Elevation

Chapter 9

You have no desire whatsoever to leave your bed. The morning light is an unwelcome sight, and you turn away from your window and bury your face in your pillow. You're still exhausted from the anxiety that had plagued you during the night, and you're not ready to get up. At all. In fact, maybe you'll just stay in your cottage today.

Yeah, that sounds nice... it's always too hot outside anyways, and it's not like anything important is going to happen today... probably...

Just as you start drifting off to sleep, the door to your cottage flies off its hinges and slams onto the carpet. Yelling in shock, you scramble backwards on your bed, your back hitting the wall with an audible thud. "What's-?" You look wildly to the doorway, and stutter nervously when you see him. "N-Nidai! Wha-?!"

Nidai stomps into the room, pointing a finger at you. "Hinata! Get dressed! We're going somewhere!"

"I-" You look down at your half-naked body, then back up at him. "What the hell, Nidai?! Why did you just barge in like that? You scared the crap out of me!" Your heart is still thudding wildly in your chest.

He waves his hand impatiently. "Just get going, already! We don't have time to talk about insignificant stuff like that!"

"Are you kidding me?" You give him a bewildered look. "I-"

Nidai cracks his knuckles, a somewhat frightening expression on his face. "Just do it! If you insist on resisting, I'll use force to get you out of your cabin."

"...You're not gonna leave me alone until I do this, are you?"

"RIGHT!"

Rubbing your temples, you stand and walk over to the dresser. "Fine. Fine! Have it your way. I was trying to catch up on sleep and I'll have to change in the bathroom since you broke my door down, but it's whatever, I guess."

Nidai looks a little guilty. "Uh. Well... Sorry about that, Hinata!"

You take your clothes into the bathroom, not even bothering to close the door. When you come back out fully dressed, you squint at Nidai suspiciously. "Why did you do that, anyway? You could have just knocked, right?"

He scratches his nose, frowning. "Well... If I had knocked, would you have answered the door?"

You hate to admit it, but he might have a point. You hadn't really felt like being around people, at least not yet. "That... depends on how persistent you would have been."

Nidai nods. "Well, in any case, I'll definitely fix your door for you, Hinata! So there's no need to worry about that, at least!"

"Yeah, okay." You slip past him and step out of your cabin, wanting to just get this over with. Whatever this was. "So, where are we going? And what are we doing, exactly?"

Nidai follows you, grunting. "Well... I'm not really supposed to say..."

You give him a look. "Why not?"

"We wanted to make sure you came..."

You groan loudly. "So it's gonna be THAT bad?"

"No, no!" A bead of sweat rolls down his forehead. "Just... trust us. Okay?"

".....Fine." you grumble. Nidai heaves a relieved sigh, then motions for you to follow him. Yawning, you finally comply. It barely takes you a minute to reach your apparent destination; Nidai opens the door to the hotel's lounge for you and ushers you inside. Hesitantly edging into the room, you're surprised to see that the only person present – besides you and Nidai – is Souda, who's conked out on the sofa.