The Health Class: A Companion to "Bad Impressions"
~oOoOo~
Shinji's morning went somewhat better than Kamio's.
His first class of the day was health. Entering the classroom, Shinji found Choutarou and Yuuta already seated with several Seigaku boys. Even Echizen had arrived; he had eventually found his way back to the dorms from the bathrooms, though it had taken him a day and a half.
The teacher sat at the front of the room with his back to the boys, working on his computer. Everyone was pretty rowdy, chattering more and more loudly as more students entered the room until the bell sounded for class to begin at eight o'clock. The noise died down as everyone focused on the teacher at the front of the class.
He got up from his computer and turned around.
"Coach Sakaki?!" chorused all of the tennis boys who had been awesome enough to attend the Senbatsu camp.
"The one and only." He said, but in a much more depressed voice than people usually use when announcing something like that.
There were a few moments of silence.
Choutarou raised his hand cautiously.
"Um, sir, I don't mean to be rude but….what the bloody hell are you doing here?"
The others nodded fervently.
Sakaki sighed exaggeratedly and pretended to become very interested in a clicky black ballpoint pen on his desk. Actually, it was pretty cool. It had a snowman on top.
"The Senbatsu camp was a great time for all of us," he began. "Not only for the lucky students who got to spend every waking minute of every day competing with one another for the chance to play a team that turned out to be surprisingly lame, but also for us teachers who got to spend time with those students and one another."
He paused again, sighing heavily and looking up at the class. No one was getting it.
"They lied to me!" he shouted, suddenly, dropping his formal pretenses. "Hanamura and Ryuuzaki and all of them…they said that we did so well at that camp, it would be awesome to work together again and all join the staff of this new school! They said we would have fun doing whatever we wanted with you students!"
"So you only applied to work here because you thought that the others would follow and you wanted to psych us out by suddenly showing up?" Choutarou questioned carefully.
"I somehow thought it would be funny." Sakaki admitted.
"Then you deserved what you got." Hissed Kaidoh bluntly. "No one messes with us."
"Well, doesn't that sound awkward, especially from you." Sakaki said.
"He got carried away, sir." volunteered David. "Doesn't know how to act in class with respect to the teacher."
Everyone stared at him.
"I thought you were off puns." Said Shinji.
"Oh darn, you're right." David snapped his fingers and dropped his head to his desk.
"Alright, let's all settle down." Said Sakaki in a bored voice. "I'm depressed enough as it is without having to listen to the ZAP conversations of a bunch of fourteen year olds, or however old you are."
At this, a few boys shoved their hands under their desks, so as not to be exposed by the writing on their palms, but Sakaki, who was rummaging through his desk for the roll sheet, did not appear to have noticed. Having finally fou nd the right paper, he straightened up.
"Amane Hikaru."
"Present!" The gangly redhead called, voice slightly muffled by his desk.
"Why does he always get called 'David'?" Shinji mused aloud. "That's not even a Japanese name."
"I'm not sure," Momoshiro replied thoughtfully. "I think there was been some kind of explanation at the beginning of the Rokkaku arc, but I forgot it."
"Who cares?" Yuuta asked irately.
"For once, I would have to say 'well put'," Echizen agreed.
"Will you all shut up so I can get this over with?" Sakaki snapped, glaring at the four of them. "I haven't lost all my self respect."
Choutarou raised his hand again.
"With all due respect sir, you quit a job at Hyoutei where you were a manager of a national level tennis team to work as a health teacher here."
There was silence for about ten seconds as Sakaki regarded Choutarou impassively.
"Touché." he said finally.
XxX
Sakaki got all the way to the k's before he called a name that got no reply.
"Kajimoto." Silence. "Kajimoto Takahisa." More silence.
Sakaki said the name approximately four more times before determining that said boy was indeed not present. "Who misses the first day of school?" he wondered aloud, making a check on his list.
"Anyway," Sakaki looked up, dumping the roll sheet on his desk, "that's all for today because I don't feel like finishing roll and I can see the important faces anyway. Since it's the first day of classes, why don't you all split up and get to know eachother."
He said the last part putting quote marks on his fingers. "Go."
"So why 'David?'" Shinji asked the redheaded boy. "I mean, is it supposed to have some sort of literary significance or something? Is it a joke? An allusion? Why don't you want to be called Hikaru? Personally, I think the writers should stay in their league."
"Does it matter why that name got chosen?" drawled Echizen in a would-be bored voice, though he secretly had been hanging onto every word of the conversation. "'Hikaru' is a dumb name anyway."
"Hey!" A boy one row over and three seats up with faded orange hair who was wearing a pale blue jacket and black slacks turned around. "Hikaru is an awesome name!"
"What the hell is Ouran High School Host Club doing here?" A bewildered Shinji asked no one in particular.
David looked rather affronted.
"I've spent the majority of my life working towards making a unique name for myself in all respects," he sniffed, "and now I find…it has been taken!"
Hikaru shrugged. "You think sharing a name is bad? I have to share a face, too." At these words, as if on cue, an identical boy in an identical outfit turned around.
Kaidoh comforted a rather depressed David. "Hey, come on…" he hissed awkwardly, patting the other boy on the shoulder. Sharing a name isn't so bad."
"Hi, I'm Hikaru's brother, Kaoru!" The second twin announced, extending his hand. "What's your name?"
Kaidoh went rigid.
Fortunately, at that moment, before a serious cat-snake fight could break out, three students entered the classroom, whose door had been left in a propped open position.
Kaidoh's eyes widened. They were three boys from Josei Shounan: Kajimoto, followed by Wakato and one of the twins that no one cared about enough to learn the name of.
"Sorry we're late, sir." Said Kajimoto importantly, striding to the front of the room and extending his hand to Sakaki. "There is no excuse for such impudence on our part, but we got lost in the new school."
"Has everyone finished their greetings?" Sakaki called to the rest of the class. "I was actually joking when I said that you should get to know each other, you know, to be ironic, but you all actually did it. I want to start the lesson now."
"…Sir?" said Kajimoto. "I'm sorry we're late. May we sign in?"
"Everyone take your seats and get out your notebooks!" Sakaki commanded, looking through the three boys from Josei Shounan as if he couldn't see them. "I want to get through an introduction to the three basic types of health today."
Most of the class groaned, but dug around through their bags for their notebooks. All except Echizen, Momoshiro, and Kaidoh who were observing, half-surprised, half-amused, the three ignored boys at the front of the room.
"Excuse me? Sir?" Kajimoto decided to give it one more try.
Sakaki stood up and promptly turned his back on the three boys. He began drawing a triangle of perfect health on the white board.
The three from Josei Shounan looked nonplussed and turned to see the rest of the class. Everyone except for Momo, Echizen, and Kaidoh looked right through them, at the board on which Sakaki was writing. The three from Seigaku exchanged confused looks, wondering why Sakaki, despite all his shortcomings, was doing something as stupid as ignoring three students.
Though Kaidoh noted, with some satisfaction that Wakato seemed much less cool and composed without instant attention and fan girls.
"Um, guys?" Kajimoto ventured uncertainly, looking around the class and trying to make eye contact with some of the students. "What's going on?"
No one replied.
Wakato uneasily fingered the bill of his baseball hat, wondering if doing one of his "transformations" would help the situation.
The twin, who incidentally we don't care about, cast about for some identifying move to do, but then realized that without his brother he had nothing.
"Seriously, what's going on?" Kajimoto's voice started to rise with worry. He anxiously scanned the class again. When Momoshiro finally caught his eye, Kajimoto almost sagged with relief.
"Thank God…look, he sees us, Wakato." Kajimoto emphatically pointed this obvious fact out to his dim friend.
"What a relief." Wakato sneered, though he still looked nervous, so it did not have quite the same effect.
"Momoshiro, what's going on?" Kajimoto asked urgently.
Momoshiro, unsure of whether or not to answer, shot a glance at Kaisoh, who shrugged. As far as Kaidoh was concerned, if the rest of the class did not need to acknowledge the new students, then there was no reason for him to.
"We need to know! Is something wrong? Have we offended the class?" Kajimoto's voice was urgent.
"What, are you like your group's spokesperson or something?" Echizen finally snapped, unable to pretend to take notes anymore.
The class stared at Echizen.
Sakaki turned around from the board, annoyed.
"Echizen, Prince of Tennis or not, if you act like an idiot in my class, I will put you in the corner." He said coldly.
Before Echizen could reply, the insignificant twin cracked and screamed, "IS THIS A JOKE? WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH YOU PEOPLE?"
"Shhh, there must be a logical explanation," soothed his captain.
"Echizen, are you willing to act normal for the rest of the period or would this be a preferable option?" Sakaki asked, holding up a large, coned shaped paper hat and pointing to a corner of the room where a three-legged stool was already set up.
"Okay, what IS going on?" Kajimoto snapped too. He whipped around to face the teacher, tears in his eyes. "I'm sorry we were late sir, but this is just cruel!"
Echizen sighed. "I can behave normally." He told Sakaki.
Kajimoto let out a howl. "I don't know what you all are playing at!" He wailed tearfully. "And I also don't know why I just used a British expression that I had no way of knowing about! And I also don't know why I'm the only one from my school talking! But this isn't funny, and you all need to think about how you treat people! Wakato, Insignificant Twin, come on! We're going." And with that, Kajimoto grabbed the elbows of his two friends and dragged them all out of the room, slamming the door behind him.
"No tax breaks and the facilities suck." Sakaki griped, angrily staring at the door that had just shut of its own accord. "Why the hell did I decide to work here?"
oOoOo
A/N:
1. To 'Moi'---Interesting point you bring up about the parallelism between Tezuka and Mrs. Shiosake; I actually didn't intend that nor did I notice it until you pointed it out. Very perceptive of you.
2. I somehow ended up putting in several random Ouran High School Host Club references; hope you've seen or read some of it.
3. Weird situation(s) in this chapter will make sense later. Probably.
Please Review~say what you liked or disliked! :)