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Sitting in the driver’s seat of one of the vans, Levi glances at his watch for the fifteenth time. They were supposed to leave two hours ago, but everyone keeps trying to cram last minute items into their luggage cases or running back to grab something else. Levi has gotten out of the driver’s seat a half dozen times already to stretch his legs. Every time, he had told himself to just give his friends a few more minutes and that they’d be ready to leave soon, but he has half a mind to just drive off without them.
In the back, he can hear his friends arguing. Levi had taken a few aspirin tablets earlier to fend off the inevitable headache that would come with traveling with so many people in a cramped van, but he’s debating taking another one. Enough time has passed that it probably won’t hurt to take another tablet or two.
“Are you sure we have everything? Maybe we should pack extra clothes in case we run out,” Gunther says worriedly. Gunther is incredibly meticulous, sometimes too meticulous. He’s been fretting over what to take on the trip and had blown up the group chat with dozens of messages last night to ask if he should bring supplies they probably wouldn’t need: tents and sleeping bags even though there were plenty of motels and inns along the way, canned and dried foods in case despite the towns along their route that are sure to have convenience stores or gas stations with snacks at the very least, and survival gear in case their car broke down and they were forced to fend for themselves in the wild which was very unlikely to happen. Everyone had assured him that he was going overboard, but it seems Gunther still isn’t convinced.
“I think we’ve packed enough clothes, especially you. Do you really need two luggage cases worth of clothes? That’s not including the other bags of stuff you packed,” Eld says. He’s been subtly throwing out unnecessary items while Gunther wasn’t looking, sneaking them over to Moblit who would run back and leave them in the house. “We’re going to weigh down the van with all this stuff you’re packing. We might not make it a mile. It’ll be a miracle if we don’t break down in the middle of the road from all this baggage!”
“That’s why I packed the survival gear!” Gunther huffs.
Behind Gunther’s shoulder and out of his sight, Moblit looks over at Eld and shakes his head to indicate that he’s managed to return all of Gunther’s survival gear and emergency rations to the house. It’s extra work, but Moblit was already hauling back extra gear that Hanji was trying to pack too. It was fine when Hanji asked to take their gaming laptop and some of their handheld consoles, but Moblit had to draw the line when Hanji tried to sneak in their entire PC gaming computer.
Petra slips into the passenger seat of the van Levi is in. Even though they’ve been getting ready to leave for hours, she looks as cheerful as ever. The smile is just a mask, however, because she reaches into the cupholder where Levi has placed the bottle of aspirin and shakes out a tablet before swallowing it down with a gulp of water. Once she’s done, she looks over and flashes a smile at Levi.
“How are you holding up?” she asks.
Levi sighs through his nose. He glances at the rearview mirror where he can observe Eld and Gunther still arguing in the back. “Should we just leave now? We can leave them here. They can squeeze into the other van and go on their trip. Let’s just go by ourselves.”
“A private trip does sound good, but Auruo was looking forward to this group trip so much. Let’s plan a trip for ourselves once we come back from this from.” Petra leans over and presses a light kiss against Levi’s forehead before hopping out of the van to help their friends finish packing.
Mike is sitting on the sidewalk marking the pit stops they’ll be making on their road trip. The group had debated earlier on whether they should take a map or just rely on the GPS, but Gunther wouldn’t hear of going without a map in case the GPS stopped working inexplicably. Mike had decided to take it upon himself to mark it up with stops for them to reload and refresh as well as take note of any landmarks they’re interested in visiting.
Nanaba peers over Mike’s shoulder and looks amusedly at the route they’re apparently planning on taking. The route to each city is less of a straight path and more roundabout than Nanaba had anticipated. A closer look makes Nanaba realize that some of these so-called landmarks are actually more out of the way than they should be. It’ll definitely delay their trip if they visit places that veer too far from their destination.
“Are we really going here? Some of these landmarks sound weird,” Nanaba says. She leans down to take a closer look at the map, squinting as she reads the name of a place Mike has circled on the map. “Shiganshina Emu Farm? Why are we visiting an emu farm?”
“Why wouldn’t we visit an emu farm?” Hanji pipes up from behind them. Hanji plops themselves down beside Mike. They throw an arm around Mike as if protecting him from Nanaba’s judgmental gaze. “Emus are magnificent creatures. If we’re in the area, we should visit them!”
“Okay,” Nanaba says, but she doesn’t sound entirely convinced. She frowns as she scans the rest of the map and notices that the other places Mike has marked are equally as peculiar. She grabs the map from Mike while he’s still marking it, leaving a red streak that runs across the map. Nanaba reads out the names. “World Erotica Museum? Corn Palace? World’s Largest Objects? What’s even that last one?”
“It’s a town with some of the world’s largest objects — absolutely gigantic!” Hanji says enthusiastically and Mike nods beside her.
Nanaba looks at Hanji and Mike suspiciously. After a pause, she points a finger at Mike. “How much did Hanji pay you?”
“I didn’t pay him! He’s interested in going to these places too,” Hanji insists, and Mike nods in agreement.
“I’ve always wanted to go to the World Erotica Museum,” Mike says without even cracking a smile.
Nanaba observes Mike for a moment and then says to Hanji, “Give me the same amount of money as you gave him and I’ll help convince the others to visit all the landmarks you want no matter how ridiculous they are.”
Hanji’s face brightens and they hold out a hand to Nanaba to shake. “Deal!”
Moblit is at the second van trying to shut the trunk. Although he had tried to return the bags Hanji didn’t need, they had somehow found their way back in the trunk of the van. Hanji had even managed to stick them underneath everyone else’s luggage case, making it even more difficult for Moblit to just remove Hanji’s bags and put them back in the house. Exasperated, Moblit throws up his hands and goes up to the passenger seat where Erwin is to seek his friend’s help. It seems, however, that Erwin has already started relaxing.
A notorious workaholic, it had taken ages for everyone to convince Erwin to clear his schedule for the road trip. Now that he has, it seems he’s on vacation mode. He’s dressed in a Hawaiian shirt (despite the fact that they’re going nowhere near the island), a wide brimmed straw hat, and sunglasses. In his hand is a half-finished mimosa. It’s his sixth one today, and they have two pitchers of sangria in one of the ice boxes they’ve packed that Erwin plans on starting on once he finishes his current drink.
“What’s wrong, Moblit? You look like you could use a drink. Have a mimosa,” Erwin says. His speech is only the slightest bit slurred, and he speaks slower than usual. He has a serene smile on his face as he raises his glass as if to toast Moblit.
“No thanks,” Moblit sighs. He should probably leave Erwin to relax anyway. It’s rare that Erwin takes a day off, let alone a week. Desperate, Moblit looks into the van to ask Gelgar for help unpacking some of Hanji’s extra bags, but he finds Gelgar passed out in the back.
Before this trip had started, Gelgar had taken motion sickness medicine because of the awful motion sickness he gets on long car rides. It was the nondrowsy kind, but he’s been rendered unconscious anyway because of the strength the medicine.
It looks as if Moblit isn’t going to get any help. He sighs and returns to the back of the van that’s absolutely stuffed with things. He frowns as he takes in the mess in front of him. Maybe if he just rearranges everything, he might be able to fit everything better and won’t have to make a return trip to put back Hanji’s things.
Once packing is over, they finally start on their trip. Their first stop is a town in-between where they are now and the city of Liberio. It’ll be a few hours for their stop, and Levi is sure it’s going to be an annoying one. While he cares deeply for his friends, their constant bickering can get annoying at times and he expects there will be a lot of it with everyone cramped into the van. It’s surprising to him when they manage a half hour without any arguing.
He looks at the rearview mirror and frowns. Something isn’t quite right.
“Where’s Auruo?” he asks.
Everyone freezes for a moment before exchanging panicked looks. In their haste and exhaustion, they had forgotten their friend. Auruo's absence also went unnoticed in part of the luggage that had filled not only the trunk but also a few seats in the van, making it difficult to see who was seated and who was missing completely.
“He said he was going to the bathroom,” Gunther suddenly remembers.
“Didn’t he already go before?” Eld asks.
“He said he had to go again,” Gunther says.
“No wonder it was so quiet,” Petra comments.
“Why didn’t you notice he was gone! You managed to pack sleeping bags and extra blankets for everyone but couldn’t even keep track of all of us?” Eld snorts.
“Make fun of me all you want, but you’ll be thanking me when we don’t freeze our asses off in the cold,” Gunther retorts.
“We weren’t ever going to do that anyway because we were going to be booking into motels and inns the whole time!” Eld protests.
Levi makes an abrupt U-turn that sends everyone yelling as they’re thrown to one side of the van. He ignores the strange looks that Mike and his friends give him as Mike’s van passes them. “Text the others and say we’ll catch up to them after we pick up Auruo.”
He glances at the bottle of aspirin still sitting in the cupholder. He hopes he has enough to last the entire trip, but something tells Levi he’ll probably need to buy another bottle or two before the trip is over.