“You want us to go to a convention with you?” Himawari eyed this offer with a very skeptical lens. This seemed like a trick considering the girl who was asking. “What’s the catch?”

“There’s no catch.” Waa was being genuine here. While she would’ve preferred just asking Kouji to go with her. It was clear that wasn’t going to be a possibility with this group, especially after what happened. Plus, all of these girl were more than capable of buying a ticket with their money. So she couldn’t stop them even if she wanted to. “There’s nothing wrong with wanting some friends to come, right?”

“Usually you ask the ones that are actually interested in the stuff.” Teru responded. Someone of her so-called cool or tough status wouldn’t want to be caught doing geeky things. “But if everyone else wants to go, then I’ll come too.” She spoke bashfully.

“I would love to see what those conventions are like.” Anastasia had only ever heard of these kind of things. It always seemed very interesting, a large gathering of people all there because of something they enjoy. Also she had been following a shojo series thanks Waa. So the girl was hopeful that there might be something new for her to check out.

“I’ll… Go.” Yuma answered. The event itself wasn’t something that she cared for. There were going to be so many people there, but as long as a certain somebody came. Then it would be something she was willing to bear. “If… You will also go?”

“Hmm?” Kouji paused to think it over. Sure, it’s not something he’d normally consider, but… “Yeah, I’ll go too.”

“You will?” Himawari wasn’t expecting him to say that. Of all the people she knew, he seemed the type to never want to do anything like this. “Why?”

“Tutoring you guys is a bit much.” Kouji replied. “I could do with a short vacation like this.”

“Fine, then I’ll go too.” Himawari was given no choice. Otherwise, she’d be left behind by everyone, and that wasn’t something she thought was affordable in this love triangle.

And so, Kouji and the gang began to plan their trip to this anime convention. The boy believed that this could be a lot of fun to help him forget his troubles at school.

With everything he had been through, even the author is unsure why he’s being so naive.

***

“Hopefully we didn’t forget anything.” Kouji was making last second checks on all their luggage. This was going to be a day and a night trip, so they were going to be checking in at a hotel over in the next town. That meant they also needed extra clothes to change into for the night and trip back.

All of this stuff was increasing the budget for this fun vacation. The amount of money this was going to cost worried him, but his uncle told him that it’ll be no problem.

“How can he think it isn’t much?” Kouji complained to the others. “Paying 10,000 yen for me seems a bit much. Maybe I shouldn’t go after all.” Now the boy was getting cold feet over these expenses.

“10,000 is a lot less than I was expecting.” Waa informed him. “We’re all paying 10,000 yen each, so it sounds fair to me.” At least when it came to the stay, food, and tickets. The girl was planning on spending a lot more than that with all the souvenirs available.

“Plus, your uncle’s not exactly strapped for cash.” Teru came into the conversation. “In fact, he’s got a lot more saved up from over the years.” It turned out that when one is spending most of their time just sulking about and working, that they don’t spend most of their cash. Also he quit drinking.

“All right then, I’ll try to not feel bad about it.” He said, but it wasn’t going to help him on the inside. “Come on, the train’s about to leave.”

Everyone got on the train. This trip was about to begin, but there was one little detail that Kouji wasn’t accounting on.

“This looks like a good spot.” He pointed out a table that should be able to seat the six of them relatively comfortable. “All right, let’s go Yuma.” He went to take the first spot, since the boy wanted a window seat. Behind him, the slow girl went to follow him in, much to the dismay of all of them.

“What? Why are you asking her to sit with you?” Himawari confronted him before this went too far.

“Because she already asked?” As it would turn out, asking Kouji to sit next to him before he saw any of the other girls was a good plan. Despite being known for being on the slow side, Yuma made sure to arrive before anyone else to try and see him first.

“I suppose it’s time to get… Seated.” Yuma said. Even without emotions from those words, Himawari felt the mocking nature of it.

“You…” She directed this towards Yuma. “Go in first.”

“But I wanted the window seat.” Kouji protested, but was overruled.

“She’ll sit there, and you can sit between us.” She commanded, but that wasn’t going to go unchallenged.

“Well, what if I wanted to sit there?” Teru complained. “I’m sure the others wouldn’t mind if you sat with them.”

“What are we, five?” Waa played the mocking commentator to this situation. Meanwhile, Anastasia was a bit more meek in response to this scene.

“I will just sit right here…” She quietly slid over to the opposite side of the table, and placed herself at the window seat. The girl took a look at the situation with worried eyes.

“Look, we got two trips. Teru you’re sitting next to me, then Himawari can do so on the way back.” Personally, he wasn’t a fan of this bossy nature she had going on here. Sure, she was already annoying, but this was just on another level. While he could understand where she was coming from, this wasn’t going to bode well for their future relationships if that was how she was going to act. Kouji knew that he was going to have to deal with this as quick as possible. However, he was going to have to find a private time to handle that. So now wasn’t the time to bring it up.

“Fine…” The girl relented, not wanting to seemed to desperate. That didn’t mean she was going to be happy about is, as she sat down with that cross face.

“Great.” Waa was content with the way things ended here. “It’s going to be a long day, so I think it’s a good idea for everyone to get a little rest.” She reached into her pocket, producing a sleeping blind. The girl put it on, and leaned her head back for a little bit of a nap.

“I guess that’s-” Himawari was cut off by the snoring. Waa feel asleep very quickly. “Wake me up when we get there.” She did her best to do the same thing, but it’s not so easy when she’s stuck with an ugly sleeper next to her.

***

The trip wasn’t very long, so they didn’t sleep long either. Kouji got some shuteye, then woke up. As he slowly opened his eyes, the boy realized that he ended up leaning up onto Teru, who also woke up at the same time.

“Ahh!” When she saw it, the girl immediately went into embarrassed mode and fell off her seat. That was enough to wake the others, who were confused by the sight that greeted them. “I just fell, that’s all.” She was blushing madly, trying her best to cover her face so they wouldn’t know the truth.

“R-right…” Kouji backed her up, because he didn’t want to suffer more of Himawari’s wrath. At the same time, he noticed something warm on his hand. When the boy turned his head to check, it revealed that Yuma’s hand was on his. “Oh, I guess we ended up holding hands in our sleep.” He chuckled nervously.

“We did… Didn’t we?” It doesn’t need to be said, for everyone to know what happened here.

“Awesome, we’re here!” Waa got excited when she heard the train’s brakes. They were slowing down to stop at the one place she was looking forward to all year. “Come on, let’s go!” She got up and moved out of the seating area.

“Hey, I’m still sitting. Don’t you just crawl over me.” Of course, Himawari was taking the aisle spot, so she ended up climbing over the girl.

“Don’t care. I’m going to AniCon!” Before any of them were up on their feet, Waa was already standing eagerly at the doors.

“I guess it’s nice she’s passionate about something.” Kouji chuckled as they all got up.

Now their adventures at the anime convention were about to begin. For Kouji, it was about to be a very busy day.