It was a bright sunny day, the sky was clear and the seas were calm. It was on this beautiful day that the class E was on a ship.
They were going to the island resort that had been booked for them with all their teachers, and they were ready. They would definitely assassinate their teacher tomorrow.
Their plan was full proof.
They had six tentacles they could destroy beforehand, and with the help of Ritsu assisted guns, and various other support items, they were finally going to kill him.
The finality of the thought was surprising, and they were just starting to come to terms with the fact that they might actually end up killing someone they actually cared for.
Though, on the other hand, unlike the rest of the class, thinking about their upcoming assassination attempt, Karma was fiddling with his phone with a look of displeasure.
Maehara was surprised.
Unlike most of the class, he could say that he and Karma shared a similar attitude about many things in life. No matter how absent Karma tended to be, he was one of the few guys who had an eternal mischievous grin on his face. And even the few times he wasn't grinning about something or the other, Karma had never been the one to show a look of displeasure at anything.
But…he still had a few guesses.
"Is it that girl you're worried about?" He joined Karma on the seat beside him, staring out to the sea with a cool drink in his hand.
The heat was sweltering, and he was thankful at the range of somewhat cool drinks they had managed to obtain. Though, it was about to become a hot drink pretty soon.
Karma's eyes flickered up, the look of displeasure melting to something more neutral. He shrugged casually.
"I'm sure she'll survive," he said, a strained note in his voice.
If it was a year ago, Maehara would have raised a brow. He would have smirked, given him a teasing look and maybe given a bit unasked but maybe needed advice about girls.
But this half a year had also changed him. So instead of doing any of that, he looked outside and hummed, taking a chilling sip of the drink.
He was more observant now. He may not be smarter but he had learnt to take advantage of the things he could do, now.
He enjoyed his drink. The fizz was pleasant on his tongue. The cold temperature, even more so.
Maehara had dated a few girls in his life, and he could safety say that he was one of the few that was actually quite well versed in romance.
Girls liked sweet, beauty and support, in various combinations.
But Karma…
He could think of only one other thing bothering him that much.
"I heard that class A was going to Universal Studios at Orlando for the whole Harry Potter experience," he said, still looking outside.
Karma subtly stiffened in surprise.
Bingo~ Maehara thought to himself, using the drink to cover up the smirk on his lips.
"And?" Karma poked back, petty revenge at his finest. Maehara shrugged.
"And, I don't know. I was guessing you were going to tell me," he replied with a welcoming smile.
Karma met his eyes, then rolled his away. A smile was on his lips. Maehara mentally danced in victory.
Unlike Nagisa and Karma, Maehara had only become friends with Karma after he joined class E. It was the baseball practice that really got their friendship off the ground though.
Now, Maehara could confidently call himself Karma's friend. Though he was sure he wouldn't have protested otherwise even if he had insisted on it before either.
"Shuu's been off the radar for a while now," Karma replied, his smile dropping off. "Ren-" he noticed Maehara's confusion then he clarified, "Sakakibara got an automatic timed message right before their flight that Gakushuu wasn't going to join them."
Karma glanced back at his phone, his fingers tightening their grip on the object.
"I just received the message from him," he confessed, "and I haven't managed to contact Shuu at all."
Maehara blinked in surprise. Then he set aside unnecessary questions like, 'why did did Sakakibara text you when he's the one who's the closest known friend of the Student Council President Asano?' or even something like, 'you call him Shuu?'.
"Well, you're on a ship heading to an island where you might or not get reception," he said. It wasn't very helpful from the look on Karma's face which threatened to swim to the mainland they had left not too long ago.
"It's not like he's got a serious problem, right?" He asked.
Maehara wasn't completely sure who he was asking, himself or Karma. From what he knew about Asano, it was that he was stubborn, a perfectionist and did a lot for class A.
Sending off his friends to another continent with one adult for supervision didn't seem very Asano like.
Karma took his time considering the question while Maehara felt like he lost a few years of his life to stress.
Even with assassination training, Maehara hadn't seen anyone actually come close to beating the other boy, so he was pretty sure whatever could be a danger to him would probably be a danger to all of them.
"No," Karma said finally.
"Take a little longer to answer that, why don't you?" Maehara snarked to Karma in stress. He had been about to get cold sweat through sheer stress.
"But," he added before Karma could, "we're about to assassinate our teacher tomorrow and you don't even know if you'll be able to help him out with whatever problem he is having. We need you here."
They had an oddly intense staring contest, which Maehara was a little weirded about. He was straight, okay?
Like, Karma was good looking, but he was very very straight. Not to mention he was pretty sure the one about to (or already was) date Karma was either an angel or the son of a devil.
He was pretty sure about both possible candidates though.
Karma smacked a hand on his face, and their staring contest seemed over when Maehara managed to not spill his drink. Karma put his phone back in his pocket and looked at Koro-sensei.
"Oh yeah," Maehara remembered, "I heard you got more of the-" his eyes flickered to Koro-sensei and his voice dropped, "-the you-know-what spray from somewhere," he stared imploringly at Karma.
"It was just something someone managed to cook up after I described the effects of the spray," Karma shrugged. Maehara blinked.
"That why you don't want to tell Karasuma anything about the manufacturer?" Karma put his hands in his pocket, nodding.
"They're not really on the right side of the law," he explained.
Maehara nodded understandingly.
"Still, it's pretty amazing they managed to make something like that so soon after the whole thing happened. Even Karasuma hadn't managed to get his hands on it for us," Karma shrugged again.
Maehara got the clue and stopped talking, instead taking a sip from the drink in his hand.
Then he did a spit take.
The drink was almost boiling hot.
Karma was spouting bullshit.
He had absolutely no idea about how Gakushuu had managed to get them or even send them to his house.
As far as he could tell, it was a knockoff version of the bug spray that had managed to weaken Itona and Koro-sensei's tentacles.
It was their secret weapon.
The only reason Karma could trust it without actually experimenting on Koro-sensei with it, was because of the handwritten instructions for using it written with Gakushuu's handwriting, a couple of codes mixed in there giving him 3 different kinds of messages.
He had to burn the message after reading it though.
He appreciated the effort.
He would have appreciated Gakushuu's presence more.
The thing was, Gakushuu hadn't made any personal appearances, but his cat disappeared once a week to Gakushuu's house, and he had told him through one of the ciphers that he was fine.
Ren's message just told him the same thing. Gakushuu was going through something, but he was unhurt, at least physically, that is.
Karma had been witness to the times when Gakushuu was in pain, and it had nothing to do with his physical injuries.
Karma was beginning to feel the stirrings of helplessness.
No matter how much Gakushuu wanted to fight on his own, Karma didn't want to let him. Not for this.
Hurting himself over and over for meager chances, for scraps of affection or for other people.
Gakushuu was unsurprisingly the one out of the two of them that tended to sacrifice himself for the things he cared for. No matter how much Karma trusted Gakushuu, it was this quality that made him hesitant to let it- whatever it was- go on.
Karma had always been the selfish one out of the two. He would rather Gakushuu hurt the world than himself, but Shuu wasn't that kind of person at all.
In fact, he tried his hardest to not do that.
He understood the reasoning too. He just didn't like it.
He also knew what Gakushuu expected out of him instead of support for something he was pretty certain he could handle by himself.
Karma thought about the BB knives and thought about another idea for using the material.
He would try his best to make sure he killed Koro-sensei.
For himself, and maybe for Shuu too.
(Karma found the thought embarrassing, but he was past being embarrassed with Shuu now. He had decided to let go of his reservations on their day out and he wouldn't run away again from the feeling blooming in his chest. He owed at least that much to himself.)