NOVEL WEB Arc 1, Ch.9: Tutor for a day, father for life
“Is he cute?”, Haru annoyed me, walking right behind me and poking my waist with every second step. “How did you get him to tutor you? Should we introduce ourselves?”
“Haru! Just! Behave! Normally! Okay?! He’s an acquaintance helping me with studying! Nothing more! Don’t you dare act weirdly!”
I was hissing at her, but loud enough for everyone to hear.
No trust at all when it comes to them and visitors. Daichi brought his girlfriend home once. And never again. I think a girl would really want to marry him if she could endure us.
The whole evening plus next day’s evening were spent with me declaring that I’d cut all ties with them if they acted weird in any way. I was on edge all the time. It would have been better if they didn’t know I liked guys.
There was a collective twitch when the doorbell rang and I took a moment to glare at each one of them before going to open the door. Of course everyone was downstairs, where else. At least they didn’t look suspicious but were actually doing things that were normal.
I opened the door with my heart beating up to my throat. Taizou was wearing casual clothes - simple and in plain colours - and looking a good lot less annoyed than at school. With his face more relaxed, even if it was still stoic, he looked even nicer.
“Hi”, I croaked, clearing my throat. “Come in.”
He gave me a nod and stepped in, then immediately spotted the rest of my family.
“Hello”, he greeted politely and several hellos echoed back, though everyone minded their own business except for my mother who added with a smile: “Thank you for helping Riku with maths.”
She returned back to the kitchen right away, cutting off the conversation nicely. I mentally wiped my sweat away at everyone being obedient and gestured to the stairs. “Let’s go up to my room.”
I ignored the raised eyebrows and grin from Haru, who had certainly identified Taizou as my love interest, and led the way upstairs.
I’m not being arrogant when I say my room was cozy.
I spent a lot of time in there so I wanted it to be comfortable, meaning it wasn’t a classical chaos-gamer room but quite tidy with a beanbag and tons of pillows in front of my tv and console as well as a huge gamer-chair that had cost me a fortune.
Taizou looked around with mild curiosity. Anyone else would probably have made small-talk, but he preferred the silence, directly pointing to a low table on the ground with three pillows for sitting.
“There?”
“Ah, yeah, sure.”
I took my own stuff from a corner and placed it onto the table, sitting down with my legs crossed. Taizou took the place to my left, orderly taking out his own things. I was surprised at how neat his handwriting looked - mine was barely legible scribbles.
“Do you know what you don’t understand?” I shook my head. No idea.
“Want to start from the basics, then?” Nodding.
That was probably for the best, since I might be missing some things in that area already.
We began with my lesson and Taizou explained everything from the beginning. I went along with his practice questions and solved them the way he taught me, bit by bit. He then handed me a transfer question - the ones that are actually the problems because they need a general understanding of how you can solve them. I was shocked, but I didn’t get stuck and managed to smoothly work it through the end.
I looked at my paper with wide eyes, then up at Taizou.
Worship! Such a great teacher! Can I have him as a permanent tutor? He was way better at explaining than my brother!
Maybe it was because he was stared at in awe that Taizou awkwardly hurried to continue with his lesson.
Just that pretty much everything he did just strengthened my unhidden worship towards his teaching skills.
An hour later, I was beaming at him. “Teacher! Please feel free to use me as an excuse whenever you want to!”
That seemed to amuse him, as I could see the side of his lips curl the smallest bit.
Ooh, is this something he goes along with?
“Tutor, not teacher.”
I wanted to try how he'd react, so I spoke with full conviction, acting as if I was joking with my usual group of friends. “A teacher for a day, a father for life or something like that. Too late, you have a son now.”
The curl turned into a twitch upwards but before I could enjoy the sight, he hid his mouth behind a cough.
“That’s it for today”, he told me, hanging his head suspiciously low as he gathered his things, hiding his face between his slightly longer hair.
“As you say, teacher. Should I prepare anything for next time?”
Talking was easier if I could talk and joke like with my friends. That was a way of conversing I was comfortable with, and after being exposed to him for an extended period of time - almost two full hours - I had managed to relax a bit, not stuttering all the time anymore. Although I still got stuck with my thoughts sometimes.
“Go over everything again the next days.”
“Okay.”
I stopped in my movement, slightly stunned at the sudden dialogue choice.
[(Please choose what to say.)
- “When is the next time?”
- “How about we do the next lesson in two days?”
- (Say nothing.)]
I looked at the choices, thinking. Actually, it made sense to ask him about the next meet-up, so…
“When is the next time?”, I asked carefully, the sentence out before I could really think about it.
He hummed and frowned, thinking, then shook his head. “I’ll write you.”
I whispered an ‘alright’, rather happy that I’d be getting another message from him.
Once he had his things together, he stood up and turned towards the door.
I accompanied him downstairs.
Even if I was his excuse for avoiding other schoolmates, it still didn’t sit right with me if he taught me for nothing, so I held out an envelope with money for him at the door. He looked at it, then at me. I crumbled a bit under his frown, but held it out nonetheless.
“For tutoring me.”
After five very long seconds, he gave a tiny shrug and took it, then left. I closed the door and wheezed. Now came the part that would be debatably worse.
“Soooo. What’s his name again?”
Haru was sticking to my back, her arms curling around my neck.
“Can’t you even give me a second to step away from the door?”
“No.”
She dragged me to the living room, where literally everyone was looking at me. Even my father was glancing over his newspaper.
“Fuck you all”, I cursed and earned a chuckle from my mother.
“Aww, forgive us, sweetie. You can’t blame us for being curious if you bring such a beauty home.”
“Tutor! He’s just tutoring me! Don’t say it like it was a date! He’d lynch me if I thought so!” I shuddered. I knew how he looked at the people that insisted on flirting with him. I had heard his responses.
“That was Taizou! How did you manage to make him tutor you!”, Risa declared, running up to me and shaking me. I sighed. No one at school really knew, but she was in a class two years below me. We didn’t even go to school at the same time. (I guess I was too uncool to be seen with her. I took no offense.)
Of course she’d recognize him.
“Can you keep your mouth shut and not tell your friends?”, I asked her with a threatening tone. She halted, but then nodded, understanding that this was indeed a troublesome thing if it got out. “He needed an excuse for telling others he’s busy.”
Daichi snorted at the side. Haru began to laugh. “Does he hate the people at school that much?”
“He just… gets stalked kinda often. His fans are a bit extreme.”
Risa agreed with my assessment of the situation.
“Yeah, that’s really how it is. Everyone goes crazy over him but… he’s sooo good-looking! And those eyes! How could they not?!” Risa began swooning and squealing. “I saw him up close! He was in my house!”
“It’s all fun and nice to tease Riku, but let’s not forget that this isn’t the same as if Taizou was a girl. If a guy treats another guy special, then that still isn’t anything in most cases”, Daichi calmed them down.
“Thanks for keeping your brain”, I mumbled. That dampened the mood a bit, but my family was still happy.
“That doesn’t matter. We can still be happy even if it’s just Riku interacting with someone out of his usual circle”, my mother said, patting me on my head.
Gee, thanks, Mum. Am I some timid species of animal that runs at the sight of people?
“Well, he hasn’t had a girlfriend yet as far as I know, so he might be gay, too”, fujoshi-apprentice Risa threw into the conversation, her sparkling eyes fixed on me.
⅖ family members appreciate my sexual orientation. Thanks, or something.
“I doubt it”, I said at the same time that Haru began humming while looking at me with a raised eyebrow.
...I know, I know. He’s a love interest in my system. That doesn’t mean anything, okay! For all we know, that thing might not follow logic at all! It defies all common sense, okay?!
“Hmmm… Try to strip him and see how he reacts?”, Risa asked thoughtfully. My father spit out his coffee.
“Risa!”
“That’s a crime”, Daichi helpfully commented.
“Mum, do you hear that? Your daughter is rotten. You should focus on fixing her”, I complained, pointing at Risa.
“Rotten?”, my brother asked, sharing a confused glance with my father. My mother groaned.
“I don’t mind having a gay son, but this and that in one house? Oh my.”
...I fully agree but, what, Mum, you know what a fujoshi is?! I was just joking, I didn’t expect you to know?!
Well, at least she’s taking it seriously. I’m in danger of being turned into doujinshi material. (Fuck this, but Haru is pretty good at drawing. That worries me.)
“Rotten?”, Daichi asked again, looking around for someone to answer him before pulling out his phone to google it. I stopped him and slowly shook my head.
“Don’t. Just don’t. Keep the nice image of your little sisters. It’s too late for me.”
Honour student Daichi had never gotten into close contact with games, anime, manga and the like, so he didn’t recognize all the specific words.
