Lesson Learned

"Are you ready?" Koro-sensei asked her as she stared at the mock test in front of her.

Mitsuko looked up and nodded. "One-hour right?"

Koro-sensei nodded. "The others will be done with their PE class after that." He chuckled. "You'll have to thank Mr Karasuma for letting me borrow you."

Mitsuko nodded again, looking down. "Okay..." She inhaled deeply and tried to relax. "Okay, I'm ready."

"All-righty then." Koro-sensei started the timer. "You may begin."

She sighed and turned over the page, reading over the extract in the English paper.

'Touching the void'

'The two Japanese climbers had been following them closely—'

A loud crunching noise made her cringe and lookup. "What are...?"

Koro-sensei obnoxiously bit into a coconut. "Oh, don't mind me."

Mitsuko grimaced and went back to reading.

'They had bivouacked separately, and there was—'

Another crunch.

She pressed her pencil too hard on the paper, snapping the led.

Seriously?!!

Mitsuko glowered at him while he hummed innocently. "What are you doing?!"

Koro-sensei chuckled. "Test conditions."

"I can't focus if you're making all that noise!" she snapped.

His grin grew. "Exactly, which why this is practice." He placed the coconut on his desk and dabbed his mouth with a napkin. "We can't be sure what trick the Principal may try to pull for finals," he told her, making her grimace. "Staying calm is one part of the technique, the next is drowning out everything else and focusing on the test."

Mitsuko's frown deepened, looking down at the question.

Koro-sensei gave another crunch but she tried to ignore him.

She closed her eyes and let out a deep breath and used her other hand to mime the actions of how she'd knit when making that scarf.

Up

Over

Down

Up

Over

Down

"Okay," she murmured, opening her eyes when she felt the tension leave her shoulders and tried to focus on a place where everything was calm and okay, making the rest of the world feel like a haze.

Mitsuko smiled slightly as she managed to stay calm.

Then Koro-sensei took out a power drill.

Her pen snapped in two.

"Don't mind me, now!" Koro-sensei yelled above the noise as he constructed a birdhouse at his desk.

"WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?!"

***

Mitsuko sighed, drumming her fingers against the desk while Koro-sensei marked her work. "So...did I fail?"

He chuckled. "No." He placed the test in front of her. "You didn't fail."

Her heart fluttered when she saw a 97/100 splashed in red ink on the test. A smile crept onto her face, picking up the sheet to eye it closer. "That's...that's pretty good."