AN: Hey everyone! Long time? It's been about four months or three since I've last updated this. Thanks so much for the flattering reception, I'm kinda honoured this originally joke story is right now the most popular of my ongoing works! In fact, I'm ecstatic because we broke 100k reads just a day ago. You guys are absolutely awesome I swear, I'm blessed on this website askkskskskk

So, this chapter is honestly kinda fillerish. The next important event that will happen is Nagisa's talent being revealed and Takaoka showing up. So before that, we'll have a chapter unofficially titled "Why Kuma-sensei is officially Fuwa's favourite English teacher of all time." Enjoy!

22. Acceptance

"Hey, where's Kuma-sensei? He's late."

Kayano seemed dejected at the news. She kinda liked that teacher, despite anything-- no, maybe she hated him? Well, it was a case-by-case kinda feeling...

Kataoka hummed, similarly grim for the day.

"He wasn't in the staffroom last I checked. Maybe he has another hospital appointment today."

Things were always strangely empty without the teacher around.

Nothing much changed, in the bitterest meaning of the situation-- Bitch-sensei was a great teacher, so was Korosensei, they could easily fill in for whatever lessons Naomasa missed out for them.

But something would always feel different.

Nagisa would find himself jotting down notes, and he would lean it over his shoulder only to realize no one was looking at his book today.

Sugino bought himself two drinks, then remember that he only needed one.

Isogai and Kimura found themselves glancing out the windows anxiously-- maybe they should take a round down the hill after all, if only to ease their own nerves.

"Fuwa-san," the door slides open, and to everyone's surprise, Nao trotted in, a paper in hand, "about this essay... what's with the looks?"

Naomasa shifted the stack of test papers under his arm, his other hand holding Fuwa's paper-- his eyes shifted over the classroom to find that every eye was on him.

Including Ritsu, why was she even on?

"Kuma-sensei, you have no presence at all, huh," Karma mumbled to himself, "some of us have been hunting you down the whole morning."

And Naomasa shrugged, "maybe I've mastered the art of standing so incredibly still that I become invisible to the naked eye."

There was a moment of silence, then Naomasa raised his hands in defeat, "I just got here, kids. Honest, the principal dropped me out back just two minutes ago."

"The principal," someone echoed, exasperated.

"He's got a nice car," Naomasa shrugged, as if that was a normal thing, "had an emergency checkup this morning, but he wanted to make sure I made it to my class on time."

Naomasa didn't miss the way the class tensed, eyes narrowed in skeptic scrutiny, He couldn't blame them-- after all, the entire prospect of their principal ever giving a shit about their education was just blasphemous.

So their intentions probably was something infinitely malicious-- or perhaps, the intentions were purely on the teacher himself.

What principal would go so far as to leave his office for one lowly demoted teacher? Or maybe...

"What is he planning?" Maehara mumbled, not unheard by the others in the classroom.

Naomasa wouldn't say he was any less suspicious of that man. He had absolutely no idea why that Principal was so obsessed with him-- Naomasa certainly was giving that man periodical reports of Korosensei and the student's progress, but after that one conversation they've had, Asano made no attempt to stop Nao from helping the kids improve.

Nao was an interference to his plans, right? So why wasn't he removed yet? There was no reason for Nao to be here and no reason for the government to want to keep Nao here.

Nao shivered at the thought of the mind games in the background. He wished someone else could do the thinking for him, sometimes.

Naomasa dropped his papers on the desk.

"Regardless, Fuwa-san, I've told you not to write fanfiction in your essays," he raised the paper, waving it about, "it is impressively written, but you crossed the word limit by bounds and went off topic many times."

At that, Fuwa made this despaired cry, "but didn't you watch that new episode of Demon Slayer last night? There was no way I could've gone without writing fanfiction of that!!"

"So you decided to write it in your homework instead of say, a word document?"

The girl scrambled to his side, hands interlocked in a sort of worshipping motion.

Naomasa held up one stack of papers, crudely stapled together in one corner. Packed thickly with writing on every side, the little stack probably had about fifteen sheets.

"Holy crap, I've never seen such a thick piece of homework," Nakamura gawked.

Nao put his foot down, arms folded, "reading this as a single story is impossible, as the lore is far too deep to be put into narration," he told her, "the story ends up feeling impulsive, rushed, with far too much emotion because you under-explain too many elements of the world-building. Also, you had a total of thirty misspellings, twenty-four illegible kanji, and nineteen wrong hiragana."

"And he read all of it?!" Okajima pointed at him like he was crazy.

"Halfway through Scene six, the girl seems to disappear from the scene entirely, forgotten by both narration and her older brother," Nao continued speaking, entirely unaffected, "and in Scene Eight, the conversations are too forced. In Scene Ten however, you have reduced all conversation to continuous writing. Did you get lazy?"

The class watched as Nao continued to ramble on, flipping through the pages that were surprisingly filled to the brim with red-inked corrections and teacher's notes.

Fuwa seemed to shrink at every new point the teacher made, while the rest of the class watched in a most baffled way.

Then, finally, Nao dropped the stack of papers on the girl's head.

"With all that in mind, I expect a resubmission in three-week's time," he said, "in a proper, no word limit, multi-chaptered fiction format. And forget the test question, just focus on the story's direction."

Fuwa blinked. "What?"

"You can type it out if that works better for you," Nao continued, "let's hope we finish this before we have to bunk down for your tests, eh?"

Fuwa looked at her essay. Then, turned to the teacher in disbelief. Then, she looked at her essay again, then back to the teacher.

"You're not going to tell me to rewrite the essay properly?" she didn't know if she was hearing things right, "like, instead of this... fanfiction nonsense?"

Naomasa raised an eyebrow, "of course not, this story is absolute genius. You think I'm gonna let it rot in my drawer as unfinished?"

"No, that's not what I meant--"

"Though, it is rather impressive how you've actually been listening to my classes, it shows in the work," the teacher began mumbling, "like Scene Two's rather interesting line of purple prose, and Scene Four's parallel with Scene Fourteen, and--"

When Nao lifted his head again, it was to a line of awed faces and impressed smiles. Confused, he found Nagisa jotting something down, and Sugino quietly dropping off a can of coffee on his desk.

Fuwa was staring at him with the happiest expression he'd ever seen.

It was almost like her eyes were sparkling in happiness, clutching onto her essay and eyeing it so reverently--

"I'll treasure this forever, Kuma-sensei!"

"What? No!"