3
Yui Yuigahama is perpetually glancing around furtively.
“So, what, you have some cooking-related trauma, then?”
I’d been assigned a make-up report for home economics because I’d skipped cooking class, and for some reason, I got called to the faculty office after I handed it in. This was giving me some serious déjà vu. Why must I have your lectures inflicted upon me, Ms. Hiratsuka?
“Aren’t you supposed to be teaching Japanese?”
“I’m also responsible for guidance counseling. Mr. Tsurumi foisted the job off on me.” I glanced at a corner of the faculty office to see the aforementioned Mr. Tsurumi watering a potted plant. Ms. Hiratsuka regarded the other teacher before turning back to me. “First, I’ll ask why you skipped practice. Make it brief.”
“Well, you know… I don’t really see the point of practicing cooking with the whole class.”
“I don’t see the point of that excuse, Hikigaya. Is group activity that painful for you? Or did none of the groups let you join?” Ms. Hiratsuka studied my expression with fairly sincere worry.
“No, no, what are you talking about, Sensei? It’s supposed to be practice cooking, right? In other words, there’s no point doing it unless it closely resembles the real thing. My mother cooks alone, you know? In other words, cooking alone would be the correct way to do it! Paradoxically, it’s practicing cooking in groups that’s wrong!”
“Those are two completely different things.”
“Sensei! Are you telling me that my mommy is wrong?! That’s going too far! There’s no point in continuing this conversation! I’m leaving!” I retorted, turning on my heel and attempting to leave.
“Hey. Don’t try to confuse the issue by flying off the handle when you’re clearly in the wrong here.”
So she could tell. Ms. Hiratsuka stretched out her arm, tugged the collar of my uniform from behind, and spun me around by the scruff of the neck, just like how you’d pick up a kitten. Nghh. Maybe going Tee-hee! I’m so naughty! and sticking my tongue out would have been a better strategy to get away with it.
Ms. Hiratsuka sighed, thumping my report with the back of her hand.
“You’re fine up to ‘How to make good curry.’ The problem is the part after that. ‘First slice the onion into wedges. You slice them thinly and then season them. Just as the shallower a person is, the more easily they are influenced by their environment—the thinner you slice the onions, the more the flavor will soak into them.’ Who told you to make it so salty? You’re ruining the dish!”
“Sensei, please stop being so smug and acting like you said something witty. It’s embarrassing to watch.”
“And I don’t want to read this kind of essay. I shouldn’t have to say this, as it should be obvious to you already, but you’re doing it over.” The teacher put a cigarette in her lips with an expression of utter disgust.
“Can you cook?” Ms. Hiratsuka asked me as she flipped through reports. The look on her face said she expected the answer to be no. That was unfair. High schoolers these days could all make curry, at least.
“Yes. Thinking about my future, it’s obvious that I should know how.”
“So you’ve reached the age where you’re thinking about moving out?”
“No, that’s not what I meant.”
“Oh?” Then why? Ms. Hiratsuka asked with her gaze alone.
“Because cooking is a vital skill for a househusband,” I replied.
Ms. Hiratsuka’s large eyes, bordered moderately with mascara, blinked twice, three times. “You want to be a stay-at-home husband?”
“I see it as one of my future options.”
“Don’t give me that rotten look while you talk about your dreams for the future. Your eyes should be sparkling, at the very least. Just for my knowledge, what exactly do your plans for the future entail?”
I had a hunch it would be a bad idea to reply with something like Actually, you should be worrying about your own future, so I resigned myself to giving her a reasoned answer. “Well, I’ll go on to some decent university.”
Ms. Hiratsuka nodded and made listening noises. “Mm-hmm. What about your career following that?”
“I’ll pick out a beautiful and talented girl and marry her with the intention of having her support me in the end.”
“I said career! Give me a career for an answer!”
“I said househusband.”
“That just makes you a leech! And that’s an absolutely terrible way to live. Men like that dangle marriage in front of women like bait, and then before you know it, they’ve crawled into your house and have even made a duplicate key, and soon enough they start bringing in their things, and once we broke up, that useless good-for-nothing even went so far as to take my furniture!” Ms. Hiratsuka’s rant contained way too many specifics. She got so into it, she ran out of breath, tears welling up in her eyes.
Too sad… She looked so pitiful, I just had to say something to make her feel better.
“Sensei, it’s okay! I won’t be like that. I’ll do housework properly and be the best leech ever!”
“What kind of super-leech logic is that?!”
My aspirations for the future denied, I was forced to stand at the crossroads of my life. On the brink of having my dreams crushed entirely, I scrounged up a good argument with which to arm myself. “It does sound bad if you call it being a leech, but I don’t think being a stay-at-home husband is such a bad decision.”
“Mm-hmm?” Ms. Hiratsuka shifted in her chair, making it creak, and glared at me. Her posture said, I’m listening. Try me.
“Thanks to the gender equality movement and all that, it’s already taken as a given that women will go on to have careers. You being a teacher is proof of that, Ms. Hiratsuka.”
“Well, that’s true.” It looked like she had accepted that much. Now I could take it a step further.
“But now that a large number of women have joined the workforce, it’s only rational that an equal number of men are going to be crowded out. In any given time and place, there have always been a limited number of jobs, isn’t that right?”
“Hmm…”
“For example, let’s say that fifty years ago at a given company, there were a hundred workers, and they were one hundred percent male. If they then hire fifty women, obviously fifty of the men that were originally there have to go elsewhere. This is a simplified analogy, but you get the idea. Add in the recent recession, and it’s becomes quite apparent that the number of positions available for men has decreased dramatically.”
At that point, Ms. Hiratsuka put her hand to her chin, adopting a thoughtful posture. “Continue.”
“There’s also the fact that companies don’t need as much personnel as they did in the past. With the spread of computers and the development of the Internet, we’ve become more efficient, and the productivity of a single individual has grown by leaps and bounds. In fact, from a societal perspective, you start to get the message that Yeah, I know you badly want to work, but we can’t manage that. Look at stuff like work sharing.”
“True, those concepts do exist.”
“Plus, with the remarkable development of consumer electronics, anyone can do the same work and put out a standard level of quality. Men can do housework.”
“Wait, hold on a second,” she said, interrupting my fervent argument. She cleared her throat quietly and peered at my face. “Th-those things can be pretty hard to use, though… Men might not necessarily manage, you know.”
“No, that’s just you.”
“What was that?” Spinning her chair, she kicked my shin. It really hurt. I carried on with my reasoning, hoping she’d forget that last bit.
“I-in other words! We’ve desperately endeavored to create a society where you don’t have to work, so it’s completely absurd to be saying things like, ‘You have to work!’ or ‘There’s no jobs!’”
A flawless conclusion. Work and you lose; work and you lose.
“Aaagh. You’re still rotten to the core.” The teacher unburdened herself of a massive sigh but then smirked as if she’d thought of something. “If a girl were to cook for you just once, maybe you’d think differently,” she said, standing and shoving me along from behind, pushing me out of the faculty office.
“H-hey! What are you doing? Ow! That hurts, I said!”
“Go to the Service Club and learn the importance of labor.” With a viselike grip, she tightened her hand on my shoulder before following up with a strong whap to shove me out of the room.
I turned back to voice a protest of What was that for? or something of that nature, only to find the door slamming shut cruelly in my face. That was the aforementioned rejection of any “arguments, disagreements, objections, questions, or back talk.”
I considered for a moment perhaps skipping out of club time, but the instant the thought crossed my mind, the shoulder she had just been squeezing throbbed with pain. She’d probably punch me again if I ran away. I couldn’t believe she’d managed to imprint that delayed-action agony in my body within such a small window of time. What a terrifying woman.
I decided to show up at the mystery club I’d recently been forced to join—the Service Club or whatever it was called. That was its name, but I had no idea what we actually did. I was even more perplexed by the head of the club. What the hell was her deal?
Yukinoshita was reading a book in the clubroom, as usual. We casually exchanged hellos, and then I carried a chair over to a spot a little ways away from her and sat down, pulling a few books from my bag. Now the Service Club had entirely transformed into a Youth Reading Club.
So what were we actually supposed to do in this club, in the end? Where’d all that talk about a competition go? The answer to my questions arrived suddenly in the form of a visitor’s faint knock.
Yukinoshita’s page-turning hand paused, and she precisely inserted a bookmark into her paperback. She then turned to the door and called: “Come in.”
“P-pardon me!” squeaked a nervous voice. The door slid aside with a light scrape, opening barely a few inches. A girl entered, almost squeezing through sideways. The way she moved, it seemed as though she didn’t want to be seen. Her chestnut-brown hair flowed down to her shoulders in loose waves, and with every step she took, they swayed. Her eyes darted about as if she was scouting out the area, her gaze never stopping to rest, and when her eyes met mine, she let out a tiny squeal.
Was I some kind of monster?
“Wh-why is Hikki here?”
“Uh, I’m in this club.” And wait, does “Hikki” mean me? Who is this girl, anyway? Quite frankly, I have no recollection of her at all.
I didn’t remember her because she was such a stereotypically modern high school girl. I saw her ilk all the time. Basically, she was one of those fashionable teenage girls. All of her clothes flagrantly disregarded the school dress code: the short skirt, the three buttons open on her blouse, the necklace sparkling on the chest peeking out of said blouse, the heart charm, and the tawny hair bleached bright.
I didn’t associate with girls of that sort. Because I didn’t associate with girls of any sort.
It seemed like she knew me, though, and I didn’t feel I could just ask, Excuse me, who are you? But then I noticed the color of the ribbon on her chest was red. In our school, each of the three grades were assigned different ribbons, and that was how you could tell someone’s year. Red meant she was a second-year, like me. The reason I noticed her ribbon straightaway wasn’t because I was looking at her chest—it just happened to enter my field of vision, okay? By the way, it was pretty big.
“Well, sit down.” I casually pulled out a chair and motioned for her to sit. I wasn’t being all gentlemanly to disguise my impure intentions. I want to emphasize that it was, naturally, all out of sincere kindness.
Really, I’m a super gentleman. I mean, I dress like one all the time.
“Th-thanks…” She looked a little flustered, but she nevertheless plopped herself down in the seat I’d offered.
Yukinoshita, who was sitting opposite her, met her gaze. “Yui Yuigahama, right?”
“Y-you know me?” Hearing her own name, Yui Yuigahama’s expression suddenly turned bright. It seemed she regarded Yukinoshita’s recognition as a mark of status.
“You know her name? Do you know all the students in this school or what?”
“Not at all. I didn’t know you.”
“Oh…”
“It’s nothing to get upset about. I should have. I only didn’t because I was disinterested in your stunted character. I had a strong, subconscious desire to avert my eyes from you, but that was my weakness and my fault.”
“Hey, was that supposed to make me feel better? That’s a pretty terrible way to comfort someone. That last part basically makes the whole thing my fault!”
“I wasn’t trying to make you feel better. I was just being sarcastic.” Without even giving me a glance, Yukinoshita flicked back the hair that had fallen to her shoulders.
“This club seems…kinda fun.” Yuigahama observed our interaction with something of a sparkle in her eyes. Maybe she had a few screws loose.
“This experience isn’t particularly pleasant for me… In fact, that assumption of yours is incredibly unpleasant.” Yukinoshita shot her a chilly glare.
When the look hit Yuigahama, she became flustered, fidgeting and shaking her hands wildly in front of her. “Oh! Well, um, like… I just thought you guys seemed like you were really natural with each other. You know, um… Hikki’s acting totally different from how he usually does in class, so I was like, Wow, he talks!”
“Of course I talk.” Do I come off that lacking in communication skills?
“Oh, yes, I remember now. You’re in Class F as well, Yuigahama?”
“Huh? Is she?”
“You were aware of that, weren’t you?” Yukinoshita said, and Yuigahama twitched in response.
Oh, crap.
I knew better than anyone else what if feels like when someone in your own class doesn’t remember you at all. So, in order to spare her that pain, I decided to lie.
“O-of course I was!”
“So why’d you look away?” Yuigahama cross-examined me intently. “Isn’t that sort of thing why you don’t have any friends in our class? You act so weird, it’s creepy.”
Oh, that condescending gaze was so familiar. There was indeed a girl in my class who sometimes looked at me the way you’d look at something dirty. She was part of the clique that often hung out with the soccer club or whoever. Oh, I see. She’s my enemy, huh? My consideration had been wasted on her.
“Slut,” I muttered.
Yuigahama snapped back at me. “Huh? What do you mean, slut? I’m still a vir—Uh… Ah-ha-ha! N-nothing!” Her face flushed bright red as she flailed her hands in an attempt to erase the word that had almost escaped her lips. What a dumbass.
Yukinoshita butted in to save Yuigahama from her fit of panic. “That’s not something you need to be embarrassed about. At your age, being a virg—”
“Hey, hey, hey! What are you talking about?! Not having done it in your second year is embarrassing! Yukinoshita, what does that say about my hotness level?!”
“What a superficial system of values.” Whoa, I don’t know why, but Yukinoshita’s frigidity just turned up a notch.
“Hotness level? Sounds like something a slut would say.”
“You said it again! I can’t believe I’m being called a slut! You’re such a creep, Hikki!” Yuigahama moaned in frustration as she looked at me through teary eyes.
“Me calling you a slut has nothing to do with my creepiness. And don’t call me Hikki.” She was making me sound like a hikkikomori—one of those shut-ins who never comes out of his room. Oh, so that was supposed to be an insult. It was probably a derisive nickname the class had given me. What the hell? That’s kind of mean. It almost made me want to cry. Talking behind people’s backs is rude. So say it straight—right to my face. I can’t get hurt if I don’t hear it myself. “You slut.”
“You…you really are a pain in the butt! And you’re seriously creepy! Why don’t you just die?!”
I’m a pretty mild guy, and I never snap at anyone. I’m like a safety razor. But that was enough to make even me go quiet. There are a lot of things out there you just shouldn’t say to people. Words relating life and death, in particular, can be particularly impactful. If you aren’t prepared to take someone’s life with your own hands, then you should never say you will.
So after a brief silence, as a warning to her, I said gravely and with palpable anger in my tone, “Don’t use stuff like Die! or I’ll kill you! as casual insults. I’ll kill you if you do that again.”
“Oh…s-sorry. That’s not what I…huh?! You just said it! You super-said it!” As I’d noted earlier, Yuigahama is a dumbass. But surprisingly, she was also capable of making a sincere apology.
I realized my initial impression of her hadn’t been entirely accurate. I’d thought her head was filled with nothing but partying, sex, and drugs—just like everyone else in her clique, the soccer club crowd, and the people who hung out with them. What was this, a Ryuu Murakami novel?
Apparently tired of bouncing around, Yuigahama breathed a short sigh. “Hey, I heard from Ms. Hiratsuka that this place grants students’ wishes?” she asked, breaking the brief silence.
“Did she?” I’d been under the impression this club was for reading books and wasting time.
Yukinoshita completely ignored my dubious expression and responded to Yuigahama’s question. “Not quite. The Service Club is really only for helping people. Whether or not your wishes are granted depends on you.”
“How is that ‘not quite’?” Yuigahama asked, perplexed. That was exactly what I’d wanted to ask, too.
“It’s the difference between giving a starving person a fish and teaching them how to fish. Volunteer efforts are, at their core, about putting that ideal into practice, and not just about producing results. Perhaps the best way to describe it is that we encourage self-reliance.”
That sounded like something out of an ethics textbook. So it looked like we were basically in agreement that the point of the club was putting self-reliance and cooperation (the same bullcrap held up as virtuous in any school) into practice. I guess the teacher had babbled on about labor or whatever… So in other words, the club was about working to help other students.
“Th-that’s kind of amazing!” Yuigahama had this look in her eyes like she’d just had a revelation, like Whoa, you just convinced me! It made me a little worried that one day she might get suckered in by a cult.
There’s absolutely no scientific basis for this idea, but there is this common belief that girls with big boobs are a little…you know. I think this example could be added to the list.
And then there was Yukinoshita with her flat-as-a-board chest, her clear intellect, and her wisdom. As usual, she was smiling coldly. “I may not actually grant your wish, but I will help you as best I can.”
Apparently reminded of what she’d originally come here for, Yuigahama piped up. “Oh! Um, um…listen, so…cookies…,” she began, glancing at my face.
I’m not empty carbs. People in class treat me like empty air, and though those sound similar, they’re different.
“Hikigaya.” Yukinoshita jerked her chin, gesturing toward the hallway. It was a sign telling me to get lost. She didn’t have to signal me like that. She could have kindly said, You’re an eyesore, so would you be so kind as to please leave that seat, though it would make me very happy if you never come back.
If it was something they could only talk about between girls, then there was nothing I could do about it. Stuff like that was a thing. The hints were health and physical education, boys not included, and a class for girls only in a different classroom. In other words, that was what they were going to talk about.
I do wonder what they talk about during those classes. It still bothers me.
“…I’m gonna go get a Sportop.” I’m too nice, if I do say so myself. I read the room and casually took action. If I were a girl, I’d fall for me for sure.
When I got up, Yukinoshita apparently thought of something, so she called after me as I put my hand on the door. “I’d like a Vegetable Lifestyle 100 Strawberry Yogurt Mix.”
She doesn’t even think twice before using me as her errand boy. Yukinoshita, you’re a piece of work.
Making a round trip from the third floor of the special-use building to the first floor took less than ten minutes. If I took my time strolling along, maybe the girls would be done with their conversation. No matter what kind of person she was, she was still our first client. In other words, the competition the teacher had set for Yukinoshita and I had begun. Well, I doubted I was going to win, so all I had to worry about was minimizing the amount of damage the whole affair would deal me.
In a suspicious-looking vending machine in front of the school store, there was a mysterious beverage in a juice box that you never really see at convenience stores. It tasted quite similar to something else, but it actually wasn’t bad, so I kept an eye out for it. Sportop’s candy-like taste in particular flew in the face of current “no-calorie, no-sugar” trends, and I liked that rebellious spirit. It tasted all right.
The vending machine rumbled like a sky fortress when I inserted a hundred-yen coin. Once I’d secured some Sportop and a Vegetable Lifestyle, I deposited another hundred yen. Just buying drinks for two out of three would have been kind of awkward, so I decided to pick something up for Yuigahama, too, pressing the button for Men’s Café au Lait. In all, it totaled three hundred yen. I’d just blown about half my net worth. I was so broke.
The first thing Yukinoshita said when I got back was “You took too long,” snatching the Vegetable Life out of my hands before jamming in the straw and taking a sip.
That left me with the Sportop and the Men’s Café au Lait. Yuigahama apparently realized whom the latter was for. “Here,” she said, pulling a hundred yen from a change purse that looked like a pocket.
“Oh, it’s okay.” Yukinoshita hadn’t paid, and I’d bought this extra drink without asking Yuigahama if she wanted one. Even if there was a reason for Yukinoshita to pay me, Yuigahama was under no such obligation. So instead of taking her hundred-yen coin, I put the café au lait in her hands.
“B-but…I can’t…” She stubbornly kept trying to hand me the money. Not wanting to go through that annoying I’ll pay! No, it’s okay! routine, I just went over beside Yukinoshita. Yuigahama huffed and reluctantly put the coin away. “Thanks.” She expressed her gratitude quietly and took the café au lait in both hands with a tee-hee, looking happy and bashful.
I thought that was probably the greatest show of thanks I’d received ever. That smile might have been too much in exchange for just a hundred yen.
Satisfied, I tried to catch Yukinoshita’s interest. “Are you two done talking?”
“Yes, things went quite smoothly thanks to your absence. Thank you.”
And that was the worst show of thanks I’d ever received.
“Well, that’s good. So what’re we doing?”
“We’re going to the home ec room, and you’re coming, too.”
“Home ec?” That meant…that place. That iron-maiden-like classroom where you grouped up with friends of your choice and underwent the agony that was cooking practice. There were knives and gas stoves and stuff in there! It was dangerous! That stuff should have been restricted, seriously!
Along with gym class and field trips, home ec stood out as one of my top three trauma-inducing activities, and who’d subject themselves to such an environment of their own free will? My intrusion on one of those settings—with all those cliques and their merry chattering—produced an unbearable silence.
“Cookies… We’re baking cookies.”
“What? Cookies?” I didn’t remotely get what she was talking about, so all I could say was What?
“Yuigahama wants to make cookies for someone, but she requested our help because she lacks confidence in the enterprise,” Yukinoshita explained to dispel my confusion.
“Why do you need us for something like that? Just ask your friends.”
“Erk…w-well, um…,” Yuigahama stammered, her eyes darting everywhere. “I don’t really want people to know, and if my friends found out, they’d make fun of me… This sort of…serious stuff isn’t really like them.”
I let out a small sigh.
Frankly speaking, there was nothing I cared less about than peoples’ love lives. My time was far better served remembering one word of English vocabulary than remembering who liked who. To say nothing of helping her. That was out of the question. So yeah, those were my feelings on the matter, so you can tell how scant my interest is in the language of love.
When they said they wanted to talk alone, I figured it was something really serious. And this was it? Well, I guess it was a relief. Frankly, when someone asks for romantic advice, all you have to say is Go for it! You can do it! or whatever. And if things don’t go well, you just have to be like, That guy is such a jerk, huh? “Hmph.” A derisive snort slipped out of my nose.
Yuigahama met my gaze. “U-uh…” At a loss for words, she looked down, clutching the hem of her skirt. Her shoulders shook a bit. “Ah…aha-ha! It’s weird, huh? Someone like me going on about handmade cookies… It’s like, why am I acting like such a kid, huh? Sorry, Yukinoshita. Never mind.”
“If you say so. I’m not deeply concerned one way or the other, but… Oh, don’t feel like you have to pay this boy any mind. He has no human rights. He’s compelled to be here.”
Apparently, the Japanese constitution doesn’t apply to me. What kind of shady outfit is this?
“No… It’s fine, it’s fine! It’s not really like me. It’s weird…and I heard from Yumiko and Hina and stuff that it’s not in right now, anyway,” Yuigahama said, glancing my way again. She looked wilted and despondent.
Yukinoshita opened her mouth to kick her while she was down. “…Indeed. It really isn’t the kind of thing you’d expect from someone with a party-girl aesthetic like yours.”
“Y-yeah…it’d be weird, huh…?” Yuigahama laughed as if trying to gauge our opinions of her. Her mostly downcast eyes caught mine. Based on her behavior, I got the impression that she wanted some kind of reply.
“…No, I’m not trying to say that it’s weird, or unlike you, or that it doesn’t suit you, or not something you would do. I honestly just don’t care.”
“That’s even meaner!” Yuigahama smacked the table indignantly. “You’re unbelievable, Hikki! Augh, you’re pissing me off. I’m the type of girl who can do whatever I put my mind to, y’know!”
“That’s not the kind of thing you should be saying about yourself. It’s more like something my mom would say to me, her eyes all sincere and tearful: I thought you were the kind of boy who could do things when he put his mind to it…”
“Your mom has already given up on you!”
“That’s a reasonable assessment.”
Yuigahama’s eyes welled up, and Yukinoshita said something or other while nodding vigorously.
Leave me alone.
It’s true, though; having someone give up on you is a sad thing. And Yuigahama was really into this plan, so I felt bad about raining on her parade. And we did have that competition going on… Reluctantly, I voiced my cooperation. “Well, I can really only make curry, but I’ll help.”
“Th-thanks.” Yuigahama looked relieved.
“I’m not really expecting you to cook anything. You just have to taste it and tell us what you think.”
If I was only there to give my opinion as a guy, as Yukinoshita described, I should have been capable of that, at least. Lots of guys don’t like sweet stuff, so I could help her learn to cook for a masculine palate. Plus, I was no picky eater, so most things tasted good to me.
Wait, is that even useful?
The home ec room was filled with the sweet scent of vanilla extract.
Yukinoshita, as comfortable as if it were her own home, opened the refrigerator and took out some eggs, milk, and other items. She secured a scale and bowls and such, as well, and started preparing and rattling around with a ladle and some other mysterious cooking implements I didn’t recognize.
Apparently, this flawless superwoman was also an expert cook.
She quickly finished laying out everything she would need and then put on an apron as if to say, Now it’s time for the real deal.
Yuigahama put one on as well, but she didn’t seem used to it, as the way she tied her string was a mess.
“That’s crooked. Can’t you even put on an apron right?”
“Sorry, thanks… Huh?! I can put on an apron, at least!”
“Oh? Then put it on right. If you don’t even try to do it properly, you’ll end up past the point of no return, just like him.”
“Don’t use me as your cautionary tale. What am I, a hairy namahage demon looking for naughty children?”
“You should be glad. This is the first time you’ve ever been useful to someone. Oh, though I may be treating you like monster, I wasn’t trying to imply anything about your scalp. Don’t worry.”
“I wasn’t worried. And stop looking at my hair with that patronizing smile on your face.” I swiftly hid my hairline behind my hand in an attempt to shield it from Yukinoshita’s rare smile. I heard a voice giggling at me. Yuigahama, still in her sloppily tied apron, watched us from the side.
“You still don’t have it on? Or is it that you can’t put it on after all? …Ahhh, I’ll tie it for you, so come over here.” Exasperated, Yukinoshita beckoned the other girl over with a flick of her hand.
“You don’t…mind?” Yuigahama mumbled with the slightest bit of hesitation. She looked like an anxious child who didn’t know where she was supposed to go.
“Come on.” The icy sound of Yukinoshita’s voice broke her indecision. Yukinoshita seemed kind of angry, and it was a little scary.
“S-s-s-sorry!” Yuigahama zipped right over to Yukinoshita. What are you, a puppy?
The vexed girl moved behind the source of her annoyance and firmly retied her apron.
“Yukinoshita…you’re kind of like a big sister.”
“There’s no way my little sister could be this incompetent.” Yukinoshita sighed, looking disappointed, but I felt as if Yuigahama’s comparison was surprisingly not far from the mark. Yukinoshita, with her air of maturity, and Yuigahama, with her baby face—together, the two rather resembled a pair of sisters.
They really gave off a warm household vibe.
Also, only old men are into that whole girl-wearing-nothing-but-an-apron thing. Me, I thought the school-uniform-plus-apron-combo was the ultimate.
I felt my heart growing warm and let slip a leer.
“H-hey, Hikki…”
“Wh-what is it?” Whoops. That might have been a creepy smile. My voice went shrill, too, kicking the creepiness factor up a notch. I’d set off a chain reaction of creep factor.
“Wh-what do you think of domestic girls?”
“I think they’re okay. I think all guys are attracted to them to a degree.”
“O-oh…” Hearing that seemed to put her at ease, and she smiled. “Okay, let’s do this!” Rolling up the sleeves of her blouse, she cracked open an egg and beat it. She added other ingredients like flour and then sugar, butter, and vanilla extract.
Yuigahama’s skills were so far from the norm that even someone like me who didn’t really know a lot about cooking could tell. Maybe this is much ado about cookies, but I believed that precisely because they’re so simple to make, they clearly display the baker’s skill level. You could see a person’s real ability, the kind you couldn’t fake.
First of all, the beaten egg: There was shell in it.
Next, the flour: It was all clumped up.
And the butter: It was still hard.
She exchanged sugar for salt like it was the obvious thing to do and poured in a ton of vanilla extract. The milk sloshed around dangerously inside the bowl.
When I happened to glance over at Yukinoshita, she was holding her forehead and looking green. Even I, with my poor cooking skills, felt a chill run down my spine. Yukinoshita, with her talents, must have been shuddering in horror.
“Well, then…,” Yuigahama said, taking out some instant coffee.
“Coffee, huh? Well, food goes down easier when you have something on hand to drink. That’s thoughtful of you.”
“What? That’s not what this is for. This is for subtle seasoning. Don’t lots of guys hate sweet stuff?” Yuigahama cocked her head over her shoulder at me as she worked. I took my eyes off her hands for a moment to consider her face, and by the time I looked back there was a black mountain inside her bowl.
“That doesn’t look subtle at all!”
“Huh? Oh. Then I’ll adjust it by adding more sugar,” she said, constructing a white mountain next to the black. A giant tsunami of beaten egg engulfed them both, creating a true hell.
Let me get right to the point: Yuigahama lacked cooking skills. It wasn’t a question of those skills being poor or underdeveloped. She had absolutely none to begin with.
Not only was she clumsy, but she was imprecise, dangerously creative, and altogether unsuited for cooking. I’d never want to do chemistry experiments with this girl. She was the type who’d kill you with a mistake.
By the time those things came out of the oven, for some reason, they looked like coal-black pancakes. Judging by the smell, they were bitter.
“Wh-why?” An expression of shock on her face, Yuigahama gazed at the mystery substance.
“I can’t comprehend it… How can you make so many errors all at once?” Yukinoshita mumbled. Her voice was quiet, so Yuigahama probably couldn’t hear. But even so, it sounded like something that she couldn’t hold in—words that had just popped out.
Yuigahama put the mystery substance on a plate. “It looks a bit odd, but…you don’t know until you taste it, right?!”
“That’s true. And we have a taste tester right here.”
“Aha-ha-ha! Oh, Yukinoshita. It’s so rare that you err in your choice of vocabulary. The term you’re searching for is food taster—someone who tests for poison.”
“What poison?! Oh…poison… Hmm, I guess it is poison after all?” For someone who’d initially taken such vigorous offense, Yuigahama suddenly seemed quite unsure, tilting her head to the side and giving me a look that said, So what do you think?
That didn’t even warrant a reply, did it? I shook off Yuigahama’s puppy-dog eyes and tried to get Yukinoshita’s attention.
“Hey, am I seriously supposed to eat this? This is like the charcoal they sell at a hardware store.”
“She didn’t use any inedible ingredients, so you’ll be fine. Probably. Plus…” Yukinoshita paused and moved to whisper in my ear. “I’ll eat some, too, so it’s okay.”
“For real? Are you maybe actually a good person? Or do you like me?”
“Actually, you can eat them all and die after all.”
“Sorry. I was so shocked, I got a bit kooky.”
Because they were cookies, get it? I wasn’t sure you could honestly say the things before us counted as cookies, though.
“Your job was supposed to be taste testing, not refuse disposal. Plus, I’m the one who took on her request. I’ll take responsibility for that,” Yukinoshita said, pulling the plate over to her side.
“I can’t properly dispose of them without grasping exactly what the problem is. And there’s no way to avoid exposing myself to danger in order to find out.”
Yukinoshita picked up one of the blackened objects. Had I been told those things were actually iron ore, I might have believed it. She looked at me, her eyes tearing up a bit.
“Will this kill me?”
“That’s what I’d like to know,” I said, glancing at Yuigahama who was regarding us like she wanted to be one of the gang. Go ahead. You have one, too. Know our pain.
I somehow managed to grind away at Yuigahama’s cookies.
I didn’t throw up and keel over the minute I ate one, like they do in manga. I just tasted a bitter awfulness so intense that I felt like losing consciousness would have been a mercy. If only I could have passed out, I wouldn’t have had to eat any more. The level of workmanship in those cookies made me wonder what the heck she’d put in them—mackerel guts? That was about where they ranked on the scale, but at least eating them didn’t mean instant death. But still, I wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that ingesting this substance had increased my risk of cancer over the long term and that I’d start seeing symptoms in a few years.
“Ugh! These are so bitter! And gross!” Yuigahama wailed tearfully as she crunched away.
Yukinoshita immediately passed her a teacup. “It’s better if you avoid chewing as much as possible by swallowing quickly. Take care not to let it touch your tongue. It’s much like drinking a nasty medicine.”
She really didn’t hesitate to say the meanest stuff.
The kettle came to a rolling boil, and Yukinoshita poured out some black tea for us. Having all consumed our assigned quota, we washed it down with tea. Finally able to relax, I sighed.
Yukinoshita opened her mouth to snap us out of our momentary reprieve. “Okay, now let us reflect on how we might improve them.”
“Yuigahama never cooking again.”
“You’re telling me they’re that bad?!”
“Hikigaya, that’s our final solution.”
“That’s a solution?!” Yuigahama went from shock to dejection. Her shoulders drooped, and she sighed deeply. “I guess I’m just not cut out for cooking after all… I’ve got no…talent, or whatever you call it.”
Yukinoshita heaved a deep sigh in return. “I see. I’ve come up with an answer.”
“What do I do?” Yuigahama asked, and Yukinoshita replied calmly:
“You just need to put in the effort.”
“That’s your answer?”
In my humble opinion, effort is the worst solution.
Saying that you just have to try hard and that no other factors matter was just another way of saying There’s nothing else you can do now. Quite frankly, it was no different than proceeding without a plan at all. It would have been much better just to say, You’ve got no chance, so give up. There’s nothing more pointless than wasted effort. It’s better to give someone the boot so they can devote their time and toil to something else.
“Effort is a great solution if it’s done right,” Yukinoshita declared as if she’d just read my mind. Are you an esper or what?
“Yuigahama. You said earlier that you have no talent, didn’t you?”
“Huh? Oh yeah.”
“You must revise that way of thinking. People who don’t put in the minimum amount of effort have no right to be jealous of people with talent. Those who fail do so only because they cannot imagine the effort it takes to be successful at achieving their goals.” Yukinoshita’s words were both sharp and so utterly correct that they allowed no counterargument.
Yuigahama’s voice caught in her throat. She’d probably never been slapped in the face with such a sound case before. Confusion and fear flitted across her face. She covered them up with a flippant smile. “B-but, like, lately everyone’s saying they don’t do stuff like this. It’s just not the thing to do right now.” Yuigahama smiled shyly, and the moment it seemed her smile might disappear with a chuckle, the sound of a cup clinking on the table resounded through the room. Though it was a very small and quiet noise, it reverberated like clear ice. The sound forcibly drew one’s attention to its source, Yukinoshita, who emitted an aura of crisp shrewdness.
“Could you stop trying to conform to your surroundings? It’s terribly unpleasant. Aren’t you ashamed, pointing at others as the root of your own clumsiness, awkwardness, and foolishness?”
Yukinoshita’s tone was stern. Obvious loathing bled into it, and it made me cringe so hard I let out a whispered “Wh-whoa!”
Yuigahama was overpowered into silence. Her face was downcast, so I couldn’t quite tell, but her hands clenching the hem of her skirt were enough to show her feelings.
I was sure she possessed strong communication skills. Strong enough to be a member of the A-list after all, which took more than just looks—she’d have needed to know how to play nice with others. But seen from another angle, it really only meant that she was good at integrating herself. In other words, she lacked the courage to risk loneliness in order to be herself.
On the other hand, there was Yukinoshita, a veritable my-way-or-the-highway personality. Her brash character was the real deal. She acted as if she was actually proud of being alone. They were two completely different types of girls. On the power scale, Yukinoshita was clearly the stronger. She was right after all.
Yuigahama’s eyes watered up. “You’re so…” So mean, I assumed she was going to say. Her voice was feeble, as if she was about to burst into tears. Her shoulders trembled uncontrollably, and her voice trembled unreliably with them: “…so cool…”
““What?!”” Yukinoshita and I said in unison. What the hell was she talking about? The two of us exchanged glances.
“You’re always so real… It’s, like…really cool.” Yuigahama gazed at Yukinoshita, admiration etched on her face.
Yukinoshita, on the other hand, stiffened up and retreated a couple steps. “Wh-what on earth is this girl talking about? Were you listening to me? I believe I was being very harsh.”
“No, not at all! Oh, well, it’s true what you said was mean, and honestly, hearing it did kind of make me flinch, but…” Yeah, that sounded about right. I honestly didn’t think Yukinoshita would go that far berating a girl. I hadn’t just flinched; I’d been cringing halfway out the door. But apparently for Yuigahama, that diatribe had only been flinch-worthy.
“But it felt like you were being honest. And when you talk to Hikki, you only ever say terrible things to each other, but…you’re actually talking. I only ever go along with what everyone else is doing, so this is the first time I’ve ever seen something like that…” Yuigahama didn’t run away. “Sorry. I’ll do it right next time,” she apologized, looking right back at Yukinoshita.
This time Yukinoshita was the one left speechless, silenced by Yuigahama’s unexpected gaze. This was probably a first for her. Surprisingly few people will apologize after being rationally and logically informed that they are wrong. Most people would just turn bright red and snap.
Yukinoshita looked off to the side and combed her hair back with a hand. She had an air that said she was looking for the right words but couldn’t find them. Man, she sucked at ad-libbing.
“Teach her how to do it right. And you listen to what she says, Yuigahama,” I said, breaking the silence between them, and Yukinoshita exhaled a short sigh and nodded.
“I’ll show you how to do it first, so try doing it exactly as I do.” Rolling up the sleeves of her blouse, she cracked an egg and beat it. She sifted out a precisely measured amount of flour and mixed it thoroughly so as not to let it clump up. Then she added in the other ingredients: sugar, butter, and vanilla extract.
Her skills were simply incomparable to those demonstrated by Yuigahama a moment earlier. The batter was done in a flash, and Yukinoshita started cutting out the shapes of hearts, stars, and circles with cookie cutters. There was already a sheet of wax paper on the cookie tray. She carefully laid the dough onto it and slid the tray into the preheated oven.
After a short wait, an indescribably sweet aroma began wafting out.
If the prep work is perfect, the results should be, too. And sure enough, the freshly baked cookies were a beauty to behold.
Transferring them to a plate, Yukinoshita swiftly presented them to us. The cookies, baked to a pretty golden brown, were each no doubt worthy of being called cookies. They were very well made, just like Aunt Stella brand cookies. I took one gratefully.
Depositing it in my mouth, I couldn’t help but break into a broad smile. “These are so good! What color is your patisserie?!” My honest opinion slipped out.
My hands wouldn’t stop. I put another in my mouth. Delicious, of course. I’d probably never get another chance to eat a girl’s handmade cookies, so I took advantage of the opportunity to toss yet another one down the hatch. Those things Yuigahama had made hadn’t been cookies, so they didn’t count. “These are so good… You’re amazing, Yukinoshita.”
“Thank you.” Yukinoshita smiled without a trace of irony. “But you know, all I did was stay true to the recipe, so I’m sure you can make them just like mine, Yuigahama. If you can’t, I think there’s got to be something wrong with you.”
“Why can’t she just give that guy these?”
“There wouldn’t be any meaning in that. Come on, Yuigahama. Let’s give this a shot.”
“O-okay. Do you really think I can pull it off? Can I really make cookies like you do, Yukinoshita?”
“You can, if you stick to the recipe.” Yukinoshita did not neglect to add that warning.
And so began Yuigahama’s revenge.
Yuigahama went through the very same process and the very same steps that Yukinoshita had with her dough-over… Get it, dough-over, because they’re cookies? That was some sweet wordplay. The cookies would likely be sugary when they were done, too… Get it? Because I made a sweet pun?
But…
“Yuigahama, not like that. When you sift the flour, draw a circle with your hands. A circle. Do you understand? Didn’t you learn that properly in elementary school?
“When you mix it, hold the bowl firmly. The entire bowl is spinning, so it’s not mixing at all. Don’t spin it around. Move it like you’re cutting through the batter.
“No, not that! Forget the ‘subtle flavoring.’ Put in the canned peaches and such another time. And if you add that much water, it will kill the batter. It’ll be liquidated!”
Yukinoshita, the Yukino Yukinoshita, was stumped. She was exhausted. When they somehow got the dough in the oven, her shoulders sagged in a heavy grief. There was no sign of her usual attitude, and sweat beaded on her forehead.
When they opened the oven, a fine smell that much resembled the one that had come before wafted out. But…
“It’s not quite the same…” Yuigahama’s shoulders drooped in dejection.
Upon tasting, they were indeed clearly different from the ones Yukinoshita had just baked. But they were good enough to be called cookies. They were a lot better than the briquette-like objects she’d produced before. I would’ve been quite willing to eat them like normal cookies.
But it seemed as though neither Yuigahama nor Yukinoshita was satisfied.
“How can I teach you in a way you’ll absorb?” Groaning to herself, Yukinoshita tilted her head.
Watching them, I suddenly realized what this meant. Yukinoshita was a bad teacher.
Put simply, Yukinoshita had talent, but because of her talent, she didn’t have the slightest understanding of how the talentless felt. She couldn’t comprehend their failures.
Saying Just follow the recipe was like telling a math student You just have to use the formula. Someone bad at math doesn’t even get what the formula is for in the first place. They can’t grasp how the formula will help them reach the answer. Yukinoshita couldn’t understand why Yuigahama didn’t understand. Putting it that way makes it sound as if Yukinoshita was at fault, but that wasn’t the case. Yukinoshita had done everything possible. The problem was the other girl.
“Why won’t it go right? I did it just like you told me!” An expression of sincere bafflement on her face, Yuigahama reached out to take a cookie.
To say that really smart people always make good teachers or that they can reliably explain things in a way that any idiot could understand is a lie. No matter how you instruct a disappointment of a human being, they’re still a disappointment, so they won’t get it. No matter how many times you do it over, you can’t shore up that deficit.
“Hmm… They really are different from the ones Yukinoshita made.” Yuigahama slumped, and Yukinoshita held her head in her hands.
I took a bite of another cookie as I watched them. “Look, I’ve been wondering this the whole time, but…why are you trying to make such good cookies?”
“What?” Yuigahama gave me a look that said, What’re you talking about, you virgin? It was so disdainful, it kind of ticked me off.
“You don’t even get it, even though you’re a slut. How dumb are you?”
“I said don’t call me a slut!”
“You don’t get guys at all.”
“Th-there’s nothing I can do about that! I’ve never dated one! I-I mean I have a lot of friends who are dating…b-but copying them is what got me into this, so…” Yuigahama’s voice got quieter and quieter to the point where I couldn’t hear her at all. Speak clearly. Clearly! She was acting just like me when I get called on in class!
“I don’t really care about Yuigahama’s intimate liaisons, but what ultimately is your point, Hikigaya?”
Come on, ‘intimate liaisons’? I don’t even see that phrase on the hanging ads on trains lately. How old are you?
After an appropriate pause for effect, I smiled triumphantly. “Phew, it looks like you two have never eaten actual handmade cookies. Come back in ten minutes, please. I’ll feed you the real thing.”
“What did you say? Fine! I’m looking forward to it,” Yuigahama said, and apparently angry at having her cookies disparaged, she dragged Yukinoshita out into the hallway and disappeared.
Now, then. It was my turn in this game. In other words, this was the ultimate battle to decide the supreme, most extreme solution to her problem.
A few minutes later, the home ec room was enveloped in an aura of suspense.
“These are real homemade cookies? They’re lopsided and uneven sizes. Plus, some of them are burned. These are…” Yukinoshita gazed at the objects on the table dubiously.
Yuigahama peeked at us from off to the side.
“Bwa-ha! You talked big, but these are nothing! What a laugh! They’re not even worth eating!” Yuigahama burst into derisive laughter. She was actually cackling her head off. I’ll remember this, you jerk.
“C-come on, don’t say that. Just give them a try, please.” I held back the twitches tugging at the corners of my mouth and didn’t let my unperturbed smile falter. I would let my smile show them that I’d set everything up perfectly, was ready to turn the tables, and positive I would win.
“If you say so…” Yuigahama tentatively put a cookie in her mouth. Yukinoshita plucked one from the plate without a word.
Pleasant crunching sounds rang out, followed by a moment of silence.
“Oh! W-wow.” Yuigahama’s eyes opened wide. The flavor had arrived at her brain, and she struggled to find the appropriate words to describe it. “It’s not like they’re anything special, though, and it’s also kinda gritty. Frankly, they’re not that good!” She veered wildly from shock over to anger. The violent swing from one pole to the next made her grimace in my direction.
Yukinoshita said nothing, but she looked at me suspiciously. Apparently, she’d noticed.
I tolerated both glares for a moment before gently dropping my gaze. “Oh… They’re no good, huh? I tried my best, though…”
“Oh… Sorry.” When I cast my eyes down, Yuigahama awkwardly lowered her eyes to the floor as well.
“Sorry. I’ll throw them out,” I said, snatching the plate away and turning from them.
“W-wait a second!”
“What?”
Yuigahama took my hand, stopping me. Instead of replying, she picked up one of the lopsided cookies and tossed it into her mouth. She made a crunching sound, chewing up the gritty thing. “Th-they’re not so awful you’d have to throw them out… I couldn’t call them bad.”
“Oh… So you’re satisfied with them?” I smiled at her, and Yuigahama nodded wordlessly before immediately spinning around to look away. The setting sun was flowing in through the windows, making her face look red.
“Well, they’re the cookies you just made.”
“What?”
I smoothly and casually let her in on the truth. I’d never said I was the one who’d made them, so I’d never lied.
“…Ehh?” Yuigahama repeated stupidly. Her eyes had turned to dots, and her mouth hung entirely, exaggerating the effect of her foolishness.
“Huh? Huh?” Blinking and wide-eyed, she turned from me to Yukinoshita and back again. She didn’t even remotely grasp what had just happened.
“Hikigaya, I don’t quite understand. What was the point of this farce?” Yukinoshita sized me up, clearly displeased.
“There’s a certain saying… ‘If you have love…love is okay!’” I gave her a thumbs-up with a big grin on my face.
“That’s so old!” Yuigahama reacted quietly. Well, that show did air back when I was in elementary school. Yukinoshita didn’t appear to have gotten it, and she tilted her head to the side with a look like Question mark?
“You set the bar too high.” A smile slipped onto my face. Ooh, what was this? This feeling of superiority? This feeling like I was the only one with the correct answer? It was too much. I couldn’t help but blab on about it. I chuckled. “The goal of hurdling is not to jump over the hurdles. It’s to reach the finish line with the best time. There’s no rule saying you have to jump to get there. It do—”
“I get what you’re trying to say. That’s enough.”
—esn’t matter if you knock over the hurdles or send them flying or try to crawl under them. Was what I was going to say when Yukinoshita interrupted me.
“You’re saying we’ve mistaken the means for the goal.” She didn’t seem quite convinced. But that was just what I’d been about to say, so I had no choice but to nod and then continue.
“She went to all that trouble to make some handmade cookies. If you don’t play up the handmade part, then there’s no point. A guy isn’t going to be happy if you hand him something exactly the same as store-bought. It’s actually better if they taste a little bad,” I said, but Yukinoshita still didn’t look convinced.
“It’s better if they’re bad?” she asked.
“Yeah, that’s right. If you emphasize that, while you couldn’t do it perfectly, you tried your best! then he’ll get the tragically false impression that oh, she tried so hard for me!”
“It can’t be that simple…” Yuigahama looked at me, doubtful, as if to say, What are you talking about, you virgin?
I sighed. I had no choice. I’d have to tell her a story to persuade her.
“This story is about a friend of a friend of mine, from back when he’d just started eighth grade. It was the beginning of a new year, so they had to pick a class representative in homeroom. But, this being eighth grade, none of the boys wanted to be class rep. So of course, they had to draw straws. And this guy was born with no luck at all, so of course, he was picked to be class rep. So the teacher gave him his assignments, and then they had to decide on the female class rep. He was a shy, bashful, and timid guy, so it was really hard on him.”
“All those words mean the same thing. And you’re taking way too long to get to the point.”
“Shut up and listen. And that’s when a girl volunteered as a candidate. She was cute. And thus, auspiciously, the boy and girl class reps were decided. The girl said shyly, ‘I’m looking forward to working with you this year.’
“After that, she would come and talk to him from time to time. He started to go, ‘Huh? Does she like me? Now that I think about it, she volunteered after I was chosen as the boys’ rep. She comes to talk to me a lot, so she must like me!’ It didn’t take him long to come to that conclusion. About a week.”
“That’s fast!” Yuigahama, who had been nodding and hmming, voiced her surprise.
“You moron. Time and age gaps or whatever, none of that has anything to do with love. So anyway, after school one day, when they were handing out papers like the teacher told them to, he resolved to confess his feelings for her:
“‘U-um, hey… Do you have a crush on anyone?’
“‘Huh? No!’
“‘Come on, if you’re saying it like that, I know you do! Who is it?’
“‘Who do you think?’
“‘I don’t know! Come on! Give me a hint!’
“‘I don’t know if I can…’
“‘Oh, then his initials! Tell me his initials! Or just the first letter of his last name or first name is fine, c’mon!’
“‘Hmm, well then, I guess I can do that.’
“‘For real?! Yes! So what’s the letter?’
“‘H.’
“‘Huh? Is that…me?’
“‘Huh? What’re you talking about? Of course not. What? Huh? That’s so gross. Just stop.’
“‘Ah-ha-ha. Of course… I was just kidding.’
“‘Who in their right mind would… We’re done here, so I’m going.’
“‘O-okay…’ And as I was left alone in the classroom, I watched the setting sun, tears rolling down my face. What’s more, when I went to school the next day, everyone knew about what had happened.”
“So it was about you, Hikki…,” Yuigahama mumbled awkwardly, averting her eyes.
“Hey! Don’t be dumb. No one said it was about me! The first person was just, y’know, a mode of storytelling.”
Ignoring my explanation, Yukinoshita let out an annoyed sigh. “It was suspicious from the moment you said ‘a friend of a friend.’ You don’t have any friends.”
“What?! You bastard!”
“Your trauma is irrelevant. What was your point?”
It wasn’t irrelevant. That incident had made the girls hate me even more and had prompted the boys to start teasing me left and right, giving me the nickname ‘Egogaya,’ and, well, I guess it was irrelevant.
I pulled myself together and went on.
“In other words, you know…guys are depressingly simple. We’ll get the wrong idea if you do so much as talk to us, and just getting handmade cookies is enough to make us happy. So…”
I paused and looked intently at Yuigahama. “Cookies that are nothing special, sometimes gritty and not that good, are still good enough.”
“Ngh…! Shut up!”
Her face tinged red in anger, she threw everything she had at hand at me—plastic bags, wax paper, and so on. How kind, to choose things that wouldn’t hurt if they struck home. Huh? Does that mean she likes me? Ha-ha, just kidding. I’m not going through that again.
“You really piss me off, Hikki! I’m leaving!” Yuigahama glowered at me, grabbing her bag and standing. She turned her head away with a hmph and began walking toward the door. Her shoulders were shaking.
Oh, crap, maybe I’d gone to far. I really wasn’t keen on the prospect of nasty talk about me flying around the class again. I’d have to amend that statement. “Look, it’s like…if you can get across the fact that you tried, you’ll sway him.”
Yuigahama turned around at the door. The light was coming from behind her, and I couldn’t see her face. “Would it sway you, Hikki?”
“Huh? Oh, I’m already swaying like crazy. I’m so bad, you just have to be nice to me to make me fall for you. And hey, don’t call me Hikki!”
“H-hmph,” Yuigahama replied indifferently to my flippant remark before immediately looking away again. She put her hand on the door and moved to leave.
Yukinoshita spoke to her back. “Yuigahama, what are you going to do about your request?”
“I don’t care about that anymore. I’m gonna try doing it my own way next time. Thanks, Yukinoshita.” Yuigahama turned around, smiling. “See you tomorrow. Bye.” She waved and left for real this time, her apron still on.
“Is that really a good idea?” Yukinoshita mumbled, still looking at the door. “I think that if you have room to improve, you should push yourself to the limit. That would be better for her, in the end.”
“Well, that’s true. You’ll never betray yourself if you put in effort, but you may end up betraying your dreams.”
“How are those two things different?”
The wind stroked Yukinoshita’s cheeks as she turned around, her two braids swaying.
“Even if you do make an effort, your dreams won’t necessarily come true. It’s actually more likely that they won’t. But the fact that you tried alone is comforting.”
“That’s just something you tell yourself to feel better.”
“Even so, you aren’t betraying yourself.”
“You’re so naïve… It’s disgusting.”
“Both you and the rest of society are hard on me. I at least have to be kind to myself. Everyone should pamper themselves more. If everyone’s a failure, then no one’s a failure.”
“This is the first time I’ve ever seen someone argue pessimism as an ideal. If your ideas were to become popular, the world would fall to ruin.” Yukinoshita looked disgusted, but I was quite fond of my ideology. One day I’d like to found Neetoria, a government of the NEETs, by the NEETs, for the NEETs… I guess it would probably crash and burn within three days after all.
I finally understood what this Service Club or whatever did.
In short, it was apparently for advising students and helping them solve their problems. But its existence wasn’t particularly advertised. I mean, I hadn’t known about it. And it wasn’t just because I was disconnected from the campus hive-mind. Yuigahama hadn’t been aware of it, either, so that meant that we needed someone to connect us to the students, and that someone was Ms. Hiratsuka. Students went to her with their problems from time to time, and she’d send them on to us.
So in other words, the club was an isolation ward.
In that sanatorium, I was, as usual, reading a book.
Receiving counseling on your worries was basically just exposing your insecurities. High school students are sensitive, so telling them to talk to other students from the same school about their problems was probably just too much to ask. Yuigahama had come because Ms. Hiratsuka had introduced her to us. Without the teacher’s involvement, nobody would ever visit.
There were no guests today, either. The shop was open for business, but none was forthcoming. Both Yukinoshita and I were comfortable with silence, so it was very quiet while we focused on our reading, which was why the hard rap on the door rang out so loudly.
“Yahallo!” She pulled open the sliding door with her insipid, concentration-killing greeting. It was Yui Yuigahama. I averted my eyes from the legs protruding from her short skirt and switched instead to gape at the widely open blouse on her chest. Slutty as usual.
Seeing her, Yukinoshita let out a grand sigh. “…What is it?”
“Huh? What? That’s not much of a welcome… Yukinoshita, do you…hate me?”
Yuigahama’s voice was subdued, but Yukinoshita heard her nonetheless. When the girl’s shoulders began trembling, Yukinoshita gestured as if deep in thought before annoucing in her usual monotone, “I don’t hate you. I just…find you difficult, maybe.”
“That means exactly the same thing in girl speak!” Yuigahama flailed. It seemed she really didn’t want to be hated. She looked like a prostitute, but her reactions were very much akin to those of a normal girl.
“So? Why are you here?”
“Well, I’m super into cooking right now, aren’t I?”
“You are? This is news to me.”
“So this is, like…thanks for the other day? I made some cookies, so I was wondering if you wanted some.”
Yukinoshita went pale as a sheet. If someone brought up Yuigahama’s cooking, the first thing that came to mind was those charred, iron-like cookies. Just remembering them, both my throat and heart dried up.
“I don’t really have much of an appetite, so it’s okay. I appreciate the sentiment.” Most likely she’d only just lost her appetite following the mention of Yuigahama’s cookies. Not calling attention to that part was probably her way of being kind.
Indifferent to Yukinoshita’s firm refusal, Yuigahama hummed as she plucked a cellophane-clad package out of her bag. The cutely wrapped thing was, indeed, pitch-black. “Man, trying it was so fun, you know! I’m thinking I’ll try making a bento lunch or something later! Oh, so, Yukinon, let’s have lunch together!”
“No, I like eating alone, so that would be a little much. And ‘Yukinon’ is creepy, so stop it.”
“No way! Aren’t you lonely? Where do you eat, Yukinon?”
“In the clubroom…and were you listening to what I just said?”
“Oh, so, like, I’m free after school, so I’ll help you with your club stuff. Oh, geez, this is, like…a thanks? This is my thanks, so don’t worry about it at all!”
“Are you listening?” Yukinoshita, clearly stunned by Yuigahama’s surging, all-out attack, glanced in my direction. It seemed as though she wanted me to do something about Yuigahama.
There’s no way I’m helping you.
You’re always spitting venom at me, you didn’t pay me back for the Veggie Lifestyle…and she’s your friend.
Seriously, though, I thought Yuigahama was coming to thank her like this because Yukinoshita had sincerely tried to help her with her problem. Yukinoshita was both entitled and obligated to accept that thanks. It would have been wrong for me to get in the way of that.
I shut my paperback and quietly stood. Offering a parting, inaudible “Bye” in my wake, I attempted to leave the clubroom.
“Oh, Hikki!” I heard my name, and when I turned, a black object was flying at my face. Reflexively, I grabbed it.
“Consider that my thanks, I guess? ’Cuz you helped me, too, Hikki.”
I examined the package of black, heart-shaped somethings. They smelled ominous and looked vaguely sinister, but if this was her thanks, I’d accept them with gratitude.
But don’t call me Hikki.
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