"Um... Kirisu-sensei." Takashi lowered the letter with a strange look that he didn't show Mafuyu. "I think this is a misunderstanding."
"What are you talking about?" Nothing broke Mafuyu's composure…
"This poem is mine, but I didn't write it for you," Komuro said, making the situation more uncomfortable for Mafuyu.
"What?"
"See, I think I know what's going on." He told his guess, assuming it was all Imamura's doing after telling him he'd bring it to light and all that.
"I see..." A story that, instead of relaxing Mafuyu, filled her with rage. "So your friend has the nerve to make jokes like this to teachers and students."
"He didn't do it with bad intentions." He defended his clumsy friend.
"Why do you defend him?"
"Since this situation is uncomfortable for Kirisu-sensei, it's only fair that it's also uncomfortable for me." Having said that, Takashi approached Mafuyu and whispered in her ear.
He told her an almost-known secret of Takashi's, and it made the pink-haired teacher blush so much that her head steamed. "That's the reason he did what brought us here. Imamura surely thought he was doing me a favor by sending you that letter, but he thought wrong."
Mafuyu took a few steps back after hearing Takashi, her face still redder than before.
"Leave. You can go now," was Kirisu's curt response when her nerves and the heat of her face overwhelmed her own will.
Without saying anything, Takashi just gave one last look at Mafuyu, who had her face covered by strands of her own hair as a sign that the teacher was not well, emotionally. He walked slowly to the door.
Upon leaving and before closing it, he gave one last look at the pink-haired teacher, who was still in that peculiar state of mind. He waited a few seconds after seeing him close the door, and Kirisu turned toward the blackboard to put her hands over her eyes and release the embarrassment all of this caused her.
"Oh, my God!" Kirisu exclaimed with her hands over her eyes, her head spinning, and her heart beating as hard as it could.
"I was supposed to change schools to forget about Yuiga and... The fact that I lost." She spoke sadly at the end.
"I came to Fujimi to start over, and shortly after, someone left me a love letter that only turned out to be a bad joke from a student..."
Suddenly she remembered the words Takashi had just whispered in her ear, making her blush again.
"Personally, I'm attracted to mature women like Kirisu-sensei." There were a few more words, but they were the only ones Mafuyu needed to blush. "And being honest, Kirisu-sensei seems attractive to me."
Returning to the present, Mafuyu. The teacher had her hands on her cheeks, as her face didn't seem to cool down.
"No, Mafuyu. Remember what you swore. You weren't going to get your hopes up over a student—for the second time."
This teacher had a peculiar problem, like many people: drinking wasn't her thing.
"Tarara~" Kirisu hummed on her way home after going out drinking in the company of other teachers from the new academy. "I think I overdid it again... But I only drank a couple of cans."
Remembering, Kirisu had gone to a bar-restaurant in the company of Rossweisse, along with Shizuka and Rika, to socialize with the new teachers. But instead of forming bonds, she tried to drown the shame she'd just experienced with alcohol.
"Hey, don't you think you're drinking a lot, Kirisu?" Rika said, watching how the pink-haired teacher drank can after can of alcohol like water in the place.
"I'm fine~" Kirisu exclaimed cheerfully, finishing the whole pack by herself.
"Couldn't Hayashi-san come?" asked the Nordic foreign teacher.
A curious question to answer for the two veteran teachers—only they knew why Kyoko wasn't accompanying them. Rika and Marikawa looked at each other for a second before laughing at what only they knew well.
"What's so funny?" the young blonde teacher asked innocently.
"We'll just tell you she's very, very busy," Minami exclaimed suggestively, which made Shizuka understand.
"What?" Ross's innocent mind didn't catch the double meaning of her superiors.
"It's about those private classes she gives Komuro-san. I didn't know Fujimi gives special classes to its students," the Valkyrie commented.
"It's not something Fujimi provides to its students. They're special classes we give Takashi," Shizuka said cheerfully, receiving a silence from Minami so she wouldn't say too much.
Leaving Rossweisse more confused than she already was, at the end of the extra-work gathering, Kirisu returned on her own to her house despite Rika having a peculiar car to take them to their addresses after offering, since Mafuyu's car was in the shop.
But along the way, passing by the sidewalk of a public park, Kirisu felt the ground moving too much, so she stopped at a bench to refresh her memory.
"I really did drink too much," the pink-haired milf said to herself. But when she began to feel comfortable, a couple approached just to mess with her.
"Well, well, what's a beautiful woman like you doing here all alone?" She became alert when she saw these thugs approaching. She stood up and, grabbing her bag, was about to leave when the two cornered her.
"Where are you going, precious?"
"Home. You two should go to your homes too," she said with her identifiable strict expression as always.
"Why? The night is beautiful. Let's have fun, the three of us." One of them grabbed Kirisu by the wrist, which she didn't like.
"Let go of me!" She wasn't going to let two idiots take advantage of her just like that.
The few people passing by turned a blind eye—no one seemed willing to lend Mafuyu a hand in her problem.
"You're not listening to her. She told you to let her go." A brave young man appeared to intervene. A face that surprised Kirisu to see—it was Komuro, who appeared with his uniform and student backpack on his back.
"Eh? Who are you, brat?" both delinquents asked. Leaving Kirisu alone to go against Takashi. "Why don't you go home and leave the adults in peace?"
"What adults? I only see two idiots trying to take advantage of a defenseless woman," he responded despite being grabbed by the neck and lifted by the leader of the two.
"What did you say?!" Without showing fear, he looked them both directly in the eyes, which annoyed one of these thugs. He continued without showing fear despite seeing that one of them drew a knife and put it in front of his face.
"What's going on here?" A couple of officers appeared, crossing the street, and saw the scene.
"Do you have a license to carry that, kid?" the officer's partner asked upon noticing the weapon of the one holding Komuro.
"Well, officer..." they began, pretending nothing was happening.
"What's the commotion?" the older of the officers asked again.
"None. Nothing's happening."
"Officer, these two were trying to take advantage of my teacher just because I left her for five minutes to buy some fluids at the pharmacy after she had too much to drink," Komuro recounted, and this angered the two criminals.
The older officer saw in Takashi's hand a bag from a nearby pharmacy and saw how Mafuyu was still drunk near the bench with nerves on her face, so he didn't doubt Takashi's story.
"Turn around," the officer said, along with his colleague, to search the two thugs.
"You can't arrest us," they said while being searched by the officers.
"For possession of weapons without papers," the older of the police officers said.
"I have papers!" one shouted.
"What do you say about this?" The second officer pulled from the pants of the thug's companion a small bag of drugs.
"That's not mine!" he shouted fearfully.
"You're under arrest for possession of weapons and drugs," the police said before putting handcuffs on them.
Watching as the authorities took these two away, Kirisu didn't see Takashi until he approached her and took her by the wrist—but more gently—and led her away from the arrest. There was no need to stay; with the illegal product from the two, both criminals would spend a few days detained for investigation. That didn't matter now. Takashi walked with the pink-haired teacher, who looked embarrassed at being led by the hand in public by one of her students.
[10 Advanced chapters with pictures available now at: ko-fi.com/harem_kingg]