While humming my favorite song (drabble?)
Title: While humming my favorite song
Pairing: Odagiri Ryuu x OC
Genre: Romance
Rating: G
Beta: gaea_chan (hugs my bitterness buddy~)
Disclaimer: I would love to make this a real ending to a new Gokusen movie but yeah, dreams.
Warnings: Het. Don’t worry, no smut. LOL
Summary: When that dream comes true someday, I’ll be at your side.
A/N: I’ve written non-AK Gokusen fics before (one of which is listed here in my LJ) and I’ve always played with the whole Yankumi-has-a-younger-cousin thingy. This is one of those, but it’s a different time setting and I think a more mature context? Mature as in insight-wise, not sexual content. Well, whoever’s interested~! Also, I just couldn’t get this ‘scene’ out of my head, something with a movie-ending feel to it, so it’s here. Dedicated to kamerei who is by no means related to 大江戸一家。LOL. Also dedicated to infynitehexes because I think she needs a failed feel good graduation fic like this, never mind that Junno isn’t in it. And yeah, also dedicated to everyone who’s graduating/recently graduated/struggling with school/life/whatevers. This A/N is getting too long! Written with Plumeria ~Hana Uta~ by Aqua Timez (Gokusen the Movie theme song) on loop forever (hence the title and summary). FEEL GOOD YO~!
oOo
She raises the thin sheet against the light, not really knowing what to do with it. It’s just a piece of paper - if she ran it through water, the ink would probably bleed through quite quickly - and it’s really not much of an accomplishment in the grand scheme of things, but hey, she and her classmates spent three years of their young lives to earn this. Yamagawa Rei is nonetheless proud that she has graduated from high school.
Rei sighs as she carefully rolls up the certificate of graduation and places it back into the black tube case. She’s going to have to present it to the family later, of course, and while she’s extremely nervous about how her father would react - she hasn’t been the perfect student and daughter especially these past few months - she’s happy that her Kumi-nee-chan would be there, too.
If she has learned anything from the half year that Yamaguchi Kumiko, her cousin, took charge of the Third Year Class D of Seikou Gakuin, it’s that the bond with family and friends is most important above all. Yankumi, as Rei had learned to call her in school, had managed to unite 3-D - something that Rei had repeatedly failed to do as one of the class’ leaders.
“Yamagawa!” Rei hears a call just as she exits the empty 3-D classroom, the certificate case safe in one hand. The rest of the class are already out on the grounds. “Are you joining the class dinner later?” Masato asks as she approaches.
“I’ll try,” the Oedo heiress responds sheepishly. “We do have a family thing later, too.”
“Oh… that,” Masato nods in understanding. Everyone has always known Rei’s family background, so that it was especially problematic when Kumi-nee-chan came to teach at the school. “Hope you can make it, though. And maybe you can bring Yankumi, too!”
Rei laughs, thinking that her cousin would be thrilled to know that she’s invited to the class dinner, but she doubts they would be allowed to skip the Oedo gathering.
Inevitably, the class found out that Yankumi and Rei are from the same family, but, as the teacher had proved time and again, backgrounds did not matter if you worked in such a way that contributed to society. Maybe, just maybe, someday, Rei wants to become like her cousin, too.
Of course, Odagiri had helped keep the class intact when they almost lost trust in Yankumi. He did the same for Rei.
She goes up a flight of stairs with a gait in her step. A few months ago, she didn’t even care about school. Who would have thought she’d be this happy about her graduation? Definitely, the adventures she had in school lately influenced her outlook in life.
She goes down the second floor corridor and stops by the door to the faculty room, peering into the glass pane. Kumi-nee-chan’s back is to the door, along with the rest of the teachers. They’re listening to a speech being delivered by the annoying Sawatari-kouchou. Rei honestly can’t imagine how her cousin could have stood working with that man in three schools prior to Seikou. When he was appointed principal of the school, Rei and the rest of 3-D were instantly always attacked and blamed for all the bad things that happened to the school. It was as if Sawatari didn’t know whom he was up against.
The old man paces up and down the row of teachers as he continues with his speech. To the left of Yankumi is the assistant adviser of 3-D, Odagiri Ryuu. He’s Yankumi’s student from a few years ago, and because he’s not much ahead in terms of age, the rest of the class found him cool and much more relevant to them as compared to the much older Yamaguchi-sensei.
Rei has always been edgy about ‘Odagiri-sensei,’ though; and with good reason.
She barely has time to think when Sawatari-kouchou glances at the door and sees her, and her immediate reaction is to make a face and put her tongue out. When the principal takes furious footsteps toward her, she makes a mad dash for the next flight of stairs right at the end of the corridor.
“Yamagawa! She was here just now!” Sawatari’s angry voice erupts into the hallway, the other teachers at his heels.
“Why are you so angry, Kouchou?” Baba-sensei, another colleague Yankumi had worked with in the past, asks, patting the principal on the back. “Maybe she just wanted to thank the faculty?”
“Thank?! She made a face at me!”
Sawatari looked like he wanted to pull his hair out.
“I will have her graduation revoked!”
“Sawatari-kouchou!” Yankumi steps in, trying to distract the principal. “You know these kids, they’re just happy today, don’t take it personally!” she reasons out, steering the man away from the direction of the staircase, all the while discreetly gesturing at Odagiri to go and find the student in question.
Rei chuckles as she watches the chaos, leaning over the banisters. When Sawatari somewhat calms down, she resumes climbing the stairs until the reaches the top floor, and she goes on to climb the rooftop.
Maybe, even if Sawatari was such an annoying old man, there was still something amusing about him. People around Yankumi are all like that anyway. Rei could still remember meeting her cousin’s first 3-D class from Akadou. They seemed to be the closest, maybe because they aren’t too busy with grownup stuff just yet.
Rei thinks she hears the doors to the rooftop open and close, but seeing no hysterical principal coming to threaten her, she doesn’t mind.
Rei has also met Odagiri-sensei’s friends from Kurogin, and his best friend - a man still unresolved about his career who goes by the name of Yabuki Hayato - told Rei in great detail of the troubles they went through under the then head teacher Sawatari.
Rei is already good friends with Kumai-san, the ramen shop owner who belonged to Yankumi’s first ever class, the 3-D section from Shirokin Gakuin. She had also met Uchi, Noda, and the others, though there’s one student she’s always heard of but has never crossed paths with yet: Sawada Shin. Kumi-nee-chan also speaks highly of this guy - when his name pops up in conversations, she gets this mysterious look with a bit of a blush and it just makes Rei all the more curious about this particular student of her cousin’s.
“Omedetou.”
Rei was just peering over the railing when Odagiri appears beside her, looking pensively out at the school grounds as well. All of Seikou Gakuin’s 3-D were fooling around outside, rejoicing that they’ve finally finished high school, and Rei would be glad to join them, except that here, now, she has to deal with this.
It’s been a long time coming, messing around and being silly at the expense of her teacher who also happens to be her cousin, and Odagiri has always been there to help them, too. He’s the one who would treat Rei’s wounds from stupid fistfights while Kumi-nee-chan berates her and threatens to tell Oedo about it.
“Thanks.”
There were also those times when Yankumi just couldn’t make it, and Odagiri would be there instead.
“Why aren’t you down there with the rest of the class?” he asks, like the genial teacher that he should be, and that he is on the way to becoming. He still lacks the friendly smile, though. Clearly, Yankumi’s overly cheery attitude still has not rubbed off on him, and it looks like it won’t anytime soon.
She has become quite familiar with her cousin’s past students, and much more with Odagiri Ryuu, who is supposed to be her teacher as well. But it had never really felt like that with this man, and it confused Rei a great deal, so that the both of them tried to set up a wall to establish that boundary between them.
“You were right about me,” Rei answers, glancing at the trainee teacher. “I like the quiet better than… well, yelling and running around down there,” she finishes, pointing to her classmates scattered around like inkblots from their altitude.
Odagiri nods and smiles a bit, nevertheless looking pleased that Rei confirmed his impression of her.
There are times, though, when that wall crumbles and the both of them fall into what felt like their natural connection: that of friends, fellow students of the same teacher, and sometimes maybe even more.
It isn’t too difficult to feel that way, when Odagiri-sensei is just a couple of years older than Seikou 3-D… right?
“Anou…” he starts just as a strong gust of wind blows through the rooftop. “Now that you’ve graduated…”
Odagiri can’t see her face because she’s determinedly looking out at the grounds, but she knows where this is going, and she’s sporting a big grin despite herself, despite knowing how this would look awkward and maybe even wrong, and maybe… yes, Odagiri’s about to make an argument against that -
“… you’re not a student anymore - ”
He takes a step closer and hesitantly puts an arm over her shoulders, and he doesn’t say anything more, lets the squeeze on her shoulder do the talking, knowing that Rei would understand what he’s trying to get at.
“Demo ne… Kumi-nee-chan always says,” Rei begins her reply, still grinning. “Once your student, always your student… right?”
She still doesn’t look at him, but she could swear she feels his hold on her shoulder weaken.
“Are you… turning me down?”
Rei finally turns to him, and she sees Odagiri staring back at her, looking like he’s faced with a difficult math problem more than anything else. The frown lines become more pronounced and his thin eyebrows scrunch together when he sees how Rei is grinning so happily despite this apparent rejection.
“Odagiri-sensei… from here onward, please teach me life lessons, ne?”
And Rei doesn’t care, as she leans in and kisses Odagiri on the lips, even if the other teachers come up here or maybe the people on the grounds distinguish their figures on the rooftop, because now she’s free to do what she wants. With her graduation, she’s just about to start making her dreams come true, and being with Odagiri Ryuu is just one of those.
~End~
oOo
I originally thought out the last line in Japanese so it should go something like this: 「小田切先生。。。ここから、人生の教訓を教えてください。ね？」Think it sounds way better and less cheesy in Japanese LOL.
And yes I wrote this on a whim you know it’s a whim when it’s het LOL There is supposed to be an entire back story and a sort of movie-ish plot to this but yeah. Not even sure if a lot of people read Kame x girl fics these days xD
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