For the few days after that I called, texted, and even at one point considered sending a traditional print letter to Hiratsuka-sensei to ask her about just what it was that had happened a few nights before. My efforts bore no fruit though. I didn't receive a single text back, and every call I made went straight to voicemail after one solitary ring.
If I were being completely honest, I saw myself as a person who would normally try to avoid drama and confrontation—even, and maybe especially, after something as out-of-left-field as what had happened in Hiratsuka-sensei's car the other night, had happened.
However, chalk it up to my morbid curiosity, or dumb teenage hormones, or maybe just the fact that I was craving any sort of confirmation that what I thought had happened, had actually happened, but I desperately wanted to at least talk to Hiratsuka-sensei. I found myself wanting to see her again badly, which was unusual given that it was Hiratsuka-sensei we were talking about.
I thought it'd be different once school finally came around and she'd be forced to talk to me, if not only to call my name during roll call, but it wasn't. She was absent that Monday. And that Tuesday. And when Wednesday finally rolled around, she might as well not have shown up at all.
She didn't take roll like I had been expecting. She simply glanced over her folder and took a look at every student in the room to make sure they were present. Her eyes always seemed to gloss over when they neared my seat, however.
More often than not, she would be the first one out the door when the bell rang, and when she wasn't, she wouldn't even bother looking in my direction as I walked past her desk. I always wanted to say something, but I never could quite work up the courage to just march up to her and confront her. It was a different story over the phone or text, where I would've been able to communicate with just my fingers or my voice, and wouldn't have had to look at her, but just seeing her distant, bored face as I neared her was enough to make me turn away each and every time.
I tried a few more times that week, often catching her in the hallways or outside after school. I'd walk up to her, but she'd either walk away briskly, or in the few rare instances where I did finally manage to get decently close, I'd chicken out and turn heel.
I spent most of my time during that week in shambles of sorts. I'd still had no idea what had happened, and the lack of understanding and closure almost felt suffocating to me. I mean, it was my first kiss with a girl. No, a woman. With... Hiratsuka-sensei. I still blushed just thinking about it.
Despite what I had been expecting, we'd had a fun night together, just enjoying each other's company… or at least that's what I had thought. Between her sad apology that night, and the silent treatment she was giving me now, I had no idea where I stood with her, or even if there was anything left to stand on.
"Are you okay Hikki?" a voice asked.
I looked up from my folded arms to see Yuigahama looking at me with a puzzled expression on her face.
"Yeah. Fine," I answered shortly, before returning my head back to my arms.
Yukinoshita looked at me strangely out of the corner of her eye, but after a second, she turned back to the softcover book in her hands.
It took a slight mental-breakdown peppered with ample amounts of frustration, and several nights of staring at my ceiling before I'd decided that I'd had enough. The day after that, I walked up to Hiratsuka-sensei's desk after all the other students had made their ways out of the room.
"Hey," I said, pausing a few steps in front of her.
If she'd heard me, she made no move to indicate it. Her eyes were flitting idly across some papers on her desk, and she was tapping the end of a pen against the table's edge in a rhythmic motion. I felt slightly hurt at that moment, being ignored so openly and plainly like that. I cleared my throat in a bid to get her attention, but she didn't look up.
"Hiratsuka-sensei," I said, slightly louder this time. My hands suddenly found their ways into my pockets in what was a nervous, habitual gesture.
Although she wasn't acknowledging me directly, from what little I could see of her features, they looked to be drawn tight; she knew I was there, and that small fact gave me enough confidence to continue.
"We should talk about…" I started, but I couldn't find the willpower to continue my train of thought. Suddenly, looking at her slightly obscured face seemed harder somehow. I stood there awkwardly, thinking about exactly what I wanted to say, and how to say it. No words came out though, because I wasn't quite sure of that myself.
"Hikigaya." Her voice was sharp, but not at all malicious. The tapping of her pen stopped. "Perhaps we should forget that ever happened."
I felt a cold sweat run over my body as she finally addressed me. I just stood there for a second, not sure what to think or how to feel. She still wasn't looking at me, but she wasn't looking at the papers on her desk either.
"Oh. Yeah but," I eventually answered.
"Shouldn't you get going to club?" she interrupted.
I left soon after that.
A few days passed by before I tried again.
After being escorted to her office by an aide, I found myself once again staring at the top of her head as she shuffled papers around her desk. "Yo," I greeted.
Again, she didn't look up from her desk before saying, "I'm pretty busy. Ragarami-san can show you out."
I stood there for a moment, my eyes resting on her hidden face, before taking the hint and leaving. As I left, I thought I heard her muttering something that sounded dangerously close to 'sorry' under her breath.
I don't know why I was so insistent on getting some answers out of Hiratsuka-sensei, but I was. Well, actually, I did know why.
"We're close."
Those were her own words. We'd had a decent rapport for a while now, at least one that was involved enough that Hiratsuka-sensei would see fit to call its two members 'close.' Aside from that… I had thought that night had been nothing short of amazing, and it was rare that I used words like that to describe anything. And what had happened in the car… well, that was pretty amazing too.
At this point, I'd reasoned a thousand times in my head that the mature thing to do would be to talk about what had happened, but… There was the damn answer right there. It was Hiratsuka-sensei, and despite her age, I couldn't exactly say that she was the most mature person I'd ever known. I felt slightly cross at having the obligation rest solely upon me, but it was obvious that if I didn't take the leap, nothing would ever be resolved.
So I tried again, and I failed again.
It wasn't until a week after that that she even spoke another word to me.
"Hikigaya. I need to see you after class," she said simply at the beginning of the period. Her face looked oddly dark. I couldn't do much but nod in agreement as I took my seat.
Class was boring and predictable as usual, and before long, I found myself standing in front of Hiratsuka-sensei's desk with equal parts annoyance and curiosity. She looked up at me for a second before turning to her desk drawer and pulling out a stack of papers. She flipped through the disheveled pile, before pulling out a small packet joined by a staple in its corner.
"Recognize this?" she asked plainly. Although her eyes were turned in my direction, it almost seemed as if she weren't looking at me at all.
I returned her impassive look and shrugged. "Not really. Should I?"
"Here, take a closer look," she said as she pushed the paper closer towards my face. Annoyed, I squinted my eyes to compensate. It was the paper I'd written a few days ago. With a big C circled in red marker on it, no less.
"Well, before I hit you with the book, do you have anything to say for yourself?" she asked. Although Hiratsuka-sensei looked at me with a neutral expression on her face, her voice betrayed a slight hint of anger, or disappointment, or both. Whatever the case, it really irked me.
I couldn't help but narrow my eyes as my hands found their ways into the pockets of my pants. "Yeah, I've been preoccupied I guess," I started roughly. "I've been dealing with something on my own these past few weeks."
She stared at me for a second, her eyes still hard, before setting the paper on her desk with slightly more force than necessary. "Don't make excuses, Hikigaya. You're above that," she said in a low voice.
"It's not an excuse if it's true," I answered. I fixed her with a cold, hard glare. Almost as if I weren't in control of them at all, my fists lightly curled on each other. A week and a half's worth of being left in the dark and being outright ignored caught up to me in that moment.
She closed her eyes for a second and breathed out lightly through her nostrils. "Listen, what you do in your free time is of little consequence to me. You can spend your days at home daydreaming or fantasizing or whatever. I don't care," she stated coldly. I could feel annoyance flash across my face at her choice of words. "However, what is of consequence to me is your academic status in my class. Which has dropped. Significantly."
…Really? So after a week of ignoring me and brushing what happened at the festival under the rug, she calls me up to her desk, alone might I add, to talk to me about academics? I scoffed.
"What does it matter? If my overall grade is above the passing threshold, then I'm doing a fine job, aren't I?" I asked sourly.
"That's beside the point," she answered with an air of solemnity. Her features softened before she breathed out lightly. "What happened Hikigaya? This is the first truly mediocre paper you've turned in. I didn't think you had it in you to write something this bad." I thought I saw a flicker of humor cross her face for a second, but I chalked it up to the crappy fluorescent lighting of the room.
"Bad? You gave me a C didn't you? That's passing. Above average even." I kept my gaze focused on her stoic features. I found the mundanity of arguing about a single grade when there was something much more pressing to discuss, highly frustrating. I ignored it.
"Doesn't matter. This drastic a drop in performance is enough to warrant attention," she said. "One paper on its own isn't going to be enough to get you in too much trouble, but you'd better shape up before this gets serious." She glared at me with two piercing irises. I didn't falter under her gaze. Suddenly, she sighed loudly and crossed her arms over her chest. "Come on… You might not believe me when I say it, but the future's important. You have your whole life ahead of you, and that includes next year, and college, and…" she paused for a brief second before looking away. "Just… don't throw it away," she whispered softly. "Not over something like this."
Her eyes sparkled with some errant emotion, but of what nature, I couldn't tell. "Something like what?" Despite myself, I asked with genuine curiosity attached.
She shook her head softly, the ends of her silky black hair swaying slightly as she did. "…Never mind." Suddenly, her face regained its impassive mask and her features tightened again before she continued. "Either way, you need to pick up the slack. I let you off easy this time because I know you're a good writer, but if you ever turn something like this in again, I'm going to fail you. Plain and simple."
I found myself struggling to keep my emotions in check, but I forced a nod. "Sure. Can I go?" I asked, suddenly finding myself completely tired of the whole situation. At least if I managed to make it to club, I could let the distraction of Yukinoshita's abusive personality squash the wandering thoughts out of me. At least if that happened, I wouldn't have to struggle with the jumbled mess of emotions that I was constantly forced to deal with—even if the reprieve was only for a few hours.
"Try not to be so rude. It's unbecoming, really," she said sharply. Her tone was all blades and edges, and because of that, she didn't sound remotely close to the Hiratsuka-sensei that I knew - or at least the one that I thought I knew. Nothing like the Hiratsuka-sensei I'd had so much fun with at the Autumn Festival, or the Hiratsuka-sensei that I had kissed with as much passion as I did that night. "I want to be here even less than you do. Trust me, I wouldn't have bothered to call you up here if I weren't worried about your grade."
"You've made that pretty obvious already."
Without another word, I grabbed my bag off the floor and forced my legs forwards towards the classroom door. My steps were hard and heavy, and I was almost tempted to run out of the room as fast as my feet would take me, pride be damned.
I heard the softest of sighs. "I'm just trying to be professional." The whispered voice that came from behind me was so quiet that anybody else probably would have mistaken it for the blowing of the wind. But I heard it loud and clear.
I stopped immediately where I was standing, and my legs came to a sharp halt.
The nerve of this woman. The damn nerve. Yes, Hiratsuka-sensei was my teacher and elder, but at that moment, I decided to shirk and damn every scrap of cultural training I'd developed in my life and tell her off. Tell her off like she deserved to be told off. Like she deserved for giving me that amazing kiss and then ignoring me for two weeks.
"Yeah, you sure were being 'professional' when you forced your tongue down my throat that night," I bit out angrily. I sharply turned on my heel to face her, and stared at her with as much venom as I could muster.
Her eyes widened slightly and surprise and shock suddenly crossed her features. When she regained her composure, her eyes narrowed and she stood from her chair. "What did you just say?"
"Oh, nothing. I was just recalling a memory I had about something that happened a while ago. In fact, you might be familiar with it. It was the one where we were trading spit in your car at the end of the Autumn Festival," I breathed out. I couldn't help but let these words flow unbidden from my mouth - these words that I'd mulled over during sleepless nights and restless evenings. "Or did you forget already? I mean, I guess it didn't mean anything to you considering you won't even spare a second to talk to me about it, but yeah. That's what I said."
My voice was growing louder and louder as I spoke. In the back of my mind, I was idly thankful that the classroom and the hallways were empty on account of school being over. "What was that? And what's with the cold shoulder treatment you've been giving me? Was it really so bad that you had to ignore me for two weeks just to prove your point? I really don't get it."
Her face was red, and her brow was furrowed so deep that her forehead began to crinkle. "No, that's…" she began, her voice sounding jagged and splintered. She sighed. "Goddamnit Hikigaya. I thought we both agreed to never talk about that again."
My own eyes narrowed. "I never agreed to anything. Except that kiss maybe, but if I'd known how much trouble it would cause, I wouldn't have even shown up that night," I said, my curled fist lightly shaking. She opened her mouth to answer, but I didn't give her the chance. "I would've left you alone with your idiotic booze and let you drink yourself into a coma if I had known that this is what would've happened." I let the acid hang off my words.
She regarded me coldly, but I could tell from the glimmer in her eyes that what I'd said had hurt her. Good. Maybe now she'll feel a sliver of what I've been feeling lately.
"You're really one of a kind, you know that Hikigaya?" she asked with a slight shake of her head. With her face turned towards the floor, I couldn't see her eyes. "I really do mean that."
"Say what you want, but don't pretend that I don't have a good reason for being mad," I started. "You can't mess with me like that, and then just brush me off without even acknowledging it." I pressed on angrily. "The least you could've done was answer my texts or something."
"I…" she started, her body tensing before deflating. "I don't know what to say," she breathed out with a sigh. Her voice was quiet. Maybe it was the anger that I felt, or perhaps it was the sense of betrayal speaking, but somewhere inside me I felt a perverse satisfaction at watching Hiratsuka-sensei crumble in on herself.
"How about anything? You could've said anything. You can say anything. Just don't pretend like it never happened," I started, my voice lowering. "I mean for kissing me and throwing me away the minute after, don't you at least owe me an explanation?" I asked. She kept her head down, and looked away.
I suddenly felt incredibly out of place, raising my voice at my teacher (in school no less), and pouring my emotions out so plainly and openly like I was doing. But I didn't care, really - not in that instant. I was craving answers, anything that would put me at ease after the week and a half of turmoil and confusion that I'd been forced to endure. One of the thoughts that had been plaguing me the most found its way into my head at that moment. "I mean, was it that bad? I know it couldn't have been that great for you or anything, but that was the first time I had ever kissed anyone, but I tried and—"
"Goddamnit! I liked it!" she suddenly yelled. I bristled at the sudden, loud noise. Her face suddenly turned up to face mine and her cheeks were lined with tears. "That's why I didn't want to talk about it! Don't you get it Hikigaya?" She looked at me with imploring eyes as she finally tore her gaze away from her shoes.
Silence engulfed the room as Hiratsuka-sensei stared at me with tear-streaked cheeks and a deep frown on her lips.
I blinked once in surprise before I could completely gather my thoughts. I found my mouth moving on its own after a few moments had passed. My voice was soft. "If you liked it then why have you been ignoring me for the past two weeks?"
She wiped at her swollen cheeks with the sleeve of her lab coat before responding. She turned her gaze from me. "Do I really need to spell it out for you? I thought you would've understood."
I think in a normal situation, I would have been tempted to throw out a snide and sarcastic response in a situation like that, but because I could practically hear the genuine sadness that was seeping out of her voice with each and every syllable uttered, the thought never even crossed my mind. It was clear that she had thought about that night, and clearly, she was dealing with her own feelings and issues regarding the matter. Suddenly, I found any and all anger that I'd held drain away from me, like raindrops sliding off the satiny top of an umbrella.
"I'm not a psychic. I'm not even that smart really," I shrugged. My voice sounded oddly deflated and held no malice. What I had said was true though, at least when it came to understanding emotions or other complicated things of the sort. When it came to things like that, I was out of my depth. "I don't think I'll ever understand unless you tell me."
She breathed in deeply before scrubbing another tear from her face. She sighed once before opening her mouth. "I liked it. I like you," she said softly. Despite the situation and the inanity of it, I could feel a faint heat rushing to my cheeks.
She sighed again. "I wasn't trying to hurt you, you know," she began after a beat. "I… I didn't know how to feel after what happened." Her eyes were glossy. "That's not to say that I didn't know how I felt that night. I mean, I was having so much fun. With you. More fun than I'd had in years, even," she continued. "It was just… I knew that I shouldn't have felt that way." She shook her head slightly and a stray tear fell to the floor. "I mean, for God's sake, you're half my age."
"That's not true." I frowned. I knew she was exaggerating, but she was only twelve years older than me. If anything, she was like a glorified nee-san, and that was a stretch in itself.
She let out a wet chuckle. "Well, even if we were to generously brush that aside, the fact remains that I'm your teacher, and the last time I checked, sloppily making out with a student isn't exactly something that's encouraged by the teachers' handbook," she laughed almost humorlessly.
I wanted to say something, to comfort her maybe, but I couldn't think of a single thing. All I could do was watch as she smiled sadly at me and brushed away the occasional tear. "I wasn't completely drunk you know. I knew what I was doing when I offered you a ride home," she said softly. I felt my breath catch in my throat as her eyes found mine.
"I guess those girls in college were right when they said that I was a manipulative bitch." Her face adopted a slight frown as she spoke, her features curling up slightly. "I never admitted it, but they were right in some ways, I suppose." Her face looked reflective for a moment. "Back then, I could get any guy I wanted. For a night, anyway. I was good; I knew exactly what to say and what to do to get a guy to come home with me, and it always ended up working out," she said. Vaguely, the ringing of the seventh period bell registered in my mind.
"But in the morning, he'd be gone. I could offer him an omelet—that might make him stay for a few extra minutes. Or sometimes if I was feeling particularly needy that day, I'd offer him round two, and he'd take it of course," she said with what almost sounded like pride. "But naturally, he'd leave the second he was finished." I flinched. "Jesus. I must be sick in the head. That night with you, I didn't even take a minute to think about it. How wrong it was for me to take advantage of you, a minor drunk off his ass for the first time from booze I had given him." she spoke quickly, almost as if her thoughts were finding their way out of her mouth as soon as they were realized. "I just did it, you know? I saw the chance and I took it. With someone half my age. With someone I actually liked and cared about. I couldn't help myself." Suddenly, her eyes were no longer on mine.
"How fucked up am I?" she whispered softly.
"You're not," I answered her firmly. She turned her gaze towards me slowly, and I could see that her shoulders were slightly shaking. "You're making it sound like you were the only one who had a choice in the matter. I kissed you back," I said. "I wanted to."
She scoffed suddenly, her voice still shaky. "You're just a kid! It wasn't your fault. I should never have given you the choice to begin with."
I felt slightly annoyed at that. "Don't treat me like that. I'm not just a stupid kid."
She sighed quietly. "You're mature for your age, but that doesn't change the fact that yes, you are a kid. You're barely seventeen."
"Yeah, but age doesn't—" I started, but she cut me off.
"It does matter. You might not realize it now, but that's because you're young," she said.
There was a silence for a time as we stood there, both high off swirling thoughts and errant emotions. Nearly half a minute passed before Hiratsuka-sensei breathed out and spoke again.
"You know, I haven't been ignoring you because I regretted what happened. I was hoping that you would have realized that on your own a lot sooner," she said quietly, but firmly. "The reality is much, much worse. I wish that I regretted what happened. No, I was ignoring you because even though my conscience was telling me—no—screaming at me that what I did was wrong and terrible, I didn't regret it," she said. "And that scared the shit out of me."
I took in her words in silence. The only sounds audible to me in that empty classroom was Hiratsuka-sensei's soft voice and my own thudding heart.
She sighed. "It's been a long time since I've been this attracted to someone Hikigaya, and if you were five years older, I'd pounce on you without a regret in the world… but you're not," she said softly. "You're seventeen, and you're my student to top it all off. I wanted you so badly that I ignored my own conscience and didn't give a damn about how my actions would end up affecting your feelings. I'm selfish. That's how I've always been." She looked down at her feet. "This... whatever this is… whatever it might've been… it isn't healthy."
I felt my brow crinkle. Who was she to say that this wasn't healthy? Didn't I get a say in it at all? I was young. I knew that, and sure she had a lot more experience than I did, and she was also my teacher, but that didn't matter, did it? The cynical, pragmatic side that dominated my thinking for so long, of course realized that what she was implying was risky, dangerous, and maybe on some fundamental level, wrong, but the part of myself that governed my emotions and damned all logic out the window, told me otherwise. That I found her irresistible, and judging from what she'd told me, she felt the same way.
"I… I want to try." The words rolled past my lips without my permission.
She blinked once, and looked at me sadly, her beautiful grey eyes still moist from her earlier tears. "We're at completely different points in our lives. I'm vulnerable... desperate even. You don't want this Hikigaya. Trust me, you don't. I'm selfish, and needy. You have your whole life ahead of you. You have a future. Don't throw it away. Don't let my selfishness drag you down with me," she said quietly. "This… could end up being one of the biggest mistakes of our lives."
I don't care.
In a flash of motion and frenzy, I had bridged the distance between us and had grabbed her around the waist. I moved my mouth to Hiratsuka-sensei's and kissed her as passionately as I could. I noted the vague taste of salt on my lips, but I didn't care. I didn't care at all.
A soft moan escaped from her throat, and I could feel her arms wrap around me as she held me. I was awash with ecstasy as our lips crashed, and I heard the clattering of papers and pens as they fell clumsily to the floor.
It's not going to be a mistake. I told myself. I won't let it be.
Our relationship began soon after that.