45. Meanings

"Good morning, Kunomasu-sensei!" Korosensei cheered, and Naomasa walked right into a whirlwind of warmth, there's suddenly a mug of coffee in his hand, and his jacket and scarf just vanished in lieu of a warmed blanket. "The weather out there certainly is getting colder, isn't it?"

"...Ah," was all Nao could say for a while.

"Please, please– do sit down!" he daintily pulls out Nao's chair, ushering him into his seat with all the grace of a very meek mother.

"You're currying favour. What do you want?"

Korosensei immediately crumbled, sprawling onto the ground right before Nao, "ehhh, you see, Kunomasu-sensei, uh, I was just thinking, you know... that like," Korosensei wriggled his fingers nervously like a school girl, "I was thinking we could cut down your classes another smidge, or something, yeah—AAAHH don't glare at me like that I'm sorry! I remember what you did to the last person that took your class time away! Spare me! Anything but my job!"

Nao turned away, trying his best to not murder the octopus with a look.

"Just explain," he sighed, taking a sip of his coffee. It's so close to the final exams, and it's Korosensei– so evidently, he's got a plan.

"Ah, yes," Korosensei is somehow in a dogeza now, chastised. "Here is the schedule I have planned for today. As you can see, our roles today are mostly moved to supervision than actual teaching."

A single tentacle brought over a hand-drawn class schedule, and Nao looked through it. The decrease in training and home ec in lieu of more subject classes was expected, but the amount was not.

"You want the students to tutor each other?" he understood after looking through the next week's schedule as well.

"Yes," Korosensei said, cheerful. And suddenly there was a stack of papers on Nao's desk. "I've delegated each student their schedules, based on who's teaching when and learning when. Down to the hour, and we'll use the whole satellite campus as study areas. It's like college!"

"How so? Ah, in the moving around part?"

There were stakes on the ground indicating class numbers for a set area, complete with chalkboards, mats, and sometimes desks. Their main disadvantage in this campus was how little classrooms they had– but if they used the outside as well, there was plenty of space.

Well, they could certainly learn more from each other than from the same teachers all the time. It's Korosensei's idea, so it's not like he doubted his capabilities.

"It's fine, then," Nao told him. "You didn't need to be so nervous, I'm a reasonable person."

Korosensei chuckled. "Well yes, but seeing what happened to the last person that cut down your class time, I'm just... you see, taking precautions."

This time, Nao could genuinely say nothing but an incredulous, "ah."

-

It was quite endearing, seeing Karma bully his peers (his Math class had the biggest turnouts, especially from students that decided to drop in during their self-study times,) only to get his just desserts when it was Japanese Literature class with Kanzaki and Kataoka who had no qualms about telling him how much he sucks at any form of empathic prose.

Nao watched them as they went on to take the exams.

He supposed there was nothing to worry about. After all, they won in the original material– of course they would win here, too.

He wasn't worried about them in the least.

"Well, my classes today are over, so I'm heading down the mountain," Nao waved, "give me a call if the students have questions."

"And where are you going?" Karasuma asked, skeptical.

Nao grinned. "I'm not worried about these kids, but I do have kids I'm worried about!"

-

"Literature is all about over-analyzing things."

Asano Gakushuu held a little study session with the other virtuosos. Mainly because Gakuho had booted them out of their own classrooms and told them to self-study the rest of the material on their own.

"You can make fun of blue curtains all you want, but for people who can never express themselves properly, blue curtains might be the only way they know how to cry for help," Nao set the book face-down on the table. "So no– you never really have to use literature in your futures. But it's still a great thing to have, if only to practice human empathy."

Sure, you could still memorise the points, revise the given material in the scope, and apply the same theories to the surprise questions– but that just wasn't the point.

Literature is all about the human behind the words. The characters in the text, the reasons of the actions, and the trains of thought as words were penned down.

"Even as people die, their words remain," Nao says. "Their words are immortalised as the emotions they tried to express, and the meanings they tried to bring into physical form. We can understand the hearts of these authors from their writings, even today."

At first glance, Gakushuu didn't have a subject he was weakest in.

But that's simply because he's good at hiding it. There was definitely a subject he had to study harder for, and another subject that came to him like bread and butter.

Just like Karma, Gakushuu was easily tripped by Japanese Literature. You could say the same for Asano Gakuho, not that the man ever needed to take a test to expose himself, but Nao could tell.

"It's basically a practice of psychological observation," Gakushuu says. "How pointless."

Ren was looking incredibly smug beside him, because for just once in his entire life he has gotten higher marks than Gakushuu today. Gakushuu was brooding right now.

Nao chuckled.

There was nothing Nao could do about Gakushuu's general difficulty in understanding sympathetic behaviour. There was no time to take his hand and lead him gently out of the swamp like Nao was trying to do with Gakuho.

Gakushuu grew up learning to only look out for himself. He was taught to never associate with those beneath him. He was cultivated to only differentiate between the useful and the trash.

(Needless to say, he's never been taught how to truly regard his own feelings, either. How could anyone expect him to truly understand the emotions weaved between the lines of metaphorical prose?)

Nao watched as Ren boasted his 99% toward the others.

"Oh my lord guys! I have done it. I have really done it now–" he flipped his hair dramatically, "I got higher marks than your holy highness! I have been blessed by the gods today! It's a miracle! I've got a higher mark than Asano! Asano! Gakushuu! I repeat, I– I need to tell everyone about this. My family, my neighbourhood, my ancestors–"

And Nao continued to watch as Gakushuu lost his temper, leaping out of his seat to secure the offending taller boy in a chokehold.

"You're pushing your luck, Ren! This won't happen again! Shut up!"

It was really rare to see him raise his voice.

Even rarer to see the other virtuosos actually laugh in the face of that threat. Araki attempted to save him, but Natsuhiko was egging him on, while Seo watched from the side, half-heartedly telling them to behave.

Nao smiled. "Shall we do one more?" he suggested, reaching for more test papers with practice questions.

"Yes!' Gakushuu yelled, almost furiously. "I will not be losing again! Absolutely not! Mark my words, Ren!"

They sat down, almost effortfully– and when they worked, diligent, Nao couldn't help but feel warm inside.

There was nothing Nao could do about Gakushuu's struggle with emotions, natures, and individuality. But as Nao watched him interact with the rest of the virtuosos– he found a whole variety of emotions flickering across that usually stone-cold demeanour.

He finds anger expressed in heatless violence, he finds embarrassment laced with frustration– and he finds the joy that comes with a small, insignificant victory among themselves.

And Nao finds that he didn't need to do anything about Gakushuu.

Gakushuu was fine where he was, among those he could call friends.

-

Nao has wondered, since the first day he climbed the mountain, what exactly his purpose was. He had no direction, no great skill, and there wasn't even much space in the source for him to genuinely contribute much.

He's not something that was put here to create a rift. He doesn't have that sort of impact.

He's just an outsider, after all. No matter what he does– the perfect ending of this story won't change. It doesn't have to change, and there's no one who would want to see it change, either.

So what was he here to do?

(Nao didn't really know. He hasn't been able to figure it out yet.)

He sets a hand on his scarf, running a few fingers through the gentle blue fabric. He knows that up on the mountain, the E-class students were celebrating their results, rejoicing for their victory. He should have been there with them, sharing in the joy.

But he isn't there with them.

Instead, he stands before the Kunugigaoka Junior High main campus building, and makes his way inside.

-

Asano was strong, but he was never inherently a violent man. 

He did things with his head-- from the way he terrorized Takaoka into resigning, the way he enchanted students with just three minutes of mind-corrupting phrases. But there were moments where he would inevitably lose himself in the blood of a brutal, merciless beatdown.

Those were the increasingly frequent moments that were slowly rotting away the essence of the old Asano Gakuho, replacing him with the monster he was today.

Nao knew that the part of Asano that always enabled him-- the one that laughed off his crude reports, fixed his tie for him, and made sure there would always be a chair for him to sit in the office-- that was the essence of the kind man he once was.

Somewhere inside, the gentle Asano still existed, and just a little setoff would make him vanish completely. Nao didn't want that to happen.

There have been close calls before. A mug swiping by his face, a pen broken in place of his arm or a finger. A shattered wall in place of a broken rib.

"We apologize for being weak," Ren spoke, and for the first time, he truly believed-- and rejected-- the ideals of their perfect Board Chairman. "If you're dissatisfied with us..." the class, as one, bowed their heads. "Then please send us to Class E."

"We believe that we may be able to grow better there."

(They had been thoroughly defeated in this war.)

(It was not that their efforts were lacking-- the flaws in Asano's social strata had just revealed themselves in all its hollowed glory, as inevitable as it had been from the beginning.)

But this time would be the first time Asano had struck for only malicious intents.

In another world, it would have been his son at the other end of that hand, and there would be bruises, a broken table, and a concussion.

In this world, however, Nao reached over just in time to snag Gakushuu and pull him aside, placing himself between them with an arm held up to his side, a meager defense against the sheer force that hurtled him painfully to the side.

Failing to buffer the strength at all, his arm bends, just a little, just a little too much-- the pressure transferring right through his bone and into his skull-- his breath hitches.

He collided against the tables, but he kept his arm around Gakushuu and between them until he came to a stop right before the far wall.

There were flashes in his vision, and a ringing in his ear. He may have bitten his lip by accident, but he's not sure if the iron he's tasting was due to that or something else. His arm hurt like a bitch, but that was far from his priority.

"K- Kuma-sensei?!"

He didn't let go of Gakushuu. Instead, he loosened his grip just a little, arms (both arms, because who cares about the pain,) to Gakushuu's face-- his eyes darting about hurriedly, quickly, desperately-- searching for injuries.

"Are you alright?" Nao asked, because he can't be sure so soon.

Gakushuu's eyes were blown wide, and his mouth hung agape. There's a shakiness in his gaze as they filled with horror, then, something glistening.

"Y--" his voice was all choked up, "yes, I am."

Nao let his head droop, relief flooding his senses. "I see, that's great," he said, letting go gently to let his hands fall, wincing sharply at the agony in his arm that finally registered.

"Kuma-sensei!" There's the rest of the virtuosos, but Ren was the one that spoke. "You're bleeding!"

When Nao brought a hand to his lips, he confirmed that, indeed, his mouth had filled with blood. The dizziness may be a sign of a light concussion but he couldn't be sure.

"It's fine," he said, despite their protests. Gakushuu looked like he was stuck between a furious lecture and a wholehearted sob fest, he couldn't decide.

He turned to Asano. The Board Chairman himself had been left staring blankly upon his own hand, unable to fully register the extent of his own actions.

"The students have said all they wanted to," Nao told them, "you guys should go now."

The students filed out promptly. Gakushuu gave the teacher one long, concerned look-- but turned away with the rest of his class.

-

"...Why did you get in the way?"

Nao chuckled. "I wonder. I just didn't want you to do something you would regret."

Now Asano watched as Nao pulled a chair out for himself to sit down, bringing with him a table. He leaned heavily into his uninjured arm to not-so-subtly give his head something to rest on.

"So," Nao said. "Sit with me?"

Asano bites his lip, and the look of murder in his eyes was probably an indicator that Nao should run. But he couldn't. Not with this heart, not with this headache. So he waited, smiling strained, and waited patiently.

"I refuse," the answer came sharp.

Asano turned to leave, not once looking back. He would probably head straight up Class E's building, bringing a demolition team with him. 

And the rest would be history.

Nao waited a full minute before letting out a heavy breath, all his tension– and the adrenaline– leaving him. Slowly he felt it, the agony in his arm and his head finally rose and throbbed and took center stage in his everything.

It's worse than he'd thought. Maybe it's just because he's weak and his bones aren't quite strong after so much deterioration. He took solace in the fact that if it had been Gakushuu, it wouldn't have been this bad.

"Ugh, I'll need a hospital," he groaned, trying not to throw up.

(But at the very least, the school will be fine from now on.)

He sat there, in the silent, ruined classroom– and silently, he wondered if he was allowed to feel so slightly accomplished over something so small.

But he smiled.

Because it might be insignificant, in some sense. To some people, this might be dumb and unnecessary. Nothing would change even if he didn't do anything– the most important part of that development lay in what was happening on the mountain, not whatever this stupid thing he just did was.

He didn't need to be here.

But he was.

(What meaning could come from this? Maybe if someone were to strip this down to its bare bones, they would find the emotions he himself couldn't initially discover. Maybe if someone looked from the outside in, they would understand the train of thought in his impulses, they would be able to dissect his humanity down to a point where they may understand him better than he ever could himself.)

One day, someone will find the meaning of his life.

But until then, he'll try and understand it on his own.

-

"U- Uhm, Kuma-sen... KUMA-SENSEI?!"

"GUYS CALL AN AMBULANCE!"

"Wait no," he yelps, "you guys are still here?! And I'm fine, don't panic! I mean I need the ambulance, but don't panic! It's better than it looks!"

"HE'S DYING! AMBULANCE, HURRY UP!"