I've got you!

You can feel the difference from the moment you step off the plane. Okinawa is influenced by China, the United States and Southeast Asia, and is known as the place that is least like Japan.

Yuko and the others were not in Naha, the main port city, but in Ishigaki City, which belongs to the Yaeyama Islands. As one of the islands, it is at the same latitude as Hawaii and enjoys sunshine all year round, attracting not only domestic tourists but also many foreign tourists.

Sitting on the air-conditioned bus that picked us up from the hotel, the scenery along the way was also very beautiful. The shimmering sea in the distance looked especially lovely in the summer.

It was July, the peak tourist season, and there was a bit of traffic on the road, but we arrived smoothly.

After entering the hotel, the girls went to the front desk to check in. After the staff checked their check-in information, they took them to their rooms.

"Why are there so many people?" Mitani remarked casually. A hundred-strong group of teenagers entered the hotel shortly after them and filled the lobby to the brim; it was impossible to pretend they hadn't seen them.

"It seems like a school organized a study trip," Yuko explained, adding that she had overheard people checking in at the front desk talking about it.

“That’s great! Our school seems to be going on a school trip in the woods,” Ichigo said. Except for Yuko and Emma, ​​everyone else is a third-year student. They’ll probably be going on a school trip after the start of the new semester, but the departure date and location will vary depending on the school.

“But school trips are relatively rare at this time of year,” Nono said, continuing the conversation.

The group followed the waiter and took the elevator to the twelfth floor.

The waiter who opened the door for them was all smiles, and he didn't slack off even though they were a group of middle school students. He introduced them to the room: "This is your room, the only Japanese-style room in our establishment. There is a huge terrace outside where you can relax and enjoy the sea view. There is also a private swimming pool."

"No, just one room?" Draken asked him to confirm.

"Yes, the VIP guest who called to reserve the room said they wanted the most luxurious and best room, so this is our best room." Indeed, it was a luxurious room, with tatami flooring and a wooden structure throughout. At first glance, the room appeared to be divided into four spaces. The door led to a reception room, and behind a wall was a tea room. On either side of the tea room were two spacious rooms with elegant furnishings, as well as a sea-view terrace and a swimming pool.

Yuko, standing to the side, was a bit troubled. She wondered which of her uncles had booked the room; their methods seemed unreliable, and this situation was rather awkward. She asked, "Can we change it?"

"It might not be possible. As you can see, the rooms are already full at this time. And if you check out, you can only get a 20% refund of the accommodation fee, so I don't really recommend that you do that."

"Just close the door and it'll be fine." Nono didn't think there was anything wrong with it. It wasn't like they were really sharing a room. Although the doors were just paper doors, they weren't bad except for not being soundproof. So she said to Yuko, "Let's just stay here like this. It seems like it would be too much trouble to find another hotel."

Yuko looked at everyone with a hint of guilt: "What do you all think?"

"We're fine."

"It's more fun with more people."

"Don't worry, I'll keep an eye on these guys."

"Huh? You're the one who needs to be kept under surveillance the most, okay?"

The group of people, with their many mouths, started arguing again, but they did decide to stay here.

It's still early, and there's still some time before lunch.

This is where the differences between men and women become apparent. The boys are eager to get to the beach; they grab their swimsuits and rush off before they've even put their luggage down. The girls, on the other hand, aren't in such a hurry; they need time to put their luggage down and get ready.

After the girls finished getting ready, they carried their small bags containing their swimsuits to the beach, where there were changing rooms. Meanwhile, the hotel called to ask what time they wanted lunch, and whether they wanted it delivered to their room or in a private room on the second floor. They estimated the time and made their arrangements.

Three girls arrived at the beach, where Mikey and the others were burying Apa in the sand…

Aba, buried in the sand, had only his head sticking out. Then, Draken, taking advantage of his height and strength, went around grabbing people. First, he caught a tiger and threw it into the sea without saying a word, splashing up a huge spray of water.

Yi Hu floated on the surface of the sea, laughing heartily. He swam up to Draken and cheekily said he wanted to do it again. Seeing this, Mikey and the venue stopped running and followed Yi Hu in line.

“They’re having too much fun, I’m going to talk to them,” Nono said seriously, then ran towards them. But instead of lecturing them as she said she would, she lined up at the back of the field and eagerly called out to Draken, “Next, me, me.”

Yuko/Emma: ...

"Hey, who's going to dig me out?" Apa shouted at the sky, still buried in the sand.

“Let’s go too.” Emma pulled Yuko along and walked into the sea.

Over there, Draken, who was entangled and had no choice, started throwing. Mikey drew a beautiful arc in the air and then crashed into the sea. When he swam back, Emma and Yuko also came over, with Emma in front and Yuko behind.

Yuko, her feet soaked by seawater, stepped onto the soft sand. Looking down, she saw the tide receding, and somehow, she knelt down in the direction the tide was going. Yuko stood up on her own, but just as she regained her balance, another wave surged ashore. Seeing the incoming water, Yuko felt as if someone had removed her support and she fell backward. Emma noticed something was wrong and quickly caught her. "Yuko, are you alright?"

Yuko's face was as pale as paper. She didn't know what was wrong with her. She looked down at her feet and, with the crashing of the waves, she felt like she was losing her balance and almost fell to her knees again. Her stomach was churning like the waves.

"What's wrong with her?" Mikey asked as he approached.

Emma, ​​who was being clung to by Yuko like a lifeline, frantically beckoned Mikey to come and lend a hand, "Mikey, come and help!"

"Troublesome." With that, Mikey simply pulled the person off Emma and carried her away.

Yes, we're moving.

He carried the person on his shoulders like a sack of potatoes.

Yuko, who was struggling to catch her breath with her stomach being pushed up, had a pale face flushed red from the blood rushing to her head. Because she wanted to speak, the upside-down position caused her to choke on her own saliva. After being put down, Yuko sat on the dry sand and coughed violently.

"What's wrong?! What happened? Do you need CPR?!" A shirtless blond man appeared out of nowhere, sprinting like a 100-meter dash.

Yuko covered her mouth with one hand while coughing and waved her other hand frantically to indicate that she was fine.

"Young lady, don't force yourself," the man said to himself.

"Who are you?" Mikey retorted rudely.

The man glanced at Mikey, Emma, ​​and Yuko, stroking his chin in confusion: "Hmm? You're all unfamiliar faces."

“We don’t know you either, uncle,” Emma said to him speechlessly.

"Aren't you students at our school?!" the man exclaimed in shock, then noticed the way Emma addressed him and shouted back, "No, who's the 'uncle'? I'm only 22!"

Emma didn't care how old he was or bother to complain. She asked Yuko with concern, "Yuko, are you alright?"

Yuko, who had finally stopped coughing, calmed her breathing. Her voice was a little hoarse from the violent coughing: "I'm fine. I don't know why, but I felt a little uncomfortable looking at the waves just now."

She thought to herself that she had never seen anything like this on TV.

The man beside him suddenly realized and said, "You're seasickness, right? It's the same as motion sickness or seasickness. But I've only ever seen it in children. You're so old and you still get seasick? Looks like you're still a kid."

“I’m fourteen years old, a big girl!” Yuko said, a little unconvinced.

"You should lose your virginity before saying such things," the man said casually.

Yuko blushed deeply at his vulgar words.

"Hey, don't go too far." Mikey stood in front of Yuko, blocking the man's view, his pupils bulging like a beast poised to pounce.

The man wasn't intimidated by Mikey's murderous aura. He grinned and said, "Blonde...a delinquent?"

He himself is blond.

This person is none other than Onizuka Eikichi, one of the legendary Oni-Baku duo from Shonan, and Danma Ryuji's best friend. Now he works as a homeroom teacher at a private middle school, and his class is known throughout the school as a hotbed of problem students.

Eikichi Onizuka, falsely accused of embezzling funds meant for a school trip, boasted that he would treat all one hundred-plus third-year students to a school trip to Okinawa. His confidence stemmed from a malicious policeman who gave him a fake lottery ticket, nearly forcing him to work as a laborer on a bluefin tuna fishing boat and become a seaman. If it weren't for his best friend Ryuji Danma giving him a lottery ticket from the shopping district that won him an eight-million-yen Mercedes, he would never have been able to fulfill his promise. In short, he's an unlucky yet not entirely unlucky man. Incidentally, despite his vulgar language and seemingly shameless behavior, he's a complete virgin.

To paraphrase Nagase, Ryuji Danma's girlfriend: Eikichi would probably be very popular if he lived in a primitive society.

In short, Onizuka Eikichi is a muscular (second-degree black belt in karate, and captain of the karate club in university) but simple-minded (he got his teacher's certificate through a hired gunman).

The two golden retrievers, one big and one small, stared at each other. One had a hostile look in his eyes, while the other looked relaxed. Yuko and Emma sensed that the atmosphere was tense, as if the two were about to start fighting at any moment.

"Teacher—" Onizuka Eikichi's student ran over from the side, but still confused as to what had happened, "What happened?"

"It was this old man who saved a little girl, you know, that..." Onizuka Eikichi, spouting nonsense, raised his chin and looked at Yuko, "What's your name again?"

Yuko, who had already stood up, subconsciously replied, "Yuko, my name is Takiya Yuko."

“Takiya…” Onizuka suddenly remembered something, “You’re Genji’s sister. That siscon called me yesterday and said I should keep an eye on her if I saw her.”

Actually, he was talking nonsense. Genji Takiya's original words were: My sister is also going to Okinawa. If you see her, you'd better stay away from her.

Onizuka Eikichi went up and put his arm around Yuko's shoulder, patting her with a laugh: "You're Genji's sister, so you're my sister, hahahahaha."

"Are you someone your brother knows?" Yuko asked him.

“We’re not just acquaintances, we’ve known each other for years, more like best friends.” Onizuka Eikichi replied with a smile, then felt a gaze fixed on his hand. Onizuka Eikichi’s playful eyes darted back and forth between Yuko and Mikey, as if he had discovered something. He was surprisingly a man who was rough around the edges but also very perceptive.

Not only that, he was also a very childish person. He stroked his chin like a lewd old man and coaxed Yuko, "Yuko, do you want a boyfriend? I have someone I highly recommend." Then he called over the student who had just come to see him, "Yoshikawa, let me introduce you to a beautiful girl."

Yoshikawa Noboru, a student of Onizuka Eikichi, is a student in Class 4 of the third year, taught by Onizuka. He is timid by nature and has attempted suicide several times due to bullying by several female students in his class. However, with Onizuka's help, his cowardly personality has changed. He looks at his teacher with a headache: "Teacher, please don't do such troublesome things..."

"What's bothering you? Yoshikawa, you should sometimes show some manliness. You should go for pretty girls."

Yoshikawa Noboru sighed, "Teacher, you're going off on a tangent. I'm going back now, so come with me!" Even though he was the student who needed to be taken care of, he seemed more like a sensible adult compared to Onizuka. Yoshikawa Noboru and Yuko apologized quietly and then pulled the noisy Onizuka away.

"It's surprising that Xiaoyou's brother has a friend like this." Emma's impression of Yuanzhi was that he was a cool guy who exuded an aura of aloofness and didn't talk much. He was completely different from this kind of sleazy person.

Yuko remembered something and told Emma, ​​"I think I heard my brother and Mr. Shinichiro mention that they have a friend who is a teacher in Kanagawa."

"Can someone like that really be a good teacher?" Emma was very skeptical.

Yuko didn't answer directly, but smiled and said, "His students are worried about him."

"You know Shinichiro?" Mikey heard the familiar name and looked at Yuko with a puzzled expression.

“Xiaoyou’s brother and Zhen’s brother are friends. Didn’t I tell you that?” Emma was annoyed by her brother’s tendency to ignore what others said. He was always like that, never bothering to remember things he wasn’t interested in.

Mikey, who was being complained about by his sister, smiled awkwardly. He not only didn't remember, but he couldn't even remember whether Yuko's surname was Takiya or Takishima.

"What are you doing here? Didn't you go out to play?" Mitani and Mitsu returned with drinks.

“Xiaoyou is seasick, so I’m resting here with her,” Emma replied.

"Thank you for your hard work," Yuko said to them.

"That's terrible?" Mitani said, pulling open the plastic bag containing the drinks. "Does that mean we can't go swimming?"

"It's okay." Yuko was also a little disappointed, since she had never been to the beach before, but she just hoped that her seasickness would not cause any more trouble for everyone.

Emma rummaged through the bag, took out her favorite juice, and also got Yuko a lemonade. Mitani handed him a bottle of Mikey's favorite drink, and casually remarked when he saw the drink in Yuko's hand, "Emma, ​​the bottle you got for Yuko is what Mitani wanted."

"Huh?" Yuko looked at Santu.

"It's okay, you can drink it." Santu's attitude was completely different from his previous unruly attitude in front of Yuko. His eyes, which were not covered by the mask, were even curved as if he was smiling.

Yuko couldn't help but step forward and touch his forehead, murmuring, "He doesn't have a fever. Is something else bothering Haru Chiya?"

Three ways to make a good impression on Mikey: Although I really want to take a picture of this hand, I have to hold back!

He instinctively looked at Mikey, only to meet Mikey's displeased gaze. Santu was startled, looking at Yuko with a surge of emotion in his eyes, carrying an imperceptible anger.

"Don't touch my forehead." Santu's tone dropped ten degrees, and he couldn't help but reach out and brush Yuko's hand away.

Everything's back to normal. Yuko breathed a sigh of relief. She knew it. Yuko smiled, not minding Santu's rude behavior at all. She even generously offered Santu his lemonade: "Don't make people worry."

Santu ignored her completely and headed towards Draken and the others with the bag to deliver drinks.

"Why do you seem to care a lot about Santu, Yuko? And you seem to call him by his first name directly, while you only call us by our surnames." Mitani was a little curious about the interaction between the two.

“Yuko also calls Kazutaka by his name directly,” Emma corrected Mitani.

“Because I didn’t know his surname when I met Ichiko-kun,” Yuko explained. “If Mitani-kun wishes, I can also call you Takashi-kun.”

Being called by your name directly can be quite damaging, and Mitani, feeling inexplicably embarrassed, said, "No, you should still just call me Mitani."

“Mitani, you’re blushing!” Emma pointed it out with a grin.

"Fool, it's because it's too hot. I'm leaving." Mitani shouted and headed towards Draken.

Watching Mitani's retreating figure, Yuko realized that different ways of addressing others could be interpreted differently by them. In a flash, Yuko remembered a phrase that Asanuma Nono had once said: differential treatment is a signal.

Unlike Yuko and the others who met much later, Nono, who was entitled to call them by their names, always called them by their surnames. Only Keisuke, who was in charge of the venue, called him childishly, "Kei-chan".

Is it because they were childhood sweethearts?

wrong.

She and Sano Manjiro were childhood friends.

Yuko had an absurd idea: Nono likes Jichang-kun.

However, Yuko wasn't the only one making bold conjectures here.

Sano Manjiro also realized a problem.

Why doesn't Yuko call him Mikey?

Either she dislikes it so much that she deliberately calls her by her surname in a distant manner, or she feels ashamed when she is called by her first name.

Mikey immediately ruled out the former possibility; he wasn't the kind of person who was oblivious to being disliked. If it were the latter, she could simply ask Mitani if ​​he wanted to call him Takayuki, showing that she didn't mind calling someone by their first name.

Yes, I don't care. Because I don't care, I can act as if nothing's wrong, but what if I did care?

Mikey had a slight smile on his lips, like a fisherman seeing his float trembling as it's being pecked at by a fish.

I've got you.