3
Hayato Hayama’s presence always shines.
There is nothing less relaxing to the soul than school recess.
The classroom was filled with chattering bustle. One and all were freed from the oppression that is class, and they were conversing intimately with friends about what to do after school or what they’d seen on TV the previous day. The conversations flying around the room might as well have been in a foreign language; even if they reached my ears, they held no meaning for me.
Things were even livelier than usual. This was because our homeroom teacher had dropped the bomb the day before that we’d be deciding on groups for the workplace tour at the end of the classes today. Though who’d be going where wouldn’t be settled until long homeroom for a couple more days yet, everyone was already getting excited about it.
Though several of the conversations floating through room revolved around the question Where are you going? none of them seemed to be about Who are you going with? That was probably because nearly everyone in class had formed their particular cliques already. It was only natural. The institution known as “school” isn’t just a facility for doing classwork. It’s essentially a microcosm of society, all of humanity put together in a little diorama. Bullying exists in schools because war and conflict exist in the world, and school castes reflect our stratified, hierarchical society. Living in a democracy, the tyranny of the majority naturally applies at school, too. The majority—that is to say, the people with lots of friends—are superior.
My chin resting in my palms in a half-dozing posture, I hazily observed my classmates. I’d gotten plenty of sleep the night before and wasn’t particularly tired, but having spent my breaks like this for so long, my body had been conditioned to fall asleep. As I was nodding off, a small hand flitted in a wave across my field of vision. I lifted my head, thinking, Hmm? What?
Saika Totsuka was sitting in the seat in front of me. “Morning!” he giggled with a smile, greeting me as I stirred.
“Make me my miso soup every morning.”
“H…huh?! Wh-what do you…?”
“Oh, uh, nothing. I was just sleep-talking.” Oh man, I proposed to him. Damn, why was all this cuteness wasted on him? He’s a guy! Or is it because he’s a guy…? I guess he isn’t gonna make me miso soup in the mornings… “Did you need something?”
“Not really, but…I thought maybe you’d be around, so… Should I…not have come?”
“No, it’s okay. It’s actually so okay, I want you to come talk to me twenty-four-seven.” More like I actually want him to come say he likes me 24/7.
“But then I’d have to be with you forever, wouldn’t I?” Totsuka covered his mouth with his hand, grinning like he thought it was funny. Then, apparently realizing something, he brought his palms together in a tiny clap. “Have you already decided where you’re doing your workplace tour, Hikigaya?”
“Well, I guess I’ve decided, but also kinda not,” I admitted, but I suppose I failed to convey my point very well because Totsuka tilted his head, peering up at my face. The gesture revealed the collarbone peeking out from his gym clothes, and I averted my eyes automatically. Why is his skin so pretty? What kind of body soap is he using?! “Oh, what I’m saying is, I don’t really care where I go. If it’s not my house, it’s all the same to me. Everywhere is equally pointless.”
“Huh… You say such tough things sometimes, Hikigaya.”
I don’t remember having said anything particularly hard to follow, but Totsuka’d sounded impressed. I felt as if I could hear a bading! as my affection meter rose; though Totsuka was the kind of character who influenced your affecti-o-meter no matter what he said. It was actually scary. I felt at risk of going down a character route better left untraveled.
“So…then have you maybe…already decided who you’re going with?” Totsuka was gazing into my eyes a little hesitantly, but I could feel his firm intentions. Why did he say it like that? He really made it sound like he actually meant I want to go with you, but if you’ve already made up your mind, then that’s too bad. His attack caught me completely off guard. And that surprise attack was knocking on the door to my memories as vigorously as a newspaper salesman.
I feel like this has happened once before, long ago…
Yes, it was when I’d just started my second year of middle school. I’d drawn the short straw and ended up being picked as the boy class representative, and then a cute girl volunteered to be the girl class rep and told me shyly, I’m looking forward to working with you this year.
Yaagh! That was close! Once again, I’d been inches from being taken in by a line dripping with implications that I didn’t remotely understand, leading to me getting seriously hurt. I’d already seen this play out once. An experienced loner does not fall for the same trick twice. Confessions of love as a part of a punishment game after losing rock-paper-scissors don’t work on me, and neither do fake love letters from a girl written by boys in her name. I’m a hardened veteran schooled in a hundred battles. I am the best when it comes to losing.
Okay, I’d calmed down. In cases like this, the safest thing to do is just mirror the enemy’s moves. In other words, Fearow is surely a master loner. That’s why I decided to answer his question with a question. “Have you decided who you’re going with?”
“M-me…? I’ve…already…decided.” Bewildered at suddenly having this grenade suddenly thrown back at him, Totsuka’s cheeks reddened. He turned his eyes slightly downward, then glanced up again as if checking to see how I’d react.
Of course. Totsuka was in the tennis club, so in other words, there was a place for him there, a place in his own special community, and inevitable friendships he could derive from that. Of course he would have friends in class.
And then there was me. I was in a club, but it was really just an isolation ward gathering together kids who’d failed to conform to school expectations. I clearly wasn’t gonna be making friends there. “Now that I think of it—actually, I don’t even need to think about it—I don’t have any guy friends.”
“U-um…Hikigaya… I’m…a guy…though…” Totsuka muttered something very quietly, but he was so cute I couldn’t hear him properly.
Anyway, conversing with another human being in class was an exceedingly odd feeling. Ever since the tennis incident a few days earlier, Totsuka and I had started exchanging what passed for something like small talk whenever we ran into each other. Was this really friendship? I had my doubts. You can share an exchange with a mere acquaintance—no, with someone who doesn’t even rise to that level of distinction. For example, in line at Naritake Ramen, you might chat with someone next to you, like, It sure is crowded, huh? or Long line again today—what a pain! But you wouldn’t call that person a friend. Friends are more like…
“So where’ve you decided to go, Hayato?”
“I’d like to go check out something related to mass media or maybe a foreign-owned company.”
“Oh man, you’ve really got a focus on your future, Hayato. You totally have it together. But I guess we are at that age, huh? I have mad ’spect for my folks these days.”
“It’s all serious business from now on!”
“Whoa! But you don’t wanna lose your boyish spirit!”
I guess friends are something like that. Maybe talking like they do—like every trivial conversation is the height of their youth—is what being friends is. There’s no way I could do that; I’d burst into laughter halfway. And what did he mean, mad ’spect? Did he think he was some kind of rapper?
As usual and as always, Hayato Hayama had a charming smile on his face and was surrounded by three guys. Everyone was casually saying, Hayato, Hayato, calling him by his first name, and Hayama amicably returned the familiarity. I guess that display was something you could appropriately dub “friendship.” But to me, it just looked like people posturing with first names to make them feel like they were friends. They’re only doing it because that’s what people categorized as “friends” do in TV shows, manga, and anime. How is doing that supposed to make you closer?
But hey, why not try it out? With anything, firsthand experience is a necessity. I’m the kind of guy who won’t condemn any manga he hasn’t actually read. I’ll try reading it, but if it’s a total mess, I’ll slam it hard and fast.
Experiment: Does the usage of first names change human relationships?
“Saika.”
When I called his name, Totsuka froze up. His big eyes blinked once, twice, three times, as his mouth gaped. See, it doesn’t make you closer after all, huh? Well, it’s normal for someone to be irritated if someone suddenly employs their first name. I mean, when Zaimokuza started calling me Hachiman, I ignored him hard. Basically, this first name business is just normies (LOL) lying to themselves, tamping down their anger, and pretending to get along.
Anyway, an apology to Totsuka was probably in order. “Oh, sorry, I just…”
“I’m so glad! This is the first time you’ve ever called me by my first name.”
“Whaat…?”
Totsuka smiled sweetly, his eyes slightly moist.
Seriously? Does this mark the end of my time as a foreveralone? Am I transitioning from loner loser to just the normal kind of loser? Being a normie (’spect) is amazing. The scales have fallen from my eyes.
“So…,” Totsuka began, fixing me with his puppy dog eyes. “C-can I…call you Hikki, too?”
“No.” Why’d he have to go with that one, the one with all the shameful, shady implications? There was only one person on the list of individuals who addressed me by that name, and I didn’t want to add another.
My flat refusal seemed to disappoint Totsuka somewhat, but he cleared his throat tentatively and tried again. “Then…Hachiman?”
Stab! There goes the arrow right through my heart. “S-say that three more times!”
Totsuka grinned sheepishly as if my crazed request confused him. He was so cute when he was embarrassed that it was embarrassing me. “Hachiman,” he said, staring at me as if eager to quantify my reaction. “Hachiman?” He tilted his head to the side, expression quizzical. “Hachiman! Are you listening?!” He puffed his cheeks out in a bit of a pout.
His mild anger snapped me out of it. Bad Hachiman, bad. He was so cute, he’d entranced me completely for a moment there. “O-oh, sorry. What were we talking about?” I attempted to hide how I’d been zoning out as I mentally jotted down the results of the experiment in my head.
Conclusion: Totsuka is cute when you call him by his first name.
The din of the school grounds grew quiet, and the light of the setting sun shone into the clubroom. The glow of the sun’s final rays as it set over Tokyo Bay began melting into the darkness of the far and distant sky.
“Hmm… And so the time of darkness begins…,” the boy muttered, clenching his fists. The leather of his fingerless, faux-leather gloves creaked as he gazed fixedly at the one-kilogram weights peeking out of his sleeves and sighed. “It seems the time has come to remove these seals…”
No one replied to him…even though there were three other people in the room.
The guy glaring expectantly in our direction as if awaiting a reply was Yoshiteru Zaimokuza. The girl emanating silent contempt as she focused wholly on her book was Yukino Yukinoshita. The one stammering, “U-uh…,” and turning to Yukinoshita and me for help was Yui Yuigahama.
“Zaimokuza… Do you…need something?” I asked.
Yukinoshita sighed deeply, then shot daggers at me as if to say, And I was trying so hard to ignore him.
Hey, I had a choice here. It’s not like I actually wanted to talk to him, but this had been going on for about thirty minutes. It was as bad as the Haunted Housekeeper in Uptaten Towers in Dragon Quest V. If I didn’t talk to him now, the situation will drag on interminably.
Zaimokuza rubbed the tip of his nose as if he was glad I’d asked and laughed, Heh-heh. How obnoxious. “Yes, my apologies. A good line just happened to arise in my mind, so I unconsciously gave voice to it that I might grasp its feel and the cadence of the words. Heh… It seems I am an author to the pith of my bones… I think of my novels, waking and sleeping. The pen is my fate…”
Unfortunately, Zaimokuza’s talents were limited to talking big. Yuigahama and I exchanged exhausted looks.
Yukinoshita snapped her book shut, and Zaimokuza flinched. “I thought an author was someone who created things. Have you created anything?”
“Ngaaagh!” Zaimokuza threw his head back as if there were something stuck in his throat. His overreactions are so annoying. But he seemed unusually confident that day and recovered quickly, clearing his throat with a contrived gahum, gahum. “Ehem. You won’t be able to say that for long. I finally have it in my grasp—the road to El Dorado!”
“What, have you won a prize?”
“N-no, not yet… H-however, once I finish my book, winning a prize is a mere matter of time!” For some reason, Zaimokuza was acting like he had it in the bag.
Come on. What part of that remark contained anything worth bragging about? If he’s going to be like that, then when I’m done with the game I’m working on in RPG Maker, I’ll change the course of Japanese gaming history.
Zaimokuza threw back his coat with a rustle and yelled loudly as if trying to steer the conversation back on course. “Ha-ha! Listen and be amazed! I have decided to go to a publishing house for the upcoming workplace tour! In other words…you get my gist, right?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Your wits are dull, Hachiman. What I’m saying is that my genius will finally be discovered. This means that I will have connections!”
“Come on, you’re being ridiculously optimistic. You’re worse than an eighth grader who brags about knowing some delinquent older kid.”
But Zaimokuza wasn’t paying attention to anything I said. He was staring in the opposite direction, smirking to himself, and mumbling: “And the studio will be…and the casting…” Creepy.
Anyway, even if he was going to a publisher, I figured quality varies. But if he believed that fervently that his future would be that bright, there was nothing I could say to him. Still, there was one thing that didn’t make sense. “Zaimokuza, I’m surprised anyone would listen to what workplace you wanted.”
“Why must you put it thus? You make me sound as lowly as an ant… But no matter. There happened to be two other so-called nerds in training for the forthcoming expedition. I said naught. Those two decided we would be sojourning to a publisher, going eek-eek-eh-heh-heh all the while. Those two are most certainly the BL that is all the rage these days. Even I was powerless before their love, so I kept silent so as not to interrupt them.”
“You should have made nice with your kind…” Yukinoshita sighed, without so much as looking at Zaimokuza. But her suggestion would never come to pass. There are things some people cannot compromise on precisely because both parties are fixated on the same thing. It’s kind of like a holy war.
“I see… The workplace tour, huh…?” Yuigahama mused, each word imbued with feeling. I peeked at her from the corner of my eye, and she turned away immediately. Her face was red, and her eyes were darting about so quickly I wanted to give her a board to use as a target. Did she have a cold or something? “Hey, where are you going, Hikki?”
“My house.”
“Yeah, no. That’s not gonna happen for you,” Yuigahama said dismissively, waving her hand back and forth in the motion for no.
It’s too early to surrender yet, I thought… But as I didn’t want Miss Hiratsuka to punch me, I decided to give up. I’ve surrendered, so the game’s already over. “Hmm… Well, I guess I’ll go wherever the other people in my group want to go.”
“Why so passive?”
“Well…it’s always the same for me. I get stuck with whoever’s left at the end, so I’ll have no voting rights.”
“Ohhhh—o-oh…uh, sorry.” As usual, she was stepping all over my personal land mines. I bet she was bad at Minesweeper.
That particular land mine existed because, well, forming groups of three is unbelievably even more horrific than pairing off with one other person. If it’s just two of you, you can both suck it up and simply accept the situation in grim silence, but in a trio, two of them will buddy up, consigning the third wheel to max heart alienation.
“So you never did decide where you’ll go, then,” Yuigahama muttered with a hmm and a faraway expression.
“Have you decided where you will go, Yuigahama?” asked Yukinoshita.
“Yeah. I’m going wherever’s closest to school.”
“Your ideas are as bad as Hikigaya’s.”
“Hey, don’t lump me in with her,” I protested. “My decision to apply to stay at home is based on high-minded ideals. And where are you going, anyway? The police station? A courtroom? Or a prison?”
“Wrong. Now I understand quite well what you think of me.” Yukinoshita chuckled, the smirk on her face frigid.
That was what I’m talking about. That. The way you smile is scary, seriously. I’d thought up those potential destinations based on my impression of Yukinoshita as an intellectual person, but she apparently wasn’t into any of them. How odd… It wasn’t like I was saying that Yukinoshita was cold or cruel or callous or anything. Eh-heh-heh. Why was she giving me that weird smile in response?
“Perhaps…some think tank or a research facility. I’ll make my choice later.” Apparently, she hadn’t decided yet, as she only briefly gave us an idea of the general field for which she was aiming. But anyway, judging from her calm and serious personality, I could easily imagine where she might go.
Just then, I felt someone plucking at the sleeve of my blazer. What is this, some kind of sleeve-pulling imp? I wondered, and when I turned, there was Yuigahama. She quietly pulled her face close to mine, drawing her lips to my ear. Her pointlessly sweet smell and her glossy hair touching the back of my neck made me shiver. This was the first time I’d ever felt her get this close. Blood rushed like mad to my heart so furiously it was deafening. “H-Hikki…” The sweet breath of her ticklish murmurs at my ear made me feel itchy. Now that she was close enough for me to feel her breath on my skin, I could almost hear both of our hearts beating.
What if…maybe…my heart is pounding like this because…?
“Wh-what’s a think tank? A tank company?” She said think tank like an old lady would.
Nope. I guess it was just arrhythmia.
“Yuigahama.” Yukinoshita sighed, looking exasperated, and Yuigahama peeled away from me. “Listen, a think tank is…” She began her explanation, and Yuigahama listened eagerly, hmming along. The two of them were in casual study mode.
Observing them with a sidelong glance, I refocused my attention on the important task of reading my shoujo manga.
About fifteen minutes passed after Yukinoshita finished explaining think tanks and related trivia to Yuigahama. The setting sun was nearing the sea. From the fourth-floor clubroom, you had a good view of the water shining and sparkling in the distance. If you looked below, you’d see the baseball team raking the diamond, the soccer team carrying away their nets, and the track team putting away their hurdles and mats. It seemed that club time was ending. I stole a gander at the clock on the wall, and Yukinoshita simultaneously snapped her book shut. When she did, Zaimokuza flinched. Come on, you’re way too jumpy around her.
I can’t say for sure when this rule was established, but Yukinoshita closing her book had become our signal that club time was over. Yuigahama and I quickly began readying for our departure.
In the end, nooobody had come that day to consult with us. Why was Zaimokuza the only one who’d shown up? Nobody wanted him there. I figured I’d have some ramen on the way back and then go home. Thinking about dinner, I decided on a light meal at Houraiken. It’s a Niigata-style ramen shop, and their light and refreshing broth is first-rate. It’s also a shop that Zaimokuza told me about. Oh, crap, my mouth is watering.
That was when it happened. There was a delightfully rhythmical tap, tap on the door.
“Now?” My blissful ramen time interrupted, I found myself in bad mood mode and glared at the clock. Had I been at home, I’d have reverted to my habit of pretending not to be there. I shot a look at Yukinoshita as if to ask, So what do we do? But…
“Come in.” Yukinoshita reacted to the rap at the door without giving me so much as a glance. Though our visitor was clearly lacking in consideration, Yukinoshita was not to be outdone in this regard. No, she was probably winning there.
“Excuse me.” It was a breezy, soothing voice; a boy.
Who the hell was this guy, barging in to deny me my ramen? I directed a resentful stare at the door and was surprised by who strode through. It was someone who shouldn’t have even been there.
He was a rather handsome guy. So much so, I wouldn’t know how to describe him other than handsome. His hair was styled into wavy points. Some sort of stylish frames fitted his trendy glasses, and the eyes behind them were direct. When they met mine, he grinned. Unwittingly, I returned a forced smile. He was so good-looking that I instinctively recognized my own inferiority.
“Sorry for coming at this hour. I wanted to ask for your help.” He set his Umbro shoulder bag on the floor and asked, “Is here fine?” as if it were the most natural thing in the world, before proceeding to pull out a chair in front of Yukinoshita. Every single gesture just made him look that much more attractive. “I just haven’t been able to slip away from practice. Club time is canceled for a week before exams, so they wanted to make sure we got through every drill today. Sorry.”
I guess that was what it meant to be needed. If I were to bail on club early, not only would no one stop me, no one would even notice me leave. Seriously, am I a ninja or what?
Though he said he’d been busy with practice, I didn’t smell a whiff of sweat on him. Quite the contrary, a refreshing citrus scent wafted off him.
“Enough with the humblebragging.” Yukinoshita’s words were like a smack in his cheerful face. For some reason, she seemed slightly brusquer than usual. “You came here because you want something. Is that right, Hayato Hayama?”
Though Yukinoshita’s tone was icy, Hayato Hayama’s smile didn’t falter. “Oh, that’s right. This is the Service Club, right? Miss Hiratsuka told me that if I needed help with any problems, I should come here.” When he spoke, for some reason, a refreshing breeze blew in from the window. Did he have mystical wind powers or what? “Sorry for coming so late. If Yui and the rest of you have plans after this, I can come another time.”
In response to his remark, Yuigahama smirked in her shallow, familiar way. Apparently, her defaults for interacting with the upper caste were not so easily abandoned:
“O-oh, no, you don’t have to do that! You are the soon-to-be captain of the soccer team, after all. You couldn’t help running late.”
Yuigahama was probably the only one who felt that way, though. Yukinoshita looked tense, and Zaimokuza silently attempting to project an air both stern and tough.
“Hey, sorry to you, too, Zaimokuza.”
“Eugh?! P-pfagh, uh, er, I-I’m done here now, um, I was just leaving…” The hostile vibe Zaimokuza had been attempting to emit dispersed the instant Hayama addressed him. Zaimokuza went so far the other way, he actually started acting like he was the one somehow in the wrong. Koff, koff, koff. “Hachiman! Farewell!” Zaimokuza split before the words were even out of this mouth. He seemed unusually giddy for a guy running away, though.
Zaimokuza, I understand that feeling so well it hurts. I don’t really know why, but when dregs like us run into members of the elite, we shrivel up. We step aside for them in the hallways, and if one of them were to deign to talk to us, we’d have about an 80 percent stutter rate. You’d think that this would make us even more resentful and jealous of them, but that’s isn’t the case. We’re actually a little happy if one of them even remembers our names.
A guy like Hayama knew my name—knew me. This recognition restored my sense of dignity.
“…and Hikitani, too. Sorry for coming so late.”
“…No, it’s fine.” Mine was the only name he got wrong! Hey, my dignity was still gone. “Anyway, didn’t you come here for a reason?” I wasn’t unconsciously trying to hurry this along because I resented him for getting my name wrong or anything… Honest! I was deeply interested in Hayama’s problems. I was honestly just baffled as to what sort of problems a person on the very highest rung of this school’s social ladder might have. This was in no way motivated by a desire to discover his weaknesses or use that information for blackmail. I possessed none of those base feelings, none whatsoever.
“Oh yeah, about that,” Hayama said, abruptly pulling out his phone. He swiftly clacked away at the keys, opening up the e-mail window, and showed it to me.
Yukinoshita and Yuigahama leaned in for a peek from either side. Having three people in front of a palm-sized screen was crowded and smelled too nice and made me feel uncomfortable. I let the two of them take my place, and Yuigahama quietly exclaimed, “Oh…”
“What is it?” I asked, and Yuigahama withdrew her own phone and showed it to me. There was a message on it identical to Hayama’s.
The e-mail was what you might call anonymous defamation. And it wasn’t just one. Every time Yuigahama’s finger moved, a litany of similar, hateful messages scrolled down the screen. All of them were probably sock accounts, as there were slanderous and defamatory messages from multiple senders. It was stuff like Tobe is in a street gang in Inage and was targeting kids from Nishi High at an arcade. Or Yamato is a filthy, three-timing SOB. Or Ooka was deliberately playing dirty at a practice match with another school to take down their star player. Basically stuff like that. There were tons and tons, and none of them could be verified. Though the majority came from socks, some were forwarded from people who appeared to be classmates.
“Hey, what the…?”
Yuigahama nodded silently. “I told you before, didn’t I? About the stuff that’s going around in our class.”
“A chain e-mail, hmm?” Yukinoshita, who had been silent until then, spoke.
A chain e-mail, as the name suggests, circulates around and around like a chain. Usually, they come with directions at the end like Please forward this to five people. They’re a lot like the ‘chain letters’ of yore, those old analog letters that read, If you don’t send this letter to five people within three days, you will be met with great misfortune. You can think of chain e-mail as the digital iterations.
Looking at the message again, Hayama grimaced. “Ever since this started going around, things have been feeling nasty in class. It makes me angry seeing bad things written about my friends, too.” Hayama was as vexed by this anonymous villain as Yuigahama had earlier.
There is nothing more terrifying than covert bile. If someone gets up in your face talking smack, you can punch them or insult them back to vent. There’s also the option of holding on doggedly to your resentful feelings toward that person and sublimating that stress into something else. Those sorts of dark emotions are endowed with lots of energy you can channel into something positive. But when you don’t have an enemy to make the recipient of all your hatred, jealousy, and thirst for vengeance, it all just feels vague and unclear.
“I want to put a stop to it, you know? This kind of thing just isn’t nice,” said Hayama asserted, cheerfully adding, “Oh, but I don’t mean I want to bust whoever’s doing it. I want to find a way to resolve this peacefully. Do you think you can help me?”
There it was. He’d just invoked his ultimate move: the Zone.
Let me explain. The Zone is a character skill that only true normies have, and its most prominent characteristic is how it sets everything up to go just right. Unlike regular normies (LOL) who expose their stupidity with little thought and waste all their time on shallow and idle amusements, true normies are fulfilled by real life in a real way. Because of that, they don’t look down on anyone; in fact, they’re kind to those whom others look down upon. The standard for telling these two apart is Are they nice to Hachiman Hikigaya? I think Hayama is pretty nice. I mean, he’ll actually talk to me—though he gets my name wrong.
Basically, I guess you could call the Zone a unique air that nice, charismatic people have. To put it kindly, Hayama was nice and considerate. To put it normally, he was useless and full of flippant smiles. Put meanly, he was a cowardly piece of crap. I did think he was a good guy, though.
Confronted by Hayama’s special powers, Yukinoshita seemed to ponder for a moment before opening her mouth. “In other words, you want us to come up with a plan to deal with this situation?”
“Yeah, well, that’s the idea.”
“Then we have to find the culprit.”
“Okay, good…huh?! Wait, why do we have to do that?” Hayama had clearly not been paying attention to where the conversation was going. For an instant, he looked stunned, but he immediately composed himself as he calmly asked Yukinoshita to elaborate.
In contrast to Hayama, Yukinoshita’s expression was glacial as she slowly began speaking, carefully selecting her words. “Passing around chain e-mails is the worst sort of human behavior: the kind that tramples human dignity. They spread their slander and libel purely for the sake of hurting others while concealing their own identities. The most vicious part is that those who spread this malice are not necessarily malicious themselves. Curiosity and sometimes even good intentions lead them to disseminate it further, and the web of malice expands. If you want it stopped, you must tear it up by the roots. Nothing less will have any effect. Source: me.”
“So you’re speaking from personal experience, huh?” I wished Yukinoshita would stop exposing her own personal minefields like that. Her tone was placid, but I could practically see dark flames wavering at her back. It felt like the kind of scene that deserved ominous sound effects.
“What on earth is so fun about propagating content that denigrates others? I don’t see how it benefited Sagawa or Shimoda in any way.”
“So you even figured out who did it.” Yuigahama managed a stiff, awkward smile. This is exactly why making enemies of high-spec people is scary.
“Your school must have been pretty cutting edge, then,” I said. “There wasn’t any of that at my school.”
“You just think that because no one asked you for your e-mail,” Yukinoshita jabbed.
“What?! Hey! You jerk! I was just maintaining confidentiality! Haven’t you ever heard of the Act on the Protection of Personal Information?!”
“That’s a novel way to interpret the law.” Rolling her eyes, Yukinoshita swished back the hair on her shoulders.
But that was probably the reason I’d never been caught up in that sort of chain e-mail imbroglio. Nobody would ever ask me for my e-mail address. This is the difference between Yukinoshita and me. She gets exposed to all this pernicious stuff, but I’m not worthy of even that. If something like that were to happen to me, not only would I never find the culprit, I’d probably just go home and moan to myself while soaking my pillow with tears.
“At any rate, anyone who would engage in such disgraceful behavior should certainly be led to ruin. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, and hostility in response to hostility is my philosophy.”
Yuigahama perked up. Apparently, she recognized the saying from somewhere or other. “Oh! We learned that today in world history! That’s the Magna Carta, right?”
“It’s the Code of Hammurabi,” Yukinoshita smoothly replied before turning to Hayama again. “I will search for the guilty party. I believe a few choice words will be sufficient to stop them in their tracks. What happens after that I will leave to your discretion. Is that fine with you?”
“Yeah, that’s okay,” Hayama said, as if resigned.
I was actually on the same page as Yukinoshita on this. This prick had deliberately used a bunch of different accounts to send that e-mail, which meant they were deliberately concealing their identity for fear of exposure. If they were dragged into the open, they’d probably stop. Basically, finding the transgressor would be the fastest way to fix this.
Yukinoshita stared hard at the cell phone Yuigahama had left on the desk, applying her hand to her chin in her pseudo-Thinker pose. “When were the e-mails first sent?”
“The end of last week. Right, Yui?” Hayama sought verification from Yuigahama, who nodded.
Wait a second… So Hayama calls Yuigahama by her first name, huh? I feel like…guys who are higher up in the school pecking order naturally take to using girls’ first names. I’d stammer and choke for sure. Though I had to respect him a little for being able to pull off something that embarrassing while still looking cool, I was also kind of…annoyed. Damn you—are you an American or what?!
“So they suddenly started around the end of last week, hmm?” mused Yukinoshita. “Yuigahama, Hayama, what happened in class around then?”
“I don’t think there was anything in particular,” said Hayama.
“Yeah…it was the same as usual, right?” Yuigahama and Hayama exchanged puzzled looks.
“I might as well ask you, too, Hikigaya. What about you?”
“What do you mean ‘might as well’?” I was in the same class as them! Well, I did see things from a different perspective than they would have, so there were probably some things only I would have noticed. Around the end of last week, huh…? In other words, it was something recent. I tried to think of things that’d happened recently…recently…but nothing quite came to mind. I guess if you considered stuff from yesterday, that’s when I called Totsuka by his first name for the first time, but that was about it.
Finding the courage
to call you Saika, I found
you were very cute.
So yesterday is now the
Anniversary of You.
Now that I thought about it, why had I been talking to Totsuka again? As the thought crossed my mind, I suddenly remembered. “There was that one thing yesterday… Everybody was talking about forming groups for the workplace tour.” Yup, Totsuka’s cuteness had come out of that conversation.
This realization set something off in Yuigahama’s brain. “Ack! That’s it! It’s because we’re splitting into groups!”
“Huh? That’s why?”
“Huh? That’s why?”
Look at that, we were comment clones! Hayama grinned and said “jinx” or something or other I couldn’t care less about.
All I could say was “Y-yeah…”
But if Hayama and I are clones, that means I’m also a fetching normie. QED. Or not.
Hayama fixed his attention on Yuigahama, and she tittered as she elaborated. “Well…because dividing into groups for a big field trip like this affects your relationships afterward. Some people get really anxious about it…” Yuigahama’s expression turned dark, and Hayama and Yukinoshita looked at her as if confused.
It probably wasn’t something Hayama had ever had to deal with, and as Yukinoshita didn’t care about that stuff, she likely wouldn’t get it. But I understood. This was Yuigahama, the girl who was always worried about what other people thought of her, the girl who’d survived the complicated and mysterious web that was human relationships, so her words carried weight.
Yukinoshita cleared her throat as if to redirect the conversation. “Hayama, you said these messages were about your friends, right? So who are you going with for the work visit?”
“O-oh, yeah… Now that you mention it, I haven’t decided yet. I think I’ll just end up with a couple of the guys from the usual threesome, though.”
“I think I might have figured out who it is…,” Yuigahama said, her expression somewhat downcast.
“Could you explain?” asked Yukinoshita.
“Yeah, well, like, basically, he’s got this group of guys who are always with him, but one of them is gonna get left out, right? One guy out of their group of four won’t get included. Being the one left hanging sucks.” She said this as if speaking from personal experience. Everyone fell silent.
To find a criminal, it’s best to start with the motive. If you can think of someone who would benefit from the act, there’s your answer right there. In this situation, the motive was not to be left out. In our class, Hayama was part of a clique of four boys. It stood to reason, then, that if they had to form a group of three, one person wouldn’t make it in. Anyone who didn’t want to be the one on the outs would have no choice but to get someone else booted. That was probably how the cyber-assailant saw it.
“Then it would be correct to assume that the culprit is among those three?” Yukinoshita concluded.
Hayama, who so rarely raised his voice, did so now. “H-hold on a second! I don’t want to think that one of them is doing this. Plus, these e-mails slammed everybody in the group, you know? How could one of them be doing it?”
“Ha! Are you stupid?” I asked. “How much of a wide-eyed innocent are you? Are you an anime character or what? The culprit would do it to deflect suspicion, duh. Though if it had been me, I’d have deliberately singled somebody out and said nothing just to make it look like they did it.”
“You’re a terrible person, Hikki.”
Call me a smooth criminal, please.
Hayama bit his lips in frustration. He probably hadn’t imagined something like this, that there was hate so close to home, that dark feelings surged beneath those ingratiating smiles.
“For now, could you just tell us about these people?” Yukinoshita requested.
Hayama lifted his head as if resolved. There was conviction in his eyes. It was probably motivated by some noble desire to clear his friends’ names. “Tobe is in the soccer club, like me. He’s got blond hair, and he comes off like a tough guy, but he’s actually really good at setting an upbeat mood. He goes out of his way to help out with the cultural and the athletic festivals and stuff. He’s a good guy.”
“So he’s a frivolous party type who has no talents aside from being loud?”
Yukinoshita’s remark left Hayama speechless.
“Hmm? What’s wrong? Continue.” Yukinoshita prodded Hayama, perplexed by his sudden silence.
Hayama pulled himself together and proceeded to his next character profile. “Yamato’s in the rugby club. He’s levelheaded and a good listener. I guess you’d say he’s the calm, easygoing, and quiet type, and that puts people at ease. He’s shy and kinda cautious. He’s a good guy.”
“Dull-witted and indecisive…”
Hayama was silent and radiating disapproval. Then he sighed and continued. “Ooka is in the baseball club. He’s nice, friendly, and always ready to help you out. He’s polite and respectful, too. He’s a good guy.”
“Deferential and always worried about what others think, hmm?”
Hayama was not the only one at a loss for words. Yuigahama and I both watched agape. Yukinoshita, wow. I was starting to think her ideal job would be a prosecutor.
The scariest part was that her evaluations were not necessarily incorrect. Perspective can have a major impact on your impressions of a person. Hayama would always take the optimistic outlook, and that made him biased. On the other hand, Yukinoshita avoided all that when she could, so her impressions were naturally salty. Very salty. You could soak your feet in her opinions.
Yukinoshita hmmed as she gazed at the notes she’d taken. “Any of them could be the culprit…”
“Well, you’re the most likely culprit here. Or is that just my imagination?” I remarked. How dare she interpret people so harshly? In a way, she was even crueler than whoever wrote those e-mails.
Looking quite offended, Yukinoshita set her hands on her hips and glowered indignantly. “I would never do something like that. I would crush someone in person.”
Did this girl not realize that while their methods were different, her goal of “crushing” was exactly the same as that of our mastermind? But this was Yukinoshita, so I wasn’t surprised that the idea of making peace didn’t even cross her mind.
After so many hits from Yukinoshita, Hayama had this awkward smile on his face like he didn’t know if he should be angry or upset. Yukinoshita was Yukinoshita, but Hayama was also Hayama. At the end of the day all he had was worthless and superficial information. I thought he was a good guy, but his perspective was so different from ours that he wasn’t suited to looking for the culprit.
Perhaps Yukinoshita was thinking the same thing, as she turned around to ask our opinions. “I don’t think Hayama’s information is going to be very useful. Yuigahama, Hikigaya. What do you think of them?”
“Huh? I-I dunno how to answer that…,” stuttered Yuigahama.
“I don’t really know them.” Actually, I didn’t really know any of the students at this school. I had zero friends and only a few more acquaintances than that.
“Then could you look into it for me? The groups are going to be decided the day after tomorrow, right? You have a full day until then.”
“O-okay.” Yuigahama seemed rather hesitant about obeying. Well, she was trying to be friends with everyone in the class, so this was exactly the kind of thing she’d have been disinclined to do. Picking out other people’s faults reveals your own. It’s fairly risky social behavior.
Apparently, Yukinoshita understood that as well, as she quietly dropped her gaze. “I’m sorry. That wasn’t a nice thing to ask. Forget about it.”
I guess that means the task falls to me, but that’s a given. “I’ll do it. It’s not like I care what our class thinks of me, anyway,” I said.
Yukinoshita glanced at me, then smiled with a chuckle. “I’ll be waiting, but I won’t expect much.”
“Leave it to me. Fault finding is included in my vast array of skills.” What other talents might I have, do you ask? Cat’s cradle and stuff. Yeah, I was basically Nobita.
“W-wait! I’ll do it, too! U-um, I can’t just leave it up to Hikki!” Red-faced, Yuigahama’s voice faded to a mumble, but a moment later she clenched her fists tight. “P-plus! If you’re the one asking, Yukinon, I can’t say no!”
“I see,” Yukinoshita replied, and then jerked her head away. Her cheeks seemed flushed. Perhaps she was embarrassed, or perhaps it was just the glow of the sunset.
Uh, but like I said, I’m doing it, too. Why does Yuigahama always get the special treatment?
Hayama had a wonderful, breezy smile on his face as he watched the two of them. “You’re such good friends.”
“Huh? Oh, yeah, they are,” I replied.
“I mean you, too, Hikitani.”
What was he talking about? There was no one named Hikitani in this club.
In the classroom the next day, Yuigahama was on fire. It was lunch hour, and I was not going to my usual spot. As I reached out to grab the pastry and the Sportop I had bought, Yuigahama came over, and our meeting of careful planning began.
“I’ll go ask around first… S-so you don’t have to kill yourself trying, Hikki. Actually, you don’t have to do anything!”
“O-okay. Thanks, I guess. You seem really into this…” Frankly, it was weirding me out.
“I-I’m just, like, y’know… It’s because Yukinon asked me!”
“O-oh, really…” If she actually did worship Yukinoshita that hard, then I really was weirded out. But it was abundantly clear that for all Yuigahama’s incentive, her pains weren’t going to get her anywhere. It was deeply unnerving. “It’s nice that you’re so motivated, but what exactly are you going to do?”
“Hmm… I’m gonna try asking the girls about it. They’re the ones who know the most about class relationships. Plus, sometimes when they’re talking about people they don’t like, they get carried away and tell you all sorts of stuff.”
“Man, girl talk is scary. Whoa.” So it was the enemy-of-my-enemy- is-my-friend idea. What advanced tactics…
“It’s not that scary! It’s just, like…complaining…or swapping information, I guess?”
“I guess it really depends on the way you put it.”
“Anyway! You’re bad at that stuff, right? I’ll handle it, so don’t worry.”
Yuigahama was absolutely correct. Frankly, I wasn’t suited to casual chitchat or investigative enquiry. Just me going up to talk might make people suspicious. I wouldn’t be asking them questions; they’d probably end up asking me questions, questions like Who are you?
Yuigahama’s position in the class was well suited for this task. She was also good at being social. She’d been polishing her fear of other people’s opinions her entire life, and now it was time to put it to use.
“Yeah…sorry, I’ll leave this to you. Go for it.”
“Okay!” Yuigahama psyched herself up and cut into Miura’s clique. These were the girls who were friends with Hayama and his guy friends.
“Sorry I took so long!”
“Oh, Yui. You took forever!” Miura and the other girls of the clique greeted her apathetically.
“So, like, Tobecchi and, like, Ooka and, like, Yamato have been acting kinda weird lately, huh? It kinda feels like…I dunno, you know?”
Pfft! I snorted as I overheard Yuigahama. Straight to the point like a baseball to the face. That was a 160 km/hr gyro ball! That would easily have been a rank S in MLB Power Pros. But her control scored a solid F.
“Huh? Since when have you been one to talk like that, Yui?” Ebina took a step back. I think her name was Ebina. Probably.
Miura’s eyes glittered, and she wasted no time making her attack. “Look, Yui, that was uncalled for, you know? It’s mean to gossip about your friends!” It was a lovely thing to say, and Miura’s remarks put her in an overwhelmingly superior position.
Now Yuigahama was the one about to lose her place in the group. What the hell was she doing?
But Yuigahama was backpedaling with all she had. “No! That’s not what I mean! Um, I’m just, like…kinda interested…”
“What, do you have a crush on one of them?”
“That’s not what I mean at all! I mean, I am interested in someone, but he’s, like…you know, so…,” Yuigahama gasped, a look on her face that said, Oh no! Miura’s lips twisted into a smirk.
“Ohh? Yui…do you have a crush on someone? Tell us! C’mon, c’mon. We’ll help you out!”
“N-no, I said that’s not what I mean! Those three have just kind of been on my mind lately…or their relationship? I guess? I just feel like it’s been odd lately!”
“Oh, is that all? That’s no fun.” Miura had clearly lost interest. She opened her phone and began clacking away at it.
But Ebina bit. “I understand… So you’ve been thinking about it, too, Yui… Honestly, I have, too.”
“Yeah, yeah! It’s like things have gotten all tense between them or something!”
“Well, personally…” Ebina sighed, fixing her with a serious gaze. “I think Tobecchi is totally an uke! And Yamato is the arrogant seme. Oh, and Ooka is the seductive uke. There’s definitely something going on with that threesome!”
“Yeah, I know…wha?”
“But, like, all of them are definitely after Hayato! Hnnng! It’s like they’re all holding back for the sake of their friendship! It’s such a shiptease!”
Whoa, are you kidding me? Who knew Ebina was so intense? Like… her nose is bleeding.
“Uhh…” Yuigahama seemed at a loss, but Miura just breathed a weary sigh.
“There it is: Ebina’s disease. Ebina, you’re cute when you keep your mouth shut, so at least try to pretend to be normal. And wipe your nose.”
“Ah…ah-ha-ha!” Yuigahama was so overwhelmed she laughed to avoid saying anything. When she noticed that I was watching, she quietly raised her hand in apology as if to say, Sorry, I failed!
Well, a lot of things had gone wrong from the start, anyway. Even without Ebina in the picture, it would have gone belly-up. So that meant it was my turn. But I couldn’t just go around chatting up my classmates. So how should I go about performing recon on these people?
The answer was obvious. I’d just watch them intently. If I can’t talk to people—no, precisely because I can’t talk to people—I can gather information through other avenues. It is said that only around 30 percent of human communication is done through language. The other 60 percent is communicated through subtle gestures and movements of the eyes. It’s so important there’s a saying about it: The eyes say more than the mouth. It’s a great paradox: loners who engage in no conversation at all can manage about 70 percent of all communication. Right?
Yeah, no, this is bull.
Now then, I shall exhibit another of my vast array of skills: human observation. I’m also a pretty good shot. Like I said, I was basically Nobita.
My method is incredibly simple.
1. Stick in ear buds but don’t turn on any music. Just listen to the conversations around you.
2. Stare like you’re zoning out, but actually be looking really hard at the guys in Hayama’s clique to read their faces.
This concludes the explanation.
Hayama was encamped in a seat by the window. He was leaning against the wall, with Tobe, Yamato, and Ooka surrounding him. This told me something exceedingly simple: that Hayama was the highest-ranked person in the group. The wall is the ultimate backrest, the seat of a king. Though the four boys probably had no idea of this, their very ignorance proved it to be an instinctual, essential behavior.
It looked as if each of Hayama’s three friends had their set roles.
“So yeah. Our coach started to hit balls for fielding practice right into the rugby club! It was rough, man. Those balls are hard!”
“Our advisor flipped over that, too.”
“We were killing ourselves laughing, though! But, like, the rugby guys held their own. Not like the soccer team—we’re a mess. Man, it was so crazy! Balls were just flying at us from the outfield! It was a war zone out there!”
Ooka started the conversation, Yamato yes-manned it, and then Tobe got excited about it. It was like a well-organized play. Shakespeare said that all the world’s a stage, but I think everyone just fulfills the roles that are given to them. And the director and audience of this performance was Hayama. He sometimes laughed, sometimes changed the subject, and sometimes joined in.
I observed a number of things in my surveillance.
Oh, that guy just clicked his tongue under his breath.
This one suddenly went quiet when the guy next to him started talking…
And the other one was fiddling with his phone like he was bored. He was really not into this.
The one who got this vague smile on his face whenever they talked about dirty stuff was a virgin. Definitely. Source: me. Seriously, I never know how to react when the conversation turns dirty. I’ll just pause for a beat and then go, I’m not horny at all lately! like I’m trying to brag about it. I wonder why I do that?
I felt like all my intel was useless. Figuring I wouldn’t be seeing any results, I sighed, and that was when it happened.
“Sorry, ’scuse me for a sec,” Hayama said and stood, then headed toward me. Apparently, Hayama had noticed my staring. He was probably gonna be like, What’re you lookin’ at, ya punk? What middle school do you go to? My heart pounded with fear.
“What?” I said, hiding my trembling.
Hayama did not burst into a fit of rage or grab my collar and demand my allowance; he merely grinned brightly. “Oh, I was just wondering if you’d figured something out.”
“Not really, uh…” About all I’d learned was that Ebina was a fujoshi and that Ooka was a virgin. As I reviewed my findings, I looked over at Ooka and the others, and what I saw caught me by surprise. The three guys were acting bored, fiddling with their phones, occasionally glancing over toward Hayama. And the answer suddenly came to me. It was a flash of insight like a tranquilizer bolt to the back of the neck.
“What is it?” Hayama asked, perplexed.
I grinned back at him. “This mystery is solved!”
Naturally, I will showcase my deductions after the commercial.
After school, Yukinoshita, Yuigahama, Hayama, and I all gathered in the clubroom.
“How did it go?” Yukinoshita asked for our findings.
Yuigahama tittered. “Sorry! I tried asking the girls, but they didn’t know anything!” Her apology was sincere.
Well, there was no helping that. Afterward, Ebina had continued to babble on to Yuigahama about semes and ukes and division or some other nonsense, and there was no way Yuigahama could have discovered anything after that.
Head bowed, Yuigahama slowly peered up at Yukinoshita’s face.
But Yukinoshita didn’t seem particularly angry. “Oh, well, I don’t really mind.”
“Huh? You don’t?”
“You could take it to mean that the girls are uninvolved and uninterested in this. The problem is between the boys in Hayama’s clique. Yuigahama, good work.”
“Y-Yukinon…” Yuigahama’s eyes were brimming with tears of emotion. She tried to embrace the other girl, but Yukinoshita smoothly dodged, and Yuigahama’s forehead smacked into the wall.
Yukinoshita, exasperated, patted the tearful Yuigahama’s injured forehead as she looked at me. “So what about you?”
“Sorry, I didn’t find any clues as to the culprit.”
“I see.” I was sure she was going to mock me, but Yukinoshita just sighed and cast a gaze of deep pity in my direction. “Nobody would talk to you, hmm?”
“That’s not why.” Though it was true that nobody would bite if I tried to start a conversation. I mean, just talking to someone and keeping the conversation going expended a lot of my mental energy. It used about as much MP as Magic Burst, seriously. “I don’t know about the culprit, but I did figure one thing out,” I said.
Yukinoshita, Yuigahama, and Hayama leaned forward to listen. Confronted with doubt, hope, and curiosity, I cleared my throat.
That was Yukinoshita’s cue to ask, “What did you find out?”
“I found out that that clique is Hayama’s clique.”
“Huh? We already know that, duh,” Yuigahama scoffed. It was as if her eyes were saying, Is this guy a virgin or what? Like Ooka?
Hey, you keep Ooka out of this.
“Um…what do you mean, Hikitani?”
“Oh, sorry I wasn’t clear. Adding that s at the end denotes possessive case. In other words, it means ‘belonging to Hayama, for Hayama.’”
“Uh, I don’t feel like they’re mine, though,” Hayama said, but he was just ignorant of the situation. The other three might be, too.
But I was an outsider looking in, and to me it was clear as day. “Hayama, have you seen those three when you’re not around?”
“No, I haven’t.”
“Of course he hasn’t. How could he see them if he’s not there?” Yukinoshita sneered and sighed.
I nodded. “That’s why Hayama hasn’t noticed. An outsider can see that when those three are alone together, they don’t get along at all. To put it in a simpler way: They each see Hayama as their friend, but they only see each other as friends of a friend.”
Yuigahama was the only one to react. “Oh, ohhh, I know that feeling… It’s awkward when the person who keeps the conversation going leaves, you know? You don’t know what to talk about, and you end up just messing around with your phone…” Her head drooped, apparently under the weight of a bad memory.
Yukinoshita tugged repeatedly at her sleeve, asking quietly, “I-is that how it is?”
Yuigahama folded her arms and nodded an affirmative.
It was no surprise Yukinoshita didn’t know about this. She’d never had friends, so she’d never had friends of friends, either.
Hayama was silently considering what I’d said. But there was nothing he could have done. To Hayama, they were his friends, but their other relationships were their own business. To have friends is to accept the difficulties that come with them. Having a large cohort was not always advantageous, and Hayama was serving as a prime example. Put another way, lots of friends means lots of people surrounding you. You can’t run away. In Dragon Quest terms, that means the entire party is going to die. But I knew a way out.
“Even if what you’re saying is true, Hikigaya, that’s only a corroboration of their motives. Isn’t there a way to figure out which one of them is doing it? The situation will not be resolved until we take out the culprit. We have to hurry and get all three…” Yukinoshita put her hand to her jaw in thought.
Casually talking about taking people out, Yukinoshita, you’re scaring me. Were the Sagawa and Shimoda you mentioned before taken out? The idea of people going missing at our school terrified me, so I suggested a different approach. “There’s no need to take out the culprit. That’s another matter entirely,” I said, and Yukinoshita tilted her head with a question on her face as she looked at me.
Her reasoning was To stop the crime you must stop the criminal, and that wasn’t wrong. But there’s another way. A jewel heist could never be successful if there was no jewel to steal. So you just have to steal it before it’s stolen. I had ninja skills, after all, so I was more suited to being a jewel thief than a detective, anyway.
“Hayama, I can resolve this problem, if you want. I can do it without exposing the thief and without any arguments. And they might become friends.” I wonder what expression I was wearing. At the very least, I think it was a smile, and such a wonderful smile that Yuigahama went “E-eugh…” and shrank back.
I felt like a Zaimokuza-esque heh-heh-heh might slip out of my mouth. If there were demons that pressured humans into wicked bargains, they might have looked a little like me.
The pitiful lamb, Hayama, nodded in assent to the devil’s proposition.
It was the day after Hayama made his fateful decision.
Our classmates’ names were listed on the blackboard in the classroom. Each set of three names represented the groups for the work-experience event. The three girls who sat beside me chattered and smiled to each other. Apparently, they’d decided among themselves beforehand, as they went up to the blackboard and began to write down their names.
As for me, I didn’t approach anyone. I just zoned out and watched. This was how I dealt with forming groups.
At times like these, it’s important to do nothing. It was like Shingen Takeda said: steadfast as a mountain. He was exactly right. Skipping out of class as swiftly as the wind, nodding off at your desk as quietly as the forest, jealousy raging hot as fire, steadfast as a mountain. I would wait until the situation shifted and the homeroom teacher said, Yes, yes, I get that you all hate Hikigaya, but it’s not good to leave people out! You can’t do that!
You damn old bat Isehara, my homeroom teacher from fourth grade… I’ll never forgive you.
Anyway, they say that all good things come to those who wait, so if I pretended to be asleep, then before you know it Hachiman the loner would join a pair who failed to find anyone else and took me as their compulsory third. And then we’d declare ourselves a group!
Agh, I’m going to sleep.
I made use of another of my vast array of skills: pretending to be asleep. By the way, one of my others was becoming one of the good guys during a long plot arc. I was basically Gian.
Then someone gently shook my shoulder. Even through my clothes I could feel a soft, delicate hand. A voice called my name, like music from the heavens. Still dozing, drifting above the clouds, I opened my eyes.
“Morning, Hachiman.”
“An angel? Oh, it’s Saika.” Phew, that startled me. He was so cute I could have sworn he was an angel.
Totsuka giggled and plopped down beside me, replacing the girl who had been there until a moment ago.
“Is something wrong?” I asked, and Totsuka grasped the cuff of my gym uniform as he floundered, eyes upturned.
“W-we’re…separating into groups…”
“Hmm? Oh, that’s right. They should be about done figuring them out soon.” I seem to remember that Totsuka had already decided his. That was too bad. I did a full-body stretch and looked around the classroom. Once most of the class was done picking out their groups, it was time for us loners to do our thing and steel ourselves to form temporary groups among ourselves. I would prefer to end up with other solitary types; if I took too long, I would get stuck with a pair who were already friends.
It happened while I was checking the names written on the blackboard, looking for other rejects. There was a group of three that was writing their names. A familiar-looking trio.
Tobe, the blond party-type.
Dull-witted and indecisive Yamato.
Assimilating virgin Ooka.
Three for the Kill: the Next Generation! I was witness to the formation of a new group. My favorite character in particular is assimilating virgin Ooka. After the three had made their group official, they looked at each other and smiled a little shyly. Hayato Hayama’s name was not there.
As I watched, a voice from behind caught me unawares. “Mind if I sit here?” He sat beside Totsuka without waiting for my reply.
In the face of this sudden and unexpected guest, Totsuka mumbled, “U-um…” and sent me an anxious glance. Supercute.
“This all ended peacefully, thanks to you,” Hayato Hayama said with his trademark grin. “Thanks.”
“I didn’t really do anything.” Why was he coming to talk to me so casually? Was he just a good guy? Was that it?
“But you did. If you hadn’t let me know what was going on, there would probably still be some bad blood between them,” Hayama said.
I really was no saint, though. I had just wanted to try dragging Hayama down the path of the loner. The reason for the hostility in the first place was wanting to be with Hayama. So you just had to take away the cause of their conflict. In other words, you had to exclude him.
A loner is sort of like a permanently neutral country. Your absence prevents discord, and you don’t get dragged into trouble. If everyone in the world just kept to themselves, there would most certainly be no war or discrimination. You know, I think it’s about time I got a Nobel Peace Prize.
“I’ve always felt like I should be friends with everyone, but I guess sometimes I can be the cause of conflict, huh…?” Hayama mumbled, forlorn.
I had no words to offer him; all I could give him was a bored snort. Though Hayama had come to the Service Club in search of a solution, all I had been able to give him was the option to throw himself under the bus. Even though he was a good guy, the kind who would come and talk to me and remember Zaimokuza’s name. Even though he was the best there was at living high school life to the fullest. But in spite of that—no, precisely because of that, Hayato Hayama said, “The three of them were taken aback when I said I wouldn’t join any of them, though. I hope this will lead to them becoming real friends.”
“Yeah…” Mildly disconcerted, I gave a noncommittal response to indicate that I was listening. Frankly, I thought that being this good of a guy was some kind of illness.
“Thanks. So then, since I don’t have a group yet, how about we make one ourselves?” Hayama extended his right hand with a smile.
Huh? A handshake? Why do normies always act so overfamiliar? Good grief, he’s got to be kidding. He’s practically an American. “Oh, okkei!” He was so American, I ended up replying in English.
I gave his hand a firm smack, and Hayama said, “Ow!” and smiled yet again. Now that he was a fellow loner, perhaps he and I had come to understand each other. Now then, if we just got one more person, then the job would be done.
And right beside us was a cute creature going “Mnghh!”
“What’s wrong, Totsuka?”
When I looked at him, I saw tears welling in his eyes as he puffed up his cheeks. It was ridiculously cute. “Hachiman…what about me?”
“Huh? Uh…what? Wait, didn’t you say you already decided on a group?”
“Listen!” Totsuka braced himself and then squeezed the cuff of my blazer tight. “I decided from the start…that I’d be with you, Hachiman.”
“That’s what you meant?”
What a tricky way to put it. Loners are stupidly good at sniffing out hints that they’re not wanted, so if you don’t state yourself explicitly, we won’t get these things.
I looked at Totsuka. He was red-faced and apparently sulking at the floor. Unwittingly, my face relaxed. When I smiled, Totsuka looked up through his lashes at me and giggled.
Hayama grinned at us, jumped to his feet, and turned to face me. “Then let’s go write our names down. What about the workplace?”
“Up to you,” I said, and Totsuka nodded his assent.
Hayama wrote our names on the blackboard. Hayama, Totsuka, Hikigaya. Oh-ho, he gets my name right when he’s writing it down. Even a little thing like that made me rather happy. Maybe this was what they call “friendship”? Next, Hayama began to write where we wanted to go. But then…
“Oh, I’m gonna go with the same thing as Hayato!”
“No way, Hayama is going there? Oh, then I’m switching, I’m switching!”
“Maybe I’ll go there, too…”
“Hayama’s the best. He’s so great!”
Everyone in the class gathered around Hayama all at once, and then while I was busy staring they all chose the same workplace as Hayama and wrote their names by his instead. Before I knew it, my name was erased, lost underneath all the names added by Hayama’s. My presence disappeared along with it, and I faded into the background again. What the hell, am I a ninja? Maybe I should go do this tour in Iga or Kouga or something.
And then this humble ninja respectfully slipped away unnoticed from the schoolroom…
Needless to say, friendship is another thing that can slip away unnoticed, anytime, anywhere.
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