I woke up three minutes before midnight.

The only thing that worked like intended was the alarm I had set up before sleeping. Everything else was a complete mess, especially my brain.

Not only did I clearly feel the accumulated lack of sleep from the past few days, there were also wild, blurred pictures floating inside my head which greatly upset me. They were clearly leftovers from some nightmare that had ruined the little bit of rest I had. Just because a certain classmate wanted to explore the realm of the unknown that was hidden behind the age restriction.

My appreciation for Eirin was never that big as tonight. [1]

Normally I was just as upset as any other high schooler when a film I wanted to see became unavailable to me due to them, but today I learned just how much they had worked to protect my sleep all this time.

I opened the message application on my phone and stringed some words together that hopefully sounded like a birthday greeting. It was a mistake by my past me not give me more time by setting the alarm to an earlier time, but the craving for sleep had been too strong. With the limited brain capacity that was available to me I checked the content of the mail for some keywords. 'birthday', 'wish you' 'the best'. The basic words were there at least, thus I trusted the mail enough to be sent right away when the clock turned 0:00 on the display.

After waiting for an extended period of time, like two seconds, I got very worried about Komachi's wellbeing. What if she was attacked by a monster? Still being under the influence of the movie, that did sound like a legit concern to me.

Should I sneak into her room to check up on her, just to be sure she was fine? What if she wore unfitting clothes for the bed sheets? A proper brother would change her outfit without waking her up. It was his sacral duty. She would be even more grateful if I gave her body a full inspection for outer injuries while I'd be at it, right?

Just when my mind was about to enter a questionable territory of sibling considerations, I noticed a very small icon on the phone of a received message.

Weird, when did I get this? There had been no vibration to inform me of its arrival. A message from a ghost?

Enough with the thoughts about scary things already! It was deep into the night, what if it actually creaked somewhere? I wouldn't be able to even close my eyes in that case, much less falling asleep.

Good for me, the mail had an earthly origin, bad for me, was its content.

The cause for me watching a horror movie inappropriate for my tender age asked me whether I had problems to sleep…

What a provocation!

It sent the last bit of my capability to think into a dark abyss.

Without my usual calmness and logical reasoning, I typed a rather hasty and accusing reply, not even checking the content before mailing it.

Instantly afterwards my phone vibrated. Woah! Super frightening! Her original message had been at least two hours ago, did she wait all that time?

I was about to turn off the phone simply because of being freaked out by the immediate response. Luckily, I saw Komachi's name being the sender just in time.

'This is how it's done onii-chan! No delay to happy birthday wishes, got it? ^.~ ' [2]

She must have focused only on teaching me a lesson by typing quickly. Heck, it might have even been a prepared mail. But didn't it lack the most important thing? No words of thanks?

Komachi must have been too tired to have thought of that, thus I gave her a warning.

'Don't come to your own party, being all sleepy and stuff okay? You would make your guests cry if you forget to be grateful.'

It did take her minute for the next reply.

'Thank you ((_ _))zzzZZ'

What a good little sister, she even reread her own messages towards her brother.

Now that I was fully awake, I had a nagging feeling that my own message might have been a bit off too…

I couldn't stand this kind of feeling until I had checked the cause and sometimes it wasn't even done with just one check. It was quite troublesome during exams when the feeling of something being off made you backtrack all the time, but at least I avoided easy mistakes this way. I couldn't correct sent mails, but at least I could prove the troubled feeling wrong by seeing that I had made no mistakes.

My birthday greeting to Komachi was fine, but the nagging still didn't leave me alone.

I opened the mail to Miura and my heart nearly stopped right away.

'And who do you think is at fault for that? If only you had let me play with your hair again!'

I could hear my own gulp within the silence of the night.

…

Well it might have been a justified replay if I took her original mail into account, right?

Unfortunately, it made my response only worse. Now that I was really awake, I noticed a small 'too' at the end of her message, changing the prevocational tone of my first read into one of concern for me.

My, my, how short words can make such a big difference.

One couldn't correct a sent mail.

There was nothing I could do about it.

I let out a sigh and shrugged my shoulders, then I to turned off my phone just in case she was still awake and laid it on the floor next to the bed.

Mhh, I wonder what Komachi will wear on her birthday tomorrow…

With my back turned to a lonely phone-chan, I erased all the mails that didn't have Komachi as receiver successfully from my memory.

Oh my, time to get some good sleep teehee~~!

That had been the plan, but life was not that easy. Life was never that easy.

As a result from the anticipation for Komachi's birthday, the movie's impressions and the fear of Miura's possible reactions, I wasn't able to get as much rest as I needed.

'Ehhh? what has my hair to do with anything?'

Why again was I greeted with such a mail just when I turned on the phone in the early morning?

'I don't know what you're talking about.'

Feigning ignorance should be the best course of action till I found a solution for this. Maybe I could even make her believe I truly didn't send any mail at all.

Komachi was still asleep. The time after the entry exams was such a bliss I remembered it dearly.

Without my sister though, I had to eat breakfast all by myself.

Bbrrrrbbbbrrrrrrr.

Or not entirely alone. At least it felt like this with my phone vibrating all the time.

'Huh? Your message from earlier.'

'Err, how do you know I send one to Komachi? Creepy.'

'You did? Because of her birthday?'

'Of course, I even woke up for that at midnight.'

'That's the time you mailed me too. So what was up with that?'

'I don't remember any other mail, are you confusing me with someone?'

'Don't gimme that. ||*｀Д´*)ﾉ

'You're using emoticons? That's surprising. They don't do your presence justice though.'

Like I would get scared from this imitation of a human face after seeing through the real thing.

Her next mail had a noticeable delay, she wouldn't be in the shower right now or get dressed, would she? Despite the rather impersonal nature of text messages, they sometimes gave you peeks into others very personal life. Like blue ponytailed haired big sisters walking around naked at home. [3]

'Stop playing with me… Still, thanks. I know you're not complimenting often.'

Haeh? What? Did it come to a misunderstanding somewhere? I was honestly confused.

Nonetheless it was a good break in topic, so I could finally set the track of the mails towards the right direction.

'Anyway, have you ever thought about it being a ghost message ( -_・)?'

This texting continued till I left home, but I had the feeling Miura's mood worsened ever since I brought up the ghost idea.

So it was quite fortunate when I had a solid excuse to stop mailing her. I couldn't write while being on my bike after all. One traffic accident was enough.

It didn't save me from the angry glares that Miura burned into the back of my head inside the classroom though. Was the ghost message idea really that bad enough to warrant such a treatment?

Aside from Miura being so moody, school wasn't all that bad today. It was just way too long! I couldn't wait to see my sister again. I had left her present in front of her door with a small note attached. Although I would miss out on her direct reaction, it was still better than handing out the gift with other people watching us. Th-they might get the wrong idea when Komachi would go all lovely-dovey over her brother out of joy.

Instead of having club activities, we went directly to the monorail station that would bring us to Chiba Zoological Park and pick up Komachi.

When Yukinoshita and Yuigahama came up with the plan I was a bit sceptical as it reeked of bias coming from two animal lovers, but my sister got very excited over the visit to the zoo so I deemed it good enough. Seeing Komachi squealing over animals would be a treat for my eyes too, thus there was nothing I could complain about.

That was if everything would have stayed at that, but when we arrived at the station Komachi wasn't the only one waiting for us.

"Oh Onii-san, we're over here!"

I instantly regretted not having brought a bug spray with me.

"Komachi, didn't you want to have a party with your middle school FRIENDS on the weekend?" Instead of talking to the blurry dot which my eyes created in an act of censorship next to my sister, I only addressed her. Kawasaki's little brother wasn't even part of our group. He belonged in the forever-friends group, in the zone.

Totsuka was part of our usual group though, so why wasn't he here?

"You see Onii-chan that party will be full of girls, so Taishi-kun would feel a bit excluded."

"No boys? Then I don't have to trail behind you and watch every of your steps?"

"That sounds disgustingly wrong, even for a siscon like you." Yukinoshita said while flicking her hair behind her back. I was used to the appalling look she gave me though. Resistant I would say, if not even straight immune.

"… but you know Hikki, in an all-girls party, boys are mostly the go-to topic. And everyone gets pumped up! With everyone fired up like this, picking up random boys becomes even more frequent. Same goes for groups of boys too." Yuigahama chimed in with a wired smile.

"Shush Yui-san! He doesn't need to know about that."

Great, now I was even more anxious than before.

"Don't worry Komachi-san, he will never be able to make use of this knowledge as he is unable to form any groups." Yukinoshita splendidly missed the mark on that one. It just showed how she herself was unused to group activities.

"Yukinon, that's not exactly the issue here." How rare for Gahama-san to point out a mistake from Yukipedia.

"It is not?" The club president blushed a little from being wrong.

"Before I learn more frightening stuff about girls, didn't you invite Totsuka too?"

"Nope." She said flatly, but I had the feeling my sister had fun teasing me with it. This was such an obvious lead up.

"Heeeh? You don't like Sai-chan?" My classmate said visibly surprised. Yeah, not liking Totsuka was just that of out-of-the-world thing.

"Oh she didn't invite Totsuka-kun?" Oh my, how daring to show such a smile while stealing glances at Komachi in front of her big brother. It was totally fine to like squash Insect-kun, right?

"Let's hear your reason for not inviting him." I was a saint to be able to ignore this provocative behaviour and rather decided to see where her lead up went to.

Komachi looked happy to finally hear the reaction she waited for, Komachi points were about to rise I guess.

Hopefully she didn't forget the raise in Hachiman points for enabling her show.

"I'm glad you asked Onii-chan! Totsuka is a reeeeaaally nice guy. But! But! This is MY birthday. I want to be my brother's number one for the whole day!"

Even though I knew that something was coming, I was still unprepared for this lovely declaration.

Th-that was beautiful, even if she wasn't serious.

But it made no sense.

"Haha..ha… there is no chance for you to settle for number three?" Me being stuck on rank three in the Japanese Proficiency exam was already bad enough, can't have my sister go through the same ordeals. Deal with it. I thought in response to Yuigahama's weak laugh.

"I don't think I would want to be this close to my sister…" Even Yukinoshita seemed troubled in more than one way, massaging her temples trying to prevent a headache.

"Woah, you're so close..." For some reason Bug-kun was the only one who was admiring us, but he had a brocon sister to live with. His opinion didn't count.

"Tsk, tsk, tsk, foolish little sister. You don't need to be afraid of losing your brother to someone else. If the Totsuka-corner is the forbidden fruit of love then the Komachi-shrine is the embodiment of the ultimate, one and only TRUE LOVE never to be toppled!" I exclaimed.

Silence followed, out of amazement I hoped.

"That's the spirit Onii-chan! Now let's go to the zoooo!" As expected of a world class sister, Komachi was the first one to be able to react. It was probably easier to get out of a daze through the power of love.

The other three, who bathed in the light of our wonderful siblingship, received the final blow when Komachi linked her arm with mine and lead me towards the monorail. Jaws were dropping one after the other.

"They progressed to a stage where even being in the public doesn't mean anything to them." I was on the edge of calling a doctor for Yukinoshita's migraine.

"She went as nuts as him… haha…" Yuigahama acknowledged that we were a match thinking in synch, haha.
Now I really had to marry my sister.

"I'm so envious..." Of our bond I hoped, otherwise I would have to push him in front of an incoming train.

The moment of bliss didn't last all that long. When we were still waiting for the train to arrive, she had abandoned me and was only talking with the other girls already. With the boys being excluded from the girl society I had to spend the whole time waiting and riding the train with Kawasaki's brother. To my dismay he wasn't the quiet type on the train, unlike his sister.

'Are the teachers very strict?'

'Which club should I join…?'

'I hope I made it into Sobu High…'

It was hell! But it was also Komachi's birthday, so endured it like a sage. For her sake.

And for the sake of keeping my criminal record clean.

But as long as he wasn't inquiring about my sister, I gave him some short dead-end answers to a few of his conversation kick-starter questions.

I was no monster after all. He would die by the hands of pops anyway if he came too close with Komachi. And while he was in jail… oh the possibilities!

'So cute!' was the most used phrase at the zoo and our group, mainly Yuigahama and Komachi, worked hard as well to keep it that way. This was not a bad thing by any means. Who didn't like to see girls smiling so brightly as if they tried to compete with the sun?

Pointing at the animals, Yukipedia stating the major information about said animal, squealing over them, trying to touch the fluffy furs…

'So cute' indeed.

… but wasn't the last bit against the rules of the zoo?

I was too busy to bathe in their light as I enjoyed the sight quietly. The beetle who stuck to me must have had the same opinion as I haven't heard of him in a while.

It made me wonder whether even insects have some form of intelligence to understand this beautiful scenery.

The procedure was repeated over and over again as we followed the girls around till they got hungry enough to take a break.

The Chiba Zoological Park was quite a good choice to spend a day with a girl I must confess.

It was cheap, not too far away and the girls kept themselves busy till they were tired. All a guy had to do was to carry the luggage. Too bad I didn't know this earlier or I could have used it for a date myself.

Yuigahama used the break as opportunity to give their present to my sister.

"A tea-cup?" Komachi was visibly confused as she tried to comprehend the gift. No wonder there as it was only a suitable present for old people or newlyweds. My sister wasn't the brightest bulb around, but she was an expert for social common sense like this. Compared to me that was.

Since she could rule out being old, her gaze wandered to me with a wry smile.

We did joke around a lot, but to be teased for that on her birthday with a present... yeah, that would be too much.

To avoid an escalation of the situation I shook my head to clear up her misunderstanding.

Komachi and presents was a risky combination as she clearly stated what she disliked.

Her eyes wandered further to her former school mate...

"Hey Yuigahama, why don't you explain the meaning to her, like, instantly." I demanded of her rather intensively.

"Ah right, huh? Y-you don't have to look so serious, do you?! Scared me there for a bit."

"Hurry." Before my sister got any weird thoughts that weren't in the realm of a friendzone.

"yes, yes. Geez." My classmate gave me an annoyed look before her expression made a total turnaround when she spoke with Komachi. "You see, everyone has one already!"

…

Everyone waited for her to continue but apparently that was all she had to say.

"We know that you didn't receive your confirmation from school yet so it might be a bit too early for this, but thanks to the unwavering confidence of a certain someone we saw it fit to not wait any longer and would like to invite you to the Service Club."

"Woaah! Really?! Thank you so much Yukino-san! Yui-san!" She shouted out loud and flew towards the two to give them a hug. I was so jealous. That could have been me if I had not shared my idea with them.

Well, as long as Komachi was happy I would be too.

So when my club mates looked over to me with a troubled face I picked up the conversation before they could comment on including me.

"Don't feel pressured to join though. You don't have to come that often too. Cup-chan will always wait for you, even if you only show up casually to visit your brother."

"Errr, like I'd go there for you." Cold rejection.

"So uhm, does Hikki want her to join or not?" Unable to make sense out of our sibling talk, Yuigahama tried to ask an equally confused Yukinoshita. My sister explained my plan to them before the club president could start to think of an answer.

"Don't worry about this trashy onii-chan of mine. He just wants to use my cup when I'm not there."

"I've been seen through so quickly?!"

If Komachi was always this quick to understand, the entry exam would have been like a walk in the park for her.

"Hahaha… I'm not sure if I want Komachi-chan to join anymore… if these two to spend even more time together, then… but I definitely want her to come too… sooo, do we have to get rid off Hikki? Not sure how I feel about tis either." F-Cup-chan's thoughts were jiggling all over the place like her eponyms.

"If we don't tie him up in the clubroom I can see him ending up in jail one day." Woah, why so strict A-cup-chan? We're just talking about using a container for tea here!

Cups, cups everywhere. Well, they did make for some fine assets. Also they were basically the only the equipment club room had, though I wasn't sure whether I could count Yukinoshita's flat wall as equipment, for it was rather plain.

Out of the five of us only the little brother didn't have a complicated expression. I guess if your older sister wandered around naked at home, sharing a tea-cup would be the least of one's worries. Suddenly I got decently interested in my fellow male's private life. I wonder if I could get him to visually document his daily life in the time frames around Kawasaki's bathing times. He probably had very interesting decorations or whatever in the hallways of his house.

I did my best to ignore them thinking up stuff on what to do with my body to keep me from assaulting my sister. If I listened to them any longer, they probably would have managed to make me turn myself in to the police tomorrow. Was everyone thinking of me as such a bad person? How shocking!

"Hikki, give her your present next!" Yuigahama called out to me. That's the mood reader for you. She stopped the down spiral of badmouthing me.

"Of course she got mine already. We're living in the same house after all."

"Not fair! What was it?" Yuigahama was eager to know.

Ah right, I never showed it to them as I picked it myself.

"That… I don't want to say." I couldn't hold eye contact with her any longer.

"Huhhh? You can't? But I reaaaallly wanna know!"

"Now that makes me curious too." How rare for Yukinoshita to voice her interest.

"Please Onii-san, tell us!" Even the one who should not be named was pressing me.

"Who are you calling onii-san? When is the next lion feeding? I'm not saying anything." Stop bugging me. They kept on doing it, but I didn't reveal anything.

"Are you alright Komachi-san?" Damn that smart club president she switched the target.

"Yeah, you okay? Hikki didn't do anything weird to you or did he?"

"I…" Komachi looked over to me, but only for a brief moment. Both of us looked in different directions. "I can't say."

No wonder with that kind of present.

What I had bought on Sunday was just an ordinary picture frame. Well it came with some cute hearts on it.
Originally I wanted to put in some animal pictures, but while I was thinking about it I became greedy for ones of Komachi. Then I asked mom to take some pictures of us during the cooking lesson she would oversee on the weekends.

One of them was had my sister enjoying herself to the max, laughing and smiling from ear to ear, as she put her finger in my mouth for a surprise taste-testing. If I looked close enough I could see even see a tiny blush on my maiden's face. Mom thought it to be the best one and let it print out after work on Monday.

The picture in itself was quite fine, but after I had put it in the cutesy frame, it turned all lovey-dovey. Since my mother had approved the picture, I decided to go with it in a weak moment of mine. Although I never showed mom the frame before.

But yeah, at least it prevented Komachi from secretly spreading the photo to my dating partners in some sort of scheme.

After the talk died with us not saying anything, we ended the break. The other male tag-along hurried with giving her his present, which must have felt pretty awkward for him after all the trouble mine had caused. Nobody really paid attention to it.

The gift was harmless enough for the lions to go to sleep hungry today. That was all I cared about.

Thus I forgot what his present was a moment later. It wasn't something unforgettable like a name after all, as I was pretty confident in my memory in this regard.

As soon as we reached the next animal, the mood was back to being joy, laughter and more squealing. These red pandas were just too adorable for anything less.

Unlike Yuigahama and Komachi, I was able to stay relatively composed. At least I didn't press my nose against the glass as they did. Not like you could touch them anyway. Damn zoo rules. Now that it mattered there was a protective glass.

It took them a while to part from Sumire and Ron. Heck, when did we name them?

My sadness was blown away just a few minutes later though.

Eagles! Hawks! Falcons!

"H-hey, how about…" I wanted to suggest taking another break here, but the girls were walking off already. Not only did they ignore me, but also these wonderful birds. At least pay them the respect they deserved!

"They're so cool!" I wasn't the only one who stayed back to give them the proper attention. Unexpectedly Kawasaki Taishi had a good taste in animals. "They're so majestic… look how sharp his eyes are, truly the eyes of a killer."

W-well, it couldn't hurt if I teach him some trivia about these birds, since he seemed a bit interested. Thus I gave him a not so quick rundown on the history of falconry, continuing even after we had to leave the animals I talked about behind. I didn't want to lose sight of Komachi either, what if a tiger broke out of his cage? It was my responsibility to shield her with my life! These animals had a hidden effect of awakening chuuni tendencies I guess.

"I didn't know that! It should be really them to be known as the kings of the animals." Taishi said after I finished everything I had to say.

"It's good that you understand."

Since I couldn't sense that he was faking his amazement there was something I wanted to ask him. "By the way, do you think you passed the entry exam for Sobu High?"

He was struggling if I remembered his sister's words correctly. My innocent question made his eyes sparkle. I hope he didn't get a wrong idea from this.

"The exam was brutal, despite my sister making me study so much like I never did before. She thinks I made it though." That was just a worthless judgement of a brocon, kid. "My sister is always way too serious about studying…"

"Oi, your sister is pretty great for being so. Don't talk like it's a bad thing. There are not many who can focus on studying in their teen years. Once the phase of superficial youth is over, people like her will be staying at the top for the rest of their lives because they had put so much effort into studying. Later down the line she'll be a good wife with a top job. If it's her I have no doubt about it. You would be wise to follow her example."

Since this was quite important I wanted to hammer this knowledge into his head, but I feared not to survive the retaliation from his brocon sister if I used a real hammer, or even a slight nudge from my fist. Thus, I had to make up the force with my tone. And the more he studied, the less he had time to interact with my sister.

He appeared to be a bit stunned at my sudden seriousness.

"I guess you're right." Taishi seemed to really think about it as he went all quiet afterwards. I saw the girls waiting for us at a pointed sign that read 'exit'.

"Fine if you acknowledge it. Looks like we're about to reach the exit, now I only feel slightly bad about not finding an empty cage to lock you up in there."

"You looked for one all the time Onii-san?!"

Urgh, I forgot to mention Kawasaki's best point. Loners like her didn't try to get chummy with other people and did stupid things like calling them onii-san and stuff when they weren't related.

Too bad we entered Komachi's hearing range, I needed to behave again.

For Komachi's sake. And for the record of keeping my criminal record clean. A never struggle.

Since the Kawasakis were living nearby, Taishi, Komachi and me got off at the same station.

That was after my sister had thanked Yuigahama and Yukinoshita to no end for organising this birthday party and the present she received when we parted with them.

She was such a good child, unlike that brat who typed on his phone that kept on making notification sounds. Did he text some overly jealous girlfriend or what? If only that were true, I could be at ease when he was around Komachi. At least he was quiet when he was busy with typing.

All I cared about was leaving him alone in the dust as soon as we exited the station.

Stations and their surroundings were a den of evil. Each time Komachi had to use the train I got super worried and would try to convince her endlessly to stay at home with her dear brother. There were boys picking up girls, many other types of scum and extremely weird people. One example of the last type was a girl whose eyes darted around restlessly, checking people faces left and right. A murderess who looked for her next victim?

"Yo." I greeted her despite my fear. If I introduced Taishi to her he might be gone forever. It was definitely worth a try. She might even be this overly jealous girlfriend he had been texting. As long as he was gone I didn't care who exactly she was. Although she seemed oddly familiar. "Aren't you a bit overprotective of him?"

"If I could, I wouldn't take my eyes of you when you're around him, but I had to pick up Kei-chan." The dangerous specimen of a brocon replied with an intense glare.

"Didn't know you liked me this much."

"Th-that's not what I meant! Don't twist my words!" Her ponytail shook as vehemently as her head. She shouldn't do that though, it makes the blood rise into the face and then it would very similar to an embarrassed face. Even knowing it wasn't a real blush, it still made it quite hard to keep talking. Her conversations skills were pretty low to begin with, but even I was stuck on how to continue.

"Uhm..."

"Err…"

Weird how a joke that was supposed to lighten the mood, made everything so tense.

"Oh it's Saki-san!" Komachi joined the conversation.

"Don't worry, my brother took good care of Taishi-kun today."

"Is that so?" She eyed my sister with a hint of doubt. I would be suspicious of Komachi's words as well. I didn't take care of him, after all he was still alive. That's not what taking care of someone meant, in mafia talk at least. And we were family, so no confusing the meaning here. "Ah, my apologies. I congratulate you on your birthday, I hope it was as good one."

That sounded awkward, just say something as simple as 'happy birthday'. Her conversation skill needed some serious power levelling.

"Thank you! I had lots of fun with Taishi." Nonetheless Komachi didn't pick on Kawasaki inferiority but… when did she have fun with that brat?

All I remember was me babysitting him while she entertained herself with the grown ups. With Yukinoshita being the mentally grown up and Yuigahama with a grown up bust.

"Did he cause you any trouble?" Sometimes I wasn't sure whether Kawasaki was still a brocon or had already mutated into a soncon.

"No, no, not at all. My brother was behaving really nicely." She wasn't talking about me though, was that some kind of reflex by my sister? How was that even conditioned? I never caused any trouble - ever.

"Then that's fine." Huh? She accepted that answer? Have I underestimated her conversation skill all this time? I surely didn't understand how they reached an agreement here while talking about different persons.

Her eyes darted back and forth to me, if she thought about thanking me for not killing Taishi then I guess I deserved that thanks. So go ahead and praise me mommy!

"He taught me a lot about the birds of prey too."

In response to Taishi's gain in knowledge, Kawasaki had even the smile of a proud mother.

Hey, hey mommy! I was the one who taught him, look at me too! Praise me!

"You didn't say anything weird to him again, right?" And the gentle expression of her was gone when she talked to me.

Mommy, why are you so cold?

Did she treat me as the unwanted, troublesome, oldest child of the family?

Meh enough of this. My own parents gave me that treatment so often, I didn't need Kawamother to do the same.

"Of course not, I kept it to the bare minimum after all." The minimum was dealing with him the whole time in order to protect Komachi's chastity.

"This doesn't really sound like you got along..." She looked a bit down, but one wasn't allowed to lie to your mother. I wouldn't sugar-coat anything.

"Yepp, I wouldn't say we did. I only taught him some important stuff he should know. Well you know, like taking studying seriously and so." I tried to sound as not-caring as much as I could.

Kawasaki's eyes widened in surprise, before she quickly lowered her head. You know it's impolite not to maintain eye contact, right? Maybe I needed to teach her a few things too.

"I guess, I should be thankful for that..." It seemed like she really didn't know what to do as she said this meekly while playing around with her fingers nervously. This could go on endlessly, so before we get uncomfortable it was better to end this quickly.

"Don't be, just take that thing home already." I said to provide her thought process a known direction.

Upon attacking her brother, she shot me a cold glare with no sign of her earlier shyness. Additionally to that I received a blow of my sister's elbow into the sides.

"Before you two catch a cold or something." I added. Kawasaki's ponytail cocked hard, but only once. Looked like she was getting used to this, probably due to Ebina's teasing.

"You really are an idiot. Are you ever serious?" A certain nervousness remained with her though.

"I'm always serious. Dead serious even. Nobody is seriously listening to me though. Seriously, what's up with this world in which a seri-" Her intense staring made me shut up. Why so serious Kawamother?

The force behind her glare faded quickly though when I looked back at her with my best puppy-eyed expression. Probably appalled by it she became all flustered and averted her face.

"Ahh, Taishi we need to go." There we go with the obvious excuse to leave the strange guy behind. Did this even count as an excuse since she gave no reason whatsoever?

"We need to get going too. Her father will get angry if he can't dot on his daughter." In order to make her not to feel ashamed of her lacklustre excuse I gave her a proper one.

"Isn't he your father too?"

"He is, but he will get angry if you mention that to him. I guess…" I was convinced that he only bragged about Komachi at work and hid the fact he had another child.

"Don't worry Saki-san! Our father isn't that bad you see." And thus the daughter repays the favour for her upbringing and defended her father's image. "He did get a wife somehow, so he can't be all that bad. You should visit us and meet him some day to see for yourself!" If that's the best thing you could say about your father, then something was so shady about it all that she would never take up such an invitation. All it will do is make her turn on her heels and run away.

"Wife? Mhhh…" I heard Taishi whisper. Was he thinking about his lonely future now? Even if he couldn't have my sister, there were plenty of other girls out there. Someone might have pity on him one day without it being a family member. "Ah! Hachiman-san said you'd be a good wife, nee-chan!"

His sister wasn't the only one who was completely stunned, my sister and I were the same.

I didn't even know what to be mad about first, his bubbling of unnecessary things, him using my first name without permission or his very existence. I could feel the blood rushing into my face.

Although I could make an exception for the name. If had called me onii-san like usual, it would have become an even more uncomfortable sentence. We were still in the middle of a crowd in front of the station after all. Weird looks would be the minimum, even in Chiba.

My classmate got all red from anger as well. Why was she looking at me though with the coloured face? She should be mad at her brother. Maybe I was getting it all wrong and she just developed a sudden fever. It was still fairly cold after all. I should make sure by placing a hand on her forehead before jumping to conclusions.

I made one step closer to Kawasaki, but she took one step back in reply. Silly girl, I couldn't perform any medical first aid like this.

Before I could explain my intentions to her though she reached out with her own hand and grabbed Taishi's.

"S-Sorry, we really need to hurry now!" She said louder than she needed to and then she turned on her heals and dragged her protesting brother along with her.

"Ouch! Nee-chan not so tight, it hurts!" He tried to break out of the ironclad grip of his sister but to no avail.

Way to go Kawasaki! Insects should be crushed like this.

"Bye, bye Saki-san, Taishi-kun!" My sister called after the retreating figures. My sister was right to say proper goodbyes even if the other pair of siblings was rude, so I joined her.

"Take care Kawasaki!"

This made the ponytail of the Kawasaki sister dance from side to side. As expected of a loner of her level, she immediately denied the possibility of being herself to be the called out to with such an unspecified addressee.

This probably was the first and only time I was thankful for Taishi's presence, as this turned out to be quite the amusing situation.

"For you to talk about women like that to someone else, you've really changed."

"The eye topic again? It's just a temporary visual change because of the season or what not. Nah, I haven't changed one bit. Why should I? I've always been fine with the way I am." I denied Komachi's claim and that alone was proof that I had no change of heart yet. Eyes were one thing, they could give people the wrong impression as they were on the outside and thus were superficial and interpretable. Mine scared people away despite me being such a decent person, a tear could come from sadness or laughing too hard. Eyes were always misleading.

This didn't mean that hearts, despite being on the inside were any more fool-proof than the eyes.

It's just that the one being fooled was a different person. The eyes fooled others, the heart fooled oneself. Thinking like this made it questionable where to find something genuine in this world, if even the own body wasn't really reliable. How could a connection between two humans then ever be?

"There he goes with his cheap distractions again…" Oblivious to my extremely deep thoughts, Komachi interrupted me from finding a solution for world peace.

"We should get going too or pops will get angry for real." I said while looking at the phone display.

"Roger that." She said and linked her arm with mine. "But you know, it really makes me happy that you're moving forward. It's like the best birthday present ever."

I waited for more to come but she didn't add anything to this. So I went ahead and asked.

"Well it did sound rude, like you're trying to force me out of the house... but that hasn't kept you from adding points before. So, no Komachi points this time?"

"Nope, we can't stay the same forever."

"What a troublesome thought…" Like truly troublesome. Couldn't I just cancel everything? The dates, advancing to the next class and all that what represented change? Way to make feel me depressed.

"I've got enough points to cash them in for the rest of your life. Your amount looks kinda pitiful though. I doubt it'll last even through university." Her ruthless calculation system made me groan in pain.

"You're telling me to be extra nice from now on? And here I thought I was a fine brother as is. Will be hard to be any nicer." Hopefully she was open for negotiations, I didn't want a future without her. Even if she was joking, that scenario was way too scary. Not going to take any risks with this.

"Silly boy. If you could claim a girl just with being nice, even Chuuni would get one."

"Oh but he got one, her name is Comiket-chan."

"2D?"

"No, he just met her there. I have no clue about her real name."

"Ehhhh?! No way!" Wow, that was rude. Zaimokuza's heart would have shattered if he had heard that. Should I text him with a quote?

"Aaaanyway, if you want to really make a girl fall for you and keep her, you need to be more than just nice. We're not so easily obtainable."

"Oh? What should I do to keep you then?" Naturally other girls came later, Komachi first!

"Mhhhhh meeee?" Her tone got really annoying, I feared the worst. "Simple. Just make me a cute niece or nephew."

Simple she said…. and it's gotta be cute huh? That was tricky. Cute kinda implied Komachi being necessary for it, but nephew and niece excluded her being the mother.

"Impossible." I murmured.

"How can you say that with so many cute girls around you?"

"But no one is as cute as Komachi." The desperation from facing the herculean task made me unaware what I said.

…

A well deserved silence and the unlinking of the arms was only logical.

"Geez, surprise attacks are unfair. I already told you how to get enough points to keep me with you."

Surprisingly this still struck a chord with my changing sister and we went towards home side by side. If we had hold our hands it would have make for an awesome ending scene in a dating sim.

Since it was Komachi's birthday we went out for dinner and naturally it had nothing to do with me outside of being an asset. Both parents were showering my sister with overflowing attention and love. I didn't mind it though as I was still busy with thinking about what Komachi had demanded from me.

Of course she wasn't that dead serious with it. I mean there was no way to be so irresponsible and get a kid before graduating from university, but I was surprised at myself how it occupied my mind. I wouldn't mind a cute daughter to dot on. Getting insulted by Rumi Rumi proved this clearly to me, but still… it was too much of a distant future. And there were many important steps to take first too.

Even with me doing the dating, there was no guarantee that any of the girls would want me afterwards. And what if none of them were suitable for the genuineness I sought?

If I kept pondering too deeply about these thoughts, I was in for a massive depression. How should I distract myself? The only device I had with me was my phone.

I quickly went through the contact list to check with whom I could openly talk about making babies. Not that I had so many people to choose from in the first place.

The girls I dated with? Nope, at best it would be taken as a proposal, at worst it was just creepy.

My family? Hahaha… no. That was the very definition of awkwardness and creepiness.

The three boys? No way, I would just give them weird thoughts. And Taishi was probably squashed to death by now anyway. As for Zaimokuza, it was creepy regardless of the topic. Naturally Totsuka was too innocent for talking about babies.

Hiratsuka-sensei? The first reasonable person that came to mind, but with her current state of desperately looking for marriage it would be just too cruel to talk with her about descendants. Before I'd know what was going on, I might end up proposing to stop her tears too. How realistic this possibility was, creeped me out quite a bit. I felt way too much pity for my teacher.

I wanted to think about Yukinoshita's sister as conversation partner too for this topic, but I just couldn't remember her name. Even her face didn't come to my mind, just a massive amount of tape you'd see on a murder scene in movies with the writing of 'DANGER!' on it. Whatever she might do upon hearing me say 'baby' was probably beyond creepy.

Even with my contact list having grown this much, there was only one person left.

She made it this far only by being undated, not a relative, a girl and sane enough.

Just how creepy was my contact list? I felt the urge to delete them all on the spot.

Anyway, I never saw a cell phone as a communication tool first and foremost, but a device for self-entertainment.

This was not the right place and company for watching porn though, which was the first logical thought when it came to combining 'self-entertainment' and 'babies'.

…

Maybe I was the creep all along.

I quickly opened the PDF of a Light Novel. This would hopefully mark the end of these thoughts that my sister so carelessly started to trigger in me.

What a coincidence! Just by chance, I accidently chose a random Light Novel with strong ecchi elements…

Well, switching to something prude is too bothersome. And not like a little arousal before I got home could hurt.

Yumiko PoV

I was sitting at my desk, taking out one tool after the other from a small box.

My diary was left untouched so far this evening. Thinking about today I felt melancholic and didn't want to write about it yet.

It shouldn't be like this when Hayato had time to spend with us. I even had so much hope for today and was so excited, but… it was just another day without any progress.

Was it my fault for expecting too much?

"Crap." I said as I made a mistake in my painting upon the unpleasant thought.

I wasn't wrong to hope, what would life be if I didn't? It would be meaningless and sad. I really intended to make a move on Hayato, but things were out of my control today.

Yes it was all Yamato-kun's fault for having yet another new girlfriend. Was he collecting them?

"Damn." My frustration about this classmate made me mess up another line.

Thanks to that rugby player taking her along with us, Ooka-kun was clinging to Hayato all the time spouting stupid stuff like 'we Singles have to stick together'. Hayato had no chance but to sympathise with him, he was always there for his friends after all. But Hayato being so kind to his friends did end all my ambitions for today. Before I could even do something!

If that wasn't bad enough, Tobe got all giddy upon seeing Yamato conquering a new girl as well and tried to get closer to Ebina in return. Of course she blocked all his attempts, like usual. Because of this I couldn't have a good talk with her either.

And Yui wasn't there too. Thus I ended up being bored and looked at my phone most of the time.

I had wondered whether to message her and ask how things were going on her side. She had told me about the birthday after all, so it wouldn't be, like, weird to ask her.

Though I might have ended up disturbing her and thus I didn't. Just because it had not been going so well on my end, I couldn't ruin her chances as well.

On the other hand, 'it wasn't anything like a date or so...' That's what I thought often this afternoon, but I didn't let my curiosity get the better of me. I stood strong like a good friend should.

My resolution had lasted until I was on my way back home from shopping at least. Because we hung out directly after school to fit Hayato's schedule, I didn't get to shop until way later into the afternoon. It was then when I became so bored that I reached the prefect conclusion to one dilemma of mine. While good friends didn't disturb, best friends should offer their support. And for that I needed to know the situation. This way I had texted her without any feeling of guilt and asked her if she had fun.

Her reply came quickly so I guessed she had time at hand and I went on with mailing her. We exchanged plenty of messages, enough that the conversation went on even when I had reached home. She wrote like she was pretty excited about the birthday party, but that got me thinking.

If she enjoyed it this much, why did she spend so much time in replying to me? Was it already over?

I asked her.

'yeah… (;T_T)~~ Komachi-chan and Hikki had to go for dinner with their parents'

That was the first message she mentioned Hikio in. Before that it had been about his sister, animals and just a little bit about Yukinoshita-san. Probably out of consideration for me as Yui was that kind of girl to think about other people's feelings. I didn't mind that stuck up girl all that much anymore since the marathon, but I doubt I'd ever consider her a friend.

When I had read that message though, it wasn't time to think about Yukinoshita-san anyway. I jumped at the chance and asked why he wasn't part of the party till now followed by a small joke if he just left home only to pick up his sister and had no part in it before.

It was then that I learned that Kawasaki-san's little brother existed and that he was a friend of Hikio's sister. That wasn't what I wanted to read though.
Yui had yet to tell me of the date, so officially I didn't know that she was interested in him. She should spill the beans by herself, but… I didn't like the feeling of not being able to just ask her directly. There was no honesty towards her in that, and not from me to myself either.

Come on, tell me I kept repeating in my head.

Instead of revealing whether she liked him or not, she only explained that Hikio stuck to Kawasaki-san's little brother so that Komachi's friend wouldn't feel like being left out of the group. Thus, she didn't know what they had been doing.

Such a dry explanation, I sighed. And nothing I didn't already know.

Hikio helping someone else is basically his nature.

I couldn't make Hikio responsible for this lack of progression though, as I had a kind of similar feeling today as that Taishi-kun guy and would have liked Hayato to care about me in the same way as Hikio did for him.

But he had his hands full with Ooka-kun and that's probably going to last for a while.

It didn't look like Yui would tell me anything new today and boredom quickly returned to me.

I was looking to cure it by doing a hobby of mine.

But being pent up with frustration, I couldn't concentrate enough to draw on my fingernails properly.

Annoyed by this I put all the tools back into the small box.

What to do now? As I went through the messages on my cell phone, I spotted a series of nonsense-mails by Hikio from this morning. Did he truly believe he could fool me by pretending he didn't send me the text about wanting to play with my hair in the middle of the night? I mean it was right there!

I didn't have the chance to set that straight today because he didn't come to the super market.

Mhhh… why not doing it now? Maybe he'll slip up and has no choice but to admit he was the sender of the mail. On top of that he might say something that Yui forgot to mention, she wasn't all that good when it came to her memory.

This should be fun, and I would finally be able to say goodbye to my boredom.

If I just texted him again he would have too much time to think between his answers. I doubt I could trick him into admitting this way. Thus, I straight up called him.

The phone rang way shorter than I had thought.

"Woah, don't scare me like that!"

"Now you're treating me like a ghost?! " My eyebrows twitched considerably just from being one second into the call.

"Ghost? No I just…" He made a pause. Don't tell me he forgot it already. "Oh that, thanks for reminding me, that was really spooky right?"

Urgh, since my thoughts were filled with tricking him I made the wrong assumption. Now he was on guard about this topic and the same conversation from this morning would just repeat.

"Hmpf, whatever. Did you have fun?" I switched my objective from getting him to admit towards getting new details about Yui and Hikio.

"I guess I did enjoy myself during dinner with my family, so yes."

"Huh? But what about the party?"

"Errr, don't remind me of that."

"Oh, did something bad happen?" Yui hadn't mentioned anything that could warrant such a response.

"There was that persistent insect we just couldn't shake off."

"Insect? Like a swarm of them?" What did he mean? The season for insects was still far off.

"Not a swarm, just a single big one. Komachi was in great danger the whole time!"

"You're not making any sense."

"I totally do! Wait let me try a different way to explain the graveness of the situation. Mmmhhh… do you know the delinquent girl with the blue ponytail from our class?"

"Kawasaki-san?"

"Yeah I think her name was something like that too."

"No, I wasn't guessing her name."

"Oh right, you're her classmate after all. But guess what, turns out her brother is a classmate of Komachi too. I'm betting an eye that he kind of wants something from her. So instead of me spending my sister's birthday with her I had to keep that guy away."

"Did she invite any other friends from school?"

"Nah, she will celebrate with her girls clique on the weekend."

"That means he was all alone today?"

"I tried my best to make sure of that." He boasted pridefully on the phone, which actually confused me.

"That's not what I meant. You see, it can get quite difficult if you're the only one your age in a group."

"Huh? I wouldn't know. But I can see it being true. Well Komachi is a pretty straightforward person you see. And she does have kind of a thing for Yukinoshita and Yuigahama… so she was around them all the time. I guess he would have ended up alone just like you said. Even if I didn't make sure of it. Better safe than sorry though."

That sounded pretty cold of him, but when I connected the dots with what Yui told me, I knew his real intentions.

"Seems to me like you wanted to help him."

"Errr, how the heck did you reach that conclusion? Why would I do anything that endangers Komachi?"

"You can't stand it if people are alone right?" I remembered what he said about the little girl at the summer camp.

"No, no, that's way off the mark. I have no problem with people being alone. As a worrying brother I would be happy if-"

"Fine, it's people who are alone but not by choice then right? Don't be so nit-picky." Damn, even though I almost got it right.

"That's a pretty important detail though…"

I didn't understand the difference. Sure, there were times someone wanted to be alone, but that is something entirely else from being alone all the time. Whether by choice or not… wasn't it just lonely either way? I knew I was sad when I was alone.

"He wouldn't have been alone by choice, correct?" Not letting the topic going astray, I pressed on.

"That's pure speculation, but what does that have to do with anything?"

"That's why you couldn't not help him." I was sure of it. If I understood one thing about Hikio, it was him being such a goodhearted person.

"But I didn't…" Still trying to deny it, huh?

"Yeah, right." I giggled, fully convinced.

"It's annoying if my worries and frustration aren't taking seriously…" He sounded really miffed but that too was fun. At least for me. With him being out of his comfort zone it was my time to strike.

"I guess so…makes you want to play with my hair, doesn't it?"

"Sure does."

"Like when you sent me the message last night?"

"Even more so now."

"Aha! You finally admitted it!" Finally! I won!

"No, wait… did you… did you plan that all along?"

"Who knows?" Tasting victory over him for once felt so good I couldn't resist teasing him some more.

"You're surprisingly crafty, makes you pretty scary. Now I'm a bit glad about not going to the grocery store tomorrow."

"Ah! Again? Why that?"

"Didn't I tell you? Tomorrow is the date with Yukinoshita. You see it's still pretty cold outside, so I need to make use of the warming sun as much as possible. Oh, I didn't even tell her about it yet. Thanks for reminding me!"

"But why? And what about, like, the food for your family and so?" I didn't want this, it was fine if it was Yui, but why should I step back for the other girls?

"Wow you sound kinda desperate about seeing me. Don't worry Komachi offered to go shopping in my stead tomorrow. We won't starve."

"I'm not desperate…"

"Like I said, don't worry. As long as you have that hair to play with I will let you tag along at the supermarket." Oh right, we had been talking about the hair. What happened to me bathing in my victory? How could I let him switch the topic so easily? Crap.

"I won't let you do that though, you can play with your own hair."

"Haeh? Why is that?"

"Last time you did that it hurt a lot, remember?"

"But that was just because you suddenly pulled away!"

I wasn't letting him blame me for that. There was a line how ridiculous one could get.

"No, you won't be able to talk yourself out of this one and suddenly end up as the innocent, no chance."

"Urgh, you're so calm… your fingers are going through your hair right now, right?"

"What if they did? It's mine after all."

"So unfair…."

"You're such a hair fetishist."

"Not really, yours is the only one I care about."

He spoke with such conviction that it caught me by surprise and I had a hard time to find anything to respond to that. I didn't want to let the pause get any long though and just said whatever without thinking about it.

"Geez, you're talking nonsense. Go to sleep already."

"Yes, mam'." His reply came immediately and was followed by the beeping of the phone which signalled that he had ended the call.

So abruptly! I didn't really mean for him to hang up! He used my careless words as a way to escape the conversation in such an obvious way that I nearly dialled him again to call him out on it.
But I didn't. The talk has gone astray too much, I wouldn't even know what say next.

Talking with him could be so exhausting, but my boredom was gone. I would go to bed soon too, before that though I had to fill my diary about today.

Hachiman PoV

Breakfast with my sister, what a wonderful way to start the day with. Hand-prepared by the best in the world. I could hear her cute munching, see her face and her bed hair. This was basically marriage I'd say.

Yet things weren't as good as they appeared on the surface.

Komachi wouldn't be Komachi if she didn't ask for repayment for her super valuable time she would spend and never get back when she'd replace me on my shopping duty.

To erase this debt I will have to prepare tonight's dinner all on my own, as she will recover from the great lengths she was about to go for me.

And to eat my share of tomatoes fully this morning.

Her cruelty was as outstanding as every other aspect of her.

My sister wasn't the only outstanding person with a cruel side to her. Miura was such a person as well, even if she wasn't aware of it. That she was archetype of an extraordinary person didn't require any explanation to everyone who saw her. Her kindness on the other wasn't as obvious to everyone and only a few selected people knew of it. As for her cruelty I had no doubt of being the only one knowing it.

How she ruined my perfectly planned out evening couldn't be labelled anything less than torture. After I had gotten myself into the mood by reading through the ecchi light novel during the restaurant and in the car on the way back home, I was so ready to move on to the real deal on my phone for the finisher. [4]

I had already carefully selected the video I wanted to watch for it. But just when I was to hit on the play button, my phone put on an unfamiliar green button on top of the play icon.

Without intending to do so I had accepted a call.

It all was so sudden, I couldn't even read who had called me nor couldn't I not voice my surprise.

For my phone to ring was unusual in the first place, but the response of the other side was even more so. When I first had heard a female voice say 'ghost' I thought it was just a prank call and was about to hang up immediately, but the voice sounded similar and when I moved the phone from my ear in front of my eyes again, there wasn't just an unknown number displayed.

Yumiko was written there and thinking back to yesterday's morning I could connect the dots quickly.

For such a surprise attack the conversation went pretty well overall. She even reminded me to notify Yukinoshita on what to bring to the date tomorrow and when I would pick her up. Which I did via mail just after the call.

For that I should have been thankful, but after talking to Miura I couldn't possibly relief myself anymore. It would have been just wrong with her being a friend and all.

All the pent up mood, such torture.

Under the carefully watching eyes of Komachi I eventually managed to eat even the last tomato bits and hurried to school.

Nobody had a reason to stare daggers at my back today and since we were already past the exams, except for the makeup ones, school was passing by ever so peacefully. I could openly learn for maths in every period and free up more time at home. The memorisation process went way easier this year than in all the previous ones. Which was a bit weird, as my private math studies were still far from catching up to the topics covered in the exam. I guess that knowing the basics of maths helped too, even in advanced topics.

Nonetheless I still went to the last of the supplementary lessons before the makeup exams would be held in about two weeks. Just in case they were dishing out even more material for us to digest.

Luckily for me and Yuigahama they didn't. Even better, the teacher was in high spirits and made my classmate understand a topic. He was strangely looking way too exhausted and happy after accomplishing that feat though. She could still see you, you know? I thought to myself as I found it quite rude.

Of course I didn't get any of his explanations, but unlike me Yuigahama had tried to pay attention in class. So no surprise there. I had settled on my battle of memorisation anyway and if the gibberish thing he uttered made sense to my classmate it meant less trouble for me.

Things were looking quite good for once.

After the supplementary lessons I said my goodbyes to Yuigahama. The club president wasn't here today to pick her up again, which was and wasn't odd at the same time.

I headed home quickly, took a shower, filled the basket with content and headed to Yukinoshita's place.

"Hello?"

It was still the same place I had in my memories, it was still the same ring of the door's bell, but the voice was a different one.

"Ah, I got the wrong bell. I'm sorry to have bothered you." I quickly uttered an apology and wanted to make a quick retreat. Even if the voice was different, it wasn't an unfamiliar one.

"Oh my, is that Hikigaya-kun? Don't even think of moving from the spot, I'll come down!"

"No, I only-" I tried to stop her, but the terminal had clicked already and was silent ever since.

My first thought was to escape at the fastest speed possible, but a date didn't only bind oneself to a specific time, but also a specific place.

And this location happened to have a new inhabitant. I knew that she moved in to spy on Yukinoshita for her mother, but I didn't expect her to be here now. Shouldn't a university student not be in, like, a university? For someone to be trained in becoming the next head of a huge company she had surprisingly a lot of free time.

Through the glass door I saw the elevator opening and Yukinoshita Haruno popped out of it.

She waved and smiled ever so cutely, her mouth opened to greet me, but of course I couldn't hear anything through the closed door. Realising that she hid her lipstick painted mouth behind a hand and it looked like she started to chuckle upon her mistake.

All of that was obviously an act. No way someone of her calibre would make such a simple blunder. It was all to raise her appeal.

And it worked.

In my mind I thanked the architect who came up with the idea of using a transparent door. It gave me a little time to get used to her visual appearance.

Which was stunning to say the least.

"Why are you dressed like a model who's about to go on a catwalk?" As soon as the door opened I asked her. No way this was anyone's casual home attire, no matter how rich she was.

"A compliment right of the bat? Did you learn that on your dates?"

How did she expect me to learn from something I had not done? Such a foolish girl.

Wait, I complimented neither Yuigahama nor Isshiki? How could I forget something so basic? I was majorly astonished by myself.

"Hahaha! You're as strange as ever, mixing the order up like this. You're supposed to drop the jaw before praising my beauty."

She sure was enjoying herself a bit too much, but I couldn't think of any good retaliation to dampen her mood though. She was right about being beautiful, even extraordinarily so today.

I closed my mouth and tried not to look at her. Ignoring her until Yukinoshita came down would probably the best course of action.

"Could it be that you have yet to say something like this to other girls? Oh my you making me blush!"

She wasn't blushing at all, I could see from the corner of my eyes. Although I was disappointed in me not being able to take them entirely off her, it didn't mean I was unhappy about watching her.

"So, why are you here?" Feeling guilty about looking at her like this I paid her the attention tax.

"I live her you dummy. Didn't she tell you?"

"Nah, I mean why you came down here. If it's about talking the intercom would have sufficed."

"Isn't it natural for the big caring onee-chan that I am to be curious about the guy who is taking my precious little sister out for a date?"

"Sounds like a lame reason. It's not like one can truly understand the other just by talking for a few minutes."

"You're right! We do need to spend way more time together! Let's go right now."

"O-on the other hand, outside of my family you're probably the person who understands me the most already, so there is no need for that."

"Oh why are you so cold to me? After all the trouble I went through coming down here to help you." She acted like she was hurt, but her smile never vanished. More so what kind of trouble did she go through? I get the stepping outside of the door is walking the extra mile, but what kind of trouble was using the elevator?

"Help me? Why would you do that?"

"Aren't we like really close? It's okay for people to help each other when they're close." To emphasise just how close we apparently were, she shrunk the physical distance to an uncomfortable degree.

"I get it that we're close…" My back was already against the wall of the small hallway entrance. "…but what kind of help are you talking about?."

"I'll get you in the right mood for the date of course." What was there to 'of course' about, this was so not 'of course' as it could get. And what's the right mood anyway? My questioning gaze made her explain, by forming a seductive smile with her lips. The smile had a little gap as if she was preparing for a kiss. I knew this from the countless loops I had seen of Isshiki doing it.

If it were any colder than this the hot air of her breathing coming out of this little gap would have been visible. I had a very hard time to suppress any sound coming from my gulp.

"H-how long do you think till she gets down here?" Before getting caught in her act I needed to grab the other Yukinoshita and hurry away from this place. My hand reached out to ring the doorbell one more time, but it was blocked. Haruno's put her arm between me and the communication terminal.

Confused by her action I inquired an explanation one more time with my eyes.

"Don't rush her, she's still in the shower." Haruno said nonchalantly.

In the shower huh? Wasn't that a bit late? This way she would still have get to dressed up and this meant I was stuck here with Haruno for a while longer.

Wait, if she had yet to dress up that also meant that currently she was….

"I-is that so?" I somehow my voice has gotten unsteady and high-pitched. If she wasn't some kind of weirdo going into the shower with a swimsuit on, the water drops would run down on her skin all the way from head to toe, passing various delicate areas…

Imagination was one of these two-edged swords. It could give you the greatest pleasure but also the biggest shame if you couldn't hide it. Under her observing gaze I didn't feel the privacy of my thoughts at all.

"Starting to fantasise? What a naughty boy." And whose fault would that be?

"Why would I fantasise about a shower? I took one too before coming here, it's a plain thing to do." It was probably in vain, but I denied her accusations anyway.

"Really? Let me see." Her eyes lit up dangerously.

The danger I felt was real and immediate. The cold of the wall sipped through my back, while my chest was about to burn from Haruno's hotness and my left was still blocked by her arm. There was only one escape route open. This felt like a battue.

My foot wasn't completely lifted from the ground yet as her second hand slammed onto the wall to my right.

"W-what's there to see about it?" At this point my voice wasn't more than a mere whimpering.

"I'll just give you some feedback." With that her face gotten too close to see it anymore.

Feedback my ass, this was a pushback! A push against the wall scene even, straight of a shoujo manga. Where was my rape whistle? I was certain to lose my virginity in the following moment. Though, within the overwhelming fear I had, a small bit of admiration for Haruno's boldness was mixed into it too.
That Stockholm syndrome developed way too fast!

I felt Haruno's breath on my throat, was it from her nose or her mouth? The sensation was killing me as I cursed myself for not wearing the scarf today. I wanted to reinforce the image that it wasn't that cold anymore by not wearing it. Yukinoshita's date would only be possible if it was an outdoor one. That's why I had to do it as early as possible after school, when the sun was still providing some warmth.

"You're shampoo smells plain." She sounded cold and displeased, but her head didn't pull back. Instead the weight on my shoulder increased as her ticklish breaths continued.

"I didn't want to chemically persuade anyone, so I used an odourless shampoo. So if something is plain, it would be me, sorry."

"Is that conviction part of your genuine thing?" I didn't have an answer to this, but she didn't wait for one anyway. "Doesn't this smell good though?"

The arm, that had blocked my escape route to the street earlier, was now on the back of my head pushing it gently down.

Her bare collarbone was right in front of me, but she didn't push me all the way down. Was she giving me a choice on what to do? I certainly didn't need to go as close as she was to my throat to smell the captivating floral scent of her shampoo. Yet, this felt like an invitation.

No, this was too good to be true, she must be scheming something, Why would a person like her present herself so defencelessly all of a sudden.

Would I lose if I put my head in this cradle of hers and inhale as much as I could, or did it make me the winner? Even if I ended up in some sort of trap, wouldn't it be worth it?

I shouldn't underestimate the older Yukinoshita though. This woman was still a sly and mischievous superhuman, who loved to play around with others. Just because she had shown me a super cute docile side of hers in our various meetings didn't mean I should ever let my guard down around her.

There was also this lingering warning I had received from Hayama, that she went an extra mile to destroy everything she hated.

But, what was the meaning of progress if it didn't change anything? I certainly felt way closer to her after all the time I spend with her and if she really saw me as the little brother in law as she had claimed, there would be nothing wrong about letting her take care of me for a bit.

That's what onee-chans were there for right?

Oh what to do? Pondering over it didn't seem to go anywhere. As I made my decision, I let out a long breath which made Haruno tremble a little and I heard her laughing amiably.

Okay I'll-

"Nee-san what are you doing there?" A voice befitting for the Ice Queen reached our ears. She stood there at the glass door with a box to her feet.

"Oh, you're here already?" I only could see a weak reflection of Haruno's face in the glassy facade of the entrance as she responded to Yukinoshita nonchalantly, but I had the impression she was annoyed by the interruption. Probably because she knew her toy was about to be taken away by someone else.

I didn't want to interfere in what might become a quarrel between siblings, but I had to voice my concerns about what could affect the date.

"Won't you catch a cold if you're outside with that wet hair of yours?"

"What are you on about? I fixed my hair a while ago." As if to prove that everything was fine, she flicked the hair behind her shoulders. But something didn't add up.

"Didn't you come straight out of the shower…" then I realised what was wrong and looked at Haruno.

"Nee-san just what did you tell him?" Yukinoshita arrived at the same conclusion as I did. The murderous tone of hers even scared her older sister, or at least said sister pretended to be scared and clung fully onto me. Haruno's personal space was so narrow and yet so big and soft, how weird.

What really gave away her act of being afraid of her little sister was the teasing she gave in response.

"I thought it would be fun to have Hikigaya-kun thinking of your naked body at the start of the date. This way I'll get a much more interesting story from you afterwards."

Yukinoshita's eyes and mine met and we both head our heads coloured in a dark shade of red and couldn't follow up Haruno's comment in any way.

Oh crap, she was way worse than Insect-kun when it came to mention unnecessary things.

When something so uncomfortable happened as this, there was just one true right way to deal with the situation.

Pretend nothing ever happened and cry at home afterwards.

"If you're ready then let's go." Thus I ignored Haruno completely.

"Yeah, let's go!" Although I had sincerely ignored her with my eyes, the older Yukinoshita sister was the one to eagerly respond.

However, there was one major flaw with her response aside from her not being the addressed one.

She didn't let go at all, off me that was.

"You're not going anywhere except home." A very annoyed club president said. She then peeled Haruno off me despite her protests and shove her to the glass door.

All three of the Yukinoshita ladies could switch into the extraordinarily strict mother role so easily, it was quite terrifying.

Of course I knew that Haruno could fight back anytime if she really wanted and that her teary eyes were all just an act, but considering that I was on the receiving of Yukinoshita's strict personality for so long evoked some empathy with her.

"Thanks for taking care of me while I waited for your sister." Even if all she did was teasing me, she did come all the way down because of me. The only one surprised by me paying respect to the elderly was the younger Yukinoshita. Her sister on the other hand accepted my thanks as if she had expected it.

"You're welcome Cherry Boy!"

I made a wry smile to that remark, raised a hand as a half-assed imitation of waving goodbye and went away.

"Keep your virginity till your date with me!" My 'meddlesome girlfriend' yelled from behind. [5] How She could shout something like this out loud was beyond me. Three random people who passed by even turned their heads to look at me in curiosity.

She was really worse than Taishi, or more accurately, she excelled in even in the bad things.

Yukinoshita followed three steps behind me like we were already a married couple as I headed towards my bike. Most likely she just didn't want to be associated with me after Haruno's stunt.

I needed time to cool off my head, so I was fine with it.

We went to the nearby park in which I forced Yukinoshita to start facing her own future. While this place was a bit loaded with negative memories, it couldn't be avoided since I needed as much time under the sun as possible. And this park was the closest.

I spread the sheet, which I had fastened to my bike at home, on the ground to have our picknick on it. Yukinoshita placed the box she had carried as well as herself on it and I followed suite with a box. I had kept the box in the basket of my bike in which I usually stored the school bags of Komachi and me.

"Did you bring the book with you?" I asked.

"Yes. I know I asked you to read it, but is this really the time for it?" She took out the original story of Pan-san the panda."

"It's the best time for it. Think about it, a date exists to get to each other better, right? I want to know more about what you like so much, but summaries on the web would never come close to the real thing."

"I guess what you said makes sense." Still a bit hesitant she handed over the book that was so special for her. Although that might have been an understatement, her motion was as stiffer than that of antiquated robots.

I carefully put the book on the blanket before opening the box I had taken along with me. Kamakura sleeping inside it. I didn't want to wake him up so I shoved the entire box in front of Yukinoshita.

"You didn't think only of this for our… meeting, right?" Despite her being miffed about being treated as a simple cat-maniac, she immediately began to caress my sleeping feline.

"Of course not, we'll have a picknick as well."

"A picknick for which you made me do all the work."

"Err, that's not true in the slightest. For a picknick you need only two things right? Food to eat and a blanket to sit on top on. As you can see I burdened myself fairly with half of the workload."

"No wonder you have to go to the supplementary lessons if your quantitative estimation stops at the first level. A proper student would take the duration needed to prepare each half into consideration and evaluate the worth of each half accordingly."

Oddly enough this lecturing made me smile.

How nostalgic to be bickering around with the club president again. Finally I had found some normalcy within the recent weeks that were otherwise filled with first-time challenges.

This sentiment wasn't shared by Yukinoshita. In place of the mocking smile or cold expression she had shown me many times in the past, her current one had was that of displeasure. Which was weird as she was able to stroke the sleeping Kamakura. Did I miscalculate at some point? That couldn't be, I had the vast knowledge of two semi-successful dates after all.

Thus I began to read the book called "Hello, Mister Panda". It was one of the few signs that gave away thus books age. If you were to buy it nowadays you could only buy it under the title of "Panda's Garden". Other than the book's title there were only few traces of usage to be spotted. This fact made me smile.

"Looks like you treated this with great care right from the beginning." I tried to imagine a younger Yukinoshita carefully heaving the large book onto a tidy desk with the English dictionary next to it. The dictionary might have been heavier despite being smaller, this was a book for children and not all that long. but since I had no idea how she looked like back then the image had a strong resemblance to Tsurumi Rumi. I wonder what she was doing right now.

"It was a present after all." She showed the first gentle smile during this date. And it was entirely because of her fond memories about the book and had nothing to do with either me or the cat in front of her.

Even as a present, normal young children wouldn't treat books with such great care as she did to preserve the good condition of it. It probably had to do with the person who gave it to her.

Who could have been that person? I only met three persons who knew Yukinoshita as young child. Her mother, Haruno and Hayama.

For Hayama to have given her this kind of book at that age would make him more inhumanly than I ever imagined. I couldn't rule out Haruno though. While Yukinoshita's rare comments about her childhood suggests that her sister was quite the lively mischievous troublemaker, she also was quite the bookworm from my own observations. Passing an English book to her little sister could have been some secret training as well.

The mother was a mixed candidate. On one hand the child training from an early age fitted her image perfectly, but on the other hand she would have probably picked something harder to grasp than a book for children.

I had no clue about her relationship with her father other than him allowing his daughter to live in her own apartment.

It was a book written by a father to his son, but did this mean anything?

Anyway, I better start reading it while Yukinoshita was still busy with the cat.

Out of the corner of my eyes I saw her hand move rather forcefully through Kamakura's fur. This surprised me as it was nothing like her when dealing with cats.

Kamakura woke up and looked confused and as unhappy as a cat could.

He wasn't outside that often and probably found it very cold compared to the kotatsu he often slept under. [6]

After comparing the two humans around him he decided to climb on my lap to sleep some more.

Yukinoshita was alone and appeared to be even more frustrated than before.

I wasn't at fault for her sour mood, I mean who could have anticipated that a cat would actually want to spend time with its owner?!

There was more to her aura she gave off to be able to describe it as being simply frustrated. If I had to put my finger on it, I'd also say that there was a hint of sadness oozing from her as well. Her whole body language looked rather lifeless compared to her usual radiant self that earned her the nickname of Ice Queen too.

Come to think of it, she wasn't all that much into the date right from the start. Didn't she refer to it as 'meeting' earlier? Did she really want to be here with me? Or did Haruno's ambush on me make her like this?

The book has left my field of vision long ago and I was staring intensively at Yukinoshita. Her behaviour was in stark contrast to Isshiki and Yuigahama. Of course I didn't anticipate her to be as active as them, but she could show at least a little effort…

"Wh-what is it?" She asked me looking instantly away upon noticing me observing her.

Even now she avoided eye contact.

Then it dawned me.

All these little oddities I had noticed this afternoon. Her walking behind me when usually she was the one to take the lead. That she emphasised her share in the workload. When she asked me if all I would do was reading and leaving her to play with Kamakura. How she only used one hand for stroking my cat.

There was only one truth to it.

"Are you a moron?" I asked her.

The club president had her mouth open but she was speechless. Another oddity!

A short-lived moment, but it still counted.

Yukinoshita wouldn't be Yukinoshita if she didn't recover quickly. Or was it simply her pent up frustration that erupted? Her expression turned into a scowl when she raised her voice against me.

"How am I the idiot when you're the one who-"

"Could it be that you bought something like a dating guide?"

"Even if I did, there is nothing wrong with it. In fact it would be a mistake not to do it. When you cook the first time in your live you follow a recipe instead of just throwing everything close to you into a pot. Gathering knowledge in advance through books to prepare yourself properly for a new experience is only common sense and shouldn't be looked down on."

This wasn't her usual endless speech to cover embarrassment, I felt her conviction in those words.

"I'm not looking down on you for reading such a book, actually that's amiable. Also that you went the extra mile to prepare for the date. But you made a huge mistake and that's why I'm calling you a moron."

"State your reason then." She crossed her arms and waited for me to explain myself.

"You expected me to act just like those guys in your books. Those are written with normal people in mind, not for someone like me."

"Mmmhh I see, you're really far from being a normal human being after all."

"You could have said that a bit nicer." I bet this behaviour wasn't in those guides too. "But you're right nonetheless. If people walk behind me, I won't see it as a test, expecting me to slow down. It just makes me feel like they don't want to be associated with me. Wasn't it like that in Kyoto too? After we ate ramen with Hiratsuka-sensei and went back to the hotel."

"That was.." Yukinoshita bit her lips in response. She knew that it was true. The only reason why she was in the hotel lobby to begin with when Hiratsuka-sensei picked us up was because she was pressured by the girls in her room with talk about boys. In that case because of me due to our display during the cultural festival. [7] I didn't need to hear an apology or something like that, thus I continued.

"I'm trying, but I'll do it in my own way. I wasn't lying when I said I wanted to get to know you better by reading this book. As for the other stuff in your guide… I'll try to go as far as I can there too." This was another realisation I had. For me it was the third date, but I was pretty sure it was the first for Yukinoshita. Like Isshiki and Yuigahama did it for me in those two dates, now it was my turn to take the lead in the physical stuff as well.

As a sign of my determination of living up to my words and mine my body moved. But just a bit closer to hers, we didn't touch yet. I didn't want to make any grand moves because of Kamakura on my lap. It would be a complete pain to chase him if he is taken by surprise and ran away. That was totally the reason for it. The gap was very narrow though.

Yukinoshita's body trembled in response.

"You're feeling cold?" I chose the early hours of the afternoon for the date to prevent that, but all the consideration meant nothing in the face of a single strong breeze during the last weeks of winter.

"A bit." She admitted.

"Sorry about that, but there is no warm place where one can read in peace and bring a cat along."

I took the ends of the blanket behind us and pulled it over our shoulders. My third date took her end of the blanket and I retraced my hand to pick up the book again. Carrying such a large blanket was quite some work, so I was a little offended when she treated my effort as if it was nothing.

"Thank you." Her words were barely more than a whisper and I could only hear them because we were sitting so close to each other.

It was only chilly when the wind blew, the overall temperatures weren't that bad. Although after the incident with Haruno I judged it was too early and dangerous to leave the house without a muffler again.

But the weather sure was changing at a fast pace this year again, befitting a coastal city like Chiba. It hadn't been that long ago when Miura wore scarfs around her legs. Oh my, how strange that sight was. Just the memory of it would heighten my spirits whenever I needed it. But being under the blanket with a book with someone reminded me on how I read to Komachi when she was still younger.

Mom and Pops were always work slaves, so she would come and beg me to read her books for children sometimes.

"What are you thinking of?"

"Huh?"

"When you were first brought to the clubroom by sensei, you didn't smile like that."

"Who would in that situation? The whole club idea was presented to me as a punishment for hurting sensei's feelings."

"I didn't mean that particular moment, just the time. You would sneer and make disgusting sounds, an upright smile like this was impossible with your face back then."

"Were the insults really necessary? Also that's not true at all, I'm pretty sure my smile for Komachi didn't change one bit."

Yukinoshita sighed.

"Of course it was her you thought of."

"It's unavoidable when the situations are this similar."

"You went on a date with her too?!"

"Don't be silly, like she would have agreed to that. And I don't have the guts to ask her anyway."

"Now that is a whole new problem there."

"ANYWAY, there were times when she was rather clingy because we were alone at home often. She would come to me with one of her books and wanted me to read it to her. Komachi was so cute when she cried after I refused it. So eventually I gave in…"

"She was good at manipulating you even back then."

"Shush. So when it was winter we snuck under the kotatsu and I read to her. And she always came back for more, my brotherly skills were top notch even back then." I decided to brag a little at the end as Yukinoshita often did when she told us about her past. Well my sister didn't do this that often and the frequency varied a lot.

My current waiting time was only about nine years, but one day she would come back to me with a book again. Hopefully.

"Then read to me to."

"Err, what?" I asked dumbfounded, I probably heard it wrong.

"Proof me your skills and I will evaluate them." Nope, it was still the same nonsense when I listened carefully.

"I didn't ask you to show me your fencing skills either when you bragged about learning it in just three days." Such a ridiculous demand, like I would ever do that. And what about the evaluating part? Would she turn it into a competition or was it just her inner strict mother personality speaking?

"You would want me to show you my swordsmanship?" That was definitely a threat! I had no intention of ending up as Hach Kabob. [8]

"N-no need!" And thus I began reading, albeit I was a bit nervous and shaky while doing so. My dating partner was too scary.

After I had read for another five minutes, I noticed that Yukinoshita was on the verge of dozing off. Her head bounced back into an upright position every now and then and her body was slightly swaying.

Hey, my reading wasn't that bad!

"Coming to a date being all sleepy, that's awfully rude of you."

"And whose fault do you think is it?"

"You're blaming me?"

"Notifying me so late in the evening to prepare a picknick all of a sudden. I had to spend half of the night in the kitchen."

"Err, isn't that a bit exaggerating?"

"Again, you're not taking into account how long it takes to prepare a proper meal. There would have been not enough time after to school if I didn't get the preparations done in advance."

"Just what did you make? Some sandwich or onigiri would have totally sufficed. It was supposed to be a simple picknick after all."

"You don't have to eat it if you find it not fitting the occasion." She probably intended to be all intimidating, but due to her sleepy look it invoke pity within me instead.

"Not at all I'll eat all up, I might even ask for seconds and thirds."

"I-it would be troublesome if you'd want that much…" A panic flashed on her face as she looked over to the lunchbox she had brought along.

A sleep-deprived Yukinoshita was very cute as she showed her emotions in a more open and understandable manner.

"Do you want to eat now?"

"Could you read some more? The next scene will be…" She didn't finish her sentence in order not to spoiler me. That piqued my interest, what kind of scene would she like?

"I could do that as appreciation for the food." I read further, the next scene turned out to be the drunken boxing scene. Didn't she call it a minor scene before that was only emphasised in the Dizney version? I guess drunken pandas were funny to everyone.

More importantly I noticed again how unsteady the club president because of her lack of sleep.

"You know, if you want to you could my shoulder as pillow." I volunteered my shoulder to her generously.

"Then I'll take you up on the offer."

That's what she said, but she didn't take any action to follow up her words.

Yukinoshita was clearly hesitating on what to do. I totally understood that hesitation. If it weren't for Isshiki's and Yuigahama's boldness to take action themselves, I would have probably refrained from making any moves as well. It was time for me to take the lead again, but I couldn't be half-assed about it anymore. I reached out with my hand to her most distanced shoulder and pulled her over till her head was touching my own shoulder.

"I-it will be easier for you to reach Kamakura that way too." Well, as long as only my excuses remained half-assed it should be fine.

"I see." She whispered.

With Yukinoshita leaning against me and stroking the cat, I finished the book shortly after.

She didn't ask me for my thoughts on it.

When one was really passionate about something, naturally one wanted others to like it just as much. However, the chances of that were slim at best. She was probably aware of that and dodged the issue altogether.

Did I reach my goal though? Did I learn anything by reading this? She certainly wasn't mistaken about it conveying the love by the father for his son to the reader. But this book wasn't just written out of love. It was because of the father's wish too study animals in China that his son was forced to move away from everything he knew and settle in this unknown land.

It was very presumptuous of me, but parental love seemed to be a big topic Yukinoshita. Haruno had once said that her mother was scary.

I knew too little of her family to know for sure, even if I did and my guess was right, what then?

Suddenly I felt something touching me.

I looked at my hand and saw Yukinoshita's retracing quickly.

"My apologies, I asked you if you wanted to eat something, but you were spacing out."

"Ah sorry, I was just thinking about the book."

Upon hearing that she started to giggle. "You're just like Nee-san."

"I don't know if this is supposed to be a good thing or not…."

"After reading a book she just sits there in silence and looking into the distance thinking deeply about what she has just read."

"So you don't know whether this is a good thing or not either, but it's hard to imagine her like that around you. I was sure she was a lively little green goblin playing mischievous pranks the whole day at home."

Huh? Yukinoshita began to tremble again, she placed her hands on her mouth but occasionally 'pfff' sounds were escaping nonetheless. It gradually built up and then I saw something for the first time.

"Hahahaha!" Yukinoshita breaking out into heartful laughter. I just enjoyed this angelic scene for as long as it lasted.

"That was awfully rude of you." She tried to give me a stern look once she had calmed down, but the colour on her face from laughing so long had not vanished off her cheeks yet and made it have little effect.

"Anyway, it's good to hear that she stops meddling with you sometimes. Although, the more she bothers you, the more peace I have….meep"

Upon saying this, the light-hearted mood was gone in a flash and Yukinoshita's face has regained her usual strictness which shut me up.

"Now you're talking big, but you didn't look so resisting earlier."

"She is getting better at ambushing me. I was trapped despite trying so hard. Her knowing my every move of escape, that's so eerie." This wasn't a lie at all but Yukinoshita's strict glance didn't seize. These two sisters were equally frightening to be honest.

At least I had an idea on how to diffuse one of them.

I grabbed her hand and showed her how to find Kamakura's soft spots by moving her hand around in his fur. As the owner of this cat for several years I knew how to make him mewing a lot.

Instantly my dating partner's strict persona vanished and was replaced with a flustered, blushing girl.

Weird though that she looked at me this way instead of keeping her eyes on the cat. Even though I went out of my way to teach her how to get the proper responses from him.

She made such a big deal out of holding hands that my bravado shrunk quickly. I got a weird feeling in the stomach. Did I go too far? Yuigahama and Isshiki made it look like it was nothing to be even concerned about.

We both grew overly aware of the other tensing up. There was no trace of tiredness left on her face. If I slid my hand down to check her pulse, I surely would find it beating like crazy. I know mine did.

Help came from where I had least expected it. The weird feeling in my stomach from earlier caused a loud rumble.

Yukinoshita sighed and started to speak.

"Let's start eating, it would be bad if all this food goes to waste."

"You can count on me, I won't let that happen." I removed my hand from hers to point at me.

During our picknick we talked about books, excluding 'Hello, Mister Panda' of course. It was a pleasant talk that only few at my school would be able to hold at level.

The food was delicious too. I kept my word and made sure there were just enough leftovers for Komachi. Perhaps I could skip the cooking on my own this way.

I didn't know when it started, but along the way to Yukinoshita's apartment we had casually started to hold hands. So soft and fragile. At least this was going according to her dating 101 book.

The date was over, not just this one but the whole first dating turn.

Did I grow because of this experience? I certainly did things that were unthinkable a few weeks ago, like actively grabbing someone's hand. So probably I did, maybe.

Hands.

That was also an issue that increased my uncertainty about the whole dating process. Each girl had soft hands, so how am I supposed to say which one felt the best? Was there in difference in the same attribute? Did it even matter?

Did it make the blurry image of my genuine thing any clearer? Was this the right path to achieve it?

Isshiki has opted out, but still wanted to continue. This was as confusing as it could possibly get to me. I wasn't sure whether to be thankful to have her as comparison in the future or if it was just distracting.

If Hiratsuka-sensei was right about me having to think it all through, and if I get stuck then I was supposed to think some more then I'd probably need more than one life to do so. And that after the input of just three dates! There were still so many weeks till the deadline, how could hope to meet it?

Questions upon questions and things to consider flooded my mind on my way home. Would my peaceful life ever return?

Yumiko PoV

This was huge, huge, huge!

I couldn't hold back my excitement even hours later when I wrote about it in my diary.

Hayato finally came to ask me.

What should I do? What should I wear? This was all so sudden.

A chance of this quality wouldn't come so easily again. I definitely needed to score a lot of points with him. And there should be plenty of opportunities for me to do so. But I needed to plan, to prepare for it.

My heart was racing, my brain was close to an overload from all the thinking. Sleep wouldn't be able to hinder me from working out a strategy. I was so pumped up, I wasn't sure if I could fall asleep even if I wanted to.

But, but! Didn't I need to be in in top shape? I would need a lot of sleep to avoid a disaster with my look!

If there were any bags under my eyes tomorrow, I would have to kill myself.

Just what was I supposed to do?

After I had finished writing, I read through these pages once more. I wrote so much today! And just like my thoughts I was going back and forth in it, pondering about what to do.

I needed to decide quickly before the clock took my decision away from me.

The only thing knew was that I would do everything to make it a success, but what exactly was the road to success?

Aaaah, this was sooooo overwhelming!

Tomorrow couldn't come fast enough and yet it wasn't allowed to come before I was ready to engage it.

Hachiman PoV

Despite all my thinking I slept surprisingly fine. Exhaustion might have had its fair share in me falling asleep quickly. Today was a day to relax though. No dates, no supplementary class.

Just school, reading a book in the club room while being served some tea.

This was the third best possible day. It could only be topped by being together with my sister or a weekend with nothing to care about.

On the topic of my sister. She still made me cook despite stuffing herself with Yukinoshita's leftover food. Komachi had been pestering me non-stop about the dates, while I prepared dinner for the rest of my family all on my own. Don't tell me she was jealous and wanted to have a date with me as well?

Yeah, like that would ever happen. Being with her casually was much better anyway. I was seeing her in her pyjama right now. What kind of date could achieve that?

Well there was one bothersome thing today. Thanks to my sister playing her 'weakened-from-studying' card, she was super lazy and had only bought the minimum ingredients from a nearby shop, meaning I would have to carry more than usual today.

And why had I to walk that far again when she had just used a shop in the near surroundings?

After I had tasted the food and was shown the bill, I couldn't deny mom and Komachi in saying that there was a certain advantage to the shop they did send me to.

Just from going to the grocery store regularly I was turning into a proper househusband.

Yeah~ me!

My future shone so bright it was dazzling. Oh that wasn't my future, it was my sister I was looking at. Even when she shooed me out of the house to go to school she was soooo Komachi while doing it.

I wonder when I'd ran into problems by replacing the word 'cute' with my sister's name.

School went by without a hitch, the teachers and classmates ignored me the whole day, all was well with the world.

Since Yuigahama was still in the weird and long parting ritual with her classmates I went ahead to the club room.

Yukinoshita would be sitting there already, illuminated by the afternoon sun. Alone.

If my classmate took her sweet time going through the whole procedure of social formalities I would be there for a while with her. Alone.

Would she make yesterday's date a topic or be her usual self inside the club room and quietly read her book?

The anticipation made me nervous. What if we started talking again and Yuigahama would overhear it while trying to open the door. Thanks to Isshiki I knew that it wasn't safe to talk in there. At least not if you valued the spoken words to stay private.

I figured if I were to act normal then she would to.

So I flung the door open and greeted her as usual.

"Sup?"

Caught by surprise she quickly sat straighter than she already was. She failed to do any direct eye contact with me, despite her trying. But each time my face came into her view, she glanced away again.

My initial vigour that had thrown the door open was gone and I stood rooted on the spot.

We both took our time to breath and count to three.

Yukinoshita brushed her hair upwards and smiled softly and finally responded to my greeting.

"Hello." She looked behind me. "Isn't Yuigahama with you?"

"Nah, she-" I was hit by an elephant hunting after a peanut. It was a miracle that I didn't fly through the club room. I could only thank my iron will and my firm stance in life and on earth for that. Or because the push was much lighter than I thought it was.

"I'm here, I'm here!" Said the culprit of this ambush. "Hikki I can't believe you left me behind!"

"It looked like you said goodbye to half of the school."

"Gosh, it was just Miura and the others."

"A lot of others I might add."

"Eh? Hina, Tobecchi, Hayato, Yamato and Oota. So just 5."

I tilted my head, wasn't that what I was just saying? In response Yuigahama did the same as I did. Looks like we couldn't comprehend the other.

"You shouldn't be so hard on him, two people at once are his limit after all these years as outcast of the society." Yukinoshita chimed in with a not so friendly remark. The one who just said not to go hard on me, hit me the hardest.

I wanted to follow up with a clever comeback but when our eyes met, all we could do is look away.

"Did something happen yesterday?" Gahama-chan's mood detector reacted right away.

She wasn't the only one with such an inbuild device, I had one for recognising dangerous trick questions too. It had just not been the most reliable in the past. This time it was too obvious to be oblivious.

If I said that nothing happened I would talk down anything of yesterday's date and Yukinoshita might end up being hurt. On the other hand if I declared that something did happen, I might cause my classmate's imagination to run wild and cause very problematic misunderstandings.

"Mhh that 'something' sounds an awful lot like the unspecific 'everyone'. I have no idea what you mean if you're that vague." Seriously, did she catch Miuraism? Or was Yuigahama the one spreading this infection? I moved to my usual chair to be on the safe side and to avoid the question altogether.

I took out my book and began to read which marked the end of the conversation.

"Well, I mean – you've been waiting before." She said before taking her seat close to the club president.

"True, but today it felt like it would go on for an eternity with all the chatter, laughter and waving goodbyes in a never-ending loop. We're in school and not in Versailles."

"Vers-huh?"

"Versailles is a palace in France where the royal family used to reside. He is referring to the overly ritualised behaviour of nobility of that time." I gave Yukipedia a confirming nod before I could turn my attention back to my book, I noticed how Yuigahama started to get all cuddly with the club president.

"Hehehe, Hikki called me a princess."

"That's no-"

Yukinoshita, who was patting the excitingly snuggling club member's head, gave me a warning glare not to finish my correction. Was she her mother or something? Well if they were all fine with how the conversation ended, I wouldn't mind it either. I left the fantasising classmate in Yukinoshita's care and continued to read.

Her state of trance in ecstasy didn't last long though.

"Ah! We need to decide on who gets the next date!" I wish it would have lasted longer. It's not that I didn't want to go again, but some rest in-between would be nice.

"Regarding that, how about some free time for us all to recharge?" What a sensible suggestion I made.

"Shouldn't we wait for Isshiki-san before we do that?" Oh yes, that was a good excuse, Yukinoshita was so reliable.

"Let's wait for her, I really think we shouldn't rush this." I supported that notion fully.

"Nah, no need to, she got Hikki first the last time. Can't be first two times in a row." Yuigahama crushed our combined effort.

"Uhm, I went with that Hikki guy on the first date too, I should sit out the next time as well." Necessity made me creative.

"I see, you want to even out the distribution. Then for the next Saturday it would be either you or me…" I started to get the feeling, that I was somehow left out of the conversation as Yukinoshita ignored me completely.

"Uhm, hello? Anyone listening to me?" Wasn't this all about me?

"Yukinon, you didn't go on a weekend yet, it would only be fair for you to go first." My classmate was the same as the club president.

"But then I would have gone on two consecutive time slots, is this really a fair?" Since they didn't care about my input I shifted my attention back to my book.

"Mhhh but we can't let you go last again… ah! If I go on Saturday and you and Sunday, the problem would be solved!" Hey that's against the rules! I heard something horrible, I couldn't leave the issue to them any longer.

The only thing that would be solved by this was my free time. Solved into such a low concentration that no visible trace would be left behind.

"Won't that be a bit too much for him?" Yukinoshita was quicker than me, but surprisingly she made another good point. Perhaps I could trust them with this after all.

"No way, he'll be fine." Yuigahama was ruthless and upon seeing my shocked face they started to giggle.

What should I do to prevent these snickering hyaena from devouring the cadaver of my free time completely?

Two bangs echoed suddenly through the room. Divine judgement was about to rain on these two!
For that to happen the bangs were actually way too quiet and sounded more like some knocking on our door. Whatever, it made the president and the only member who had applied willingly shut up about stealing my relaxation time from me.

The girls had stopped their talk and were looking surprised at the door just like me.

Come to think of it we didn't have a request from outside since the Valentine's Day event. I was so fixated on getting a break from the busy times that I had forgotten that we were actually a proper club with club activities.

The Club president seemed to be the first to remember this too.

Yukinoshita peeled off Yuigahama from herself, flicked her hair and restored the unorderly school uniform into the state it was before she got jumped at by my classmate.

"Come in."

Who was that angel that saved me? It better wasn't Isshiki as she would make the situation even worse.

The door was pushed open and a blonde with high specs entered the club room. Not the slightest bit hesitating, the blonde walked to the middle of the room and came to a hold in front of the three of us.

A regular that wasn't the student council president, so I was safe on that front. This classmate of mine wasn't known for the easy type of requests though. Was there trouble in Yuigahama's group? She hadn't mention anything and based on the volume of the buzz the group had created today in class I thought that everything was fine.

Anyway, the appearance was a pain in the butt, a front I wasn't save at all on, according to the hardcore fujoshi Ebina.

"Hi there." Hayama flashed a smile straight out of a Hollywood movie as he greeted us. [9]

Since he didn't say my name I wasn't obliged to respond, Yukinoshita might have had similar thoughts.

"Uhm, hello, although we have just parted…" Yuigahama took it upon herself to return the greeting, unable to bear the silence.

I didn't even want to know why he was here. This was way different from the first time this guy came to our club for help. At that time I was honestly interested on what kind of problems such a gifted and popular individual could have, but not anymore. I left it for someone else to ask why he was here this time. It didn't feel right to do so anyway after we had confirmed our mutual hate for each other. Him talking to me after the marathon was either to escape the girls or to keep up his social image in front of others. It had nothing to do with me anymore and I was fine with that.

Come to think of it, it was quite surprising that I still went along with his scheme. If I pursued genuineness in my relationships, shouldn't I do that for hate as well?

Nah, I better not go there. That way just led into a darkness you often can find the failed loners in. Those who weren't content with them being a loner.

"What are you here for Hayama-kun?" Either because of the role as the club president or because she wanted him out as quick as possible, she asked him for his business with us. One would think that the relationship of these old childhood friends had normalised over the school year with all the shared activities.

Maybe I projected my own feelings too much on Yukinoshita's question. In fact, her tone wasn't as icy as it used to be. Yukinoshita has soften a lot over this year. She probably didn't think like me at all in regards to Hayama.

Well, not being told that the other person hated you was helpful in getting closer.

On the other hand, didn't Yukinoshita told Miura that she hated her, and now they were all sister-buddies. Not really, but at least they stopped picking up the forks when seeing each other.

But if either way was fine, then what was the problem I had with Hayama that made me feel so uneasy? Were my grudges not justified? I decided to leave my aversion out of club matters until I understood it better.

"I came here to request your help."

"Oh, who would have thought." I snarled at him in reply. Yuigahama threw one of the cookies, which the club president brought along from time to time., at my head. Urgh, keeping the animosity low sure was hard.

Hayama ignored the hostility in my tone with his smile and just continued to explain the situation.

"My bad, I phrased that incorrectly. Today, I'm here as the president of the soccer club."

"Huh? If you expect me to play soccer or anything, I'm sorry. Ever since I received a hairline fracture in my left foot, that career path was closed for good." [10]

"I have to agree with Hikigaya-kun being utterly useless to help out the soccer club. It's a team sport after all." Even if it was true, she didn't have to be so harsh about it.

"Oh, I'm sure he wouldn't be totally useless! Like, uhm, he could hand out the water or something." Yuigahama's pity did hurt even more than Yukinoshita's insult though…

"We have no need for him in that way." The final nail in the coffin of my debut as soccer player came from Hayama.

If he didn't need my help in the first place, then why was he here? Asking the girls to be cheerleaders? That… could be a request worth listening to.

"There is an important soccer tournament coming up, but it's on the verge getting cancelled."

"That's the first time I hear about it. Did Isshiki come to seek help from us?" I asked Yukinoshita about the issue. Could it be that she was here while Yuigahama and I were stuck in going to the supplementary lessons?

"No, she only came for some tea but never stayed long." Her expression became rather gloomy as she answered me. Ah, I can totally see Isshiki feeling uncomfortable in a room with just our club president present. Yukinoshita probably felt sad about Isshiki leaving her alone quickly when Yuigahama and I weren't there.

Just starting a conversation between these two seemed hard, but keeping it going was nearly impossible. They were pretty much aliens to the other's interests.

On top of it Isshiki wasn't exactly the type to remain silent unless she was fiddling with her phone, while this was one of Yukinoshita's trademarks. They couldn't stay in silence together nor was there any conversation going on.
This description made Isshiki sound an awful lot like Yuigahama, but contrary to the student council president she had no issues with Yukinoshita. I read once that your social environment was largely predetermined by your fiscal background.

But this didn't add up either. Yukinoshita was a rich girl and Yuigahama a normal one. That gap was so big that Isshiki's couldn't be significantly bigger. So was that claim wrong? I have to analyse it further based on things I knew for sure.

I looked closely at the assets of the girls again. Plentiful and non-existent. Bouncy and flat. I'd say that the difference between Yukinoshita and Yuigahama was larger by a huge amount compared to the one between the two presidents.

Huh, how did Yuigahama end up as the richest girl of the three of them?

My private math studying still had a long way to go.

"The student council is not involved this year. At least officially. This annual tournament is held between three high-schools and three middle schools and the duty to organise it changes each year."

"This seems like a big event with so many people involved." Yuigahama remarked.

"That's true. It's big enough to attract scouts from universities, amateur and sometimes professional soccer clubs. This is often the biggest opportunity for club members to pursuit a career in this sport." Giving an approving nod to Yuigahama, Hayama continued to explain the nature of the event to us.

"An event of this size should have a professional organisation committee to plan it. If the problem is too big for it to manage, I'm not sure of how much help we could be." Yukinoshita voiced a doubt I had as well.

"The tournament was originally organised by students just to compete with each other. The public attention increased, but it is still a normal school event and thus is still organised by the students."

"Okay, so we are allowed to help it seems, but what exactly is the problem?" I wanted him to finally spill the beans about what he wants from us. These riajuu's like talking way too much.

"I haven't said this yet, did I? For reasons unknown to me one of the High school teams withdrew from the tournament. This happens sometimes, and the organisers would just ask a different school to participate. However, this year the host team was the one that suddenly withdrew from the tournament. And this is where it gets complicated."

"Huh, why is that?" That question could have been mine, but instead of me it was Yuigahama who was asking.

"It's a school event, there should be a rule within the regulations that demands the participation by your own school." Yukinoshita knew its implication, it's good that she was so reliable at times.

"This is correct. If the club isn't participating, the tournament cannot be held there. And even further, the student council is prohibited to continue organising this event as long as their own club is refusing to take part in it. At the same time student councils from other schools aren't allowed to execute any formal activities on their school ground to bridge the time till a solution is found."

"Why don't you just change the location then?" I suggested.

"I don't know the exact current state of the planning, but I guess it's too late to redo the whole organisation from scratch. The other schools have to agree, a new school would have to be found, the sponsors need to be informed and the deals with the suppliers for food and equipment would have to be renegotiated and many things more. There is just not much time left."

Oh great, a deadline. These things are just keep popping up.

"When is the tournament taking place?" Like during most of the requests we get, Yukinoshita was the one gathering the necessary information.

"On the 14th and 15th of march." He replied.

Err, when was this? Which date was today again? Let's see Komachi's birthday plus…

"This makes it the weekend after this one."

I totally had the same result as the as the honour student.

This problem seemed to go beyond the usual scope. If we failed the sponsors would demand their money back while the contractors would insist on keeping it. Then there is also the issue with students losing their career perspectives.

A mere student shouldn't have to shoulder the responsibility of all this.

"Will you help us?" He looked at us three without any sign of nervousness. Was he that confident that we will accept any request? That bothered smile of his bothered me more than usual.

"Since it concerns the students from our school…"

"This sounds so terrible, of course we will!"

He had convinced both of them already with drawings his horror picture, but I won't fall so easily.

"Wait a moment. I can't agree to this yet." My agreement wasn't actually necessary, as it obliged the club president to decide on these matters. But Yukinoshita was the type to listen to other people's opinions though, which gave me some power in this decision making. "What exactly are we supposed to do?"

"Didn't you listen Hikki? We're supposed to make the event happen!"

"Ah no, I got that part, but it's only the result. He didn't say anything about the tasks at hand we should help the soccer team's players with."

"Actually, I'm not too sure on that myself yet. I was contacted yesterday by someone from their student council who informed me about the soccer team not having the intention to play the tournament and how it stopped the student council from working on the event." That explained why he was so unclear in his request compared to the other times where he had been always very specific in what he wanted from us.

"In principle it is just taking over the workload from the organisation committee and bring it back on a manageable schedule, whether it is to hold the event there or somewhere else." This was my conclusion of the task.

"That sounds about right. But like I said, I don't know-"

"Then we shouldn't do it." I declared, cutting his words short.

Hayama's face hardened like stone and his smile vanished for once from his high-spec face. My clubmates appeared to be shocked by my decision. I better explain myself quickly before they could voice an objection.

"We're not some cheap labour force that can be called on every time whenever there is unfinished business. Our club is there to provide help for self-improvement and I don't see that here. Or will the players be involved in the governmental tasks?"

"No, we won't be able to help out as we need to train daily. It's extremely rare for a player to be scouted, but we have quite a few talented players this year. I want that at least one of them to make it."

"If manpower is all you need, a popular guy like you should have no problem recruiting the necessary amount of people."

"I asked Iroha and she promised to bring the rest of the student council along tomorrow."

"That's clearly her abusing her power." Those other members were surely forced by her. Sometimes I felt like Isshiki worked on establishing a tyrannous regime and I would be responsible for that too.

"She can't act as the student council president over there though and will be only a simple volunteer." He totally ignored her evildoings as long as she would work for his goal. "Hina and Yumiko will help out as well."

No surprise there too. Miura was a lost case from the start. She would have probably skipped school entirely to run by his side. But wasn't there someone missing?

"Only girls?"

"Yamato and Ooka are bound by their cub activities. Sport clubs are very busy once the exams are over."

So that's how it was, normal clubs at their seasonal peak times.

"Aren't those enough?"

"Iroha isn't allowed to run the committee and Hina and Yumiko have no experience in leading one."

"Weren't they in charge of the project from Class 2-F during the Cultural Festival?"

"Hikki, don't mention our class as if you aren't part of it." Her puppy eyes looked so sad, it nearly made me apologise.

"Well, I was within the committee during that time…" And thus not part of it.

"And that's why your help is needed. Yukinoshita-san's would be invaluable too. Yui, you assisted Iroha during the Christmas event as well right? I'd be glad if you helped us too."

Even though he basically repeated himself with different words about wanting our help, if he addressed us directly I did get kind of flustered. Like that would make me happy you idiot~ [11] Wah, he nearly got me there.

I had to stay strong.

"The fact remains that we are doing nothing to evoke self-improvement in the players."

"Don't be like that Hikki, they really need us…" Yuigahama was a very emotional human, she would act just according to her feelings. I didn't think I could win her over.

"Yukinoshita, you know that this request, which can't even be formulated properly into words, is not part of the services Hiratsuka-sensei had in mind."

"That... that is true, but..." She was visibly uncomfortable playing with the end of her blazer's arm. She wasn't on my side either huh. Now I was starting to feel like a heartless villain.

But what I stated where the principles of our club, the same ones everyone acknowledged when we bought Komachi's presents.

"I don't see a reason to 'but' here. Our rules are pretty clear."

Both the girls stayed silent, the only sigh I heard was from Hayama.

"I'm sorry, my request came a bit sudden and you need more time to decide on it, even though we don't have much of it. I'll come back tomorrow to hear the final decision. "

He looked straight into my eyes with a look I knew all too well. It's the same one I received from Meguri-senpai when I failed to meet her expectation.

But I didn't back down. He could return as often as he wanted, I won't change my decision.

After he left, I finally had the silence to read my book, but I didn't have the peace of mind to do it.

Both girls were restlessly switching their postures. It was obvious they wanted to say something but refrained from doing so. Wasn't this a good sign though? It meant that logically I was right and had nothing to do with my feelings towards Hayama, otherwise they would have spoken. The head was right, it was just a bit tough on the heart. On mine too. I let out a deep sigh.

"Hikki?" It was Yuigahama who had the courage to break the silence. "You've been sighing a lot."

"I did?" Honestly, I had not noticed that.

"Is it about refusing Hayato's request?"

"It's not too late to reconsider. To be honest, I was shocked that you didn't want to help. When you…" Yukinoshita didn't finish her sentence. She didn't need to anyway to know that I wasn't meeting her image of mine.

"It's not that I don't want to help the students…"

"Then why?"

"I just can't stand the way the club is being treated." Yuigahama an Yukinoshita had nothing to say after that and the uneasy silence returned.

That was how I truly felt and this was probably the problem I had with Hayama too.

The way he treated people.

He cared for them, but he also used them without their knowledge. Mostly in their interest too, but also his own. It was so complicated that I could hardly put my finger on it being selfish or selfless. What made it all the more frustrating was, that I didn't know whether there was much of a difference between him and me. There had to be, I just needed to think more.

I didn't finish a single page this afternoon. This wasn't how I imagined the first club meeting in a while to be.

When I stood in the supermarket, I still lacked an answer. The amount of questions had increased though.

My shopping bag was filled to the brim with the things Komachi had written on her list, yet I was still alone.

There was no sign of Miura, neither physically nor as message on the phone.

Was this some kind of payback for missing out the last two days or did she just complete the proverb 'three times is a charm'?

The day was straying more and more from the one I expected it to be.

Were the two days without me so much better that I was cast aside? She shouldn't need to go out of her way just to avoid me in that case.

Ouch, that line of thought really hurt this time, I was unable to laugh it off.

Because of the request I felt so gloomy that I had this thought.

Because I considered Miura a friend, it hurt.

She herself said I was one, but then was friendship just this fragile?

I refused to believe that. But was that optimism or just an excuse?

My thoughts would head towards a full-fledged depression if I wasn't careful. I shook my head, but it didn't help with getting rid of my dark mood.
Graaaah! I yelled inside my head, but this didn't clear my mind either. I didn't want to feel so down on a day that was supposed to be full of sunshine and rest. Everything was fine yesterday, why couldn't this just continue?

I stepped out of the grocery store as it was pointless to wait any longer.
Not to mention that the middle-aged staff member had started to observe me again. Maybe I should switch my career coals to working here. Apparently, the workers had quite a bit of free time while they were supposed to be on duty.
Oh? Was a change of scenery all I needed to have a more light-hearted thought? If only that was the case.

I couldn't deny that the refreshing breezes felt good as they cooled down my head. Getting worked up over this seemed stupid now. So what if she missed one joint shopping? There could be a million reasons for that. It was not like she needed to inform me either as we had never agreed to meet us daily. We had no obligations towards each other.

Those things were reserved for couples.

Unless she put a ring on my finger, I was free as a bird.

Ahhh~ The breezes were truly a bliss.

I went around the corner into the residential area.

There she was standing with her hands on her hips like the pilot of Unit 02, making her presence known. Her face looked as stern as Asuka's too. [12]

'Now it's over' was my first thought.

"Hayato went to see you guys." Was the first thing she said.

That guy, first Haruno now Miura. [13] He really likes to use other people to do his work.

But this was kind of good too, now I had my answer how we differed. I was doing everything myself. I couldn't blame anyone else when I failed, I didn't need anyone to clean up my mess.

This way I could always live with the result.

"Did he send you to change my mind?"

"Hayato only told me what happened. Coming here was my own decision." Telling her, was the same as actively sending her for Hayama. He was well aware of her feelings for him and what she would do to support him. What she called friendship was no match against that feeling of love. It would stand no chance in a direct confrontation.

"You're a bit late then." I raised my arm with the full bag, it was almost like I mocked her as I fully knew that she wasn't here for that.

"I'm not here for shopping. Well, I am, but not now. First I have to deal with you." The confirmation. My feeling was right, the relationship we had would be over soon.

"Then you're here to make me change my mind after all." Bring it on, I was ready. That's what my head said, but my stomach felt like it was only ready to throw up.

"I'm not here to convince you helping Hayato." She shook her head and came closer.

Huh? What the hell was she here for then? My face was plastered with question marks.

When she came to a halt, her face was only a good 40 centimetre away.

"I'm here to force you into helping Hayato." How intimidating, if she didn't block the path to my home I would have probably run away.

"You're going to beat me up?" I asked.

"Come to school in one hour with your sports gear."

"Who in their right mind would come to their own beating?" Was she an idiot or something?

"Stop saying that I will hit you! Geez, makes me sound like some delinquent." It was the first time her expression had a little crack. "I challenge you to a tennis match. If you lose, you'll help Hayato, got it?"

"Tennis? But you were on the prefectural team…" This was just as unfair as her beating me up in a straight brawler battle.

"I know, but I can't afford to lose. I'll do everything for victory."

Gosh, her determination in competitions rivalled that of Yukinoshita.

But I had no intention of losing either.

"Whatever, I'll be there."

No matter how unfair her advantage was as a pro, outsourcing the confrontation to a sport contest might actually be the best choice to settle this. If she was able to accept her defeat, than we could still be friends.

She went on to pass me in the direction of the supermarket, but three steps behind me her feet came to a halt.

"Hey, why didn't you just help him?"

The voice was soft, but it carried a familiar disappointment in it. I was lucky that I didn't get to see the related face right now.

"His request had nothing to do with the reason of our club."

"But aren't you friends?"

"Friends with him?" My volume went up and I had trouble not to sound to sarcastic. I continued in the most composed tone as possible afterwards. "No, we're far from being friends."

"But you-"

""I'll see you at the court. You better not take me lightly, I'm just as determined as you to win." I interrupted Miura and left her behind. Nothing good would come from explaining my relationship with Hayama now. We had already decided on a method to clear the situation up.

How well each person could live with the result was yet to be seen.

At home I left the shopping bag in the kitchen and switched into my battle armour of the thousand layers. Underwear, short and long-sleeved sports attires. I didn't want to catch a cold after all.
With my stealth mode activated I avoided Komachi's awareness. Her tears when she said goodbye to her brother as he left for battle would have been too much.

Especially to a battle that I was most likely to lose. Just how did I hope to win against Miura in tennis? I didn't have enough trick shots for a fair match and even the two I had, were unavailable to me as I had no idea about how the wind blew at this hour.

I should have at least insisted on a different sport. There was nothing left from my earlier confidence. The only thing that kept me from total despair were my table-tennis skills.

To my surprise the school gates were closed. Well I shouldn't be really surprised about it, this was normal after all. But I was very confused about why we met up here if the school was off-limits anyway. A trap? Where were the delinquents hiding to beat me up?

My sensitive ears picked up a noise from behind!

"Who's there!? I have 8000 followers here!" [14] I jumped around in fright and saw a shadow. Because of the setting sun I could only see it was a human beyond the gate, but I couldn't make out who it was.

"You have that many? Try a better lie next time. Come over here." It was definitely Miura's voice, but she didn't sound amused by my exaggeration. So she was still in her super serious Asuka-mode huh?

"Uhm, how did you get there?"

"Just climb over it."

"Is it a good idea though? Isn't there something like a guard here?"

"If there is, I've never seen one."

I climbed over the gate as I was told.

"So you trespassed several times here already?" The youth of today seemed really that bad as the news said.

"No." She replied dryly.

"Then how do you know that there isn't any guard here?" Was she spying around here before then?

"I don't know, but if I told you the truth you wouldn't have climbed. You're such scaredy-cat."

"Excuse me for not being a criminal… and good-bye." I turned around immediately to climb back to the street-side of the school gate.

"You're staying here! Or are you forfeiting the match?" She said in a provoking tone.

"Like this would be enough to make help that guy by default." I followed behind her. She lead me on the edge of the school grounds all the way around to the tennis courts.

The lights were on. If there really was a watchman, he would spot us in no time. If he took his job seriously that was and wasn't sleeping soundly somewhere.

With enough light I finally realised that Miura wore the same kind of outfit as during our match in summer.

I had my short sportswear on me too, but that was underneath the long-sleeved suit!

"Will you be fine with these clothes?" I asked her.

"Of course. It might be cold now, but once the match has started you'll warm up quickly. And it's easier to move in a short outfit too."

"Well if you say so…" The truth was probably more along the line that this was part of doing 'everything' for victory. As if the long legs weren't already enough of a distraction. If I couldn't focus during the match because of some flattery skirt it would be even more troublesome than it already was.

Miura was as unmoving as her skirt, so I figured I had to go to the other side of the field. I picked up a racket from the ground and got into position.

When I stood still she asked: "Ready?"

"Huh?"

As if she took my sound for a confirmation, she served. Ace.

I didn't even flinch.

"Uhm, what about warm-up?" I asked humbly.

"We don't need to do that. Tennis matches are long enough as is."

Now that I thought about it, she wasn't bothered by the breezes one bit. Well Miura mostly seemed like the temperatures didn't bother her, but at least she wore a jacket during the cold times. Now she was just in a regular tennis outfit. Wasn't she on the school grounds first too? I thought she had just prepared the equipment.

"Did you…?"

"I told I would do everything for victory."

Her second serve. I missed it by a good metre.

Yepp, she definitely warmed up before. I scowled at her and went back into my position.

I was behind with 0-30 already. Why the heck didn't tennis player just count normally? 0-2 wouldn't have sound so hopelessly.

On the next serve I would put all my effort into running. I couldn't allow the Aces to continue. Experiencing success was of utmost important before the lead got so big that I would just get unmotivated.

My planned dash felt so slow and when I swung the racket, I felt a slight resistance. Was I playing underwater or what?

Even with my best effort I missed her serve by 10 centimetres.

Miura stayed as focus as on the first serve, her face stone-hard. She won't go easy on me for even a single ball. I was in huge trouble.

Fourth serve, which had more in common with a bullet than ball, ended in the same result as on the third one. I lost the first game so quickly!

"You're playing awful today." So frank.

"What did you expect? It's been ages since our last tennis lesson in summer." Give me a break. It's not like I didn't want to play better.

"That's a pretty lame excuse, I haven't played since then either."

"Comparing the hiatus of a pro with that of a beginner, how ridiculous."

"What do you mean with beginner?"

"Isn't it pretty much self-explanatory? I had not held a tennis racket in my hands before those sport lessons."

"But during our match you played like…" Thanks to the illumination I saw how her face softened up for real. Confusion was written all over it.

She did mistake my skill level based on that match? I had been barely part of it. Hayama and her had mostly played with the girls and avoided me. So that was because they found Yuigahama and a drained Yukinoshita to be the easier target and didn't do so because they ignored my existence? They were such good people. But this was not the time to get emotional.

"Knowing that now changes nothing though. You'll play for win just like me. I say it again, don't underestimate me. Once I get the hang of it again, you'll be toast."

My provocation worked wonders. A mocking smile which showed how confident she was in her supremacy made its way on her face. If it hadn't meant more trouble for me, I would have enjoyed looking it much longer.

"I'll end the match before you'll do." She announced.

Yes, there was no need for her pity. I was going to crush her at her strongest sport against all odds and make her realise how much I didn't want to help Hayama.

From the few things I remembered about tennis, I knew it was my time to serve now.

I picked up one of the balls that the fence had stopped from behind me and made my move.

I had envisioned my moving to be more graceful than it actually ended up to. Again, there was this resistance in my arm and I hit the net. Foul. Urgh.

There really was truth to her words, but for it to have this much of an effect surprised me. But if I didn't do anything I would lose, that was for sure.

I started to strip in front of Miura.

She showed no reaction, how painful for a boy's heart. Well, it was just one layer after all.

As I stood there in my short-sleeved attire a breeze came by and took my composure with me.

Brrrr~ How cold! Instantaneously I hugged myself.

"This is your limit?" She mocked me.

"It's just one more thing I have yet to get as good at as you."

"Quit the flattery, I won't go any easier on you because of this."

Damn, so the plan of complimenting to ruin her concentration didn't work.

The foul didn't cost me any points as far as I knew, but that only was the case if I didn't make another one. I didn't take any risks with my serve and naturally Miura had no trouble in her return. She made me run quite a bit, but with me being freed of the extra layer of clothes I made my first consecutive play of the day.

With this I could slowly build up my temperature. All I needed now was a strategy and my training with Wall-san to resurface.

Just when I got optimistic, I missed the ball with a whooshing sound.

There was no question that Miura was the vastly better player then me. The way she made me run reminded me on the tale of the hedgehog and the rabbit. After losing the second game I had no more issues with the temperature at least, but I had yet to score a single point.

It was her turn to serve again and remembering how that went in the first game, I felt like skipping forward to game four directly. Three more aces of hers and that notion was confirmed. The Aces alone weren't that frustrating as how I missed those balls. I was so close to hit the ball, yet I couldn't reach it! How would it be possible for me to unleash the necessary power and cross the distance of the last two centimetres?

Mhhh didn't the yellow balls look an awful lot like Hayama's head? If I imagined that hard enough that might even work.

Who wouldn't want to hit that face as hard as possible?

Upon Miura's next serve I dashed like mad to the corner and... returned the ball!

But since I used the power for my running, the swinging of the racket was pretty lacklustre. It flew into the net and rolled over it and landed on her side.

"That, that was a score wasn't it?" I pointed excited at the ball in her field.

"Hmpf, that's something you normally apologise for." Although her lead was huge, she still looked displeased by giving up a point.

"Huh? Why should I? It was all planned! At least hitting the ball was."

"A lucky strike, that's why. But not that it matters, After the next serve it will be 3-0 anyway."

Ah right, there was that. The scoring in this game was so confusing. I had always blamed my bad math for that though when I read the prince of tennis.

True to her words she scored again as my return flew in a direction that was nowhere near her field.

Sigh. At least I was the one to serve in game four.

Compared to running after the ball constantly I felt much more comfortable with serving the ball. Maybe I could actually pay attention to Miura's position instead of just concentrating of getting the ball over the net.

Huh? Was she a fool or what? To my surprise Miura was occupying just one half of her field. Alright, then I'll just hit the empty half before she realised her blunder.

I gracefully threw the ball into the air and hit it with the racket with just enough force to get it past the net. The ball hopped just like planned onto her side twice.

Time to provoke her with a triumphant grin of mine.

"Ah? What was that supposed to be?"

That wasn't quite the reaction I had imagined, it knocked the wind out of my sails and I began to speak in fragments.

"Uhm, you know, like, a point or something?"

"That's a foul. You have to hit diagonally on the serve, how come you don't know something basic like this?"

Was there such a rule or did she make that up? Prince of Tennis had 42 volumes, how should I remember if there was something like that? Come to think of it, we didn't have any rules taught to us in class either. When Miura had kidnapped Yuigahama to change their clothes, I had agreed with Hayama just on hitting the ball casually and keep track of the points.

"So we're not just hitting the ball back and forth?"

"Huh? That is child's play. For a real match we have to use real rules. It's like only normal to do so."

Well, I guess that made sense.

Luckily, I could redo my serve. Now then… where to hit? Diagonally she said… so I had to hit where she was already standing? Isn't that unfair? When I had to do all the running towards the edge…

Wait a moment!

"Hey! You could have said something when I stood in the wrong place!"

"Why should I help you to win this?"

'I would do everything for victory' She didn't lie with that. Although it would have been more accurate if it were 'I would do everything for the one I love.'

Casting aside everything for love.

Was that amiable or condemnable?

As I was on the losing end of it right now, I tended towards the latter. Damn her. I showed my discontent clearly on my face, but it only made her chuckle.

"Aww, don't be like that. I did thank you for the easy points in my thoughts."

"Yeah, yeah… enjoy your lead as long as it lasts. From here on the match will be way different!"

"Really? The only thing you did so far was talking big."

Tch, so cheeky. What made it worse was that she was right. I had no idea how to follow up my words.

For the moment I still needed to get back on my level from summer. I needed to become Wall-san myself. That style of play was fitting me the most in table tennis at least and how big could the difference to regular tennis be?

I made my serve directly to Miura and she played it long into the corner with her forehand leaving me no chance. The difference in skill was too huge.

If the forehand meant bad news for me, I should aim for her other side.

What a relief that she wasn't a perfect tennis machine. She really wasn't as precise with her backhand and I could play the ball into the empty half of her field.

She rushed towards it and barely got it at the cost of her balance. I showed no mercy and played it back to the original side.

15-15! My first score that I played for intentionally!

Miura didn't say anything, and I didn't provoke her either. I needed to focus entirely on my game to repeat this success.

The next play didn't go quite as planned though. I didn't send Miura's return that good into the corner and she was able to get it without losing her balance. It wasn't the end of the play though. For the first time we had a longer exchange of hits. We both ran after the balls, unwilling to give up this point.

In the end I lost that exchange, but I gained the confidence to keep up with her.

My classmate remained silent, but I could feel that she took this game even more serious now.

There was only one time I had seen her this focused and hard-working. It was when she baked at the Valentine event. If she put the same effort into school, where would she end up?

Nah, that was a pointless question. I had no idea of her current grades to begin with.

Four more lengthy plays and the score changed to 4-0 for her. This score was quite unfair in my opinion. I was about on par in the fourth game and wasn't rewarded a single overall point for it?

It was Miura's turn to serve again, but thanks to fixing my error in my position play, I had no more troubles returning the balls. Another drawn-out game that I only lost after drawing twice. The scoreboard was ruthless though, 5-0.

Should I throw this set and focus on the second one?

No. I remembered myself what it meant to lose. I won't help Hayama with this no matter what.

I kept on playing with great determination and we entered the later stage of the game, at neck and neck again. The taste of my first win was so close!

My opponent's hits were still more accurate than mine and she moved so gracefully. Having to watch ball and opponent made tennis a very difficult sport, especially when the other player drew more attention than the ball just by looking so beautiful. Her body was definitely an area where she put a similar effort into as she did to get Hayama's attention. I had a hunch that these two things weren't unrelated to each other.

I lost the game immediately after getting captured by her appearance and losing my concentration.
That skirt was an extremely unfair weapon.

A deep breath, eyes closed. I couldn't slack now, I was feeling it. My first win was about to happen soon. If I compared myself to the beginning of match, I improved by a considerable amount. The balls went where I wanted them to go for the most part. I was so far behind in this game that I decided to try something. More, I needed to put in more.

This was probably the only trait I had in which I was superior to Miura.

The game went on and I ended up having the advantage after a draw. I stayed true to my new strategy and hit the ball way harder than before. Naturally my precision went down, but my balls were way faster as a result. Miura had trouble reaching them in time and her returns weren't that well-aimed anymore.

Just like now. She had no time to perform an accurate hit and the ball flew slowly in a huge curve in my direction. Smash!

This, this was my first won game wasn't it?

"YES!" I pumped my fist in joy. The only reaction I got was a strong glare by Miura. We were all alone on the school grounds and thus there was no one I could share my happiness with. What a kill-joy.

I could repeat this feat for a 5-2 score. My Strategy was working, I was getting so excited I couldn't stop grinning.

"I can't believe a beginner is giving me this much trouble." Finally, she broke the silence.

"I'll take that as a compliment you know?" She gritted her teeth so strongly, of course I knew she didn't mean it that way. I just wanted to egg her on.

"Hmpf, If you thought you've won already, you're going to regret it."

"Maybe, although it seems like a total waste to regret something this fun." I hadn't had that many opportunities to play with someone in my life and I enjoyed the moment fully despite the stakes being so high. Must be because of the endorphins produced by all the physical activity.

"Then just don't do it after you've lost." From her tone I could feel that this was her wish and no mockery, but that wish was not going to fulfilled.

"Sorry, but losing here isn't an option."

"No, it's your only option and I will prove it to you."

She sounded way too confident regarding the development in the match. Did she figure something out with her experience or was it just a bluff?

I shook my head, it would just affect me badly if I switched my attention from my game over to her. I wasn't that good of a player to do that. Making a good serve was all I should focus on.

My serve came right back to me like usual and I played it back in turn, but Miura wasn't near the baseline. She had dashed forward and took my ball volley. There was no chance for me to react on that.

She did that several times on the following plays but not always. I couldn't figure out what triggered it and thus how to avoid it. Were my hits not hard enough anymore? It didn't feel like I got weaker already.

It was frustrating that she seemed to have found an easy counter to me.

I lost the game and the first set.

Her confidence was fully restored and I had not much to hope for.

Was I wrong not to just skip to the second set before?

It was time to switch sides and when we passed each other she suggested me to forfeit.

"We could just play for fun if you give up now you know?" Her voice was so soft, it was most likely an honest offer to end the confrontation.

"You'll do everything for victory? Fine. I'll do everything not to allow him to ridicule my club." The thing with principles were that they couldn't be negotiated. My reply seemed a bit too harsh though. The real conflict was just between Hayama and me, Miura was more like a victim of it. Even if we stood on different sides, she was still my friend. I wanted to show her the same softness and care her offer contained. "I'd like to play with you for fun, some day in the future. So don't go easy on me now or I'll be too bored to do so."

The back of my head was hit lightly with the net of her racket.

Did this gesture mean 'idiot' or 'thank you'?

"Thanks, you fool."

It was both? Well good to know. Miura speaking her mind had some benefits to it. At least I didn't have to be concerned about her taking my response too hard.

The game continued and if my classmate did go easier on me, I didn't notice it. Her strategy was still successful and I without an answer. Two games later and I was behind by two points. Oh great. Maybe I should have begged for going easy on me instead of playing it tough?

At least I wasn't swept like in the beginning of the match. But if this kept on, I was sure to lose. Should I change my strategy from forceful strikes in favour for hits with more precision again? As I kept pondering about it, I noticed that Miura's sprints away from the baseline got fewer without any obvious reason. As a result of that I was able to win a game again.

2-1. So weird.

I decided against the change with the momentum being on my side again. 2-2. 3-2- 3-3.

The longer the game went on the easier it seemed to get to score for me.

After the seventh game in the second set it was 3-4 for me. I looked intensively at my opponent. She was breathing heavily. I let my gaze wander around and saw that it has gotten completely dark. I had not noticed this because of the lamps that had enlightened the court.

Just how long have we been playing already?

Now that I thought about it, my classmate had not the greatest endurance. It was one of the many impressions that stayed with me from the trip to Destiny Land. Even Isshiki surpassed her in that area. Pretty impressive for such a small girl. Miura would still beat Yukinoshita by miles though.

But this was the chance for victory! I needed to capitalise on it before she recovered.

Two games later I really managed to win the second set.

The last set was about to begin and we had to switch sides again. When I saw her downcast expression and the dropped shoulders, I wanted to cheer her up by just a bit.

"Miura…" But wouldn't that just mock her efforts? I couldn't say more than her name.

"Speak up if you want to say something."

"The one I'm defeating here won't be you but Hayama."

"Ah? You're not defeating anyone today." Her mouth still had some fighting spirit left in it and this made me smile. A strong personality like hers would be able to endure a loss here.

Yes, I didn't need to feel bad about not going easy on her.

I wanted to end it quickly, but in the middle of the first game of the last set I felt a small pain in my arm. The strong hits with the rackets have built up a strain on my muscles. I still won the first game with relatively little problems, but at the thought of all the games that I had yet to play I shuddered.

I couldn't hit as hard anymore and my classmate was able to prolong the exchanges, which didn't do both of us any good. My arm hurt, Miura was wheezing and I too was starting to gasp for air.

The blonde didn't fail to notice my condition as she had been watching me just as closely as I did her. If she had resigned at any point after the second set, that feeling of hopelessness was surely gone. The match was now played on an even level.

The simple errors increased rapidly on both sides.

1-1, 1-2, 2-2.

We dashed after every ball as if it was a match ball. We paid no attention to our bodies, which were about to reach their limit.

My lungs burned. My muscles ached. My heart was beating like crazy.

I was sure that it was the same for my opponent. We were purely fuelling our movements with our determination to win.

But that was not the only thing we had in common.

I only noticed that thing because we had both abandoned our normal positional play completely at this point and were standing way closer to the net. We just couldn't hit the ball far enough anymore to go past the base line without the ball bumping twice on the field before anyway.

I wiped the sweat off my forehead as the drops threatened to blurry my vision.

It was still there. Her joyous smile.

Despite all the pain and the stakes, we played with smiles on our faces. Did adrenalin have such an effect?

3-2, 3-3, 3-4.

I hit an incoming ball, the direction it took was nowhere anything I had planned for it though. It took quite the curve towards the side line. Miura's surprise was as great as mine as it looked like it would still hit the ground before going out. She dived after it but failed to reach the ball.

Clouds of dust from our movements, diving after balls, slumping down to catch some breath for the next play. Our skin and clothes have gotten dark from all the dirt.

We still did everything to win, but the severity of our minds from before was gone. Had the lack of oxygen make us light-headed? The current situation was more like light-hearted though.

She had trouble getting back on her feet again.

"Taking a nap?" Mockery.

"I must have fallen asleep watching your slow motions." Jokes.

"I didn't know I was capable of using hypnosis. You want to give up now." Fooling around.

At some point during the third set this had become a big part of our match. It was as if we replaced the actions we weren't able to take anymore with words.

"Like that would work. You must be, like, really desperate to try such bogus stuff."

"Huh? But I'm winning. It's four to three for me."

"Ah? But it's 40-30 for me."

True. Scoring in tennis was so weird.

If she scored one more time, all the effort of this game would have been in vain.

I had to prevent this at all costs.

She served.

"Just"

I returned the ball directly to her forehand and she played it back to me.

"give"

My legs moved automatically in the direction of the ball and send it back to her.

"up" She played it to the other side of my field.

The muscles ached, but I did it somehow.

"already" With every hit she made, she said another word as if she had to catch her breath just for speaking.

A play directly to me, my body rejoiced knowing it could rest for once and still hit the ball.

My return wasn't any more precise than hers and she made me run to the other side again.

"and"

I was fighting for fresh air to fill my lungs cursing myself for the sloppy play. The return was only possible because her balls lacked the speed of the beginning.

"help"

Another accurate play be her and I had to dash all the way back once more. I made it but lost my balance.

Oh no! My ball took a weak curve directly to Miura. My field was completely exposed as I was kneeing at the side line.

She raised her racket over her head in anticipation to hit the ball with full force.

The ex-tennis player prepared for a smash to end the game and tie the set and match.

As if to mock me over all the energy I wasted in this game, time stopped. I couldn't take my eyes off Miura as image of hers imprinted itself into my mind.

The golden hair floated in the air, the dirt-covered skirt fluttered, the shirt that was glued to her body lines from all the sweat, every muscle she flexed to transfer all her power into the ball and her big green eyes burned with such passion that it blinded me.

I probably could have redrawn it with every little detail from memory alone with closed eyes and give it to a museum where it would belong.

"Hayato-oh?!"

Oh? Instead of hearing the matrix of strings for the thousandth time there was just a thud.

The frame. She hit the ball only with the frame!

Despite my protesting body I got up again.

The ball took a huge curve near the net and landed on my side.

"Only over my dead body!" I screamed and rushed towards the side-line near the net.

The ball was slow and bumped up high again, but I wouldn't make it just by running. My legs were at their limits, but if I dived, I might make it!

Ignoring all the pain I jumped towards the ball.

"Stop!" I heard her yelling, but I ignored her plea. I already decided not to show her any mercy.

The racket connected! I made it. Would the ball land on her side?

My head slid past the post just by centimetres and filled my whole vision. Huh? Where did that came from? I was shocked by how close it was, but as my body slipped further it was gone from my sight again. How lucky I thought, before a dull sound reached my ears.

An overwhelming pain erupted from my knee and shook my whole body in waves and my eyes were filled with tears immediately.

Did I let out scream upon the contact? Probably.

I held my knee and buried my head into the sand. But there was no escape from the pain, it even seemed to echo in my ears. I grit my teeth to prevent any further screams of agony and the sand from entering my mouth.

A damped voice spoke to me and I felt a hand placed on my arms.

It was probably Miura who wanted to know if I was alright, but I couldn't respond. My face was hidden in the sand after and it absorbed all the tears.

The stabbing pain retreated to its local epicentre quickly within a minute or two.

Fortunate for me it was just the initial shock that hurt so much.

I sat up, supported by my worried classmate. Not before I wiped the mud made of sand and tears from my face though. I didn't want her to see me so pitiful like this.

She was a very caring person, no way she could finish the match properly if she took pity on me.

"Err, it's probably against the rules for you to be on this side." I tried to say it nonchalantly, but my voice was nasal from the crying.

"You're okay?" She lost her respect for the rules, those teenagers of today. How troublesome.

"Yes, I'm fine. Was it my point?" I tried to shift the attention back to the game but she was still looking at me concerned.

"Really?"

"Totally fine. Now let me stand."

Reluctantly she removed her hand from me, but at least she did as I told her now. If only my body was this obedient. It protested vividly by increasing the pain in the knee as I loaded it with my weight.

With the help of a wonderful post nearby I got back on my feet, concealing most of the trouble I had with standing up. Just how convenient for such a thing to be there. The sarcasm did nothing to ease the pain. Not that I had expected it, but I needed to steam off.

"Go back to your side so we can continue."

"Are you're sure?"

"Of course, this was just the shock. It's all good now."

When her back faced me as she went to her side of the field, I used the net to support me while I tried to get away from the side line.

I had no idea how to continue to play if I couldn't even walk properly. A quick recovery was what I needed and a package of ice.

"Hey, you're bleeding!"

"Just a scrape. I'm not letting something this negligibility mess with our match." I tried to put some weight on my injured leg. Phew, at least I could stand without tearing up.

"You're going this far just to not help him?"

"You bet."

"Fine, it's your turn then." Finally we could finish this, but something was off.

"Huh? Didn't I hit the ball?" I was sure that she was the one to serve in this game.

"You did, but it never touched my side."

So it's 4-4. Urgh, this sucked.

"You're sure you're not making this up?" Was my effort really in vain?

"Prove me wrong then."

Tch. I clicked my tongue.

I served, standing right to the net but Miura didn't say anything about this obvious breach of rules. My ball had no power behind it and Miura returned it effortlessly.

I took a step to the side to reach it and went down on my knee immediately from the pain.

There was no way I could keep this match going and it hurt.

Not just in my knee.

In truth the match had already ended. The light-hearted atmosphere from before was already gone. This was something else already, it was just me being stubborn. I got back up using the racket and she watched my struggle in silence.

"It's so frustrating." I spoke more to myself than to her. "I, I don't want to let the match end like this. Something this fun deserves a better ending. After all we had put into it…"

I took a deep breath.

"I'm asking for postponement. Let's finish this one other day, properly." There was no other way to this and I knew it. I resigned to my fate.

"But…" She was right, there was a catch to it. I was fully aware of that myself. Damn deadlines for real.

"I know, that Hayama's request can't wait this long, so-"

"You'll do it? You'll really help Hayato?" Miura looked so relieved and happy, but her phrasing rubbed me the wrong way so hard I just had to object.

"Listen! I'm not doing this for him, I'll only do this for you!" My voice echoed through the empty school grounds.

"No, I mean..." This came out so very wrong. I only wanted to prevent any connection between Hayama and me. "because I lost the match you see…"

She was already on the move to me, beaming with her dust covered face.
Rooted in the place due to my knee I couldn't get away in time and was caught by a hand she put on my chest. The burden of it felt too heavy for me.
Her other arm was wrapping around my waist and she pressed her body against mine in a heartfelt embrace. The wave of a new smell penetrated my nostrils. Our clothes were drenched by the sweat and sticky, and they left no air between the thin layer of textile and the skin. If it weren't for the hard seams of her tennis outfit and bra which dug into my flesh it would have basically felt like our naked bodies were connecting.

Lucky for me that the net separated our hips to prevent another accident of mine, haha.

An awkward joke, but I needed to do it to create an emotional distance from this captivating moment. My heart was still beating too fast from the match.

Any other boy would mistake this situation as very essence of bliss and give into it, maybe even fainted. But not me. I fought against it with all my reasoning.

The hug was entirely undeserved, any form of gratitude was undeserved for I had done nothing worthy of that. So naturally, I-

"Thank you." She whispered.

These words hurt so much, because I wasn't allowed to feel appreciated, I wasn't allowed to enjoy this moment.

I needed to reason with her or my mind would get swept away if this went on any longer.

"Don't thank me, I haven't done anything. All I did was to lose…"

Prompted by my words, Miura's hand went from my chest up to my cheek. So soft.
I realised immediately that I only made it worse. So dominant, yet so caring, I underestimated her greatly. The Queen wouldn't allow any defence against her emotions.

Physically I was locked as I didn't dare to push my head against her hand and my mind too was not reliable.

Quick! A joke, a distraction, excuse, lie, anything!

Yes, the story with old hag Isehara-sens-

.

.

.

"Thank you." Miura's words brought me back to my senses from a complete blank state.

I nodded helplessly as her face came into my field of vision.

What had happened while I my brain was offline?

The only clue I had was a warm spot on the cheek she hadn't touched with her hand.

Seeing my head agreeing with her on its own, she seemed satisfied and went to pick up the balls that were stopped by the fence.

I should probably help with that. I moved my foot, but it was met with resistance and I heard a noise. There was a racket on the ground that I had kicked with my foot.

It was mine. When did I drop it? I had no recollection of it. Last time I had noticed it was when I used it to get up.

My hand reached out to grab it. But when I thought I had it, it slipped out of my grip and created another thud.

A moment of weakness? No, I looked at my hand and it was shaking a bit.

Weird. Was that because of the match?

I picked up the racket again, carefully this time to not drop it again.

When I looked up, I saw Miura watching at me with an amused smile. Had she seen my blunder? I felt so embarrassed my head heated up even more. Now I needed an ice package for my head as well. Quickly, I turned around and went to the fence behind me and pick up the balls.

My knee still stung, but it was bearable. More so than the eyes watching my back.

We finished to clean up the court quickly and left the equipment next to the storage room as it was locked. All that was left to do was to go home.

A cool evening breeze came and made me shiver. With wet clothes on this was no surprise.

I had my long-sleeved sportswear in my hands, but I couldn't see Miura carrying anything of this sort. Did she come all the way here in this outfit?

Her clothes were as wet as mine and dirty to no end.

"Here." I offered her the clothes I took off before the match got heated. "I know it must be unpleasant to wear clothes by someone else, but at least they're dry."

Especially worn sports attire by others must be extra gross.

"No need to, you know that the cold doesn't bother me."

"Yeah, I know. And there is a certain scarf I remember all too well…"

"Th-this is totally different from that time!" According to her panic, she remembered that incident too.

In this moment we were hit by another chilly wind which made Miura flinch.

For the first time on this day, the universe supported me. I smiled in celebration.

My classmate gave an angry look as if I had casted the wind myself and took the sports gear from my hands.

It would be weird to stand here and watch her putting clothes on, even if she was already dressed.

"I'm going home, goodbye." I declared and walked away as fast as my knee allowed it.

"H-hey wait!" She yelled, but I didn't hear any footsteps. Perhaps she was in the middle of putting on the trousers and couldn't walk.

This was my chance to leave this place with the tiniest possible win, but to be sure she didn't catch up I threw my first curve ball of today at her.

"And 'hello' you rude girl!"

"What?!"

I had not forgotten that she didn't greet me today, and she has been really a rude girl ever since this evening.

Invading my private space so much. Unforgivable. Punishment was due.

I somehow managed to get over the gate without any help, before she caught up.

Justice was served with this. I needed time alone to think anyway… about a big package of ice that is.

At home Komachi was shocked seeing me with a bloody knee and my whole body covered in dirt. She was furious and demanded to know the whereabouts of the delinquents who beat me up.

For some reason she didn't believe me when I said that I had a sport accident outside of the house.

But she was still the best sister in the world. She even prepared a package of ice to cool my knee while I was in the bathroom.

But it wasn't until I had a shower and showed her proof of no further injuries being on my body, that she dropped the topic.

I wanted to bury her in Hachiman points, but she rather played with Kamakura for the rest of the evening, avoiding me completely.

Maybe I should have covered some parts with a towel when I tried to prove her suspicions wrong.

Being left alone with just a package of ice, my mind wandered back to Miura.

Her joy was genuine, her thanks too but…

The kiss on the cheek wasn't true, it wasn't me at all that she had kissed.
Without her feelings for Hayama she wouldn't have felt so grateful, however undeserved it was from the start.
I was just the proxy, a valve for her pent-upped emotions that couldn't flow normally as Hayama made sure to keep that valve tightly closed.

I knew all this, but it didn't make it any easier to deal with it.

Miura herself didn't make it any easier with her touchy-feely attitude.
I knew from my observations that girls tend to act way more intimate among their female friends, than their male counterparts. This too I knew just by observing from the distance, the males that is.

That meant she saw me as a girl then? That was kind of hard to believe, but she definitely didn't see me as one of the opposite sex.

Her not doing so was annoying for some reason…

Not that I absolutely wanted her to. Although it would have some merits, like she wouldn't use me as a drum anymore. At least she didn't do that with Tobe and the other guys.
And she probably paid attention to bewitch just Hayama alone.

What a troublesome day indeed and I doubted that tomorrow will be any better. I would have to accept Hayama's request and explain my turnaround to Yukinoshita and Yuigahama.

Oh boy, oh 'boy' indeed.

Yumiko PoV

Urgh, my body hurt all over.
I had decided to go into the bathtub today after the shower in order to relax.

This win was way harder than I imagined. If he hadn't injured himself, I wasn't sure whether I had won at all. And he was a beginner! That did hurt my pride, but it also wouldn't have been as fun as it was if he had been a pushover.

In the end I achieved what I wanted. I was able to help Hayato.

I was so excited when he asked me to help him for once yesterday, he's never done that before. Not even Tobe, his best pal. I felt so special.

When I heard today that he actually asked quite a few people besides me, I was kinda miffed about it at first.

But this didn't change anything for me, I won't let him down. And if he needed all the people he could get, I would help him with that too.

However, there was no need for that. Hina agreed right away when Hayato asked her, and Isshiki was a ready to do it before he even explained what he needed help with.

Probably the whole school would have agreed to help him right away. He was just that popular with everyone.

So it came quite as a shock that the only guys not helping him, were inside a club created to help others.

Hayato didn't say it directly, but I could guess it was because of Hikio when he talked about it. Yui's case was crystal-clear, she would have helped just like anyone else. There was a chance that it was Yukinoshita-san who blocked the club from helping. I mean she did have quite the fallout with Hayato at the summer camp, despite being childhood friends basically. But after incident with the rumour before the marathon, I guess that repaired that somewhat.

And I saw Hikio rejecting Hayato before. Even when he bowed to him! Didn't that make Hikio the only guy Hayato asked for help? Everything about the relationship between this two was so weird. Cause despite that, I saw them with two girls the day after that.

Also I had the feeling that Hikio avoided talking about Hayato…

If only I knew what was going on between them. Surely it wasn't what Ebina imagined. I mean, there was no way. Just no way!

He tried so hard to win today, disregarding his own health. It surprised me just how strong his refusal to help Hayato really was. It surprised me, and it made me sad.

But it would be nice for them to get along better. At least enough so that we could all hang out together and have a blast. Hayato probably tried his best, he goes to Hikio from time to time in class too.

Hopefully, helping Hayato will be enough to achieve that. And if not, I will work on that myself.

But why wouldn't they get along? They were both the most helpful people I knew. How often did Hayato aid someone? Countless times! People were basically etching to repay all the favours he has done to them.

And Hikio too. Just this school year he helped me out like what? Four or five times? And there were surely a bunch of other people going to the club too. Like there was that girl there too, I even saw Kawasaki there when I asked about the handmade chocolate.

Then just why did he refuse Hayato? He said it was to protect the club, but I didn't understand that. I mean the club was to help people anyway, right? And he worked so hard for it too.

Thinking of this, Hikio was probably in the bathtub just like me. He couldn't even pick up his racket, that's how feeble he was at the end. It was hilarious! Also kinda impressive. I mean, to give your very last strength for a club. That needed quite the willpower.

With him on our side, we will be able to help Hayato out.

But wouldn't it be bad if he overshadowed me?

That just meant I'll have to even work harder than him.

I needed to keep an eye on him too. That he receives and accepts the thanks for his help. He could get so stubborn with that. It would do him so good after all he has been through.

And that running away after he was being nice to someone, I needed to put an end to that as well. Like after the giving me the candy or with his clothes today.

To straighten Hikio out might prove to be quite the task.

But helping out Hayato came first and that I did today. I was sad that I couldn't really tell him what I did though. Saying that Hikio only helped him because I went ahead and forced him to... it would make me look more bad than good.

Oh no! What if Hikio jabbered about it? Picturing me as some kind of slaveholder would be super bad! I had to make sure that he kept his mouth shut with a message.

In my panic I quickly grabbed the phone to type a short text. The quicker the better.

I had no doubt that Hikio wouldn't comply.

[1] short for Eiga Rinri Kikou, Japan's film rating organisation

[2] On his own birthday he waited 3 hours 19 minutes before replying to Komachi's birthday greeting, Vol. 5

[3] Taishi revealed that about Saki to Hachiman via texts in Vol. 5, she found out about it too

[4] We learn that he uses his phone for porn watching in Vol.

[5] Haruno used the term 'meddlesome girlfriend' as a possible description for her relationship to Hachiman in front of Orimoto in Vol. 8

[6] A kotatsu is a table with a heater attached to it and a blanket to keep the warmth in place

[7] The communicator scene was in the anime, but there also was a passage in the LN in which these two spend time together during the festival

[8] mixture of Hachiman and Shish Kabob.

[9] Fun fact: In Vol 2 there was a weird description of Hayama having brown hair and wearing glasses with a trendy frame. I'll go by how he is shown later in the LN series and the anime though as this was a one-time only description.

[10] The car accident from when he entered High-school inflicted this kind of injury on him according to LN Vol. 1

[11] Chopper Reaction from One Piece when he denies a comment makes him happy.

[12] From Neon Genesis Evangelion, episode 8 and beyond.

[13] Vol 8. He used Haruno to force Hachiman coming to the double date with Orimoto and Nakamachi

[14] reoccurring lie by Usopp of the Straw Hat Pirates

Author's Note:

The chapter's content was pretty obvious for the first two days. Komachi's birthday was unavoidable due to it being dated within the LNs and Yukino's turn with Hachiman had been established quite a few chapters back. This also meant that there was little to no space for Yumiko, so I hope that the third day compensated somewhat for it.

The initial intent was to try and write a more action-focused scene, but the nature of tennis made it quite restrictive. Most likely I will try that again in a crossover with a battle-series to have more freedom without it getting so repetitive after this story is completed.

Hayama made a brief appearance to expose the feelings of our main characters for him. There is little room to debate Yumiko's view on him, which at the same time highlights Hayama's importance to any Yumiko and Hachiman fanfiction that has a school setting with him present. But for Hachiman there are various approaches possible, which largely depend on how serious the 'hate confession' is perceived and whether Hachiman's 'good guy' label for Hayama is meant all that positively. That's why I hope you can get behind with how I presented their relationship.

With how long it takes till the tournament it is pretty clear that the next chapter will entirely focus on the request. What would a lengthy fanfiction be without one, right? Just keep in mind that Hachiman approaches those a bit differently in the later stages of the volume compared to the insanely popular solutions to the earlier requests.

Now for the reviews. As always I will address those with issues or questions, but I would like to thank for each of them this time. They really helped in not getting too distracted by other things and were key to keep a healthy balance in using the little bit of free time I have between different hobbies of mine.

15PandabearsThe planned stories I had mentioned below chapter 6 in a reply will be new stories except for the side stories which will be epilogue stories. My interpretations of the character's personalities won't change of course. However, I won't write them before this one is finished.

Red Glasses I don't aim for a certain total count of words, I would fail at it horribly anyway. Today's chapter was expected to be around 20k words. It will take as many words as I need to tell my story and chapters, I guess. I do have concerns about scenes ending up too long though. Only few people would like to read 5k words on the same scene, in the same tone. I try to add enough diversity to keep it from getting boring.

AC75 Thanks for mentioning the mistakes. To correct them is still on my radar, but with the long duration between a chapter's release the urge to finish them quicker by focusing on them was stronger so far. I would feel bad if I triggered a notification like three months after the last release from a mere spelling correction, when everybody was expecting a new chapter already. If I find a good opportunity to do it, I will!

Mizuru-chi He broke out in tears when he talked about it and it even moved Iroha who was eavesdropping behind the door, so I estimated that he really is serious about it. I think that he might force himself a bit too as he is considerate to make it a good experience for his partners as well. About Komachi's birthday, I only realised that it needed to happen during a reread for chapter 7.

Talilover I see your concerns and I had the same to be honest. But I decided in favour of using certain landmarks within the story as end points of a chapter rather than the word count. The chapter's are usually focused on certain topics/stages within their relationship. It makes it easier for me and the reader to keep track of the development when comparing the chapters to each other. If you feel like getting bored with a chapter I advise you to put it on hold and continue it a few days later with a refreshed interest. This works for me when I read books that get sometimes a bit chewy at least.

The Sixth Day of Division Thank you for the detailed review and I'm glad that you found these subtle details and enjoyed them after rereading the chapters. Some of them will play a huge role in the future, others just serve/d as a gimmick for the careful reader. Balancing them between not giving away too much on the future and not making them pointless is hard at times. I hope to reduce these awkward phrasings more than anyone else. In regards to polishing the interactions between characters, it's a tough battle between not losing the essence of a scene and making it feel like a natural interaction without dragging it for too long. I'm still experimenting with it and will keep in mind that you prefer the later tries more.

Ichigo Oga I wanted to read volume 12 myself but I haven't gotten around to it yet. YenPress might even release the English version before I can get to it.

If there is something you want to ask about, just do so. Answers will come with the next chapter.
So hopefully I'll see you at chapter 9 again.