Apologies for being quite late! I ended up completely scrapping and rewriting the first half of this chapter because I wasn't satisfied with the original concept of the cooking challenge. I'm starting to realize why mangaka handwave long events like this as "imagine things are still happening".
"Good morning, students," Hitoshi called out, standing stiffly at the head of the room.
Takumi could feel Zenji trembling next to him. He winced at the boy's palpable anxiety but did his best to ignore it.
"Please, observe the provided sample before you." He gestured towards the counter in front of him as if he had his own serving. "Look at it, smell it, taste it. Try to learn everything about it. Then, spend the rest of the class time replicating it to the best of your ability." He claps twice almost primly. "You may begin whenever you are ready."
It's a polite, proper send-off, nothing like the gauntlets brashly thrown down by the rest of the alumni. Where the others of his time at Tōtsuki carved themselves into their memories with curses and threats and dishes of food brandished as if they were weapons, Sekimori Hitoshi had honed his restraint and mildness to just as fine a point. At the very least, Takumi had the feeling that it wouldn't blunt any of his criticisms.
Takumi glanced down at the food in front of him. He could tell he was at a disadvantage; the layered rice wrapped in seaweed was so clearly Japanese that all of his classmates probably knew the basic recipe for it. There was something crisp tucked between the two layers of rice, and one of the layers was soaked with a fragrant sauce. He gently prodded it and watched as the meat flaked with a light touch. Fish, then, or something so delicate and layered that it was like fish.
"Onigirazu," Zenji muttered beside him, loud enough for Takumi to hear but not in a way that could be heard over the rest of the class. "Let's start there. Three basic parts: rice, nori, filling. The filling is where this shines. Let's uncover that." He lifted his serving to his mouth and began to delicately nibble at it.
Takumi zoned him back out to take another look at his dish. He hadn't had an onigirazu before, though conceptually he knew what it was: square shaped onigiri, arranged almost like a sandwich with layers of rice and a filling. It felt almost obvious after hearing Zenji correctly identify it, but Takumi ignored whatever insecurity that wanted to install in him. There was definitely something interesting about the filling, as the other boy stated, and Takumi would get to that soon.
The rice bothered him.
There was some additional, slight scent that the onigirazu carried, something salty and umami that couldn't be from the fish alone. Takumi had dissected his serving, nibbling at its individual parts in an effort to figure it out. The fish, he decided, was aji furai, supported by the julienned cabbage soaking in sauce between the fry and the easy give of it when he bit into it. The sauce was a standard sauce that you would serve with a katsu, though it felt a bit milder since it was meant to complement fish rather than a heartier pork or chicken. Nothing had been done to the seaweed, which fought against his teeth with the same bounce as sushi nori.
And yet, that smell and taste persisted.
Takumi glanced at the clock. There was almost two hours left in the class period.
That was far too much time to make an aji furai onigirazu.
What could this mean? Takumi stared down at his picked-apart food, even as all of his classmates jumped into activity. This was a recipe that could be replicated, time and time again if the students had to. Hitoshi hadn't said anything to imply that they had one chance, the way Kojirō had. He hadn't given them a task made to throw them out of a comfort zone and into a situation that soft, inexperienced hands would have to improvise in, the way Hinako had. This could be considered a chef's skill, testing them similarly to how Fuyumi did, but being able to taste individual ingredients was less a kitchen-necessary skill and more a fun party trick, usually.
Takumi hadn't even started cooking before someone brought their attempt to Hitoshi.
"Chef Sekimori, a furai onigirazu," they said confidently, placing their tray in front of them and smirking arrogantly at the rest of the bustling room.
Hitoshi cut the offered onigirazu without any fanfare, examined the steaming rice and fish, and gave it a taste.
"Incorrect. Try again."
The student froze before whipping back around. "Didn't you give us a furai onigirazu?" they asked incredulously. "I swear, that's what I got."
"Perhaps I did." Hitoshi pushed the plate away dismissively. "Try again."
The student fumed for a second longer before snatching their plate back and stomping back to their station. Takumi thought he saw Hitoshi's expression go stony before it settled back into something more neutral.
More students delivered their servings of food, and all of them were sent back to their stations in either bafflement or anger. After the fifth failure, Takumi looked back at his station, barren of any cooking prep.
I should at least start on the rest of it, he realized, bustling off to grab all of the utensils and equipment he'd need. He was still bothered by the rice, and he began breading his fish while thinking about it.
Out of the corner of his eye, Takumi could see Zenji setting up three pots of rice to boil. Startled, he kept watching his dormmate as the boy poured in water and set them on high with a grimace.
Something floated on top of the water of each pot: curled, dry black fragments of something that were slowly unfurling in the steam.
Tea leaves. Takumi had heard about that before; some cultures, especially in Asia, made rice with tea to imbue the delicate flavor into something more solid. Usually, people used green tea, but it seemed like Zenji was making batches with various blends of looseleaf. He must have tasted the same out-of-place flavor that Takumi had and surmised it was some sort of tea rice. It could have accounted for an additional mellowness woven in the subtle flavors of the rice that had tripped Takumi up.
That's not right. Or rather, the entire conclusion wasn't right. There had been something steeped in the water prepared for this rice, but it wasn't tea, like Zenji suspected (and that did sting Takumi, to have realized both aspects of this recipe by practically looking over his dormmate's shoulder; he resolved to actually start researching and reading and analyzing more international recipes as soon as he got back to Tōtsuki). No tea was umami or salty in the way the mystery flavor was.
It's not tea. It's broth. A dashi, most likely, seeing as the rest of the flavors in the onigirazu were quintessentially Japanese.
Cooking rice in broth was nothing new to Takumi; it was the first step of preparing any risotto, and he'd made a lot of risottos in his time. Merely substituting broth for water when making rice, though? That would never have occurred to him.
He took another bite from the onigirazu, newly equipped with his insights, and it was almost laughable how obvious it all was now. A traditional Japanese meal, condensed into a single bite of rice and fried fish. Hardly anything that would be attributed to a master of his craft, to a Tōtsuki alum.
But that was after Takumi figured the recipe out, wasn't it? Hitoshi had pinpointed the exact elements that made a traditional meal like this comforting and almost nostalgic, and he'd taken those elements and twisted them into another somewhat nostalgic food item. It was a double layer of an experience, and it unfurled in Takumi like a pale dawn reaching out over a rural landscape.
With ninety minutes left to complete his task, Takumi set a pot to boil, the rest of his ingredients tied into a sachet and bobbing merrily on the surface of the water. More students walked up to Hitoshi to present their attempts, and all of them were sent back to their stations. Takumi wondered, for a brief second, if they were in fact held back by their expectations in a way he wasn't by virtue of not being from Japan and surrounded by these flavors for his whole life. He took care in preparing the rest of his onigirazu, and though it took a couple of attempts to neatly wrap the bundle properly, he finally produced something he was satisfied with.
The walk up to Hitoshi's counter was somehow more nerve-wracking than presenting a dish to any of the previous alumni. Maybe it was because Takumi had no other ideas of what he could do if he was rejected. Maybe it was because he couldn't read Hitoshi as well as his more bombastic counterparts. Whatever it was, Takumi couldn't help the creeping anxiety as Hitoshi carefully cut his presented onigirazu into two halves and took a bite.
He paused. He hadn't paused for anyone else.
Expression unchanging, Hitoshi gave Takumi a nod. "Good work. Please clean up your station. When you're done, you may either head back to the main Resort campus or quietly sit and wait for the period to end."
Takumi bowed, muttering his thanks, and quickly walked back to his station, shoulders finally relaxing in the wake of his success. He glanced at the clock; he had all of twenty minutes left, but he did feel tempted to head back early.
Zenji gave him a look of utter panic as he began to pack up. Takumi had somehow been the only one to be dismissed by Hitoshi for succeeding thus far, and the spectacled boy seemed two breaths away from passing out from an anxiety attack. As Takumi cleaned up his station, he paused for a second before taking an entirely unnecessary step and cutting his sachet of ingredients open, dumping what were clearly the ingredients in preparing a dashi into a compost bin on his counter. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Zenji freeze beside him before he hurried off to grab another pot, newly fired up after seeing what Takumi had figured out.
I guess we're somewhat even now, Takumi thought to himself. He was surprised how comforted he was by the thought.
By the time the time period ended, only Takumi, Zenji, and one other student, a broad-shouldered boy who slumped back to his seat, had figured out the dashi rice and submitted something Hitoshi approved of. The rest of the class began to dejectedly clean up their attempts, mumbling about how to contact their parents in regards to their impending expulsion.
"Students, make your way back to the main Resort campus as soon as you can. There's an announcement at the ballroom."
There was a pause. "Chef," one student said hesitantly. "We weren't able to complete your task."
"You weren't," he agreed.
"So why would we be reporting back to the ballroom then?" another ventured. "If we failed in completing your task, wouldn't we be expelled?"
"At what point did I say you'd be expelled for failing?" Hitoshi said. "Not everything in this Camp is about your continued existence in the school. I wanted to find students who could excel at my particular challenge. That doesn't mean you wouldn't excel at others."
The celebration and excitement that burst out among Takumi's classmates didn't distract him from the calculating, disapproving gleam that entered Hitoshi's gaze. When he noticed the boy looking, he merely nodded to him and turned to leave the room.
That's not mercy, Takumi though. That's still rejection, even if there's no material consequence on you. He had the feeling that every single student celebrating their incompleted failures and merciful teacher would be placed firmly in the audience of the Election that his dormmates had discussed rather than fighting it out on the arena floor.
The students were all ushered into the grand ballroom upon reentering after their morning classes.
"I can't believe we're back here again," Yūki said, disappointedly. "I really wanted to find the actual kitchens of this place and ask a chef if they knew anything about preparing wild boar."
Shun froze. "And why on earth would you need to learn how to prepare wild boar, Yoshino-chan?"
She beamed and showed them all a picture of a striped piglet on her phone. "I'm going to call her Ino-cchi!" She said gleefully.
As the rest of Polar Star began to earnestly attempt to dissuade Yūki from bringing her latest acquisition to the dorm, Sōmei and Ikumi crowded by Takumi. "Who're those kids?" Ikumi hissed, gesturing towards the other side of the ballroom.
Takumi blinked before looking over. A crowd of students in unfamiliar uniforms were milling about, some whispering and glancing over at them. There was something… loud about the way they interacted with each other. They all stood with their shoulders squared, as if perfect posture had been forced into them every waking second of the day. Even as Takumi watched, one of the girls looked over at the group of Tōtsuki students before turning away with her chin up and an audible Hmph! that some of the other students around her echoed.
"They seem like a charming group," Sōmei deadpanned.
"I'll say," Ikumi snorted.
Any final conversation was hushed when Kojirō stepped onto the stage with a microphone. "Students, thank you for joining us. Up until now, both of your schools have been conducting Training Camps for you all separately on the Resort's campus. You've now been brought together for one of our final largescale challenges: the restaurant dinner rush."
An unfamiliar woman with long, light pink hair took over for Kojirō then. "Koume High School of Hospitality, we'd like you to meet the students of Tōtsuki Tea Ceremony and Cooking Academy! As you have dedicated your lives to excelling in delivering an experience to guests and clients alike, they are studying to devote their lives to food and cooking. In the professional setting, cooking and hospitality go hand in hand, and it will come as no surprise to you that Tōtsuki has been a longtime partner with our own illustrious school." She beamed.
"For this challenge, groups of Tōtsuki students will be teamed with groups of Koume students to take over Tōtsuki Resort's dinner rush," Kojirō said. "You will be placed in direct competition with other groups and be tasked with coming up with a strategy for serving as many customers as you can in a three-hour time limit. A successful restaurant should be able to serve at least two hundred customers in that time. Tōtsuki students who aren't able to make that number will be expelled for their failure; I leave the fates of the Koume students up to their own instructors."
The woman clasped her hands. "Now, we at Koume know that not all of our students have their sights set on restaurant work, but it's a large sector of the hospitality field, and we therefore have high expectations for all of you! Anyone part of a group who does not succeed will have to undergo remedial training during the upcoming summer break. Not quite as stark of a punishment as your counterparts, but as you all will be hearing back from your summer internship opportunities soon, it would be a shame to have to give up the chance to work in the field, wouldn't it?"
Kojirō clapped loudly, and a projector sputtered to life, beaming a long list of names on the wall at the back of the ballroom. "Your groups have been preassigned based on our observations and set up for success as much as we can. Please spend the rest of the afternoon break strategizing. The dinner rush will begin at seven this evening, but you must have your restaurants set up and menus submitted by six to have signs fabricated and prepared in time for you. You may start as soon as you're ready."
Takumi hurried to the back of the room along with all of the other students in the room, which led to far too much jostling and elbows thrown at his side. The Tōtsuki students had been split into groups of five and each of those grouped up with three students from the other school. In the end, his group found him before he could find his name on the list.
Akira gave him half of a grin as he pulled Takumi out of the mass of students. "Fancy seeing you here, Aldini-san," he said.
"Come here often?" Takumi muttered back, smirking when Akira held back a snort. "Who else are we with?"
When the other boy grimaced, Takumi felt his heart sink. "Yoshino-san is with us. I can't imagine you've met the other two, but I guess you will now."
Takumi wondered why Kojirō would have matched the two of them with someone who Akira so clearly disdained but held his tongue as he followed the other boy.
They arrived at a shouting match between one of the Koume girls and a boy wearing the Tōtsuki uniform. Yūki was egging the argument on while the other Tōtsuki student seemed enthralled and the other two Koume students just appeared embarrassed.
"Mimasaka-san, can you please stop antagonizing our servers?" Akira asked in a deadpan.
The girl from Tōtsuki giggled at him. "Don't be such a wet rag, Hayama-san," she said. "Let Mimasaka-san amuse himself. He's not going to have any culinary insight for us, anyhow."
Akira rolled his eyes. "I'm surrounded by imbeciles."
Takumi glared at him. "Hey."
"Mostly surrounded. Happy?"
Takumi ignored him, turning to the Koume students. "So, what are your names?"
"I'm Kagamine Rinaka," one girl offered before pointing at the boy beside her. "That's my twin, Kagamine Rento. The girl arguing with your classmate is Kawashima Urara, our class president."
Takumi blinked. "I think she commentated my Shokugeki."
"That sounds about right. It's 'good work experience', or so she claims," Rinaka said with a sage nod.
"Hayama Akira," Akira said, pointing to himself. "Aldini Takumi. Sadatsuka Nao. Mimasaka Subaru's the asshole who can't let go of whatever they're arguing about."
"Let them argue," Rento said, waving a hand dismissively. "It's not like Kawashima-chan doesn't know what he's doing." Nao snickered at that.
"So, your school trains you in hospitality?" Takumi asked. "That's a focus on hotel management, right?"
"Close!" Rinaka held a finger up. "Koume's title is a bit of a misnomer. We're trained in a variety of service areas which include hotel and restaurant management, but the big thing that the school focuses on is the guest experience. What can one person do to make everyone as happy as possible in as little time? That's why Rento and I go there."
Rento nodded. "Rinaka and I are going to be performers, one day," he said proudly. "To be the best performer, you have to know how to serve your audience. That's why we're going there."
"And your classmate?" Takumi glanced back at the argument. "Does Kawashima-san want to be an idol as well?"
"She claims she does," Rinaka said with a sigh. "But really, her interest is in being a TV show host. Her big interest is food shows; she's pioneering a program between Tōtsuki and Koume so that she has the basic cooking knowledge to be able to keep up with celebrity chefs while also learning how to best coexist beside them and bring out the best in them on screen. Or so she says." She frowned at the argument. "Okay, you two! We're supposed to have a successful business running in three hours, which might seem like a lot of time, but I want a break to grab a sandwich at some point."
"Of course, Kagamine-chan!" Urara's bubbly tone clashed horribly with the dark glare she had fixed on Subaru. "I earned my place at the top of my class with my dedication to my work and my ability to forge my own path! Our restaurant is going to be the most successful by far, as soon as this oaf realizes that I'm more than a pretty face that he's only sharing classes with for a year!"
Subaru sneered at her. "Keep squeaking, you annoying cat," he said.
Urara's face turned red, but before she could say anything further, Rento gently tugged her back. "Don't worry about that oaf," he said. "We just have to work with him for this activity, and once it's wrapped we can move on. Sakine-sensei has trained us on opposing personalities in the workplace; this is just an application of that!"
"Yeah! You're right, Kagamine-kun!" Urara suddenly brightened. "Okay, Koume reps! Let's show this activity what-for and show what it means to be a student of hospitality!"
"Helping the world, one person at a time!" The three of them recited with the exact same cadence and rhythm. "Koume High, at your service!" They fell into what looked like a practiced pose, with Urara twisting to look over her shoulder at the Tōtsuki students and Rinaka and Rento curtseying and bowing at both of her sides as if to mimic a maid and butler respectively. They held their formation as Takumi, Akira, Yūki, Subaru, and Nao stared at them.
"I need an ibuprofen," Akira muttered under his breath.
Almost as soon as the two groups of students made up for Subaru's comments about Urara, they were at each other's throats again. This time their arguments had devolved for two major reasons: Urara was pushing for a restaurant experience where she and the Kagamine twins would dress up as idols to serve their patrons and glaring at Akira this time for nixing it without any explanation and Nao was sulking in the corner because everyone refused to let her come up with a menu item on her own.
"This is a joke," Subaru scoffed. "It's been an hour and we haven't figured out jack."
Takumi rubbed his eyes. "Sadatsuka-san, stop pouting and come over here," he said tiredly. "Hayama-san can fight that girl as much as he wants; let's figure out a menu that the three of us can make and let him tweak it when he's done over there."
The girl glared at him from behind her long bangs. "Well, you don't want my natto noodles or my durian-anchovy fritters, so what's even the point?" she muttered.
"It's less that we don't like them and more that Hayama-san would faint the second you took any of that stuff out," Subaru snickered.
"Surely, we can figure out a three-course meal that all four of us are happy making," Takumi said. "My style relies on Italian technique, Yoshino-san has all of her game animals and meats, Sadatsuka-san cooks with smellier foods—"
"Technically, my cooking style of preference is boiling things in a big pot," she cut in with a wide grin and hunched shoulders. "My philosophy is that more fragrant foods are more flavorful and enjoyable than those crumbs of nothing that so-called high-end chefs serve. The stink of my dishes fills those who eat it with both disgust and delight, a perfect cocktail of sensation that leaves all others wailing in their mildly flavored graves!"
"...right. Thank you, Sadatsuka-san." Takumi turned to Subaru. "What about you?"
"What about me?" he shot back testily.
"Don't you have a cooking style you prefer?"
Subaru stared at him before scoffing and turning away. "Don't worry about me, Aldini. I can keep up with whatever you all decide to do."
"It's nice that you can keep up," Takumi tried, "but it would also be good if you enjoyed making what we might serve—"
He was cut off again, this time by Subaru. "I don't need you to cater to me," he sneered. "I'll do whatever you guys want. Just write your stupid menu and demonstrate for me once."
"Absolutely not, Mimasaka-san." Nao's voice shifted from the somewhat ghoulish affectation that Takumi could tell was purposeful to a more snappy tone. "You're one-hundred-percent not allowed to watch me cook. I'll do all of the cooking asked of my skill set without your help."
Subaru held his hands up in faux surrender. "What about you, Aldini-san?" he asked. "Are you going to be as bratty as the witch over there?"
Takumi was saved from answering when Akira turned back to them, triumphant in convincing Urara that her idol-run restaurant concept wouldn't find any success among Tōtsuki's clientele (though by the gleam in her eye, Takumi had the feeling that whatever concession Akira had made was exactly what Urara wanted in the first place). "What's happening over here?" he asked tiredly. "Have you come any closer to coming up with a menu concept?"
"Closer in that we've been talking about our strengths and specific styles, but that's about it," Takumi said. Akira's eyes flickered toward Subaru when he mentioned 'strengths'. Takumi had the feeling he was missing something rather important.
"I see." Akira's expression gave nothing away. "Why don't we determine the kind of menu expected at an experience like the one we have to create and go from there?"
"Does that mean tasting menus?" Nao said, sounding sulky once again. "Those have such small flavors…"
"We could offer a standard Western three-course meal," Takumi said. "Sadatsuka-san, you could come up with some sort of appetizer-soup if you want to use your boiling expertise so badly."
Nao perked up almost immediately. "Yes," she hissed out. "Let me show you the power of my brews, the brews that will ensnare all those who get even a slight whiff of their overpowering stenches!"
As Nao whispered lists of horrifying sounding ingredients to herself, visibly growing more and more excited as she brainstormed, Takumi turned to Yūki. "Why did everyone gang up on Mimasaka-san like that?" he asked her as quietly as he could, eyes darting to both sides to keep an eye on the other students.
Yūki also looked around conspiratorially. "Well," she said in what was almost a stage whisper, "he's not a really imaginative chef, you see? Mimasaka-san has never presented a dish that seems to come from his own experiences or work. Instead, he just challenges people to Shokugekis, somehow finds out exactly what they're going to make and how, and beats them with their own recipes. Apparently, he's so good at mimicking others' cooking because he spends days studying everything about them— to the point that he can fully replicate their skills without learning or practicing them himself."
Takumi stared at Subaru, who had gone back to needling Nao about helping her prepare her dish and snickering at her resulting outrage. "So, when he offered to cook everyone's menus for them…?"
"Sadatsuka-san assumed he just wanted to learn how to cook like all of us so he can beat us in a future Shokugeki, yes," Yūki confirmed. "And honestly? That probably is why he offered in the first place. No one really knows why Mimasaka-san doesn't try to stand out as a unique chef; his known skills have always just been focused on reworking recipes." She winced. "I sort of feel the same way as she does, honestly. Why should he benefit from the knowledge that I spent years devoting myself to, y'know?"
Takumi pondered his classmate for a second longer before sighing. "Well, we don't have enough time to get pissy about trade secrets," he admitted. "We should just find dishes that we know well enough to be impressive but aren't interesting enough to us to really want to elevate. Then, if he does stalk us to learn the specific techniques, we won't be giving up too much."
Yūki bit her cheek before sighing. "That makes sense. It probably makes the most sense to." She dusted her shirt off before walking back to their group. "I'm going to see if Kawashima-san has ideas about the restaurant design and see if Hayama-san throws a fit over that too. It's sort of fun to needle him about inconsequential things."
"Have fun, Yoshino-chan."
After more wrangling, the group of students managed to settle on a menu together. Nao had created some sort of Japanese-Nigerian fusion dish that tasted like miso soup but with the texture of ogbono soup. It resulted in something that refreshed the palate shockingly well, clinging with flavor that washed out to prepare the guest eating for the rest of the meal. Akira and Yūki had taken over the main course, coming together to create a venison gyro with a specially created spice blend that had more aromatics than Takumi really wanted to keep track of.
That left Takumi to work with Subaru on a dessert.
"What kind of dessert do you think would go with everyone else's courses?" he asked the other boy.
Subaru gave him a bewildered look. "I don't know," he grunted. "Maybe something acidic. Might want to make something that makes people want to leave and not go to any other restaurant after our meal. The main course doesn't feel filling enough to achieve that, so maybe something richer." He seemed strangely uncomfortable pitching food concepts.
"That makes sense," Takumi said as encouragingly as he could. "Something like an ice cream or a semifreddo?"
"Those would take too long to make," Subaru pointed out, "though a sorbet sounds like something that fancy restaurants in the West would end a meal with. Maybe we should add a non-dessert, final sorbet at the end of our meal."
"And we could definitely choose stronger, richer flavors for that as well," Takumi pointed out. "A mint instead of a lemon or something, especially if our dessert is going to be more acidic in nature."
"Mint would also make people feel like they're done eating for the day," Subaru said, and his tone had slowly started shifting towards a guarded but excited one. "Most people use a mint toothpaste when brushing their teeth at night. Maybe if we leave guests with a final minty taste, they won't be interested in visiting another restaurant."
"That makes sense," Takumi said. "What should we do for our actual dessert then?"
Subaru hesitated. "You're good at Italian food, right? Isn't there some sort of filled pastry in that culture?"
"Do you mean bomboloni?" Takumi thought about it. "That could work. They're cream-filled doughnuts, but it's easy enough to make a citrus cream and pair it with a dark chocolate topping. I think we can make it taste light without it actually feeling light, if that makes sense."
"That sounds perfect." Subaru hesitated. "Would you mind showing me how to make it?"
Yūki's words echoed back to Takumi for a second, her explanation as to why everyone in their group seemed strangely distant to or outright hostile towards Subaru. He understood their perspective almost too easily: the concept of anyone stealing his cooking secrets made a cold claw run up his neck, and he almost instinctively snapped a denial and turned away from him.
He didn't do that. Instead, Takumi nodded. "It's not too hard," he said, "but we'll have to figure out a flavor balance that goes along with whatever the others are doing."
Subaru nodded stiffly. "Lead the way, Aldini-san."
Koume High isn't from another existing property; I used a 'Japanese high school name generator' made for visual novel developers to get its name. The extra students and faculty are based on Vocaloids because, to be frank, I can't be bothered to come up with fresh OCs. Koume will make more appearances as the series goes on, but more as occasional cameos than anything.
There are around 3-4 more chapters left in this arc; I'll be taking another two-week break after it wraps up to work on the next arc, as well as some other stories that have been bugging me recently. I'll also start crossposting this story on AO3 when that arc starts, so if you're happier tracking fics there, you're in luck. Thank you for reading!
