Inside the Bus

After glancing through the bus, I knew where I would want to sit.

"Hey. The seats at the back are unoccupied."

"The ones on the right?"

"Yes. I need peace. Still quite sleepy."

"Same! I'm feeling super sleepy right now."

I nodded and walked down the aisle. As soon as we arrived at our seats, Saki unexpectedly turned around, "Hiryu-kun, I have one request."

"For something in return. Sure."

"What? You poked fun at me earlier. This request should be the equalizer," Saki pouted slightly.

"I apologized, didn't I?"

"You patted me without any warning, Hiryu-kun. Other girls would slap the soul out of you."

"The fact that you didn't react means you accepted it, correct? I thought it was a nice gesture."

She sighed heavily as if she had enough of my antics. I put on an innocent smile to calm her down a bit. I didn't see Saki cooling off so I had to concede to her in order to prevent a calamity.

"Fine. I won't ask for anything in return. What do you want?"

Immediately, her face beamed with delight, "I want to sit next to the window."

"You didn't need to ask me that. No one is stopping you," I facepalmed.

"I thought I would ask you in advance, in case you wanted it or something, you know?" her voice lowered slightly.

"It's not an issue. I can sit wherever. Get in before the bus starts going," I chuckled.

"Okay!"

We got in our chosen seats. The bus hadn't moved yet, so there must have been other students. If I had known that the bus waited for those who came late, I would've slept a little bit more. There was nothing better than some extra minutes of wrapping ourselves inside a warm blanket.

Now I could only compensate by sleeping on the bus, which was not uncomfortable, but not as great. Also, the ride would take about two hours, my neck wouldn't be moveable then if I accidentally slept in a weird posture.

After some delay, two other female students hurriedly got on the bus. They too were apologizing to the driver for being late by bowing time after time. After that interaction, they looked around and walked toward the tail end of the bus. Right after they took the seats beside ours, the vehicle started moving and accelerated.

I unintentionally glanced at them, and our gazes met in an instant. I thought it would be rude if I looked away abruptly after staring at them, so I nodded slightly as to greet them. They nodded back with an awkward smile. Seeing that as a signal, I took my eyes away from them to avoid causing more trouble.

The girls were good-looking, and in pairs as well. These were some of the signs of an upcoming popular group. Any girl with a trendy style and an attractive appearance would gather many drooling gazes from the boys, and instantly the attention would boost her popularity.

Of course, I was exaggerating a little bit by describing male students as wild predators, but it was true to some extent. We were blooming teenagers who had desires to learn more about the adult world. We had more time and energy than adults, so no wonder they always said that being a teenager would be our golden years. At this stage, we had a certain amount of freedom surpassing all other ages, so naturally, we would be more wild and carefree.

But as I was thinking about these situations, I remembered one important notion. Our school wasn't an ordinary high school. It was a complex system that served the purpose of producing elite combatants and operators, meaning that everyone on this bus right now and later had great capabilities and potential.

I had mixed emotions of sorrow and enthusiasm, knowing that I wouldn't be able to experience a normal high school life like that in movies, but I would get to taste the extreme of actual battles on the school ground. Not that I wanted anyone to get hurt, but I'd always loved fighting.

Come to think of it, about an hour had passed, and many students were taking up the remaining seats. I looked to the left and saw Saki sleeping with her head on my shoulder. I was deep in my thoughts so I didn't even realize until now. I wasn't bothered or anything, but if this kept up for another hour, my left shoulder would have a very high chance of being sore, or the worst case scenario, dislocated.

I decided to ignore that for now and leaned my upper body to the right to see the whole bus altogether. Initially, I thought it would be quite crowded, but it was quite the opposite. It was merely an illusion, that was, there were no remaining seats, which made me believe that the bus was packed.

There were a total of 20 seats, and two more if you count the front seats. Five rows of seats, each row had four in total. It was not the typical bus where seats had barely any legroom. They were large like those of the first-class of most airlines.

One more observation on the bus was that female students outnumbered male students, which was rather surprising at first. Usually, the army would recruit males from 18 or above, so I thought it would be the same here. I'd guess that being a Repulsor was different than being a normal soldier. Saki was recruited when she had little to no prior experience in combat, so I should've expected this.