Our Teacher is a Yakuza Princess

Chapter 24

The day that changed everything started innocuously enough.

There were still a few minutes until homeroom started, and Shin was napping at his desk. If Yankumi practiced her speech for the upcoming symposium on Saturday one more time, he decided, he was heading to the roof for the rest of the day. He knew it was exciting for her, but high school boys only had limited interest in these things.

With his eyes closed, he could hear the sounds of his classmates talking, the screech of moving desks, the impact of a ball being tossed around, and rapidly approaching footsteps. He lifted his head from his arm to see who was running in, and why they wanted to reach 3-D so fast. Maybe something interesting happened, he thought.

"Bad news! Bad news! Really, really bad news!" Takeda shouted as he skidded into the classroom. The rest of the students looked up as he shoved the magazine towards Uchi, then stood panting.

"What's going on?" Uchi asked, staring at the cover of the latest issue of Wednesday Weekly.

"Page…thirteen!" Takeda gasped as he tried to catch his breath. Frowning, Uchi flipped through the pages as the rest of the boys gathered around. When page thirteen finally came into view, there was a round of wide eyes, surprised gasps, and shocked curses. Shin felt his stomach drop to the floor.

It was a full two page picture of Yankumi in her full on battle mode, taken right after she backhanded a gang member with a pipe. "Violence in front of a student!" The tagline read. "Big rough-up with thugs!" The column on the right declared, "Fireball teacher is the 4th generation head of a yakuza family!"

She's not the 4th head, she's the granddaughter of the 3rd generation head, Shin thought in a daze, then shook his head to clear it. That detail didn't matter. Her secret was out.

"What the hell?" Uchi asked as he stared at the magazine.

Everyone knew now. Shin glanced up as he realized what kind of hell she was going to catch for this.

"Yankumi," he breathed, and had a sudden desire to try and shield her from all the pain this would cause.

"That's… that's one of the guys who came after me," Kuma said slowly, pointing at the man in the photo. "This was from when my dad…" He couldn't finish.

"Is this true?" Noda asked, glancing around. Almost as if by instinct, his eyes darted at Shin. For a moment, Shin froze, praying his face didn't give him away. Noda must have seen something however, because he turned towards Shin and opened his mouth to ask another question.

Before he could say anything, Shin interrupted him. "Does it matter?" He asked the class. When they all shifted their gazes to him, he explained, "Does it change who she is? What she's done for us?" There was a long pause, then, one by one, his classmates looked at the floor, considering his words. Shin waited, holding his breath.

"No."

Shin turned to Kuma, surprised at the strength in the boy's voice.

"This picture was taken because she came to find me. Because she rescued me. I don't care if she's yakuza – she's the only teacher that cared about me like that." Kuma almost glared at the rest of them, daring someone to make fun of him or attack Yankumi.

Silence followed, then Uchi let out a soft chuckle. "That explains why she's so good at fighting."

"And so bad at teaching math," Minami added with a growing smile. The boys laughed, then started adding their own reasons why her being part of a yakuza family made sense. Shin tried to suppress the smile he felt at swell of pride in his classmates. She had never judged them because of their families or mannerisms, and they certainly weren't going to start.