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

  I couldn’t believe my ears. I fell into silence, unable to understand what he was saying, but he repeated himself… This time with a clearer, stronger voice.

  “Would you read my work again?”

  He faced me and Yukinoshita with fire in his eyes.

  “You…”

  “Are you a complete masochist?”

  Yuigahama, who was hiding in my shadow, gave Zaimokuza a look of disgust. Her eyes seemed to say, ”You pervert, go die.” No, Yuigahama… That wasn't it.

  “Do you really want to do that again after everything you went through today?”

  “Of course. That certainly was quite harsh criticism. That certainly did make me think that I wanted to die, that I’m unpopular and have no friends anyway… Or, rather, that made me want everyone else to die.”

  “Yeah, I can see that… If someone said all that to me, I’d want to die too.”

  But Zaimokuza had taken those words head-on, and was still here talking to us.

  “However… However, those words still made me happy. To have something I wrote for fun read by someone else, critiqued by someone else… That is definitely not a bad thing. It’s not clear to me what I should call these feelings right now, though… But having my work read definitely makes me happy.”

  Having said that, Zaimokuza smiled.

  It wasn’t the smile of the master fencer general… It was the smile of Zaimokuza Yoshiteru.

  Ahh… I see.

  This guy wasn’t just a chuunibyou. No, he also suffered from a bad case of Writer Fever.

  He wanted to write because he had something he wanted to tell others. And if he could touch someone's heart that way, then he was happy. So he would write and write and write, over and over again. Even if nobody acknowledged what he wrote, he would continue writing. That was what I called Writer Fever.

  And so there was only one way I could respond:

  “Sure, I’ll read it.”

  I couldn't possibly refuse. After all, this was Zaimokuza’s final state of mind after he had truly come to terms with his chuunibyou. Even if others said he was sick, even if others frowned on him, even if others ignored him or ridiculed him, he would never bend to their wills, he would never give up, and he would continue to work desperately to bring his delusions into reality.

  “When I finish a new novel, I’ll bring it here.”

  Zaimokuza said those words, turned his back to us, and strode grandly from the room.

  The sight of the door closing behind him was unpleasantly dazzling.

  Even if he was warped, childish, or wrong, if he could force his ideas through, then that was exactly what he should do.

  If he was willing to change just because someone rejected his ideas, than his dreams were not worthwhile and he was lying to himself. So Zaimokuza was fine like this.

  …Well, except for those gross parts of his personality, anyway.

  5-6

  A few days had passed.

  It was sixth period. The last class of the day was gym.

  Just as always, I had been paired with Zaimokuza. Nothing there had changed.

  “Hachiman. Who do you think is the most popular, most amazing illustrator out there right now?”

  “Don’t get ahead of yourself--you can think about that after you win the prize.”

  “Hm… Fair enough. The bigger issue is where I should make my debut…”

  “Seriously, why are you assuming that you’re going to win?”

  “…If it sells well, then maybe they can turn it into an anime and I can marry a seiyuu…”[1]

  “That’s enough… Just stop it. Write the damn manuscript first, okay?”

  My gym class conversations with Zaimokusa began to go more or less like that. That was the only thing that had changed.

  Well, that said, the contents of those conversations were pretty pointless… It’s not like we were talking about particularly happy things, so unlike the other pairs, we never burst into laughter.

  The stuff we talked about wasn’t cool or trendy; it was just filled with pathetic things.

  I really thought that we were idiots for doing that. I really felt that there was absolutely no point in it.

  Even so… At the very least, gym was no longer an unpleasant time.

  But that was all.

  Chapter 6 - However, Totsuka Saika is coming along

  Komachi, my little sister, had a piece of toast in one hand and was completely absorbed in a fashion magazine. I watched her out of the corner of my eye as I drank my morning cup of black coffee.

  Annoying phrases like “how to get a man” and “super trendy” appeared repeatedly; in general, the article seemed to be filled to the very brim with idiocy. I found my mouth had opened blankly, dribbling coffee out of the corner of my lips.

  Will Japan really be okay like this? That article was seriously lowest common denominator, and yet my little sister was nodding as she read it. What the hell was there to agree with?

  That “Heaventeen” magazine or whatever seemed to be the biggest fashion magazine for middle school girls. It was at the point where people didn’t just read it--it was more that if you didn’t read it, you would get bullied at school.

  “Ohhh…” Komachi sounded impressed by something. Bread crumbs rained on the magazine page. Was she trying to be a one-person Hansel and Gretel or something?

  It was seven forty-five AM.

  “Hey, the time.”

  My little sister was still engrossed in her magazine, so I poked her shoulder with my elbow, trying to tell her that it was time for her to go to school. Once I did that, Komachi suddenly raised her head to check the clock.

  “Uwahh, oh no!”

  Komachi shouted that, then immediately shut her magazine and stood right up.

  “Wait wait wait wait, you--look at your mouth. You still got something there.”

  “Eh, really? My mouth is all jammed up?”

  “Your mouth some sort of automatic rifle now? That’s definitely not the right way to use ‘jammed up.’”[1]

  “Oh no, oh no.” She continued rushing around and wiped her mouth with her pajama sleeve. You know, my little sister can be pretty masculine sometimes…

  “By the way, oniichan,[2] sometimes you just don’t know what you’re saying, do you?”

  “You’re the one who doesn’t know! You are!”

  But my panicked little sister didn’t seem to even hear what I was saying and began to change into her uniform. She took off her pajamas, showing her smooth, white skin, her white sports bra, and her white panties.

  Don’t strip right here, dammit…

  Little sisters are strange entities: no matter how cute they are, you never feel anything at all. To me, her underwear was simply a piece of cloth. She certainly was cute, but in the end, all I could think was that she really did resemble me… That's how it is with real little sisters.

  Komachi, now dressed in her unfashionable school uniform, gave me a view of her panties through her knee-height skirt as she pulled on her socks and folded them at her shins. I watched her from the corner of my eye as I reached out for the sugar and milk.

  Was she trying to grow bigger breasts or something? Komachi had been drinking lots of milk lately… Whatever. I didn’t care at all.

  But putting “the milk my little sister drank” in quote marks like that made it sound a bit immoral and erotic… Whatever. I don’t care at all.

  It’s not like I grabbed the sugar and milk because the milk was “the milk my little sister drank.” I just wanted to add them to my coffee.

  As someone born and bred in Chiba, someone who took his first bath in MAX Coffee, someone who was raised on MAX Coffee[3] instead of breast milk, I had to have sugar when I drank coffee. Condensed milk was even better.

  But I could drink coffee black too if I had to.

  “Life is too bitter, so coffee, at least, should be sweet…”

  I mumbled something that was honestly worthy of a MAX Coffee commerci
al as I finished drinking my now-sweetened coffee.

  That was good… That line. They really should use it.

  “Oniichan! I’m ready!”

  “But your oniichan is still drinking his coffee…”

  I responded with a poor impression of something from a rerun of “Kita no Kuni kara”[4], but Komachi didn’t seem to notice and just started singing happily. “Gonna be laaate~~. Gonna be laaate~~.” Did she actually want to be late or was she saying we shouldn’t be late…? I couldn’t tell.)=

  A few months ago, this idiot sister of mine completely overslept. Just when it seemed that she would definitely be late, I put her on the back of my bike and gave her a ride to school.

  Ever since then, little by little, the frequency with which I took her to school had been steadily rising.

  There is nothing less trustworthy than a girl’s tears. That was especially true with Komachi, who apparently was well-equipped with the skills often possessed by the younger siblings. She could masterfully manipulate her older brother. What a nasty girl… She was responsible for my belief that all girls are like her, always using boys for their own selfish gains.

  “It’s your fault if I stop trusting women, you know. What am I going to do if I grow old without getting married?”

  “If that happens, then Komachi will do something about it.”

  Komachi gave me a smile. I thought my little sister would always remain a child, but seeing that strangely mature look on her face made my heart beat a bit faster.

  “I’ll work hard to save money and put you in a nursing home.”

  Maybe she was mature… Or maybe she was just trying to sound like an adult.

  “…I guess you really are my little sister, huh…?”

  I couldn’t stop myself from letting out a sigh.

  I drained the last of my coffee and stood up. When I did that, Komachi began to push me from behind.

  “Oniichan is being slow, so it’s already this late! Komachi is going to be laaate~~!”

  “You damn brat…”

  If she wasn’t my little sister, then I would've already sent her flying. Things were flipped in the Hikigaya household. My dad was unusually doting when it came to my little sister; he's been known to say that he would kill any boy who came close to my sister, even if that boy was her older brother. Hearing him say that seriously nauseated me. But in the end, if I sent my little sister flying, then I probably would be kicked out of the family.

  So in short, not only was I the lowest rung the school social ladder, I was even the lowest rung in my own family.

  We left the house and I mounted my bike. Komachi got on behind me, wrapping her arms around my waist to hold me tight.

  “Let’s go!”

  “Hasn’t anybody taught you how to say ‘thank you’?”

  Riding double on a bicycle is forbidden by the Road Traffic Law, but Komachi has the mind of a child, so please go easy on us…

  I lightly set off. Soon Komachi spoke up.

  “Don’t crash today, okay? Komachi is riding with you this time.”

  “So it’s okay for me to crash if I’m by myself…?”

  “No no no. Oniichan, sometimes you get this glassy dead-fish look in your eyes… I worry about you. This is what they call a little sister’s love, you know?”

  Komachi said that and pressed her face into my back. If she had left out that first part then I would have been tempted to call her cute, but now she just seemed like a sly brat.

  But to be honest… I didn’t want to cause my family any pointless anxiety either.

  “… Yeah, I’ll be careful.”

  “Make sure you’re especially careful when Komachi is on board. Seriously.”

  “You’re begging me to pick the bumpiest way to school, right?”

  But, naturally, I didn’t want a repeat of the last time I did that. All I got was “Ow, that hurts!” “That hit my butt!” and “Now I’ll never be able to get married!” the entire way, so I chose a pretty level path. All her outbursts that one time gave me a bad reputation in the neighborhood, you know…

  In any case, safety first.

  I had gotten into a traffic accident on my first day of school. I was pretty nervous about starting a new life at my new school, but I sealed my fate when I chose to leave an hour early for the school entrance ceremony.

  I think it was around seven in the morning… A girl walking her dog near the school lost her grip on the leash when, unfortunately, an expensive-looking limousine was coming down the road. Before I knew it, I had began to hurtle towards them at full speed.

  And so they had to call an ambulance to take me to the hospital. That was the moment that destined me to be alone through high school.

  That accident wrecked my sparkling brand-new bike, and I got a hairline fracture in my golden left foot.[5]

  If I were a soccer player, then a dark shadow would have been cast over the Japanese soccer world that day. Thank God I wasn’t.

  And it was a relief that my injuries weren’t that severe.

  What wasn't a relief was the fact that the only people who came to visit me in the hospital were family.

  My family came to visit me once every three days. Dammit, at least visit me every day…

  After my accident, my sister and parents began to eat out a lot. Every time my sister came and talked about how they had gone to eat sushi or Korean barbeque, I wanted to just reach out and snap her pinky.

  “But it was pretty nice how fast you healed. That plaster cast must have really helped, I’m sure. Plaster is the best way to heal bruises, after all!”

  “You idiot, you’re mixing up plaster and ointment, aren’t you?[6] Also, I had a fracture, not a bruise.”

  “Oniichan is going off and saying weird things again.”

  “Ugh! You’re the one who doesn’t understand!”

  But Komachi didn’t seem to be listening to me; she changed the topic as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

  “Ja know, oniichan…”

  “Hm? ‘Ja know’? Is that an Issei Fuu** Sepia[7] reference? You’re reaaally dating yourself there.”

  “You know, oniichan… There must be something wrong with your ears.”

  “You’re the one who can’t speak properly…”

  “You know, after that accent, that dog’s owner came to thank us.”

  “I never heard about this…”

  “Oniichan was sleeping then. Also, she gave us some candy. It was pretty good.”

  “Hey, I definitely don’t remember eating those sweets. Why did you eat all of them and not tell me?”

  I said that, and as I looked behind me, I saw that Komachi was giving me a shy “tehehe” kind of smile. This brat was seriously annoying…

  “But you know… She went to the same school, so haven’t you seen her around? She said she would thank you there.”

  I reflexively slammed on the breaks. “Auu!” I heard a scream from behind me, and then Komachi’s face dug itself into my back.

  “What just happened?”

  “…You… Why didn’t you tell me that earlier? Did you ask her what her name was or anything?”

  “Eh? …She was the ‘candy person,’ right…?”

  “Is it the Bon Festival or something? Don’t say it like the ‘ham person’[8]. So, what was her name?”

  “Hmm, I forget… Ahh, we got to my school. Komachi is going ahead!”

  As soon as she said that, Komachi hopped off the bike and dashed off towards the school gate.

  “You damn brat…”

  I glared at my little sister’s retreating back, but right before she disappeared into the school building, Komachi turned around to give me a quick bow.

  “I’m off, oniichan! Thank you for the ride!”

  When I heard that and saw her waving at me with a smile, even I felt that my little sister was a bit cute. I waved back, but then I heard my little sister add, “And be sure to watch out for cars!”

  I let o
ut a resigned sigh and swiveled my bike around, beginning to head for my high school…

  …towards the high school where that dog’s owner might be.

  It’s not like I had some master plan of what I'd do once I met her. I just was a little curious.

  But we hadn’t met for a year after that incident, so that made me think that she didn’t really care about meeting me… Well, that was natural. All I'd done was break my bones to save her dog. It was totally enough for her to just send a thank-you gift to my house.