Homeroom Nonsense...Begin!

The minutes flew by like seconds as Hana continued to listen to his students talk, Min having been the only one to briefly acknowledge his presence. Before he knew it the first bell had rung, signaling the imminent start of classes. For some reason, it was only at that moment that his remaining students began arriving at the classroom. Kai Ohime was first, bursting in through the doors and looking like she had just gone for a jog through a wind tunnel. Nevertheless he was always happy to see this energetic and enthusiastic student of his. He brightly returned her greeting and watched with little surprise as she pulled out a current and future homework assignment to hand in to him. Early on had he noticed her penchant for wanting to get extra work done for his class ahead of time and, not wanting it to bite her in the butt, he adjusted the parceling out of assignments from the textbook to make them more predictable for her; it seemed to be working. This was just one of several little changes he made to his lectures over the course of a typical year that rippled out to the rest of the class, but he didn't particularly see anything wrong with that. Everyone had something to contribute, and he could contribute something to everyone; like the class itself, the adjustments to his lectures all added up to produce a whole greater than the sum of its parts. You could do weird things like that with not-math.

As Kai handed over the papers with a slight bow, he took them and leaned his head forward past hers to speak softly to her. "Good work as always, Ohime-chan. And you might want to fix that ribbon of yours when you get the chance." Leaning back, he flashed her a split-second smile-and-wink and let her scamper back to her classmates.

Next to enter the room was a pair of unfamiliar faces: a boy with his blazer over his shoulder and a girl with highly contrasting white socks and black heels. These must be his new Canadian-Chinese-whatever transfer students, the fraternal Wong twins, Hana reasoned. As soon as he laid eyes on them, the portion of his brain dedicated to profiling his students went to work. Both of them appeared thoroughly displeased to be here, albeit for different reasons. The boy's behavior told Hana a story he himself was all too familiar with. He was scowling, clutching his sister's arm, staring away from the direction of any other human being, and not saying a word. Telltale signs of an anxious soul with no confidence in their own capacity for socialization; realizing it as necessary in their new environment but dreading having to do so. Hana couldn't have told one how many times in his youth he had walked into a new classroom at the start of a school year looking much the same, only without the sister (or anyone) to cling to.

The girl, on the other hand, was eyeing him critically, and when she spoke to him it was in a tone of forced cordiality that might have successfully masked her contempt and condescension had she been speaking to someone else. But Hana knew that tone all too well too. For an instant, he was in middle school again, being singled out as the unpopular guy all the girls dreaded having to take dance lessons with in P.E. But he quickly remembered his position and wrested his composure back from the void to which it had fled, bowing his head and pushing his glasses up to his face as his mind raced a mile a minute to analyze the girl's behavior and formulate a response.

Clearly, there was something about his very appearance that didn't agree with her. His black clothes? His unbrushed, hastily-tied-back hair? Maybe she was another one of those judgmental fashionista types. Great. She and Shiroyuri would either get along fantastically or not at all.

But would that really be enough to warrant such a harsh attitude towards a new teacher? Hana had to wonder if there wasn't another factor at play. "Foreign transfer student"...he let the term float before his mind's eye, and the terms "culture shock" and "language barrier" soon appeared alongside it. Perhaps this girl was simply self-conscious about her Japanese? Or perhaps, having gotten used to Western school systems, she took issue with being placed in class 1-C, which she might perceive as being a "lower" letter than 1-A or 1-B? While that may have been technically true at Ouran, the reality was that personal intelligence didn't have nearly as much to do with determining the class roster as did family lineage, wealth, and influence; that's just the kind of place Ouran was. Besides, all students here were expected to be academically proficient, and that she had been accepted at all meant she had to be more intelligent than her imperfect Japanese was letting on.

But Hana couldn't be sure that was her problem, and as it was only their first encounter, he didn't want to risk speaking out of line when he didn't have enough data to go on. Still, if he wanted things to have any chance of going smoothly, he was going to have to find a way to make himself relatable as a teacher. To both twins.

Since she was the one speaking, Hana decided to tackle Anna first. "A pleasure to meet you, Wong-san. Normally I'd have to ask you to call me Uta-sensei, but..." He paused and decided to throw her the one curveball he felt he could get away with. He reduced his voice to a hushed tone and spoke in barely accented English: "If it's easier for you, I don't mind you using English with me for the time being if you have a question." Another pause, and he returned to Japanese in his normal tone of voice. "Only with me though. Not in front of the class. I look forward to working with you, Ms. Wong."

Turning to Dominic, Hana tried to draw the young man's attention as unthreateningly as possible. "A pleasure to meet you, Wong-san. Take your time and try to get settled in here at your own pace. Remember, you don't have to be afraid to ask someone for help if you need it. Not just with math, but anything." He didn't know how effective he could be in encouraging Dominic to open up to his fellow students and other teachers, but he could try at least. "I look forward to working with you...Mr. Wong." He added in that last bit as an afterthought when he suddenly realized he had stumbled across a way to avoid having to awkwardly call both twins "Wong-san". "Now both of you find a seat, please. We'll introduce you two to the class once homeroom starts and everyone's here." He waved them off to sit down, then walked back and took his own seat at the teacher's desk, waiting for the last bell to ring.

...Oh, right; everyone was here now. While he had been talking to Dominic, the opening of the doors and the tap-tap-tap of yet another set of heels had announced the arrival of his final student, Chou. Hana had briefly tracked her out of the corner of his eye as she hurried over to her seat after blurting out something about car troubles. Now unoccupied again, he took another look toward her to confirm her presence and was startled when his mind decided to play a trick on him. He could only see part of one of her legs from where he was, but he hadn't expected it to be covered in black fabric. Though she was in her usual uniform, for some reason he must have assumed her legs were bare when she entered the room, and for an instant his brain chose to interpret the new information as Chou wearing only one black stocking. But that would just be silly. Though Hana did have to admit that it might look kind of interesting, he imagined.

He sighed and shook his head at himself, leaning into his palm. Shame on you for scrutinizing your student's legs in the first place, Hana, he chastised himself with a smirk. Besides, there was plenty of more objective information he could muse about regarding Chou. That girl loved to read more than anything; of that he was certain. Even if she wasn't fond of math itself, he figured if he could at least get her reading about it, it might keep her interested and motivated enough to do well in his class. He had started making sure to point out all of the textbook's lengthiest descriptions of mathematical concepts and equations with lots of details for her to pore over and get her head around, often writing them himself on separate handouts when he felt the textbook didn't suffice.

At last, the final bell rang, and Hana glanced at the class president, waiting for her to do her thing.