a bunny's heart | karma akabane

005: the Hayashi's way of work

AFTER A CHAOTIC redemption arc of her blonde teacher (and karma's decision to make the class call her 'bitch-sensei', much to mina's distress)
, as well as a painful student assembly, in which gakushu ignored mina once again, midterms were coming up. And this was the Hayashi way of doing it.

"How many of these do you have, Sensei??" Maehara's shocked voice called out as the students looked at the various copies and clones of their teacher, each student being surrounded by at least one of them.
Normally, of course, this would had led to another scream by mina, but this was different.

She had to place first, second, whatever it took her to get back into her old class. Other than the rest of her classmates, who had accepted their fate inside this one. She couldn't disappoint everyone like that. Her mother, gakushu, her teachers. Everyone.

So as it naturally went, two weeks before the mid terms started, you could see mina studying deep into the night, leaving no time for distractions and worrying the people around her, and ultimately leading to her warming up to her teacher.

There were precisely three moments in these two weeks that were memorable, regarding that.

1. Wednesday, 12:30 AM, 11 days left until mid-terms

"Mina.. are you sure you don't want a break?" Nagisa sheepishly asked the girl as all of the students took a quick break in-between the studying session with their teacher. Mainly to rest and eat, partly because koro-sensei was knocked out on his teacher's chair after he had used much of his energy for the clones.

"Yeah, you have been studying like, non-stop, even without koro-sensei's help! You will do great in the mid-terms!" A confused yada added, biting a bit off her sandwich as the majority of the E-class' students looked at the brunette girl in the very end of her classroom.

"No, you guys, thank you." The usually chat friendly girl kept her answer quick, not moving her eyes from her book as Rio and karma send eachother a knowing look, making the rest of their friends even more confused.
____

2. Thursday, 3:00 PM, 3 days left until mid-terms

Mina was walking down the 3-E class' hill with a particular red-head, both of them heading home after yet another studying session with their teacher. Quieter than usual, as the brunette girl kept her head inside her book even on her way home, leaving karma pretty alone next to her.

"You know, I heard reading too many books makes your eyes fall out. Might want to check on that, princess." Karma commented, holding both his hands behind his head.

"Ha ha. Very funny, Akabane." She grumbled, turning yet another page as she felt a gentle pull on her low ponytail, making the hair tie fall out into a certain red-heads hand.
Karma now held her hair tie in his hand, grabbing onto it, making mina stop in her action to look up to him. She tried reading his facial expression, a little taken back by his action.

"What?" The red-headed boy smirked slightly "I like your hair open."

She got taken out of her trance, now trying to reach his hand in the air to get it back, clearly annoyed at hin. "Give it back, red-head, It's a mess otherwise!"

"Nope," the boy said, holding his hand up while grinning down at her "I'm keeping it. You will now have to take care of it properly, as you usually do." He added, slowly starting to run in his direction matter-of-factly, making her close her book and run after him.

"Idiot! Give it back!"
____

3. Monday, 7:00 AM, day of mid-terms

"Mina, sweetie, you haven't gone to sleep? I thought I told you to keep it civil." Hori Hayashi spoke worriedly, making her and her daughter coffee while looking at mina, who was sitting at the kitchen table in her pajamas and with deep, dark, eye circles, surrounded by various notebooks and highlighted texts.