430 Chapter two, 2018, field trip: 4 (1/2)
The following morning Ryu stood waiting for their home room teacher to arrive before they boarded a bus for Nara. With memories from Hatsumode still fresh in his mind he made certain to handle all bodily needs lest he spend the day trip in a toilet. For the very same reason he hadn't disturbed his sister and Urufu when he saw them together late last evening.
Nara turned out to be just the kind of postcard experience he had expected with deer, parks and a huge, wooden temple as the centrepiece of attraction. The only cloud on his personal sky was the total absence of anything Kuri.
'And I even tried to dress up nicely for you.' Ryu threw the end of his scarf back over his shoulder. It made repeated attempts to plaster itself across his face whenever the breeze felt mischievous enough to call out his attention to the surrounding girls. There were girls; lots of them. A Ryu sans Kuri apparently meant he was free for the taking, at least temporarily.
”Of course,” he said to yet another party of high school girls. ”No problem at all,” he added when they forced him to join them in a group shot. From what school, or even what city, they were he didn't know.
”You're impossible,” one of his classmates commented when the last group finally returned to their own class.
Ryu smiled but refrained from answering. In the background he saw a few of his smaller classmates lining up to crawl through a hole in one of the enormous supports. Then he heard a hesitant voice signalling that it was time for yet another smartphone being turned in his direction. The Todaiji was packed full with high school students from all over Japan. Quite a few of them were probably middle schoolers though, but that didn't make them any less prone to request photos with him in the middle of a group of giggling girls.
”There he goes again,” his class rep said. There was no venom in the voice. If anything it carried a little pride of wearing the same uniform as the impromptu tourist attraction on two legs.
”Not here? What do you mean by no here?”
Ryu waited for his latest admirers to disperse before he turned after the voice. Something had upset Kyoko. He found her together with a few girls from Kuri's class just beneath the central Buddha statue.
”Excuse me, could you please tell sensei I'll be back in a minute,” Ryu asked his class rep. He didn't wait for an answer but made for Kyoko. For once he shook his head when someone waved with her phone with a question in he eyes.
”Kyoko!”
She met his eyes. ”Ryu, Kuri-chan's gone missing.”
'Missing?' ”She's lost?”
”No,” Kyoko shook her head, ”she never made it to Nara at all.”
He grimaced. ”Kuri, for the love of...”
”And that's not all of it.”
'It gets worse?' ”Spill!”
”Their class rep says a third of their class went missing together with her.”
That was bad. That was really bad. ”A third? How the hell did she manage to misplace a dozen of her classmates?”