Our Teacher is a Yakuza Princess

Chapter 2

Sawada Shin was resting.

He liked laying on the grass and listening to the sounds of the river, the wind, the distant steps of people crossing the bridge. He often left his house early (no one was there but him anyways) and took naps on the hillside. With his eyes closed, he could forget about the real world for a moment. He could imagine he was somewhere far away, far from crowded cities, disappointed dads, terrible teachers, and annoying adults.

"SAWADA-KUN! GOOD MORNING!"

Speak of the devil. Shin cracked opened his eyes and turned toward the noise. There she was, grinning widely and looking like a dork. He sighed and turned away. If she was trying to make friends, yelling at him in the morning wasn't the way to do it.

"Don't be late, kay!" She shouted, then looked at her own watch, panicked, and ran off, obviously late for something. Hypocrite, he thought, then paused as memories from last night, at this same river, came rushing back.

Her punching Kuma. Her speech about being delinquents with pride and dignity. The question came again. Who was she? Why did she do that? What did she want? Shin shook his head and went back to sleep. Even thinking about her was exhausting.

When he finally woke up, he realized he was late, but all the better. It wouldn't do to have her think he actually listened to her or anything. He wandered onto campus and headed toward his classroom. He had just passed the announcement board when he stopped, thought a moment, then backtracked. There, on the ground by the board, as if somehow had hurriedly ripped it off, was a torn and wrinkled paper with herhead on some model's body. "I want a man!" the paper declared, along with "Yeah, baby!", "Boing boing!", and "Yankumi Sux!".

Yankumi? He wondered. Ah. Yamaguchi Kumiko. Yan-Kumi. Huh. It fit her somehow. He glanced down at the paper again. That certainly didn't. Shin shuddered a bit. Stupid Noda and his Photoshop. As he continued his walk to his classroom, he saw that Yankumi wasn't the only victim. All the papers in the trash had Vice Principal's head stuck on a monkey. Heh. The similarity between Sarutari (monkey-tari) and Sawatari (his actual name) was too easy for kids in his class to ignore.

He finally sauntered into his class halfway into the period. Yankumi looked up and seemed surprised that he was late.

"Sawada! I told you not to be late." He gave her a glance that asked, 'Yeah, so?', then rolled his eyes and looked away. But when she had turned back to the board, he gave her a thoughtful stare. Maybe today he'd find out that she was just like all the other teachers. Or maybe she'd do something completely unexpected again. It unsettled him a bit to be unable to predict her actions. He could usually get a good read on people, but she seemed to cheerfully dodge all the normal tendencies that adults had. Annoying. But, it was a little interesting too.

"That stupid Head Teacher really ticks me off." Uchi muttered, kicking Minami's desk. "Shall we teach him a lesson?"

The other guys looked up eagerly. "Yeah!"

"Guys, I have the perfect idea!" Noda chimed in. Shin glanced up. It would be Noda's idea.

The conversation turned to how the Head Teacher's car was yellow like a banana, and how it didn't stick out enough, and that it was sad and plain looking and they should decorate it so everyone would know it was Head Monkey's car.

As they all ran for the locker that held all the spray paint, Shin opted out.

"Aw, why not?" Uchi whined.

"I'm tired. I'm going up to the roof." As he found his favorite bench, he couldn't help but guess at what would happen. He used to be great at predicting the future until Yankumi came along. He wondered how she would interrupt the normal process of suspicion and blaming and threats that the Vice Principal had established.