Chapter 8: Break Down

This ride was taking forever. Ishi checked his phone for the time, and there was still about an hour left until they reached their destination. He was not looking forward to the rest of the time they still had left. After all, that meant another hour of not having anything to say to his seat buddy. All the while he had to hear the droning on and on of the people behind him. This field trip was off to such a great start, wasn’t it?

It appeared his path was going to still be heading downhill, if it even went up in the first place. He heard his teacher say the words no one wants to hear. “Uh oh.” The man said, as he felt a little bit of a rumble from their vehicle. Judging from the small amount of smoke entering their view, things weren’t going to end positively here.

Their ride was going to have to take a detour, as a few minutes later, their bus pulled into a gas station.

“I’m sorry everyone.” The teacher said. “I just need to check something, please wait on this bus and don’t go anywhere.” He hopped off the bus, leaving the murmurs of the students behind. Everyone else voiced out their concerns as if that would help things.

“Look guys.” Ishi attempted to calm the crowd. “Just be a little patient, and I’m sure we’ll be out of here in no time.” Rinse’s mother was right, teens really are in a rush to get to things. Though to be fair this time, being stuck here wasn’t good for anyone.

“Can we at least get off to use the bathroom?” Someone asked. Others shared the same sentiment as the person who asked.

“I think we’re old enough to wait a few minutes.”

“We can ask the teacher.” Youna disagreed with him, and since she was the rep, her words were the one to be listened to. Reluctantly, he got off the bus with her to ask permission from the teacher to allow everyone off.

“Actually, I was about to tell everyone they were free to get off.” He explained to them that something appeared to be wrong with the bus. This didn’t sound good at all, but they did as they were asked and told everyone the bad news. So while they didn’t have to wait in this stuffy bus, the idea of being stranded was not well received.

They were about halfway on their trip, so turning back wasn’t an option. But if they suffered much delay, then they’d miss out on a lot of the activities planned out for them. Worst of all for the entire grade, both Youna and Ishi were the ones who planned things out and had the paperwork along with them. So they weren’t going to be the only ones suffering if they had to be stuck here for long.

“Ugh, the bathroom’s were so nasty.” One of the girls complained as she returned of the rest of the group. She was known in the class as the Ryugi, the one with a good sense of fashion. Personally, Ishi thought her to be one of the more diva types that people let pass because she was pretty. “This is all your fault.” She turned her ire on him.

“Me? What did I do?” He didn’t even know how to defend himself from such an accusation. “Last time I checked, I didn’t sabotage our bus.”

“Yeah, well you’re the one in charge.” So to her, and everyone else in the class, he was the one responsible for getting them out of this. As if he had any control over that.

In all honesty, he understood they were all frustrated because this field trip was one they were all looking forward to. If it got ruined, then they wouldn’t have this so-called precious memory in their youth. Though this was totally not fair at all. Youna was also working with him and no one was getting mad at her.

“Hey teacher.” He had come up with a quick, and very poorly thought out, plan. “Could you call one of the other teachers? Maybe they can turn around and help us out?” It was unlikely, since all the vehicles were filled to the brim. However, they could try to work something out with outside help.

“Good idea.” His teacher went to reach for his phone. The man was already about to call a mechanic anyway. “Um…” However, it wasn’t in his pocket where it normally was. The man ran his hands around his body to attempt to find it. “Uh oh…” He came to the painful realization that it was misplaced somewhere.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me.” This day was just getting worse and worse, wasn’t it? How were they going to take care of this situation?

“Hey now everyone, let’s try and keep a positive outlook.” Rinse spoke out to the crowd, which seemed to be working so far. “As long as we don’t get down, we’ll be able to handle anything!”

“Typical.” He muttered to himself. Of course they’d listen to her, she was the popular one. Still, he understood that even she couldn’t keep the frustration at bay forever if they didn’t think of a solution to this problem. Specifically him, since no one else was really contributing to the plan here. Not even his teacher.

However, what could he do with what he had around him? There wasn’t even anything on him to use. Wait… But he did have the people surrounding him, perhaps it was time to use them. “Fuma.” He grabbed the attention of the one girl he knew had contact outside of this classroom. “Do you have Izuru’s number?”

“Of course I do.” She responded. “Since we started dating, we-”

“I don’t care why.” He cut her off. “But, could you call him and ask to talk with one of the other teachers?” She did as he asked, while he called over his own teacher.

“Good idea.” He praised his students as she gave him the phone. “Hello? Yes, we’ve…” However, Ishi’s plan wasn’t finished yet. “Ryugi, I’ve got to ask you something.”

“What do you want from me?” She replied with disgust to him. “Or are you mad I just called you out.”

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“You’re dad’s a mechanic, right?” He ignored her harsh words, because feelings weren’t important right now.

“So what if he is?” She answered. “It’s not like I can just call him up to fix our bus.”

“But maybe you can fix it for us.” He wasn’t certain how good her abilities were, but his statement caught everyone off guard.

“Wh-what are you talking about?” She was flustered, her eyes darted back and forth across her fellow classmates. “What makes you think I can?”

“Yeah, why do you think that?” Rinse asked as well. She looked at him like he was going crazy, since he had never seemed to make weird assumptions like that.

“That’s what your dad keeps saying about you.” Since all of the students here were, of course, classmates. Ishi’s parents thought it would be a good idea to create an online group with everyone’s parents. He thought it was a stupid idea, but apparently the rest of the parents were cool with it and joined.

Unfortunately for him, this meant that during dinner, he had to listen to his parents gossip about the lives of his classmates’ families. However, that also had the fortunate side effect of him learning a few surprising things about the people he thought he knew.

Case in point being the fashionable gyaru’s in-depth knowledge with the inner workings of the vehicles they relied on. According to his parents, her dad liked to gush about how she was able to change the oils, tires, and fix whatever a belt in a car was.

“All right, listen.” Wanting to get away from the crowd, she rushed him and pulled the boy by the ear towards the bus. This way, they could be away from prying eyes. “I’ll check it, but don’t ever embarrass me in front of everyone like that again.” He didn’t feel threatened by the fire in her eyes, but he also wasn’t in the mood to extend this arguing any further.

“If you could fix it, that’d be great, but at least look at it.” She moved towards the front of the bus, as he followed. The moment she laid eyes on the engine, the girl immediately knew the problem.

“Oh, the radiator’s leaking.” He was more than right about her skills. Even if she didn’t want to admit it to anyone else.

“So can you fix it?” He asked.

“We’re at a gas station, so maybe they might some fluid we could use. But I doubt they have any sealant… Unless we could use…” She paused to think things over, then came up with a solution that he thought was ludicrous. “Pepper.” The girl snapped her fingers as if coming to a powerful revelation.

“What?” Did she just say pepper as in… The condiment?

“Pepper, right they gotta sell it in there.” As if in a trance, she ignored his questions. In a flash, she rushed back to the gas station, then in just as short of a time. She returned with a bottle of water and a full shaker pepper that were there for people buying food there.

Ishi couldn’t describe what she was doing. It looked like she was just dumping all that pepper into the engine, where the radiator apparently was. For a moment, he thought that she was actually sabotaging the entire group and was going to pin it on him for embarrassing her.

“Unfortunately they can’t turn back.” Their teacher came up to them, then realized what she was doing. “What are you-”

“Teacher, can you start the engine?” She asked as if this was a completely normal thing he just walked in on. He was confused, but Ishi insisted that they trust the girl. Honestly, their teacher was being very accommodating to the actions they were all doing. However, this man was very much aware that Ishi was never one to try to pull the wool over his eyes. If he felt this was going to work, then it was no joke.

He got on the bus and turned the keys to start the vehicle. Quickly, the engine turned and…

“It worked!” She cheered out loud, a big smile on her face. “Hey everyone, the bus’s working again.” The entire class heard her words and erupted into applause at her success. A lot of praise was heaped onto her, and not a word about how he was the one to point her out. Oh well, it’s not like he cared or anything.

“All right everyone, let’s get back on the bus. Come on, we’ll be late as it is.” He ushered them to enter so that they could get back onto the road. “That’ll last, right?” There was one last question he had for Ryugi though.

“It should last us the rest of the trip, but we’ll have to tell them about it so they can get it properly fixed.”

“Noted.” He saved that mentally and let her get on before him. At least for now, their field trip was saved.

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