Pretear Fan Fiction ❯ One and Only ❯ Chapter 10

Chapter 11

 

Author's note: We're here with Go, the Fire Leafe Knight of this story. How's it going, Go?

 

Go: Wha…? Who are you? Where the hell am I?

 

Me: You're in Author's Note world.

 

Go: That sounds like a druggie's place. Am I high?

 

Me: No… at least I don't think so.

 

Go: Cool! I've never been high before!

 

Me: Oookay… that was interesting. Anyway, this anime isn't mine. Don't bother me.

 

Go: I see pretty colors!

 

 

“So, if you take the square root of 64, which is… what? Can anyone tell me?”

Himeno sighed and tapped her pencil on her desk in boredom. Geeze, the teachers weren't any better here than they were in Japan! This guy just kept going on and on [A.N: like the Energizer Bunny!], making the headache in her head grow by the minute. She felt like screaming in torture.

“Ah yes, you there,” the teacher said, pointing at someone. She rolled her eyes. Someone was actually participating in the class. This couldn't be any more boring! Everyone was just sitting there with a blank look on their faces, and someone was actually participating!

“The answer is eight,” came a low voice from beside her. She suddenly snapped her attention to her right in surprise, and blinked at Hayate. No way.

“Good, Hayate,” the teacher said. “It's nice to see that someone's paying attention.”

Himeno blinked and stared at him. He felt her gaze and turned to look back at her. She raised her eyebrow, and he just shrugged. He turned his attention back to the teacher. For the rest of the class, all she could think about was the fact that Hayate could actually be one of those… people: the type of people who actually participate during class.

 

 

“What was that?”

Hayate turned his head and looked down at Himeno, who was looking up at him with a demanding look on her face. “What was what?”

“Back there!” she exclaimed, gesturing to the class they just got out of. “You… answered the guy's question!”

“Isn't that what you're supposed to do?” he asked, getting annoyed.

“Only if you're actually into that sort of stuff,” she said, eyeing him suspiciously. He looked away, and she saw his look of agitation. “Do you…?”

“I might,” he said slowly. “What does it matter to you? So I might actually be interested in mathematics. Who cares? What's the big deal?”

“Well,” she said, starting to feel bad about getting onto him about it. Obviously it made him upset. Maybe she could revive the situation. “I didn't think it was an option before… but since you're good at math and understand it while I don't, maybe… you could tutor me.”

He looked down at her in surprise. “Tutor you?”

“Yes,” she said with a nod and a smile. “It might be fun. I don't think you'd give the chance to space out and not listen to you. Maybe I'll actually learn a thing or two this year.”

After holding eye contact for a few more beats, she saw him let a light smile cross his face.

“Maybe that could be fun,” he said softly. He squeezed her hand and she blushed. She was quite happy with the outcome of that. Now she had a tutor for free, who might give her special… gifts after each lesson. That gave her an idea.

“Hayate?”

“Yeah?”

“What other subjects are you good in?” she asked.

“Science is all right,” he said. “Back when I was actually in school, before I became a Leafe Knight, I kind of enjoyed all the experiments and such that we did.”

“Good!” she said excitedly. “I'm horrible at science! That's another subject you could help me out in!”

He went quiet, and her excitement started to die down. Did he not like the idea? Was she being presumptuous and pushing her luck? She didn't want to rub him the wrong way or anything. Maybe she was just getting too caught up in being a normal couple. Maybe she shouldn't be so focused on things like that.

She was about to apologize when he began to speak.

“What subjects are you good in?”

She thought a moment. “Well, English has been a strong point for me. I seem to have a knack for foreign languages.”

His attention snapped to her, and she saw a look of surprise and hope cross his face. “Seriously?”

“Yeah… why?”

“I hate English,” he laughed lightly. “Never could get the hang of it. And if I can't write it here in the U.S. during English class while everyone thinks I'm fluent in it, then I'm going to be kind of in a bind.” He smiled at her. “Guess we can trade our services. I'll teach you Science and Math, while you teach me English. How strong are you in History?”

“You kidding?” she asked with a proud look in her eye. “I've got it down. I'm not saying I get A's in it or anything, but I do get some high grades. If I did my homework, I'd do better. But even without it, I could teach the subject.”

“Great,” he said in a low voice. She looked into his eyes and saw a little joy there. It made her heart beat faster. “We'll spend two hours together after school tutoring each other in subjects, half an hour each.”

She felt silly for getting excited about tutoring… but it was Hayate. Tutoring with him couldn't be half bad. They were going out, for crying out loud. There was no way they could have a bad time with tutoring for two hours. And who knew how things would go after tutoring? Maybe they could… reward each other for their good work.

 

 

“I just can't understand this!!!” Himeno cried out in frustration, pulling at her hair.

Hayate sighed and remained calm to let the storm pass over.

“I mean, who CARES about this stuff… besides people who like it like you? This has no point in the real world! Who cares how to simplify radicals and whatnot? Who cares what x and y equal in division? I just don't get it!”

She slammed her head on the table, and Hayate winced when he heard the loud bang. There was a long period of silence and stillness as he stared at her and she kept her head on the table.

“Ow…” she moaned after a while. He coughed back a laugh and tried to keep his face straight. He leaned in closer to her and put his hand on hers. She looked up slowly at him and he saw the tears in her eyes in frustration. His heart went out to her, knowing her pain. It was the same type of feeling he got when he couldn't do something he really wanted to.

Like protect her in battle.

He looked softly into her eyes, leaning close. “Himeno. It's okay if you don't understand it. It's not the end of the world. You're absolutely right: simplifying radicals won't matter to squat to you in the future. But you need to learn it for school. Still, even with that fact, it's not worth this much frustration on you. If you want to go onto something else, that's fine with me. Just… don't bang your head on the table again… please.”

She looked back at him for a while, her eyes becoming soft. She smiled a little and nodded. “Okay.”

“Good,” he said with a nod. “Now, what do you want to move onto?”

She thought a moment, and then said, “Actually, I'll give this another go. If we can't get it through my thick scull by then… I guess we can move onto English.”

Hayate grimaced and said under his breath, “Let's hope you understand it this time…”