Eiji should've seen this coming, it was long overdue. It comes as no surprise when Eiji hurries over to the board displaying their grades to see that he was sixth, a whole three ranks lower than what he got the last term. Dread fills him and runs his blood cold when he sees the teacher handling his scholarship appear to his left with a frown on his face, his eyebrows creased and eyes shining with something that looked a lot like disappointment. Surely getting called into the staff room with a tight smile wasn't a bad thing, right?
"Your grades have been dropping," is the first thing his teacher, Mitsuru Subaru, says, gently pulling down his glasses to stare up at Eiji from below his bangs. It's a little intimidating, Eiji has to admit, the look on his teacher's face. His nerves were already on edge from imagining what his parents were going to say to him when he got home, seeing Mr Mitsuru practically glare was causing his stomach to twist in multiple directions.
"It's just two ranks," he tries to reason with a faint smile in an attempt to lighten the mood, which is soon wiped off when Mr Mitsuru places his glasses to the side, the clicking sound echoing in the nerve-wracking silence they stood in. Why did he put his glasses to the side, Eiji thinks, unnaturally hiding his hands behind his back and unconsciously crossing his fingers every time Mr Mitsuru makes the smallest move.
"Two ranks is a lot when it comes to a scholarship student, no?" Mr Mitsuru replies with a grin, but it isn't just a normal grin, it's the one where he has his eyes narrowed and his veins popping from his temples. He's about to burst soon if Eiji says another stupid thing and he really isn't looking forward to that. It happened once before when he refused to go on a school trip that contributed to class credits and he ended up on the verge of tears because of how terrifying Mr Mitsuru had become. He had pulled his hair back and looked down at Eiji with his chin up high in the air and only at that moment did Eiji get flashbacks to the time his friend told him about how Mr Mitsuru used to be a popular delinquent in their area until he got into a relationship and fixed his life.
"I'll try harder." Eiji swallows the rest of his sentence when Mr Mitsuru turns to him in annoyance, looking ready to burst and yell at him.
Eiji braces himself as his teacher opens his mouth. "You said that last time when you got fourth and the time before that when you came second." He pauses and takes a deep breath, trying to calm himself down. "Look, Eiji. I'm just worried for you, okay? Your parents will come for my throat if you fall below our standards and I really can't handle getting shouted at by them again. It's embarrassing enough that everyone knows about how I behaved when I was in high school, but it's worse when parents come in and yell about it in the corridors."
To be honest, Eiji does feel pretty bad about that. It was his fault that his grades were falling but Mr Mitsuru had to take the blame for it because he was his supervising teacher. Mr Mitsuru already had dark circles from the many students he handled and Eiji just wanted to lessen his burden.
"I asked someone to tutor you." Mr Mitsuru's words resonate through Eiji before he snaps out of his trance and gives his teacher a look of shock and sadness as if he had decided to let go of him. "Oh, don't look so surprised. The kid I spoke to was more than happy to take you on."
"Is this person in my year?" Eiji would be lying if he said it didn't hurt his pride to be tutored by someone the same age as him. Getting told that he got something wrong by them felt embarrassing, sort of insulting. Eiji didn't have a big ego - he didn't think he was the smartest or anything - however, it still hurt his pride.
"No," Mr Mitsuru says and Eiji lets out a sigh of relief. "His name is Jake Natsuki, he's a year older, also a scholarship student who's currently ranked number one in our school. He's been maintaining this rank for the past two years."
Now that's pretty impressive. In all honesty, Eiji found it pretty difficult to balance his daily life with his studies. He didn't have a job or anything but had three younger siblings who required a lot of his attention since his parents often left home at random times for work.
"I'll give you his contact details, so just work out something with him yourself." Mr Mitsuru reaches for his pen and scribbles some numbers onto the paper before handing it to him. "Remember, if you don't get your grades back on track before the end of the year, we'll have no choice but to drop you from our course."
Eiji gulps down the pressure and anxiety bubbling up within him and nods nervously at Mr Mitsuru. He accepts the chit of paper and makes his way out of the room, his heart stuck in his throat as he catches sight of messages from his parents on his phone. They must've gotten an email about this all, right? Eiji holds a hand to his head and presses his fingers against his temples, hoping for some relief. This Jake Natsuki has to be some sort of miracle worker to be able to help Eiji get his former position as number one back.
-
"My name's Jake Natsuki, I'm 17 years old and I'll be in your care from now onwards."
Eiji glances up from his book and stares at Jake with his mouth hanging open. Jake looks a lot different from what he imagined. In his mind, Jake had thick glasses, incredibly short hair and probably coloured eyes, after all his name was foreign. But this Jake Natsuki was nothing like that. He had jet black hair that went past his eyes and rested upon his forehead, thin-rimmed golden glasses that fit perfectly upon his nose and red tinted cheeks. He had a pretty face, a cute and pretty face. If he brushed his hair a little more and threw on some makeup he'd look like an idol if he wanted. And on top of that, he didn't look an inch foreign.
"That's because I'm Japanese, just born and raised in Canada till I was 12," Jake answers shyly, bowing his head to the side a little, the blush on his cheeks a lot darker than before. "My name's actually Yuto, but since I transferred back everyone just chose to call me Jake after I told them people used that for me back there."
"Did I," Eiji stops and holds his hand over his face as realisation falls upon him. "Did I say all of that out loud? And uhm, what would you prefer I call you?" Eiji's cheeks heat up as he silently leans towards calling him Yuto.
"Yeah, you did...you can call me whatever you please. I respond to both names," Yuto mumbles, fiddling with his bag straps and trying his best to hide the embarrassed look on his face. "Anyways, Mr Mitsuru told me," he stutters over his words, the fact that he felt uneasy was written all over his awkward smile and Eiji tried his best to hold his laugh back when Yuto's voice cracks. He sighs and stops talking altogether.
"What do you wanna start with?" Eiji asks, clutching his arm to hold back the laugh that was begging to come out when Yuto looked at him with a thankful expression, relieved that he had gotten his message across.
"I wanted to see the scores you got for each test," Yuto finally says once he's got himself composed. "After seeing them I'll be able to offer you my help."
Eiji reaches for his bag and pulls a couple of papers out, feeling his cheeks heat up when Yuto's eyes widen at the numbers written at the top of the page in red. They're not terrible, of course, they're not, how else would he have ended up in the top ten? But they're not the scores someone like him should be achieving.
"This isn't bad," Yuto says out of the blue when flipping through the pages. "To be honest the only thing you're doing wrong is going into too much detail for all your answers and then getting marks knocked off for things unacceptable in the mark scheme." Yuto brushes his hair out of his way and pushes his glasses back up his nose when he leans forward to point something out to Eiji. "You see, over here you got the answer wrong because-"
And then Eiji loses focus. How could he not when Yuto suddenly invaded his personal space? Up close he looked even cuter than before, although it looked like he hadn't slept in a while because of how dark his eyebags were. Eiji could see them despite the bit of makeup rubbed onto them, it was a little endearing that he even tried to hide something like them and did such a terrible job at it. Yuto suddenly scrunches his nose as he stutters on another word and Eiji feels his heartbeat a little faster. He really was adorable.
Eiji turns his eyes away from Yuto's face and onto his hands instead. They had small plasters wrapped around his fingers and he frowned at the sight. Just what did he do to get hurt on his fingers? Did he study far too often and end up getting blisters, or were they remnants from other things?
Mindlessly, Eiji reaches out and softly traces the tip of his finger across Yuto's wrist, surprised at how cold he was. Maybe it was because of the lack of flesh around the area or because the library they were in had horrible heating. Eiji was going to make sure they met somewhere else next time. Without paying much attention to how Yuto had stopped talking, Eiji slipped his fingers around Yuto's and gaped at how rough they felt. The only time Eiji had felt hands like these were when he held his mum's hands and helped her with chores. Still, in his own world, Eiji brought their joined hands up to his face and twisted them around, examining their differences.
"Um," Yuto's feeble voice made Eiji blink right back into reality. "What're you doing?"
"Oh my god!" Eiji abruptly lets go of Yuto's hand and leans away from him. "I'm so sorry, it's just I found your hands interesting and then felt like touching them and didn't realise I was until you spoke to me."
"You found my hands interesting," Yuto looks weirded out and covers his hand with his other one before pulling his sleeves up in an attempt to feel less exposed, but what he doesn't realise is that Eiji can't help but find him cute with how his sweater paws perfectly fit the whole soft look. "Were you even listening to me?"
"Yes," Eiji lies and quickly shifts around in his chair, heavily confused by his own actions, "Let's continue, yeah?"
Yuto looks reluctant to do so but still nods along and starts to write up a list of areas he wanted to go through with Eiji. "You obviously have your head around the basics, so there's no need in going too in-depth with that." Yuto writes the last full stop and awkwardly turns to Eiji. "I thought we could just get familiar with each other today and then start the lessons from tomorrow onwards if that's alright with you?"
Eiji nods absentmindedly, still thinking about why he was acting out.
"I was also wondering if, um," Yuto clears his throat, feeling conscious under Eiji's heavy gaze. "If we could meet up elsewhere? It doesn't feel right talking in the library and it's a little..."
"Cold?" Eiji offers with a smile. Yuto peeks at him with wide eyes and nods his head in agreement. "We could meet up at my house?"
"No," Yuto answers a little too quickly and it stabs Eiji straight in the heart. "I mean," Yuto's quick to try and clear the air when Eiji's face drops at his reply. "I was just thinking we could stay back in school instead? Use one of the empty classes."
"Would they allow us to do that?" Eiji asks and Yuto smiles at that, a little smug for his reason.
"Why would they refuse their top students from using an empty classroom to study?"