What's the Worst That Could Happen?

Today’s UN Lesson --- Be Prepared for the Worst

Preparation is integral to success. No one makes it to the top without a series of building blocks set in place to ensure all goes smoothly. When and if things go wrong, some of those building blocks can even serve as failsafes.

As we all know by now, Tani is very good at preparation; whether it be making sure he has enough dirt on someone to get his way or carefully crafted language courses for his students, there isn’t a day that goes by where he’s not prepared for it.

All that being said, things seem to go uncannily awry in very unique ways with him, and these things are barely overcome through either luck or someone else’s actions. Today is the day where he can’t afford to let anything go wrong, there's no space for the hope of luck, and no wiggle room for someone else to help.

The opening day of the Gogatsusai Festival has to go smoothly if he wants to impress the faculty and students from TIU. So he has prepared the perfect series of events to do just that, languishing over fine details every morning and every evening over the last couple weeks.

There’s no doubt that he has done all he could to ensure that their booth will be a rousing success, but he’s missed one big detail due to the fact that he has no control over it.

That one big detail is actually six--- and they serve as both a liability, and his failsafes…

----------------------

Standing outside the back door of a black luxury vehicle with the body language of someone cornered by a wild dog, Tani gingerly says, “Thanks for coming to help out so early, I know the sun isn’t up yet, but the early bird gets the worm of success!”

The positive spin he is trying to put on about being up this early in the day is due to the fact that Kimura Ume is notoriously not a morning person. In fact, the first and only time he has ever seen her genuinely angry was when he went to her house to wake her up early for a study session on a weekend back in middle school.

That morning is so etched into his memory that it might as well have been woven into that part of his brain by a master weaver from ancient Persia. To this day, the simple thought of it even triggers his fight or flight instinct.

So ever since then, it was a universal rule amongst him and his friends that Ume wouldn’t even receive so much as a text before 7am in fear of facing her wrath.

Tani agonized over inviting her out so early this morning and was hoping that with time she has grown out of being a pre-dawn monster, but judging by the face she’s wearing and the dark purple miasma excreting from the aura above her head, it would seem that not much has changed at all.

His life might be in jeopardy here.

He struggles to quell his fright.

Ume doesn’t seem to notice his angst, she yawns and unenthusiastically opens the gate leading from her house and onto the main street.

Tani flinches against the car.

“!!”

“Boy, aren’t you a bundle of energy this morning.”

“That’s because I had my coffee already, it really helps! Aha, speaking of that, I have a cup for you in the car. Come, come!”

“Did you put in cream and sugar?” she asks, her tone more like a mob boss demanding something from their henchman.

“Aha yes, of course I did! Aha! Just the way you like it.”

This level of coaxing is as overripe as a brown banana.

“Thanks.”

Ume pays his sugary words no mind.

“My pleasure! Today’s the big day, I wouldn’t want you lacking any energy after helping us set up.” he says while opening the back door of the car and scurrying in.

Ume’s half open eyes peer inside and she sees Anita sitting comfortably by the window. Tani slides himself to the middle and taps on the seat next him to placate her.

“Why are you in the middle?” Her borderline limp frame seems to wobble when she lets a few words fall out of her mouth. “Anita-san, good morninggg.”

Anita smiles and warmly replies, “Good morning!”

Ume tucks her skirt underneath her legs, sits on the fancy leather seat of the car and shuts the door behind her. The car begins moving and Tani takes a sigh of relief having survived the initial pre-coffee encounter with her.

While handing her a takeaway cup he asks, “Hey, want to know something interesting?”

She takes a sip of the coffee and tilts her head.

Sensing that the drink has already started doing its job in lightening up her mood, he perks up and admits, “I just learned that if I sit in the back of the car and the view in front of me is blocked by the front seat, I get terribly car sick.”

“...That so?”

“Yeah, we have gone from Kokusai to our booth in Tokyo U twice already to drop off our items and I almost vomited exactly 4 times so far.”

For some reason, Tani looks especially proud after declaring that, it’s as if learning this about himself is equivalent to finding a lost treasure in a cave.

Ume shrinks away from him. “Am I in danger here?”

“I told you, I’m okay in the middle.”

“....”

She couldn’t be looking at him any more suspiciously than right now.

It’s then that she catches sight of Anita peering over his shoulder and waving her hand in front of her neck as though informing her not to believe a word he says.

It’s all the proof Ume needs to make her especially weary, and Anita confirms it when she says, “I told him to just let it out, but he refuses.”

“It’s that bad??”

Tani growls, “It’s not! She’s being hyperbolic.”

“Det er hyggelig å møte enda en av vennene til Anita. Jeg heter Viktor.” The pale faced giant of a man driving the car steals her attention when they stop at a red light.

Ume shrinks even deeper back into her seat upon hearing that resonant voice speaking in a foreign language. She almost forgot that there is a stranger shuttling her around, and making eye contact with him through the rear view mirror sends a shiver down her spine.

Tani clears his throat and points to a stack of boxes. “By the way, the reason I’m not sitting up front is because we ran out of space in the boot and had to put the rest of our stuff up there. So don’t go thinking I’m taking advantage of the situation and squeezing myself in between you two.”

While holding the cup to her mouth she clicks, “I feel like I can’t trust a word coming out of your mouth.”

“Excuse me?? I’m just trying to set the scene so you know what to expect on this car ride. I would even say that I am being exceptionally considerate, certainly not shady.”

“...Now that you mention it, you’re being super shady.”

Tani is gritting his teeth, but his posture is stiff and his eyes are locked on target directly in front of him in an attempt to avoid a familiar nausea that he has been battling for over an hour now.

“So what did that big spooky guy just say to me?” Ume asks.

“Oh,” Tani slackens his jaw. “He just introduced himself. His name is Viktor and he’s Anita’s chauffeur.”

“I see, so he was actually just being friendly.”

“Despite his appearance he seems like a nice fellow. My fault for not introducing you earlier.” Tani says, and then addresses Viktor in the front seat. “Dette er vår venn Kimura Ume.”

Viktor makes a futile attempt to present a friendly face when they stop at another red light, a gentle bow of his head is all he has time to do before continuing on down the road.

The sudden jolt of the car lurching forward makes Tani’s mouth water.

“Ugh…”

“Are we starting again?” Anita asks with a chuckle, noticing him grow a little pale.

“I’m fine.” he snaps back in reply.

Thinking that perhaps his stiff posture is making his body feel every little movement of the car, he lets himself relax by leaning back in his chair without wavering his gaze away from the windshield.

Things go silent for a bit, and this gives them time to explore the darkened surroundings of the pre-dawn morning. Having had to bring his club’s items to the University, the aid of Viktor’s car was needed to make the multiple trips from Kokusai and back to drop off items at their booth.

Anita has been helping him since the early hour of 3:30am, and Ume agreed to help with the set up once all the items are ready to be assembled at the show site. The sun won’t be up for a little while longer, so the quiet 5am streets of Tokyo carry a unique energy, particularly from the view of a moving vehicle.

When set up is complete, the rest of the club will be showing up later in the morning after having found their own way there.

This includes Shirai, who had initially volunteered to shuttle Tani around. He refused, however, the thought of the two of them doing all that labor alone together in the dark of night gave him the kind of goosebumps one would get right after having a premonition of their death--- so he did his best to politely refuse.

Now here in this position, and despite feeling something dreadful brewing in a very specific spot not often felt within his belly, he allows himself the reward of thinking that things may actually go smoothly after all. Every check point has been reached without any issues, it almost all seems to be going too well.

And that’s the problem… ‘Too well’…

He can’t shake the feeling that something will go wrong. There is always a roadblock in even the most carefully crafted plan that must be avoided or moved by force. It’s an uncanny truth that has been evident in everything he’s done for years now. So when this many moving parts are making their journey towards the final destination that is this festival, he finds himself discomforted that the roadblock has yet to spring out in front of him.

To him it isn’t a matter of ‘if’, but a matter of ‘how’, and even worse yet, ‘when’.

Maybe it will happen before the festival is opened up to the public? If he’s lucky it could be an issue easily solved within a manageable timeframe. Maybe it could happen a few hours in, and both college students and TIU faculty staff alike will watch a spectacular failure unfold that might embarrass him right out of his desired future. What if, god forbid, that it ends with him thinking it all went smoothly and he never realizes he had let something terrible happen underneath his nose? How horrible would it be to find out after the festival that the issue he missed has promptly sprung out of the foliage to strike a killer blow?

Tani begins to unconsciously tap his toes and peers out ahead without sparing his eyes a merciful blink. The mouth sweats get worse as a result.

Anita lightly steps on his foot to halt his frantic movement and breaks the silence when she says in Norwegian, “You’re overthinking everything again, that’s probably why you’re feeling sick.”

“That’s not why I’m sick.” he replies and begins tapping his free foot.

“Hey hey, are you maybe a little nervous?” Ume asks with a playful tilt of her head.

She has finished her coffee and seems to be back to her usual self.

“Me, nervous?” He doesn’t budge, but finds it in him to scoff at the suggestion. “Ha! Of course not, I have every single detail planned out to a T. There’s nothing to be nervous about.”

“I’ve never seen someone who isn’t nervous fidget like that.”

Ume also steps on his tapping foot, holding it in place.

“Let’s not mistake this car sickness for anxiety, Ume. I am in the midst of a grand battle you know nothing about. And you two are making it worse by trapping me!”

She looks at him skeptically and chuckles, “You're being super shady again. You can just admit to me that you’re nervous, I can assure you that this is making you look even more of a wreck than you already are.”

“I’m not either of those things!”

The car takes a right turn, and in his distracted state he doesn't have time to adjust to being jostled within his seatbelt. His center of gravity moves with the car and he’s pushed into Anita.

“Blhrrrmm--!”

That action did not help temper his nausea.

“Tani,” Anita asks as she uses her hands to help stabilize him, “Is she asking if you’re nervous?”

He takes a couple deep breaths to regulate his body before answering, “She is.”

“And, are you?”

“Why are you asking me this now, of all times??”

She smiles and stares at him with her honey gold eyes, not allowing him to avoid answering.

With a sigh, he relents, “As much as I’ve planned everything out and am confident that every detail is perfect, so much depends on how well everyone else handles the day… so yes, I am extremely nervous.”

“I see… I couldn’t understand exactly what you said to her, but judging by your reaction I bet you didn’t tell her that."

“I would never tell her that.”

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t want to. Also, does everything need to have a reason behind it with you? Making me think is making me sick! No more questions!”

“Okay,” she says with a little laugh, “I won’t ask you anything else until later.”

“Ha! Good, thank------ Hnnnggbb---!”

The car takes a sharp left turn, and again Tani is flung with the centrifugal force, this time pressing into Ume’s shoulder.

Ume is immediately flustered. Not because of the contact of his body pushing her against the door, but because he actually looks like he is about to not only ruin her day, but maybe even her entire week by throwing up on her.

“Take it easy!!” she shouts.

The coffee she gulped down has lost its gallant flight against her early morning agitation.

Angry Ume returns with a vengeance when she shoves him away from her.

The impact of her shove makes his innards feel like the inside of a water bed.

“Ggbblllll---!”

His next attempt to stifle a hurl even sounds like a jiggling waterbed. He’s on the cusp of disaster.

“If you’re gonna throw up, don't face me!”

“I’m trying!” Tani says while holding his palm to his mouth. “Everyone in this car is making this worse! I need you two to stop prying, I can’t afford to lose focus. And more importantly I need Viktor to stop driving like an idiot!”

He shouted that in a mix of both Japanese and Norwegian, and it does enough to cool the air of the car while simultaneously raising the electricity circulating between the four of them. The fear of what might come out next is too much to risk, no one makes a move and Viktor slows the car’s speed down.

“Alright,” Tani says, “this is much better.”

The silence seems to soothe him.

“I can just pull over if you’d like.” Viktor suggests.

To which Tani answers, “I’m going to make it if everyone just calms the hell down. We’re in a time crunch here.”

Viktor puts on his right blinker and stops at a light leading on to a highway, so if Tani doesn’t change his mind in the few seconds before this light turns green there’s no turning back. Once cordoned off and unable to park on the side of the road, all of them will be committed to this treacherous journey until they exit.

He really wants to drive that point home, but a flicker of an idea pops into his head and he instead chooses to remain silent in order to test Tani’s intestinal fortitude. He lets a puff of air escape his nose when the light turns green and he heads up the onramp.

Driving down the highway in silence, the senses that Tani was fighting against while communicating with his fellow passengers make way for others that seem to carry similar afflictions. Things like the smell of the leather seats is particularly potent, and he begins to breathe through his mouth. Next is the bumping of the car tires hitting the reflectors in the middle of the road, he can’t understand why this seems to happen every couple seconds since there is no valid reason for Viktor to be teetering on one side of a wide open lane.

He can’t see it, but Viktor is hiding a smirk.

‘badunk badunk, badunk’

The abrasive sound triggers his gag reflex.

Anita and Ume look at him as though they were watching a gory scene unfold in a horror film.

“O-Ohhh god.” he mutters.

“!!”

“You can do it, Tani! Pull through!”

He doesn’t bother to acknowledge Anita's encouragement because internally he knows that if one more thing comes up it might push him over the edge.

And sure enough, that thing comes in the form of a vibrating phone in his pocket.

He welcomes the distraction and pulls his phone out.

“?”

It’s a text from Shirai. Assuming that it involves their prep for the festival, he opens it up and reads.

[Good morning, Akihiro-kun! I just woke up, and boy I am soooo tired. Which had me thinking about how you must be feeling. I don’t want you to worry about making me my sweets this morning since you’ll be busy with our booth.]

Tani clicks his tongue and replies, [I already made them, it’s too late.]

‘badunk, badunk, badunk’

Viktor swerves into the reflectors, and with Tani’s head staring down at the text he just sent, his vision begins to spin.

“Hnngggh--!”

Next Viktor lightly taps on his brakes before speeding back up, and repeats the process a couple times. The sensation of going forward and back stirs up the bubbling magma in his stomach.

He holds it down.

Ume shrieks and cowers away from him.

But Anita begins to laugh, this self inflicted struggle of his seems to amuse her to no end.

[Oh my! Akihiro-kun, you’re such an affectionate boy for doing that on a day like today. I think it’s time we take our relationship to another level… Maybe I could make you sweets from now on?]

Tani cringes and types back as fast as he can. [Please do----]

“Hmmbnngg--!”

He’s suddenly overcome with a nausea wave and holds his hand in front of his mouth, in the process he accidentally hits the send button on his phone before he could complete that text.

Fun fact, reading in the back of a moving vehicle is notoriously dangerous for people prone to car sickness, and for some inexplicable reason our resident inpatient has never heard about it.

Texts come screaming into his phone in rapid succession.

[Oh wow! I promise I’ll do my best!]

[What kind of sweets would you like?]

[I had an Easy-bake oven when I was a kid, so I have experience!]

[Actually wait, I remember those tasting terrible.]

[How about I give you something more sweet instead? If you catch my drift 😜😜]

[Kyaahhh! I’m being so bad! Tehehehe!]

Reading through all of that, and following it with a frantic attempt to properly reply to such a calamitous series of texts officially puts him over the edge.

He drops his phone at his feet and his eyes go beady.

“Okay, don’t be alarmed…” he says as though he were a robot that just had its kill switch pulled. “I need you two to immediately open your windows.”

“Huh?”

“Are you for real??”

“Do it now!!!”

Anita and Ume jump at the ready and press the buttons to roll down their windows. But to their, and especially Tani’s dismay, nothing happens.

“Oh no! It isn’t working!!” Ume points out, pressing the button over and over again.

“Viktor!” Anita says in Norwegian, looking more entertained than she should be all things considered. She leans up in her seat and says, “Tani needs the windows down, he’s not going to make it!”

“My apologies, it seems the child lock is on.”

Tani is now holding his mouth with both of his hands when he shouts, “Then turn it off damn it!”

“One moment please.”

Viktor seems in no rush as he feels around for the child lock button without taking his eyes off the road. Time seems to drag on until both Ume and Anita are able to get their windows to start moving. The wind from outside comes billowing into the car, progressively getting louder as the windows slowly lower.

Tani is clasping his throat shut, fully aware that if he lets it loose, he will be covering not only the car in vomit, but himself and the two girls at his side. Despite his focus on keeping everything down he still has a split decision to make as someone in a bit of limbo sat precariously in the middle between two friends.

Ume watches this all unfold in a motion as slow as the inching windows, she can see him struggling to undo his seat belt, twisting his head from left to right to see which window rolls down first.

With both windows moving at exactly the same pace, his head jerks each way at a speed that looks to break his neck.

She doesn’t know how to feel about this situation, and even while overcome with adrenaline from the chaotic scene, she is able to think upon what it would mean if he chooses to throw up outside the window of her side of the car.

Sure she might receive blowback and be disgusted by it; but as his best friend, she is willing to take the risk if it means helping him out. She mentally prepares herself. He'll certainly choose to lean over her to stick his head out the window, fully knowing that he can’t afford to make such a mess of himself atop Anita of all people. He might never be able to live that down.

So with all that in mind, Ume offers herself up to him.

“Tani, my window is open, hurry!”

However…

He doesn’t look her way.

Instead, he flings himself on top of Anita and throws his head into the windy world outside the car.

The noise of the wind does enough to mask most of the gurgling noises he’s making, but one thing can be heard as clear as day.

Anita is laughing.

It’s as though she isn’t worried one bit about potentially getting dirty with his sick. Even more so than that, it’s as though she’s entirely familiar with the sight of him so vulnerable.

Ume thinks there’s a chance she is incorrectly reading their actions, but she can’t shake it…

What kind of girl would be so comfortable supporting a guy in his lowest moment like this? Anita is even rubbing his back to help him get it all out, saying a series of foreign words to soothe him in between her laughter.

 And wouldn’t Tani choose to throw up over the person he trusts the most?

Ume’s heart is squeezed in a disconcerting way, and she subconsciously clasps the empty coffee cup in her hand hard enough for the lid to pop off.

“....”

Tani slinks himself back inside the car upon finishing, looking pale but also looking quite relieved now that he’s no longer spinning. He goes silent as the windows slowly roll back up, controlled from the driver’s seat by Viktor. Anita’s laugh is only now tapering off, and she has to wipe tears from her eyes with a handkerchief to calm herself down before handing it to Tani for him to wipe his mouth with.

After doing that and securing himself into his seatbelt, Tani folds his arms and sits there, not saying a word or acknowledging anyone’s presence.

“You did well to last so long, but you came up just short. Here’s some gum.” Viktor says while holding a stick of chewing gum behind his shoulder.

Tani snatches it out of his hand in a blink and throws it in his mouth before returning to his cross armed pose.

Anita happens to have a water bottle in the cupholder of her door, so she opens it up and hands it to him.

“This’ll help too.”

Tani gulps it down in a flash, and folds his arms again.

“........”

“Are we going to pretend you didn’t just throw up out of a moving car?” Anita asks.

“Yes.”

“Hahaha, okay then. I’m glad you’re feeling better.”

“Thank you.”

The car pulls off the highway and back onto the city streets, it’s here that Viktor points out, “We’re only a couple minutes away.”

“Great.” Tani replies with no zeal.

“I am also glad you feel better now, but next time you should just take Milady’s advice. Now I have to clean my car.”

“Don't expect me to feel bad for someone whose terrible driving made me sick enough to do that. You should be the one ashamed, not me. You reap what you sow!”

“Fair enough.” Viktor says with a shrug.

Ume watches on as they talk to each other in a language she can’t understand and begins to feel like she’s extremely far away from where they are.

“...Shady." she mutters.

Her little voice catches his ear and he turns to her.

"What?" he asks.

"O-Oh, nothing..."

"We're here." Viktor says, parking the car and putting the hazard lights on.

The four of them have reached a short term drop off zone at the back of the Faculty of Science Building. Eager to escape the confines of the luxury car, Tani rushes Anita along and readies himself to clamber out.

"Don't forget your phone." Anita says, picking it up off the ground and handing it to him before they both exit. 

He immediately replies to Shirai, [I would appreciate it if you brought me a new toothbrush and some toothpaste.]

'bzzzz'

A response comes a split second later.

[Anything for you! Though that is the opposite of something sweet, wouldn't you say? Lol]

He manages a chuckle and puts his phone back in his pocket.

"Are you good now?" Anita asks.

He isn't sure if he is or not, but considering everything that just happened he dares to think that maybe, just maybe, the roadblock he's been so worried about was just passed. It was something that he certainly wasn't prepared for, and it was something that could have ruined his plans before the day even started, but he somewhat pulled through and avoided the 'worst' possible outcome.

Perhaps this means that the 'worst' has passed.

Now it is festival time, and he plans on enjoying himself.

"Yeah," he says with a smile, "I'm good!"

Today's UN Lesson --- To Be Continued!