Found Footage

Chapter 3

Chapter 3“—the recent mysterious deaths of a number of notable American scientists have been attributed to the actions of the Soviet Union. In a speech detailing these saddening losses, the United States’ Vice President, Georg—”

The girl standing before his desk pouted, her expression firm, hands on her hips.

“Yuusuke,” she said, drawing out his name, “doesn’t this thing play music?”

Across from the boy’s desk, Miki dropped her bag onto the hook on the side of her desk, and looked across at her classmates, Hidaka Yuusuke leaning back in his chair, the small, portable radio in his hands, a tinny faraway voice reporting news for locales so distant that Miki only had the vaguest impression of them from television programs and magazine articles.

“—not go unpunished, and we are working with a number of our allies to clarify exactly—”

Standing around his desk were a number of students, not least of all Hiramachi Momoka, her hands on her hips, the frustration evident upon her face. Looking up at her, a broad smile on his lips, Yuusuke shrugged, still waving the radio about.

“It’s not my fault what they play,” he proclaimed playfully, “after all, the news is the news.”

“It’s boring!” Momoka retorted.

Any minute now, she would stamp her foot, Miki thought, looking away from the unfolding scene. In any normal school, Momoka would be the class president; not an especially good one, but she was probably the president regardless.

“—believe that there is considerable evidence beyond the Kuiper belt of—”

She sighed, pulling out her chair, and slumping down into it. All that effort wasted in her attempts to make it before the bell rang and the teacher wasn’t even present yet. She glowered sourly, staring ahead at the blank blackboard, the ghostly echo of previous, dusty statements still faintly visible in chalk.

“—could cause unprecedented changes in the Earth’s environment—”

It took her a moment to realize her name was being called, and she turned sharply to see Yuusuke and the accompanying crowd about his desk looking expectantly in her direction, and for some strange reason, she noted the cassette tape that Momoka held in her hand, black plastic, a thin inlay, transparent case.

She frowned, regarding the other girl, her bobbed dark hair, her round face, and warm smile. Two, three months, they had known each other, and still she didn’t care for any of her fellow classmates here.

“What?”

Still smiling, Yuusuke righted his chair.

“I was asking what you would prefer, the news or some music?”

His smile was warm, his presence exuding friendliness, charm. She stared at him for a moment, failing to understand what it was that he wanted from her, feeling frustrated that she had been drawn into the conversation.

“I don’t care,” she said with sudden exasperation.

The abrupt sound of the door sliding open caught everyone’s attention, and in the mad scramble for their seats, Miki caught sight of the boy with the radio’s forlorn expression, and, once again, failed to understand what he wanted of her, turning her head not to find their usual teacher, Kitagawa-sensei, but instead a hunched figure in a trailing black coat with wild hair, and she realized in mild confusion that she could not tell if they were a man or a woman.

“—and in other news, a broadcast of—”

“Turn that off,” they commanded, snapping their fingers and pointing towards Yuusuke, and as they turned towards the class, Miki noticed that their right eye was hidden beneath gauze and surgical tape.

Yuusuke silenced the radio, sitting up straight in his chair, the entire class silent and expectant, all eyes focused on the figure before them, shrugging out of their coat, a pale complexion, snow white mixed in amongst the dark of their long hair. A foreigner, Miki thought with mild surprise, yet not like the warm, tanned Americans she would occasionally see in Shibuya or Shinjuku, but different, their presence feeling impossibly old.

With the coat upon their chair, they straightened up, regarding the class with what seemed to Miki like cool indifference.

“Your teacher has been taken ill,” they announced at last, their voice resonant, firm, and yet not exactly masculine. “I am his replacement in regards to your English language tuition.”

There was another long moment of silence in which the figure simply regarded them coldly from where they stood at the front of the class.

“My name is Jölfuðr,” they proclaimed with a certain amount of pride, their chest swelling.

Within the classroom, there was a sense of unease, earnest discomfort, as each of them tried to turn this word over in their heads, tried to make sense of it.

Sensing their confusion, they snatched up the chalk, scratching out characters in katakana upon the dry surface of the board, and turning back to them with pride.

“Chuu-foor?” Momoka murmured, loud enough to attract their teacher’s attention and dispel the look of pride on their face.

“Well,” they said, “perhaps we’re trying to run before we can walk, in which case, please call me Christmas.”

They turned again, scrubbing out the word, and writing down the more familiar English word in both kana and Greek letters, their hand scratchy and with long, accentuated strokes.

Again, they turned back to the class.

“Now that’s settled, I hope that we will get along well in the future. It is my intention to prepare you for the myriad ways in which you may wish to use English as adults, and to help you pass your impending college entrance exams in a few years’ time. You may have noticed that I have an unfamiliar accent, and you may be concerned that English is not my first language, yet worry not, I am what you might consider a patron of all languages, and, as such, expertly qualified to instruct you.”

Who was this person, Miki found herself thinking, all but shaking her head with disbelief; what kind of teacher blustered into a classroom like this and introduced themselves in such a way? Was this what her parents were paying money for, and if so, did they know there were such people as this in authority at Shin-Koenji International Preparatory School?

“I shan’t bother taking attendance as I assume you are all where you are supposed to be, and, if not, then you won’t be aware of my lack of interest in you anyhow. What I am concerned with, however, is your practical understanding of the language as it is spoken, and the capacity in which it is used to impart knowledge, to deliver wisdom, so you might say.”

They paused, smiling broadly as they regarded the class once more.

“To that end, let us begin.”