Chapter 19

 

The Meeting…

The four of us were lined up in the back of the gathering area behind the other students, with Rina next to me, and Sensei on my other side, and Yumi jealously guarding Rina on her other side. Yumi shut down Kenji quickly when he asked to sit with us. It was pitiful to be honest. It hurt to see actually, but I had to steel my heart to not feel pity for Kenji because of needing the boundary.

“I don’t like this,” Yumi said dourly, leaning over to Rina and me to hear but so that others couldn’t.

But was this Yumi being blunt or really something to worry about I wondered.

Kenji stood there for a moment watching us, while we all stared back in such a way that he knew he wasn’t welcome here. Funny though, I didn’t see his zombie anywhere near here. Where was Yamamoto Sensei?

Naturally after awhile he left, but other boys also asked to sit with us, and Yumi chased them out too. I’m sure Yumi would have chased me out too if Rina didn’t need me so much…her over protectiveness rivaled the level of some obsessive fathers. She was actually kind of scary. This wasn’t the first time this had happened.

It bothered me and made me angry that Kenji had come to steal Rina still and wanted to make her his zombie. I hadn’t been able to get rid of that anxiety and anger all night. But it also bothered me that he was so pitiful and small and weak. He’d wanted to be loved and have attention, but then he had let that overwhelm his choices and dignity by letting his wants get ahead of how to make proper decisions. But that was no excuse. Most people messed up that way in one way or another, though I pitied him still.

But now because he’d done something to make us feel unsafe I wouldn’t be able to help him with his feelings of inadequacy and his smallness.

Again Asakura Sensei was leaning really close to me again, with her massive side boob always touching my arm. Her blouse was also too thin too, so I felt my temperature going up and my excitement level was making me really antsy and not sure how to deal with it. I’m sure my face was beet red too, because I was such a shy person. But whenever other students would look at us, Sensei kept trying to act subtle. She acted like it was there wasn’t enough room for us to not bump into each other but that was only half right.

She was a crafty fox…I’d have to be wary. But how good the physical touch felt was wonderful and confused me at the same time.

Around us the other kids were starting to pay attention around a big ring of other kids in the middle. We’d been some of the last to arrive. They had tried to be neatly and orderly, but some kids weren’t sure what was going on around them. We were also some of those same people. They had arranged a big half circle gathering and then a few rows of people behind them in a grove of really thick trees. It was basically a hidden inner meadow inside part of the forested area where everyone was camping.

So before too many people could start to gossip, Ziggy came forward standing in front of them. “OK, let’s begin this like it’s an official meeting. Everyone will take their turn to speak. First I’ll introduce the topic of the meeting, and the different players. Also to let everyone now, we have a plan to keep everyone alive. We intend to fight the orcs and we will win! We know we’ve got the strength and the plans for it. Also we believe we’ve found several keys to survival!”

The students cheered for a bit and many of them were clapping. Some of them got up and started to shake their fists at the air. There were cries of “Woohoo!” and “Yeah! Let’s get ‘em!” This was the first chance of hope they’d had. They were all standing there with an expectant look and wanting to believe that we could have a future in this world. This was the first time anyone had been able to say anything about that confidently.

They just needed a band and some electrical paraphernalia and this would start to look like a rock concert, it seemed with the way people were gathered around and pretty excited.

They were looking around hopefully, trying to be cheerful so far…some of them were pretty excited to find friends were still alive that they hadn’t been able to find before. After all, at the end of the orc battle people were more focused on fleeing, than finding their friends and hadn’t gotten that sorted out yet. Unless you really cared about people enough to sacrifice you wouldn’t find them right away it seemed.

Or maybe some of them were happy also from more people having skill discoveries?

“OK then!” Ziggy turned his head to address the still smiling crowd. “Now I’ll turn the crowd’s attention to Akira, who will address us next.” Ziggy then went to sit over on top of a rock, after extending his hand outward to point out Akira who had a strange look on his face. Then he clapped his hands too with the crowd as Akira walked up.

Akira walked up slowly. He was walking slowly and determined with a fierce look, because he hurt a lot, but it seemed that something else was there and I wished I could read his mind and see what he was thinking. I could see Yuriko who had been sitting by him, but she looked really unhappy for some reason. In fact, I could pick up she was really super angry but I didn’t know why. Her eyes were glaring at Akira and she had her arms folded in defiance.

Akira leaned out over a make shift podium looking over the group as he got in front of them. Then he cleared his throat and did his best public speaking voice. “First I’d like to address what’s left of our student body. I think we can make it in this world! I really do! We’ve also found out from the group of eight rangers that their skills are progressing. Yes you also heard me right! Eight! We now have eight rangers and not just six, and we’re finding other jobs and skill sets too! They’ve figured out some good survival techniques and how to get us to a safe spot near here, which I’ll talk about shortly.”

“Eh?! There’s other jobs discovered?! That’s so cool!” Rina exclaimed happily.

“It is good news,” Sensei admitted.

“Wonder what else they will find soon,” Yumi muttered.

There was a lot of out crying of joy and cheers when he’d mentioned a safe spot. It took awhile to calm people down. People were smiling again and picking up hope.

Our group seemed unchanged though and looked on in seriousness.

“There has to be a catch here somewhere,” Sensei said.

Then Akira resumed talking, “for starters there’s no way to get around this but we have three candidates to bring to you as a group as your future leaders. We all know we need a leader and a decision making process to help ensure group survival. We need unity and direction too. They are each of these candidates, vying for the chance to lead you to our new safe spot to live in and each of them has their own plan to do so. Each of you will be given the chance to meet them, ask questions to determine who the best fit to lead us is. You can also discuss things after the meeting in order to figure out who you will vote for, for our leaders. For now though, each of them will formally introduce themselves and give a short introduction and why they think they should be the new king.”

“How come Shun isn’t up there?” Rina asked innocently.

“You know I wonder that too. Could it be they purposefully left him out thinking he’d take their spot?” Asakura whispered in a hushed and concerned voice.

“Maybe I also don’t want to be up there. Some of those guys I don’t know if they are good,” I said in low tones.

“But…being king? I can’t believe this!” Yumi had wide eyes.

“Did I hear him right?” I heard a girl whisper in front of us. It was a whisper that was confused and full of anxiety. Others thought they’d heard Akira wrong.

And why would Akira be part of this anyway? I was surprised that Akira was doing this and hadn’t told me anything about it. Why did no one know what was going on and suddenly to have all of this information just dumped on us as a surprise?

He seemed to be stalling for a bit, but then he got a bit more courage and looked stubborn, “so to each of you here are our three candidates to be the first King of New Kobe, which each of you will vote on.”

He had to stop when suddenly a lot of the kids were acting confused and wondered if they’d heard him right. Their confusion was picking up and the volume of confused protests, and uncertainty in the students was getting to drown out the calm and eliminate the peace of the area. Suddenly all the smiles and happiness had disappeared completely. Many of the kids were staring in complete shock and it was starting to look like a political meeting rather than a rock concert in their minds. And the others had thought it was a survival meeting, and were surprised to.

“What did he just say?”

“Did he say that right?”

“What’s going on?”

“A king?!”

“How vain...”

“What is this?”

“The f**k?!”

“What gives them the right to…”

“Did he say king?”

“So they want to justify a king because most the adults are dead?”

“What?!!!”

“Why a king?”

“I don’t want a king. What’s going on?!” someone exclaimed.

“Isn’t a king bad?”

“If we have a king will we have taxes?” someone whispered.

“Nah, if you have a king you become his slaves,” his friend responded. Around the two, whoever heard that was suddenly getting mad. It looked like a lot of the kids might start a riot soon. I could see people also subtlety picking up rocks, sharp stick bits, or anything they could in the grass of the meadow around them, and stuff to fight with.

Then someone started booing until one of the rangers hit him with a club. If they hadn’t hit him, others would have joined him in his booing it seemed. But seeing their readiness to hit people things were getting more confusing.

“King? What in the world?”

There was a lot of confusion. People weren’t very happy, but then all the sudden one of the students came up to the podium, “gentleman and ladies. My name is Yuta, as you all know. I also hope to be King Yuta and help you all achieve your potential. I believe that I am the only one to be able to lead this people in the new world. The part about being king, if we don’t have our own king someone else will? Those Egyptian soldiers and that Yayoi group you saw them right? Both those cultures have kings and slaves. So if they are going to try to rule over us why not have our own king instead? Isn’t it better if it’s one of our own people?”

As he was talking I heard Yumi whisper, “clever son of bi@#@! He is using the evil of this world to justify swaying the people. He wants people to believe there’s no other choice…”

Yuta continued, “I am the only one who can read the screens and magic system notifications so far. As you all know, Raya got sick last night too and seems deathly ill. She won’t be able to help with this job for awhile. I’m sorry for the inconvenience this causes. Because of the circumstances and desperation I feel forced to carry this heavy burden. However, I am committed to us building a new city and community as New Kobe! I have even discovered a site for our new city and am sure we can rebuild. Vote for me, as your candidate for King of Kobe! I will make sure each of you have a place to live and want to make Rina my bride!”

“The fudge?” Yumi exclaimed. “Trying to steal our Rina…that pig…” her face was heating up and getting beat red.

“Oh no!” Rina ducked low so she could hide behind other people in front of us in the crowd. She was looking really scared.

Yuta raised his hand like he was in charge and trying to stimulate his leadership propaganda. It looked somewhat like someone that was in a parade on TV. “Thank you, thank you,” he was saying as he ended his speech and then went to go sit down by where the other three candidates were sitting. Both of them were also looking at the crowd reacting badly though to their idea. But they were too greedy to back down, all of them.

“What the hell?!”

“So it’s like that? Yuta is greedy?” someone said.

“Greedy pigs. Nobody wants a king,” I heard someone yell madly enough for the rangers and everyone else to hear. Instantly everyone was frowning and wanted to riot but had only stopped because the ranger kids were all armed and had their weapons out. Nobody wanted to die, but it was clear they wanted to beat down Yuta and the others. I considered running but I noticed that two of the rangers were guarding the exit out of the meadow and they’d somehow beefed up their arms more, with slings and stones and more spears on each of them. Basically most of their arms seemed like homemade hunter types of weapons that could be made from sharp rock, or lava rock, animal parts, and wood.

“Instead of King Yuta, from now on it’s Greedy Pig Yuta,” someone else whispered.

“Yeah, that name is sure to stick.”

“Man power is seductive isn’t it?” Yumi whispered near me. “Sensei was right all along.”

A lot of people were also muttering in low voices because the boldness of this meeting made them fear retaliation I noticed. I’m sure Sensei and Yumi were also thinking something was really wrong too.

“Shun, I don’t feel safe. Can we leave?” Rina asked.

I wanted to leave soon too, but both Yumi and I were looking at the ranger guards that weren’t letting people leave the meeting. There was no chance to leave it seems. Other kids had wanted to leave already and had been beat down with the blunt ends of the ranger spears not too far from us, since we were still in the back of the crowd. Now they were hurt and bloody and crawling away from them.

“It just so happens that Yuta wants to be king and the only other person that can read the magic and writing window popups is deathly ill? I smell a rat,” I heard a student whisper in front of us.

“This meeting was a trap after all huh?” a few people were heard to whisper.

“Maybe we should run away,” I heard a girl cry out in fear.

“Maybe we’ll have to have a mutiny and fight our way out. If the rangers act as thugs for whoever wants to be the king…not good,” someone else said.

“We need to arm ourselves. Can’t trust those rangers after all or boys either,” some girls were whispering to each other.

This was the first time I’d heard Rina swear. She bent over and was so embarrassed she didn’t open her mouth and had given herself a face slap. Or she was hiding from Yuta…or maybe both? I knew instantly she’d reject him and she was really not ready for this. I had forgotten the power of someone popular believing anyone would always fall for them though. Yuta probably didn’t even know she was sick.

“Shun, what do I do?” Rina’s weak voice called out, trying to stay low.

“He already knows where you are at,” Yumi said.

“Sh-shut up!” Rina still protested, and still stayed low.

“It’ll be fine. We’ll get through it somehow,” I said. Besides me, Sensei also nodded, agreeing and lending support with her hand on both of our shoulders.

Yumi was also fuming mad and probably getting ready to slap Yuta around. But we all knew we wouldn’t be able to even get close. The eight rangers were acting like bodyguards for the three people at the front of the meeting.

He gave a deep bow, and then sat down while looking rather pleased with himself.

He was followed by Akimoto next.

“Hi guys, you all know me. I’m Akimoto, as the ‘Ranger Prince’ I believe my team of rangers and I will be the best equipped to deal with real dangers. As proof and to show you that we made weapons all night. We’ve been making spears for each of us, sharp javelins from branches using weapons crafting, which we also discovered, made slings and stones from fabric and leather, and all kinds of stuff that we salvaged. This is my proof to you that we will protect our people and we’ll make a new city here!”

He continued, looking out over the crowd, looking left and right trying to look everyone in the eye. “We will be able to teach each of you how to make your own food and salvage food from the wilderness. We’ve already started teaching people how to make better huts. We’ll be able to show you a system of alerting each other to danger in addition to defense. Why the hell worry about having a city? We can go anywhere we want and be free! Plus a city is just a bigger target! We instead will make a tent city, roving to where the best game and hunting is and where the least danger is! It’s a beautiful system! Wasn’t living in the city how they summoned and pulled us here anyway?”

“When I was a kid I read about the Sioux and the Dakota plains Indians with their horses and tipis and they’d rove across the land and the plains living free with nobody ruling over them or standing in their way! We can do that too here! I’m sure they’ll have horses here or the equivalent of horses! Catch the vision of it! Wouldn’t such a life be amazing! We can actually have fun in this world!”

“We, myself, and the rangers will fight! We’ll show you how to fight! So vote for me as your new King! And screw Kobe! We’re not in Kobe! We want to return to our own world anyway!”

There was a long silence and people sat down.

“So he’s suggesting we become like the Indians in America?” Sensei looked puzzled.

“That would mean living or dying depends on if you can hunt well. Most these people can’t even work their own stove and microwave right,” I grumbled.

“That’s true. What do you think?” Asakura asked me carefully.

“Is that good or bad though?” I wondered. “It’s not the ideal, and it’s not perfect, but when I was a kid that might have sounded … I don’t know…romantic somehow and like wonderful? With real life and death on the line I’m not so sure though. It’s clear we know very little about this world still.”

“Well, it’s not bad to live in tipis but we’d have to really have a way of telling where the enemies are coming from and they didn’t have a palisade or wall around their village right?” Yumi said, raising an eyebrow.

“Yeah, in a world that’s dangerous, not sure how that’d turn out,” I said.

“Well, he sounds like he’s more prepared than Greedy Pig Yuta,” someone sighed, “but I doubt it will be much better.” Unfortunately they were too loud and Yuta stiffened after hearing his new nickname. He had a bit of a fearful look since people looked like they were only tolerating the three king candidates because of the rangers being armed.

Finally Akira of all people stood up. “OK people! I’m of course the third candidate.”

“What the fudge?!” Yumi exclaimed.

“Eh? Akira betrayed us?” I gasped. “How could he try to be a king over us?!”

People seemed confused still and didn’t answer him right away.

“You all know me. Shun and I killed the orc general and his bitches!” he shook his fist at the air to raise people’s moral support and courage but the idea of having a king had scared people so bad they weren’t following him well.

“Isn’t that protection? Isn’t that taking care of you all! Though I feel burned up and terrible I still want to help all of you. I’m wounded but still Yuriko helps me. Thanks Yuriko! You’re a good woman! I know you are upset at me but I couldn’t let Yuta or Akimoto become king and thought they’d ruin us, so the only way I could stop it was by becoming a third candidate. To the rest of you I’m sorry and I know you are pissed off that someone is trying to force his way to be your king. I didn’t know what else to do except also declare myself the best candidate, hoping to be the voice of reason. And if not we’ll figure something out if I don’t win. I love you Yuriko! You helped me and Shun kill the pig orc boss! You saved me thanks! Please don’t be mad at me! Your courage won my heart!”

We weren’t sure if he was legit or trying to manipulate us and I think others weren’t sure either. Why didn’t Akira tell me this and what was going on?! His speech didn’t sound as awful as the other two though.

Then he cleared his throat as he looked out over the rest of the students. “So to be honest, I’ve got good news and bad news. I am not giving the bad parts to you remember that. I mean rather, that they didn’t come from me, but I’m trying to show you there are hurdles in the road ahead. But I want you to understand what’s going on and I’m just identifying the problem. I’m not the source of the problem, OK.”

He looked briefly at Yuta. “That little guy wants you to believe you are safe?! How the hell are you safe?! Do you know we didn’t even know it and the rangers chased off some wolves last night?”

There were several gasps of astonishment and a lot of cries of fear and near panic.

“That’s right. Wolves came near us, smelling the wounded and being drawn in by the blood scent in the air. But we chased them off. One of the wounded died last night because of it. You all know Yamashita kun from class 3-F? Well he succumbed to his wounds and passed away after being chewed on by wolves last night. The truth is there won’t be any safe places in this world probably. The only thing we can do is hang on for the ride. I want you all to be able to survive in this world and I’m going to help you to do that. But I want to clear up some things. So I need your full attention. All eyes up here please!”

“First, even if we move cities, there will still be monsters looking for those cities. Number two, Yuta is a dumbass and the one who came up with the King idea, so I don’t trust that. Don’t trust Yuta! Also he didn’t want sentries put up last night, but wanted to rest and doesn’t want to help us put up a palisade either to protect wherever we decide to settle. We need a palisade for sure, wherever we decide to settle. This is a hell world, not some place to practice being Boy Scouts and having picnics all day! It’s a must! I’d say stone walls are better but we don’t have tools for that. We’ll also need farms and granaries and to work hard or we won’t make it. He thinks it’ll be too much work. If he’d got his way, we’d have several people dead.”

He blushed a bit, and seemed uncomfortable to say the last part, but did anyway, “also number three, the girls outnumber the boy survivors by about seven girls for every four boys. So our new society is going to be polygamists, probably…unless a lot of the girls suddenly get carried, off which could happen too so everyone needs to learn how to fight and survive together. There were a lot of boys killed fighting the orcs. Please don’t forget their sacrifice. If you girls don’t share a boy, then you or your friend won’t be able to have a family. Sorry, but don’t be mad at me. Also the monsters like to steal women in this world and somehow girl’s flesh tastes better to them, we think because the wolves when they attacked seemed different from Earth’s wolves. We also found out they have some kind of demonic cores in them when you cut open the bodies. Also they went for wounded girls with much higher probability than wounded boys.”

“Also last but not least we found another school nearby here, which was also summoned recently. I intend to lead an expedition to go there and see how it can be used to our benefit. It might be a more defensible position.”

“Wait? What?!”

“Did he mean like a school like ours?”

“School? How?”

“What kind of school?”

“What’s going on?”

“First, a king and now this? Where is this going?”

“it could be another lie to justify this king crap,” someone said.

“I don’t understand a thing?!”

“How do we veto having a king?”

“I think to veto a king you have to first kill him and his guards,” another said callously.

“Shun, I’m scared!” Rina whispered, after hearing the talk of violence. She’d started crying but was trying to keep it down and hide it. I think all of us were scared actually.

“We should kill all three of them so no one will ever try to be a king, right?” I heard a few boys say. They were also carrying rocks, but the rangers were staring at them with their weapons ready to fight.

“So if we vote for a king? How long will he be in office?” A few worried girls said.

“Will this be like a dictator?” someone asked.

“We should end this now!” People were getting angry now and it wasn’t going away.

“Shun, I don’t know if it’s safe to be here anymore,” Rina whispered.

“I agree,” Sensei whispered, but trying to hide it so it didn’t look like we were really talking.

The confusion had settled over the group, even though the three king candidates were waving their arms to calm people down. But things weren’t calming down. Some of the students were even angry and screaming what right others had to pick a king over the others. Some of them were ready to fight.

Things only calmed down after the rangers knocked two kids out cleanly with blows to the head from clubs and the butt ends of spears. They didn’t look dead, but were bleeding a lot and unconscious. Some other kids pulled them away and we couldn’t see them after that.

After awhile Ziggy stepped up, “There is two other pieces of information I’d like to share with you as a group. First off, we believe the school near here was summoned about twenty years ago and in fact is confirmed from our world. We haven’t gotten a chance to get close to it to inspect it though, but know it’s near the mountains. We do know it’s made from concrete and fairly close to the orc fortress as well, but not nearly so close as ours was, and close to the river, which was how one of the rangers found it late last night on patrol. We will be sending an expedition there soon to determine if it can be used as a base and a safe spot. There’s also a possibility there might be other survivors that may be in the vicinity from that same school. We will let the rest of you think about things for a bit and who you’d like to vote for. Then tomorrow the vote will be official.”

“Also, we have found two more ranger jobs, and a job called defender, of which there are four found so far. There also was a job called green mage that was discovered too. We believe this job is something to do with using magic to speed up and manage quick agriculture production. Two people so far have been discovered in this job and Yuta and Raya will be trying to help more people find the secrets and jobs of this world. We look forward to finding more skills to promote our futures here!”

He paused for a bit, “As the rest of you know one of the students last night tried to stab another student with a small metal knife. We’re worried about what this will do to our society. The three king candidates also argue that it’s a good chance to prove their worth and tomorrow morning we will hold a meeting here to have the three of them argue for the fate of the defendant and hold a court and judge him. We will let you vote on the choices of what to do to determine if he is guilty, innocent, and what kind of punishment for either decision after hearing their arguments. That’s all for now, thanks.”

He closed the meeting just like that, while we stared in shock.

“Oh dear, that poor student must be so scared,” sensei gasped with her hands covering her mouth and very teary eyed.

“How could they do that?” someone said.

“Ehh…are we supposed to be upset or angry over them wanting to execute a criminal?” Yumi wondered aloud, clearly confused.

“Are you sure they want to execute him?” Rina wondered.

“This really is information overload too. We are already trying to worry about food, supplies, orcs, defense, and now they want a trial, and to decide a king too?! They are idiots!” Sensei exclaimed, shaking her head.

“Probably, they’ll need to prove they have power already and that they can do what they want,” Yumi admitted.

“I’m not sure we should rescue him, he is guilty. But I don’t think he should die maybe? I’d have to think about it. It’s kind of a gray area. He should have a harsh punishment for sure, but not sure yet,” I confessed.

It was a difficult question to answer. I couldn’t tell if the kid had any remorse either or if he’d actually become a murderer or if others would imitate his behavior if he got off easily.

“What the hell do those morons think they are doing?!” Yumi said angrily. “As if Kenji wasn’t enough.”

“I don’t know. They make Kenji look pretty tame actually. At least Kenji was blinded by his love delusion, but a power delusion is more dangerous than a love delusion,” Asakura exclaimed, in a harsh quiet whisper.

“Both delusions sound pretty bad to me,” I whispered.

“I agree with Shun on that this time,” Yumi said, again looking really upset and had an intense look in her eyes.

“True…” Asakura said. Again she somehow was having her side boob touch me, but Rina had noticed and started frowning really big. Then she somehow pulled me closer to her so it wasn’t touching me anymore. But as a result I was kind of touching Rina now. Then Sensei had just stepped closer and I was now getting sandwiched between both of them. I didn’t know what to do.

“Yeah, but what do we do?” Yumi wondered aloud, thinking the same thing I was. In a moment she’d probably pull Rina closer to her, I bet…

“I never thought I’d see my students be so reckless,” Asakura exclaimed with her hand covering her mouth. Her eyes were as wide open as I’d thought possible.

Rina was just as surprised but didn’t say anything, but her hand was clutching my shirt sleeve so tightly that her knuckles were turning white. “Shun…you aren’t going to let them make us slaves are you? If we live like that it’ll be a terrible life won’t it?” she asked, looking at me.

She was right…

As the students disbanded to go different ways I heard others muttering in a whisper things about Greedy Pig Yuta.

How were we supposed to get out of this? And the orcs could come back at any time. I couldn’t believe how reckless and crazy these people were…

My to do list;

Big question marks there...

I still wasn’t sure which would be a better life…do we go live like the Sioux Indians like Akimoto suggested, try to find a way to join the Yayoi or Egyptian communities without being their slaves, or was it possible to find some other city, hopefully with more options or even some technology?

Or perhaps get a small group and go my own way?

Also I wanted to find a chance to study what was inside my demon prison box some more. I had to figure out a way to open up those dark prison crystals, and figure out if there was a way to let the girls trapped inside out, or use them somehow. I needed to figure out how the magic of the demon box worked while at the same time practicing my heal kills. Assuming it really was a heal ability and not some kind of life transfer, what rules were involved in how I used it?

Sooner or later the others would demand some of the money we’d taken from the pig orc general too. I hadn’t forgotten that but because money was worthless until other cities were found people hadn’t pressed the issue. Once we had a “King”, he’d requisition it by force, most likely.

Learn survival and resource gather skills while keeping my team alive.

I also needed to break down the barrier with Yumi. It does seem that she has a dark cloud over herself and is hard to approach. Could there be a reason for this? It had nothing to do with trying to pursue her, but she seemed almost aggressive to others, particularly boys sometimes. Rina seemed to have blunted the edge of this, but surely it would come out sooner or later when Rina wasn’t around and I was starting to pick up on it. She seems so dark and blunt that if I don’t build trust with her it could hurt our ability to work as a team.