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Orienteering.
What an absurd, pointless, vulgar activity. Running around in mud, going to these idiotic posts to take a photo of a pine cone to show the teacher you were at the right place, and then keep running. In a darn circle. What an absolute waste of time.
Toshinori Oda could almost not believe how insulting it was that he had to be subjected to this, along with the rest of his lower-class classmates. When would this skill ever be relevant for his future? When would he ever find himself navigating through a forest in real life? He wouldn’t be caught dead in such a dirty environment. There was nothing he longed for more than the ability to pay his way out of this humiliation.
However, that was not possible. So as he walked his way through the forest, cursing his parents for sending him to public school, he grew angrier and angrier. Most of his other classmates had headed off in teams. They were supposed to work in groups of three to four people. But as the others huddled together with their friends before running of, Toshinori had slowly walked off on his own. The simple truth was that he didn’t have any friends in his class.
No, this didn’t bother him. He didn’t want to be friends with any of these people.
For God’s sake, I spend every day trying to avoid them! I would never voluntarily spend any time with the vulgar masses.
Also, had he been desperate enough, could he have gone off with some of the other boys with no real friend group. He had noticed Kyoichi Motobuchi glancing in his direction when the teacher had told them to create teams. Toshinori had quickly looked away, however; making sure the other boy knew he had no interest in teaming up with him.
Sure, Kyoichi was from a relatively good family too, even if it could not compare to the wealth and respectability of Toshinori’s own family, of course. But no one could. Well, almost no one…
Either way, Kyoichi’s family was irrelevant in this matter. The boy himself was just so annoyingly talentless yet Toshinori thought he considered himself so intelligent and above all the others. And fair enough, maybe he was more intelligent than the majority of the idiotic animals in their class (Please, like that was any feat in itself!), but above, or equal to, Toshinori himself? As if.
As he walked further into the forest, it occurred to Toshinori he hadn’t seen any classmates in a while. Should they not be on the same route? He felt certain he had been reading the map perfectly, so how come had hadn’t made it to the third checkpoint yet? Toshinori almost found himself doubting his own navigation skill, but it seemed impossible he had made a mistake.
With his nose now buried in the map, Toshinori failed to notice the forest path suddenly turned into a downhill slope. Losing his footing, he fell onto his butt and slid the whole way down the small hill. Once at the bottom, he was cursing up a storm. No one was around anyway, so no point in keeping up an acceptable appearance.
“For fuck’s sake! Hell” Toshinori swore, taking a good luck at the sleeves and pants of his gym wear. He was, as far as he could tell, covered in disgusting mud. He got up, trying to get a peek at the back of himself too, and sure enough; covered.
Even more so than usual, he found himself happy not one of his classmates were around. The thought of embarrassing himself like this in front of his lesser was almost too much to handle. Considering the state of him now, Toshinori considered if he should throw the whole darn map away and just head home. The maid could deal with the dirty clothes, and he could just have a nice, warm bath. Like he deserves.
This was his new resolve, but just as quickly as he had slid down the wretched hill, he found his thoughts to be interrupted.
“Oda-kun?”
It was a girl’s voice, and he thought he immediately recognized it, even without looking up at her.
Oh, no. Of all times…
“Oda-kun, are you alright? You’re covered in mud… Did you fall?”
Normally, Izumi Kanai might have been the one classmate he didn’t mind wasting time on. Actually, he might not even consider talking to her wasting time, at all. But she also happened to be the last person he wanted to look like a fool in front of.
Still, he had no choice but to turn his head to face her. She had come out of the bushes to his right, which surprised him. Was there even a trail there at all? Her high pony-tail looked messy (he was pretty sure he saw a couple of small twigs in there) and her knees, revealed by her blue gym shorts uniform, seemed to have been scraped up slightly. Toshinori instantly wondered if she had experienced a fall similar to his own. This made him feel slightly less idiotic.
“Ah, yes,” he finally replied, clearing his throat. “More of a… slip than a fall, really. I am perfectly fine.”
Izumi seemed relieved to hear his response; her slightly worried expression changed into a smile.
“Oh, I’m glad! I’ve had a bit of fall myself,” she laughed, indicating they were certainly more than just a slip as she gestured to her knees. He now noticed there seemed to be dirt and mud on her lower legs, too.
“I see. Perhaps the faculty should reconsider the kind of dangerous physical environments they put us in?” Toshinori remarked, which caused Izumi to laugh again. Even though he wasn’t joking.
Izumi came a little closer to him, stepping up from the edge of the side of the trail. As she approached, Toshinori realized that something seemed a bit odd.
“Are you alone?” he asked her. Izumi had a large group of friends, and they usually did everything together. He thought he had seen her go off with some of her more sporty friends, like Haruka Tanizawa and Yuka Nakagawa. So why wasn’t she with them now? “Where are your friends?”
Izumi smiled a bit awkwardly, running a hand through her pony-tail. She pulled out a twig in the process, laughing as she threw it onto the ground.
“Well, that is my fault, really,” she began to explain. “You see…”
Izumi had actually forgotten they were spending the whole afternoon doing orienteering. Luckily she had packed her gym pack for a normal gym class, but a three hour session of just running around after lunch? What freak could possibly enjoy tha-
"I am so excited for orienteering!" Yukie had exclaimed happily, clapping her hands together. "Combining the puzzles with physical exercise is such a good learning method."
They had all finished changing, and were waiting outside the gym hall for the teacher to separate them into teams. Izumi could only pray that the silver lining of the day would be to let them pick their own teams; if she could just spend the hours walking with Chisato and Noriko while gossiping, it might not be too bad. But if she was forced into teams with one of the jocks, or with someone scary like one of the girls from Mitsuko's group, or even worse... With Yukie...
"I already spoke with the teacher last week and there will be more intellectual questions on the postings as well this time. Not just "find these two trees with odd markings". That's fun, right? Little quizzes! It feels more rewarding like this," Yukie continued eagerly.
Satomi was the only one to nod along. "Good call," she agreed.
Izumi didn't mind the quizzes at the posts as much as she minded getting to those posts in the first place. She always felt like she was wearing a costume when she was dressed in her gym uniform and her running shoes; it simply wasn't her. She missed her cute flats. As she threw a look at the forest in the distance, about a fifteen minute walk from their school, she sighed. It looked a bit dark and scary already.
She was so lost in her own thoughts, she missed it when the teacher announced they could all form into teams of their own choosing, but with no more than four people. Most people around her talked happily amongst themselves, as they had all wanted to stick with their friends. Of course, this meant Izumi's own friend group had to split into two.
After a short conversation, they agreed they should split so that each group had one of the more sporty girls. Yukie and Haruka were both on the school's volleyball team, and Yuka was an excellent tennis player. Satomi, while not actively involved in sports, was still highly competitive and would give it her all no matter what task, physical as well as academic. Out of all of them, Izumi figured Yuka was the one least likely to take this super seriously, so she quickly grabbed her arm.
"I'll go with Yuka!" she declared before the others got a chance to say much.
"Wonderful!" Yukie nodded with a bright smile. "Noriko and Chisato can come with me and Satomi. And then Haruka, Yuka, and Izumi can go together."
Izumi tried not to let out a sigh of relief, which would make it too obvious how happy she was it worked out like this. She waved Chisato and Noriko off, sticking her tongue out to them as she heard Yukie mentioning something about finishing in record time. The two looked visibly concerned at the idea of how much they would have to push themselves to beat whatever the previous record was.
"Izu, we're actually planning on finishing before it gets dark too," Haruka pointed out with a chuckle, having noticed how upbeat Izumi suddenly looked as the three walked off in a different direction. "With ten posts, I think we could do it in two hours."
"Yes, yes," Izumi agreed, not really listening. She figured if she let the two navigate, she could help out with the quizzes, and take some photos when necessary, and everyone would be happy!
That's when Haruka said those fateful words:
"Let's start jogging!"
After what couldn't have been more than ten minutes of jogging (and in Izumi's case, calling it jogging was probably a stretch. But she walked as fast as she could!), Izumi could already feel her chest burning and she was running out of breath. Her horrible cardio should probably be concerning, but she didn't feel like this was the time to improve it.
The others finally stopped by a large rock, where a laminated piece of paper was hanging, tied to a red string.
"Okay, this is post three," Haruka declared, as she looked at the sheet.
"Why didn't we start with number one?" Izumi asked, catching her breath.
Yuka grinned. "Well, we're doing kinda a loop, see," she told her friend, showing Izumi with her finger on the map the teacher had drawn and copied up for all of them. "Since we started on the left instead of the right, we're going upwards, and then we'll end up coming back to one and two at the end. If we were gonna do it in order, we'd have to run zig-zag back and forth. And you'd die!"
Izumi admitted she was right about that. She gave her the best smile she could muster in these circumstances.
"Sure, that makes sense," she replied in a heavy breath.
Haruka started reading the questions out loud. The theme seemed to be nature, which Izumi felt was an unnecessary slap in the face. Like she wanted to think about nature when she was forced to be in nature.
There were ten questions, all from "How many wings do a mosquito have?" to "Ascorbic acid is a form of which vitamin?". The girls scrippled their answers down on the small notepad Haruka was carrying, feeling satisfied they had gotten it right. Izumi actually felt a little good about being able to contribute.
But of course, what came next was more jogging on the search of the next post. And then... more... jogging.
Less than an hour into it, Izumi was so sweaty she thought she could smell it. She felt disgusting and more importantly, like she was dying. She tried not to complain too much, because she was worried she was already annoying the two others by being so slow compared to them. By the time they reached the fourth post, Izumi had to sit down on the ground, not caring about how dirty her clothes got.
"Are you okay?" Haruka asked, though her tone wasn't too worried. She was taking a photo of Yuka posing on a hat-shaped boulder, which was their task for that post. Not the posing on the rock part; that was all Yuka adding her personal flair.
"If only I was wearing a real hat when posing on the rock hat. It would totally complete the image," she sighed dreamingly, before jumping back down.
Izumi just watched them quietly, struggling to breathe. She wasn't sure she could even get back up, as her legs felt suspiciously wobbly.
Haruka took another look at her, and sighed.
"Okay. Do you want to hear my idea?" she asked, running a hand through her short hair. Izumi noted she didn't look sweaty at all.
"Is it to call for a driver? Because I agree!" Izumi joked, as she finally managed to stagger up.
"Haru, if you suggest we carry her, I hope there's some reward in it," Yuka joked.
Haruka only laughed and shook her head.
"No, but take a look," she said, showing them both the map. "If Izumi just cuts straight through to the right, she will get to post number six. The pine cone hanging in the tree."
"Isn't that where they usually are?" Izumi asked, wondering how they were meant to find the right one.
"It's hung up with a red string from a branch, not just, in the tree," Haruka corrected, as she pointed out the picture of the right pinecone, which was shown at the back of the map. "If you go straight there, Yuka and I can look around for the remaining posts up hill. You don't have to run as much, and we get all the work done. You're still pulling your weight... Ish."
Izumi had to admit it was tempting to skip out on a lot of the path. She gave the two a grateful smile.
"Really? I can even start going back down to the posts near the start of the trail! And so it will all be finished!" she offered, not wanting to get a free ride on the behalf of her friends.
"Please, Izu. We'll have caught up with you by then," Yuka joked. Or perhaps she was serious. It was probably true.
So, that is how Izumi and her teammates split up. Now that she didn't have to run, it wasn't as bad. She took her time, studying the map intently to make sure she wasn't wasting her time going in the complete wrong direction. After a little while she felt sure she was in the right area, but she couldn't see any pine cone hanging by a string. She made sure to study all the trees intently, which, was a lot of trees. Typical forest.
As her eyes were busy looking up, she bumped into a root and fell straight down. She could feel the skin on her knees scrape off, as well as some on the insides of her palm as she attempted to catch herself. Izumi let out some uncharacteristic curse-words, which were saved for situations like these, when she was in physical pain. As someone who avoided physical activity, she didn't get hurt often, and she had a low pain threshold.
She got back up, brushing off the dirt as best she could, before giving the stupid tree that the root was attached to a good kick. She felt personally attacked by it, despite it being her own fault. As she looked up at it with a pout though, she could feel her luck turn. She spotted a small, red detail hidden in the leaves, hanging a few branches off.
Sure enough, as she stood up on her toes and managed to grab onto it, Izumi revealed the pinecone at the end of it. However, it had been wrapped around the branch a couple of times and tucked away behind some of the leaves, making it so much harder to spot. She thought maybe someone had done it as a prank to make the post impossible to complete. Maybe a member of the Kiriyama family, or something...
No matter. Now she could take the photo she needed, and mark the post complete. It was just when Izumi had taken this photo that she could hear swearing nearby. She didn't quite recognise the voice, but surely it was one of her classmates. Who else would be running around here right now? She expected to hear some laughter following the swears, or at least... any noise at all, but she didn't. Izumi thought she better check it out. She didn't have to walk far before she spotted Toshinori at the bottom of a small hill near the trail, that she herself had walked off of to find the right post.
Like her, he seemed to be alone. And so, out of concern, she had approached him.
"And I'm glad I found you, because I am hopeless at this!" Izumi finished her story as to why she was doing this task alone. Toshinori nodded. He wasn't sure if he was less hopeless when it came to this particular task (at most things he would have been a pure genius, but this unnecessary sport? Whatever!), but he still thought he was glad she found him, too. Now that his initial embarrassment had passed, it didn't seem too bad to have been found by her in particular.
"Right. Are you suggesting we finish it together, then?" Toshinori asked her in a neutral tone.
Izumi nodded.
"Yes! If you don't have a team, you can join ours. We are allowed to be four, after all. We can go back to the first two posts near the entrance of the forest, and then it will all be completed when Haruka and Yuka are back," she said happily.
Toshinori didn't love the idea of having to rely on two girls like that to finish his project, but what could he do? Turning down Izumi's suggestion now would simply be too rude. Even with his classmates he couldn't stand, Toshinori tried to keep up the appearance of being a polite boy. So to turn down someone who wasn't even that awful, was just not an option.
"Certainly," he agreed with a nob, which made Izumi smile brightly at him.
They headed back towards the forest entrance. Toshinori would never admit it, but once he had lost the trial, it seemed like he had been walking in circles. Which turned out to be a plus now, meaning they didn't have too far to walk, but it was still quite embarrassing.
"I just hope whatever task we have at this post, it isn't something physical," Izumi laughed, looking down at her dirty clothes. "I'm not fitted for that!"
"Of course not. You're-" Toshinori began to reply automatically, before cutting himself off. He was about to say that she was naturally above such things as climbing trees and rolling around in the dirt, considering her status, but he thought maybe it would be too much to say that outright. Now he felt his cheeks heat up a little as he had stopped speaking mid-sentence.
Izumi seemed to finish the sentence in her own head, and laughed again.
"I know, I'm pretty hopeless with physical things! Even you know that... I should have known it was that obvious!" she chuckled, having obviously reached the conclusion he thought she was simply bad at it. Toshinori considered correcting her, but she didn't seem to mind, so he decided to move on from it.
"Well, it is not my forte either, I have to admit," he said with a small smile. "I much prefer intellectually stimulating pastimes, such as music, or reading."
"That is no surprise, Oda-kun! You clearly spend a lot of time playing the violin, considering how good you are," Izumi complimented him, as she studied the map and looked up to search their surroundings. Toshinori couldn't help but have a satisfied smile. She wasn't wrong; he was extraordinary.
"Oh, well," he said, not even bothering pretending to be modest about his talent. "True. I'm glad you can tell, Kanai."
As she was about to reply, Izumi spotted something behind him.
"Oh, there it is!" she called out with great enthusiasm, running over to the laminated white sheet hanging by the tree. "It looks like it's another quiz one!"
"What a relief. None of this pine cone nonesense," Toshinori commented dryly. Izumi's smile widened as she read it.
"You will love this, Oda-kun. It seems to be music-related. They really did include something for everyone!"
This did intrigue Toshinori, and he moved closer to, standing right next to her as they both looked down at the questions.
"As long as it's not all... popular music," he said, worried the teachers would try to be "cool" and include such new-fashioned idiotic noise.
"I think these are right up your ally! "Where was the composer Ludvig Von Beethoven born?"," she read the first one out loud.
"In Bonn, Germany, of course," Toshinori replied without skipping a beat. "Will these all be for children?"
As they went through the questions, it turned out he could easily answer all of them. Their music class had been going through the classical period from the 18th century, so luckily the quiz focused on that. Which were of course things Toshinori had mostly known for a long time, having studied these composers in his own free time long before learning about them in class. He felt like a genius as he answered all questions without any difficulty, and Izumi looked at him like he was, too. Which felt almost as good as getting them correct.
"Wow!" Izumi exclaimed as she finished scribbling down their last answer on the backside of the notebook she borrowed from Toshinori. Haruka had run off with her teams' only one, after all. "I didn't realize you were this good with music history. No offence, of course! I don't mean to sound too surprised!"
"None taken," Toshinori assured her, waving his hand as if it was no big deal. "I can understand the surprise. It is pretty impressive, heh."
Suddenly, they heard something rattle in the bushes. A quiet voice was repeating "Mozart... The Marriage of... Fugro? Figro..." to himself.
Toshinori and Izumi exchanged a glance.
"Is someone there?" Izumi asked, uncertainly. The noise stopped for a second, before Toshinori spoke up, louder than Izumi:
"Reveal yourself! Don't just hide in the bushes, like a common pervert!"
The figure finally stood up at this, laughing awkwardly. It turned out to be Keita Iijima. He was running a hand nervously through his hair, giving them a big, if not a little forced, smile.
"Heey, guys!" he greeted them, and Toshinori groaned internally. Keita was one of those unremarkable guys who he could probably easily ignore, if not for the fact that he tended to get pretty loud. Especially when eating; Toshinori had seen him talk with his mouth full several times, the loud chewing noises filling the entire cafeteria. Once he felt sure pieces of whatever was in Keita's mouth had flown straight out of there and landed on Toshinori's own uniform jacket, even from several meters away. Safe to say, Keita was not on his good side.
"What in heaven's name are you doing?" Toshinori demanded to know, his tone probably revealing his annoyance. He cleared his throat, adding in a slightly less hostile tone: "Why are you in the bushes?"
"Eh, well... I came here before and I dunno anything about music! I figured if I hung around for long enough, someone would come and like, either I'd ask them to help me work it out, or... If there were two people, like you guys, I could just listen in to what they said!" Keita admitted sheepishly. "But I've waited for a while and I kinda fell asleep, so I missed question one to four... Could you give me those answers now? Please?!"
Izumi blinked.
"Where are your friends, Iijima-kun?" she asked. She was sure he had gone off with a bigger group before; in fact, she was pretty sure they had actually been five, one more than strictly allowed. But now, he was very clearly alone.
"Oh! I was talking about how I don't really know much about any of the quiz questions we found, and Shinji was like, "No, you're way smarter than you think. I bet you could solve one all on your own!" and was like, really encouraging. It made me feel pretty good... I wanted to prove him right! You know?" Keita grinned, seemingly bursting with pride.
Toshinori almost scoffed, but somehow managed to keep it in. It seemed like a pretty lousy excuse to get rid of the guy. Which, to be fair, he couldn't blame Shinji for. Shinji was a beyond vulgar guy, and to Toshinori he was way worse than Keita (a lot because of his handsome face, which Toshinori hated), but he still respected how he got rid of this annoying character with the use of emotional manipulation. Good for him.
"Well, now you can find your group and show them how you did manage to solve it. They were right to have faith in you!" Izumi beamed, showing Keita the answers he had missed on the notepad. Clearly she didn't realize what Shinji's strategy had been the way Toshinori did.
Toshinori figured she was too pure at heart to even consider the possibility. He wasn't sure if he should consider it a strength or a weakness in her. It probably was the latter, but he still had a hard time thinking little of her. He did appreciate how she encouraged Keita to run off to his own group though.
Yes, please, go brag about doing absolutely nothing. Just leave us the hell alone.
Keita nodded enthusiastically, as he finished writing down the answers.
"Oh, for sure! I don't even care if they think I'm a total nerd for knowing all this useless stuff. They're gonna be so impressed!" he agreed. Toshinori flinched as Keita called classical music knowledge useless. What was truly useless, was that boy's entire existence. He would never do anything of importance in his life, Toshinori felt sure of it.
Luckily Keita did what he said he would, and turned on his heel, running back into the woods.
"Why isn't he following the trail?" Izumi pondered, watching Keita run away into the bushes with a slightly worried expression.
Because he is clearly an idiot, Toshinori wanted to say.
"Maybe he is going for a short-cut?" he said instead, figuring that was a kinder reply. Izumi chuckled.
"I have a feeling he will end up more lost. Perhaps we should have let him come with us..."
"No, no. He has his own group. It would be cruel to deprive them of his... contributions," Toshinori said quickly, hoping that she wouldn't do something stupid, like call out for him.
Izumi laughed a little again, as continued walking towards post number one, which would be their final one.
"I didn't want to say this with him here, but I think maybe his group did the same to him as mine did to me. You know, just got rid of him?" she said, though with a smile.
So she did realize, after all.
"Oh, certainly," Toshinori agreed, smiling too. "But dare I say, only your group made a mistake in sending you away."
Izumi gave him a grateful look, but still shook her head.
"No, I don't think they did. I'm sure they are more productive now," she said honestly. "I'm not as good as them."
"You're better than anyone," Toshinori remarked, not realizing just how formal that sounded before he had finished saying it. Luckily Izumi didn't seem to take it too seriously; she just shook her head again.
"You're just flattering me because you're my teammate now!" she laughed.
"I would never," Toshinori said, which was mainly true. Yes, he did talk up some of his father's associates at times, because that was the right thing to do when wanting to make a good impression on other rich and powerful people. But he would never dream of flattering a simple classmate just for the sake of it. But Izumi was not just any classmate.
The first post was easily placed near the entrance of the forest. However, like dreaded for both of them, it was a physical test. Toshinori scrunched his nose as he read from the white paper hanging from the tree.
"Film yourself as you complete ten push-ups," he read out loud. It occurred to him he wouldn't have been able to complete this orienteering alone, unless maybe he balanced his mobile phone on a rock somewhere for the filming. Well... Not that he would be able to complete ten push-ups anyway. And down on the dirty ground?! Oh, disgusting.
"Can you do it?" Izumi asked, her voice almost concerned. She was probably worried about offending him with the question, even if it was a fair one.
"I would say I don't want to get myself dirty, but I suppose it's too late for that," Toshinori sighed, glancing down at his muddy clothes. Izumi smiled slightly.
"It's the same for me," she agreed, looking down on herself too. "But I can tell you right now; I won't be able to complete even one! Perhaps we have to wait for Haruka here..."
The idea that he couldn't do something and had to rely on that vulgar lesbian, absolutely infuriated Toshinori. Was he really worse than such filth?! With a determined look, he nodded to Izumi.
"I will do it," he said, almost surprised by how confident he sounded. Usually his confidence was all real (or at least rehearsed so much it had become real), but this was an exception. Still, he thought he sounded quite convincing.
Toshinori got down onto the ground, wondering if this were how degraded commoners felt in their everyday life, as he began trying to do push-ups. Izumi had her phone ready, filming the whole thing. It was way harder than Toshinori had expected; despite his small frame and low weight, it felt like he was pushing a ton. After just two, he felt his arms shaking.
"You can do it!" Izumi encouraged him, which did give him some new motivation. However, this was shortly shattered as he heard roaring laughter coming from the parking lot outside of the forest.
Pausing his push-ups, Toshinori looked up in shock towards the noise. Some of his least favourite classmates, the Kiriyama Family (the family requirement probably being to be as vulgar and tragic as possible. Toshinori assumed if you had any chance at a bright future, they didn't let you in), were gathered on some of the large rocks off to the side of the parking lot. They were all smoking, which pleased Toshinori; hopefully they would die sooner from it.
Ryuhei and Hiroshi were the ones laughing the loudest at the sight of Toshinori's attempts of push-ups, although Sho was snickering into his hand as well. Mitsuru was watching them with a more neutral expression, kicking Hiroshi's leg as he couldn't seem to stop laughing.
"What the fuck is that?! Some sorta frog matin' call?!" Hiroshi kept laughing. Toshinori jumped to his feet, his face burning red with the embarrassment of being laughed at by someone like that.
Stupid midget! Shut the hell up! He thought angrily, despite probably being the shorter between the two. He would never acknowledge that though.
When he jumped to his feet, Ryuhei joined in between his own laughter:
"'N now he's doin' frog leaps! Didn't know they were such a fuckin' fit species!"
"Ignore them, Oda-kun," Izumi said gently, though her tone had a bit of an edge to it, as she glanced at the group. She looked quite annoyed with their behaviour, which he appreciated.
"Of course. They're not worth any attention," Toshinori agreed, as he started wandering off, though not sure to where. He made sure to avoid the path past the Kiriyama Family, even if he did hear Mitsuru tell the others in a more hushed voice to knock out off!
Izumi followed him, taking quick steps to get away too.
"I will text Haruka I couldn't complete that challenge, but that we did the two others," she told Toshinori, wanting to move on from the embarrassment that had just happened. "We should wait for them by the gym hall?"
Toshinori nodded, a little reluctantly. Waiting with Izumi wasn't that bad, but did he really have to sit around all day? Who knew when the others would be done.
"A good idea," he said, clicking his tongue. "At least we know those rowdy animals aren't there."
Izumi looked like she wanted to say something to this, but she just gave him a weak smile instead.
"You still did twice as many push-ups as I would have been able to?" she said, in an attempt to cheer him up. The attempt helped more than the actual words did.
"It could have been worse, I suppose," he had to agree, giving her a small smile back.
"And when Haruka completes that last post, we will have completely finished all of them. Which is probably more than... everyone can say," Izumi continued, most certainly referring to the Kiriyama Family who had clearly been slacking off by the starting point this whole time.
"Yes. We didn't do too bad, did we?" Toshinori agreed, in better spirits now, easily glossing over how he only really contributed to one of the quizzes.
They took a seat on the benches in front of their gym hall, talking lightly about about classes, music, and their upcoming senior year trip in May which Izumi seemed very excited about.
"It will be so much fun, spending that time with my friends!" she said cheerfully. Toshinori could obviously not relate. He had considered not going at all, but eventually decided it would look bad if he didn't.
After a short time, more and more of their classmates joined them near the gym, eventually some of Izumi's own friends too. When she saw Yukie and her team return, she got off of the bench, excusing herself to Toshinori.
"When Haruka and Yuka show up, let's all gather as a team again and combine our answers!" she told him with a bright smile, before running off to join them. Yukie looked like she was in great spirits, despite the jocks and the neutral boys (minus Keita, who Toshinori figured was lost in the forest somewhere. Good riddance) had returned before her.
He could hear her tell Izumi something about "a new personal best". Noriko and Chisato were panting next to her. It looked like Chisato might have cried at one point.
Toshinori watched her for a moment, not really realizing he was doing so. He had to admit that the day had turned out slightly less awful than he had expecting. Orienteering was of course still a completely vulgar and pointless activity, but he was starting to think that with the right person at his side, it might not be that bad. And just maybe he had one friend in class, after all.