Volume 4, Chapter 2: A Vast Array of Thoughts Part 2

The argument was never settled after all. 1 hour had passed and an announcement by the school was made allowing the students to leave their designated meeting rooms. The Class A students were the first ones to leave. "You're free to do as you please". With that, they left the room and slammed the door shut behind them with a bang, throwing the room back into silence. Even though Ichinose had rejected Katsuragi's strategy, in the end, there was no discussion between us. Is she still hiding something? Or did she really not think about anything beyond that? "Well, there will be 5 more discussions like this after all, so let's end this session here shall we?" Ichinose says with a refreshing voice. Basically, it seems the consensus we've reached is to spend time on our own than to discuss for now. Having processed quite a bit of information, Class D and probably Class C as well are bound to be exhausted. Perhaps it's not such a bad idea to disband the group for now. "I'm going back" Karuizawa promptly said that as she stood to leave, but her legs were shaking as if she were feeling numb.

But in her panic to leave the room, Karuizawa accidentally stepped on Manabe's feet. "Ow!" Manabe screamed in pain. "Ahh...sorry. I didn't mean to" Karuizawa softly apologized before quickly leaving the room. "What...what the hell!?" Manabe shouted at us. She seemed to be angry both from the pain and Karuizawa's attitude and is lashing out at us. I quickly avert my eyes to avoid getting involved and escape. "Let's go too, I'd like to hear from Hirata as well". Since the other classes were already making their moves, it seems Yukimura wants to come up with a strategy for our class too. Sotomura stood up in response to Yukimura's statement. At the very end, only the three from Class B and Ibuki were left in the room. "I'm hungry again, do you think there's a lunch buffet going on?" Sotomura asks. No, no, you're the abnormal one here. What kind of body do you have to be able to digest all that food you ate in one hour. Normally, you'd get fat if you eat that much. But I doubt my sincere advice will reach his heart.

"Hey Yukimura, did you notice Karuizawa was acting strange?" I asked Yukimura immediately after we left the room. But Yukimura only made a strange face towards me in return. "She's always strange" he said earnestly. A straightforward response, but that's not what I wanted to hear, it's just my intuition but there was something definitely off about Karuizawa's behaviour. Sotomura didn't seem like he noticed a thing. I switched on my phone which I had turned off when entering the room and there were messages from Sakura. I checked the contents and it seems she wants to meet me if I have time. "Perfect timing". I was just thinking about contacting Hirata and Horikita to ask how their meetings went, but I might be able to gather more information from Sakura as well. "Hmmmm...where should we meet?". I think for now, the same meeting place as yesterday should do fine.

When I mailed that to Sakura, I instantly received a reply. There will certainly be crowds of students at this moment but if we ignore them they surely won't pay any attention to us as well. Since the first group discussion had just ended, a furious crowd of students awaited me at the elevator.

Since only ten people can ride the elevator at one time, it would be more time efficient to use the stairs, I thought. And as I was heading downstairs via the stairs, a new message arrived in my phone. "It's getting a little crowded so I'll head towards the ship's bow...sorry". "Ahh...it looks like Sakura can't handle a crowd". I then changed directions and started heading towards the bow as well. It is a ship filled with all sorts of facilities built for luxury, but the bow gives a wide view of the sea from the deck. As such, at the current time, there were few students there. In fact, it seems there's nobody there right now giving me monopoly over the whole area.

But even with the entire deck monopolized for our use, Sakura was still hiding behind a corner near a pillar in wait for me. It would be rude to call out so I approached her instead. "...I'd like to...how about it?". It was a small voice I heard coming from her over the wind, but I could not hear her well. "W-w-would you...d-d-date....m-m" Sakura was muttering away to herself but it simply looked creepy to me.

"Sakura. What are you doing?" I ask her quietly as to not surprise her. "Toooooooooooooooooouuuu!!!" Sakura screams as she jumps slightly. It actually surprised me. "S-s-s-s-s-since w-w-w-when did you get here?". "I just got here" I told her. Her wariness of her surroundings almost reminded me of a small animal being cautious. But was Sakura talking to her imaginary friend or a ghost? "Did you hear? Did you hear what I just said?". "Bits and pieces. But I don't know what you meant by those words". Sakura seemed relieved I had not heard what she said. "And? Why did you want to see me?" I asked. "Eeehh....that's....yeah oh r-right. I was feeling anxious about the exam". She then pushed a piece of paper towards me, and when I took it from her and looked it over it contained a list of names.

Class A: Sawada Yasumi, Shimizu Naoki, Nishi Haruka, Yoshida Kenta

Class B: Kobayashi Yume, Ninomiya Yui, Watanabe Kihito

Class C: Yuuki Yuuya, Nomura Yuuji, Yajima Mariko

Class D: Ike Kanji, Sakura Airi, Sudou Ken, Matsushita Chiaki

It seems Sakura belongs to the (Cow) group. It seems things are also intense in this group. The males in the group are Sudou and Ike, men who wouldn't sympathize with Sakura's plight. And in this exam, one is forced to spend time with fellow group members from the same class no matter what. If I'm in the same group as her, I could help her out but as it stands, there's not much I can do right now.

Once it's time for the group to fight as one, they cannot afford to be scattered or hesitant. I could help her by secretly contacting her via phone during the middle of the exam, but if I adopt this unnatural behaviour in the middle of the exam, I would suddenly draw attention to myself. And in an exam like this, an action like that might as well mean the difference between life and death. "I thought it'd be great if there was somebody you knew from the other classes, but I suppose you wouldn't" I said. I thought about it, but if I wanted to help her, Ichinose and Kanzaki are the only ones I can ask help from. But since Ichinose is already in my group, it'll be hard for her to help too. I don't trust Sudou and Ike with Sakura, after all. "Sorry...I don't have any friends either" I tell her. "Oh, please don't apologize, I have no friends at all too" Sakura tells me. This is just sad, we're like two people competing against each other to see who can be more pathetic.

So instead of being proud of my lack of friends, I switched over to a different topic. "By the way, I also wanted to ask you something, Sakura" I told her. "Eeh? Me? What?".

"I was wondering if Yamauchi contacted you in any way since the discussion period ended" I told her. "Yamauchi-kun? No he hasn't. Is something wrong?" she asks. "I see". Back on the island, in order to make use of Horikita, I was forced to use Sakura first. To manipulate Yamauchi, I promised to give him Sakura's address in exchange for his cooperation. Of course, I have no intention of giving the address to Yamauchi without Sakura's consent but I haven't told Yamauchi of this yet. I was worried he might have approached Sakura but it seems like I was worried for nothing. "In the meantime, if there's something on your mind contact me" I tell her. "Is it ok?". "Yeah, that's the least I can do for you". Even though I just gave her those vague words, Sakura's eyes lit up like an innocent child. Perhaps she's just happy interacting with me like this.

"I'll definitely call you then!" she exclaims to me. "Sure". Different from the image Sakura usually puts up, right now she seems full of life and vigor. It seems like she's learning to be more aggressive day by day. Although only a few days have passed since the island test. Sakura has grown considerably strangely enough. Since it was a crazy and taxing test, it seemed to have impacted a growing high school girl like Sakura. She didn't change completely, but even in a tough situation like this, she's learned to keep herself positive.