Playing the Game of People

Chapter 7 - Too Much Tension Can Cause Anything to Snap

The bright shining sun. The infinite blue skies. The rough untamed waves of the seemingly infinite ocean. Spread out for what seemed like miles. This was contrastingly different to our every day lives in a schoolroom.

At 5am today, the first-year cohort had boarded buses and departed for Tokyo Bay, where a cruise liner was awaiting our arrival. This was a government mandated summer trip for our school which would last two weeks. The best thing, especially for the students of Class D, was that any of the ship's facilities were free of charge. Our destination was a fancy summer lodge on a deserted island where we would spend our first week. The remaining week would be once again aboard the ship.

As I watched the birds in the far-off distance, I noticed someone casually approaching me.

"Ayanakouji, enjoying the summer and it's calming charms?" The boy asked, with a slightly suspicious smirk on his handsome face.

"Like everyone on board this luxury liner, it'd be strange if I wasn't."

"Hmm, that's true..."

He drifted off as he took a spot beside me. I was currently leaning against the railing looking out towards the ocean. The boy, Kanera, adopted the opposite stance. With his elbows resting either side on the railing and his back to the waging waters. After momentarily glancing at the other students in our vicinity, most being our very own Class D students, he looked towards the sky and carded a single hand through his flowing black bangs, untamed and wild due to the ocean breeze. A serene smile graced his features and made slight indentations either side of his eyes, giving him an absolute ethereal look as he continued to gaze into the never-ending sky.

Completely unaware, Kanara had attracted not so subtle looks of longing from some girls occupying the deck. Even a few of the boys looked towards him with an exasperated tinge in their stare, annoyed at his ability to attain the attention of the many girls on board. I remember when Kushida told me about the girls' schoolyear rankings. I was surprised when she told me I was an acceptable fifth place in attractiveness, although I wasn't overly shocked when I had heard Kanera was third, right behind Hirata. Kanera was good-looking to a tee, add on his charismatic personality and genuine respect to whomever he talked to. To top it off many would call him humble as he always turned down praise, although I believed there was a deeper meaning, as if he knows his true self is undeserving.

"Did you know..." Kanera began, seemingly uncaring on his desirable position with the fairer sex. "That the distance to the horizon seen at eye level is roughly five kilometres."

So abstract and completely out of nowhere. First of all, he wasn't even looking at the sea! I turned my attention to him and caught him glancing at me out of the side of his eye.

"There's a lot of things to learn outside in the world, just by being there. If one has the curiosity to learn, the answers will follow. Not everything can be learned by ways of the page or passing of the tongue, experience is the best teacher. That is what I believe." Kanera maintained his glance at me as he finished his short monologue, waiting for an answer.

I sighed.

"I agree, hearing about something from another only increases curiosity, it never can satiate that desire alone."

I decided to let out my innermost thoughts to Kanera. With myself being new to this world, so to say, it was difficult to find another who could understand me. Kanera alone, eerie as he may be, was already aware of my personality. If I continued to try and deceive him, he would only gain more answers by sifting through my flimsy schoolboy façade.

"I won't pry, so don't stress, I just enjoy satiating my curiosities when they appear, much like you. It was obvious to me, who's keenly observant, that you were trying to blend in. You had maintained a perfectly normal schoolboy personality." He stated, immediately trying to show he wasn't antagonistic.