Entertaining a Small Thought

3rd Arc Part 18: Day of Unrest

"Umm, not to be rude, Rin, but you look terrible," Kaede told me as I sat down at the dining hall table.

"Ugh..." I only replied with a loud groan before letting my head fall onto the table, creating a loud thud that resonated in the room.

One night. It's only been one night and I already feel like my eyes are burning on top of this minor headache I now have. My eyes hurt and it's taking a little more effort just to open my eyes again after blinking and then keeping them open. I'm not going to fall asleep anytime soon, but I certainly feel the consequences of staying up all night.

I've always had poor sleeping habits before this, but I haven't stayed up all night since the day after Kirumi died. It was terrible back then, but it's slightly worse since I've been pulling partial all-nighters before this happened. I'm grateful to Rantaro for trying to help me stay up by talking to me and figuring out ways to kill time, but I still feel like crap.

"Was night watch for you too much?" Kirumi asked with a small chuckle.

"Of course not. I'm an expert at pulling all-nighters!" I shouted while pointing my thumb at myself before realizing I said that on instinct.

I'm not sure if I said that because that's what I would normally say before I lost my memories, or if I'm just tired enough to start spouting things without thinking.

"Uh, forget what I just said." I quickly added before sighing. "Is there any coffee here?"

"You drink coffee?" Rantaro asked with a curious look.

"No, but I need something with caffeine in me right now," I replied groggily.

"I do not think drinking coffee after staying up all night is exactly healthy, but yes. There is coffee in the kitchen." Kirumi told me with a frown.

"Cool. Hope there's also some sugar in there." I said as I got up from my chair, muttering the last part as I went to get my drink.

After quickly brewing it, adding some cream, and sitting back down with both my cup of coffee and the entire bag of sugar that I found in there. I put in a humble amount of sugar before I took a quick sip and nearly gagged at the bitterness. I then poured maybe a quarter of the sugar bag into my drink before I was able to drink it without my body rejecting it.

"Geez, Rin. Want some coffee to go with that sugar?" Kaede asked with a laugh.

"Shut up..." I muttered as I continued to drink. "I hate bitter things. Why can't coffee be sweet normally?"

"So you have a sweet tooth? I can see that, but I think maybe you put in a bit too much sugar in your drink." Rantaro chuckled.

"You've got that wrong! There's no such thing as too much sugar!" I gave a swift rebuttal. "Anyway, people seem to be handling this rather well, all things considered."

I gave a quick glance over and saw the others who were here at the dining hall happily enjoying their breakfast. It seemed like a normal scene that we have every day, though, under the normality of it, I already noticed some slight differences.

"Yeah, but I bet the motive is still weighing on people's minds," Kaede said.

"Indeed. It's certainly something I am still concerned about." Kirumi added in a solemn tone.

"I know. This happiness is rather forced. Some people aren't here, like Ryoma, Maki, and Keebo. And some people aren't even properly hiding their FA."

"FA?"

"Forbidden Action is a mouthful, so I'm just gonna call it FA," I told Kirumi. "And forget what I just said. It's a bad habit of mine, and speculation on this sort of topic is only going to make things worse."