COTE: The White Room War

Vol 5 Ch 25: Heat Wave

Year 1 

Season 1 

Volume 5 - "Duality of Perfection"

Chapter 25: Heat Wave

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This chapter is over 7,500 words long!

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Ayanokouji Kiyotaka POV

August 24, 6:20 AM. 

Our vacation is now over.

The ship arrives in the Tokyo harbor, and all passengers have unloaded.

"G-Good morning... Ayanokouji-kun," Ichinose softly says in between yawns as us students groggily stumble to the buses waiting right outside the pier. 

"Good morning."

Other than Ichinose, I haven't seen any of my friends. The faces or the rearview of the hair of people walking in front of me seems familiar enough to be a classmate, but who knows. 

Right now, I'm too tired to care.

A cavalry of five buses await us, four for the students and one for the faculty. For the safety of the students, the school assigned one police officer on all four transportation vehicles. 

The teachers begin taking attendance. This time, they're courteous enough to allow us to sit on whichever bus we want. Unfortunately for me, I end up on a bus full of mostly Class C students as well as some from Class D, most of whom are just strangers to me.

I'm the last one onboard, so everyone is staring at me as I slowly, awkwardly make my way to the back of the bus.

However, before I can, someone in the second row stops me.

"Fufu. Hello there, Ayanokouji-kun. We meet again," A familiar voice shatters my peace.

Don't look.

Pretend there's nothing there.

They will go away.

"I know you can hear me."

Why do we live... just to suffer?

I sigh. It's better to face reality now than later, or else the fat lady of victory won't be happy.

Why do they call this mysterious victory goddess or whoever a fat person? If they're fat, they're less likely to win.

And this loli is anything but, especially when it comes to her chest.

Her smug grin disappears when I turn to face her. "You just thought of something rude. Hm..." 

She glares at me for a moment before that same grin returns. "I'll let you off the hook this time. Be grateful that I'm so merciful."

I shrug off her words uncaringly and continue making my way to the back of the bus. 

Oh, thank my luck that there are at least two free seats! Ichinose is following after me, so I'll let her take the other one.

Then, I notice that both seats are behind two people I was not expecting to see near one another.

It's Horikita Suzune and Karuizawa Kei. Window seat, aisle seat.