"Sohhy fwor veing wate!" Henry burst open the classroom door with a slice of white bread in his mouth.

"You're in luck, the teacher still hasn't arrived!" Riku informed his friend.

"Oh c'mon!" Henry spat out the slice. "The one time I remember to bring the bread! This is the only reason I bought it!"

"I will gladly eat it if you don't want it."

"You will eat the bread I spat on the ground?"

"Food is food."

"You must have really strong antibodies." He did not consider his friend's request seriously and just sat at his desk.

"Why is the teacher late?"

"Who knows? Maybe some bullies went to pick a fight with him but instead of fighting back or running he decided to deal with them in a more convoluted way and is now in the process of living through important life experiences with them."

"That is oddly specific, but I somehow doubt it. ...Since we're on the subject, what is the teacher's name? I missed it yesterday."

"I actually don't know. I usually just call him the teacher."

Opening just at the right time to stop a conversation that was going nowhere, a young adult woman entered the class.

"Alright everyone, sit down. The teacher has gotten a cold and won't be coming. I'm here in his place for today. Call me Tosou Yuuzai-sensei."

"The teacher has a cold? But it hasn't rained in weeks." Henry referenced a cliché.

He analyzed her look and attitude... but we are going to skip over his way to describe her in order to keep things civil.

The new teacher started with the roll call, using it also as a way to learn the students' names. But halfway through the second dozen names, she suddenly came to a halt. She had to do a double take, then her eyes widened and her eyebrows curved, then she took off her glasses, rubbed her eyes, put the glasses back, and got closer to the book, then she decided to take her glasses off again and wipe them with her shirt, put them back on again and squinted very hard at the page, then she picked up the book and slowly began to rotate it to the side together with her head. Then, after some seconds of silence, she finally said,

"I have no idea how to read this."

"Rohou Hikujitou!" Cried out a very embarrassed Rohou Hikujitou. "It says Rohou Hikujitou!"

"Really?!" The teacher answered incredulously, "I have never seen any of these kanjis before! I'm going to have to write this down or I'll forget. I'm going to skip the rest of the students since I'll only be here for today."

"And you only realized after calling two thirds of the class?!" Said the only person in the class who had the courage/audacity to speak to a teacher with such a tone, Henry.

"Let's just start the lesson. Now, I want to properly understand at what point you are with your studies, so let me begin with some questions. To begin with, can anyone tell me... what is the subject you're supposed to learn right now?"

The class mumbled for a second, unsure whether Tosou-sensei was being serious or not.

"Physics." Someone said.

"Physics! That is right. Of course. As you know, physics is the study of what is real, the science of matter! When a ball rolls down an incline, for example, that’s physics!"

Henry was as confused as the rest of the class, when Chiharu poked him in the arm.

“Mademoiselle?” He quickly replied.

“Don’t call me that.” She whispered. “Tell the teacher that we don’t need an explanation from the beginning!”

“Why me?”

“Can’t you see everyone wants you to?”

The rest of the class was mostly looking at the teacher, not paying any attention to Henry.

“...Hey,” He turned back to her, “Since you like so much to act as the ambassador, why don’t you tell her that?”

“Me?! I can’t do that!”

“And why should I?”

“You’re the most naïve— I mean! The most...... courageous?”

“I’m definitely not doing it now.”

“C’mon! If you do that, I promise that the next time I punch you I’ll hold back a little!”

“Is that your idea of paying back a favor?! Why don’t you let me choose what I get?" Henry smiled. "…Stop making a disgusted face!”

Chiharu’s face was indeed disgusted.

“You there!” The teacher had caught them bickering, "What's your name?" She pointed at Henry.

"...Henry Tailer." He stood up.

“Well then, Henry," She said with the best English pronunciation she could manage, "If you want to talk so much, why don’t you tell me the solution to this equation?”

Henry looked at the empty blackboard.

“…You weren’t talking about any equation…”

“I know, but I've always wanted to say that.” And to be fair, the teacher was definitely happy with herself.

“U-um actually, Tosou-sensei, we were saying that we maybe shouldn’t restart the subject from the beginning, but continue from where we left off with the teacher…”

“I know that!” Tosou-sensei said after a second of silence, “I mean, this isn’t your first lesson, right? …Right?”

“R-right!”

“Exactly! I simply thought that a bit of reviewing was in place. But if you’re so eager to continue, I guess we could skip ahead. Well then, what were you studying last time?”

Henry’s eyes widened. He had made a small miscalculation in his impulsive action he didn't calculate. He should have known that if he asked the teacher to teach a different argument, the teacher would ask about it. But as a matter of fact, he had no idea of what topic they were studying.

He slowly turned his eyes towards Chiharu, trying not to be noticed by the teacher but carrying the dread of the world in his face.

“Archimedes principle!” She whispered.

“Alchemy Pineapple!” He repeated.

“Not even close…” Chiharu said with her palm pressed upon her face.

The teacher looked at Henry with a pensive face.

“Alchemy pineapple… Alchemy pineapple… You there, with the weird name!”

“M-me??” Rohou stood up.

“What is alchemy pineapple?”

“Uh?! I- …Uhm… M-maybe it’s when you draw an alchemical symbol using pineapple juice? Haha…”

“Archimedes principle!” Chiharu cried out, unable to bear the situation any longer. “That is what Henry meant to say.”

“I did think the pineapple part sounded weird.” Admitted Tosou-sensei. “Can anyone tell me what the Archimedes principle is, then?”

“It’s a principle that describes the buoyant force,” surprisingly, at least for Henry, Hajime raised her hand and answered the question.

"Oh, is that what it is?"

“But we didn’t really go in depth in the last lesson, since we just started it…”

“Of course! Let me just… explain it to you…” Tosou-sensei sneakily pulled out her phone and researched the topic.

The lesson continued as the teacher(?) repeated what she read on her phone and copied drawings and equations from other people’s lessons she found online. In the moments she struggled most to understand, she stopped hiding her phone entirely.

Quickly, but never quickly enough, the lesson ended.

“That is the bell, meaning I have to go! Bye!” Tosou-sensei dashed out of the door. You could even hear her footsteps echo softer and softer through the hallway as she ran. The class was left in disbelief. To further their confusion, the teacher, their real homeroom teacher, entered the classroom.

“Alright, I’m here. I hope you didn’t make a ruckus in the past hour.” He said with his calm yet stern voice.

“Teacher? We thought you had a cold!” Henry told him.

"No? There was a sudden meeting with the principal that I had to attend. Who told you I was sick?"

"Tosou-sensei, the substitute."

"Substitute? We don't have any substitute. You should have had an hour of independent study...”

No one knew who Tosou-sensei was, or where she was. After some minutes of confusion and a small delay caused by the police's interrogations, lessons continued as normal, and the students safely reached the end of the day.