75 Camp Dining

"Ishi got bit by a snake!?" Otoya asked with a concerned look on his face. This fact didn't stop him from stuffing his face as they were gathered around a small dinner table for the camp counselors. "That's horrible, how come no one told me about it until now?" Since he had been hanging around Ishi's dad, the boy was a little bit out of the loop when it came to events.

Though he was surprised that being with the boy's father didn't mean that they'd be informed of such an incident. "And I see Youna also got hurt." She had her right hand wrapped up after they had stopped the bleeding.

"I'm fine now though." She replied, lightly touching the wound. "It's nothing compared to what happened to Ishi."

"Yeah…" Rinse followed up, her face turned down in front of her meal. "It only happened because of me…"

"Sheesh, you're all talking like I'm dead or something." Another voice entered the cabin as the front door opened up. In came Ishi, looking as he always did except for having some bandages wrapped around his right hand.

"Eh!?" They were all in shock seeing him here and not sent to the hospital.

"What? But you got bit by a snake." Ryugi asked in awe of his presence.

"Yeah, a nonvenomous one." He answered. It was incredibly lucky that the snake that crawled into her shirt and bit his hand was simply a Japanese four-lined ratsnake. While they were of a fair size, that species held no venom in their fangs. "It's a good thing me throwing it knocked the snake out. So when one of the adults came to give me aid, they were able to determine that I was going to be safe."

"You really are one lucky boy." Otoya shook his head in relief. "All right then, let's dig in." He said, despite already having his fair share.

"You really don't sound that concerned." Chinae scolded him. "Isn't he supposed to be your best friend?"

"But he's fine?" He replied with a bewildering response.

"He's right." Ishi agreed with his friend. "My life's not in danger, so there's no point in worrying over me anymore." Once he put the nail on that coffin, he quickly scanned the room for one specific person. "Are you all right, Youna?"

"I'm-" Before she was able to finish her response, he sat down besides her to examine the girl's wounded hand. Not caring for what space there was, Ishi chose to sit by her as they ate around the table, much to the displeasure of the rest of the girls. Meanwhile, she was flustered by his sudden movement towards her. "I'm... Fine."

"It doesn't sound like you are." He waited impatiently for her answer.

"I'm fine, really." She couldn't maintain eye contact as she showed off her injury. "My hand hurts a little, but they told me it'll heal without stitches.

"That's good to hear." He said as he observed her wrapped up hand.

"Oh hey, we both got hurt on the same hand." She took note of his wrappings that were also covering his right hand. "I guess we can be injured buddies." Immediately, in her head, she regretting saying something so embarrassing. Mentally, the girl beat herself up over being so cheesy with him.

"I guess so." He didn't pay mind to how silly it sounded. At the moment, the boy was only concerned that she got injured on his watch. "Will you be able to eat with that hand?"

"Like I said, it only hurts a little bit. So I should be good."

"Sheesh. You know she's, like, an adult?" Ryugi was getting a little tired of this display. "Class rep's 18 now, so I don't think she needs someone taking care of her."

"Y-yeah, she's right." Youna quietly agreed, but privately disagreed in the sense that she wanted this doting nature of his to continue.

"True, she is older than me." Ishi backed off and looked on the table to see what their food for the night was going to be. Since this was a camping trip, nothing was particularly fancy. Though having rice with a few assortments of meats and veggies wasn't anything to scoff at either.

"You don't have to be so mean to someone who's just trying to be nice." It was uncharacteristic of Chinae to defend Ishi the way she did. Despite her feelings on the matter, he was only just watching out for someone. "He's almost never like this, so why punish him for it?"

"No, she's right." Despite being the one who was being defended. He understood the criticism. "We talked about it at the lake, and she's right to tell me that I shouldn't feel so responsible about what happened to Youna." Things like this were bound to happen during a camping trip. That's why they were brought along to make sure that nothing serous happened to the younger students.

"But, I guess we're the ones who gave off the most trouble." Rinse spoke up. Her mood was a lot more down than usual at the dinner table.

"Rinse…" His tone was something that none of them had ever heard before. "I get how you feel." Ishi's words got everyone to be silent as he paused for a short moment to look at his hand. "Even when you know accidents can happen, you can't help but blame yourself."

"But it's different." She argued. "You could've died today if it was any other snake. Because of my carelessness, something serious could've happened."

"Is it really?" He countered. "When you all first heard that Youna got hurt, you were all concerned that she got burned because of her role. When it turned out to only be a cut, you were all relieved." In essence, even if the potential result could've been life threatening, he was no different. They should all be more relieved that the snake that did get him was nonvenomous.

"And it's also because you chose to save her, right?" Youna and the others had been told what exactly happened that led up to him getting bit. They could've lived without some of the more… Intimate details, but the point was he purposefully put himself at risk to save her. "I was the one who chose to take the knife, so I knew there was some risk involved too." Though the young class representative was disappointed that she was unable to light the fire.

"You're right." Ishi agreed. "So let's put an end to this and finally get some food." He was starving after going through everything that had happened today. When the boy took his first bite, he was massively displeased with the flavor.

The problem wasn't that whoever cooked this did a poor job. He simply still had the taste of copper in his mouth from after getting bit from the snake. Back then, the instant he was free from the creature's grip, Ishi immediately went to sucking blood out of his hand in a desperate attempt to take out any venom. It was a bit silly of him to try a maneuver that he had witnessed in an anime, but in his mind he was doing everything he could to make sure today wasn't his last day.

"Well, it's been a long day." Said Chinae as they finished up dinner. "I'm going to head to bed." There was only one problem with that plan.

"So who's sleeping in what bed?" The cabin had six beds for all of them. Not a problem until one noted that it was three on each side, and with four girls and two boys, that meant one girl was going to be sleeping next to one of the boys. At least, that's what everyone but Ishi thought it was going to be like.

"Who said the arrangement has to be like that?" He questioned them as they had attempted to convince the boy that he was to sleep next to one of the girls. "We'd just be taking the obvious division we saw when we first walked into the door." But if they did something else, then perhaps things wouldn't be so awkward. He gave the suggestion that Otyoa and him sleep across from the each other. That way, the four girls would have their own square section to be together with.

"How about the two of you sleep in the middle beds then?" Ryugi suggested.

"That kind of defeats the purpose of what I was trying to fix." He replied, but everyone else overrode his opinion. So much for the girls being able to sleep next to each other. Now they would be divided up between the boys.

"I can live with this" Otoya said as he jumped onto one of the beds. Being able to sleep between two girls was a bit of a dream come true. Meanwhile, Ishi sighed and resigned himself to taking the other side because no one was on his side.

"I call this bed." Ryugi was quick to take one of the beds besides Ishi. Rinse was just as quick in obtaining the other one, which meant that this set up was not too dissimilar to the way it was during the road trip here.

"Call whatever beds you want." Ishi said, practically done with this day. "I'm tired, so let me sleep tonight." He plopped himself into bed as they turned out the lights. The boy closed his eyes to try and drift off to sleep. Surely, a good night's rest would revitalize his spirits. The strain had been pretty hard, so this was very much desired by him. So that was totally what he was going to get tonight, right?