Chaoskouji

Arc 3 Chapter 4 - Setting up camp

"That's not the point! Just because you got some corn you think you're special! Hirata tell him!"

Now this would be interesting. Ever since the Sudou and Sakura incident, Hirata had been withdrawn and sullen, uninterested in interacting with anyone. The only person he ever really spoke to was Karuizawa, and even then, it was infrequent.

People had a lot of different theories about what was going on with him, ranging from Karuizawa being abusive, rumours he actually took effort to squash out, to the death of a family member, and those he just ignored. I however, subscribed to a much simpler idea.

There were two times that Hirata had acted in a different manour, both of them in high intensity moments, when the truth of who a person is can be revealed. The first was the first day of school, when I spent time with Kouenji putting down the defectives. The second was when Chabishira informed us that we were worthless students.

Both of these times were in defense of another classmate. I was simply of the opinion, and so were a few others but not many, that he simply couldn't cope with what happened to Sakura. It was as simple as that, the incident had broken something inside of him, and he had become withdrawn simply from that.

Why, I didn't know, but I was confident in my reason. And that reaction led to Hirata becoming practically a non-entity in the class. Karuizawa even had been acting distant from him, as if abandoning him due to his change. It was understandable. They were already central figures in the grade and had probably been dating partially as status. Being attached to him as he was now a risk to her status, so Karuizawa may be testing how long his new attitude would last, before breaking it off with him.

I had no idea about any of her actions revolving around status. That was simply how Kikyou explained it to me when I asked, but it made a lot of sense once she did.

"Leave it, Karuizawa. He can have a hammock..."

Hirata responded in the listless lifeless way he had been for the past month.

"Don't you care, Hirata! I don't want to sleep on the ground!"

"I'm sure Kikyou will figure something out, I doubt she wants to sleep on the ground either."

"Shut up Ayanokouji! Fine, keep your hammock, let's go Shinohara."

"Yeah, we don't want to hang around with such a big loser anyway"

The moved off to follow the rest of the class, probably trying to weazle themselves out of work by getting in Kikyou's good graces. They were huge hypocrites, complaining about me, before proceeding to do exactly the same.

"Hey, Ayanokouji-kun..." I perked up at hearing Hirata speak. This would be the first time he had spoken to me since Sudou's trial, although I also hadn't made any attempts to speak to him. "No, never mind..."

Or not.

I guess today wasn't the day. He clearly had something he wanted to talk about, so eventually he would come to me. There was no need to pressure him.

But for now, I may as well help out a little.

I untied one end of the hammock and grabbed onto the other tree it was attached to before untying that end around. Clambering to the ground, I grabbed the hammock and tied it around my body instead.

It was incredibly cumbersome, but I didn't want anyone stealing it, especially seeing how many people had appeared to want it.

Hammock-chan was mine.

I made my way over to Kikyou, who was still in the middle of giving out tasks. Nothing had been purchased yet, but I suspected a long list of items was growing during the conversation she was having with Yukimura and Ike.