"I'm back!"

The girl threw open the door, and it collided with the wall with a bang. She hurriedly slipped off her shoes and carelessly tossed them aside.

"Hey, hey, I'm back!"

It was in the evening, and the lights were turned off. Darkness cloaked the house, making all of the furniture and appliances appear ghostlike. Under the low light, one would barely be able to make out the shut windows, closed curtains, and television dusty from underuse.

The girl raced down the drab hallway in her socks and headed to the lifeless living room. She threw her bag onto the unoccupied sofa. It hit a cushion with a plop, but it bounced off and landed on the floor.

"Oops," absentmindedly said the girl, "Oh well, time for dinner!"

Leaving the bag with its contents spread throughout the floor , the girl broke into another sprint and quickly left the living room. Her next destination was the unbearable kitchen. Visibility was extremely poor. As a result, her left leg knocked into the corner of a table, making everything rattle. With a yelp, she tumbled forward like a sack of sand pushed over. She kissed the floor, smothering her lips with the cold tiles.

"Ah, no... no good," moaned the girl.

She flipped over onto her back and sprawled her limbs across the floor like a sea spider. She blankly stared at the ceiling. The frigid floor seemed to suck away all of her heat and all of her energy. Even the worries at the back of her mind seemed to be transferred to the ground.

"No, no, I need to prepare dinner," told the girl to herself, "There's no one else to do it."

She sprang up like a jack-in-a-box, but when she tried to stand, a sharp knife-like feeling pierced through her left leg. She stumbled forward. For a moment, she thought that she would be held up by frail, skinny arms, but she realized that none existed at this moment. She steadied herself right before she collapsed again by holding onto the table. She decided to wait a few moments for the pain to subside.

"Geh, this isn't good," she muttered.

She waited two minutes, but the pain never lessened. She decided that she would simply deal with it and force herself to stay steady. With light, careful steps, she resumed her journey to the kitchen. Preoccupied with the pain, she neglected to turn on the lights. Once again, her left leg slammed into a hard surface. She cried out like a ghoul, and tears burst from her eyes. She immediately held onto the twice-bruised spot on her leg with both of her hands, massaging it. Instinctively, she expected someone to tease her, calling her an idiot, then walk away to retrieve the first-aid kit with his hands in his pockets. Of course, she was currently alone in the house, so she was at least safe from the insults.

A curse almost left her lips, but she suppressed it. She forced a twitchy smile on her face, one that was different from the smile that she would put on for the other occupant of the house.

She finally remembered to switch on the lights. With a single flip of a lever, the whole house was illuminated, as if new spirits ware breathed into every room. If the girl were to flip that switch again, every light bulb and every lamp in the home would be extinguished, and darkness would return. With another flip, light would conquer yet again. On and off, on and off. At least the lights were one thing that the girl was in control of.

The girl safely made her way to the kitchen. She took great care not to bump into anything again. A third time would probably give her a strike-out. Speaking of baseball, the girl was frequently picked when her school's gym class made teams. The girl wished that she could delegate some of her popularity to her brother because it was difficult and tiresome to balance out the relationships between everyone, showing no bias.

As the girl was chopping up vegetables, she muttered to herself, "Ah, it was my turn to cook yesterday as well. And the day before that. But not on the day before that one? But I cooked dinner on that day too, though."

How long had it been? Now that she thought about it, she had been cooking everyday for the last month. At this rate, she thought that she would become a master chef. One bite of her cooking would send people to a paradise of bliss with roads paved with gold and street lamps built of gems. Oops, she had been reading too much cooking manga these days, she thought. For the past month, she had a lot more free time.

She expertly placed plate after plate of food on the table like a waitress. There was enough food for two. That was a mistake. There would be no one else to finish the other portion. She told herself that she would stop making this mistake yesterday, but before she knew it, she had already thrown the usual amounts of food onto the frying pan.

"I'll just give the rest to Taishi-kun or something," said the girl while shrugging.

Kawasaki Taishi had only received food from the girl once before. Today at school, she had given her dinner leftovers to another student. Just like in gym class, the girl was careful not to give anyone preferential treatment. Well, not having favouritism only applied to her classmates, and not a certain someone else.

"Itadakimasu!" bellowed the girl before she dug into her food.

She sat in her usual spot. She ate mouthful after mouthful of rice, chicken, broccoli, and peppers. She continually fed herself as if she was stuffing some void with carbohydrates and fats. She ate more than half of the chicken, leaving a disproportionate amount for the person that would have been eating with her. An act of teasing. Simple sibling rivalry. However, she always left more of the other food so that this other person would get an amount of food equivalent to half of the total. Not that he ever realized it.

Finishing first, the girl decided to wash dishes. Even though there was no one else around, that thought still entered her mind.

After half an hour, multitudes of dishware lay stone-still on the rack. Droplets of water rolled down the sides of bowls, unable to resist the draw of gravity. Yet, within hours, every last droplet will have vanished.

After dinner, the girl decided to work on her homework in her room. Her room was pitch-black, save for the area around the lamp on her desk. She felt that the darkness really got her heart pumping. The thrill would help her out on the difficult Japanese homework. Scribble, scribble, scribble. The difficulty was almost unfair, she thought. Scribble, scribble. Her pace slowed when she reached the midway point as the hardness reached its peak. Scribble. She became stuck on an extremely tough question, and she yelled for her brother, the expert at Japanese, to help her. Silence replied. With a frown on her face, she slammed her notebook shut and leaned back on her chair.

"Aaaah, this sucks," she moaned, "This really sucks."

Her motivation dropped to the negatives. She had a goal that required high grades, but with the way things were, that goal didn't feel like it mattered.

A change of pace, she thought. Perhaps watch TV. No, she did not feel like it. Not when there's no one to watch it with her. Manga, maybe. No, she did not feel like reading those either. In fact, she didn't feel like anything at all. Her mind was blank. She looked up at the ceiling, but she didn't really see the roof. Nothing felt real.

"I must be tired," she reasoned with herself, "I'll just go shower or something."

With slothful movements, she made her way to the bathroom. She entered the bathroom without turning on the lights or shutting the door.

"Whatever, there's light from the hallway already," she mumbled apathetically.

The girl went up to the mirror. Reflected in it was a short middle school female. Her left leg had a purple spot that even now made her wince if she became conscious of the pain from it. She was still in her school uniform; she had never changed. They were in total disarray, and were stained with grease and sauces. In no way would they be acceptable in this state, given her school's strict dress code.

She looked at her own face. She expected a cheerful, optimistic girl to grin back at her. Cheer up. What are you feeling down for? Instead, she was met with a mouth so contorted, it was far from being a smile. Her eyes were like a dead fish's — loathing, uncaring, and broken. It was the exact same set of eyes that her brother had. Her eyes reminded her of her brother. Her eyes were like that because of her brother.

"Onii-chan, you dummy," she muttered.

Dreadful. She wish she didn't have to wear her school uniform. Wearing the uniform meant that she had to go to school and then come back to an empty house. Wearing the uniform meant that she had to steel herself every day. When she opened the door, there would be no quick greeting. There would be no one lying on the couch, listening to his music. There would not be a person to take over her cooking duties occasionally. That person would not be there to help her on her Japanese or watch Precure with her.

"Dummy, really, you dummy, why did you have to..."

On the first day of the new school year, the girl went home joyfully. She had met lots of new people and made new friends. She wanted to tell all that to her brother, the loner, and make him cry at his non-existent social life. Instead, she met with a note on the dining room table. After she read it, she widened her eyes and fell onto her knees. She repeated over and over that it was a lie. Later that day, her parents came home from the hospital, and they drove her back there to visit that brother of hers who had risked his life to save a dog.

Her brother was always that kind of person. It was just that no one ever saw it. His pure intentions were crushed by the crude laws of society. He was ostracized and bullied. The girl knew that, even though he would always brush it off, always trying to joke about his friendlessness. The girl also knew that people were not durable. After a while, things degraded. That first day was likely the last straw for him. When she visited him in the hospital, his eyes were listless, lifeless, and truly dead.

"I don't care, Onii-chan. Just... I can't stand it," she muttered while holding her shoulders and shivering.

No more, she thought. She had already broken to pieces when she read that note. The weeks following that only served to incinerate the shards instead of rebuilding her. No more, no more. It haunted her. This empty house was a coffin . She couldn't bear to see it any longer.

She burst out of the bathroom. She thumped down the stairs. She whipped open the door and rushed out without a single shoe. She ran onto the streets, rubble and rock digging into her bare feet. Her arms moved back and forth, not like an athlete, but like a drowning person, struggling to wade through. Tears streamed down her cheeks in disjointed ribbons. Her feet carried her somewhere, but at the same time, nowhere.

The un-oiled chains made a squeak as they swung. On the seat suspended by the chains, the girl present did not move her legs. The swing only moved ever so slightly as a response to the wind and gravity.

It was about 3am. The still night offered no respite. The girl faced downward as she sat there silently. It was freezing cold, and she was starting to get hungry. A warm bed and a meal could be provided if she went back to her home, but she did not want to return there.

A dog howled in the distance. Litter blew past her feet and tumbled onto the street. How carefree, she thought. Maybe if she was an animal, she could just howl loudly, waking the neighbours, forcing them to come over. Or, if she was litter, someone would pick her up eventually, and maybe her brother too.

Footsteps approached the girl. Eventually, someone sat on the swing beside her. A loud squeak resulted, indicating his heavier-than-child weight.

"Yo, Komachi," greeted that person.

Recognizing that voice, she greeted him back solemnly, "Hey, Onii-chan."

Her voice was low and dry. The squeaks of the swings sounded infinitely more jubilant than the girl. It should have been a moment of rejoicing, yet the girl had no happiness in her heart.

"So, how did you find me?" sharply asked the girl.

"That's obvious," muttered the brother, "I'm your Onii-chan, so of course I know."

The brother fiddled with the steel chains that supported his weight. His dead-fish eyes shone no light.

Not being at home this late at night was an unusual act for the girl. Her worried parents must have desperately searched for her. To gather clues, they must have called the brother, who was still at the hospital, for clues. After he heard what had transpired, he must have, himself, began looking for the girl.

"Onii-chan is an idiot," bitterly spoke the girl.

"Komachi..." started the brother, but he stopped.

Silence fell between the two. Even the squeaking had ceased. In the distance, streetlights dimly shone as if they saw no purpose in illuminating at an unpopulated time and place. The apathetic light failed to reach the two. The moonlight took pity at first, but soon, it blindfolded itself with grey clouds.

The girl stood up from the swing. She stepped forward, crunching the leaves under her foot. The cool air ruffled her hair, removing any orderliness that had still remained.

"You know, Onii-chan," said the girl in a quiet voice, "It was a lot of work having to do the chores by myself."

"Yeah," mumbled the brother.

"And, I got stuck on my homework soooo many times," said the girl in a slightly louder voice.

"Yeah, I know," said the brother while nodding.

"And we got behind on Precure, too. And I keep making too much food because you're not there to eat it," continued the girl in a higher and higher volume.

The girl faced her brother. He looked at her with his unbearably lifeless and drab eyes.

"So why!?" exclaimed the girl ,"Why did you have to do that? It was your last chance, you know! After this, it's not going to be easy for you, you know!"

"I know," solemnly stated the brother, "But it's because I knew that I had to do it. Otherwise that girl would..."

He stopped talking when he peered at his sister's face. Her cheeks were wet with tears. At that moment, the boy felt intense regret, more than the regret he felt at throwing away his social life by losing a month in the hospital.

"No, I guess I didn't know," continued the brother with a tense voice, "I didn't think about you at all."

He stood up from the swing. He attempted to place a hand on her head, but she brushed his arm off and turned away from him. His arm fell to his side, and he remained rooted at the spot, unsure of what else he could do. Unable to take action, he simply opened his mouth and let loose whatever words he could think of.

"It doesn't matter now. At that time, what I had to do was already decided. There never existed the alternate option for me," said Hikigaya with a shaking voice, "Yes, I was excited. But what were the chances? Could Hikigaya Hachiman really make friends? No matter how you look at it, the chances were miniscule. Yeah, throwing it away hurt. But that girl would have been hurting more had I not."

He looked up at the night sky. The stars' light did not reach the industrialized city that bled artificial luminescence.

Not her, me, he thought. Society was too cruel, too unreasonable, and too unkind. In that case, he had to descend into the depths if he wished to change something. Against that selfish, narcissistic society, he would blaspheme. He would face those poisonous fangs with his own venom.

The girl understood that. She was the closest one to him, so of course she knew. The reason why she lost herself in despair and hated her very home was because she didn't know then; she only managed to understand it at that moment.

Her brother had become different since middle school. No, it was better to say that he was ruined. But even so, his fundamental nature had not changed in the slightest. His perception of the world had become irreparably broken. So, he would swim through among pieces, cutting himself all over, if it meant becoming kind.

"But the house was empty," whispered the girl.

"Yeah," absentmindedly muttered the brother, "I didn't know."

The brother was meticulous in his actions. His brain functioned completely differently than the peers around him. He utilized the capacity usually reserved for the foolishness of youth for his own useless thoughts. He never once thought of himself as a hero. He only acted on a whim, to fulfill his own desires. For that, he was thorough.

But he made an incorrect assumption. He fully prepared himself to be cast away completely. He had forgotten about the one exception.

"Sorry, Komachi," murmured the brother.

The girl turned to look at the brother once more. His expression was more downcast than her own. She saw that he had experienced loss again. He should have been used to it. He should have had a mind of steel. However, his quivering lips and trembling pupils undeniably revealed the deepness of the hole left as something had been gouged out.

The brother promised, "I'll make sure I return home. I won't let you come back to an empty house ever again."

"Dummy Onii-chan, how can you guarantee it?" rebuked the girl.

"You're right, I can't," said the brother, "I'll be forced to return late sometimes. Eventually, I may even have to move away. But I'll be there. That I can guarantee."

Those were illogical words. It was impossible for someone to be in two places at once or transcend time. Yet, it was because it was nonsense, because it was impossible, that it could be understood. The meticulous brother had laid himself bare.

"I know, you should redeem all those Komachi points stored up," suddenly suggested the brother, "They'll be like Command Seals. Summon your Servant at any time."

"Onii-chan, you idiot," said the girl before she sighed, "There's no way there's enough Komachi points to make what you said real."

How pretentious, she thought. However, she saw that Onii-chan was still Onii-chan. That fact would not change, not even in the wake of a car accident.

A wave seemed to wash over the girl. Her previous depression was sent rippling away.

The girl knew that the brother was a liar. He did not hesitate to bend the truth if necessary. Yet, his words just then were one of the most genuine that he had ever spoken. But the girl had not yet forgiven the brother just yet.

"There's not enough Komachi points," muttered the girl, "So make sure you stay with Komachi to build them up more and more, okay?"

"Yeah," nodded the brother, "I won't go away again."

The sun began to rise in the horizon. The long night had concluded and a new morning was raised from the abyss.

In front of the brother was a middle school girl whose smile had returned to her adorable face. In front of the girl was her brother, whose eyes seemed more creepy than rotten at that moment.

The brother promised that he would take care of the girl, but he never promised that he would never hurt himself again. The girl realized that. Would the chance arise again, he would choose the worst possible solution again. It was inevitable. That was just who Hikigaya Hachiman was. Yet, just like how the brother promised the girl that he would always return to that home, the girl promised to herself that she would support that troublesome brother of hers.

"Oh man, it's already morning," moaned the hopeless brother, "We're going to be late for school, Komachi."

"Is that something that you should be worrying about now, Onii-chan?" groaned the cute girl while wearing a smile no less brighter than the rising sun, "It's fine, it's fine, let's just skip school and stay home for today. The two of us."