As soon as Koro-sensei began the actual lesson, the classroom fell into an uneasy silence.
Because Akira had already fallen asleep on his desk.
Erika stared at him in complete disbelief, internally panicking.
Didn't you say you were excited for class this morning?! What are you doing now?!
Koro-sensei tilted his head with a slightly hurt expression.
"Nuuuh…? Akira-kun, why are you already sleeping in my class?"
In an instant, he appeared beside Akira, one tentacle gently reaching out to poke the sleeping boy.
Erika's eyes widened.
"Koro-sensei, wait—!"
The tentacle touched him.
Splat!
Koro-sensei instantly retreated at Mach 20 speed, staring at his severed tentacle in complete shock.
The entire class froze.
Everyone slowly turned toward Akira.
He was still completely asleep.
Yet somehow—
an anti-sensei knife had appeared in his hand.
And beside him on the floor, one of Koro-sensei's severed tentacles wriggled weakly.
Erika let out a long, exhausted sigh.
She walked over and twisted Akira's ear hard.
"Wake up, idiot."
"OW—?!"
Akira jolted awake with a loud scream.
"Why?! What did I do?!"
Erika pinched his cheek with a terrifyingly sweet smile.
"Why are you sleeping in class?"
Akira rubbed his eyes sleepily and answered honestly.
"I couldn't help it… the class was boring… and because of what you did to me last night, I didn't sleep well…"
BOOM.
An explosion of silence filled the classroom.
Okajima looked like he had ascended to heaven, eyes sparkling with excitement.
Nakamura and several girls immediately leaned forward in full gossip mode.
Even Koro-sensei's face turned pink.
Karma's grin widened with dangerous interest.
Nagisa was sweating bullets while desperately trying not to misunderstand.
Erika's face turned bright red.
She pinched Akira's cheeks even harder.
"Don't say stupid things! I didn't do anything!"
Akira tilted his head sleepily.
"But you attacked me."
Erika's face somehow became even redder.
"I was hungry! That's all!"
The entire Class 3-E collectively had the exact same thought.
Hungry… for WHAT exactly…?
Erika looked like she genuinely wanted to disappear.
She pinched his cheeks harder again.
"Don't say weird things!"
Akira winced slightly but still looked wronged.
Erika took a deep breath and tried to regain control of the situation.
"You can stay awake for days, so why are you sleeping now?"
Akira answered honestly with the same sleepy expression.
"I couldn't help it. The class was boring."
Koro-sensei froze completely.
Then—
his body slowly turned dark blue.
"…My class… is boring…?"
He retreated dramatically into the corner of the classroom and began drawing circles on the floor with one tentacle.
"Sensei stayed up all night preparing this lesson…"
The students immediately became righteously indignant, ready to defend their teacher.
But before anyone could say anything—
Erika hurriedly interrupted.
"What do you mean boring?! It's only been ten minutes!"
Akira continued explaining calmly.
"I need something mentally stimulating to stay awake. This class isn't there yet. I can calculate the trajectory of fourteen thousand ricochet paths simultaneously. This level of algebra isn't enough to keep my brain active."
The students didn't even know how to respond to that.
Erika sighed deeply.
Then, after thinking for a moment, her face turned slightly red as she leaned closer and whispered quietly,
"…You still can't sleep in class. How about this? If you stay awake, I'll agree to that plan you and Selena came up with."
Akira's eyes instantly lit up.
"Really?! Okay, then I won't sleep!"
Every single student in Class 3-E looked at Erika's blushing face with deep suspicion.
Seriously… what kind of plan is that?!
Erika, now completely red, quickly turned back toward the front of the room and said with as much dignity as she could manage,
"Koro-sensei… please continue the lesson."
Koro-sensei, still emotionally recovering, clapped his tentacles together.
"R-right! Sensei will simply have to make class more stimulating for Akira-kun! Let us continue!"
And the entire class collectively reached the same conclusion.
These new transfer students are extremely suspicious…
Koro-sensei continued the lesson, doing his best to make algebra interesting with enthusiastic explanations and dramatic gestures.
Akira tried his hardest to pay attention.
At first, having a nine-foot-tall yellow octopus teaching math was admittedly pretty interesting.
But the actual content itself was still boring.
Just by glancing at a problem, he could instantly solve it in a hundred different ways. Sitting there while someone slowly explained the process step by step felt painfully dull.
Still—
he had promised Erika he wouldn't sleep.
So he endured it as best he could.
Soon, however, he was reaching his limit.
He needed a distraction.
His eyes slowly drifted toward the stationery on his desk.
A small smile appeared on his face.
—
A few minutes later—
Koro-sensei suddenly froze mid-lecture.
"…Akira-kun."
The next instant, he appeared beside Akira's desk at Mach 20 speed, snatched away whatever Akira was holding, and immediately returned to the front of the classroom.
"Akira-kun! What is this?!"
Akira smiled innocently.
"That's the Pencil Walker."
What Koro-sensei held in his tentacles was a tiny AT-AT walker made entirely out of pencils for legs, rubber bands, and a mechanical sharpener as the main body.
Koro-sensei's eyes sparkled.
"Oh? Does it actually walk?"
Akira answered casually.
"Yep. It's a walker, but all it does is walk."
Koro-sensei carefully placed it on the desk and pressed the small button as instructed.
The tiny Pencil Walker immediately began walking across the teacher's desk.
"Nuuuh! Excellent craftsmanship! The balance ratio is surprisingly stable for something made entirely from classroom supplies!"
The class stared in shock.
Kayano looked utterly baffled.
"How did he even make that?!"
Sugino glanced at the clock.
"We've only been in class for like fifteen minutes…"
Karma quietly started laughing, clearly enjoying this way too much.
Meanwhile, Nagisa had somehow already started writing notes.
"He becomes restless when mentally unstimulated…"
Koro-sensei nodded proudly at the invention—
but then his tone turned strict.
"However, I will be confiscating this."
Akira blinked.
"What? Why?"
Koro-sensei crossed two tentacles firmly.
"Because this is algebra class. If every student starts building military vehicles during algebra lessons, the educational system will collapse~!"
Akira couldn't even argue with that logic.
Reluctantly, he sat back down.
Still, he wasn't too upset.
He had plenty of stationery left.
Before he could start building another machine—
Erika suddenly reached over and confiscated the rest of his supplies in one smooth motion.
"You don't need this many. Just focus on class."
Akira looked genuinely wronged.
"But how…?"
Now completely deprived of entertainment, he was forced to sit there normally.
For a little while, the class continued peacefully.
Then—
while writing on the board, Koro-sensei suddenly paused and slowly turned around.
"…Akira-kun."
"Hm?"
"Why are you sitting beside Erika-san now?"
The entire class turned their heads.
"WHAAAAAT?!"
Even Erika looked shocked as she quickly glanced beside her.
Akira was suddenly sitting right next to her.
Nobody had seen him move.
Erika blinked in disbelief.
"…When did you move?"
Akira answered casually,
"A while ago."
Koro-sensei pointed firmly toward Akira's original desk.
"Go back to your seat."
Akira replied confidently,
"This is my seat. I merely relocated it."
Koro-sensei sighed deeply.
"Then relocate it back."
Without hesitation, Akira answered,
"My place is always next to her."
The entire classroom froze.
Several girls immediately covered their mouths.
"W-wow…"
"He said that so naturally…"
"Is he seriously an ikemen…?"
Karma nearly burst out laughing.
Erika, meanwhile, was blushing furiously as she tried pushing Akira back toward his original place.
"Stop disturbing the class and go back."
Akira immediately protested.
"Wait! It's boring sitting alone! At least let me stay beside you so I can listen to class properly!"
In the end—
Koro-sensei relented.
"Fine… as long as you do not disturb the class any further. Erika-san, please keep an eye on him."
Erika let out a long, exhausted sigh.
"…Okay."
Then she turned toward Akira.
"Don't do anything stupid. Just sit there quietly and pay attention."
Akira nodded obediently.
"Okay."
And then happily settled into the seat beside her.
Meanwhile, Nagisa quietly wrote another observation into his notebook.
"Appears significantly calmer near Erika-san…"
At some point, he had apparently started an observation journal for Akira too.
The bell rang for break.
Koro-sensei instantly flew out the window with a cheerful—
"Nuuhuhuhu~! Sensei is going to Italy for authentic gelato! I shall return shortly~!"
—the air exploding behind him as he vanished at Mach 20 speed.
The moment he disappeared—
the entire Class 3-E moved.
Students swarmed Akira and Erika's desks with the terrifying coordination of predators spotting fresh prey.
The girls immediately gathered around Erika.
Meanwhile, the boys crowded around Akira.
Questions instantly started flying from every direction.
"Erika-san, are you an assassin?!"
Erika smiled elegantly and answered calmly.
"Not really."
"Erika-san, how are you so strong?!"
Erika answered calmly.
"I'm naturally strong."
"How did you coordinate with him so perfectly?! Is throwing knives your specialty?!"
Erika gave a graceful smile.
"Throwing knives aren't actually my specialty. I just throw them very hard. Akira handles the calculations."
Meanwhile—
Akira was rapidly losing the will to live.
"How did you do that ricochet thing?!"
"Can you really calculate all of that in real time?!"
"Are you and Erika-san actually dating?!"
"Did you really hack the school speakers?!"
"Can you teach me how to do that entrance?!"
Akira tried answering, but the questions came faster and faster.
His eyes started darting around nervously.
"U-Umm… wait… one at a time…"
Nobody listened.
The barrage only intensified.
Completely unable to handle the social overload, Akira suddenly ducked behind Erika, using her as a shield.
"You answer them! There are too many!"
Erika let out a long sigh.
The class blinked.
Karma's grin widened knowingly.
"So the mysterious transfer student's weakness is social interaction, huh?"
Kayano smiled softly.
"He's actually kinda cute like this…"
Sugino scratched the back of his head awkwardly.
"Your personality is WAY different from your entrance earlier…"
Nakamura leaned closer toward Erika with a teasing smirk.
"So you're basically his handler now?"
Erika sighed again, already sounding tired of life.
"…Always have been."
Karma casually hopped onto Akira's desk, grinning like a predator that had finally found interesting prey.
"Alright, one question at a time then. How'd you do the ricochet thing?"
Akira's eyes instantly lit up.
Without hesitation, he fully entered nerd mode.
Well, first I observed Koro-sensei's initial dodge patterns during the mass barrage. His movement has slight micro-adjustments based on the density of incoming fire — about 0.3 seconds of predictive lag. I calculated the exact firing angles needed to create a chained ricochet sequence using the classroom's wall reflections, desk edges, and ceiling beams as vectors. By accounting for air resistance, pellet spin, and the slight curvature caused by the room's ventilation draft, I could turn a single shot into a guided path that intersects with his trajectory at the exact moment he commits to a dodge. The second and third shots were built on the same principle but with adjusted timing to account for his growing adaptation—"
Nagisa frantically scribbled everything down into his notebook.
But the more he wrote—
the more confused he became.
Sweat dripped down his face.
Most of the class looked completely lost.
A few students nodded slowly like they kind of understood.
The majority, however, had the blank expressions of people listening to alien mathematics.
Eventually, the girls collectively gave up trying to understand Akira's explanation and instead pulled Erika aside for proper "girls talk."
Kayano leaned closer with sparkling eyes.
"So… are you really dating him?"
Erika's cheeks turned faintly pink, but she answered honestly.
"Yes."
Surprisingly—
almost nobody looked shocked by that answer.
Meanwhile, one of the boys turned back toward Akira and bluntly asked,
"Are you a robot or something?"
Akira tilted his head innocently.
"No. I'm 98.9% organic."
Karma immediately raised an eyebrow, clearly entertained.
"…What about the remaining 1.1%?"
Akira casually opened his mouth to answer.
"That's because my body contains—"
Erika instantly appeared behind him and covered his mouth with both hands.
"We are NOT explaining that to people on your first day!"
"Mmph?!"
Karma's grin became positively evil.
"Now I'm really curious."
Then—
the break ended.
SLAM!
The classroom door burst open dramatically.
Irina Jelavić stood in the doorway, blonde hair flowing dramatically and sharp eyes scanning the room.
"I heard there are new students here—"
Akira, still half-hidden behind Erika, casually looked up and said,
"Oh. The famous Bitch-sensei."
Irina's smile cracked instantly.