The Substitute

Chapter 5

Reita was running out of reasons to hate staying with Yankumi

At first, everything was a reason to hate being there. The fact that there was never really any privacy; that everyone kept trying to nose into his business; that Minoru kept trying to help him with his homework; that Shin kept watching him with a look of stifled amusement; and that Yankumi was never ready to leave on time.

Walking to school with his teacher was bad enough, but now that he left the same time as Yankumi, he was usually late. He tried to leave before her a few times, but her minions would yell, "Wait, wait!" and Yankumi would yell, "Almost ready!" and fifteen minutes later he had to stand next to Yankumi as her grandfather struck the sparks of blessing on them. The entire household would turn out and stand on the porch and yell, "Watch your back!" and then they would finally be allowed to leave.

He did make it a point to lag behind or rush ahead so that none of his friends or classmates would see him walking to school with Yankumi. Reita shuddered to think what would happen if the other boys caught wind of his current living situation.

Yankumi wasn't helping him keep a low profile, either. She kept calling on him in class, and bouncing up to him and his group like she belonged there. When she made her absurd suggestions, she'd look at him, say something nonsensical, like "Let's all reach for that shining sun and rise together!", then turn to him and ask with a huge expectant smile, "Right, Saiga?"

He tried to talk to her about it once.

"Hey, don't act like we're friends at school." He told her on their way back from school.

She looked at him with wide eyes. "Why not?"

Reita blinked at her. "Because we're not."

She blinked back. "Why?"

"Because… you're a teacher."

This made her perk up for some reason. "That's right! I'm your number one teacher, and you are my precious number one student." She grinned and suddenly ruffled his hair.

Stunned by this gesture of childish affection, Reita stopped and let Yankumi skip ahead. He had no words to express the incredibly… odd feeling he had.

Yankumi finally realized Reita had fallen behind. She stopped and looked back.

"Something the matter, Saiga?"

He shook his head to clear it.

"Nothing. Let's just go home."

Taking a few steps past her, he didn't notice Yankumi's broad grin, or the fact that he had called the Oedo house 'home' for the first time.

He did notice that it got harder to hate things from that point

When Kuroda-san asked him how school was, it stopped sounding like he was just saying it to say something, and started to sound like he was genuinely interested.

When Minoru asked if anything exciting had happened, it felt less like he was being nosy and more like he actually wanted to know.

So, a few days after this growing revelation, Reita decided to try something.

"So, how was school today?" Kuroda asked as usual when Reita walked in.

Rather than the monosyllabic reply of "Fine," he had used every other time, Reita took a moment and slowly answered, "It was good."

Kuroda's smile paused for a moment, then grew slightly. "Oh? Learn anything new?"

"I learned how to ask if someone is single in English." He responded, then mentally cringed. That was something he would say to his friends, not an adult.