Yahari Ore no Seishun Love Come wa Machigatte Iru - Volume 11 - Chapter 9

9

Spring is made and begins to bud underneath the snow.

Even after we got off the Ferris wheel, snow was still fluttering around. It wasn’t enough to warrant an umbrella, reflecting in the light as it blew in the wind. The park lawn had a faint layer of white, quietly informing us of the passage of time.

We hardly spoke as we walked through the park. Yuigahama took the lead, while Yukinoshita and I followed.

Eventually, the side path merged into the long main road that came from the station. Turn left here, and it would lead to the train station, while if you went right, it would take you to the beach.

Yuigahama didn’t hesitate. She turned right.

“Hey…” I called out to her to ask if she meant to stop by somewhere; she spun around back to me and pointed down the road without a word.

She was indicating a glass-walled building, and the sign said it was called Crystal View. It was probably an observation tower where you could look out over Tokyo Bay.

When I glanced at my phone clock, it was still early enough that I didn’t have to go home yet.

“Let’s go,” Yukinoshita prompted me, and she started walking to catch up to Yuigahama, who was waiting ahead.

I followed after the two of them for a while.

The observation deck was closed by now, but the part that was like a terrace was open. We could still get a view of Tokyo Bay from there.

Snow was falling on the quietly rolling sea, and the setting sun blurred out from between the clouds.

A colorless white sparkled among the rose and azure.

“Ohhh!” Yuigahama cried out in excitement at the view.

Yukinoshita, a few steps behind her, pressed down her hair as it blew in the wind, gazing into the distance. The sight was affecting her, too.

There was nobody but us, with the sea sprawled before us and the dots of the city lights in the distance.

This view could only be seen right here, right now.

That moment was peaceful, leisurely.

Which was exactly why it wouldn’t last long.

Yuigahama pulled back from the terrace fence she’d been leaning over and turned to us again. “What should we do now?”

“Go home,” I said, half-joking.

Yuigahama quietly shook her head. “That’s not what I meant…”

There was an earnest weight in her tone. She took one soft step up to Yukinoshita and me and looked straight at both of us. “About Yukinon. And about me… About us.”

The words I’d been running away from made my heart jump. The feeling I’d had all this time, that feeling that something was wrong, rapidly rose inside me and took shape.

Yukinoshita paused hesitantly, then asked, “…What’s that supposed to mean?”

Yuigahama didn’t answer. She just gave us a serious look. “Hikki. This is thanks for before,” she said, then drew something out of her bag. Offering with both hands, she held up a package of prettily wrapped cookies.

I heard someone’s breath catch upon seeing that. In the corner of my eye, Yukinoshita clutched at her bag and gave a barely perceptible shake of her head. Then her head dropped, and she stared down at her feet.

Yuigahama passed by her side then, coming up before me. “Do you remember my request?”

“…Yeah,” I replied with a voice that was hardly there.

There was no way I could forget; it was the first consultation that I—that the Service Club—had taken. Back then, though, I’d just wound up saying something dumb to muddy the waters. The matter was far from resolved or canceled.

But despite that, Yuigahama had been trying to bring closure all by herself. She was trying to indicate that clearly now.

I was still bewildered, unable to force myself to move, so she took my hand and pressed the cookies into them. There was a definite weight in my hand.

The cookies I could see through the cellophane were uneven shapes, and some of them were a little burned or off-color. Nobody would call them pretty. But that was how you instantly knew they were homemade.

She was such a bad cook, their workmanship spoke to me of her effort and seriousness.

Yukinoshita, who’d been staring blankly at the cookies in my hands, opened her mouth with a sigh. “Homemade cookies… You made them yourself?”

“I sort of screwed them up, though.” Yuigahama smiled shyly to cover her embarrassment.

As if to say, That’s nothing, Yukinoshita gave a little shake of her head. “Yuigahama. You’re…amazing.” There was longing in her kind tone, or maybe it was something like admiration. Yukinoshita was looking at Yuigahama with awe.

Yuigahama returned that gaze with a happy smile. “…I said I’d try it myself. And that I’d try doing it my own way. That’s what this is.”

And Yui Yuigahama came up with her own answer.

“…So it’s just a thanks,” she said, standing proud with a bright smile.

If she was calling this a thanks for that time, that matter had already been dealt with. What had happened in the past had already been squared, and I wasn’t going to dig it up now. I’d already gotten more than enough thanks, over all the days up until now. So it wasn’t logical to accept this as gratitude.

We’d started off wrong, but I’d thought we’d put a proper end to that. That we’d made a new start.

So then maybe the feelings, or the answer that had been in that new start, could change.

…If…just supposing… If those feelings were something special…

Without averting my eyes from Yuigahama, I found the words in my tightening throat. “…I’ve already accepted your thanks.”

It wasn’t like I actually wanted to make sure what she really meant. But I couldn’t just nod along and accept this without considering it at all.

But the moment I said that, I regretted it. As she stood in front of me, she looked like she was going to cry.

“But still…it’s just a thanks, okay?” she said, her voice sounding stifled, then bit the edge of her lip as her face scrunched up. And then she spun away, as if to hide the light in her eyes.

“I want everything. Now, and in the future, too. I’m unfair. I just don’t have the guts,” she said at the sky, sounding a tiny bit sulky. That seemed like an answer, and also like a monologue that asked for no answer or refutation. So all I could do was gaze at her back and at least listen closely so I wouldn’t miss anything.

When she was done talking, a white sigh rose up to melt into thin air.

And then she turned back to fix a direct gaze on us.

“I’ve made up my mind.” Yuigahama’s eyes were no longer moist, but determined and strong.

“I see…,” Yukinoshita muttered with something like resignation, and I couldn’t even come up with a meaningless response.

Yuigahama smiled at us a little sadly. “I think once both know how the other feels, you can’t keep going along the same way… So this’ll probably be my last request. Our final request is about us.”

She didn’t say a single concrete thing. Since once she’d said it out loud, that would define it. We had been avoiding that.

She spoke gingerly, vaguely, without giving a name to that truth. So there was no guarantee at all that the truths Yuigahama, Yukinoshita, and I pictured were completely the same.

But when she said we couldn’t stay like this, that was the one thing that did seem to be the truth.

This was the doubt that I’d continued to hold in a corner of my heart all this time, and Yuigahama was deeply aware of it, too.

And then there was one other.

Yukinoshita’s face was downturned, eyes closed. Though I couldn’t quite see her expression, she didn’t argue, and she didn’t question Yuigahama, either, listening in silence. I think she was probably feeling it keenly, too.

“Hey, Yukinon. That contest is still going on, right?”

“Yes. Doing whatever the winner says…,” Yukinoshita answered as if she was confused to be asked something so unexpected.

Yuigahama, standing right in front of her, gently touched Yukinoshita’s arm and said in her encouraging voice, “I know the answer to the problem you have right now, Yukinon.” And she slowly rubbed Yukinoshita’s arm.

Yukinoshita’s problem—that had always been there, in her behavior, in her words.

And Haruno Yukinoshita had stated it explicitly. That Yukino Yukinoshita didn’t know what to do. Do about what? Her mother, her sister, or these relationships? Any of them, maybe all of them.

“I…” Yukinoshita hung her head weakly, utterly lost, then murmured in a near whisper, “I don’t know.”

Yuigahama nodded gently and released her. “I think probably…that’s our answer.”

Not knowing, ultimately. Me, or them.

Once you comprehend it, then it will break. If you put a lid on it and ignore it long enough, then it will rot away bit by bit. So no matter what you do, it’ll come to an end. You can’t avoid losing it.

That was the answer, the conclusion that awaited where we were headed.

Yuigahama paused there a moment, then gave a little shake of her head. “So…,” she began, looking right at Yukinoshita and me. “If I win, then I’ll take everything. Maybe it’s not fair, but…that’s all I can think of… I’d like things to stay like this forever.”

That was why Yuigahama had gone with the answer first. She had ignored the hypothesis, conditions, equations, and everything to start with making the conclusion explicit.

She was saying that no matter what process you went through, no matter what sort of situation it was, even if it was an equation that was impossible to balance, the answer was the one thing that wouldn’t change. This fun time wouldn’t go on forever.

“So…?” she asked.

I didn’t know how to answer. “So…? Well…”

Normally, that couldn’t be done—working backward from the conclusion, even if it twisted the formula a bit or falsified the evidence, to bring it to that answer. But the compulsion to “do whatever she said”—no, it was only possible to grant that wish if you rationalize and say we were being compelled.

If she gave us an excuse like that, then I was sure I could convince myself, too.

I might even start thinking that if we could keep doing what we did today, even if it felt a little wrong, then wouldn’t that also count as happiness?

Most of all…

…Yuigahama probably wasn’t wrong. I felt like she was the one person who’d been looking at the right answer the whole time. I was sure it would be easier to accept that. But—

Was it right to leave something distorted without trying to fix it? Was that the true nature of the thing I’d been wishing for?

As my teeth were gritted, unable to reply, Yuigahama looked at me kindly. And then she reached out beside her and gently took Yukinoshita’s hand.

“Are you okay with that, Yukinon?” Yuigahama asked her, like a mother questioning a small child.

The question made Yukinoshita’s shoulders twitch. “O-oh, I…” She averted her eyes but put together the words in a weak, faltering voice, compelled to respond.

The moment I saw her like that, my intuition spoke to me.

Ah, this is… No, this is wrong.

Yukinoshita couldn’t entrust her future to someone else. That would never be okay.

And Yuigahama was being unfair—letting her say something like that would never be okay.

“I still…”

“No.” I took a step in to keep her from saying any more. When I raised my voice, Yukinoshita looked at me, eyes filled with surprise.

“I can’t go along with your proposal. Yukinoshita should resolve her own problems herself.” Clenching my fists tight, I fixed my gaze on Yuigahama, who stood in front of me.

Her mouth was drawn in a hard line as she stared at me with an unusually cold and dignified expression.

Yui Yuigahama is a kind girl. That was what I’d assumed.

Yukino Yukinoshita is a strong girl. That was the ideal I’d forced on her.

With those in my mind, I’d continued to take advantage. But that was exactly why I couldn’t leave this to her. I couldn’t repay her kindness with lies.

I mean, after all, Yui Yuigahama is a kind girl, and Yukino Yukinoshita is a strong girl.

“…Besides, that’s just phony anyway,” I spat, and the words disappeared in the surging ocean waves. The rolling water just washed in, then out, over and over.

Nobody spoke.

Yukinoshita’s lips trembled, eyes wet, while Yuigahama gave a warm little nod, waiting for me to continue.

“I…don’t need vague answers or shallow relationships of convenience.”

What I wanted was something else.

I think I’m an idiot.

I know something like that doesn’t exist. I know that even if I obsess over it, I’d get nothing out of it.

But.

“But still, giving it the thought it deserves, suffering…and struggling… I…” The words I wrung out lost all voice.

I knew something like this wasn’t right. Maybe if I could say I was fine with this, that would have been okay. If I could have spent that time thinking of different futures and beautiful possibilities, then nobody would have to suffer.

But even so, I want to force my ideals on them. I’m not strong enough to live on in slumber. Because after all that doubting myself, I don’t want to lie to someone I care about.

So I wanted to get a proper answer. No falsities or equivocation. The answer I want.

I let out a hot breath, and when she realized nothing else was coming, Yuigahama looked me right in the eye.

“…I thought you’d say that, Hikki.” She smiled kindly. That instant, a drop trailed down her cheek.

What about me? I hoped I didn’t look like a mess.

Yuigahama and I looked at each other and traded little nods.

Our wishes could not be seen with the eye. But their forms were probably just slightly out of sync, unable to perfectly overlap.

Still, it wasn’t like they would never be the same thing.

Now that it was out, it would come that much closer into view. Surely a part of it would be connected somewhere. And I turned to Yukinoshita.

Yukinoshita squeezed at her chest, looking between Yuigahama and me with teary eyes. Her anxious gaze wavered like something fragile. But when she realized I had been waiting for her answer the whole time, she took a little breath in and out.

“…Don’t assume how I feel,” she said a little sulkily, then wiped her eyes. “Besides, it’s not the end. There’s still your request, Hikigaya.”

I tried to reply, My request? But Yuigahama’s faint smile cut me off. She nodded at Yukinoshita like, That’s right.

With just a look, the two of them traded smiles like a secret just for them.

“…And one more thing.” Yukinoshita tucked away her smile and pointed her beautiful face at the two of us.

As we waited for her to continue, she took one step forward.

Toward us.

One soft step.

“…Could you hear my request?” Yukinoshita asked shyly, like she was embarrassed.

Yuigahama’s mouth split in a smile. “Yeah, tell us,” she answered, taking another step to bring them closer, and she reached out a gentle hand.

Eventually, the rays of the twilight sun that had sunk into the sea cast shadow puppets on a white canvas.

It was dim and wavering, its warped form with an unclear outline.

But the shapes had clearly connected into one.

If what I wish for would have a form…it would be—