Chapter 3: Self-Explanatory School Trip

Chapter 3: Self-Explanatory School Trip

Chapter 3:

Self-Explanatory School Trip

I T WAS THE MORNING of the first day of the school trip. A total of four buses had gathered, and all the second-year students were wearing their casual clothes as they stood in line. It was just under five degrees Celsius that morning, and it felt like the cold was occasionally prickling my skin. However, the temperature was going to be even lower in Hokkaido.

The school made sure that the students didn’t forget their gloves and coats and such, just to be safe. We were also going to do a final check of our luggage, including clothing, and confirm that we had essential items with us, such as our cell phones.

Mashima-sensei, the homeroom instructor for Class 2-A, addressed us in a loud, clear voice before we boarded the bus. “First and foremost, I’m relieved to say that no students will be absent from the school trip due to illness,” he said.

The homeroom instructors for the second-year classes then proceeded to oversee boarding for the four buses. Mashima-sensei boarded bus number one, Chabashira-sensei boarded bus number two, Sakagami-sensei boarded bus number three, and Hoshinomiya-sensei boarded bus number four. In short, they boarded in order based on the class rankings, from A to D.

As I waited to board, I went ahead and checked the schedule on my phone for what was going to happen next. The bus would head to Haneda Airport, and we would take a plane to New Chitose Airport. Once we landed, we’d board a local bus there, and head to the ski resort for our first day.

I quietly browsed the page where the list of groups was displayed. There, I saw I had been placed in group six, along with seven other students. From Class A, there were Kitou Hayato and Yamamura Miki. From Class B, me and Kushida Kikyou. From Class C, Ryuuen Kakeru and Nishino Takeko. And from Class D, Watanabe Norihito and Amikura Mako.

I didn’t have any complaints about the group the school had assigned, but I hadn’t imagined that I’d be placed in the same group as Ryuuen, who was perceived by many as the biggest troublemaker. As for Kitou, Yamamura, Watanabe, Nishino, and Amikura, I didn’t know much about them at all, because I hadn’t ever interacted with them before. Still, I was sure I could come to understand them during our time as a group. After all, it had been decided that these groups would spend almost the entire four nights and five days on the school trip together.

It was certainly a strange group, and it was difficult to determine whether or not the members’ relationships would be solid.

Incidentally, the numbers I had assigned to the students in the group were as follows: Kushida, 6; Watanabe, 18; Amikura, 14; Ryuuen, 6; Nishino, 18; Kitou, 9; and Yamamura, 14. I ranked them chiefly based on OAA, the metric derived by the school, rather than whether I was personally close to them or not. Of course, I had assigned the highest ratings to Kushida and Ryuuen.

But…the seven other people in my group hadn’t necessarily given the same ratings I did. In Ryuuen’s case, in particular, I wouldn’t have been surprised if a lot of other people had given him an especially good rating, even the students who disliked him. Kitou especially, as someone who stood by Sakayanagi’s side, would likely have given Ryuuen a respectable number. Ryuuen had the qualities and characteristics of a leader, so it would make perfect sense for him to be given a high ranking—or, if not that, at least a fairly good score.

Of course, in the end, all this was nothing more than my own speculation. I knew that they had based these groups on the numbers we came up with the other day, so it wasn’t like they were entirely random. Still, I might not be able to find an exact answer as to how the groups were formed no matter how much I let my imagination run wild.

“I don’t even know five out of these seven people…” I muttered to myself.

Well, technically, could I even include Ryuuen among the people who I knew? I’d thought that I had expanded my circle of friends in my own way over the past year and a half, little by little, but I supposed that wasn’t really the case when it came to the other classes.

Anyway, it seemed like it was going to be time to board the buses soon. The students all began gathering with their close friends.

There were no assigned places for us to sit on the buses. The me from ages long past would have personally appreciated having a fixed seat. But since Kei currently occupied the position of my girlfriend, it was, of course, easy to know who was going to sit by me in the end. Kei waved at me and came to stand next to me, almost as though we had already decided upon it in advance. However, Yousuke happened to appear at almost the exact same time that Kei did.

“Kiyotaka-kun, could I have a second of your time?” he asked.

“Hm?”

“It’s about where we’ll be sitting. I was just wondering, if you wouldn’t mind, could I sit next to you on the bus on the way to the airport?”

“Next to me?” I repeated. “Why?”

Sitting next to Yousuke? That was quite a coveted spot. Someone like me claiming that seat would most likely provoke some animosity from other people in our class. The fact that Mii-chan was in love with Yousuke was now public knowledge, since Kushida had exposed her secret, but I didn’t imagine that she had the courage to openly invite him to sit next to her. Even so, she was eyeing him like a hawk, and she wasn’t the only one. I could tell that many girls were looking this way with great interest, as if to prove me right.

Yousuke looked me in the eyes and pleaded with me. I guessed he must be concerned about the firestorm that might ensue as people competed for this seat, and this was his plan to avoid any issues.

“It’s tough being popular, huh?” I remarked.

“I’m not trying to be popular.” He wasn’t being smug at all; he simply stated it plainly. His ability to pick up on the unwritten social rules of the class was truly incredible. He cared about others’ feelings as if they were his own, and always did his best to avoid conflict.

“So, Kei, is it okay if I let Yousuke sit next to me, then?” I asked, turning to her.

“Say what?! Nah, just kidding. It’s easier that way, right? It’s okay.” Kei seemed to be very receptive to Yousuke; she was indebted to him, after all. “In exchange, though, Kiyotaka has to sit in the aisle seat. Because I’m gonna sit in the aisle seat on the opposite side.”

Well, I supposed that was a simple yet satisfactory solution. As a result, four of us all sat together in a row a little past the middle part of the bus, with Yousuke on the far left and me sitting next to him in the aisle seat, Kei in the aisle seat on the other side, and Satou next to her. A few minutes later, all four buses were fully loaded, and we departed for the airport. We weren’t allowed to get up from our seats while the buses were in motion, but we were free to chat amongst ourselves, and to enjoy whatever food or drink we brought with us on the bus, too. So, some students almost immediately started taking out their snacks.

“Now it’s starting to feel like a trip, huh?” said Yousuke happily, noticing the mood around him.

I supposed that for this young man, who considered the happiness of others to be his own happiness, it must have been comforting to feel other students being so merry.

“Ahhh, it still would’ve been awesome if I had been in a group together with you, Kiyotaka,” lamented Kei.

The boy from our class who she had been partnered with for her group was none other than Akito—someone she hardly ever talked to.

“Like I told you, this is a good opportunity, though, isn’t it?” I said. “We don’t get many chances to interact with people from other classes.”

“I wasn’t really looking for that opportunity, though… Tch.”

I guess she had been expecting me to say that I was going to be lonely without her too, because she pursed her lips in a frustrated pout. Still, I was sure that she remembered very clearly what I told her the other day. Kei’s eyes were going to be especially important when it came to learning about the other classes’ situations.

Incidentally, Yousuke was in the same group as Matsushita, and Satou was with Okiya.

“Hey, Ayanokouji-kun,” Satou called over, “how have things been lately with you and Kei-chan? Is everything going well?”

“Hey, obviously it’s going well, right?” Kei interrupted. “You don’t even need to ask.”

“Maybe it’s just that Ayanokouji-kun is being extra careful,” teased Satou.

“Don’t be stupid. We’re doing well because we’re super-crazy-head-over-heels in love,” said Kei. “Y’know?”

We continued engaging in completely childish conversation like that until we reached the airport.

3.1

O NCE WE TOUCHED DOWN at New Chitose Airport, we started lining up in the airport lobby. On the buses bound for Haneda Airport, we’d been with our own respective classes, but from this point onward, we were to move with our respective groups. Mashima-sensei oversaw groups one through five, Chabashira-sensei was in charge of groups six through ten, Sakagami-sensei was in charge of groups eleven through fifteen, and Hoshinomiya-sensei was in charge of groups sixteen through twenty.

“Once everyone in your group gets together, we’ll begin seating arrangements,” Chabashira-sensei told us. “Please talk with your groups and decide where you’d each like to sit.”

Eight bus seats were allocated to those of us in my group, group six. We were going to have to determine ourselves where we’d each sit out of those eight seats. They were spread between two rows at the front of bus two, with two seats on each side. I went over to the area overseen by Chabashira-sensei to join group six.

Kushida came up to me. “Looks like we’re in a group together, Ayanokouji-kun.”

“Looks like it,” I said. “I’m guessing you’re fine with any group, then, no matter who you’re paired up with?”

“Yeah, pretty much. But… Well, I’m not exactly thrilled about Ryuuen-kun.”

I didn’t know specifically to what extent Kushida had shown her true nature to Ryuuen, but I knew that they had worked together for a time. That might make it difficult for her to be partnered up with him now.

“He probably won’t be a scary opponent to deal with anymore,” I told her. “Besides, Kushida, you aren’t the cowardly type to begin with. Even if he were to make some careless remark, it probably won’t have any effect on our classmates.”

“I know. It’s Ryuuen-kun, after all, and he’s reaching for Class A—I wouldn’t be surprised even if he tried to threaten me at some point. I wasn’t sure how to deal with the situation, but maybe things have eased up.”

It seemed like Kushida had built a firm resolve; even if her true nature was exposed, it wouldn’t have that much of an effect. It sounded like she was prepared for that.

“Kikyou-chaaan!”

A boy and a girl from Ichinose’s class emerged from the crowd of students, waving at Kushida. Watanabe Norihito and Amikura Mako. Kushida and Amikura seemed like they were awfully close, almost like it were completely natural, and they took each other’s hands in clear joy at being in the same group. On the surface, they were acting like they were close friends, but when I thought about how Kushida probably felt nothing at all deep down, I felt like this was an utterly amazing sight.

Watanabe called out to me, “I hope we all have a nice time together over the next five days.”

I responded to him with a gentle wave. I had never interacted with him before this point, so this would be a good opportunity to get to know what he was like. With that, half of our group had assembled. The next person to appear was Nishino, and following a little after her was Ryuuen.

Kushida took the initiative and greeted them with a smile. “Good morning, Nishino-san. And to you too, Ryuuen-kun.”

Watanabe and Amikura followed suit and greeted them as well.

“…Hi,” said Nishino.

This girl, Nishino, struck me as somewhat awkward, perhaps because she had hardly ever interacted with Kushida or Amikura before. Ryuuen, on the other hand, didn’t reply to anyone, and stood some distance away from the rest of us.

“Now all that’s left is Kitou-kun and Yamamura-san, right?” Kushida said.

“They’re already here,” I replied.

“Huh?”

When I pointed behind Kushida, she noticed that the two of them were already standing there, lined up quietly. Kitou had been glaring at Ryuuen ever since he’d arrived, with some sort of silent pressure mixed into his expression. Yamamura, though, wasn’t looking at anyone; she walked over while keeping her eyes downcast.

“It looks like everyone is here,” said Kushida, “so let’s figure out where we’ll be sitting right away.”

Having someone in the group who could take the initiative at times like these was a major plus. I was a bit concerned about what Ryuuen, the leader of Class C, was going to say if he had any issues with the arrangements, but…surprisingly enough, he never interrupted. Was it just that he had no intention of leading the other classes, or did he think that there was no need for him to bother with something so trivial as seating arrangements?

“Maybe it’d be a good idea for the boys to stick together and the girls to stick together,” suggested Amikura, picking up the baton from Kushida. “How about that?”

“What does everyone think?” asked Kushida. “No objections?”

No one objected to the idea of boys and girls sitting separately. Neither Nishino nor Yamamura seemed interested at all. As for the boys, they didn’t seem to have even the slightest complaint about what Amikura said. If they carelessly objected to the idea, then that meant we would be advocating a different arrangement, saying that we boys wanted to sit with the girls.

“Okay, if we’re doing things that way, then it’ll be fine to have the boys and girls discuss amongst themselves, right?” said Kushida, deftly separating the girls from the boys.

It would have been much easier if we just let Kushida make all the decisions on where to sit, as the person who’d been taking charge, but… Well, there was no use complaining about it. Watanabe and I naturally gathered closer together, but Ryuuen and Kitou didn’t budge an inch.

“What do we do, Ayanokouji?” said Watanabe. “I’m getting the feeling that this is going to be really difficult.”

“Yeah,” I agreed.

“I don’t really mind who I sit next to,” he added, “but I can’t really envision myself chatting away with Ryuuen or Kitou.”

“But you could see yourself talking to me?” I asked.

“Huh…? Well, uh… Umm… More than those two, anyway.”

Considering who I was being compared to, it wasn’t much of a compliment. Personally, I would rather have just sat down next to Watanabe and gotten through this without getting mixed up in any trouble… But just as I was starting to think that I should go ahead and make my decision, Kitou stepped forward without making a sound.

“As long as I’m not next to Ryuuen, I have no complaints.” He quietly mumbled the most troubling statement possible, and then returned to his original position.

“…What do we do?” asked Watanabe.

“If we try and force those two to sit side by side, it’ll probably be trouble,” I replied.

It seemed like Watanabe was easily able to imagine how that would turn out, and he nodded dispiritedly. “Okay, so I guess we don’t have any choice but to spread ourselves out,” he said. “Where do you want to sit?”

“I’m fine with wherever,” I replied. “Sit wherever you want, Watanabe.”

“Wherever…I want, huh?” Watanabe, faced with only two choices that left him at his wits’ end, agonized over the decision for a while before giving me his answer. “In that case, I’ll sit by Kitou. I mean, that guy seems like he’s generally mature. I don’t think he’ll do anything as long as I’m not antagonizing him or anything.”

It was certainly true that Kitou wasn’t as scary as he looked. The impression I had was that he was the harmless sort, except when someone was being hostile toward him. Anyway, I figured I might as well go ahead and wrap things up on my end, too. The school trip was going to be long, after all: four nights and five days.

“Hey, I know this might not be what you want,” I said to Ryuuen, “but I’ll sit next to you during the school trip, unless something goes wrong. I’ll be as considerate as I can, though, and I’ll give you the window seat. Are you okay with that?”

“Whatever.” For the time being, Ryuuen was acting as quiet as a lamb. He was also quite incredible in the sense that that he was earnestly sticking to the rules during the school trip, even though, if you thought about it, it wouldn’t have been out of character for him to just skip it without getting permission.

“Seems to me like you’re misunderstandin’ somethin’ here, Ayanokouji,” he said.

“Misunderstanding something?”

“The first shots between me and Sakayanagi have already been fired.”

Ryuuen shot a quick glance over at Kitou. Kitou seemed to have been expecting it, because he glared back at Ryuuen.

“I see,” I said. “Interactions with the other classes are inevitable during the school trip. So, you’re saying that this is the perfect opportunity for classes to look for openings to exploit in each other?”

“It’s an opportunity to see how good that Kitou guy really is,” said Ryuuen. “Dependin’ on how things go down, I might crush him while the time’s right.”

That was a very disturbing statement. So much so that it made it difficult to imagine that we were about to be embarking on a fun, happy Hokkaido adventure. It seemed like this wasn’t going to be a simple trip.

If I recalled correctly, Sakayanagi was in group four. Who else was assigned to group four? I sorted through my memories. From Ryuuen’s class, it was Tokitou Hiroya and Morofuji Rika. The second semester wasn’t over yet, but it wouldn’t have been a bad idea for them to have already started investigating the other classes in preparation for the end of the school year. If we ended up clashing with those two classes, who had already prepared for battle, then it’d be quite the challenge.

Once the teachers saw that the groups were finished with their discussions, they started ushering us onto the buses. I ceded Ryuuen the window seat and sat down next to him. On the bus earlier, all together as a class, there’d been a lively atmosphere, but now it was so quiet that it almost seemed like what happened before was just my imagination. Now, as designated by the school, we were in groups with students from the other classes.

It would take some time for the students to get to know each other and to be able to talk to each other casually, since not everyone was close friends with each other. Almost as if to prove this point, nearly half of the students on this bus had preferred to stick together by class rather than separate based on gender. That was an example of what inevitably happened when you couldn’t take the initiative and decide who would sit next to whom, like Kushida did with our group.

Even so, all the students were on the same page in their desire to have fun. By the time the bus started moving about thirty minutes later, self-introductions were mostly over and done with, and little by little, students were starting to chat within their groups, rather than with just their own classmates. Then, when we were told that karaoke was available to us, one of the boys picked up the microphone and started singing.

“I got a little of that same vibe from that first-year that I get from you, weirdo. How do you two know each other?” I had thought that Ryuuen wasn’t going to speak to me at all during the trip, but he’d just suddenly asked me a question, without any warning. He was leaning forward on his elbows, though, not even looking at me, making it seem like he was talking to himself.

“And if I told you that we have nothing to do with each other?” I asked.

“I’d say you’re wrong. He was gonna try and beat the shit out of a teacher just to get to you.”

Yes, I’d have to say it’d be impossible to imagine there was no connection if you saw something like that.

“We’re barely acquainted,” I told him. “Nothing more, nothing less.”

“So, you’re sayin’ not to worry about it? Hard not to do that when I’m catching a whiff of somethin’ interestin’ about this.”

“There’s no point in turning your attention to the first-years. The important thing is reaching Class A, isn’t it?”

“I do what I want to do. Sooner or later, I’m gonna beat you to death—it might come in handy then.”

I see. So, it wasn’t really that he was interested in Yagami; he just saw him as a means to exploit my weak points. Well, he wasn’t going to find any weakness, but I couldn’t deny that Yagami was a bothersome element.

“Those dangerous-lookin’ guys hauling that first-year away was a big enough deal,” Ryuuen went on. “Hell, the school even seemed to be okay with it, like it was no bother. For a second there, I got an idea of who you really are, you shady creep.”

“That’s too bad,” I said. “Yagami’s not here anymore.”

“Yeah, it’s true he’s gone, but I hear that other first-year’s still around. Some girl named Amasawa. I can play with her all I want.”

From the sounds of it, Yagami had left behind a bit of information as a parting gift of sorts. It was entirely possible that Ryuuen would try and mess with Amasawa if I remained silent on the matter. If it came to a one-on-one fight between them, I doubted Amasawa would lose. But with Ryuuen, that wouldn’t be the end of it. It was easy to imagine that he’d persistently stick to Amasawa, looking for an opening to exploit, repeatedly trying to get to her. Of course, Amasawa was capable enough to handle that under normal circumstances, but now that Yagami had been expelled, the situation was uncertain.

“Well, whatever. It’ll be a little while until I mess you up, anyway,” said Ryuuen, responding to my thoughts.

There were many things I wanted to say, but it was true that he should be focusing on the battle with Sakayanagi’s class, which was certain to materialize by the end of the year, rather than the more uncertain prospect of facing Horikita’s class.

“By the way, Ryuuen, I actually have one question I’d like to ask you,” I said. “To tell you the truth, it’s been on my mind since this morning.”

“Huh?” he grunted.

I reached out and put my hand into the netted pouch on the back of the seat in front of me. I then pulled out a black plastic bag that was bundled in there.

“I’m curious what this bag is used for,” I said.

“What?” He furrowed his brow suspiciously and then snorted. “It’s a bag you use if you get sick and you gotta hurl. Are you screwing with me right now?”

“I see. I suppose, yes, it’s possible someone could vomit if they get motion sickness.”

So, this was what was commonly referred to as a “barf bag.”

“These weren’t placed on the buses during the Uninhabited Island Exam, for example, though. Are they not always available, then?” I asked.

I had ridden buses several times now, but this was the first time I had seen them placed in the pouches on the backs of seats like this. I supposed it was done out of consideration for us, the passengers, and for the bus company as well. It would be much more difficult to clean up if someone were to spray vomit all over the seats and the floor of the bus, after all.

Even though I thought that I’d learned quite a lot, there were still countless things I didn’t understand. If I could make it outside of school, I’d likely encounter the unknown quite often.

“You’re as weird as ever,” said Ryuuen. “What, are you some kinda rich kid who never rode a bus before or somethin’?”

“It’s true that I haven’t had much experience,” I admitted.

I had seen plenty of children who vomited due to issues of semicircular canal imbalance, but never in an environment where we were allowed to vomit into a bag, like here. I didn’t think it was unreasonable for me to ask, though, since I hadn’t considered that they might be suggesting it was okay to throw up. I had experienced some degree of motion sickness myself a few times, so I’d keep in mind that there were conveniences such as these out there in the world.

3.2

A FTER WE FINISHED having our lunch in the large cafeteria connected to the ski resort, we second-year students were finally about to begin our skiing lessons. We were told that we were forbidden from taking our cell phones up on the slopes due to the substantial risk of losing or breaking them. Some students voiced their dissatisfaction over this—the ones who were dependent on their phones, and the students who were high-level skiers, who claimed that they could handle themselves just fine—but we couldn’t break school rules, so there was nothing we could do. Fortunately, though, the school had also informed us that, from tomorrow onward, we were allowed to bring our phones along if we chose to go to the ski resort by ourselves. However, in the event we lost or broke our phones, it would cost us a considerable amount of Private Points.

I went ahead and put on the skiwear that I had rented, then picked up my ski boots. The exterior of the boots seemed to be made of plastic. Following the instructions, I unbuckled them, opened the inner lining, and put my feet inside. After making sure that the heels fit properly, I straightened the inner lining and fastened the buckles from bottom to top. Lastly, I put on the booster straps and powder guard.

And with that, I had apparently completed the bare-minimum level of preparation. I tried to walk forward like normal, but that didn’t seem to be the right kind of motion. When I did as the instructor said, though, and walked on my heels, I was able to move easily. Once I was ready, I went outside. We were divided into three separate groups for lessons: advanced, intermediate, and beginner. Having no experience with skiing, I didn’t hesitate to go with the beginner group, joining up with the crowd of others interested in being part of it.

I could have looked up skiing in books or online ahead of time, but I hadn’t wanted to pick up any extraneous information before the trip; that way I could learn on-site, since that was how the trip was structured. About 60 percent of the students in our grade had requested to join the beginner’s course. I wasn’t sure if that was a lot or a little, but I was slightly surprised that about 40 percent of students were in the intermediate or advanced levels. It didn’t seem to me that people in the Kanto area had many opportunities to go skiing, but these students must have had at least some experience.

Out of group six, there was no sign of Ryuuen, Kitou, Nishino, or Kushida, perhaps because they were in the intermediate or advanced courses. The rest of us were apparently beginners. There were a lot of people in the beginner’s course, so they had subdivided us into groups of ten. The instructor taught us how to ski, starting with the basics. Though I was deeply curious about the skiing equipment, which I was using for the very first time, I made sure to listen to the instructions attentively. Meanwhile, the advanced group, which had the fewest people out of the three major groups, were given just a brief explanation—then they were free to start skiing straight away, and they were already getting ready to hit the slopes. Ryuuen was among them.

I brushed the snow off the soles of my boots. Then, I took a step forward on my heel, aligning the bindings on the front and back of my boots.

I see . I walked forward with both feet in the same position. I was a little surprised that I didn’t fall over as I tried to walk, and I was puzzled by this new sensation.

I see… Okay, for the time being, I’ll…

Using the poles, I tried to start sliding forward a little more forcefully, and I deliberately tilted my center of gravity to the left. When I did so, though, moving forward with the skis on both of my feet, my body tumbled backward.

“…Are you all right?” asked Yamamura in a quiet voice, having seen me from close by.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” I replied. “I just wanted to try taking a little tumble.”

“Okay…”

I heard some chuckles from the people around me, but it was nothing to worry about. After all, it was important to try and fail.

I’d assumed that Ryuuen had already headed toward the lift, but he was still there. I saw the corners of his mouth curve ever-so-slightly up into a smile when he noticed me fall, and he walked away, seemingly satisfied. Perhaps he had been waiting to see me fail.

“Be careful!” the instructor warned me.

I bowed slightly and apologized to the instructor, then proceeded to do as instructed. Afterward, we each got to try some actual skiing. Surprisingly enough, a lot of people fell down. I had a couple of unintentional spills, but I was starting to get a general feel for it.

It took about thirty minutes to get through the lesson. After we completed all the steps, we were free to do what we wanted.

3.3

A FTER THE TRAINING WAS OVER , Watanabe and some others got together to head to the beginner’s course, which looked to be a gentle slope. Watanabe started heading over there on his skis, and then turned around to look at me.

“You’re not coming, Ayanokouji?” he asked, puzzled.

“I think I want to try skiing somewhere else for a bit,” I replied.

“Oh, okay. All right, see you later, then.”

I watched Watanabe and the others go, and then started heading somewhere else.

“Hey, Ayanokouji. Get your goofy ass to the beginner’s course over there,” said Ryuuen, pointing. He himself was headed toward the advanced course. He sounded exasperated. “This is the advanced course.”

“No, it’s all right,” I said. “I kind of want to try it.”

“Huh? That’s rich, comin’ from a guy who was shufflin’ around like an awkward penguin just now.”

“I really don’t think you should, Ayanokouji-kun,” Kushida cut in. “It’s about 70 percent steep slopes and slopes with hard bumps. Even I was a little scared.”

The two of them must have tried it at least once, to be advising me against it.

“I suppose you’re—”

Since they had gone to the trouble of warning me, I was planning to back down, but then… Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Yamamura rather unsteadily getting onto the lift bound for the advanced course. I couldn’t imagine that she had consciously chosen to go for the advanced course. Perhaps it was because she was slightly behind Kitou, and she saw him get on, or maybe she had simply gotten on by mistake and no one nearby stopped her.

“Seems like Yamamura wasn’t kidding about what she said back on the bus, about how she kind of blends into the background,” I remarked.

“Huh?” said Kushida.

“That was Yamamura,” I told them. “I think she probably got on the lift not knowing it was for the advanced course.”

“Oh no… We should probably go after her,” said Kushida.

And so, we all headed toward the advanced course together, and I got on a ski lift for the first time in my life. Since two people could ride a lift carriage at the same time, Kushida and I rode together. The lift never stopped moving, and soon, we were gradually lifted into the air, and our feet left the ground.

“This is an interesting ride,” I said.

“It’s your first time, right?” she asked. “You’re not scared?”

“I’m not, no. At this height, even if I fell, it wouldn’t cause much damage.”

“Wait, that’s the way you look at it…?”

“Hm? Isn’t it the impact of the fall and the danger of it happening that people are afraid of?”

“Well, yes, I think so too, but…”

She was visibly perplexed, seemingly caught up on my choice of words, but I didn’t understand the reason.

“Well, never mind,” she said. “Lately, I’ve started feeling like it’s meaningless for me to bother thinking about you, Ayanokouji-kun.”

She sighed deeply, and, for just a brief moment, I caught a glimpse of the real Kushida’s face. She must have decided that there was no need to worry that Ryuuen or the other people behind us would hear anything, since there was some distance between each lift carriage, and the wind was blowing, too.

“I’m not exactly delighted over your choice of expression,” I said. No one would be overjoyed at being told that it was meaningless to think about them.

“Well, I can’t help it. It’s just how I honestly feel.” Kushida looked over at the mountains far off into the distance. “I’m usually confident that I can read situations and people’s thoughts. The same goes for people like Horikita-san and Ryuuen-kun. Of course, there are times I’ll still lose, because I’ll be outdone in other areas.”

It was true; you wouldn’t necessarily always win just by reading what your opponent was thinking.

“As for you, though, Ayanokouji-kun… I thought I could read you, before. But I was completely wrong. You’re the first person I’ve ever met where I can’t guess what you’re thinking at all.”

“Just for reference, what does that feel like?” I asked.

“Hm? You really want to ask me that?” she said without even turning around. All I could see was the back of her head.

“I suppose I probably shouldn’t, after all,” I said. The feeling I was getting strongly suggested that she was unwilling to answer my question. “Anyway—”

Kushida suddenly turned around, a demonic look…completely absent from her face. She looked like she normally did.

“This is important, so I want to make sure right here and now,” she said. “You’re not planning to get me expelled, are you?”

“Wow, you’re really asking me that straight out.”

“Since I can’t tell what you’re thinking, the only thoughts I can go on are my own. If I were you, Ayanokouji-kun, how would I think and how would I act?”

“And you’re trying to figure out whether the decision you’d reach, if you were me, would be to get you expelled.”

Kushida nodded without hesitation, looking me square in the eyes. It felt like she was trying to rattle me, to draw out my true intentions. I decided to deliberately avert my gaze and give off the impression that I was trying to get her expelled. From a normal person’s perspective, it would look like Kushida was right on the mark, and I was upset that she had pointed it out, so I could only avert my eyes in frustration. I thought it would be interesting to see how Kushida would take it.

“Are you screwing with me?” she asked.

“I’m sorry…”

She’d clearly spotted my trick. Having been exposed, I immediately apologized, understanding that even though she was smiling at me, she was glaring at me fiercely.

“I mean, you’re obviously making fun of me, aren’t you?” she said. “Is it that funny to you?”

“No, it’s not funny at all,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

I was sure she hadn’t intended for it to happen that way, but that interaction just now showed that Kushida had brilliantly read what I was thinking.

“I have no intention of getting you expelled,” I told her.

“…Really?”

“The idea of your expulsion was removed from the table once Horikita decided to keep you in class. Even if Horikita were to consider the possibility of expelling you now, I would choose to talk her out of it.”

It was unlikely that it would fully dispel Kushida’s suspicions, but what I’d just told her was the truth.

“The Unanimous Special Exam…” murmured Kushida.

For her, the Unanimous Special Exam must have been a humiliation that she’d never forget. Still, the prerequisite for not expelling her was that Kushida didn’t repeat the mistakes she’d made, but I figured that I didn’t need to explicitly mention that fact here. Besides, all her classmates already knew about her now, so the idea of her doing it again wasn’t realistic.

“There is a possibility that, even if I don’t get rid of everyone else in class, I could abandon the class myself , ” Kushida said. “There are methods I could use to get out—I could either get a Class Transfer Ticket or save up Private Points. Can you really turn a blind eye to a risk factor like that?”

The fact that Kushida could refer to herself as a risk factor was another interesting thing about her.

“That wouldn’t be a betrayal, though,” I said. “That would simply fall into the category of personal strategy. In truth, there’s nothing wrong with making use of the systems the school provides to move to a winning class. If you don’t think that your own class has a chance of winning, you can move when the opportunity presents itself.”

Besides, who had the right to tell someone that they had to stay on a sinking ship?

“I really can’t read you at all, Ayanokouji-kun,” she sighed. “I can’t even tell if you’re speaking from the heart or not.”

“That might be because I don’t show it on my face,” I replied.

“It’s not just that, though…” Exasperated, Kushida turned her attention to the end of the lift, which was fast approaching. “Still, I have to wonder why. My secret was exposed when I wanted to keep it hidden at all costs. I was so frustrated, bitter, and hurt, and nothing was supposed to matter anymore, and yet… Here I am, on the school trip, going skiing, and having fun. And I’m even starting to feel like it’s not a bad thing.”

“A school trip should be a fun event for lots of students,” I said.

“For a lot of people, sure. But personally, up until now, I’ve always found events like this to be a struggle.”

I supposed that was because of the effort she had to put into pretending she was something she wasn’t. It was precisely these kinds of events that required that effort.

“Hey, um… Can I ask you something about Yagami-kun and Amasawa-san?” asked Kushida.

“Those two first-year students, huh? I interacted a little with Amasawa, but I barely know Yagami.” I kept it vague just in case, but Kushida might have simply wanted to get out some questions that she had been keeping inside.

“Well, if you don’t know, Ayanokouji-kun, then there’s probably no point in me asking,” she said.

“It’s okay, go ahead. So? What about them?”

“You know that Yagami-kun was expelled, right?”

“I guess the things he did during the Uninhabited Island Exam were brought to light, then,” I said. “And there was talk about him punching a teacher, too. It’s understandable that he got expelled after all that… Anyway, he went to the same junior high as you, right? In the year below you? You two seemed to get along, so you must have been shocked, huh?”

Yagami was a student of the White Room. It was impossible that he really had any connection with Kushida in the past. He had likely been provided information by Tsukishiro and pretended that he had gone to her school, forcing Kushida to play along to avoid the risk of people finding out about her past. However, there was no way an outsider like me should have been able to deduce that, so I had no choice but to provide the answer I did.

“No, he wasn’t,” Kushida said. “Yagami-ku—that kid knew about my past. The only people who attended my same junior high were the Horikita siblings.”

“In that case, you’re asking me how he knew about your past?” I asked.

“Someone must have told him directly,” she mused. “So, I was naturally suspicious of you and Horikita-san, Ayanokouji-kun. Ryuuen-kun knows my true nature, but he doesn’t know about my past, so I could rule him out.”

It was true that a person’s true nature and their past were completely different things.

“But it just doesn’t add up that Horikita-san would do that, does it?” she went on. “There’s no benefit for her in talking about my past. So, by process of elimination, you’re the only one, Ayanokouji-kun. It’s been on my mind for a long time now.”

“I see.”

It was true that I was one of the few students who knew about Kushida’s past. Her turning hostile during the Unanimous Special Exam had been inevitable, but I supposed that one of the reasons why she had gotten so hostile then was because of these suspicions. Moreover, it was obvious that Amasawa had gotten involved with Kushida, and my connection with Amasawa must have made me look increasingly suspicious. Even if I casually denied everything right here and now, the question of who’d told Yagami would likely continue to weigh on Kushida’s mind. Whether or not her suspicions would be dispelled was another matter.

“I don’t care either way,” she said. “I just want to know the truth.”

“So, even if I was connected with Yagami and Amasawa, you’d forgive me, then?” I asked.

“What? There’s no way I’d forgive you. It’s just… I’m just saying that I won’t do anything to you over it, Ayanokouji-kun. In fact, I think it’s making me realize all over again that you’re an opponent I’m no match for at all.”

Right now, her fangs were meekly hidden. And she was saying that she would conceal them even further.

“No, but that doesn’t make sense,” she added. “I can’t think of anyone else it could be, but I think it might not have been you after all, Ayanokouji-kun. After all, he wanted to get you expelled, and he wasn’t pretending, either. He really, really wanted that. That would be a contradiction, wouldn’t it?”

It was true that Yagami’s actions raised doubts about the idea that I had the kind of connection with Yagami and Amasawa where I’d be passing them information about Kushida. Deliberately going out of my way to chase Kushida into a corner by doing something like that would only have been a hassle for all of us. I was sure that spending her days at school with those doubts in mind must have been a little stressful. That being said, though, I couldn’t talk about the specifics of the White Room.

“A long time ago, Yagami and I…we went to different schools, but we did know each other,” I said. “We lived in the same neighborhood.”

“Huh…?”

“Amasawa, too. I think I gave those two the wrong idea about me, and they’ve been holding a grudge for a long time. I was able to clear up the misunderstanding with Amasawa, but not with Yagami. I tried dealing with it by ignoring him, but I never expected him to contact you without my knowledge.”

“Wait, hold on. What? Even in that case, this is still weird. How would he know about me?”

“I don’t know how he found out, but I think he saw that we were classmates and looked into you because of that. Don’t you think? He was looking for an opportunity to get revenge on me. You simply got pulled into it.” I bowed my head slightly to Kushida in apology. “Even though I didn’t know, I’m sorry that you got pulled into it on my account.”

“…Ayanokouji-kun…”

I didn’t expect that this was going to completely clear everything up, but I figured that admitting I had some past connection to those two would help answer some of the questions Kushida had been wrestling with.

“So, by any chance, was Yagami-kun getting expelled…your doing, Ayanokouji-kun?” asked Kushida.

“If I’d let things be, there was a strong possibility that it would put you in harm’s way, even after you’d chosen to help the class,” I said. “Even the fact that Amasawa contacted you before was likely because she knew that Yagami was going to do something to you.”

I’d decided that, on this point, I’d just openly admit to the truth. Nagumo, Ryuuen, and even Horikita—several people knew or suspected that I was involved. If I denied the facts right now, and they came to light later, it would make more trouble for me.

“I let Amasawa stay in school,” I went on, “but as I said before, I cleared up the misunderstanding with her. She shouldn’t bother you anymore. There might still be some problems with her behavior, though.”

Through this unexpected conversation we were having, it was possible I could succeed in creating an environment where Kushida could put her abilities to their best use in school from here onward.

“I—”

A strong wind blew, and the loose white knitted hat she was wearing on her head was at risk of being blown away. To stop that from happening, I reached out and gently held the hat down on her head with my palm. At the exact same time, Kushida’s hand rested on top of mine.

“Oh, sorry, thank—”

It was highly likely that her hat wouldn’t actually have flown away even if I hadn’t put my hand out, but Kushida turned toward me and thanked me. Then she immediately stiffened, looked into my eyes, and didn’t move.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“…Nothing,” she replied.

She had a blank expression on her face. I couldn’t tell what she was thinking, but she soon tore her eyes away from mine. Then, as the lift reached its intended destination, we began preparing to disembark.

“Can you handle it?” said Kushida.

“I think I can manage, more or less.”

Despite me saying so, Kushida got off the lift first, to give me an example of how it was done, and I followed suit, copying her movements. Now that the long lift ride was over, we’d arrived at the advanced course. There seemed to be fewer people up here than down below, but there were still enough.

“This really is incredible,” I remarked.

“The slopes are even steeper than you thought, aren’t they?” Kushida said.

It was true, the slopes looked even more treacherous than what I’d seen when I looked at them from down below.

“Will you really be okay?” she asked.

“Yeah, I think I’ll manage.”

“If you do have any trouble, it might be a good idea for you to remove your skis and walk down the side of the hill. It might not look cool, but still.”

“Got it,” I said. “But Yamamura is more important right now.”

There were members of the general public at the ski resort mixed in amongst the students, so it was difficult to search for her.

“I thought she would stay by the lift when she realized that she couldn’t ski down,” said Kushida, “but…”

The two of us looked around the area together, but we couldn’t see where Yamamura was right away.

“Maybe she already started going down the slopes…?” Kushida suggested. “But there’s no way she would, right…?”

There were many people skiing, but it was clear at a glance that none of them were beginners. On the other hand, there seemed to be several boys and girls gathering around Ryuuen.

“Those are students from Ryuuen-kun’s class, right? He’s surprisingly popular,” observed Kushida.

“They don’t really look like they’re having a fun talk, though,” I remarked.

“No, they don’t.”

The students gathered around Ryuuen were telling him something with rather serious looks on their faces. Ryuuen, standing in the center of the circle, wasn’t looking at anyone in particular. He seemed to be listening to what was being said, disinterested. What was the purpose of deliberately gathering up here on the advanced course, where there were fewer people around? If he wanted to stay connected with his classmates, they could just have used their phones later. In that case…I could only assume that he had formed this gathering intentionally.

“Maybe they’re giving him some kind of report?” said Kushida.

“Looks like it,” I agreed.

I saw that everyone who was gathered there was somebody who often took instructions from Ryuuen, including Kaneda, Ishizaki, and Kondou.

“There she is, Ayanokouji-kun,” said Kushida. “It’s Yamamura-san.”

Lo and behold, Yamamura really was right there where Kushida was looking. She wasn’t going skiing. She was just standing there, staring at Ryuuen and the others in his group, even as they started to disperse.

“Yamamura-s—”

Kushida was just about to call her name, but I signaled her with my eyes to remain quiet.

“Huh? What’s wrong?” she asked.

“Just wait a second,” I told her.

Yamamura’s behavior seemed a bit puzzling to me. She should have known that she was making a mistake in coming up here, yet she quickly headed up to the advanced course, and then stuck around, concealing her presence by keeping her breathing quiet.

“What kind of student is Yamamura?” I asked.

“What kind of student?” repeated Kushida. “I don’t even know her that well, really.”

“You have the widest social circle in the school, but there are some students even you don’t know, huh, Kushida?”

“Well, yeah. I could get an understanding of her if she were someone who came up to talk to me voluntarily, but Yamamura-san isn’t like that. She hasn’t approached me a single time, and even when I’ve tried talking to her, she just gives me short replies or nods silently, and the conversation ends there. I can’t really get to know her like that, can I?”

If Yamamura was closing herself off from others, then it was true that Kushida couldn’t do anything about that.

“Who is she close with in Class A?” I asked.

“I don’t know that, either,” Kushida said. “I can’t imagine her talking to anyone, frankly. She’s really lacking in presence, isn’t she?”

We’d only just come together as a group, but I definitely also had the impression she lacked presence. From Yamamura’s individual OAA scores, it was clear that she had low physical ability, but high academic ability.

Before long, the students gathered around Ryuuen dispersed and returned to their respective groups. At the same time, Yamamura pulled her gaze away from Ryuuen and his classmates and slowly began to move. Kushida and I kept our eyes on her so we wouldn’t lose her. But just then…

“Oh, she tripped,” I muttered.

Her feet must have gotten caught in the snow, because she fell down. There were some people around her, but either no one noticed, or no one cared enough to help her.

“It really must be tough to have so little presence,” said Kushida.

“Why did you look at me when you said that?” I asked.

“Because you’re the poster child for lacking any presence, you know? You’re like the original, I guess.”

That was a sad fact that I couldn’t deny. No matter how hard I tried, it wasn’t that easy to get things right in that area.

“By the way, what do Yamamura’s actions look like to you, Kushida?” I asked.

“Trying to change the subject, huh?”

“It’s not like that.”

I denied it, but Kushida chuckled in amusement. “As for Yamamura-san… Maybe she’s acting on someone’s orders to keep watch over Ryuuen-kun’s movements?”

“That seems likely,” I said. “And that someone could only be one person.”

“Sakayanagi-san, right. But I don’t have the impression that Yamamura-san has any point of contact with her.”

“But couldn’t that be exactly why Sakayanagi would choose her? No one is aware that there’s any connection between them. Even I might not have noticed anything if we hadn’t been in the same group.”

Yamamura and I were both beginners at skiing, so I’d been curious about what she was up to—that was the impetus that brought me this far. If I’d been in the intermediate or advanced level instead, I probably would’ve started skiing already without even wondering what she was doing.

“If we can confirm whether there’s a connection, then we should do it,” said Kushida.

“That’ll be important for when we fight against Sakayanagi in the future, yeah,” I agreed. “It’s vital for us to figure out which students she’s relying on as agents, after all.”

“Right,” said Kushida.

“Yamamura’s on the move,” I observed.

Kushida and I kept watching as Yamamura took off her skis, then started nervously walking down the steep walkway at the edge of the slope.

“I’ll go help her out a bit. Maybe I can get a little closer to her.” Kushida, determining what she needed to do, started pushing herself toward Yamamura on her skis.

“She sure moves fast,” I said.

Kushida was quick-witted, and she smoothly read my intentions. On top of that, she had strong conversational skills that allowed her to get on friendly terms with most everyone. Since this was how she was going to survive in her own class, she couldn’t cut any corners.

Now then… I decided I’d go ahead and try the advanced course by myself.

3.4

A FTER WE WERE FINISHED on the ski slopes, we headed to the ryokan, arriving just a little before five o’clock. We all filed into the lobby in order, starting with group one, so that we could go to our assigned rooms. Soon it was group six’s turn, so we headed inside, following the groups in front of us. The ryokan’s exterior gave the impression of a building with a rich history, but inside, in the lobby and other areas, everything looked very well-maintained, exuding a feeling of cleanliness. We put on the slippers we would wear while inside the ryokan. Then we set our luggage, which included our clothes and such, down by our feet and waited to receive our keys.

Watanabe sighed as he got his key in the lobby. “I already knew it, but man, we really all got to sleep together as a group, huh?” he muttered, sounding a little depressed.

We would be sharing a room with the same group of people that we’d be going around with starting today. We had no way of changing that. Whether or not we could make it a comfortable space was up to us, and us alone.

“Hey, Watanabe.”

When Watanabe turned around as his name was called, he saw a duffel bag flying toward his face.

“Wah!” Watanabe managed to catch the bag with both arms. He was shocked, unable to wrap his mind around what had just happened.

“Take that to the room,” said Ryuuen. “I’m hittin’ the bath.”

He was the one who had hurled his bag at Watanabe. Watanabe didn’t have the guts to say no to Ryuuen, so he just forced a smile. Ryuuen disappeared toward the back of the ryokan, presumably headed to the bathroom with the large bath.

“Ugh… I don’t feel like this is going to go very well,” said Watanabe.

“I’ll carry it,” I said.

“Oh no, it’s okay. I was the one he asked to do it, anyway.”

Well, rather than saying Watanabe was “asked” to do it, I would say it was more like Ryuuen had forced it on the person it seemed easiest for him to push around.

Kitou, after witnessing Ryuuen’s high-handedness, tried to snatch the bag out of Watanabe’s hands. “Hand it over here,” he said. “I’ll give it back to him. Or, no, I’ll send it to hell.”

I stuck my arm out, barring his way. “It’d be better not to do anything reckless. Watanabe’s the one who’d get in the most trouble later.”

“So what, are you just going to let him do whatever he wants?” said Kitou. “If we let this slide, he’ll just try the same thing again. I don’t care that he treats his own classmates as his personal servants, but Watanabe is a student from Ichinose’s class.”

What Kitou said was absolutely correct. But even so, that didn’t mean that we should do something to his bag.

“You should leave the bag alone and confront Ryuuen directly,” I told him.

“And what if I tell him, and he doesn’t listen? Do you want to make Watanabe suffer for the entire trip?”

“Oh, no, it’s not like I’m really suffering or any…”

“If Ryuuen tries to do something selfish to Watanabe again, I’ll stop him,” I said.

“You?” said Kitou incredulously.

“And if Ryuuen still doesn’t listen, then I’ll assume full responsibility and take over,” I added.

“I can’t say that fundamentally solves the problem here.”

“Technically, it does. If the person entrusted with a task doesn’t want to do it, it is therefore something forced, coercion. On the other hand, if I don’t feel bothered when I’m entrusted with something, if I actually think it’s in the best interest of the group, then that’s all there is to it. Then, the problem goes away. Don’t you agree?”

Kitou thought that you should do everything that you’re supposed to do yourself, by yourself. He might not have agreed with me, but even so, he should understand what I was saying.

“…Do whatever you want,” said Kitou.

He glared at me for a while, but eventually he backed off and left.

“Sorry, Ayanokouji,” said Watanabe. “I feel like this is all my fault.”

“It’s not really your fault at all, Watanabe. It’s only natural that we’d work together to solve problems that come up in the group,” I replied.

A look of relief washed over Watanabe’s face. Just then, we were handed two keys by the ryokan staff. At almost the exact same time, Kushida and the three other girls received their keys and came over to us.

“Hey, so, listen,” Kushida said. “I think that we should talk about what we’re going to do as a group starting tomorrow. We’re here on a trip in Hokkaido, after all; I’m sure that everyone has lots of places that they want to visit.”

It was important to make plans ahead of time, but so far we’d had no opportunity to discuss what we’d be doing during our free time as a group, because the members of our group were, well, nothing more than group mates.

“So, I was thinking all of us girls might visit you boys in your room tonight to talk… What do you think?” asked Kushida.

“Y-yeah, that would be totally fine, right?” Watanabe had a happy twinkle in his eyes at hearing that the girls would be coming to hang out in our room.

Kitou, standing next to us, heard her suggestion as well, but didn’t really do anything in response. He remained silent.

“…Um, well… A-are you okay with that too, Ayanokouji?” asked Watanabe.

“Sure, I think it’d be fine,” I said.

I supposed that Kushida couldn’t just ignore Watanabe, since he was looking so anxious about it. She clasped her hands together with a smile.

“Okay, it’s settled,” she said. “We’ll see you later. I’ll talk to Amikura-san and the other girls about it. I’ll contact you when I pick a specific time, Ayanokouji-kun, Watanabe-kun.”

From here on, the girls would likely be enjoying the inn to the fullest, soaking in the onsen, eating dinner, and so on.

“How about we head to our room, too?” suggested Watanabe.

“Sure,” I replied.

From the looks of things, the boys would be housed in rooms in an area referred to as the east building. The girls, on the other hand, would be in the main building. Since both buildings were connected to the lobby, our respective areas weren’t that far apart, and coming and going wouldn’t be that difficult, but I supposed they wanted to keep the guys and girls clearly separated.

“Man, Kushida-chan is too good a girl, isn’t she?” said Watanabe. “Cute, too.”

I’d experienced the effects of Kushida’s charm firsthand. It wasn’t surprising that guys were attracted to her from just a surface impression. If a student like Watanabe were to discover Kushida’s true nature, though, I had no idea what would happen.

“I have to say, though,” he added, “I shudder to think what things would be like if Kushida-chan wasn’t here. Jeez.”

It was true that Kushida was doing an excellent job of guiding the group forward. If there was no one to take the initiative like that, meetings to decide on what to do during our free time would only end up being placed on the back burner. All I could say to that was I was sincerely thankful to Kushida for putting in the work so we could avoid that issue. But I didn’t know if her work was going to solve all our problems.

Ryuuen and Kitou were probably going to be a big problem, after all. Ever since we were put into group six and had to spend time around each other, they had constantly been telegraphing their murderous rage toward one another. It was a constant touch-and-go situation, with both sides trying to probe each other and keep each other in check.

Watanabe and I proceeded down the hall, our slippers making light slapping noises as we walked, until we reached room 203. I inserted the key and opened the door to our room.

It was quite spacious inside. It was a Japanese-style room, roughly twelve tatami mats in size, and I saw there was a table with four chairs. In addition, there was a coffee table and two armchairs near the window. I’d seen this sort of sight many times on TV before—this really was a tried-and-true traditional Japanese inn.

Once I’d set my luggage down in the room, I immediately opened the refrigerator. Aside from the free water, it was stocked with a small assortment of soft drinks. However, the price per bottle was a bit higher than the market price, so I didn’t see any reason to take one. There seemed to be vending machines out in the lobby as well, so, if necessary, I could just go buy something there instead.

Kitou came in too, and he silently sat down in the corner and closed his eyes. For some reason he was sitting cross-legged, in a seated Zen meditation position. I decided to leave him alone for the time being, and went ahead and opened up a thick folder labeled “Guide.” It contained a map of the ryokan, the username and password needed to access the internet, and a description of everything else of interest, from bathing options for guests who weren’t staying the night to the tourist attractions in the nearby area.

I might get the opportunity to use this guide in our discussion with Kushida and the other girls. After a quick glance around, I decided to take a look at the other facilities—like the restroom and such—last. I discovered that our rooms did not appear to have their own individual baths, and that we would need to use the main bath. That probably wouldn’t be much of a problem. Personally, since we were here, I’d rather enjoy a good soak in the large bath over and over than bathe in a small tub.

“Now then…” I said to myself.

Dinner started at seven o’clock, and we still had plenty of time until then. I figured I should probably go to the main bath. I was sure there must already be a huge crowd of people closing in on it.

“I’m headed to the bath,” I announced.

“Oh, pl-please wait, hold on just a minute. I’ll go with you!” Watanabe shot up from his chair so quickly that he practically fell over.

“What about you, Kitou?” I asked.

“I’m fine,” he replied.

“Okay, then I’ll leave a key here with you,” I said. “If I run into Ryuuen, I’ll let him know.”

If Ryuuen returned to the room and everyone was gone, he wouldn’t be able to get in. That would be annoying, so I wanted to avoid it. After we stepped out into the hallway and closed the door behind us, Watanabe muttered something in a quiet voice.

“Christ, dude. We’re going to have to sleep with Kitou and Ryuuen? Are we even going to survive until tomorrow?”

“You’re exaggerating,” I said.

“Yeah, but seriously, we’re staying together four nights. Four nights! You can’t tell me you don’t think something could go wrong in that time.”

If the kind of thing he seemed to be imagining did happen, that would certainly be something terribly wrong. Anyway, regardless of what happened with Ryuuen and the other guys, sharing a room with other people still wasn’t something I was at all used to. It had happened a few times by now, like at the mixed training camp last year and also with Kei day-to-day, but I wondered if, one day, I’d be able to handle sleeping next to anyone easily. Since sleeping by myself had been the norm for me ever since I was a young child, my bewilderment over this change in my environment still hadn’t dissipated.

“You know, you’re easy to talk to, Ayanokouji,” said Watanabe.

“Really? …I’m not sure, myself.” I was happy to hear him say that, but I couldn’t help feeling like I was only being compared to a certain twosome.

“Yeah, I think I can understand why even someone like Ichinose fell in love with yo—” Watanabe stopped suddenly.

“What?”

“Oh, um, nothing! …Forget what I just said!” He noticed his obvious verbal gaffe and tried to correct it, but I’d already heard. Well, it wasn’t like anything was going to change just from me hearing it, anyway…

“Judging from the look on your face, I’m guessing you already knew?” he asked.

When I didn’t answer that question, Watanabe looked a little relieved.

“…I heard people talking about it,” he said. “Girls talk about that sort of stuff. I think that most of the guys who like Ichinose still don’t know about it. But anyway, you’re going out with Karuizawa, from your class, right?”

I couldn’t deny it, that was a fact. I nodded in response.

“Man, I’m sure the guys who like Ichinose must feel a little mixed up over that. Well, no, I guess a lot of them might be happy about that news.”

“What about you, Watanabe?” I asked.

“Me? Th…that’s a secret.”

Judging from his calm demeanor, it didn’t seem like he had any special feelings for Ichinose. He seemed to have them for another girl, although I didn’t know who.

“This school trip is kind of a major event, though,” he said. “Don’t you think? I’m guessing that more than a couple of people will probably tell a girl they like how they feel about them.”

“That so?”

It was true that school trips were a big deal. Even Sudou had decided he’d tell Horikita how he felt about her on this trip. That wasn’t anything unusual; this was probably an important event for the students.

“As for me, well… If I had a little more guts, I’d think about it,” said Watanabe. It seemed like he was imagining several things, but then he shook his head from side to side in apparent frustration. “Anyway, there’s way too much I don’t know about the creatures known as ‘girls’ right now. I’m thinkin’ I’m gonna start practicing making myself more likable for the time being, so that the girls in our group will get a good impression of me. If I can become the kind of guy who leaves an impression, then I can build experiences to lead to the real thing, I think.”

I’d been with Watanabe for less than half a day, but I certainly didn’t have a bad impression of him at all. He was basically a good guy, without a doubt. He was the type of guy who easily got caught up in the flow and couldn’t say no to anything, but he also had the ability to communicate well with both guys and girls. He was slightly above average in terms of both his academic and physical ability, with scores of C+ in OAA. In similar fashion, the rest of his scores were C or better.

In other words, he had no obvious shortcomings. I could see that it was possible something could work out for him, depending on who he was interested in, but…

There were many factors at play when it came to romance, and whether you’d succeed or fail when asking someone to go out with you wasn’t determined simply by your physical appearance or abilities. It heavily depended on the relationship that both sides had built up over the time they’d known each other, so it likely wasn’t something I could discern just from spending half a day with him.

3.5

8 :37 P.M. Many students, after finishing their dinner, headed over to the large bathhouse, considered to be the true draw of the traditional Japanese inn. And Horikita Suzune was no exception, as this was one of the things she was looking forward to most. Horikita had finished eating more quickly than the other students around her, but she was surprised to find that there were already three students undressing in the changing room. Among them was a girl who didn’t want to be seen naked and had decided to end her meal quickly so that she could get through the process fast.

Horikita, on the other hand, didn’t feel any aversion or shame over being seen naked by people of the same sex. That was partly due to the fact that originally, when she was in elementary school and junior high, she didn’t stand out very much, and she didn’t have any friends, so no one really paid any attention to how she looked anyway. Even so, when she opened the sliding door out to the large bath, she spread out her face towel and casually covered the front of her body with it, for etiquette’s sake.

As she stepped inside, she felt a rush of heat wash over her, and the bath, which was a bit larger than she had expected, spread out before her. There were two large indoor pools inside the room. There was an outdoor open-air bath as well—it was a large bath surrounded by rocks, which could be seen on the other side of the glass.

After lightly washing herself off with hot water, Horikita decided to head out immediately to the iwaburo , the large onsen surrounded by rocks. There, she saw two unexpected guests had already arrived before her. One of them was her classmate Kushida Kikyou.

“Oh, Horikita-san.” Kushida immediately noticed that a new visitor had arrived and greeted her with a gentle wave.

Of course, Horikita knew that wasn’t how Kushida really felt. The welcome was only because Rokkaku Momoe, a student from Class A, was also present. Kushida would never dare share her true feelings in front of a student from another class. Horikita responded to her greeting with a brief glance, then got into the pool and headed for the edge, not going over to sit by Kushida. Horikita wanted to take a spot where no one would speak to her, and she wouldn’t be bothered.

She let Kushida and Rokkaku’s idle conversation wash over her, not talking to anyone, and continued to enjoy the hot spring for five minutes, then ten minutes. Then, before she knew it, Rokkaku was gone and only Kushida remained. Not even the faintest trace of the smile she had been wearing remained on her face.

“Why didn’t you leave with Rokkaku-san?” Horikita asked her. “Wasn’t it fun spending time with her?”

“Huh? I don’t really need a reason, do I?” said Kushida. “I love hot springs. Were you thinking that I wanted to talk to you?”

“I wasn’t really thinking that, no.”

“Really? Didn’t you ask me because you were thinking about it?”

“Okay, you’ve made your point.” Horikita let out a sigh of slight regret in response to Kushida’s sudden show of aggressiveness. “You really do have a wide circle of friends, though. I’ve never even spoken with Rokkaku-san.”

Horikita attempted to change the subject by bringing up the topic of Rokkaku, who had just left the open-air bath.

“She came crying to me, asking me to come with her. She was embarrassed, I guess. I don’t blame her, though, she’s so scrawny and flat-chested.” Now that she knew there was no one to overhear, Kushida started spewing venom. She examined Horikita as though trying to evaluate her. “Horikita-san, you… Well, you look good, well-proportioned. Not really that impressive to me, though.”

Kushida moved a little closer to Horikita.

“What? You want something from me?” Horikita asked.

“Nothing. It’s just that it’d look off if we kept this unnatural distance between us, right? You and I are classmates, after all, Horikita-san. Normally, it’d be strange if I wasn’t close to you, talking with you.”

When Rokkaku was still there, it didn’t look strange that Horikita and Kushida were apart from one another. However, if they were clearly leaving a wide space between them in the outdoor bath now that Rokkaku was gone, there was a possibility that any new visitors would get the feeling that something was up.

“All I understand is that your struggles must be incalculable,” said Horikita.

“The best thing would be for you to leave and go somewhere else, like the indoor baths,” said Kushida.

“I’ll have to refuse your suggestion.”

“Wow, you really are quite a stickler, Horikita-san. You won’t even listen if I ask you to please drop out of school.”

Hearing Kushida still talking about getting her to drop out in such a calm and composed manner, Horikita let out another sigh. Upon seeing that, Kushida smiled broadly.

“You really do have a kind smile,” said Horikita.

“Obviously. You can see out here from inside, so I can’t do anything careless.”

As well as the surrounding voices, Kushida was also constantly considering people’s gazes. To any uninformed student who happened to look at them from indoors, they would seem like nothing more than two classmates chatting amicably with one another. Not only did Kushida pay attention to the sense of distance, she was constantly alert to any prying eyes in her surroundings and made sure nothing was left to chance.

“If you can handle yourself that well, then perhaps you should have tried to get by in school without being found out by Ayanokouji-kun,” replied Horikita.

“That was because I was so incredibly stressed out after starting school here. I didn’t think that you’d be here, Horikita-san. You know?”

“I’m sure that must have been unexpected…”

The disappointment that followed the initial relief of thinking she had completely cut off everyone from her junior high school days must have been immeasurable.

“We have to live on campus, to build new relationships with people,” Kushida said. “You can understand that I’d need to vent sometimes, right?”

And as a result, Kushida’s tragedy began when Ayanokouji just so happened to spot her when she was in the middle of venting.

“You’re free to continue hating me,” said Horikita. “As long as you contribute to the class, I have no complaints. Your performance at the Cultural Festival was spectacular.”

“Well, I could do at least that much without any difficulty. It’s a weapon to protect myself, after a—”

Kushida abruptly stopped midsentence and looked over at the sliding door that led to the open-air bath. An instant later, the door rattled open noisily, and out came Ibuki with a face towel draped over her shoulder. Kushida was alarmed by the arrival of a new visitor, but she quickly relaxed when she recognized who it was. Ibuki already had a good understanding of Kushida’s true nature, along with Horikita.

“Horikita!” Ibuki must have been searching for Horikita, because she shouted loudly when she saw her.

“…Now you’re here?” huffed Horikita.

Ibuki, fully nude, strolled confidently closer to the bath and then jumped in, making a huge splash and spraying both Horikita and Kushida with hot water.

“That’s a pretty huge violation of etiquette,” said Horikita.

“Don’t care,” said Ibuki. “More importantly, let’s you and me have a showdown!”

“A showdown, in a place like this? What, are you planning to ask me to play rock-paper-scissors with you?”

“Huh? Come on, it’s obvious, there’s only one thing we could do when we’re in a pool as huge as this. We’re gonna compete to see who can swim the fastest, going from one end to the other!”

“You could easily say that swimming is an even greater breach of etiquette than jumping in the bath,” said Horikita.

“Come on, it’s fine, isn’t it? No one from the general public is here, and no one is watching.”

“I think it’s fine,” Kushida said. “I’ll be here as an impartial observer. So, why don’t you go ahead?”

“Now you’re getting in on this?” Horikita huffed. “Isn’t it your job, at least ostensibly, to put a stop to these kinds of things?”

“Don’t worry, I’ll just say that you and Ibuki-san selfishly started going at it on your own, and that you paid no attention to me asking you to stop. Besides, if someone does see me, then as long as I look confused and panicked, it’ll be fine.”

“Kushida says she’s fine with it too. So, that settles it—showdown time!” cheered Ibuki.

“No,” said Horikita.

“Huh? I came all the way here thinking we could do it, though. This sucks.” With that, Ibuki got out of the water.

“Did you really show up here just for that? You don’t want to stay in the open-air bath?” asked Horikita.

“I don’t have any intention of becoming friends with you. Besides, I don’t care if it’s inside or outside; a hot-spring bath is still the same thing either way.” With that, since there was no chance of her desired showdown, Ibuki promptly exited the bath.

“Wow, what an idiot Ibuki-san is,” said Kushida with an amused smile, after the sliding door slammed shut.

“She is freakishly obsessed with having contests with me,” said Horikita. “You’re somewhat similar to her.”

Kushida had also repeatedly been looking for a fight with Horikita. When Horikita told Kushida that she and Ibuki were alike, she chuckled. “Don’t lump me together with her.”

Kushida’s words and the look on her face said different things, but Horikita ignored that. Both of them expected that new visitors would be coming to the outdoor bath, so there wasn’t any further need for conversation, but no students were showing up just yet, as it was still dinnertime.

“Anyway, I have to say, you really were fortunate, Horikita-san,” said Kushida.

“Fortunate? What are you talking about?” asked Horikita.

“I mean how you were seated next to Ayanokouji-kun when you started school here. Thanks to that, you were able to get close to him and get a lot of help from the shadows through him, right?”

It wasn’t as though Kushida knew in detail the truth of everything that had actually happened until now. However, she did understand that, at key points, Ayanokouji had been involved in some way.

“If Ayanokouji-kun weren’t here, Horikita-san, you might even have gotten expelled because of me by now,” said Kushida.

It wasn’t your own ability that brought you this far . If someone had told her that before, Horikita would’ve immediately argued against it. But now, she was able to take a more objective look at things, and think back on them calmly.

“I can’t completely deny that,” she admitted. “But it’s not just my good fortune; it was a lucky break for you too. If it weren’t for Ayanokouji-kun, you wouldn’t be here right now, as the version of you with everything exposed and brought to light. You might have continued playing the part of the purely good girl, making the same mistakes over and over.”

Of course, no one knew what the outcome of that might’ve been. It was entirely possible that Kushida could have made it through the three years of her academic career here while keeping up the charade. But whether she could continue to do so forever was another matter. The truth was that Kushida was in constant, never-ending pain, day after day. Now, she was able to disperse her stress using both her outer and inner selves.

“…Perhaps,” she said.

That was the truth, and it was being presented to her by someone she didn’t like at all. Normally, Kushida would have admitted to it only as lip service, but instead, she nodded, as she felt there were some things that she needed to admit to. That was something that she had gained because she had been pushed to the brink of death during the Unanimous Special Exam, and managed to bounce back and stay alive. For the first time in her life, she had experienced a change in her way of thinking and her values.

“When you think about it, I suppose that you were even luckier than I was,” said Horikita.

“It honestly pisses me off when you make a good comeback like that, Horikita-san,” said Kushida.

The two of them stopped speaking at that point. They were two people who normally wouldn’t engage with one another, and neither of them could think of any particular reason to stay in the bath for a long time. However, for some reason, they continued to soak. Neither of them had a clear answer as to why this was, but to them, it felt like leaving first would equate to losing. It was because there was that feeling in the air that they stayed.

“…Please pardon the intrusion.”

It was a few minutes after Ibuki had left that Kushida and Horikita’s time alone together came to an end. Ichinose Honami had shown up to the open-air bath, entering somewhat shyly.

“You’re all by yourself, Ichinose-san? That’s rather unusual,” remarked Kushida.

“Ah ha ha… Yeah, I guess so, a little,” said Ichinose.

Kushida was well aware that Ichinose had been talking with a lot of people over dinner. From that, she understood that Ichinose must have wanted to come here on her own.

“I suppose everyone has times when they wish to be alone,” said Horikita. “I’ll get out of the way.”

Horikita was starting to feel quite flushed, and decided that this was likely a good time to call it a night. She thought that she’d switch places with Ichinose and naturally pass the baton over to Kushida, assuming that Kushida and Ichinose would likely engage in casual conversation, and that’d be that.

“Oh, no, that’s okay! It’s not like that at all! Please don’t mind me!” flailed Ichinose, stopping Horikita as she was just about to get up.

Kushida turned to Horikita with a smile, as if to follow up. “Already going, Horikita-san? Ichinose-san said that it’s okay, so why don’t we all chat together?”

“What do you mean?” asked Horikita.

“I mean I feel like I still haven’t had my fill of talking to you,” Kushida said. “Is that not okay?”

Kushida said things that she didn’t really mean, even though she made it seem like they reflected how she really felt. Ichinose looked a little worried too, as if wondering if she had interrupted something in coming here.

“Well, I decided that I’d had enough conversation, but…all right. I’ll stay for a little while longer.” Horikita sat down on top of a rock on the side of the pool to let the night breeze cool down her warmed-up body. It had started snowing outside, so the air outside the water was cold, but it actually felt quite pleasant.

“Hey, Ichinose-san, there’s something I’d like to ask you. Would that be okay?” asked Kushida.

“Hm? What is it? You can ask me anything, sure,” said Ichinose.

“So, Ichinose-san, are you going out with anybody?”

“Hm? W-wait, what?!” Ichinose panicked over the entirely unexpected question.

“It’s just that, lately, a lot of guys in class have been asking me if you’re available,” Kushida said.

Kushida seemed unaware of what was going on as she asked that question, but in truth, that wasn’t the case. In fact, Kushida knew that Ichinose was available now, and she knew that Ichinose had feelings for Ayanokouji. She had already finished gathering that information at an early stage. Kushida was better informed than anyone else in Ichinose’s class, but she wouldn’t breathe a word about that.

“N-n-n-no, there’s no one! I’m not seeing anyone!” answered Ichinose.

“I see,” said Kushida. “Okay, so, is there anybody you like?”

The only reason that Kushida was asking these sorts of questions with an innocent look on her face was because she wanted to dissect Ayanokouji even further. She wanted to find out why Ichinose had taken a liking to him. She was also taking into consideration the possibility that this could eventually become a weapon she could use.

However, Ichinose didn’t admit it. “N-no, there isn’t. Really, no, I don’t have anyone like that.” She denied the truth and hid her face in the bathwater, trying to hide the blush that was coloring her face in her embarrassment and awkwardness.

Kushida had considered the possibility that, if Ichinose had admitted to it, she could’ve mentioned the matter of Karuizawa or gotten into deeper topics, but it didn’t seem like it was going to be that easy. So, she decided to pass the baton over to Horikita briefly, since she had decided to stay.

“What about you, Horikita-san? Do you have any stories of romance?”

“No.” Horikita responded in less than a second. She had almost no interest in romance.

“I see,” said Kushida. “You seem like you’d be exceedingly popular, though, Horikita-san. And you seem to be very friendly with Sudou-kun.”

“I don’t understand it, myself. What about you, though? You seem to get along even with boys from other classes. I feel like Ichinose-san might be curious about that, too.” Horikita, faced with an irritating question, turned it back around on Kushida. Her intention was to quickly remove herself from the conversation and let Kushida and Ichinose talk.

“Yes, you’re right about that,” Ichinose said. “I’ve been getting a lot of questions from boys about Kushida-san, too.”

Though Kushida clicked her tongue in irritation at Horikita in her mind, on the outside, she directed a bashful smile at Ichinose. “Huh? Really? I don’t really know all that much about things like romance either, though… But you know, I feel like it might be a waste to fall in love while you’re still a student.”

She decided to focus on sowing the seeds for the topic to move forward, if they were going to waste time talking about this now.

“A waste?” asked Ichinose.

“Yes. After all, I hear that student romances hardly ever go anywhere,” Kushida explained. “Something like between ten and thirty percent? It’s hard to take the plunge, when you consider that less than half work out… That’s why I’m making a conscious effort not to fall in love right now.”

Ichinose had an even wider circle of friends than Kushida herself; by telling her this, Kushida hoped she’d be able to preemptively discourage any guy planning to try and ask her out, even guys who were prepared to go down in flames if they asked. In the time since Kushida had started school here, she had already had more than ten students privately ask her out, from all grade levels.

“It makes me happy that people like me, but…at the same time, I’m afraid of getting hurt,” Kushida said.

“I see… I think I can understand that…” said Ichinose.

Kushida thought there was almost nothing more pointless than romance when you were a student. While Ichinose and Kushida were engaged in conversation about love, Horikita stood back up.

“I think it’s time I be going,” she said.

“Oh? You’re leaving already?” asked Kushida.

“I don’t know anything about romance.”

“I see. Well, I certainly won’t press you. But is there perhaps another reason why you want to cut this conversation short?”

“I don’t understand what you mean.”

“Don’t worry about it. I suppose you’ve reached your limit; you’re probably too hot. I wanted to keep talking with you, though, Horikita-san.”

“You’re…serious?” asked Horikita.

“Of course.” Kushida turned to Ichinose. “Ichinose-san, you feel the same way, right?”

“Yes. If you don’t mind me being here, I’d like to keep talking with you, Horikita-san,” she agreed.

In response to what Kushida said, which sounded like provocation, and her prompting, Horikita sat back down. “In that case…okay, let’s.”

Horikita, as leader of the class, could no longer choose the option of running away from Kushida’s offer.

“Are you really sure you’re all right?” Kushida asked. “It’d be awful if you got dizzy and collapsed.”

“Thank you for your concern,” said Horikita. “But I’m worried about you too, Kushida-san. Your face looks red.”

“That might be because we’re talking about love,” said Kushida.

“It’s just from that? I hope you’re not forcing yourself too much.”

Horikita’s sharp look and Kushida’s smiling gaze collided.

Ichinose cocked her head to the side, puzzled. She felt like something was off. “I kind of get the feeling you two are acting different from usual. Is something the matter?”

Kushida immediately and completely eliminated any remaining nastiness toward Horikita from her demeanor. “Oh no, not at all. Right, Horikita-san?”

“…Right.”

Even though Ichinose was a comparatively trustworthy person, there was no need to give her any extraneous information. That was what Horikita had concluded, and so she played along with what Kushida said. The talk of romance between Kushida and Ichinose continued for a while, and eventually, their conversation turned into idle chatter. Horikita listened attentively throughout, enjoying both the onsen and the snow that continued falling gently.

Afterward, some of Ichinose’s friends who had come over after they had finished eating called Ichinose inside, and she left to join them. Then, as another group of girls poured into the open-air bath, both Horikita and Kushida kept their distance from one another, but continued their contest to see who could outlast the other. Their stalemate continued for another ten minutes or so. But then…

“Don’t you think it’s time that you two get out now? You’re both bright red.” When Ichinose saw that both Horikita and Kushida were nearing their limits, she popped her face outside.

“Hear that, Horikita-san?” said Kushida.

“I think…you’re the one who should heed what Ichinose-san is saying, don’t you?” said Horikita.

Both sides stubbornly tried to persist, but more students had started appearing at the outdoor bath now that they’d finished their meals. Since it would’ve been difficult for them to continue their competition like this, they both read the writing on the wall and stood up at the same time.

“It was a nice bath, wasn’t it?” said Kushida.

“It really was,” said Horikita. “Perhaps too much so, actually…”

“Did something happen between you two after all?” said Ichinose, worried, once again feeling like there was something strange going on, but the two of them left the bath, acting as though nothing had happened.

3.6

J UST BEFORE 10 P.M ., there came two gentle knocks at our door. Watanabe, looking at the door, said that he’d answer it and hurriedly got up. Was he taking the initiative for our sake, or for his own?

“Sorry to have kept you waiting,” said Kushida.

As Watanabe opened the door, four girls poured in, with Kushida in the lead.

“W-welcome. Wow, it sure is late, huh?” Watanabe seemed nervous and bashful. His movements suddenly became tense and delayed, and he hurriedly tried to make way for the girls.

“Sorry. I ended up spending a little too much time in the bath, so that’s why we’re late,” said Kushida.

It was true that her face looked a little red. At the same time, though, I noticed that her hair looked glossy and smooth. We seldom had the opportunity to meet with girls at night right before bedtime, which was probably why this was such a valuable experience to Watanabe. With the four girls coming in, an indescribable fragrance instantly spread throughout the room. It wasn’t like the stink of a gathering of boys; it was like a completely different environment.

“I wonder why it smells so good in here now…?” asked Watanabe.

“It certainly is a mystery,” I replied.

The large bathhouse was stocked with bottles of shampoo and conditioner that were made with soy milk; perhaps they were wholesale items purchased for business purposes for customers. I had no complaints, but the lather wasn’t particularly great, and the shampoo and conditioner felt like they were relatively cheap. Normally, I would assume that they’d have put the same products on the men’s side as they did in the women’s baths, but…the scent that wafted from the girls was clearly different from the soy milk-based shampoo we used. Or perhaps the girls had brought their own items.

“Hey, try asking them,” Watanabe said. “Ask how they smell so good.”

“Sorry, but I don’t think I can ask them that.”

Even someone like me, who knew little of the world, knew that. I was sure that if I asked the girls something like that, they’d feel creeped out.

“It makes you a little nervous, doesn’t it, when you think about being in a guy’s room?” whispered Amikura to the other girls as she looked about the room, seeming a little uncomfortable.

Even though the rooms had the same layouts, they might have looked different from one another, strangely enough.

“Hey, after we’re finished with our discussion, how about we all go to Honami-chan’s group’s room?” said Amikura. “They’re having girl talk until just before lights out.”

“Really? Sure, I’m okay with that,” said Kushida.

Unlike Kushida, who readily agreed to the idea right away, Nishino declined the offer, seemingly disinterested. “I’ll pass. I’m not really good friends with them.”

Yamamura proceeded to jump on the bandwagon now that Nishino had declined; she lowered her head and mumbled something quietly. “…Me too, I’ll pass…”

“Really?” said Amikura. “I thought everyone would be on board, but… Well, it’s all right.”

Hearing that the girls would be leaving soon, Watanabe had a somewhat disappointed look on his face. Lights out was at 11 p.m., though, which was somewhat late, so we still had some time until then. It was a school trip, after all, something that people had been looking forward to, and everyone wanted to really cut loose.

“So, this is what it feels like to have girls in your room…” muttered Watanabe quietly, drunk with ecstasy.

“More importantly, Watanabe, you should welcome the girls as soon as possible,” I said. “This is your chance to increase your likeability, right?”

Just inviting them into our room was something that even I, Ryuuen, or Kitou could have done. To make a lasting impression, he’d need to go one step further.

“Huh? Support them? Like how?” asked Watanabe.

He was so overwhelmed by the girls being here that he couldn’t seem to see the situation. The girls came to the guys’ room, so this was like an away game for them; they probably didn’t know where they should sit here.

“Um… Where should we sit?” asked Kushida.

Four futons had already been laid out in this Japanese-style room by the staff, spaced a little apart from one another, so you’d have to sit near the edge of the room if you were going to sit on the floor. Deciding whether to force them into a cramped space or take other measures would be a show of skill in this situation.

“Huh? Well, anywhere should be fine, I think,” said Watanabe, not quite understanding the situation. “If you don’t mind sitting on top of a futon, you can go ahead. Sound good?”

He proceeded to remove blankets from two futon sets and prepared a space. The girls looked a little surprised, but since there wasn’t any other suitable place for them to sit, Kushida nodded in agreement. The four girls all sat down on the two futon sets near the door.

“Well then, lights out is fast approaching, so let’s get started right away,” said Kushida. “Speaking of, where’s Ryuuen-kun?”

“On the other side of the sliding door,” I replied.

I remembered that when I’d opened the sliding door before, I saw the small table, the two armchairs, and the small refrigerator. Amikura seemed like she was too scared to go near the sliding door, so Nishino, being Ryuuen’s classmate, walked over and threw the door open. Ryuuen seemed to be relaxing on one of the armchairs while playing on his phone.

“Did you not hear? We’re meeting,” said Kushida.

“Here works. I can hear you fine,” said Ryuuen.

“You might be right about that, but I’d still like everyone to come over and be present, since the purpose is to build solidarity as a group.” Kushida called for Ryuuen to join us without even a hint of fear. Perhaps Ryuuen didn’t like her acting like that, because he laughed and turned his phone off.

“You sure are eager, but do you really understand your position here?” he sneered.

“What is that supposed to mean?” asked Kushida.

“Exactly what it sounds like. If you’re tellin’ me you don’t understand, then I can make you understand, ya know?”

The other students here couldn’t understand the meaning lurking behind Ryuuen’s words in his attempt to rein Kushida in. But Ryuuen was the only person outside our class here who knew about Kushida, so his words carried weight.

“What are you even talking about?” asked Nishino. She must have interpreted the exchange as nothing more than Ryuuen picking a fight, so she hounded him. “Don’t go saying stuff that’ll just annoy people, and get over here, now.”

Nishino was neither scared nor timid; she was already grabbing hold of Ryuuen’s arm and yanking him to his feet.

“Nishino,” he grumbled. “You’ve certainly been mouthin’ off a lot lately too, haven’t you?”

“Uh, I’ve always been like this, though,” she said. “I just never got involved more than I needed to before.”

So, she was basically saying that since she was in a group right now, she had no other choice but to do something. I had expected they’d jump down one another’s throats more, but Ryuuen simply got up, acting as though this were all a pain in the ass, and headed inside the Japanese-style room. Kitou shot him a glance; in an instant, the mood was tense. Even so, for the time being, eight people had now gathered in one room for discussion.

“Is this something we really need to do with all of us together in one place?” Kitou hadn’t said one word since the girls had arrived, but now he spoke up. “We could just do this on our phones.”

It was true that it would’ve been easy to notify everyone of what was going on that way, even by just putting everyone in a group chat in an app or something.

“From the sounds of it, the other groups have been deciding what they’re doing via face-to-face discussions, like we’re doing now.”

“Wow, Kushida-chan, we can count on you to know what’s up!” Watanabe nodded exaggeratedly, seemingly impressed with how well-informed Kushida was, before sitting down between Yamamura and me. Perhaps Yamamura was alarmed by the unexpected and sudden approach of a young man, since she took a half-step backward, almost standing, in an effort to get away from him.

“Ah, sorry, Yamamura. Didn’t see you there,” said Watanabe.

“It’s okay… Don’t worry about it.”

Apart from that rather inconsequential exchange, though, there was still an incredibly strong feeling of tension in everyone’s interactions with Ryuuen, even now.

“Other groups are other groups. We can do things our own way,” said Kitou.

Ryuuen was most likely the one Kitou was worried about. It was clear to see that he was concerned that we wouldn’t be able to have a proper discussion.

“I think it’s important that we have a face-to-face with everyone, though,” Kushida said. “I want to hear how everyone really feels.”

Kushida, unwilling to back down, insisted that there were many things you wouldn’t understand by communicating through an app. She likely didn’t want to step on the Ryuuen landmine either, but she had her position to protect. If the outer Kushida decided that she couldn’t back down here, then she’d probably just push things forward.

“Anyway, sorry to rush things, but regarding our free time starting tomorrow—” she began.

“Before that, though, you all forgot that there’s one thing we need to settle first,” interrupted Ryuuen. He looked around the Japanese-style room, futons laid out, and said, “I ain’t got the slightest desire to sleep shoulder-to-shoulder with any of you assholes, but still, I can’t say much since space is tight. So, I’m sleepin’ here,” he declared, directing his gaze to the futon placed at the far back of the room.

It was in an ideal position—if someone were to get up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom or something, you wouldn’t be bothered there, and you wouldn’t be in the middle of people. He was right, no one had settled the matter of where we’d be sleeping. Well, wait, is this something we need to be deciding right now? It might be better if we wait until after the girls leave…

Was Ryuuen simply unable to read social cues? Or was he doing this deliberately? Based on what I’d seen from him thus far, it felt like the latter, at least to me. But what did the others here think, I wondered? They seemed to be thinking that he was simply acting selfishly and making an irrelevant declaration.

He took one look at Watanabe and me for confirmation, more or less, and then bluntly followed up with, “No objections, right?” in a somewhat more aggressive tone.

“I’m… Well, I’m fine with anywhere.” Watanabe complied with Ryuuen’s demand, sounding like a frog being stared down by a snake.

I should go ahead and give an answer myself, I supposed. As that thought was running through my head, though, Ryuuen was already looking away from me.

“Hey, Kitou,” he sneered. “If you got somethin’ you wanna say, don’t hold back. Go ahead and spill it, huh?”

He seemed to think that Kitou would be the only one who would argue with him.

“Unacceptable.” Kitou’s rebuttal was like the abstract representation of this made manifest.

“Oh?” Ryuuen cocked his head to the side. He had told Kitou not to hold anything back and to speak his piece, but he must not have liked his refusal.

“I do not approve of such an unfair approach to decision-making in this matter,” Kitou said. “Moreover, this isn’t something we should even be discussing right now. Can’t you understand that?”

“Don’t care. And I don’t remember givin’ you the right to refuse, asshole.”

“I am free to speak how I wish, whenever and wherever.” Kitou wasn’t backing down one inch. Rather, he appeared ready for battle.

“H-hey, come on, let’s just calm down, Kitou. It’s only where we’re sleeping. How about you let him have it?” pleaded Watanabe, standing up and trying to get Kitou to stop.

“I refuse,” Kitou declared.

“Um…” Watanabe buckled, bending back a bit in the face of Kitou’s powerful glare. When it came to how much anger and intensity was conveyed in their facial expressions, Kitou surpassed Ryuuen.

“I have no intention of letting this man’s unreasonableness pass,” said Kitou.

“W-wait a minute, boys. We’re not even talking about that now. Later, you can…” Amikura nervously tried to remind them what we were meeting about, but Nishino tugged on her yukata sleeve and stopped her. She gave Amikura a shake of her head, silently warning her that it’d be best not to interrupt.

“I’ll say this as many times as necessary. I have no intention of willingly surrendering to you,” spat Kitou.

“In that case, you sayin’ you wanna fight me over it?” said Ryuuen. “Huh? That it?”

“You wish for violence? I’m fine with giving it to you, but you’ll be laying flat for the rest of the trip.”

Kushida had a worried look on her face, but I looked into her eyes and thought about what she must be thinking. I figured she was likely feeling irritated, thinking that it was all so bothersome that it was practically killing her.

“Heh heh . All right, guess we’re doin’ this, then. The rest of you wanna get in on this, too?” asked Ryuuen.

“No thanks, I’ll sit this out… Like I said before, I’m fine with anywhere,” said Watanabe.

Personally, I would rather have been on one of the edges instead of sandwiched in the middle, but I didn’t want to get sucked into trouble. Whether Ryuuen won or Kitou won, once one of them took that particular edge, they wouldn’t have to sleep next to each other. It was far more likely that Watanabe or I would be between them as a buffer.

“I’ll pass, too,” I said. “You can decide this with a fight if you want. If you both want that one end, we’ll just let you fight over it, and you can let Watanabe and I each take one of the remaining three spots. Okay?”

If we didn’t assert our natural rights, then there’d be trouble later. It seemed like Ryuuen and Kitou were both saying that futon was their utmost preference, and so Watanabe and I were free to choose from the remaining spaces.

“Also, please don’t decide this with violence,” I added.

I had to say at least that part in a forceful tone, otherwise group six would look bad. I’d heard that the school would be ruthless in imposing restrictions on any groups that caused trouble. Maybe it was a bit of an exaggeration, but it would be a shame if we weren’t able to leave the ryokan the whole duration of the trip, now that we were finally here.

“Well, I like settlin’ things with my fists, since that’s easy to understand, but I guess we can’t do that, huh?” said Ryuuen.

At any rate, I was grateful that they seemed to at least have the prudence not to get violent.

“Thanks, Ayanokouji, for saying what I wanted to say,” said Watanabe.

“No big deal; I didn’t really say anything special.”

“That’s not true, though. At least to me, you did, anyway. You can take the other edge, if you want.”

Was it just the students in Ichinose’s class who all seemed to be fundamentally composed of goodness? I hadn’t even asked him for the space, yet he just gave the edge to me. With that decided, there’d be either Ryuuen or Kitou on the far end, and Watanabe would be next to that person. The person in the third futon would be whoever lost this contest. And then I’d be sleeping on the end closest to the entrance to the room.

“Besides, I need to build up a little tolerance anyway,” said Watanabe.

Apparently, one of the reasons why Watanabe had given up that spot was for a personal matter. Of course, I was sure that the idea of being sandwiched between Ryuuen and Kitou wasn’t all that thrilling, though.

In the blink of an eye, Ryuuen was already clutching a pillow in his hands. “I guess people always think of this sort of thing whenever someone mentions a school trip, eh? It’s gonna be a one-on-one fight. And I’m sure you don’t even need to hear the rules, huh, Kitou?”

“Of course not,” he replied.

“What?” I cocked my head to the side. “What are you going to use the pillow for?”

I didn’t know what awaited us now that this change had been made.

“Come on, school trips, pillows?” Ryuuen said. “Put those two together and there’s only one thing it could mean, right?”

Only one thing? I had no clue… However, all the other students aside from me appeared to understand, and Kushida quickly stood up.

“A-all right then, in that case, why don’t I act as referee?” offered Kushida, seeming regretful at having been placed into such an absurd position. “It might be better if we can have someone judge this impartially.”

“Wow, you’re so disciplined, Kushida-chan, even at a time like this,” marveled Watanabe.

I would’ve loved to have heard what Kushida honestly thought, but the other girls were close by, as well as Watanabe. Anyway, more importantly, I was deeply interested in seeing what they were going to be using the pillows for.

“I’ll let you take the first one,” said Ryuuen.

“You’d best not give it to me,” Kitou replied. “You don’t want to be defeated without taking a single shot, do you? Come at me with no regrets, Ryuuen.”

Ryuuen smacked the pillow against the top of his hand, smirking, with a pomf, pomf sound.

“In that case, I ain’t gonna hold back. I’m gonna kill ya, Kitou!” Ryuuen snarled.

With that, he swung wide, chucking the pillow like it were a ball. The pillow, which was stuffed with buckwheat chaff, flew at Kitou at high speed. Although there was a fair distance between the two of them, the pillow was thrown with such intensity that it wouldn’t be surprising if whoever was hit by it got knocked off their feet and lost. And yet Kitou calmly and precisely caught the pillow.

“Now, I’m going to kill you!” Kitou threw the pillow back, and his own throw had no less intensity than Ryuuen’s. Ryuuen then proceeded to catch it in magnificent fashion, and he immediately switched his stance to throw it again.

“Heh, not bad, Kitou! Looks like I might have a little fun! Hraah!”

Once again, the pillow was returned to Kitou.

“This is…” I muttered.

“A pillow fight,” said Kushida. “You’ve never done this kind of thing before, Ayanokouji-kun? I had the impression that boys were always having pillow fights, though—you know, on trips in elementary school and junior high, or at summer camp and stuff.”

This was the first I had ever heard of it. No one had engaged in anything like a pillow fight even during the mixed camp last year.

“Darkness Ball!”

“Go, my rampaging great serpent, devour him!”

Darkness and a great serpent, huh? The humble pillow was being transformed into all sorts of things.

“U-um, this is supposed to be…a pillow fight, right?” mumbled Amikura, watching the pillow fly back and forth, from right to left and back again.

A one-on-one fight to the death, where no one else would be permitted to intervene, not even in the event of an emergency…is what this wasn’t. It was supposed to be a pillow fight to decide who would sleep where. The deadly “life-or-death battle” raged on for several minutes more, with no conclusion in sight. Neither opponent seemed to be at risk of exhausting their stamina; it looked like they could continue fighting for a long time. However, all the rest of us present aside from those two engaged in combat understood that we were now faced with a dilemma.

“Is that pillow going to be okay if they keep throwing it that hard? It’s already looking so beat-up,” murmured Kushida calmly, which drew everyone’s attention to the pillow in question.

I was sure that no one needed this to be explained, but pillows weren’t items meant for throwing. Now, if you were just gently tossing it, that’d be one thing, but there was no way that the pillow wouldn’t get increasingly damaged after being hurled back and forth with no restraint, full force, in a succession of blazing-fast pitches.

“That reminds me, whose pillow is that, anyway?” asked Watanabe suddenly, checking the futons that were laid out on the floor.

Out of the four futons there, the pillow was missing from the one on the far edge, the one that Watanabe had let me have.

“…Guess it’s mine,” I said.

I didn’t have the item that I should have had on my futon. At that very moment, in fact, Kitou seemed to be clutching it tightly in his hands, pouring yet more of his darkness power into it. I could tell quite well that the pillow was screaming in agony.

“I’m pretty sure you’d get nightmares if you slept with that pillow,” muttered Watanabe.

Well, actually, I’d say that the fact there was no guarantee that the pillow would even keep its shape was terrifying in the first place. Whichever side won, I’d have liked my pillow to be returned to me safely.

“Hmph!”

Kitou had poured more intense killing intent into his throw this time than ever before. Perhaps it was because Kitou’s thick fingers were digging into it so tightly, but the pillow exploded the moment it left his hand. The cloth ripped open, and the buckwheat chaff that had been stuffed inside was now scattered across the room. Everyone fell silent as we heard the pieces fall everywhere. The pillow that was supposed to have gently supported my head had now been reduced to a tragic state.

Oh, pillow, I wished so strongly for you to be returned safely to me, and yet you weren’t, were you…? I would like to express my deepest condolences to the victim that was cruelly cut down on this battlefield.

“Ugh, boys. I can’t help thinking they’re such m… I mean, they’re simply children, aren’t they?” muttered Kushida, quietly enough so that only I could hear her.

The buckwheat chaff that had scattered across the room had also become as still as death. Neither Ryuuen nor Kitou seemed to be particularly bothered by that, though, and their fingers were already reaching for the nearest pillow at hand. That was when Nishino spoke up, raising her voice.

“Hey, listen. We don’t exactly have all the time in the world here, so can you guys finish whatever this is later? It’s a hassle.”

Ryuuen ignored her warning and looked like he was going to continue, but Kitou was not. He sat down without a word, deciding to put this matter on hold for the time being. His previous feelings had cooled, and he sensed the frustration of those around him.

“So, this mean you lost, then, Kitou?” asked Ryuuen.

“If she says that it’s a bother, then I have no intention of being a bother anymore,” said Kitou.

Considering the impression he usually gave me, he had pulled back so quickly that it was almost shocking. Well, knowing things had turned out this way, I wished they hadn’t had the pillow fight in the first place. At the very least, I could have avoided having my pillow becoming a sacrifice, with its innards tragically strewn about.

“Okay, well then… First, let’s get this cleaned up,” said Kushida. “And then, after we’re done, let’s chat.”

With all the guys, except for Ryuuen, and all the girls helping out, we successfully managed to gather the debris from the pillow in short order. I’d have to get a new pillow from the ryokan staff later, I supposed. But I agonized over whether I should tell them the truth or lie.

The buckwheat chaff that had been scattered all over the room was collected and placed in a translucent plastic bag in the trash bin. Then, our discussion began. Kushida, as a matter of course, began the discussion, speaking for the group.

“So, about our free time, we just need to be back to the ryokan by seven p.m. for the final check-in for dinner, right?” said Kushida.

Amikura immediately got into the discussion. “Yeah. It really feels like we have the entire day free in that case, doesn’t it?”

“We could take a train or a bus or something to get somewhere relatively quickly, but… What do you all think? Nishino-san, is there anywhere you want to go?” Kushida asked.

“I wanna go skiing, I guess,” Nishino replied. “We basically just practiced all day today, so I didn’t get enough real skiing in. And we’re here in Hokkaido, after all.”

“I agree with Nishino,” I added.

I felt it would be a waste if I’d only spent half a day skiing by the time this trip was over, now that I had gone through the trouble of learning how. Kitou silently expressed his agreement as well with a casual raise of his hand.

“Sounds like quite a few people want to ski, then,” said Kushida. “Watanabe-kun, Yamamura-san, what about you?”

“I don’t really have any objections, myself , ” said Watanabe. “I mean, we’re going around the city on the third day, so that sounds fine to me, y’know?”

“I don’t mind going anywhere,” said Yamamura.

Even Yamamura, who still couldn’t ski very well yet, didn’t seem particularly reluctant about the idea. Was she just going along with everyone else around her, or did she simply want to get better at skiing? I couldn’t really tell what her feelings were in that area.

“Mako-chan, what about you?” asked Kushida.

“Hmm. Well, I’m not that good at skiing, so I can’t say that I’m really thrilled. But if everyone else wants to ski, I’m okay with it. We are a group, after all,” said Amikura, demonstrating a willingness to concede completely.

Kushida didn’t put forth her own opinion in the discussion, instead turning to Ryuuen, who was sitting in an armchair. “What about you, Ryuuen-kun?” she asked.

“Do whatever you want,” he snapped.

Apparently, he wasn’t advocating anything in particular, casually abandoning his right to speak. Once Ryuuen, the most troublesome member of the group, had issued that statement, a wave of relief washed over us. It was probably better to assume that Ryuuen also felt he’d enjoy skiing, rather than just not having any interest in going anywhere.