outline: shinkane 1

[cloudedhues]

fandom: psycho pass | shinkane
prompt/summary: "haii! are you still doing the "send me ship+au and.." thing? Coz i wanna see how you'll outline akane being a student and shinya being the english teacher or something (i dont like studentxteacher relationships but i feel like both will do their best to not step over the line kind of thing..) anyways salamat! and love your blog btw ;)" - anonymous

teacher/student has differing levels of yikes depending on what grade level you’re talking about. anything lower than college i don’t partake in

so, a slight tweak: college english professor shinya kougami and his senior t.a. akane tsunemori (this is all written on the basis of western universities btw)

• akane is the granddaughter of esoterically-renowned author aoi tsunemori who wrote one of the fundamental texts of modern literature. she’s grown up surrounded by intellectuals and geniuses all her life. akane begins undergrad senior year expecting that she’ll be taking classes under professor saiga and learns that he’s on an impromptu sabbatical and some of his classes will be helmed by a new professor who’s also a bit of a prodigy and an infamous renegade in the academic world. one time he published an article that received three dissenting responses shading his thesis and kougami wrote back just three pages and they never said another word
• kougami doesn’t seem to want to be there. he’s brusque at best, careless at worst. he doesn’t believe in office hours and will refuse to talk about the assignment, instead opting for socratic dialogues regarding post-modernist themes and whatever and his syllabus is like 12 pt times new roman, one page double sided and will tell you absolutely nothing about his grading system even though technically? there’s a heading for it? there’s also rumors swirling that some professors in the department are vehemently opposed to his presence in the university. the students begin to wonder whether this guy is tenured and what’s keeping him here
• akane in the beginning doesn’t do well because she’s pretty much by-the-textbook and she assumes kougami is contemptuous and disappointed by her especially since in light of her roots, akane’s best input in class discussion has so far just been “uhh, yeah, i agree with this statement because *paraphrases argument another student stated five minutes ago*” but she knows she does pretty well on essays and kougami typically just puts a check on papers instead of letter grades so she doesn’t know how well she’s doing there
• until she gets her midterm report. she goes to him during office hours and it’s an hour later when he finally shows up. she’s nervous but direct, and he doesn’t look a bit swayed with her appeal. essentially he dismisses her, saying, “you have to earn what you want, and you can’t do that by riding the coattails of other people.”
• akane’s pissed off because like what the fuck has this guy done. and ironically, his criticism emboldens her in class. one day, she interrupts one of his ramblings and tells him she disagrees with one of his statements. and like people in class will disagree with each other but never do they outright interrupt and counter kougami. kougami lets her make her case, and he seems to wake up for once, fully engaging with her and challenging her argument from all sides and she ends by quoting a statement he himself wrote in one his articles years ago and there’s a long silence before he says, “fair point” and moves on. at the end of class, after the adrenaline’s faded, akane starts to think that maybe she went about it the wrong way but before she can scurry off, he gives her a long, considering look like he’s actually seeing her
• from then on, kougami starts teaching with more attention although he is still pretty eccentric. he does seem more awake than anything. at the end of the semester, she pulls through with a solid b which is the lowest score she’s ever gotten but is the one she’s most satisfied with receiving. she thinks maybe he’ll say something to her in their last class. but he doesn’t.
• akane spends the beginning of winter break with her friends in the city but she spends christmas always with her grandma, since her parents are globetrotting business people who don’t have time to be parents. akane doesn’t miss much though. aoi’s pretty fabulous not just as a guardian but as a person. she has a manse by a lake and she likes to host dinner parties and week-long soirees with professors, writers, creatives and intellectuals across the country. when she heard about the new professor in her alma mater, she just had to invite him.
• it’s surprising to see him again and initially awkward. aoi mentions akane’s first draft responses to one of kougami’s publications after dinner once, which to akane, is like the academic equivalent of taking out her baby photos and showing them to her friends. akane adamantly refuses to have aoi read it out loud. kougami is secretly endeared but akane’s too embarrassed to realize that now that her status as his long-time fangirl has come to light. aoi questions kougami on his curriculum and for the first time he looks a tad self-conscious to respond
• akane catches kougami one night in the kitchen table reading. it’s late and she offers to make him tea. they spend a long time discussing/arguing the book he’s reading, the merits of romance novels, whether any of the authors in the lost generation ever fucked, which turns into actual conversation about other personal things. she admits that she wants to write a book one day, preferably fantasy and for kids, and she thinks for a second that he might say that it’s beneath her but he is surprisingly encouraging. he also admits that he feels ashamed at his laxness and carelessness the past semester and that it must be disillusioning that he didn’t match her expectations but akane reads him one of her “embarrassing” first draft responses to inspire him. and it does and it’s nice and kougami actually smiles at her once or twice, and she realizes that he’s pretty likable when he’s not her professor
• kougami spends a full week from christmas to a little after new years. he and akane become kind of friends, and though she’s not ungrateful, she wonders whether he has family that he’s chosen not to spend the holidays with. akane makes him get a goodreads account, where they give each other serious commentary on their reading updates and slightly make fun of each other’s tastes
• of course, spring semester comes and the department assigns akane as his t.a. for a 102 class. it’s unexpected to her but not to him since he was very specific with his request
• they slowly become each other’s constants in a busy university schedule. sometimes there will be unofficial out-of-class sessions where akane will help kougami grade papers or assist him during office hours because now that he’s making an active effort, he’s a bit out of practice and his execution still needs work. akane brings him an extra coffee every time and they’ll have an inside joke about how the coffees are payment from when she spilled it on him and ruined his favorite dress shirt. sometimes she wonders whether his dry teasing is entirely innocent and she’ll spend a bit agonizing over a word he might say and sometimes he’ll catch her eye a second too long while she’s proctoring an exam and she’ll wonder some more because that’s the only thing she can do
• akane tells him a lot. she tells him that she feels insecure as aoi’s granddaughter and that her ambitions aren’t as big as the legacy she feels she has to carry forward. and the fact that she can only write in response to other people’s work and can never seem to write anything original is pretty paralyzing creatively. kougami in his brusque, no-nonsense way encourages her to work on her fantasy novel and not to give a shit what other people think. kougami in return is kind of slower to reveal his cards. he clams up every time they talk about anything really personal and akane tries not to be hurt but it’s still confusing and upsetting when he doesn’t return in kind
• saiga returns briefly and he kind of “catches” them in the act. like they’re not doing anything particularly bad but they’re definitely just more comfortable with each other in a way that’s bordering on questionable. kougami had been his student once and he’s known akane since she was a child through his friendship with aoi so he just “knows”. akane overhears saiga warning kougami about his position, inadvertently revealing that he was the one who pulled the strings to get kougami hired.
• kougami avoids akane. they still work together but he sidesteps the camaraderie and closeness that had been there by interacting with her only if it’s work-related. akane’s hurt and she confronts him about his behavior, asking him if his sudden distance has anything to do with what saiga said to him. kougami freezes up and reminds her of their roles and akane gets the sense that he thinks she has no reason to be upset over a “relationship” that didn’t exist in the first place
• aoi comes to visit for her end-of-the-year stint as a guest lecturer. akane’s still upset about kougami’s seeming indifference but she feels inspired enough by his previous support to confess to her grandmother her insecurities at her expectations. aoi of course comforts her and tells her she’ll support her in her successes and failures no matter what she does. akane’s emboldened enough to give her grandma an excerpt from the draft she’d been working on.
• on the way to the lecture, akane catches kougami arguing with someone outside. makishima had been in town and wanted to hear aoi speak, not realizing that kougami was now working in this university. akane overhears him remark on whether kougami is “swindling” these students, too. akane, of course, boldly steps forward, knowing that she has no real knowledge of the context but feels that the accusations are unfair whatever they are. makishima is bemused but swayed enough to drop it and stalks off. kougami is exasperated but heartened at her unconditional defense. with reluctance, he confesses to her that he once had a friendship with a promising student who plagiarized for a major paper in makishima’s class. when the accusations were brought forth, kougami threw his hat in and put his credibility on the line by fully backing the student. makishima got it in his head that kougami was maybe behind it too and when the accusations were confirmed, he had kougami fired and blacklisted. kougami tells her that he had distanced himself not because he was afraid akane would break his faith but that he would break hers. akane tells him that it never would have and she wishes he trusted her faith in him a little more. she tells him that regardless of what he thinks, she considers him as a friend and wants to know him better but even if he doesn’t feel the same, she’s grateful for what they shared the past year.
• the few weeks before graduation passes pretty uneventfully. akane keeps a careful distance from kougami, knowing that perhaps he needs some more time to sort out through his emotions by himself. on graduation day, aoi tells her that she had sent akane’s short draft to a publisher friend. akane is thrilled but feels discontented that she’s still relying on her grandmother. aoi amends that she sent it under a pseudonym so any evaluation would be on the basis of akane’s skill alone. akane reads the letter they sent which essentially states that though the submitted entry was not complete, it showed real promise and the publisher would love to hear back from akane once it’s finished. akane goes to the stage, feeling real faith in herself for the first time.
• kougami is waiting for her with aoi once the ceremony is over. aoi knowingly gives them some space. before she can say anything, he tells her that he’s grateful that she woke him up. she had reminded him why he loved writing and teaching and that her bringing him coffee and babbling about her classes had been the best part of his day and that he really really wants to know her better and wants her to know him better and that if she wants the same, would she like to get coffee with him some time please? akane pretends to think about it and agrees but only if he’s paying this time. kougami steps closer and reaches for her and for a second akane thinks he might do something impossible but then he sidesteps that and turns the tassel on her cap to the left. but they both know what that moment could have meant and they share a laugh and walk out for a celebratory lunch with aoi and saiga, finding comfort in the certainty that there’ll be more to come tomorrow.