Hitorijime My Hero

Finals

My coworkers asked me where I'd been, and I told them the truth. I had gotten married. They were surprised to here that, since they almost all thought that I'd already been married. I explained to them that my partner and I had been engaged for a few years, but never had the time to actually set up again.

"We've known each other for a while and started dating around 4 to 5 years ago." I explained briefly.

"Why'd you wait so long between the engagement and the wedding?" My coworker, Lee asked.

"We both had a lot of stuff going on in our personal lives. I was busy working a lot and my partner's mom was not pleased about our engagement. Both of us were hoping she'd come around." I continued.

"Huh? Why wouldn't she?" Lee asked.

"There's a pretty large age gap between us" I said in attempt to hide the fact the real reason was because we're two men.

"How much of an age gap?"

"Why do you want to know?"

"Man, calm down. You don't need to get all defensive about it"

"I'll keep the age hidden"

"Can you at least tell me, if she's older or younger?"

"She? Oh you are a funny man Mr.Lee" I said ending our conversation and walking out of the teacher's lounge.

The last thing I need is for any of them to get too much information about the situation. I admit that the relationship between Masahiro and I isn't as normal as we'd like it to be, two guys plus a 12 year age gap if definitely going to raise some eyebrows. Now that I've said what I did to Mr. Lee there's a good chance of it coming back to bite me in the ass. The man can't keep his mouth shut if the entire Japanese government was on the line. I'll deal with that when it comes around. Work continued on as always, but some students were getting a case of senior fever and couldn't wait for the second half of the year to end. For the underclass students they just want to pass their finals...FUCK!

I forgot I had to write up the finals! Damn it, I only have a few months to get them done. I have to create a 50 question final for each of my grades, I teach all three of the grades, I have to create 150 questions and will have to grade all of them. Estimating that there's about 17 students per class that a total of about 2,550 questions to grade. I also hated finals, as a teacher and as a student because it was always so long and tedious to me. Half of the time the students are being tested on their memorization skills with things they will probably never use again. It's almost as though the school wants to brag about their success while dragging the students by their collars. As much as it may pain me as a teacher, if I don't give them a test I risk losing my job. I know that my students try, a lot of them did well on their midterms, but I also know that these test stress students out move than they already are.

I remember when Masahiro has his finals for his Fall semester. He pulled all nighters and would forget to eat because of how busy he was. If it wasn't for Shigeo needing her walks I doubt he'd step away from his work. I remember trying to get him to bed or to eat but he was always so focused on his studies. I realized that Shigeo was the key after I had gotten back from work and Masa had just finished taking her out for a walk. This time around it seems like Shigeo will have to get the attention of both of us.