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When we descended from the lift, I was surprised that Akira tripped on her foot. Apparently, she’s never done this before. Mizuki said she has little experience with winter sports; are they really fine with this personnel choice? They should have chosen experienced veterans for something like this.

“Don’t tell me, they forced their way into this assignment?”
“The conclusion was that me and the old guy, having prior experience, should be enough to deal with emergencies.”

That’s true, Kyousuke and Gojima who went with skis have a stable posture. But still, did they really have two barely useful people for the constant watch assignment? I stared at Kyousuke inquisitively and he averted his eyes. Oi, c’mon.

“It’s fine. The others on standby all have experience. We’re plenty capable of responding to unforeseen situations.”
“Then I guess it should be fine.”

The best-case scenario is for unforeseen situations to not happen at all, though. There’s been someone who’s caught my attention for a while now. Even with how many people there are in this winter season, this individual seems somewhat out of place. I don’t have any plans to take action until I can figure out what exactly is bugging me.

“Oh well. Status report. Beginners, raise your hands!”
Following my instruction; me, Kaori, Miyako, and Akira raised our hands. No, why do you have your arm raised? Harumi and Mizuki have some experience, while the two men are veterans. I guess we’re using the beginner’s course for a while.

“Now then, please teach us.”
“I don’t think that’s part of our job.”

C’mon, it’s fine. You’ve got barely anything else to do anyway. People improve faster when someone is teaching them. And if we learn on our own, it’ll be dangerous if we make a fatal mistake. I’m not exactly well-learned about this either, so it’s best to rely on the experts.

“It can’t be helped. I’m done with my warm-ups, so I’ll teach you the important stuff. If you feel like it’s getting dangerous, fall over.”

As usual, Kyousuke’s best trait is how he doesn’t stop at lectures. If it was Akira instead, she’d probably just tell you what to do. However, Kaori and Miyako look confused. They don’t seem to understand it completely. I guess I should elaborate.

“If you can’t control your speed or you’re going to bump into someone, don’t push yourself and just fall over. They should teach you how to fall over safely too.”
“It’s dangerous to fall on your face, alright? Also, just falling onto your butt won’t be enough to stop you, so stay alert.”

We were then briefly taught the basics of skiing and snowboarding. It seems like Kyousuke has experience with both. While the three of us are earnestly listening to him, Akira starts on her own and is failing by herself. I guess I’ll leave her to Gojima.

“Those are the things you should keep in mind.”
“Start at a slow speed. If you think you’re out of control, call Kyousuke for help.”
“It’s really different when there are experienced people around. If it were just us, we’d probably take the whole day to learn how to glide on the snow.”

We split into pairs, me and Kaori, and Miyako and Harumi. Some distance away, I can recognize that the other bodyguards are there, so we should be fine even if some accident happens. Anyhow, I guess I should start slow and get familiar with the board first.

“What’s important is how you move your knees. Also, make sure to keep balance with your torso, and instead of just focusing at the front, try to look at your surrounding area as a whole.”
“Kotone, all of that is going to make me confused.”
“People learn things differently, so go at your own pace, Kaori. You’ll just get injured if you force yourself to catch up.”

Trial and error is important too, but the most important thing is to avoid getting injured. We’re on an outing, after all. It’d be such a shame if we got injured and couldn’t enjoy it anymore. Besides, I’m not inclined to just have fun on my own. I’ll make sure to match pace with Kaori and the group.

“Yup, I’m starting to get used to it.”
“That’s too fast!”

Kaori yelled while slowly and timidly sliding on her board, but there’s nothing I can do about this. Even I didn’t learn this fast back in the past. I guess members of the twelve families really do have a high level of physicality. Still, there is Hadzuki, who’s the brainy type, so I guess there are individual differences.

“I’ve already seen how others fail at this, after all.”
“For example?”
“Making a big jump and landing outside of the course. There was a police search afterwards.”
“That’s no joke.”
“It’s them, after all.”

Those idiots can go home on their own even if they get stranded, so I didn’t really worry that much. The blundering idiot was scolded harshly after being rescued, though. Who was it again? Was it the kamikaze leader?

“Still, I didn’t expect Harumi to have experience with this.”
“I was told that her parents ski as a hobby. She apparently learned how to do it naturally because she always goes with them.”

I see. So it was from her parents’ influence. Step-mom was more of an intellectual type, so I don’t really recall her bringing me to places like this. I tend to move with my friends most of the time, and they’ll also abduct me on some occasions. If that happens to me as Kotone, it’ll be a major incident, though.

“Miyako is having a hard time. Her body is too tense; it’s keeping her from being balanced.”
“Normally you’d tense up because you don’t want to fall over, you know? You’re the weird one for being able to adjust so quickly.”

I just have tough nerves. If I judge it necessary to fall over, I’ll do it in a heartbeat. It should be a hundred times better than the alternative. However, it’ll depend on the situation. In case it’s obviously a trap, I’ll even endure the alternative if necessary.

“I didn’t expect having your feet in a fixed position would make it so hard to-!?”
“Don’t fall on your face.”

While catching Kaori as she stumbled, I observed the surrounding area. And as expected, there are several suspicious people. Anyone would notice if there were several people who looked alike following them. Seeing how my security team has yet to take action despite being so obvious, I can conclude that they aren’t dangerous.

“There’s only one suspect I can think of.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Kaori. You told Kotori about today, didn’t you?”

You looking away just affirms my suspicion, you know. Did my bodyguards get some sort of instruction, or were they informed after asking for confirmation? Even I could notice them following me, so they probably aren’t specialists. My point of comparison is Ruru, though.

“I owed Kotori a favor for the tablet, you see.”
“It’s fine; I wasn’t really trying to keep this a secret. And from how they’re acting, I can tell that Kotori couldn’t come.”

It seems like the parents won the Fumizuki household family council. Ignoring Kotori’s father, her mother is just too strong. Even for Kotori, overcoming her in physicality and argumentation is near impossible. Besides, if they had a prior arrangement, it’d be impossible to make time. Otherwise, they’d have to make a last-minute cancellation.

“Covering their cameras whenever I turn in their direction, they’re so obvious.”
“Since you already know, wouldn’t it be better for them to be more overt about it?”
“But then I can’t feel comfortable.”

Why do I have to be filmed by strangers during a private outing? They’re clearly not taking pictures, but videos. No, there’s probably someone in charge of the pictures. I consider what Kotori might do and a bit beyond that.

“You could just not pay attention to them.”
“Just to say, they’re definitely going to have you in the photos and videos, too.”
“I was tricked!”
“Which is it?”

No matter how you look at it, I’m the one who was tricked here. Since Kaori is in cahoots with her, Kotori is unlikely to treat her badly. There shouldn’t be that many people Kotori sees as her enemy. As long as they don’t do anything that would clearly displease her.

In the end, we decided to just ignore them. After practicing for an hour, I’ve gotten accustomed to it and Kaori can now ride her snowboard pretty well, but Miyako still has a long way to go. And so we took a short break, but then some unexpected trouble occurred.

‘Requesting more aggressive movements.’
“They’re even giving instructions now?”

In the short moment I left my seat, a letter was left for some reason, and when I checked, that was what was written. They clearly don’t care about being noticed anymore.