AFTER A CHAOTIC redemption arc of her blonde teacher (and karma's decision to make the class call her 'bitch-sensei', much to mina's distress)
, as well as a painful student assembly, in which gakushu ignored mina once again, midterms were coming up. And this was the Hayashi way of doing it.
"How many of these do you have, Sensei??" Maehara's shocked voice called out as the students looked at the various copies and clones of their teacher, each student being surrounded by at least one of them.
Normally, of course, this would had led to another scream by mina, but this was different.
She had to place first, second, whatever it took her to get back into her old class. Other than the rest of her classmates, who had accepted their fate inside this one. She couldn't disappoint everyone like that. Her mother, gakushu, her teachers. Everyone.
So as it naturally went, two weeks before the mid terms started, you could see mina studying deep into the night, leaving no time for distractions and worrying the people around her, and ultimately leading to her warming up to her teacher.
There were precisely three moments in these two weeks that were memorable, regarding that.
1. Wednesday, 12:30 AM, 11 days left until mid-terms
"Mina.. are you sure you don't want a break?" Nagisa sheepishly asked the girl as all of the students took a quick break in-between the studying session with their teacher. Mainly to rest and eat, partly because koro-sensei was knocked out on his teacher's chair after he had used much of his energy for the clones.
"Yeah, you have been studying like, non-stop, even without koro-sensei's help! You will do great in the mid-terms!" A confused yada added, biting a bit off her sandwich as the majority of the E-class' students looked at the brunette girl in the very end of her classroom.
"No, you guys, thank you." The usually chat friendly girl kept her answer quick, not moving her eyes from her book as Rio and karma send eachother a knowing look, making the rest of their friends even more confused.
____
2. Thursday, 3:00 PM, 3 days left until mid-terms
Mina was walking down the 3-E class' hill with a particular red-head, both of them heading home after yet another studying session with their teacher. Quieter than usual, as the brunette girl kept her head inside her book even on her way home, leaving karma pretty alone next to her.
"You know, I heard reading too many books makes your eyes fall out. Might want to check on that, princess." Karma commented, holding both his hands behind his head.
"Ha ha. Very funny, Akabane." She grumbled, turning yet another page as she felt a gentle pull on her low ponytail, making the hair tie fall out into a certain red-heads hand.
Karma now held her hair tie in his hand, grabbing onto it, making mina stop in her action to look up to him. She tried reading his facial expression, a little taken back by his action.
"What?" The red-headed boy smirked slightly "I like your hair open."
She got taken out of her trance, now trying to reach his hand in the air to get it back, clearly annoyed at hin. "Give it back, red-head, It's a mess otherwise!"
"Nope," the boy said, holding his hand up while grinning down at her "I'm keeping it. You will now have to take care of it properly, as you usually do." He added, slowly starting to run in his direction matter-of-factly, making her close her book and run after him.
"Idiot! Give it back!"
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3. Monday, 7:00 AM, day of mid-terms
"Mina, sweetie, you haven't gone to sleep? I thought I told you to keep it civil." Hori Hayashi spoke worriedly, making her and her daughter coffee while looking at mina, who was sitting at the kitchen table in her pajamas and with deep, dark, eye circles, surrounded by various notebooks and highlighted texts.
"I'm okay, mom, I promise." Mina mumbled, shooting her mother a weak smile before continuing to read through one of her texts. "I just really, really want to do this."
"I know, sweetheart, I know. But you need to sleep, it's what keeps you pretty." The woman spoke gently as she poured her daughter some coffee, smiling at her with a hint of worry in her eyes.
"Who cares if I'm pretty if I fail my mid-terms, mom?" The distressed girl held her hands up in a theatrical matter as she took a sip of her coffee, making her mother raise an eyebrow before grinning slightly.
"You got this all backwards, mina." Hori kissed her daughter's cheek once more before grabbing her bag and leaving for work.
Answer. Tuesday, 8 days after mid-terms
The air inside the classroom 3-E was bad, too many people felt anger for the mood to be remotely good. The usual sunshine weather was to be completely ignored as each and every student (some more, some less) looked at their test results in distress. Nobody was daring themselve to interrupt the silence as their yellow teacher began talking.
"This is all my fault." He said, his head turned away from the disappointed students of his, facing the board
"I, well, I underestimated the cruelty of this school, guys. I'm sorry. I'm, so, so sorry."
Mina didn't listen as she looked down on her papers, which scores equal to 496/500 points in total, placing her at the third place in the school overall, and the first place regarding only female students.
The girl didn't know what to feel. Firstly, her mother would most likely tell her that 496 is a perfectly acceptable score. And, even if she would agree on normal circumstances, this was different. This score didn't lead to one of her teachers reaching out to her and requesting her back into the main building, it didn't lead to the board chairman apologising for placing her in this class, and it didn't lead to gakushu texting her back, talking to her. At least not yet.
Mina was crushed, to say the least.
"Hey! Koro-sensei!" a familiar voice made her look up from her desk, the red-head was walking towards their teacher as he threw a knife in his direction.
"Not now, karma! I'm being depressed, don't you see?!" Koro-sensei shouted at the young boy, his skin colour changing from yellow to red as a little steam came out of his head.
He didn't answer. Instead, he threw his results on the teacher's desk and smirked mischievously.
Karma Akabane had 497 points out of 500 in his mid-terms, placing him at the second place in the overall school ranking, just above mina.
"The change of subject in the last question didn't matter for me. Based on my overall knowledge, you have taught me way too much, so that question was just as easy." The red-head boy explained as his smirk grew even wider.
"Woah! You got the perfect score in maths, karma!" Kaede shouted out excitedly as the students surrounded him and Their teacher.
"Right. I placed second in the ranking. Also, I'm pretty sure the cute little depressed brunette in the back placed third, so that makes two of us in the top 50, koro-sensei. I don't want to leave the 3-E though, murdering you is way more fun than the folks in the main building could even dream of." He added, making his classmates gasp and mumble.
"So what now, teach'? Do you just leave like a coward because we didn't all rank in the top 50 students? You can just say that you're scared of us~" karma asked, making the room lighten up as maehara added to this theory.
"Yeah, koro-sensei! You can tell us, you know!" The blonde boy spoke as he crossed his arms behind his head, making some students giggle and others chime in, ending in them all teasing their teacher, who was now jumping around in defence.
Only one of them wasn't laughing, and that was the brown haired girl in the very back of the class. Surprisingly, that was also the girl that karma Akabane kept looking at in-between the occasional joke, and it was the girl who, deep down, worried him the most.
____
As every student that day left to go home, Rio and Mina were left to do the cleaning service. And when a concerned Rio had to leave too, ultimately, to catch a bus, it was only mina and the afternoon sun slowly setting as the girl sat on some stairs after watering the school yard's plants.
"You should go home, Hayashi-san. It will be dark and late soon, you will worry your parents." A cheerful, but matter-of-factly voice chimed in mina's ears, making her squeak a little.
She turned around quickly, only to notice that it was non other than her octopus teacher talking to her. The girl shifted, looking at the ground again.
"You still haven't really warmed up to me, as I see." The voice came closer as her happy teacher was ultimately standing directly behind her.
"May I, Hayashi-san?" He smiled at the girl, pointing at the place next to her, making her nod slightly before sighing.
"It's mina." The girl said, quietly, after a while of starting at the sun.
"Sorry?"
"Please call me Mina." She repeated, this time louder and clearer, making koro-sensei's smile even brighter.
"Well then, mina. I wanted to congratulate you, your scores were magnificent. And that even though the exam got rigged, isn't that exciting?" He asked cheerfully, leaning back to sun himself.
The girl kept quiet, looking down at her lap before small tears build in her eyes.
"It's not fair." She slowly looked up, trying to keep herself from crying.
"It's not fair! I got placed third overall, why don't they want me back, koro-sensei? What did I do? The committee people, They have to hate me! it's like they know me...- I just want.. i just want things to go back to how they used to be! "
The teacher stayed silent, listening to each thing mina had to say. How from how she was a disappointed to how none of her old classmates would talk to her to how she couldn't look her mother in her eyes anymore after she had sacrificed so, so much.
And after all that was done and said, after a few tears had found their way down her face, the yellow octopus did nothing but gently place his tentacle on her shoulder, looking directly into her eyes.
"You are doing great."
·★·
1788 WORDS
WEDNESDAY, 27TH OF DECEMBER
@MIRAI