Author's Notes: I feel so discouraged writing original pieces, like this one. They start out full of ambition and potential, then they drain away into faded photographs. Sometimes, you can gaze at the ocean and understand every single wave that crashes against you, the power of it, the exact time when it'll hit you, things like that. But then, the deep blue disappears without even allowing you to blink as it leaves your side forever. I...don't know what the hell that was supposed to mean. Lol. But, I guess that's the beauty of it: different interpretations from person to person. Ahem. I want to make my own characters and give them a life of their own, but I don't get any inspiration and support for it anymore. I mean, come on. If you're reading this, consider yourself one in a gazillion. It's absurd. No one's reading, but I still want to keep writing. Sigh. How disheartening. And oh yeah, for some reason, I love this chapter's title. It seems so cool and all. The Darker Colors of the Rainbow. Kicks butt, right? Or not. I don't know.
Episode 9
The Darker Colors of the Rainbow
Thursday, March 4, Morning class, 7:02 AM
"The baseball activity you underwent yesterday was a test of speed. In taking the national test's Math section, speed is very important," Sir Taiga started with an explanation then continued with a few more tips as he wrote some word problems on the chalkboard, "Whenever you encounter a problem you don't know how to answer, mark the number and skip it. Don't waste even a single second." He placed the chalk down and turned to face them. "Solve these within five minutes."
The timer clicked and the four students made their pencils dance across blank papers. Taiga observed the students' ways of solving. Mi-Young looked like she was just drawing effortlessly. Yun-Hee tapped the other end of her pencil on the table whenever she paused to think about a problem she appeared not to know. Leon went through the five questions ceaselessly; his hands and eyes kept moving. Natalie folded and bit her lower lip from time to time, showing clearly of habit, but showed no signs of doubt and lack of knowledge.
The timer reached the time inputted. "Stop. Papers." Taiga collected the written solutions and promptly checked them. He gave them back to their respective owners afterwards. "Mi-Young, four."
"Four?" Mi-Young couldn't believe it. She made a mistake.
"Yun-Hee, three."
The girl smiled. Having only two mistakes was already a big accomplishment.
"Natalie, four."
Natalie nodded and received her paper.
"Leon..." Sir Taiga paused and kept his eyes on the sheet of paper. He transferred his gaze to the student, who glared back at him.
"Five."
Leon cocked the teacher a smug eyebrow as he snappily snatched the paper from him. To Taiga's surprise, Leon went to the board instead of going back to his seat.
"The fifth question is as follows. Alvin calculated his average score in 5 exams to be 85. Later, he noticed that he entered a score of 95 instead of 59. What should be his real average score?" Leon began writing several numbers. "So, we should first get the difference of 95 and 59, which is 36. Since there are five exams, we divide 36 by 5, which is equal to 7.2. The average score is overstated, so we subtract 7.2 from 85. You'll get 77.8. The answer is C." Leon encircled his final answer on the board.
The two female students at the back row, namely Yun-Hee and Natalie, said 'Oh' and changed their answers for future reference. Mi-Young didn't seem pleased. The other two girls clapped as Leon went back to his seat.
"All of you finished answering within the time limit. Good, but not good enough." Sir Taiga erased the writings on the chalkboard.
Yun-Hee scratched the back of her head. Natalie pouted and looked at her paper.
"A fraction of your time should be used in checking. Natalie, did you check your answers?"
"I...didn't have the time."
Taiga nodded. "Exactly. If you checked your multiplication on number three, you could have gotten it right."
Allowing herself some time to go back to the third number, Natalie tracked her eyes down the paper. She was surprised to see that her teacher was right.
"Be more careful sometimes. You need to keep an eye over your carelessness."
"Yes sir."
"If you check a number and see that you made a mistake, check other related problems after getting the right answer on that number," Taiga informed. The students nodded, some of them taking down his words. "Speed is not everything, but it is an essential skill."
Yun-Hee tentatively raised a hand.
"Yes?"
"Is your...erm..." She pointed at his crotch. "Are they alright?"
Sir Taiga accepted the look of apology on Natalie's sweet face. "They're fine."
The girls restrained their laughter. Leon stared out the window. "To Sir Taiga's future children, I apologize for failing the mission of saving you from hell incarnated as your father."
XXX
Calming himself through channeling inner silence, Leon took a seat on the table in the school canteen. Even though the cafeteria was bustling with students, he could find tranquility within his mind, helping him think and concentrate on things amidst the raveling noise. The past four hours had passed quickly and it was now time for lunch. It felt ironic when he thought about it. He looked forward to the break time, regardless of the fact that he didn't eat anything.
"Hi Leon." A perkily smiling girl was standing in front of him. He gave her a silent gaze. She flattened her lips, in provocative cuteness, needless to say, and sat down. Giggling excitedly, she placed a rectangular box wrapped in a pink cloth in front of Leon. "I made you lunch."
"No, thank you."
Natalie's smile disappeared from her face in an instant. Disappointment formed into displeased anger. "Hey! I woke up at four o'clock just to make you that!" She folded her arms over her chest, put her lips together in a pout and slightly inclined her head downward. She was terribly adorable without even trying and it was getting harder to resist her charm each time.
"Four in the morning?"
"Yes, four. F, o, u, r. Four." She even held out four fingers for him to see.
Leon smirked and opened the plastic box. A bright grin replaced Natalie's frown as he took the chopsticks and started eating the food she had prepared for him. Leon glanced back at Natalie every after two to three servings of beef, observing that she wasn't having her lunch.
"Where did you get the ingredients for this?" he asked.
"Haven't you looked inside your refrigerator?"
"Are there vegetables and meat inside?"
"...No."
Leon narrowed his eyes. She chuckled.
"I went to the nearest market. I told you, I woke up at-"
Leon slammed his open palm on the table, the force almost toppling the container of rice and beef. "What?"
"I went to-"
"You shouldn't go outside without a teacher's permission."
"I asked for mom's permi-"
"I have to escort you wherever you go. You should have called me."
"Then it wouldn't be a surprise anymore. Besides, I didn't want to wake you up early. You've suffered too much for me already." She smiled, coaxing him to eventually do the same.
Diminishing the smile, Leon took a deep breath and scowled after realizing that he had fallen into her trap yet again. "Don't do it again," he ended, finding no other words to say.
Natalie put up a pretty smile aimed at him. "M'kay."
From several tables away, Yun-Hee's grip on her spoon tightened after seeing Leon and Natalie together occupying one table. The grip soon weakened as her knuckles relaxed. She placed the spoon on the table and sighed.
"I knew it."
Yun-Hee spun her head forty-five degrees to the left as a man in a black suit entered the canteen. The other students also looked at the man as he skimmed the tables for a certain boy. Whispering and gossiping were the roles of the female students, while finishing the rest of their food and leaving were left for the males. The man stopped in front of Natalie.
"Leon."
Natalie turned around and shrunk under the tall figure. "Sir Taiga?"
Leon replied an automatic response. "What?"
"Come with me. I need to talk to you."
Leon returned the metal chopsticks inside its pouch and repacked the containers. He stood up and gave Natalie a pat on the shoulder as a 'thank you'. He and Taiga went to the third floor of the main school building, where no one was supposed to interfere.
"You didn't specify that you had a lieutenant position when you enrolled."
"You have no right to talk about that. You're not the Principal."
Taiga raised one brow, ready to refute. "The Principal has given me his rights and authority as the school's Principal for a month."
"Lies."
"He left Seoul to finish the matters concerning the last student for the special class."
Leon remembered that they were only four in the classroom. "So?"
"How did you get the officer rank?"
Leon hesitated to answer the question. He took his time and stared far into the sunless periwinkle sky. Taiga waited for him patiently, not even moving a foot from where he stood.
"It was my father's dying wish."
"Ah. Sergeant Chatelier. With all due respect, what did he die of?"
"Colon cancer." Leon couldn't believe he answered that question. Sir Taiga couldn't either.
"I see. He was the captain of the third squadron. He arrested a total of-"
"-seventy criminals and successfully planned twenty-eight undercover missions in his whole career." He looked at the teacher. "Now you know." Leon whirled to leave.
"Wait. Your mother."
"What about her?" Leon's fist clenched subconsciously.
"What was her-"
"She died long ago."
"My condole-"
"I don't need your sympathy."
"How did-"
"It's none of your business, so please, stop meddling with matters that you are not welcomed to discuss. Just because you're assigned to me doesn't mean that you have to infiltrate my life."
Sir Taiga had never been interrupted except by a teacher while he was still a student. As the memories of his high school days flashed in his mind, Taiga frowned and shoved sadness and regret away. His patience had piled over through the years and he still had plenty of it left, waiting to be used up on the boy in front of him.
"You don't have any money left. The house owner is asking for the five months rent you owe him. How are you going to pay him now since you've lost your job? If you don't pay it by the end of this week, he will-"
"-throw me out." Leon turned back and faced the teacher. "How did you know?"
Sir Taiga inhaled loudly through his nostrils. "It's none of your business," he copied snidely. "Now, are you-"
"Forget it." Leon threw his arm up. He barreled past the tall man and turned at the nearest corner. Sir Taiga smirked and watched his blighted student run down the stairs.
Yun-Hee crossed paths with Leon along the corridor of the second floor.
"...Is anything wrong?" the female questioned in worry, noticing that irritation and aggravation was plastered on Leon's face. Leon shook his head and strode past her. He took the stairs to the first floor and didn't utter a word.
Yun-Hee shelved into more worry. She wanted to run after him and comfort him, though her feet didn't obey as they were told. She settled with watching him leave. Leon was always so close to her before. But now, he felt so distant like a stranger whom she knew nothing of.
A brown-haired teen approached her from behind. "Yun-Hee."
She spun around. "Oh, Natalie."
"Do you know where Leon is?" Her face was blank, penetratively emotionless. It reminded her of Leon's similarly emotionless face.
Yun-Hee wanted to tell the truth, but she couldn't. Natalie was there to blame, but she couldn't blame her. She broke and gave in to a white lie. "...N-"
"Don't bother looking for him," Sir Taiga said as he came down from the stairs. "You won't find him."
The two girls glanced at each other.
XXX
A slab of marble rested on top of a mid-sloped hill. The wind's light breeze made the grass dance to the melancholy song of the rustling tree leaves. In front of the marble was a flat slate. A boy slowly stepped up to the slate and wiped the dust off of it. He closed his eyes for a moment, taking in the bitter peacefulness of the solemn place. He laid down a bouquet of flowers by the side, keeping one flower in hand, and knelt on his left knee.
"Father."
The wind blew quietly, ruffling his hair.
He sniffed and held back the remaining flood of grief that pounded on his self-control to come out. He clutched the grass in front of him and let his other knee fall perpendicular on the ground.
The silence was enough to turn the day into night. Dusk waned as the boy stayed still. He ended his reflection and watched as leaves were blown into the sky by the harsh, cold breeze.
"Just wait and see." The boy rose to his feet and closed his hands into fists of determination. "I'll make sure no one will ever look down on us again." The rose in his hand snapped by the stem. The thorns dripped with blood.