MEANINGLESS EYES OF FREEDOM: Volume 1

Chapter 7

I woke up...feeling the strangest I have ever had. For the first time in my life, I've woken up with the feeling of wanting to go back to sleep again. I didn't happen to go back to sleep since the sun was completely overhead and beaming down in my face. From the position of the sun, I can tell that it was around 1 pm or 2 pm.

"You well rested?" Kenichi said while eating meat off of a stick.

"Ugh, well...yeah. I...kinda had a bit of trouble waking up though. I do kinda wanna go back to sleep..." I said while wiping my eyes.

"Good. Also, you're not going back to sleep. Food's ready, and I have some water prepared for you too." Kenichi said while pointing at the three sticks on the trunk of the tree that each had 10 pieces of meat on them. Next to the three sticks was a wooden bowl filled with water. I wasn't sure if the water was purified.

I got up and proceeded to make my way to grab the sticks. The meat looked fine and well cooked. I guess those cooking classes paid off well for Kenichi, even though they were all theory. Since I was hungry, I wasted no time. I sat down on the trunk near the fire and started to eat.

"It doesn't taste half bad even with no seasoning...I'm impressed." I said while eating.

"I'm glad you said that. It took me a few hours to make that." Kenichi responded. Afterwards, he finished eating and then began to gulp down the bowl of water.

"I guess that's pretty much it for our little camp spot here. We need to get going to Osaka soon."

"You've already decided on the city we're going to?" I asked, a little surprised.

"Yeah, Osaka seems to be a better choice to me. It's bigger and more than likely has more opportunities for us. And it's farther from Kobe, even though it's not by much."

"I see." I then began to eat the meat off of the sticks slightly faster, finishing in about 10 minutes. In that time, I saw Kenichi leaving to go get something. After I was done, I then gulped down my bowl of water.

"Ah, that felt great. I still don't seem to be at my best, but at least I'm feeling a lot better than last night." I then began to stand back up, with Kenichi approaching me, holding a huge container like object in his arms. At the same time, his entire body from head to toe was wet. He then began to shake a little dramatically, presumably with the purpose of drying himself.

"Where did you get that from?" I asked.

"You'd be surprised at how much people just throw things out in lakes. I had a hunch that I'll find something useful if I just went in there, and found this at the bottom of the lake. Unfortunately, the technology on it seems to be busted. But I think this can be useful." Kenichi said while examining it.

"I see. Well, what even is it?" I asked.

"It's a cooler. Specifically, a mini cooler. I've already got some fish inside. I think I'll put some of the bear meat inside here too."

"You've already cleaned it and everything?"

"Only the outside needed to be cleaned. The inside seemed to be fine."

"...I don't know how I'd survive out here if it wasn't for you."

"Haha. Don't say that, you know very well you'd pull yourself out of something as easy as this. Besides, most of the things I've done here are things you've learned."

"Can't even flatter you for a bit without you trying to prove me wrong...well that's expected."

"What do you mean by that?" Kenichi asked, perplexed as he was heading over to the bear's corpse.