Chapter 2:

Chapter 2

Just as I Became a Wizard a Girl Asked Me Out, and She's My Student!


1

I got back to my apartment much later than I had planned, after I spent some time at the store buying cat supplies.

“Welcome to your new home, Kuro.”

I set him down, letting him explore his new environment. He seemed really curious at first, looking around every nook and cranny of the small apartment, before finally settling down underneath the kotatsu that I neglected to put away at the end of winter.

Man what a day, I was ready to lie down and sleep.

Finally, I was able to crash onto my pillow and close my eyes as I recounted the day’s events in my mind as I nodded off.

“Lame characters like you are my type. Want to go out with me?”

My eyes shot wide open, remembering what happened. What have I done?


“Lame characters like you are my type. Want to go out with me?”

Huh? Did I hear her right? Did she just really ask me out?

“...Oh it’s some weird joke, right? Don’t make fun of adults like that, I almost thought you were serious.”

“I am.”

“...”

Say that again?

“I wasn’t joking.”

“Do you think that a 30-year old girlfriendless virgin is so desperate that he would willingly date a high school girl?”

“Are you saying you’re not desperate?”

“Oh, I very much am,” I said with a straight face. I bowed, “I’ll be in your care.”


Oh no no, what have I done?! Did I really agree to date a high school girl - my own student?!

This is bad, really bad.

I’m sorry, Mother, your son is not just a disgrace, but pure scum.

2

I arrived at school the next morning early - there’s no way I was going to be late a second day in a row.

Not only did I arrive early, but I also made sure to clean up my appearance; hopefully this is enough to get the principal off my back.

“Shibata-sensei.”

I jumped, surprised at hearing my name called as I was changing into my slippers by the shoe lockers. I half expected it to be the principal coming to lecture me about something or another, but when I turned to see who it was I was sorely mistaken. I wish it had been the principal.

It was Tachibana Arisu, my student - my girlfriend.

“Shibata-sensei, I-”

“Shh!” I quickly pressed my hand to her mouth and glanced around, there didn’t seem to be anyone in the area.

I pulled my hand away, “Let’s go somewhere more private.”

My heart was beating out of my chest. What the hell was this situation? If anyone saw us they would surely think there was something suspicious going on.

I led her to the biology prep room that was thankfully empty. I let out a sigh of relief, we can talk freely here without any prying eyes.

“I didn’t realize you holding onto my J*mp had to be so secretive.”

“Huh?”

From out of her school bag, she pulled out the latest issue of J*mp. My mind flashed back to yesterday, oh yeah I did promise her she could bring manga magazines if she turned them into me in the mornings.

“That was why you called out to me,” I asked.

“Of course. Why else do you think I called out to you?”

I felt my cheeks grow red. I can’t believe this high school girl is making me, a grown man, get so flustered. “Well, you know… after what happened yesterday - I thought… well, you know…”

She gave me a blank look.

Oh no, does she not understand what I’m talking about? Did I dream the whole thing?

That would probably be for the best if it was all a dream - dating a student is just unthinkable. Yeah, I must have dreamed it all, there’s no way that I could ever get a girlfriend let alone a girlfriend who’s half my age. “Ahh… nevermind, it’s nothing.”

She hit her palm upon realization, “You’re referring to me asking you out."

Ack! It wasn’t a dream.

“What about it?”

“Well, you see...” What the heck was I going to say? Now that I know what happened yesterday really happened, I’ve found myself in a bad position. I know I need to break things off as fast as possible before our relationship causes problems, but at the same time, this is the first time I’ve ever had a girlfriend - something like this might never happen again in my life!

No, I do need to break up with her - I’m the adult here.

I took a deep breath, “I was really happy that you asked me out yesterday, you’re the first girl to ever show any interest in me, but despite what I said, we can’t go out.”

I expected - no, semi-hoped - she would break down crying, to be entirely upset that I was breaking up with her, however she looked back at me with that same blank expression she had earlier. Can’t you show a hint of dismay that you’re being dumped?

“Why?”

I was taken aback, “Why? Isn’t it obvious?”

“...”

“We’re teacher and student.”

“Oh is that all? That doesn’t really bother me.”

“It bothers me!”

Oh boy, how does she not understand this?

“You might not be bothered by it, but if our relationship gets discovered then not only will my career go down the drain, I’ll be arrested and branded as a lolicon!”

“So we don’t get caught, simple.”

“Don’t get caught, I guess it is that simple,” I nodded. “YEAH RIGHT! It isn’t just that simple!”

How can she not understand how serious our situation is? Does she not understand because between the two of us she has the least to lose if we’re found out?

If that’s the case then I’m going to need to find some other way to get out of this.

“Ignoring the fact that we’re student and teacher, there are still so many problems with this relationship.”

“Like what,” she asked.

“Well… there’s our age gap for starters. It would be one thing if we were two or three years apart, but there’s over a decade between us.”

“That’s not much of an argument - haven’t you ever heard the saying that age is just a number? It doesn’t matter if we’re the same age or thirty years apart for all I care.”

“Thirty years?! How old do you think I am,” I nearly shouted. “I’m only fifteen years older than you.”

Many of my relatives have continually told me that I look young for my age. Were they all lying to be nice? Is it actually the opposite; do I look old for my age? Now I’m going to be self-conscious about this for the rest of the day.

Putting that aside, it doesn’t look like she will concede so easily on this point.

“There’s also the issue that we don’t know each other, we only met yesterday,” I argued, moving on to my next reason.

“That’s no reason to break up, many people begin dating after just meeting - it’s actually quite common.”

Really? As someone who is clueless about dating, that was news to me, but I guess I have heard stories of people who fell in love at first sight though until now I was convinced that those types of stories were fake.

“There are even people who decide to get married just after their first meeting,” she continued.

“Are there really people that desperate?!”

She ignored my outburst, “With that being said, you can’t argue that we can’t date because we just met.”

“Well… well, there’s still more reasons we can’t date such as…” I began to draw a blank. I had already used up the points that I had prepared and now I can’t come up with any more reasons.

My shoulders slumped, I might as well give up at this point. Even if I could come up with more reasons, she’s only going to refute them. She might have a decent career being a lawyer.

 “Fine, you win, I give up.”

“Good,” she smiled and handed me her J*mp, “You can read it if you want. I’ll see you in class.”

With that she walked out of the prep room, leaving me there holding the magazine dumbfounded.

Not only am I bad at getting a girlfriend, it seems that I’m also bad at breaking up.

3

I dropped the magazine into my desk drawer and then dropped my head onto my desktop, groaning.

“Let me guess, Tachibana Arisu?”

I pried my face from the desk to see who was talking to me. It was a pretty young woman who was sitting at the desk to my right. I think her name is Kiyama-sensei if I’m not mistaken.

“Yeah, she’s proving to be a bit of a handful and it’s only the second day,” I grumbled, “Have you taught her before?”

“I wasn’t her homeroom teacher, but I did have her in my math class last year. Can’t say I envy you.”

“Has she always been so…”

“Obnoxious, loud, stubborn,” she offered.

“I wouldn’t have said obnoxious, but yes.”

She chuckled, “For as long as she’s been going to school here, then yes. She’s been a big headache for a lot of teachers. All she ever shows interest in is anime, manga and games, she doesn’t put any effort into her school work, she’s always bringing in contraband, she disrupts classes, and she doesn’t get along with any of the other students.”

“You’re kidding me.”

I already knew she was a pain to deal with, but what Kiyama-sensei is describing is the definition of a nightmare student. I’m half tempted to turn in my resignation just so I wouldn’t have to deal with her, but that wouldn’t do me any good - I would be out of a job and it wouldn’t change the fact that we’re dating.

“Wait, you said she’s always bringing in contraband?”

“Manga, games, anything otaku related she’ll bring to school and she doesn’t even try to hide it. There were so many things confiscated from her last year that her homeroom teacher eventually gave up.”

I briefly glanced over to the drawer that I had put her magazine in, “So you’re telling me that even if I didn’t make that deal with her yesterday, that she would have still come to school with contraband?”

She gave me an apologetic look, “I wanted to warn you yesterday, but it seemed like you were already having a bad day as it was.”

“Next time give me a heads up when I’m about to do anything completely pointless.”

“Still, I’m a little surprised that she actually handed over her manga to you. If her homeroom teacher last year negotiated with her a bit like you did then maybe things would have never gotten as bad as they did.”

That last part caught my attention. That didn’t sound good; what on earth happened with her last teacher? I wanted to pry, but part felt that if I did hear the full story then I really would hand in my resignation.

Kiyama-sensei patted my shoulder reassuringly, having seemingly picked up on my anxiousness, “Don’t worry, you seem like someone who can handle her well - she shouldn’t cause you too much problems.”

“Well that’s good,” I breathed a sigh of relief.

Wait, did she say she shouldn’t cause me too much problems? Does that mean she’s still going to be causing me problems regardless of how well I can handle her?

Maybe I really should quit.

4

My classes have actually gone by smoothly today and Tachibana-san didn’t make a scene once. Is she really upkeeping her end of the deal by staying on her best behavior?

Though it is only lunch-time, there’s still time for something to happen. Let’s just hope her good behavior isn’t short-lived.

I sat at my desk in the Staff Room ready to dig into the bento I brought from home when I decided to pull out the J*mp magazine she had handed over to me this morning. She did say I could read it after all.

Something fell out of the magazine - some sort of card- when I opened up to the first page and landed under my desk.

I leaned down to pick it up, but paused centimeters away from touching it when I realized what it was.

It wasn’t one of those loose subscription cards that you usually find inside magazines as I had originally thought, but a note addressed to me.

Sensei,

Meet me on the roof at lunch.

What the- ? How did she know I would even read her magazine, let alone at lunch? Wait how did she get on the roof; students are restricted from going up there without permission.

The key to the roof was still in its spot here in the Staff Room, so she couldn’t have gotten access to the roof, right?

Knowing her, I bet she’s found some sort of way to get up there.

Argh, I’d rather be reading some free manga as I ate my lunch in peace, but as a teacher I couldn’t just knowingly let a student go about breaking the rules.

Grabbing the key, I quickly made my way upstairs getting ready to yell at her once I got onto the roof, however I didn’t have to worry about that.

In my rush I almost didn’t notice her - sitting alone at the top of the stairs by the roof door was a certain Tachibana Arisu.

“Looks like you got my message,” she said, standing up.

“You’re not on the roof,” I asked, a bit confused why she was just waiting on the stairs. I had expected her to be already on the rooftop.

“Of course I’m not on the roof - not only do I not have permission, I don’t have any way of unlocking the door.”

That’s… that’s actually reasonable and the complete opposite from what I was expecting. Did Kiyama-sensei exaggerate how much trouble this girl is?

Nevertheless something still didn’t feel quite right, “Then why did you ask me to meet you on the roof if you couldn’t even go out onto it?”

“I needed someone to let me onto the roof,” she explained simply, taking the roof key from my hand, letting herself out to the roof.

Dumbfounded, I stood there in shock for a moment, “Hey, wait a minute! I never gave you permission!”

She looked back at me from just past the door, “Can I have permission, Sensei?”

“What? No. I don’t want to get in trouble for letting you up here, I’m already on thin ice with the principal as is.”

“I’ll tell the entire class that you’re a chuunibyou.”

“Am not!”

“I’ll tell them that you are so deluded that you think you’re some great and powerful wizard, and that you pretend your pet cat is your familiar.”

“No one will respect me if you tell them that!”

I groaned, I didn’t want to do this, but she’s given me no other choice.

“Feel free to use the roof to your heart’s content.”

What can I say, I’m really weak to threats to my reputation.

She giddily ran up to the fence that enclosed the roof and looked down to the courtyard below.

“Is hanging out on the roof really that exciting,” I asked, following her onto the roof, “There’s not really anything to do up here. Wouldn’t you rather be eating lunch with your friends in the classroom or cafeteria?”

“Not particularly, the roof is way better - in anime they’re always getting to go up to the roof to eat and hang out. It sucks that they don’t let us out on the roof in real life.”

Ah, so that’s why she wanted to go out onto the roof - because of anime. Given her personality, it should have been obvious why she wanted to eat lunch on the roof.

“Plus eating on the roof is way better than eating in the restroom.”

“I can imagine so,” I agreed. “Wait, are you saying that you normally eat lunch in the restroom?”

She suddenly realized she had said too much, “S-sometimes, when all the normies in the classroom get on my nerves.”

I admittedly could be a bit gullible at times, but there’s no way that I could even buy such a bald faced lie.

“Tachibana-san…”

“Hey Sensei,” she quickly interjected me, “Do you use LINE?”

She clearly wanted to change the subject. I know I should pursue her earlier comment further, but if she doesn’t want to talk about it then I’ll just ignore it for now.

“Of course, who doesn’t use LINE?”

“Let’s exchange emails then! It would be better if we can just send emails instead of trying to find other ways to contact each other.”

She has a point, contacting each other through LINE would be better than leaving notes or trying to talk in private.

We exchanged emails and I stared at the new contact in somewhat of disbelief. Up until now I have never exchanged emails with a female that wasn’t either family or a co-worker.

Ding!

A notification popped up on my phone. Tachibana-san sent me a message despite standing right in front of me.

It was just a cute sticker of a black cat waving a paw. Another message popped up on my screen, this time it wasn’t a sticker.

Meet me at the train station at 10 am Sunday.

I looked up from my screen, “You mean like a date?”

“What else would it be?”

Huh? Wait. Wait. Did she just ask me out on a date? No, she didn’t ask me - more like told me we were going on a date Sunday without giving me a say in the matter.

Well, we are technically dating which would ensue us doing couplely things such as going on dates, holding hands and kis…

No, what am I thinking - she’s still my student, I shouldn’t be doing those sorts of things with her. I shouldn’t be dating her either, but let’s not focus too much on that point.

A date shouldn’t be too bad though; as long as we keep things appropriate and aren’t seen by anyone who might recognize us then it should be fine.

“I guess it’s a date then.”

Wow, my very first date. And it’s with my student.

This just goes to show how sorry my life truly is.

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