School Girls' Stories - Year 3

Chapter 24 – Discipline

“How could you just leave the festival like that?” Frost demanded of Yuki the following Monday. “Your club was depending on you and you let them down. How are you supposed to be taken seriously as an adult when you go running off? Was it worth it?”

“No,” Yuki said bitterly and honestly. “I’m sorry Fro… Mr. Diotrephes. I know I should not have left, but I was enjoying adolescence the way I should not have been. It won’t happen again, I can guarantee it.”

Frost sat back in his chair in the faculty lounge. The original homeroom teacher was taking over class while Frost was supposed to find a way to discipline the girl in front of him. It looked pretty clear she had been doing that all weekend. “This doesn’t have anything to do with your boyfriend suddenly appearing on Saturday, does it?”

Yuki shifted uncomfortably. “He’s not my boyfriend anymore,” she grumbled.

“Ah,” Frost said. “It all becomes clear now. No wonder you seem to have disciplined yourself this weekend. You left because you were so happy to see your movie star boyfriend, then found something indecent out about him, and now it is over?” Yuki just nodded. “Well darling, you should be glad you can be rid of him at all. Many girls, especially when falling for those men who seem to like their string of women, still cling to the fact that they are the ‘girlfriend’ even if he is sleeping with everyone else.”

Yuki’s fists tightened at her side. “Can I talk to you like an old friend, instead of a teacher?” she asked, not daring to look up at him.

“Of course,” Frost said, a bit relieved.

“Shut the fuck up.” Frost was no longer relieved, but Yuki was not done. “You don’t know who he was sleeping with in London, I don’t know either. I can’t read English, but I can read pictures. But if he has something he doesn’t want me to know, then he’s not worth it, but instead of putting your stupid label on my life, why don’t you find out the truth first?”

“Should you not have found out the truth before you left him, then?” Frost asked, leaning forward so that the other members of the faculty still remaining in the lounge did not hear the conversation going on between the two of them.

Yuki shook her head. “Love is about trust,” she pointed out. “Trust is hard, and I trusted him fully at one point because I needed someone to trust in my life. He held on to my trust for so long… but now he can’t tell me the truth.”.

“Yuki…?”

Yuki blinked, realized her voice was growing in her hysteria. “I’m sorry,” she began to apologize.

Frost shook his head, “No, I don’t mean that,” he said, cutting her off. “Yuki, what do these headlines you are reading say?”

“I said I don’t know,” Yuki snapped. “I can’t read English.”

Frost nodded and looked around. Despite his best intentions of keeping their voices low the other faculty members were glancing his way. “Yuki, why don’t we go out to dinner tonight?”

“Oh, I can’t do that,” Yuki insisted.

Frost snorted. “I’m not asking you to marry me,” he said, “but you said you were alone, and it is hard for you to contact your friends, so let’s go out to eat so you have someone to talk to, and I will try to help you figure these things out.”

“You will?” Yuki asked, unable to help the tremble in her voice. “I…”

“Let’s meet at eight, at the little diner around the corner from here,” Frost pointed out. “Then you can use me as a sound board, if nothing more.”

Yuki raised an eyebrow. “I’ve heard these lines before,” she said honestly. “Shinwa was using the same ones on me when he and I first got together.”

Frost let out a hearty laugh. “Yuki, I’m not trying to hit on you,” he said, loudly enough that everyone else could hear. “I’m trying to help you out. You are very much not my type of girl.”

“Too flat?” Yuki asked, before she could contain the words.

Frost’s mouth fell open in shock and he could not help the laugh that erupted once more. “That’s not it,” he said laughing. “Yuki…” he leaned in conspiratorially and gave Yuki a wide smile, “I’m gay. When I first saw you, I remember Nakago having black hair, and gray eyes, and looking feminine. I thought you were Nakago.”

“Um… that’s worse,” Yuki explained, furrowing her brow. “At least I thought you might have mistaken me for Kaori, but… for Nakago.” Of course, he had looked feminine as a child. He always looked so feminine, more so than his sisters, it was not until junior high that he started to take on masculine qualities and Kaori started to look even more beautiful. It was like the two of them were switching characteristics, and Shimo had never seen any of it. He had moved right before junior high.

“You don’t look like Nakago,” Frost laughed, “I guess…”

Yuki suddenly stood up, shaking her head and trying not to laugh. “No, that’s all right, don’t explain,” she said, “you will bury yourself, and I want very much to still like you, at least for dinner tonight. I will see you there, Frost.” Yuki ran out the door, a little high on life, and a little angered by being mistaken for her brother, but there are definitely worse things that had happened, in the last two days.

Yuki, however, rounded the corner to face her worst adversary. “Oh, hi, Kuniyasu.”

A/N: I\'m a mean little author, aren\'t I?