Mr. Shirahiro pioneered the elite Japanese teacher's standards of success in Tamahashi High School. His physics class in particular saw a major upheaval in its curriculum through his own suggestions. When asked how he managed to convince upper management to make a thorough overhaul of the course, he simply answered, "I guess I'm not the only one in the education system who's fond of the progressive culture of the United States and Europe." Many speculated that he was correct, and investigations were often directed to the principal. Indeed, perhaps the mix of Japanese and American ancestry in Principal Kani's family helped in his advancements, but whether or not it was true, the school had quickly gained a reputation for being "the most American school Japan had ever seen," and it wore that title proudly thanks to the excellent adaptability and independent nature of Shirahiro and Kani.
Mr. Shirahiro's physics class was special for another reason: by a mixture of intellectual attraction and pure luck, its conglomerate of students had the highest collective grade point average out of the entire school's courses. It only served knowledge to the best of the best this year.
Among them was a brown-haired girl with green eyes. A girl who thought she knew everything.
"Monika? Would you answer number three please?" Mr. Shirahiro asked.
He never calls on me, Monika thought. And I figured it was intentionally coded that way, so it could be used as a safety measure to ensure the school day classes are rendered irrelevant in the game's plot. Goes to show I should actually look at the code before drawing conclusions.
"Um, 9i plus 12 square root 2," Monika answered immediately.
The teacher smiled at her. "You answered that fast. Well done."
It's difficult for her to answer a question slowly when the answer is pre-rendered in her brain's personal calculator, but the praise still felt worth it.
"Liam, how about question four?" Mr. Shirahiro said.
"14i minus 6 square root 10," a boy apparently named Liam replied.
Mr. Shirahiro chuckled lightly. "We have quite the math whizzes today. You somehow managed to answer that faster than Monika answered hers. Good job."
I've never heard that name before, Monika mused. Was the game updated?
Physics class began to drag out unusually long according to Monika's standards. It made her wish she had a "skip" button like the player did.
She hadn't thought of the player in what seemed like months. It shocked her repeatedly every time she thought about it, realizing again and again that the person who once defined the line between her life and her reality now exists only as an afterthought from a bygone age. Someone who once blurred the line between love and longing reduced to a single word: "unachievable."
Someone she never planned on seeing again, because she deleted the MC. It was the answer to all her heartache, or most of it, anyway.
The fake reality she called home still tortured her on a daily basis—even more so than before the script disappeared, since the game now took eons longer to do anything, plus with substantially more background noise—and because she'd come to terms with the idea that it was the only one she'd ever see, the insanity which came bundled with the literature club presidency forced her to find ways to cope with it. Many methods were attempted: code in a bed with a pillow, then punch the pillow any day the anger needed to be let out. Soak up the rain from an artificially summoned storm. Float around in space, where the Noise wasn't so loud.
She hated to admit it to herself, but in truth, a tiny, suppressed part of her knew that her worst days consistently led her to resort to violent coping mechanisms. Did Natsuki and Yuri fight? Chop the trees. Did the Noise increase in volume? Burn the trees. Did the simulation take hours to load a single conversation? Explode the trees. Stupid trees.
Monika faintly heard the bell indicating the end of the school day behind the groan of the world's CPU. It brought a long-suppressed sigh of relief, as per new tradition. She quickly packed up her belongings and marched through the hallways, taking the time to prepare the happiest face she could muster as she eagerly navigated her way to the literature club. She weaved her way through the crowd of unnamed students calling out her name for recognition. She'd built up a tolerance for it, as it no longer worried her that ignoring all the pleas for attention would result in an unexpected event caused by one of the students. These crowds never amounted to anything.
At last, she reached the entrance to the literature club. With an exhausted sigh and a worn, brave face, the club president slid open the doors to the clubroom unintentionally forcefully.
"Hello, hello!" Monika greeted whoever was inside.
Sayori's voice answered back. "Hi, Monika! How was your day?"
Since only Sayori was in the room, Monika answered truthfully. "Slow. Very, very slow. Every minute was an hour."
Not realizing Monika was being entirely literal, Sayori chuckled first, then addressed her sympathy. "I'm sorry, Monika. It definitely feels like a long day. But hey, now you're here, so everything's okay!"
If only, Monika thought. "That's a nice way of putting it. How has your day been?"
"It went okay. Ms. Osoko gave us 30 minutes at the end of class to catch up on stuff!"
Monika sensed by Sayori's overly blissful, yet hardly relieved demeanor (which was made blatantly clear to her by the automatically generated description of Sayori's body language) that she hadn't used that time to finish the assignments that were undoubtedly overdue. Monika sadly smiled. "And what did you do with that time?"
"I um…I-I kinda doodled…" She did the iconic pose with her fingers nervously pressed together.
Monika walked up to Sayori and placed her hand comfortingly on her best friend's shoulder. "I'll come over tonight to help you through some of your assignments, okay?"
Sayori couldn't help but exhaust a contented tear at that statement. "I'd like that."
The two other members of the literature club walked into the clubroom at the same time. "And that's how you would survive a zombie apocalypse!" Natsuki proudly stated to Yuri.
"Oh, really?" Yuri retorted. "Aren't you forgetting about their overdeveloped sense of smell and hearing?"
"Eh?! No, of course not! Why would you say that?"
"What's a smoke bomb going to do against creatures that don't rely on sight?"
Natsuki fidgeted. "W-well, I…I obviously meant a smelly smoke bomb! It'd smell like something gross, like rotted flesh, or something!"
Yuri suppressed her grin the best she could. "If you say so, Natsuki."
"What's that supposed to mean?!"
"Okay, everyone!" Monika strategically interrupted. "Why don't we get started on today's activity? I picked a short and sweet book for our group reading today, so I hope that it will be satisfactory for all of—"
The clubroom door gently slid open as someone new stepped inside. "U-um, excuse me…is this the literature club?"