Chapter 72: Gal Fishing
Ishi washed his hands in the sink. The blood stained the water red as it ran off his hands into the drain. Once they were clean, he took one good look at them for a while before regaining his sense. Now was not to the time be getting lost in thought. He had a responsibility for both the first years, and the people he brought along with him.
The boy splashed water into his face to refocus on the task at hand. Thinking about the next location, it definitely had to be Ryugi. The problem he had with her was that she could be very irresponsible. That meant it was entirely possible that she could shirk on her duties and end up losing someone. So he exited the bathrooms and made his way to the camp lake.
Calling it a lake would be a massive overstatement. Some might even call it a pond, but there were some decent catches to be made here. He came up to it to see some students walking about with fishing rods. They weren't the person he was searching for, but it was good that no one seemed to be doing anything dumb.
The major worry for him was that this activity might seem rather… Boring. So that it could end up encouraging some of the hotheaded ones to try something else instead. Personally, it was not something that he ever wanted to spend a weekend on. Now that he thought about it, neither would Ryugi. So now things felt a little more important to find her before something came up.
"Ahh! Just bite it!" Thankfully, she made it easy for him to find her as she yelled out her frustrations. "How can anyone catch anything with these stupid things?"
"Not screaming would be a good start." He made his presence known as Ishi sat down besides her on the bank. The boy followed it up by casting out his own line. "Don't get me wrong, I get how you feel, but can you at least try to be patient?"
"You say it like it's easy." She didn't want to listen to him, even if he was telling the truth. Again, Ryugi cast out her own line once more after pulling it in during a vain attempt to catch something.
"Even so, that's not why we're here." He pointed out the other students who were attempting to fish. They were here to watch those kids and keep them from getting in trouble. Given the task at hand, it was possible that someone might decide to hop into the waters.
"What's wrong with that?" She asked. "Nothing wrong with cooling off in this weather."
"Aside from the fact that it ruins the fishing for everyone else." He responded. "I've also been informed that there could be dangerous things in the water, like leeches."
"Ouch." Silently, she marked off jumping into the lake for fun off her mental checklist. The pair went back into focusing on their fishing. Things were quiet for a while, which allowed Ryugi to notice that something was wrong. "What's bugging you?"
"What makes you think that?" Ishi didn't think there was anything different about the way he was acting.
"Oh come on, I can tell when you're not feeling well." She replied with a proud smile. "No matter what you say, even you try to hide things. Like, that means you try to pay attention to something, no matter what it is, so you can try and forget about it."
"…" He sighed. This girl apparently knew him well. Ishi generally hated getting to know someone, and have them get to know him. But for some reason, it made him feel better that someone was doing it without his knowledge. "I just can't stop thinking about Youna."
"Gotcha… Wait, wh-what do you mean?" Her mind went into overdrive about his sudden boldness in admitting his thoughts. What did this boy mean by having a girl like her in his thoughts? "The class rep?"
"Since you've been stuck here alone with the fishes, you probably haven't heard." He clarified his stance, not realizing that it also calm the gyaru's nerves a bit. "Youna got hurt."
"She did!?"
"Yeah, her hand slipped and got cut by a knife."
"Oh thank goodness." She breathed a sigh of relief, which would've sounded like a weird reaction were it not for the context. "I know she was the one at campfires, so I thought she got burned."
"Yeah, it's good it wasn't anything worse." Still, that did little to cheer him up.
"I can't believe how upset you're being about her." Normally, he was never one to care about others. Or at least, he didn't show it as much as he was doing right now. A part of her had a level of jealousy about his reaction. Would he feel the same way if something like that happened to her?
"I just feel like it's my fault." He responded. "It was my idea to use that tool. We could've made it easier on ourselves if we just used matches."
"You blaming yourself? That's new." Ryugi replied. "But, it's all right. I'm sure the class rep's fine. Don't forget it, but that girl's a lot tougher than she looks."
"Heh, yeah." He replied with a chuckle and grin on his face. "You know, I guess this is what my dad meant about this being what fishing is all about."
"That's kinda random."
"I mean, sure we're trying to catch some cool fish, but it's supposed to be a social experience where people can just talk." That's what he meant. Normally, Ishi wasn't very skilled at conversing properly. So being put into a situation like this, even with a girl like Ryugi, was good for him.
"Heh, a girl like me got Ishi to smile?" She had on a proud grin of her own at this milestone. "Aren't I someone special?"
"And you've already ruined it." Just as quick as he was to smile at being with her, the girl's presence reminded him why it wasn't a normal occurrence. "Are you all right?" He noted that she was playing around with something on her chest.
"This uniform's way too tight." She complained to him. It was uncomfortable, which resulted in her adjusting herself way too often. "You really couldn't have gotten-" Ryugi was interrupted by the sound of a snap. The source being the button that had become too strained as a result of her large breasts being forced into such a small space. The tiny little piece popped out from the pressure and shot out into the lake. As a result, her bra was now revealed for all of nature, and more importantly, Ishi to see. "A-Ah…" She didn't know what to do other than to use both arms to cover her indecency.
"I didn't think a gyaru had shame." He commented with a lack of sympathy about both her situation and her reaction to it.
"Sh-shut up." She had now lost a bit of composure now that the girl had less mobility available to her. The worst part of this matter was that they both saw the button fall into the water. There was no way they would be able to retrieve it, and she was going to have to walk through all those first years with them trying to pry their eyes onto her exposed breasts. "You already know that I don't show off like that all willy nilly."
"True, it's not like the time that Rinse flashed her show panties to me and Koto."
"She what!?"
"I wonder if I should've said that?" He murmured to himself. It was only to try and relief the embarrassment that Ryugi was feeling in this moment. Then again, Rinse did say that it was okay because show panties weren't really panties. "Never mind. Anyway, I guess it can't be helped." Ishi stood up and began to take off his shirt.
"What are you doing?" Despite already seeing him with little clothing, it still gave her heart a bit of a jolt to be able to see his well defined body.
"We can trade." He answered, tossing her his own shirt. Since he was bigger than her, it was also unlikely that anymore wardrobe malfunctions would happen again. "Just change over in the woods for privacy."
"Th-thanks." Gingerly, she accepted his aid. Now they were even once more as she disappeared into the trees to switch out their shirts. Meanwhile, he waited all along without a shirt by the chilly waters.
"She better hurry." He impatiently muttered to himself as he crossed his arms in a bid to maintain his body heat. Finally she emerged from the woods and threw her old uniform to him so that he could clothed himself.
"Th-thanks again." She said to him again with none of the regular confidence that the girl was known for. "I really owe you big time."
"Consider us even." He didn't consider any debt from her. After all, in his mind, he was the one repaying the favor after the little pep talk she gave him. Ishi pulled out his rod from the waters, they didn't catch any fish, but they certainly caught something else. "You might be real stupid, but you always know how to say the right things." With that, he prepared to leave so that he could go check on Chinae and the games being played.
"Heheh." She giggled as she also fished out her hook, which also came up empty. The girl decided that going out to find berries was likely to be more fun if he wasn't going to be sticking around. "Then, I'll see you in the cabin for dinner!" Ryugi waved goodbye to him as he simply did the same, but without turning his head to look at her.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone