Chapter 39: Is this the calm before the storm!?

“Maggots! We have had an abnormal increase of PDA! If this does not stop, there will be random beating on those that are not in a relationship! Why you ask? Why the F not!?” Ms. Mason yelled at all the students on the bus.

Today it was only a smaller group on the bus. There were a couple groups that the students were able to choose from. I chose to follow whatever Claire wanted to do… but that was a bust as Claire had already decided to follow me in what I wanted to do.

Anyhow, the group that I ended up being in was the group to go and see the volcanoes of Hawaii.

Dominic and Ashley were also in this group, and it was Dominic that decided to go, Ashley was going to happily go around with him.

Claire and I have both agreed to leave them alone the entire day and not meddle in anything that happens between the two.

“Hey Logan, I’m tired.” Claire yawns as she leans on my left shoulder.

“Yeah,” I nod in agreement, “pulling an all-nighter was not the best idea we’ve had.”

“I think I’m going to have a nap. Wake me up when we get to the volcanoes…” Claire trails off as she closes her eyes.

“Goodnight Claire.” I smile and lean back in the seat, making sure Claire stays on my shoulder.

It can’t hurt if I fall asleep too… right?

Oh well. I don’t really care anymore. I’m so tired, it’s a miracle I made it onto the bus.

……

…

“Logan, this one suggests that you awake at this moment, so I declare.” Someone close quietly talks in my ear, so it almost sounded like a yell.

I slowly open my eyes and sigh, I was having such a nice dream. I see Saunderson with a slight smile on his face.

“What’s up Saunderson… actually, since when were you in this group?” I yawn after saying this.

“This one learned through various sources that something interesting is happening within our ‘group’, so to speak. So, this one has decided to follow and see what mischief we can all get ourselves into, so I declare.” Saunderson leans back to sit comfortably in his seat beside Amy. Amy looks out the window while whistling suspiciously.

“Claire told Amy and Amy told you. It really isn’t hard to reason that out you know. If you want to keep secrets, teach your girlfriend how to keep ‘em too.” I sigh as look out the window of the bus.

Outside was actually now a barren and rocky area rather than the greenery that was prominent within the areas that we had been around.

“This one would like to suggest that you look towards Dominic and the other lady there, so I declare.” Saunderson points to the direction of Dominic and Ashley.

I look over and see Dominic with the most hilarious face. Currently resting on his shoulder was a tired Ashley, not even aware that she had fallen on Dominic. Dominic was panicking, not knowing whether he should wake her up, or enjoy the contact with another human being after…

Dominic glares at me after seeing my smiling face, he starts to move his mouth and I read his lips.

‘You planned this, didn’t you?’ Dominic glares at me while mouthing the words.

‘No I didn’t, just go with it man. What about it bothers you?’ I also stay silent to make sure Ashley didn’t know what I was talking about.

‘Nothing! That’s what bothers me! Nothing has gone wrong yet!’ Dominic almost moves his arms in exasperation, but remembers that Ashley is on his shoulder.

‘Man, Just deal with it.’ I turn back to Saunderson who was sitting in front of me and laugh slightly, “Oh how much fun today is going to be.”

“Logan,” Claire pokes my left arm, “I thought we were going to leave them alone?”

“Oh, we are.” I motion for Claire to look over to Dominic and I look over again too. “I think we just need to watch and enjoy two awkward people be together.”

I see Dominic mouth ‘Help me.’ towards Claire, but all she does is laugh.

“So,” We all turn to look out the window, I continue to talk, “So, according to the plan, which, because of Murphy’s Law, we know it won’t go well, we should watch Dominic and Ashley’s misadventures throughout the day.”

“This one agrees, so I declare.” Saunderson smiles mischievously.

“U-Um…. I agree with Saunderson…” Amy shyly looks away from our small group.

“I’ll stay with you no matter what you plan Logan… Never mind actually. You seem to be getting worse and worse at planning, so I will stay with you as long as nothing goes too horribly wrong.” Claire smiles weakly.

Well I can’t retort to Claire in any way. Crossdressing… why did I even do it!? I sigh as I lean back in my seat. However, it may have been worth it, if it is just to see Dominic suffer.

“So Logan, I heard through the grapevine that you knew a mysterious girl named Charlotte, how’s she doing?” Amy smiles at me with her teeth showing, clearly an evil woman.

“Um….” I start to sweat nervously, “Um…. She’s doing well…. Her… Um… father, yes. Her father fell ill so… er… she was called home, so she won’t show up again for a while I bet.”

“Logan,” Claire looks at me with a slight smile, “Who’s this Charlotte and why do you seem so close to her?”

“Don’t do this to me! Especially you Claire! I told you not to tell anyone!” I shout quietly at Claire, Amy starts to laugh quietly to herself and continue to give me a devilish grin.

“Logan, this one thinks that you brought it upon yourself. This one would also never dress as another gender, no matter the sum, so I declare.” Saunderson laughs slightly while keeping his usual calm expression.

“Not you too Saunderson! Claire, who else did you tell!?” I bring my left arm up and curl my fingers as I plead to Claire

“Um… father knows about this too…” Claire looks down a little still smiling and trying her best not to laugh. She only looked down to hide her face from me.

“God, if you truly exist, I wish for you to kill me where I am, if not, I shall take the task upon myself. Volcanoes are a cool enough way for me to go.” I look up to the sky and talk to the roof of the bus.

“Logan, it isn’t that bad, is it?” Claire holds on to my shoulder with a worried look on her face, “Do you really need to go that far with it?”

“Yes.” I look at the ground and see the dirty floor of the bus. “If this is released I can imagine the headlines, ‘Heir to a multi-trillion dollar company passes his time by acting as a female!’ How does that look to the general public!?”

“This one would like to interject, so I declare.” Saunderson starts to talk in a serious tone. “This one has learned that these days, things like that are still uncommon, but aren’t too strange anymore. This one would believe that your main worry of it affecting the company are totally groundless, sure, it would be interesting for maybe a month, then it will disappear as if it never happened. Some larger news will pop up shortly after. That is also if they ever hear of this. This one will not tell another soul, so I declare.”

“I promise to tell no one else past this point in time.” Amy puts one hand over her heart.

“I promise not to say another word about this again. I’m sorry I caused you so much trouble Logan…” Claire looks down, this time actually sad.

“I’ll get back to what you said later Amy,” Amy shudders in fear from my cold tone of voice, but I look to Claire and raise her head with my left hand, “Claire, don’t feel bad about this. What has happened has already happened and there is nothing we can do about it.”

I smile, and as I was about to continue talking, the bus slows to a stop and one of the random teachers on the bus gets up to talk.

“Okay, we have arrived at some of the most active volcanoes in the world. Please do not stray from the path, but you are free to go off in your own groups without a tour guide. Please be back at the bus within three hours, if you aren’t… I’ll let Ms. Mason here deal with all of you.” The teacher smiles nicely, but the heavy meaning behind the words made all of the student set timers on their various electronics.

I was included in this… but for some reason I feel that Ms. Mason wouldn’t do anything too bad to me for fear of the Northson Company’s wrath. Do they even have wrath?

I mean, the old man seems like a relatively normal person. Well, after learning a few things about their family situation, I respected the man a little more. I expect there are some mysteries within the business world that I’ve yet to encounter.

Kidnappings, random heists, large groups of highly trained individuals, and the sucky ‘mercenaries’… if they could even be called that. My point is that there are a lot of things in this world I have no idea exist. Sure, I may have heard about other countries and their inner workings during my travels when I was younger, but is it similar to this country?

“Logan? Are you okay?” Claire looks at me with a worried expression as we walk off the bus and make our way towards Saunderson and Amy.

“Yeah, I was just thinking about what’s going to happen in the future. After me mentioning the topic of myself being the heir to the Northson Company got me thinking. In the future, am I going to be as busy as your father and not be able to spend as much time with you? What happens when we have children, will I be able to spend time with them?” Claire starts to laugh and almost falls over. “What’s so funny? I’m seriously worried about things like this you know!

“Logan, the only reason my father was never able to spend much time with me was because of the fact that he was pushing out many huge changes to expand the company. The company right now is as big as the world will allow. It practically makes the earth turn at this point. We have a monopoly on even the government. You will only have to worry about maintaining the current system. Making sure no scandals happen within the company, all that back end work.”

“Why would your father do that? He wasn’t able to spend as much time with you… but-”

“Logan you worry too much,” Claire quickly gives me a kiss, “My father saw this coming someday. He predicted that one of the people I’d bring back would be a good match to run the company. He did extremely thorough background checks on everyone I brought back without telling me.”

“Wait…” I think back, he did say he did a background check on me, but how did he do it in such a short amount of time.

“A team of nearly one hundred people, then their work was compiled by ten people, then theirs one person, and the report was given to my father within minutes of you throwing water on me.”

“Holy shit! Is that even necessary!?”

“Probably not.” Claire shrugs her shoulders. I sigh as I droop my head lower.

“Ah, whatever. I guess I really do worry too much about these things.” I laugh slightly as I stretch my shoulders carefully. I hold my head up high and look off into the distance.

“Also…” I turn to see Claire blushing slightly, “You said ‘When we have children’ and not ‘If’…”

“Huh.” I think back and realize it, “I really did say that huh. Oh well.” I shrug my shoulders carefully, making sure not to hurt my right arm, “I think we will have children or maybe just a single child at some point, but I have finally gotten what you were saying and I’ll wait until after we finish high school.”

“This is our last year…” Claire starts to blush furiously.

“Hey, I thought we got past this!” I tap Claire on the head with my left hand, “Oh well though, I guess it is kind of embarrassing for a nineteen year old and an eighteen year old to talk about children.”

“I love you Logan.” Claire smiles as she walks off slightly in front of me. I grab on to her hand and start to hold it as we walk along a random path that the teachers were pointing out to the students.

“I love you too Claire.” I smile and then remember something, “We totally just ditched Saunderson and Amy!”

Claire panics for a second and we turn around to see an awkward Saunderson and Amy.

“This one apologizes sincerely for interrupting your moment together, so I declare.” Saunderson bows slightly.

Amy just laughs and we all regroup. We walk along the trail, and not too far ahead was an interesting pair, Dominic and Ashley.

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Hello everyone...

It's me again. I'm tired.

Single again because the girl I was going out with thought it was funny. I injured my right hand and was unable to do much for a good two weeks. The university I applied to rejected me. To top it all off, my friends have started to ignore me.

It's rough guys. I might get back in to writing more since I still can't seem to get a job.

I hope all of you are having better times.

Oh yeah, school is starting soon.

Did any of you guys do anything 'Dangerous' over the summer break?

On another note, they finally found out what was wrong with my sister, Chronic Pain Syndrome and some other thing I can't remember the name of, but it makes it so there is no feeling in that part of the body and is caused by intense pain. She will take anywhere from a couple months to a couple years to fully recover now.

I'm going to go sleep again. *only been awake for 30 minutes* Ah, whatever, I'm still tired.

Have a great day/night!