Last night all five of us were up late, packing our stuff and planning our journey. We decided it would be in our best of interest avoiding public transport as much as possible—for Tamaki’s sake. Which means most of our trip will be on foot.

I haven’t asked father for any help. I know that he wouldn’t mind helping out, but if anything were to go wrong, his business might get in trouble because of it.

It is currently six o’clock. In little less than an hour the sun will rise, and we’ll be off to Hokkaido.

“Moeru-chan, are you awake?” I whispered.

“Hmmm… aw–ake…”

She turned away in her futon. I got out of bed and kneeled next to her.

“Moeru, wake up,” I gently shook her a little by the shoulder.

“One more… minute, please,” she mumbled in her sleep, “one more… two minutes, please.”

“This is no use, is it?” I stood up and left the room.

I figured I could start making breakfast already. Whilst walking down the stairs I heard two faint voices talking to one another.

“Ahhh– hot, hot, hot!”

There was the third.

“Soichiro, you idiot! Don’t use your bare hands,” Tamaki scolded him.

“Now, now Tamaki. Be a little kind to your friend,” Iori said.

I entered the kitchen and saw Tamaki, Soichiro, Iori and Gouda. All cooking together.

“Don’t worry pops, they’re just playing around,” Gouda said to Iori.

“Yeah, yeah…” he noticed me in the doorway, “Oh, Kaori-sama. Good morning.”

“Good morning.”

“Oh, sis! Great timing!”

* * *

After a hectic twenty minutes, the five of us were finished cooking. The table was already set, we were practically ready to eat breakfast together, but a certain someone still hasn’t woken up yet.

“Um prez,” Tamaki grabbed my attention, “Shouldn’t we be waking Moeru up?”

Well, I tried to do so earlier. That didn’t go as smoothly as I had hoped for though.

“I’ll see what I can do.”

I walked up the stairs again.

“Moeru-chan,” I called out to her before entering the room.

She was still laying down in her futon, asleep. Her hair was even messier than earlier, her pose was wilder, too, and she was drooling.

“You’re a reckless sleeper, aren’t you?” I shook her back and forth, a little less gentle this time.

“Prez… time…” she was still half asleep.

“The time?” I rolled up my left arm’s sleeve and checked the time on my watch, “It is… half past six.”

As if she wasn’t sleeping a second ago, she jumped out of her futon.

“No way! I’ve totally overslept!”

“Don’t worry, we’ve already prepared breakfast. Let’s go downstairs to eat, shall we,” I suggested, calming her down.

* * *

The five of us were about to leave the house.

“Alright, everyone! It’s finally time for our big journey to Hokkaido! Let’s go!” Soichiro was as energetic as ever.

“Yeah, let’s go!” Gouda echoed.

“You two are way too noisy, shut up!”

“I have to agree with Moeru on this one, keep your voices down,” Tamaki said.

“My-my, you lot are really jumping the gun, arguing before we’ve even left,” I playfully scolded.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

A journey with this group excites me more than a bit. Things might be rowdy for the moment, but that only confirms that everyone is close enough to go at each other like this.

“Let’s get going. You’re headed to Oshima Bridge, there we’ll meet up and have our first break,” I said.

Yesterday we calculated our route. We leave wherever we’re settled down the moment the sun rises. In the mornings we walk for about five hours towards selected break spots. For every five hours walked we have a two hour break. Then we’ll leave again, to walk another five hours. If another break point is close enough, we’ll be doing over hours to reach it.

Right now, everyone is en route towards Oshima Bridge. However, Tamaki and I are taking a separate route to grab the egg first.

On our way to a small park, not far from our school, we don’t say much to one another. In this cold, clear weather and calm wind, there’s not much noise apart from the occasional car passing by. Tamaki briefly pauses his breath after every few exhales, he’s hesitating to say something.

“Um, prez… I’ve been wanting to ask you this for a while, but why did I have to hide the egg?” he asked, breaking the mould.

“Let’s say that it’s because of the ‘ant-sized tracker’ the scientist was talking about.”

“Oh, makes sense. He did say that it might get hijacked after all.”

The park’s trees are visible from here. I hear children playing in the distance.

“Do you want me to get the egg or are you brave enough to risk being suspicious in public?”

“No need to worry about me,” he stoically said.

“Well, if that’s the case, let’s go get it then,” I looked deep into his eyes, “—together.”

He instantly turned his gaze away, “…I’ll show you where I buried it.”

* * *

We ended up getting the egg without any trouble. With it back in our possession, something else was handed to us as well; a conflict of interests.

On one hand, we want to belief that the scientist had a good reason to obligate the egg’s unconditional presence in the little blue box. On the other hand, he himself stated that the tracker he implemented inside the box is prone to getting hijacked.

“So, we don’t know what unfortune awaits leaving this box behind. Although the same could be said about keeping it inside of it.”

“True. But, if we’re ever in trouble or even end up losing the egg at some point, the scientist would be the first person to know, right?”

I remained silent for a moment. As stupid as it seems after he said that, I had never taken the scientist’s aid into consideration.

“Well, at least for now, we’ll keep it inside. Sounds good?” I asked

“Sounds good,” he compliantly repeated.

* * *

Almost precisely five hours later, we arrived at the bridge. This was obviously not the Oshima Bridge. It was a small bridge—sharing the same name—going over a narrow river, not far away from a highway.

On our way here, no one we passed by seemed to have noticed Tamaki. We humans tend to be tangled up in our own minds after all.

Once there—at the bridge—Moeru noticed us in the distance and rapidly ran our way.

“Prezzzz!” she cried out, “Why did you leave me alone with these two for five whooole hours?”

“Sorry, sorry,” I consoled as she jumped into my arms.

“Well, I guess you didn’t have it much better,” she said, glaring at Tamaki.

He didn’t seem to mind it much and walked over to the other two. At the same moment Moeru got embarrased by her own vulnerable display and let go.

“Did you get the food?”

“Yup, sure did,” Soichiro grabbed a plastic bag with grocery lunches out of his backpack.

“Heh, nice job,” the two of them fist-bumped.

I’ve noticed that they do that a lot, seemingly for no reason, too.

“C’mon guys, gather ‘round. We’ve been waiting for decades to eat!”

* * *

During our lunchbreak we were chatting about our next five hour long trip, towards Tone River.

“Wait guys, I totally forgot this part… How the heck are we gonna sleep in a river?” Gouda asked.

“We’re not going to, stupid.”

“Moeru-chan…”

“…Sorry.”

“Well, I’ll explain again. When we arrive at Tone River, we’ll eat dinner somewhere in the woods. Then, patiently wait there until the country club nearby closes.”

“Oooh! And then we’ll break in… I remember now!”

“Correct,” I took a sip from my iced tea, “If everything goes to plan, this will be our most comfortable night’s sleep. Enjoy it.”

* * *

At long last Tone River was in sight.

“We’re here!” Soichiro exulted.

I glanced at my watch, it’s a few minutes past seven o’clock, our timing has been superb so far.

“We should get as far out of sight as possible,” Tamaki noted.

“Right, follow me,” I said.

We walked into the woods, following the river’s direction—no matter what happens, we’ll easily find our way back.

Evening fell a long time ago, it was December after all. I stood still for a second and looked at the starry night sky through the tree crowns.

Tamaki stood next to me, looked at me and followed my gaze towards the sky.

“This view… it’s stunning, isn’t it?”

“It sure is,” I replied.

Moeru pushed him forward from behind, “Stop flirting already!”

We continued our way into the mysteriously dark woods. Here and there someone tripped over trees’ roots. Luckily, no one has fallen yet.

“Argh!!”

Gouda face-planted after he tripped.

“Roots?” Soichiro asked as he helped him up.

“Roots…” he wailed.

We’ve been walking for quite some time now.

“Let’s find a comfortable place to sit, so we can eat.”

Not long after, we stumbled upon two trees that had fallen over.

“Ey, that’ll do!” Gouda cheered.

We all sat down, Moeru and I on one tree, the three boys on the other. Once again our meals were bought in a grocery store, you can’t be picky when you’re out on a journey like this. Not that anyone is complaining, though, any meal is a five star course dinner when you’re hungry.

* * *

Everyone finished eating dinner. Currently we were walking along the river, killing time, waiting for the country club to close. Well, it was already closed, but we were waiting until it was late enough—to make sure no one stayed behind when we we’re going in.

“I suppose we can go break in now, what do you think?” Moeru asked the group.

“Alright, let’s go!” Soichiro was pumped.

And off we went. It wasn’t really hard to break into the private equity. The fences were about one and a half Tamaki in height. Not that hard to climb. However, Soichiro had a better idea in mind.

At the point where the fence stops following the road, is a slope. Climbing up via the slope is even easier. I was surprised he even noticed that.

All of us made it over the fence, the only thing left to do was find a place where we could sleep later tonight.

Everything went perfect today, but right when I was about to say that out loud, a golf ball came flying over our heads.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” Gouda mumbled.

Somewhere over this hill, someone was playing golf…

Tamaki looked at me, quite in shock, “Prez… what do we do?”