Yahari Ore no Seishun Love Come wa Machigatte Iru - Volume 6 - Chapter 9

9

And so the curtain rises on each stage.

I changed the batteries in the camera installed on the gym catwalk and checked the space left on the memory card. Recording the volunteer groups’ performances was another part of Records and Miscellaneous’s duties. We’d even have to edit the video files later in Final Cut Pro or whatever that program was on the student council’s Mac. They’d taught me the basics, but it was a perpetual pain in the ass, and a Windows guy like me was never gonna get a Mac to work right anyway. The most I could do was stick in some captions.

We sure had a lot of equipment, though, including the Mac and Final Cut Pro. They must have bought it with the school’s money, since the camera was apparently a pretty good one, and the mike was properly sensitive. I touched the display to check that everything was good and ready to record.

Once I was done, next I had to prep for the ending ceremony. Unlike the previous day, all I had to do this time were odd jobs, which was a load off my mind.

I came down from the catwalk into the stage wings. The volunteer group that came right before the ending ceremony, the last performance, was Hayama’s band. Preparations had begun backstage for the ceremony, which meant the stage wings were packed with people.

“Urk… Aw, oh man, I’m getting nervous.” Miura was hanging her head, looking haggard. She was apparently in this volunteer band, too. Looking around at the others, I saw Hayama strumming his guitar with the cable unplugged, warming up. Tobe was smacking invisible drums with a pair of drumsticks. The other one, Yamato, was frozen with a bass in his hands. Ooka was staring at the keyboard onstage with intense concentration.

The only one who seemed calm was Hayama, and the others were all pretty close to the breaking point. Tobe was swinging his head around more than the drumsticks.

Some people were loitering with the band members, too.

“Ummm, stage drinks… Oh! I guess they’d be easier to drink with straws.”

“Yui, with these things, if you stick this right into the cap and wiggle it around, it makes the perfect hole. Then you stick the straw in here.”

“Huh? Wow, Hina!”

Are you guys their assistants now?

Once enough headsets had been charged up for everyone, Yukinoshita started scuttling here and there. It was getting extremely annoying.

“Do you need something?” I asked her.

Startled, Yukinoshita answered with a question of her own. “Hey…where’s Sagami?”

I looked around. I actually didn’t recall seeing her.

“I wanted to have one final meeting with her before the ending ceremony…”

“I’ll try calling her.” Meguri dialed her cell, but after a few moments, her expression turned grave. “…It says she’s either out of range, or her phone is turned off.” She repeated the automated message word for word. “I’ll go ask some of the others.” Meguri made a string of phone calls, but she just couldn’t pin down Sagami. She sighed, then spoke into thin air. “Are you there, guys?”

“Right here.” All of a sudden, student council members appeared from behind the drop curtain.

Are you guys ninjas? Or assassins?

“Could you look for Sagami for me?” Meguri asked. “I’d appreciate it if you could keep regular contact with me as you do, too.”

“Aye, madam.”

Seriously, are you ninjas?

The search began with the full might of the student council. But even the ninja masters could only track up to where she’d been around noon. After that, they couldn’t find a trace. The trail just suddenly ended.

Once Hayama’s group’s upcoming performance was done, we’d immediately be starting the ending ceremony. If you took into account the checks and prep beforehand, we didn’t have much time.

Yukinoshita folded her arms and squeezed her eyes shut. When Yuigahama noticed, she trotted over to her. “What’s up, Yukinon?”

“Do you know where Sagami is?” Yukinoshita asked.

Yuigahama tilted her head. “I dunno. I haven’t seen her… Do you need her here?” Yukinoshita nodded, and Yuigahama pulled out her phone. “Hmm, I’ll try asking around.” Yuigahama stepped away to go make a phone call.

I kept Yuigahama in my field of vision as I made another suggestion to Yukinoshita. “Why not just make an announcement on the intercom?”

“Yes, of course.” Yukinoshita contacted the broadcast room and had them do a school-wide announcement, but there was no response at all.

“Yukinoshita.” Miss Hiratsuka must have heard the announcement, as she’d quietly come around from the back entrance. “Has Sagami shown up?”

Yukinoshita shook her head.

“…I see. Because of the announcement, the teachers have a general grasp of the situation as well, so if they find her, I think they’ll contact you, but…” The teacher’s expression was grim. In a roundabout way, she was saying, Don’t expect much.

The audience was burning with enthusiasm, but the temperature backstage had dropped all at once. The more time passed, the more serious an issue the Cultural Festival Committee chair’s absence was becoming.

“This isn’t good,” said Yukinoshita. “At this rate, we won’t be able to hold the ending ceremony.”

“You’re right…” Meguri nodded, somewhat at a loss.

Concerned about their grim expressions, Yuigahama asked, “Does Sagamin have to be here?”

“Yes,” said Yukinoshita. “Greetings, general comments, and the presentation of awards are all a part of her role.” Those had always been the job of the committee chair, year after year. No matter what was going on with Sagami, the role assigned to her was not going to change.

“Worst case…we could replace her…” Meguri offered an alternative plan. In that case, it would be either Meguri herself or Yukinoshita taking her place. Considering their positions, either one could be justified in taking up the role. But, well, it would still be awkward.

But Yukinoshita nipped that proposition in the bud. “I think that would be a bad idea. Sagami is the only one who knows the results of the merit award and the regional award vote.” Everyone in the conference room had worked on the tally in turns, whenever needed. So though everyone had a fragmentary understanding of the numbers, only Sagami, who had consolidated the final results, knew what those results were.

“Then we could put off the presentation of award results until tomorrow?” I said.

Yukinoshita nodded, but her expression remained severe. “In the worst-case scenario. But if we don’t announce the regional award now, I don’t think there would be much point.” The cultural festival was emphasizing regional ties. It wouldn’t be appropriate for the award to be presented a day late on the very year that award had been established.

Whatever the case, we still had to find Sagami. But we still couldn’t get ahold of her, and we hadn’t tracked down her whereabouts, either.

Yukinoshita bit her lip hard.

“Is something wrong?” Hayama asked, looking calm even though he was about to go onstage. He must have sensed the unrest.

“Yes. We can’t find Sagami…” Meguri explained the situation to Hayama.

Hayama immediately moved into action. “Vice-chair, I’d like to request a change in the program. Could you let us add one more song to our act? …We don’t have much time, so verbal agreement is enough, right?”

“Can you do that?” asked Yukinoshita.

“Yeah… Yumiko, can you play and sing for one more song?”

“Huh? Another song? Seriously? No, no, no way, no way! I just can’t! I’m totally freaking out right now!” Miura was so tense that the question truly startled her.

“Please.” But then Hayama smiled at her, and she moaned hopelessly. Dropping her head into her hands, she groaned again. It was kinda cute.

Yukinoshita took one step toward the agonizing Miura. “…I’m swallowing my pride to ask this of you. I’d be grateful.”

“Agh…this is unbelievable, seriously…” Miura sighed in resignation and lifted her head to glower at Yukinoshita. “It’s not like I’m doing this for you.” That wasn’t an attempt to cover up some embarrassment; the hostility was genuine. She spun on her heel and marched off in the other direction. “Come on. Tobe, Ooka, Yamato. Stand by.” She whapped each one of them on their heads and swished out onto the stage.

Behind her, the three stooges were going, “For real?” and “Oh man,” and “You’re kidding me!” but still obediently followed her.

The four of them went on standby for the performance, and the Volunteer Management section leaped into action. They double-checked where each person would be at each point in time and prepared for the extra song in a flurry of activity.

Meanwhile, Hayama had pulled out his phone and was swiftly contacting various people. I doubted he was just sending simple texts. He had to be working a mailing list or SNS or Facebook or LINE or whatever. After a bunch of typing, he made a few phone calls, too. Once he was finished, he sighed.

“…Thank you,” said Yukinoshita.

“Don’t worry about it. I want us to look good today, too. Anyway…we can buy you ten minutes with the extra performance. You have to find her before then.”

“All right.”

“…”

He could buy us ten minutes, huh? If Sagami wasn’t answering her phone or responding to the announcement, then she’d been intending to bail all along. It would be impossible to find someone who wanted to hide in such a short period of time.

“I’ll go look for her.”

Yuigahama tried to leave, but I stopped her.

“If you just search for her at random, you’re not gonna find her.”

Meguri had already deployed the student council for the hunt. We’d made use of a bunch of connections already. But we still couldn’t locate her. I doubted Yuigahama would come across Sagami if she were to go out right then to look.

So it would be more constructive to consider her gone and use the time Hayama had bought us to make our next move. “It’d probably be fastest to have someone else go up and just make up the prize results. The poll numbers aren’t publicized anyway,” I said.

Everyone seemed shocked.

“Hikigaya…”

“Really…”

“That’s a little much…”

“I’m not sure if that’s a good idea…”

Miss Hiratsuka, Meguri, Yuigahama, and Hayama of the “good sense” faction expressed their dissent.

…No go, huh? I thought I’d suggested a pretty realistic plan there, though.

Yukinoshita, the one you’d think would be the first one to reject my ideas at a time like this, remained silent. Curious, I looked over and saw her hand was over her mouth. Apparently, she’d been mulling over something this whole time. “…Hikigaya.”

“What?” She’d been deliberating long enough that I was now anxious about what horrible insults she would throw at me.

But she looked me straight in the eye. “If we buy another ten more minutes, can you find her?”

“I dunno…” I explored the possibility a little. Miura’s group was right about to go onstage. They could only do one extra song. Best-case scenario, they could do a little MCing before and after their songs. Then there was the time it took them to leave the stage, and the time the audience would be able to wait in silence for the ending ceremony. Also, something unforeseen could happen that would shave off some time.

Taking all these things into consideration, Miura’s band could entertain the crowd for seven or eight minutes from now. Adding another ten minutes onto that would mean in actuality that they could hold on for a little over fifteen minutes. On foot from the gym, I could go search one place at most. If Sagami had left the school grounds, then we were out. I had no choice but to make my guess and bet on that one chance.

“…All I can say is, I don’t know.”

“I see. You’re not saying it’s impossible, then. That’s enough.” Despite my vague answer, Yukinoshita’s reply was clear. She got out her cell phone and took a deep breath. Steeling herself, she made a call. Eyes closed, she waited for the person to pick up. After a few seconds, her eyes flew open. “Haruno? Come to the stage wings now.”

How would she buy ten more minutes? Yukinoshita had found the answer.

Not long after Yukinoshita’s call, the recipient showed up. “Heya, Yukino-chan. What is it? I do want to see Hayato’s band, and they’re about to go onstage.” Haruno Yukinoshita’s smile was overflowing with so much self-assurance, it was scary. Apparently, she’d been watching the volunteer bands this whole time. There had been no need to go to the trouble of phoning her, as she’d been surprisingly close by.

Yukinoshita ignored Haruno’s complaint and got straight to business. “You need to help, Haruno.” Her statement was so direct, Haruno’s eyes changed color. Without a word, she regarded Yukinoshita coldly. But Yukinoshita did not avert her eyes; she glared back at Haruno with strengthening determination.

The place where their gazes met was quiet and horribly chilly. It was freezing the air itself around them, like liquid nitrogen had spilled.

Haruno’s icy smile split into a giggle. “Oh? All right. Since this is the first time you’ve actually requested something from me, I’ll graciously hear your request,” she said haughtily. Even if she was acting merciful, nothing about her reply was kind. It was even sharper than a flat refusal.

But Yukinoshita tilted her head at that. Then suddenly, she smiled a little. “Request? Don’t misunderstand me. This is an order, as a committee member. Didn’t you see the organization chart? You should know that according to the chain of command, I have the authority here. You’re obligated to cooperate as the representative of a volunteer group—even if you’re not part of this school,” Yukinoshita retorted with absolute confidence. Arrogant to the last. Even though she was the one who needed something from Haruno, she wouldn’t back down from her position of superiority.

It suddenly reminded me of who she’d been six months earlier. Never pandering to anyone, cutting down opposition with the blade of her sense of justice: That was Yukino Yukinoshita.

For her part, Haruno Yukinoshita chuckled and smiled with sincere glee. “So is there any penalty if I reject this duty? You have no power to compel me to do this, do you? It’s too late to disqualify me from performing. So what’ll you do? Tell on me to the teacher?” She just giggled. She was ridiculing Yukinoshita’s righteousness, calling it a childish morality that never works in the real world.

Haruno was being completely realistic, which was exactly why you couldn’t argue with her. Yukinoshita was talking about how things should be, based on principles. A best-case scenario. It was fair to describe her argument as idealistic. When it came right down to it, that wouldn’t mesh with Haruno’s realistic approach.

Oh, this isn’t good. Yukinoshita was at a bit of a disadvantage. If you want to oppose a realist, that’s a job for a nihilist like me. I was about to step in when Yukinoshita sensed this and quietly restrained me with a hand. Then she turned her head slightly and smiled gently.

With that one expression, she told me it was okay—she could be strong.

She turned back to Haruno and spoke again, with more force. “There would be no penalty…but you would benefit from cooperating.”

“How, exactly?” Haruno chuckled as if she found this all quite amusing.

Yukinoshita brushed aside the pressure from Haruno’s beautifully twisted grin and put her hand to her own chest. “You’ll earn a favor from me. It’s up to you how you take that,” she declared.

Haruno froze in place. “Hmm…” She wasn’t smirking anymore. She was just staring at Yukinoshita with a cold look. “You’ve grown, Yukino-chan.”

“No.” Yukinoshita smiled back at her. “I’ve always been like this. Haven’t you noticed after seventeen years together?”

“Oh…” After a brief reply, Haruno quickly narrowed her eyes. The expression prevented me from easily reading the intent behind it.

“…Ha.” In spite of myself, I laughed.

“…What?” Yukinoshita demanded.

“Nothing…”

Yukinoshita glared at me, and I laughed again.

Yeah, this is exactly it. This is who Yukino Yukinoshita is.

Haruno folded her arms to collect herself. The gesture made her look a lot like her little sister. “So what do you plan to do?”

“We’re going to buy some more time,” Yukinoshita replied briefly, but that wasn’t an answer.

Frowning slightly, Haruno asked another question. “But how?”

“With me, you…and two others, we’ll manage. If possible, one more.” Yukinoshita glanced over to the greenroom by the stage wings. It gave me a general idea of what she planned to do.

“Hey, Yukinoshita, are you serious?” I blurted in surprise.

Like me, Haruno must have seen through her in a glance, because she smirked. “Oh, that’s a fun idea. So what song?”

“We won’t be able to practice, so we have no choice but to do something we already know. Can you still play that song you did before at your cultural festival?” Yukinoshita asked.

Haruno showed us she could still sing whatever that song was. I guess I should say I was impressed, but not surprised. She was just humming, but I ended up lost in the music.

Yuigahama went, “Ohhh, that song,” too, impressed and entranced. If even I knew that song, of course Yuigahama would have known it.

After Haruno finished her casual rendition, she grinned boldly. “Just who do you think you’re talking to? What about you, Yukino-chan? Can you do it?”

“I can do just about anything you’ve ever done.”

…She must have been practicing in secret.

When Haruno heard that, she nodded. “I see. Then we just need one more person, and we’ll be good to go,” she said.

We all looked at one another. Hey, hey, just a moment ago, you said you needed two more, right? This is an issue even more basic than failing simple addition… Or so I thought, when I heard a very large sigh close by.

Then Haruno called the source of that sigh by name. “Shizuka-chan.”

“…Guess I’ve got no choice,” said Miss Hiratsuka. “I’ll play the bass. I think I could still play that song I did with you before.”

Oh yeah. When I saw Miss Hiratsuka during summer vacation, she mentioned how Haruno made her play in a band for the cultural festival or something like that…

Then Haruno spun around and said, “Meguri, you can do a backup keyboard, right?”

“Yes! Leave it to me!” Meguri replied with energy, both her hands balled into determined fists. Not only had she seen Haruno perform live before, she was older than us and accustomed to standing up in front of a crowd. There was no hesitation in her reply.

“So now I guess we just need vocals, huh?” said Haruno.

Expression brooding, Yukinoshita said quietly, “…Yuigahama.”

“Wha—?!” Yuigahama must not have been expecting to hear her own name as a part of this. A genuine and rather amusing yelp of surprise left her mouth.

Yukinoshita took one step in to stand close to her. “Could I rely on you for this?”

“Uh, um… Er, I don’t feel very confident about it… I don’t think I could probably do it very well, and I might actually just make the whole thing worse, to be honest…” Yuigahama touched her index fingers together, looking away and mumbling in embarrassment.

But…

After she trailed off, she squeezed Yukinoshita’s hand tight. “I’ve…been waiting for you to say that to me.”

Yukinoshita squeezed back delicately. “…Thank you.”

“It’s okay. B-but…I don’t completely remember the lyrics, you know?! For all intensive purposes.”

“It’s all intents and purposes. The fact that you can’t even say that right makes me somewhat uneasy.”

“That was a little mean, Yukinon!” Yuigahama protested, giving Yukinoshita’s hand a little shake.

Yukinoshita broke into a smile. “I’m joking. If you feel you’re in trouble, I’ll sing, too. So, um, I don’t mind…if you rely…on me…” Yukinoshita was blushing hard enough even I could see it in the darkness of the stage wings.

Yuigahama replied with a bright smile. “…Yeah!”

I watched them, then quietly headed from the backstage area to the door connecting to the gym exit. Silently, surreptitiously, I set into action.

“Hikigaya.” An unexpected voice came from behind me. “Best of luck.”

“You can do it, Hikki!”

I didn’t reply to either of them with words.

My only response was a carelessly raised hand as I continued on out the door.

All right, this is my time now. The next ten minutes are up to me.

Onstage, under a spotlight, was not where I belonged.

My stage was an empty path out a dark exit.

A stage for one—Hachiman Hikigaya.

The gymnasium exit connected directly to the school building.

School tradition said that every year, the volunteer band expected to draw the biggest audience would be slotted for the last performance. This slightly atypical program would allow them to transition straight into the ending ceremony. It was the most efficient way to move students into the gym.

In other words, right now, there were only a handful of people scattered around the school building.

Either way, it was about time for the ending ceremony, which meant a lot of people would be going to the volunteer concerts to have one last big whoop with everyone else.

The lack of people was convenient. It meant that anyone else out here would catch my attention, even from a distance. You could say the conditions were favorable for tracking down Sagami.

But I still wouldn’t be able to visit more than one place. My time was limited. I didn’t even have the time to check the clock.

You can’t slow down time. You can’t move any faster than your own physical limits, either. So the only thing you can accelerate is your thoughts.

Think.

Any loner should take pride in their capacity for deep thinking. We use resources that would typically be diverted to interpersonal relations on ourselves, and all that introspecting, reflecting, regretting, fantasizing, and imagining and daydreaming ultimately leads us to ideology and philosophy.

I would expend all those useless powers of thought to explore every possibility, to disprove and reject any conclusions I could. And then, among the ideas I couldn’t reject entirely, I would do my utmost to substantiate them, just like how I do when I’m speaking in defense of myself.

Criticizing others and defending himself are Hachiman Hikigaya’s greatest talents.

I just had to do that over and over, and the answer would emerge on its own.

It was simple. Sagami had to be alone right at that moment. So then all I had to do was trace the loner thought processes.

When it comes to lonerdom, I’m not just one cut above her; I’m about a thousand cuts above. I didn’t start this gig yesterday. I’m a veteran. Don’t you underestimate me.

Sagami is self-conscious; I’m sure of it. When she was in her first year, she was in the A-group, and she got used to being at the top of the heap. But ever since the second year, the presence of Miura and her clique had pushed her down the totem pole. That couldn’t have been pleasant for her to swallow. But despite this, Sagami couldn’t do anything herself to change the sense of her social class.

So that was exactly why she would seek out people lower on the social ladder than she was. She would try to stand at the top of the B-group, at least. And she had managed that. But once you’ve experienced the upper-class lifestyle, it’s hard to take when it goes down. So she had to satisfy herself with something else.

And then came this cultural festival.

Would the position of chair of the cultural committee have been enough to fulfill her desires? Yes. She’d joined the committee under Hayama’s recommendation, and once Sagami was committee chair, even the legendary Haruno Yukinoshita had praised her. Sagami had also gained talented help for the job itself in Yukino Yukinoshita.

But then what would happen when that didn’t go well, either? What if Sagami was unable to get what she wanted, and even her alternative fell through unexpectedly? As a member of the committee, she hadn’t been able to help with the class project like she’d wanted to. Her discontent had led her to go help anyway, while someone else worked with the committee instead of Sagami—or rather, someone else had fulfilled that role even better than she had. And to make it worse, even Hayama and Haruno, who had given Sagami her confidence boost in the first place, ended up preferring the substitute.

So what about Sagami’s pride, her self-conceit, her self-consciousness?

Her woes were quite clear to me. I’d been down that road, too. You’re naive, Sagami. That’s a path I know.

I remember skipping school, wandering around by myself, then getting found and reported to the school and everyone finding out. Back then, my unmanageable, hopeless self-consciousness had exploded, and all I’d wanted was for someone to look at me.

That’s why I get it. I know what you want to do. And I know what you want everyone else to do for you. And what you don’t want us to do.

You’re five years late. I already went through all that back in elementary school.

I can predict where you’ll go.

What does someone who has lost a place to belong want? For someone to find that place for them. If you can’t seek it out with your own eyes, you have to get help. I just had to apply the principle to my own mental map.

Sagami wanted people to look for her, and she wanted to be found, so she’d be on school grounds. And it’d be somewhere noticeable, too. She wouldn’t have shut herself up in an empty classroom, and neither would she lock herself in anywhere.

And one more thing: She’d be somewhere she could be alone. If she became lost in the crowd, then she really would be unfindable. If she had come to feel her own worthlessness, she would already be well aware of how it felt to vanish into a group.

She wouldn’t go anywhere she couldn’t physically enter, either. From a psychological perspective, she couldn’t be too far away.

So what else was left? There were still too many options. I needed a little more to substantiate something, or maybe just rule out some options.

If her self-consciousness had run amok, then I had one more case to examine, aside from my past self.

To follow that lead, I pulled out my cell phone. I guess it was kinda sad… I just called the most recent number in my call history.

“’Tis I.”

He freaking picked up before it even rang. I’d expect nothing less of you, Zaimokuza. All that goofing around on his phone when he has nothing to do has borne fruit. I’d have liked to commend him for it, but unfortunately, I had no time. Quickly, I asked my question: “Zaimokuza, where are you usually at school when you’re alone?”

“Oh, ’tis such an unheralded call! Ba-herm, I am ever in suspend mode—”

“Just answer me. I’m in a hurry.”

“…You’re serious?”

“Tch. I’m hanging up.”

“Wait, wait, wait, waaait please! The veranda by the nurse’s office! I’m also in the library a lot! Or on top of the special building.” There were people in the nurse’s office, and the classes were all using the veranda. The library was locked, too, so you couldn’t get in.

On top of the special building… The roof?

“If you’re looking for empty spots,” he added, “there’s the space between the new building and the club tower, I guess. It’s shady and cool. And quiet. Just right for meditation… Are you looking for someone?”

“Yeah, the cultural committee chair.”

“Oh, the one who made those opening remarks. It seems you are in need of my aid…”

“You’ll help out?”

“I have no choice. Where should I look?”

“Around the new building. Thanks! Love ya, Zaimokuza!”

“Aye. As do I!”

“Shut up, creep!” I smacked the call closed.

If she was on the roof, I had an idea about that.

I booked it toward my own classroom. The empty hallway served as a comfortable racetrack. But the lack of people increased the chances that the one I was looking for would also not be there.

Please be there… I dashed up the stairs, practically praying, but fortunately, I caught sight of my target sitting on a folding chair right in front of our classroom. Her bluish-black ponytail drooping moodily and her long legs crossed, she was languidly gazing out the hallway window.

I desperately tried to hide my panting as I called out to her. “Kawasaki…”

“What are you breathing so hard for? I thought you were with the cultural committee?”

I wasn’t going to respond to Kawasaki’s teasing or her question. “You’ve been on the roof before, right?”

“Huh? What’re you talking about? This is random.”

“Just tell me.” We didn’t have much time, and my impatient reply came out harsher than I had intended.

“Y-you don’t have to get so m-mad…” Tears welled in her eyes, and she started fidgeting a little.

I let out a slow breath in order to calm myself somewhat. “I’m not mad. I’m just kind of in a hurry with some committee stuff.”

“A-all right, then…” She breathed a sigh of relief.

She’s surprisingly sensitive. Oh, no, no, think about the roof right now. “So you were up on the roof before, right? How did you get up there?”

“I’m surprised you remember that…,” Kawasaki muttered softly as if it were a fond memory. She caught me in her gaze shyly.

…I told you, I’m in a hurry.

The thought must have shown on my face. Flustered, she got back on topic. “U-um, the lock on the door from the central staircase is broken. A lot of the girls know about it.”

Really. So Sagami should know about it, too. That was consistent with the other condition for a location she’d go to: that other people would be familiar with it.

Whatever the case, I had no more time. As this point, it was the most likely suspect.

“So what about it?” Kawasaki asked. She seemed puzzled at my silence. But my feet were moving before I could reply.

But I still had to thank her, at least, even if I was in a hurry. “Thanks! Love ya, Kawasaki!” I yelled over my shoulder as I sprinted off as fast as I could.

As I turned the corner in the hallway, I heard an earth-shattering shriek behind me.

The stairs leading to the roof had been used as storage space for the cultural festival, so it was hard to run up them. But there was enough space for a person to squeeze through. Sagami had probably made her way along this same trail through those little gaps. With each step I took in pursuit, the more sure I felt that I was getting closer.

I was positive that Sagami wanted to become like Yukinoshita or Yuigahama: someone who would be recognized, wanted, and trusted. That was why she’d gone for an instant title. She had wanted to affix the label of chair to her chest for the sake of the prestige. Then she could label others from her lofty high horse, too, and affirm her own superiority.

That was the truth of the “growth” Sagami had talked about.

But that’s not what growth is. You can’t cheat and call facile change some sort of maturity.

I hate it when people call something “growth” when it’s just a minor shift or a compromise to end the discussion. I hate it when at the end of the road, people give up and then pass that off as “becoming an adult.” No one’s going to change dramatically overnight or in just a few months. People aren’t Transformers.

If you could just become the kind of person you wanted to be, I wouldn’t be like this.

Changing yourself and changing others, having changed and having to change.

It’s all lies.

How could you so easily accept that the way you are now is wrong? Why would you reject the person you used to be? How come you can’t just accept who you are now? How can you believe in someone you haven’t even become yet?

If I can’t be okay with the disgusting person I used to be and the person I am now at rock bottom, then when the hell can I accept anyone? Can you even accept the person you’re going to be when you’ve rejected both who you are now and who you’ve been all your life?

Don’t expect to mature just by throwing your past away and overwriting everything about yourself.

Don’t you dare call it growth when you’re making it all about the title, crowing over a little recognition, getting drunk on your status, crying out about how important you are from within the shackles of rules you created yourself, all the while oblivious to the world until someone teaches you about it.

Why can’t you just say you don’t have to change? That you’re fine as you are?

The farther I climbed up the stairs to the roof, the fewer obstacles I saw. Eventually, I reached an open landing, the end point. Beyond this door was the end of the line.

Hide-and-seek was over.

Just as Kawasaki had said, the padlock on the doors was broken and hanging from the door handles. I messed with it a bit. When it was closed, the doors appeared locked, but a good yank would bust it open. This would make trespassing on the roof easy…

A little rust flaked off, and the door opened, hanging a little askew. It creaked loudly.

Wind whooshed in as blue skies opened before me. Since I was higher up, you’d think I was closer to the sky, but the lack of any reference point just made it feel farther away than usual.

Sagami was leaning against the fence, looking in my direction. Her expression turned to surprise, then disappointment.

No shocker there. She couldn’t have been waiting for me to come searching. In fact, she must have wanted someone like me to not look for her. On that point, while I was sorry for failing to meet her expectations, I hadn’t exactly wanted to come pick her up, either. I hoped she could let it slide, and we’d call it even.

Anyhow, in our current circumstances, we were approaching this from similar angles. So we could start this conversation on equal terms.

“The ending ceremony is about to start, so go head back.” I told her briefly only what I’d come for.

She drew her brows together, unhappy. “It’s not like I really have to be the one to do that, right?” she said, turning her back to me to indicate she didn’t really want to talk.

“Unfortunately, you actually do, for a couple of reasons. There’s not much time. It’d help if you’d hurry it up.” I think I’m pretty shit at convincing people, if I do say so myself. But though it might not have seemed like it, I was actually meticulously avoiding the words Sagami wanted to hear.

“Not much time— Wait, hasn’t the ending ceremony already started?”

So she knew. It annoyed me a little. “Yeah, normally, it would have. But we’re managing to buy some time. So.”

“Hmm. Who’s doing that?”

“Um…oh yeah. Miura. Yukinoshita and some others,” I replied. But Miura’s band would probably already have been done performing by this point. It was about time for Yukinoshita’s band to go on standby.

Sagami clutched the fence tight. “Oh…”

“Now you know, so you should go back.”

“Then Yukinoshita should just handle it. She can do anything anyway.”

“What? That’s not the issue here. You’ve got the vote results. You have to announce those, and a bunch of other stuff, too.” As I’d predicted would happen, Sagami and all her obnoxious replies were getting on my nerves. But I didn’t have the time to be spending on this conversation.

“They can just recount the tally results. It’s not that much if you all worked on it together…”

“We can’t. None of us have that kind of time right now.”

“Then just take the vote results and go!” The chain link fence shook as Sagami hurled the paper with the tally at me.

For an instant, I actually thought about just taking the paper.

But I couldn’t do that.

The request that Yukinoshita and the Service Club had accepted was to support Sagami in her job as committee chair. In other words, it was to ensure that Minami Sagami fulfilled her obligations. If not for that request, I wouldn’t be there right now, and Yukinoshita wouldn’t have become the vice-chair, either. To abandon the request would be to deny all that Yukino Yukinoshita had done.

That was why my job was to make Minami Sagami attend the ending ceremony and stand up on that stage as committee chair, to give her the honor of being the chair, and also to make sure she would experience the associated frustration and regret.

So what would I have to do to accomplish that?

If I could get Sagami to hear what she wanted to hear, from the person she wanted to hear it from, that would be enough. But unfortunately, I couldn’t do that.

I could keep on talking with her, but she was stubborn. I doubted she would budge.

Should I let someone else know she was here and have them come? But who? My contacts included Yuigahama and Miss Hiratsuka, who would be onstage by then, and I got the feeling that calling Totsuka or Zaimokuza wouldn’t change much. I never would have imagined that my lone-wolf lifestyle would backfire on me at a time like this.

So I got this far, only to reach a stalemate, huh…? I unconsciously balled my hands into fists with aggravation.

That was when it happened.

A loud creak. I turned to look, and Sagami probably did, too.

“Here you are… We’ve been looking for you.” Coming through the door was Hayato Hayama.

Behind him were Sagami’s two cultural committee friends. Hayama had probably brought them here.

“Hayama… Guys…” Sagami said Hayama’s name, then gently looked away. This was probably what Sagami had actually wanted. What she’d hoped for.

Hayama continued to fulfill those hopes, taking one step forward, then another. “We couldn’t get ahold of you, so we were worried. We were asking around everywhere, and then a first-year told us they’d seen you go up the stairs.”

So Hayama had done what Hayama did best and made use of his personal connections to trace that thin thread here. All I could say was Impressive as always.

Despite all Hayama had done to get to her, Sagami was still digging in her heels. “I’m sorry, but…”

“Let’s go back now, okay? Everyone’s waiting. ’Kay?”

“That’s right!”

“They’re all worried,” her friends added.

Hayama also knew full well that there was no time, and he earnestly told Sagami what she wanted to hear in an attempt to convince her. As you might expect, all three of them working on her at once would wear her down. She took her friend’s hand, and they shared a moment of mutual warmth.

But that still wasn’t enough.

“But it’s too late to go back now…,” she moaned.

“No way, everyone’s waiting for you,” said one girl.

“Let’s go together, okay?” said the other.

Hayama watched their exchange, but just for a second, his gaze flicked to his wristwatch. He was impatient, too. “That’s right. Everyone’s really trying to make this work for you, Sagami.” He knew he didn’t have her convinced; this wasn’t just extra prodding. He was using everything at his disposal to try to win her over.

“But…I’ve caused a lot of trouble, so I don’t know how I’d even face everyone…” Surrounded by her friends, Sagami’s eyes watered, and she sobbed. They all attempted to soothe her, but Sagami’s feet didn’t move. The only thing moving here was the needle on the clock.

Same results, even with Hayama here, huh…?

The seconds were ticking away.

Our time was almost up. What was the fastest and most efficient way to get her going?

Force her?

No.

That might have been possible if it were just me and Hayama. But the two girls would definitely have stopped me. That would clearly just lose us time.

Besides.

That wasn’t the way Yukinoshita would have wanted it done. Ultimately, I had to get Sagami to walk out of there on her own two feet.

Yukinoshita has her own way of doing things, and she’s always stuck to it: meeting things head-on, holding on to her pride while demonstrating her abilities to the fullest.

So then, I…

I suppose I have no choice but to stick to mine.

Meeting things spinelessly, crassly, and spitefully. Fair and square.

What would I have to do to get some actual communication going with Sagami?

There are only two ways people at the bottom can communicate with each other: They can lick each other’s wounds, or they can drag each other down.

I had one option.

I took a good look at Sagami and Hayama.

Hayama was still encouraging her, kindly, in an attempt to somehow urge her along, baby step by baby step. “It’s okay. Let’s go back.”

“I’m such garbage…,” Sagami spit in self-loathing, and her feet stopped again.

That meant this was the moment. Good grief. I honestly disgust myself—both for always coming up with ideas like this and for not actually hating that I do it. Aghhhh. I blew out a deep, long sigh of irritation.

“You really are.”

No one moved, and no one spoke.

Four pairs of eyes gathered on me. An audience of four.

A great turnout, for me.

“Sagami, you ultimately just want people fawning over you. You’re doing all this for attention, aren’t you? And what you really want right now is for someone to tell you, No, that’s not true! It’s no wonder no one treats someone like you as the committee chair. You really are garbage.”

“What are you talking—?” Her voice was trembling.

But I cut her off. “I’m sure they’ve all figured it out. I don’t even know you, and I can tell.”

“Don’t act like I’m anything like you—”

“You’re just like me. We live together in the lowest tier.”

Sagami’s eyes weren’t wet anymore. They were bone-dry, burning with hatred.

I chose my words carefully to build a solid argument. Everything so far had just been what I saw from my subjective experience. All that could do was anger her. “Think about it,” I continued. “I don’t give the slightest damn about you, and yet, I’m the one who managed to find you first.” It was stating objective facts that would get things going. “Which means…nobody was really looking for you in earnest.”

Sagami’s face paled. The color from her anger and hate faded, and shock and despair took their place. Her mixed-up feelings forgot how to express themselves, and all she could do to show them was bite her lip in pain.

“You get it, don’t you? That’s all you—,” I began, but I was cut off. The words were replaced by a wheezing noise from my throat.

“Hikigaya, stop talking.” Hayama’s right hand was clenched around my collar where he had shoved me into the wall. The shock of the impact had knocked the breath out of me.

“…Ha!” I pasted on a desperate smile to cover up how he’d winded me. Hayama’s fist gripping my collar shook. He sucked in a shallow breath and blew out a deep one in an attempt to calm himself. For a few seconds, we glared at each other.

As the tension shattered, the girls began to move again and rushed in to stop him.

“H-Hayama! That’s enough! Just leave him. Let’s go, okay? …Okay?” Sagami put her hand on Hayama’s back.

At that, Hayama expelled one last great sigh and turned around, letting go of my collar. He avoided looking at my face. “…Let’s get going,” he prompted the others, his tone calm.

Her two friends surrounding her like a convoy, Sagami left the roof.

As they went, the girls conversed as if they wanted me to hear. “Are you okay, Sagamin?”

“Let’s just go, okay?”

“And wow, who was that? Wasn’t that mean?”

“I dunno. What was that?”

The three of them left, and at the end, Hayama began to close the door behind him. “…Why is that the only way you can manage things?” he muttered, as if to himself. His words stung.

Alone on the roof, I leaned my back against the wall and slid down onto my butt.

The sky was clear and far.

It’s a good thing you’re a really cool, good guy, Hayama. If he hadn’t gotten mad, he wouldn’t be Hayato Hayama. It’s a good thing you won’t let it go when someone’s getting hurt in front of you. It’s a good thing you won’t let someone hurt others.

Look, it’s easy—a world where no one gets hurt is complete.

Hayama was probably right, and this way of doing things was wrong.

But right now, this is all I can do.

But I think that even I will change someday. I’m sure it’s inevitable. Something will change me. No matter what I want, the way others see and understand and appraise me is sure to change. If everything is in constant flux and the world is always changing, then the world around me, my environment, the standards of judgment themselves will distort into something with it, changing the way I am along with it.

So that’s why.

—That’s why I don’t change.

“Agh…” I breathed a deep, deep sigh.

…It was about time for the ending ceremony.

I sent a short e-mail that read Resolved to Zaimokuza and forced my heavy body up to leave the roof.

I hurried automatically toward the gym. It wasn’t that I needed to know how things had gone. Frankly speaking, I really didn’t care what happened to Sagami.

It was that the attention of the people in the hallways was all directed toward the gym.

The low-frequency bass reached all the way into the hall, encouraging both students and guests to instinctively seek out its source. Their feet were carrying them to the gym nearly against their will.

It actually felt like the sound was filling the whole school building. It was a low, crawling sound, probably the bass and the bass drum. But the vibrations shaking the pit of my stomach came from more than that.

It was the cheers.

The living pulse of clapping hands and stomping feet. Their vibrations, their heartbeats, were creating a rhythm throughout the whole school.

There weren’t many people left outside. The students and teachers were all gathered for the ending ceremony.

I put my hand on the gym door.

When I opened it, I was greeted by a rush of sound and light. Searchlights danced around as the disco ball hanging from above scattered the myriad beams.

And within the luminous vortex were the girls.

The bassist beat out notes with a voracious eagerness. The drummer asserted her presence with a whimsical, funky beat. The stock-serious guitarist picked with incredible accuracy as if attempting to restrain the wild and free rhythm section. She regulated the band as a whole. And then there were the carefree vocals. There was the occasional hiccup, but the vocalist sang each and every word and note with earnestness and care.

The guitarist took a step forward to center stage and leaned in close to the vocalist. The both of them must have gotten changed earlier, since they were wearing matching T-shirts as they supported each other to weave the melody together.

Some in the audience were waving their arms back and forth, some were headbanging, some were swaying their cell phones side to side like sea lilies glowing pale, and some were so caught up in the moment they were diving from seat to seat and being lifted into the air. The crowd was as enthusiastic as they would be for professionals… No, they were so passionate precisely because the performers were amateurs.

When the drums sped up provokingly, the guitar raced with them neck and neck, strings thrumming. When it seemed like the music was about to fall apart, the slap bass scolded them. And then, reaching out as if to embrace it all to her chest, the vocalist extended her arms and belted out the song with everything she had.

The song had a vocal call, and the crowd yelled back. Waves surged across the crowd from right to left. The brilliant glow sticks shone like countless stars scattered about the gym.

In that moment, in the darkness, they had all become one.

Nobody noticed when I came in.

Of course, I doubt they could see anything from up onstage.

Amid that obnoxiously powerful enthusiasm, I leaned against the wall. Everyone was fighting to get close to the stage, so there was extra space at the back. No one was around there.

This was the final performance of the long, long cultural festival. Everything was over now.

Oh yeah, I was in Records and Miscellaneous, wasn’t I?

So I’d remember this, at least. I doubt I’d forget that sight. I wouldn’t be able to.

I’m not on that radiant stage. I can’t join in with all the jumping.

I’m alone at the very back, just watching.

But I know I won’t forget.