Agrippa
patreon
All Right! Fine! I Will Take You! – Chapter 44
🕑 Added 2022-07-10 01:57:22 +0000 UTCDisciplinarian teachers are something that hasn’t survived the transition from the Showa era. Back then, the gruff, stubble-ridden, jersey-wearing, shinai-wielding gym teachers who would get hands-on with unruly students were either manly supportive of the (direly in need of a paternal figure) delinquent crowd, or comedic foils often obsessed with bloomers, but, to modern sensibilities, maybe the idea of dealing corporal punishment with an actual weapon to underage students may seem slightly harsher than it did back then.
The Japanese education system, after all, would rather deal emotional trauma than physical.
Still, the archetype is so iconic and representative of a bygone era that it has been shrined in otaku culture with plenty of representations. From the always wholesome (and perverted) Eikichi Onizuka and his heartwarming escapades, to that skeevy guy in hentai games with a female lead who should have maybe thought about changing schools after the first incident with a too thorough check on whether or not her skirt length followed regulations. In those cases, the wholesome part is usually omitted, even if the perverted one remains.
Still, that’s what the straightforward heirs of that long-gone tradition show us, with a figure either bulging with rippling muscle or just bulging, according to the genre and tags, but what about the modern reimagining? Because, if we’ve learned something from manga and anime so far, it’s that authors are desperate creatures who have never had an original idea in their lives and thus need to constantly recycle what came before them—I mean, that ideas and archetypes constantly evolve into newer, better versions of what came before.
One only has to watch Dragon Ball Super to understand how true this always is.
“So… I guess I don’t have to tell you why you’re here?” one of said reimagined heirs tells a very bemused Iroha and me.
We’re sitting behind the partition that turns a corner of the teacher’s office into a secluded spot for the guidance counselor to offer her manly support to misguided delinquents in dire need of a paternal figure.
The misguided delinquent, in this particular instance, is me. The guidance, with this particular counselor, was her tongue down my throat and her ass over my painfully hard erection.
Going by her crimson cheeks, slightly irregular breathing, and unwillingness to meet my eyes, the always manly Miss Hiratsuka perfectly remembers our moment of wholesome, PTA-approved bonding that went on precisely on the very leather chair she’s squirming on.
That is: my first kiss.
“Before I answer that question, are we being filmed?” I, perfectly reasonably, ask her.
And she, perfectly naturally, shoots Iroha a wary glance.
… Fine, I walked straight into that one.
“It would be illegal to record a student without their consent,” Shizu finally says with a very pointed look as Iroha tries to decide whether to be embarrassed or proud.
“And it’s very unlikely that another teacher will walk in here right now, is it not?” I continue my line of questioning, unperturbed by the implication that Iroha’s voyeurism may have been at all illegal. After all, we all know that unlawful recordings or photographs used for blackmail of a sexual nature cannot be prosecuted on Japanese soil after the instauration of the ‘Blackmail Tag’ clause of 1987, also known as the Nabiki Tendo Act.
I will be a really good lawyer. Or Haruno will. One of us needs to find a way to legalize the current mess.
Shizu, presumably answering my masterfully posited question that could never be ‘Objection!’-ed to, rather than showing her unwavering support for my plan to overthrow societal notions of what a wedding may actually entail, nods.
Which is a good thing, because, now that I think of it, becoming a lawyer and actually practicing sounds suspiciously not only like working, but working a lot. It must be true that sex impairs cognitive function, because I almost fell for it.
“So, why are we bothering keeping up the pretense if there aren’t any witnesses?” I ask after (delightfully) watching her fidget a bit more.
And she drags her hand down her face and grumbles while her wild bangs hide her beautiful face from me.
“Senpai, must you really bully her so?” Iroha asks.
“Don’t get jealous; I’ll get to you soon.”
“You better.”
For some reason, Shizu’s grumbling intensifies.
It’s a mystery. A mystery, I tell you.
“I had a day and night full of Haruno, you brats; my mental energies are as low as they can be with me still technically conscious. Could you spare me the headache? Just for today?” the groaning woman finally says as the hand shielding her face limply falls to her lap.
Iroha and I look at each other.
“Nope,” I tell her with my suave, cool and hip attitude.
“Are you… have you met him?” Iroha twists the knife.
And Shizu groans.
Heh.
‘One of these days, you’re gonna get stabbed, and, while you lie bleeding on the pavement, you’ll idiotically blink up at a livid woman and ask her why.’
Look, if you didn’t constantly drive your boyfriend to suicide—
‘Self-Preservation-kun is not my boyfriend!’
All right. My brain’s a tsundere. Who could’ve guessed.
“So…” I start, not desperate at all to derail my current train of thought into a horrific, bloody incident. “I take it things with Haruno went well?”
Shizu stares at me.
And keeps staring.
“Iroha, she’s gonna explode; take cover. And start recording.”
“On it!” she says, already flipping her phone out.
“You two are insufferable. Also, wasn’t it you who told me we needed to break Hachi and Haruno’s alliance?”
“Well, duh. It was getting in the way of my own alliance with him.”
“I feel like maybe I should have some kind of veto power on which alliances I’m included in,” I try to interject.
And two women look at me in undisguised pity.
Ah, how refreshing. The morning isn’t complete without this.
“Right, I don’t even know what I was thinking,” I dismissively gloss over the stupidest thing I’ve said in the past ten minutes. “Anyway: you, Haruno. Details.”
“Do I really have to—”
“Or I can call her right now.”
“We fucked! We fucked, and it was glorious, except it was sappy, and emotion-riddled, and with far too much trauma and regret!”
Iroha, maybe you shouldn’t look so gleeful at our girlfriend’s outburst. Mostly because I doubt your ability to keep her in focus if you start laughing.
“You haven’t said anything we didn’t know would happen as soon as we left your apartment,” I helpfully point out.
“… She put me in a joint lock,” Shizu comments, as if reaching for the one detail she thinks wasn’t obvious.
“So, about that bet…” I say as I turn to Iroha.
“I didn’t take it. Because, romantic choices aside, I’m not an idiot,” my personal kunoichi cuts me off as she eyes something with too many numbers overlayed on the recording app on her screen.
What the Hell’s an ISO level? And does it raise with XP or with uses?
“You two are horrible…” Shizu restates the obvious.
“Yeah, and that’s why you love us,” I say, doing pretty much the same thing.
“I wouldn’t say that’s—”
And I kiss her.
While making sure I give Iroha a good angle.
I’m grabbing her black tie, pulling her halfway over the crystal table between us like I should’ve done that first time, keeping her in place as my lips and tongue explore hers, as I physically show her how much I want her, how much I crave for her touch at every moment of every day. How much I love her.
And only when I feel my cheeks and lungs burn in equal measure do I allow her to part from me, even as I keep her close enough that her silver eyes are still my whole world.
“There, now I’ve also kissed you. No need to scold me for being unfair,” I tell her with what would be a flippant, caustic tone if I couldn’t feel my mouth melting into a sappy, ridiculous, giddy smile that is mirrored in front of me.
“I love you,” she says, seemingly surprising herself.
And I can’t stop myself from leaning forward and resuming our kiss while I try to ignore the creaking leather behind me that tells me Iroha’s looking for a better angle.
***
It takes a while for both the kiss to stop and for Iroha to lend her makeup compact to Shizu so she can check herself and make sure no undue clues are given to any potential walk-ins.
Seeing as Shizu doesn’t wear makeup other than her age-inappropriate cherry lipgloss, I’m not really sure what she’s checking, but, well, I guess even she must’ve some of those ‘mysteries of the female condition’ to which men can’t be privy to under pain of having to consume Marmalade Boy without bathroom breaks.
And so, it is at some arbitrary point that the compact is shut with a resounding click that would be perfect for marking a scene transition, and so I must never mention it to Zaimokuza.
Look, he already has an aheagaoed, dedicated editor; he doesn’t need to mind break anybody else. Fat Bastards are at their best when they devote all their energies to a lone victim.
“So… I guess you’ve decided to go public?” Shizu says. More to get the ball rolling than because she needs further confirmation after Iroha and I got dragged here to get scolded for our very enthusiastic, very public, display of affection.
“Yeah… about that…” I begin with a tone that makes my Christmas Cake glare at me like she expects me to say something entirely in character.
“His parents found out he has at least one girlfriend, and I was the safest choice,” Iroha replies in my stead, rolling her eyes.
Shizu blinks at her. And pales.
“Oh… Oh gods, I hadn’t… Your parents. I—I should—wait, what about my parents?! Mom’s never gonna let me live this down! And Dad—huh, wait, Dad’s probably okay with… too many things! Aaaaahhhh! Why?! I don’t want to think about Dad, Mike, and Mom in a Hiratsuka sandwich!”
And now it’s Iroha’s and I’s turn to blink.
“What,” I say, speaking for both me and my official girlfriend.
Who’s still recording.
“… You didn’t hear that from me,” Shizu says as her eyes refocus, managing to flee from the dark place she’d been dragged to.
I cock my head to the side, and she follows it to Iroha’s phone.
And blanches.
“Can I convince you to keep this—” our teacher, guidance counselor, and paternal figure starts to say, not at all pleading with desperate eyes.
“You wait two years to introduce us. Explain about Haruno first, and that will soften the blow when it’s time for me and Hachi to appear,” Iroha says, still looking at the screen.
“I… I don’t think I can lie to my family for two years,” Shizu says.
And Iroha hands me her still recording phone.
… Are we married now? Is that what this means?
‘… Do you really not remember the hotel?’
That was… roleplaying. I think.
‘You use me to think. I don’t need to tell you how much of a lie that line just was.’
… Look, I’m willing to accept ‘engaged without a date set,’ but that’s as far as I’m willing to go.
‘Good. Now tell her just that.’
No fucking way. I wouldn’t want to interrupt her dramatic lecture.
‘Yeah. Sure. That’s why.’
“You have two parents who experimented enough that you’re reasonably sure they’d understand you being involved in… this,” Iroha says, vaguely gesturing and heroically saving me from Brain-chan’s evil, completely unwarranted torture. “Two parents you trust enough not to be sure you can lie to for two years? Then don’t. It’s that easy… Shizu. Just… You love them, so you trust them. Isn’t that how this works?” she says, her tone wavering at the last line.
And Shizu bites her lip and looks at us. At the two lovers who’re very much perfectly okay with lying to their parents for as long as it takes.
And she gets up, walks around the glass table separating us, and hugs us from behind, dragging our heads to lie on her ample chest.
It would be even better if her stupid vest didn’t act as a barrier.
“I love you two, you know?” she says, half-repeating herself.
I turn around, both trying to keep the three of us in frame and to return the hug Iroha is now also giving us.
“We do,” I answer. For both of us. “And I wish this wasn’t such a messy issue, that I could brag about you. And I promise someday I will.”
Iroha kisses my cheek, and then Shizu’s lips.
“Don’t worry. I’ll make sure he doesn’t drag us down with his social suicides,” she says with a bright, fond smile that almost masks how big of a lie she just told her.
I mean, Iroha may be the greatest kunoichi to ever come out of her secret kitsune village, but nobody’s that good.
Comments
Pope Yoda I
Honestly, I think that a relationship that has persisted long enough would turn something that might have been annoying earlier in life into something romantic. When you get older, enjoying silly moments with your significant other takes on a special meaning, and I can definitely see this as Advanced Foreplay between two people who've been together for years, especially given their personality types. I can see Ministergaya writing under a pseudonym, his wife finding out about it and trolling him, and leaving bread crumbs to her identity as he comes to her to complain after each new article.
Agrippa
One of my possible (and discarded) epilogues had Hachiman write a column for the local newspaper while Haruno kept writing contrarian articles that seemingly undermined his position while actually providing support for his points. When Hachiman would finally ask her what that whole thing was about, she'd ask him if he'd ever read Ender's Game, and decry how his attachment to manga had stalled his political savviness. I don't even know if that's too convoluted or not enough.
Pope Yoda I
I now fully expect a future Lawyergaya followed shortly by Ministergaya as a long term quest towards legalizing his relationships. To his lament, his parents found out years ago due to an unfortunate, 'Automatically Upload to Backup', cellphone technology developed for, among other things, video. The conversation he had with his parents after an accidental viewing of their son's amateur bondage roleplay would prove to only be the 2nd most awkward conversation of his life, however. The first would be with Haruno's father, as Hikigaya quickly realized that only the free bodyguard detail that comes with a certain high-ranking position would stall his father-in-laws attempts to murder him. Ministergaya would be widely lauded for his actions against invasive technology, reinstating the first true ninja to walk Japan in a thousand years and having one of the most-watched amateur porn recordings ever accidentally produced. Ministergaya would go on to have a long and happy career, until his unfortunate demise in a session of autoerotic asphyxiation that went too far. On the bright side, this cemented his legend and allowed his summoning in future Grail Wars.
