The Substitute

Chapter 3

Reita did his best to try and keep Yankumi out of trouble after his little talk with Shin. He really did. Thing was, it was turning out to be a lot harder than he thought.

Not that his classmates ever meant to get her in trouble, but Reita had never quite realized how often his friends got into fights, or offended people on the street, or just had incredibly stupid ideas, until he tried to stop them.

He also realized that Shin was right – Yankumi cared. She cared about every kid in his class more than he thought was humanly possible. Fight with your parents? Yankumi would show up at your house and force everyone to talk it out. Teacher picking on you? She'd call him out and defend you.

But Lord help you if you were the one doing the bullying. Reita watched Yankumi punch one of the biggest guys in his class and send him flying backward, then give him a speech about how bullying is a sign of weakness, and real strength is fighting for the weak.

He watched in fascination as his friends started trusting her, depending on her, often pretending like they didn't. He saw guys who had grown up hating teachers, despising adults, little by little growing to care about and rely on her. Just because she was ridiculously simple, and had this unshakeable belief that they were all good people.

So, when Shin walked into the classroom a month or so after his first visit, Reita felt both relief and panic. Relief that he didn't have to monitor Yankumi in case she decided to get herself into trouble, and panic because Shin might have heard about a few of the small incidents that had happened despite Reita's attempts, and were really not his fault anyway.

The classroom conversations died down as the students regarded the substitute with a mix of fascination and fear. Shin looked up, saw Reita and gave him a small nod. The rest of 3-D turned with wide eyes and watched Reita return the gesture with a nod of his own.

Before the boys could figure out why these two suddenly had some kind of camaraderie, Shin unshouldered his bag and addressed the class.

"So, as you can see, I'm your substitute today. But apparently, I can't just teach math during homeroom and leave," Reita stifled a smile, as that sounded very much like a lecture Yankumi would give. "So here's what we're going to do. I will read roll call, you will answer, then I will go back to my book. You don't disturb me, I won't disturb you. Then, after homeroom, I will do the math lesson, and then I get to leave. Everyone clear?"

There was a scattering of nods and murmured "yes"es.

"Good. Asaka, Koji?"

After a moment of consideration, Koji raised his hand. "Here."

Shin hid his smile quickly, but Reita still caught it. His class had decided to give this new sub a chance – something no substitute and very few teachers every got.

As promised, as soon as Shin finished roll call, he sat in the chair at the teacher's desk and read his book. The boys went back to their conversations and games. Soon, there was an impromptu free throw contest with the basketball hoop set up at the end of the room, with the throwing point continually moving farther and farther back. As Itsuo tossed the ball, it missed the hoop completely and instead plowed into the pile of extra chairs, sending the whole stack crashing down with a deafening clatter. Shin kept reading, but Reita saw him shake his head with a small smirk, and had a feeling Shin had been watching the whole time.

"What is going on in here?" A voice barked out as the door slid open to reveal a very angry looking Principal. He took a look at the fallen chairs and the basketball traitorously bouncing back towards Itsuo and started shouting at all of them. "Of course! Destroying school property in a school classroom. Just what I would expect from this class of troublemake-"