The bell rang in the Tokyo Metropolitan Nishi High School, and Class 1-A was already in their classroom, waiting for their Math Teacher.
Sakamo Ryu entered, and while the students were wondering who was that young man with a long braid that was going to the Teacher’s desk, he smiled at them. Sakamo put his bag on top of the desk and placed himself in front of the whiteboard:
“Good morning students, I am your temporary Teacher, Sakamo Ryu. You may call me Sakamo-sensei. I will be your Math Teacher while Teacher Kaishu Katsu is on leave because of his new baby.”
One girl with dyed blond hair raised her hand, and Sakamo didn’t fail on remembering another yellow head, staring at him with wide-open eyes, like that girl was doing. Sakamo nodded with a smile, and the girl asked:
“Sakamo-sensei… are you Sakamo Ryu, Tomoe-chan friend and Mae-chan husband? Are you really him? Because I am a huge fan of Tomoe-chan and Mae-chan, and I remember seeing you with them on a red carpet event on television, a few months ago!”
The entire class gasped. Those names were famous enough, and they all stared at him with admiration, because the surprise of seeing such a handsome young Teacher entering the classroom made them unable to recognize who he really was. Sakamo scratched his cheek with an awkward smile:
“Yeah, I told the Principal this was a bad idea, but I owe him a few favours from when I was a student in this School. I made a bunch of blunders, and he told me that he would punish me when he found it more convenient. I am that Sakamo Ryu, alright, and…”
His phone rang, and Sakamo jolted. The entire class muffled laughter because it was forbidden for the students and Teachers to use their phones in the classroom. Sakamo went to his bag to silence it while apologizing:
“I am really sorry, I totally forgot to silence this thing!”
He then froze at the name on the screen and another memory came to his mind. As he was silencing the ringing tone, he raised his head to face his students with an awkward smile:
“I deeply apologize, but I have to take this or she will squeeze my neck when I get home!”
Sakamo hesitated for a split second, and he then pressed the screen, accepting the video call. The smiling face of Tomoe-chan next to Hangaku Mae looked at him, and they both screamed at the same time:
“Kyaahh! Ryu-kun, you look so cool as a Teacher! I so want to hug you! Show me your class, I want to say hello to them!”
“No, you already did a good mess with this call, Tomoe-chan. I could swear I put my phone in silence before leaving my house, I don’t know how it rang!”
The smiling Hangaku Mae raised her open right hand with her lose blonde hair floating with the wind:
“Sorry, that was me! We thought about this prank last week, and I had to do it or else Tomoe-chan would nag me forever! Point the phone to your class, I want to see them!”
Sakamo sighed and turned his phone around, making his entire class almost explode with excitement. He signalled them to be quiet, worried that the outburst could attract the attention of someone in the hallway outside, making him apologize to the Principal and owing him another favour. The class went silent and they stared at the screen, eager to hear the famous singers and models. Tomoe-chan approached the phone to her face and said in a loud voice:
“Hello everyone! Take good care of my dear Ryu-kun, will you? This is his first gig as a Teacher, and he might be a little nervous, so be kind and don’t make him regret accepting the Principal’s offer, or he is so going to squeeze my neck because I was nagging him for weeks, for him to accept that job!”
Hangaku pushed Tomoe-chan away from the phone with her head and said:
“Ryu, move the phone around, I want to see if there is a cute girl in there that might try something with her new handsome Teacher! Move your hand you fool, jeez!”
The entire class laughed, and Sakamo moved the phone from left to right. Hangaku Mae noticed a cute girl with dyed blond hair, and shouted:
“That one! The yellow head! She looks just like me at her age! Don’t you give him any weird look, girl! I know you, because I was once in a classroom like that one, drooling all over the new kid with a long braid that was introducing himself, just like you are doing! I suppose I can’t be mad at you, because he is so damn gorgeous, but if you push your luck, I may need to visit that School of yours, to teach you some manners!”
The blond girl vigorously nodded with her face all red, and Sakamo pointed the phone at him again:
“That wasn’t very nice, Mae! You know how much I despise bullies!”
“Oh shush, I was just teasing her! She has a nice taste for looking at you like that and she also looks like me, so how can I bully myself? Invite them all to have tea with us after School, we are going to shoot a commercial in the city centre, and we could hang out after that. I know a nice place where we can have some tea and cakes, right next to your School.”
“You are speaking about Yoshinobu Tokuga and Makishita Aruka tea house, right?”
“No, I am talking about Yoshinobu Tokuga and Makishita Tokuga. They got married months ago, remember? Sometimes you have your head in the clouds! What are you doing in that Institute and in the University, burning your brain cells?”
A commotion was heard behind Hangaku Mae and the voice of Hojo Masako shouted in the background:
“Mae-chan, Tomoe-chan, what are you doing there? Go to your place, we are working here, you lazy fools! Everyone, to your stations, we are filming in five minutes!”
Tomoe-chan appeared on the screen of Sakamo’s phone:
“Our overly serious producer is calling for us, Ryu-kun! We will see you all after School in that tea house! Shintaro Nakaoka-chan and Tadasaburo Sasaki-kun are also going, they send us a message a few minutes ago! Send kisses to your pretty students! We also cleared our schedule to go see Takechi-kun’s show next Friday night, but we can talk more about that later! I want to make a prank at his show and I need your help with the details!”
They hang up, leaving Sakamo to face his students all alone. He put his phone inside his bag again, making sure to silence it. He then raised his head and a bunch of shining eyes and big smiles were staring at him.
“You heard her, right? So, any of you wants to join me in the tea house near this School? My friends own the place, and for years that tea house is a usual hanging spot for students.”
They all nodded, muffling their excitement because Sakamo kept on signalling them to be quiet. He then looked at the girl with yellow dyed hair and made a slight bow:
– I apologise for Mae-chan’s teasing. She tends to joke a lot, as for sure you heard, considering that she is always playing pranks on the reporters that keep on following her.”
The young girl spoke with a trembling voice:
“I… don’t mind, Sakamo-sensei. She even said I look like her when she was my age, and that was a huge compliment! I just… You are younger than most of our Teachers, even for a temporary Teacher. And Tomoe-chan said this was your first job as a Teacher?”
“Yes, I am a second-year at Tokyo University, and I also work in the Earthquake Institute. I had to find time to fit your class in my schedule, but our Principal didn’t give me any choice.”
Another girl timidly raised her arm, and she hesitated for a while, before speaking:
“Sakamo-sensei, I remember that at the beginning of her career, Mae-chan was surrounded with speculations and rumours because of her family. She used to be extremely rich, right? And then her father disappeared with all their money, leaving her family in a tough spot. The reporters found out that before that scandal, she was already living with her boyfriend when they were just first years in this School, and that was probably one of the reasons for her father to run away because he was always fighting with Mae-chan and her mother! Do you… perhaps…”
Sakamo scratched his cheek again, as he normally did when he was nervous, a quirk that he never got rid of.
“Yeah, we started dating in our first year, and she cut relationships with her family because of me. Well, actually, it was her father that threatened that he would disinherit her if she stayed with me, and he even gave me money to leave Mae.”
“You didn’t accept his money, right? Considering that you are still with Mae-chan!”
Sakamo raised one eyebrow:
“Of course I accepted, it was a huge sum of money! I even asked him for a second check, and I invited Mae to live with me, considering that her father was being so generous and giving us money for living expenses for the next ten years! He was extremely angry when Mae said yes.”
The entire class burst into laughter, and Sakamo worriedly signalled them to be quiet. The same girl spoke with a big smile on her face:
“No wonder Mae-chan’s father didn’t like you, Sakamo-sensei! I read in some magazines that you are an orphan raised in a Shrine in Nakanojo, no way such a rich family like the Hangaku used to be, would be happy to see you dating the family heir! But things turned out okay because you two look very happy in every photo they take with you guys!”
“Yeah, things were a little stressful in the beginning, but even with her family scandal, it boosted her career faster than we could imagine. The moment she came forth and explained that she was already away from her family before her father fled with the money, and with Empress Nabito inviting us to every social event, it was more than enough to clean Mae-chan’s reputation.”
The blonde girl raised her arm again:
“Sakamo-sensei, I never saw an explanation about your relationship with the Imperial Family. Every time a reporter asked, no one would answer him! I remember the Empress silencing a reporter with a scary angry face, saying that she wouldn’t speak anything concerning personal family matters and that she considered you, a family matter. Can you tell us why?”
“I suppose I can tell that I am a friend of the Imperial Family since I was fifteen years old. A few months before entering High School, I met the Princess first, and the Emperor next. When I first saw the Empress, I could hardly say a thing, because she kept on staring at me, in silence. I eventually conquered her, and she more or less adopted me as if I were her son. So, I guess it’s time to end all the questioning, I need to call your names to get used to them so that we can begin today’s lesson.”
A tall and slim boy spoke while rolling up his eyes:
“Oh, come on, math exercises right on the first day? Can’t we use this time to know each other a little better?”
Sakamo made a slight smile while remembering:
“Yeah, I once heard a crazy boy complaining about that to Kaishu-sensei on my first day in this School. Unlike him, I won’t threaten you with a low grade, but I will leave you behind when we all go to the tea house, to meet Mae-chan and Tomoe-chan. Even if you are not one of their fans, at least you could use that time to know your classmates a little better, like you said.”
The boy gulped and spoke with a trembling voice:
“I… don’t like that much Tomoe-chan pop songs, but Mae-chan is an amazing rock star, it was because of her that I began learning how to play the guitar…”
Sakamo turned to the whiteboard and wrote a few equations. He then went to his seat and opened his bag. The silence around made him raise his eyes and saw his entire class staring at the board, completely dumbfounded. He frowned and looked at the whiteboard, and he quickly went there and wiped the equations and wrote simpler ones. A few sighs of relief echoed in the room, and he faced his worried students with an awkward smile:
“Sorry, I guess I am a bit nervous and I inadvertently wrote University Level equations. Those are more adequate to your grade.”
The blonde girl raised her arm:
“Sakamo-sensei, that first equation was intriguing, can you tell me what it can be used for?”
“Well, that was a high-level equation used to calculate probabilities and consequences, depending on the number of variables we use. It is also an evolution of these simpler equations, actually. It’s…”
Sakamo noticed that the entire class was listening to him very attentively, and he made a slight smile:
“I suppose I can explain a bit more about the equations I first wrote when you all finish those ones. It can help you on understanding the mathematics that you are supposed to learn in the next three years of High School because I know it’s a little frustrating to learn all sorts of equations without seeing practical uses.”
The students were smiling and nodding at each other and the tall and slim boy spoke with his eyes wide open:
“Yeah, that would be awesome! I don’t like math very much, mostly because I can never figure out what all the equations can be used for!”
Sakamo Ryu shrugged:
“That’s understandable. I know it’s not very usual for a math class to go on field trips, but maybe next week I can schedule a visit to the Earthquake Institute at Tokyo University, where you can see how these equations can be used on several simulations. I need to talk about that with the Principal and that will be bothersome because he tends to use every opportunity to make me owe him another favour, but I suppose I can bear with it if that makes everyone more willing to learn mathematics without complaining.”
That was the last drop. The entire class jumped and cheered, and Sakamo slapped his forehead, resigning to become the talk among all the Teachers and students, right on his first day.