Mister Inokori

VI: Intentional

Half of an hour passed and Yoshitaka had a few notes already. The topic of Rhetoric can be confusing for some, the Lord only knows how difficult it was for him to understand the complex topic. But there seemed to be only one student answering Mister Inokori's questions. The rest of the students couldn't understand the concept and when he let them loose to complete a worksheet most of them just twiddled their thumbs and didn't ask for help, but it wasn't like Inokori was making himself that approachable either. They were probably all scared of the man and/or getting another detention.

The girl diagonal to his took the worksheet but made no effort in completing the thing and didn't look at it again after receiving it. She looked like the laziest student in the entire classroom so Sora Kashitaka wrote something on his piece of paper and slowly ripped it out. Some of the students looked back at him, hearing the noise, but Inokori didn't look in his direction and Sora thanked the heavens that he didn't.

He rolled up the corner that he tore off and slipped it on the girl's desk. The only problem was that he miss judged how far away the desks were. To slide a piece of paper to the side was easy, in front could be done, but the hypotenuse of his desk, her desk, and the nearby empty desk was too long and would require a lot of leaning and stretching of the body.

So when he placed the corner piece in her desk, her arm was outstretched all the way, and his other hand was always at the side of his desk trying to hold up his body that leaned over the whole desk top.

One little touch and he would fall unto his desk.

But bad luck was on his side—or should we say, not on his side—that day so, of course, he leaned too far and his hand gave up the weight as his chest smacked the wooden desk.

Everyone looked at him including Inokori, but the girl who received the paper quickly slid it under her palm like it was some sort of precious treasure and acted surprised.

All eyes went to the classroom's teacher to see how he would react. He didn't do anything more than a "be quiet" which surprised even Yoshitaka. The students all were curious and he could tell that they all wanted to gossip, but then didn't turn to each other nor did they speak. Instead, they all followed what Inokori said and tried to "complete the worksheet".

Yoshitaka didn't know if Inokori caught that he was passing notes during class, but it was evident that he was doing something so maybe he would be punished after school by detention. Then he remembered that he was a teacher and—could Inokori give him detention? Hopefully not, but he would show up anyway.

***

The bell rang and the timer was on. Only five minutes.

During the class, the girl did not open his note but kept it concealed under her hand for the entire hour that was left of class. She opened it when class was over and discreetly walked over to him.

She was tall and matched his height if not some. Her face was decorated with a never changing frown—or RBF as the youths call it—with black make-up that matched nicely with her ebony hair.

"I don't want to talk here," was the first thing that she said as she crossed her arms and sort of glared at him.

"We can go into E-3," Yoshitaka suggested, walking out of the classroom.

"But isn't there a class in there?" She followed him with a huff.

Yoshitaka looked back at her and they reached the front of his classroom. "We have a few minutes before the new period begins." They entered. "Now, can we talk?" Why do I feel like I am a student again?

She talked slowly, with a calm yet annoyed tone. "Your question was weird, but since you look...new, "she said, looking him down once over, sizing him up a bit. "...and that Mr. Detention has taken a liking to you—"

"You think Inokori likes me?" Sora couldn't hide his excitement at the news.

She raised an eyebrow at him but didn't say anything to accept or deny what he said. "Well, to answer your question: he doesn't care about us so why should I care about him? He just makes us lie to make himself happy or something." She shrugged, giving him an indirect eye roll. "I don't know."

Yoshitaka took this into account and stored it in his memory to write while he gave his student time to work. "Thank you so much, Miss..."

"Naisho. Naisho and only Naisho."

"Okay, Naisho. You can call me, Sora."

"I have to go and you should too." She walked away quickly, but Yoshitaka managed to hear her whisper under her breath. "What a weird kid."

He placed his messenger bag on the teacher's desk and got out his lanyard making himself a teacher once again. So that's the reason why she didn't participate in the morning routine. Is she trying to perhaps rebel? I'll keep an eye on her.

The rest of the day went quickly as Sora Yoshitaka counted down the periods until Inokori's after-school detention started. The ringing of the bell was well received by everyone as the children rushed out of his classroom. "Bye, Mr. Yoshitaka!" cried one of his students, a smile on his face.

"Oh," Yoshitaka said, his hands in the movement of removing his lanyard. His hands opened like a firework and the teacher's accessory fell limp around his neck. "Have a good day." He watched as the girl skipped away but behind her was another girl, a familiar girl, but she quickly left before he could get a good look at her. All of the black hair and eyes made everyone look the same.

He smiled, feeling the happiness that he once experience as a student in New Hope, but it quickly died as he realized that he would have to sit through another day of detention. These were the time was Sora Yoshitaka truly believed that school was similar to a prison. He removed his lanyard, placed his messenger bag over his shoulder, and went to room E-2 for his second sit-in detention.