Oregairu Vol 13 Chapter 7

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


I hate going to school a lot.

Or rather, I really hate going to the classroom.

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

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

Nope.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Perhaps there wasn't that much to read from the smile; or perhaps, just as usual, it was
simply that very same pleasant smile that Hayama wears all the time.
In that case, that tiny bit of worry and anxiety might just be my own interpretation that I
read from and forced upon him at my own will. Or maybe it simply came from within
myself.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


                                  7-2

Come on, end of class, please come now!

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

It all began with my briefing.

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

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

"Whaat..."

"We are done for..."

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

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

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

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

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

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

"W...what?"

"Eh, um, their contact..."

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

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

Then, silence befell.

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

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

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

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

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

"I deleted it."

"You dele..."

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

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

"That's not normal at all!"

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

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

Yuigahama clasped her head firmly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Speaking of Jomon people, is the local one here called Kasori Midden?
"Hmm, looks like the time has advanced a little bit. Let's start using Hachiman pagers!"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Sto...rage?"

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

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

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

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

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

"Here, just copy and paste it."

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

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

"Was it sent?"

"Yep, just now."

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

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

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

Suddenly, Yuigahama's smartphone vibrated momentarily.

"Did it come?"

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

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

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

"Okay."

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

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

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

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


                                  7-3

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"No need, thank you..."

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

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

"Behind? Or the front?"
"Both!"

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

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

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

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

"...huh??"

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

"Yoroshiku-!"

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

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

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

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

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

"Ah, okay."

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

Immediately  following  the  tide  hitting  the  beach,  I  told  them  to  stop  briefly,  and  then
took a few steps back and hold up the camera.
First of all, let me determine the composition of the photo.

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

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

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

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

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

"Hikio-, quick!"

"Yes..."

I held up the camera again.

The evening glow was drawn and sank into the clouds.

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

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

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

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

"Can I borrow it?"

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

"Here, do this, this way."

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

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

"Right!?"

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

"A~l~s~o~"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"So cold!"

"Cold, cold, eh, sands so cold!"
Yuigahama pattered on the ground rapidly, while Miura trembled and was bewildered by
this freshly surprising situation.
"Fufufu. Of course, as I expected, naked feet is the best together with girls wearing school
uniforms by the sea!"

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

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

"Okay---! Ready?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Wait for me, wait for me!"

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

"Yep yep, all good photos..."

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

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

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

"Ah..."

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

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

"Is this kind of a sexual harassment?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"What's annoying?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"What are you referring to?"

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

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

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

"...did you hear anything?"

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

"From whom? About what?"

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

"Never mind. Nothing actually."

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

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

As I expected, you did hear things...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I smiled bitterly at her words.

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

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

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

"The easiest thing is the hardest. To me what I am doing now is the easiest."
As I finished my words, Ebina turned her head to me and stared at me.

"Pfumm, gross."

"...eh, okay."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Perhaps, she and I are again, the same.

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

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

"Ebina-! Let's take-"

"photos together-!"

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

"Yeah, coming-"

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

After seeing her off, I held up the camera.
                                  7-4

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"So, I'm about to head out..."
"Alright, Itterasshai!"

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

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

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

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

"Ah... Komachi, happy birthday."

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

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

"Onii-chan, thank you!"

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

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

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

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

Komachi nodded and smiled gently.

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

"... how do you know?"

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

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

"Ah, I see..."

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

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

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

"...ah, right.."

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

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

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

"Well, I'm okay if not everyone can come. I even consider it barely safe, in the worst case
scenario, to only have only Onii-chan present.”
Her voice were filled with warmth. Thanks to it, I was able to wash off the stiffness on my
face and responded to her with a light laugh.

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

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

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


                                  7-5

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

After  that,  I  saw  Yuigahama  already  in  there,  and  opposite  to  her  sat  Tamanawa  and
Orimoto.
"Ah-, Hikigaya-, long time no see-"

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Ah, I see… I feel kind of sorry…”

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

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

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

“I… I see…. It’s okay. I don’t mind.”

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

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

“Alright. Then it’s fine...”

Orimoto also put up a smile trying to cover it up, and at the same time fuddled her perm
back and forth.
How…  how  should  I  put  this…  This  embarrassing  atmosphere….  Just  seeing  Orimoto
alone felt like “Crap…” but then together with Yuigahama it’d turn into a “Damn, crap,
crap…” god-punch situation...[67]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I don’t use LINE though.”

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

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

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

“Eh, what now then…”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Eh, this thing…”

The front cover of the proposal that Orimoto was flipping then had rather meaningless
characters  and  words  printed  in  exaggerated  fonts.  With  that  Tamanawa  could
definitely…! He would definitely get it all! While thinking so, we quickly turned our eyes
to Tamanawa bearing a sense of hope in mind.
Thereupon,  Tamanawa  carefully  read  the  proposal  page  by  page,  and  sometimes  as  if
finding something that concerned him, he would stop flipping and wear a difficult face.
And then, he just sighed deeply.

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

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

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

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

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

“What… did you... say…”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Eh, well, that is…”

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

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

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

“Eh… What now then…”

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

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

“Ah, I know right!”

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

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

“Wut…...”

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

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

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

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

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

“Please…”

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

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

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

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

“Preach it!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Oh, oh…”

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

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

He stood up heavily, and then turned his body halfway facing us.
“Do you know how we can defeat Disneyland?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I know right! Preach it!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Right, go home.”

“Oh, okay…”

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

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

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

I don’t quite get the situation but… Ganbare! Tamanawa-san!
                                  7-6

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

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

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

“... yay! Finally got it done!”

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

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

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

“Zaimokuza, can you try to publish something?”

“Okie… one sec!”

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

“Woah, looks amazing! Great!”

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

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

“You can count on me!”

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

“Is it really okay to look like this…”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I looked around at everyone again and sighed quietly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“No, that…”

“Well, I will give it a thought…”

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

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

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

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

“Hikki- You have plans next? Or just go home?”
“Well, I have a phone call next… And depending on its outcome…”

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

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

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

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

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

“Calling… who?”

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

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

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

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

“Of course.”

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

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

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

“Hyahhallo-! How are you?”
“...I’m doing well.”

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

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

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

“Of course. Warmly welcome!”

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

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

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

“Ah, that outlet close to your place?”

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

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

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

“What happened?”

“No, nothing.”

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

“... what do you think you were doing? I’m on my phone right now.”
“Are you meeting Haruno-san?”

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

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

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

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

“Why do you…”

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

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

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

“Gahama-san? Oh, sure thing!”

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

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

“Let’s go…”

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

Slowly, quietly, without letting anyone notice.

That sound was perhaps, very close to the sound that implies the ending is close.
                                  7-7

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I’ll go with regular coffee.”

“I’ll… I’ll have the black tea.”

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

“So, what’s this conversation about?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“What a business life you are living!”

“Well, I do hate work though.”

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

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

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

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

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

Haruno-san looked at the website for a few seconds, and soon made a small sigh.
“Hmm… I’m not sure about this…”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I let out words that I carefully prepared beforehand.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Yes, that’s okay.”

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

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

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

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

“It was perhaps just … the spirit of volunteering. A heart that desires helping each other.
Do we need any reason to help others?”
Forcing out my words shamelessly, the chair next to me began shaking. I could tell that
Yuigahama’s shoulders just lost its strength. Haruno-san sighed shortly and turned her
face up to the sky.

“You are quite an interesting person.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“……… that’s true…”

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

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

“Thank you.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“... well, I will try my best.”

“Yep, please do.”

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

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

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

“Thank you very much for your time!”

“No problem. Seeya.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“That, isn’t something good, right…”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“So, I have to take the train now.”

“Alright then, take care!”

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

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

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

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

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

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