It was day three of our class trip. We’d be flying back home bright and early tomorrow morning, so this was effectively our last day in Hokkaido. After pulling into the parking lot and disembarking from our tour bus, we set foot in the seaside town of Otaru—the thin layer of snowpack crunching beneath our feet. The bitter chill and salty scent of ocean air tickled my nostrils and snapped my sleepy brain wide awake after the comfy, heated bus ride. I could hear the calls of seagulls in the distance.
Compared to far more developed Sapporo, Otaru had something of a lonely atmosphere to it. There were no tall buildings around, so the blue-gray skies felt vast and expansive despite being overcast by faint, nearly transparent cloud cover.
Like our first day in Sapporo, today was going to be a sightseeing day in which we were free to explore the city however we saw fit. But unlike that first day, we weren’t technically required to stay with our free time activity groups, and we could even use public transit to go on slightly more long-distance excursions, so long as we made it back to the rendezvous point before it was time to head back to the hotel. This was apparently a new policy the sophomore teachers were trying out for the first time in the interest of “respecting student autonomy,” and most of my classmates were all for it.
Not me, though.
While I could appreciate the attempt at giving us more freedom, the simple fact of the matter was that kids would always organize themselves into groups and cliques no matter what you did. Which meant that everyone had to scramble to figure out what they were going to be doing that day, and with whom. It was like a weird brand of blitz diplomacy—just like when we were forced to pick teams for sports or group projects. And there was nothing I dreaded more.
“Sakuma,” said Ushio, approaching me where I stood languishing in a corner of the parking lot. “Just to make sure, you haven’t already made plans with anyone for today, have you?”
“No, I haven’t,” I said.
“Okay, yeah, I figured. Well, I was about to go talk to Natsuki and see if she wanted to do anything. You wanna come with, I assume?”
I was about to say “absolutely,” but then I glanced over in Hoshihara’s direction—and immediately got cold feet when I saw her already engaged with a large group of girls, no doubt discussing where they wanted to go and who would be traveling with whom. She’d probably received several invitations from her other friends already; I could see Mashima and Shiina among them, and even some girls from other classes.
This was to be expected for someone of Hoshihara’s popularity. She was a fun girl to be around, so naturally she’d be in high demand. The sheer thought of inserting myself into that already crowded equation had me chickening out.
“Oh, wait,” said Ushio, taking stock of the scene I was seeing. “You probably don’t want to be the only guy in a big group of girls, do you?”
She knew me far too well.
“Yeah, not really,” I replied, turning my gaze back on Ushio. “At the same time, I’m sure she wants to spend time with her other friends too—not just the same two people she hung out with on day one. And I wouldn’t wanna ask her to change her plans on account of my comfort level. So I’m a little unsure what to do.”
I really wished I wasn’t so damn fussy, believe me—especially since this was the final day of the last class trip I’d ever get to go on, so I knew I should spend it doing something with someone.
“You wanna keep things simple and stick together, then?” asked Ushio.
“What, you mean, like…just you and me?”
“Yes, Sakuma. What else would I mean? Unless you wouldn’t feel comfortable with that either, I guess.”
“N-no, of course not! That’d be really awesome, actually… But, like…”
As I hemmed and hawed, Ushio furrowed her brow impatiently. “What is it? Something bothering you still?”
“I mean, are you sure you’re okay with that? Wouldn’t you rather hang out with Hoshihara and the rest of them too?”
“I wouldn’t be suggesting it if I wasn’t okay with it, silly. Don’t worry about it.”
D-damn, what did I ever do to deserve her?
A halo practically appeared over her head as the clouds parted and she descended from the heavens to save me from my own social awkwardness. That was Ushio for you—always super considerate and easily the most dependable person I knew. And yet, this sudden return to normalcy only served to highlight the contrast between the usual Ushio and her inscrutable behavior from the night before. Why had she acted so strangely during our card game with Sera? I still had no clue, but now wasn’t the time to be cross-examining her; I wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth.
“Okay then,” I said. “I think I’ll take you up on—”
“Oh, Sakumaaa?”
A chill ran down my spine. Just when Ushio had allayed my fears of being left out, a fresh brand of terror billowed up deep inside of me. While I didn’t even want to turn around, I knew trying to ignore it would only delay the inevitable. And so I gritted my teeth and begrudgingly looked my worst nightmare in the face.
“Sera…” I muttered.
“Hey, neat! Ushio’s here too!” he said. “Well, isn’t that just peachy. Whaddya say the three of us all go around town together?”
“Yeah, no thanks,” said Ushio. “I think I’ll pass.”
This decisive rejection from her was reassuring to me; I’d been a bit worried that she’d start acting weird again with him around, but it seemed those fears were unfounded.
“Awww, shucks,” said Sera. “Guess it’ll have to be just me and Sakuma, then!”
“Wait, why me?” I said. “You know I’d rather die than hang out with you.”
“But you promised me in the lobby yesterday, remember? You said we could continue our conversation another time…in private.”
Ushio shot a wide-eyed look at me. “Is that true, Sakuma?”
“Trust me, it’s not what it sounds like,” I assured her. “He was just being extra obnoxious last night, and I needed to get him to go away somehow.”
I clicked my tongue in frustration. Why did this guy always have to show up and throw a wrench in our plans?
“Okay, listen,” I said to Sera. “I’ll keep my damn promise—but not right now, okay? It’ll have to wait until after the class trip is over.”
“Yeah?” said Sera. “And why’s that?”
“Because I want to spend my vacation with the people I actually like, obviously. And not someone who grates on my sanity with every passing second.”
“Hrmmm… Well, you certainly drive a hard bargain.” Sera rubbed his chin. I knew he wouldn’t give in that easily, so I braced myself for him to counter with some other sneaky tactic. “All righty. Guess I’ll have to go ask Natsuki-chan instead.”
Somehow, I hadn’t anticipated this angle of attack.
“Dude, enough…” I said. “Just give it a rest already…”
How many times was I going to let him use the same stupid ploy against me? He was only using Hoshihara’s name to goad me, yet I couldn’t help losing my cool each and every time. It was like a conditioned reaction at this point.
“Leave Hoshihara out of this,” I added. “Are you trying to ruin her class trip too?”
“Wow, that’s a pretty rude thing to suggest, don’tcha think?” said Sera. “Must be pretty scary living in that paranoid head of yours. You make it sound like I’m always out to get somebody, when all I’m trying to do is have a good time here!”
“The hell you are. Anytime you single someone out like this, it never ends well… Not that she’d ever agree to hang out with you in the first place.”
“Hey, you never know until you try, right? Can’t be so afraid of rejection that you won’t even shoot your shot… Though you wouldn’t know the first thing about that, heh. But don’t you worry, pal. Your Uncle Sera’ll show you how it’s done. Here, watch this.”
“All right, stop! I swear, if you don’t knock it off right now, I’ll—”
“Let it go, Sakuma,” said Ushio, grabbing me by the arm.
When I turned to look at her, my heart sank. Her expression was neither angry nor sorrowful, but almost earnest and pleading. It was enough to make me feel terrible.
“We can just let him hang out with us,” she said. “I don’t want to spend our last day in Hokkaido bickering with each other.”
I’d been about ready to blow a gasket, but this cooled me right off. I couldn’t possibly argue with her when she was looking at me with eyes like that.
“Fine, whatever,” I said.
As much as I loathed the idea of hanging out with Sera, I hated the thought of fighting Ushio on this even more, so I’d have to suck it up—at least for the time being. It wasn’t like we had to spend the whole day with him, necessarily; he was a pretty capricious guy, so I could see him getting bored of us after a while.
“Just half the day works for me, by the way,” Sera cut in, as if he’d read my mind. “Y’know, ’cause I wanna spend some time with my other friends too and stuff. So I’ll get outta your hair once our free time is halfway over. How’s that sound?”
Only half the day, huh? That was by no means a short period of time, but I hadn’t expected him to offer us any sort of compromise, so it sure sounded appealing.
“Just one condition, though,” Sera added.
Ah. Now I understood. Of course there was a catch. I couldn’t even be upset at this, really—just disappointed with myself for not seeing it sooner.
“I wanna spend that half a day with Sakuma,” he said. “And Sakuma alone.”
“Uh, what?” I replied. “That doesn’t even make any—”
“No way,” said Ushio, cutting me off before I could finish. Her tone was every bit as firm as her expression. “We are not agreeing to those terms.”
“Huh, really? I don’t think it’s such a bad offer, personally,” said Sera. “You’re more than welcome to go hang out with Natsuki-chan or whoever while you give Sakuma and me some guy time. Plus, you can go on dates with him whenever you want, but how often do you have the chance to hang out with your other friends from school?”
“I’m the one who gets to decide how I spend my class trip, thank you very much. And why are you targeting Sakuma all of a sudden? I thought it was me you wanted to spend time with, not him.”
“Humans are fickle creatures, my dear. And what, did you really expect me to keep fawning over you forever when you refused to even look my way no matter what I did? A little arrogant of you, don’tcha think?”
“Ngh…”