Sebastian fixed the three of them with a hard stare, as though committing their faces to memory.
Strangely, none of the three seemed remotely intimidated. All three stared back at Sebastian's face with grins that were just asking to be punched.
"Hmph."
Since he couldn't actually hit anyone, Sebastian gave a cold snort and walked past them all without further acknowledgment, heading for the front row where Iori and Imamura were sitting. He dropped himself down between the two of them.
"Why are you two sitting this far forward? Were you deliberately waiting to watch me make an entrance?"
Sebastian kept his smile carefully non-committal and draped an arm around each of their shoulders.
"Couldn't help it — everyone else got here first and took the seats they wanted."
Iori shrugged helplessly.
"Fair enough. But what's this meeting actually about?" Sebastian asked, taking the explanation at face value and releasing his grip.
He looked around. Everyone was killing time, waiting for something.
At that moment, the classroom door was pushed open once more.
This time the person who walked in was a man in a suit — tall and lean, square-framed glasses, with the bearing of someone composed and reserved, not given to easy smiles.
He walked into the room, swept a look around at the assembled students, pushed his glasses up, and continued walking straight to the podium at the front.
"Ahem — everyone."
The man in glasses cleared his throat. He placed both hands on the podium, and a cold glint caught the surface of his thin lenses.
"I am your class homeroom teacher: Masataka Sado. You may call me Sado-sensei."
"Hm — do Japanese universities have homeroom teachers?"
Sebastian raised an eyebrow but didn't think much of it. What came next from the podium, however, left him at something of a loss.
Sado-sensei, both hands on the lectern, expression composed and reserved as ever, swept his gaze across the room a second time — and clicked his tongue.
"Tch. Still so few women. Should have gone to a girls' school when I had the chance."
The moment those words landed, the chattering classroom went instantly, completely silent. Everyone stared at the podium.
What did this teacher just say?
"Is something wrong with this class?" someone muttered, to no one in particular.
"Hold on — is that really something a teacher should be saying?! Have some self-awareness!"
Sebastian felt his sense of right and wrong physically recoiling. Before he could stop himself, the words were already out.
What he hadn't expected was that Sado-sensei, upon hearing this, simply tilted his head and looked at him with a small nod.
"A fair question from this student. Let me address the room: I have conducted a certain amount of background research in advance, and I have determined that everyone present is a legal adult."
"Given that you are all adults, you are all capable of taking responsibility for your own conduct. Therefore, I maintain that what I said a moment ago was entirely appropriate. Student — do you have any further objections?"
Sebastian sat in his seat with nothing left to say. Iori, however, immediately raised his hand beside him.
"Sensei — I also want to meet some attractive female university students. Any suggestions?"
"Don't even think about it. What do you think I came here to do?"
In sharp contrast to the composed, measured tone he had used with Sebastian, Sado-sensei shot Iori's request down with flat, decisive finality.
"Aren't you here to teach?"
Even Imamura, who had been unusually quiet, felt compelled to say something.
"Hm. My employment handbook does specify as much. However, I see no conflict between fulfilling one's professional duties and cultivating certain personal interests alongside them. Besides...." Sado-sensei adjusted his glasses and continued without missing a beat:
"Why do you think I went to all the trouble of transferring from a middle school to a university in the first place?"
"Nobody has any idea, and frankly we don't want to! Please, sensei — have some dignity. Your sense of propriety is in pieces on the floor!"
Sebastian felt something go fundamentally wrong inside him.
Something's off. Everything is deeply off. Students and teacher alike — this entire class is wrong.
"Mum, can I drop out? Don't yell at me yet, there are actual reasons, just hear me out...."
Somewhere in the classroom, someone was quietly calling home on their phone. Given the state of the room, nobody had the presence of mind to react.
Knock knock. "Excuse me — is everything alright in here?"
Someone rapped at the classroom door and poked their head in. It was an old man with salt-and-pepper hair.
He wore a dark suit that looked quietly expensive, his silver hair neatly arranged. Just from his bearing alone, it was clear he was someone of standing.
Sado-sensei looked up, saw the old man, pushed his glasses up, and kept his expression perfectly level.
"Principal. I am holding the opening class meeting with the new semester's students. Everything is proceeding normally here."
"Normally?"
This time it wasn't just Sebastian — the corners of every student's mouth twitched in unison.
"Sado-sensei — you haven't been giving that speech of yours again, have you? We've talked about this privately any number of times. You cannot say things like that in a classroom...."
The principal, it seemed, had anticipated exactly this. He pressed a hand to his silver hair with a look of weary resignation, then raised his eyes to Sado-sensei.
"In any case — Sado-sensei, would you please come wait in my office? I think we need to have another thorough conversation. Just the two of us again, I'm afraid."
"Of course, Principal. Though I would ask that you be more careful with your phrasing next time. The way you put that could genuinely constitute workplace harassment, and I reserve the right to pursue that."
Sado-sensei dipped his head slightly, then walked out the front of the classroom with the same unhurried composure with which he had arrived.
The principal looked as though he'd been poked in the throat. The refined old man let out a rueful smile and watched Sado-sensei go.
"Even the principal can't do anything with him." Sebastian stared at the scene in complete amazement.
"I apologize, everyone. A rather unusual thing to witness at the start of a new semester.... Please don't be alarmed — I will be having a proper word with Sado-sensei. That will be all for today's meeting — you're free to go. And do remember — classes begin in earnest next week!"
With the principal's dismissal, the students who had been sitting in stunned silence began to recover. They looked at each other, words utterly failing them, and filed out of their seats and toward the door in collective, wordless disbelief.
"Somehow I feel like a shadow has fallen over my university life before it's even properly started."
Iori muttered quietly beside Sebastian.
"Who knows. We'll figure it out as we go. Something about all of this feels increasingly strange."
Imamura offered this with equal resignation.
As the three of them were about to walk out of the classroom, Sebastian's footsteps stopped.
He turned and looked at the principal standing in the doorway, apology written across his face — and a thought surfaced in Sebastian's mind.
If the person right in front of him was the principal — then the plan he'd been quietly nurturing, the one about using physical force to compel the principal to sign his graduation certificate, might actually be within reach.
---
15 Chapters Daily: https://patreon.com/VaultL