131/Office Hours 9 -- Takashi

Office Hours 9 -- Takashi
Date of Scene:	21 July 2023
Location:	Administrative Office
Synopsis:	Takashi's in trouble. Only Inai-sensei has a different lesson than he expected.
Cast of Characters:	Takashi Agera, Kyouka Inai

---

Takashi Agera has posed:
    Takashi Agera is sitting in the guidance office now because he was made to show up. It's not for the reason one might think, looking at his tall, thin form with glasses. Takashi got in a fight on campus. A fight with two known bullies. A fight that was determined to happen because they were picking on a younger student. But what was suspicious was that it was a fight that he won. A fight that the lanky science-club member shouldn't have won, given that Kyouka knows the two more common troublemakers. One of them also mentioned something about Takashi Agera 'throwing them around', but clearly that was just hyperbole.

    Given that he was acting in defense of another student (who told administration this and spoke up loudly for him) Takashi wasn't punished severely. A few hours of 'community service' weeding the gardens of RHA. And a long-overdue-anyways visit to the guidance counselor.

    Takashi winning in a fight against two larger opponents only makes sense if you know more than what's on the surface of the world, though, and notice that he is one of the students who 'interns' with Obsidian Zaibatsu after school hours. Then peices fall into place.

    For Takashi's part, he just wants to get this all over with ASAP. Do the stupid weeding, do the stupid conversation, stop talking about the stupid fight. He's managed to keep it mostly pretty quiet so nobody starts rumors, and maybe Mamoru and his crew won't hear and give him the same earful he gave mamoru. Though it was just two regular toughs, not like he dove in front of a flamethrower or anything. There wasn't any risk. But Takashi is still kicking himself for getting involved, just cause the kid reminded him of himself a few years back and the bullies were much older.

    So he sits in the chair, wearing his Academy uniform - running a hand through his hair from his forehead to about midway down his back and sighing. "All fighting is wrong and I should have got an adult because it's not my place to solve problems with violence, someone could have gotten hurt or I could have gotten expelled." he says the moment Kyouka regards him. "Please tell me that covers this meeting and I can go now. I have things to do." Science to be done.

    Of course, Takashi Agera has no idea how UNlikely it is the woman in this room would tell him to that 'all violence is wrong'.

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    Kyouka is sitting behind her desk, the padded office chair leant back on its swivel so that she's half-reclining, her elbows on the arm-rests and her fingers laced in front of her. She has the chair partially turned, so she can both watch Takashi and the view out the window, which is a rather nice look over the central courtyard and athletic fields of the academy. Her expression doesn't give a whole lot away as he speaks, and indeed it's hard to tell if her demeanor is judgmental, bored, or something in between.

    What he can't know is that she's very aware of the stink of Dark Energy coming off of him, which tells her that this fight is likely not nearly as simple as it's being made out to be. However, the story she got involved Takashi sticking up for the abused student, which doesn't necessarily jive with what her senses are telling her. Which means more information is required.

    As he finishes speaking, she turns the chair back around to face fully forward across the desk, giving that disarming, lopsided smile of hers. "Agera-kun, you're not going to hear me telling you that violence is not a solution when the problem involves defending someone weaker than you from abuse. However, there is something to be said for restraint... especially when people are watching." A quirked brow. "We don't want to accidentally become the villain of the piece because someone didn't understand the situation, hmm?"

Takashi Agera has posed:
    Takashi sighs. That means that no, he's not getting out of this conversation, right? But then he kind of... turns over what she said in his mind. She can see him - he's way less practiced at hiding his emotions on his face than she is - considering it, a little bit of an eyebrow raise before he settles it. "Somebody is always going to be the villain and it's all perspective." Takashi says. "To the kid, I was a hero, to the other two, I was the villain, and yet they were the villains in the kids's story." he notes. That's a lot of insight into his philosophy for a casual comment, when looking between the lines. "And who's to say I wasn't being restr..." he stops. Getting out ahead of himself, aren't you? This is just a guidance counselor talking about a stupid school fight.

    "My apologies, Inai-Sensei." he says, folding his hands back in his lap. "Thinking about it still bothers me." He tries to explain. "I guess that's not going to do much for my contention that I don't need to be here. But, my academic focus has ensured I won't go getting myself into any trouble. I've worked too hard for my perfect scores for my record to be marred any further." he notes. Takashi's scores are, literally, perfect on anything that doesn't have a judgement to it like an essay. As in 'raise eyebrows' perfect. This is because he is a brilliant genius who ALSO cheats like hell.

    But as for Takashi's interaction with Kyouka, he hasn't picked up any of the subtext there yet, or if he has, has convinced himself he's the one overthinking things. "So... I guess the lesson is that you... want me to only exercise the correct amount of force?" he asked, tilting his head. He's trying to find the answer, to find the right set of words he can tell Kyouka to get her to let him leave. Aoproaching it like anything else in school. "So that I don't lose my way, so that it doesn't become common enough to taint the way the teachers and staff look at me?"

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    "Much of life can be boiled down to the correct and appropriate application of force." Inai-sensei says, her tone less lecturing and more considering, as if this is a thing she herself is still working out how to put into words. She reaches into her desk drawer and removes a white square of card- one of her business cards, really. She doesn't give it to him, or write anything on it immediately, instead playing with it between her fingers, flicking it back and forth and rolling it across her knuckles. "There /is/ a happy medium, as hard as it is to see it, sometimes."

    Another smile, still lopsided, this one oddly sympathetic. "You're right, of course, that there's always going to be a villain. The trick is to win the majority. Heroes, Agera-kun, aren't so much champions of objective morality. There's no such thing. Rather, they're the ones the majority of people agree are doing the right thing."

    Arched eyebrows again, as the card comes to a halt, bent into a bow between two of her fingers. "Use the correct amount of force, when force is required, and you bridge the gaps between people. You're a hero. Use just a little too much.." She squeezes harder, and the card snaps out of her grip, flipping up into the air before falling flat onto her desk. She shrugs. "You break something, and suddenly you're the villain. All I'm saying is be aware that when you make choices, there's going to be consequences. And not always just for you."

Takashi Agera has posed:
    Takashi isn't stupid, just self-absorbed, and he's starting to pick up on the context, the subtext, the conversation behind the conversation, as she talks about the application of force. Because, well, application of force in that moment wasn't why he was here, so much. "If I can be honest, my primary personal concern is - the application of force for the correct times. And why. Was I strictly required to step in there? Probably not. It would have filled me with guilt not to do so, though. And the consequences I'm suffering, well, if I had known these were the consequences, I'd have only made the same decision with more gusto. But in that moment I wasn't exactly weighing things, and maybe I should have, before I jumped in?" He offered. He was also still trying to sneak past the conversation, in a way, but had started to accept the subtext meant he wasn't going to.

    "Limiting my actions based on what the majority of people think, though, that's never going to sit well with me. I'm sure I don't have to detail the many times throughout history where what the majority of people thought was the right thing... was the wrong thing. And in that moment some people who did things were villians, but with the benefit of hindsight, we now see them as courageous heroes. In that moment they faced consequences, but they did what was right for them, and history bore their actions out."

    And he found himself leaning over a bit to look at the card. "Sure, you shouldn't use too much force, but. If you use more than is strictly required in the moment, you can reduce the overall force required in the long run." He reaches across the table to take the card, and bends it directly, sitting it back on the desk where it now rests in a ^ shape. "Now, the gap is bridged without further application of force. And if I had only restrained the problematic ones today, I would not be able to say that kid won't be getting messed with going forward, and I might have to apply more force later. Perhaps because I applied slightly more force than was strictly necessary, they will change their behavior."

    "If that makes me the bad guy, then whatever, I'm a bad guy. I'm still the hero to that kid, and I'm still a hero for others who they would bully who may not even know what I just saved them from with the application of such force... maybe even some of the same ones who might judge me for doing it are unknowingly protected by it." he says. Now, he too is having two conversations, the one about the fight - and the one about the input of other kids of force and actions, and other labels.

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    "I'm not telling you to do what the majority of /people/ think is correct." Kyouka laughs mildly at that frankly preposterous idea. "You're completely right, of course. The will of the mob is seldom the right thing to do. All I'm telling you is to consider what people think. You can barge through life like a bull in a china shop, and maybe most of your decisions will be the correct ones, from an objective point of view. But you'll have a much easier time of it if you moderate-" A tilt of her head, "Your instincts. Helping that kid was the right thing to do." She regards the now-bent business card standing upright on the desk. "And you're not entirely wrong about pushing a little now to save trouble later. But-"

    She pushes down on the card, flattening it. It does lay down on the desk, but the obvious crease remains in the card. "Often you can't put the cat back in the bag. Or take the crease out of the card, as it were. And sometimes it can be hard to really see all of the consequences of your actions in the moment. You may start something, do something, break something.. that later you'll regret. And there's no taking it back."

    She shrugs again, pulling the card back towards her. She picks up a pen, looking at the folded back of the card for a few moments before saying, with her eyes still on it, "It's not impossible to both do the right thing and be the good guy. It's not always easy. But you're a smart kid, if your grades are anything to go by. You should be able to find the middle ground between the thing you know is right and the thing everyone else thinks is right. Sometimes you can even do both."

    She writes a single kanji on the back of the card, then flicks it over the desk towards him. It says, 'consideration', meaning both consideration for other people, and considering one's own actions.

Takashi Agera has posed:
    Takashi looks at the card. His initial reaction is that he'll toss it soon, but he reaches across the table and takes it. Sort of idly plays with it between his fingers for now. Not nearly as agile with it as Kyouka was. He looks at the back of the card. Maybe... he won't toss it immediately. She can see him slowly run his thumb down the crease he left in it.

    "So that's your lesson then. Not that I did something wrong, but to consider my actions a little more clearly?" He asked. Some part of him didn't like the idea of leaving without being told that 'he got it' - without knowing he was right. That student in him, the part that valued learning, didn't like being unsure."To stop and... consider my actions, and the unknown effects they might have?"

    "I think you're right, though. Sometimes you break things, sometimes your actions have consequences that you don't know about. Maybe one of the bullies had a heart condition, or something." he says, dragging it back to the thing it wasn't really about. "But in the moment, I didn't know that, and a tragedy occured." he said. "But I couldn't let the fear of all of the bad things that could happen, all of the edge case scenarios, stop me from acting. If I feared the unknown, unknowable consequences of every action, I'd never act. All I can really do is try to keep things in my... ratio of risk/reward I can accept." He says.

    "I'll probably regret a lot of actions I take, over the course of my life, but I'm the one who has to get up in the morning and accept myself, every morning, every day. I could live with myself more for the unknown consequences of an action taken than the consequences of not acting on what I think is the right thing to do. And you're right, of course. I'm intelligent enough to make very intelligent decisions. So on the whole the benefits should greatly outweigh the risks." Ah, he'd almost gone a little bit without crowing about that. Almost.

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    "The lesson, Agera-kun," Kyouka says, leaning across the desk and pinning him for just a moment with grey eyes which suddenly more resemble steel than the soft ash they had seemed up until now, "is that you are not the only person who has to live with the consequences of your actions. And I don't mean the bullies. It was fine.. this time. But if you had seriously injured, or even killed one of those bullies in order to protect that kid, then it's not just you who has to live with the burden of that. Sometimes being saved is it's own kind of burden. And it's the responsibility of the one doing the saving to make sure that the cost is not too high- not only for themselves, but for the ones being saved as well."

    She leans back in her chair again, her lopsided, almost jovial smile returning. "You will never hear me tell you, or anyone, that inaction is preferable to action. I'd always rather you do /something/ than nothing. But being as intelligent as you are," Just a hint of snarky eyebrow-raise, as if acknowledging his statement with just the tiniest hint of doubt, "you should be smart enough to consider all the angles and make the best decision for everyone involved. That is the burden of being exceptional. You have not only the right to make decisions that effect other people, but also the responsibility to do only after due consideration."

    "Don't stop helping bullied kids, Agera-kun. Just make sure you don't accidentally make the situation worse by trying to help. Trust me, I know a thing or two about that one. But I think you've got the idea."

Takashi Agera has posed:
    Those eyes have an awareness that he hadn't given the guidance counselor credit for. There's something in them, a sternness, and also... the way she regards him. It makes him uncomfortable. It also makes him consider he'd need to give her more credit - the conversation was one thing, but those eyes, when she leaned in, showed an understanding that was more than just surface deep... he'd have to be careful around her.

    He doesn't actually realize how tense he is until she leans back and he too relaxes again. But not as relaxed as he was before. "Responsibility, hmm." he says, turning the word over in his mind. "Yeah. That's true." he nodded. Both to the right, and the responsibility. "Responsibility... it is a burden." he noted.

    "To be able to do things others can't, and be responsible for them and for all of the outcomes. But it doesn't matter if I want to be or not. The burden of being exceptional isn't something I can just toss away. But..." he paused, and thumbed the crease on the card again. "... I will do my best to make sure that I'm doing the most good and the least harm. But I can't rule out that in some moments, it may not seem that way to those around me. Those consequences are also part of the burden though."

    "I think I have the idea. Be aware it isn't free, there's consequences for me and others, and try to minimize the negatives." He says, as a question. Implicit in that is an 'am I free to go'.

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    "You got it kid." Kyouka says, with an inclination of her head that says she's satisfied, even if she's not sure he's entirely taken the message to heart. She pushes her chair back slightly from the desk, tilting it on its swivel again into a more relaxed posture as she raises her arms and links her hands behind her head, half-turning the chair back towards the window.

    "Keep making those decisions. And remember that mistakes happen, but they happen less the more you learn from the ones you made before." A sideways glance, and even a wink of one of those ash-colored eyes. "I think you got what it takes to go far, Agera-kun. Just do your best to make sure the heights you reach are where you want to be.. preferably before you get there."

    That's as much a dismissal as he's going to get, it seems, so Takashi is definitely free to go.