Yahari Ore no Seishun Love Come wa Machigatte Iru - Volume 13 - Chapter 7

Chapter 7: What scenery Ebina Hina sees beyond the lens of her eyeglasses.

I hate going to school a lot.

Or rather, I really hate going to the classroom.

To put it more accurately, I awfully hate seeing Hayama Hayato.

Or even more precisely, every time I meet Hayama, my body becomes uneasy and I stammer, but he, on the other hand, just acts normally as if there's nothing awkward at all. I absolutely hate this.

Nope.

If I have to spit out the truth from my heart, seeing him wearing a normal face, yet suddenly noticing him showing a somehow hurt face from aside, and in a flash it's gone - the fact that I noticed this series of his expressions is absolutely disgusting for me.

Because we parted from each other yesterday without finishing our words but merely making excuses, I was not able to identify what type of reaction he was holding then - he opened his mouth widely, with a surprised face as if seeing some endangered species. I knew he was going to soon say something very annoying, so I quickly ran away from the scene.

In the morning at the classroom, as I looked furtively at the window in the back, I could see Hayama and others chatting cheerfully as usual. I laid my face down on the desk immediately then.

The scene there hadn't changed a bit from the usual one,

where the sunlight poured into the room through the window, accompanied by cheerful conversations and delightful happy faces.

However, just for fraction of a second, on that overflowed smiling face, I sensed a tiny bit of worry and anxiety.

Perhaps there wasn't that much to read from the smile; or perhaps, just as usual, it was simply that very same pleasant smile that Hayama wears all the time.

In that case, that tiny bit of worry and anxiety might just be my own interpretation that I read from and forced upon him at my own will. Or maybe it simply came from within myself.

For this reason, I did not want to have any proper conversation with Hayama at all.

I noticed that even though I pretended not to see it, but in the end I couldn’t resist but see through it so clearly - a sense of disgust began to spring up in my heart. Maybe Hayama was feeling the exact same thing as I was.

Therefore, in the end, Hayama and I kept on further misunderstanding each other, without looking into each other's eyes genuinely, but merely finding mistakes from the other and conflicting with each other angrily.

Because of the above realization, I decided to resist firmly against casting my eyes at Hayama.

Well, actually it wasn't entirely a bad thing as it sounded. Thanks to this, I was able to confirm one thing. Putting it into words made me further solidify my intention to carry it out.

I wanted to brag and talk big about man’s stubbornness.

So, I idled my time away without looking at Hayama at all.

I raised my head from the desk and peeked at the wall clock. I sighed so deeply as I did not remember how many times I had repeated this same set of actions. I stared at the hands of the wall clock and felt like they had been moving a lot slower than usual.

Though I was sitting at my own seat, I felt rather uneasy and only wanted the school to end as soon as possible.

7-2

Come on, end of class, please come now!

Though I had been praying so, when the end-of-class bell actually rang, I immediately dashed out of the classroom and went to the Game Club room; there, I made an even deeper sigh.

It all began with my briefing.

"...Eh, so, Hayama said he won't help us."

As soon as my memory from yesterday arose, I couldn’t help but put up a bitter face. Yet, it looked like everyone else's faces turned even more bitter.

"Whaat..."

"We are done for..."

"We have finally reached the end of our rope..."[56]

Hatano and Sagami both frowned and Zaimokuza sighed very deeply with a troubled face. Only Yuigahama smiled bitterly to try to comfort them.

"Well, it's okay... We are still yet to talk to Kaihin-Sougou HS. Right, Hikki-?"

"That's correct. So, let's contact them first."

As I talked, I quickly turned my face to Yuigahama.

However, while dropping her hands loosely under the table, Yuigahama tilted her head in question.

"W...what?"

"Eh, um, their contact..."

"...Huh? You are asking me? I thought you knew it, Hikki-?"

While still keeping her head tilted, this time she leaned her head in the other direction.

Then, silence befell.

It all happened in a flash - our eyes met and crossed - I quickly turned my eyes to Zaimokuza, who then looked at Sagami, who turned his head and nodded at Hatano, who threw his stares back at me. After our eye contacts made a loop, I turned my attention back to Yuigahama.

"I see, you really didn't know it... I don’t quite want to reach out to them myself,... would they consider it awkward if I suddenly call them...?"

Yuigahama sighed slightly exhaustedly, and then took out her smartphone from the pocket.

It's all right. It's all right. All guys have undergone the exact same trouble as you were experiencing at this moment. In any case, it would definitely be considered awkward. "What's up with this dude suddenly asking me what's covered in the assignment...", - all girls think like this. Hence, I cast a warm, comforting gaze to Yuigahama, who then looked at me and said,

"Speaking of which, Hikki-, don't you have... Orimoto-san's contact?"

"I deleted it."

"You dele..."

After hearing my immediate response, Yuigahama immediately froze her hand holding her smartphone and went completely speechless.

"Normally you would delete those right away after graduating from the middle school right? It's not like I will see them ever again in my life. I do not want to waste the memory space."

"That's not normal at all!"

I spat out my words but Yuigahama immediately denied them. Nevertheless, other guys showed very little response, or actually, they all sympathized with my verdict and nodded their heads together. Yuigahama then looked at them, twice again, and then for a third time.

"Wait, what!? Am I the weird one here?"

Yuigahama clasped her head firmly.

"But didn't you exchange your contact information with Orimoto-san back then?"

"... yeah, just in case... I was kind of acting as the point of contact at the Christmas event. But it's not like we talked to each other much either..."

Yuigahama's voice weakened as she continued to speak, with her shoulders dropping in downcast.

Actually now come to think of it, Yuigahama backed us up and was acting as a point of contact for us in various matters. She was also responsible for managing money related stuff, if I remembered correctly. However, since we couldn't have a proper conversation with those Kaihin-Sougou guys *at all*, we decided to instead reach out to those girls centered around Orimoto. I had no idea how many times Yuigahama had met Orimoto in person, nor had I seen two of them having a friendly conversation. If anything, I think they had more awkward encounters than normal ones.

Communication Monster Yuigahama and Yes-woman Orimoto might not actually get along with each other. Well, that's because their first encounting was kind of an accident... I couldn't be helped, if I had to say... By the way, it was all Hayama's fault! Preach it!! Eh well not quite, it's not like I had no part to be blamed for at all... Having this realization, I decided to bring up my suggestion in a low voice.

"If you tell me the contact, I'll send the message."

Thereupon, Yuigahama looked up from her smartphone, on which she hadn't typed a single word yet, and turned her eyes to me with a swollen cheek.

"Hikki-, you don't even use LINE."

'Ugu', I was tongue-tied immediately. Kids these days... Their way of communication is already all high-tech stuff. Actually no, I also wished to use those Precure stamps too. However, due to lack of contacts, I'm perfectly fine at the moment not using LINE.

Well, I felt sorry to Yuigahama for having to let her take the responsibility. Seemed to be a little bit troubled, Yuigahama began typing and composing her messages on LINE. As I was looking at Yuigahama doing her job, I heard some grumbles coming from nearby.

"How does this guy live a normal life without using LINE..."

"What a primitive man living in the stone age... A Chiba primitive man..."

"This guy loves Chiba so much that he hasn't evolved a single bit from Chibanian. Because of the reversal of terrestrial magnetism, he didn't use LINE or any messaging app. He has only been using carrier mail so far."

"That's not true! I also Web Mail and SMS."

I quickly jumped up and argued against them. Three of them all went puzzled.

"I haven't been using mail service at all lately..."

"Speaking of Jomon people, is the local one here called Kasori Midden?

"Hmm, looks like the time has advanced a little bit. Let's start using Hachiman pagers!"

The three glasses filled themselves with bursts of laughs while talking mindlessly without caring about being offensive to me. I knew that Hatano says terrible things all the time but now Sagami was also being a terrible human being. Even his sister is cuter that way... That's a joke.

No no, it wasn't the right time to care about all of this.

Let me see. I cast my eyes aside to see how the contacting had been going. While mumbling "ok, ok" at the same time, Yuigahama kept typing sentences on her phone.

"So... what should I ask them?"

"For now just send them the prom proposal file as an attachment. Tell them that we want to set up a meeting with them with regard to the proposal as soon as possible. You could tell them to bring up the schedule for either today, tomorrow or the day after tomorrow."

"File as an, attach,..., attachment?"

Yuigahama just chanted 'File as an attachment'! Yuigahama was in great confusion! It's true that the name sounded a little parupint-ish... O Yuigahama-san seemed to have no idea how to send a file as an attachment. Then no wonder that she didn't know the meaning of the word 'attachment'.[57]

Sagami could not stand to see this happen and pushed his glasses straight. He then asked politely.

"Ah, you have to upload it to the cloud first. What cloud storage service do you use?"

"Sto...rage?"

Yuigahama waved her head left and then right, while Hatano made a long sigh and shook his head.

"She’s hopeless... She definitely didn't understand a bit... Shall we upload it to Dropbox or something?"

"Hmm... It might be easier for her to understand if we just do File Transfer, since we only need to give her the link."

"Ah, that's true. Let me borrow the computer."

Zaimokuza crossed his arms and thought hard with his head tilted. To that, I snapped my fingers and pulled over the Game Club laptop on the long table. I swiftly uploaded the proposal to some file transfer server and obtained the link. In addition, I further composed the message that asked for the schedule and sent it over to Yuigahama.

"Here, just copy and paste it."

"O...okay... At least I know how to copy and paste."

Showing a relaxed expression, Yuigahama smiled gently at me and immediately went back typing on her smartphone. We just stayed there and all stared at her. Finally, 'fuu~', Yuigahama sighed in exhaustion.

"Was it sent?"

"Yep, just now."

Yuigahama smiled bashfully while fondling her hair bun. And then everyone broke out their smiles in satisfaction. What is this feeling of being the Princess of an Otaku Club...[58] Even that Zaimokuza racked his brain order to assert his usefulness. Gahama-san, what a formidable girl!

Anyhow, we just had to wait for the response from him.

Meanwhile, I checked out the website that they made and exclaimed, "Looks really good! Looks so good that I want to try three more designs! Just let me see it by next Monday and it’s fine!" and etc - what was this stupid business-client game we were playing.

Suddenly, Yuigahama's smartphone vibrated momentarily.

"Did it come?"

"No, it didn't. It's Yumiko. She asked when to meet?"

Yuigahama covered her lips with her smartphone and looked at me. It was about the request that asked Miura to serve as the model in the photograph.

"Since the sunset takes place at 5:30PM, let's convene at 4:30. We could get our hands ready and then wait for the evening glow before we start taking photos.”

"Okay."

As I finished my words, Yuigahama immediately started typing. I looked at her sideways and then turned my eyes to look beyond the window.

Just according to my research yesterday, today's weather is clear.

There were some clouds here and there but perhaps that'd be great for creating a beautiful evening glow.

After I stared at the setting sun for a while, I promptly began preparing for photographing next.

7-3

Soon after the sunset, the wind by the seaside turned more chilly and the smell of tide stronger. The mild ripples hit the shore, bounced back and then emitted twinkling lights.

Being forced to squint my eyes due to the burning red evening glow, I put down my belongings that I held in hand on the beach with a thud. We decided to use the gazebo a little far from the beach as our preparation spot and there we began preparing for photographing.

We borrowed a washtub and couple thermal pots from the school, placed them all on the ground heavily, along with some body warmers that we bought from a 100-yen shop. This beach was used as a seaside resort during summer times, with well-equipped facilities like shower rooms. But now in this season, it didn't look like it was serving that purpose at all. For this reason, just in case someone got wet or dirty, we had to rely on our own washtub and warm water to gently wash off the ocean water and sand. We also prepared a good amount of hot water needed to serve our dear models.

There, Zaimokuza, who helped moving stuff here with us, cast his eyes at me awkwardly.

"What a strong Assistant Director ability you have!"[59]

"That's not quite right. I hoped we had blankets and bigger bench coats..."

and tents, and a fire stand... Maybe it's finally about the time for me to prepare for Solo Camp[60]. After all, we were talking about bring girls out in this place of chilly wilderness. We needed to at the very least get those equipment ready. We wanted to be perfect in our readiness for this kind of cold weather, but unfortunately due to lack of support and money, we couldn't. So as I spoke, Zaimokuza held his coat collar tighter.

"I.. I won't give you this coat!"

"No need, thank you..."

Even I got so sickened by him. If he said that to a girl that'd be much grosser. Well, let me check out how the models were doing now. So I looked into the direction where the bench was, and saw Miura Yumiko trembling, holding her arms crossed tightly and rubbing frequently.

"Damn! Cold, cold, cold! Yui, the body warmer, body warmer, body warmer!"

"Behind? Or the front?"

"Both!"

Miura rolled up the hem of her blazer and showed the back of her brouse. There, Yuigahama stuck the body warmers one after another. The scene looked too immoral and indecent to me so I sensed that I just saw something that I shouldn't be seeing[61]. Welp, I was paying very close attention though.

However, it looked like they were already done with their preparations.

I let Zaimokuza watch out our stuff and headed towards the girls with the camera in hand.

"I'm really grateful for your cooperation. It really helps."

"...huh??"

After seeing me lowered my head slightly, Miura expressed perplexity on her face. She gazed at me intently as if she just saw a muntjac wandering in a city. Hey, it wasn't that surprising, okay? Recently in Chiba the number of muntjacs also seemed to have increased a lot, too many that they always roar "Kyon-kun! Kyon-kun!".[62]

"Yoroshiku-!"

Ebina stood aside and waved her hands gently at me with a delightful smile. Hearing her voice, Miura froze for a while, but soon came back to herself.

"...ah, um, well. I was asked by Yui, so."

She dodged her face away as if trying to peek at Yuigahama. She explained curtly while pulling her curly hair. Probably because of the sunset, her face wore a slight flush. Oh well, oh well! Looked like she was feeling shy and embarrassed, hehehe...

Hold on, not quite the good time to be amused by the situation. Time's limited for the sun to stay above the horizon.

"So, let's get started, okay?"

"Ah, okay."

Yuigahama responded me with a nod, then turned her urging eyes to Miura and Ebina and started walking along the beach. After confirming the feeling that I was trampling sand in my shoes, I decided to follow her.

Immediately following the tide hitting the beach, I told them to stop briefly, and then took a few steps back and hold up the camera.

First of all, let me determine the composition of the photo.

Using the wide angle lens, the evening glow should be captured as its main big subject, with the glowing sky reflected and the pale ocean along the bottomline. The lens was set to focus on somewhere slightly above the horizon line. Right in front were the sand and the beach that began darkening, followed by the shoreline dyed in orange, and then the red-melted cloud that created a gradation effect. Yuigahama and Miura's back view were shown with slight bokeh effect to the right of the photo.

Two maidens stood side by side before the evening glow, yet each with a different pose.

Miura left her hands in the pocket and stared into the sun setting ocean afar in awe; whereas Yuigahama turned her body slightly around in my direction as if she was caring about something here.

While I pressed the shutter many times, I directed them their standing positions with my hand gestures, and also took some effort to change my own shooting positions. Meanwhile, since the air was quite freezing, both of them wore their coats and tracksuit pants below their skirts... Hmm, it looks quite good this way... I felt like I just infiltrated into an all-girl high school!

As I was thinking so and peeked into the viewfinder, Miura complained "Eh, so cold!" loudly enough so that I could hear it, and turned her body around and stared at me angrily.

"Hikio-, quick!"

"Yes..."

I held up the camera again.

The evening glow was drawn and sank into the clouds.

I tried to take a few photos, but none of them so far were satisfiable.

I bore the reference photo and its composition in mind while hitting the shutter button but for some reason I still couldn't capture it well enough in the frame.

On a sun-setting beach, girls wearing school uniforms stood side by side - should be as simple as that, but still I could not turn it into a photogenic scene. Honestly, I don't think it'll ever look attractive. I would like to have it look like something that could be printed on an H.I.S. pamphlet titled 'Graduation Trip in Hawaii', or like like some cover photo for 'We were here'.[63]

While I was holding the camera and scratching my head, Ebina suddenly showed up from behind.

"Can I borrow it?"

Saying so, she just took the camera from my hand.

"Here, do this, this way."

She returned the camera to me after hitting the shutter button a few times. When I looked at the preview, it turned out to be precisely the composition I had in mind.

"Oh wow, looks so professional...!"

"Right!?"

I couldn't hold back my exclamation but to express it. Ebina straightened up her chest proudly.

"A~l~s~o~"

Perhaps because of her good mood, Ebina hummed happily and ran towards Yuigahama and Miura. And then, she suddenly assaulted them in surprise, stripping off both their coats and their pants.

"Dyufufufufufu. Isn't this better? Isn't this better?"

"Baka baka baka! Ebina you really are..."

Ebina pressed the resisting Miura even harder - taking off her shoes and was about to even remove her socks. Is she a Datsueba?[64] The scenery in front of me almost unfolded into a Rashoumon-like situation.

"Let me do it myself. I said I'll do it myself!"

Yuigahama distanced herself from Ebina for a few steps, took off and threw away both her shoes and socks. Miura failed to resist Ebina, who pressed Miura down on the ground and removed her socks.

Thereupon, I was able to respectively behold dear Miss Miura's feet. I felt like I was also able to peek into her skirts in a glance, but then I quickly turned my face away from her and timely pushed the shutter button. Hey, it's not like it! It was merely out of my instinct and I just unconsciously pressing the shutter button again and again!

"So cold!"

"Cold, cold, eh, sands so cold!"

Yuigahama pattered on the ground rapidly, while Miura trembled and was bewildered by this freshly surprising situation.

"Fufufu. Of course, as I expected, naked feet is the best together with girls wearing school uniforms by the sea!"

Ebina put up a satisfying smile and walked back towards me. I know right... I nodded to her. Ebina held out her hands to me - seemed like she offered to take photos! Thank goodness. It's the best to just entrust the job to those who possess the photographic skills and senses!

I handed the camera over to her obediently. After mumbling some terms like 'daytime synchronization of the flash light', 'the subject depth of field' and such such, Ebina held up the camera.

"Okay---! Ready?"

After hearing the call, Yuigahama and Miura stood still by the sea. Perhaps because it was too cold, they naturally stuck even closer to each other. Suddenly and unexpectedly, Yuigahama held Miura's hand and said something to her in low voice. Due to their faraway distance and the wind noise, I was not able to catch any of it.

However, with their smiles that were decorated by secrets crossing over - that picturesque scenery was so extraordinarily beautiful that it completely rendered me speechless and stunned.

That was a short moment after the day ended but right before the night fell. The time that we were spending now was perhaps already beyond our imagination and comprehension.

As I was being charmed by the moment, Ebina sighed quietly and put down the camera.

"Later let's take some casual photos. Both of you can go romp freely now!"

Ebina shouted at those two and then handed the camera back to me. It looked like I needed to take the photos from then on. 'Don't stop the shutter!' as I was told so, I had no choice but to obey her. So I started taking pictures of the romping two.[65]

"Yui, you are getting me wet, you are getting me wet! Yabai yabai yabai!"

"Wait for me, wait for me!"

Miura and Yuigahama ran along the shoreline. Whenever the tide hit the beach, they would scream in 'hyai hyai!' and ran away in a fuss.

"Yep yep, all good photos..."

While I was talking photos, Ebina next to me was already taking photos herself with her smartphone before I could notice when she began doing so.

"By the way, you were also called here to be a model though!"

"Ehh? It's beautiful enough already with you two. I am too rotten to be a model!" (too rotten sounds the same as ‘not enough (beautiful)’)

"Ah..."

"Well, speaking of models I think Hikitani-kun and Hayato-kun were also good choices in my opinion. Ah, that's rotten...! And there, with Hayato-kun he begin to...!"

Rotturbing... Eh no! Disturbing giggles Ebina had, she secretly peeked at me and then loosened her lips promiscuously.

"Is this kind of a sexual harassment?"

As I said so and took three steps back away from her, Ebina leaned back straight and exclaimed in exaggeration.

"No problem at all! I'm not that sexy after all. I am not sure if sexual harassment from someone who isn't sexually appealing can be still be called that way."

"What kind of explanation is that, I can't really answer you... isn't it still sexual harassment?"

I really had trouble answering Ebina, since I never treated her as someone who's attractive to me. By the way, now come to think of it, I felt like I started to think of her that way though! That way!

That's true. To a girl saying things like "it's because I'm not cute~", I still had no idea how to respond correctly. I bet in most cases flatterings like "that's not the case at all!" should work. Yet I felt like the same scenario doesn't quite apply in the case of Ebina Hina.

While I was having trouble coming up with a proper response, Ebina cast her eyes to the horizon afar. And then, suppressing her skirt gently, she lowered her body and squatted down, resting her head on top of her knees. She then started mumbling in short words.

"... this is kind of annoying to me..."

"What's annoying?"

"Love, affection, sex, and so on..."

"Eh, well... I'm getting really embarrassed and don't really want to talk about that right now though."

I quickly turned my face away. After hearing her say it in a serious tone, so frankly and without any reservation, I started feeling quite uneasy and embarrassed. To me it didn't sound like a philosophical discussion at all, but simply a half-hearted talk about the reality. It wasn't a really topic that I want to be fond of.

Nevertheless, after hearing my response, Ebina shook her shoulders and smiled gently.

"Since we aren't interested in each other at all, we can technically talk about it right?"

"... well, that's true..."

Being told that way, I could not make any denials.

In a way, I trust Ebina Hina's way of taking her distance from others - not too far as strangers but not too close to be called friends. She placed herself in a sweet spot where relationships like acquaintance or neighbor were not easily breakable.

While keeping distance that won’t absolutely get closer, Ebina continued her words on her own.

"Well, everything will be fine in the end, right?"

"What are you referring to?"

I was a little bit afraid of asking something that's too ambiguous or off the point, and thus getting ignored by her, so I phrased my question more concisely.

"After all, Hikigaya-kun is different from me."

Perhaps I had heard the very same cold voice somewhere else. I couldn’t really see her eyes with which she looked at Miura and other, but even so, I could tell that deep beyond her glasses were her abysmal pupils that looked like deep sea.

"...did you hear anything?"

When I asked her, she finally turned her eyes to me.

"From whom? About what?"

Her pupils were so cold that it did not reflect any bit of the color of sunset. Nevertheless, she broke into smile as if she was teasing me. That made me feel slightly uncomfortable. I shrugged my shoulders lightly and looked down to the camera in my hand.

"Never mind. Nothing actually."

After I dodged her questions, Ebina turned her eyes back to the shoreline at Yuigahama and Miura, who were still running back and forth like puppies.

"... I just observe you normally, and I get *it*. In some sense I'm also involved in it. Also I heard things from Yui as well."

As I expected, you did hear things...

That was the reason why you felt like wanting to talk to me. I had no idea what she heard and how she heard it, and had no intention to ask her for further explanations.

However, I was a bit concerned by her verdict that she just observed me normally and understood. I don't think I'm a simple-minded human being. It's also slightly annoying and unsettling that she was able to understand the situation that easily. After all, I put a lot of effort into thinking and planning all this, but then you talked to me as if you had seen everything through - this is making me quite uneasy...

Despite so, people always say 'Lookers-on see most of the game.' It's true that, sometimes unexpectedly bystanders other than us could understand the situation much better. Even much more so if that bystander is Ebina Hina.

However, I didn't want to ask her too attentively. So I put up a poker face, and asked her casually while pretending to operate the camera.

"... when you said *it*, do people all get *it* and understand *it*?"

"Needless to say, Hayato-kun does, right? While, Tobecchi is too kind of that to get it. Others, I don't really care... As for Yumiko..., let me stop here right now."

"Huh, what is that? That sounds scary..."

I totally forgot to keep putting up the poker-face and instinctively looked in her direction. Ebina then laughed gently as if she meant to imply something from it. Once she was done laughing, she looked sideways at me.

"It's not like I have any idea why things ended up this way, nor am I qualified to say or comment on them. In any case, isn't there an easier way to approach it?"

I smiled bitterly at her words.

I was always told the same thing by someone, actually, by everyone.

Even one sentence is definitely enough to solve and end the problem.

Nevertheless, as simple and easy as it sounds, I would never allow it to be said.

"The easiest thing is the hardest. To me what I am doing now is the easiest."

As I finished my words, Ebina turned her head to me and stared at me.

"Pfumm, gross."

"...eh, okay."

Being blatantly told so in such an uninterested voice, I dropped by shoulders. Well, I'm well aware of how gross I am, so I have nothing to complain about that part.

Yet Ebina's face didn't show as much disgust as her words did, but still filled with her smile.

"Well, I can sort of get it. I don't really hate this kind of pessimism."

I nodded in response without speaking a word, and then cast my eyes to the surface of the ocean where the evening sunlight glittered glamorously.

Perhaps our parts of our philosophy are close already. Giving excuses such as 'I am rotten from inside' and so on, and the putting up a facade that we both painted and solidified in front of others - these are the parts that we are able to both sympathize with each other.

If I had to explain my actions in the words of Ebina, then the answer would probably something similar to pessimism. I wouldn't say it the correct way, but it wouldn't also diverge too much from the right one. That tiny little nuance has made me confirm that.

Ebina and I were different indeed. Although we sympathized with each other, we reached different conclusions. This distance, in some sense, was similar to the one between Hayama and me.

Despite being similar, or close, or seemingly the same, they were in fact different. Over the past year, I had been trying to confirm that.

Perhaps, she and I are again, the same.

Instead of correcting Ebina's statements, I chose to stay silent. It was meaningless to try to correct it at this point.

Mixed with the noised of the tide was their voices of happiness and enjoyment.

"Ebina-! Let's take-"

"photos together-!"

Miura and Yuigahama waved their hands widely at the shoreline and called Ebina loudly. Maybe because they had been running here and there, the air that they breathed out turned white, their cheeks were dyed in red, but they definitely didn't feel cold at all; or rather, that was the only warm place.

"Yeah, coming-"

After being called out, Ebina quickly stood up and peeked quickly at me and the camera in my hand. She gently tucked her hair which was trimmed down to her shoulders behind her ears and smiled at me as if saying just 'Yoroshiku' to me. She then immediately pattered towards them.

After seeing her off, I held up the camera.

7-4

On the next day following our photograph event, the weather was as clear as the day before.

The sun had already risen high, with the sunlight penetrating through the gap between the curtains and eventually burning on my eyelids.

Today is March 3rd, Saturday, 10 days before the graduation ceremony.

More importantly, today is the sister of the world Hikigaya Komachi's birthday.

Despite so, my schedule was fully occupied from the morning to the evening.

Normally I would prepare a luxury present full of my love for Komachi's sake, and celebrate her birthday with a grand party. Unfortunately, for the past few days I was occupied and postponed by a series of dummy prom related matters. Hate it! I hate work...! Just as usual I wanted to spit out this feeling of hatred and roughness. But this time since I acted out of my own will to choose to take all this work myself, this time I swallowed back all the pain, cheered at myself and suddenly jumped out of the bed. This is the road that I chose to walk on myself so it'd be quite wrong to grumble about it afterwards. Given that I was my own employer all the complaints and pains that I grumbled about and words that I cried out would ultimately get sent back to myself. In other words, self-employment is indeed very tough.

While my brain spun as if covered by mist that arose from couple days' of tiredness, I headed over to the washroom. Even though the date had changed, the cold water that I splashed over my face hadn't turned warmer by a bit. I then forced my eyes to open.

I quickly turned my eyes to the clock - it was already past 9 o'clock. If I didn’t hurry then I'd probably miss the meetup soon. I climbed up the staircase, rushed back to my room and took the school uniform that hung on the wall. I quickly put my arms through the sleeves, grabbed my bag in my arms and hurried downstairs.

I was thinking about saying goodbye first before leaving the house, so I peeked into the living room and saw Komachi - who was still wearing a pajama and watching TV lazily while sticking her feet inside the kotatsu.

It looked like my parents were still sleeping soundly at the moment. In the living room, besides Komachi there was also Kamakura sleeping by the window under the sunshine and making a quiet snoring noise from his nose.

"So, I'm about to head out..."

"Alright, Itterasshai!"

I put on my coat as I spoke, whereas Komachi just slowly waved her hands without looking in my direction and Kamakura hit the ground with his tail.

That was a scene that didn't change a bit from a usual weekend. Although it was her birthday, she didn't seem to have any particular reaction to it. On the other hand, I was so impressed that the field was so moistened with this much irrigation. Well, that's a different kangai though.[66]

Nevertheless, no matter how impressed by the scene I was, I was still so poorly prepared for any Komachi's birthday celebration whatsoever. Recently even our dinner table conversations had been contaminated by topics related to my work, so needless to say I hadn't had the chance at all to talk to Yuigahama about buying a birthday present for Komachi.

Even if I wanted to celebrate her birthday after coming back home, I don't think I had the time, nor the money, nor the spirit to carry it out. Maybe Komachi didn't care about it so much, but for me I'd feel extra uneasy if I don't at least say a word about it.

"Ah... Komachi, happy birthday."

I coughed a couple times as I said so in a low voice. If I had said so while looking straight into Komachi's face I'd be really embarrassed, but thank god Komachi was facing at somewhere else... As I thought so, Komachi reversed her body and laid down on the ground.

Then she rolled on the ground for a couple rounds and while keep lying on the ground, she rested her chin on her hands and giggled.

"Onii-chan, thank you!"

Just a few seconds ago, she was facing away from me as if she wasn't paying attention to my words at all. But as soon as I congratulated her, Komachi showed a happy smiling face at me. Couldn't resist that kawaii face, I also broke into a smile. As soon as I did it, Komachi again laughed with her nose - hmph hmph hmph... with her nose!? I cast my eyes at her in doubt. She then began talking restlessly.

"Pretending that everything was just like usual as if nothing was happening, but as soon as hearing Onii-chan's congratulations I quickly turned super cheerful... That scored very high in the Komachi standard!"

That's true... If you hadn't said that it would have scored even higher though... But I already knew that this was Komachi's world-class way of hiding her shyness. Because of this, I was about to have a very tough time saying the following words.

"So, as for today's arrangement..."

"Yep, I totally understand. Don't worry about it!"

Komachi nodded and smiled gently.

"Yui is waiting for you, right? So hurry up!"

"... how do you know?"

I didn't say anything about today's arrangement to Komachi though... so as I asked her in surprise, Komachi grabbed her smartphone and started flicking the screen.

"At 12am I got the HBD message from her, and then, she just told me about it."

"Ah, I see..."

Komachi phrased it as if it wasn't anything impressive, but that genuinely scared me. How scary it is to have my movement leaked from some other source to my sister! Is it not scary? Hey, speaking of which, Gahama-san, you seemed to be telling various things to Komachi. I would really like to learn about the entire network - the source, and the destination of this network of connections... However, I'd rather not get into trouble for asking it the wrong way... Guy’s complicated issues!

As I was moaning to myself, Komachi bent backward, lifted one finger and laughed in 'fu fu fu'.

"I would love to enjoy a birthday celebration and also really appreciate receiving presents. But I'm okay with delaying them until everyone is together."

"...ah, right.."

As I responded in a few words, I suddenly began thinking myself.

'Everyone'... Who was she referring to? I could somehow guess but I have zero confidence in my ability to grant her the wish.

Maybe she was a little bit surprised by my voice that ended up going down unconsciously in the end; Komachi looked at me while still resting her head on her hands. Her eyes were raised up as if trying to look for something. Our eyes met. I couldn't help but begin to wear a bitter smile on my face. Komachi shrugged her shoulders and began murmuring.

"Well, I'm okay if not everyone can come. I even consider it barely safe, in the worst case scenario, to only have only Onii-chan present.”

Her voice were filled with warmth. Thanks to it, I was able to wash off the stiffness on my face and responded to her with a light laugh.

"The worst case scenario...eh? *barely* safe?"

"I meant whatever, I don't really care much. By the way, don't make Yui wait!"

She waved her hand at me to urge me to leave quickly, and then started rolling back again. I sighed deeply, as if I just let go a huge burden that suppressed me. I peeked one more time at her and left the living room.

7-5

Since I left my home late, I gave up riding my bike and decided to head over to the meetup place by train and bus. I flipped and scanned through the materials in the moving train carriage to get myself prepared for the meeting.

Partly thanks to Yuigahama's help, we were fortunate to be able to quickly settle down on a meeting date and time. Since I felt it was quite burdensome to talk to Tamanawa, I took it as part of my job to skim through some business terminology books in order to increase our share of common language.

Soon, I arrived at the closest station near the meetup place, and quickly hurried over to the community center where the meeting took place.

It would have been a lot easier if we could just hold the meeting in our school. However, our school usually doesn't let outsiders in, unless by going through some official procedures. But as someone who doesn't even belong to the Student Council, that'd be nearly impossible for me to do. On the other hand, it would seem a little too informal and casual if we held the meeting in a coffee shop. Considering the fact that we needed to upload a photo of the meeting on the SNS later, a more or less formal place would certainly be more preferable - just enough feeling of formality to make our dummy prom plan look more realistic... As I was thinking so and taking my steps forward, my smartphone began vibrating.

After I checked the notification, it was a message from Yuigahama. The text straightforwardly wrote 'Expect to take a little longer?'. Thinking that this was pretty rare for Yuigahama given that she normally types much longer messages, I simply replied 'Almost there'.

In fact, I already arrived at the front of the building. I looked around the entrance and its surroundings but was not able to spot Yuigahama there. It seemed that she already went inside.

I climbed up the stairs in a rushed pace and then quickly headed over to the small meeting room that we reserved in advance.

A few steps away from the room that I was about to enter, I could already vaguely hear Orimoto's voice. Without double confirming the room plate, I knew this room would be the small meeting room that we reserved. I knocked on the door and then opened it.

After that, I saw Yuigahama already in there, and opposite to her sat Tamanawa and Orimoto.

"Ah-, Hikigaya-, long time no see-"

Orimoto waved her hand softly at me in a very delightful mood; whereas Tamanawa sitting next to her crossed his arms, blew up air over his forehead, and peeked at me briefly.

In response, I also greeted them lightly with a nod and pulled out the chair next to Yuigahama, who then without saying anything out loud but only with her mouth movement said 'Yahallo-' to me. Indeed, it would be a little bit embarrassing to say that in front of other people, yep yep. Nevertheless, that way of secretly conveying things also felt somehow embarrassing to be seen by other people still!

In order to cover up that embarrassment, I whispered at Yuigahama.

"Didn't we agree to meet first at the entrance?"

“Yeah… Eh, we met at the entrance first, and then, since it was too cold outside…”

Yuigahama fuddled her hair bun as if she was a little troubled by it. She put up a bitter smile. Probably Orimoto talked to her light-heartedly just as usual, and then following the flow dragged Yuigahama inside. And then just like that, before I showed up, both of them probably had a not-so-close uneasy talk with each other… gross, I feel kind of sorry for her.

“Ah, I see… I feel kind of sorry…”

As I lowered my head, Yuigahama shook her head and put up a gentle smile. Maybe this exchange between us was seen by Orimoto, she deliberately clapped her hands loudly.

“Ah… Really sorry about that! Yuigahama was planning to wait outside there but I told her to come in. It was quite cold outside, right? that’s also a preach-it...”

If you had to say that was like Orimoto, it was quite like her – frankly expressing her apology. Rather than saying that she didn’t care about a sense of distance, she would still try to approach it knowing that the distance exists. She’s been like this for a while.

“I… I see…. It’s okay. I don’t mind.”

As I said so, Yuigahama also nodded her head in agreement. Orimoto also smiled.

“Right, right! I also felt it was quite cold outside. It’s really okay.”

“Alright. Then it’s fine...”

Orimoto also put up a smile trying to cover it up, and at the same time fuddled her perm back and forth.

How… how should I put this… This embarrassing atmosphere…. Just seeing Orimoto alone felt like “Crap…” but then together with Yuigahama it’d turn into a “Damn, crap, crap…” god-punch situation...[67]

Yuigahama and Orimoto both smiled at each other lightly. I was not able to peek into what kind of expression laid deep underneath those smiles.

With that moment of heavily bitter silence kept going on, Orimoto finally opened her mouth after spitting out a short sigh.

“Speaking of which, by the way, why didn’t Hikigaya contact us? The fact that Yuigahama was the one that contacted us really freaked me out.”

Orimoto, who stared at me while complaining, filled her voice with dissatisfaction, but what she said was quite jocular. Thanks to that, the tight atmosphere was able to loosen up a little bit. I finally was able to slowly open my heavily-sealed mouth.

“Ah, well, when I switched to a new phone at that time, eh things like this and that happened, so…”

I couldn’t just say I deleted your contact right into her face, so I just mumbled it through trying to round up the story. Orimoto then interpreted it arbitrarily and then followed me up with her yeses.

“Ah, the address book got changed right. Why don’t you tell me your LINE?”

“I don’t use LINE though.”

“That’s funny. Isn’t that an excuse used by girls?”

“No, it’s not funny. Eh, girls’ way of refusal is quite terrible...”

Judging from the fact that she mentioned it as girls’ excuses, perhaps it does happen quite frequently around Orimoto… ‘Is that Nakamachi-san? I feel you~ That person feels like that type~’, etc. I feel sorry for thinking it this way… Orimoto then tilted her head in her way.

“Eh, what now then…”

Casting her eyes afar, Orimoto hit her face with her smartphone and thought hard. Meanwhile, Tamanawa who sat next to her kept blowing the hair on his forehead, and sometimes coughed once or twice.

And then, just as I expected, he looked at me with a very sharp gaze. I read into the air and returned him with another cough to prevent Orimoto from furthering the conversation. I then opened my bag and started grabbing things.

“Well, let’s put that aside for now… So today, I’m here as a representative of the President of the Student Council, or rather as her deputy.”

And then, the thing that I took out from the bag was the main topic of our meeting today - the proposal for the dummy prom. Though we had already sent digital copies to both Tamanawa and Orimoto, I still wanted to prepare a physical copy for the meeting today. This is an iron law for being a Company Slave[68]. RIP the so-called ‘paperless’...

“Recently we had been planning a prom, and gradually we had been thinking about scaling it up. I’m not saying we are going to do it right now for this upcoming one, but more like looking into it as an option starting from next year…”

As I was speaking, Yuigahama next to me looked at me in surprised in a flash. I nodded to her in acknowledgement.

To us, this dummy prom plan itself was targeting the graduating class of this year, but that was only limited to within our Soubu HS. In fact, the website that we were preparing then did not explicitly mention whether it was targeting this year or next year, but merely titled itself as the “New Prom”.

From Tamanawa’s perspective, they couldn’t possibly accept holding such ridiculously absurd prom plan this year. If only we had enough time to do it, it would probably be easier to get them aboard. There was no need for us to tell them the whole story.

Nevertheless, those small number of annoying parents from our school were only nagging about the prom this year. For this reason, when there’s a new prom plan that comes into the picture, obviously they are going to tag it along and start thinking about it. Seeing a prom plan that they already dislike become even more ridiculous, they would for sure stand up and try to destroy it right away.

In fact, with regard to the when-to-happen concern that I just mentioned, neither Orimoto nor Tamanawa seemed to care about it. They took it for granted that I was obviously referring to next year or even later.

Orimoto grabbed the proposal booklet in hand, and then made a sound as if she just lost her incentives.

“Eh, this thing…”

The front cover of the proposal that Orimoto was flipping then had rather meaningless characters and words printed in exaggerated fonts. With that Tamanawa could definitely…! He would definitely get it all! While thinking so, we quickly turned our eyes to Tamanawa bearing a sense of hope in mind.

Thereupon, Tamanawa carefully read the proposal page by page, and sometimes as if finding something that concerned him, he would stop flipping and wear a difficult face. And then, he just sighed deeply.

Eventually, he seemed to finish reading it and carefully closed the booklet. He raised up his face and poured his stare at me.

“... so I have carefully read the proposal.”

While saying so, Tamawana kept tapping the table with his finger in a slow tempo. He then blew up some air over his forehead.

“It’s good that there’s a lot of diversity in it. However, other than that everything else is simply too abstract. There are so many needless things in it that the intention of the proposal simply digresses from its focus.”

After hearing his words, I was so shocked that I had my mouth open widely and froze in amazement.

“What… did you... say…”

He did not use any of those attractive foreign terminologies at all…? When I was still in surprise, Tamanawa continued his words

“I think it’s better to focus on words that have better expressive power. You want to make the proposal look realizable. Of course, I can understand the fact that you want to incorporate a sense of ‘upcoming expectation’ for an experimental event. But unfortunately, I don’t see any possible ways leading to it eventually.”

He waved and moved his hands about widely as if practicing Tai chi. Tamanawa said so word by word in his reasonings, and in the end, pushed his forehead hair upward.

“For this reason, your proposal doesn’t work.”

Tamanawa’s eyes looked like as if they were implying “You have not yet reached that stage yet.” in sympathy.[69]

Why did it turn out like this… As I was thinking so, Yuigahama looked at me in a ‘Is he really this kind of person?’ confusing face. I shook my head gently in response, implying ‘I don’t know and don’t care after all’.

Following my confusion, I cast my reserved eyes to Orimoto, who then put up a bitter smile and scratched her cheek. Judging from her reaction, it seemed that Tamanawa-san had been like this recently.

It’s been a while since those who were regarded as ‘holding high consciousness’ had been made fun of.[70] It looked like Tamanawa-san had been reading into this kind of atmosphere from his surroundings recently and perhaps started to consider changing his own image. In some sense, he had grown up and become more mature in a way. People always say “One who has been away for three days must be looked at with new eyes…” This saying describes him precisely… If I keep following his pace like this, I’d definitely get GAAAAAHHHH! wrecked by him while screaming hysterically.

Wait, it wasn’t quite the time to be impressed by him. If Tamanawa refused to hop on board then my plan would be all over.

What should I do now… as I was panicking, I started to shake my knees unconsciously. Tamanawa kept tapping the table with his finger as if he was waiting for my response. Yuigahama looked at me and then Tamanawa anxiously, and then sighed gently. Seeing this, Orimoto couldn’t hold her laugh but let it slip away.

All these noises crossed over and became a disturbing track of cacophony. Its rhythm and beat further accelerated my feeling of anxiety. In any way, I had to open my mouth because I felt compelled to say something at that moment.

It’s truly ‘freestyle’ just to lash out words one after another that jump out my mind. Words with high consciousness sounded abnormally harmonious with Japanese raps.[71]

“Your worry is the budgeto? But we used to having insufficient budgeto. So now we need to use the gadgeto! Think about the scale and adjusto! All I want to do is suggesto!”

I did not think much about either the verse or the flow but just spouted out words at will. Tamanawa nodded his head rhythmically and took it all in. And then, he waved his hands in circle and soon replied.

“Your argument is only temporal. The content of your proposal is only trivial. In case we need to work together, if not concrete we’d all get fucked over. Can you not see the direction? If you can’t answer this then the proposal go boom disappear. So all we need to do is to think together!”

Tamanawa rapped and explained it all at ease, making me rather speechless. Despite so, I still responded.

“We also just finished our draft. We simply need a native billboard. Though the direction is clearless, the concept only from Lincoln it comes, we then need to use our own hands to build the nests. But, if there’s nobody leading we then keep unmoving. On the budget we can crowdfunding, as long as it comes to people’s sight it’s relaxing.[72]

While I wiped off the sweat on my forehead, Tamanawa raised his eyebrows and listened to me light-heartedly in a relaxed way. Confirming that it had been one beat after I finished my rap, he flipped through the proposal booklet and tapped the part where it was fully loaded by my counter-Tamanawa high-consciousness measures.

“Indeed there are some interests. But what I care are the excuses. Only small part of the proposal is of importance. Other contents are just nonsense. If we do it together then we work as a phalanx. But now we are simply inharmonious!”

I believed he just waved his hands around a lot faster than before, and towards the end he pointed his finger as if he was firing a bullet at me.

Though we joked around at each other, Tamanawa’s gaze penetrated me deeply and rendered me speechless. Indeed, just as Tamanawa said, this proposal took Tamanawa too lightly. I took it for granted that Tamanawa would hop on board if I simply write down a bunch of business terminologies without putting much thoughts about it.

Nevertheless, human beings do change a lot. After all, Tamanawa was taught a lesson by Yukinoshita during the Christmas event. He should learn to change by then.

“Eh, well, that is…”

I gave up talking. Whatever. I didn’t have any words left. This guy was just as strong as I expected. I was out of ideas. So strong… After I sighed deeply to acknowledge my defeat, Tamanawa put up a smile full of his pride of winning it.

“That’s why your proposal doesn’t work.”

Being told straight into my face again so blatantly, I lost my words again. The game had eight sections and two turns. Before even reaching the third round, I already surrendered after taking a critical hit.

“Eh… What now then…”

As I dropped my head downcasted, Yuigahama, who had been observing our flow of exchanges until then, finally couldn’t bear taking at it anymore and opened her mouth carefully, half troubled half astounded. Orimoto instead had been looking at our exchange and holding her giggles back. She quickly wiped off the laughing tears that appeared by her eyes and took a deep breathe out. And then, she took the proposal book in her hand.

“But this proposal looks quite fun still, doesn’t it?”

“Ah, I know right!”

As soon as Orimoto said so to Yuigahama, Yuigahama’s face quickly turned sparkling. Orimoto didn’t put much into thought while saying so, but seemed to merely express her honest interests in the proposal. Hearing her words, Tamanawa immediately put up a gentleman smile on his face. Along with that he also snapped his finger and winked.

“That’s true. That’s also a *sorearu*!”

“Wut…...”

Just a moment ago he was arguing vehemently against me, but after seeing the reversal of his attitude, I couldn’t help but show my surprised reaction, and then stared at Tamanawa. Maybe he finally felt embarrassed by it, Tamanawa coughed several times gently, and then turned his attention back to the proposal booklet.

“Of course, it’s not like we oppose this proposal or anything. However, if we do not stay on the same wavelength from the very beginning, we will soon run into conflicts and end up going into different directions. So, I think we should first solidify that part first.”

While speaking, he quickly turned his eyes at me. I nodded my head gently in response.

“Think of this proposal as our tentative plan. We just want it to look flashy. It’d be sorry if it turns out to be difficult to understand. Therefore, shall we first set the practicality aside, go back to the starting line and discuss from there?”

Laying my hands on my knees, I lowered my head a little bit. Yuigahama also followed me.

“Please…”

Tamanawa then looked at us attentively, while Orimoto blinked her eyes. A strange moment of silence befell and made me feel rather itchy, so I moved my body uneasily. Orimoto sighed mildly with her light smiles.

“... sounds good to me. Let’s do it, President!”

Orimoto then hit Tamanawa’s arm with her elbow for a couple times. Every time Tamanawa got hit by her, he made an indescribable ‘nfu, nnnn’ sound. Yep, I knew that feeling. Back in middle school, with that skin-contact I almost died at the spot… Tamanawa kept still there for a while and finally seemed to calm down. He gently rubbed the place where he got hit and went back talking again.

“... Alright. Luckily we still have time. There’s enough time for us to discuss it more. Bearing in mind that we want to realize the plan, we need to carefully work on the unification of the understanding of the our goal.”

“Preach it!”

Orimoto immediately raised her thumb up. Perhaps Tamanawa got quite delighted by it. He quickly put up a smile, rubbed his chin and leaned forward with his hands crossed.

“Speaking of the goal, there’s this story from the past. Once upon a time, there were three bricklayers in a town… If you ask one of them, what’s your ultimate goal? How do you think he would respond?”

Tamanawa snapped his fingers loudly, and then pointed at me. It looked like he was fired up. Bringing up some business training story that he heard from somewhere, he even intentionally wanted me to answer it. But, sadly, when I worked on the proposal, I actually learned about stories like this then.

“Building a marvelous grand church that keeps standing generations after generations.”

Feeling sorry for my immediate response, I quickly gave the correct answer. Tamanawa nodded to me proudly.

“That’s correct. While stacking the bricks, he says so. And then, you turn to another bricklayer and ask him. What do you think he would say?”

This time, Tamanawa snapped his fingers using both hands and then pointed at me. After hearing his words, Yuigahama looked rather confused. I shook my head to tell her not to care about it. You lose if you get serious.

Knowing that my words won’t simply be delivered to Tamanawa’s ears, I gave the very same answer again.

“...building a marvelous grand church that keeps standing generations after generations.”

“Right. He says so while keeping his hands busy on his job… and then the third person...”

Tamanawa looked around at three of us, then took long enough break, and finally opened his mouth solemnly.

“... ‘building a marvelous grand church that keeps standing generations after generations.’ says the third bricklayer.”

“Oh, oh…”

Looking at Tamanawa’s twinkling eyes, I had no words left to say but only surprises. I wasn’t sure how Tamanawa interpreted my surprise, but he took a long breathe out in satisfaction.

“We need to very carefully ponder what our ultimate goal is.”

He stood up heavily, and then turned his body halfway facing us.

“Do you know how we can defeat Disneyland?”

Without waiting for my response, Tamanawa began walking around in the room while his shoes were making loud noises.

“If we take the normal approach, we will never defeat Disneyland, because Disneyland has nearly reached complete perfection. So, we need to think from another angle - create something that’s incomplete, where the sense of entertainment actually lies.”

Eventually, after making two circles in the meeting room, Tamanawa headed towards the whiteboard. He started drawing some mysterious diagram on it.

“An exam where you always score 90/100, versus an exam where you used to score 0 but this time score 50 on it. Which exam gives you more happiness? What we need to consider is not how we can gather 10,000 people, but rather how we can celebrate with 10,000 people.”

Tamanawa knocked the whiteboard loudly. Perhaps being overwhelmed by his vigor, Yuigahama clapped her hands in admiration.

“Ohhh~ I got it!... maybe... in a way…”

I cast my stare at Yuigahama in doubt. She then averted her eyes from me and talked in broken words. Meanwhile, Orimoto was playing her smartphone and nodded her head in agreement.

“I know right! Preach it!”

Hey, you were barely listening… Despite so, what Tamanawa just said indeed wasn’t completely wrong. The arguments themselves weren’t exactly unreasonable, if you have to say Sorearu then it’s quite a Sorearu… By the way, I sense strongly this feeling of ‘you are not in the right position to say it’... Maybe these high conscious people will eventually all end up joining the IT industry. It felt like a CEO of some IT company just rolled a gatcha and got a 1-star card.

Even after this guy stopped using those annoying foreign big words, the essence of his arguments did not change a bit.

This was something that we hear all the time around Inage Kaigan. Perhaps the fact that we considered it lack of freshness is indeed the proof of our growth.[73]

As I was thinking about these trivias, Tamanawa, who just a moment ago was talking nonsense, started mumbling while staring at the whiteboard.

“... Looking into next year and beyond, we need to begin our preparation right away. We have to stack our results one by one starting from now…”

After that, he turned his face to us, with a slightly bitter smile on his face.

Maybe Tamanawa himself had already noticed the emptiness of his own words. Therefore, still he had been borrowing words from others. Yet, despite so, he still kept praying. Once following the actions come the results, all the words he said must then become Tamanawa’s own sayings. I looked forward to his future!

Despite of the enmity between us before, I still cherished the fact that only this time I was able to team up with Tamanawa, not only for the sake of strong factors like the dummy plan, but also for the sake of having a strong helping mate that can support Iroha’s prom next year and beyond. Worthy of Represent Kaihin Sougou! As a ‘homie’ hyped with ‘hood’, I can almost call you ‘my man’! I need to take a ‘my man’ photo with you![74]

“... can we take a photo of this meeting? Also, if possible, I’d like to have it displayed on the website.”

“Of course, go ahead. Ah, in that case, maybe I should write it in a more easily understandable way…”

Tamanawa agreed happily with me in consent. And then, he fixed a couple places on the whiteboard, and then began talking stuff and circling his hands as if he was operating a potter’s wheel.

Soon, before we barely ran out of the remaining time we reserved the meeting room for, Tamanawa’s speech finally finished up. When we left the community center the sun was already at the zenith, and the busy streets were decorated by its liveliness.

Before joining the crowd in front of the station, Orimoto turned her body around facing us.

“What should we do after? Go home, or lunch?”

“We have some errands to run at our school later…”

“I see- then let’s leave the meal for next time!”

After Yuigahama said so in a apologetic tone, Orimoto frowned a little bit. Yuigahama then joined her hands together and lowered her head in apology. I also bobbed my head. Thereupon, Tamanawa next to me gave a cough to clear his throat, quickly took a step forward and stood next to Orimoto.

“So, we shall dismiss here. By the way, now that both Orimoto and I had some spare time after this, why don’t we…”

Slightly blushed, Tamanawa peeked aside to probe her reaction and mumbled. His tone was quite strong in the beginning but as he went on, it became softer and softer. I was not sure if Orimoto was paying attention or not. She simply nodded as if nothing happened.

“Right, go home.”

“Oh, okay…”

Tamanawa only responded that, with his mouth twitching. But soon he pulled himself together, slowly walking straight towards me while blowing air towards his forehead.

“... when you decide the next meeting time, could you give me a reminder?”

To be honest, we had no such plan, but out of pressure I had to nod my head in response.

I don’t quite get the situation but… Ganbare! Tamanawa-san!

7-6

The school campus during the weekend was extraordinarily quiet - all sounds seemed to get reflected and bounced back in void.

Starting from the playground, outside the campus the noises were all over the place, whereas once entering the campus, I started to feel a cold sense of rejection.

Nevertheless, at the Game Club room, the atmosphere there was all fired up and felt like a casino.

“... yay! Finally got it done!”

“Just in case, let’s do a test run and bring the website up.”

Hatana pressed the enter key and then suddenly laid down on the table. Sagami the little brother pushed the laptop to me powerlessly.

I looked at the laptop screen to check out the progress. An official website that almost matched the original specification exactly showed up on the screen. The main subject, our stylish photograph, was also displayed along with some other information in text. The only thing left was to add our social network accounts to it. It almost seemed to be ready as the teaser website. I was quite impressed by their ability to produce something like this just in a few days.

“Zaimokuza, can you try to publish something?”

“Okie… one sec!”

As I said so, Zaimokuza soon published quite a happy article full of hashtags. After refreshing the page, in the SNS main body, along with a photo that we just took in which Tamanawa circled his hands as if he was operating a potter’s wheel, an article titled “We exchanged our opinions with Kaihin-Sougou HS on the topic of prom! From now on we would like to bring more schools in!” showed up immediately.

“Woah, looks amazing! Great!”

Behind me, Yuigahama peeked at the screen and hit my shoulders excitedly. Being slightly bothered by the close distance, apart from giving the laptop back to Sagami, I also quietly escaped from Yuigahama’s hands.

“Okay, now let’s migrate it to production environment. Zaimokuza please take the job of updating the SNS for the next few days.”

“Acknowledged.”

“You can count on me!”

Both Sagami and Zaimokuza nodded in response. Except one person - Hatana put up a difficult face in front of the monitor.

“Is it really okay to look like this…”

“Yep, in terms of the content it’s more than enough already.”

We not only presented the accomplishment of our discussion with Tamanawa, but also hinted that we might tag more schools along. That should already make us look like we can no longer be left unattended and uninterrupted. Given that our discussion with Kaihin-Sougou was described as being on hold at the stage of ‘exchanging ideas and opinions’, we would have strong enough excuses to give if the dummy prom plan gets abandoned. We should then naturally make those who complained about the prom look like overreacting idiots.

Just as I was about to explain so, Hatano tilted his head and his eyes squinted at me.

“... uh, I feel like as the source of information the website might be a little too weak for that…”

“Well, that’s true.... But it would serve its purpose even if a small fraction of our parents see it. In fact, it would be quite troubling if more than necessary number of people learn about it. I think the level of influence it has right now is precisely what we need. Furthermore, just in case, I will set up a leak to the parents so we should expect some reactions from them soon.”

Especially, that person who leaks the information was the most annoying part though… Thinking about the errand that I need to run next, I accidentally ended up wearing a bitter face. I couldn’t help but naturally break out my sigh. Yuigahama looked at me in wonder. I continued my words in order to cover up.

“Sorry guys, just for the next two days, pay attention to the website and see if the website has any bugs or glitches.”

Hatano nodded his head gently and turned back to his laptop. He then started talking to Sagami about their next steps.

I looked around at everyone again and sighed quietly.

By this time, we almost finished dealing with the hardware part. It was a rush-through product that might contain obvious flaws and signs of rough work. We nevertheless had all tried our best. Actually, they all tried their best for my sake. Thanks to them, as long as I manage to get through this weekend, what’s next should be more or less chill. I had to express my genuine gratefulness to Zaimokuza and the two Game Club members.

“If things go well, we might be able to see results as early as the beginning of next week… All in all, thank you all so much! Much appreciated all your help!”

How deplorable I was - only being able to say it in a low voice. Even so, I opened my thighs apart, rested my hands on them and slowly lowered my head in gratitude.

Thereupon, Zaimokuza and the two Game Club dudes looked at me as if seeing an endangered species. Only Yuigahama showed a satisfying smile on her face. Feeling rather uneasy to be stared at, I cleared my throat.

“Well, let’s put our thanks aside. I’m sorry to bring you all here on a weekend day. Please wrap things up if you wish now… In all, thanks for all your work!”

As soon as I finished my words, I took my belongings and quickly stood up from my seat. It would be mindless for the employees to leave if the manager still stays after all! How considerate and mindful I am! All managers should learn from me.

“Ah, wait.. wait for me…! Th...thanks everyone! Let’s have a celebration some time!”

Following me, Yuigahama stood up from the seat as well. After that, I turned to Zaimokuza and others and raised my arm high to cheer them up. In response, Hatano and Sagami returned ambiguous complicated smiles to me.

“No, that…”

“Well, I will give it a thought…”

“Alright, for now let’s say we will go if we can.”

Only one person, Zaimokuza, responded cheerfully. Normally that’s something you would say if you want to find an excuse *not* to go, but in the case of Zaimokuza, he totally would just simply go... Strange right?

After having their work done, three of them were filled with senses of liberation and accomplishment. I peeked at them from aside as they began chitchatting. Then both Yuigahama and I left the clubroom quietly.

Unfortunately that didn’t mean my work had been done. I took out my smartphone from my pocket, touching the screen while walking. Yuigahama besides me was also on her phone, and then she looked at me.

“Hikki- You have plans next? Or just go home?”

“Well, I have a phone call next… And depending on its outcome…”

As I said so, I kept holding my smartphone in hand yet to make the call. I looked at the contact book displayed on the screen and sighed deeply.

Originally I was planning to call earlier and should have done so.

However, it’s quite normal to put off calls and messages that you are unwilling to make or compose, such as progress report or notification of delays. For those calls that involve apology or sorry, you would always end up delaying it if possible, a typical hopeless procrastination psychology. In the end, when you are barely at the deadline before it’s too late, you end up causing more damages. You knew all the rationales yet still couldn’t help but procrastinate anyways....

But only for this time, no matter how much I hated doing it, as long as I had no other choices, I had to resort to this way.

Suspicious of me, who kept frowning and staring at my smartphone, Yuigahama moved her eyes back and forth between her smartphone and me.

“Calling… who?”

“Eh… the helper that will do the leak for me.”

After we reached the overpass connecting the special purpose building and the main building, I finally made up my mind. Knowing that Yuigahama had been looking at me in concern, I decided that it was the time to act.

Breathing out a long sigh, I turned my face to Yuigahama.

“... excuse me, I need to make a quick phone call.”

“Of course.”

I said my words with the implication that she should leave first, but Yuigahama just stood there still, waiting for me to begin my call. Given that she already acted that way, it would have been tough for me to explicitly ask her to leave...

It can’t be helped. I pointed at the bench in the middle of the overpass, telling her with my eye contacts to sit down and wait for me there. I then pressed the call button with my hand holding the smartphone.

After two or three beeping tones, the other end picked it up immediately.

“Hyahhallo-! How are you?”

“...I’m doing well.”

The person I was calling, whose name is Yukinoshita Haruno, acted delightfully as if the conversation on the other day never happened. After hearing her voice, I clearly felt my cheek had just twitched briefly. Because of that my voice might get a little too high, I could hear joyful gigglings from the speaker.

I wiped off the unpleasant feeling of being seen through, and quickly resumed to talk my business.

“I need to have a small conversation with you. Is it okay?”

“Of course. Warmly welcome!”

“Sorry for my sudden notice, but is tonight a good time…”

As I said so, I heard the other end make a sigh as if she had to think about it briefly.

“Hmm…… It really is quite ‘sudden’. Well, alright. In that case, can you come over here? There’s a coffee shop right by the entrance of the outlet.”

“Ah, that outlet close to your place?”

I was still more or less bothered by the fact that soon after she showed a troubling tone and then immediately replied yes. While trying to think of the place that she designated, I replied to her valuely.

Meanwhile, Yuigahama, who was supposed to be sitting down, suddenly stood up, leaned towards me, and stealthily placed her ear next to my phone. Being approached so suddenly and unexpectedly, I almost freaked out at the spot, with my heart speeding up immediately. Unfortunately, I was unable to shake her off, so I took several steps forward to distance myself from her. Yuigahama then showed dissatisfaction on her face, trying to approach me again.

Feeling suspicious of what was going on here - the silent attack and defense between Yuigahama and me, Haruno-san asked me from the other end.

“What happened?”

“No, nothing.”

I responded quickly. Covering the microphone with my hand, I reproved Yuigahama in a low voice.

“... what do you think you were doing? I’m on my phone right now.”

“Are you meeting Haruno-san?”

As I was about to go back to the call, Yuigahama interrupted me. Her voice was sharper than usual. Her face seemed a little bit worrisome. After seeing that face, I was unable to evade her question or put up a joke. I had no choice but to give a quick answer.

“... eh, with regard to the website, I think that person would be able to leak the information for us.”

“It is bad... if I also come with you?”

Yuigahama said it with a voice sharper than usual. Her face seemed rather serious and worrisome.

“Why do you…”

Even if I asked, she wouldn’t open her mouth. No reply. Her eyes were telling me firmly that even if I said no to her she would still tag along with me anyways.

To be honest, I really didn’t want her to come with me. Every time I meet Yukinoshita Haruno nothing good turns out in the end. I would really feel terrible if in addition Yuigahama gets involved. As I thought so in hesitation, ‘Hello? Hello?’ with rather irritated tone came from the speaker. Panicked and hurried, I quickly held the phone up back to my ear.

“Ah, I’m really sorry… Yuigahama and I will come together then.”

“Gahama-san? Oh, sure thing!”

Without taking a moment to think about it, Haruno-san responded light-heartedly. After we decided on a time and a place to meet, the other end hang up the call abruptly.

I put down the phone loosely and powerlessly, and glanced at Yuigahama, who was holding the straps of her backpack firmly and biting her lip.

“Let’s go…”

After I briefly told her my words, Yuigahama nodded her head with a gentle smile on her face. However, the footsteps following that no longer sounded as energized as usual, but rather quiet and lonely.

Slowly, quietly, without letting anyone notice.

That sound was perhaps, very close to the sound that implies the ending is close.

7-7

The sun set over the horizon of the sea. Only the afterglow was left spreading over the west sky. Lit from the lingering evening glow, the streets were also brightened by street lights and building lights. Shadows of the pedestrians stretched in various directions.

Although the designated coffee shop was quite packed already, thanks to the European stylish decoration and the quietly playing BGM, the ambience there was pretty relaxing and comforting.

I told the staff that I was meeting someone inside, then I was taken to an open terrace. Chilling wind of the early spring was blowing over my skin. After the night befell, the temperature went down by a bit, so there appeared to be a few customers here and there.

Nevertheless, deep in the corner, around Yukinoshita Haruno was an empty area where no one was sitting.

Haruno-san wore a dark red coat on her shoulder, along with a long skirt and short boots on her feet. Over her knees she was gently covered by a blanket that probably came from the shop. She was reading a book quietly under the parasol heater. She occasionally held the mug to warm up her hands, and then took a sip from it.

I was amazed by her appearance, stopped my foot there and squinted my eyes. The aura around her overlapped with a scene from some time ago that I hadn’t seen for a lot time.

However, I was only dazzled by it for a brief moment before she noticed us. She smiled gently and waved her hands at us.

I lowered my head a little bit in courtesy. While she kept beckoning to us, both Yuigahama and I sat down opposite to her.

“Want to drink anything? The bread here is also very delicious.”

I wanted to get it done as soon as possible, so I was gonna say the same thing… But then I decided no. The mug that Haruno-san was holding seemed to have mulled wine in it. When the red purple liquid in it was shaken, it released a strong smell of cinnamon.

“I’ll go with regular coffee.”

“I’ll… I’ll have the black tea.”

We promptly finished our ordering and waited for the drinks to be brought over. Meanwhile, Haruno-san placed a bookmark inside the book that she just stopped reading, putting the book back to her handbag.

“So, what’s this conversation about?”

With her body slightly leaned forward, Haruno-san rested her cheek and stared at my face. Those eyes reminded me of the bad experience I had the other day. Her sexy lips were accompanied by her smile. Her big eyes squinted like an arrow while looking at me. She crossed her long legs on top of each other under the table, with the tip of her foot touching my knee gently.

The words that I was about to say turned out to be only sighs. I felt my throat was tangled and for some reason thirsty.

To be honest, I really do not want to talk to this person. It’s not like I personally hate her, since I am not good at dealing with females in general. If I have to think, simply factor by factor, then it’s not like I’m holding a grudge against her. No matter from the perspective of her appearance or her personalities, I can’t say there’s only few parts that I like about her.

But still, I was scared of her - like looking into a mirror at night, looking through the opening of a door in a dark room, the uneasy feeling from the back while taking a shower, such and such… It’s that kind of fear that you don’t even dare to figure out or confirm what it actually is.

Whatever I put it into words, from that end, everything becomes tied up together. I feel like being aimed at by something that I don’t even want to learn about - I was dominated by this kind of fear and anxiety then.

“Eh, it was something… about the prom.”

While I lost my words, Yuigahama couldn’t bear seeing me like that so she opened her mouth.

“I was thinking what it is… that’s the matter…?”

The delightful face that Haruno-san had been putting until then soon disappeared as if it was all just a joke. Apparently having lost all her interests, Haruno-san leaned her body back onto the chair-back.

“When you said you wanted to have a conversation, I thought it would normally be a love-talk, right?”

Saying her words half jokingly, she shrugged her shoulder widely. Seeing that Haruno-san lost her interest, I made a shallow sigh.

“When I said it’s a conversation normally it should imply asking you for a favor, right?”

I took a small sip of the coffee that was just delivered to me and made a light-hearted comment. In response, Haruno-san broke her smile.

“What a business life you are living!”

“Well, I do hate work though.”

I muttered sarcastically with half of my face twisted upward. Soon I could feel that the atmosphere was relaxed. Yuigahama sitting next to me also sighed in relief. How miserable I was! It was good to have Yuigahama tagging along with me after all. Had I come here alone by myself, I would have totally got caught into her pace from the beginning to the end. Even if I manage to dodge on the surface, deep inside, my heart would be completely captured anyways.

I nodded to Yuigahama to tell her that I was fine by then already. Although I wasn’t able to easily dispel my sense of fear towards Haruno-san at all, I did not want to show any weak and clumsy side of me.

After taking another sip of the coffee again, I took out my smartphone.

“I want you to properly leak this piece of information.”

I showed her the official website of the dummy prom that we just freshly finished.

Haruno-san looked at the website for a few seconds, and soon made a small sigh.

“Hmm… I’m not sure about this…”

“Eh… our prom faced very strong oppositions, so we wanted to consider something else new.”

As soon as Yuigahama wanted to explain it further, Haruno-san put up a gentle, kind smile on her face and interrupted Yuigahama.

“Kay, I understood that part already so it’s okay.”

It seemed that Haruno-san already understood the outline of what was going on after skimming through the texts on the website. Thanks to that, we were able to proceed quickly.

Just as I was about to breathe a sigh of relief, knowing that I didn’t have to explain thing in detail, I held my breath back.

Yukinoshita Haruno stared at me with her cold eyes. I noticed that and quickly lost my words.

“What I do not understand is, why are you resorting to this way… Didn’t I tell you earlier about the relationship of you three?”

Although her smiling voice contained her teasings, I could also hear the sadness that almost conveyed a sense of hopeless with it. As if being tortured by its incorrectness, as if being grieved over the mistakes, every single word that she said hurt me as if it was pouring ice water over my neurons, freezing me immediately.

“You really have in mind that this is also for the sake of that kid?”

“... this really has nothing much to do with Yukinoshita. It’s not like I was asked by her to do so. Rather, I chose to act on my own. So it was really just serving for my self-satisfaction.”

I let out words that I carefully prepared beforehand.

I understood very well that as long as I decided to ask Yukinoshita Haruno to do the leaking, I could no longer dodge this question from her. Therefore, I straightforwardly chose to say it in the least mistaken way. Despite the fact that there was no absolutely correct answer, I still firmly believed that I said was not the wrong thing at least. At the very least, it was one of the truths that I believed myself.

Unfortunately, I didn’t think my excuse could possibly work for Yukinoshita Haruno. That was precisely why I wanted to avoid this person unless absolutely necessary.

Haruno-san broke out her smile and took a quick sip of the hot wine. While scrubbing the edge of the glass, she began talking to me slowly as if trying to correct my reasoning of things.

“Yukino-chan did not ask for your help, yet you decided to act voluntarily on your own… Hence like I said, isn’t it co-dependence…… Precisely just as the word suggests, right? In the end, there’s no difference at all.”

I was unable to deny her statement right away, losing all my words. Yuigahama casted her mindful eyes to me first, and then to Haruno-san.

Not only just Isshiki and Hayama, but I’m afraid also Yuigahama all had something in their mind without saying them explicitly with their mouths. Even I myself had realized that I simply treated it as a word-game, an excuse that I was evading from.

“Yukino-chan chose independence, wanting to end that relationship. What Hikigaya-kun can do is to watch over her that way, isn’t it?”

Using her voice that could not be gentler and kinder, Haruno-san said so as if she was teaching an infant.

I could no longer look straight into her eyes, so I lowered my eyes. What she said was definitely correct - I ended up having a tangible feeling like that. I noticed that I was already holding the sleeves of my coat firmly in hand at that moment.

“… I still do not think you are correct."

Yuigahama muttered. Though her voice was so low that could have immediately gone with the wind, it clearly entered my ear unambiguously. I was not able identify her facial expression since she had suppressed her emotion in her voice. I looked at Yuigahama’s face.

Her eyes were not looking at either me or Hakuno-san. Yuigahama straightened her back and stared firmly at one single spot on the table.

Haruno-san’s eyes, which had been focused on only me until then, finally quickly turned to Yuigahama’s direction. And then, she leaned her head slightly and urged Yuigahama to keep talking. Acknowledging her eye contact, Yuigahama began talking falteringly.

“It sounded good when you said ‘watch over her’, but ultimately the only consequence left is us distancing from each other. Avoiding each other, taking distance from each other. If we simply let it happen, we won’t change a bit in the end. In that case, perhaps, it would all end up in tragedy - not only us but also the prom…”

Lit by the retro-fashioned light in the coffee shop, her profile looked a lot more adult-like than usual, leaving a transient shadow. Looking at that beautiful ambience and her peaceful face, my heart grew painful from inside. Or perhaps, it was because the ending scene that she just mentioned was so easily imaginable for me.

“So, we want to stay closer even just for a little bit. We have to be involved. *It* was something necessary in order to end *it* properly. So, so…”

Sentences that were fabricated non-stopped, word by word, turned into a long sigh in the end. There was no way for me to know what Yuigahama wanted to say next. I also could not read into her facial expression when she casted her eyes downward.

Despite so, there is something that I do understand. Actually, it was something that I understood a lot time ago.

“That’s true… we need to end it properly…”

I wasn’t saying it to anyone per se, but I mumbled as if I was talking to myself. Yuigahama quietly nodded her head to me.

Perhaps, we all had been holding the same wish that we wanted to end *it* properly. After double confirming that, I was finally able to lift up my face.

As soon as our eyes crossed, Haruno-san put up a gentle smile, leaned her head slightly and squinted her eyes.

“Does that mean any kind of ending is okay? Even an ending that is unwanted by Yukino-chan or anyone else?”

“Yes, that’s okay.”

Without a slightest bit of hesitation I let out my words. Looking at my face, Haruno-san swallowed her breath quietly in surprise. And then, killing the smile that she was wearing, she asked me in a voice that was much colder than before.

“… just curious, why does Hikigaya-kun have to go this far?”

To her question, I was unable to give an immediate answer. It wasn’t like I was still hesitating or wavering at that time, but rather, the answer was already there. It was only because I had been already asked similar questions a couple times until then, and thus I had trouble picking my words. Next to me was Yuigahama who stiffened her body there and listened to me carefully.

Therefore, I tried my best not to lie, not to conflict with any statements that I had made, and chose to give an answer that had my consistency in mind.

“It was perhaps just … the spirit of volunteering. A heart that desires helping each other. Do we need any reason to help others?”

Forcing out my words shamelessly, the chair next to me began shaking. I could tell that Yuigahama’s shoulders just lost its strength. Haruno-san sighed shortly and turned her face up to the sky.

“You are quite an interesting person.”

“If you had to say so, then at least I want you to laugh at the same time.”

I wasn’t sure whether Haruno-san had noticed it or not, but her face had no signs of a smile at all. Only her voice resonated. After I pointed it out, Haruno-san finally broke her smile out as if she just realized it.

“Telling only the lies… Not saying a single word of truth.”

“Whether it’s real or fake. I really don’t have anything to say in particular. Even if I do…”

I swallowed back what I wanted to say, I changed my words to something else.

“…you are not the person that I would tell.”

“……… that’s true…”

Haruno-san squinted her eyes as if she suddenly saw something very dazzling in a flash. Without changing the smile on her face, she responded to me half-jokingly. Nevertheless, her voice was somehow accompanied with a very chilling tone, followed by a dry and small sigh after. Perhaps she knew it already. Her hand reached out to the mug. She drank up the beverage inside that already turned cold and wiped her lips with her finger tip. Nodded her head as if she just got ready to talk again, she raised her face up and put up a gentle smile.

“I will do the favor for you and help you with the leaking with my best effort.”

“Thank you.”

Both Yuigahama and I lowered our heads. Haruno-san then rested her cheek on one hand and began touching her smartphone screen with the other hand.

“However, it’s still tough with just this little help?”

Being told so unexpectedly, I became a little bit confused. Seeing my reaction, Haruno-san smiled naughtily.

“Although you have already gathered all necessary elements, the people that you are dealing with can’t really be argued with proper reasonings, right? Furthermore, your real opponent is my mother…”

“Eh… that’s true…”

Thinking about the Yukinoshita sisters’ mother made both Yuigahama and I look at each other and smile bitterly.

Just as I expected, if a certain number of parents want to express their complaints about the dummy prom, they would do so via that mother that served as their representative. Then naturally I would become the person bearing the responsibility from the students’ side.

Coming to think of the confrontation that happened the other day, to be honest I didn’t believe I could possibly win the argument by either appealing logically or lyrically.[75]

While I frowned and mumbled my words out, Haruno-san stretched herself and yawned uninterestedly. She then continued her words as if it was just a follow-up byproduct of her yawn.

“But as long as you bring up the conversation with her, I think there should be a way around it, right…? I don’t think that person really cares about proms and stuff in the end.”

I was not able to grasp the intention or the connotation of her words, so I leaned my head in question. However, Haruno-san had no intention to elaborate on it further. Rather, she began looking at the drinking menu and humming with her nose.

“... well, I will try my best.”

“Yep, please do.”

I took her carelessly phrased words of encouragement which she said without even looking at me. I then ran out of words to say.

Considering the time by then, I thought it was just about the right time to go. I told Yuigahama that it was about the time to leave using only eye contact. She nodded in reply.

“... It’s about time for us to leave now. I’m sorry for taking your time!”

“Thank you very much for your time!”

“No problem. Seeya.”

When we both stood up from the chairs, Haruno-san waved her hand gently at us. Given that she already pulled out the drinking menu at hand, it seemed that she still intended to stay there longer.

After nodding to her in courtesy, we both left the coffee shop.

The distance from the coffee shop to the station was quite short. On a weekday it would have been the rush hour then. On a Saturday like today, since there wasn’t any prominent event happening then, it wasn’t as crowded at all.

We finally reached the station plaza that also served as a small bus terminal, I looked at Yuigahama in question of what to do next.

Ever since we left the coffee shop Yuigahama had been silent along the way, as if she had been thinking of something all along. As I was concerned by that, I quickly peeked at her face. Yuigahama then put up an exhausted smile on her face.

She soon suddenly stopped walking and opened her mouth in difficult.

“...just now, what was the ‘co-dependence’ that Haruno-san mentioned about?”

Despite the troubled smile that she put up, her voice was rather serious. Unable to dodge her question, I sat down on a bench nearby and tried to look for words to say. Yuigahama also sat next to me, holding her backpack to her chest.

“It’s kind of hard to explain… … you do somehow understand the ‘dependence’ part, right?”

To my question, Yuigahama nodded her head and tried to bury her face into the backpack she was hugging. I responded with a light smile and continued my words. I tried to explain it plainly, without using terminologies and omitting the nitty-gritty details if possible.

“To put simply, co-dependence means that the person who *is relied on* is fine with his/her role of being depended on, maybe. Knowing that he/she is deemed needed, the person who is depended on finds his/her value and gain satisfaction and peace of mind out of it… In the end, both the dependent and the dependee become unwilling to get out of this situation.”

While I was explaining, I noticed that my voice dropped suddenly. The more I thought about it the more I noticed myself fitting exactly into that definition. Gradually I started feeling bitterness in my mouth.

Perhaps Yuigahama was also reminded of something. She bit her lips slightly.

“That, isn’t something good, right…”

“...well, it isn’t exactly wholesome, I guess…”

--- therefore, that is, perhaps, as wrong as I expected.

After hearing my words, Yuigahama’s face turned gloomy. It made me grow really painful to see it, so I quickly stood up from the bench as if trying to tear myself away from it.

“What that person said isn’t completely true, in fact. It’s merely one of the ways to look at it.”

Thus, there’s no need to be concerned about her words - I tried to convey this layer of meaning to her. I then smiled at her awkwardly.

In response, Yuigahama also put up a gentle smile that somehow felt sad and sorrowful. She nodded and stood up as well.

Unknowing who had begun walking, both of us eventually arrived at the station turnstiles. Yuigahama gently raised her hand and waved at me.

“So, I have to take the train now.”

“Alright then, take care!”

“Thanks. See you at school soon… Good night, Hikki-”

Yuigahama waved her hand gently by her chest. I saw her off and began walking off.

After taking a few steps, I turned back and saw Yuigahama still standing outside the turnstiles. As our eyes met, she waved her hand even more widely. I raised my hand slightly in reply. Feeling slightly embarrassed, I quickly left the station.

Becoming alone by myself, I hurried home against the night wind.

At this point I had completed all the tasks that I scheduled for today. I also finished as much of the preparation as I could.

The only thing left to do, is to *end things properly*.