Souda wasn't having the best of mornings. All the chatting and dancing from last night's party definitely left a mark on him. Feeling tired and worn-out, Souda wanted nothing more than to get some breakfast, go collect the materials Usami wanted, and then do absolutely nothing for the rest of the day. He had even planned it all out in his head. After breakfast he would be sitting by the poolside for a bit, then proceed to go collect today's materials. After that, he would get going to the beach for a quick seaside swim before finally settling down in his own room until Teruteru called all of them to a late dinner. It was a perfect plan, a great way to get some work done, while still being able to enjoy some stress-free activities. And up until right now, the plan was proceeding smoothly. He had woken up relatively early, and been one of the first to arrive at the restaurant. Yup, everything was seemingly going according to plan.

However, Hiyoko Saionji had other things in mind for Souda.

She and Mahiru had promised each other to meet at the restaurant 20 minutes earlier. Well, it was mostly Hiyoko just wanting to get some of the sweeter stuff for herself before the others arrived, with Mahiru being forced to tag along. Mahiru didn't mind, however, and happily made the promise. They would meet inside the restaurant, in a specific place, at a specific time. Hiyoko, excited to spend as much time as possible with Mahiru, sprinted out of bed that morning, as fast as she could to the agreed upon location, and waited for Mahiru to show up.

She waited for two minutes. No sign of Mahiru yet.

Ten minutes passed. As Akane and Nekomaru showed up, Hiyoko's plan about keeping all the sweet stuff to herself slowly began to fall apart.

Then fifteen minutes had suddenly passed. Then twenty. Then thirty. More and more people were beginning to show up at the restaurant, but Mahiru wasn't one of them. Hiyoko, not moving from her spot was feeling worried, more worried than she had ever been on the school trip thus far. Where could Mahiru be? Why wasn't she coming? She eventually came to the conclusion, that someone had to go check on them, but didn't wanna risk leaving the site and not being there if, by chance, Mahiru decided to show up in that time frame. It would be best if she could get someone to get her big sister for her. She quickly looked around for someone she had enough control of to force them to go get Mahiru. Hmm… Sonia? Nah, she couldn't get her away from Gundham. How about Akan- Oh wait, no, she was face deep into the buffet already. But then her eyes landed on the person in the back, quietly hanging out by himself, having a good time.

"Perfect."

She innocently walked over to Souda's table, smiling in just the right way, a way that would make her concern seem believable enough for someone as dumb as Souda to fall for it. Approaching the blissfully unaware Souda from behind, she slowly raised her hand and carefully tapped him on the back.

The purpose of this action was for Souda to turn around and notice her, standing with crocodile tears in her eyes. She would then try and force him to go get Mahiru, but in such a way, that he wouldn't have a choice. It would be either that, or having to deal with a crying Hiyoko. And as she had quickly learned from being with the others, none of them wanted to deal with a crying Hiyoko. It was a perfect plan.

Unfortuneatly, Hiyoko had forgotten to account for Souda's tendency to get… well… easily surprised.

As soon as her hand touched his shoulder, Souda jumped what seemed like several feet up in the air, screaming at the top of his lungs, as his hat just barely managed to stay on his head.

"AAAAH, SOMETHING TOUCHED ME!"

After landing back in the chair, he spun around, turning his head directly into the line of sight of everyone else in the restaurant. Well, everyone except those who weren't busy diving head first into the morning-buffet. And while Souda didn't like all those sets of eyes on him, there was one set in particular he found a little more unnerving than the others. Those would be the eyes of the person standing only a few feet behind the chair he was sitting on. Eyes, that were hard to describe using other words than "filled with burning, pure hatred".

"Oh… Uhh… Hey, Hiyoko…"

Furious over the incompetence on display in front of her, Hiyoko closed her fist and threw as hard of a punch as she could into, directly onto Souda's arm.

"GAAH, WHY CAN'T YOU DO *ANYTHING* RIGHT!?"

Before Souda could even register that he had been hit, and put his other hand around the spot where Hiyoko had hit him to cover it up, another punch landed. Then another. And so on. In very quick succession.

"WAIT WH-WHAT DID I DO HIYOK-AAAAH!"

Souda got up from his chair and ran away, as fast as his legs could take him, occasionally looking back at the fiery Hiyoko, who looked like she was seriously considering taking away his life in some form or another. Across the restaurant the two of them went, back and forth between the tables where all the other students were sitting. They had (somehow) managed to ignore the pair, and continue with their brunch as usual.

Souda eventually hit a dead end, and had to stop running. He quickly closed his eyes and held up his hands to protect his face and shoulder. Hiyoko continued on, her fist once again ready to make contact with his arm. Souda, on the other hand, had had quite enough of being beaten up by a girl several inches smaller than himself, and decided to surrender.

"ALLRIGHT! Allright, fine, I'll do whatever you need me to do! Just, for the love of god, STOOOP!"

Hiyoko put her arm down, which allowed Souda to get out of his defensive state, and look her in the eyes.

"You… You better go get Mahiru RIGHT NOW, or I swear I'll make this day even worse for you!"

Souda nodded furiously, his heart pounding so loud, that Hiyoko was probably able to hear it if she tried.

"Mahiru? Right, right, sure, no problem, I'll get her for you!"

He quickly ran out of the restaurant, refusing to ever look behind him over the fear of what he might see if he looked directly into Hiyoko's eyes.

After the door closed behind him, Hiyoko seemingly instantly cheered up, and sat down at the nearest available table.

"Phew, I'm so happy that's over! Wouldn't you agree?"

Before turning around to look at who she had chosen to sit with, she threw the question up in the air. When she did turn around, however…

"OH, mademoiselle! Why, I KNEW you would eventually sit down next to me one day!"

Hiyoko, instantly feeling sick, got up and quickly sat down at Peko's nearby table instead.

"Get away from me, you PERVERT!"

A couple minutes passed before the sound of the doors opening was heard again.

"We're back!"

Hiyoko jumped at the sound of Souda's voice. Well, it wasn't Souda she was excited to see, but his voice indicated the arrival of someone else.

"Big sis!"

She ran downstairs, expecting to run into the red-haired girl, she insisted on calling her sister.

Instead, Souda just stood with a big smile on his face, with no Mahiru in sight.

Hiyoko, confused, decided to give Souda exactly one chance to explain himself.

"Umm… Souda, where is Mahiru?"

Souda, suddenly looking less confident in himself, turned around, himself getting surprised as well.

"Uh… Hehe… That's weird… She was here a second ago…"

Quietly mumbling to himself, he turned around into an even more furious Hiyoko.

Fire spouting from her eyes, with her fists clenched, Hiyoko was looking less than pleased from Souda's answer.

"Souda… I will give you THREE seconds to get out and bring her here… OR ELSE…"

Hiyoko slowly walked over towards him, bringing her foot down even harder with each step.

Needless to say, Souda was out of the door before even the first of the three seconds were up.

Hiyoko, cursing herself for ever interacting with such an idiot as Souda, went upstairs to wait for Mahiru, verbally confirming what she thought of Souda in the process.

"God damn that idiot…"

She sat down, a mixture of anger towards Souda and worry towards Mahiru building up inside her.

"Big sis… Where are you? Please… hurry up…"

Surprise! This fanfiction is still alive! Despite having to go through several exams (of which only half are finished by the time of writing this), I managed to get out a small bonus-chapter to keep the story going until I can make time to finally write on Chapter 4! This was orginally intended to be the beginning of Chapter 4, but I had so much fun writing Souda and Hiyoko's characters, that I conceded in the end and wrote them an entire chapter. I'm still getting reviews for the series every week, and those reviews are what keep me going and wanting to write more of the story! So far, Chapter 4 and 5 are planned out, and I will get around to writing them sometime after the 20th of June. And that's basically all from me at this point, once again thank you SOOOOO much for reading! I'll hopefully see you guys in the next (real) chapter!