"…You can come out now." Shujinkou scratched his right cheek as he watched someone step out from the shadow of a nearby beam.
"…How'd you know I was here?" Natsuki questioned.
"Actually… I didn't," Shujinkou timidly admitted, his eyes swimming around.
"Eh?! You mean you bluffed me?!"
"I was actually just saying that since… Never mind."
Shujinkou scratched his right cheek awkwardly.
"I guess you saw all that, huh?" he asked.
Natsuki nodded her head. "…Sorry. I didn't mean to, but…"
"It's fine. I'm really getting used to being overheard and seen anyway."
Shujinkou fell to the ground with a loud "plop." He was so exhausted; he wasn't sure if he could move for the rest of the night.
"…You okay?" Natsuki sat down beside him while maintaining some distance. "I uh… I've never seen you like that before."
"Nearly crying? I mean, you already saw cry before so…"
"Not that. I meant… I don't know. Not mad, but… I guess you did sound a little mad at first, but you're not usually so riled up. Which is really saying something considering you've been through a lot of things that could have made you like that."
"Yeah, well… I guess even I have a limit…" Shujinkou chuckled awkwardly. "But it's over now so-"
"Dummy…" Natsuki slid closer to Shujinkou and embraced him. "You don't always have to bury your feelings for our sakes."
Bury my feelings… Shujinkou felt something build up in his chest as those words echoed in his head. They were another trigger. This is just like…
Shujinkou gently pushed Natsuki away and rose to his feet. His expression was dark and vacant.
"H-Hey…"
Before she could say what was on her mind, Shujinkou offered his hand, assisting Natsuki up.
"C'mon, we have somewhere to be, don't we?" Shujinkou lips curled into a smile that could light up a room.
Natsuki was both dumbfounded and enthralled by it, leaving her only able to nod.
Finding the campfire site was easy thanks to the rising smoke. Everyone had already gathered together.
"Just made it." As soon as Shujinkou and Natsuki arrived, they were each given a pointy stick by Rei.
Shujinkou eyed the tip of the stick, lightly pressing his index finger against it before jabbing it in the air a few times.
"I've already confirmed their pointiness," Sayori said proudly. "You just need to keep them away from your neck."
"…Why would we have them near our necks?" Natsuki questioned.
Shujinkou knew the answer, but figured it was best to keep his mouth shut. Instead, he settled himself neatly next to the fire.
Kiyoko tossed large marshmallows for everyone to catch and soon after, everyone held them over the fire.
"Gotta say, I didn't expect you to spot a fire pit here, Kiyoko," Fuyu admitted.
Kiyoko shrugged. "My grandparents said it was nice to have."
"Granny Hisa said she wanted to install one at her resort, but didn't trust people to not do something dangerous," Sayori reminisced the lesson she once gave her about proper campfire etiquette.
There's only one person I know here that wouldn't hesitate to do something dangerous with fire… Natsuki snuck a peek at Mali, only to discover Mali was ready to meet her leering eyes.
"Only if someone is in my way, Natsuki-chan," Mali giggled, sending chills down Natsuki's spine as usual.
"Ahem." Monika cleared her throat, garnering everyone's attention. "I just wanted to say this before we get too into this – We still have a lot of studying to do so we shouldn't stay up too late tonight."
Everyone agreed with the sentiment. Everyone agreed, but Shujinkou. Once again, he was eerily quiet.
"Shiko?"
"Hm? Oh, sorry. I was just thinking." Shujinkou said.
"Really? Whatcha thinking about this time, Senpai?" Mali questioned.
"I was just thinking that the last time I sat around a campfire like this was with Gramps," he admitted.
"Your grandfather? Did you happen to accompany him on one of his legendary adventures?" Yuri asked.
"It wasn't really an adventure. Well, not like movie level adventures, but with Gramps he can make even the mundane stuff fell epic."
Plus, I'd be lucky if I could prove my worth at the end of one given how kid me was.
"You see, one of the last things I did with him was go on a camping trip him. I remember Hiroko and Sayori wanted to go too, but Gramps said it was a 'Men's Bonding Trip.'"
"I'm still a little upset by that…" Sayori pouted.
"It wasn't personal Sayori and you two still got to do something with Granny Hisa," Shujinkou pointed out.
"I still wanted to go camping…" Sayori refused to budge, bloating her cheeks with all the indignation she could muster.
He realized it was pointless to argue and decided to continue with his tale. "…Where was I? Oh right. We did a lot of things out in the wilderness. They were fun, though Gramps did have to bail me out of a few things. I never thought I'd see someone fight a horde of wasps without the spray stuff and win."
"How'd he do that?" Fuyu questioned.
"With his bare hands and ingenuity."
"Bare hands?" Fuyu gasped.
Shujinkou nodded. It was a feat not many would try, but even then, he knew deep down if anyone could pull it off, his grandfather could.
"And at the end of the day, we talked about a lot of things by the campfire. He told me more stories about what he and Granny Hisa did when they were younger and also told me a lot of things that I should know when I grow up and other things. We even fell asleep watching the stars, Gramps pointing out constellations and us making up ones together."
Plus there was what Gramps told me as we headed home.
"He promised that he'd bring the others along next time, but… He passed away. That promise was always on my mind for weeks after. Not really because of me, but because I knew that it bothered Hiroko.
Everyone was busy, so I couldn't exactly go anywhere so I decided to give her a similar experience in our yard. Well, it started that way, but it kind of became our own camping experience. I think Mom ended up carrying us inside when we eventually ended up falling asleep outside of our tent.
That was also pretty fun. I always wanted to go on a real camping trip with her but… I think all things considered that was a real one. We couldn't have a real campfire, but that didn't stop us from eating all the marshmallows. Thinking about it, that's probably why we ended up fainting in the yard."
Shujinkou moved his marshmallow away from the fire and cooled it down with a few quick breaths. Once sure it wouldn't burn his tongue, he happily chowed down on it.
"…Ah, so that's the choice you made, Senpai." Mali said.
"Hm? What do you mean?"
"I was just thinking that Senpai is a lot more talkative about himself all of a sudden."
"R-Really?"
"Really. You've been all over the place emotionally today," Natsuki playfully shoved him, causing Shujinkou's cheeks to further.
"It's been a day." From an outsider's perspective, after enduring mental and emotional manipulation and trauma in such a short amount of time, today should have been a pretty bad day. However, when he thought about it, and how it led to this moment-
"Oh, yeah. Kiyo, do you think you could play us a song?" Sayori requested.
"Way ahead of ya," Kiyoko reached behind her back and pulled out her guitar. "Any suggestions?"
"Natsuki-chan, don't you want to hear your favorite sponge's song for this moment?" Mali teased.
Natsuki rolled her eyes, with a small, amused smile on her face. "Shut up…"
Kiyoko shifted her gaze to Shujinkou.
"Me?"
"Yeah, you have anything you want to hear?"
That was a tough question. There were a lot of songs that Shujinkou would like to hear Kiyoko to cover. "Uhm… Could you play "Calling to the Night" from Portable Ops?"
"There's a good one." After she finished tuning her strings, Kiyoko began playing an acoustic rendition of the song. Ethereal wouldn't be enough to describe what he heard, and he found himself reciting the lyrics in his head.
They made him once again think about the day he's had.
From an outsider's perspective, today should have been a bad day when all was said and done. Even with a nice moment to cap it off, it would still be a bad day for some.
But as Shujinkou looked around, one thing was clear.
This one moment made it all worth it.