Four Gokusen Headcanons

Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at http://archiveofourown.org/works/880425.

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Archive Warning: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Categories: F/M, M/M
Fandom: Gokusen - All Media Types
Relationships: Odagiri Ryu/Yabuki Hayato, Sawada Shin/Yamaguchi Kumiko
Characters: Sawada Shin, Yamaguchi Kumiko, Yabuki Hayato, Odagiri Ryu, Takeda
Keita, Kumai Teruo
Language: English
Stats: Published: 2013-07-12 Words: 1,746 Chapters: 1/1
 Four Gokusen Headcanons
by spoken

Summary

Two seasons of Gokusen. Four headcanons.

ONE

Shin calls her from time to time after he leaves for Africa, always sporadically and often with
months upon months of silence in between. For the most part, it’s okay for Kumiko. She
bumps into her old Shirokin students here and there in town and Noda calls every once in
awhile from Osaka where he’s trying to be a fashion designer. She’s too caught up being a
passionate kindergarten teacher and she likes to think he’s being kept busy and no one needs
to know she was a little disappointed when he didn’t call after she started at Kurogin –
especially since Uchi and Noda had both called and Kuma surely told Shin everything. But
when Minoru nervously knocks on her staircase the night Ryu takes her money and tells her
it’s Shin on the other line, she has to wonder if he has the worst timing in the world or the
best. At least it forces her to wipe her tears hastily away and pick up the phone. It's not in
Kumiko to brood but Ryu's action had cut a little deeper than most.

They start the conversation the way they've always started their conversations; that is to say,
ridiculously, and it's quite amazing how the cadences and push-pull of their words have fallen
into familiar patterns, despite their infrequency. Kumiko teases him about Africa and
reminding him to watch his back in case a lion is stalking him from behind, Shin drawls a dry
comeback about how she can just give the lion an inspirational speech over the phone to get
it to back off. It’s a little harder than normal to keep the cheerfulness in her voice but she
manages it. Shin talks to her about vaccinating young children and teaching them hiragana
and English, and his plans to move onto Tanzania in a few months and Kumiko listens,
smiling to herself at how focused he sounds and how his voice has lost some of that lazy
delinquent drawl. He sounds older, calmer and more at ease with himself, and it makes her
feel both proud and, for some reason, oddly nervous.

She almost misses the change in conversation topic. “Kuma told me about the bastard who
took your money.”

She's honestly surprised at this. It's not like Shin to be this explicit and the naked fury in his
voice is unmistakeable, even over the phone and halfway across the world.

"What are you talking about?" she manages to laugh. "It's nothing I can't handle. I'm honestly
just surprised that kids these days are getting up to such complicated things."

“You worked hard for him. He threw it back in your face.”

"I'm fine," she insists. "It’s nothing, really.”

Shin's quiet on the other end and she searches for another topic – maybe to tell him about
how Kuma is doing well nowadays (though he probably knows already) or to tell him about
Yabuki, the ringleader of her new class, with a hot-headed fire to him that reminds her a little
of Shin, at his most sarcastic, and a lot of Uchiyama – but for some reason all she can see is
his face and that searching, knowing look he used to give her, that did funny things to her
stomach.

"But," he says, voice quiet and unexpectedly soft, "you sound like you've been crying."

TWO

Ryu will never tell Hayato this but he remembers the time in primary school when they'd first
gotten in trouble, sitting in the principal's office after a furious scolding. Take had been
crying when his mother came to pick him up at first call – four thirty in the afternoon, all
worried frowns and disapproving reprimands - and then it had just been Ryu and Hayato on
that cold white office with plastic chairs facing the door and waiting.

Hayato's father had stumbled in at five past six, all clumsy fury and big sweeping arms,
hitting Hayato over the head with an angry, "You idiot! What the hell are you doing, picking
fights eh?"

The dust from the construction site had still been on Hayato’s father’s leather jacket when he
grabbd Hayato’s head in a deadlock under his armpit and Hayato had ended up bowing and
apologising meekly to the principal and their homeroom teacher (who frankly looked a bit
too shocked at Mr Yabuki’s actions to be accepting apologies).

Ryu had sat in his white seat, hands clenched, willing his sudden tears away because he had
been calculating before and his father's secretary wouldn't get off work for at least another
hour and he had really wanted Hayato by his side until then.
Perhaps he had been staring at Hayato’s back with a little too much fear in his eyes or
perhaps Hayato's father had looked over just at the right moment, but Ryu had found himself
in a headlock under Hayato's father's other arm and found himself choking out an apology as
well.

“I’ll take this one home too,” Hayato’s father had gruffly proclaimed and no one objected so
they left.

They ended up in a street side ramen shop with Hayato's father teaching Ryu the proper way
to grip the fist when punching ("So ya don't get hurt next time ya hear me?") and Hayato
complaining loudly about how his ramen was too spicy, with his father retaliating that Ryu
was eating his ramen ‘like a man so I don’t see why you’re complaining?’ (the ramen burnt
his throat but Ryu didn’t care).

Ryu had gone home with dirt at the ends of his hair, his heart and stomach full to bursting and
even facing his parents hadn’t been enough to wipe the warmth away.

THREE

Take knows.

He’s known for a long time and he’s pretty sure Ryu knows he knows. He tries his best to
help Ryu out in the best way he can (because he’s not brave – not like Hayato with his
natural, protective leadership or Ryu, who’s quietly brave and stubborn in his own way or
Tsucchi, who doesn’t give a shit about people who don’t matter, or Hyuuga who knows what
he wants to do and works hard to get it) – changing the subject when they talk about going to
another group date or when Tsucchi tries his best to pressure Ryu into meeting some new girl
or another from the neighbouring school. Take pretends to be tired so Ryu can go home with
him when Hayato brings his first girlfriend to their usual group hangout and separates
Tsucchi, Hyuuga and himself from Hayato and Ryu as much as he can without arousing
suspicion, because he knows Ryu treasures these quiet, private moments (always has) and is
too proud to claim them for himself, even though Hayato wouldn't have denied Ryu anything.
They really are two idiots.

They’re small things and it’s the only things Take has been able to do over the years, really,
even though Take has honestly never seen Hayato as happy with a girl – any girl – as he is
with his arm around Ryu, lagging slightly behind as their group of five walk down the path
by the river. He doesn’t expect anything in return because Ryu and Hayato simply being his
friends – protecting and sticking up for him ever since third grade when that kid had thrown
sand at Take for being too small and weak – is thanks enough.

But he’s crying (goddamnit, he promised himself he wouldn’t) and his head is down, hands
shaking because he got a seventy-three in that last exam and he wants to show his mum –
with her sad eyes and scepticism and resigned workers’ hands – he can do it, he can graduate
and he’s babbling nonsensical sentences and apologies in his panic, thinking of the Arakou
thugs and I’m sorry I’m a coward, I’m sorry I’m letting everyone down, I’m not as brave as
you but–

“Take.” Ryu stops him with both hands on his shoulder, eyes steady and intent, holding
Take’s gaze. There's something in Ryu's eyes that looks like resolve but somehow makes
Take feel sadder, more worried. But Ryu is not reckless. Ryu has never been reckless, but
Ryu will help him fix it like he always does. “It’s okay. Leave it to me.”

It’s only when Hayato punches Ryu in the face in front of the entire school, voice cracking as
he hurls insults at Ryu like arrows, and Tsucchi, Hyuuga and half the class has to hold him
back and Take sees the look in Ryu’s eyes...it’s only when Ryu picks himself up off the
ground, shaking as hard and as badly as Hayato, and leaves without a backward glance that
Take realises this is how Ryu says thank you.

FOUR

“It’s not time yet,” Shin says slowly, whenever Kuma brings up (or even touches upon, let’s
be honest) the prospect of him coming back to Japan. Kuma honestly can’t understand it
because while Shin has done so much in Africa, he's been Shin's friend for more than half a
decade and he knows that Shin misses home. Uchi sighs and rolls his eyes when Kuma brings
this up because, no matter how much they talk about it amongst themselves – Minami, Uchi
and Noda over Skype – all they know is that it’s part of the twisted and complicated
relationship Shin has with Yankumi and Kuma doesn’t get it.

But there's this one night when Yankumi drops by his ramen shop, looking tired and strangely
alone for all her yakuza heiress toughness (no doubt because a difficult student screwing up
his life somewhere or other under her charge), and that's when Kuma really wishes Shin were
there because Kuma's seen Yankumi's students come and go, and Shin remains the one who
would probably know what to say to her.

Uncharacteristically, Yankumi doesn’t say much beyond greeting him and Kuma’s siblings
before sitting down and asking for her usual ramen order. She sits in the back booth for a
long time after she’s done, a faraway look in her eyes. It’s a busy night and Kuma, confined
to the steaming kitchen, doesn’t have time to check on her. By the time he’s done with the
last order for the loud, drunk group of businessmen clamouring in the small shop space,
Yankumi is gone.

For some reason, Kuma thinks about that night when Shin calls Kuma a fortnight later and
tells him he’s coming home.

“What changed?”

He can hear the smile in Shin’s voice. “She called me first.”

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