Yahari Ore no Seishun Rabu Kome wa Machigatteiru - Volume 01 Read online

  The spectacle reminded me of those magic tricks where many white doves flew out of a magician’s silk hat. And there, in the center of that world of white, stood one person.

  “Ku ku ku, to think we would meet at a place like this… What a surprise. I’ve been waiting for you, Hikigaya Hachiman.”

  “W-what did you say?!”

  He'd waited for me, and he was surprised…? What the hell was with that? If anyone should be surprised, it was me.

  I pushed my way through the whirling white papers to get a good look at my opponent.

  And so, standing there, I saw… Ugh, no, never mind, never mind. I didn't want anything to do with Zaimokuza Yoshiteru.

  Well, granted, I don’t have much to do with most people in this school… But even amongst all those people, this guy was the person I least wanted to see.

  I mean, look at him--he was sweating like it was summer, thanks to his damn coat and those fingerless gloves.

  Even if I knew him, I was going to pretend I didn’t.

  “Hikigaya-kun, that one over there seems to know you…”

  Yukinoshita, who was hiding behind me, looked suspiciously back and forth between me and “that thing over there.” Zaimokuza seemed to cower for a moment under her ill-mannered stare, but he soon returned his gaze to me. Then he crossed his arms and began to laugh once again in his low voice.

  He used exaggerated motions, shrugging his shoulders and slowly shaking his head.

  “To think that you would forget your old partner… How low of you, Hachiman.”

  “He’s calling you his old partner…”

  Yuigahama gave me a cold look, the kind of look that said, “Go die, you pieces of garbage.”

  “Indeed, old partner. You still remember, do you not? How we braved those hellish times together…”

  “They paired us up in gym class. That was it…”

  I couldn’t bear to just go along with it any longer, and Zaimokuza grimaced.

  “Hmph. Customs so evil as that may only be called hell. Pair up with whomever you like, they say? Ku ku ku, as if I desire friendship with this ephemeral body of mine! …As if I ever wish to experience a parting that will tear that body apart! If that is love, then I have no need for love!”

  He stared off into the distance out the window. Surely there was some lovely princess’s image floating up there, in that empty sky… Or maybe everyone liked Fist of the North Star way too damn much.

  Well, now that we’d come this far, you can probably tell how sharp this guy was. You could probably tell that he was one of those people.

  “What do you want, Zaimokuza?”

  “Hng, so you speak the name engraved in my soul… Indeed, it is I, the master fencer general, Zaimokuza Yoshiteru.”

  He flashily fluttered his coat, and as he looked back in our direction, he put a gallant expression on his chubby face. It seemed he had fallen completely into acting out the master fencer general character he had created.

  Just looking at him made a throbbing pain run through my head…

  But maybe I should say that the throbbing pain was in my heart. More importantly, the stares of Yukinoshita and Yuigahama hurt even more than that.

  “Hey… What exactly is that supposed to be?”

  Yuigahama looked clearly irritated… Should I say unhappy? …and she was glaring at me. But, seriously, why in the world are you glaring at me?

  “This guy is Zaimokuza Yoshiteru… We used to be gym partners.”

  Honestly, that's all it was. My relationship with Zaimokuza extended no further than that… Though it’s not completely wrong to say that we were, in some sense, partners who had banded together to push through hellish times.

  It truly is hell to pair up with friends.

  Zaimokuza went through that same pain, and so he also understood how terrible those times were.

  Ever since the first gym class, where Zaimokuza and I were paired up because we had been the only ones left over, we were always put together. To be honest, I really wanted to trade that huge chuunibyou[1] oaf off to some other team, but I couldn’t manage it, so I gave up. I also considered declaring myself a free agent, but unfortunately, someone of my level is just too expensive to hire, so that didn’t work out either… Okay, fine, fine, I lied--Zaimokuza and I were just the only ones who didn’t have friends.

  As Yukinoshita listened to my explanation, she looked back and forth between me and Zaimokuza. That seemed to satisfy her, and she nodded.

  “Birds of a feather flock together, don’t they?”

  Naturally, she came to the absolute worst conclusion possible.

  “You idiot, don’t lump me together with him… I’m not that much of a lost cause yet. First of all, we’re not even friends, dammit.”

  “Hmph, I would have to agree. Indeed, I do not have any friends… I’m seriously alone, sniff.”

  Zaimokuza spoke in a sad, self-derisive tone. Hey, look, he’s back to normal again…

  “Well, it doesn’t matter. Your friend there seems to want something from you, doesn’t he?”

  Yukinoshita's words almost made me want to cry. The word “friend” hadn’t made me so sad since middle school…

  It hadn’t made me that sad since the time I heard it from Kaori-chan in middle school… “I like Hikigaya-kun and you’re really nice, but going out with you is a bit… Can’t we just be friends?” I really don’t need friends like that…

  “Mwahaha, I've wiped that from my memory. By the way, Hachiman. This is the service club, is it not?”

  Zaimokuza had gotten back into character, laughing strangely and looking at me.

  What the hell was that laugh supposed to be? That’s the first time I’ve heard something like that.

  “Yeah, this is the service club.”

  Yukinoshita answered in my place. When she did that, Zaimokuza looked over at Yukinoshita for a brief second before immediately returning his gaze to me. Why the hell did he have to look at me?

  “…I-is that so? Therefore, if Hiratsuka-sensei spoke true, Hachiman, you have a duty to grant my wishes, do you not? To think that after so many hundreds of years you would once again return to my service… This must be the work of the Hachiman Great Bodhisattva.[2]”

  “It’s not like the service club is here to grant your wishes… We just help you out a bit.”

  “…H-hm. Then, Hachiman, lend me your hand. Fu fu fu, now that I think about it… We are equals, are we not? Equals who, just as in times of old, will seek to conquer all that lies under heaven!”

  “Whatever happened to that whole ‘servant’ angle? Also, why the hell are you only looking at me?”

  “Ah-ahem! Such trifling matters do not concern people such as us! I will make a special exception in this case.”

  Zaimokuza coughed in a completely ridiculous way, perhaps to try and cover up his fumble. And then, of course, he looked right back at me.

  “I apologize. It simply seems that the hearts of man have fallen from the ways of the days of yore. Oh, how I miss the pure times of the Muromachi Era[3] … Do you not feel the same, Hachiman?”

  “Absolutely not. And seriously, go die.”

  “Ku ku ku. As if death can scare me… It would just grant me a whole new world to conquer!”

  Zaimokuza lifted his arms high, his coat fluttering in the breeze.

  He really had a huge tolerance for people telling him to die…

  I was the same… I guess that when you got used to insults and abuse being flung your way, you got good at retorting or dealing with it. It was a very sad skill to have… It really brought me to tears.

  “Uwahh…”

  Yuigahama seemed seriously repulsed. Her face even seemed a bit pale to me.

  “Hikigaya-kun, could I speak with you for just a moment…?”

  After saying that, Yukinoshita pulled on my sleeve and whispered in my ear.

  “What is going on? What is up with this master fencer general whatever?”

  Yuki
noshita’s cute face was very close to mine and she was giving off a pleasant scent, but her voice didn’t have a single ounce of seductiveness in it.

  Faced with that, I felt it was more than enough to answer with a single sentence:

  “That is chuunibyou. Just chuunibyou.”

  “Choo-nee-byou?”

  Yukinoshita looked at me, tilting her head to the side. I just noticed it, but when girls say the syllable “choo,”[4] their lips are really cute… What a strange discovery.

  Yuigahama, who also trying to listen in to our conversation, joined in.

  “That some kind of disease?”

  “It’s not like it’s a real disease… Just think of it as a slang term.”

  In short, chuunibyou referred to a sequence of really embarrassingly painful behaviors often seen in middle schoolers.

  And even amongst those people, Zaimokuza was a particularly bad case, deserving of the title of “jakigan.”[5]

  These were people who yearned for the abilities and strange powers they saw in manga, anime, and games, and behaved as if they had those abilities. Of course, if they had those abilities, then they also had to make up stories to make such powers plausible, so they often pretended to be the reincarnation of some warrior of legend, or some human chosen by the gods, or some secret agent. And then they acted in accordance with that backstory.

  Why did they do things like that?

  Because it was cool.

  Well, granted, I think that anyone who’s been through middle school has thought that way at least once. I think that everyone, at some point, has stood in front of the mirror and said something like, “Good evening to everyone tuning into Countdown TV.[6] Umm, this time we have a new song about true love, and I’ve written the lyrics…”

  In essence, chuunibyou was the most extreme example of that.

  And so I briefly explained what chuunibyou was, and Yukinoshita seemed satisfied with that. I think this every single time, but I always truly admire how quickly this girl’s mind can turn--it’s almost as if I can say just one thing and she’s already ten steps ahead of me. She never even needs that much explanation to understand the heart of a situation.

  “I have no idea what’s going on…”

  In stark contrast to Yukinoshita, Yuigahama didn’t seem very happy; she was muttering blankly. To be fair, I don’t think that I would understand either if I had only heard my explanation… Honestly, understanding that quickly made Yukinoshita the strange one.

  “Hm, so it’s like using some backstory you dreamed up and putting on a play based on that, right?”

  “That’s pretty much it. In his case, he seems to have used Ashikaga Yoshiteru, the thirteenth-generation shogun of the Muromachi Bakufu, as his basis. It was probably easier that way, since they share a given name.”

  “So why does he consider you his companion?”

  “He probably took Hachiman and turned it into the Hachiman Great Bodhisattva, didn’t he? The Seiwa Genji[7] worshipped him fervently as a god of war. You’ve heard of the Tsurugaoka Hachiman Shrine, right?[8]”

  After I responded, Yukinoshita suddenly fell into silence. What was wrong? I gave her a questioning look, and I saw that she was staring at me with wide eyes.

  “I’m surprised. You’re quite informed.”

  “…Yeah, I guess.”

  Unpleasant memories were about to resurface, so I suddenly turned my head away. Then I took the chance to change the subject.

  “Zaimokuza's way of bringing up every little piece of historical trivia gets really annoying, but at least he’s basing his character on real history.”

  Hearing that, Yukinoshita glanced briefly at Zaikomokuza and questioned me with a genuine look of displeasure on her face.

  “…You’re saying there are ones worse than that?”

  “Yes.”

  “So, just for my personal reference, what kinds of people are those?”

  “In the beginning, there were seven gods in this world. There are the three gods of creation, the Wise Emperor Garin, the Warrior Goddess Mythica, and Heartia, the Protector of Souls. There are the three gods of destruction, the King of Fools Ortho, the Lost Temple Rogue, and the Deity of False Suspicions Lailai. And then there is also the Eternally Absent God with No Name. From the beginning of time, those seven gods have repeatedly brought prosperity and then destruction to the world. Presently, the world has already lived through that cycle six times, and this time the Japanese government is trying to prevent the world’s destruction by finding the reincarnated bodies of those gods. Among those seven gods, the most important is the Eternally Absent God with No Name, whose powers are still not fully understood, and I, Hikig-… whoa, you’re really good at leading questions, aren’t you?! Hahaha, I’m seriously shaking, you almost got me to spill all the beans there!”

  “But I wasn’t trying to lead you in any way…”

  “Disgusting…”

  “Yuigahama, be careful what you say. You might find yourself accidentally committing suicide one day.”

  Yukinoshita let out an exasperated sigh, and then looked back and forth again between me and Zaimokuza before speaking again.

  “In other words, Hikigaya-kun is in the same class as that one over there. That’s why he’s so informed when it comes to this master fencer general or whatever it is.”

  “No no no, what are you saying, Yukinoshita-san? Of course that isn’t true, Yukinoshita-san. Of course there’s a reason I’m so informed… It’s because I chose to take Japanese history, you know? It’s because I played Nobunaga’s Ambition[9], you know?”

  “Right…”

  Yukinoshita gave me a doubtful look. It seemed that I was guilty until proven innocent.

  But I didn’t back off. I wasn’t the same as Zaimokuza, so I could look Yukinoshita straight back in her eyes with confidence. Because what she said was not exactly true:

  Indeed, I wasn’t the same as Zaimokuza… any longer.

  The name “Hachiman” is fairly uncommon, so there was a time during my childhood when I wondered whether I was some kind of special existence. I also liked anime and manga back then, so it was pretty natural to fall into that kind of delusion.

  As I lay in my futon, I would pretend that there was some amazing power lying hidden within me, and that, someday, those powers would suddenly awaken. When that day came, I would be pitched into a battle for the fate of the world. In preparation for that day, I even kept a spirit world diary, and I would write a report to send to the government every three months. Everyone did that kind of stuff though, right? …They don’t…?

  “… Well, how should I put it…? In the past we were probably the same, but we're different now.”

  “Hm, I wonder…”

  Yukinoshita gave me a teasing smile and walked away from me, heading for Zaimokuza.

  As I watched her retreating back, a thought suddenly struck me:

  Was I really different now from Zaimokuza?

  The answer was yes.

  I didn’t have idiotic daydreams any longer, and I didn’t write spirit world diaries or government reports either. The only thing I’d written recently was a “List of People I Will Never Forgive.” Naturally, the first person on that list was Yukinosihta.

  I didn’t play around with Gundam figures while making sound effects with my own mouth any more, and I didn’t screw around with clothespins trying to make the strongest robot[10]. I also outgrew using rubber bands and aluminum foil to make self-defense weapons. And I’ve also stopped trying to cosplay with my dad’s coat and my mom’s fake fur.

  I was different from Zaimokuza.

  By the time I'd managed to get over my indecisiveness and reach that conclusion, Yukinoshita was already standing right in front of Zaimokuza. Yuigahama was loudly whispering, “Yukinon, run away!” Ugh, poor guy…

  “I think I understand. You’re here so we can help you cure this sickness, am I correct?”

  “…Hachiman. I have joined you here to see if you will
abide by your oath to grant our wishes. It is but a single, sublime desire.”

  Zaimokuza averted his gaze from Yukinoshita and looked at me. He'd definitely switched between first person and the royal “we” just then… How confused was this person?

  Then I realized something. That guy… Every time Yukinoshita spoke to him, he definitely turned toward me instead.

  Well, it’s not like I didn’t sympathize… Before I learned what kind of person Yukinoshita really was, I also got flustered every time she talked to me. Back then, I couldn’t even properly look her in the eye.