Venomous Deception ✅

Chapter Two

"Shimada-kun."

Genji looked up from his notes. Social Studies was the last class of the day for class 1-4, taught by their homeroom teacher. Keisuke Okabe-sensei stood at the front of the class holding his teacher's book. He was an easy-going teacher in his mid-twenties that most of the students looked up to and thought highly of. It helped that he was one of the few teachers who had taken the new dress code for teachers and had dyed his hair, though he had chosen a shade of red so dark that it looked black.

"Yes?" Genji stood up. He saw the classmates who surrounded him flinch at his movement but he ignored them.

"What were the ramifications of the Ryūkyū Shinkō?" Okabe-sensei asked him.

Several students in the class sucked in their breaths and held it in. Genji tried not to roll his eyes at their reactions. "Ryūkyū maintained its independency, but was considered a vassal state of the Satsuma domain."

"And how long did this vassalage last?"

"Until 1879, when it was annexed by Okinawa."

"Very good, Shimada-kun," Okabe-sensei praised him with a smile.

"Thank you, Sensei." Genji sat down, and sounds of exhaling filled the room. This time Genji did roll his eyes. What? Did they expect me to attack Sensei if he told me I was wrong? Or do they think I'm stupid and don't know anything? I got 9th place on the entrance exam! I did better on that test than most of the student population!

It was the last class of the day before cleaning and so most of the students were exhausted from the heat and from learning. But Genji kept his focus and idly glanced at his watch from time to time. But he wasn't waiting for the end of the day like the rest of the class. No...the end of the day was what he dreaded the most every day.

I don't want to go home. But I can't just stay in school overnight. All I can do is avoid going home until I have to go home.

He glanced towards the window and saw Yukinaga's beautiful two-story library, a standalone building near the auditorium. It was the place he spent all of his time after school, doing his homework and getting ahead on other work. There was nothing else he could do to pass the time before going home.

The Suzuhara schools forbid students from getting a job. And I can't loiter in my neighborhood because THEY will find me. He rubbed a hand over his face underneath the bangs, his fingers tracing his scar. And Dad...he was already drinking when I woke up. If I'm lucky then he'd be passed out when I get home, but I don't want to take that risk...

Genji sighed heavily, and the students sitting around him flinched again. He felt like screaming in anger and anguish but he swallowed the howl before it came out. Three more years. I just have to survive high school and get into university so I can make video games and make money, and get out of that hellhole I call home. I can do it...even if no one else believes in me.

*

"So in this problem we are looking for the solution of tan0°. To find tan0° you need to use the formula opposite divided by adjacent. But when we look at the marked angle of the isosceles triangle it is 45 degrees. The side immediately opposite of the designated angle is 12 cm. The adjacent side of the designated angle is x. This diagram as it is now is  tan45° and not tan0°, so we will need to determine tan45° before we can determine tan0°. Tan45° thus has the equation of 12 divided by x. X is not a number and 12 cannot be divisible by x in its current form, so x needs to be determined before tan0° can be determined. To calculate x we need to divide 12 by tan45°. Tan45° is 1, so that would make the equation 12 divided by 1, which equals 12, which makes sense as this triangle is an isosceles triangle. So x equals 12 in this equation. Now, to find tan0°—"