Shin2 Dan: Chapter 28: Secrets Behind the Exam (1)
Chapter 28 - Secrets Behind the Exam (1)
The bell to the class has already rung, but Fukuda and Eita-sensei haven’t shown themselves. Without their teacher presents, everyone act as they normally are, not at all curious or worried about what might have happened to their teacher the other day. For that, Kamiki could only guess that the news didn’t travel far. He turns to his friend and teammate with concern about the girl, but Yamada just gazes at the window, his mind obviously elsewhere. Even the girl sitting in front of him, Shida Mirai, is in silence, unlike her usual talkative and cheerful self.
“What’s wrong?” Kamiki pokes Shida in concern. Shida spins back to face him in surprised. Her face has a blank expression, it’s not until he repeats his question once again that his words finally registers.
“Oh, nothing.” She smiles and momentary glances in Yamada’s direction.
“Are you worried about Eita-sensei?” Kamiki wondered.
“Ah, yeah. I wondered how he’s doing.” Shida nodded, but that is something far from her mind.
Before Kamiki could responds, the door to the class opens and Fukuda rushes in. Her uniform is in disarray and she’s breathing heavily, as if she’d been running to school.
“Fukuda-san, what’s wrong?” Shida asked the girl, but Fukuda just ignores her worried question. Instead, she heads straight toward Yamada’s seat.
“Yamada-san, I need to have a word with you.” Fukuda simply said. Despites using her normal composed voice, Kamiki could sense a twinge of urgency.
The class holds its breath for Yamada’s answer, while Shida narrows her eyes. Like everyone else, Kamiki’s eyes didn’t leave these two as he wonders what’s wrong. Because of that, nobody in the class notice the door slides open and someone steps into the room.
“Class in order!” A voice shattered the heavy silences, causing everyone to turn their heads back to the front of the class, where a young teacher in his 20s stands. They turn to each other in surprises, for the first time, wondering where Eita-sensei is.
He points to Fukuda and says, “You there, please return to your seat. You can chit chat after we’re done!”
Though with reluctant, Fukuda quickly takes her seat, her eyes quickly changes back to her usual cool gaze.
“As you’ve heard,” After getting the full attention of everyone, the young teacher continues, “Eita-sensei is taking a week off due to injury. I will substitute his classes until he’s back. For those that don’t know me, I’m Mukai Osamu. You can call me Mukai-sensei.”
The class once again breaks into rupture at the news of their homeroom teacher.
“What happened?” One girl raised her hand.
“Is he okay?” Another asked.
One by one, each student raises a question of concern toward Eita-sensei, but Mukai-sensei just puts up his hand, signaling for everyone to be quiet before he begins.
“Rest assures he is fine.” Mukai-sensei said, “He’ll be back before you know it. On the other hand, I have another announcement to make before we begin class.”
Mukai-sensei pauses as he looks around the room, the students stares at him, not sure if it’s another bad news or good news.
“Even though we are almost finished with our first trimester, we have a new transferred student.” Mukai-sensei signals at the door as everyone turn curiously toward his direction.
A tall but lanky boy walks in, his face wears a cool smile, but his eye is as cold as Fukuda.
“Yuto?”
“Yuto-kun?”
Instantly, Yamada and Shida spring up in their seats. Their eyes widen in shocked, not sure if they are seeing who they thought they are seeing. Though his looks has somewhat matured, he still has the same features of their friend from childhood, the boy that they thought has died.
“Do you know each other?” Mukai-sensei asked as he turned to the new boy. However, the boy held his gaze for a moment on Shida with unreadable expression before he shakes his head.
“I’m sorry. I don’t think we’ve met.” The boy said.
“But you’re Yuto-kun aren’t you?” Shida exclaimed, to which the boy turns to Mukai-sensei, as if telling him to continue.
“Please sit down.” Mukai-sensei signals to Yamada and Shida. They reluctantly did as they were told, but their eyes are still fixated on the new student.
“This is our new transferred student.” Mukai-sensei quickly writes the name of the boy on the board, “He just moved back from England and is enrolling to this school. His name is Nakajima Yuto.” Then, turning to Nakajima Yuto, “Please introduce yourself!”
“My name is Nakajima Yuto, nice to meet you.” The boy simply said before looks around, “Who is Fukuda Mayuko?”
Once again, all eyes turn toward the girl sitting at the corner of the room. Yamada quickly turns back to the girl sitting behind him. His gaze is almost deadly as Fukuda looks up at the mention of her name. Without waiting for an answer, the new student, Yuto, quickly heads toward the directions of the entire student’s gaze.
As he nears Fukuda’s desk, a hand quickly grasps his wrist. Yuto turns toward the owner of the hand unflinching, as if he has expected it to happen.
“You are Yuto, aren’t you?” Yamada asked.
“Do we know each other?” Yuto flashed Yamada a cold smile before he quickly swipes Yamada’s hand away. Then he turns to Fukuda with another smile, much friendlier than his earlier one.
“Fukuda Mayuko, I presume?”
Fukuda stares back, but didn’t reply.
“I like you. Let’s have a private chat later.” Yuto quickly said, causing the class to erupt into murmurs. Everyone’s eyes turn back to Fukuda, but her expression is still as expressionless as it can be.
Not caring of the atmosphere of the class, pointing to Kamiki’s seat, Yuto turns to Mukai-sensei, “May I take this seat here?”
This time, all eyes quickly turns toward Kamiki. Feeling the attentions of the class, Kamiki blushes in embarrassment. Mukai-sensei blinks in surprised, not sure what to say to the new student. Of course, if it’s alright for Kamiki to change seat, then he wouldn’t mind, but…
“No, you may not!” Fukuda’s voice resound the quiet room, “Do you not see that Kamiki-san is sitting here?”
“Well,” trying to appease the situation, Mukai-sensei points to the spot on Kamiki’s right side, “How about take a seat there!”
Though reluctant, Yuto puts on an amused smile as he sits down on to his appointed desk. He didn’t expect to get a hold of her hot buttons so fast.
As Yuto was settling down at his new seat, Yamada turns to Fukuda with an angry glare.
“I’m sorry, alright?” Fukuda quietly whispered, not letting anyone other than Yamada hears. And she was hoping to tell him the news personally before they actually meet.
“What do you mean by sorry?” Yamada hissed, “Why did it take you so long?”
“I was busy…” She pauses, “Truthfully, I wasn’t able to find any information of him. It’s like he didn’t exist.”
“But he transferred to my first grade class didn’t he?” Yamada quietly asked, “His record of transfer must have been on record.”
“No, I tried to find it, but there’s nothing like that on file.”
“But he’s here now.”
Turning toward the new boy, Fukuda sighs, “Yes, he’s here.”
Yamada and Fukuda quickly become silence.
“Well, back to business.” Mukai-sensei brought the class’ attention back toward him as he continues, “You may already know, next week is your final exam, that’s why we will be having our mock test today so you’ll have the rest of the week to look over the things that you need work on.”
“Mock exam?” Kamiki asked. He has never heard of this before. Even during the period of the mid-semester exam, there wasn’t any mock exam.
“Ah,” Mukai-sensei nodded, “Some of the newer students may not know about this tradition. Shida-san, would you mind explain?”
“Yes.” Shida slowly stood up, “For our school, we have various scholarships for the students who need it. But in order to maintain the scholarships, their exam results will need to be in a certain percentile of the school. So in order to make sure that the students on scholarships still qualify, the school has a mock test before the real one. It helps the students see where they stand and what they need to work on.”
“Thank you very much.” Mukai-sensei nods as Shida sits down, “This will be a short 15 minutes in length, each exam covering all the basic 5 subjects, so around 2 hours total. The subjects you will be tested on are English, Math, Japanese, Science, and Social Studies.”
Quickly takes a stack of paper out and hands to each rows, he continues, “There are 20 questions for each subject, and each will counted for 5 points, total to 100 points. The results will be announced during lunch.”
Mukai-sensei paused at the row next to Kamiki, “Since Nakajima-kun just started, you can sit this one out.”
“No, it’s alright.” Yuto smiles, “I want to try it out.”
“Alright.” Mukai-sensei nodded. After everyone receives their own exam paper, he raises his hand and looks at his wrist watch.
“Start!”
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Author's Notes: Even though it's now in December, another chapter of Shin2 Dan. :D I sucks at coming up with good titles.... =___=;;
A lot of awkward moments in this chapter, but I don't think it's written as well as I'd hope. >__>;; A chapter to introduce a character, some what important to the story. :D
This arc will actually be much longer than the others... ^^;;