“To completely change the subject, why’s all this club stuff going on right now, anyways, instead of, I dunno, in the morning, or something?”

“Didn’t you look at our class schedule, we have club meetings the second to last period on Tuesdays. The first couple of weeks are open recruitment.” That seems a strange decision to me. Though I guess it isn’t mutually exclusive with recruiting in the mornings.

I start walking to the classroom while talking, my companions following along, “well, if we really want to do the whole English club thing, though I’m reticent, what with Silver-san’s thing-”

“What thing?” She asks, bluntly, pointedly, there’s no telling, but I think there’s an edge to it.

“If you don’t like the grammar it’s rather hard to learn English, seeing as order word intelligible makes things,” even if the part of speech a word is is informative enough to make it parsable… “word speech part is the even informative parsable is. Fluently.”

Obi looks at me with horror in his eyes, his forehead blue “Eeeeh?”

Meanwhile Silver stares blankly into the distance, presumably seething with unending rage, absently following us into the classroom, where I take my seat. I point at her, “See? That thing.” Obi looks at her, then back to me. Look, dude,

“I, really don’t think that has anything to do with English. I’m half tempted to do the same thing, and I don’t care nearly as much about grammar.”

“The point’s more that she doesn’t like English diverting from Japanese grammar. While I don’t know Japanese grammar, I do know that if you applied it to English it would be about as comprehensible as that.” Not that I know what they heard, but blindly trusting an unknowable cosmic force is the reason I'm not scared of falling off the planet, so. “If you can speak fluently you can understand it because you know the words and there’s only so many ways you can put them into something resembling a proper sentence. Y’all don’t have that luxury; not even any staples, if you refuse to learn grammar.”

“Right, you were speaking in English, confused English, no wonder it sounded so…” he trails off. Yeah I get you buddy, I can only imagine how insane it’d sound if someone went gobbledygook in Japanese and it was mysteriously being translated to me…

I don’t actually have to imagine, do I…

“You try it.”

“What!? I can’t speak English!”

“No, I mean make an insane sentence in Japanese.” His face pinched in consideration for a few seconds. Then furrowed further as he tried to think, his hand cupping to his chin.

I’ll be honest I don't know what this’ll tell me about the Translation, or how it’ll help me in general, but it’s just playing around. I’m not taking notes, or making hypothesis, but getting a general feel for how things interact and shit should be helpful, or something.

I’m really not prepared for anything like this. This whole discovering the intricacies of the universe shit is not something that I can really do, I mean it’s not even certain there is a whole narrative thing except for this. I can admit th-.

“Return part time job summer star across half.” I blink, and I feel my thoughts stutter. That was very strange to hear, but ok. It’s hard to describe, but it was like my brain had to go through dial-up.

Is that why Silver had such a hard time with it?

I’ll only inflict that on people tactically, I guess. Or to annoy my sister.

That’s tactical.

“I hate you both.” Silver announces, “You both hate our language.” Hey, I don’t even know your language, don’t force such strong emotions on me. She brandishes her fist, don’t force that on me either please.

“I’ll admit that did feel freaky to hear. Like my neurons themselves stuttered.” What did I learn, there’s parity in grammar fuckiness. Still don’t know about puns though… maybe Mr. Translator doesn’t know puns in Japanese. Ha! That’s what you get for trying to dub reality, bastard!

“Hey, he asked me to, if you’re going to hit anybody, choose him.” Silver slowly turned towards me, obviously ready to annihilate me from existence with but a twitch of her finger.

I fake panic with a gasp, “Traitor! You were just as curious as I was! I saw it in your eyes! Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal, I'll avenge myself from beyond the grave!” I point, ow, fiercely at him.

Silver just blinks and goes to take her seat, “There will not be anything to bury.” oh no! She’s going to vaporize me with her lazer beam! Or she could be saying that she isn’t going to kill me. Or she’ll beat me so badly I turn into a meat puddle, and she’ll feed me to pigs!

Pigs are a very effective way to get rid of a body, they’re both omnivorous and ravenous. I learned that from my mother when she was beginning her homesteading phase…

“Ha! Hahahaha.” I crack me up. Animeat soup. “Ah, I wish I could tell how you were joking from tone. What is with all the whole,” I gesture at my face, “thing?”

“I have a medical condition.” I frown slightly, that’s a deflection if I've ever heard one. Nobody in anime, nay nobody in fiction, uses that excuse without anything to hide. But hey, if someone doesn’t want to discuss their disability, that’s alright.

“Alright, fine by me.” I shrug.

“Why do you laugh if you do not know if I am joking?”

“It’s all about the interpretations, dude, and I choose to interpret everything you say in a way that humors me.” I like laughing, it’s certainly better than moping.

Silver slowly nods once, “You like laughing at me, and think I am funny.”

I narrow my eyes at her. Put out and pouting, or jovial and ironic? But Obi jumps in, “Hey, that’s unfair! Just because he’s laughing at things you say doesn’t mean he’s laughing at you.” He raises his voice a bit, offended on my behalf. But I don't really think he needs to be.

“I was making a joke.” Just as I suspected. Silver is an incorrigible troll. Except when you make her angry. Then she is an indignant troll.

“Heh, ok, I’ll believe you.” No reason not to. The motto with Silver will be actions speak louder than words.

I looked at the clock and sighed, it’s near the end of the hour, “When’s this whole club recruitment thing going to end?” I furrowed my brow in thought, what’s the whole point of having a period dedicated to club recruitment? What happens later in the year when everyone has clubs, are they all just going to meet up? What about the people who don’t have clubs? “Fuck, we still haven’t decided what club we’re joining or if we’re making one.”

“I have decided against the English language club. I do not trust you, or your abilities to teach it.”

“Haaa? When did you do that? What would be wrong with him teaching it?”

“Inexplicably, I do not think it would go well. I believe that the hour is almost ended, so we only have one more class for the day. We do not have to choose a club at all, there is always the go home option.” I mean yeah, but who in their right mind would want to go home to a family they don’t have? That they’ve been inserted into- I frown.

I’m not going to waste my time being in high school again and not have a social life. That’d just be fucking embarrasing, not to mention I don’t have any games at home. Did I even have a computer in that room? I don't remember.

And that still doesn’t answer what we’ll do during school.

“My sister’s too scary to be around, don’t make me leave, please. Please?” I semi-jokingly assert, hands clasped together.

“You have a sister?” Have I not mentioned her? “What’s wrong with your sister?” Maybe I have, maybe I haven't, if I have other people are forgetful too.

I look him straight in the eye, “Her hair is Pink.”

“I don’t have a sister, but I’m pretty sure that one having pink hair doesn’t make them scary.” that’s where you’re wrong boyo. The horrible eye-piercing light rays that bounce off my sister’s head are absolutely a thing of dread.

“Well, that and her grip strength.” That caused a blank look of confusion.

“What?” Well obviously of the two most terrifying things about my sister, the second one is going to be the one to need explanation. And this is foreshadowing for my fair companions about the prominent quirks of my sister. Namely her violence and aesthetic. Why’s she even allowed to wear a pink uniform to school? I bet she threatened her student council president, or the student rule enforcement body that are in anime. For some reason.

Do we have one of those here?

“She has the grip strength of a mildly annoyed chimp with a coconut.”

“What sort of analogy is that!?”

“Why would a coconut affect a chimp’s grip strength?”

“I mean, they need to crack open something, and a coconut’s like a head, right?”

“Are you saying your sister would crack someone’s head open with her hands?”

“No, Silver-san, but I'm certainly implying it. But don’t worry, she’s very easy to avoid.” I comfort them, tapping my head, “Her hair’s Pink.”

“There are plenty of people with pink hair, how would we pick her out in a crowd?” She wants more information on this existential threat, I see. I lean in conspiratorially.

Also interesting to note that more people do in fact have pink hair.

“Now, I'm not supposed to tell you this, but her hair, is Pink.” I confirm with gravitas.

“That is singularly unhelpful.” She says, completely unimpressed, or dumbfounded by my descriptiveness, either or.

“It really isn’t. Trust me, if you see her, you’ll know what I’m talking about.”

“I don’t understand, but I really don’t think pink’s terrifying. Pink’s just…” Obi trails off, three staccato beats tapping out from… somewhere, damn it! “What colors make up pink?”

Ooh, ooh, I know this one! “Not green! Pink’s just the color of a glaring absence of green from red. And I guess blue isn’t there either, that’d just make light purple. Though it could be.” Maybe blue is in there, blue tends to add brightness to colors I think? Green definitely isn’t though.

“I can see how blue is in pink.”

“Do you have a built in spectrometer?” I am mildly surprised that you know that word, Obi, and disappointed in myself for doubting your vocabulary. Not because I don’t think your vocabulary is limited, but because I don't like assuming things about people.

Silver turns her head to stare at Obi for a second. “My eyes.”

Yep, those are spectrometers, “Home grown, even.” You know, cause they aren’t really built. At least if you don’t consider a cell a machine. There’s an argument to be made there, life’s basically a von Neumann’s probe without the paper clips.

“You can’t grow eyes at home. What do you do, take them from animals?”

“No! That’s unethical, I'd take them from plants.”

“Plants do not have eyes.” Technically correct, but factually untrue, my dear literalist.

“Sure they do,” I scoff, “there are plants that grow eyes.”

“What plants?”

I open my mouth to answer them, but my brain fails me. “Eyes grow on… there’s a really obvious answer here. It’s on the tip of my tongue. There’s jokes about it where they put googly eyes on them. Not celery, not carrots, you can fucking buy them in the grocery store!”

“Like when you see faces in a tree?”

“No, that’s pareidolia.” I absently correct.

“How can you suddenly say that, but not what plant you claim has eyes?”

“I have a vast and extensive forest of vocabulary and diction, words sometimes get lost.” I pinch the bridge of my nose, ow, “This is gonna fucking bug me for hours. Days, even, if it doesn’t come to me soon.”

“I am more discouraged from learning English if it means plants can watch me.” I give her a wry look.

“Hey now, don’t go throwing stones in glass houses.” I am certain every single language on Earth has weirdness going on with it. Except Esperanto. There’s always an exception.

The bell rang out the end of the period. I suppose that means it’s only an hour or so until the end of the fucking day, thank god. I need to decompress badly.

After the ten minutes of all the students walking in and taking their seats, I am of course already sitting as I refuse to stand when I could be in a lower energy state, we see the teacher walk in slightly late.

A young brunette with her hair in a high ponytail, dressed in a navy blue suit with an unnecessarily tight business skirt comes rushing in on her high heels, holding files that seem to be slipping out of her grasp even as she clutches them for dear life.

She starts rushing an introduction even as she makes her way over to the desk, “Hello everybody, good afternoon! I’m sorryyyyyyyy!” She, comically of course, slips on her own two feet and falls forwards, sending the unfortunate lesson plans she had flying everywhere. “Oh no, not again, I was even holding on to them tighter this time.” She cries, big fat tears pooling in the corner of her eyes as she crawls back and forth, picking up her papers.

This poor, poor woman. Her life is cursed. Don’t think I don't see what you’re doing here. I do, and I don't like it.

Nobody gets up to help her, and while I am inclined, and feel mildly obligated to do so, that’d take up time I can spend being upset at the universe and anybody who thinks clumsy women are sexy.

Cute I can give them, but nobody likes a mess, not even a hot one.

After the woman is done gathering up her class notes, she says, “Ok, class, I’m sorry about that. So. let me write out today's lesson…” Right, what class even is this?

“So as I said last time we’re going to be learning your daily use kanji, their stroke order and use for the next year, and we’re starting with these ten. These are their Chinese readings and their native readings…” Ah. This is English class but Japanese. Japanese class, if you will. And we’re learning letters I can’t even see. Or vocabulary? It honestly does not matter.

She writes out ten words: licentiousness, one, consolation, monkey, heart, timidity, the latter, calamity, commandment. And then writes them in… block letters below each. For the dyslexic I guess.

That. Is the strangest, most eclectic gathering of word salad I've seen. Why is one even on the list? Isn’t. Aren’t numbers supposed to be the first thing you learn? I don’t, and literally can’t, read Japanese, and maybe it’s because I’m in an anime, but I'm still incredibly certain that the first thing you’d teach a child learning math is how to write numbers.

“Ah!” She looks down at a paper, and then at me, “Aoki-san, are you confused with something?” oh good, I’m not just internally confused. I’m glad my utter bafflement at relearning the number one in writing is not just my suffering alone.

“One?” I ask bemused. And point at the board. Only using my wrist, I’m confused not stupid.

She looks where I’m pointing, “Yes, it’s used mostly in legal documents, to remove ambiguity.” I see, lawyers want to be special and get their own letter one so that us plebs don’t get confused. “Though it’s also used in the names for tones in the musical scales for courtly music for courtly dances. Such as…” Aaand there she goes writing down… ‘D Mixolydian,’ and ‘D Mixolydian mode’

Ah, one, the kanji for both lawyers and artists, finally the alliance to defeat the business students once and for all. It even gets theater kids in there to sucker punch ‘em.

I didn’t even know those words before, so I guess the Translation isn’t based on my knowledge of vocabulary?

“And since Aoki-san gave us such a good transition, I can write down some of the common vocabulary that uses these kanji.” Oh, these are root words, ok, that makes sense, “For instance, consolation is used a lot, like relaxation, memorial service, dissuasion from leaving,” wait, wait wait, “ recognition of services, amusement, comfort… skipping over that one, uh, solatium,” What was that word you skipped over, I’ve never even heard the word solatium! When did this get so much more complicated than I thought it would be!? “Capricious, plaything, plaything, be careful to use the right kanji for those two, bit of an awkward typo to make, ahahaha,” Your awkward laugh does nothing to comfort me, woman! Those are the same word! There is no consolation here!

She writes down more words but I don't pay attention. Instead I place my head in my hands and regret my life. Why couldn’t I have been given inexplicable knowledge of Japanese, or failing that, been sent to a dubbed universe.

“Aoki-san, are you ok?” No, I have been unwillingly incarnated with previous self-awareness.

“I wish to punch God.” Fuck. You. Anime! And Silver, too! it turns out I do hate Japanese!

“Oooooo kay. This is a catholic school, so I guess… that’s… fine?” And fuck whoever gave this school catechism, too.