I see now, clear and free

[serperior]

This is a post for Taku and Mini to do whatever shenanigans they desire

Comments

[gemuinemanagement]

[oh no not the sparkly eyes-]

I want to see the haunted house. ...Even if I'm not a very good judge of scariness.

[Support boyfriend, support kids, sounds good to him.]

[spiderface]

Well, you heard him kids. Let's give him the welcome he deserves to your exhibit.

["Tsuchigomori-sensei seems to be having an awful lot of fun with this all of a sudden...", one of the kids whispers to another, but Tsuchi casually passes off his sign to advertise it to them with one of his hands.]

I'll be accompanying him, so this will give me a chance to accurately judge your work from this side of things as well. Do your best to put on a good performance, alright?

["Yes, sensei..."]

[gemuinemanagement]

I'm sure it'll be really good.

[Please don't worry too much about impressing him! ...Maybe worry about impressing Tsuchigomori, but at least Suga is easy.]

[spiderface]

[Yeah, Suga is easy mode, while Tsuchi is hard mode. Not that he makes that too apparent just yet until they both step inside and the curtain closes behind them, and once they are both finally alone together, the other man sighs.]

In all seriousness, I don't genuinely expect this to be too scary. Otherwise the school board or some parents here would have said something to me by now if there was actually anything in here that seemed child-unfriendly.

[Still, there's a small teasing smile that remains on his face as he offers a hand.]

But if you still want to hold my hand just in case, I'll be nice and allow it.

[Tsuchi my god just admit you wanna hold hands with your boyfriend...]

[gemuinemanagement]

I always want to hold hands with you. Even if it's not scary at all.

[At least one of them is straightforward about it. Suga gives Tsuchigomori's hand a gentle squeeze.]

[spiderface]

[Let the hand holding commence!]

Alright. If you're ready, then we'll commence ahead.

[Once they pass through the second curtain, Suga will see that it definitely looks like a haunted house put together by middle schoolers: a bunch of pumpkins, some fake cardboard bats held on strings from the ceiling or taped to the wall... and then, a sudden appearance of a kid dressed like a zombie crawling out from a plastic bush in front of them and gesturing at them.

"Aaaaugh, I'm so hungry, I need to eat brains..."

Tsuchi barely even blinks in response, but he does glance sideways at Suga to see the other's reaction so far.]

[gemuinemanagement]

[Oh. That's - not all that frightening, but he would feel bad for this kid if he didn't give any reaction at all, so. He steps protectively in front of Tsuchigomori. You can't have his boyfriend's brains!!]

[spiderface]

[That earns a slight snort of laughter muffled behind one of Tsuchi's hands here--okay, that's both funny and sweet of Suga to give that as a reaction.

They slip past the kids dressed as zombies as a voice from... somewhere narrates that what they passed were the victims of the mad doctor of death that lurks somewhere in the haunted house, and that if they're not careful, they'll end up just like ghosts or those zombie kids. Ooh, scary.

Suddenly, something with a strange wet texture proceeds to smack Suga in the side of face here in the dark, coming from somewhere above them. It appears to be... uh, tofu? Or konjac maybe on the end of fishing lines that are meant to be like slimy hands reaching from the dark of the ceiling, which definitely gets a slight eyebrow raise from Tsuchi at the kid (who happens to be Mitsuba, in fact who scowls back) who is holding the line currently.]

[gemuinemanagement]

[Suga listens to the narration. It's pretty standard horror story stuff, but he doesn't want the kids to think he's not invested in the story.

The tofu, though...]

...that kind of tickles.

[Sorry Mitsuba.]

[spiderface]

["See, I TOLD you it was a lame idea to do--" "Sssh, Mitsuba, be quiet before they hear you--"

That's Kou's voice being hissed at him, before he realizes that it's too late, both Tsuchi and Suga already can hear them, so there's an awkward pause, his whole routine likely thrown off... before Kou jumps out of hiding dressed as a doctor in a labcoat and holding a big prop syringe.

"Ah... ha, I am the doctor of death! Hold still so that I can inject you with one of my horrible poisons to experiment with on you!!"

Waves the syringe about back and forth here in an attempt to be threatening, which has Tsuchi giving Kou a flat look and Mitsuba currently laughing hard enough to forget all pretenses of pretending to not be there above them.]

[gemuinemanagement]

[...that's actually kind of cute, oh no.]

...aren't you too young to be a doctor?

[Who gave this child a degree.]

[spiderface]

["Uhhh... thats because of my terrrrible experiments! One of them caused me to age backwards!!"]

Since when was that part of the lore you kids came up with?

["Since... now? Look, what more do you want from me, Spiderface--"]

Something that compels me to not give you a low score for your work on this exhibit, obviously.

["Sensei, that's not fair, you guys are adults, it's too hard to scare you two!! At least we've gotten other kids to scream!"

Sure enough, somewhere behind them, there's the sound of kids giving a sudden shout of alarm, probably at one of the zombie dressed kids grabbing them by the ankles or something.

"See!!"]

[gemuinemanagement]

Sorry. I'll try to be more scared.

[He's not a good measure of this kind of thing, even for adults.]

[spiderface]

["SIGH... no, no, the mood's already ruined, you might as well just go."]

Have you been responding with that anytime someone here didn't react the way you wanted them to? I might have to deduce another point for that, you know.

["Why can't you be the one doing some scares in here, saves me the trouble of having to be dragged into this..."

Ahh, that's the sound of Mitsuba complaining above them.]

Because I'm the teacher, I'm not doing the hard work for you guys in addition to helping you advertise the class exhibit for the festival.

[Geez, between these two in particular, it doesn't feel like its going well for both of them having Tsuchi be the judge of their efforts. Perhaps we should move on before we end up holding up anyone behind us and pre-emptively ruining the scares for them too...]

[gemuinemanagement]

I think they're trying their best... Maybe it'll be better up ahead?

[Suga lightly tugs on Tsuchigomori's hand to encourage him to start walking again.]

I'm still having fun.

1/3

[spiderface]

[Tsuchi waits until the other two kids are left behind before he speaks.]

Don't worry, I'm not actually planning on giving that kid a bad grade or anything like that. I just don't want those two thinking they can always act like that when things don't go their way. Besides, if Number Three didn't want to be involved, he could have just left instead of helping.

[Mitsuba is even more tsundere than we are, after all.

It looks like there's not much else here after those two: some plastic spiders drop from the ceiling into their hair along with other kids in costume jumping out left and right going "boo" or trying to grab at their ankles... pretty standard stuff, really.

It's not long before they reach the exit, and Tsuchi begins to sigh.]

Well, I'll give them some credit that they tried to work with what they could with the budget provided by the school, but I will admit that it'd be nice to have seen something really unique here...

2/3

[spiderface]

[The moment those words leave his mouth, however, there's suddenly an ear-piercing SHRIEK of terror somewhere behind them, and the sound of two kids screaming--]

"Something grabbed my ankle again!"

"Yashiro-chan, quit letting the zombies grab your fat ankles and run faster--!! OH GOD NO, SOMETHING SLIMY JUST HIT MY FACE--"

[And then, zooming right past Tsuchi and Suga very quickly is... Yashiro, accompanied by Hanako very quickly floating after to get away from whatever Mitsuba is doing with the konjac on a string chasing after them as both kids, including Hanako, are screaming in absolute terror in comparison to how bored Tsuchi and Suga had been by the attempted scares.]

3/3

[spiderface]

[There's a long, long pause as Tsuchi watches those two zoom past... and then he proceeds to double over in absolute uproarious laughter, hard in a way he hasn't done in quite a while.]

Seriously!? That actually worked on Number Seven, of all people?

[Sorry Hanako, but your former teacher is going to give these kids a passing grade because they did give him a unique sight just now--the greatest school mystery screaming like a little girl from a middle school haunted house.]

[gemuinemanagement]

[O-oh no. Suga shouldn't laugh at Hanako being so scared, that feels mean, but his attempts at hiding his chuckles behind his sleeve aren't very effective.]

I guess different things are more or less scary to different people...

[spiderface]

Well then, I'll have to revise my opinion on the students efforts then, if it was good enough to work on Number Seven at least.

[Tsuchigomori finally stops laughing now, but is still clearly quite pleased as he squeezes the hand still holding Suga's momentarily.]

We've reached the end of the exhibit, but I still have time right now to accompany you to see the rest of the school festival, if you want. I haven't really paid attention to what the other classes are doing, so I wouldn't be able to tell you much about them beforehand.

[gemuinemanagement]

I'd love to.

[He squeezes Tsuchigomori's hand in return, with a warm smile.]

Maybe you'll have more fun while you're not thinking about grades.

[spiderface]

Mm, perhaps. And hey, I can say I'm just advertising for my class's exhibit as we go without needing to hide my extra arms away.

[It's not often he gets to walk around freely as his true self, after all.]

[gemuinemanagement]

You're the coolest part of the exhibit, I think. -No offense to the kids.

[spiderface]

That's very flattering of you to say.

[And undeniably true, but he doesn't say that in case he's still in earshot of any of his students. Instead, he walks casually leading Suga away from the haunted house exhibit so that they can see the rest of the school.]

I know outside there's a few food stalls that have been set up if you're hungry, while I believe some classes have put together cafes or games to play, last I heard.

[gemuinemanagement]

Are you hungry? I want to do whatever you want to do.

[unsurprisingly.]