Inou-Battle wa Nichijou-kei no Naka de - Volume 5 - Chapter 1

Chapter 1: Kiryuu Hajime—Tome the First of the Twentieth Year

I do not love the darkness.

It’s the darkness that loves me to death.

—Excerpt from the Reverse Crux Record

It happened one year earlier.

“I dropped out of college and ran away from home, so lemme crash at your place.”

Those were the first words that Hajime spoke to me after two years of no contact between us whatsoever. After we’d graduated from high school, he’d sort of just gradually fallen out of touch, but now there he was, standing in the doorway to my apartment for reasons I couldn’t even begin to fathom. I, meanwhile, was still standing in the entryway, completely petrified. The silence was broken only by the sound of rain pounding away at the roof overhead.

Umm...what? Does he think his conclusion follows from the premises? H-He wants to stay here?

I paused to take a closer look at Hajime’s face. At his black hair. His black eyes. His tiny little black sunglasses, worn just askew enough to make you wonder if they even helped block the sunlight out at all. His long, black coat that just screamed “look at me, I’m a gigantic edgelord!”

Yeah, he definitely still likes black, doesn’t he? I thought to myself. He’d been that way back when we were in high school as well, but Hajime looked maybe even a shade darker than usual today, probably on account of the fact that he was sopping wet. His hair and clothes were both completely soaked, and he was dripping water all over the place. It was one of the worst sort of rainy days, where the wind was strong enough to send the rain flying right in your face, and he’d apparently been walking around outside without even an umbrella to protect him.

There’s an expression in Japanese to describe a certain shade of black—“the color of a wet crow.” I’m pretty sure it’s usually used in a positive light—to describe how pretty the color of a girl’s hair is, for instance—but the sopping-wet blackness that Hajime had going on felt evocative of the phrase in an altogether different light. He had an eerie, almost demonic sort of aura about him, in spite of the fact that he’d been out in the frigid rain for so long that he was probably in danger of freezing to death on the spot.

“J-Just come inside for now! You can use my shower!” I said, ushering him in. I just couldn’t bear to see him like that and let him into my house without a second thought. 

If you were to ask me what sort of person Kiryuu Hajime was, I’d probably say something along the lines of “completely inscrutable.”

I don’t mean to brag—though I know it’s probably going to come across like that anyway—but back in high school, I’m pretty sure I spent more time with Hajime than any of the other girls around us. We were only actually in the same class for our first year, but we spent all three years of high school together in the literary club. But even after all that, he had remained as inscrutable as ever.

It felt like the closer I drew to him, the more he withdrew from me, and that irritated me to no end. It felt a little like Hajime was a dense fog, or a mirage. He was easy enough to pick out from a distance, at least to a certain extent, but the moment you moved closer to him, he’d dissipate before your very eyes. You could never grasp the complete picture of who he was.

None of that’s to say that Hajime was an outcast. The girls at our school were certainly pretty fond of him, and the boys and teachers seemed to like him decently enough as well. He was definitely the sort of person whom the people around him tended to keep a healthy distance away from, though.

“My hobby? People watching. My personal motto? ‘Among the heavens and Earth, I stand unrivaled.’’ My favorite color? The vivid red of freshly cleaved flesh, the instant before blood begins to well from the wound. My favorite deadly sin? Pride. My favorite DIO? The one in Part 6.”

Believe it or not, that’s how he chose to introduce himself during the very first homeroom of our first year, right after we got into high school. So...yeah, it’s not like I couldn’t understand why people kept their distance from him. Everyone was completely dumbfounded at the time, and it was the most weirdly intense atmosphere I’d ever felt in a classroom. But the thing is, nobody laughed at him. He recited the whole spiel with an air of absolute seriousness, and he gave off a strangely powerful sense of pressure that made it clear we weren’t allowed to laugh or ridicule him.

He chose to attend the literary club throughout his high school years—a club that, if he hadn’t joined it, would have been summarily disbanded on account of all of its former members having graduated. And, by what I can only assume was some quirk of fate, I ended up deciding to enroll in the very same club.

While Hajime borrowed my shower, I gathered up his wet clothes and threw them into my washing machine. His coat wasn’t machine-washable, of course, so I patted it down with a towel and hung it up to dry out the rest of the way. I was pretty sure that’s how you’re supposed to deal with that sort of clothing, anyway. Then I paused for a moment.

I guess I just picked up his underwear like it was nothing, huh? I reflected. So that’s what they’re like. They’ve got a hole in the front and everything... “I-I’ll leave a towel on top of the washer!” I called out in a much shriller voice than I’d intended. I could feel my cheeks starting to heat up, and I fled the changing room without waiting for Hajime to reply.

I lived in a two-room apartment that had been built about a decade ago and was intended as student housing. The bathtub and shower were in their own room, connected to a changing room with a washing machine totally separate from the toilet—that last point had been a major priority for me when I was house-hunting. I’d started living on my own right after I got into college, and this apartment had been my home for the two years since.

I didn’t remember ever having told Hajime my address, by the way, but when I brought that up with him later, he explained that he’d memorized it off the New Year’s card I’d sent him the year before. Incidentally, he’d never sent me a card in return. That had really stung at the time—I’d handwritten mine, and I’d drawn little pictures on it and everything—but that was all water under the bridge now. I had different priorities: namely, stepping into my room and doing a hurried cleaning sweep.

I gathered up all the magazines and textbooks and stuff that were lying on my table and stowed them in my school bag. The clothes and underwear I had hanging up to dry got shoved into the closet, after which I grabbed one of those little adhesive cleaning rollers that I kept tucked away in the corner of the room and gave my carpet a frantic once-over.

As I rolled away at the carpet, the mirror I kept on my table caught my attention. It was one of those little ones that you use for putting on makeup—I’d used it for that exact purpose myself that morning, and I’d forgotten to put it away. I saw myself in the mirror. I saw my face, one eye clamped tightly shut.

“Hey, Hitomi!”

“Eeek?!” I shrieked as Hajime’s voice rang out behind me.

“You got a pair of pants I can borrow or something?”

“Huh...?” I grunted, turning around to look at him. “A pair of—wha?!”

And then I was left speechless. There, in full view of my one open eye, stood Hajime, a towel wrapped around his waist—that is to say, he was wearing nothing on his upper body. His skin was slightly flushed, and faint wisps of steam trailed up from his torso. Considering how skinny he was, I was surprised by how muscular he looked—especially his abs, which were beautifully toned.

Oh, wow, just look at the body on this guy—wait, no! “Wh-Wh-Wh-Why’re you half-naked?! Put some clothes on!” I shrieked, without sparing so much as a thought to how much of a nuisance I was being to my neighbors. Oh, god, my face is burning up now! I’m blushing way harder than I did when I picked his underwear up!

“Huh?” grunted Kiryuu. “You’re the one who threw all my clothes in the washer, aren’t you? What am I supposed to wear?”

Oh. When he put it that way, I really had forgotten to prepare an outfit for him to wear in the meantime. I’d been so preoccupied with getting my underwear off the drying line, I hadn’t even considered it. “Th-Then at least wear your coat! It’s hanging up right over there!” I shouted.

“A coat and nothing else? What am I, a flasher?” sighed Hajime. His face was slightly flushed as well, but that was only because he’d just gotten out of the bath. His attitude made it clear that he was as calm as could be, and the fact that I was the only one freaking out about all this was starting to piss me off a little. “Why’re you kicking up a screaming fit over a topless guy, anyway?” Hajime asked. “You know that sort of reaction’s only cute when teens do it, right?”

“Ugggh,” I moaned. “W-Wait just a second. I’ll grab some sweats for you.”

I somehow managed to calm myself down a little as I rifled through my dresser for something that would fit him. Stay cool, stay cool! It’s all right, it’s all right! This is no different than seeing your dad topless, I told myself, only to get so distracted by my inner monologue I accidentally pulled open my underwear drawer. Nope. no good. I’m freaking out. Come on, I just bought those sweats! I think I put them two drawers up, or some—

“Oh, huh. So that’s how girls store their undies? Looks like a box of fancy chocolates or something.”

Then I let out a strangled gasp and chucked my sweats directly in the face of the half-naked man who’d walked over behind me while I wasn’t paying attention.

My sweats were designed for women, of course, but they were also supposedly one-size-fits-all, and they ended up fitting Hajime just fine. The arms and legs were just a little short for him, however, and they ended about halfway down his calves and forearms.

“I spin-dried your clothes and hung them up,” I explained as I handed him a cup of tea I’d just brewed. “They should be dry enough for you to wear by tomorrow.”

“Thanks,” said Hajime as he accepted the cup. “This kinda takes me back. You used to brew us tea basically every day back when we were in the literary club.”

“Not because I wanted to. I just always ended up doing it because you never even considered brewing the tea yourself,” I replied.

“Right, because I wanted to drink your tea,” Hajime said, then took a sip from his cup. “Yup—as good as ever. You’re not rusty at all.”

“Fresh from the teabag,” I sighed. “It would taste the same no matter who brewed it. You know that, right?”

“Bwa ha ha!” Hajime cackled in that same dry, peculiar way he always did.

I reflected for a moment on how little he’d changed since then. It was our first time seeing each other in two years, but the conversation came so naturally that it felt like we’d been hanging out just the day before. It almost felt like I’d been transported right back to my high school days, even. To the time when I was still a teenager. The time before I’d grown up.

“Oh, right,” said Hajime. “Speaking of the literary club, looks like my little sister ended up going to our old high school.”

“Oh, she went to Senkou?”

“Right.”

“Huh. It almost feels like destiny, doesn’t it?” I said. I’d dropped the word “destiny” pretty casually, upon reflection. It’s a girl thing, I think—we just feel the urge to use that word at times like these, without really meaning it in a particularly deep or weighty sort of way.

Or, at least, I didn’t mean it that way. Hajime, on the other hand, nodded gravely. “Yes, that’s right. We and everyone else in this world are trapped within a casket called destiny, made to wallow in its endless cycle,” he said, the corners of his mouth twisting into a mirthless sneer.

Once again, I found myself thinking that he really hadn’t changed at all. Not in his looks, nor in his cringey chuuni mannerisms—he was exactly like he’d been back in high school through and through. Of course, I could’ve guessed that the second I’d seen his trench coat and sunglasses.

“I haven’t asked what club she’s joining,” Hajime continued, “but you never know—maybe she’ll end up in the literary club. She’s not much of an athlete, unlike me.”

“Yeah, makes sense,” I said, stopping myself before I could carry on and tell him that the two of them had always struck me as not being very alike. I didn’t know the details, but I was aware that Hajime and his sister were only half-siblings.

His name was Kiryuu Hajime, but everyone else in the household he lived in had the surname Kanzaki. They were the Kanzaki family, for the most part—Hajime was the odd man out. That included the sister we were discussing, of course. You’d think that would’ve been uncomfortable for him, but he never seemed to consider taking on the Kanzaki name himself. Not sharing a name with the rest of his family had certainly earned him some unappreciated attention over the years, but he stubbornly refused to change his mind. It was like he was rebelling against the world at large—like he was asserting his own individuality.

“Oh, right... She’s probably still pissed at me, actually. You wouldn’t believe how mad she got when I left,” Hajime muttered, scratching his cheek awkwardly.

“Hey...Hajime?” I said. This seemed like as good of a time as any to ask. “Did something happen?”

Hajime didn’t say a word. His gaze fell to the floor, and a thick, heavy silence descended on the room along with it. It felt like time had slowed down to a crawl as that silence stretched on, until finally, he raised his head and looked me in the eye.

“Hitomi,” Hajime said. “If I asked you to let me stay here a while and not question why, what would you say?”

The look in his eyes was absolutely serious and unwavering. He was a man whose gaze carried an unmistakable spark of insight, and having it directed at me so unflinchingly was a little scary, and a little, well...umm, let’s say embarrassing.

“Yeah, okay,” I agreed before I even knew what I was saying. I was honestly sort of exasperated with just how readily I’d given him the okay. I, Saitou Hitomi, turned into a doormat whenever Hajime entered the picture. When all was said and done, it was pretty clear that I was happy to reunite with him. Happy to reunite with him, and happy to see that he was willing to rely on me.

In the end, I wound up sleeping in my bed while Hajime took the couch. He must have been exhausted too, since he was out like a light the moment he lay down to go to sleep.

Couldn’t you be at least a little nervous about sleeping in a girl’s apartment? I sighed. I was starting to feel sillier and sillier for being so nervous about all this, considering that he clearly wasn’t freaking out in the slightest. I definitely wasn’t quite happy with how all of this had turned out, but I still went to the trouble of finding a blanket to drape over him. Then I climbed into bed, pulled the covers over my head, and attempted to will myself to sleep.

All right, bedtime! You’ve got a class first period tomorrow, so you’ll regret it if you don’t sleep now! One sheep, two sheep, three sheep...

“...”

Nope! Not happening! Seriously, how on earth was I supposed to sleep in a situation like that? A guy and a girl sharing a tiny little apartment all alone? You’d have to be crazy to not be nervous about that!

I laid a hand on my chest and felt my heart pounding like a drum. It was very much aflutter. I found myself descending into a delusional fantasy about Hajime sneaking over the moment I fell asleep and pouncing on me, then descended into self-loathing the moment I really registered what it was I was fantasizing about.

“Ugggh,” I moaned, writhing about under my covers. I poked my head out and looked over at the couch where Hajime was sleeping...and sleeping quite soundly, much to my irritation. I almost got up to find a pen and scribble on his face, but I decided against it in the end out of fear of what he’d do in retaliation.

As I gazed at his face, I was once again taken back to our time in high school together. I raised a hand to my closed eye and gently pressed a fingernail into my eyelid, giving it a light scratch. I felt a faint twinge of pain from that eye—the eye that had lost its ability to see.

Then, suddenly, I got up, opened up one of my dresser drawers, and pulled out an accessory case. I opened it up to find a black leather eye patch. It was very obviously not the sort of eye patch that people wore for medical purposes—no, this was an eye patch designed purely for the sake of fashion. It was also a keepsake of the time I’d spent with Hajime. He probably didn’t think much of it at all, honestly, but I’d kept it close at hand for all these years and considered it meaningful for my own reasons.

As I picked up the eye patch, it felt like an old photo album buried deep within my memories had just flopped open on its own initiative. Inside were my memories of my first year in high school—of the time when I had despised Kiryuu Hajime with all my heart and soul.