The Life Of Normal-Taro

"What the hell happened here?" Taro slowly walked to his desk in the staff room as he mumbled that.

The situation was grim. Every single teacher seemed to have fallen. They had their heads buried to their desks. They looked defeated.

The reason for such a sad state of the staff room was the overwork they had to that day. Usually, the staff room was brimmed with noise on all sides—some gossiping; some just giving out random factoids and such. Anyhow, Taro was accustomed to such an atmosphere.

If it was Taro in the beginning of his tenure at the school, he wouldn't have cared for either way, however, the bustling grew up on him and it stuck with him. Therefore, this grim mood affected him heavily than he expected.

"Well, they had a lot to teach after all!" Someone spoke from the behind. Taro freaked out a little before looking back to see a smiling woman there. "Hey!" She waved her hand.

The woman…. Taro had no recollection of ever conversing with her. Since, he didn't bother to learn the names of his colleagues due to his bad blood with the people there, he had no idea who she was either. However, the woman had an air of familiarity around her and yet he couldn't grasp the reason behind it.

"Hi." Taro gave out an awkward reply as he tried his hardest to grasp even the tiniest bit of information about her. While doing that, he didn't realize that he was staring too hard at her.

"Excuse me! What are you doing?" The woman questioned.

"Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to do that." Taro apologized.

"Don't worry. I know I'm beautiful and that made you do that." The woman laughed at her own joke.

Taro didn't find it to be that funny though, since he didn't get the funny part in that statement. In his eyes, what she said was the truth. He certainly would've found her attractive if he preferred Earthling women.

"Okay, seems like the joke didn't reach you." The woman gave out an awkward laughter when she didn't get even a sliver of smile as a response.

"Not really. I mean, you might be wrong about the reason, but that doesn't change the fact that you're beautiful, so…" Taro shrugged.

The woman laughed. "Oh, seems like you're quite straightforward with your opinions. You do this to every girl you see?" She asked.

"Nah. Only to the beautiful ones." Taro replied.

"People, huh? Does that mean you compliment men as well?" She asked with a sly smile on her face.

"If they are beautiful, then yes." Taro answered.

"My, oh my! You're pretty unique." She chuckled even more after this.

Once a conversation was established, Taro felt it to be quite weird to ask her name. However, he felt that it was a good opportunity to do that rather than doing it after they have an even longer conversation.

"Pardon me, but I really didn't catch your name." Taro spoke.

"I never introduced myself though. So, it makes sense." The woman nodded.

Taro heaved in a sigh of relief. "Okay, let me tell you the truth. I thought you were gonna freak out because I didn't know your name. And I didn't want to mess up the vibe we created by asking your name, so yea." Taro replied.

"Then why did you ask my name?" The woman asked.

"Well, any later and it would be more awkward that this." Taro answered.

"I guess you're right about that. I'll introduce myself then. Hello, I'm Lena. I teach Malayalam here. And I know you didn't ask, but I've been saying this ever since some of our faculty members started hitting on me—I'm married, by the way." Lena introduced herself.

"Ah, it's fine. If you're being hit on by people, then I guess you have no choice, huh? By the way, I'm-" Before he could finish his sentence, Taro was interrupted by Lena.

"Taro, I know." She replied.

"Ah, yea. You know that alrea—wait, what?" Taro looked dumbfounded at her. He didn't know if his ears betrayed him or if that's what she said, but he did hear her say Taro, instead of Sadanandan. For a hot moment, he was about to go with the flow before realizing it.

"Your name's Sadanandan, right? I mean, almost all of the faculty is aware of your name right now, so it isn't that big of a deal that I know it as well." Lena replied, this time around, using the right name—or at least, Taro heard the right name.

"Oh, yea. That makes sense." Taro chuckled awkwardly this time around. He wanted to confirm if he heard it right back then, however he didn't feel like that was the right time to do it. Hence, he decided to focus on something else for now. "Wait! Since you are a Malayalam teacher, you are in a similar situation as me, huh?" Taro asked.

"A little less to teach than the poor souls around us? Yes. And for the notes and all, we could make one of the kids recite it, so our part of the job is way easier than them." Lena replied.

"You're right about that! I mean, after teaching like this, I can't even imagine myself doing what they're doing now." Taro spoke with a relieved look on his face, before giving out a light chuckle. Lena followed with her own chuckle as well.

"Oh, my goodness! What am I even seeing?" A shocked voice came from behind, which once again startled Taro. At that moment, he decided that he would never turn his back to the entrance of the staff room because that would mean he would get startled the way he got twice that day.

Anyhow, Taro sighed as he saw the source of the shocked voice. It was Abhirami.

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"What now, Abhirami?" Taro asked, upon seeing his student in the staff room.

"Oh, I'm here to submit my record book here, but what the hell is happening here?" She asked back.

"Ah, didn't I tell you about the acceleration thingy? Yea, this is the aftereffect of that. Nice, isn't it?" Taro showed off the people around him as he said that.

"No. Not that." Abhirami shook her head.

"Then what?" Taro asked, confused about what she meant.

"I meant this." She pointed towards Lena and himself.

Taro sighed. "What about this?" Taro asked again.

"When did this happen? I mean, when did you become all cheerful with each other? And MRS Lena? Did you mention that you're married? I mean, you shouldn't give false hope to people, right?" Abhirami asked, showing off an irked expression as she said that.

"I did mention it, but I don't think he's interested in me that way. So, you can rest assured, Abhirami. I'm not gonna take your man." Lena replied.

"Oh, my! How did you know that?" Abhirami blushed as she heard Lena say that.

"No, why would you say that?" A contrasting look appeared on Taro's face almost simultaneously.

"Well, it is pretty fun, isn't it?" Lena asked, as she began chuckling once again. She was having way too much fun with it.

"It might be for you, but it ain't that much for me. You got to nip such thoughts from the bud or who knows what might happen?" Taro shrugged.

"Hmm, it's a simple high school crush that kids feel for their good looking teacher. Take it like that and you'll be fine." Lena smiled.

"Easy for you to say that." Taro grumpily replied.

"And you do know that she has other boyfriends as well, right?" Lena asked.

"Wait, how do you know that?" Abhirami looked flustered as she asked that.

"Hmm, let's just say that the walls here have ears." Lena replied.

"Nah, that's bullshit!" Abhirami spoke.

"Hey! Language!" Taro gave the second warning of the day.

"Oh, sorry. That's crap. Walls have ears? Nah, my dear friend Shivani has an extremely loose lip, doesn't she?" She asked.

"Ah, what makes you say that?" Lena asked, with a slightly shocked look on her face.

"Wait, you teach Malayalam to my class?" Taro asked, upon hearing Shivani's name being mentioned.

"Well, not the entire class. Just Shivani. I mean, she's the only one who took the Bio-language section with Malayalam as her choice of language. There's Aleena in your class who took Bio-language stream as well, however, she has Hindi as her fifth subject." Lena explained.

"Oh, I see." Taro nodded upon understanding what she meant.

"Anyway, it wasn't Shivani who told me that. You see, you haven't made your affairs that hidden. I mean, literally everyone in the school knows and yet they don't mention it to you just because." Lena replied.

"Is that so?" Abhirami asked.

"Yup, that's exactly the case." Lena replied.

"Hmm, that makes sense. It all makes total sense now." Abhirami came into a realization.

"What? What makes total sense now?" Taro asked.

"Huh? Ah, why my boyfriend broke up with me." Abhirami replied.

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