Title: Sawada Shin's Day Off
Summary: One man's struggle to take his mind off his homeroom teacher.
Rating: T
Disclaimer: The usual blurb (i.e., Gokusen and its characters belong to Kozueko Morimoto; OHHC and its characters belong to Bisco Hatori).
Spoiler warning: The events are centered around Chapter 8/9 of vol. 7 of Gokusen.
A/N: Work in progress. Although I prefer to stay within the mangaverse, I did make one switcheroo based on the drama series -- Fujiyama teaches English here.
Purgatorio
In the popular imagination, Hell has been firmly established as a scorching, frightful place. Everyone, from Dante Alighieri and Hieronymus Bosch to Neil Gaiman, portrayed it in fiery flame reds and cruel coal blacks. For the rest of his life, however, Sawada Shin would always associate the word "Hell" with a certain dank cellar draped in purples and grays.
"... the candle at midnight and Youko-chan swore she saw the face of her boyfriend, just like Hatashi-sama predicted!" Hiromi was still hashing through a litany of the fortune-teller's purported feats when they arrived at the so-called "parlor of love", but Shin had stopped listening long ago. For a while, his gaze was fixed on a figure in a red tracksuit and a white cap that jogged past them, though he eventually concluded that it was just an old man on his afternoon exercise circuit. This is like the third false alarm today! He was beginning to question his sanity. Get a grip of yourself. Purge those useless thoughts! That's the goal of this outing, remember?
Returning to the here and now, Shin surveyed the entrance to the fortune teller's place. The space had a faux-goth feel to it. Ivy leaves grew rampant along the wall. A weather ravaged carpet led the way to a wooden door flanked by two ceramic gnomes standing guard. The door featured a poster of a woman in Gypsy garb, mulling over Tarot cards. A column of Japanese characters in calligraphic strokes danced down the right side of the poster: "Hatashi-sama, descendant of a Hungarian Countess, possesses extraordinary mystical powers. Ye seeker of love and truth, cross this threshold to obtain answers to the deepest yearnings of your heart!" Unnecessarily, there was also a halo of glittering English letters encircling the Gypsy's scarved head: "Madame Hades, very heavy Countess of Hungry children, seeks to answer doors for have your hearts!"
"Pffff," Shin snickered. Hatashi got transliterated to Hades!? For the name of a *love* fortune-teller? Because Hades and Persephone are just such love birds, riiiiight. Hiromi studied the poster again, unable to identify what might have so amused her date, who remained imperturbable all afternoon despite her best efforts to engage him in conversations.
"The English," Shin pointed. "Even a friggin' computer translator has to spit out something more sensible."
"Ooh, I see. Though English isn't my best subject... I hope it won't sink my college entrance exam," Hiromi demurred. "Sawada-kun seems to be very good at English! Maybe you can tutor me sometime."
I bet your Greek mythology ain't too hot either. Shin thought it a sad commentary on their educational system that despite years of rigorous training, covering so many arcane grammatical factoids, the English curriculum failed to arm its students to parse a short advertisement jingo. So annoying! Everyone makes such a fuss over acing the college entrance exam. Big fucking deal! If you're a dumbass before, you'd just be a college-grade dumbass afterward. He pitied the poor saps (like his own brother) who buried their days and nights in college prep. He had no interests in pursuing the Monkasho's lame "seal of approval."
Too bad there was no one to witness the greatness of this absurdity. He took a snapshot of the poster with his camera-phone for posterity, though it wasn't clear with whom he could share it. Not Kuma and the guys - though endearing in their unique ways, they weren't the sharpest tools in the shed. Fujiyama, the English teacher, seemed like the obvious candidate, but Shin suspected there wasn't a single ironic bone in that curvaceous earth-mother. As for his real mother, well, he had long ago stopped divulging any scrap of genuine thoughts or feelings to anyone in his boring, uptight family. And so, his mind circled back to Yamaguchi. Wonder if her English is any good? Maybe she'd talk like a New York mobster?
He felt like a schmuck for expending so much of his waking thoughts on her. (He did not dare to contemplate to what extent was his subconsciousness also preoccupied with her.) The trouble was, without him noticing, her role in his world had already expanded beyond Yamaguchi-sensei, the earnest hard-working math instructor; beyond Yankumi, their tough-love homeroom teacher, who was not afraid to take one for the boys; beyond the Kuroda Ojou, the much adulated and feared Yazuka heiress. She was the only person he knew who had the same sarcastic sense of humor and a healthy skepticism toward social conventions, the only one who'd laugh at the world's follies with him.
Crap. No. I can't possibly be falling for...!? Fuck, fuck, fuckidy-fuck! Recalling those American cartoons, in which one could step off a cliff and still walk blithely on air, defying the laws of gravity until a fatal glance downward, Sawada Shin regretted he just looked down.