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20. Check

20. Check

"...and isn't it about time you woke up from that?" Irina groaned, the rubber knife she tossed aside landing in the teacher's lap.

She snapped at the octopus, huffing in resignation at another failed attempt. Swearing at the top of her lungs, she stomped right out.

Nao eyed the rubber knife in his lap, and moved the open magazine away from his eyes as he murmured a sleepy good morning, trying to understand sunlight and its reason for being. He didn't get an answer.

"Well, she's certainly on edge today," Korosensei simply observed, sipping on some Japanese tea from a traditional cup, wearing traditional clothes, for no reason.

"Just who's fault do you think that is?" Karasuma couldn't resist the stately retort at the Octopus' fake oblivion--

Nao sighed, "Mr Octopus--"

"Call me 'Korosensei' already!"

"Sir," Nao defied, rolling over to face them, "she's a woman, y'know? Be nicer."

"I'm always nice to her," Korosensei huffed, dissatisfied from the accusation. "Don't look at me like that!" Korosensei whined, "you're scary when you're tired, Kunomasu-sensei!"

Nao glared at the octopus sternly, his eyes narrowed and dim on a serious note. A silent stare shot right out of exhaustion more than actual anger-- but it did its job.

Nao swiftly turned his attention away from the cosplay freak-- "anyways, Mr Karasuma, I think you should go after her."

"Huh? Why?"

"Well," Nao lolled his head around the armrest uncomfortably, "someone infiltrated campus grounds, so she's in danger."

"Someone just-- is it another assassin? she can handle herself--" Karasuma raised an eyebrow, "wait, how do you even know that?"

Nao groaned, because I watched the anime, he couldn't say. "I hear tapping," he spruced up some random excuse, "of those dumb dress shoes only you wear because you're a lunatic in the rainy season-- I wear sneakers by the way--and you're not walking, so,"

"Get to the point," Karasuma rolled his eyes.

"Someone, a man probably, other than you," Nao grumbled, "is walking around campus grounds. I think we should be worried... right?"

"Now that you've said it--" Korosensei sniffed the air-- he probably didn't need to make that dog-nosing-around motion to smell, Nao grumbled-- and turned a little purple, "a smell of death has been wandering around."

Karasuma sighed, "if it's just an assassin, Irina should be able to handle herse--"

"Just go already, you droopy Doberman!" Nao snapped, chucking a pillow in his direction. "The kids are out, so stalk her, get a drink, keep watch on her, you asshole!"

"Droopy Dober-what?!"


"I've never seen you this exhausted, Kunomasu-sensei," Korosensei observed when Karasuma reluctantly left. 

Naomasa, his forearm over his eyes, groaned weakly and tried to go back to sleep. His other hand on his stomach, his feet hung over the armrest on the farther end, shoes still on--

"Does it have to do with Principal Asano's scent on you?"

Naomasa cringed, "don't smell me, you pervert."

"The principal of this school is a rather oppressive man, even for me," Korosensei admitted, "were you overwhelmed? I suspect even Karasuma may feel so at times, much less a normal teacher like you--"

"Sir," Naomasa grumbled, tired as if he was experiencing a hangover, "mind popping over to China or Korea or something? I'm craving some almond jelly."

"Goodness, Mr Kunomasu," Korosensei stood up anyways, not a hint of displeasure in his tone despite the whiny words, "I'm not a shopping taxi, y'know?"

Naomasa chuckled dryly, "thanks."

Naomasa was nursing a pounding headache, and he wanted anything more than to entertain Korosensei right now.

The principal had come right to the hospital this morning, interrupting his checkup to relay an absolutely suspicious donation of cash-- clutching his chest, Naomasa tried not to cry.

He was nervous, he was scared-- of what?

Of the unknown. Of the deep, unsolvable, mystery box of hidden motives behind the mask of Asano Gakuho. Naomasa feared what lay beyond his layers upon layers of questions and scenarios and actions-- the paranoia ate into his brain and wriggled its way into his heart, bursting painfully like little bombs that he wished would one day kill him.

It's only been a few days since he talked with the principal about it.

His phone blinked a new notification, reminding him of things he wanted to forget. Phone calls chimed each night, warning him to never forget the things he didn't want to go through with.

Pulling his laptop open on the armrest, Nao glared at the laptop screen moodily as he, without a single hint of a smile on his face, tapped away at the keys.

Marking a new item on his checklist and hidden journal entries, Nao sighed.

Maehara and Revenge ー ✔️
Lovro ー ✔️

Horibe Itona ー 

They still had quite a ways to go, but they were really getting somewhere in the series of the anime. He wasn't too sure if he'd forgotten some details of the show in between-- but he didn't think he'd need to much information anyways.

He marked down today's date, and noted down two simple lines.

New planned surgery on Friday. 

It's not going to change anything in me.

A soft blanket over his stomach, Naomasa closed his eyes and shut off his laptop.

Swiping an eye over the piles of unfinished work, he decided he would sleep it off and pretend everything was alright.

Everything wasn't alright, and everything was becoming worse as the days go by.

"If the Octopus didn't come by," he mumbled to himself, "maybe things would've been less hard on me. Maybe things would have been much easier to let go of."

If you love too much, it'll be harder when I leave; but if I love too little, no one would know I ever lived.

Why did it matter?

In the rest of Naomasa's numbered days, he was going to try and find the answer to that. 

And, maybe, he was going to help his students with their studies a little more, too.


"Hey, Kuma-sensei,"

Nao jumped, surprised to hear Ritsu from his phone.

He brought a smile to his face as he gently responded to her, "what's wrong?"

Ritsu looked distressed-- confused, and curious. "You told me once before to keep your medical records confidential especially against Korosensei, why was that?"

Nao had definitely asked that from here.

It wasn't easy to secure things from the eyes of that hardworking octopus. But with Ritsu's help, one line of a favour was more than enough.

"It's because I don't want him to worry," Nao told her honestly, "Korosensei can probably heal me. He also might not know how to, because my condition defies reason."

Ritsu nodded, understanding somewhat-- she was an entity that made 'sense'-- she was made from extensive programming and upgrades.

Nao added only to himself, that even Korosensei's existence made 'sense'. Countless experiments made consciously with strange concoctions to produce desired results-- it was mad, but in its own way it made sense.

Nao didn't make sense. A heart that opened itself, didn't want to heal, and rotted while the man was still alive-- a zombie that wasn't dead, a rotten heart that works until some select moments-- that didn't make sense, not at all.

"Korosensei is capable and passionate," Nao admitted, "but I don't want him to waste his time and his effort on me. I don't want him to despair when he finds out nothing he does can cure me. I want him to be able to go with a smile on his face, telling himself he's done all he can and he'd succeeded this time around."

Nao smiled at the girl, "I don't want to see him suffer more than he should."

Ritsu didn't understand most of it-- but she stored the information in her heart, in a very important, secured place within her database.

She did that, so that one day when she manages to upgrade herself into a form so much better at understanding the mechanics of the human mind-- then, she'd be able to look at it again and comprehend it all over again with all of her heart.

"Thank you, Kuma-sensei."

"What for?"

"Thank you."

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