Agrippa
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All right! Fine! I’ll take you! - Chapter 2
🕑 Added 2021-08-18 06:38:26 +0000 UTCIt is an obvious yet easily overlooked fact that words that describe essentially the same concept apply almost exclusively to a select class of people and never the other. If a homeless man starts walking around the neighborhood talking about how the voices of the spirits are responsible for his unemployment, he is a “nutcase,” but if the very same man was an actual millionaire speaking about how his corporally-challenged friends gave him tips to get rich on the stock market, people would pay for the privilege of listening to his rambles and speak in awe about this “eccentric” genius. Much in the same vein, if a traumatized, billionaire bodybuilder decides to spend his rainy days posing on top of an assortment of gargoyles he is “brooding,” but if an unpopular teenager lies on his bed and covers his eyes with his arm after being rejected by the first woman he kissed, he’s “moping or “sulking.”
Truly, the thesaurus is yet another weapon of oppression wielded by society. Rise up in arms, fellow illiterates, destroy the overly flowery Zaimokuzas of the world!
My phone message tone rings, and I jump up from my bed.
It is not Ms. Hiratsuka’s number. My shoulders slump.
May as well read it.
“Hey, Hikigaya, this is Haruno, Yukino’s sister. I am in front of your house, come down.”
I blink in confusion before a cold shiver runs down my spine. Maybe I can fake being already asleep—
My phone screeches its merciless death toll once again: “Stop fidgeting in front of your window and come here NOW.”
I throw my uniform jacket on and rush down the stairs while elevating a prayer to Zaimokuza, Patron Saint of Those Who Will Die Virgins, so that he can spare me his own fate, and open the door. She is there, her back resting against a lamppost, cheerfully waving at me.
“Hey, Hikigaya! Good to see you, come over here!”
It would be less threatening if she was waving a bloody knife. Deliver me from the Yuno Gasais of this world, Saint Zaimokuza.
In front of me stands Haruno Yukinoshita, a beautiful, intelligent, clever, perceptive woman, much like her younger sister if she had about ten robot pilots less insecurities and trauma and about five kuuderes worth of unfathomable depths, a ruthless disregard for societal norms, and a tendency to amuse herself by playing to, or against, the expectations of others. It’s like Yukino’s and my own child has come back from the post-apocalyptic future wearing a killer android flesh as a disguise. I know said future would be post-apocalyptic because that would explain how Yukino and I even managed to think of having a child together.
She’s also, for reasons none of them have ever explained to me, one of Shizuka’s friends.
Which means I am about to confront the sister of my “cathetus” and friend of my “this better remain quiet,” who is also known for playing mind games with me because I am just that amusing. No, I am not nervous.
Nervous is a long, fond memory at this time.
“So, are you going to keep ogling me, or are you going to come over and have a nice, friendly chat,” she asks in a way that is neither nice nor friendly. I mean, she is smiling, sure, but most fish have a genetic memory that screams at them to run away when they see this many teeth.
Which is definitive proof that I must be dumber than fishes, because I am now walking toward her, lazily waving my arm and mumbling a studiously informal “Sup.”
There’s a flash of amusement before the knifey smile makes a comeback. “Oh, you know, not much. I just went out for drinks with a few of my friends and you’d never guess who I ran into.”
“The sample size of our mutual acquaintances who can legally drink is not exactly that big,” I deflect, with a tone so flat I can feel the medical team rush in with crackling defibrillators.
“Right. So it wouldn’t be a guess, but a deduction with a high likelihood of being correct. So I am right: you would never guess,” she presses on, with what would be a smug tone if “smug” had a lethal setting.
I resist the urge to sigh and try to loosen my shoulders. “… What did she say?”
“Well, that about clinches it…” The question must show in my eyes, because she quickly clarifies. “She didn’t name you, Hikki, she still had her guard up, even after drinking… however much she drank before I found her. You know, it’s usually fun to rib her about her bastard exes while she goes on a drunk rant, but… Not today. Today wasn’t fun at all.”
“I don’t even know what I did—”
“Of course you don’t.”
We keep silently looking at each other, and I start getting angry rather than nervous. This is the genius of the Yukinoshita family, the idol that Yukino can’t help but tear herself down over because she won’t ever measure up to her. This is the woman who has made me feel like a heel after her whole “codependency” revelation because apparently I am hurting my friends when I help them. This is the woman I fear as much as an older version of myself. She knows me.
And so, I kind of know her in turn.
“There’s something you want me to say, something you want me to believe has come from a deep revelation about my issues while you have planted the seeds without my knowing. You want me to tell you these words at the end of this conversation and act on them starting tomorrow morning,” I say, acid dripping from every syllable.
She looks at me, really looks, her eyes glinting under the yellow light of the streetlamp. And her smile softens and she chuckles—right before she just starts guffawing, loud peals of laughter making me feel strange coming from this beautiful woman (damn you, hormones!), and she claps my shoulders with both hands, coming uncomfortably closer to me (not the time, hormones!).
“I always forget how hilarious you are, Hikki. It almost makes it up for all the bullshit you are pulling right now.”
“We could get to the end of this much sooner if you started talking straight.”
“Yes, we could, but faster is not always better. Maybe I should have taught you a bit before I let you have your shot at Yukino?” The meaning of the line flies right over my head till it decides to do a one-eighty and dive-bomb me from behind. I feel my cheeks redden, and Haruno’s chuckle doesn’t make it better.
“Much as I would have appreciated your… instruction…” I can’t believe I am saying this with a straight face. “I am not sure how Yukinoshita would have taken it.”
“Another chance to try and one up her dearest, older sister? You would have died a happy man, Hikigaya.”
The blush is about to become an aneurysm. “I feel like I should call an adult.”
“I am an adult.”
Police? Yes, I would like to report a crime in progress…
“Though I think Hiratsuka would be cross with me if I deprived her of the chance to teach you herself…”
A bitter taste fills my mouth. “I think her pedagogical calling has cooled in that regard.”
“You really can be stupid, for such a smart man.”
“You really can be cryptic, for such a duplicitous woman.”
“Oh, if only I was four years younger…”
“That would have made you a year younger than me.”
“And how would it make you feel to have me calling you ‘senpai?’” The otaku in me nearly chokes on his tongue at the line. The male adolescent starts coughing as she claps my back. “Well, that’s my answer, I guess.”
“Right, enough dancing around; what do you want, Yukinoshita?” I ask, with all the authority left in me while I wipe my coughed saliva with my sleeve and try not to have my cheeks spontaneously combust. It’s not much, admittedly.
“Tell me what you think happened. In exchange, I will tell you what I think happened.” Straightforward, and apparently fair enough. So it is obviously a trap, but I am far too tired to look for it.
“Shizu went on one of her rants about how she will die an old spinster, I kissed her in the heat of the moment, and she was apparently fine with the idea. Then we decided to go to a less public place. I went first, and she…” I remember a silhouette through ground glass, long dark hair waving as she turned around, the sound of hard soles clacking against the floor fading into the distance. “And she didn’t come.” I lie. Haruno knows it, but she doesn’t care to press me.
“I asked you what you think happened, Hikki, not to give me a list of events,” she says, not unkindly.
“That I got dumped.”
“Right. That’s what I thought.” Her hands are still on my shoulders, their weight anchoring me in the moment and not on what I was feeling in my room just twenty minutes ago. For that much, I am grateful. “You are wrong, of course.”
“There’s not much wiggle room, Yukinoshita.”
“They call you a ‘monster of logic,’ don’t they? Tell me, Hikigaya, what happens when, in the most perfect logical framework you can imagine, you introduce false assumptions?”
I pause, looking at her, at eyes so often mischievous, so often mercilessly cold. “What don’t I know?”
She smiles, looking at me, at eyes so often dead, inexpressive. Hers are warm, mine are wet. “She never rejected you.”
“She didn’t come.”
“She didn’t. So she didn’t confront you, didn’t tell you she didn’t want you, didn’t reject you. She fled, so she didn’t have to. Now, does ‘Shizu’ strike you as the kind of person who would deliberately hurt you just to avoid being embarrassed?”
She doesn’t. No, not Shizu—oh gods, I just called her Shizu out loud, this is mortifying—she… Ms. Hiratsuka always goes out of her way for the members of the Service Club. She shamelessly plays favorites with us, especially with me, going out of her way to include me, to give details of her life beyond the professional, to be there when I break down. She would never hurt me for something as petty as mere embarrassment, not when she has embarrassed herself plenty enough on my behalf and in front of me.
“You are starting to get it. Shizuka is not a monster of logic, Hikki, but she may very well be a monster of duty. She is a moral person, willing to always go above and beyond what is expected of her for others, always giving more than taking. So…” she trails off, expecting me to finish.
“So, once she calmed down she decided she shouldn’t… do anything with her student, even if that was what she wanted to, and precisely because she wanted to she avoided the temptation. And because it was a temptation and she felt guilty about it, she tried to drown her sorrows in cheap sake and too many salty snacks.” And I do.
“I see you know her well.”
“So do you. Did she ever tell you about something ‘genuine?’”
“… I am not going to answer that question,” she says, her eyes once again hardened. “But if you want something genuine, Hikki… What about my sister?”
“I—I promise I will do things right. I won’t hurt her.”
There’s a blur of motion, and suddenly my back is against the wall and Haruno’s breath is tickling my face. I don’t know what to—
“I am not going to kiss you, Hikigaya.”
Well, that just narrows it down to murder.
“I may hit you, though.”
Or maiming. I guess that’s also a possibility.
She shifts her hands, the way she is holding me, and only now do I realize how utterly incapable of escaping I am. I remember Yukino’s off-handed comment about her sister excelling at everything, including martial arts, and I am suddenly hoping this is a shounen and not a seinen. She presses nearer, the scent of lilacs overwhelming my senses and her breath scalding against my ear.
“You will hurt her. You will likely hurt her worse than anybody ever has, and that pain will be genuine. That pain will help her grow out of the stupid child she has so stubbornly refused to let go of. And you will hurt Shizuka, as you tear down her values and force her to confront them with her feelings, you will wound her, by showing her how irreconcilable they are. You will hurt them both, Hachiman, and that is the best you can do for them. I won’t accept any half-measures, I won’t accept any excuses, nor any compromises. You will be a man, and hurt the women you love, because only that will be ‘genuine.’”
I almost shiver at the end of her speech, and I don’t know whether it is in revulsion or something darker and softer.
“Now, Hachiman, be a man and promise me. Promise you will hurt my sister. Promise you will hurt my friend.”
I look at her, straight into her violet eyes, so harsh under this light, so unlike the frail, thin ice of Yukino’s blue. I lean forward, and whisper into her ear, “I swear I will do what Ithink is best for them. And if Yukino cries, there will be someone there to hold her.”
She rears back as if struck, and then starts laughing once again, but I think there’s actual mirth this time around. And she kisses me.
On my cheek.
“If only I had met you before her…” she teases, with a longing gaze that I am (almost) entirely sure is affected mocking.
“Then I wouldn’t have been me.”
“Maybe. But I think you would have always ended up being you.”
“And I think I should take offense to that.”
She giggles and finally lets me go, turning around and waving goodbye. I just stand there, in the middle of the street in front of my house, watching as she melts into the night, and I am left with this one looming question:
How am I ever going to fulfill that promise?
***
As I enter the school the next morning, I have yet to find an answer to that question. Unfortunately, there are no walkthroughs posted about it, as it seems my life is still in beta trial and no one wants to leak spoilers. That explains all the bugs, really.
So, it is forgivable of me to forget to activate Stealth Hikki long enough for something to go wrong, that something in question being having a hostile agent intercept me before I can get to class and/or look for Shizuka.
“So, how come you didn’t stop by the Student Council yesterday, Senpai?” Iroha’s cheerful, sweet voice is so fake it’s actually banned by several Food and Drugs administrations, and her grip on my sleeve is currently being studied to hopefully improve next-generation bear-trap prototypes. The Strongest Junior honors her title as she gives me no reprieve.
“I think I need an adult.” This may become my new tagline.
“Senpai, are you insinuating you want to see me as an adult woman? That you need me to be so? That you so desperately want to see me blossom into adulthood that you can’t wait any longer for me to grow up before you get your hands on me? I am sorry to reject you, Senpai, but it is impossible for me to stop being your cute, youthful junior at the drop of a hat—all flowers need time to properly bloom. I hope we can still be friends.”
I should be used to this by now. I really should be.
“Now,” she continues, undeterred by our short-lived romance, “as a show of our enduring friendship, how about you tell me in exacting detail what was so important that you couldn’t drop by and hear about our plans for the prom?”
But I think the day I get used to Iroha being Iroha is the day… Zaimokuza comes up with a good simile?
Yes, let’s go with that.
