Gigantic Forest

"Takeuchi,"

"Takeuchii!"

Hearing his name being called out, he turned around and found a young girl with blonde hair and cute lips filling his vision. Somehow, her tired expression made her eyes look even more intimidating.

"Oh, it's you, Asaka," Takeuchi said, holding bottles in his hands.

Asaka Rumiko was a friendly girl in his class. Somehow she always talked to him, and with her cute appearance, Takeuchi always wondered why she wasn't that popular in class.

With a uniform just like any high school student, with long blonde hair, and cute features on her face, but intimidating at the same time. she would make any man fall in love with her.

I mean, I would be okay if we were dating... Takeuchi thought somehow unbothered by the thought.

But what bothered Takeuchi about her was that her presence was so thin, as a part-time gossiper Takeuchi wasn't able to hear much rumor about her. It was as if her presence wasn't exists, it was weird because with that looks anyone would talk about her surely. But besides all that, she was kind to everyone and that was enough for him.

"Sigh, where you focus on, and luckily for you, I would be happy to help you fetch fresh water," Asaka said with a tired smile on her face.

When Takeuchi heard that, he just realized that she was carrying bottles, but still, it was a fortune for them to get transport with their bags on their backs.

After they got assigned roles, then they listed everything they need to do, for people who didn't have anything to do, were assigned tasks, just like Takeuchi, who got a task to fill up the bottles.

"People were busy with extra practice, don't you join them, it seems fun," she asked as she filled the bottle.

"No, I was tired and I wasn't that strong anyway, doing tasks is more my style," Takeuchi replied, as he filled up one of a bottle.

"That's true," she said.

Silence filled the atmosphere as they filled the bottles in silence, the sound of a stream and crickets still echoing around them making it even more soothing. This atmosphere somehow reminded Takeuchi of their second-year school trip.

Sigh, that was a long time ago, we went to Kyoto, I miss taking a bath there, it was so relaxing... Takeuchi thought.

"Yep, I think that's enough," He said as he finished filling the bottles.

"Takeuchi," Asaka said suddenly.

"What?" Takeuchi asked as he looked at Asaka. She seemed to have something on her mind which make Takeuchi curious about what bothered her.

"Nothing it just. Um, fufufu, it seems you don't care much about our situation," she said after a while.

Looking at her eyes, which were intimidating by default, he felt that she was hiding something, but then decided to let it slide and said, "Well, you didn't mind much either."

"Yeah, because it was fun," Asaka said as we walked away from the river. "And we were together in it, so I thought, maybe, it wasn't so bad after all,"

"Yeah, I agreed," Takeuchi said, seeing from a distance that my classmates seemed to be concentrating on getting practice.

Of course, I don't want any of this, but so far we were fine, and somehow for some reason, the emptiness in my heart is getting filled since we arrived in this world...

Whatever bothered her was none of my business, but maybe later, when she was ready, I'm sure she'll tell me directly... Takeuchi thought as he sighed.

Two days later, around noon, they arrived at the front of the forest. Since Takeuchi rarely goes to the forest, he doesn't know if the trees in front of him are normal or not, but judging from other people's reactions, he guessed that they were thinking the same thing he was.

The height of the tree was like a tower that almost reached the sky, if Takeuchi may guess, the height of the tree was like a tall hotel building or even a Tokyo Tower, and with a size like a football field, it made the forest so terrifying as if you were looking at a row of giants.

From distance the forest was normal, because it was still far away. And in modern world there wasn't much to do in the forest so the groups rarely goes to the forest, even if some how they do surely they know that the trees wasn't that gigantic on size. Now that they were standing in the front of it. They were blow away by how gigantic the trees was as they doesn't really thought much about it size before.

"So huge!" exclaimed Nagata, obviously amazed and terrified at the same time. "And so scary!"

"I'm sure there's a monster in there," said Tanimoto, amazed at the forest.

"Are you sure we should go in there?" Takeuchi said, looking at the gigantic forest.

From a distance, somehow the forest looks normal, but now, just looking at it, I want to curl up into a ball because of its gigantic size... Takeuchi thought.

"Don't worry about it," Yoshihama said, sounding unsure of what he had just said. "I'm sure we'll be fine, and since we're already here, it's too late to back out now."

"Sigh, there seems to be no other way," Nakahara said, resigning himself to his fate. "We should avoid dangerous animals if we can."

"Going our separate ways would be a bad idea," said a young man with neat hair who appeared next to Nakahara. Then he casually stretched his body in preparation for the worst. "So don't try anything stupid, everyone, it would depend on our luck from here."

Where did that guy come from?... Takeuchi thought somehow amazed how he was appeared suddenly.

Medium height figure was stretching as he look toward the forest and with short, neat hair, he wore a uniform just like the rest of the group.

His name was Hatano Koto, and from what Takeuchi heard. He was a diligent student much like Nakahara, which make him into Nakahara's team.

Takeuchi rarely talk to him but from what he observe he was a clean freak.

In the classroom, he was always in motion. He was so used to moving his body that standing still seemed like torture to him.