(Narrator)
"Tsssshh…"
Amid the silence of the forest, the sound of static came from the walkie-talkie before Ryūen's voice finally echoed through it.
"Ibuki, what is it?"
Ryūen hadn't expected her to contact him again this quickly.
"Hey, Ryūen, I found their leader!" Ibuki shouted into the device.
"Hah…?"
After making sure nobody was nearby, she began telling him everything she had seen.
Unfortunately, Ibuki got distracted easily and forgot some details her brain had decided were unimportant.
"Didn't I tell you not to trust him? He could be tricking you," Ryūen growled after hearing her story.
"Tch… I wasn't following him. I just happened to be in the same place," Ibuki replied defensively.
"…So he didn't lure you there?" Ryūen asked, having assumed Hikigaya deliberately baited her into following him.
"No. I was watching someone else."
Ibuki spat on the ground in irritation. All Ryūen ever did was overestimate that gloomy idiot to the point where he treated him like some invincible mastermind.
But the truth was that his defenses had been broken through easily this time.
"Hey… who was the third person you said was with them?" Ryūen asked.
"Yukinoshita…" Ibuki answered, recalling the moment the three of them stood in front of the occupation device.
"She… she's the one holding the card. Focus on her," Ryūen said in a nearly certain tone.
Ibuki couldn't understand why he was giving her another task when she had already found the leader.
"What if she doesn't have the card?" Ibuki asked angrily while clenching her fist.
"Then you can celebrate your little victory… Watch them every day and see if the same exchange happens again," Ryūen replied before cutting off the transmission.
If their goal was merely to lure Ibuki in, then their little act would eventually become meaningless.
That was Ryūen's conclusion.
"Tch…"
Ibuki buried the device back in the hole.
She was beginning to hate how highly Ryūen thought of that idiot.
The only truth she believed now was that the gloomy loser had finally shown his true face in front of her.
---
POV: Hikigaya Hachiman
I placed a hand over my face while yawning.
I was starting to get tired of all this daily labor.
What's even the difference between us and corporate slaves?
At least office workers get to return home every night, while we sleep in the middle of the forest like monkeys.
Still, I had already gathered enough firewood for today, so now I finally had free time to lie down on my bed.
A perfectly logical decision.
Don't people always say, "Don't put off until tomorrow what you can do today"?
Well, I'll just postpone it until the day after tomorrow instead.
"Isn't that right, Tree-san?" I said to the tree whose branches hung above me, creating enough shade to block the sunlight.
Here I was again, talking to trees.
Maybe I should just sleep.
I closed my eyes and tried to drift off, but even though the camp was unusually quiet, I couldn't fall asleep at all.
Had I become the kind of slave who could only relax while working?
That was terrifying.
"Hikigaya-kun, could you help me?"
I opened my eyes to find Hirata carrying fishing nets and two buckets in his hands.
"The boys went out to explore the island and still haven't come back. Could you help me catch fish?" Hirata asked while lifting one of the buckets.
"Hmmm…"
Those bastards… were they slacking off from work?
Still, sleeping tonight without dinner wasn't an option either.
Damn those idiots…
"Fine."
I jumped off the bed and took the net from his hands.
"Ah… thank you, Hikigaya-kun." Hirata gave his usual smile before heading toward the river.
The fishing net smelled awful because of the fish odor.
If fish swim all day long, then why do they smell this bad?
"Hikigaya-kun, do you know how to use the net?" Hirata asked while I tried keeping it away from my nose.
"Uh… no."
It was my first time.
"Didn't you attend Ike-kun's lessons?"
Lessons from Ike?
Since when did he become a teacher?
"No, I wasn't avai—"
Since the first day, Yukinoshita had assigned me to gathering firewood, so I never participated in the other tasks.
Maybe my job had been more of a blessing than a curse.
"I don't know much either, but I can teach you the basics," Hirata said while placing the bucket on the ground.
"O-Okay."
Hirata grabbed the other side of the net and started giving me a long explanation, half of which I failed to understand.
The trees were starting to affect me.
I was practically half-tree already.
"You throw it like this, then pull this rope to open it, and when you pull again, the net closes around the fish…" Hirata finished his explanation.
"Did you understand?" he asked with an awkward smile.
"Yeah… more or less."
We started trying to apply what he had explained.
At the same time, we raised our hands and cast the net across the river while pulling the rope to spread it open.
"Hikigaya-kun, you learn fast," Hirata commented after watching me.
"…That's because you're a good teacher," I replied while scratching the back of my head.
We repeated the same motions for quite a while until we caught as many fish as possible.
Didn't this count as overfishing?
Wouldn't they deduct points for this?
"This should be enough," Hirata said while weighing the buckets in his hands.
"…Alright." I sighed in relief after our long hours of work finally ended.
I carried one bucket while Hirata carried the other along with the fishing net.
He said I had carried it the first time already.
Well, that seemed fair enough to me.
"Looks like the exam is going pretty smoothly," Hirata said. To him, as long as there were no conflicts between students, everything was fine.
"More or less," I replied while smelling my shirt.
It smelled exactly like a fish bucket now.
"That's thanks to Yukinoshita-san…" Hirata muttered softly as if speaking to himself.
Well, he wasn't wrong.
Yukinoshita crushed every problem before it could turn into a disaster.
She also kept everyone so busy working that they didn't even have time to cause trouble.
"You always seem different around her. Is there something between you two?" Hirata asked with his cheerful expression.
The bucket nearly slipped from my fingers and almost crashed to the ground before I tightened my grip again.
That was close.
But what was this handsome idiot talking about?
"W-What are you saying…" I answered while avoiding eye contact.
This was why I hated popular guys.
They had no concept of boundaries.
"Isn't it true? You two always seem to enjoy talking together off to the side. That's unusual for you. Normally you always look completely indifferent," Hirata said while walking one step ahead of me.
I placed a hand over my face, feeling my own expression.
What was he talking about…?
I didn't understand at all.
"Anyway… we decided that our day off will be on the sixth day. Do you want to come to the beach with us, Hikigaya-kun?" Hirata asked while turning toward me.
"Ah…"
That timing worked perfectly.
Good thing he told me.
Since they decided it would be our day off, then tomorrow would be mine too.
"Ibuki-san! Where have you been this whole time?" Kushida shouted after noticing Ibuki's return to the camp.
"Ibuki-san… you're back. That's a relief," Hirata sighed after seeing her.
Maybe he had been worried that something happened to her in the forest.
Ibuki ignored the students around her and simply sat down on the ground while hugging her knees.
So she came back after all…
If I had known, we would've caught another bucket of fish to celebrate.
"Hirata… hold this for me, please," I said while extending the bucket toward him.
If he didn't take it from me, I might end up smashing it over her head.