Chapter 62: 61: Train Shenanigans~

Gazing out the window with a listless expression, Erina fought off the urge to doze off as she watched the scenery fly by, blurs of green, blurs of blue, blurs of brown and yellow. 

Leaning over and poking Erina in the cheek with a smile, Yuiko asked, “You excited to see everyone again? We’re almost back, the trip tracker screen says there’s only 30 more minutes before the train touches down.”

“I am excited, just... trying not to fall asleep,” Erina yawned, covering her mouth with a hand while stretching a little, before confessing, “I haven’t been sleeping much recently.”

“I know you haven’t,” Yuiko reprimanded with a light smile, poking Erina’s cheek a little harder, “You’ve been staying up really late and watching shows with Krystina, of course you aren’t getting that much sleep, Krystina barely gets any herself.”

Sitting down next to Erina, Yuiko patted her lap, offering, “You can sleep here for a bit if you want, I’ll wake you up when the train stops. Your parents... and also maybe mine... and also both our siblings, will probably yell at you for those dark circles, so might as well sleep a bit to alleviate them a little, don’t you think?”

Nodding in agreement, her eyes already having trouble staying open, Erina laid down, curling up while resting her head on Yuiko’s lap, murmuring her thanks before promptly dozing off.

Raising one of her eyebrows in suspicion, Yuiko muttered, touseling with Erina’s hair, “Who is she saying thanks to? I heard my name... but also random gods of... anime? Fluff? Love? I’ll ask Krystina about this later, I hope she’s not teaching Erina anything suspicious now.”

Letting Erina’s hair flow through her hands, Yuiko reached up to run her other hand through her own hair, lamenting to herself, “Her hair is nice as always, especially now that she takes care of it... so silky and free of tangles. At least now that she’s asleep I can tousle and play with it however I want.”

Meanwhile, Krystina, who had walked past the room Yuiko and Erina were in a moment earlier, had invaded Hiroshi and Vladimir’s room in a rush, now out of breath lying on the ground, “Guys! Guys! Did you see? Erina and Yuiko are together right now!”

“That’s... not news,” Hiroshi retorted, playing a card and motioning to Vladimir that it was his turn, “Those two are practically a package, they’re always together.”

“Practically a package?” Vladimir asked, raising an eyebrow while taking his turn, “I’d argue that it isn’t practically...”

Nodding, Hiroshi relented, “I guess, I guess, anyway though, do you want to join Krys? We’re just playing cards right now.”

Rolling over on the floor to take a look at the game they were playing, Krystina replied, “I meant like... romance!! My radar was going off! Don’t you guys want to come take a look? Erina’s sleeping on Yuiko’s lap right now...”

“I’m... not really interested,” Vladimir coughed, stroking his chin while thinking, “I’ve already seen it quite a few times, they’ve slept on each other’s laps quite a few times by now...”

Pouting and rolling over, Krystina proposed, “Well how about this, if you two come take a look with me, I’ll join in and play the card game with you.”

“... Alright,” Vladimir relented, standing up and offering a hand to Krystina and Hiroshi to help them up as well, “Unless you don’t want to come, Hiro?”

“I’ll come, it’s always nice to see Yuiko and Erina get along with each other,” Hiroshi nodded, taking Vladimir’s hand and standing up, taking a moment to straighten out his pants, “Oh yeah, isn’t it kinda weird that like... as a group, us five, call you two and me by nicknames, but we still call Yuiko and Erina by their full names?”

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Standing up, Krystina took a moment to fix her jacket as she pondered, “Well, their names are all... pretty short already, there’s not much of a need to shorten it further is there?”

Opening the door while nodding, Vladimir nodded, “Our names are all longer, so I guess that’s why we shortened it. To be fair though, I remember at first it was only me with a nickname, those days were unfair!”

“Don’t worry about it!” Hiroshi laughed, patting Vladimir on the shoulder, “In the name of team spirit, we should all call each other by our full names! I’ll bring it up next time when we have our informal team meeting thing...”

Looking at Hiroshi’s smug face with an expressionless stare, Krystina retorted, “You know those aren’t actually team meetings right... We just use it as an excuse to hang out as a friend group.”

Nodding in agreement, Vladimir asked, raising an eyebrow, “How do you not realize this by now, we’ve had like 20 of these, and each time we just watch a movie, or go shopping, or go eat, or like... play cards... when have we discussed stuff that had to do with our team?”

“Uh-...” Hiroshi froze, looking away, “Where are all of your guys’ team spirit? Come on! We gotta stick together! Bonds strong as steel! United as one!”

“Mhm,” Krystina nodded, patting Hiroshi’s shoulder with a sigh, “As the elected team leader I’ll consid-”

“Yeah!” Vladimir interjected, getting into it, brightening up, “Yeah Hiro, you know what, yeah, I totally forgot about that conversation we had at the last training! Yeah, team spirit!”

Letting out another sigh, Krystina pushed Hiroshi and Vladimir along, “Alrighty, this is a conversation for later! Let’s go spy-... I mean look at Erina and Yuiko right now! Time is limited!”

Laughing and letting out voices of agreement, Hiroshi and Vladimir walked ahead, waving for Krystina to catch up, taking their time while creeping up to the ajar door.

“...You know this is kinda weird,” Vladimir murmured, falling to a whisper and stopping, “Why are we doing this again?”

“Because they’re a wholesome, ‘pair of friends’, who totally have nothing between them!” Krystina replied, also whispering while peeking in the doorway. 

“I don’t know about this Krystina...” Hiroshi muttered at whisper level, stopping as well, “Nevermind, actually I just remembered the times Yuiko and Erina spied on us-...”

Nodding, Krystina declared with firm righteousness, still whispering to ensure their position would not be revealed, “My mentality is I’ll kick anyone’s ass who spies on my friends from outside our little group! I’ll smack them so hard they won’t wake up until next week! However, because of all our uh... group tactics and ‘pranks’ per se we do to each other... I'm going to keep spying on you all.” 

“Sounds like a plan,” Vladimir nodded, peeking into the doorway, “I feel like we see the same thing most of the time, even when they’re in the common room, it's just one of them playing with the other’s hair...”

The other two nodding in agreement, murmured, “Yeah...”