~Chapter 2~

I looked over Yasuhiro's shoulder to see what he was looking at, but couldn't. "What're you reading so intensely?" We had been talking for a while – about half an hour – when he suddenly stopped talking and became preoccupied with something else.

Yasuhiro jumped when I asked him what he was reading. He flashed me a slight smile and showed a pamphlet for the Tohoshinki concert tomorrow. "It's says what they're playing. I had been meaning to read it, so I just opened it. It had a lot of stuff about other Tohoshinki events that I just kinda forgot about you. Sorry…?"

I sniffed, feigning hurt. "That's so mean…!" I turned away from him to hide the smile on my face. "I know I'm boring, but you didn't have to do that!"

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" I heard him clap his hands together in a sincere apology. "I'll buy you a shirt tomorrow if you'll forgive me."

I changed the smile to a smirk and faced him again. "Make it a shirt and a soda, and you have a deal."

He smiled. "Deal!"

"Ew! I wouldn't fuck him if he was the last guy alive!" The shouting came from the front of the bus – me and Yasuhiro were situated nicely in the middle – where Yuki Oniki (Female Student Number 3), Kaori Inoue (Female Student Number 5), Misora Kitano (Female Student Number 8), and Izumi Kagami (Female Student Number 9) were sitting.

In a nutshell, they're the class sluts. Kaori has always been the leader of their group, I assume it was her who just yelled, and she's known for pimping them out for a few extra yen in her pocket. Whether Yuki, Misora, and Izumi are aware of why their friend keeps whoring them out, I don't know and don't care.

Even so, everyone has admitted that Kaori's group has the most attractive girls in our class. Yuki's fair skin, long jet black hair, and narrow russet red eyes always seem to attract any boy she wants. Misora's tanning-salon tanned skin, short brown hair, and narrow cat green eyes seem to bring around the men she ends up sleeping with. Izumi, though, dyes her shoulder-length hair bleach blonde and wears blue contacts to cover her black irises, and she wears a lot of make-up to cover her pale skin. Kaori herself has beautifully pampered skin with just a trace amount of make-up, long jet-black hair swept back into a ponytail, and narrow brown eyes. The guys who want Izumi always go through her before even talking to Izumi – no one knows why, and again, I don't really care.

"Kirie, Yasuhiro!" Our friends, Yuiko Hino (Female Student Number 19) and Takeshi Takaya (Male Student Number 12) sit down in the empty seats next to, and behind us. Yuiko takes the empty seat next to me, while Takeshi takes the one behind me.

"What's up, Yuiko?" I leaned over to look into the small bag she had brought over. Behind me, Yasuhiro began to talk with Takeshi.

She smiled and held out a bag of cupcakes. "I got bored last night and made some cupcakes. You want one?"

"Hell yeah!" We both laughed as she pulled a cupcake from the bag and handed it to me.

Yuiko was my only friend in this class who was a girl. She had pale skin, long dark brown hair, and narrow black eyes. She was always nice to me and Yasuhiro, and never anything else. And with Takeshi being her long-time boyfriend, she was the only girl in the class never hitting on Yasuhiro.

I sat on my knees in the seat and began to tell her about the Tohoshinki concert tomorrow – she couldn't get tickets, which sucked, it would've been awesome to go with her – as Yasuhiro and Takeshi's conversation got louder.

Takeshi wasn't a bad looking guy, short jet-black hair, narrow black eyes, and perfectly tanned skin made him one of the constant targets of Kaori's group. Fortunately, much like Yasuhiro, he knew better than to involve himself with them even before he began to date Yuiko.

"I'm always right," Yasuhiro argued.

Both Yuiko and myself looked over at the two boys, who were arguing over something or another. Takeshi crossed his arms over his chest. "No way! You can't be right if I'm right!"

I sighed while Yuiko giggled. This was a constant thing between those two even though they were friends. She held out the bag of cupcakes and offered them some as a peace treaty. The boys immediately forgot about whatever they were arguing about and took each took a cupcake.

"So, Kirie," I looked back at Takeshi, "I hear Yasuhiro is taking you to see that Tohoshinki concert tomorrow."

"Yeah…?" Something told me I didn't want to know what he was getting at.

"So, are you finally going to admit that you love each other, date, and then screw so that me and Yuiko don't have to watch you two make goo-goo eyes at each other?"

"What?" Not again…!

"Takeshi!" Yuiko rolled her eyes and shook her head.

"What? I'm serious!" He threw his hands up as if showing how serious he was.

Yasuhiro reached over and smacked Takeshi over the back of the head. "Shut up!"

"Ow! Dude, what was that for?" Takeshi rubbed the back of his head where Yasuhiro hit it.

"For being an ass."

Yuiko giggled a bit and then yawned. She gave me and Yasuhiro one more cupcake before dragging Takeshi back to the back of the bus while saying something about a nap.

I chuckled as I bit into the cupcake. "Wow, he really does make wild assumptions, doesn't he…?"

Yasuhiro yawned, "He does."

A few hours on the bus had me falling asleep on Yasuhiro's shoulder as everyone else around us was either falling asleep or was asleep. I snuggled into his arm and relaxed to take a nap. I had no idea what time it was seeing as we were in tunnel, but it had to be pretty late if we were all this tired.

Yasuhiro suddenly took a deep relaxing breath and then jerked up to a standing position. I looked up at him through tired eyes as he struggled to pull the window down with no luck. I was about to ask him what he was doing when he just as suddenly plopped back down into his seat and said, "Fuck."

With little more thought about that, I dropped my head back on his shoulder and fell asleep.

I woke up whenever I felt someone shaking my shoulder roughly. I sat up slowly, holding my throbbing head. Great, a headache!

I blinked a few times and looked down at the desk I'm seated at, completely confused for a few moments. I looked up at the person holding my shoulder and see Yasuhiro standing there with a thin silver collar around his neck, and a look on his face that was both terrified and sad.

"Yasu—"

"Kirie, I'm so sorry." He leaned forward and wrapped his arms around me in a tight hug. "I couldn't prevent this no matter how hard I tried."

"What're you—"

"Sit down!" The door of the classroom slid open loudly as a woman walked in wearing almost business-like attire. Black silk pants, a red silk blouse, and black pumps. Her long black hair was in a bun at the top of her head. Behind her ran in fifteen soldiers.

At the sight of the soldiers, everyone who had been standing, talking to friend or whatever, went back to the seats they sat back in our classroom.

"My name is Miaka Sakamochi," the woman announced, "and I am your new instructor."

Somewhere behind me, someone raised their hand. Sakamochi pointed to them. "Yes?"

"Where is Higurashi-Sensei?" I knew that high-pitched voice without needing to look back; it was Yuu Goshima (Female Student Number 17). Even so, I looked back at her to see her long black hair frizzed out, her green eyes full of confusion, her pale skin even paler than usual, and the same metal collar around her neck as everyone else.

Sakamochi waved her hand in front of her face as if that were a pointless question. "Ichigo Higurashi is…tied up right now. I promise you'll see him later."

In the seat in front of me, Takeshi raised his hand. Sakamochi acknowledged him, and he stood up to ask a question. "Sakamochi-Sensei, could you explain why we're here? We believed this to be a study trip."

She smiled wickedly. "Why, of course, I can. Your class has been—" She stopped talking when one of the male students ran up to the front of the class with his fist raised. It was only whenever the soldiers restrained him that I could see it was Yasuhiro.

"You bitch!" He struggled against the soldiers, trying to get to Sakamochi, but failing.

Strangely enough, she seemed…amused, in a word, by his behavior. Her smile had suddenly gone from wicked to pleased almost. "Well, well, I didn't expect to see you ever again."

"Yasuhiro?" I stood up and just looked at him; unable to believe the rage he seemed to have for Sakamochi. "What're you doing?"

"Let us go!" He still struggled. "Take us back to Shiroiwa!"

"Sorry, Watsuki, but I can't do that." She scratched the back of her head resignedly. "I should probably suggest that we don't put the class in the lottery that we sent the last winner to. This just makes things unfair."

"What're you talking about?" Everyone looked at me when I demanded to know – I never really was social in any meaning of the word during class.

Sakamochi glared at me. "Sit down! You did not raise your hand, and I did not acknowledge you!"

Even if she hadn't told me to sit down, I would've. Her glare was more than enough to send chills down my spine. Without another mumbled word, I sat down in my seat.

One of the soldiers grabbed Yasuhiro's arm and twisted it around, turning him towards the rest of the class before pushing him back in the direction of his seat. With a growl, he walked back to his seat and sat down.

"Now that I'm sure I have everyone's attention, I believe I will take any questions at this time," Sakamochi said calmly.

I looked around and saw that Kyo Aramaki (Male Student Number 2) had his hand raised. He was a bookworm-y kind of guy, with pasty pale skin, bowl cut black hair, narrow black eyes, and horn-rimmed glasses that looked just plain out terrible on his face.

She acknowledged him, and he stood up. "Sakamochi-Sensei, what are we doing here? Is there a lesson, or something?"

"Ah, yes." She turned towards the chalkboard behind her. "This is a 'study trip' after all, so there must be a lesson." She grabbed the chalk. "Today's lesson is," she wrote something and down and moved out of the way so that she could read what she wrote while we read it, "you have to kill each other."

The room went dead silent, people – myself included – even stopped breathing when we heard those words. Sakamochi acknowledged someone else behind me who had raised their hand. I looked back to see that it was Ryoko Mitsuki (Female Student Number 16). She had long hair pulled back into a long ponytail, narrow black eyes, and pale white skin.

"Kill each other? I don't understand. How is that a lesson?"

Sakamochi sighed and shook her head before hauling herself onto the desk at the front of the room. "Useless kids," she mumbled. She looked at us seriously. "Have you ever heard of the 'BR Act'?" She looked around for a moment and then sighed again. "In a nutshell: a generation ago, junior high school students boycotted school when unemployment was at an all-time high. The older generation feared the younger, stronger populace, and therefore passed this act. Of course, now that I think about it, you probably know this act by a different name." She smiled wickedly again. "How about…The Program…?"

My eyes went wide at the sound of those words. Behind me, a group of girls screamed.

40 Students Remaining