Waiting For her

And then there’s me. I’m so bland and ordinary, I don’t even know if

anyone knows I exist. So there would be nothing to be offended about if she

didn’t know me. But the word addled hurt a bit. Enough to make me start

escaping reality by remembering that candy from a long time ago with a

similar name. I haven’t seen it in a while.

“This is Hikigaya. He wants to join the club.” Prodded forward by Ms.

Hiratsuka, I bowed lightly. I assumed she wanted me to introduce myself or

something.

“I’m Hachiman Hikigaya from Class 2-F. Um…hey. What do you mean,

‘join the club’?” Join what club? What club was this?

Ms. Hiratsuka opened her mouth in anticipation of my question. “Your

punishment will be to participate in this club’s activities. I won’t accept any

arguments, disagreements, objections, questions, or back talk. Cool your head

for a bit and think about what you did.” She handed down my sentence with

the force of crashing waves, leaving me no room for protest. “Well, then, I

think you can tell by looking at him, but he’s rotten to the core. That’s why

he’s always alone. He’s such a pitiful soul.”

You can tell just by looking?

“If he learns how to be around people, I think he’ll straighten himself out

a little. I’ll leave him with you. My request is that you correct his twisted,

lonely character,” the teacher said, turning back to Yukinoshita.

Yukinoshita opened her mouth, looking annoyed. “If that’s the issue, I

think you should just knock some discipline into him. Kicking would also

work.”

What a scary girl.

“If I could, I would, but these days they make a little bit of a fuss about

that. Physical violence isn’t allowed.” The way she said that, it was as if she

were saying that psychological violence was allowed.

“I refuse. Seeing those lewd eyes of his brimming with ulterior motives, I

feel a threat to my person.” Yukinoshita straightened her collar (though it

hadn’t really been out of place) and glared in my direction. I’m not even

looking at your overly modest chest. No, really, it’s true, okay? Really, really.

I’m seriously not looking. It just happened to be in my field of vision and

caught my attention for an instant.

“Relax, Yukinoshita. His rotten eyes and shady character are precisely

what give him a good grasp of self-preservation and calculating risk versus

return. He’ll never do anything that would get him arrested. You can trust in

his mild, low-level creepiness.”

“None of that was complimentary in the slightest,” I protested. “You don’t

mean all that, right? It’s not about calculation of risk versus reward or selfpreservation. Why can’t you just tell her that I have common sense?”

“A low-level creep… I see…”

“She’s not even listening, and she’s convinced!”

Perhaps Ms. Hiratsuka’s persuasion had borne fruit, or perhaps my lowlevel creepiness had won her trust. Either way, Yukinoshita communicated

her decision in a very undesirable manner. “Well, if it’s a request from a

teacher, I can’t just refuse… I will comply.” She acquiesced as if the idea was

really unpleasant.

The teacher smiled in satisfaction. “I see! Then I’ll let you take it from

here,” she said, excusing herself briskly.

Then there was me, left behind, standing there.

Frankly, I would have been much more at ease if she had left me all alone.

My usual solitary environment calms my soul. The tick, tick, tick sound of the

second hand of the clock seemed awfully slow and excessively loud.

Come on, come on, is this for real? Suddenly a rom-com development?

This is making me royally anxious here. I’m not complaining about this

situation as a premise, though.

Unintentionally, some bittersweet memories from my middle-school days

came back to me.

It was after school, and two students were alone together in a classroom.

A gentle breeze rippled the curtains, slanted sunlight flowing in, and there

was a boy who had worked up his courage to confess his love. Even now I

can remember her voice in every detail.

Can’t we just be friends?

Oh man, what a crappy memory. And forget being friends—I’d never

even spoken to her after that. In the aftermath, I’d developed an impression

that friends are people who don’t even talk to each other. I guess what I’m

trying to say is, even if I were to end up alone with a beautiful girl, I’d never

be part of a rom-com.

But having endured such advanced training for this very situation, I’m not

falling into that trap again. Girls only ever show interest in hot guys (LOL)

and normies (LOL), and once they have, they engage in impure relations withsaid individuals.

In other words, they are my enemies.

I’ve gone to a lot of trouble to avoid ever feeling that way again. The

easiest way not to get involved in a rom-com plot is to make girls hate you.

Sometimes you must lose the battle to win the war. If you want to protect

your pride, you don’t need people to like you!

And that’s why instead of greeting her, I decided to threaten her with a

glare. I’ll kill her with my wild-beast eyes! Grrrrr!

Yukinoshita looked at me like I was a piece of garbage. She narrowed her

large eyes and let out a cold sigh. And then, in a voice like the murmuring of

a clear stream, she spoke to me:

“Don’t just stand there growling like some animal. Sit down.”

“Uh–ah–okay. Sorry.”

Whoa, what was that look in her eyes? Was she a wild beast? She’d

definitely killed five people, just like those animals that chomped on Tomoko

Matsushima. She even made me reflexively apologize. I didn’t have to go so

far as to try to intimidate her. She already considered me an enemy. Terrified

to the core, I deposited myself in an empty chair.

Yukinoshita left it at that and, without showing any interest in me at all,

had at some point opened her paperback again. I heard the soft slide of a

turning page. She had a book cover on it, so I couldn’t see what she was

reading but figured it was something literary. Like Salinger or Hemingway or

Tolstoy or something. That’s the kind of impression I got from her.

Yukinoshita sat there like a princess, looking very much the top student

and also in no way less beautiful than her reputation purported. However, as

is usual with people of that race, Yukino Yukinoshita was an individual who

lived apart from the crowd. Living up to her name, she was the snow under

the snow. No matter how beautiful she was, she was untouchable and

unattainable: You could only fantasize about her beauty.

Frankly, it had never occurred to me that I would be able to get close to

her through an unfathomable series of events like this. If I bragged to friends

about this, they’d be envious for sure. Not that I had any friends to brag to.

So what was I supposed to do with this gorgeous princess before me?

“What?” Perhaps in reaction to all my staring, Yukinoshita furrowed her

brows in displeasure and looked up at me.

“Oh, sorry. I was just wondering what’s up here.”

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