Yahari Ore no Seishun Love Come wa Machigatte Iru - Volume 8 - Chapter 9

9

The room no longer smells of tea.

Though we were not yet through with December, that end-of-year atmosphere was gradually encroaching on the day-to-day, and it felt like even the flow of time was being rushed along.

There were only about three weeks left in the year.

The midwinter feeling began hanging around at the beginning of the month as the Soubu High School student council election was held to no particular excitement though quite a bit later than most years. The ballot had been solemnly carried out the day before.

Isshiki had tearfully begged Hayama to do her campaign speech and had dealt with the issue by stealing the entirety of Yukinoshita’s election promises. And then the result of the ballot count on the day of was that Iroha Isshiki was entrusted with the position of student council president.

A new student council would begin that day.

But most students had nothing to do with this, so they all spent their day as usual.

I was the same. I was living the same lifestyle I always had.

I took the same classes as always; before I knew it, school was already over.

Homeroom ended, and I left the classroom.

The season had completely turned to late fall, and the sky beyond the hallway windows was overcast and cold looking.

I went down the stairs and turned the corner in the hall. Being that they were starting up that day, the student council room ahead was busy with people going in and out.

When Isshiki saw me walk down the hallway, she put on a fluffy smile and did a tiny wave with her hand in front of her chest. I nodded lightly in reply to her greeting and hurried on ahead.

“Heeeeeey!” Then she called out in a cutesy, saccharine voice.

This is, you know, that thing where I think it’s me and turn back to find out it wasn’t me, it was someone else. Or so I thought, ignoring her. But as I started walking, I heard the patter of footsteps behind me. I turned around to see Isshiki had followed me.

She pouted her lips with her cheeks puffed up. “Why did you ignore me?”

“Uh, I figured you meant someone else… Already starting work today?” I asked.

She puffed out her chest with a bit of pride. “That’s right! …Well, I don’t think I’ll get anything done at first, though.” Her expression started off confident, but as she approached the end of her sentence, she lost momentum.

Well, she’d basically drifted into the position of student council president. Of course she’d be anxious about it, and she’d mess up a lot.

But the mistakes she was going to make from now on, she would surely be able to fix. She could take them back. So there was no need for her to be nervous over it. Feeling a little envious about that, I smiled in spite of myself. “Well, none of the students expect much from the student council anyway, so you can just take it easy, right?”

“Why do you have to put it like that…?” Isshiki grumbled, unamused.

But it wasn’t like I was expecting anything from her, myself. Well, I could give her some encouragement appropriate to this new beginning, I guess…

“Next year, my sister is gonna be attending this school.”

“Huh? Uh, but entrance exams aren’t even over yet,” Isshiki said, waving her hands with a look on her face like, What’s this guy talking about?

Shut up. In my head, Komachi passing is a foregone conclusion.

“So make it a good school for her.”

“…” Isshiki’s mouth hung open. And then, without any blushing coquettishness or shyness, her voice consistently gentle, she pushed both her hands in front of her as if returning every word I’d said. “What’s that supposed to mean? Are you hitting on me? Sorry, you’re trying way too hard, and it’s creepy, not happening.”

…Those reasons for rejecting me are different from last time, aren’t they?

“You’re better when you’re acting like yourself… I think Hayama likes that sort of thing better, too.”

“Huh, seriously? Where’d you get that intel?” Isshiki jumped on that, eyes sparkling.

It’s not intel that I got from somewhere. It’s just that the personality you put on is so eh that this is comparatively better. But explaining all that felt like a pain in the ass, so I decided to blow her off and leave. “I just get that impression. Well, good luck on everything.”

“Okaaay! Wait—no! We’re right in the middle of rearranging the student council room. Won’t you come with me?”

Rearranging… Would you rearrange a student council room…?

She grabbed my sleeve, tugging on it. Guess… Guess she plans to make me help, huh…? Well, it wasn’t like I had any urgent business. Since I was the one who’d pushed her into being student council president, I figured I could help her a little.

So I accompanied her to the student council room, and when we reached the door, a voice came out from inside. “Irohasuuu! What do I do with this? …Irohasuuu?”

That voice sounded familiar… Strangely, when I peeked in, I found Tobe there.

At a time when it was cold as all hell out, he was inexplicably wearing a T-shirt, with a towel around his head. You often see guys like this working at ramen shops, huh…? He was carrying a heavy-looking, smallish box in both hands as he kept calling out to Isshiki. Wondering what it was, I looked closely to see it was a fridge…

“Isshiki, is that okay?” I turned back to her to ask.

She responded cutely and gleefully, “Well, this is going to be my room, starting today. Wouldn’t you want to set it up how you want it?”

“Oh, I see…” What I had wanted to ask was not Is it okay for you to be bringing in a fridge? but Is it okay to leave Tobe alone? …He’d been calling for her all this time…

“Irohasuuu? Where do I put the heater?” I heard Tobe calling out again. I took another peek in to see this time, he was holding a halogen heater.

“Isshiki, is that okay?” I asked Isshiki one more time.

She squeezed her hands like she was warming them. “I get cold easily, you know?”

“Oh, I see…” I don’t care about that… I was asking about Tobe… But oh well. It’s just Tobe anyway.

But anyway, was this president going to be okay…? Though it was rather late to be asking that now, I was uneasy.

“Irohasuuu?” It seemed Tobe couldn’t take it anymore, as he poked his face out. “Huh? You’re helping, too, Hikitani?”

“No…just passing through.”

“For real? Man, if Hayato doesn’t come soon, we’re gonna be in real trouble, seriously.”

Isshiki cut into our mostly empty conversation. “Oh, Tobe. The fridge doesn’t go there. To the back. And the halogen heater goes beside the table.”

“O-okay… I wish you’d told me that first…” Tobe’s face twitched a little.

But when Isshiki smiled brightly and said, “Please and thank you,” he dejectedly returned to his task. Isshiki watched him go off, then turned back to me to say, as if she’d only remembered it a second ago, “Oh, you help, too, please!”

“Uh…”

Despite her request, the student council room wasn’t all that big. Too many people being in there would just get in the way. If she needed help, there was Tobe, and he’d be enough. There were some people around who looked like new council members, too, so it was fine for me to go, right?

Then I saw someone familiar among them.

Meguri was straining with a heavy-looking cardboard box. When she noticed me, she smiled pleasantly and tried to wave, then realized her hands were full and panicked.

…Well, I’ve got no urgent business. “…For a bit.”

“Really? Thanks so much.”

I let Isshiki’s remark go in one ear and out the other and entered the student council room. I moved to support Meguri’s box, which was losing its balance right in front of me and looked close to falling. “I’ll carry this.”

“Huh? Th-th-thank you.”

Meguri instructed me to carry the box to the exit. Once we were out in the hallway, I put it down with a hup and took a breath.

“Ah-ha-ha, sorry, Hikigaya.”

“No, I’m here to help,” I said briefly, trying to look cool. It was really heavy, though…

A tired ache remained in my hands. When I looked at my palms, Meguri gave a little embarrassed smile. “Ah, there were more personal effects in there than I’d expected. Once I put it all together, it ended up being a lot.”

“These are your personal belongings…?”

I had some slight interest in Meguri’s personal belongings. When you hear a girl’s personal belongings (or even better, a girl’s private things), doesn’t it get your heart pounding a little? It doesn’t? Well, my heart rate was speeding up a bit, but of course, there was no way Meguri’s heart would be pounding. In fact, she seemed kind of somber.

“It kind of feels like a whole new room…,” she murmured to herself.

Meguri had been in office for one year, and she’d spent that year here. And that day, it was being vacated for Isshiki. Of course, she’d probably continue to come here for a while, but even so, this space where she’d worked had already become something else. There were different people bustling around inside, too.

Meguri watched this from a distance with a smile. “…To be honest, I was hoping…”

I didn’t ask, For what? At her usual easygoing pace, Meguri slowly put the words together.

“…for Yukinoshita to be student council president. And then for Yuigahama to be vice president, too. And then…you could handle miscellaneous duties!”

“Why would I be miscellaneous…?” I’m the only one without a post?

Meguri laughed as if I’d said something funny, then continued. “Then after graduation, I’d pop by the student council room sometimes to hang out…and we could talk about things…like, oh, remember how fun the cultural festival and the athletic festival was?” And then my elder said with the innocent smile of a younger girl, “…I sort of wanted that to happen.”

Would that have been possible?

I’m sure it would have been.

But that dream ended here, its potential unfulfilled.

There are no take-backs. All you’re ever allowed are do-overs—and occasionally, not even that.

Meguri touched the door of the student council room tenderly.

And then with a burst of energy, she lifted her chin. “I have to work hard at training Isshiki! Yeah, I’ll do my best!”

“…See you, then.”

“Yeah…”

I walked out the door and turned back. Then I bowed. “Thanks for your hard work.”

“…Thank you. Thank you for all your efforts, too, Hikigaya!”

With her kind voice at my back, I left the student council room.

After leaving the student council room, I walked down the hall heading to the special-use building.

That day—the day I’d confirmed Yukinoshita and Yuigahama weren’t going to run in the election—it had been a week since then. The two of us had waited for Yukinoshita to come back that day, but she’d returned shortly before it was time to go home, and in the end, we’d barely talked before parting ways.

But our club’s activities went on unchanged. There was nothing new in what we did or in the clubroom. I read as usual or sat around.

Arriving at the clubroom, I put my hand on the door and casually opened it. “’Sup.”

My short greeting made Yuigahama jerk her head up from the desk. “Hikki, you’re late!”

“Oh, I had some stuff to do. Sorry,” I said as I pulled out a chair.

A quiet voice came to me from the diagonal direction, a seat a little off from her usual position. “I don’t mind. It’s not as if we’re particularly busy,” Yukinoshita said, her manner the same as usual. Her tone was entirely calm, her gaze on the paperback in her hands, and her fingertip slow as it turned the pages.

Though Yuigahama had complained, more or less, it seemed she was at loose ends, as she began tapping on her phone again. “Well, it’s true we don’t have anything to do.”

“Isn’t that fine?” I said. “They say there’s no leisure for the poor, so it’s good to have free time. Well, then that makes the unemployed of the world the real wealthy class and winners at life. Get a job and you lose, it’s true.”

“That opinion is very much like you,” Yukinoshita said, voice quiet as she turned a page of her paperback.

I took out my book again and opened up to a page I wouldn’t read.

“School is almost over, huh?” Yuigahama said out of nowhere, before clapping her hands as if she’d come up with something. “Oh, let’s have a party on Christmas, come on! I wanna have a pizza.”

“You can eat that at any time, Yuigahama,” Yukinoshita said, reading as usual.

Yuigahama looked puzzled. “Huh? Really? We only get it on special days at home, though…”

“Well,” I interjected, “we only ever order it on special days, too. Like during typhoons or heavy snow days.”

“It’s your family that’s special, Hikki… I feel sorry for the delivery people…”

But still, for those delivery people, it’s their job, and somebody’s gotta do it. If you’re going to resent anything, I’d prefer to resent that which is work. Anyway, I did more or less have a counterargument.

“It’s worse for them around Christmas and stuff when they have tons of orders. Deliberately ordering on a day when it seems they wouldn’t have too many is being considerate.”

“I dunno… Hmm…” Yuigahama’s face said she wasn’t convinced, but she eventually came to a sudden realization. “Oh! Yeah! That’s why we’ll have a party! Come on, like at your place, Yukinon.”

“That would be wonderful… But I’m sorry, I’ve decided to return home this winter,” Yukinoshita said.

So Yuigahama made another suggestion. “Oh, is that right? So then we could go somewhere else instead.”

“All right. I still don’t quite know my family’s plans, though,” Yukinoshita said, and I could have sworn I saw her smile at Yuigahama.

“…Oh, then once you know.”

What had Yuigahama thought when she saw that smile?

The setting sun was already disappearing into the distant ocean. All that remained in the sky was the afterglow, with no brightness to be seen, only the dreary pining for the day that was gone.

“The days have gotten shorter, haven’t they…?” Yukinoshita murmured. It seemed she’d been looking out the window, like me.

It was almost winter solstice. The dark nights had grown slowly, gradually longer lately, dragging out so long it felt as if they’d never dawn.

“Let’s call it a day,” Yukinoshita announced, closing her book to put it in her bag. We nodded and stood.

The whole week went on like this.

Yukinoshita looked the same as before the school field trip.

No—she was acting so things would be the same, so they wouldn’t change, so they would be like this. I think we all knew that.

She was quiet, but she would properly respond to our comments and questions and occasionally smile softly at Yuigahama. But it was the worst kind of smile, as if remembering someone departed or looking at a small child, that sort wistful smile over something that couldn’t be undone. Something painful to see.

But I couldn’t blame her for it.

Because Yuigahama and I had been going along with it. We’d been firing off conversations one after another, forcing out stupid remarks in an attempt to bury the silence.

This time was superficial, empty, and meaningless, just sliding sideways. This was the purely superficial pretense of frienship that she and I should have hated most of all.

Over the course of nearly a month, I believed this was what I’d acquired.

Once more, I asked myself the question I’d already gone over so many times: Was I wrong?

Had I just been wallowing in this plan I’d been so proud of, swept away by my own ideas, drunk on myself? Had there been something else I should have been doing instead of putting together that scheme?

But I still could never come up with an answer, and the cause for that had to be me.

I’d been called a monster of reason.

But logic is the opposite of emotion.

So didn’t that mean she’d told me a monster of reason won’t understand feelings—that it was inferior, something less than human that won’t see people as people, continually imprisoned by its own consciousness?

Right before I left the clubroom, I turned back.

Though it was the same people there, it felt like a completely different place.

It didn’t smell like tea anymore.

Let’s just say…

This is hypothetical.

If you could load only one old save file, like in a video game, to make new decisions, would that change your life?

The answer is no.

That route is only possible for people with choices. For those who never had any choice from the start, this speculation is completely meaningless.

Therefore, I have no regrets.

Or to be more accurate, just about everything in my life is a regret.

In the end, what was it that I’d actually wanted to protect?