Chapter 7: Our Trip Begins

Despite his original protests against Rinse helping them out, Ishi couldn’t deny that she ended up being a valuable asset for the team. It appeared that things were going to go smoothly as they got to the buses. This was going to be over two hours of a ride. That was, of course, with no traffic. There was going to be a cheap hotel for everyone to stay at, since this was going to be an overnight trip.

“…” Youna was very much stressing out now that the day had come on this early morning. “I’m worry, what if something goes wrong?” She asked Ishi as the pair looked over the itinerary. “It’s a long trip… Oh no, what if I need to use the bathroom and we get stuck in traffic? I can’t be doing that, I’m a third year. Oh, I need to go use the restroom now.” She was able to sprint away from him, but the boy stopped her in her tracks.

“Sheesh, calm down. I doubt anything bad’s gonna happen.” He then realized how rude this was, as he took his hand off her shoulder. “But, I really shouldn’t be preventing you from using the bathroom if you need it.” That would be a weird thing to do to a girl. “Just make sure we don’t leave you behind on accident.”

Now he was left on his own, which unfortunately brought about one major problem that the boy was going to have to take care of. That being that they had a celebrity in their midst, with practically everyone wanted to sit next to her.

“I’d like to sit with Hattori!” One of them yelled out, as if calling dibs meant anything.

“What? Come on, I want to sit with her.”

“Yeah, me too.” Ishi sighed with how obnoxious his classmates were. Judging from Rinse’s face, she had her own concerns as well.

“How are we doing to deal with this?” She asked out loud. The girl really didn’t want to have to pick out of everyone. That might contribute to some drama, along with some people getting the wrong idea about her favor. “There’s just so many people, and only one spot with me.”

“Okay everyone, please just shut up.” Ishi took the attention of the crowd. This was going to be a big issue if he didn’t think of something that people could live with as fair. Regardless of the results, people would be upset. But as long as they knew it wasn’t personal, he could keep them abated. “I’m sure there’s a way to handle this situation.”

“And how would you solve it?”

“Simple, no one sits next to her.” That one was not well received by all the boos and geers from the crowd. Not even Rinse was for it, since she was certain he only wanted that to happen to make her feel lonely during the trip. “How about this, we leave this up to a game of chance?”

He had a coin on him, since his parents gave him a little bit of spending cash for this field trip. All he had to do was flip it with the students guessing what it would land on. “So if you think the next flip is head, go on one side, then the other if you think tails.”

“That’s a good idea, but you better not have any chance of winning. You already get to sit next to her in class.”

“I don’t want to sit next to her.” He was getting really annoyed at how they treated him like it was a privilege that he got the girl. If anything, it was more of a hassle. And so he went about this stupid game. Yes, even though he was the one to come up with it, Ishi really didn’t care about the weird dealings his class had with their new idol.

With each flip, he was able to whittle down the group all the way until there were only two people left. The entire group had their eyes on them, as he tossed up his coin once more. The tension made it seem like the coin fell slowly. Not wanting to reveal the answer for as long as possible. It landed on his hand, and he turned it over to show the answer. Unlike most, who would delay to build up excitement, Ishi wanted this done with as quickly as possible.

“Tails.” The winner cheered out in utter joy as the loser hung their head down in shame. “Okay, everyone get on the bus.”

“I guess we’ll be sitting next to each other…” Rinse greeted the boy who was going to be her seatmate for the next couple of hours.

“And leave the front seat empty!” He called out to them as they were boarding the vehicle. “That one’s for me and Hanada.” They were the coordinators, so it was also their responsibility to be the real student leaders. A shame for him, as the boy really wanted to catch some sleep during this long trip.

“Don’t leave me behind!” Youna came running up to him yelling as if they were actually going to leave her behind.

“Lucky for you, we’re just about to get on.” He noted a bit of a blunder made by her that had gone unnoticed. That being the bit of toilet paper stuck to the bottom of her shoes. Quietly, he took a step over the top of it. “Go ahead, ladies first.”

“Thank you.” She gave him a quick bow and walk up to the bus. The stuck paper got taken off her shoe and he boarded along with her. As Ishi took his spot, he noticed that Rinse and the boy she was sitting next to was situated right behind them. That boy seemed to already be talking up a storm, much to her chagrin. As well as his, since now his two hour trip was going to be filled with the annoyance of listening to someone else speak.

Sitting down, Ishi took note of the fact that Rinse got the window seat. It must’ve been a move done by that boy to try and isolate her. Which is when he realized that he was doing the same thing to Youna.

“You prefer window or aisle?”

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“Huh?” She was caught off guard by his apparently random question. So much so, that she didn’t even understand what he meant by those terms.

“You like sitting by the window or aisle?” He repeated his question again. “We can switch if you want the aisle.”

“No… It’s fine if we’re like this.” She slowly turned her head towards the window so that she could see him. “Unless you want to sit by the window, of course.”

“Nah, I’m good.” He wasn’t dense, obviously from the tone of her voice he was aware that she was afraid of him. The reasoning wasn’t clear to him though. While he could be a bit… Okay, very mean, he never did anything to make anyone scared of him. “All right everyone, there’s only two rules I got for you. One, don’t do anything stupid, two, really don’t do anything stupid.” Somehow, their circumstance involved his teacher being the bus driver as well. So that meant it was up to him and Youna to take care of and potential trouble makers.

He sat back into his seat, arms crossed in frustration. Technically this wasn’t against the rules, since there was an adult keeping an eye on all these students. However, they couldn’t actually do anything for them, which meant it was up to students like him to take care of things. How was this allowed?

“You know, you’d make for a good teacher.” His teacher complimented him on his job so far as he started the bus.

“Sure…” Ishi responded sarcastically. As if he would ever consider becoming a teacher to the type of people he despised the most. “I’ll keep it in mind during our career aptitude tests.”

This wasn’t going to be a short trip by any means. On the bright side, Ishi could look forward to not having to force any conversations. His seat partner didn’t want to talk with him at all. Unfortunately, since he wasn’t allowed to nod off, it was going to be incredible boring. Maybe he should say something to her, but at the same time, conversation starters were never his hobby. So the boy couldn’t come up with any icebreakers.

All the while, he just had to hear the two behind him talk with each other. The boy right behind him was certainly happy to be in this spot right now. He was practically in euphoria, but judging from Rinse’s tone, she was nowhere near cloud nine.

“Wonder what you were hoping for when you came here?” He muttered to himself, trying to not keep his eyes to one place. Maybe he should’ve asked for the window seat, at least then he’d have somewhere to look at. Instead, his sight wandered towards his seat partner. The small and quiet Youna, who would be best described with only one word. Meek. “Hey.”

“Eh?” She shivered up, stiff like a deer in the headlights. “I-is there something wrong?”

“Nothing, just feeling a little bored, that’s all.” Small talk was easily his worst ability. How was it that people seemed capable to create conversation out of thin air?

“Oh? It’s just seems that you never want to talk to anyone.”

“Believe me, if I had a choice. I’d be dozing off somewhere in the back of the bus. Either that, or Otoya’s going to annoy me with something.” Considering the options, maybe this wasn’t the worst circumstance. “Anyway, is there anything you want to say?”

“Uh… Well…” She wasn’t prepared for him to approach her like this. The girl was hoping to avoid him even if they had to sit next to each other. “Um, are you looking forward to the trip?”

“Can’t say that I am.” He answered bluntly. “Even if I wasn’t stuck being responsible for our class, with you of course, I still wouldn’t care about it. This is just some dumb overnight field trip that we gotta do because it’s just what we do.” What was the point of this? They could’ve easily study aquatic life back in class. Spending hours on this bus, as well as the night not at home was bothersome and felt inefficient.

“Really” Rinse just had to cut into their conversation. It was mostly because she wanted to get out of the one she was stuck in. “I love fish, and this seems like a pretty exciting trip.”

“Y-yeah!” The other boy agreed with her. Ishi rolled his eyes. This boy just has to white knight now, doesn't’ he?

“What about you?” He asked Youna, the girl he was initially chatting with. “You looking forward to this?”

“Well, I like the idea of learning about sea life…” She responded. “But, I’m a little worried about… Oh, never mind.” Considering the only other thing they had planned out was the beach, he figured that she was concerned about that. What was the problem? Could she swim or not? Or perhaps it had to do with her swimsuit, did she even bring one?

“One against three, looks like I lose.” He went back to ignoring them. Hopefully he wasn’t going to be taking too many defeats on this trip.

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