We made it to our hotel in Jozankei safe and sound.
The place was even fancier than I’d been expecting. The lobby alone was pretty massive, softly illuminated by the warm light of glistening chandeliers. I could only imagine what a single night’s stay at a place like this would cost under normal circumstances. To be honest, if the school had this kind of money, I wondered why the hell they couldn’t use it to get proper air conditioning and heating installed instead of blowing it on booking luxury hotels… But it probably wasn’t that simple.
We all dropped off our luggage in our individual rooms, then gathered in the downstairs buffet area for dinner. After smacking our lips and filling our bellies with a meal fit for kings, we headed back up to our rooms—and just like that, the first day of our class trip was effectively over. All that was really left to do now was shower and sleep, though more than two hours still remained before lights-out at ten o’clock.
“Man, I’m exhausted…”
I collapsed onto my bed. The fresh linen sheets felt nice and cool against my skin; I could already tell that as soon as I got under the covers, I’d be out like a light.
“Hey, mind if I hop in the shower first?” I asked Hasumi, who was sitting upright on the edge of the other bed, tapping away on his cell phone.
“Go for it,” he replied, standing up. “I’m heading out for a bit.”
“Wait, to do what?”
“Gonna go play mahjong with some buddies in another room.”
“Oh, gotcha… Well, have fun.”
“Will do,” Hasumi said as he walked out the door.
Now I had the room all to myself—but I didn’t have anything else to do, so I figured I’d take my shower right away. Once I was all cleaned up, I put on some comfy track pants to sleep in and brushed my teeth. With that, my bedtime routine was complete. I crawled into bed, closed my eyes, and waited for sleep’s sweet embrace to take me.
A few moments passed.
And then I shot upright.
No, I couldn’t go to sleep just yet. This was my high school class field trip! There were so many other quintessential nighttime activities I was supposed to do, like play cards, talk about girls, have pillow fights, and whatnot! But with Hasumi already off playing with his other friends, the only person I really had to hang out with…was Ushio.
Not that I was opposed to hanging out with her, obviously—but since the whole school knew she and I were going out, I did feel a bit worried at the thought of being seen walking into her room, and that only adding fuel to the fire for all the rumors that were already swirling about. I didn’t want either of us to have to deal with any more unwanted attention… But I also didn’t want to spend the whole rest of the night alone. And Ushio was probably feeling pretty lonely without a roommate herself.
“Yeah, screw it.”
I’d just have to be careful to stay out of sight while sneaking down the hall to her room. That should be simple enough, right?
First, I needed to give her a heads-up that I was coming by. So I pulled out my phone—only to find that I already had a new text message from Ushio. Apparently, she’d sent it while I was in the shower. It was only two words: “come over”
Wh-whoa… What the hell?
Granted, Ushio had never been one to mince words in text-based correspondence, but this was the first time I’d ever gotten a message from her that was this short and to the point. In that respect, I wasn’t quite sure how to interpret these words. Was this a command or a request? What tone had she meant for it to be read in? Was she just feeling depressed, or was she in some sort of trouble? Or was she simply too tired to be bothered writing out a longer message when we could just as easily talk in person?
Regardless, I had no choice but to go over there and find out what she wanted, so I grabbed my room key and stepped out into the hall. Plates on the wall next to each door provided the room number, so I used those as my guide to navigate the hallway’s many twists and turns. I knew her room was somewhere on this floor.
“This must be it,” I said when I found her room number.
I looked up and down the hall to make sure no one was watching, then knocked on the door. I wondered for a moment if this was how famous actors felt when trying to hide their relationships from paparazzi—and then the door swung open.
“Hey, bud. Took you long enough.”
For a split second, I thought I had the wrong room. All I could see was the chain of a silver necklace dangling right in front of my face. And when I lifted my gaze, I came face-to-face with the smarmy smirk of a natural-born swindler.
It had been Sera who answered the door.
“Wh-what are you doing here?!”
“Better hurry up and get in here if you don’t wanna be seen by anyone,” said Sera.
That was the plan all along, thanks.
I slipped into the room and shut the door behind me. Walking a bit farther in, I spotted Ushio sitting on the room’s lone bed with a concerned look on her face. It seemed she hadn’t showered yet, as she was still in the same outfit she’d worn during the day, minus the jacket.
“Sorry, Sakuma,” she said. “He just barged right in when I opened the door…”
“Don’t apologize. You’ve done nothing wrong, Ushio.” I turned to glare at Sera. “But you, on the other hand… I sure hope you realize how much trouble you’re going to be in once the faculty finds out you forced your way into her room.”
“Hey, I feel bad for breaking and entering, all right? Really, I do,” said Sera. “But I just couldn’t bear the thought of my poor little Ushio sitting in her room all alone, y’know? Figured I might as well swing by to hang out with her, that’s all. And now there’s three of us here, so we can play cards together!”
“I think you’d better get the hell out right now, if you know what’s good for you.”
“Aw, c’mon. Say, what if I promise to leave before lights-out?”
“You’re in no position to negotiate with us. Now get out, or I’ll make you get out.”
“Oh yeah? And how are you gonna do that, exactly?”
I had not been prepared for him to call that bluff, so I stumbled briefly at this retort before coming up with a suitable rebuttal. “I’ll grab a teacher from one of the rooms next door.”
“Ah ha ha!” Sera cracked up. “Relying on others as always, I see!”
“I’m dead serious. And they’re already highly sensitive about Ushio and her circumstances, so I guarantee you won’t get off with just a slap on the wrist.”
“Ooh, now you’ve really got me shaking in my boots!”
My threats had fallen on deaf ears; Sera made no indication of budging even an inch as he stared down at me, his little sarcastic grin still plastered on his face. I wanted him out of Ushio’s room right this second. He had to be plotting something. But as I just stood there glaring at him warily, Ushio let out an exhausted sigh of resignation.
“Fine, whatever,” she said. “I guess we can play for a little bit.”
“What?!” I exclaimed.
“If he tries anything funny, we can tell a teacher right away. Besides, I was getting kind of bored, to be entirely honest.”
“Okay, but…we can find something to do with people other than him, can’t we?!”
I shot a glance over at Sera, who chuckled ostentatiously.
“See?” he said. “Even Ushio wants to play with me.”
“God, you’re so annoying… Don’t get all cocky, you little punk.”
I still wasn’t okay with this by any measure, but this was Ushio’s room, so I felt like I had no choice but to go along with Ushio’s decision. I sat beside her on the bed, and Sera did the same, plopping himself down on her opposite side so she was sitting between the two of us. This wasn’t a problem in itself, mind you, as there was only one bed in the room and nowhere else to sit—but I couldn’t help feeling like he was sitting much closer to Ushio than was strictly necessary. This made me get weirdly defensive, so I scooted in a bit closer to Ushio myself.
“What are you even doing here, anyway?” I asked. “Don’t you have any guy friends in Class D you could go hang out with instead?”
“I already told you, didn’t I?” said Sera. “I didn’t want Ushio here to feel lonely.”
“Yeah, right. You’re up to something—I just know it.”
As I braced myself for whatever shenanigans he might have in store, Sera pulled a deck of cards from his pocket and started deftly shuffling it with the exact sleight of hand you’d expect from such an expert in deception. It seemed we were going to play right here on the bed.
“So, what do you wanna play?” he asked. “I’m down for whatever. Old Maid, Poker, President… Pretty sure I know most of the popular card games out there.”
“What do you think?” I asked Ushio, deferring to her judgment.
She thought it over. “Let’s do President, I guess.”
“Works for me,” said Sera.
He proceeded to deal out three hands of freshly shuffled cards. The three of us sat around atop the mattress, facing inward to use the center of the bed as our playing area. We did a quick round of rock-paper-scissors to determine who would be President for the round. I won, so I went ahead and discarded my four of hearts.
“So hey, how ’bout we spice up the stakes a little bit while we’re at it?” said Sera. “Like, what if whoever comes in last place has to tell the others a secret about themselves? That’d make things a lot more interesting, don’tcha think?”
“Like hell it would. Don’t push your luck, dude,” I said in the most threatening voice I could muster. I knew better than to agree to terms like that—especially with this guy. “You’re the last person we’d want to play that game with, Mr. Loose-Lips.”
“Yeah, figured you might feel that way… But what if we tack on a little condition?” Sera held up his index finger. “Whoever comes in last has to reveal one secret about themselves—however, that secret doesn’t necessarily have to be true.”