215/Office Hours -- Coco

Office Hours -- Coco
Date of Scene:	07 August 2023
Location:	Administrative Office
Synopsis:	Coco stops by Kyouka's office to discuss missing a previous class.
Cast of Characters:	Kyouka Inai, Coco Kiumi

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Kyouka Inai has posed:
    Although it is technically summer break, Kyouka Inai can still be found in her office in the school's Administrative section on many days. She still has work to do, although most of it is boring paperwork, and she is still available for students to see- if any students are around over the break. Many are, for one reason or another, taking summer classes or just living in the dorms if they decided to stay rather than travel back to their family homes for break.

    Today she is seated in her chair behind her desk, frowning at something on a piece of paper in front of her, while her phone is held up to her ear. She seems to be speaking to someone, although there are no clues as to whom she is talking. "...yeah. Alright. Well look, I appreciate the help, alright? Thursday night, as usual? Yeah. See you then."

Coco Kiumi has posed:
Despite the summer vacation, Coco is still at school, still looking for the supposed shadowy organisation hidden in Tokyo that Gaito had made a deal with for the purposes of capturing the seven mermaid princesses. It's during one of these days that she gets a chance to speak with Kyouka after she had to skip the self-defense lessons she offered due to a mishap with Cure Daybreak that needed to be addressed.

After knocking at the door at the door and being invited in, she waits seated at the chair in front of the large teacher's desk, not really sure whether she should start speaking first, since she had heard there was a check-up to be had with Kyouka when enrolling into the school.

So she sits there, fermenting in her own uncertainty, looking at the library books the studio had to offer, to noone's surprise the type of books a guidance counselor would have had in their own studio. "Hello, Inai-san", she finally utters, breaking the ice with that.

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    Kyouka had just been hanging up the phone when Coco entered the room, and she lets the girl get settled in one of the comfortable chairs facing her desk before she addresses her. When Coco says hi, Kyouka offers her a smile, if a slightly lopsided one. "Good morning, Coco-san. Is that how you prefer to be addressed?" She asks, with a lifted brow.

    "There's so many transfer students here at the academy, I admit sometimes it's hard to keep up with all the names and faces for a native Japanese gal like myself." She smiles a little more self-deprecatingly as she leans her elbows on the desk, seeming casual and relaxed. "Either way, thank you for coming in to speak with me today, even though it is break."

Coco Kiumi has posed:
Coco nods as Kyouka checks on how she would like to be addressed. There aren't really any honorifics like that in her kingdom, but she understands it would be bad form to ask for the "-san" to be dropped, so she replies with a simple "Yes, that's perfectly fine, thanks."

She relaxes a bit when she hears the self-depreciating joke, as well as noticing the casual manner Kyouka is adopting. "Thanks to you for meeting with me", Coco counters, looking at the counsellor with a slightly less nervous smile.

"What about how I addressed you, did I do it right?", she asks. "It's the first time I interact with these suffixes as a non-Japanese, so I wouldn't be surprised if I get a lot of things wrong."

Of course, unlike Kyouka, she doesn't really specifies where she is from, being bad at keeping up lies for herself in front of normal people, nevermind guidance counsellors. "I think we had some istitutional matters to address, is that right?"

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    Kyouka shakes her head slightly, with a shrug of her shoulders. "I'm not technically a teacher, but a lot of students choose to call me Inai-sensei. That's fine, but so is Inai-san, if that is more comfortable for you. Either way works for me." She says, seeming pretty casual about the whole thing.

    "Yes, well," She says, after Coco asks about addressing the red tape. "You had signed up to take my self-defense class, but you haven't shown up yet. I just wanted to do my due diligence and make sure everything was alright. It's not a required class, so you're not in trouble for missing it, but I do feel like it's part of my job to make sure that my students aren't cutting classes because they are in some kind of trouble or something like that."

Coco Kiumi has posed:
"Yes, I had a mishap with another student that needed addressing right when your self-defense lesson happened, Inai-sensei", she explains, keeping a somewhat calm voice.

"I really need your self-defense lesson, so I am the first one to be disappointed I couldn't make it", Coco starts explaining, focusing on the teacher in front of her with a serious expression.

"The mishap with the other student got resolved without any issues, but by the time it was over, so was your class. I don't know if it's possible for me to recover it at this point", she asks, in fact expecting a no as an answer.

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    Kyouka nods her head, taking this quite seriously it seems. Not the fact that Coco missed the lesson, but the fact that the lessons are important. "Yes, for people who tend to.. be involved in such incidents," She says, without going into detail, "Learning how to take care of yourself is of the utmost importance."

    She smiles, then. "But I have good news for you. I am teaching the classes every week, so you are welcome to come to the next one if you like. There are less people coming now that it is during break, but I'm still running the classes for those who do want to come."

Coco Kiumi has posed:
Kyouka's allusion catches Coco by surprise. 'I don't think I let anything out about why I wanted to take part, and yet she is implying there is a whole group of people having the same sort of incident', she shifts uncomfortably in her seat, having noticed by now magic is obfuscating the magical incident from being reported correctly.

"Oh, uhm, thanks for informing me, I will be sure to attend regularly from now on then, but..." she looks around the office, as if to catch some hint of anything supernatural about Kyouka.

"What incidents are you speaking of? The crime rates around here aren't so bad."

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    Kyouka is pretty good about playing it safe in terms of not letting on too much about what she knows or does not know. She seems perfectly normal and innocent, Except perhaps for the fact that she is too young to be doing this sort of job, by most people's expectations.

    "Surely you know what I'm talking about." She says easily, as if it's no big deal. "Explosions at the mall? Attacks on the shore? These are dangerous times we are living in, Coco-san. I'm just trying to make sure all the students of this school know how to take care of themselves if they wind up in trouble. Hopefully not on purpose but.. sometimes these things happen."

Coco Kiumi has posed:
"I am not sure how self-defense lessons would help against explosions", Coco says, starting to doubt herself now. "You do have a point about the attacks on the beach, but they came from some sort of animals, right?", she asks, trying to recall the official excuse she heard.

They were actually some plant creatures, she had heard the specific details of the incident through Amy and Mio, mostly, but even then it wasn't confused for people, right?

'Why can't I remember what was the official excuse?', Coco mentally reproaches herself.

"And self-defense lessons are similarly useless against animals. Are we are talking about the same thing, Inai-sensei?", she adds, not sure whether she was making a mountain out of a molehill or not.

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    Kyouka seems happy to maintain her mysterious ways for the moment, a small smile touching her lips as Coco questions what use her lessons would be against those sorts of incidents. "I don't want to say too much right now, so I don't.. miscommunicate anything." She says, with a little bit of a laugh, still seeming easy-going, as if its no big deal.

    "Why don't you just come to the next class, and you will see what I mean. I promise that you will find it useful. And if you don't, well.. it still counts as a PE credit." She says, with another of her lopsided smiles.

Coco Kiumi has posed:
"I see, thank you a lot for your time then. I will take part in those classes and see for myself." Coco respectfully take leave from Kyouka's office, leaving with important questions she wouldn't have expected. For now, she will have to take part in those self-defense lessons and see what the ever-mysterious Kyouka means.

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    Kyouka watches Coco get up to leave, and nods her head with a smile. "I look forward to it, Coco-san." She says, with a smile, before picking up her phone to make the next call she is going to have to make today.. always on to the next thing.