Lessons in love in Our Teachers are Dating! volume 2

In the first volume of Our Teachers are Dating! by Pikachi Ohi, we were introduced to the thoroughly adorable yuri couple of Asuka Hayama and Saki Terano, a pair of school teachers who, as the manga opened, had just formalised their relationship. Over the course of that first volume, we saw them both learning to express themselves towards one another, and to be comfortable with the fact that they are in a relationship with one another. But where do things go from here?

It was made abundantly clear from the first volume that Ohi’s intention for Our Teachers are Dating! was to tell a story that was warm and inclusive; while a lot of yuri media tends towards melodrama, that didn’t appear to be the case here. Everyone was accepting and supportive of the core relationship, and the overall narrative was simply about two people getting to know one another — no agonising over whether it was “right” to be two women who were together; no judgemental stares and hurtful comments from others; no real sense of “tension” in the traditional sense.

One might argue that this could potentially make for an unremarkable and not terribly interesting manga — but thankfully Ohi manages to infuse the story and setting of Our Teachers are Dating! with such a sense of personality that it becomes a fun slice-of-life tale you’re just grateful to be a part of. Not all real-life relationships are beset by constant drama but can still provide an enjoyable sense of discovery as you get to know one another — and thus it stands to reason that a relationship depicted in a story like this can simply blossom naturally also.

That said, it’s clear that Ohi was aware of the risk of presenting an idealised relationship between the two main characters of Our Teachers are Dating! — if there are no events that allow them to grow, change and develop, then why are we exploring this story at all? Thankfully, over the course of the second volume, we see a number of significant happenings that help both Hayama-sensei and Terano-sensei better define their relationship with one another — including understanding one another’s boundaries or lack thereof.

As early as the first chapter of Our Teachers are Dating!’s second volume, we get an entertaining idea of how differently the two women think. While attempting to get themselves “in sync” enough to excel at a three-legged race for the upcoming sports day, Hayama encourages Terano to “think back to that day”, innocently casting her own mind back to a time when they were walking around together hand-in-hand. Terano, meanwhile, immediately jumps to a memory of their first time making love together.

Besides being an amusing scene, this is also a fun subversion of expectations; since Terano is the young-looking, sweet, innocent one, we’re conditioned to expect her to be the lovey-dovey one, but that’s not the case. Instead, the one thinking about romance is the physically active PE teacher — who, in the last volume, we discovered to have a thoroughly squishy centre despite having been long regarded as an “iron fortress” by the student body. It just goes to show that you really can’t judge a book by its cover.

We get further exploration of the pair’s interest in being sexually intimate with one another — and of Terano’s particular enjoyment of it — in a subsequent chapter where some birthday celebrations naturally turn to getting naked. Terano, fascinated by the idea of giving hickies, ends up leaving a lot of marks on Hayama and is understandably embarrassed by this; Hayama, meanwhile, showing that she’s willing to be completely open and vulnerable when she’s along with Terano, notes that she doesn’t mind whatsoever, and is happy to let Terano do whatever she wants to her.

Of course, this leads to not only a lovey-dovey moment where the pair figure that wearing matching turtleneck sweaters will allow them to hide their indiscretions, but also an amusing scene where their friends and coworkers know exactly what they’ve been up to given the context. As subtle as it is, there’s a really fun feeling that we, the audience, are being included in this friendship group, and being invited to poke fun at our heroines — much as you might poke fun at a pair of real-life mutual friends who have recently entered into a relationship with one another.

One of the most effective chapters in volume 2 of Our Teachers are Dating! demonstrates the importance of clear communication and establishing boundaries.

After a late night grading papers — and the consumption of an energy drink that turns out to be an aphrodisiac — Hayama goes to find Terano in her biology room, only to find her asleep. She gently awakens her and the pair get amorous with one another — but as things look like they might escalate into something rather more intimate than is perhaps appropriate for school premises, Terano pushes Hayama off saying “we can’t” and “stop”.

Before Terano is able to explain that she was only saying this because she thought she heard someone coming who might walk in on them, Hayama has bolted, wracked with immediate guilt over her belief that she has just sexually assaulted Terano. Running into Neko-sensei, another teacher — one of many who is supportive and understanding of their relationship — a panicking Hayama is eventually talked down from her unreasonable assumptions, eventually realising that she hadn’t given Terano an opportunity to explain herself and had simply assumed the worst from the start.

Not only this, but Terano, pursuing Hayama to explain and sort things out, witnesses her hushed discussion with Neko-sensei. She then forms her own misunderstanding over the situation, believing that Hayama is seeking solace in the arms of someone who is, in many ways, Terano’s polar opposite. Naturally, the pair feel completely unable to talk to one another about the things they are both assuming about each other — so it comes down to one of their mutual friends to stick them in a room together and not let them out until they hash everything out and realise that they’re both being idiots.

This is the closest Our Teachers are Dating! comes to what I’d describe as stereotypical yuri drama — and it comes at a good point in the narrative. However well a relationship seems to be going in its early stages, there always comes a point where doubt enters the mind of one or both of the partners involved — and it’s at this point where communication is at its most crucial. You need to be able to speak candidly with your partner about how you feel and what you want — and you also need to be able to listen to what they want to say to you, also. It’s not always easy — but the results are always worth it.

A particularly touching chapter in Our Teachers are Dating! comes not long after the above-mentioned scenario; the couple’s mutual friend Bandou-sensei is hosting “love advice” sessions, ostensibly for students, but Terano shows up looking for some advice on how to communicate with Hayama more effectively, too.

Bandou-sensei has a solid exercise in place for this: she gets Terano to think about what is important to her about her relationship, then asks a simple question: “what do you want to do?” But before Terano can answer, Bandou-sensei invites her to hold that thought, and instead say whatever she was about to say to Hayama instead. It’s sound advice; if there’s something you can admit to a mutual friend but not your loved one, ask yourself why.

The culmination of all this is that both Terano and Hayama realise that they need to be at ease with one another and with the sense of love each of them feels for the other. Both of them find themselves questioning how much they are “supposed” to do in order to achieve this, but the reality of the situation is, of course, that they simply need to let things progress naturally rather than overthinking them.

This is self-evident when looking in on the situation from the outside — though we have to remember that it’s not always easy to see these things when you’re up close, directly involved in them.

Both Terano and Hayama are clearly most at ease when they allow themselves to simply relax in one another’s company and to do whatever feels “right” at the time. Both of them are clearly in a position where they can tell the other if they’re not happy with something that is going on — and at the same time, both are willing to take their relationship to a deeply intimate level. More so than we’ve seen up until this point in Our Teachers are Dating!, as it happens.

It’s fitting, then, that once again the final chapter of Our Teachers are Dating! volume 2 concludes with a lengthy sex scene. And this time it’s noticeably more explicit than in the previous volume. Notably, we see Hayama rubbing Terano between her legs through her pajama bottoms, sucking on her bare breasts and performing cunnilingus; we also see Terano reciprocating, suggesting that the pair of them consider their physical relationship to very much be on an equal basis where neither is necessarily the “top” at all times.

In fact, during the earlier misunderstanding, we get a hint of Terano being something of a “switch”, as she explains to Hayama that she was “glad [she] took the reins” — suggesting this hadn’t happened all that much up until this point. And indeed, we see Terano is often — though not always — the one initiating the more passionate kisses and intimate physical encounters between the pair of them. But one gets the distinct impression that after the events of Our Teachers are Dating! volume 2, Hayama will feel able to be a bit more assertive when she wants something.

Overall, while the second volume of Our Teachers are Dating! doesn’t rock the boat too much with the events that unfold over the course of its pages, it does feel very much like Terano and Hayama’s relationship is developing significantly and positively. And, judging by Ohi’s afterword on the subject of “spicy yuri kisses”, it seems they’re keen to explore the more physical side of love in greater detail in the coming volumes…

Our Teachers are Dating! volume 2 is available in paperback from Amazon. Digital versions and alternative retailers can be found on Seven Seas’ website.

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