iii.

Rukia is nowhere near understanding why a weekly appreciation club for Kurosaki-sensei is held, at the school gym, attended by considerable female populace of more than half the total population, with unlimited supply of plum cakes and apple pies and cherry teas and strawberry sodas, with limited supply scrapbooking materials and stolen shots and polaroid cameras and pieces of fabric that were given to each member. These fabric pieces, of course, she suspected, were from a shirt Kurosaki-sensei complained of losing the day before. These girls are stalkers – Rukia kind of thinks.

Likewise, short and discreet discussions and debates take place weekly on the soccer field comprised of roughly thirty percent of the male student population. (The other sixty percent are probably doing their own research; the ten percent don't care.) Some of the attendees are academics, some brawlers, some curious, but all eager (but not all would admit) to find out (debate) why Kurosaki-sensei is so unhealthily popular and effortlessly effective as if he's part Kumiko, part Onizuka, and part Koro-sensei.

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It's probably because of Kurosaki-sensei's numerous rumored pasts that he keeps on drawing attention: leader of an all bleach-haired, metal bat-wielding, pompadour-wearing, motorcycle-riding gang terrorizing the outskirts and convenience stores of Karakura (sensei himself rides a motorbike on the way to school); a descendent of a centuries-old samurai clan – this is actually quite viable as many swore to be Kurosaki-sensei's disciples if he ever decided to be a teacher after seeing his skill with blades in a demonstration and that there's no other way to explain a talent like that; a yakuza clan member or a yakuza boss himself – also viable because he glares and smirks murderously. The wilders ones: he's engaged in espionage and this is his cover; he's secretly a vampire prince.

Rukia gives up on these rumors, listens to them with mild interest, and nothing more.

Kurosaki-sensei teaches Japanese, and Home Economics and Physical Education on the side, sometimes, he subs for English. They say he does extremely stellar in Japanese – the committed and bright-eyed admirers said, Rukia doesn't know for sure, because Kurosaki-sensei only subs in English - specifically literature - for her class.

Of course, there is some sort of disastrous dysfunction in making Kurosaki-sensei teach Home Economics, he spits expletives more than one can count per minute. As quoted: "fuck this needle! Damn that pan! Is this what you call a goddamn sandwich?". Regardless, the students' interest level and scores reached a record high and the Home Ec's department budget increased tenfold – so that Kurosaki-sensei can burn more bacon, trash more expensive stoves, break more frying pans, bend more needles and the students' level can further increase and the department's budget will increase all the more.

According to many, he is:

Always so heartbreakingly handsome, Kurosaki-sensei strides on the school grounds with steady confidence, earns admiration and shy glances and quiet gasps along the way, walks on the sports department for his PE classes (it's always a show and students flock to see him) and then takes a shower – there's a line here that most students are willing to break – and then have lunch with the rest of the faculty. In the afternoon, he comes out with equal distraction for the crowd, always a head turner, a kind of distraction that lingers for minutes before reality sets in, and unforgettable for hours. He attends his afternoon classes, and class then just goes quiet and very attentive. (It is said that it is different for every class, and it is difficult to phrase each exactly). After the after-school consultation – in which students terribly flock, too – he gets on his motorbike and speeds away to whatever building he lives in, still so heartbreakingly handsome.

(the flipside for most of the girls: How very tall. How very striking. How he should have been just another classmate. How easily it could be if only he was a fellow student. Oh-)

Kurosaki-sensei is a Genji out of his monogatari, exemplary in curricular skills and exceptional in looks. A bit cruder and rougher on mannerisms, but nevertheless, a sought-after young man. Everything about him is added with so and very and really, and dramatic (yet vague), and nobody counts the praises he receives anymore.

It's just so painfully real that's he's not lacking in anything. It's just very disappointing that there are never enough adjectives to describe him. It's just really, really impossible for Kurosaki-sensei to be normal and ordinary.

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So Rukia keeps a secret.

What a disappointment it is, what disappointment it could be, if the girls on her school learn that sensei is not a vampire prince, nor a spy on an espionage mission. If he is, then he does it so poorly.

Contrary to the fantasies of the girls in the school, no one can be whisked away riding his motorbike for a weekend date, not when he replaces his sinister black motorbike with an innocent-looking mountain bike, the color of the day sky and old steel, with a basket attached on the front, during weekends.

The third of her memories: one Saturday morning, he's on the riverbanks, sitting on one of the picnic chairs, reading quietly, the trees shade him well.

Because picnic chairs tables are public property, nobody ever really sits on them. There's just no thrill in abiding rules and provisions. She figures her sensei will take advantage, and spread his reading – and most likely teaching – materials over the table.

This Saturday comes in blurry and dusty skies and a hint of an impending rain, but regardless of the weather, Rukia already makes a habit of visiting the old bookstore downtown - a short walk from the academy - for a new thrift book find. She bundles herself in a butter-yellow coat, wearing a blue dress underneath, and red pair of flat shoes, she brings back with her paper bags of old, very old books.

Always on her way back, Kurosaki-sensei would be sitting on one of the tables, his works spread all over him, and his mountain bike leaning on a tree.

The flipside to all the rumors and admiration for Kurosaki-sensei, is that they never really defined him personally.

Kurosaki-sensei earned admiration in teaching, and well-earned it was, because he never ever relied on textbook, on word-for-word knowledge. There was sincerity when he asked his class to pull-out a paper and write whatever they want, he wanted to get to know his students personally and not based on curriculum. (Once, she debated him on Hamlet and King Lear, and she was hopelessly trying to prove him wrong, then lost completely. After which, he told her he was testing her attitude based on her written essay where she tactlessly showed herself off – in some way, he taught her humility)

There are things that are almost never heard in school. Kurosaki-sensei takes his sisters for ice cream every Saturday afternoon; he doesn't live in some modern apartment, he lives on a small clinic-house with his family; he's teaching his neighbor's youngest kid to ride a bike; he attends his sister's soccer matches and accompanies the other in grocery stores. These are not as adventurous as the rumors, not as dashing as the stories, and definitely not as exciting. But these are true, and this is him. It makes her heart wistful.

Real feelings are stubborn, like a sun you don't want to rise, other faraway stars you don't want to shine, this Earth you don't want to spin, it happens anyway, it flows in the veins and goes to the heart, it happens, it's inevitable, and it leaves you a little bit breathless.

Her feelings, Rukia knows and believes, they do not run on these rumors and grand ideals of Kurosaki-sensei. They, perhaps, run on something simpler, less complex and without the rumors and assumptions he attracts so much.

It runs on: early mornings on the school field, memories of running and erratic breathing; on Shakespearean debates and knowing twinkling in the eyes; on giving up an umbrella to a student; on quiet walks beside the river, on afternoons spent in the library. It runs on little moments, mostly small and random, but still occupying a time – a space in the mind, a fraction of a breathing moment - they might not carry much weight, but they are just as important.

(Rukia kind of thinks she's a stalker, too)

Rukia doesn't stop to greet him like an avid student (he's got his back on her). She doesn't stop because she isn't proud of the knowledge either; she isn't conceited enough to assume to know what other people don't. She doesn't stop because, sometimes, people need to breathe, and she understands that. Rukia keeps this a secret. She keeps on walking. She doesn't stop because this is the closest to being peaceful she has ever seen him.

thank you, justgrace13, for the suggestion ( ´ ▽ ` )ﾉ and the guests, thank you.