NABC Page 20
Page 20
Because she had been kneeling for too long, Yuka Isomoto's legs went weak as soon as she bent her knees to stand up, and a trace of panic flashed across her face.
Just as she was about to collapse again, Kitahara Hakuma's hands encircled her waist, and she smelled a faint milky fragrance.
At the moment of touch—
“Hmm——!”
Kitahara Hakuba was startled by the girl's sudden, coquettish cry. His mind was suddenly filled with memories of his time working on a sewing machine in prison. By the time he was released, the world had changed drastically.
Yuka Isomoto lowered her head in a panic, her earlobes clenched so tightly they bled.
"I'm sorry, teacher, I... I've just never been hugged like this before..."
"be careful."
Kitahara Hakuba released her body, the soft touch of the schoolgirl uniform still lingering in his palm.
Chapter 23. 23. Good, very energetic.
After Isomoto Yuka calmed down a bit, Kitahara Hakuba went out to take her home.
The other party suggested coming over every day after school, but that's impossible no matter how you look at it.
If Kitahara Hakuba and she were just ordinary friends, or had some other relationship, it would be fine, but he is a cultured teacher and would never do such a thing.
“Rumors will spread,” Kitahara Hakuba said bluntly.
"Just explain it, and people won't easily think of other things."
He opened his mouth and said:
"Many people were already badly injured before they could stop the rumors, and I probably wouldn't get back until after 7 p.m. Being ambitious is cool, but restoring physical function is also urgent."
"What does this mean?" Yuka Isomoto asked curiously.
“If you don’t have a good sleep schedule, even your mood will become negative and pessimistic,” he explained.
Yuka Isomoto wore a thoughtful expression, so Hakuba Kitahara remained silent.
The quiet street was only filled with the rustling of the wind through the roadside trees.
After walking for more than ten minutes, we arrived at an apartment building with an external staircase. The walls looked somewhat old.
Yellow magnolia flowers bloom in the flowerbed by the low wall.
"Thank you, teacher. I've arrived."
Yuka Isomoto blinked, stared at him for a moment, then looked back at the apartment building, and said with a wry smile,
"It's quite cheap here, but it's very close to the city tram station, only a hundred meters away."
She muttered to herself, then paused, and Kitahara Hakuba waited silently for her to continue.
"When I first came to Hakodate, I hadn't even found a place to stay yet. It was Haruno who helped me find this place. There are also a lot of cats downstairs. I'm very grateful to her..."
"She's a really nice person; you can tell from her face," he said casually.
"She is an angel."
"Ah."
Kitahara Hakuba didn't want to refute it at all, because he didn't care about any of that.
Yuka Isomoto took a deep breath and looked directly at him, saying:
"Teacher, don't you find it disgusting that I'm so obsessed with my friend?"
Kitahara Hakuba thought seriously for about a minute, then said:
"will not."
In Kitahara Hakuba's mind, everyone needs a "catalyst" to trigger some wonderful "chemical reaction" or to accelerate the reaction.
"How come you can do this, teacher?"
What does "to this extent" mean?
"Because you, teacher, could have just coasted along here on a fixed salary, but you were thinking about how to improve yourself."
Hiroka Isomoto said dejectedly.
"Nobody really cares about how many awards they can win; they just think the teacher is being too capricious."
"I'm going to be willful, there's nothing funny about it."
Kitahara Hakuba immediately affirmed this, speaking calmly.
"Because the current situation is not the situation I want, you actually understand this, so even if you have a conflict with Nagase-kun, you are prepared to come to me and move towards the path you hope for. There is absolutely no problem with doing so."
Yuka Isomoto, who was already feeling down, was taken aback, clearly not expecting Hakuba Kitahara to say that.
However, she quickly composed herself, smiled again, and said in an understanding tone:
"Teacher Kitahara, I feel like you've suddenly become very energetic these past few days."
how......
Such a gentle and kind person...
Kitahara Hakuba simply smiled and waved to her.
His fingers were graceful and slender. Strangely, although Mr. Kitahara was clearly a man in his twenties, he was incredibly attentive to the smallest details.
Those things that Yuka Isomoto couldn't understand were shrouded in mystery around him.
—As gentle as a bird in the sunshine.
She felt suffocated and suspected that she had fallen in love with someone else, so she ran upstairs as if fleeing, her loafers making a "clattering" sound as she stepped on the rusty iron frame.
◇
At six o'clock the next morning, the dawn light lifted the veil of night and revealed a brilliant sunrise.
Kitahara Hakuba yawned on the streetlights.
Last night, he dug out the performance that Shin-Asahi High School gave at the All-Domain Tournament last year, and the designated piece was "Pegasus Dream" by Mizuguchi Toru.
Instead of skipping over the complicated parts, he simply listened to all the performances from the twenty-six schools at the conference and analyzed their chosen pieces.
This was a considerable burden for him, who never saved up his work for the next day.
But he didn't feel it was hard.
To help the girls grow day by day, he himself had to become better than the day before, only then could he stand confidently in front of them.
Moreover, accumulating experience and knowledge is a really cool thing in itself.
The wind instruments at Shin-Asahi High School had many problems, with issues in every section, especially in Yuka Isomoto's euphonium, where she went off-key and missed notes several times.
Kitahara Hakuba couldn't understand why she, the one who stood out the most, was being punished when everyone else was just slacking off.
"Wulingguo Park Station, Wulingguo Park Station—"
He took a deep breath, roused himself, picked up his briefcase, and mingled with the early morning crowd as he walked out of the station toward Shenxu High School.
The snow in Hakodate melted by the end of April, and the sparse leaves were lush and green, each leaf resembling a large butterfly, its veins appearing exceptionally translucent under the morning sun.
Upon arriving at school, Kitahara Hakuba bought a bottle of hot coffee from a vending machine downstairs. He intended to go straight to his office, but then remembered what Director Ferry had said.
He sat on the wooden chair, watching the sports club students shouting on the playground, and finished his hot drink.
When I got to the office, I found that the club key hanging on the wall was missing.
Kitahara Hakuba walked through the elevated corridor between the school building and the club building to the first music room.
Two black lunchboxes were neatly arranged in front of the door. He opened the door and found Kirishima Mai and Isomoto Yuka inside, practicing breathing exercises.
The sound of Kitahara Hakuba opening the door instantly attracted the attention of the two girls, who exclaimed in unison:
Good morning, Kitahara-sensei.
Kitahara Hakuba nodded and placed his briefcase on the podium. He turned his head and realized that both of their eyes were fixed on him.
"What difficulties did you encounter?" he asked.
"Teacher Kitahara, you don't seem to be in much spirits today?" Kirishima Mai said.
Kitahara Hakuba raised his hand to brush his bangs aside, and said helplessly:
"I watched the competition videos from last year's National Tournament last night. There were quite a lot of them, and it would be hard to watch them all without spending some time."
Upon hearing this, Yuka Isomoto's expression turned somber, and she didn't dare to say a word.
“Iso Gen-kun.”
"exist!"
"Hmm, you look very energetic today." Kitahara Hakuba smiled approvingly. "What time did you arrive?"
"Half past five."
"It's so early, it wasn't even light yet, was it?" Kirishima Mai asked, her eyes wide. "Can we go into the school?"
Hiroka Isomoto said with a smile, "Just show your student ID and you can get in."
[Member Development Task: Raise Yuka Isomoto's level to LV10 within one week]
[Task Reward: "Gathering Meridians State" (In the Gathering Meridians State, one training session is equivalent to ten training sessions).]
Chapter 24. I've never felt happy playing the oboe.
When Kitahara Hakuba saw the mission reward, he wondered if it was a superpower that could condense practice time.
Oh dear, he's so weak he needs superpowers to save him.
Before the morning meeting, Kitahara Hakuba stayed in the music classroom tutoring the two students; no one had come over before that.
"Kirishima has made great progress. Isogen, you still need to practice more."
"Thank you, teacher!"
After saying goodbye to Kitahara Hakuba, the two left the music classroom and gently closed the door.
Upon arriving at the instrument management room, Yuka Isomoto placed the euphonium into its case. The faint gold-plated surface of the instrument reflected her still somewhat childlike features.
"How long has Senior Isomoto been practicing the euphonium?"
Kirishima Mai stared at the euphonium, its gold plating already chipped away, but most of the instruments in the club were in similar condition, neglecting to maintain them since they weren't hers.