Part 2
Shocked and almost infuriated without quite knowing the reason why, I pressed the space bar of my portable computer and stopped the movement of a group of handsome actors dressed as doctors on the screen.
“Wait, so you knew about the band thing?”
Reikoku-sensei did her best to pretend she wasn’t annoyed by the interruption during the climax scene of the streamed show she suddenly had her attention drawn to, possibly after identifying herself with the somewhat misanthropic main character.
“There isn’t much happening on that school I’m not aware of, Koukishin-kun. Plus, sending that paper to just any random club wouldn’t be half as fun to me. If it isn’t somewhat complex, it cannot be amusing. Every little thing needs at least two reasons to happen.” Playing with the pencil that only seconds ago was holding up her hair, she uttered words that would sound deep if they didn’t came from a grown woman in pajamas killing time late at night at her student’s house. Not quite what comes to my mind when I try and imagine a mentor figure, you see. “And that’s why my suggestion is that you give that club a try.”
For some reason that shocked me more than it should, enough for me to spit all the soda in my mouth all over a near region of the wooden carpet. Not an insignificant amount of liquid, definitely not an insignificant spread rate. Considering the pressure needed for that result, if I were looking at my personal computer screen at that moment, chances are some repair store with a shady fellow would have become a little richer by tomorrow.
“Are you serious? What would be the point of that?”
“Honestly, can’t you see what is wrong with your current situation?” Reikoku-sensei seemed genuinely and unusually concerned at that moment, so I figured interrupting her would be a bad idea. After this morning’s events, even a dog would understand that; Pavlov would be quite proud of my teacher. “You have only been here for a week and already started to hang out with the anti-social students, started a visible love triangle situation, got into a fight with a classmate and defied common sense and physics by using your body as a cushion to save someone from a fall without even considering the harm to yourself, including your death. As a matter of fact, I’m still trying to figure out how you survived the latter.”
“…love triangle? Seriously?” My sarcastic laughter was suddenly interrupted when I met her gaze. “Right, I know what you mean. An awful lot of things happened way too fast by normal standards.”
“But not by yours, I presume.” Right on the spot, as always. Then it was obvious to me: in one mere week, there should be nothing established as ‘always’ yet. That was exactly the problem, the fact bonds too deep were being made too soon. “And here I am, trying to slow down the carousel before someone gets hurt. Please notice I’m not telling you to stop talking to them but to consider the possibility of expanding your social circle a little, preferably with perfectly normal people who share interests with you.”
“Such as music?”
“Indeed.”
A simple, nearly silly plan that disappointed me somehow. I didn’t see that coming from the woman who led a double life and did her best to be a manipulator in both. Apparently, (self-proclaimed) geniuses are not sheer brilliance all the time and the incredible intuitive talent she possessed had no direct influence on her plans: the things I believed to be well pondered master strokes were very probably but lucky strikes.
So much for chess masters.
“I see. But why did you assume I would be interested in joining a band or that I have what it takes to be in a band with the School Council President? She is most likely quite the shredder.”
“Based on your CD collection, you listen to old school jazz and fusion, progressive and math rock, sixties funk, thrash, early death and avant-garde metal, baroque and tango and only a single album of post-hardcore. If there’s anyone I would team up with that musical elitist, it would be you.”
She seemed quite confident about it. “Plus, you own a five string bass; the chances of you not being a real musician are incredibly low now because more than half of the, say, ‘posers’ buy common electric guitars shaped after famous guitarist’s models. Spending much more money on a bass that’s not even industry standard does not sound very amateur-ish to me.”
“That reasoning was kind of dodgy.”
“Fine, there were a few complex sheet music pages with your handwritten annotations on them lying around on the first day I came here but that’s not the point.”
A genuine smile formed on my face too quickly for me to even consider the possibility of suppressing it, not that I would if I had the chance.
My teacher really watches out for me. In a creepy and somewhat plotting way, yes, but she does it and it’s much more than I could wish for. Based on what she told me last week, I can only imagine how hard she wanted to have someone doing that for her when she was younger. She gives up all of her free time outside school to be here, when she probably has something better to...
“Reikoku-sensei, do you have a significant other in your life?”
More soda on the wooden carpet, but this time it didn’t came out of my mouth: from that day on I tried buying more neutral drinks.
“What the… where did that came from?”
“Just sheer, potentially intrusive but honest curiosity.”
She touched her forehead with two fingers and took a moment to think, although I almost expected her to teleport away from my house.
“…you mean someone like a boyfriend?”
“That’s a little bit more specific than I was hoping for, but yes.”
Strange as it might sound, she stopped moving for a moment and then all of a sudden action took place again, with a presumably feigned attribute on it.
“Not so far from the truth, so I suppose you could say that. Why do you ask?”
“If you knew the people you care about were in trouble, wouldn’t you try and help them?”
“Oh, so you’re still thinking about that.” She seemed bored, but on further examination, I noticed the expression she had could be also interpreted as relief. “Caring for people is fine; we are prone to bonding because of our humanity. Still, there is a thin line between doing a number of things out of care and Messiah Complex. The real problem lies in the fact the perpetrator of the action never knows when he or she crossed said line. One moment you’re the knight in shining armor, next one you’re the Universe’s favorite punching bag wasting your life with a silly smile on your face and let me tell you one thing, your strings will only be pulled harder and harder.”
Saying that, Reikoku-sensei got up and went towards the kitchen while I followed her physicallybut not so much in the metaphorical sense. Her speech on morals was coming across as rather confusing and baseless to the point of referencing lyrics and movies rather than actually teaching something. As I had presumed, she stopped by the refrigerator and opened it looking for dessert, which was probably ready to be consumed by now.
“So you’re telling me I should stay out of Ryo and Kouma’s business?”
A bored sigh and a disappointed look.
“Koukishin-kun, I am a teacher who is starting a custom of going to a student’s house for dinner practically every night mostly because of the striking similarities that exist in our unfortunate lives. Does it sound like I could tell you such a thing without being a total hypocrite?”
Taking out a bucket filled with pudding-flan I had bought because of viral marketing, she went to the sink and picked up two spoons, one of which she handed me without any grace. “Don’t read too much into it. Young people like you just have to stop worrying about every single thing and learn to appreciate the moment. You’ll have the time to overthink everything later. But limits on what one should do to and for others should always, always be in sight.”
“…what does that even mean?”
“Never mind, it will come to you when it’s time. For now, let’s finish that episode. I really want to know what kind of disease
it was and if I know that series, we still have three incorrect diagnostics left with straw man arguments and morals clashing as intermission.”
Knowing I wouldn’t be able to extract any more information from my teacher, I fed myself a spoonful of the flan and pressed the space bar to make the video resume playing. While I watched not the series’ weekly episode but the amusing reactions my companion made when the characters made witty remarks at each other (you’d think she be sick of that, considering it seems pretty much like her daily life), I couldn’t help but wonder what that woman so close to me had been through. Then the flavor kicked in and I let go of being so preoccupied because even Ms. Entropy wasn’t.
Being a victim of cutesy internet viral videos never tasted so sweet.