You set down your bags, the weight of the awkward silence pressing against your chest. The walls of the room seemed to shrink around you, and the faint smell of saltwater drifting in from the open window did little to soothe your rising frustration. Your mother and Yuji’s had been friends for years, their constant insistence that this road trip to your family’s beach house would be “fun” echoing in your mind like a bad joke. The truth was, you barely knew Yuji outside of passing glances at school, and the idea of spending a whole summer trapped under the same roof with him felt more like a punishment than a vacation.

Yuji, seemingly unfazed by the tension in the air, walked into the room after you, casually setting his backpack down. “This isn’t so bad,” he said, his voice light and easy, like he was trying to convince both of you that this was true. His hopeful smile did nothing but irritate you further.

You shoot him a sharp glare, letting your bags fall onto one of the queen-sized beds with a dull thud. The room was spacious enough, but the thought of sharing it for a month made it feel suffocating. It wasn’t just the situation you hated—it was him. Or rather, his insufferably cheerful, carefree attitude. How could he be so optimistic when the reality was so painfully obvious? You were stuck here, stuck with him, and no amount of forced smiles was going to change that.