Karma: After Story

High School Time

"Akabane." Oh, so he finally noticed. Considering Karma was sitting near the front, it was shocking it took him that long to realise he wasn't paying attention to any of his babbling – Karma doubted any of the students understood it with the speed he was erasing the board with. "I see you're paying very close attention to my explanation."

"Wow! Kurokawa-sensei, did you know 3-E covered this last year~?" Karma could tell the whole class was staring at him, "I'd say you're pretty bad at teaching considering half the students here barely understand what you're saying."

"If you're that good, Akabane," he huffed, "why don't you come here and teach the class?"

"I'd love to." Karma wasn't kidding, he got up from his seat and practically snatched Kurokawa-sensei's chalk. It's not like he had anything better to do, anyways. He started writing what he knew about the topic and explaining it the best he could. Exactly how Korosensei explained it to us. It seemed like everyone else understood it too. Ha, maybe I should be the one getting a job as a teacher, he jokingly thought to himself.

Kurokawa-sensei was at a loss for words, seemingly humiliated, he ordered Karma to get back to his seat. Jealous? That you're not as great a teacher as Korosensei? Karma chuckled. Satisfied, he stuck his tongue out and strolled back, resting his arms behind his neck.

It seemed his little lesson during Maths gained him some popularity. During the break, a bunch of his classmates approached him, all pestering him with questions. Great, can't even eat my food in peace. Karma decided to humour them and answer their questions, hoping it'd get them to leave him alone.

"How'd you learn to teach like that, Akabane-kun?"

He felt like he was being interviewed or something.

"Well~ I had a pretty good teacher last year as you probably saw in the news – he was really passionate about teaching and worked harder than any other teacher would, it's crazy." Something stirred up in Karma, and a few unintended words spilled out of his mouth, "...plus, I have a good friend who's an aspiring teacher."

Where did that come from? Nagisa's really been intruding his thoughts lately, it was getting unhealthy. These thoughts seemed to have reached a new high. He didn't even notice that the "reporters" walked away.

"A good friend, huh?" He was watching. How wonderful. Karma remained silent, he didn't have any reason to tell Asano anything. Asano approached him, keeping his voice low, "your obvious feelings for Shiota aside, you did promise to tell me more about this Korosensei who was such a great teacher to your class."

Karma visibly cringed at the first part of what he said. He knew? Maybe he just said that to get under his skin, but he couldn't help but scorn, knowing that Asano had an idea about he felt.

"Yeah. Like I said, a great teacher. What else do you want to know."

"If your feelings for Shiota are bothering you this much, why don't you just confess already?"

As if it's that easy. Was he a hypocrite for thinking that? Considering he told Kayano the exact same thing like it was nothing.

"Why do you care?" Karma scoffed.

"You've obviously been thinking hard about something. That offhand comment tells me it has something to do with Shiota."

"How do you even know I was talking about Nagisa? It's not like any of us shared our career goals with you." How did this suddenly become about Nagisa?

"I have my own way of gathering intel." Before he could say anything, the bell rang, signifying the end of their break. Saved by the bell, quite literally.