Volume 3: Chapter 2: To Okinawa We Go! - Part 4

I couldn’t take being in that room any longer than necessary. At the same time, I wouldn’t have put it past Mihikaze to try something. I ended up staying in the room until the other two had left before heading downstairs myself.

Alicia and Yūgure were already downstairs, standing next to a chatty Kaoru, who seemed intent on doing her best to grill the two girls about something. The moment they saw me, both made a beeline my way. Kaoru watched after them with a frown, but then she shrugged, pulled out her cell phone, and wandered off.

I also noticed that Donatello and his sister—Leonora, I think her name was—were standing by a support pillar.

“I see you two were having fun,” I commented. “How are your two other roommates?”

“Please don’t talk about them,” Alicia said as Yūgure held up a sign that read “I hate them.” in big, bold print.

“That bad, huh?”

“That Kaoru girl doesn’t know how to stop talking,” Alicia muttered. “Leonora seems all right, but she makes me nervous for some reason.”

I don’t like her, Yūgure added via her notepad.

“But they haven’t really done anything to you, right?” I asked, shrugging. “You might as well give them a chance. Nights are going to be awful if you don’t at least try to get along.”

“What about you?” asked Alicia, turning the tide. “Are you getting along with your roommates?”

“You know Mihikaze and I would never get along,” I said with a pained smile. “As for Donatello… I don’t think he wants to get along with anyone. He didn’t strike me as the friendly sort.”

Yūgure surprised me by holding up her sign again. Want me to beat the crap out of them?
After chuckling a bit, I said, “thank you, but no. I’m good.”

The room slowly filled with the other students. Ms. Kanzaki also arrived. She clapped her hands to get everyone’s attention.

“Before I begin anything else, let me lay down some ground rules,” she began. “First, curfew is at nine in the evening. If you’re caught outside of your rooms, or if you’re caught sneaking into someone else’s room, you will be severely punished. Got that? Good. Second, while there are several slots for free time, we’ll also be doing some things as a class. I will take role call to make sure you’re here. If you aren’t, I’ll put you in the hospital. Understand? Excellent!”

There was no telling whether or not Ms. Kanzaki was being serious, but most of the class seemed to think she was serious.

Everyone went outside after she laid down the ground rules. We were told to get into groups of at least four. Naturally, I grouped with Alicia and Yūgure. We needed one more person, however, so of course Ms. Kanzaki would interfere and shove someone into their group.

“Kaoru, you’re with Jacob, Alicia, and Yūgure.”

“Huh? Me? Okay!”

For whatever reason, Kaoru didn’t seem too bothered by my presence. Okay. It was true that when we all sat down in the golf cart, she sat as far from me as possible, but she didn’t look at me like I might attack her.

Thinking on it, I’d never seen Kaoru really act like she was afraid of me, though that was probably because she never went anywhere near me anyway. She was always off doing her own thing. I always saw her chatting with the girls in class, but she also liked to go off on her own sometimes.

“Isn’t this, like, totes exciting?” asked Kaoru. “I haven’t been to Okinawa since my gramps passed away.”

“Is that so?” asked Alicia, her expression bored.

'I don’t care,' said Yūgure’s notepad.

“I wonder if old man Yashiru is still alive,” Kaoru mused as though she hadn’t heard Alicia or read Yūgure’s notepad.

The tour soon started, and I decided to pay more attention to what our driver was telling us. This resort was apparently divided into several different parts. Rooms. Spa. Beach. Recreation. The rooms were located in the main building that we just left, while the spa was in a building further away. It wasn’t as big, had a red roof, and was less than a third of the main hotel building. The recreational section wasn’t a building. It was a series of courts spaced together: basketball, tennis, soccer, baseball… there was also an olympic swimming pool.

All told, the tour probably took around an hour. We stopped at each place and listened as the guy told us a story that I guess was supposed to be entertaining. I thought it was kind of draining, but that might have also been caused by Kaoru, who spoke almost as much as the driver.

When they got back, Ms. Kanzaki told them they had an hour before dinner, and that so long as they were back by six, they could go wherever they wanted.

Alicia, Yūgure, and I naturally decided to ditch Kaoru to do our own thing.

I think it was the best decision we could have made.

****************************************************************

Sorry for not updating this for awhile. I have so many projects going on that It's kind of hard to remember everything I'm doing. Anyway, I hope you liked this chapter. Not a whole lot happened, but I'm working on building this volume up before dropping any bombs. Please be sure to give it a vote if you do. Thank you for reading! (^-^)