Chapter 4
Qi gong
"Red hair at the dōjō
Thunder loses guard
Men strike finds its mark"
The homeroom teacher valiantly fought to keep his composure, amused by his pupils’ creativity. Ever since the last kendō session and Katayū Makoto’s subsequent blow to the head, poems had flourished in every corner of the kōkō.
Should he scold his students for ribbing their Vice Principal?
Absolutely. But it was way too entertaining; Makoto would handle the mess on his own.
Ignoring the board, Kazuki settled in the teacher’s seat, and tried to tune out conversations to get those blasted club-registration forms in order.
Although paperwork was a pain, he loved his job too much to baulk at the less savoury parts.
Some of his students were finishing their lunch. In the first row, the Haruki-Shūji duo flanked Kanae Satsuki. He allowed the second-year girl to have lunch in their room; she was good for Haruki’s non-existent social skills, and tended to keep Shūji in line. Mostly.
At the back of the room, Elyna seemed to be reading one of Makoto’s texts while munching on a cup of sliced fruit.
His eyes lingered for a moment too long before she lifted her head in his direction. Flustered, Kazuki nodded and returned to his forms. The setting should have been peaceful. But of course, Shūji was there. And where Shūji was, chaos ensued.
“Ne, Elyna-chan, how did you learn so many tongues?”
Kazuki started, ready to scold the prankster. But…
“Don’t call me that, sushi.”
His lips twitched. Each time Shūji endeavoured to test Elyna’s mettle, the answer was always the same.
“But it’s true, Elyna-sensei,” Satsuki piped up, handing a mochi that looked delicious to their national prankster.
His teaching assistant softened; she approached the group and responded in English. “Well, I lived in Norway, England, Italy and Mexico. I picked some expressions along the way, but I don’t speak all of them.”
“Picked it up how?” Shūji retorted silkily, his tone suggestive. “Had many boys teaching you, ne?”
Elyna attempted to swat his arm, but the youngster was swifter than the wind, too used to dodging. “By listening to people, you baka!” she exclaimed. “Something you should do more often.”
Kazuki chuckled under his breath, noticing that ‘dolt’ had become ‘baka’; the moment you started to insult people in their own language was a major step in the integration process.
“I bet you had a lot of tongue practice!” the kendōka sing-songed, way out of reach.
“Onishi-kun,” Kazuki warned.
One step too far. In truth, he should have shut it down sooner. But Elyna was young and foreign, too easy a target for distance to protect her. The students would either eat her alive or adopt her. Hence why he allowed gentle teasing to create the bond.
Kazuki was all too aware that Elyna’s integration into a school this conservative would not happen through formality alone. Makoto had trusted him to walk that line, calling him more flexible than most of his colleagues. Some days it felt more like a tightrope.
Shūji grumbled, but one pointed look from him quelled his rebellious mood. Of course, the slightest mention of romance caused most ears to perk up in the class. Elyna shook her head, a smile creeping up her lips.
“Tch,” she eventually uttered, her attention returning to Satsuki
In the back, a few boys were furiously whispering that the world was wildly unfair; the most stoic student was currently hoarding the attention of two lovely females without uttering a single word. There ought to be laws against it, right?
Kazuki smiled over his paperwork.
“Do you know any others?” Satsuki asked as she munched on a mochi.
“Uh? Other boys?”
The second-year lady gasped, hands flapping away helplessly. “Other languages,” she wheezed.
Elyna set her fork down—her fork!—and bit her lower lip. That is distracting, all right. Oblivious to his inner turmoil, she smiled at Satsuki.
“Ah. Not much. A bit of German, because it’s Saxon-based, like Norwegian. And I studied Latin.”
“That’s so cool,” Satsuki gushed with her usual enthusiasm. He shared the sentiment. The sum of Makoto and Keiko’s language skills didn’t amount to Elyna’s.
“Sadly, I don’t even speak a word of Greek, except for my name.”
Haruki seemed to awaken from his rice ball. “Your name?” he asked. “It is Greek?”
“Originally yes. It’s the Norwegian version of Helen.”
Helen, said to be the most beautiful woman in the world. The shoe fits…
“It means ‘bright’”, Elyna explained, completely lost in some nerdy language lesson. “My father said I was born with a tuft of blond hair so light it seemed white.”
“Already old when you were born, Elyna-chan?”
A sigh from Haruki betrayed his mounting irritation with his best friend. Truly, those two were a wonder. Oil to water, moon to sun. How they worked was a mystery; a bit like him and Shintarō.
“Don’t call me that, sushi,” Elyna deadpanned, retrieving the article to fold it in her messenger bag. “Perhaps you should practise your English, and try for Trewith-sensei. I would allow it, just for your sake.”
“Now, now,” Shūji drawled, sitting at the corner of her table to invade her personal space. “That would be meaner than reading the Romance of the Three Kingdoms!”
“Onishi Shūji!” a voice thundered from the door. And Kazuki needed no peek to know that Makoto stood there, fuming. Had the lovely redhead refused him? Given how he vibrated with barely contained fury…
Ah. The haiku.
Makoto’s nose crinkled as he took in the cheeky strokes displayed on the blackboard.
“Whoever wrote this cannot count syllables. If you dare mock me, at least do it with style!”
All heads turned to the irate Vice Principal; students stowed their food away diligently. Satsuki more swiftly than a burglar caught red-handed; she all but fled the classroom. If her hasty retreat disappointed Shūji, he didn’t show it, too busy grinning at Makoto.
Well, then, we know who wrote the haiku on the blackboard.
The gentle teasing should have triggered a nuclear explosion, but only seemed to summon a blush to Makoto’s cheeks. Interesting.
Kazuki gathered his overdue club registrations and gave his colleague a nod, amusement concealed behind a grave expression. As he left the room, Kazuki was surprised to hear the Vice Principal address Elyna with unexpected respect.
“Ready to assist your English teacher?”
“Hai, sensei!” she responded, chipper as a squirrel. “Irregular verbs, here we come!” she added in English.
A smile crept across Kazuki's lips; Elyna was as adamant about learning languages as about teaching them. Behind her, Shūji groaned.
That night’s volleyball session was tense.
The first earthquake drill had interrupted them before reaching the Gymnasium, making evacuation easy; the exercise went without a hitch.
But the effects lingered, as if the possibility of danger had shattered the usual disciplined mood, calling forth untold survival instincts.
Elyna tried to translate Sano's Japanese instructions into English, but Shūji’s antics made concentrating difficult.
"Well", Sano eventually called out. "I see we're all in need of a little grounding. Let's gather at the center."
The students discarded their volleyballs and clustered as if they knew what was coming. Elyna's curiosity was immediately piqued.
Sano dispatched Shūji next to Haruki to keep him under control and sent her a secretive smile, barely a twitch. But his gaze was so warm, almost like an embrace; she wanted to bask in it like a kitten in a nest of furs.
"I'm going to show you a Qi Gong routine to help unburden your mind through movement. Pay attention, you'll have to reproduce it after."
Eager to learn this new technique, Elyna found an empty spot at the side, and watched.
Where Katayū was all precise strikes and sudden fury, Sano flowed like water.
Slowly, he demonstrated the opening stance, then slid into the next ones, fluid and graceful.
He raised his arms as if drawing a string through air, broad shoulders settling into perfect alignment, forearms bare and flexing.
The liquid dance was mesmerising.
“Breathe with the earth,” he said softly, his voice carrying nonetheless. “Feel your roots.”
His hands traced patterns at a sedate pace, as if creating an ancient spell. His weight shifted from foot to foot like a tree swaying in the wind, completely centred yet not rigid.
Then, he turned to them, and offered to lead them once again through the very simple routine.
“Mind your breath,” his voice echoed in the gymnasium. Then, he started anew.
Elyna tried to mirror his grace; she failed, feeling utterly clumsy. She’d always regarded Qi Gong as a sport for the elderly, but her muscles were screaming from the exaggerated slowness of the routine.
That Sano looked so utterly relaxed felt like a slight, his features set in a concentration that she could not muster.
At all. A soft sigh sounded from the girl beside her; Elyna wasn’t the only one captivated by their teacher’s quiet elegance.
In the afternoon light, his light brown eyes had turned golden.
Sano observed the class with gentle encouragement, passing from student to student to check their form. Elyna felt his presence acutely; something called to her beyond his magnetism. Perhaps it was the way he held himself, like a tranquil lake impervious to the storms of life.
She had no doubt that this simple routine, stacked at the end of a long day, would benefit his students greatly.
But there was more to him than his professional choices.
Sano’s smiles were genuine, his voice gentle.
Albeit never abrupt, his character was infused with steel when needed. Like a balm to a wounded soul.
On the third attempt, Elyna felt quite proud of herself. Until Sano started circulating through his students, adjusting a girl's stance there, and murmuring encouragement. He finally approached her, and paused.
His gaze felt like a laser pointed at her back. Heavy, but not unkind. She tried to maintain the flowing arm movement he’d just demonstrated, her pulse quickening under his scrutiny.
“Good form, Elyna-sensei”
His voice was low, but firm.
“Your arm is too tense. It should be so loose you’ll feel like it wants to melt down.”
“Like a marshmallow?" she breathed, willing the limb to soften. As if on cue, an insistent ache settled into her shoulder. She barely contained a grimace as Sano approached. Elyna suppressed a shiver; in class, they maintained professional distance. He had never been that close.
“May I?” he asked.
She could only nod, sheepish, eyes fixed upon the waxed floor of the gymnasium. If nuclear-bomb-Shūji could relax, she ought to be able to—
The contact under her wrist almost made her jump out of her skin.
“Continue the movement,” Sano instructed, pressing upon her sleeve with his other hand. “But let gravity pull your arm down until its entire weight rests in my hand.”
Her muscles refused to obey. Sano patiently waited, holding her wrist like a steady pillar. His breathing was even, slow. Coaxing her into surrender.
It’s just PE, Elyna. He’s guiding you, don’t make a mountain out of it.
Little by little, breath after breath, Elyna felt her nerves dissolve until the weight of her arm rested solely in his hand. His touch was warm, grip professional but gentle.
“There.”
The certainty in his voice seeped into her mind; her body performed the perfect arc without fighting, fluid and smooth.
“You’ve got it. Well done.”
When he released her, Elyna had to suppress the instinct to chase this little contact that had felt so safe. So warm. When she finally lifted her head, proud of her accomplishment, she found herself trapped in Sano’s amber eyes.
Her lips curved into a smile of gratitude.
He smiled back.
Elyna: I tasted something that smelt worse than Nyan’s vomit. They call it natto.
Aksel: Did you eat it? ??
Elyna: ??
Aksel: For the record, her name is Kitty.
Elyna: Not since you attached a toast to her back to test the Nyan cat theory. Sorry buddy. And Kitty is SO unoriginal.
Aksel: Meow. ??Kitty is pouting.
Elyna: Culture shock is a bitch, but I’m having a blast! ??
Aksel: Enjoy your cat vomit!