Chapter 404: Because, He Is My Most Favorite Student
Chapter 404: Because, He Is My Most Favorite Student
Before the Female Teacher returned, Mashiro left.
She refused to let Himekoji see her off.
“If Akito is by my side, I won’t be able to stay calm.”
That was the reason.
Himekoji stopped in his tracks as she said.
Because, he also realized that in this situation, if he stayed by Mashiro’s side, he too would feel restless inside.
So, when Hiratsuka-sensei returned, she saw Himekoji sitting alone on a bench with his head hung low.
“Here.”
He took the water handed to him by the Female Teacher. Although he was very thirsty, he didn’t feel like drinking it at all.
“…Sensei, I think, I finally understand.”
She didn’t ask what Himekoji understood.
The Female Teacher just rubbed his head softly, as if feeling sorry for him.
“Oh? Even so, do you have to make such a tired face? Didn’t you understand?”
“It’s because I understood that I can only make such a face now.”
He tried to sound light and easy, but when he started speaking, the words still came out too gloomy.
“Heh, should I say… you have finally grown up?”
Hiratsuka-sensei gave Himekoji a long look, and as she spoke, she smoothly pulled a lady’s cigarette from her pocket and put it between her red lips.
It seemed like something an old man would do, but when the Female Teacher did it, it had a special kind of charm.
“Can that be counted as growth?”
“Of course it can. Before this, weren’t you the sort of awkward, shy coward who hid from things in your feelings?”
“Huh?”
It sounded harsh, but he couldn’t argue against it.
He really was a coward who hid from things and was afraid.
Hurt by her words, Himekoji looked up without thinking. Sitting there slumped, his eyes moved from down to up, toward the Female Teacher.
“By your usual tricks and smart ways, I thought you would tell yourself that all your true feelings were just illusions and mistakes. You always did that, right? If it’s only an illusion or a mistake, doesn’t it feel easier?”
The “smart ways” she talked about were clearly meant to be mocking.
Himekoji’s sore spot was hit a second time in a short while.
The Female Teacher seemed to know everything that had happened. She knew all about Himekoji, clear as day.
“Clever people, if they face something hard to choose, act like it’s not there, because it’s feelings that will tie them up, hurt them and make them sad, so they won’t look at it. Pain that isn’t seen isn’t pain at all.”
The Female Teacher stared hard at Himekoji, and each word she said held a hidden meaning.
Himekoji understood her clearly.
The “clever person” she talked about meant him.
Because he liked two people at once, he treated the second liking he found as a mistake or illusion, and ignored it.
She saw even that through.
Do Senseis always know their students so well?
“Hah, what is that? That cleverness is really sneaky…”
Himekoji laughed at himself, and then he dropped his head again, full of regret and guilt.
“That cleverness… no, that sneaky man must not know that feelings aren’t the type to disappear just because you pretend not to see them.”
The more he spoke, the more he blamed himself. He gripped the plastic water bottle in his hand tighter and tighter.
“Since it’s feelings—any kind of feelings—it doesn’t allow any half-hearted treatment! What’s more, it wasn’t a mistake or an illusion at all. It was all real!”
Getting to know someone, being around them, each day, each hour, each minute, each second spent together, all the big and small things they went through—all that built up and piled on top. The feelings that were born from that were totally true.
Could they ever be fake?
After letting all that out at once, he felt much better inside.
When Himekoji raised his head, he noticed the Female Teacher was smiling at him.
“If it’s clever or if it’s sneaky doesn’t matter. The important thing is, I believe that man will, in the end, figure things out and pick the right choice. That’s enough.”
“Even if every choice he made before was wrong?”
“Yes.”
“Even if that man has always been a coward who hides from things?”
“Yes.”
“Even if that man is totally rotten, a mean guy, a fool, a pervert?”
“Yes. Even then, I believe. I’ve always believed.”
“Because…”
The Female Teacher’s voice paused. Her eyes looked a bit far away and misty. Without Himekoji noticing, she breathed in deeply, then she went on—
“Because, that man is my most favorite student.”
At that moment, Hiratsuka-sensei’s smile was so very kind. Himekoji almost couldn’t believe it was for him.
If the Female Teacher hadn’t had that cigarette slanted in her mouth, Himekoji might truly have thought it was an angel there in that flash.
So, even someone wrongheaded like him had a person who trusted he could do the right thing?
Always trusting…
She’d watched all his mistakes, seen every error he made, yet still believed he could be correct…
“Se… Sensei…”
His sight blurred fast. The world in front of him became hazy and covered with a misty wetness.
“What’s the matter?”
“I…”
His voice came out with a tiny bit of a stuffy nose, and the Female Teacher caught it right away.
“Wait, you… you, you’re crying? I didn’t mean to be mean to you!”
Hiratsuka-sensei jumped a little.
In her mind, she’d never seen Himekoji cry like this, so messy.
He had always been tough and kept things to himself, his sadness or pain.
“It’s because of you, Sensei…”
“What? Do you have more to blame me for?”
“No…”
Himekoji tried hard to wipe his tears away.
But it didn’t stop at all.
Tears kept falling down, not stopping at all.
“No… it’s not that. Because the words were so gentle, how could I not cry?”
“Is that so? Gentle? Then, since gentle words, I’ll say one more.”
“…”
While Himekoji was still wondering what the words would be.
But Hiratsuka-sensei was already holding the cigarette butt with style, pretending to be all serious, she cleared her throat and spoke,
“Would you like one too?”
“Huh?”
Himekoji was frozen for a long time before he got it.
The “one” in Hiratsuka-sensei’s mouth meant a cigarette.
“This mood right now suits it well.”
Where did it suit?!
Though he wanted to say that back, when his mouth opened, it came out as a soft “Mm.”
Like this, Himekoji looked like an obedient good kid.
Though a teacher who offers a student a smoke was clearly not a proper good teacher.
Hiratsuka-sensei didn’t expect Himekoji to react this way.
“Eh? Aren’t you going to argue back?”
“Argue back about what?”
“About how this isn’t gentle at all?”
No way!
All words from a gentle person are gentle.
Of course, he didn’t have the guts to say that out loud.
“Just give it to me.”
Himekoji held out his hands to Hiratsuka-sensei, asking for a cigarette.
Hiratsuka-sensei gave him a cigarette along with a lighter.
The result—
“Hmm, looks like it’s out of fuel.”
Himekoji watched the lighter refusing to spark for ages; on his messy, tear-stained face, he couldn’t help looking embarrassed again.
“Oh? We’ll find another way then.”
As if getting an idea.
Hiratsuka-sensei, with the cigarette between her thin lips, suddenly leaned in; her grown-up and bold upper body pushed towards Himekoji all at once.
“Sensei?!”
It shocked Himekoji, his whole body jerked back hard, his back slammed against the bench back— so, no more room to move back.
Hiratsuka-sensei’s body inched closer, her face got nearer little by little. Under the bright moon and clear stars at night, in the empty park, Himekoji’s body tried to run but was stuck by the chair back, nowhere to hide.
They touched, and sparks flew.
Of course, it was just the cigarette butts.
Hiratsuka-sensei gently touched her lip-held cigarette butt to the one in Himekoji’s mouth.
The lit end lit the unlit one.
Their lips stayed apart by the space of two cigarettes.
This was also the closest these teacher and student had ever gotten.
A brief touch, then it ended.
“Cough! Cough!”
Right after, Himekoji started coughing hard, his face turned all red.
He must have choked on the smoke.
Thinking that made him cough even worse.
“You’re pretty useless, huh? Drinking? Can’t handle it. Smoking? Can’t handle it. What kind of guy are you?”
Hiratsuka-sensei teased him seeing this.
“Sensei, do you have a right to say that? With your drinking and smoking, what kind of woman are you?”
“Pfft…”
“Ha…”
The moment the words ended, both teacher and student laughed at once.
Hiratsuka-sensei was fine; after all, with a pretty face, she looked great no matter how she laughed.
Himekoji, though, had an ugly laugh, covered all over in messy tears.
“Sensei…”
“Mm, what?”
“I… wish I had been born a few years earlier.”
“Huh?”
“If so, maybe I wouldn’t feel all confused, upset, sad, and hurt like now…”
“Why?”
“Because, before meeting Mashiro and Nanami, I bet I would have liked you, sensei.”
If Himekoji had been born earlier.
If he and Hiratsuka Shizuka had been about the same age.
If…
Of course, these ifs were just ifs, only Himekoji saying it offhand, just a quick feeling he had.
He didn’t deny inside that he liked Mashiro and Nanami now, and he didn’t duck away from the messy tie between the three.
But, the speaker didn’t intend it, the listener took it in—
“Is that right? Actually, I, sensei, often think like that too, wishing I was born later.”
But whether born later or earlier, when I ran into you, Himekoji, I would have…
Still felt the same way, fallen for you.
After all, I, sensei, just have a soft spot for foolish students.
Himekoji.
You dummy.
I’ll let you off easy this time, but from now on, never dare say such things to your teacher again, OK?
If not, a nearly thirty, all-alone, unmarried woman might try everything and hold on to you tight.
…
“I’ll walk you home.”
In the end, Hiratsuka Shizuka slowly blew out smoke and said it softly.
Under the bright moon and clear stars at night, in the empty park.
…
…