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“ I’M ABOUT TO OPEN YOUR EYES ALL RIGHT— WAY OPEN! ”
The door slammed so hard it shook the whole building, and Nagisa and Karasuma Korosensei were left to brew in the silence Nagisa’s mom left in her wake.
“Well, that didn’t go as planned…” Korosensei remarked as he scratched his head with his fat fake fingers.
Korosensei seemed to be calm and nonplussed, but Nagisa, on the other hand, felt a surge of emotions quickly fill his gut, making him feel vaguely nauseous. He could hear his classmates outside the window (curse these thin walls), so he knew they all witnessed his mother’s crashout. Nagisa felt his face heat up and tears prick his eyes as the emotions bubbled to the surface. He was utterly embarrassed, humiliated, ashamed … This was the exact reason he didn’t want his mother meeting with Korosensei in the first place; he knew this would be the end result. He didn’t want anyone to know, but now all of his secrets were exposed thanks to the hurricane that was his mother.
Tears had started to silently fall down his cheeks, and upon becoming aware of this fact, Nagisa quickly covered his face. But covering his face didn’t make it any less obvious that he was upset and crying, with the way he trembled and his chest heaved. Korosensei was taken aback for a moment, but he quickly recomposed himself and kneeled down slightly to face Nagisa; he could see that Nagisa’s crying was quickly turning into a severe panic attack.
“How about we sit back down, okay?” Korosensei suggested as he gently placed his tentacles on Nagisa’s shoulders and guided him to sit down in the chair he had sat in during the meeting. Just as he sat down, Nagisa’s hair fell off his shoulder and touched Korosensei’s tentacle, which made Nagisa flinch (and Korosensei flinch, in turn). Korosensei made a mental note to not touch Nagisa’s hair, as he was now aware just how sensitive a topic it was.
“Nagisa, I need you to breathe. In for 5… out for 5.”
Nagisa’s breathing had become extremely strained, and he coughed or choked on every other breath. He struggled to breathe in for even 1, and his hands still firmly covered his face, which did not do much to help.
Korosensei heard the hushed murmurs of the other students of 3-E outside and could feel their concerned gazes, and after a moment of deduction, he closed the blinds in a flash and placed random objects in front of the window such that no light peaked through.
“There. Nobody can see us now; it’s just you and me, Nagisa.” Korosensei placed a tentacle on each of Nagisa’s hands. “Can you uncover your face for me, please?”
Korosensei gently started to pry Nagisa’s hands away from his face, which Nagisa allowed him to do with weak resistance. His face was red and blotchy, and snot had started to escape his nose and slowly drip down his face. He had also noticeably become a tick calmer now that the window was covered.
His big, sad, blue eyes blinked up at Korosensei. Nagisa always looked slightly younger than his actual age because he was smaller than the other kids, but there was something in his eyes that made him look impossibly young, at which the teacher’s heart ached.
“Let’s try breathing again. In for 5…” Korosensei took a big breath, held it, then slowly breathed out. “Out for 5. Now your turn. I’ll count with you.”
Nagisa mimicked Korosensei’s breathing, although he heaved and choked and sniffled after he breathed out due to the small amount of oxygen in his lungs.
“Good job!” Korosensei praised after one round. His permanent smile widened, and his face turned pink. “Let’s do that again.”
And the two repeated the cycle until Nagisa’s sobbing was reduced to sniffles, and he could breathe properly again. After the final round of breathing, Korosensei let go of Nagisa’s hands and placed them in the boy’s lap in favor of grabbing tissues and wiping his face.
“There,” Korosensei said as he threw away the used tissues. “All better.”
Nagisa wiped his eyes with the back of his hand and sniffed, “’M so’ry…”
He felt so fuzzy and tired and small . He just wanted to hole himself up in his room and hide away from the world and this horrible day (and his mother) under his favorite soft, comfy blankie.
“You have nothing to be sorry about.” Korosensei sat in the chair next to Nagisa and turned their chairs so they faced each other. “Tell me what’s going on.”
Nagisa looked down at his lap (it was obvious he was purposefully avoiding eye contact), and one of his hands began to pick at the hair-tie around his wrist and snap it against his skin. He was completely silent, either lacking the words to properly express his feelings or lacking the energy to do so. Korosensei was understanding of the boy’s silence, though, and so he diverted tactics.
“Do you want a hug?”
Nagisa finally looked up at him, and after a moment, bashfully nodded. Korosensei leaned forward and carefully wrapped his tentacles around his student. Nagisa hesitantly did the same, but he quickly melted into the hug and even seemed to nuzzle against the octopus’s shoulder.
The whole interaction brought forward vague memories of Nagisa being held by his mother when he was a baby; a genuine, warm, human connection that seemed to be forever absent from his life and that which he genuinely craved.
A new batch of tears started to fall, which Korosensei was alerted to when Nagisa sniffed. In response, and without really thinking about it, Korosensei stood up, shifting his tentacles in order to have a better hold on Nagisa, and began to sway slightly.
“It’s alright, Nagisa. It’ll be okay. We’ll figure something out.”
The previously missing words now all rose to the surface, but they came out in a somewhat incoherent babble.
“S’e mean n’ m’ hair a notta girl n’ a like m’ f’ends n’ wanna stay n’ not like ‘er ‘ou…”
Korosensei placed a tentacle on Nagisa’s back and continued to hold him. After it seemed like Nagisa had calmed down again, Korosensei placed him back in the chair. Nagisa blinked up at him confusedly, but in a whirlwind of yellow that lasted for less than a second, Nagisa’s hair was suddenly back up in the usual pigtails. Nagisa’s face broke out into a small, surprised smile as he brought up a hand to play with the end of a pigtail. Korosensei gasped.
“Oh? What’s this?”
Korosensei reached a tentacle behind Nagisa’s ear and produced a lollipop, holding it in front of the boy as an offering. It was one he had recently picked up from Southern France that he had never gotten around to eating. Nagisa giggled and shyly accepted the treat.
“T’ank ‘ou.”
He fiddled with the wrapper, intending to take it off, before his demeanor suddenly became sad again. He looked up at Korosensei with a serious and slightly scared expression.
“Be ok, right? Won’ hav’ ta leave E-class? Change ‘er mind?”
It was silent and still for a moment. Then, Korosensei placed a tentacle on the top of Nagisa’s head and lightly ruffled his hair. He nodded.
“I promise. You won’t leave E-Class. I’ll help you find a way to convince her.”
Nagisa smiled, big and bright.
With Korosensei’s words, for the first time, Nagisa had a glimmer of hope that everything was truly going to be okay.