Camp Joy, Nightscape

Rustle—

A faint rustling came from the grass, followed by a figure slowly rising to her feet.

It was Yamamura Miki, the little administrator of Class A's camp. An embarrassed flush colored her cheeks, and she was still holding an empty rice ball wrapper leaf.

"Um... I... I was just passing by..."

Yamamura stammered out an explanation, but her eyes drifted involuntarily toward the grilled fish in Sakamoto's hand and the fish soup in Hashimoto's. Her stomach let out another traitorous growl.

Kamuro could not help laughing.

"Yamamura, are you hungry?"

Yamamura's face turned even redder. Lowering her head, she said softly, "Today's rice balls... weren't quite enough... and I'm really tired..."

Sakamoto glanced at her and drawled with a smile, "There's too much grilled fish. We can't finish it all."

He picked up a freshly grilled fish from beside the fire and handed it to her. "Eat it while it's hot."

Yamamura's eyes lit up at once. She took the grilled fish and said gratefully,

"Th... thank you, Sakamoto!"

She eagerly took a bite. The tender fish meat, paired with perfectly balanced seasoning, made her let out a satisfied sigh.

"It's so delicious!"

"Yamamura, didn't you just say you were only passing by? Why are you eating so happily now?"

Yamamura's face reddened again, but with her mouth stuffed full of fish, she could only explain indistinctly,

"I... I really was just passing by... I just... happened to be hungry..."

Kamuro laughed so hard she doubled over, patting Yamamura on the shoulder.

"It's fine, it's fine. We're all classmates—eating together is more lively!"

Sakamoto nodded as well, then took several bowls from his backpack, filled them with fish soup, and handed them around.

"Have some soup. Warm yourselves up."

Yamamura accepted a bowl of fish soup and cautiously took a sip. Her eyes immediately brightened.

"This fish soup... is way too good! Sakamoto, how did you make it?"

Sakamoto smiled faintly.

"I just used some seasonings. Nothing special."

Yamamura nodded blankly, an enlightened expression appearing on her face, and then—

"But didn't the school say we weren't allowed to bring anything off the ship? Where did these come from?"

Girl, you really talked too much.

Sakamoto brought up the cabin excuse again, making Yamamura's eyes shine brightly.

Kamuro smugly added from the side,

"Sakamoto is also amazing at catching fish. He caught all these himself! Impressive, right?"

Yamamura nodded repeatedly, her eyes full of admiration, practically sparkling with stars.

"Amazing!"

Hashimoto chimed in, "Yeah. Without the boss, we'd only be chewing on rice balls today."

Sakamoto's smile did not fade. Hashimoto drank another bowl of fish soup and patted his belly in satisfaction.

"Today was seriously exhausting. The class rep—Katsuragi—arranged way too many plans."

Yamamura, eating grilled fish: "Mm! Mm!"

"Yeah," Kamuro said, recalling what she had seen that afternoon. "Katsuragi was pretty strange today too."

"I saw lots of classmates walking around everywhere. The group assigned to scout the south and check on the other classes had all come back too. By the way, where is he?"

"The class rep seems to be at the cave base?" The speaker was administrator Yamamura Miki, who probably knew more than anyone else in Class A's camp about Katsuragi's arrangements.

"The cave? That's a seventeen-minute walk from here." Kamuro was a little surprised.

"Our class's two bases are so far apart. It feels like other classes could easily discover them," Kamuro complained.

"Then let's wait until Katsuragi comes back tomorrow and question him properly. The class rep has plans but doesn't tell us—he's looking down on us too much."

Hashimoto suggested going to find Katsuragi starting tomorrow.

Everyone nodded in agreement, then quickly finished the "battle" of dinner.

About twenty minutes later—

The bonfire crackled. Hashimoto lay on the ground snoring loudly, sleeping soundly while hugging a branch.

Kamuro was squatting beside it, trying to build a tripod out of branches. The structure suddenly collapsed and smashed her toes, making her grimace in pain without daring to make a sound.

Yamamura had also returned to her tent early to rest.

After stuffing Hashimoto back into the tent,

Sakamoto lazily yawned.

The only one left was the silly Kamuro. She was hugging her knees beside the still-warm bonfire, her reddened toes restlessly wiggling amid the grass blades.

"Go back and rest."

"Huh? You don't want me anymore?"

Kamuro looked at Sakamoto pitifully. Her purple hair cascaded over her shoulders, and the faint unease on her pretty face showed clearly in her lightly furrowed brows.

Hm? That sounded a little strange, girl...

"You worked hard today." Sakamoto took off his glasses and wiped them, revealing eyes and brows gentler than usual.

"Look at you—you're hurt all over. The wound you got from scraping yourself when you fell down the mountain during the day hasn't even scabbed over yet, has it?"

Kamuro instinctively covered the conspicuous scratch on her calf.

Sakamoto's fingertips hovered three centimeters above Kamuro's calf. Then he suddenly pulled out a handful of emerald-green stems and leaves from his pocket.

"This is the stem of plantain."

He crushed it with an uncharred branch. "It can help wounds heal."

Sakamoto crouched on one knee and flicked his wrist. The plantain landed steadily on Kamuro's wound.

"I recommend treating the second small scrape on your left hand first, or it'll heal."

While supporting the wound, Sakamoto delivered the joke with a straight face, distracting Kamuro and easing her pain.

Kamuro snorted with laughter and poked her wound with a finger, then sucked in a sharp breath with a "Hiss."

"All done."

Sakamoto stood up. "All your wounds have been treated with herbs."

The night grew later, and the dark clouds gradually dispersed, revealing chilly moonlight.

Even without a flashlight or the bonfire, they could see each other's silhouettes.

It looked like it was getting late too.

"Ample moonlight is also good for sleep. Go enjoy one and a half times the sleep during the golden time cycle now..."

The well-fed girl was getting drowsy too, but she still felt somewhat uneasy and grabbed the corner of Sakamoto's clothes.

"Aren't you sleeping? Where are you going?"

Faced with Kamuro's question, Sakamoto pushed up his glasses and chuckled. "Kamuro-chan, go rest. Of course I'm going to rest too."

"Oh."

Forget it, sleeping was more important. The purple-haired girl rubbed her eyes, stood up, and headed toward the sleeping area.

Watching Kamuro enter the tent,

Sakamoto picked up the flashlight and walked in the direction opposite the camp.

The starry sky seemed increasingly vast at night. The bright moonlight scattered across the fallen leaves and soil of the dense forest in great swaths.

Such a beautiful scene called to mind Apollo and Daphne, Hou Yi and Chang'e.

Moonlight always brought to mind pure and flawless beauty.

Lost in such thoughts, he had already traveled far from camp.

Sakamoto moved through the nighttime forest with the agility of a nocturnal raccoon cat.

His boots stepped on scattered dead leaves, making crisp little sounds.

At that moment, the moon resembled a jade disk, illuminating the earth beneath the night sky.

With the help of the chilly moonlight,

Sakamoto clearly saw a small figure sitting atop a huge moss-covered boulder.