It was day two of our class field trip. After eating a quick breakfast at the hotel, we took a thirty-minute bus ride to the Sapporo Kokusai Ski Resort. Luckily, the weather was nice yet again, with only a few clouds peppered here and there across the clear blue sky.
We entered the rental building at the edge of the parking lot and changed into skiwear, put on our boots, and received our poles and skis. It was way more awkward to walk with them on than I’d expected…and exhausting too. I was already getting worried I might end up feeling too sore after this to do much of anything tomorrow.
Once we headed out to the slopes, my eyes were assailed by blinding white, as the snow-covered hillside seemed to concentrate and reflect the sunlight directly into my retinas. That said, the contrast between the pure-white snow and the blue skies overhead was surprisingly gorgeous and serene.
“Look, Ushio-chan! I made a little snowman!” said Hoshihara, holding out the tiny friend she’d clumped together on her palm. It was pretty cute, I had to admit. Both she and Ushio were wearing their personal skiwear from home; everyone had been given the option to either rent a set or bring their own prior to the trip.
As I stood there, soothed by the sight of Hoshihara’s infectious excitement, one of the ski instructors called out for everyone in Class A to gather around. My fellow classmates and I waddled over like penguins to hear what they had to say.
“All right, folks. First things first, we’re gonna separate the beginners among you from those with prior skiing experience,” she said. “If it’s your first time hitting the slopes, you’re gonna stay here with me. Otherwise, you can go line up with my friend over there.”
Oh, shoot. They’re splitting us up?
I was a complete beginner, and I assumed Hoshihara was too—but Ushio definitely knew her way around a pair of skis.
“Sorry, you two,” said Ushio. “I know I promised I’d show you the ropes…”
“It’s okay!” said Hoshihara. “You deserve to have a good time out here too! No need to sit through the crash course with us when you already know how to ski!”
“Yeah, don’t worry about us,” I said. “Go have fun.”
“Well, all right.” Ushio smiled, then walked over to the young male instructor standing by the ski lifts.
“Wh-whoa, whoa, whoa…!”
I watched as Nishizono came barreling down the bunny slope on wobbly, uncertain legs. At first, she’d been going more or less in the direction the ski instructor had told her to—but at some point, she changed trajectory, started rapidly speeding up, and plowed straight into a large snow mound. After squirming and thrashing around a bit, she eventually gave up and had to take her skis off to free herself.
“Okay, who the hell came up with this stupid sport?” she said. “It’s way too hard…”
Nishizono was taking the beginners’ course as well—which kind of surprised me, given that she was athletic enough to have placed in the top ten in the school marathon last year, right up there with several members of the school track team. But apparently, winter sports were simply beyond her natural area of expertise, as she’d probably had the most wipeouts of anyone in Class A so far today.
“Ugh, why can’t I do it right?” she grumbled. “This sucks…”
“Hey, at least you’re doing better than before!” said Hoshihara.
“Yeah, barely…”
It was a strange sight to behold: Hoshihara offering Nishizono words of encouragement like they were the closest of friends again. Perhaps even more surprising was that Hoshihara had actually turned out to be a pretty good skier herself in an extremely short amount of time—easily mastering both turning and braking so fast, it made me suspicious of whether she’d lied about never having skied before.
“Y’know what I think?” said Mashima, standing beside me. Her gaze was trained on Hoshihara and Nishizono, but she was talking to me. “I think being athletic is actually a handicap when it comes to skiing. Seems like being a totally uncoordinated klutz makes you better, not worse.”
“Oh, come on,” I said. “Let’s not be mean.”
It also wasn’t very scientific to base claims like this on such a tiny sample size. Though it did feel like a somewhat convincing hypothesis, at least for our little group. I was hardly athletic myself, for instance, but even I was doing better at this than Nishizono and Mashima were—and the latter was captain of the school softball team.
“I mean, I’m not wrong, am I?” said Mashima.
“You’re not right either. I mean, just look at Ushio. She’s a really good skier—not that I’ve ever seen her do it myself.”