Chapter 1: The peaceful days suddenly…

Three days have passed since the the test on the uninhabited island. On the luxurious cruise ship our school provided us with, nothing of note was happening and there a peaceful lull had set in. For students still in the primetime of their youth, having to undergo survival on an island like that, most would lose their rational judgment. At the end of the day, we boys are still little more than beasts and sexually active carnivores. As we watched the girls who were dilly-dallying their time away, we boys collectively began to expect a destined experience with the girls. This is still a luxurious cruise ship where you can lose yourself in a dreamlike world and forget about everything bad. Even if people were to fall in love here it wouldn't be strange at all.

Besides, I've already heard quite a few stories of students hooking up with each other on this cruise and new couples being born every other day. Unfortunately, that sort of encounter is unlikely to happen with me and I continue to spend this time alone in solitude. My situation is the same as it was before the island test. No. Perhaps the environment around me did change? Even though it was against my will, I was still forced to change my original trajectory after entering this school. Initially, I chose to enter this school for a very specific reason. "Contact with the outside until graduation is forbidden". That one school rule was the reason I entered. Right now, a "certain man" is attempting to contact me from the outside. Chabashira-sensei was the one who informed me of this. Furthermore, she's blackmailed me into helping her take the class to A Class by threatening to forcibly expel me if I did not comply. It would've been a stupid story otherwise, but lacking the power to refuse, I was forced to go along with it. I have no way of ascertaining the truth of her claims, so I decided to play it safe by assuming it to be true.

But I will not be blackmailed by her forever. For now, I will gather the necessary information and depending on the circumstances I will have to make the first move. A sweet devil whispers this into the back of my head. "Get them before they get you". That's all I need to do. But that sort of violent thought was only for a moment, I soon return to my normally pacifistic way of thinking. "If only I had the power to punch the Earth's axis out of balance" I thought. If I could only do that, there'd be no need to worry about such trivial things. Saying that, I daydreamed about living in the world of Dragon Ball. The students were uneasy at first after the test ended thinking something more would come. But nothing happened. The cruise was serene, peaceful and enjoyable. Almost as if summer vacations were already upon us. Naturally, the students switched into a festive mood. During this two-week trip it seems the latter week would be nothing but a continuous, luxurious vacation for the students.

The students were especially relaxed since the island test had just ended. And it's not exactly a bad thing. The fact that students were able to stay calm during the test itself is the reason we were able to get good results. "Hmm? Have you been in your room this whole time?". My fellow male student, Hirata Yousuke, was the one who called out to me. "There's no reason for me to go out, I don't have anyone to spend time with anyways" I reply to him. "That's not true, there's Sudou and Horikita as well" he tells me. Indeed, Sudou and Horikita are people I can technically categorize as "friends". But just because you are categorized as a "friend" there is still a hierarchy. And if you are at the bottom of that hierarchy, the treatment between friends will still be different. Sometimes when people go out, they'll only invite you once out of 10 outings. I am that sort of person, existing only to be invited once in 10 outings.

"I think Ayanokouji-kun will be able to make more friends if you were a bit more aggressive" Hirata tells me. This person is a popular man who many students like and support considerably. In particular, girls seem to trust him a lot. He also has a girlfriend like Karuizawa. For a man as lucky and happy as Hirata, he will never understand the suffering of a loner like me. "Ayanokouji-kun's way of talking is already fine, you just need the trigger to converse" he keeps telling me. I don't need that sort of cruel kindness.

I don't need words from girls like "Eeh...you look like you could be popular". Because if I reply to them with "Then go out with me" they'll just say "That's a bit troublesome". It's because I was unable to form any friends nor have a girlfriend that I was forced to spend time alone like this. Hirata then tells me "I'm planning to go out with Karuizawa-san at 12:30 to have lunch together. Would you like to tag along with us. I'm sure it'll be fun to have you with us". "Is it just Karuizawa?" I ask him. "Not exactly, there are 3 other girls that will be with us. Do you dislike that?" he asks.

If I have to admit the truth, I've been wanting to talk a bit with Karuizawa for a while now. But...there's no need to hurry. Besides with other girls tagging along with us it will be hard to initiate a conversation with her and I definitely won't be able to liven up the lunch. "I'll have to pass, I don't think I'll get along with Karuizawa's group after all" I tell Hirata. With the completion of our 1st semester, the relationships between classmates have already been set in stone. There's no way I can build a new relationship with someone else at this point. I can already imagine Karuizawa's dislike of me.

Hirata sat down near to me, having realized that I did not want to initiate new relationships with people. "I can understood what you would be reluctant, but I want you to depend on me" Hirata finally tells me.

Hirata was ready to help anytime and anywhere with that pleasant face. I thankfully decline his offer with a shake of my head. "Only 10 minutes to go before lunch, I think you should leave me now" I tell Hirata. "There's no need to hurry, besides I think it's fun being with you like this now" Hirata quickly replies. At first glance you may think I'm simply trying to sound strong or making excuses, but I'm actually quite satisfied with my current situation. Of course, when I first came here, I was thinking I'd be able to make 100 friends and went in with that kind of determination. But that momentum quickly died down. Although I was able to make friends with the 3 Idiots, Horikita, Kushida and Sakura. All in all, my social school life isn't doing so bad, I can be convinced of that. But the guy named Hirata was unable to leave a classmate wallow in loneliness like this. He tells me "Then how about we have lunch just the two of us together, will you be happy with that?" he proceeds to ask me.

It was just the two of us right now, with Hirata staring intently at me. It seems he'll be insistent on this to the end. "I'm fine with it, but you need to consider Karuizawa's feelings" I tell Hirata. "Its ok, I can eat with Karuizawa-san whenever I want, but with you Ayanokouji-kun, I have limited opportunities to eat together" Hirata replies. A kind person like Hirata was able to pay no attention to the fact that he was basically asking another man out for lunch. I quickly thought perhaps he swings "that way". Despite his crazy popularity, Hirata was always able to maintain his sense of rationality as a man after all.

"I don't want Karuizawa to hate me later on" I tell him in an attempt to politely decline his invitation. It seems it managed to work by appealing to Hirata's conscience. "Its ok, Karuizawa-san isn't the type to be angry at you for something like that" he replies to me. No, no. Karuizawa's definitely that type of girl I thought. Even if she pretends to be docile in front of Hirata, she's definitely the dominant type when dealing with the other girls. Perhaps she hasn't revealed that side of her to Hirata? I thought.

He almost seemed like a kind teacher trying to mercifully help bad students. "I think I'll cancel the lunch with Karuizawa-san after all" he tells me. He quickly pulls out his mobile and calls Karuizawa. I tried to stop him but Hirata uses his hands to cover my eyes and stop me. "Do you have anything you'd like to eat in particular?" he asks me. I was forced to listen to Hirata cancel the lunch date with Karuizawa. "I can eat anything...I'd just like to avoid heavy foods if possible" I finally told him. The cruise ship has a lot of restaurants. The menu ranges from junk food such as ramen and hamburgers to something like French cuisine. Since it's still daytime I'd like to eat light food if at all possible.

As I thought, Hirata really did cancel his date with Karuizawa for this. I couldn't clearly hear Karuizawa's voice through the call but Hirata forcibly shut her down and cancelled the date anyways. "Are you really fine with this?" I ask him. "Of course. Let's go to the deck. If it's only snacks it'll be easier to eat out there anwyays" he tells me. Hirata opened the door and pulled me out of it. "Thank you for your cooperating during the island test I cannot thank you enough, Ayanokouji-kun. You even helped me look for the culprit" Hirata tells me. "Don't thank me for it. The credit belongs to Horikita. She's the one who found the culprit that stole the underwear" I quickly tell him in response.

"Of course that is true, but I still want to thank Ayanokouji-kun who cooperated with me without reservation" he tells me. Speaking of underwear, there's still something I want to ask him. I looked around to see if there were any people around.

"Did you return Karuizawa's underwear to her yourself?" I ask him. "Yeah after all Ibuki-san was the culprit so she was able to accept it smoothly" he tells me. The underwear I was talking about was the theft incident during the island test where the underwear of one of the girls, Karuizawa Kei, was stolen and things quickly became turbulent. Especially since the underwear was found in one of the men's bags, the relationship between the boys and the girls became strained. But Hirata managed to resolve it by returning the underwear and figuring out the culprit. In either case, all turned out well. It was a delicate situation so was I worried about what could've happened.

I was worried that even if it's Hirata, returning a girl's stolen underwear could've turned out badly. The fact that he was able to smoothly return a girl's underwear to her might mean that he's already climbed the steps to adulthood. From the elevator in the cruise ship to the deck, students seemed to be enjoying their summer vacation in their favourite dresses.

Since there was also an on-board pool nearby both male and female students were boldly wearing swimsuits and swimming in the pool. Since the tension of the test had come undone, this was inevitable. It might have been that the pent-up rebellious desire of the students that was suppressed during the island test finally came free to result in this situation. This was compounded by the fact that you do not need to pay any points for use of the facilities provided by the cruise including food and drinks. Regardless of your points, the above things are all free. Of course, you'd still need to pay to loan swimsuits and other swimming equipment but aside from that, everything else is free.

By the time we reached the restaurant, over half the seats had already been filled. The two of us quickly secured the vacant seats that still remained amongst the crowded restaurant. "To be honest...I have something I'd like to talk to you about" Hirata tells me. While I was looking down at the menu, Hirata's voice apologetically asked me that. "What is it?" I ask him. Of course there was an ulterior motive. That's why he was so insistent on eating with me. I'm not complaining because since he went out of his way to invite me, there must be a reason for it.

"I may not be the best listener but...do you have the short version of it?" I ask him. I'm neither a good speaker nor a good listener so that's the reason I asked for the condensed version of it. "I would like you to be the bridge between me and Horikita-san, I think Horikita-san will be an indispensable person to D Class in the future and I would very much like to work together with her" Hirata tells me. I see, so he needs my help for that. I nodded as Hirata kept talking while apologizing to me. "Even the other day, it was thanks to Horikita-san's efforts that D Class won an unexpected victory. The morale of the class is soaring. I think the number of students who like Horikita-san has also gone up which is a huge change from before" he tells me.

"I suppose that's true" I say. The girl named Horikita Suzune is a D Class student who coincidentally also was my first friend here. But other than that, she's a solitary person with no friends at all. The only skill she has is the ability to be a honors student in the academic sense. But her weakness, in exchange, is that she is bad at interpersonal skills and often has a demanding attititude which causes difficulties when socializing. "Right now, I feel like together me and her and everyone else working together we can climb up together to C Class, B Class and finally A Class" Hirata says optimistically.

If I'd heard this story from anyone else I'd have brushed it aside as a convenient story. But Hirata once brought up the matter of Horikita from the start of the semester. From the start, he must have sensed the potential that Horikita had. I don't sense any ill will from Hirata. I don't mind helping him out in this regard, the task itself is relatively simple. But even if I can bring Hirata and Horikita together. But that alone won't solve the problem.

"But even if you I bridge the gap between you and Horikita, it won't go over that easily, Horikita's just that type of person". Even if I try to mend the relationship between Horikita and Hirata it will only appear to her as unnecessary interference. If she feels that way, she might actually widen the gap between her and the rest of the class in response. Her interactions with Kushida at the start of the first semester is proof of that fact.

"Of course I do understand that fact, Horikita-san will not open herself up to anyone but Ayanokouji-kun. I don't intend on forcing this issue, that is why I would like you to be the bridge that connects my existence to Horikita-san's" he says. And so I'm supposed to tell this to Horikita is what he's saying. That means vice versa, I will also need to relay Horikita's feelings on the matter back to Hirata.

Indeed, if I act as Hirata's medium, Horikita won't have to work together with the rest of the class and we can build an invisible bridge of cooperative relationships. "It's easier said than done, usually I'm the one following Hori...to be more precise, I've never really given Horikita any opinions before. If I started giving my opinions on matters suddenly it would seem strange" I reply to him. "But as of right now I don't have any better ideas. Even if I were to talk to Horikita-san about this right now, I don't have the confidence that I'd be able to convince her to work together with us. This is my last resort" Hirata tells me.

"Isn't it a bit premature to be resorting to last resorts at this point?" I ask him. I certainly understand now his desire to work together with Horikita. But if so, he has no choice but to directly approach Horikita on the matter. I do understand that doing this might be difficult for him, but working together with others as a team is also equally difficult.

Hirata should have been able to realize something as obvious as this. He's the one who cares about this class and thinks about it and cherishes the bonds of friendship among it the most. But there's still one question left regarding him. Back on the island, he seemed almost to be afraid of something and losing sight of himself. I still remember the strange behavior Hirata had back on the island. When the unity of D Class was compromised by the incident, he seemed to have almost been 'empty'. That is not normal behavior.

For now, I order sandwiches and some drinks. Light food overall, easy to eat. Students were swimming in the pool on the deck while others were eating while still in their swimsuits. The mood amongst the students seemed to be a festive one. If Ike and Yamauchi were here, they'd be drooling more at the girls' swimsuits than the meal itself. Hirato, on the other hand, paid no attention to the girls at all but instead was staring at me.

"Yeah, like Ayanokouji-kun said, my plan may have been a poorly thought-out one" he admitted. He's also honest to a fault and able to recognize his own mistakes in rational judgments quickly. That is one of Hirata's strengths. But it seemed his desire to cooperate with Horikita was stronger after all since he didn't show any signs of giving up on persuading me. "It seems I'll have to rethink my approach, Horikita-san is a very serious type of person. How did you manage to get along with her Ayanokouji-kun?" he asks me.

In order to strengthen his relationship with Horikita, it seems like Hirata wants to befriend her first by asking me for advice. I think that's the right attitude to take and if there's something I can do I'd like to lend him a hand. "Let me refute one of your points. It's not like I'm getting along with Horikita well or anything too, it seems like she doesn't even recognize me as a friend" I point out. "But it seems like Horikita only gets along well with you, Ayanokouji-kun". So that makes me special because I'm the only one able to get along with that one person. Or perhaps that's something a man who's easily able to befriend 40 people says. Because of the frustration he feels from not being able to befriend this one particular person.

"Don't be so impatient, we've just finished the first semester you know?" I tell him.

The cohesion of the class is directly correlated to the time spent together. Or in some cases, when they're pitted suddenly in harsh conditions like during the island test. Of course you can force cohesion in the class by acting towards your fellow classmates but that sort of cohesion is very fragile and easily crumbles away.

"I should also add that Horikita is not the type to make friends easily" I said. I said it simply so that Hirata could understand that the fastest. "...that might be true". Perhaps he might have been impatient on that regard but Hirata's face showed a reaction. "I admit I wasn't thinking of her feelings but rather only my own desire for cooperation" Hirata told me with a smile while nodding. I'm sure he understands now. "I'm sorry, I invited you out here only to listen to my selfish request, let's eat shall we?" Hirata tells me.

Perhaps he noticed too, but after a while Hirata also became aware that someone was approaching us and looked at me with an embarrassed face.

"Ah...so you were here after all, Hirata-kun. Let's eat lunch together!". A happy voice called out to us. It was Karuizawa who was approaching us.

"Umm...Karuizawa-san, I'm sure I called you a while ago to tell you about cancelling the lunch, but..." Hirata was stumbling over his words. Karuizawa and her friends pull another table, joins it with our table while Karuizawa quickly pushes me out of the group. The lunch suddenly became rather noisy and I, of course, have trouble socializing. But I don't need to worry. I'm used to situations like this already. In this case I will need to use my special skill "Quickly escape the scene".

I picked up my food and quietly left. My eyes met with Hirata's for a moment, but soon he was surrounded by Karuizawa and the other girls and I could no longer see him.

I guess that's one of the downsides of making too many friends. You lose the time you could spend on yourself by having to spend it on others. Even if Hirata has any personal problems he needs to consult someone on, I'm sure he cannot ask Karuizawa for advice so he'll have to keep them shut up inside.