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

  My gaze suddenly fell on the basket attached to the front of my bike, where I saw a black schoolbag that wasn't mine.

  “… That idiot.”

  The minute I turned my bike around and to rush in the opposite direction, I spotted Komachi running towards me with tears in her eyes.

  6-2

  Different months meant different activities in gym class.

  In my school, gym was held jointly with three different classes, and the sixty boys in that group were split into two activities.

  We had the choice between volleyball and track until this month. Now we would be doing tennis or soccer.

  Naturally, both Zaimokuza and I were brilliant soccer players[1], but we both placed more emphasis on individual skills. Therefore, we concluded that it would actually be counterproductive for us to join the soccer team, so we chose tennis instead. And, naturally… I was a man who had abandoned soccer forever because of the old wounds on my left foot. Not that I ever played soccer to begin with…

  However, it seemed that too many people wanted to play tennis this year. And so, after a heroic round of rock paper scissors, I found myself surviving in the tennis group even as Zaimokuza was thrown back to the soccer group.

  “Hmph, Hachiman… It is truly regrettable that I will be unable to put my magical curveball on display here. Without you… Who in the world should I partner up with for passing practice…?”

  That made quite a deep impression on me: Zaimokuza had gone from his usual confident demeanor to teary-eyed desperation.

  Who in the world would be your partner? That applied to me, too.

  And so tennis class began.

  I did some half-assed stretching and then listened to a tennis lecture from our gym teacher, Atsugi.

  “Okay, everyone try hitting now. Pair up, one on each side of the net.”

  Once Atsugi had said that, everyone split up into small groups and went to opposite sides of the court.

  How the hell did they pair up so fast? They didn’t even look around! Were they masters of the no-look pass[2] or something?

  My sensitive loner radar began to act up, detecting an elevated chance of a loner opportunity.

  Fear not: I had developed a special trick for times like these.

  “Umm, I’m not feeling so well right now, so can I go just play by myself off the wall? I don’t want to cause anybody else any trouble.”

  I announced that and, without waiting for Atsugi’s response, I quickly walked towards the wall and began hitting off it. Atsugi probably saw that he had missed the best timing to respond to me, so he didn’t argue with me at all.

  That was way too perfect…

  The statements “not feeling so well” and “cause anybody else trouble” had a great synergistic effect, and using them also allowed me to nonchalantly act as if I actually did have the motivation to work hard.

  This was it: the master countermeasure that I had discovered after so many gym classes where I was told to “pair up with whomever you like.” Maybe I should teach Zaimokuza some day… I’m sure that guy would break out into tears of joy.

  I chased after the ball and hit it back at the wall, repeating that motion over and over again. Time trickled by as I continued with that humdrum activity.

  I heard boisterous shouts from around me as the other boys engaged in flashy tennis rallies.

  “Uryahhh! Ohh?! That was a good shot, wasn’t it?! That was amazing, wasn’t it?!”

  “That was great! No way anybody else could’ve hit that! Awesome!”

  Their shouting suggested that they were definitely having fun during their free practice session.

  ”Shut up and die…” I thought as I turned around, when I saw Hayama.

  Hayama’s pair--or, rather, he seemed to be in a group of four--consisted of himself, a blonde that I’d seen hanging out with him a lot in class, and two others that I didn’t really recognize. They were probably from class C or class I or something… At any rate, they were practically exuding an aura of flashy stylishness as they played.

  “Woahh!” The blonde missed the return on a ball that Hayama hit and shouted. Everyone turned towards them, wondering what had happened.

  “Hayama-kun, that was seriously something else! Did that ball curve? It curved, didn’t it?!”

  “Ahh, I guess I accidentally sliced the ball… Sorry, that was my bad.”

  Hayama raised a hand in apology, but his words were drowned out by the blonde’s next overreaction.

  “Seriously?! You can hit curve balls and stuff like that?! Hayama is the real deal, man! The real deal!”

  “Haha, really?”

  Hayama decided to join in, laughing happily. At that point, the pair hitting next to Hayama and company also spoke up.

  “Hayama-kun is good at tennis too, isn’t he? That slice you just did right now… Could you teach me how to do that too?”

  The guy who said that and started to walk towards Hayama was a boy with dyed brown hair who otherwise looked pretty meek. We were probably in the same class. I didn’t know his name, so he probably was no big deal.

  In the blink of an eye, Hayama’s quartet had grown into a sextet. They were now the largest ruling body of this gym class… By the way, “sextet” sounds a lot like “sexaroid,”[3] doesn’t it? Yup, yup, so naughty…

  In any case, that was how tennis class became the Hayama Kingdom. It almost felt as if you shouldn’t be in the class if you weren’t part of their group. Naturally, everyone outside of the Hayama group was silent. Farewell, freedom of speech…

  The noisiness of the Hayama group gave off a strong impression, but Hayama himself wasn’t making much of that noise--it was more the people around him. More specifically, that blonde guy, who had volunteered to be the Chief of Staff of the Hayama Kingdom, was the noisiest.

  “Slice!”

  See? He’s insanely noisy.

  The ball the blonde guy hit wasn’t a slice at all, and it instead flew completely off course from Hayama into the damp, dark corner of the court. In other words, it flew towards me.

  “Ah, sorry, my bad! U-Umm… Hi…? Hikitani-kun? Hikitani-kun, could you get that ball?”

  Who the hell was Hikitani?

  But I didn't feel like correcting him, so I just grabbed the ball that was rolling towards me and threw it back.

  “Thanks!”

  Hayama gave me a cheerful smile and waved at me.

  In response, I gave him a small nod.

  …Why the hell did I nod back?

  It seemed that I had instinctively come to think of Hayama as above me… Even by my standards, that was really submissive. It was so submissive that it made me think that even in terms of submissiveness I was probably losing to someone…

  I took these gloomy feelings of mine and hit them against the wall.

  Walls were essential companions in youth.

  …On that note, I wonder why “plaster wall” is slang for “small breasts”?

  By one theory, plaster walls are just tanuki spirits[4], and the wall itself is the tanuki spirit spreading its genitals. What kind of wall was that supposed to be? That actually sounded surprisingly soft… And so, in other words, quite paradoxically, when you ridiculed a girl with small breasts by calling her a plaster wall, weren’t you saying that her breasts were pretty soft? QED, proof over. Idiots.

  However, I’m sure that Hayama would never come to that conclusion. That miraculous theory was only made possible by my unusual resentment.

  All right, let’s call it a tie for today then… Yup, that sounds about right.

  6-3

  It was lunch break.

  I was eating lunch in my usual spot. My home base was on the first floor of the special building, to the side of the nurse’s office and diagonally behind the cafeteria. To give you a better idea, it was a position from which I could see right out into the tennis courts.

  I leisurely ate the hot dog[1], tuna onigiri[2], and Neapolitan roll[3] I had bought from the cafeteri
a.

  And I was at peace.

  All the while, a rhythmic drumming sound lured me to sleep.

  The tennis girls had their independent practice session at noon, so they were outside at the wall; they hit the ball and made heroic efforts to chase it when it returned, and then they hit it again.

  I followed their movements with my eyes as I ate my lunch. As the lunch break was about to end, I sucked some lemon tea out of its pack through a straw and felt the wind blow.

  The wind’s direction had changed.

  It varied with the day-to-day weather, but because this school was near the sea, the wind would usually change direction some time around noon. It was almost as if the morning's sea breeze was returning from whence it came.

  Spending some time alone, just feeling that wind on my skin, wasn’t a bad thing at all.

  “Huh? Hikki, is that you?”

  That same wind carried a familiar voice to my ears. When I turned around, I saw Yuigahama standing there, holding down her skirt to protect it from any more gusts of wind.

  “Whatcha doin’ over here?”

  “I usually eat here.”

  “Hmm, really? Why? Wouldn’t it be better to just eat in the classroom?”

  “…”

  Yuigahama seemed genuinely bewildered, but I just responded to her question with silence. Seriously, if I could do that, do you really think I’d be out here eating…? Pay attention, dammit.

  Let’s change the subject.

  “More importantly, why are you here?”

  “Oh yeah! Truth is, I lost a game of rock paper scissors with Yukinon, so… I guess this is my penalty?”

  “Talking to me is a penalty…?”

  That was so sad… Made me want to die.

  “N-no, no! The loser had to go buy juice! That’s it!”

  Yuigahama hurriedly waved her hands, denying my accusation. What a relief; after that, I was totally ready to kill myself…

  Yuigahama smoothed down her chest in relief, then she plopped herself down next to me.

  “Yukinon didn’t like it at first. ‘I can provide my own food. What do I stand to gain, aside from winning a trivial competition?’ That's what she said.”

  For some reason, Yuigahama was trying to imitate Yukinoshita. She completely failed.

  “Well, that does sound like her.”

  “Yeah, but then I said, ‘So you don’t think you can win?’ Then she agreed to play.”

  “… Well, that does sound like her.”

  That girl was usually the very picture of cool, but when it came to competitions, she really hated to lose. She'd instantly gotten on board before as soon as Hiratsuka-sensei challenged her.

  “And then, when Yukinon won, she pumped her fists a bit… It was really cute, you know…”

  Yuigahama let out a happy sigh.

  “I think this is the first time I’ve thought this penalty game was fun.”

  “You’ve done this game before?”

  When I asked that question, Yuigahama gave me a nod.

  “Yeah, a few times before…”

  Hearing that allowed me to suddenly remember. Near the end of lunch breaks, there was always an idiotically noisy corner of the room shouting about rock paper scissors…

  “Tch, a nice little exclusive club you all have there.”

  “What’s up with that lousy reaction? You don’t like things like that?”

  “Of course not. I hate private parties and inside jokes… Ah, but I do like internal strife. Cuz I’m not on the inside!”

  “Not only is that a sad reason, but you sound completely petty!”

  Shut up. Leave me alone…

  Yuigahama smiled as she held her hair, keeping the wind from blowing it. That expression was different from the one I usually saw when she was with Miura and the others in the classroom…

  Ahh, I see. If I had to guess, I'd say she wasn’t wearing as much makeup. Her face had become much more natural. She'd probably made that change a while back, but, I mean, it’s not like I make a habit of staring at girls’ faces… Ugh, whatever.

  But that was proof that she had changed, even if only a little.

  It might've been because she had less makeup on, but… When Yuigahama smiled, her eyes relaxed[4] and her youthful face became even more youthful.

  “But really, I think Hikki has a lot of these ‘private parties’ too. When we’re in the classroom, you always have those fun-looking chats with Yukinon. I-I always feel I can’t join in on any of those…”

  As Yuigahama said that, she hugged her knees and buried her face in them. She was glancing sideways towards me.

  “You know, cuz maybe I want to join in on those talks too… I-it’s not like I mean that in a weird way, okay?! W-when I say that I mean Yukinon too, okay?! You got that?!”

  “Have no fear… It’s not like I’ll ever make that sort of misunderstanding when it comes to you.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?!”

  Yuigahama lifted up her head, looking pretty pissed. “Ah, hold on, hold on, calm down!” I restrained her with my hands and spoke up.

  “Well, Yukinoshita is a different story. She is just a force majeure.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Hm? Ahh, ‘force majeure’ refers to an entity or situation that is impossible to defy by our human strength alone. Sorry for using big words there.”

  “No! I know what that means, ugh! You know, you insult me way too much! I took the entrance exam and got into Soubu High just like you, all right?!”

  Yuigahama sent a quick chop right into my throat. The clean hit, right to my Adam’s Apple, sent me into a coughing fit. Then Yuigahama stared off into the distance and asked me a question, sounding serious.

  “…Hey, speaking of the entrance exam… Do you remember the first day of school?”

  “Cough cough cough!… Huh? Ahh, I mean, not really--I got into a traffic accident that day.”

  “Accident…”

  “Yeah. On the first day of school, I was pedaling my bike when some idiot’s dog got off its leash. That dog almost got run over by a car, so I protected him with my own body… Naturally, it was a brilliantly dashing and heroic act.”

  I think that I embellished that story a bit, but it’s not like anybody else knew about it… And if nobody knew about it, then nobody would say anything. So in situations like this, it was best for me to make myself look better.

  But when she heard that, Yuigahama’s face stiffened.

  “I-idiot, huh… So, Hikki doesn’t remember that person at all?”

  “I mean, I really couldn't have, since I was in so much pain. Well, clearly I wasn’t impressed enough to remember, so I’m guessing that person was pretty plain-looking.”

  “(whisper) Plain-looking… W-well, I guess I didn’t have makeup on that time… and my hair wasn’t dyed, and I was wearing some random pajamas or something… Ah, and the pajamas had little bears on them too, so maybe I did look a bit like an idiot…”

  Yuigahama’s voice was so low that I couldn’t hear her at all--I just saw her lips moving as she muttered something and stared at the floor. Did her tummy hurt or something?

  “What’s wrong?”

  “It’s… nothing… Anyways! Hikki doesn’t remember that girl at all, does he?!”

  “Yeah, like I said, I don’t remember… Wait, huh? Did I mention that they were a girl?”

  “Huh?! Y-yeah, you definitely did! You totally did! In fact, all you said was, ‘girl this, girl that, girl this, girl that’!!”

  “Am I seriously that gross of a person…?”

  When I said that, Yuigahama just gave me a loud, hollow-sounding laugh and, with a smile still on her face, turned to look at the tennis courts. In response, I turned and did the same.

  I guess it was just about time for the girl tennis players to wrap up their practice; they were wiping off their sweat and coming back.

  “Hey! Sai-chaan~~!”

  Yuigahama waved her ha
nds and called out. It seemed she'd spotted someone she knew.

  That girl noticed Yuigahama and ran up to us with little steps.

  “Hey. Had practice?”