Volume E Chapter 1

Volume E Chapter 1

[No matter when, I cannot rely on Hikigaya Komachi.]

The cold wind blew about, shaking the treetops.

No matter how hard I concentrated and stared at the night sky, the stars did not twinkle. They just remained there, continuing to shine brightly as always.

Even if I were to stand there and continue to look at them, the distance between the stars and me would not decrease.

Soon, morning would arrive, and the starlight and moonlight would be blown away by the meagre light in each and every household.

After Hayama Hayato left, I looked up at the night sky for just that short while.

Who was he referring to when he talked about avoiding the issue?

If I had just asked him this question during that time, I wonder what sort of answer he would’ve given.

I am pretty sure he would have answered, “Myself,” with a lonely smile and a gentle voice.

That would not be a lie, it would simply be the plain truth.

However, if I heard that, even if I knew he would give me such an obvious answer, I don’t think I would be convinced. It’s not a lie.

Yet, it wasn’t the complete truth either.

The thorns from the meaning hidden within words, or the appearance of the truth would wind itself around someone’s heart. Whether consciously or sub-consciously, those words would pierce through sharply, like the thorns of a budding sprout.

The truth is, there was something about the words that Hayama Hayato said. Just like a stake, or maybe it was my own regret, they bounded me to this place.

I stood there, for the longest of times.

In my eyes, I could see the stars in the night sky, the cluster of lights from the buildings faraway, the tail lights of cars as they sped along the highway as well as the faint light emitted by the rustic streetlamps.

Beyond that, it was just an all-encompassing darkness.

The January air slowly froze my limbs, gnawing away at my heart and mind. It was only until I spat out a huge breath that I could truly feel the freezing air.

However, no matter how cold my body was, my mind was unable to calm down. Far from calming down, there were small sparks bursting here and there, shorting the frost that had clouded my mind. The same question kept repeating itself in my mind yet I could find no answer for it.

Even if I thought about all these pointless things, I kept telling myself that the answer for nowhere to be found. After all, what Hayama Hayato said was right on the mark. His words, “You are avoiding it once again,” came at me unrelentingly.

I didn’t know what Hayama was thinking at that point in time that he would give me such an answer. The voice that faded away in the midwinter’s night wind entrusted me with something to do, yet I couldn’t hear it. I didn’t understand anything that he told me that time. By doing what we did, both Hayama and I had gotten ourselves an excuse.

As things are right now, surely we would be allowed to keep avoiding the issue.

No.

That is disgusting and shameful.

Because I am aware of it, because I believe I could deal with whatever happened, I allowed it to happen, believing that I would be eventually forgiven for it. It was more of an excuse to be defiant if anything. I understand that such reasoning will never work.

He saying did say something like that before, that things can’t remain like that forever.

The words that clung on to the deepest part of my ears had yet to leave me. Since a long time ago, because I experienced it personally, I understood it instinctively.

Since that day, I was aware of where I belonged.

In that moment, I could recognize the feeling.

Someday, without fail, that time would come to an end. I was more than aware of that.

I understood very well that I couldn’t preserve or protect it by myself. The human relationships that I had built over the seventeen years of my life strongly hinted at that.

Since I had never learnt how to capture someone’s heart, people that I have met until now, and the people that I will meet in the future, it is obvious that separation is an inevitable thing.

Just like how flowers would disappear even without a storm, bidding farewell to others is but a part of life. [1]

At least, that’s what Hikigaya Hachiman’s life is like.

However, I wonder about Hayama Hayato’s life.

He’s different from me. He’s sociable, with lots of friends, and probably loved by many. Even if Hayama doesn’t think so, the people around Hayama would probably continue to preserve their cherished relationship with him.

And so, Hayama himself have been answering expectations like always.

Well, at the very least, in this one year that I had the chance to observe him closely, he was such a guy.

At the end of it all, Hayama acts so as not to forsake anyone, and to get along with everyone.
From the very beginning, during that time when he met us, that time when he sought us out for consultation, that time when we dealt with the incident together, that time when he challenged me with those questions, even during that time when the differences between me and him were perfectly captured. That time too, when he relied on others having been unable to alter his own beliefs, and that time, when he was unable to reciprocate someone’s feelings, and even now, when he wish to alter someone’s way of doing things because of how he does things.

Despite the fact that just about everything between us was different, both he and I ended up at the same answer.

Yet, even so.

Hikigaya Hachiman and Hayama Hayato are fundamentally different. They are existences that are totally incompatible with one another. Hence, his and my answer should not be the same. If that’s the case, then the words that we wrestle out from the bottom of our hearts would surely refer to different things. When he spat out that uncalled for remark, the difference between him and me were made crystal clear. Though I still wasn’t able to express my thoughts into words, my body finally begun to move.

I stood up from the ice-like chilly bench and removed the lock from my bicycle that I had parked at the entrance of the park. This was probably a compensatory act.

The thoughts in my head had yet to stop overwhelming me, and it felt as though there was a firm lock placed somewhere in my heart.

That’s why it was a compensatory act.

It was to let the bits of my body that was still able to move, move.

I straddled onto my bike, and proceeded to cycle along the highway. I pedaled fiercely, and increased my cadence. Gradually, the beating of my heart became stronger. My pulse started to race.

The cold wind assailed my cheeks.

The rust covered frame made a creaking noise as I cycled along. Though the gears, the chains and the pedals all kept spinning round and round about the same place, as long as they were properly aligned, the gears would mesh together and as a system, they would be able to change the driving force.

What I needed to do, was to face the reality in front of me.

Because I have always been entrapping myself in my own delusions, I couldn’t make any progress, and that being the case, I would not be able to move on ahead.

I sped along the highway, and if one entered the cycling course that extended alongside the river, they would soon come to a bridge if they followed the course all the way.

That was how I usually returned home.

Along the way, there were several intersections, as well as numerous sidewalks that ran parallel to my cycling course too. Though some of them lead to dead-ends, but by retracing my way, I could easily end back up on the road that is supposed to lead me home. It was all just a matter of choosing the most effective way home, that’s all.

Going home every single day, there was no need for me to worry if the course I had chosen was correct or not. It’s not possible for me to be led astray by all those tiny pathways here and there.
If one knows their final destination, it doesn’t matter which path they take. They will reach there anyway.

However, if you have no idea of where you want to go. If you have no idea of what you want, then it would be impossible to move forward.

                        X                                                           X                                                              X

No matter how late it was into the midwinter’s night, as long as one kept on cycling for more than 20 minutes, the body would indeed begin to warm itself up. That was not just due to the coat and muffler on my body, it was also due to the sweat that had oozed out, causing my shirt to stick onto my skin.

I wasn’t thinking about anything at all, I didn’t hear anything at all either. All I did was to continue on pedaling until I reached my house. Holding my breath, I proceeded to park my bicycle in front of the doorway, and my feet began to move slowly, owing to the gradually accumulated fatigue.

I opened the front door and proceeded to collapse into my house. As a result of having the cold wind come at straight on, the warm air in the house tingled my skin as it caressed my cheek. It was awfully itchy and coupled together with the moist shirt, made it terribly irritating. I tossed my bag to the side and tore off my muffler. Then, stripping my coat, I headed straight for the bathroom. Opening the door to the bathroom, I was surrounded by the warm air at the entrance, and the fragrance of the shampoo came drifting out.

As the outside air was cold and dry, this warm and moist air was a welcome change, and I could feel my heart slowly melting. Once more, I took a huge, deep breath, and took a look around the spacious bathroom.

Hmmm……

The foggy mirror, the plugged in hair-dryer, the hair-band hanging on a hook, the bath towel in the laundry basket, and lastly the moist atmosphere within this room. Looking at this situation, it would appear that someone had been using the bathroom just mere moments ago.

This time was still too early for my corporate slave parents to have returned home. Moreover, the state of the bathroom was in a rather neat condition, with just the small fault of forgetting to unplug the hairdryer. From the above information, I deduced that the person who used this bathroom just now was probably Komachi.

……I wondered if there was water in the bathtub.

I suddenly felt a sense of unease.

That was because my dearest little sister, Komachi, had recently gotten quite strict with him when her puberty set in. For example, she refuses to use the bath water that I had bathed in.  Thinking from this point, I have a feeling that the [Warm Komachi-flavored] bath-water she bathed in may already have been removed. That would be quite troubling.

……No, I am not lamenting the fact that the water I am bathing in is not Komachi-flavored. Come to think of it, what the heck is ‘Warm-Komachi-flavored-bath’ anyway? Sounds like a beverage that would sell well! This is going to be revolutionary for those selling drinks. However, as an Onii-chan, I cannot allow that~ I hope that all you drinks companies would cooperate and go with the ‘Little sister flavor’ instead. I am sure it will sell just as well!

Anyway, the truth is that it didn’t matter whether the hot water was Komachi-flavored or not. I just wanted to warm my cold body by immersing it in the bath tub, that’s all. In any case, I had to check out the state of the bathtub.

As I peeled off my socks and took off my blazer, I stepped onto the slightly wet bathroom floor. I begin to have some form of expectation as I felt the little bit of heat leftover. As soon as I opened the cover of the bathtub, the light fragrance of the bathing powder and the steam began to rise.

Ah, as expected of Komachi, my little sister…… I see that she has left the hot water there. Your Onii-chan’s eyes are getting wet, but that’s definitely because of the steam. Returning to the dressing room, I quickly took off my remaining clothes, and returned to the bathing room. Closing the door to it, the first thing to do then, was to rinse myself with hot water.

“Splash, spoosh,” came the sound of water as I rinsed myself completely several times with warm water. Washing my body quickly with the water, I quickly dived into the bathtub and immersed myself in there.

“Ahhhhhh.” I couldn’t help but let out a sigh.

I dunked my head underneath the water, and now, my body was completely immersed from head to top. Using my nose, I exhaled slowly, creating a stream of air bubbles in the process. Doing this, maybe the depressing things in my chest would be gone just like the air bubbles as well. However, even so.

The thing that weighed the most, the one stuck at the bottom of my heart still remained there forever, not budging one bit.

                 X                                               X                                                  X

After my bath, I dressed myself, and carrying the bundle of clothes earlier, I left the room. As I carried the huge bundle of clothes in one hand, I rubbed my face dry with a bath towel as I ascended the stairs to the living room on the second floor. I saw Komachi there, in the kotatsu studying.

“Welcome back!”

She was lying down, her top half of her body slightly upright, waving her pencil about as she shook her hair.

“Yup. I am back.”

Despite my reply, Komachi seemed to have not heard me and remained in a daze, looking at the questions she held in her hand. Towards my response, it seemed as though her reply was to continue scribbling in her notepad with her pencil.

Normally, I would chide her to go and study in her own room, but I felt completely refreshed after the hot bath so I decided to let it slide.

No matter what, she definitely scored loads of points from me for leaving the bath water there. If only she could ask me, “Do you want a bath? Or perhaps dinner? Or maybe, Ko-Ma-Chi?” If she did that, the Komachi stocks would be off the roof! If there was something like an SSR [Sly Imouto Komachi] card, I would empty my entire fortune in a heartbeat! Onii-chan is more than willing to fork out tens of thousands of dollars to pull this SSR card. It’s so wonderful that you can just throw money at the gacha machines to pull whatever you want! But still, be it [Warm Komachi-flavor] or SSR [Sly Imouto Komachi], using little sisters to rake in the money is too scary. [2] Here, I would like to pay my respects to my father, and give thanks to my mother for the existence of my little sister, Komachi. Also, did I mention that I kind of dislike all those asses that grew up in Chiba as well?

Anyhow, I guess I ought to first give my thanks to Komachi for leaving the hot bath water there.

With a thud, I plonked the clothes somewhere nearby and tunneled into the kotatsu. Thereupon, I could feel our cat, Komakura climbing up onto my kneecaps. Seems like he’s using me as a new heat source as I had just gotten out of the bath.

“Komachi, thanks for the bath.”

“Un. Because you returned home later than Komachi, and because today is cold as well.”

Komachi replied without even lifting her head, and continued to remain in her sleep-like pose.

“Is it?”

“Yup.”

After this short exchange, all that could be heard was the scratching sound of her pencil. I began to stroke Komakura.

What an extremely normal everyday conversation. There was no special meaning to it at all. Maybe it couldn’t even be termed as a ‘conversational exchange’.

Even if we both weren’t looking at each other, even if we were looking at different things, doing different things, we wouldn’t end up hating each other.

For someone like me who didn’t know how to build and preserve human relationships, Komachi was probably the only exception to that.

However, that wasn’t to say that we don’t squabble. We often argue over trivial matters, such as deciding who would get to bath first. Even so however, we still maintained a decent relationship as siblings.

This was not something like love or trust. It was something much simpler, probably something along the lines of being bonded to one another. It was akin to something like being used to the other person or just being resigned to their habits.

It was just like how I had accepted her carefree lifestyle, Komachi had accepted my uselessness. I didn’t think that I could build such a similar relationship with anyone else.

First of all, such a useless person like me would not be accepted by most normal people. Ah, sorry, Komachi, for being such a useless Onii-chan.

However, even if I weren’t accepted by others, I could still accept others. I could guarantee this because up until now, I had never had expectations of others nor did I try and understand others. If that’s the case, no matter how our natures were opposite, no matter how much we couldn’t understand each other, no matter the extent to which we could accept one another, we could definitely still go about our lives peacefully. However, the problem was this would bring a lot of stress on myself.

I grabbed at the blazer behind me and took out my mobile phone from its pocket.

“Sigh……”

When I thought about what I was about to do next, I couldn’t help but let out a deep sigh.

“Oh? You sound really tired.”

Komachi’s sensitive ears picked out my sigh and lifted her head. Following her example, Komakura too, lifted its head.

That was her own way of asking me what was wrong. I shook my head, and gently flicked Komakura’s ears to indicate that nothing was amiss. Our family’s imouto-chan was so clever and cute. Not only that, she was gentle and sensitive to her surroundings too. If I were to spill the beans right now, she would surely be all-ears and listen to whatever I have to say.

However, I can’t always be spoiled by Komachi. I can’t just indulge myself in the thought that Komachi will always be with me. More than that, I didn’t think that the problem between him and me could be explained clearly to others. Even the two of us refuse to give a definition to the problem at hand. Deciding what the problem was wilfully on my own and then entrusting it to others would surely not be allowed.

To solve all sorts of problem, there was one thing that I first had to do.

A problem that I had never touched, nor approached.

Hayama Hayato, the center of the chain of problems.

It doesn’t matter what I say and how I say it. Anyway, I am going to get some answers from him, and wipe that ‘know-it-all, composed’ look off his face. I wasn’t happy to let it end with him saying that.

The annoyance spread to my fingers and I opened my contacts list on my phone and started searching for his name. It was then, that I suddenly realized something.

……I, I didn’t have his contact at all.

_____________________________________________________________________________________
[1] From a line in the Chinese poem, which was later translated by the Japanese. The original poem reads (花に嵐の例えもあるぞ, さよならだけが人生だ) meaning just like how a flower has to endure storms, farewells are a part of life.  Naturally, WW has to modify it ever so slightly to make it more 8man-like.
[2] The SSR refers to the rarity ranking system in Fate/Grand Order (abbr: Fate:/GO) Some dude stole money from his parents, etc by attempting to max his waifu. (You need multiple copies of the same card apparently) He spent about 450000 yen on it.