Episode 4 - Encounter (4)

Tick, tock, snort... tick, tock, tick, tick snort...

The clock noise is dominating the room. The class has been half filled, but nobody even tries to talk. Instead, it looks like they are planning something each on their own minds. All of them just tolerates the one that is sleeping on the left, Kosei, and focus on what they are all thinking.

They are scheming a plan for their first day.

These students, they are calculating their moves. Every student in this school have one job, one goal, which is to assert dominance. This is the game of chess, they have to protect their dignity, or as an analogy, their king. One wrong move, and your king is down. There are no mercy, no discrimination, boys vs girls, girls vs boys. Bu-

-SNORT!

Kosei wakes up with a loud snort, he sabotages everyone's attention. He opens his eyes staggered, about to notice the whole class is looking at him. He hasn't notice until the atmosphere starts to change.

Kosei just woke up in the middle of a lion's den.

{Kosei's Inner Soul: "Why does everyone is looking at me..?"}

Kosei turns his eyes right and left, his head slowly moves down, as it feels like the eyes watching him are glowing in the darkness, pushing him far away from the spotlight. But then the students looks away, back to minding their own business.

{Kosei's Inner Soul: "What was that pressure??!"}

Kosei just quickly sit in a proper position like a statue. He is really in the minefield of high headed students, physically and mentally.

SLAM! The door opens, the class straight up look at who's coming in, as their eyes widened up looking at the one that enters..

Step..

There, appear a man, the age is probably around 24 to 25, stepping into the class. Kosei straight up looks from the bottom, a pair of shiny black shoes catch the eyes of the students, with some metal holders holding the shoes tight, giving flashy light from the light around it. Followed by his gray flannel trousers, he wears a belt with the lion logo from Chisiki school, showing the pride by what he is wearing. His legs are tall, it's truly well built. Not forgetting his top, the bright white color from his shirt, covering his torso from the bottom of the neck to the top of the legs. His white shirt is covered by his navy blue suit, unbuttoned. These set of outfit is supported by the posture of the teacher, like an eagle standing high on the mountains, with its cold pride.

"Good morning, class."

The students nods, as it feels like the teacher are the butler that are giving professional service to their masters. But Kosei, who's new doesn't know what is going on in the class.

{Kosei's Inner Soul: "Whoa, it really is different than my school before.."}

The remaining Kosei's memory of the teacher's anger from elementary school has been stuck at his mind with elephant glue, it will never leave Kosei's head. The pain, the pressure, oh, those feeling of being pushed into the corner. It always brings Kosei to the pas-

"Stand up!"

The shout brings up Kosei to the surface, to the present. His body just stands up and walks behind the school chair, all automatically without he himself tells his body to do so. It's already an instinct, under his consciousness.

"Greet Please!"

The class bows down to the teacher, putting their right hands in front of their chest as a sign for respect. Kosei imitates them as he have no idea how the students greet their teacher in this school.

"You may sit down." The teacher says, while elegantly bows down to the class.

The class sit with manner, they don't straight up sit down by slamming themselves down to the chair, instead they slowly sit down slowly, elegantly.

Kosei doesn't care.

He doesn't care if there's manner of sitting, for him, SIT IS SIT. No cool moves. No Elegant Pose.

Drop! Breeet!

Kosei pulls the chair back, sit down, and moves himself to the desk. He doesn't even notice half of the students in the class are shaking their heads.

The teacher then walks to the teacher's desk, and looks around the class.

"It seems there's one student hasn't attended yet."

Then he walks back to the teacher's desk, and sit.

"Hello, class B1C. My Name is Mr. Jiyu Aran, you can call me Mr. Aran. From now I'm going to be this class' homeroom teacher, nice to meet you."

The class somehow replies with clapping. Kosei can only frowns his brows while smiling, with his eyeballs going to left and right wondering what's happening.

"Alright, show me your books. How many chapters you have master through?"

{Kosei's Inner soul: "Huh?"}

The class starts to open their backpacks as it seems like nothing goes wrong. They bring out their books out all simultaneously, they swipe the page on the book, really far from the first page. Their books even are not looking new anymore, some of the pages has this gap that marks the book has been read,

and all of them has been read.

"Chapter 3 sir!"

"Chapter 2, Sir!"

"Chapter 4, sir!"

{Kosei's Inner Soul: "Wha- What the hell is happening..??!"}

He stares at the class, with his face, dumb founded, looking at nearly every student in the class opening their books showing their progress to the teacher. But, hold on..

The teacher is not even looking.

"Very well." The teacher says, he sits on the chair, opens his book, and starts to write.

"Sachou poops on his pants!" One of the students in the class yells,

"Not mentioning you kiss your dog~ and Jason, aren't your brother get into jail?"

They stare at each other seriously, one of them grits his teeth, and one of them narrows his brows looking pitifully at one other. This moment is that moment everyone always mentions,

there's always a calm before the storm coming.

"Niko likes to see seniors wearing swimsuit!!!!" someone yells from the corner of the class. Everyone in the class looks at Niko, disgustingly.

That sentence detonates the whole chain reaction of innuendo and sarcasm.

"How about you having that magazine in your closet?!"

"WHAT MAGAZINE, HUH?!"

GROOOOOOO.....!

{Kosei's Inner Soul: "Aren't they are all calm before??!"}

Every student in the class gone ruckus. They are boldly insulting each other. Kosei can stares, he is looking at fire in the class, they all are BUUUURRNIING! it's like drowning in a fish pond full of salmon!

{Kosei's Inner Soul: "They surely are very diligent and smart.. But.. what the hell is??"}

Kosei looks at the teacher.

{Kosei's Inner Soul: "He's doesn't even care!!!!"}

The teacher is sitting on the teacher's seat, minding his own business as if nothing goes wrong. The class doesn't even care if the teacher is sitting right in front of them, or whatever the teacher is doing.

{Kosei's Inner Soul: "What should I do??"}

He turns his head to the side, the chair is empty. He looks back only to find two students talking with each other, just chilling like a best friend on the middle of a hurricane. He turns his head back to the fron-

"Kosei Hiruya?"

"WAAH!"

Kosei jumps from his seat finding out the teacher is in front of him.

"Hel- Hello Mr. Aran-!"

Mr. Aran smiles.

"Please follow me to the teacher's desk."

Mr. Aran then walks elegantly to his desk, leaving Kosei behind. His heart rate drops once again. His hand starts to sweat, and his body heats up.

{Kosei's Inner Soul: "Did I do anything wrong..?"}

"Oh, bring your chair and your bags there too." Mr. Aran yells from the desk.

Kosei's eyelids widened. His mind tells him one thing, he fucked up.

Sweat drips down from his cheek. His face is tensed up. His hand works quickly under pressure, moving his stuff to his backpack in an instant. He thinks up of what he has done until he gets called by the teacher.

{Kosei's Inner Soul: "Is it because I slept before the school starts??"}

Kosei then sits on the side of the teacher's desk. He is a statue.

"Ko-"

"I'm sorry if I slept before the class starts Mr. Aran!!!"

Mr. Aran turns his head to Kosei. He looks confused yet surprised.

"Haha, what are you talking Kosei?" He replies.

Zoom in to Kosei's brain gear! The circuit in Kosei's head is burning!

"Huh?" Kosei answers with a plain expression, figuring out what's happening.

Mr. Aran directs his head to the back of the right corner of the class. Kosei slowly turns his head and look at the direction Mr. Aran is showing him.

{Kosei's Inner Soul: "They are sleeping..?!"}

"Mhm. Sleeping is fine." Mr. Aran continues.

Kosei turns his head back to the teacher's desk. He is processing what's going on in this school.

"I'm sure you are a bit confused about the situation in the class."

"I AM." Kosei boldly replies.

Mr. Aran chuckles.

"Sir, may I ask something first?" Kosei asks.

"Sure."

"What did you ask to the students before..?"

Mr. Aran thinks a bit for a while.

"Oh, about the chapters?"

"Yes."

"I'm actually about to explain that."

Mr. Aran pats his chest before starting to explain.

"Erhm. So, you see, most of the students in this class comes from capable parents that has high hopes for their children's future."

Kosei looks at Mr. Aran seriously.

"They basically have learned the materials before the school starts. So this school is, well. Just a place that provides tests to them."

"Except me." The student on the side of the desk cuts in.

"I'm Namake, the lazy one." he smiles, giving his thumbs up to Kosei.

"Yeah, he's the lazy one." Mr. Aran agrees.

Kosei stares at him for a while. Then he looks back to Mr. Aran.

"So by you mean they have gone through how many chapters.. you really mean it..?"

"Yes, pretty much."

Kosei straight up imagine shadows starts to elongated from giants wearing school uniforms. Some of them are even using rectangle glasses like a nerd. Those giants are his classmates, walking towards the sun, while leaving Kosei behind in the shadow of them. The sun, which is his dream to be one of the best student is all the way in the front, starting to fade out as he saw NO. HOPE.

"Kosei!" The background ruckus noises and voices reverb as he hears his name being called.

Mr. Aran is shaking Kosei's body, which is now stunned after hearing the explanations from him. His body stays still like a statue, until Mr. Aran starts to slap his cheek.

"HAAAH!" Kosei shoots out a lot of air from his lungs, he finally gets back to reality.

"You okay?" Mr. Aran asks, worries of Kosei's condition.

"Mister.."

Mr. Aran raised his forehead.

"Am I good enough to be in this school...?"

He stares at him.

"You are!"

Kosei thinks for a while. He looks at the student crowds, which is now in chaos. Some of them may be calm, but the majority of them are sending innuendo and sarcasm to each other.

"Mister, if the class gone chaos, isn't it going to be reported to the headmaster?"

He looks at the students, then his face starts becoming emotional.

"Sadly, it's not going to work." Mr. Aran replies.

"Huh-?"

Mr. Aran sighs. His eyes turns serious.

"These kids' parents are the reason this school stands, Kosei."

{Kosei's Inner Soul: "...?"}

"They are our retirement plan"

"But isn't it worth to try?"

Mr. Aran looks down.

"There was someone that has tried, but.."

Kosei looks at Mr. Aran nervously, waiting for the answer.

"Wha- What happened?"

"..He got sued, and now his career on the teaching world is gone. I don't even know what happened to him anymore."

This sentence sends chill down the spine to Kosei. This school is not like any regular school. It's a minefield. One wrong step and the result is over.

"Alright, so let's move on from the topic shall we?" Mr. Aran says trying to brighten up the mood.

"But what did this teacher do?"

"Let's move on from that topic, please!" He says, trying to put an end to the topic. Kosei notices that Mr. Aran doesn't want to talk about it anymore.

"Oh I'm sorry mister!"

Mr. Aran takes a deep breathe and exhales. He is now more relaxed compared when he talked serious about that teacher.

"It's alright, it's just your human instinct that makes you curious of  everything" Mr. Aran says while patting Kosei's shoulder.

"Aaalright! Now both of you will be under my teaching, let's start both of your class!"

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