Chapter 110: Arts Day

"Mmm, hey!" Taro approached Rita in somewhat of an awkward manner.

"Oh, hey! What are you doing here?" She asked, looking all surprised.

"Well, this is the highschool block. So, is there a problem with me being here?" He asked back.

"No, I didn't mean it like that! It's just a pleasant surprise to see you here when you have stuff to do in the other block with the Arts Day stuff. And it's especially surprising to see you start a conversation with me." Rita blushed as she spoke.

"Ah, I see. Makes sense. I came here to give you this." He handed her all the writings of the students who wrote how much they loved her,

"What is this?" She asked, tilting her head in confusion.

"Love letters." Taro replied.

"From you?" She asked. The thought of him giving her a love letter made her heart skip a beat.

Taro knew it. He knew that she'd act like that. However, rather than acting all disgusted or embarrassed about it, he gave out a stoic face just like the one Kunjan's exoskeleton gives. "No. It's from the students." He replied, with no significant change in his expression unlike Rita expected.

Rita knew about the letters, since Sadanandan's friends had already given her a message about his arrival and the contents of the letters. So, when she acted surprised and asked if it was him who wrote the letters, she expected a slight blush from his part. However, nothing of that sort was seen from his face, which immensely disappointed her.

She clicked her tongue as she received the letters. However, then she got a brilliant idea and started reading out the letters aloud. "Dear Ms. Rita. You look so lovely! You're so blinding. How can a woman be so beautiful? Your figure is so good. Your ample—oh, my! Are you sure that some student wrote it? I mean, some of the stuff he said here is pretty suggestive, you know? I don't think a student could write something like this. Maybe a teacher-" Before she could complete her sentence, Taro cut her off.

"Hmm, is that so? I would have to look for which teacher wrote that stuff. It's still sexual harassment, you know? Writing stuff like this…" He spoke in an extremely monotonous voice.

"Ah, I don't have any complaints though!" She replied. She wanted to convey her thoughts that it would be fine if Sadanandan was to send something like this as well. However, the moment those words left her tongue, she felt that the way she put it out made it sound weird.

"I see. I still think you should take some action against it. You never know what kinda stuff these people will try next. Being vigilant is a fine trait." He said as he scratched his head. He was unsure whether to treat her as a maniac or a blockhead. So, for now, she treated her as a blockhead.

"Fine trait, huh?" She mumbled before turning towards him. "I'll stay vigilant from now on!" She gave out a bright smile as she replied.

"That's nice." Taro smiled back. Now that she knew that she was an actual airhead who needs a bit of care, he started looking at her in a new light. He felt as if she was like a little sister whom he should take care of. Even though she seemed interested in him romantically, he could not see her as such.

If only he knew of the truth…

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Finally, the Arts Day was upon them. After all the literature stuff went by like a passing storm, the lads finally had time to just settle in and take a deep breath. It was all going well—too well until they were made aware that they were going to the judges of the speech competition.

The ones who worked hard thinking that they would be left out of any sorta judging were devastated. They had to sit inside a rather congested room listening to the speeches of at least twenty-five kids on the same damn topic. And it wasn't like any exciting topic which made them invest their time in it. It was more about the pollution in India and stuff. This ticked off Taro in particular because he found Earth fun, mainly because of the pollutants. If that was to go, there wouldn't be any difference between this planet and other random planets.

Even though ticked off, Taro didn't let his personal opinions cloud his rational judgement. He judged them on the base of their technique and skill, just like the rest of them did. In the end, it took the entire half of the day for them to actually complete the task of judging for the speech.

The lads were toast after this. However, the fact that they got the rest of the day for themselves excited them. So, they went straight to the main stage to see what's going on in there. That's when they noticed it. No one seemed too excited for the Arts Day. The kids were loitering around rather than watching the actual performance.

Not knowing why it was like that, Taro and company watched the stuff and learned of the harsh truth. It was boring. Truly boring to the core. Just like the speech competition.

They thought that the literary week was much better since the kids wrote a whole bunch of shit, since their identity was protected if they wrote it anonymously. However, in this case, they were showcased before the entire school. Therefore, they couldn't act like shit before them, because that might be how these kids remember them for the rest of their school lives.

Bored with the programs, Taro and the lads split up and lurked around. They split up because lurking around as a group meant someone would pull them into doing something. After splitting up, Taro went on a search for his students from the twelfth grade, but they were nowhere to be seen.

So, he had a new task of finding them. However, before he could think of it as an exciting new adventure, he was shown the way to them by one of the volunteers keeping track of everyone's movement. It seemed as if the kids were holed in their class.

Usually, that wouldn't be possible. However, since they were the seniors of the school and no one gave a shit about them in the first place, they were given permission to stay in class—a thing most of their juniors wanted to do as well.

Once Taro got a glimpse of what they were doing, he concluded that the ones inside the classroom looked more happy than the ones outside. Well, they had no one to mess with them, thus had full freedom and they were enjoying it.

Taro, who felt that the Arts day was boring contrary to his expectations, joined in on the fun with his class. If someone were to ask about his reason for holing up with them, he could always bring up the excuse of supervising the kids. The thought of doing so brought a bright smile to his face.

Initially, when his students heard the footsteps of someone closing in on them, they were quick to hide their pens. They were playing pen fight, and it was something that always led to teachers confiscating their bulky pens that they brought especially for this.

However, when they saw Taro, they were initially relieved. However, when he walked towards them, they panicked as they thought that he was about to confiscate their pens as well.

"Can I play that game with you guys?" Taro's request surprised them.

It was the first time that a teacher proactively involved themselves into a pen fight and there was no reason for them to hesitate in inviting him as well, because now they had a teacher in their midst as well—which meant that no one was gonna confiscate their stuff. They had something to brag about at this point.

Although Taro initially seemed confident about playing it, as the game was all about getting your opponents' pens off the table, he learned that the game was more difficult than he imagined. Raw power wouldn't let him win. Precision and brains were also equally important in this. And this realization was revolutionary in his mind.

When he tried winning with raw power alone in a six person pen fight, he could only get two or three out. However, that came with his sacrifice as well, which meant that he thwarted his chance of winning by playing reckless and gave two of them a perfect opportunity to win.

Knowing this, he made skillful plays where hitting him would mean death for others. And this increased his enjoyment in the game by tenfold. By the end of the day, he ended up winning multiple matches, which made him immensely proud of his achievement. He had more fun that day than he expected, albeit unexpectedly. He hoped that he would play pen fight with his students some other day as well.

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