Crossover Fan Fiction ❯ Hachiman's Prayer ❯ Hachiman's Prayer ( Chapter 1 )

Hachiman’s Prayer

The fist impacted him low in the gut, one sharp full power strike from the pretty sensei from his Japanese writing class. He loved writing essays with full snark and with the cynicism turned up to eleven. All adults were cynics, or they were victims. It was one or the other.

Please, won’t someone take her? He prayed to the heavens. In most cases prayers go unanswered. But for Hachiman? 

Yumiko was the queen of her classroom. And she told them all what to do. She loved being in charge, reining over them. Toadies and buffoon, most of them, or sheep who tried to get out of her way when she was in a mood. She probably wouldn’t be like this if her parents were still married, but their harsh divorce, with mom having seduced and married her high school sensei meant that Dad was older. She got her rebellious streak from him, though she didn’t have his name. Dad was hard to deal with, because he rarely believed what women said, and was still a teacher, and taught at the top academy because his unconventional style could straighten out the most hardened thugs. All but mother, anyway, though she said she respected his determination and that’s why she’d decided to conquer him once she graduated from high school. Naturally, mother ran a Black Company because she had no sympathy or empathy for other people. It was almost a miracle that Yumiko was even slightly okay with that sort of parent, but Daddy was her lifeline to humanity. It galled her, however, because she wanted to be her own person and she would be an adult in a few years.

Today, she was getting a ride from Dad to her appointment at cram school. Naturally, he showed up on his bike. Relentless, that bike. Daddy was a former Bosuzoku, who clued into the exploitation and dropped out of the thuggery before he got in real trouble with the law, or suckered into debt slavery like so many of their ilk. He became a teacher as a temp job, and later got fired and rehired at a prestigious academy, earning his credentials on the job and saving the school’s reputation in the process. As a specialist teacher who still dyed his hair blonde and chain smoked, Onizuka Sensei, as he was called by the students and his colleagues, was a miracle worker.

She looked in distaste at the helmet which would ruin her hairstyle and removed pins and barrettes before pulling it on. Hiratsuka Sensei yelled something out her classroom window but Dad revved the engine and they burst away in acceleration from the school gate.

“You left school early without permission with a man on a motorcycle. Anything to say for yourself?” said Hiratsuka. She looked coldly furious.

“That was my Dad. I had to meet with the administrator running the cram school.”

“You’re a year early to start cram school.”

“I want into a very exclusive university, and I don’t have the grades yet. So that means extra study.”

“Isn’t your mother a genius?” asked Hiratsuka, remembering an interview on TV.

“Yes, but I’m not. I have to study hard to do well.”

“Are you giving up tennis?” realized Hiratsuka. Yumiko nodded in sadness.

“I’m sorry. I know you liked it. What about Hayato? You two are dating?” asked her teacher.

“I have my own plans. He has his. What we have is just for here, just temporary.”

“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry. There will be other men, and other loves,” said Hiratsuka. “So that biker is your father?”

“Yeah. He’s a teacher. He and mom split when I was little, but he still gets visitation rights and sees me alternating weekends.”

“A teacher? What’s he teach?” asked Hiratsuka in curiousity.

“Civics and history, middle school level, at Holy Forest Academy in Tokyo. He’s seriously broke all the time, and used to live on the roof in the janitor’s shed. He’s better now, though his share of my expenses has him on the ragged edge of bankruptcy. He had to sell his car, and is back on that bike. I swear he loves that bike more than me. Says so often enough.”

“But didn’t he take time off work to take you from school to cram school?” pointed out Hiratsuka. Yumiko frowned but said nothing.

“Well, be it as it may, I need to meet with your father about your unexcused absence.”

Yumiko huffed in annoyance but nodded, extracting her phone and texting her Dad. He still used a flip phone, and only grudgingly. Her phone rang and she talked to Dad a minute. Then she sighed and held out her phone to sensei. Hiratsuka took the fancy jeweled smartphone and held it to her ear.

“You wanted to talk to me?” said a gruff male voice. She heard him take a drag on a cigarette.

“This is Hiratsuka Shizuka, your daughter’s teacher at Soubu High School.”

“Yeah, what’s your subject?”

“Japanese literature and composition.”

“I saw that essay you graded about high school years. You’re kinda soft on them.”

“Not all of them. Some students need more attention than others,” Shizuka admitted, looking at Yumiko who was glaring at her teacher in silence, unable to hear her father’s side of the conversation but guessing just the same.

“Heh. Tell me about it. I could bend your ear for days worth of stories.”

“Don’t you mean hours worth?”

“I mean what I said, miss,” he chuckled.

“I’d like that,” she giggled. Yumiko glared.

They went out for drinks. One thing led to another, and they went back to her place pretty tipsy. The following day her class just stared at her because Shizuka Hiratsuka had a grin that wouldn’t go away, and winced with every other step. She drank a lot of coffee that day, but wouldn’t stop grinning.

A month later, she had an engagement ring and a positive pregnancy test. Yumiko was pretty well horrified.

“Look on the bright side. You’ll get to be an older sister,” her father told her, arm around Shizuka, who still hadn’t stopped smiling, and swung her hips a lot more now, wearing comfortable shoes instead of those pointy heeled boots.