You ******* donut!

‘Our university is very proud to welcome you all as our new cohort, and we will strive every day to support your endeavors as you learn and become our bright future.’ The university dean finished his speech, and the student body started its applause, ringing in the beginning of a long, arduous, yet hopefully worthwhile adventure.

The first two weeks of school; everyone trying to find their place in lecture halls; student circles, or clubs, planning their recruitment events for the new students. Of course, as opposed to my high school, where club participation was mandatory, these clubs were optional, a new level of independence that was welcome in my mind.

Lectures also had their advantages over high school classes. Since there were so many students, the lecture halls were quite large, and it was pretty easy to blend with the crowd– no need to be friendly or interact with everyone. It was especially useful when I had spotted several of my former classmates in some of these lectures.

After the first week, I had already found a steady rhythm to the day. Morning classes start at 9, so even on days when I’m running late, it helps being so close to campus. My last class, Introduction to International Relations, ends at 3 pm, and the rest of the day I have to myself–whether I want to finish my studies earlier or push it off, go have dinner, watch a movie, go shopping: the world is my oyster.

Most days I simply go back to my apartment and chill, putting the balcony to good use.

Today, I found myself lounging in the common room, flipping through the TV’s channels as if it were my living room at home, except for the much larger space here. One could watch the currently airing anime here; that’s a decent idea.

I kept channel surfing when a news segment caught my attention. Anime-Tokyo has been rescheduled to June 5th. Ah, that reminds me, there’s a smaller local convention happening next weekend that I was thinking of going to. Never went to the other one, which always has hundreds of thousands of people who go every year.

And just as I thought of that local convention, it conveniently appeared on the news segment, let me take a picture of it so I remember–

“Iwasaki-kun!” a familiar voice echoed down the hall. I turned to see Sato walking towards me. “Fancy seeing you in the common room today!”

“Just enjoying the place, I suppose,” I replied as I snapped a picture of the TV screen.

An elementary school-level Japanese worksheet, let’s see what she got.

At the top of the sheet, a big ‘5’ was written in red ink. Five percent? This is a twenty-question worksheet too, so she got one of them right. I scanned for the one question she could have possibly gotten correct:

How do you say ‘thank you’ in Japanese? Arigatou.

At least she got that question right. I mean, she probably wasn’t far off from most–

How do you say ‘good morning’? Ohio godzilla mas.

“Sato-san–” I looked over to where she was, and she was no longer there. Huh, where did she go? I scanned the room, and spotted behind one of the bean bag chairs a signature tuft of hair sticking out. “I see you there behind the bean bag–”

She slowly got up from her hiding spot. “Don’t make fun of my answers, I already told you my Japanese is horrible! Not even my ¼ Japanese heritage can help me at all!” Ah, I remember her mentioning that her father was half-Japanese, explaining her last name. It seems as though the language skill was lost in translation.

I sighed. “I said I’m not a good tutor, but I can at least help go over the answers with you.” She perked up almost immediately, taking the offer up.

As we finished going over the answers, she let out an excited “Woohoo!”, taking the test, and folding it up…into a paper airplane.

“Aaaand, liftoff!” She threw the airplane straight up in the air, it looped around, and plummeted onto the bean bag chair a few rows away.

“Oi, that’s your test,” I scoffed, getting up to retrieve the paper.

“And besides, throwing a paper airplane up like that won’t go very far, you gotta throw it—”

“Eh, wait Iwasaki-kun!”

“--like this!” I threw the airplane straight forward down the hallway, just like a kid in elementary school. The plane flew like a dart straight forward….and kept going. It flew past Lafon’s door, then past Watson’s room a few doors down. That’s at least twenty meters…and still going. The wings of the plane were barely moving from my point of view, and it still hasn’t sunk below eye level—I’ve thrown dozens, probably hundreds of paper airplanes as a kid, but nothing looked like this.

It breezed by Sato’s room, then my room?!? And it hasn’t lost any height!

It finally ended its voyage as the paper airplane connected with the glass window with a loud thud. It barely lost any height from where I originally threw it ... that was at least fifty…maybe meters, and it would’ve kept going if not for the window.

“Sato-san,” I inhaled. “Have you been turning all your tests into paper airplanes until you’ve made one this well?!” Obviously, this probably wasn’t the real reason her airplane making was this insane, but it sounded pretty funny in my mind.

“E-exactly! Hahaha,” she laughed. She took the bait response?!

“In all seriousness, that’s incredible, I didn’t know a paper airplane could even go that far,” I scratched my head still wondering about what I had just witnessed.

“Is it really that impressive?” she stretched her arms out, as if she hadn’t just broken some flight record.

I paused to respond. “Only thing more impressive is your audacity to write ‘Ohio Godzilla’ on that paper.” Resuming my walk, I could hear the chair thunk where Sato was sitting.

“I-I said no more making fun! And don’t you think of showing that to any of your friends–”

“Actually, that’s a good idea, Sato-san, let me take a photo of it real quick–” I jogged over to the now slightly dented paper airplane, but before I could unfold it I heard footsteps rapidly approaching.

“Give it baaack–” she bellowed as she almost lunged at me, reaching for the paper. I mostly dodged the attack, however, she was able to get a hold of my wrist, holding the page. I grabbed it with my other hand before she could with hers.

At this point, I was playing keep-away….what are we, elementary school kids?! Oi, she’s getting too close–

“Eh, what are you two donuts doing?” a calming voice came from behind us, which caused us to instantly freeze in place.

“Oh–Watson-san!?”

***

“I see, that was your quiz, Serina,” Watson nodded along, looking at the unfolded sheet of paper. “Understandable.”

“Yeah…also, why’d you call us donuts?” I pondered.

“Oh!” she smiled. “A friend of mine recommended a show to me, about this British chef calling other people donuts when they did something silly. However,” she giggled, "the chef would usually be much more explicit about it." 

“And coincidentally—” she brought out a box from her book bag. “I was given these on my way back!” She opened the box, and there were six decorated donuts of different flavors and colors–they looked delicious! “I thought you all would like to try them too!”

That is a definitive yes from both of us….and of course Lafon…. I wonder if she’s back yet.

“Ah, my other friend from Montreal would call them beignets, though.”

Lafon’s door opened, and out she appeared, bed-head and all, albeit a more mild version compared to when I first met her. She walked over to the table where the donuts were, her eyes glittering as per usual in the presence of sugary delights. “Beignet,” she picked one of the donuts up, analyzing it for a moment. “Not a real beignet, but an acceptable substitute,” she commented as she took a bite. Looks like we have discovered another summoning ritual for Lafon. Add that to crepe and gateau.

“Where’d you get them??” Sato asked.

“Oh, at the club fair!”