Counseling (2)
I left the classroom and headed for the staff room.
It was my first time in the building, but I'd memorized the rough layout on the way there, so there were no issues.
"Phew."
The staff room was spacious, but eerily quiet with not a single teacher inside. It was a dusty space full of cobwebs, with nothing but glass windows.
I should clean it up sometime later.
Come to think of it, the classroom was just as bad, if not worse. Especially since Abel had shattered a window, making it even dirtier.
I picked the widest, cleanest-looking spot and sat down.
"For a first meeting, that went pretty well, all things considered."
I let out a sigh of relief at the unexpectedly decent vibe from the kids. In the original story, they were the types who clashed with the protagonist at every turn, grinding him down—but right now, they seemed surprisingly mild-mannered. The original versions wouldn't have made faces like that over some silly gift. They'd have slammed me into a wall, beaten me half to death, then demanded it as payment for my life if I was lucky.
I opened the roster and double-checked the kids' names. These were the ones I'd be spending the next year with, the ones I had to reform.
It made my stomach sink just looking at them.
Heh, looks red all right.
Imagining Abel ripping out my heart with that bewitching smile made my gut churn. I closed the roster. If I had to pick the one who worried me most, it was Abel.
"She's still got some cute left in her, but Abel's the only one who's already a full-blown villain at this point."
My head throbbed. Maybe I should stop thinking about it. Sure, planning ahead was key, but rest was rest. A horse that runs too hard too fast doesn't go the distance.
"Where am I supposed to sleep, though."
I glanced around. No way could I crash in a staff room full of dust and wooden furniture. Now that I thought about it, there didn't seem to be any proper sleeping quarters for teachers in this building.
"Realizing this now, huh."
If I'd known, I'd have bought some bedding. There might be empty rooms in the third-floor dorms, but sharing a floor with those kids felt off. And who knew if they even had real beds.
With no choice, I grabbed an old broom from the corner, swept the area roughly, and lay down using my briefcase as a pillow. I could have draped over a desk, but after that long carriage ride, my back wouldn't hold up. Might as well melt away the travel fatigue on the cold floor. I closed my eyes.
"Sigh. What a life."
Just days ago, I'd been cozy in my warm bed back home. Lamenting my fate, I drifted off.
How long had I been asleep? Minutes? Tens of minutes? Hours? Maybe it was the hard floor, but I dragged my stiff body up with a groan.
"Snooore… snooore…"
Peering out the window, a full moon lit up the night sky. Well, I'd dozed off in the afternoon, so waking now made sense.
"Snoooore…"
Yawning with fatigue that hadn't budged an inch, I rubbed my eyes. Now what?
"Fweee… fweee…"
It was weird. I'd clearly woken up and was rubbing my eyes, yet someone's steady sleeping breaths kept filling the air.
I turned toward the presence I'd been ignoring.
"What the hell is she doing here."
The full moon didn't just light the sky. Moonlight slipped through the cracked, broken windows on the wind, illuminating the face of the girl lying right beside me. Short blue hair to her shoulders splayed across the pillow-like briefcase, her body wrapped tight in a blanket, sleeping comfortably enough on this hard floor.
"Iruka."
The original story's main villain, Abel's right-hand woman behind countless atrocities, right here next to me. It felt surreal, bittersweet. Like a dream since I'd just woken. She wasn't there yet, but if she wanted, she'd kill me without me even knowing why—and that thought sent shivers.
"Iruka." "Mm, ungh…"
Calling her name again, Iruka rubbed her eyes and sat up.
"Yaaawn… You're up?"
"…Why were you sleeping here."
"Yaaaawn…"
Iruka yawned hugely right in front of me, utterly shameless. No, she just didn't care. These Old School Building kids all had talents and strength beyond their years. To them, I was just some irrelevant adult. That's why she could sleep so casually next to me.
"Mm, ungh… yaaawn…"
Iruka ignored my question, wrestling with sleep for a while before stretching and finally looking at me.
"…You said come for counseling today."
"…Now?"
"…You said anytime."
"That doesn't explain sleeping here."
"…You were asleep when I got here. Too lazy to wake you, so I slept next to you."
Iruka said it so matter-of-factly, like what was the problem. I checked my watch: 1 a.m. …Fine, a whole day had passed. Still, her showing up at all was a win. Given her personality, I'd braced for her to skip or avoid counseling entirely.
"Alright, let's start the counseling then."
"…? No need to go to the desk?"
Iruka looked puzzled. Standard procedure would be sitting across a desk, but whatever. If floor counseling worked better for her, why not? It'd clearly be more efficient this way.
"Want to sit at the desk?"
Iruka went silent again, for a long stretch. I waited patiently. Night was long, and we had plenty of time.
After a bit, she nodded with a faint smile.
"Nah, this is fine."
"Okay. Let's begin then."
And so began our slightly unusual counseling session: teacher and student sitting on the floor, facing each other. The odd part? The teacher on the cold bare floor, the student bundled in her blanket, also on the floor.
"I heard why you got confined to the Old School Building. Poor class attitude, insufficient credits, etc."
"…I just slept in class."
Iruka averted her gaze. I opened my briefcase and pored over her report card.
"F in every subject. Zero practical exam attempts. …You just slept through school."
"Don't praise me like that."
"Not praise."
I broke into a cold sweat staring at Iruka's abysmal grades. She'd dragged through two years at the academy like this and got confinement instead of expulsion? But Mershu Academy wasn't merciful. It was infamous for ruthlessly culling the untalented who couldn't keep up. Easy to enter, hell to graduate—that was Mershu. So how was Iruka still here?
The reason was simple. I checked the top of her report card.
Mana Aptitude: S-rank.
Cliché, but S-rank mana was a once-in-a-generation genius. Nations buzzed at their birth; nobles and royals alike scrambled to recruit them. The academy couldn't control her but couldn't let her go either. So they just dumped her within reach.
Wait, then why hasn't Iruka left the academy?
A question popped into my head. Powerful as it was, the academy couldn't chain a student who wanted out. She could leave anytime—so why stay?
Not the time to ask.
"These grades aren't normal for an academy student, Iruka."
"…Yeah."
"One question."
Iruka gave me a faintly bitter look. What? I hadn't said anything yet—why the sudden shift? Just from that? But come on, this wasn't normal, girl.
Feeling a twinge of unease, I asked what I wanted.
"Do you sleep in class because studying's boring? Or skip studying because you want to sleep?"
"…Huh?"
Iruka tilted her head, like the question blindsided her. She froze again for a long time before responding.
"Why… ask that?"
"Gotta know the reason to fix it."
"…?"
"Let me rephrase… Iruka, what do you want to do?"
She froze again. The difference this time? Eyes wide round. In the original, she'd often trail off mid-sentence—no explanation given, just her character trait. There, it was a line like "She was silent for a long time." In reality? Frustrating as hell. But pushing her wouldn't speed it up, so I used the time to mull over counseling angles.
Finally, Iruka spoke. Record: 13 minutes. Her longest pause yet. I was actually getting curious what she'd say—then she turned her back, lay down, and—
"Gonna sleep. Snoooore…"
In exactly one second flat, she was snoring again. I stared blankly at her sleeping on the floor.
Sigh.
Fine, I believed it. You definitely have the makings of a villain, kid.
My blood pressure spiked, neck throbbing, but what could I, the teacher, do to a sleeping child?
"Haa…"
"Snoooore…"
My lost sigh mingled with someone's breaths, scattering into the night sky.