Chapter 94: Chapter 93 - Beach Landing Operation

As soon as the train doors opened, Akari shot from her seat like she was a rocket.

"We’re here!"

Many of the passengers turned to face her.

Minami was already feeling a headache starting.

They arrived to the beach town in good time, with sunny weather, warm ocean breezes, and sounds of the waves hitting against the beach off in the distance.

For a minute, the entire group just stood there.

The ocean extended out as far as the eye could see.

There was not a cloud in the sky.

The weather was perfect.

Even Kuro would have to agree that the view was nice.

Akari, however, had already moved on from that and was ready to go.

"BEACH!"

She swung her arms and pointed towards the ocean.

Then she turned and ran.

"Aka—"

Way too late.

She was long gone.

Minami just remained at the spot were Akari had just been standing.

They had been on vacation for less than thirty seconds.

One student had vanished already.

"How?" Minami whispered to herself.

Kuro shrugged his shoulders.

"You’ll become accustomed to it."

"I do not want to become accustomed to it."

In the end, Akari did come back.

Sadly, she came back after spending money at three different stores for food and somehow getting a tourist to take pictures of her.

Minami had no intention of asking any more questions.

Some things are better left a mystery.

They all made it to the resort hotel.

It wasn’t exactly opulent.

But it was tidy, relaxing, and just a short distance from the ocean.

People congregated in the lobby.

The staff distributed room keys.

That was quickly followed by an uproar.

Akari got her key.

Aoi got her key.

Mina got her key.

Rika got her key.

Kuro got his.

Minami double-checked that all the kids were properly assigned to rooms.

A good idea.

After 10 minutes of looking...

"MINAMI-SENSEI!"

Minami stopped.

The shout was from the hall; it was Akari. 𝗳𝗿𝐞𝕖𝘄𝗲𝕓𝗻𝚘𝚟𝕖𝐥.𝚌𝕠𝕞

Of course.

Minami raced up the stairs.

Kuro went with him.

His experience told him he should.

When they got upstairs, Akari was standing outside her room looking sorry for herself.

"I lost it."

Minami stared.

"What?"

"My key."

Silence.

Empty silence.

"You got it 10 minutes ago."

"I’m aware."

"How did you lose it?"

"I don’t know."

Minami gazed up at the ceiling...

Maybe someone upstairs would help him.

They did not.

The search party began.

Eventually, Akari’s room key was found.

In Akari’s bag.

After 30 minutes of searching.

Akari declared herself the winner.

No one else did.

Especially not Minami.

His apparent age seemed to increase several decades.

Finally, the children got their luggage unpacked and walked toward the ocean.

The beach had people on it.

Families were playing in the water.

The children played on the beach making sand castles. Multiple groups of students were enjoying their holidays. For that short period of time, it seemed like nothing could spoil it.

Then Mina accidentally became famous once again and no one could figure out how she had achieved that level of fame not even Mina herself.

It seems it all began with an innocent game of volleyball where the group nearby was looking for an extra player to join in on their game and Mina just so happened to be standing right there.

"Would you like to join us?" they asked her.

"Sure," she replied,

"I’ll play."

That was her first big mistake because everyone seems to think that she has some sort of magical talent skating (or is it luck?) on that volleyball court - every ball thrown her way found its way to her. All her shots went right into the net as though they had been purposely aimed.

Every error on her part (and trust me, there were many errors) was somehow turned into points for her team. The size of the crowd increased substantially.

At first they just doubled, but then they doubled again. The last time Mina looked at the crowd, she literally had large eyes! "Kuro!!" she called out.

He could tell that something was wrong when he arrived to see about 50+ people watching and Mina at the center of a beach volleyball game - only this time...

She was winning AGAIN!

"What happened to attract all these people?" Kuro asked.

"I don’t know!!" was Mina’s answer.

He could see that she had the same deer-in-the-headlight look as he had seen on her face before!!

About five minutes later, the crowd began to cheer for her performance. To say that this made Mina feel more than a little anxious is to say the least.

However, the more anxious she became, the better she played. At that moment, Kuro decided that reality had stopped functioning.

At that moment, Rika had completely disappeared from everyone’s sight - and unfortunately for Rika, no one realized it until she was actually gone. Minami left her body.

"Where’s Rika?" asked Kuro.

No one knew!!

Then the teacher looked over at Kuro.

Kuro stared at the water.

The ocean didn’t help him at all.

He began to look for Rika.

It was forty minutes until they found her.

They found her in a bookstore.

She was writing on a notepad.

Kuro asked her, "What are you doing?"

She replied with a simple "Research."

Kuro was expecting a longer answer from her, but he was used to that from his teacher.

"What’s the ’research?’"

Rika said she was doing research for summer romance manga.

Kuro thought, "Time to move on."

Minami looked like she was going to fall over.

Her teacher bought a drink and took a seat.

It would only be for a moment.

Unfortunately for the teacher, there would be another issue.

Akari had started a sand castle building competition with kids.

She was losing to the children and getting emotional.

Aoi had to step in to help the situation.

The kids were celebrating.

Akari demanded to have a rematch.

Minami wished to be able to take a break.

By 3pm, Kuro and Minami had developed a response plan.

For any emergencies.

Kuro and Minami would first find each other and then repeat the previous steps in preventing a disaster.

During the day, they were involved in many activities that prevented disasters from happening.

They prevented Akari from being upset.

They located Rika.

They kept Mina from attracting attention.

They made sure everyone stayed together while playing at the beach.

At one point during the day, Minami checked her pedometer.

It said she had walked six kilometers.

Kuro couldn’t help but ask.

"Really? That’s it?"

Minami stared at Kuro.

"Yeah! That’s it."

Minami thought back to how far she had walked with Kuro throughout the entire festival.

At that moment, Kuro understood why no one else in the school ever depended on him as a teacher.

None of the normal kids would ever say that.

As day began changing into evening, the beach became quieter and quieter as the number of people diminished. The brightness of the sun started to dim; the temperatures were now cooling off.

For the first time during the day, nothing was happening that was an emergency; none of the students were lost; there were no issues with the volleyball; "spontaneous research projects" weren’t going on.

Peace.

A peaceful feeling.

Minami and Kuro were sitting on a bench together, watching the ocean. They sat silently for a few minutes, listening to the waves hitting against the shore and watching the orange and gold color of the sunset as it reflected on the water. The entire atmosphere around them was quite relaxing.

Then Minami started to laugh.

A soft laugh.

An exhausted laugh.

"I have taught at least a hundred different kids, hundreds each year, at an average of less than fifty years of age.

Kuro looked at her.

"And?"

"Supervising five of you is much more difficult."

Kuro agreed.

"That makes sense."

"No," she replied.

"Yes, that is."

"No."

"Yes."

Kuro said that he liked the way he was treated at the school but had never considered how hard it was for a teacher to supervise so many students. Kuro finally spoke.

Minami gestured toward the seashore.

Akari was pursuing a bird.

Mina had been apologizing to randoms for erroneously winning yet another game.

Rika had been sketching something suspicious.

Aoi was somehow the only individual that could be considered normal.

"Your group of friends is unbelievably draining."

Kuro considered this.

Then nodded.

"That’s also accurate."

For the briefest moment they both laughed socially.

The sun slowly began to go down behind the horizon.

The first day of the trip was finally over.

Both Kuro and Minami felt completely spent.

Physically.

Mentally.

Emotionally.

Yet oddly enough, each one of them had no regrets about the trip.

Yes, the vacation has been crazy.

Yes, absurd.

Yes, beyond comprehension.

But still fun.

Even Minami has finally gleaned that much.

But she will never admit it.

At least not just yet.

As the sky darkened and began to return to the hotels, Minami noticed what her classmates were doing.

Laughing.

Talking.

Having fun during summer.

And, she was able to muster a small grin.

And then Akari tripped over nothing.

The grin disappeared in a heart beat.

Minami jumped to her feet and yelled, "AKARI!"

The long awaited conclusion of the vacation continued!