Screaming Sour Somethings

“Now that you’re all in a group, prepare the ingredients and preheat the ovens.” The teacher instructed the class.

Henry was in his first independent survival class, ready to learn what he never once thought capable: self-care. Initially, he thought this class would be similar to the US’s family consumer science class, which he always skipped. They both tried to teach him about education, nutrition, health and wellness, weapon crafting, poisonous and venomous animals, etc. But this class had one major difference that made Henry more than willing to participate:

It was in Japan.

“I didn't think you would ask Momoko to be part of the group.” Riku told Henry, standing next to him on the same side of the table.

When the teacher told them they’d have to form groups, Henry’s first choice was Gimei. He took Riku being in the group for granted, considering that they were friends and that the other students still thought he murdered a boy. Gimei was the perfect last member. But to his disbelief, Gimei was already paired with Rohou.

“I just asked her because she sits next to me.” Rohou had told Henry, “I didn’t think there would be so much competition.”

The last member of her group was whoever would be the winner of a small tournament seven other boys had organized. At the end of the tournament, Gimei had already picked one of her friends.

Henry cursed Rohou and his magical seat, and began looking for other members of what he was starting to believe was his harem-to-be. He had looked at Chiharu for a second, and as their gazes met he felt a fire inside his heart, severly burning his lungs and showing him visions of knife wounds. He decided to let her be for the time being. He tried to look for Hajime, but he could see that she was trying to hide behind her two friends and understood she already had a group.

“Momoko was the last person of the main cast available.” Henry answered Riku in the present. “But I don’t mind. She’s the only person I know who is yet to cause unfathomable pain on my body or mind... and she’s pretty fun to have around.”

Momoko was standing on the other side of the table. She grabbed a tall chef’s hat, not part of the school’s supplies, and tried to put it on. But the hat was slightly wider than her head and as she pushed it down, it ended up covering her entire face. She took it off and looked at it with a troubled look, starting an intense thinking session. After enough time had passed, she gasped, both at the realization and her genius, and took a pair of scissors. She cut two holes for the eyes on the front of the hat and put it back on like a balaclava.

“Super chef Momoko is ready for survival!” She proudly told them, her voice muffled by the hat.

"I see what you mean." Riku nodded.

The teacher handed each group a sheet of paper containing the recipe for the dish they had to prepare, together with a list of the ingredients. The dish was a classic Japanese delicacy, something that every Japanese person knows and has eaten at least once in their lives. It wasn’t the easiest thing to prepare, but also not so hard that the students would have trouble with it.

The group began gathering the food. Henry was ready to make the perfect classic Japanese dish and no bell pepper was going to distract him now. He grabbed a knife, read that the first step required peeling a potato, and immediately took out his phone to look up a tutorial on how to do it.

He forgot to turn down the volume, and the moment the video started the chiming bells of an advertisement resonated in the class.

“What is this about?” The teacher approached him, asking a question he already knew the answer to.

“...I usually use my cellphone to slice the veggies?”

“Really? Please show me then.” The teacher smiled.

Henry realized too late the hole he dug himself in. And even later that the hole was going to collapse on his head, as there wasn’t even a single vegetable on the table his group was using.

“This is the future!” He quickly became desperate, “Gone are the days of using real life to teach! In the modern era real school is in the comment section of top ten videos! I won’t learn by reading books! I will learn by arguing with a stranger about a topic I don’t know and refusing to accept the truth, only to secretly admit I was wrong and swearing to bring the secret to my tomb! Can’t you see that the real world is nothing more than a stage on which to fantasize about the digital world? Can’t you see that there is a limit to how much a teacher can know? That there is no genius in the world that can match the sheer amount of disinformation put on the net? Can’t you see that the real world doesn’t have anything that even resembles dragon girls?!”

“Whenever you’re done, you can give me your phone. I’m confiscating it.”

“We are the future, and we are descending upon you like hail! You can’t stop us all!” Henry still believed he had some sort of point.

“As a matter of fact, I can.”

“N-no you can’t.”

“I’m confiscating everyone’s phones! Put them on my desk, I will return them at the end of the day.”

“No wait you’re supposed to argue back.”

"I believe having to face the rest of the class will be enough of a punishment to make learn this lesson." The teacher smiled sadistically.

The entire class glared at Henry. They walked to the teacher’s desk while looking at him and kept staring even as they handed over their phones. It was an impressive feat of coordination, actually.

Henry spent the hours until lunch break thinking of ways to atone for his sin, instead of paying attention to the lessons. When the teacher left for lunch, he could see the whole class instinctively go to grab their phones, realize they weren’t in their pockets or bags, and collectively groan. He remained seated, while every student that walked past him looked at him with flames in their eyes. Some sarcastically thanked him, others directly insulted him. Chiharu went to the back of the class only so she could walk past him and spit in his face.

“Thank you.” Henry told her.

“You weren’t supposed to enjoy that!” Chiharu smashed his head on the desk and left.

He didn’t even lift his head from the desk after that. Partly because his nose was stuck inside the desk’s wood, but also because he wanted to wallow in his own failure.

“Henry?” A voice startled him. It wasn’t the voice itself that surprised him, but who it belonged to.

“Haji-tan?” Henry raised his splinter-covered nose.

“Never mind.” She left.

“No, I’m sorry! Hajime Pika-sama!”

“Ugh.” She turned back, still a bit disgusted. “Listen, I wanted to ask you something.” Suddenly, her mood brightened. “I bought a maid outfit, but I don’t know if it could fit me. Do you mind looking at it and giving me some comments?”

“Wait, what? …Wait, what? Wait… What!? Yes! I mean, no! I don’t mind! I’m physically incapable of minding! I have been waiting for this moment since I arrived in Japan! I am not going to ask how or why this situation exists in fear of losing the chance!” Henry was slightly about to explode.

“Thanks. I have a picture, let me just take my phone… Oops! I forgot!” She put on the most evil grin she could master. “I guess I can’t show you.”

The sound of glass shattering resonated inside of Henry’s chest. His eyes became gray and lost their pupils. Black lines of doom appeared over his forehead.

“Y-you can show me tomorrow!”

“No that's too late.”

“That is it!” He slammed his fists on the table and stood up, “I have to fix this situation and redeem myself!” Henry screamed.

“You’re irredeemable.”

“Come meet me in the storage room in 5 minutes!” He ignored her jab.

“No?”

“C’mon, I swear it’s a serious thing.”

“Is it going to be just the two of us?”

“I mean, if you want—”

“I’m not coming if we’re alone.”

“Of course there are going to be other people! Later!” He dashed out of the class.

Henry waited patiently inside the dark storage room. The room wasn’t usually dark, but he closed the curtains to set up the mood. As the door opened, light flooded the place. One by one, his classmates entered. First Gimei and Rohou, then Riku, followed by Chiharu and Momoko. Reluctantly, only after making sure there were other people in the room, Hajime entered last.

“You might be wondering why I called you all in here.” Henry said as he closed the door.

“Do anything I don’t like and you are not leaving this room.” Chiharu said, ready to hit him.

“Everything will be explained, but first things first. Why is Rohou here?! I don’t remember inviting you!”

“Gimei told me you wanted her and three other girls to meet you alone in the storage room. You really think I would let you do something that shady? I’m here as security, and I’m happy to see Riku thinks the same.”

“Oh, no, I have no idea what’s going on.” Riku answered him, “I always eat lunch in the storage room when I’m alone. Didn’t think I’d find other people today.”

“Rohou, you offend me.” Henry looked genuinely displeased. “You seriously think I would have the strength to do anything to these girls?”

“He has a point.” Chiharu immediately spoke up.

“Whatever,” Henry walked to a large closet “Let me tell you why I gathered you here today! Look at this!”

He opened it with vehemence. A heavy cardboard box fell out of it, pouring dozens of cell phones onto the ground.

“I did not mean for the phones to fall. I’m not taking responsibility for any broken screen…”

“My phone!” Momoko leaned over the pile and picked up an antique-looking rotary phone.

“How do you even use that?” Henry was concerned and confused, “don’t those things need to be tied to a landline?”

“No, it's a normal phone.”

Momoko turned the telephone upside down, revealing a regular cell phone fit inside a hole on the bottom. The cell phone was many times smaller than the rotary telephone “cover”.

“Wait, didn’t the teacher confiscate them?” Rohou was worried.

“Exactly! I felt bad for what I did, and so I redeemed myself by taking the phones back.” Henry had decided by himself this action counted as redeeming himself.

“Won’t that only make the teacher angrier? We just need to wait a couple of hours…”

“Too late! I’ve got the phones, so I have been freed from my crime!”

“Might as well take them. We can always blame Henry if the teacher says anything.” Hajime rummaged through the pile to find her colorful phone.

“Speaking of which,” Henry leaned close to her. “Now that you have your phone back, you can show me that picture!” He lowered his voice.

“Yes, I have it right here.”

Hajime showed him a picture of an old man, he must have been in his seventies, dangerously thin and mostly bald. He was striking a cutesy pose while rocking a white and black maid outfit with a very short skirt. He flashed his dozen teeth with a big smile.

“W-what?”

“I told you I had a picture of the outfit, not that I was wearing it. He happens to have the same model.” She smiled, proud of her bamboozlement.

“I know this is supposed to be a way to get at me, but I’m honestly more concerned as to why there is a picture of an old man in a maid outfit on your phone…”

“For the bit! I only have it because I wanted to tease you! Obviously! Don’t start thinking weird things!” She screamed and screamed, but there was nothing she could do to repair her image.

She decided on a tactical retreat and ran for the door, but was unpleasantly surprised to learn that the door would not open. She pushed the handle once. Then twice. The door would rumble, but it stayed closed. Then, she realized it.

“You planned this, didn’t you?!” She turned around and pointed at Henry.

“Yes, I gathered you all here to show you what a good boy I am for getting your phones back.”

“Not that! The door!”

“Wait, what is going on?” Chiharu asked, “What’s up with the door?”

“It’s locked!”

“Henry!” Chiharu immediately screamed.

“Wait, wait! I didn’t do anything! I swear!”

“It’s not bulging.” Riku said after trying to open and then force open the door.

“Did someone lock it after we got in?”

“I think it might have an automatic lock.”

“Why?!”

“Not that out of the ordinary for this school.”

“Wait, are we actually locked in here?”

“We better not be!”

The panic was starting to spread so much that who was saying what didn’t matter anymore.

"Chiharu, can't you kick down the door?" Gimei offered a solution.

"Who do you take me for?! I'm going to get in even more trouble with the school if I pulverize a door! I still haven’t finished paying for all the walls I destroyed chasing Henry…"

“We’re underneath the rad club!” Momoko pointed out.

The group just looked at her, unsure at what that had to do with the situation at hand.

“Why do you say that now, Momoko?” Rohou asked.

“It means we won’t be able to call for help.” She answered without losing her smile.

“I don’t follow your logic…”

“Wait, Momoko. You are saying that we’re underneath the radical club, right?” Henry asked, scared, but already resigned to the answer.

“What would a radical club even do, silly! We’re below the radioactive club! Their experiments mean there is no signal in the rooms next to it.”

“Oh, this school does not follow any regulations…” Henry was exasperated.

“She’s right!” Hajime screamed with her phone in hand, “It doesn’t even connect to the internet! What do we do now?! Do we have to wait and hope for someone to enter? What if no one checks this room? Are we going to stay locked in here until tomorrow?! I don’t want to spend the night here!” Hajime loudly voiced her concerns.

“My family is going to worry sick if I’m not home when the sun sets.” Riku joined her, “They might raze the school.”

"You're telling me!" Henry participated, "I'm going to miss the stream of my oshi reviewing feet pics!" Henry stopped participating.

“Everyone, calm down!” Rohou screamed. “The situation isn’t that bad. We’re still inside a school, teachers or other students are bound to enter the storage sooner or later. We might not even have to wait that much. I’m sure that our classmates will search for us when they notice we haven’t come back from the lunch break.”

“There are other students in our class?" Henry asked.

"There are almost forty students in our class, Henry."

"It's not just us seven? …In my defense, do the other students really count when they've never even gotten a line of description? The guy behind my desk is constantly asleep! I don't even know if he has eyes."

"You could try to guess.”

“Are you really sure you don't want to break down the door?” Gimei tempted Chiharu like a devil.

“Didn't you hear Rohou? There's no need.”

“No, but it'll be fun!”

"Welp, I guess that means we have to wait for someone to find us!" Henry said, a bit too calm.

Finally, he could spend some time inside a room with multiple girls, and all it took was for the situation to physically stop the girls from leaving.

He was the only one to enjoy such a situation.

POSTFACE

- MOCKUMENTARY

Independent survival class: A very real class done in very real schools of very real nations on very real planets of very real galaxies of an ultimately holographic universe.

Chef’s hat: A sign of honor, recognition, and breeding superiority among chefs. Integral part of their courtship display, a male chef will try to impress the female by lowering its head and showing off the length of its hat. This, together with the ritual gesture of kissing the tip of their fingers, is the key to a chef’s mating success.

Oshi: A deity. These deities are born not out of necessity, but out of the volition of their followers to raise the idol of their prayers to godhood. Cults of various kinds are born from the obsession the gods farm from their followers, all of which include periodic gatherings and monetary offerings.

Balaclava: Житловий масив на півдні Севастополя. Розташований на березі однойменної бухти Чорного моря. Поетесі Лесі Українці та письменнику Олександру Купріну, які є людьми, певний час тут жили.