Flowered Daggers (Akira Kurusu/P5 Protag x Fem!Reader)

Ch 5 - Cats and Calling Cards

Impatient, Mr. Inui didn't wait long before he spoke again with a flat tone. "It's Nero." He then sighed before continuing, a stern tone in his voice now. "It's good to throw yourself into your club activities, but you shouldn't sacrifice your studies."

Yuuki stood there in silence a good few seconds before you heard his meek voice again. "Sorry..." The volleyball player then sat back down. His head was turned towards the teacher again, but you saw his gaze was lowered and dulled.

Movement caught your eye as the teacher gestured towards Akira before he spoke. "That said, you don't seem to into sports, Kurusu-kun."

As usual when called upon, Akira immediately sat up straight from his slouched position. You noted the cat in his desk again and today it was lazily moving its tail up and down, eyes closed. It didn't seem disturbed by your friend's sudden movement.

"What event did Emperor Nero add to the Olympics so that he could participate?" Mr. Inui asked, his gaze fixed on Akira.

You watched the raven-haired boy think for a second. He then answered while making a nonchalant hand motion, his voice calm in contrast to Yuuki's. "Singing."

The history teacher gestured widely as he smiled before clapping his hands. "Correct." He then took his normal stance again. "Hm. Seems you've been studying after all." He then looked over the class again. "Apparently Nero was tone deaf, but he ended up winning. The emperor held absolute power, after all. Because of these kinds of selfish actions -not to mention a lecherous side- he became known as a despot."

As Mr. Inui paused to write some notes on the chalkboard, the class began to mutter. "He's right." "No way." "Sheesh." "I thought he was asleep."

You looked over the class, your eyes settling on a student towards the front right of the class as he turned around to the girl behind him. "Whoa, he actually knew that?"

"Maybe I should ask if I can borrow his notes..." The girl mused in reply as you saw her glance over in Akira's direction.

You chuckled quietly to yourself as you heard the last comment. Perhaps your criminal friend could win over a few of the others in the class by impressing them with his intelligence. After all, from your study session a couple days ago you knew his studious appearance wasn't simply for show.

That's when a soft meow caught your attention and you looked over to the cat in Akira's desk. It was looking up at him and you could hear a quiet purr between the murmuring comments around you. It's blue eyes seemed to glow from within the darkness of the desk and, as far as you could tell, it seemed pretty happy being there.

Like when he answered a question correctly before, Akira rubbed the back of his neck as he rolled his head from side to side. You still weren't sure what kind of gesture that was, but you were starting to feel it was out of confidence. However, you didn't have time to analyze him further as you heard Mr. Inui begin to speak again.

"That said, recently people have begun reevaluating Nero's reign. Regardless though, he was lacking in sportsmanship. He should have taken a page out of Kamoshida-kun's book!" The teacher then chuckled heartily for a moment as he turned to the chalkboard and began to write "Nero" in large letters at the top. "Now, turn to page 76. We'll be doing our own analysis of Nero's reign today."

You frowned at the comment implying Kamoshida having good sportsmanship. As far as you were concerned, if he was a good sport then he wouldn't have used a professional spike on students the other day. With that thought you glanced over at Yuuki again. He seemed to have recovered well enough physically, but whenever you passed him at school you could still see the pain in his eyes. Between that, what happened with Shiho, and the numerous "practice" injuries the members of the team had on a regular basis - which seemed to only increase in number since Shiho's incident - you were beginning to believe the rumors of abuse were actually true and not just an exaggeration.