JIROU
"Alright listeners!" Present Mic shouted at the students assembled before him. "Are you ready to rock?"
Bakugou gave his drumsticks a twirl while glaring at Izuku, and despite his nervous posture, Koda's fingers danced along the strings of his electric bass, but aside from those two, the assembled students, awkwardly carrying the instruments Present Mic had dumped on them, decidedly looked unready to rock.
"Why am I the one conducting?" Jirou asked, trying to shrink in on herself under the collective gaze of her nineteen classmates.
"You're the one with the best ears for music! Literally! So, take it away, and we can get the Mic Show Student Special Surprise rolling!"
"Your attempts to capitalize on my punk sensibilities offends every fiber of my being," Jirou said flatly.
"I'll buy pizza afterwards." At Jirou's continued skepticism, Present Mic added hesitantly, "Vegan… sustainable pizza?"
"You heard the man!" Jirou barked. "Places people, get your instruments tuned and turn to page seven."
Izuku held his hand up. Jirou sighed and said, "Yes, what is it?"
"I was unable to find an online tutorial for tuning my instrument. Could you please provide reference material?"
"Sure, show me what you got."
Izuku held up his instrument. Jirou stared at it for a long moment before asking, "Izuku, what is that?"
"A jar of mayonnaise."
"Mayonnaise is not an instrument."
"Online reference material demonstrates that mayonnaise is classified as a musical instrument."
"Midoriya. You stand in the halls of modern musical entertainment, built by heroes of their time like Bob Marley, John Lennon, and Eminem, and to this pantheon of human expression, you bring a jar of mayonnaise."
"Should I have brought two?"
"Izuku, you can't play a jar of mayonnaise."
"Do you require a demonstration?"
"A demon- fine, whatever."
Izuku twisted the cap off the jar, starting his song with the firm, wet pop of a broken vacuum seal. One hand tapped the top of the lid and ran a fingernail along the side, creating a popping beat with sizzling punctuation, while the other hand dumped a dollop of mayonnaise on the floor, to add wet staccato plops to the party. Within seconds, half the class bobbed along to Izuku's symphony in mayonnaise.
Prodded on my Present Mic, Koda added a bass riff to the party, playing softly so he didn't overwhelm the condiment. Bakugou, on the other hand, slapped his drums as loudly as possible, trying to drown out the mayonnaise and end the robot's ploy to brainwash people with mayo music, but no matter how hard he pounded, he couldn't erase the sound of wet plopping mayo.
Once Izuku finished his demonstration, Jirou pinched her forehead. "Fine, I'll admit, that was pretty rockin'. But, please, I'm begging you, pick a different instrument."
"Understood."
Izuku swallowed the jar of mayonnaise in one bite. He left, and came back in with a gnarled, pungent root. Holes were carved along its length in a crude imitation of a piccolo.
"Horseradish isn't an instrument either!"
499
In honor of that one YouTube video that proved once and for all that mayonnaise is indeed an instrument.
Also, how the heck did I miss that this story's a year old? Where the heck did that year go?