Our Teacher is a Yakuza Princess

Chapter 11

Sawada Shin never thought of himself as a leader. Leaders were like generals, calling their troops to battle, or presidents, making speeches to the masses. Not long-haired high school students in the drop-out class.

But when he first transferred to Shirokin, he found himself falling into that role. He wasn't quite sure why. Maybe it was because they had heard he got expelled from his last school by punching a teacher for wrongfully harassing a student. Maybe it was because he was the only one to ever consider what the consequences of their actions would be. Maybe it was because he hated teachers as much as they did, or even more. But somehow, over time, he realized that his classmates all looked at him to see his reaction before they made major decisions. They followed his lead on how to treat teachers and adults. They came to trust him.

Shin tried his best to protect that trust.

He fought against the way that the Vice Principal and all the other teachers treated them. He fought off the gangs that his friends offended. He tried to help them make smart decisions.

Decisions like staying away from Abe and the other bullies at Shirokin. When he transferred halfway through his first year, he mainly kept to himself, but observed everyone around him. He saw that Abe was leading a group of guys that included Kuma and Minami, and that it wasn't a group of friends. These boys used their numbers to pick on anyone they wanted, and Abe was using them to make himself feel powerful.

Shin knew what made bullies. Bullies were kids who wanted power. Usually, they had no power at home or in the classroom, so they picked on the weak so they could feel strong. Last year, their group chose a kid called Yuki as a target. He didn't fight back, or protest, so they just kept it up. When Yuki finally quit coming to school, it served as a bit of a wake-up call for Kuma and Minami. They realized that Yuki had forfeit his future because his present was miserable. Because of them.

Back then, he noticed that Kuma and Minami weren't happy with Abe's group anymore. He also saw that they had no idea how to get out. After observing where they usually went to talk, he positioned himself on the stairs nearby and waited.

"I don't like it anymore," Kuma had complained to Minami, his hair then dyed a bright red.

Minami, who wore his hair in a highlighted ponytail, had responded, "Well, it's not like we can tell him we wanna leave. So what do we do?"

With no clear plan of action, the two boys had sat in puzzlement for a minute before Shin had decided to speak.

"You could always avoid him." Shin said, examining his fingernails in great detail. After a few moments of turning their heads every which way to locate the phantom voice, they spotted him.

"What?" Minami had asked.

"He's in another class. Just hang out in 2-D instead of with him." Shin elaborated as briefly as he could. He wasn't one for big speeches, and found that the less he said, the more others had to think about what he did say.

"I hadn't thought of that." Kuma said in a tone of amazement.

Minami slapped him, then looked up at Shin's perch on the stairs. "Would that work?" His voice was laced with both suspicion and hope.

Shin had met his gaze, then shrugged as nonchalantly as he could before walking away. And that was that. Minami and Kuma quit hanging around Abe and his group, and started hanging out with Shin and Uchi and Noda. While Abe suspected why they were suddenly busy, he couldn't do much without a direct confrontation. That's not to say that he didn't occasionally harass Kuma and Minami for a while, but one stare-down with Shin encouraged him to seek goons elsewhere.

And now, they were in 3-D. All of them had changed in some way, be it their hair or disposition or friends. Shin could even admit to himself that some of that change was from him, and was forced to acknowledge that a lot of the current change came from Yankumi.