Chapter Text
Across the centuries, alcohol has always been prevalent in most cultures. In China and Japan, there is fermented rice drinks; In India, there is the Sura; The Mayans had Balche; and Rome has always had wine. Most of the civilizations that have existed, if not all, have found a way to get alcohol in their society. It is almost secondary to bread.
History has shown us time and time again that alcohol is almost like a basic need for any and all societies. And, with the flow of time, many new ways to make alcoholic drinks have come to exist. Old methods were perfected, new methods were engineered, and not just the creation but also the way of consumption was altered. From a simple beer in a mug to special concoctions in glass containers set on fire, we humans are always on the lookout for a new way to consume alcohol.
It's no surprise that in this day and age, there is a plethora of different ways to drink. There are many kinds of alcohol now, be it from a potato or from rice, from grapes to agave, even from some fruits.
And well, we all have our poison. Whenever we go out with the intent and purpose of getting drunk, we all have our preferred drink to get to that point. But some drinks hit harder than others, some are sweet, some are bitter, some are rich and some are plain…
“But what if you are missing out on something that will knock your socks off?”
“Why do you think Sayori wants to get drunk all of the sudden?” I put down on the shopping cart a pair of bottles, one of coffee liqueur and the other of ginger beer, and I see Yuri passing her pen over the small piece of paper, making sure to strike through those two items in the list. “Like, she doesn’t want to go to a club or to a bar. She just wants to get drunk at home.”
“Well, after thinking about it for a little while, remembering that we just came out of a rut where the house was divided into pairs, she probably just wants to do something to get us to mingle wholeheartedly once again, even if it is under the influence.” Yuri follows me as I push the cart away from the alcohol alley and we stroll further to continue with the shopping.
“Yeah, I know that.” Sayori isn’t on the wrong for wanting to get closer to us and to get us to get closer to her and Monika. “But I meant ‘why getting drunk’ specifically. Like… Out of all the things we could do, why drink?”
“Oh…” Yuri thinks as we take a turn on the cereal’s alley, going through to find the cereal Monika asked us to get. No gluten corn flakes, huh… “Because it is something that we have never done before the way she wants to do it?”
“Kinda… I dunno.” I put Monika’s cereal in the cart and continue through the hall. “It just seems strange wanting to get you and your friends drunk just like that. No party, no outings, no clubbing, nothing…”
“Do you think Sayori has an ulterior move behind the simple façade of ‘getting drunk together’?”
“… A bit…”
“… Well, in that case, we will have to make sure that her hands stay on Monika instead of either of us.” I stop in my tracks once I found the box, but then ask Yuri to grab it for me as it was on the highest shelf.
“Oh, definitely. We don’t want a handsy Sayoyo on us.” Yuri doesn’t even have to stand on the tips of her toes to get the box, which she promptly places down on the cart. “Thanks.”
“I agree. Even if she isn’t drunk, Sayori will take any chance to get handsy with anyone.”
“Yeah, remember when she wanted to scrub YOU down when we went to a sauna?”
Yuri cringes to the memory and a blush finds its way up to her face.
“I-I… I remember way too clearly…”
“And then Monika got mad at her, not for fondling you, but for fondling you the way Sayori fondles HER.
“L-Let’s move on, please!” Yuri walks to the further edge of the cart and grabs it, pulling me with it as she walks hurriedly from the alley. “I am glad that Sayori has t-the skill to please Monika in such ways, but I don’t need to remember it right now.”
I giggle to Yuri’s reaction, but I quickly stop myself from teasing her any further as to not shame her in a public space like this.
“Well, if you don’t want Sayori to do that, maybe I-”
A-A-A-And I stop myself before I could finish my fucking sentence.
F-Fuck! T-That did NOT just happen!
Ugh…! D-Did she hear me?
“Maybe you what?”
F-Fuck, she did.
“N-Nothing!” I hide my face from Yuri’s, who had t-turned around to see me, as I fake interest in the… T-The fucking cereal bars beside me. “J-Just ignore me, p-please.”
Yuri doesn’t answer, and I really do my best to avoid seeing her face, but once enough time passes, I turn slowly to check if she isn’t looking back at my anymore…
A-And… H-Her ears are beet red…
…
Ugh…
F-Fuck, when will this… This awkward phase between us end…?
Natsuki and I quickly completed the shopping list for today, having used our fabric bags to load up our shopping into the car, and went back to our apartment by sundown, the perfect time for our night activities to start. When we arrived, Monika and Sayori eagerly helped us to carry the shopping inside, which was an excuse for Sayori to ogle into the bags to try and find the alcohol we had bought.
Her enthusiasm and excitement propagated into the other girls, all of us finding ourselves becoming more and more excited with every passing moment, eager to share our favourite drinks with the other girls.
And once all of our regular shopping items were placed into their respective spots, we all put the newly-acquired bottles of alcohol on the dining table, with each of us sitting behind the special bottles and the ingredients for each of our respective favourite drinks that we would be sharing tonight.
In the middle of the table, we put down a full set of cocktail-making tools, one glass for each of us, a bucket of ice, and the bottles and ingredients that repeated themselves across our chosen drinks, like vodka, whiskey and bourbon.
“Alright, everyone!” Monika starts tonight’s club activity with the tone she has been using ever since the beginning of the Literature Club. “Tonight, as per Sayori’s request, we will be sharing our favourite drinks.”
The rest of the girls, including me, celebrate Monika’s introduction speech, with Sayori and Natsuki clapping and cheering while I simply clapped.
“Our first order of business is to review how the night is gonna go.” Monika then reaches forward to her chosen alcohol, a bottle of Kahlúa, and pulls it in closer towards her. “First off, we will randomly select who starts and then we go counter-clockwise around the table. Whomever is sharing will prepare one glass for each of us, tell us the name of the drink as well how they discovered the drink. We all have chosen two drinks, so we will go around the table twice. Any questions?”
Sayori mutters a ‘no’ as she shakes her head, the same way Natsuki and I do.
“Alright then! Following tradition, the person that suggested today’s event won’t go first, so it’s between me and you two.” Monika points at herself, me and Natsuki. Once we both nod to her, Monika closes her hand into a fist as we raise our own close to Monika’s the same way we had done thousands of times since high school, as per club tradition to see who goes first.
“Rock, Paper, Scissors, Shoot!”
Monika throws Paper while Natsuki and I throw Scissors.
“Hah! You lesbians!” Sayori laughs from beside Monika as Natsuki ‘snips’ her fingers off while I just feel a blush creep on my face.
“Shut up, you gay mess.” Natsuki says to her, blushing as well as she turns to face me with her fist closed. I turn to her as well, and we play again.
“Rock, Paper, Scissors, Shoot!”
And this time, I threw Rock, thinking that she would play Scissors again, but instead she threw Paper, to which she covered my fist up and smiled proudly.
“Well then, Natsuki goes first, then Yuri, then me, and finally Sayori.”
“Boo! Why am I last?” Sayori complains as Natsuki draws some of the bottles, our glasses and the tools to make a cocktail closer to her, preparing the first drink of the night. “I was the one that came up with this thing!”
“Sorry, sweetie.” Monika pats Sayori’s head, whom had decided to lay it on the table. “But you’re the one who is gonna finish it off. That should count for something.”
“That is IF we make it to the last drink.” She interjects, now sliding her arms beneath her head to rest upon them.
“Oh, don’t be a baby.” Natsuki says as she opens up a bottle of sparkling water. “Besides, this shit ain’t even that hard, so I doubt we will start feeling dizzy until halfway through the second round.”
“Unless we get seconds.” I interject, looking closely at her as she fills up the cocktail jigger with the right amount of sparkling water before pouring it in the glasses. “What are you making for us, cupcake?”
“I’ll tell you in a sec, first I gotta finish.”
“I already know what that is.”
“No spoilers, Monika!” To this, Monika zips her mouth closed with her fingers going across her lips.
“What is she making?”
Monika shrugs and says ‘I don’t know’ from behind her closed lips, coming out as a muffled couple of sounds.
“You say that you know what Natsuki is making, but you couldn’t be more obvious.” I say while pointing at the bottle in Monika’s hands. “And since you asked for heavy cream on the shopping list, I already know what you are gonna make.”
“Hey, you can use this for many things!” Monika shakes the bottle slightly as to emphasize her words. “Put this in your coffee and you have a fun drink.”
“Hah! Spiking coffee does sound like a very you thing to do.” Natsuki says, finishing off the last of the glasses in front of her with some whisky. “But your coffee blend is very good by itself as well.”
“You can spike tea too!” Sayori lifts herself up from the table. “One time when we were watching movies, Yuri made some green tea and put whisky on it.”
“I did that for the flavour, not to get drunk.” I say to Sayori, remembering that night rather clearly, but not the movie. “If you simply add whisky to a drink, that’s called a Highball.”
“Speaking of highballs, here are my balls.” Natsuki says to us and gives each of us a glass, sliding them over the table until we all have one. “Okay!” She sits straight up as we all take the cocktail in our hands.
“To start off, I made a simple Mizuwari Highball, which is just sparkling water and this fancy whisky.” The chosen bottle was, like us, one of Japanese origin, which she chose after looking for the least expensive bottle of whisky out of the most acceptable ones. “I discovered this drink during my time in my first job because a co-worker invited me for a drink. I agreed because he said that he just needed someone to vent to, but after the first glass, he started to get uncomfortably close to me, so I called Yuri to rescue me. After that, the guy stopped talking to me completely, but at least I discovered a nice and simple drink.”
The ones listening to Natsuki’s story focused on her words and how her face changed from a simple frown to the memory, to a nonchalant smirk at the end, really not caring about having lost a probable friend on her previous job.
“Damn, what a dick.” Says Monika. “Inviting you for a drink only to try and get you drunk?”
“That’s what I thought at first.” Natsuki replies as she takes her glass and lifts it up towards the centre of the table. “But well, fuck that guy.”
“Oh, oh!” Sayori excitedly lifts her own glass and leads it closer to Natsuki’s. “To that guy getting fucked!”
“To that guy fucking off!” Monika joins in, and I quickly do too.
“To Natsuki dodging a bullet!” I join the cheer aloud, making the group giggle to our synchronized thoughts and our glasses meet with a high-pitched clink, and we all take our drinks to our lips and we each down our drinks in different ways.
Monika gives her drink a kiss, just tasting it for a couple of seconds first before giving her glass a proper sip. Sayori skips the kiss and gives her glass a deeper swig, which immediately causes her body to cringe and her face to tighten up for a moment. Natsuki takes a slow swig, enjoying momentarily the watered-down taste of the whisky with every swallow.
And I first take a moment to enjoy the gust of popping bubbles on my nose, tinged with the bitter smell of the alcohol, before allowing myself a sip of the drink, first letting its subdued, interestingly sweet taste to marinate my tongue, letting the bubbles tickle the inside of my mouth before swallowing the alcohol that barely burned through my throat. Guess Natsuki added more than enough sparkling water as to properly tame the alcohol, leaving only its bitter taste behind every swallow.
“Gyah! Too gassy!” Says Sayori as she holds in a belch with her hand over her mouth, letting the gas out through her nose right after.
“Me when taco bell.” Jokes Natsuki, causing Monika to snicker with her.
“It came out of my nooooseeee!” Sayori complains as she puts down the glass and reaches to the centre of the table for a napkin.
“That’s what she said!”
“That’s what happens when you down mineral water.” Monika teases Sayori, who was softly blowing her nose on the napkin.
“It’s not mineral, its sparkling.”
“Eh, to-may-to, to-mah-to.”
“Actually no, there is a difference to both kinds of water.”
“Is there?”
“Yes. Mineral water has, as the name implies, minerals that the body needs, while sparkling water doesn’t have as many or maybe even any at all.”
“What about spring water?”
“… I-I believe that’s where my bubbly water knowledge ends.”
“Well, it comes from a spring, duh!”
“The season or the body of water, eh?” Monika’s sarcastic comment makes Natsuki snicker.
“What if someone takes spring water during spring, huh? Would that make it ‘springed spring water’?” And now, Natsuki’s joke makes the entire table giggle to the concept. We look around the table as the joke dies off, and we all keep taking sips of our glasses before Monika breaks the silence.
“So how is your work at the café compared to the bakery you used to work before, Natsuki?”
“Oh, it’s wonderful. A million times better.” She says and she leans forward towards Monika. “The bakery was just so fucking mechanical and cold and dead, while the café has a beating heart, y’know? It’s just warmer and better and… More fun… Funner?” Natsuki turns to me. “Is that a word?”
“Funner?” She nods. “… As in ‘big, bigger’, ‘small, smaller’, ‘fun, funner’?” She nods again. “… I… Don’t see why it wouldn’t be a word.”
“I dunno, it just feels weird.”
“All words feel weird when you don’t know them.” Says Sayori, puffing her chest right after as if to show us her superiority. “Besides, who are we to judge the way words sound? It’s like the word ‘bumfuzzle’, which means ‘to be confused’!”
“Hehe, bum…” Monika snickers and Natsuki and I follow her. Sayori takes a moment of holding in her giggle, as to keep her chest puffed up, before the joke becomes too strong for her to ignore and she too laughs with us.
“I literally had the same thought.” Natsuki says and lifts her palm towards Monika, who recognizes the invitation and accepts the high-five.
“And how do you know that word?” I ask before taking the last sip of my glass, being the second one of the four to finish the first glass of the night, the first being Sayori.
“Oh, my teacher shared it with us!” Sayori clasps her hands together as she recalls her classes. “We were all doing basic gesture sketches and we were all talking about fun things we know about, and he told us that word.”
“What did you tell your class?”
“I told them about my poems and that I met my girlfriend through a poem club!”
“Did you tell them that you were my vice president?”
“No, I only told them that you made it and I was in it and we hit it off.”
“You were in the club and then you were in the president.” Natsuki jokes and takes the last sip of her glass as the two other girls blush to her comment, Sayori’s cheeks reddening up more than Monika’s.
“Can’t deny the facts.” Monika says with a smug smile and takes a last swig of her glass, marking the end of the first round of drinks.