Stealing Spree

When I was about to leave Eguchi-sensei’s room, I thought Orimura-sensei would once again run after me to give me a reminder. Surprisingly, she didn’t. I even waited for a while just to see if she was just biding her time but no one showed up.

What I did there was effective, huh? Possibly. She couldn’t only call me out for my shamelessness, after all. And perhaps, seeing how Eguchi-sensei had started becoming more cheerful added to her reprehension of being always against us.

Well, I wouldn’t know what was really in her head unless we talked about the issue openly. At the moment, I could consider what happened there a great result.

Eguchi-sensei enjoyed our time too. It was evident by her cheerful laughter whenever Orimura-sensei and I would banter at something I shamelessly said. In fact, even though we didn’t share a lot of intimate moments there, my lovely PE teacher spoiled me a lot already.

Anyway, that’s that. Tomorrow, I will be with the Basketball Team for most of the day, we’ll get more chances to spend more quality time by then.

Not wasting any more time, I made my way to Shio’s room. As she was also expecting me, I was welcomed by her usual doting smile and warm embrace.

Like the previous occasions, our time together would surely be spent more intimately as I couldn’t openly flirt with her in public. Even without explicitly saying it, I could sense her longing for me each time our eyes would meet during class. Moreover, even when I escorted her in between classes, the time we would get was always insufficient or more often than not, there wasn’t any window of opportunity during it.

That’s why she’s always looking forward to my visits.

After returning that embrace and greeting her with a kiss, we moved further into her room.

It’s a place I was already familiar with so… there’s really nothing new to see.

But then, I noticed her busy desk and found myself walking towards it.

It’s filled with books and other teaching materials. Given that she held off on giving us difficult lessons this week, she was already sorting out her lessons for next week as well as adjusting her lesson plan.

I stood before it and took a peek at the top of the pile. Almost instantly, I gave up reading what was written on it.

I mean, it’s completely in the language she’s teaching us. My head hurts just staring at it.

Somehow, I had this feeling that if I tried to read it aloud with my skewed pronunciation, I might summon a demon that Elizabeth would love to catch.

Alright. That’s an exaggeration. Still, that’s how it appeared to me.

Noticing my reaction to that, Shio’s pleasant giggles rang behind me followed by her arms sliding from my side. Locked in her embrace, she rested her chin on my shoulder as she pointed at the paper I tried to read.

“Silly Ruru, flip that page over. You see. I’m only using that one as a reference.”

“... Is that so? My bad. I thought I would ascend if I managed to understand everything from this.” I put on an embarrassed smile as I played it off humorously.

Then, I did as she instructed. Sure enough, the next page wasn’t a spell book to summon a demon but a proper understandable lesson.

Ugh. How would I know that the next page would be different, right? In any case, that’s really silly of me. It’s impossible to always be the confident guy who can be composed at any given moment.

“Oh. You certainly will. That’s the global language. By being skilled enough to hold a conversation, you can travel to any country without feeling lost. Alas, a lot of students aren’t that keen to study it.” Shio said, expressing a bit of her disappointment.

Hearing that, I couldn’t help but sympathize. She’s right. Although it’s only been more than two months since she started teaching, she probably found a lot of students struggling with the subject. Furthermore, only a select few would be so eager to understand it while the majority would just focus on memorizing whatever word they could memorize to get a passing score on quizzes and tests.

Since I was among the few, I could attest to how hard it was really hard. If not for Shio, I might also fall into that second category. She’s teaching me on the side so... I think I have an edge when it comes to it.

And for sure, she’ll continue to do it even when I go up a year.

“I do hope I can help motivate them but... it’ll be hard, no?”

“Hmm? Idiot Ruru, don’t worry about it. It’s my job as the teacher to make you all learn. Having you by my side is enough.” She pinched my cheek before leaning closer, planting her lips on it. “Un. Rather than them, I can feel my motivation returning. Ruru, is this what Hiyori called Ruki Energy? I feel like I can do anything as long as I have my constant dose of you.”

“Now you’re the one being silly, Shio. Shall I charge it up further then?”

“Yes!”

Turning around to face her, Shio and I once again entered our usual state whenever we were in this room. Forget about recharging her energy, our time together would always be like this… fluffy and comforting – and more often than not, passionate.

A minute or two later, we already moved to our usual spot in this room; the long couch.

Instead of straddling me like before, the two of us lie down on it, cuddling each other. Although it wouldn’t be strange if we immediately went into a more intimate moment, we decided to just converse first. I talked about the things that happened around me and she did the same.

Although mine was so eventful that Shio commented how I was still alive from how overwhelming it was, hers was a pretty interesting day as well.

She had interesting conversations with some of the parents that she called to get consent for the camping trip. She listed it to me one by one, laughing in between. And when she reached the point of talking about her call with my parents, Shio looked up at me with her face red from embarrassment.

“... Your mother, Ruru. She asked me to call her ‘mother’, not ‘Sayuri-san’. She’s not that much older than me. How can I do that? Also, why did she come off as though she already knew everything about me? I’m now dreading the day that I’ll be meeting her.”

Upon hearing that, I couldn’t stop my laughter from coming out. Shio pouted and bit my lips, expressing her discontent. Still, it didn’t stop my imagination from running.

Yeah. I could somehow simulate in my head what exactly happened with their call.

My mother was more of a menace than me, right? She likes all of my girls and of course, that includes Shio. Even though everyone has a good impression of her, they all expressed that they’re also kind of scared of her. I mean, she’s giving off that mysterious vibe of someone who was hiding more than what she showed.

“Knowing her, she won’t relent on that... Should I stay by your side when we meet her? You know. You can pinch me if you feel embarrassed in front of her.”

“Idiot Ruru... Do I really have to call her that way?” Creasing her forehead before cringing visibly as the red of her face grew deeper, Shio rubbed her face on my chest and released a silent shriek.

For Shio to act like this with just a phone call… it makes me anticipate how worse it will be when they meet in person.

“You can refuse... But, Shio. I think that will make her ecstatic.”

“... I’ll try. When is Miwa-nee-san coming back? I’ll get a drink with her and then meet your mother. That way, I can make an excuse for being drunk when I call her that way.”

“Heh. That’s a good idea. But you know, even Miwa-nee is afraid of her.”

“It doesn’t matter. Being drunk can be a shield for embarrassing things. I can just act normally after that and continue refusing to call her mother... Uhm, maybe I will do so after we’re married.”

“Now, that’s a better plan... Well, you can rest assured that she’s just going to dote on you as much as she dotes on me.”

“Being doted on like a child...”

Once again Shio cringed from the embarrassment. Nonetheless, she still managed to recover from it. She steeled her resolve to face my mother.

We continued our conversation on that while also making use of our time together.

We hadn’t eaten lunch yet so I invited her to eat lunch with us. After deliberating for a long while, Shio declined, saying it was fine if we ate at our house but in school, even if she already decided to also compete for more of my attention from the girls, she wanted to maintain her image of the teacher to everyone except me.

And I respected that decision. Due to that, I ate with her first. We shared her boxed meal that she prepared early this morning.