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( @pandamonium your inbox is full so I'm tagging you) Kyoji peeked his head into his homeroom teacher's office. He leaned against the doorframe to look further in when he didn't immediately see her. He clicked his tongue against his teeth. If she said she wanted to talk to him about something after school, she should be here, at least. It wasn't like he was early, though he could have been, since he skipped his last class. He suspected that she was going to give him another lecture about skipping school, or about getting too rowdy with the others- even in good fun. Kyoji rarely got into real fights, but it definitely didn't seem that way to faculty. "Inaba, you beat me here!" The teacher sang as she approached. Kyoji wore his disapproval- admittedly hypocritical- all over his face when he looked over his shoulder at her. "I expected you'd come in kinda late so I went and got myself coffee," She walked as if Kyoji didn't stand between her and the office, and he really didn't have much choice other than walk in ahead of her. She sat down, and set her mug down onto a stained coaster she somehow managed to fit on her scrambled desk. "Why don't you sit down?" She asked him, looking up at her student. Kyoji shrugged, and leaned forward on the desk. "Is this going to take very long, Sensei?" He grumbled. He was hoping this would be an in-and-out thing, mainly a formality since even if it was fruitless, it was what a teacher was supposed to do. "Sit down, Inaba," She said with a sickeningly lovely smile. Kyoji leaned his head to the side, sighing loudly, as if contemplating it, before taking a seat in the chair in front of the desk. "You've caused quite a bit of trouble these past few years, you know that?" She started bluntly. "You stay on top of your schoolwork, so it's hard for the school to officially reprimand you for skipping so much, and despite your usual crowd, you don't really get into the same… situations as them." She started to get a little more subtle. "They're not… 'my crowd' or anything," Kyoji answered, exasperated. "They're just people I hang out with sometimes," He specified. It's true, the people at school he spent the most time with weren't outstanding citizens and had gotten into a good deal more trouble than Kyoji ever had. But it was pretty clear to most people that he wasn't really friends with any of them. Her smile dialed down in nausea-inducingness before taking a sip of coffee. "If you drink too much this time of day, you'll be up all night needing to take a leak," "I have something specific to ask you," She said, not giving him an inch in his attempt to derail the topic at hand. "While you're not exactly in trouble in the traditional sense, your standing at school isn't great. I don't need to explain to you, I don't think, the kinds of problems this could cause now, as a senior." "Okay, now we're getting to the 'come to school more, stop rough-housing, don't talk so loud indoors, don't bother my classmates' blah blah speech, right? I appreciate it, but I've memorized the script." Kyoji scoffed. "I've got a fresh rewrite," She said with a sly smile. She leaned forward. "Your classmate, Amori Akio, you ever talk with him?" His eyebrows rose at the mention of that name. He was a quiet kid in class. Really quiet. Kyoji had to have talked to him at some point, being classmates, but he couldn't remember any significant exchange. Had he upset him or something? "Not really, why? Is he saying I did something?" "That's not it," She said. "I'm trying to lay down the deal here, like you, he's kind of a loner, doesn't really have friends in class," Kyoji opened his mouth to argue, but since he practically just admitted to not really having friends, he couldn't argue that point with her. "You're both good students, who are failing in other areas. So you do me a favor- hang out with him sometime. Doesn't have to be a big thing, don't have to set your whole weekend schedule around it. Just, talk to him. I think you could bring him out of his shell. "You want us to be besties?" Kyoji laughed. "I want to give you a chance to make a better reputation. Helping out with giving a meek classmate more confidence will make you look better to the staff, and make it easier for me to vouch for you. You're planning on going to college, right?" "I dunno," He lied. "Well, if you ever want to, you'll need the support of the school. And this is probably going to be less painful than other measures you could take to get on the good side of the faculty. You're not the kiss-ass type, so it wouldn't work well, anyway." Kyoji leaned back in the chair, crossing his arms. "You know? That's fair. I'll talk to him tomorrow, then." She grinned, and cordially shook his hand before he left. She took another sip of coffee and looked at the time. That went by quicker than she thought it would. He didn't need as much convincing as she predicted. It wouldn't be long, though, until she expected Akio to come to her door for their little chat.