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Working as a cram teacher, especially with the infamous Class 3-E, had never been part of his plans.
But being seventeen and having almost no one to rely on, father dead and mother refusing to acknowledge his existence ever since the words he wrote on his notebook lit up, left him with few choices. Beggars can’t be choosers, after all, and he was determined to graduate.
And so he contacted Yukimura Aguri, knowing that she would be willing to turn a blind eye to the fact that he was still a student himself unlike the other classes who had no need for someone who hadn’t even graduated high school, no matter how high his notes in maths were, and asked her if her students would be interested in a cram teacher.
She said yes.
Students in Kunugigaoka Junior High School were forbidden from working outside of school, but the same could not be said for students in Kunugigaoka High School - many students came from overseas, and forbidding them from working and getting money to help would be detrimental to the school.
Still, working outside of school was badly seen by some, as if it was some kind of proof that you weren’t truly elite. Private schools were strange like that.
Fortunately, Doppo cared little about what the other students thought of him - the only thing that mattered was his education, and getting money to ensure he could stay and graduate was his priority now that his mother would no longer help.
(How did you do this, what kind of monster are you-)
That was all that mattered, and Yukimura-sensei’s worries about his home life were unfounded.
“Here.”
Yukimura-sensei’s voice stopped Doppo from leaving, and he turned back to send her a questioning look just as she shoved a book in his hands. He glanced at it, confused, and felt his blood turn to ice.
Abilities and Users: what we know about them.
Immediately, he thrust the book back into her arms, hands shaking and mind reeling with panic.
“I don’t need that.” he spat, and ran away ignoring the teacher’s calls.
When he went back the next day, he pretended nothing had happened and ignored Yukimura-sensei’s sad eyes.
Months went by until the end of Doppo’s second year in High School came. He passed with flying colours and came home to an empty house.
And then Yukimura-sensei’s death was announced by the Principal, and everything started to go downhill.
“A monster.” Doppo repeated, staring at the governmental agent incredulously.
“The one who destroyed the moon.” the man - call me Karasuma - confirmed. “He agreed to let us live as long as we let him become class 3-E’s home teacher.”
Doppo bristled. “You’re letting him near children?!”
Karasuma sent him a dark glare. “He has sworn not to harm them.”
“And you believe it?!”
“This isn’t why we’re here for,” Karasuma snapped, frowning, “We are here because you too are involved in the deal we made with that monster.”
To say Doppo wasn’t impressed would be an understatement.
“Ah, involving middle schoolers wasn’t enough so you add a high schooler?”
The agent ignored him, and Doppo scowled. Worry burned in his chest - he had been tutoring students from Class 3-E for months now, and while they would leave school at the end of this year, the idea of students - children - near that monster disgusted him.
“I’m not a middle schooler,” he said, voice hard, “Just a cram teacher. Why are you telling me this secret?”
Karasuma didn’t answer immediately, staring at Doppo as if the teenager held all the answers he wanted. “He requested you by name, Kunikida. He said he wouldn’t accept the deal unless we let you continue teaching as a cram teacher.”
This time, Doppo had no reply to give.
And so his last year as a high school student and second year as a cram teacher started.
The monster was by far the strangest individual that Doppo had ever met - and that wasn’t even taking into account the tentacles.
They met a day before students came back to class. Watching him introduce himself made his skin crawl. There was something so fake about him, deeper than the strange appearance he seemed to hide behind, but Doppo couldn’t quite put his finger on what disturbed him so much more than the tentacles.
“What do you want?” was the first thing Doppo asked as soon as they were left alone.
The monster’s smile widened.
“I want to help my students!” he exclaimed cheerfully, and Doppo scowled.
“Don’t fuck with me!”
The monster only cackled as Doppo spit insults at him, and that was the beginning of their relationship.
The students reacted surprisingly well to the monster - which is to say there was no mass hysteria, a win in Doppo’s books.
That said, once everything calmed down, it didn’t take long for theories to fly around the classroom, and one in particular made Doppo freeze.
It happened days later, soon after the monster was dubbed Koro-sensei, as students slowly but surely became accustomed to their new monstrous teacher.
“Is it your Ability?”
This was the question Nakamura asked Koro-sensei at the end of class, and Doppo hid a flinch as he carefully slid his books in his bag.
Koro-sensei seemed to love lingering near his classroom when Doppo taught mathematics, and the blond only allowed it because he never disturbed the lesson - even if he sometimes really wanted to yell at him.
This once though, Doppo was grateful for his presence.
“You know,” Nakamura explained, “those people who have powers and everything!”
“I heard they fought in the war.” whispered another student, and Doppo swallowed, willing his hands to stop shaking.
(You freak-)
Koro-sensei’s laugh interrupted their conversation and Doppo’s thoughts.
“I’m afraid I have no ability to speak of,” he said, amused, and Doppo wondered if he had imagined the way his eyes lingered on him.
Time passed, fast and slow at the same time. Doppo was both student and teacher, and though he prided himself on the fact that he could manage both - Class 3-E’s grades in maths had become higher than most of class B and even surpassed some of class A - there was no denying that being both took its toll on him.
Still, his heart stopped beating when Koro-sensei took him aside at the end of a day, his smile strangely still as he stared at him.
“You should leave, Kunikida-kun,” Koro-sensei whispered, and though his voice was soft, Doppo felt his heart squeeze at the words.
Seventeen and it felt like he had achieved nothing at all, like all the words he’d written weighed tons on his shoulders, teacher and student and nothing at all.
(You freak, why were you even born-)
He had gotten comfortable among these outsiders, and hearing his colleague say that broke something in him.
Instead of letting his fear and sadness show, he gritted his teeth and sent a dark glare to the monster.
“Are you saying I’m useless? I assure you, I take care of the students, and my cram sessions greatly help them-”
Koro-sensei cut him off. “This isn’t about the students, Kunikida-kun. It’s about you.”
Doppo paused, words failing him. It was hard to tell, what with being an octopus monster, but Koro-sensei almost looked sad.
“You should leave,” he repeated, voice soft, “and take care of yourself.”
And Doppo had no answer to give to that.
Months seemed to pass by, event after event succeeding each other so fast that Doppo had a hard time keeping track of it all even as his workload decreased.
Doppo started to train alongside the younger students when he had the time. He had already started to learn how to fight some time ago, before his mother discovered -
It didn’t matter. It didn’t matter.
And then, near the end, Koro-sensei once again cornered him alone after class.
What was different was the thing Koro-sensei held between his tentacles.
A notebook. A very familiar notebook.
Doppo’s heart dropped, and he lunged towards it before he could think better of it. Koro-sensei was gone before he could touch him, of course, and Doppo gritted his teeth.
“Give it back.” he hissed, and Koro-sensei chuckled.
“Why, Kunikida-kun,” the monster said, amused, “It’s just a notebook.”
The way he said the word notebook was strange, putting so much emphasis on it that Doppo would have had to have been deaf not to notice.
There was only one explanation for the way Koro-sensei had been acting all this time, and Doppo could no longer deny it.
“So you know,” he whispered, willing his voice to stop shaking, “that I’m a freak.”
Koro-sensei stiffened.
“What,” he said, voice hard, “did you just say?”
Doppo barely heard him. It felt just like that day, months ago - no, almost a year now - back when his mother stumbled upon him writing things into existence.
Months since the person who was supposed to love him unconditionally called him a monster.
“I can do things,” he continued, because once he had started he could not stop, the chains around his heart finally lessening, “things not even you could do, like those people who fought in the war-”
“Kunikida-kun.”
Koro-sensei’s voice made him freeze. Slowly, Doppo looked up, and he swallowed back a cry upon seeing the monster’s black face.
“You are not a freak, nor are you cursed.” he spoke, voice calm even as his face spasmed with anger, “You are Gifted, and you should be proud of yourself.”
It took Doppo a few seconds to realize he had started crying, and by then he could not stop.
(It would take him far longer to realize that Koro-sensei wasn’t angry at him.)
When Doppo got back to his silent, cold home, it was dark outside and he was so far behind of his usual schedule that he almost felt like crying again.
But despite this, when he laid down on his bed, Koro-sensei’s words played in a loop in his mind.
Not a freak, he thought, and breathed deeply before falling asleep with a smile.
They learned about the truth of Koro-sensei, and really, Doppo had made his choice a long time ago.
A part of his ideals was to strive to save those he cared about, after all.
And so he sat down with the students and started to plan a way to hijack a rocket.
Koro-sensei was dying, and he could do nothing.
The antidote had taken so long to prepare, and they knew exactly what materials they needed - Doppo could recite the ingredients in his sleep - but they had no time.
The monster’s cackles - the real monster, because Koro-sensei had never been one no matter what he looked like - hurt his ears and made Doppo want to rip his own skin off. What kind of person could laugh at another’s suffering?
Koro-sensei was going to die, and there was nothing they could do.
No. That wasn’t quite right.
As long as I understand it, I can write it into existence.
There was something only he could do.
You freak, hissed his mother’s voice, cold and hateful and afraid.
Kunikida-kun, whispered Koro-sensei’s voice, warm and loving and happy.
Doppo grabbed his notebook, heart racing, and wrote their victory into existence as a small vial materialised in his hand.
Letting Koro-sensei die would be a betrayal to his ideals, and more importantly, to his students.
Soon after the fight on the mountain, Doppo graduated from Kunugigaoka High School at eighteen years old. Class 3-E came to his graduation and proceeded to yell and holler heartfelt congratulations from the crowd, utterly humiliating him and destroying his reputation as people gaped at the students who had apparently been taught by a monster. Fortunately, they had long since stopped caring about what others thought of them.
Doppo still chewed them out as soon as he could, scowling as the students only gave him sheepish or smug smiles.
“I’m going to follow your footsteps, Kunikida-sensei,” Akabane told him, his smile far softer than it had been when Doppo had first met him. The older man sent him an annoyed look.
“Then you better graduate with honors.”
For some reason, his answer only made Akabane laugh.
Brats, all of them.
A few days after graduating, Doppo called an old friend of his.
“I think,” he told Katai on the phone, “that I’d like to keep teaching, at least for a little while.”
Katai had called him soon after the disaster on the mountain, demanding to know if he was safe and if he needed a place to stay. For all they often fought, they knew each other too well - Katai had instantly known that somehow, his friend had been involved.
Doppo had calmed him down and told him he was sworn to secrecy. It hadn’t reassured him in the slightest, but he had stopped asking.
“You could try the Shin-Tsuruya Institute,” his friend told him, “It’s a good school, but it needs more teachers so they don’t ask for too much experience - just good results, and you graduated high on the list. And this way, we’ll be in the same town.
Even though Katai had stopped asking him about Koro-sensei, he now kept trying to convince Doppo to leave Tokyo, as if the idea of his friend staying near the place hurt him. This time though, Doppo didn’t call him out on it.
“That’s not a bad idea,” he said, and grimaced when Katai cheered on the other side of the phone. Why were the people he loved so childish?
His experience in tutoring students played in his favor as the Shin-Tsuruya Institute soon accepted his application, and so Kunikida packed his bags and rented a flat in Yokohama.
To his surprise, Karasuma came to help him, offering to drive a car with the little luggage that contained Doppo’s whole life.
Of course, he hadn’t come just to help - for all they were friends, Karasuma was still a governmental agent, and he could never resist asking questions and seeking answers.
“Yokohama is rumoured to be the home of many ability users,” his former colleague noted, carefully examining Doppo, “Is that why you’ve chosen to move here?”
Doppo avoided his gaze. Karasuma had not told his superiors what had truly happened back on the mountain, but that didn’t mean he knew nothing. He’d been there, after all. He’d seen the way his notebook had handed him the antidote as soon as he wrote it on paper.
Doppo thought of Koro-sensei’s smile, of his enraged eyes as he told Doppo that having an ability didn’t make him a freak. He was Gifted, not cursed.
“It was a factor.” was all he said. Karasuma didn’t ask anything else.
Doppo took to writing in notebooks.
Nagisa had given him the idea, back when things were both simpler and more complicated, and now that Doppo was slowly but surely getting the hang of his ability, writing his ideas and ideals on papers became a habit. He started to write between his classes while waiting for his students to arrive, then at home after reading one of the books Koro-sensei had gifted him.
And then he was dragged into the Azure King case, and discovered the Armed Detective Agency.
The day after he passed the entrance exam, Doppo went back to his flat, satisfied but exhausted, and paused before opening the front door.
Someone was inside.
Slowly, Doppo reached inside his bag and grabbed his notebook and pen, taking a deep breath before opening the door. He blinked, and met the gaze of a man he had only even seen once in his life.
The one standing in his flat had pale skin and a slender build, with short dark hair and darker eyes that were both familiar yet foreign. He welcomed Doppo with an amicable smile before speaking, and Doppo’s heart stopped as soon as he heard his voice.
“What, not even a hello for your colleague, Kunikida-kun?”
Doppo blinked, throat dry, but managed to answer.
“Koro-sensei?”
The man’s smile widened.
“It’s been a while,” he whispered, eyes soft and oh, how could Doppo not recognize him- “I’m glad to see you well. And I see you got my gift.”
His eyes were fixed on the notebook in Doppo’s hand, a gift left on a mountain among school books and wood.
Doppo’s eyes burned, but he couldn’t help but smile at the former monster.
“You seem well too.” he said, and Koro-sensei’s smile softened.
“Now then,” the man said, gesturing at Doppo to come closer, curiosity burning in his eyes, “Tell me about your new work? How are your colleagues? More importantly, is there any hot woman?”
“You damn pervert-”
No, Doppo hadn’t planned to be a teacher, but he didn’t regret it at all. And he had the feeling the same would be true for the Armed Detective Agency.