Shiro was standing beneath a sakura tree in full bloom. The 
gentle breeze was tugging loose the light-pink petals, sending them
drifting through the air. They flirted with her nose and tangled in 
her eyelashes. Some landed on Shiro's hair, the soft pink contrasting
with the black strands.

     "I... I didn't expect to find you... here..."

     She felt so silly, saying something so inane. And *stuttering*! 
He would think her as immature as some of the freshman boys.

     "Didn't you? But I told you I would be here."

     "You did?"

     He nodded, his wide gaijin eyes catching the light. "I promised 
I would spend time with Sakura." He closed those luminous eyes, 
leaning back against the tree trunk. 

     She felt herself step back. "I... I thought you meant... *me*..."

     He smiled, without opening his eyes. It was a soft smile, 
innocent, but somehow it chilled her. "Why would I? You're my 
colleague, my friend, Sakura. My friend, Sakura..."

     She sat up sharply. The eiderdown fell away from her shoulders, 
pooling across her lap. She blinked into the predawn darkness, slowly
recognising the half-familiar lumps of her bedroom furniture.

     "My friend, Sakura..." she repeated slowly. "It was a dream." 
She lay back down, pulling up her coverlet. It would be a long hard
day the next day. She would have to teach Class 1-F first thing 
tomorrow, and if Gosunkugi Hikaru decided to try to brew another 
magic potion she would need all her reflexes in top-notch condition 
to deal with the disaster that would almost certainly occur.

     "He's my friend," Sakura repeated softly, as she bunched the 
thick cloth up at her neck. "I'm his friend..."

     She ignored the quiet ache in her chest as she rolled over to go
back to sleep.

Lack Of Common Sensei
     Chapter 15: An Ordinary Day, Considering

          Concept by Winston Smith
          Chapter by Raye Johnsen (raye_j@yahoo.com)


     Shiro was *not* looking forward to the coming day. He sighed,
remembering what had happened the afternoon before.

     Tonomi's face had lit up like something really, really bright, 
on hearing his explanation for missing her dance recital. She had 
wrapped him in a tight hug, burying her head in his chest. "Thank you,
Shiro-sensei! That means so much to me..."

     /I should have *realized*!/ Shiro thought. /They *talk* about 
this sort of thing in the lectures at university, and I *knew* she 
liked me. Why didn't I pay more attention?/

     Somewhere, deep in his subconscious, he *had* realized that 
Tonomi was an attractive young woman who was interested in him. 
However, he had been trying desperately not to acknowledge either 
fact.

     "It's no big deal, Tonomi," he had smiled as he'd replied. "You 
did the hard part. You're the one that danced incredibly... all I did
was point it out."

     He had thought, as she'd stared him in the eyes, /What if she's 
trying to decide whether or not to confess her true feelings?/ But 
he'd dismissed it as ridiculous. Tonomi had to know he was doing this
as a teacher and a friend, and that he couldn't, as her teacher, get 
romantically involved. He'd thought he was just being paranoid.

     "Shiro-sensei... I... I love you."

     He had been wrong.

     He had quietly stepped out of her arms. "Tonomi," he'd replied 
in a shocked tone of voice, "I'm your teacher!"

     "I know," she'd answered. Her voice had been full of tears.

     "You're a lovely young lady," he'd begun, in an attempt to let 
her down gently.

     "You think so?" Tonomi had interrupted.

     "Yes, but that's not-" 

     "Oh, Shiro-sensei! I'm so happy!" she'd bounced up again.

     "I'm your teacher!" he'd continued. "It isn't proper-"

     "I know nobody will approve of us..."

     "Tonomi, listen to me!" he'd finally snapped at her, in an 
exasperated tone. "Nobody will approve of us because there *is* no 
'us'! I won't date my own students! Not now, not ever!"

     Tonomi's eyes had filled with tears. "N-Never?" she'd faltered.

     Shiro had felt awful as he'd met her gaze. He was holding her 
feelings in his hands, and he was crushing them ruthlessly. But he 
didn't have a choice. If he let this go on... /Let her find someone 
else. Someone who isn't her teacher./ "Never." His voice had been 
firm, he was proud to remember.

     Tonomi had stared at him a moment more, before whirling on her 
heel and sprinting away.

     Shiro would have felt a lot better if he hadn't seen the crystal
tears starting from her eyes.

********

     Shiro staggered into the staff room during morning recess. He 
plunked himself down hard into one of the wicker basket chairs 
pulled up to one side of the room. Grouped with two others, they gave
the illusion of a recess and privacy. 

     Sakura was sitting in one of the others. Her long black hair was 
half-unwound from its chignon in strands, looking as if it had been 
pulled out. She had a long streak of soot descending diagonally 
across her left cheek, from the corner of her eye to the side of her 
mouth. Her right arm was in a sling and Shiro could see claw marks on
the wrist within. They were coated with a thick greenish paste.

     "Dear Gods! What *happened* to you?" he demanded, all thoughts 
of asking Sakura for help in the Tonomi Situation (as he now thought 
of it) forgotten.

     "Class 1-F," Sakura replied, as if that should explain 
everything.

     "What happened?" Shiro asked in a resigned tone. /Ranma again?/
he thought.

     "Gosunkugi Hikaru - don't try to remember him, he's one of those
quiet people nobody can ever remember, he'll have a great career as a
spy if he survives the rest of his life at Furinkan  - tried to make 
a love potion in my chemistry class. Instead he accidentally summoned
a demon that decided I'd make a good lunch. It got in a good strike 
before the martial artists cornered it and I managed to get the holy
water out of the closet."

     "Will you be okay?" Shiro asked. Sakura looked so frail in the 
heavy wicker chair, her skin milk-white with shock. For all her wit
and mischievousness, he had never really considered that she was
human and, therefore, vulnerable. Sakura had always been the one who
advised him. That she could be injured was something he'd never
thought possible.

     "Yes. After the demon fried, I put on some of my special healing
cream, and Karou rigged up the sling for me. I'm resting now before 
my next class."

     Shiro blinked. "You have another class?" he questioned. "After 
this? That's not right. You ought to go home and rest."

     Sakura lifted an eyebrow. "And who will take over my classes for
me, Shiro?"

     He took a deep breath. "Well, I have two free periods this 
afternoon. I will."
 
********

     Kawai Mariko had been in the past characterized as many things, 
mostly by her high school counsellor, Yamada-sensei. He had called 
her an airhead. A moron. A klutz. A catastrophe the likes of which no
man had e'er wot of (but that one had been before the time he agreed
to taste Tendou Akane's cooking).

     He was incorrect. Mariko was not unintelligent, and she had been
known to perform acts of incredible co-ordination, although usually 
at the discotheque. She was just terribly enthusiastic, exceptionally
trusting, didn't keep control of herself very well when she was 
excited and found it difficult to entirely comprehend the concept of 
'cause and effect'. None of these qualities are particularly unique, 
but the combination, especially when allied with Mariko's somewhat 
erratic sense of creativity, crafted a very unique form of chaos.

     This would only be considered a positive quality in Nerima. 
Yamada-sensei privately kicked himself when he realized this, and 
realized that he had failed to wangle himself a transfer out of the 
district before the inevitable return of Cyclone Mariko.

     (Actually, he poured himself another cup of sake while muttering,
"Yamada, you're an idiot." His wife was used to her husband coming home
and making comments about himself, his fellow staff and his students,
while earnestly attempting to obliterate Tokyo's alcohol supply, and
simply took it in stride.)

     Mariko had never realized just how much Yamada-sensei had 
dreaded their sessions and that the reason he was so encouraging was
so that she would, eventually, leave.

     To Mariko, it was so *great* to finally be a teacher! 
Yamada-sensei had been so kind, so encouraging, all her senior year;
she had been inspired!

     Currently Cyclone Mariko was milling her way through art class 
with class 1-F. 

     Art was one of the things Mariko was good at. In her own fashion. 

     Sculpture was not usually on the students' curriculum, but 
Mariko had felt the lack and decided to remedy it. Which is why 
Hiroshi and Daisuke were pointedly ignoring their quasi-maybe-if-we-
don't-see-anybody-better girlfriends-if-they-agree-this-week Yuka and
Sayuri. They had enough trouble without having to explain that they
weren't perverts, really, but that *anybody* would get a nosebleed if
they saw a girl, soaked with mud, her clothes stringy rags against 
her skin, doing nothing to conceal what lay beneath. 

     Mariko was happy. The first clay she'd handed out had been too 
moist and had gotten everywhere, but it was an art room! It'd be 
washable! And you *always* got messy in art class. So there was 
nothing to worry about.

     The girls, for their part, were watching like hawks, but the 
windows, not the boys. This was the perfect time for a certain 
shrivelled-up old pervert to make his entrance.

     They were not disappointed.

********

     Karou was re-bandaging Sakura's arm and having a good old gossip
with her in the infirmary.

     "So Michiru said that Hotaru told her that Ririka said that he 
said to her, 'I'll never date you! Fall in love with a boy your own 
age!' And then he walked off." 

     "Shiro would *never* do *that*," Sakura replied smugly. 

     "Well, Yuri told me that Naru told *her* that he said 'I'm sorry,
but I'm in love with someone else,' and *then* he walked."

     Sakura considered that one. "That's... more likely," she replied
slowly. "I wonder who she is?"

     "Tendou Nabiki's started a betting pool on it," Karou answered.
"I've placed my bet."

     "You have?" Sakura blinked.

     Karou nodded. "Yep! So you better land that boy fast, or I'll 
bill you for that 1000 yen."

     "You bet on *me*?" She stared. "Why on *earth* would you bet on
*me*? We're just friends!"

     Karou shook her head as she began to pack the bandages she hadn't
used away. "Sakura, I've watched you for the past two years, ever 
since you were sixteen years old and first came here. I've seen you
face down boys older than you and force them to learn. I've watched
you explain the facts of life to teenagers with a straight face, and
I've seen you fight big bad demons with more teeth than a primary 
school dentist clinic. I know you, girl. This guy isn't 'just a 
friend' to you. Don't lie to yourself about *that*."

     She turned back and sat down on the bed beside Sakura. "Take it 
from me, and you know that I know what I'm talking about. You've got 
a chance, a good one, with Shiro. He isn't as bright as you, but who 
is? He's settling down well here, and we both know what that says 
about his ability to handle the unexpected. He's cute, he's single 
and he likes you."

     "So..."

     "So don't do an Akane-and-Ranma. Go for it!" Karou commanded. 
"And..."

     There was a feminine shriek, then a scream, and then a 
distance-faded but unmistakable "SWEETO!!"

     "Oh hell," Karou cursed. "He's back."

********

     Shiro thought he had been handling the first-year science class 
fairly well, all things considered.

     'All things considered' had included certain members of the 
class' attempt to surreptitiously brew perfume rather than record the
effect of hydrochloric acid on various substances. They would have 
done better had they remembered that perfume is distilled, not 
fermented. Shiro had been forced to send them outside to bury the
unexpected stink bomb, while the rest of the class threw open windows
and made origami fans. 

     A tiny figure bounced past the classroom and down the hall, 
screaming "Whatta haul! Whatta haul!" A scrap of filmy white drifted
from its huge knapsack.

      "That's a... bra?" Shiro asked nobody in particular aloud.

     The girl closest to the teacher's desk peered out in the 
direction of Shiro's gaze. She dropped her fan.
 
     "That's my BRA! You old pervert, give me back my bra!!" She 
charged out of the room in hot pursuit of the tiny old man with the
knapsack. The rest of the girls followed. The tail-end of the group
melded with a posse of teenage girls in various stages of undress. A
large number of them also appeared to have just emerged from a mud 
wrestling match. They were armed with mops, brooms and gymnastic 
equipment, screaming various war cries.

     "My BRA!"  

     "You PERVERT!"

     "Gimmie back my underwear!"

     Shiro stared after them. Then he noticed the boys staring after
them.

     "All right, everybody sit down and look at the blackboard," he
ordered. "Get those nosebleeds cleaned up, do *you* want to explain
them? Good, now turn to page 141 and answer the first five questions
about the experiment until the girls get back."

     /And the second this class gets out I'm going to go to the
infirmary and ask Karou exactly what just happened./

*******

     Sakura and Karou were standing at the window of the infirmary,
watching the chase.

     "And it's Ranma in the lead followed closely by Akane with Ukyou
a close third and catching up to the leaders, it's Ririka of the
freshman class, look at that girl go! Oh and Ukyou makes a break for
second, could she possibly be about to pass her Ranchan, and it's
Konatsu moving up behind his Ukyou-sama..." 

     "I swear, Karou, you should become a race caller!" Sakura 
laughed. "You've got the patter and the colour commentary down cold!"

     The school nurse smiled at her friend. "It's fun. And I do get
lots of practice."

     "I'm surprised Tendou Nabiki hasn't opened a book on the
Happousai chases." 

     The bell went for change of classes. Both women ignored it.

     "I heard that she did, but..." Karou let her voice trail off.
Sakura leaned closer. Gossip might be a bad habit, but every girl
needs a vice or two. 

     "Karou? Are you here?" A male voice called in the outer room.

     "Right here," Karou lifted her voice. "Oh no you don't," she
muttered to Sakura, who had hopped up off the chair. "You stay *right*
here." 

     Shiro stood in the doorway of the school infirmary, scratching
his head. "Hi Karou," he began. "Sakura? Why are you still here? I 
thought you were going home!"

     She shook her head. "I was. I am. I mean - I'm going home, I just
stopped to get my wounds checked and re-bandaged before I go, and then
I saw the Happousai chase, so I decided to stay put until it was all
over."

     Shiro's brow wrinkled. "The Happousai chase?"

     Sakura glanced at Karou, who grinned and lifted her hands in a
'no-way' gesture.

     With a sigh, Sakura began to explain The Pervert of Furinkan High.

********

     Mariko was crying as Shiro and Sakura came around the corner.

     She didn't make any attempt to stop, nor to stand up from where
she was sitting in the hallway. In fact, she didn't even notice they
were there.

     "Mariko?" Sakura asked quietly. "What's wrong?" She suddenly felt
guilty. After all, Mariko was a student teacher too, and she hadn't
offered her *nearly* the assistance she'd given Shiro.

     "I'm sorry," Mariko wept. "I'm sorry..."

     Shiro's eyes met Sakura's over Mariko's head. "Come on, Mariko,"
he said cheerfully. "This isn't like you. What happened?"

     Mariko finally looked up at the other two teachers. "I didn't
mean for it to happen, really," she wept. 

     The other two teachers frowned in thought. Mariko not bubbly or 
manically cheerful? Speaking in separate words? Something was 
seriously wrong!

     "I didn't know that the clay would do that..."

     Shiro and Sakura exchanged puzzled glances.

     "I thought it would all wash out! And then that man... that 
horrible, *horrible* little man..."

     Sakura's expression cleared. She bent down and clasped her good
arm around Mariko's shoulder. "Come on, Mariko," she said gently. 
"Let's go, hmm?"

     Shiro followed, still puzzled, as Sakura gently tugged Mariko to
the infirmary.

*******

     Karou stepped out of the small examination room.

     "She's okay," she reported to Shiro and Sakura. "I've given her
a sedative and she'll probably be back to normal when she wakes up."

     "I still don't understand," Shiro said. "Why was she like that?
What happened to her?"

     "Happousai," Sakura and Karou chorused.

     "I've seen it before," Karou shrugged. "It's mostly the quiet
girls, though. Happousai's attack is unnerving at the best of times.
The more highly-strung girls usually react... badly. That class,
given that the students were covered in wet clay, was definitely not
the best of times - except perhaps for Happousai."

     "We'd better tell Hinako-sensei to take Mariko off the register
for art classes," Sakura added. "We have enough trouble with the
little pervert without giving him any encouragement." 

     There was a soft chime from Shiro's wrist. He lifted his arm, 
looked at his watch and cursed.

     "What's wrong?" Sakura asked.

     "Final period starts in fifteen minutes," Shiro sighed, "and it's
Tonomi's class."

     "Is it that bad?" Karou asked, carefully not smirking.

     "I guess not," he agreed. "But she told me she loved me 
yesterday, and I - she wouldn t listen to me when I tried to tell her
'no' gently, so I had to be a bit harsh."

     "Oh?" Sakura said delicately. Fishing for answers was a very 
touchy business...

     "But she's young and strong - I'm sure she's recovered," Shiro
said decisively.

     "Of course," Karou smiled.

********

     Final period was not Purgatory, as Shiro had feared.

     It was Hell.

     Every single female in the room was glaring at him.

     Every single male was watching him and smirking knowingly, if 
they weren't glaring worse than the girls.

     Tonomi wasn't there at all.

     Shiro didn't know that a series of rumours, each one 
progressively more lurid than the one before, was rounding through 
the student body. The senior class was currently under the impression
that Shiro, Tonomi and Karou had been having a three-way affair and 
Shiro had dumped Tonomi after she refused to sleep with Karou. 

     That Shiro had been at the school for less than a month didn't
seem to occur to the students. This was also the same class that were
betting rather heavily on Mariko in what Tendou Nabiki was calling 
'the Smith-sensei Stakes'. But then, logic was not a trait that 
assisted survival at Furinkan High.

     Finally, the bell rang for the end of class.

     "All right, that's it for today," Shiro said, rising. "Remember 
to read the first chapter of 'The New York Cat Story' in the original,
and I want a paragraph describing Pohrah Behr in English and Japanese
for tomorrow."

     "Yes, sensei," the class dutifully chorused, gathering their 
stationery and books together and jumbling out of the room.

     Shiro paused as he was leaving. Why had the class been so 
hostile? He knew that she was popular with the other students, but
surely they would still try to learn...

     "Oh!"

     He spun to see Tonomi standing in the doorway. 

     "I'm sorry, Smith-sensei," she murmured politely. "I missed the 
class."

     He heard the new formality in her voice and felt a quiet pang
for the past. /It's for the best,/ he told himself.

     "That's quite all right. Your marks are good enough to stand a 
missed class. Just don't make a habit of it!"

     "Good enough? You really think so, Sh-Smith-sensei?"

     He nodded. "Yes, you've put in a lot of work these past few 
weeks and it shows. I'm very proud of you. But I do recommend you do
today's homework to assist your marks."

     Tonomi's smile blazed brightly over her pretty face. "I'll do my
best, Sh-Smith-sensei!"

     "I'm glad to hear that. Today's homework is to read the first
chapter of the English version of 'The New York Cat Story' and to 
write a descriptive paragraph in Japanese and English about Pohrah
Behr."

     "Thank you, Smith-sensei," Tonomi murmured as she left the room.

     She waited until she was a decorous distance from the classroom
before she burst into song. "He still likes me! He still likes me!" 
she carolled as she danced down the hallways to the Dance Club 
meeting. "You *will* be mine, Shiro-sensei!" she announced to the
empty corridor. "I might have to wait even until I graduate, but I'll
win you! You'll see!"

     She dashed down the hallway towards the gymnasium, not noticing
the figure that stood in the hallway off the one she ran down.

     Yamada-sensei looked after the girl's figure. "Poor kid," he 
muttered. "You'll lose your first love." He put his hand over the 
betting slip in his pocket.

********

     Any idiot can cook ramen. It takes a superior intellect to burn 
it. 

     Or so Shiro consoled himself as he threw out the charred remains
of his attempt at stir-fried ramen and pulled out a pre-packaged meal
from the freezer. He tapped out the code on the microwave's control 
panel that would turn the block of ice and cardboard into hot, fresh,
delicious food.

     He was just pulling it out of the microwave as the telephone 
rang.

     "Hello? Oh, hi Mum... yes, I'm fine. Things have been kind of 
busy... No, I haven't... MUM!... How's Dad?... Really?... And how are
things in Kyoto?... Well, there are some nice girls here... NO, 
nobody to bring home yet... You are really wanting to be a
grandmother! What about Himeko and Ryunnosuke?... They ARE? Wow, so 
I'm *finally* going to be an uncle? That's cool..."

     "#But what about you, Shiro-kun? How was your day today?#" his 
mother asked.

     Shiro thought about what had happened that day. The 
confrontation. Sakura's injuries. The Happousai Chase. Mariko's
reaction, and finally the encounter with Tonomi.

     "Today? Today was a pretty ordinary day, considering," he
answered her.
 
********

AUTHOR'S NOTES:

	First and foremost - THANK YOU Dayglo and Aaron P. Bolner for
prereading! Without their help, this chapter would be much worse.
     I'm not going to explain any of what happened here, because if 
you don't get it, I am a far more obscure writer than even I thought
possible. But I am going to explain some details that I consider need
explaining.
     Jesse left Chapter 14 at a cliffhanger that *needed* resolution.
I had to get Shiro to think that he'd dealt with the situation - 
without letting him deal with the situation. I hope I managed to pull
it off!
     Also, it seems to be one of the 'rules' of LoCS - and a very
good one, in my opinion - that none of the 'main' characters of Ranma
1/2 may appear, and canon supporting characters can only appear in
supporting roles. But it seems to me that those characters would
influence the people around them a great deal. I tried to portray that
without bringing them in too much and I hope I succeeded.

     1. Class 1-F - I have no idea how they label classes in Japan. 
1-F is the designation of the room Ranma's class has homeroom in each
morning, so I applied it to the entire class. (Source: Ranma 1/2
Graphic Novel, volume 1, page 89, Viz edition.)

     2. We're never told exactly which class Gosunkugi is a member of.
So I put him in the same classroom as all the other players.

     3. It is accepted practice in Japan to call one's superiors in 
rank within one's organization 'sempai'. However, in all the media
I've seen where teachers interact with each other, no matter how they
refer to themselves or the other in the conversation, they refer to 
other teachers as 'sensei'. 

     4. Ranma 1/2 is not a hentai tentacle flick, however much
Happousai would like it to be. The girls do not recover from their
unspeakable ordeals at the appendages of lustful demons - or
Happousais - with the resiliency of rubber balls. I thought it was
about time somebody showed that. 

     5. There is a long-standing anime convention that a young man,
when confronted with a scantily-clad or otherwise enticing young lady
to whom he is sexually attracted but cannot approach, will get a
nosebleed. 

     6. 'The New York Cat Story' was originally published in English
under the title 'The Cat Who Came For Christmas'. Written by
Cleveland Amory, it is the first in a non-fiction trilogy about his 
cat, a stray who he found on Christmas Eve, 1977. It also describes 
the first days of the animal protection society Amory founded. 'Polar
Bear' was the name of the cat; he was a large, pure white cat with
large green eyes, excellent hearing, and, unusually, a vocabulary of
'aeiou' rather than 'nyaaow'. 
     It was a bestseller in Japan and America, was not a very big
book and is written in pure modern English (it has little to no
slang or colloquialisms). Consequently I consider that it would 
probably be one of a number of modern books teachers of advanced
English classes would consider for class reading.