Chapter 21 – “Field Trip: Operation Seaside”

The summer sun hit like an ambush. The bus stopped in front of a glimmering coastline, and Yuuto Kanda stepped off wearing the look of a man heading to war rather than a beach trip.

“Operation Seaside… commence,” he muttered, shading his eyes. “Target: survival.”

Behind him, Rika Hanabira stretched her arms wide. “The sea! The glorious field of sodium chloride and aquatic lifeforms!”

“Please,” Mizuki Onodera sighed, adjusting her hat. “It’s a vacation, not a science experiment.”

Meanwhile, Akari Shinozuka was already halfway across the sand, volleyball in hand, shouting, “Losers buy ice cream!”

Yuuto followed with the resignation of a man who had accepted fate. As the class’s self-proclaimed “study commander,” he’d been appointed assistant supervisor for the trip — a title Sensei Amamiya said would “build leadership skills.” In reality, it meant chasing his trio of disasters before they set the beach on fire.

Sensei Amamiya herself appeared moments later, wearing sunglasses and a wide-brimmed hat… and an absolutely illegal swimsuit.

“Remember, Kanda-kun,” she said sweetly, “as supervisor, you must keep a close eye on the girls. Very close.”

Yuuto’s brain nearly short-circuited. “I—I’ll supervise appropriately!”

“Good boy,” she winked, walking off like a magazine ad.

---

The morning was chaos wrapped in sunscreen.

Akari challenged everyone to beach volleyball, instantly tripping over the net. Mizuki tried to read poetry by the waves but kept getting splashed by Rika’s “marine sample collection.” Yuuto spent half the time confiscating test tubes and half chasing runaway notebooks.

“Rika,” he groaned, “you can’t pour seawater into the cooler!”

“But Yuuto, it’s for science!”

He froze mid-step.

“…Did you just—call me Yuuto?”

Rika blinked. “Oh. I—uh—yeah? We’re classmates, aren’t we? I thought you were the one who said we should drop formalities for team spirit.”

He scratched the back of his neck, heart skipping for reasons entirely unrelated to UV exposure. “R-right. Team spirit. Yeah.”

“Then you should call me Rika,” she said, almost challengingly. Her tone was light, but her cheeks were faintly pink.

For a second, the sound of waves filled the silence between them. Then Yuuto nodded.

“Alright, Rika.”

---

That small shift changed everything.

“Mizuki,” he called later, handing her a bottle of water, “you should hydrate before you melt.”

She blinked, startled. “You—called me Mizuki?”

“Yeah. Rika told me to drop the honorifics. Feels weird, but… kinda nice, right?”

Mizuki’s lips curved into a shy smile. “It does. Thank you, Yuuto.”

Meanwhile, Akari popped out of nowhere, sunscreen bottle in hand. “Hey, Yuuto! You forgot to call me by my name too!”

He sighed, “Akari, please don’t ambush people with SPF 50.”

“Then say it again,” she teased, poking his arm. “Akari.”

“Fine, fine—Akari. Happy now?”

She grinned. “Ecstatic.”

Sensei Amamiya watched all this from under her umbrella, sipping coconut juice like a scheming deity. “Youth in its wild, hormonal prime… marvelous.”

---

By noon, the group decided to build a massive sandcastle.

Rika engineered the foundation like she was planning a moon landing, Mizuki decorated it with seashells and poetic labels (“Tower of Dreams”), and Akari sculpted a suspiciously detailed mini version of Yuuto on top.

“Why is the sand Yuuto flexing?” he asked flatly.

“Because you carried the cooler,” Akari said proudly. “You were very manly.”

Mizuki rolled her eyes. “You mean he tripped twice and nearly drowned the water bottles?”

“Details, details!”

Rika laughed, brushing sand from her hair. “You three are impossible.”

When a gust of wind knocked the top of the castle down, she instinctively grabbed Yuuto’s wrist to steady herself. Her hand stayed there a second longer than needed — warm, trembling slightly.

Yuuto didn’t move either.

“Thanks,” she said quietly.

“No problem, Rika.”

Her eyes softened. The sound of her name on his lips made something flutter inside her chest — not chemistry, not logic, but something entirely unquantifiable.

---

Evening came with orange skies and grilled food. The group sat around a campfire, roasting marshmallows. Akari played a ukulele she clearly didn’t know how to tune, Mizuki read a poem about summer endings, and Rika sketched shells in her notebook.

Yuuto looked at them — Rika, Mizuki, Akari — and for the first time, he said their names easily, without hesitation. It felt natural, warm, almost like they’d crossed a boundary from classmates to something closer.

Sensei Amamiya joined them, holding her drink. “So, Kanda-kun, how’s the mission going?”

He smiled faintly, watching the three girls laughing under the firelight.

“Operation Seaside,” he said. “Successful.”

Rika looked up from her sketchbook. “You mean, our mission, Yuuto.”

He chuckled. “Yeah. Our mission.”

The sea whispered behind them, the waves lapping softly against the shore — and under the starlit night, a quiet shift took place. They were no longer teacher and students, or tutor and troublemakers. Just friends. Maybe something more.