A New Masterpiece (COTE x OC)

Chapter 21 - A Day Off

The three girls quickly rushed me to their room to discuss' strategy' for my upcoming meeting.

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(8:31 am)

"Alright, now that we are all here, let the "Help Fukumoto" counseling and advice session begin."

Currently, I was sitting down in the girl's room as Maya, Chiaki, and Kei were giving me 'advice' for my meet-up with Ichinose. But that advice felt more like criticism about me.

"Why do I need to do this." I pleaded. "It's not like it's some big date we're just going to hang out."

"That's where you're mistaken," Maya said as she waved her index finger at me. "You cannot just 'wing it'. You have to have talking points, so the conversation never stalls."

"Well, I think I'm fine at keeping the conversation going. I don't need a game plan or anything," I said.

"While you are generally better than most," Kei interjected. "It's always good to come prepared."

"Fine. Fine. I'll listen to you all for now, but if I deem this unnecessary. I'll leave."

"Let's begin!" The three yelled in unison.

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(10:30 am)

"There we go, that's about everything you'll need to know," Chiaki said.

I quickly checked the time on my phone. 10:30 am. I definitely did kill a lot of time, thanks to these three before meeting Ichinose. Whether or not all the information they gave me will be useful will be determined, but they did give an honest effort.

"Alright, I should get going now," I said as I stood up from the couch in their room. "I don't want to be late."

"Look at him, all grown up now," Kei said while fake wiping tears of joy from her face.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm leaving now."

"You have to tell us how it goes!" Chiaki shouted at me as I left the room.

Finally, that was over.

I still had roughly 30 minutes till my meeting with Ichinose. For all, I knew, we were going to meet on the deck of the ship. Other than that, I was completely in the dark about this meeting.

I made my way to the main deck a little early and stood looking over the ocean as I waited for Ichinose.

"Man, I'm hungry," I mumbled out loud.

"Have you not eaten yet?" A sweet familiar voice called out to me from my right.

"Hiyori?" I didn't even notice her as I stopped to look at the view. She sat beside me in her regular school uniform, reading a book.

"Hello, Fukumoto-kun," Hiyori's bright smile never seemed to leave her face.

It had been a long time since I got to talk to Hiyori face-to-face. We occasionally messaged each other if we found a remarkable book that we wanted to suggest to the other. But with Sudo's incident against Class C, this recent exam, and many more events, we hadn't had as much free time on our hands.

"Hi there. Do you usually spend your time reading here on the deck?"

"Yes! I like the view of the ocean from here, but typically I only do it in the morning as it gets crowded later on."