Lesson03 — You’re a Gentle Child, Akai!
～ Part 2 ～
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“…Akai, could you please say that again?”
“Like I said,”
Akai Asuka’s face shows a little irritation as she is speaking.
“The transference incident this time is my fault, I said.”
Saying so, Akai scratches her head. Scratching such long hair in the kitchen and strands of hair would fall, hygienically speaking, it’s not okay at all, but I have no mental composure just to caution her about that. When looking toward Sugiura, as expected, she too is choking on words.
When Sugiura brought Akai, it was after dinner. As I’m told, after the meal, this girl unusually remained alone in the dining room while making a sullen face. Normally, Sugiura would just look from a distance, but this time only is different. «If there’s a student who seems to be suffering from something, bring them to me!», It’s because of what I said that she half-forcibly brought the unwilling Akai to the Kitchen.
As soon as Akai entered the kitchen, she saw a dried bonito (i.e., me) speaking and was speechless, but when Sugiura introduced me, her eyes instantly turned cold and she snorted «Humph». Even if the other party is a teacher, the condescending eyes don’t change. Akai Asuka is a true-born queen.
Naturally, I’m not planning to change my attitude just because of that either. There should have been many teachers who falter or have their complexion changed against her high-handed attitude silently exuded or the adult charm so unlike that of a high-school girl of about 17 years old, but me, I’m different.
I’m just a little surprised because of the words she abruptly said.
No way, it’s really as Goubayashi has said.
“…And?”
Akai crosses her arms and says in a cold tone.
“You said to tell you if there’s any worry, so I told you though?”
“Ahh, no…. Umu.”
I got stuck on words but immediately clear my throat.
“Sugiura, could you please take along Honno-san and go outside for a bit?”
“All right. Call me if there’s anything.”
Since Sugiura immediately holds Honno-san and leaves the kitchen, remaining inside are just me and Akai.
A beautiful girl coldly glares at a huge like a wooden sword dried bonito . So surreal is this scene that I don’t know if it’s picturesque or not.
“Akai, I said to tell me if you have any worry. Is that matter of the transference incident what you’re worrying about?”
“Well yeah.”
Looking at her nails, Akai answers.
“It’s not a very good feeling to keep silent while having others involved.”
Words that jump out of her mouth are only things you can hardly believe. As I’m told, she is a natural born vampire, it seems that the original world is getting more difficult to live in, so they established a plan to transfer to a different world. Nevertheless, because anxiety remains in terms of war potential, they turned the students into monsters and try to incorporate them in to their own army.
Saying it like this is incomprehensible. I want to ask if you really intend to make use of me who reincarnated as a dried bonito as war potential.
“Well, sensei is, how should I put it, an irregular? You’re sort of inconsequential in the original plan.”
Is that how it is? I feel just a little down.
“Then,”
And, Akai continued.
“Washio is dead.”
At that moment, the atmosphere inside the kitchen turns a little gloomy.
“I hate that sort of frivolous person. But a guy who didn’t do anything wrong got involved because of me and died as a result.”
Her way of telling the story is indifferent and cold as usual. A high-handed manner of speaking you can’t feel any emotion from it. The girl named Akai Asuka is always like this.
But the subject she is speaking of is different from usual. I can catch a glimpse of something that seems like weakness of her heart that only those who continue to push themselves will slightly revealed.
“I see,”
Even while I say that out loud, honestly, I’m absurdly confused.
As a teacher, I’m thinking about encouraging my depressed students. For example, if someone like Nekomiya thinks that Washio’s death is her fault, I plan to give a speech so as to get that guy back on her feet. But this confession is outside of my expectation. It’s much too heavy.
However, that Akai is suffering in front of me now, and at the same time I’m also starting to feel like running away. Even the Queen of 2nd year class 4 who can make adults tremble would show her weakness like this.
Akai surely doesn’t trust me as a teacher. The reason why she’s expressing a bit of her true feeling here is probably because I’m a dried bonito. It may seem like muttering soliloquy to a wall in her mind.
“I talked to Sachi.”
“To Sakuma?”
“Yeah. Press for an answer, I talked.”
“I guess Sakuma wouldn’t have been angry.”
“Well yeah.”
Suddenly, a question comes to my mind. Why would Akai remain silent in the first place?
Why didn’t she tell the truth to her classmates?
When I ask about that, Akai return with «Hah?», loaded with irritation again.
“There’s no way I can say that. Everyone got involved, all because of me.”
“Are you afraid of being dislike by everyone in the class?”
“I don’t mean it like that.”
That’s a lie. I intuitively think. Akai actually is afraid of isolation.
“…Things like classmates,”
Although I haven’t even said anything, Akai immediately connected her words like making an excuse.
“I only think of them as tools to accomplish my objective.”
“Saying it like that, Akai, is certainly what you call pretense of evil.”
When I finish speaking, Akai severely glares at me.
“The cat is certainly out of the bag with this. Since you won’t be bother by your true feeling if you keep silent, I guess you’ve been doing that until now.”
“…Be quiet. Despite being just a dried bonito.”
“The one who endlessly grumbling to that dried bonito is you.”
I finally realize the reason why Akai is much more irritated than usual.
Akai has said that her classmates are ‘tools to accomplish her objective’. That’s not her true feelings, but because there must have been an aspect that seem like that, that those words came out. This guy is using her classmate to accomplish her objective.
But she surely has a sense of belonging to the class inside her heart. It’s not limited to just students she’s close to like Sakuma or Okama. Akai can’t persist in being ruthless to the classmates whom she didn’t have any feelings for at first, starting with her follows such as Harui and Hebitsuka.
The gap between that fact and Akai’s true feelings is what irritating her right now. Looking at her like this, I understand that she’s a quite a lovely girl appropriate for her age.
Yes, Akai Asuka is a gentle child.
Well, there’s no such guy who is not gentle among my students though!
“Apparently Akai, the time has come for me to take off my skin.”
“Eh, what’s that?”
“Sugiura, shave meeeeeeeeeee!!”
When I shout, Akai shoulders twitch a little.
“All right then–!”
Sugiura bursts into the kitchen with a full smile. This guys must have been waiting for her chance all this time.
Sugiura takes up the plane she said she purchased in the bazaar at the royal capital, and applies it on my body.
∗Ji~yori~∗, making that sound, one sheet of flaked bonito is shaved off from my body.
“GUAAAAAA!!”
“Ehh, what’s this. What are you doing?”
Akai raises a voice like she was drawing away from us. No, she may actually be drawing away.
I guess she would. It’s a familiar scene for us, but suddenly the homeroom teacher shouted to shave his own body and the student merrily started doing that, if looking from the side, it must have been the height of madness.
Sugiura throws my faked bonito into the pot and takes out the soup stock, then scooping it into a bowl, she hands it over to Akai.
“Akai-san, drink this. It’s soup stock taken from sensei.”
“Eh, no way…”
Those words she said while being considerably stunned, therefore must have been her true feelings. Understanding that, my heart was deeply wounded.
“What soup stock, simply put, this is similar to sweat seeped out in the bath…”
“Moreover, it’s like sweat from scraps, isn’t it?”
Even Honno-san who stays silent until now says something unnecessary.
“Since it’s fine, drink it! The story won’t progress if you don’t drink it!”
“Then I drank it (in your dream). It was delicious. Yes, please continue.”
Akai is wholeheartedly frowning. It’s a kind of au naturel feeling different from being irritated. I’m happy as a teacher that Akai, who is always stifling her feelings under her iron face, is show such a feeling, but as a dried bonito, the fact that she has so much disgust toward my soup stock is truly sorrowful.
“Eh, let’s see, it’s okay! It’s okay Akai, I, uh, think you’re kind child at heart.”
“Ahh, yeah. Thanks sensei.”
Shit, her reaction is somewhat weak!
“Ah, it’s about that. If you think you’re sorry that you got everyone in the class involved, you should bow your head and apologize…. Because you’re a gentle child, umm, that is, surely…. Surely everyone … will for give you, I think … errr … even Sakuma, should have forgiven you, right…?”
I’m gradually losing my confidence. Honno-san flipped through the book and open a page, wherein written «Do your best! Do your best!». Like I said, what’s the heck is that supposed to be?
Akai crosses her arms for a while. Her expression is returning to the usual cold one.
“…That’s all?”
“…That’s all!”
“Something like that…. It doesn’t resound in your heart at all…”
Glancingly, Akai move her gaze toward the bow Sugiura is holding.
“However, I don’t understand what kind of idea you’re going to use to connect from that soup stock to that story at all.”
Um-u, as expected, the class queen is formidable.
Is it natural that there is a limit to my education policy of entrusting everything to momentum and the delicacy of soup stock…?
As I’m being stricken by my own powerlessness, Akai suddenly floats a little smile.
It’s a natural smile like her strained heart has been liberated.
“Well, I understand. Sensei.”
“Seriously!? Did you understand because of that just now!?”
“…Didn’t you want me to understand?”
Akai, at the same moment, makes an amazed expression. Was this girl a child who can make various expressions like this? I was made to realized that I completely didn’t know anything about Akai Asuka, attendance number 1 at all, even while being her homeroom teacher. She is not just a girl who looks down on adults with cold eyes.
“I too, probably, I think that I know what I have to do after this.”
Akai undoes her crossed arms and says so.
“There’s no way I can keep silent indefinitely, I have always thought that if I keep dragging on, it will steadily become impossible to say and it’s going to be the final line where I can say soon, but I just didn’t have determination. I have always been thinking since I talked to Sachi.”
“So that means I made that last push…”
“There’s no way you are, isn’t it?”
I’m told so clearly. I’m hurt.
“But I will say it. Say, apologize.”
“Really…”
At the end of the day, this time for Akai may not have been much different from muttering soliloquy to a wall. She just wanted time to convinced herself of the conclusion that was decided in her heart. Akai, unlike many other students, is a child who doesn’t need advices from the self-important adults.
Nevertheless, it’s no problem. Even in my standpoint as a teacher, I’m not conceited enough to think I can easily change the students’ heart with my words. Plus, just by looking at the various faces of Akai makes this a valuable time for me.
Akai takes the bowl from Sugiura hand and gulps down its content in one go.
“Ah.”
“Ah…”
I and Sugiura speak at the same time.
“Thinking carefully, I have been sucking human’s blood since childhood, so sweat or the like is trivial.”
∗∗, the bowl which becomes empty, is put in the sink.
“But, it’s not very delicious as expected.”
“Re–really…”
“Well, I’ll say it once. Thanks, sensei.”
Saying so, Akai comes out from the kitchen. Her step is lighter than when she entered, the irritation has disappeared from her back.
“Akai-san has been sucking blood since childhood?”
Sugiura, while washing the bowl, mutters.
“Our world is wider than I thought.”
“That’s true, isn’t it…. A real vampire, that’s amazing! I wanted to hear more stories!”
Honno-san is awfully raising the tension, but for me, my heart being wounded by Akai’s single remark has yet to recover.
After that, Akai seems to have confessed everything to the class at the funeral place.
There are certainly students in opposition to Akai who kept silent about the circumstance up until now. Especially Hakuba who was on good term with Washio, has a momentum of flaring up at her. Nevertheless, with Akai honestly apologizing to the classmates and Ryuzaki or Goubayashi’s follow-up, etc., it ended without getting stormy.
Akai provided various information to the class, that information exert great influence to the new action guidelines and the usage of ability. In the end, what she seems to have been worrying about was needless anxiety.
Well, that’s good.
That’s really good.
“UOOOOO! Sugiura, more! Shave me more!”
“Ehh, still…? My hands are already tired…”
My screams echo in the kitchen. Sugiura shaves me and throws that in pots of various heat level.
The words that Akai has uttered at the end «It’s not very delicious as expected», has given a deep scar on my heart. I must not leave it like this. I have to become able to get out even more, more delicious soup stock. I makes great efforts such as growing mold throughout my body, etc., (high class dried bonito grows mold in its final stage of the manufacturing process), furthermore, I, together with Sugiura, am researching method to bring out even better soup stock.
Someday, I have to make that feigned tsun face say «It’s delicious».
I have to make both my body and heart more thick (soup) with the thing called sensual delicacy boiling up from deep within my heart.
As a teacher, I understand that it’s completely the worst spirit, but even so, I am burning with a sense of duty as a dried bonito.
Next Chapter: Dyeing the Blue Sea Crimson
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