamio and Kirihara pointed at eachother at the same time, causing the class to erupt into laughter once more.
"Silence!" shouted the teacher.
Everyone stopped mid-laugh.
"I'm serious! Who did this?" she pointed somewhat gingerly at Hiyoshi, but made no move to help him.
"It was Kirihara, Mrs. Shiosake," a greasy haired boy from across the room assured in a snooty voice. "And he did it because Kamio attacked him. I'm sure I saw—
"You stay out of this!" Kirihara snarled.
The teacher glared at the pair of them and then sighed angrily.
"I gave one rule." She said. "'Don't screw around'. Was it too much for you two to follow? Are you and your peers so pathetically immature that you thought something like this would be funny? "
"It was an accident!" exclaimed Kamio. "And we're not immature."
On the other side of the room, Uchimura picked up a cylindrical test tube that was on the lab table and started to laugh.
"What's so funny?" asked the teacher.
"It looks like a glass condom!" he sniggered.
Kamio slapped his forehead.
"I rest my case." The teacher said coldly. "You students are rude and immature and hardly worthy of the privileges of labs. Especially you two." She said to Kamio and Kirihara.
"Didn't you consider that maybe this was also sort of Touji and Sakurai's fault?" Kamio cried, pointing at the other two boys who had been curiously silent up until now, free of any kind of blame. They wore matching smirks.
"It couldn't have had anything to do with them because they aren't important enough characters in the plot to cause any turn of events." The teacher said.
The smirks dropped from their faces.
Nevertheless," the teacher continued, "I don't know what was acceptable at your old school, but it won't be tolerated here. Both of you will stay after class."
More laughter followed.
"How cute..."
"They're going down…"
"Those two lovebirds…."
"Okay, who said that!?" Kamio shouted, blushing furiously and scanning the classroom. But no one owned up.
The teacher moved to return to the front of the room.
"Mrs. Shiosake…?"
"What now?"
Kamio pointed at Hiyoshi, who had fainted. "What should we do with him?"
XxXxX
The class worked in silence for the rest of the period, and when the bell rang, and the rest of the students filed out of the classroom as quickly as they politely could. Kirihara, too, got up to leave, but was stopped by a forceful "SIT" from the teacher.
After the last student left, she looked at the two of them.
"I am not particularly interested in hearing about the intricacies of your stupidity. All I know is that I gave one rule for this class and you two were unable to obey it. This is not something that I am willing to accept." She stared at both of them severely for a moment, as if considering something. "Both of you will be coming to after school detention for a week."
"But I have tennis practice!" both boys practically screamed at the same time.
"The tennis team hasn't even been formed yet." She said.
"Well, it will be and we will be chosen and then we will miss practice if we're on detention!" Kirihara shouted.
"Well, then you really should have thought about that before you started screwing around in my class, shouldn't you have?" she started getting mad. "You all screw around too much! That's the problem with your generation! You think that you can do whatever you want and everyone will just clean up the mess and other people getting hurt doesn't matter at all!"
"But sensei," a pleading note had entered Kamio's voice, "we'll really have to be at practice. The finals will be coming up!"
Eight months was coming up.
"I don't need any of your nonsense!" She snapped. "Do you know what you could have done? Hiyoshi Wakashi could have lost his family jewels!"
Both boys started to answer, then stopped, confused. They looked at each other, clearly sharing a thought.
"The sentence remains at one week." She said finally, slightly thrown by the fact that neither boy was talking.
"Mrs. Shiosake…." Kamio began carefully, wondering how to best appeal to the severe looking teacher. "We understand the errors that we made. But we won't ever do it again, honest! We don't need to miss—"
"Two weeks."
"What?" gasped Kamio, unused to his tactics being shot down so easily. "But we didn't even—"
"Three weeks."
"What are you—"
"Four weeks. Had enough?"
"I'm trying to make a point here!" Kamio screamed. "Our punishment is totally disproportionate to the cr—"
"How about another week? Had enough now?"
"I can't believe this!!" Kamioi looked to Kirihara for support, but the latter seemed to be rather enjoying watching them fight. Kamio turned back to the short woman.
"You're abusing your position as a teacher." He informed her.
"I take what I can."
"Even if—"
"Six weeks."
"THIS MAKES NO SENSE!"
XxXxX
Kamio and Kirihara exited the classroom ten minutes later, after Kamio had successfully earned them three months of detention.
oOoOo
A/N ah, had to get some breakfast club into the mix there...
By the way, if there's anyone reading, you would boost my spirits by reviewing!