In one of our past lectures, we talked about how the traditional trope of enemies becoming allies is not only a good way to enmesh a usually engaging character arc in the plot but also, and most importantly, a magnificent way for the author to avoid doing more work when coming up with ways to expand the cast of characters.
Why does the cast need expanding, though? Why can't it stay focused on the few characters we came to care for at the very start of the story?
There are multiple reasons for that.
Character arcs? They end. And, if they end satisfyingly, there are very few ways to keep the character engaging other than walking back on their development—also known as the Uchiha Family Secret Technique. Manga as an art form is dependent on serialization, and that shows in that the most successful examples tend to focus not on an arc for the main character but for the plethora of characters that come and go, each of them adding a new focus to the narrative before they are replaced by the new hotness like a riajuu going through girlfriends or an otaku clearing routes in an eroge.
Designs? They go from engaging to stale. True, familiarity becomes a drawing point all of its own, but, as the perennial obsession that alien martial artists hold for haircare products shows, even the traditional pillars of otakudom need their looks updated often enough, either with hair dye or just plain aging, scarring, and plenty of things that seem to only matter on a cosmetic level unless your name is Guts.
This may also be one of the reasons for the popularity of cosplay among female characters. Really. Nothing else comes to mind.
But, the issue is…
You have reasons to grow the cast of regulars. Ways, lazy and otherwise, to do so. Accepted, traditional means to update the regular characters' design.
Why would you then ever [reduce] the cast?
"You are not going to France," I firmly tell the person on the other side of the phone.
"It's… It's a chance to—" she says.
"Do you really think I'm that stupid?" I say.
Daring to cut Haruno off.
And she doesn't immediately answer. Which is somewhat insulting, come to think of it.
"Hachi, I can't… I can't be the reason she [hurts]," she finally says.
"You can. Of course you can. Of course you will. Not even because leaving like this would devastate the woman you've been in love with for years, but because that's what loving is. Only those close to you can hurt you."
More silence.
More time that Haruno gives me to seethe. To rage. To stew in too many things to name.
Or, at least, that's what she thinks is happening.
"That's not true. You were hurt by plenty of people you didn't care about," she ends up saying.
"No. I was hurt by people close to me, and then people I didn't care about stepped on that open wound. Do you think I would've cared, [at all], that a girl whose name I can't even remember refused to take back the eraser I had picked up for her? Don't you think I would've laughed in her face and made a show of stuffing my new, freely given eraser in my pencil case if I had been the way I am today?"
There's a soft sigh that holds some small measure of exasperation.
It is echoed by two other sighs, but those aren't audible from the phone, so they don't count.
"You have [always] been the way you are today," she says with…
With too many things.
With love. With yearning. With sadness.
With parting.
"Haruno… Stay. We can fight your mother—"
She laughs.
It, predictably, isn't a nice laugh.
"Guessed that right away, did you?"
"I struggle to come up with an alternative explanation," I say.
"Right. I told her, you know? That it was too sudden, too abrupt. That there was no way I could pass this as a conveniently timed breakup with this much of a rush."
"But she wasn't thinking straight," I say.
"No. She wasn't."
"And that's how we win."
I feel the need to strike a dramatic pose. To lean back in such a way as to have moonlight glint and turn my glasses opaque as a slow grin spreads to show some actual fang that would make Komachi proud.
But I don't wear glasses, I don't have fangs, and it isn't nighttime.
So I, instead, lean forward, resting my elbows on my thighs without letting go of my phone and shifting my weight on a suspiciously grey sofa that I can tell has been recently vacuumed.
For all the good it's done.
"I'm going to need more than a cool one-liner, Hachi," she says.
And now I do smile.
"Going against your mother at the top of her game? That's like going against a more experienced you, and I'm not that suicidal. Going after a distressed woman still reeling from too many emotions? Well, let's just say I've got some experience in that field."
Haruno, despite herself, snorts in repressed laughter.
Which is nicely timed to mask the huff of pained breath that I let out when Iroha's elbow sinks into my side, and Shizu grinds her heel on top of my bare foot in a way that makes me suspect that she, at one time, had a side-income that came from middle-aged men who like to be called pigs in human shape.
It [would] explain the sports cars.
"Hachiman… She's the most powerful woman in the city. She can and will hurt you and those around you. There's a reason my own plans ended with me leaving the country."
"Yes. That reason is that you're willing to sacrifice yourself to protect the people you love."
"Don't make me sound so noble—"
"And don't make it sound like we won't do the same thing a thousand times over."
This time, there's no silence.
No, there's raw, rough breathing and the beginning of something else.
"Please. Don't. Don't do anything stupid. Don't make this meaningless," she begs.
"You could join me. Help me plan. Make sure I don't do something stupid," I offer.
Calmly.
Except I clasp my knee hard enough to hurt, my whole leg shaking with the strength of my grip until Shizu slides her hand over mine with a touch that often enough doesn't calm or soothe me, but always does when I need it to.
When she wants it to.
I try not to look at her. At the silver eyes that will look at me with open warmth and clear guilt.
At the woman I love hurting and wanting to help the other woman I love.
So I just focus my eyes between my knees, looking at the rich, orange hues of her wooden floor rather than at her sitting by my side or at Iroha clinging to me, near enough that she can hear Haruno's end of the conversation.
"I could instead see through your plans and stop them before you get hurt," Haruno finally says.
Which is…
"You wouldn't warn me if you intended to do that," I say.
"Maybe. And maybe you should learn once and for all to leave implicit things unstated so that people won't be forced to articulate a position that they may not have wanted to take."
I can feel my smile coming back at Haruno, once again, slipping out yet another of her little lessons.
Really, I struggle to think of anything she can learn in France. It would make more sense if she went there to teach.
"I love you," I say.
"I know," she answers.
"Do you?"
There's a pause. A held breath.
"Are you asking if I really know or if I love you?" she asks.
"Both. None. I… I think I'm asking you if you're aware of what that means. If you understand the lengths I can go to for classmates that I held in barely disguised contempt at the best of times and what that implies about the things I'm willing to do for you."
Another pause.
"I… I saw you. Yesterday. When you… I saw you when Iroha dragged you away to scold you. And then I saw you when you came back," she says.
Not answering.
Or, well, answering in unstated, implicit ways.
"Good. That's good. Then you understand," I say.
"No. I don't think I do," she says, an incredulous peal of laughter bursting out at the end.
It makes me smile.
It's… Maybe it's not a nice smile because it's born of what I feel for her, and that, at the moment, is tightly bound to what is about to happen to her, around her, and due to her.
"Maybe I don't either; I've been told that I'm frustratingly opaque at times," I murmur as if she was on a pillow by my side, about to fall asleep after a day of exhaustion and a brief sharing of warmth and comfort.
"You could say that…" Iroha mumbles, thankfully softly enough that Haruno doesn't hear it.
Nor Shizu's muffled snort.
"See? That's one of the advantages of leaving things unstated: you come across as enigmatic and all-knowing even when you are talking about things you don't have a clue about," she says with a light tone.
Maybe because she's able to find the humor in the situation, or maybe because she wants to pretend she can.
Or, maybe, because she's a young woman about to be torn from the people who love her unconditionally, the ones who have seen past her many masks and accepted what lies beneath, and that's the kind of thing that you can't feel all at once or all the time. It's like being at a funeral and sharing a joke and a laugh.
It doesn't mean you aren't hurting. It doesn't mean you haven't lost something important.
It doesn't mean you won't keep feeling that loss for years to come.
"Remember when I said I loved you? That I didn't know what that meant?" I say, letting wistfulness suffuse my tone.
"It was [days] ago, Hachiman. And memorable enough that I don't think anyone would've forgotten," she says with an eye roll that couldn't be more audible.
"Right. Now I do."
Hesitation.
Maybe fear.
"And what does that—" she starts.
"It means that I'm not letting you hurt yourself. It means that I won't stop until you're happy, whatever shape that ends up taking. It means that, whatever you saw last night, is going to stay until you're [free]. Until you're healed. Because I love you. Because I won't accept a woman I love being attacked, much less by those who should protect her."
"That isn't love, Hachiman; that is a course of action."
"So, you want me to state the underlying, implicit emotions that have led me to this course of action?"
She lets out a soft groan, and I'm almost certain that is accompanied by her rubbing her temples with the hand not holding her phone.
Heh.
"You are the most frustrating man I've ever—"
"Had sex with. Yes, I know."
"Don't be so proud of that."
"Of having had sex with you? With a beautiful, brilliant, complex woman slow to trust despite her prodigious insight? With somebody that I felt the need to fuck against a mirror so she could see herself being loved like she deserves? Like she always deserved? Like she always feared she never would be? How can I not be proud of that, Haruno?"
Neither Iroha nor Shizu say anything.
And I'm grateful for that.
Because we've shared a lot. Iroha has made sure that we have, that so many of our important moments have been documented and passed along so that we will all be a part of those irreplaceable memories she has made her mission to preserve.
As if any of us could ever forget.
But… but this? My first time with Haruno?
I haven't really talked about it, and only in the broadest strokes.
Because it was…
Because it was ours.
And a part of me feels guilty about it, about sharing something with the girl holding her phone that I didn't share with those sitting on the same sofa.
Another feels guilty about how much of it I'm about to share.
"Remember when I told you to look at yourself? To talk to yourself?" I say, my voice deepening as I let the memories flood me. As I'm transported to a hotel room in which a beautiful woman bared more than her body to me and her own reflection.
"I don't want to remember. Not when I'm letting go."
"Then I'll make you remember. And you won't let go," I say.
"That easy, huh?" she answers, the smile clear in her voice.
And I…
I recall her soft flesh under my grip, her arms extended in front of her until I pushed harder into her body, and she collapsed against the mirror, her breasts flattening against the cold surface as she looked into the frail woman's eyes on the other side of the glass and gave her new strength with every word I forced out of her lips.
"You love. You are still able of it. And… And you want them to be happy, to be better off after meeting you," I say, echoing what she told herself. What I forced her to tell herself.
"That… That's true. That's still true. That's why I'm doing this," she says, her tone as wavering as it was at that moment.
"Yes. I know. What else did you say? What words followed that?"
I know she's closing her eyes right as I do the same. That she's being transported from wherever she's taking this call to the place we once shared. To the memory we will always share.
"You still care. You'll always care. You'll never be as cruel as you pretend to be," she mutters, her voice taking on a dreamlike quality.
"Yes. And then I told you something. Something you wouldn't say yourself."
"That I want to be loved," she says, and this time the dream is far away. Fragile. Sad.
"What did I say after that? What was the one thing I wanted you to believe after all that, after everything that happened between us in that room?"
My eyes are still closed, and I feel a slow smile coming on, something to soften the demand in my voice.
"That you love me," she says, almost breaking.
No.
Almost showing the cracks.
Because I want her healed. I want her whole. I want her as free and whimsical as she pretends to be.
But she isn't there. Not yet.
Which is the one reason why I won't let her go until she is.
"Then, Haruno… If you ever doubt again what I mean when I say I love you… Remember that. Remember me pushing you to tell yourself the things you didn't want to say, the truths you didn't want to face, and how I refused to let you look away from the beautiful woman that you are, how I refused to let you look at the woman I love with anything but compassion and understanding."
There's silence.
Silence in which a memory lingers.
"Thank you," she says, her voice about to break.
And then she hangs up.
My phone falls from nerveless fingers, and I bury my face in my hands, steadying my breath before it comes out ragged and wild, and Iroha and Shizu immediately hug me, their warmth and softness anchoring me.
Taking me away from a hotel room in which Haruno and I were…
Happy.
Together.
In love.
I let them push me back into the sofa's backrest, into their embrace.
Iroha clings tightly to me.
Shizu silently cries on my chest.
And that, in turn, forces me to move, to act, to hug them back, and kiss their hair, and reassure them without words that I'm here, with them, and everything will be all right.
That I will make it all right.
Because, at the very least, now I know Haruno won't fight us.
==================
This work is a repost of my second oldest fic on QQ (https://forum.questionablequesting.com/threads/all-right-fine-ill-take-you-oregairu.15676/), where it can be found up to date except for the latest two chapters that are currently only available on on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/Agrippa?fan_landing=true)—as an added perk, both those sites have italicized and bolded text. I'll be posting the chapters here twice weekly, on Wednesday and Friday, until we're caught up. Unless something drastic happens, it will be updated at a daily rate until it catches up to the currently written 99 chapters (or my brain is consumed by the overwhelming amounts of snark, whichever happens first).
Speaking of Italics, this story's original format relied on conveying Brain-chan's intrusions into Hachiman's inner monologue through the use of italics. I'm using square brackets ([]) to portray that same effect, but the work is more than 300k words at the moment, so I have to resort to the use of macros to make that light edit and the process may not be perfect. My apologies in advance
Also, I'd like to thank my credited supporters on Patreon: aj0413, LearningDiscord, Niklarus, Tinkerware, Varosch, and Xalgeon. If you feel like maybe giving me a hand and help me keep writing snarky, maladjusted teenagers and their cake buffets, consider joining them or buying one of my books on https://www.amazon.com/stores/Terry-Lavere/author/B0BL7LSX2S. Thank you for reading!
Is it wrong to try to pick up girls in the dungeon?
This, at first blush, seems not only to be a nonsensical question but one we've already answered with a resounding, 'No, it isn't, and do you even realize what kind of game you're playing?' in our ongoing lecture series.
Yet things aren't that simple.
You see, the existence of dungeons themselves is somewhat suspect. They are, after all, more of an artifact of gameplay than story, and the way they've become an ever-present trope in the fantasy genre often clashes with plot elements and sensible worldbuilding. The dungeon can't help but bring to mind the games from where it came, casting a shadow of suspicion over the whole tale it's enmeshed in.
Unless we're talking about LitRPGs, I assume most of my cultured disciples have better literary taste than [Zaimokuza].
Still, that's the main issue. There [are] ways for a skilled, hard-working author to exert some effort and explain how and why a dungeon has come to be, but most of the people eager to unironically throw around game terminology in their novels are also the kind of people to faint at the mere idea of work, hard or otherwise. Which is very laudable of them, and I do indeed sympathize with my kinsmen doing their best to embody the noble ideals of the househusband, but the results still speak for themselves.
But, even if you went ahead with it and developed a convoluted set of circumstances as to why the monster youth center full of traps and with no less than four self-excluding biomes is a viable approach in the current housing market? What there are very few ways for is to justify not bombarding the damn place.
Seriously, a hole in the ground full of monsters? A [murder] hole in the ground purposefully built to annihilate heroes? Why would you enter when you can stay outside, at a safe distance, as the token loli of the group satisfies her pyromaniac fetish? Why wouldn't you flood it with poison clouds, barrels of acid, or whatever it is that remains of a spellcaster's arsenal after the latest nerf when the author realized some troublesome implications for the 'I win' button?
Indeed, there are very few reasons for a sane, rational hero to enter a dungeon.
Unless they want something guarded inside of it.
"I am sorry, Hachiman, but your princess is in another castle," a dungeon guard standing with her arms crossed and barring my entrance to the place I need something from says.
"What?" I, understandably confused despite my superlative intelligence, ask.
"Was the reference too unclear? And here I was, lowering myself to communicate with you on your own terms," the infuriating woman who made the top of [two] of my lists says.
Yes, one of those lists is the 'people to kill' notebook that I should burn before any inevitable police investigation is triggered by my current circumstances. No, I won't elaborate on what the other list was. Suffice it to say that the rankings have recently changed in that one, with a more or less three-way tie at the top that has, at last once, ended up in a four-way.
['At least? Are you seriously trying to pretend you don't remember how many times you've fucked your three girlfriends at once?']
I'm a modest and humble person, Brain-chan; you can't expect me to keep a detailed account of my many staggering accomplishments.
['… This is because you don't know whether the breakfast in bed with naked aprons counts, isn't it?']
I mean… does it?
"Do I [actually] need an interpreter?" Yukino, still barring entrance to her apartment and rudely interrupting a fascinating conversation on what level of interaction is required for something to count as a foursome, asks.
"Are you that eager to get Yui as backup? Can't you stomach being alone with me without your girlfriend—ah. Crap."
I realize the mistake I just made in my banter barely in time to both stop myself from finishing the line and to raise my hands in vehemently kinetic apology.
It… It does little to placate Yukino's reaction.
Which, in this particular instance, is a brief struggle to keep up her stone-faced look of faint disdain as an increasingly virulent blush creeps up the side of her neck until she gives up and lets out a low eep while looking straight at her feet—a task in which she excels in a way that Yui never will—that only gets interrupted by her hands slamming over her mouth.
…
Cute.
['What the Hell has Yui done to this woman?!']
I don't know, Brain-chan, and I don't think we can adequately explore the answer to your question in the wholesome, all-ages, fun-for-the-whole-family show that is my life.
['If by 'whole family' you mean Komachi—']
She's been a particularly loyal viewer through the years, but I'm going to stop that train of thought right away.
Also, I've got a melting Yukinoshita to take care of, and I know firsthand just how dangerous those can be.
"Hey," I say, softly and as composed as my brief pause has let me become, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean… Look, I just want to talk. Would it help if we went somewhere else? A park? A cat café—"
"Don't you even [dare] suggest taking me out on a date. Just how many people do you need in your harem, you lustful beast?"
"I mean, it's not so much about [needing—"]
"I already slapped you once, [Hikigaya], and it was a memorable enough experience that I wouldn't mind repeating it."
'Oh, kinky,' I [very carefully] don't say.
"I [really] want to talk to you. About Haruno," I do say, once again waving my hands in front me though maybe in a way less suggestive of frantic apology and more of an 'I have read enough martial arts mangas to know what a defensive stance looks like from the outside, but maybe not from the inside.'
Yukinoshita, in answer, glares at me in a way that perfectly states, 'While I haven't watched [any] martial arts animes, I am about to give any author who cares to take notes a masterclass on displaying proper killing intent.'
"About Haruno," she says, her tone as icy as it ever was. "My [sister]."
"Well, yes, though I'm pretty certain that genetics are merely a suggestion to her—"
"The sister whose wellbeing I entrusted to you," she remarks, the blush no longer apparent on her neck.
"I'm [trying—"]
"The sister who has left this apartment with no explanation whatsoever," she continues.
"If you just let me explain—"
She grabs my tie and [pulls].
I stagger forward a single step, and then, bowed forward just a tiny bit, just enough to make up for the difference in height with the slender, tall woman, I meet ice-blue eyes that, for once, feel like burning blue [flames].
"I [know] you hurt her. I know that, after everything, after every damn thing you've put me through, after everything Yui and I have had to overcome with your lingering ghost hanging over us, you've gone and hurt the sister I gave you to," she says.
And I…
I hug her.
My left arm goes around her waist, pulling her to me with as much strength as I've gained since Shizu decided to show me how to train to one day hold her body above mine, and my arm snakes around until I grasp the back of her head to pull her against my chest while I stand as tall and strong as I don't feel.
She doesn't move.
Not until her hands rise to clutch the lapels of my jacket, and she buries her face deeper against me.
Not until we have this… this moment that should never be.
Because it isn't.
Because I'm not yet again confessing to one of the two what I actually felt for them, what I still feel even if in thankfully different ways.
Because I'm just…
"I'm going to get her back," I say, murmuring the words into black hair that once fascinated me when it drifted behind her, hanging along a breeze that seemed custom-made to highlight her beauty.
"Your promises mean nothing," she says, turning her head to rest her ear over my heart.
"I… I promised Haruno. That if you cried, there would be someone to take care of you," I tell her. Defending myself, or… or doing something else.
Something stupid and likely unneeded.
"I know…" she whispers, the hand in front of her eyes opening to lie flat against my chest, her warmth reaching me despite all the ice puns that I ever made.
And I…
"I promise you. I promise I'll get her back. I'll help her heal. I'll get her to smile without bitterness, resentment, or malice. I'll make both of you happy," I say.
Stupidly.
Rashly.
And meaning every single word.
Even if words are never enough.
She stands close to me for another thousand years, for another eternity of a faint scent that I never caught as close as I do now, for a too brief moment of the first woman I loved being in my arms.
And then she pushes me away, and all the strength I've gained fades away to let her.
"Come in," she says.
And, without looking back, knowing I will follow, Yukino Yukinoshita regally turns around, her black hair a cape of woven shadow flaring around her as she steps into her apartment.
***
"You aren't drinking your tea," she says.
"I'm sure it's delicious and not poisoned at all," I answer with a deferential nod and a hopefully successful attempt at not showing her precisely what it is about the current situation that is making me sweat cold rivulets of terror down my back.
Going by her Yukinoshita eyebrow arching in supercilious contempt, I [may] have succeeded.
Because if she knew that my current state of abject horror is due to the very vivid memories of Haruno and I very nearly fucking like rabbits on the sofa Yukino and I are currently sitting on, I'm pretty sure an arched eyebrow would be the last of my worries.
Damn it, Haruno…
"If I planned on ending your offensive existence, Hikigaya, be assured that I wouldn't deprive myself of the pleasure of doing so with my own two hands," she says before taking an elegant, short sip of her cup of green tea adorned with a thin slice of very British lemon.
"Are you sure? Because there are plenty of agonizing poisons that would prolong my excruciating demise for hours, maybe days on end. Yes, you lose that artisanal touch that a good strangling gives you, but the plus side is that you're not so involved in the scene as to miss the valuable, nuanced memories that passively observing can offer you."
There's a very authoritative click of porcelain against porcelain before she slowly sets her tea on the coffee table in front of us.
Then she slowly turns toward me, the eyebrow making a comeback now that it's returned from its training arc of a bare few minutes, which, according to shounen rules, means at least a one-point-five increase in its power level.
Ugh. Math. Must it hound me even in shounen?
"You said you wanted to talk, not spew random diatribes that are just a breath away from collapsing under your usual self-serving logic," she calmly states.
"I wouldn't say arguing for my painful, prolonged demise is [self-serving—"]
"Hachiman, [talk to me]."
And…
And she's Yukino.
So I slump forward, my elbows resting on my thighs yet again in the defeated slouch I've adopted one too many times since Principal Inoue got an envelope full of pictures, and I tangle my hands in my hair.
"I need you to give me everything you can get on your mother. Every skeleton and where they are buried. Any weakness you can think of that I wouldn't be able to ask for. I need you to be for me as dirty and underhanded as you ever thought I was," I say, cowardly looking away from the woman I once decided never to shy away from.
There's… a silence, yes.
I think it only endures because she wasn't holding anything that she could dramatically drop.
"What?" she finally asks, her voice thin and weak like it's been… Like it was when Yui set her terms to solve our issues after a single date, the only one that the three of us will ever have shared.
The one time Yui Yuigahama tried to be like Hachiman Hikigaya, and it, predictably, drove Yukino to tears.
"Your… Your mother got a hold of some pictures that reveal that Haruno, Shizuka, Iroha, and I are in a relationship. She's pressured Principal Inoue to fire Shizu and blacklist her from ever teaching again. And now Haruno is sacrificing herself so your mother will back off."
Another beat of silence.
But this one stretches.
And so, despite my cowardice, I look up from between my feet and…
She's… Pale. The first thing I notice is how pale she looks.
Then I see her lips thinned into an angry line as her eyes burn.
"My sister—what do you mean by [sacrificing herself?"]
I don't lick my dry lips or look away.
No, I…
I take her in.
Yukino, filled with enough rage that it overflows. That it makes her feel so much more real than the faint, ethereal vision she often was.
"She's going to transfer to France. She hasn't explained why because she doesn't want me to meddle, but it's clear that the pact is that she'll stay there for long enough as to wreck any of her romantic entanglements, however long that takes. And then she'll have to be the company heir she never wanted to be."
I don't shy away from telling her. I don't even bother to soften the blow.
Because this Yukino is… [fascinating].
Her right hand is a clenched fist, her knuckles whitening with every word until her whole arm trembles as she remains still.
Her jaw is tightly clenched, the muscles standing out, sharp and well-defined.
And her eyes blaze.
It's a very good thing that we're both taken.
"That [moron]," she hisses.
This time, it's me that raises an inquiring, often insolent, eyebrow.
She takes it as an invitation.
Which it is.
"She… [We] were finally—she's throwing it all away! Where's her much-vaunted genius? Where's the spite and disdain for anything that so much as reminds her of rules and common sense? Where's [my sister?!"] she says, her tone steadily rising until she's on her feet, sweeping a sharp, blade-like arm in dismissal and refusal.
In [contempt].
"Hurting," I say. "Your sister is hurting."
A part of me is… messed-up. Despicable. Just… Just curious to see if she'll deflate, if she'll once again show me the frail Yukino who hid behind her façade and the wall of incomprehension she had built between herself and regular people. Those who should have been her peers in a kinder world.
That part is disappointed.
I am not.
I… I am [proud], exultant, when I see that my words just made the flames of her temper flare higher.
I owe Yui so, [so] much.
"You will solve [this]," she says, daring me to disagree.
I nod, my smile coming off without meaning to.
[That] smile.
The one I should never show in public.
"Good. Because this is your fault. You chased her, Hachiman, promising her she could have what she had wanted, [needed,] for years, and now you have two promises to fulfill."
She steps toward me, and I stand up to meet her head-on.
Her eyes are once more on mine.
"When have I ever disappointed you?" I say.
Stupidly.
Cruelly.
Sincerely.
Something flashes behind her eyes, something nearer to the surface than it would be if she were calm and composed, or at least pretending to be.
It doesn't fade away as we shake hands, and her lips twist into a smile that doesn't quite mirror my own.
"Never. You've never disappointed me. Not even when you hurt me."
I hold her eyes, her hand, as her words wound me and soothe me at once.
Our smiles soften.
And we, once again, hug.
"You are despicable," she says, her words not muffled as she just rests against me rather than cling with all our combined strength.
"I know. I think it's one of the things that caught Haruno's eye," I answer, not breathing in her scent or wondering about a world in which this hug would've been for entirely different reasons.
"No," she says after a single breath. "It wasn't that."
Her hand briefly rests over my heart.
And then she pushes me away, her smile further softening into something I'll never forget as mine just grows bitter.
==================
This work is a repost of my second oldest fic on QQ (https://forum.questionablequesting.com/threads/all-right-fine-ill-take-you-oregairu.15676/), where it can be found up to date except for the latest two chapters that are currently only available on on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/Agrippa?fan_landing=true)—as an added perk, both those sites have italicized and bolded text. I'll be posting the chapters here twice weekly, on Wednesday and Friday, until we're caught up. Unless something drastic happens, it will be updated at a daily rate until it catches up to the currently written 103 chapters (or my brain is consumed by the overwhelming amounts of snark, whichever happens first).
Speaking of Italics, this story's original format relied on conveying Brain-chan's intrusions into Hachiman's inner monologue through the use of italics. I'm using square brackets ([]) to portray that same effect, but the work is more than 300k words at the moment, so I have to resort to the use of macros to make that light edit and the process may not be perfect. My apologies in advance
Also, I'd like to thank my credited supporters on Patreon: aj0413, LearningDiscord, Niklarus, Tinkerware, Varosch, and Xalgeon. If you feel like maybe giving me a hand and help me keep writing snarky, maladjusted teenagers and their cake buffets, consider joining them or buying one of my books on https://www.amazon.com/stores/Terry-Lavere/author/B0BL7LSX2S. Thank you for reading!
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