Running From A Name (Bruno Buccellati x Reader)

Chapter 26: A New Professor

A/N: I'm back from my cave! It hasn't been that long since I updated. But considering my usual posting pattern, it has been long time. I took a writing break. I caught up on some shows and did some rewatches(Attack on Titan and Yu Yu Hakusho if you want to get specific).  

But now I am in crunch time because I leave for training this month. I need to provide you guys with as much story as possible before I go. Speaking of the military, I swore in Saturday. So I am no longer a recruit. I am offcially a member of the U.S. Air Force! 

Let me stop rambling and get to the chapter.

Alma took a large bite of her sandwich as she flipped through her English notes. She grimaced at the explosion of vinegar in her mouth.

Alma had made sandwiches for herself, Angelo, and Flavio for lunch. She must have taken Flavio's sandwich by mistake when she left her apartment this morning.

Flavio enjoyed putting an ungodly amount of mustard in his sandwiches. A small dash of the condiment Alma could understand. The tanginess complemented the juiciness of the tomatoes and blended well with the savoriness of the meat. It also brought out the saltiness of the pickles. But the amount of mustard Flavio liked in his sandwiches masked the flavors of all the other ingredients. Angelo gagged every time he saw Flavio eat a sandwich. Flavio would shrug him off and say, "The sandwich tasted boring if there wasn't a bunch of mustard."

Alma checked her watch and made a surprised noise. Her Drawing 101 class started at 2:30, and it was already 2:25.

Alma's surprised noise caused the mustard to go down the wrong pipe. It burned her throat as she choked on it. She reached for her water bottle and gulped it down like she was dying of thirst in a desert.

Once she regained her composure, Alma shoved the rest of the mustard sandwich into her lunch bag and her English notes into her bookbag. She positioned herself to start running, but she stopped abruptly. "Should I even bother?" She asked herself aloud.

It was the third week of school, and Professor Kishibe was still missing. There was no way he could be so busy that he could not come to teach his class at least once. The first month of the second semester was almost over, dammit. At this point, Alma bet that Professor Kishibe got kidnapped and was getting held for ransom. Or worse, he was getting sold off in a human auction to the highest bid.

Alma's last guess as to why Professor Kishibe was absent was the one she feared. He was an asshole who did not want to waste his time on college students.

Half of Alma's classmates stopped showing up. She couldn't blame them. If a note taped to the door greeted her again today, she would join her classmates in their skipping escapades. Could it even be classified as skipping if the teacher never came to class? If the teacher disappeared, the students had the right to disappear.

When Alma arrived at the Drawing 101 room, she blinked once, then twice. There was no note, the lights were on, and students filled the desks. At the front of the room stood an actual human man. The man was Japanese, making Alma believe he was her professor. But when she squinted her eyes, she saw that he was far too young to be a professor. He had to be one of the students who didn't bother coming to class because Alma did not recognize him. He probably got tired of the professor's constant absence and decided to designate himself as the new professor. Are we so desperate for a professor that we resorted to having a student teach the class?

Alma jiggled the doorknob, but it would not budge. The man at the front of the room came to the door and opened it. The first thing that came to Alma's mind as she gazed at this man was the word interesting. He had a slim build and styled his teal hair in a slicked-sideways undercut. He had a face molded by a sculptor. His eyebrows were delicate, and his cheekbones were sharp. At first glance, his eyes appeared to match his hair color. But upon closer inspection, his eyes were different colors. The right eye was teal, and the left eye was gold.