Class Trip Incident

In the corner of Yuzuha-san's sleepy eyes, she catches a shadowy figure slowly pass through her eyesight. The cold weather had completely gotten her out of her happy days, and she was simply holding tight to the warmth between her summer school uniform and Hayata's body. The warmth colluded together forming such a nice comfortable heat resting area. And for a whimsical girl with such a laid-back character, she was falling in and out of her slumber cycle.

On the outside though, the shadowy figure moved at the right side of the tall chattered motorcoach, rented by the beloved Seishun High school for a trip to Mount Fuji. The shadowy figure later on walked up the short stairs and into the front part of the bus. 

It's Shinomiya-sama. Their class teacher.

At first she seemed exhausted and already tired from all the registration confirmations of all of the students whereabouts.

She knew her time with them had only just begun, so she approached the driver and introduced herself neatly, as the one who will be in charge of this year's Seishun class 3-b's school trip.

As their class teacher, Miss Shinomiya is very affluent in the characters of each of her students. Unlike the other school teachers who mostly focus on their lives and neglect their entire surroundings, she on the other hand, chooses to invest in it - wholeheartedly.

She would often catch students in all sorts of mischief and completely shut them down; effective immediately, as some kind of school vigilante. Although to some she can be a nuisance, most of her students have come to appreciate her way of handling things, the older they get. And now that Miss Shinomiya is their class teacher, the students of class 3-b, have grown a rather big compassionate heart for their teacher.

And in this school trip year, every student has accepted to make her work as a disciplinarian one of the easiest to manage. Yet she's still somewhat tired as always. That has to show that it's not easy managing a class of delinquent students.

And before the school trip, that was indeed what Seishun's class 3-b was mostly known to be.

***

Just as the doors were about to close, a shadowy figure blitzed right past Yuzuha's fleeting eyes again, and to the front of the bus. Yuzuha turned aside to get a better position to sleep in. One that she wouldn't be constantly waken up by rushing students.

As she moved to the left side, Junko felt the graze of her touch and squeezed off a bit. Leaving a sleepy Yuzuha to clumsily fall over Junko's shoulder and to her bare thighs. The coldness of Yuzuha's face, that was once laying on the edge of the cold bus windows, fell on Junko's skin. In the defence of her reaction time, Junko Hayata's legs swung away and Yuzuha fell face first to the ground of the bus.

She woke up pale-faced, with reddish marks on her right face cheeks, and droopy eyelids signaling to all she was still in a sleep-like trance state. Her mind couldn't fully collect her thoughts together, and all that came out of her mouth were incomplete questions filled with anger, addressed to her friend Junko. Who was staring from her comfy bus seat.

Before she rose up to confront her friend, she saw the shadow of Miss Shinomiya from the bus's floor, and immediately sprung to her chair. She couldn't even try and face Shinomiya's cold eyes, as she felt that would be an insult. To dare to leisurely sleep in front of the one teacher who hasn't gotten one form of rest since the day started. That would be equal to spitting in their eye.

Miss Shinomiya passes through and heads to the back of the motorcoach. Where Ryuunosuke Ayase and Seichin Minari are leisurely seated and arguing. She stops right ahead of the two of the biggest class delinquents of class 3-b, and signals to the girl being gambled about - Toshi Mizuki, to leave.

Mizuki leaving causes the two boys to turn to her attention only to be met with Miss Shinomiya in all her disappointed glory. The two boys were always like this. Always gambling away the tiniest of their monthly allowances. Even within themselves they never learnt.

Miss Shinomiya confiscates their cards and dices, and places another student to look after them. She passes through Yuzuha, who is now pretending to stare at the outside scenery of the school compound. And actually warns her to take care of her stepbrother Ayase-san, before moving to the front of the bus once more.

After a while of quivering and small safety measures' explanations, the large motorcoach finally leaves the school compound. And as though in unison, the scholars themselves applaud the smooth flowing of the bus. Congratulating the driver - Gotou-sama, for his great driving skills.

As the flowing scenery speeds up and becomes a nuisance to Yuzuha's sight, she grumbles a bit and then stares at Hayata's comfortable seating posture. Telling herself that Hayata was to blame for her losing her sleep, and now left with the only option of a boring fifty-five kilometer drive to mount Fuji.

***

"Then what transpired after?" Ryuki Tanaka stares at the boy in front of him. The only one who could speak, out of all the survivors of the Seishun high school trip incident.

As conscious to the type of work he does; investigative at most, Tanaka has seen a lot of things happen out of the ordinary. But this case he was outwardly given in less than a week, had to be the most mysterious. Only one student was missing from the class trip, and that is Junko Hayata. Everyone else had been recovered by the search team. It only took a month to find every last survivor of the class 3-b incident.

'So where is this Junko Hayata? And why is this boy the only survivor who can talk to us about the incident? Too many questions with the least of answers.' Tanaka's thoughts were filled with questions that his mind couldn't find the answers to.

He stares at the boy right in front of him. The only one able to clearly speak out. There had to be something he's missing from this strange interaction. The rest of the students don't seem too happy to converse on that matter, not even the homeroom teacher herself. Tanaka's view of trauma is not something he would have put in the same room as what he was experiencing with this survivors. To him, even the boy ahead of him felt odd. Very odd.

Tanaka stood up and stretched his body, moving out of his seat and started moving about the interrogation room. Removing his tie along the way. Folding it neatly and placing it on top of the black wide table that separated him from reaching the boy.

The room was a bit dark, but the tiny bits of lighting that managed to break through the corners of it, lit up the place pretty well. Tanaka looked back at the boy - Seichi, scanning his whole body from top to where the table blinded his eye's reach, and added:

"I'll get you chocolate milk when I get back." And with this he left the room. The door closing behind him.

Not even three steps away his coworker stopped him. The coworker - Michio Kaku, had been listening in through the other room just opposite the interrogation room.

"The boy doesn't seem to have anything new to tell us. He's been repeating the same story everytime he's asked for a narration."

Tanaka knows this, but he still refuses to let the only chance he has slip right through his fingers. "Let's give the boy chocolate milk, and see if he would have a change of heart." Tanaka sees Kaku's face twitch as he says these words. Reminding himself that they've been doing this for a whole week now with no new information gained. That might as well give a bad reputation to not only his, but also Kaku's future, in the crime and investigative department.

"Just one more day Kaku. Just one more day. Wouldn't hurt a fly now would it?" While saying this Tanaka removes a cigarette, lights it up and smokes a bit, all still in the process of thought. On the far end, Kaku picks up the chocolate milk from an attendant of theirs, and signals Tanaka that he should return to the room.

Tanaka puts out his cigarette, moves over to Kaku and lifts a finger up, softly whispering, "One more day." Before he re-enters the room once more.

Moving past Tanaka, Kaku places the chocolate milk on the table, slowly rising up. His eyes fixed on the boy's hands, before turning to leave.

Just as Tanaka had told him prior to this interrogation, the boy's hands have dirt under their fingernails, and all seem overly bruised up. The rest of the survivors had cleaner hands. Meaning this boy has quite the story left for them to unfold.

"Just like Ryuki said. Seems our little helper, was digging for something."