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86.2% All Right! Fine! I Will Take You! [Oregairu, Poly] / Chapter 100: All Right! Fine! I Will Take You! – Chapter 95 – Shizuka Hiratsuka Never Surrendered

Chapter 100: All Right! Fine! I Will Take You! – Chapter 95 – Shizuka Hiratsuka Never Surrendered

I'm not familiar with political games.

Most of what I understand about the whole thing? It comes from faculty meetings and talks with yet another befuddlingly miffed principal. I know about alliances and presenting one's needs as the most pressing concerns to ever be encountered in a learning institution. I know about keeping a poker face while the PE moron demands yet more supplies for what usually amounts to (barely) supervised recess. I know about not pressing Inoue when he looks even more stressed out than usual.

… Which I may have something to do with, as of late.

But, overall? I don't know about politics. I don't know about backroom deals, or where the skeletons are buried, or whatever it is that moves the levers of power beyond the obvious, superficial answer of 'Money.'

I still know what a power move is, though.

"I've been waiting for an hour," I tell the young secretary whose sole job seems to be to stand by my side as I sit on a small, backless, leather bench set against the wall of the hallway presumably leading to Ms. Yukinoshita's office.

"My apologies, Miss Hiratsuka, but you dropped in unannounced. It will take time for the Mistress to fit you in her schedule," he says in a way that makes me rethink the title of secretary and go right to 'butler.'

… And now I'm thinking about a particularly grating young man serving me a [bouillabaisse,] or however that's spelled in a sane language.

Damn it, Hachi…

"I understand I may come across as imposing, but this feels like a delaying tactic," I finally say. Because I don't know about politics, so I may as well take a page out of the book of somebody who very much [refuses] to learn about politics and force myself to be as blunt as I can possibly be without boxing gloves.

"I assure you that the Mistress is—"

"Do you have an ashtray?" I ask, already opening my white coat and reaching for the inner pocket on my left lapel.

"Excuse me?"

"An ashtray," I repeat, taking out a silver cigarette case that Dad gave me two birthdays ago and that I rarely use outside of fancy occasions, such as weddings where I was gifted tickets to an amusement park by a very good, dear friend who never quite caught me dropping the ash on the tail of her wedding dress. "You're going to need an ashtray."

"[I] am going to need an ashtray?" he says, eyebrows rising in asymmetrical confusion.

"Yes," I say, a metallic sound ringing out when I flick the bottom of the case to align the cigarettes inside it before I open the lid and take out one of the rolled white cylinders. "You're going to need one because it's most definitely not my job to keep this very nice and expensive leather bench free of ash stains."

And then, looking straight into his eyes, I light up my cigarette with a zippo lighter that always feels incredibly satisfying to snap open.

I take a deep breath, filling my mouth with warm smoke that slides over my throat like the caress of a lover, and I take as much relief out of the much-needed hit of nicotine as I take from the panicked young man fleeing in search of anything at all that can serve as an ashtray.

His rushing footsteps fade away before I deign to flick the ashen tip of the cigarette off on the wooden floor by my borrowed slippers, and then I stand up and walk to imposing double doors of reddish oak that are a concession to Western standards I wouldn't have expected from the Yukinoshita matriarch, no matter how much more private her dealings are behind them than when hiding after paper screens.

"Excuse me," I say as I open one of the carved panes and walk right in to meet a woman briefly glaring at me from behind a massive desk filled with two computer screens and too many stacks of paper for me to bother counting.

"Please, do come in, Miss Hiratsuka. Make yourself comfortable," she says with a placid smile and not a hint of the underlying sarcasm, her eyes only briefly twitching to the red, glowing spot dangling from my fingers.

"I think I will, thank you very much," I say, sitting in front of her in a chair that is studiously [worse] than the one she uses, even if not bad by any reasonable measure, not with lacquered armrests and leather cushioning.

And then I reach to her side of the desk to grab an empty teacup and shake off some ash into it.

"You certainly took me at my word," she says, her smile firmly in place and as unnerving as when she came to my school to forbid students from having fun like she was the villain in an eighties youth comedy.

"I tend to do that," I answer before taking another long drag out of my cigarette, the ember burning that much brighter as I fill my mouth with as much smoke as I can take in, the velvety texture just slightly too hot for my tastes as I keep up my glaring duel.

I slowly let it out. First, two tendrils come from the corners of my mouth, curling up into whirling spirals right in front of my eyes before I open my lips and allow the actual curtain of purple whorls to come up between our stares.

Without looking away.

For a single second.

Neither does she.

"Mistress! I'm so sorry, I—" a panicked voice calls out from behind me.

"Leave us, Shinji."

"I—"

"[Leave us]."

The door closes with a whisper.

I smile.

"I'm glad you could finally manage to take the time to meet with me," I say.

"You may have cost that man his job. Is this your only reaction to that?" she attacks.

"I'm not responsible for your actions, Mrs. Yukinoshita. Only for mine."

She stares at me in silence for a moment, sizing me up, and… and it should be unsettling. I should feel intimidated by one of the most powerful people I've ever met confronting me like this.

But I'm a boxer.

And it's easy. No, not easy, but easier than it should be. It's… looking at someone who only wants to defeat you. To crush you. Somebody whose goal is nothing other than your destruction.

I'm used to it, even if I never went pro. Even if I only had a few amateur matches that, thankfully, never broke my nose nor left any kind of lasting damage. Even if I only do very light sparring nowadays because I don't fancy talking with a slur when my job is—[was] to speak.

But I still remember. I still remember being in a ring, and everything but my opponent fading away as if it never existed, the cheers and jeers of the sparse crowd turning into murmurs that I barely noticed under my rushing heartbeat as I stared into the eyes of another woman, one as trained as I was, with a single goal in mind.

['The shoulders,'] Dad said. ['Eyes lie, but shoulders cannot. Always keep them in your sight.']

Thank you, Dad. I couldn't have made it without you.

Because her eyes are more like Yukino's than Haruno's. Ice rather than lavender.

But her shoulders have just enough tension that her plum kimono, patterned with the white blossoms of the tree that gives name to the color, rises minutely up. And I don't know Mrs. Yukinoshita beyond vague first impressions and things that Haruno never talked enough about, but I know that she's the kind of person to hide obvious tells. To keep an iron grip on her reactions.

I know she's seething.

And, as one Hachiman Hikigaya would put it: ['Heh.']

… I'm pretty sure that, at one point in the future, I'll look back on this very moment and loudly bemoan my choices.

"Are you?" she finally says. "Responsible?"

"Yes," I immediately answer, my voice roughing up my throat like the tobacco smoke hasn't in years.

"Then why are you still in Chiba?" she asks, the smile fading away into polite disinterest.

I so want to punch her nose in.

"Because somebody is holding my girlfriend hostage, and I've watched too many movies."

A beat. A moment for her to once again try to stare me down.

The cheers and jeers fade away as my heartbeat drums.

"I'm not in the mood to appreciate your wit, Miss Hiratsuka, no matter how keen it must've become after years of entertaining [teenagers]."

"Are you [ever] in the mood to appreciate anything at all?"

"There are pleasures in life that can always improve one's mood," she says, her eyes finally narrowing.

Good.

"Oh, I definitely agree," I say, leaning forward and setting the teacup back on her desk before I drop the half-finished cigarette in, smoke now pouring out of the expensive porcelain.

More silence.

Except for my heartbeat getting that much louder.

"You are to leave my daughters alone. Both of them. That is the only result this little visit of yours will bring about."

"You are sorely mistaken."

"Am I?" she says, her finger lightly tapping on top of a stack of papers nearer to her than the others.

Of course.

"Let me guess," I say, bluffing as hard as I ever did when pretending to go for a heavy hook before throwing a swift double jab, "somewhere in that pile of documents is the deed to my father's gym, or an article about Iroha's mother's divorce, or maybe even a letter petitioning Sobu High to expel one Hachiman Hikigaya due to his idiosyncratic approach to scholarly pursuits."

Her eyebrow rises, so I take the exchange as a victory, however Pyrrhic that may be.

"You're refreshingly blasé about the destruction of everyone you hold dear," she comments as if she does this often enough that it [is] refreshing.

For all I know, maybe she does.

"What do you expect from me? Crying? Bargaining? Immediate capitulation?"

"Those are expected reactions, yes."

I nod, acknowledging how utterly absurd it is for me to do none of that. To still be… [me].

A me that met him.

So I stand up.

And, without looking away from eyes or shoulders, I walk around her desk until I stand in front of her.

"You just threatened me and the people I care about. You just crossed a line [again]. You've hurt Haruno and made everyone who loves her lose their goddamn minds for days as we struggled to first understand what was wrong and then learn how to solve it."

"[You] are what's wrong," she says, turning her chair around to face me directly but not standing up, the power play obvious enough.

And then I punch her stomach.

Some people have done the math. That a boxer's cross carries that much more energy than a handgun bullet. That we learn how to pour in everything we can, every ounce of our weight, every fiber of our muscles. That we push with legs and hips, twisting our entire bodies into a single, unified purpose when concentrating all of that power into a single blow.

Mrs. Yukinoshita's eyes fly wide open, and her breath comes out in an explosive gasp right after my knuckles dig into the stiff fabric of a multi-layered kimono and just before her chair rolls back, bleeding off some of the pain I wanted to pour into her.

The chair slows down before reaching the wall, but I don't let up. I chase her with a single leap and place my right foot right on the edge of her seat, by the side of her thigh, and shove her that much farther, the rolling not even slowing down before she collides beside a cabinet with glass doors that barely rattles when I kick the wall by the side of her head before leaning forward and down.

Right in front of her shocked face.

Because I don't know politics, but I know damn well what a power play is.

"You just told me how far you're willing to go. That rules and laws don't matter to you. Well, here's when I tell you that they also don't matter to me. At all. That what I care for are fairness and justice, and I care more than anyone should after growing out of their chuuni phase," I say, my voice as low as it can be, taking full advantage of years of smoking to drop into a growling register that has as much intensity as his but none of the dark warmth.

"You—" she starts to say.

And I slap her.

"But I care for [my] justice, not for what you can manage with bribery, blackmail, and rigged laws. And if you hurt them? If you hurt anyone at all [but me?] I will destroy you. I will do anything in [my] power to end you. And I can't do backroom deals, but I can [punch]."

"You think I can't deal with a [thug]?" she says, her face twisting into a hateful grimace, a disdainful sneer.

"No. I think you can't deal with me, much less [us]," I say.

And then I take a folded paper out of my coat's inner pocket.

"What—"

"[Read it]," I say, throwing it on her lap.

She does.

And she pales.

Under the elaborate makeup, under what I realize are disguised eyebags, under the rehearsed pretense of a woman always immaculately in control, the Yukinoshita matriarch pales because of Hachiman's scheme in a way she hadn't while I just threatened to bash her face in.

I'm not surprised. At all. I know who the most dangerous of us has always been.

"What do you want?" she finally says.

I glare at her.

With all the spite and hatred that I can manage on Haruno's behalf. With all the disgust this woman instills in me. With all my need to hurt her.

"To talk," I say.

And so I lean back and take my foot away from the now scuffed wall before I walk back to my lacquered chair and sit in front of her desk.

"No blackmail. No threats. You don't use this," I say, pointing at the stack of papers, "and I won't use [that]," I finish, waving at the article in her hands.

She takes a moment to stand up, and I can see the inner struggle on what option would be more undignified before she grabs the backrest of her chair and drags it back in front of me.

When she sits, her eyes are neither placid nor polite.

[At all].

"You expect me to believe you would give up… [this]?" she says, the paper rustling when she waves it.

"No. I won't. I will keep a copy of that safe and secure for the rest of my life, and everybody I trust will know what to do if I disappear. I will keep that sword pointed straight at your heart until the day you die, you vicious harpy."

"If you think that threats and [violence] will stop me from protecting my daughters—"

"Stop that before I finally give in and break your jaw."

"Didn't you hear what I just said?"

"Oh, I [did]. I heard the main reason for Haruno and Yukino to be traumatized and barely able to understand that anybody could love them telling me that she's protecting them. I heard a woman who treats her daughters as possessions, [as pieces on a board], tell me that the years I devoted to helping them heal are the actual threat to their wellbeing. I just heard a broken doll try to act as if she cares [at all] for the two daughters she's all but strangled, turning them into little bonsais, plucking away at their branches whenever they grew in a way she didn't care for—"

I catch the computer monitor with both hands, the cable jerking after the violent throw, and I quickly lower it so that it won't blind me to a follow-up attack.

I shouldn't have bothered.

She's heaving, her arms still extended after launching the clumsy attack at me, and furious tears are running down her face, smudging that masterfully applied makeup of hers, revealing the darkened skin under her eyes.

"You [seduced] my daughter. You took advantage of… of… She was vulnerable. Young. She… My Haruno—"

"[My] Haruno," I say.

And, as she glares at me with as much hatred as I've ever seen on anybody's face, as her shoulders shudder a single time under the stiff kimono, I set the monitor back on her desk.

Just… a tad nearer to me.

"Haruno seduced me. I did everything I could to resist her, to keep her as a friend. And that was only because I was sure I was her [only] real friend and couldn't push her further away than that. It took her years and waiting for the right opening to finally force me to accept her feelings, and… and I regret not doing that sooner. Because I love her. Because, in one way or another, I have since long ago."

"Her. And two others," she says, venom dripping from her tone.

"… Ask her to explain. And listen," I say, deciding that's not one argument I'm willing to entertain with the woman glaring at me.

"To explain how a teacher ends up with a former student and two current ones? With chil—"

"Yes! To explain that! To explain why [she] ended up with us. To explain how hard she fought to be a part of this whole fucking [mess]. To tell you what it is that she sees in Iroha, the one girl other than her sister who may have finally understood why Haruno clings so tightly to people who accept her; what she sees in Hachiman, the man who forced her to find something to love inside herself, and to explain to you why the Hell she's so set on me because I couldn't tell you to save my life."

"Because you found her at her lowest and showed her something that she could believe was a ray of hope—"

"And [why] was she at her lowest, Hana?" I say, finally forgoing her title.

She stops.

"You don't have the right to interrogate me," she says.

"You just threatened to destroy the lives of everyone near to me. You [already] did your best to wreck your daughter's peace after she'd finally reached it. I have every right. The only rights that matter."

"Do you really think you can fool me just with your—"

"The only person I ever fooled was myself. Everyone else knew how things stood right from the start," I say, remembering a phone call after Haruno had Hachiman eat me out for her voyeuristic pleasure.

… Which is not the best thing to remember at this very moment.

"No. You don't get to claim this. You are [the adult]. You have all the power in that little arrangement of yours—"

I laugh.

I… I really can't do anything other than that. Just… just laugh at the absurdity of me having any kind of power over precisely that very trio. The voyeuristic exhibitionist who delights in making all of us lose our minds, the malcontent human wrecking ball who never stopped even when I begged him not to tear down my walls, and the woman who…

Haruno.

My Haruno.

And so, my laughter ends.

I stare back into eyes that do look like Yukino's. That are ice full of cracks.

Except Yui has allowed us to see what lies behind Yukino's ice. What was hidden so poorly in there. The warmth that was just afraid to reach out and be snuffed.

That's… not what I see behind Hana's ice.

"You really don't know any better, do you?" I finally ask.

"I know enough about emotional manipulation and grooming to—"

"No. No, you really don't. This… This is what Haruno had to deal with. You set on a rational argument to mask your actual reasoning. You present… what you think is acceptable for the world to see and keep hiding your true self. Because that's how you survived. That's how you managed to stop being hurt."

"You don't know [anything—"]

"That's how you stopped feeling."

And she clenches her jaw.

I… I can see it. How another Haruno, another Yukino, would've ended up like this. Extraordinary, yet surrounded by things that only accept a fraction of that. That never allowed them to show themselves fully.

Flowers in a greenhouse. And the world was outside.

So I take my cigarette case yet again out of my pocket, the glint of silver as nostalgic as ever, even if I've only had it for two years.

But it's a reminder of Dad. Of a gift that he gave me in spite of himself after all the times he told me to quit smoking.

That's what's engraved inside of the lid: ['Please, for my peace of mind, quit it.']

A line that is applicable to so many things…

But, at this moment, I yet again acknowledge it and proceed to ignore it, like most daughters do with wise advice from doting parents, and take out another rolled white tube, the zippo flicking open with long practice, the flame wavering before I drag it in with a long inhale that has the tip of the cigarette turn into a red ember.

There's no smoke coming out of the teacup on my side of the desk.

I lean back, my head hanging over the backrest of this heavy chair, and let a clumsy ring of smoke out to fly up to the ceiling above, wondering if this would be the right time to remark how unfamiliar it is as my tired mind tries to hold on to any of the strong emotions I keep feeling just by being in this room, with this woman in front of me.

"I feel, Miss Hiratsuka. Right now, I feel hatred," she says, her voice finally as calm as it was at the start of this whole mess.

"That makes two of us, Hana," I say. "I just wish that pity wasn't spoiling the mood."

I look back at her, straight into icy eyes.

And I flick the ash of my cigarette on her immaculate, wooden floor.

==================

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 104 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!


Chapter 101: All Right! Fine! I Will Take You! – Chapter 96 - Shizuka Hiratsuka Is Too Compassionate

"Pity?" Hana asks as if she doesn't understand the very concept.

"Funny, isn't it?" I say, looking away from her eyes to follow the stream of smoke coming from beneath the armrest and between my fingers hanging barely past my sleeve. "I wonder how many times it has spoiled a deal for you."

I don't.

Not really. Not after these past few days and what she tried to pull with that stack of papers whose hard facts I'm blissfully unaware of because it's far easier to remain calm when you know that there's a knife pointed at you but aren't seeing the light glinting off its edge.

"I don't feel any pity for [you], Shizuka," she says, my name an insult on her lips, the fake familiarity just returning what I did when I went from Ms. Yukinoshita to Hana.

Flower. Flower under snow.

How very fitting, I guess.

"I could've guessed as much," I finally say, looking back into her eyes and showing just a hint of how tiring this whole exchange is.

"Could you? Is this your famed insight into troubled youths at play? Is this what you used to manipulate three—"

"I have manipulated absolutely no one, but go ahead, make me even more furious. It's not like I have the means to get some very high-ranking people in your company in jail."

"What happened to no threats or blackmail?" she says, lips twisting into the beginning of a vicious smirk before she schools them into yet another placid line.

I have to restrain myself from making a cigarette-crushing fist, which means I don't have the mental resources to spare so that I won't grind my teeth.

A bad habit that my mouthguard allows me to indulge too much in.

"You are right," I finally say with a curt nod. "I told you I wouldn't threaten you anymore, didn't I?"

"You did," she says with a flat tone, and I almost can believe I did not just put her off balance.

But I'm used to feints. As much as Haruno runs rings around me when it comes to that part of our respective arts, that's Haruno on a good day, and Hana…

Dark eyebags revealed by angry tears smudging off expensive makeup.

She isn't having a good day.

"Right. So that just leaves talking like adults—"

"You just punched me and slapped me."

"And you threatened everyone I love and tore my lover's heart in pieces. Be glad you still have all your teeth."

"Hideo Nakayama no longer has, does he? A lover's spat, no charges pressed—"

"He was [stealing from me—"]

"And you were drunk and beat him up. Is that a pattern, [Shizuka]? Something that the school board should've been aware of? Or maybe something that any lover of yours—"

"Call me an abuser. Go ahead. See how far you can push me before I finally lose control."

"Would that be my fault, then? If I made you so angry that you just [had] to hit me?"

Jaw clenching.

Heart thundering. Everything fading but the opponent in front of me.

Eyes. Eyes and shoulders.

Thank you, Dad.

"Yes," I finally manage to say despite my field of view narrowing. "Yes, it would be your fault."

She grins as if she's scored a point.

She may have, in her deluded way of seeing the world.

"You keep slipping on your promise about not threatening me, Shizuka. It makes one wonder about your sincerity."

When I raise the cigarette up to my lips, it's crooked but still serviceable. I've managed not to crush it by some miracle of will.

The smoke feels harsh in my throat, and I realize that I must've screamed at some point because my throat is raw when it shouldn't be.

She's playing me.

I don't know about politics, and she's a master of the game. I don't have half as many cards up my sleeve as she does on that damn stack of papers. I don't know about her like she does about me, thanks to those damn detective reports she must've paid through the nose for.

I should be losing.

But I can't lose.

I look back into her eyes, the cracked ice gleaming over a thin smile, and I consume the last of the cigarette before I flick the filter to her desk, the stupid thing landing by sheer chance inside of the teacup I already used as an ashtray from the very start, even if a part of me was actually hoping to hit her in the middle of the forehead.

I breathe.

Because that's also part of the fight, you know? Keeping your head cool. Thinking when you just want to go full throttle and lose yourself in motion rather than planning.

Eyes.

Eyes and shoulders.

I can't lose.

So I won't.

"I just told you I pitied you," I say, going yet again for my cigarette holder and feeling the textured silver on my fingertips before I open it to once again be comforted by the often-disregarded concern Dad had engraved on it.

"And I just told you I don't," she says as I slowly and deliberately light up the new white cylinder, watching as my zippo's flame licks the edges of the paper without sucking the flame in, just observing it first blacken and then glow until I look back into icy eyes that must've fooled someone at some point.

I take the smoke in and slowly let it out in yet another curtain between our gazes.

"How do you think that article was written?" I ask, pointing with glowing red at the creased paper now in front of her.

"You tricked Haruno—"

"You forced Haruno to distance herself from us as abruptly and suddenly as possible, which is the only reason we knew something was wrong as soon as we did. And I'm guessing you used Yukino as leverage to get her to agree—"

"I haven't used [my daughter—]"

"And that's why I pity you," I say with a sad, tired smile that is…

Genuine.

I never told Hachi how much it can hurt.

But he learned it on his own.

"You pity me because I won't use my daughter? How telling, Shizuka—"

The smile on her lips dies when she finally realizes the way I look at her.

I'm still furious. I still want to break a few bones in her body and claim that she fell down the stairs, adding the line just for her crack about my 'abusive tendencies.'

But anger's not the only thing I feel.

"How did we get our hands on that, Hana?" I say as kindly and softly as I can.

She hesitates.

"Kanade Isshiki once was an investigative reporter. She must've been researching our conglomerate—"

I take something out of my coat's right pocket. Something blue.

'A baton,' an unbearably corny man would say.

"Kanade Isshiki managed to write that article in a single night after Iroha explained to her everything that's happened and begged her mother for help," I say before I slowly place the USB memory stick on the dark wood in front of me. "She found the information she needed in this. And this… This was filled in a single night after your daughter decided she couldn't ask you for help."

She's looking at it, just… The mask is slipping, and I can see the genuine despair. The heartbreak. The knowledge of just how much has been placed in my hands by the people she claims to be protecting from me.

"You…" she clears her throat, and I could almost believe she's calm if not for the quivering of the shoulders I'm always keeping an eye on. "You said that Haruno stayed away from you," she says.

Lost.

And I [do] pity her.

But I'm still going to hurt her.

"She did. The one who gave us your files was Yukino."

She breaks.

Or, more accurately, she finally shows how broken she's been from the very start.

"You're lying," she says out of stubbornness rather than belief.

"Haruno backed down because hurting the company would've hurt Yukino, didn't she? And Yukino—"

"You're [lying]," she says, standing up abruptly, the office chair rolling away from her as she holds onto the edge of her desk with hands that only tremble for the brief moment that they aren't desperately clutching anything solid.

"Call her," I say, staring straight past shattered ice. "Ask your daughter to tell you what she thinks of what you're doing."

It would be simple, wouldn't it? For a mother to talk with her daughters. To get their version of events before making any rash judgment on their behalf. Simplicity itself.

['Simple is not easy, champ,'] Dad said with that infuriating grin of his as he walked me yet again through a proper hook, making me repeat it in slow motion to memorize the form. To engrave it in my body after tens of repetitions before letting me go at a heavy bag for the first time.

It isn't. Simple's rarely easy. But for things like this, it should be.

"They have phones, Hana," I prod her, trying to remain as gentle as Haruno and Yukino deserve me to be.

"You… You've poisoned her. She…"

"First I'm lying, now they're mistaken, next it will be Hachiman manipulating them. Don't you see what you're doing to them? To yourself?"

"Shut up. You don't have the right—"

"I love Yukino like the hurt child she was when I first met her. I love Haruno like… like somebody I can no longer live without. What other rights do I need?"

And she, finally, looks back up at me.

The tears are no longer angry or frustrated.

"What do you want?" she whispers.

And I could remain calmly seated, purple smoke drifting up from the cigarette dangling from insolent fingers as I watch the woman hunched over in front of me, on the other side of a desk piled up with two kinds of blackmail.

But I've never been good at politics.

So I take yet another page out of the book of the man who refuses to learn about politics, and I stand up before I calmly walk around the desk to stand by the side of the broken woman.

And I clasp her chin to turn her head and get her to look up at me.

… It's a very good thing it's me and not him in here.

"Talk to them. And listen," I say, yet again as gentle as they deserve me to be.

Them, not her.

Because I can pity someone and hate them. I can see all the loathsome deeds behind a placid façade. I definitely still remember her threatening not me but [them].

But…

But I'm not Hachi.

I wouldn't have torn a nosy, bitter, lonely widow's heart apart.

And, as much as I've done it to the woman in front of me… That's the start of things, not what I was aiming for.

"Just like that," she says, her voice barely trembling. "I should just call Haruno and Yukino, and… and…"

And she laughs an ugly, bitter thing that has the stiff shoulders of a plum kimono quiver.

Then she slaps my hand away, and I can see the glimmer of fury sparking behind her eyes, the need to act rather than dwell on what has just been said as she opens her mouth for yet another hateful invective.

So I take a deep drag of my cigarette and blow the smoke right into her open mouth.

Which makes her bend over in harsh coughing, and that may seem petty right after what I was thinking, but…

Okay, it [may] be slightly petty.

"What does it take, Hana? What does it take for you to believe what we're telling you?" I say, trying to sound distant rather than… well, slightly amused.

And very much furious.

She takes a moment to regain her breathing and then glares up at me with fresh tears in her eyes, this time just from the coughing fit.

I… I [could] see a bit of Haruno in her. A bit of the defiance and stubbornness. The anger at the world not being what she wants it to be.

A bit of Hachiman, as well.

But… But the main difference… No. The two differences are very simple: what it is that they want the world to be, and what are they willing to do about it.

"You're… You're just defending yourself," she says, glancing at her stack of papers. "This isn't about my daughters, not really—"

"Hire me," I immediately say.

"What?" she answers, more stunned than when I slapped her.

"Hire me. Make me work for you. Have me under your heel. I don't [care]. I just want you out of their—I just want you to stop hurting your own daughters to get at me."

"I am [protecting them from you—"]

"Then do that! Have some actual power over me! Because [this?"] I say, disdainfully waving at her stack of blackmail so harshly that my coat's sleeve snaps and the first pages flutter away. "This will only make me fight you harder. Go after me, not the people I'll do anything for."

"You're insane—"

"I'm [in love]. Of course I'm insane."

And that seems to be yet another slap to a woman who has to take a step away from me, her limp hand trailing over the edge of her desk when she…

When she forces herself to stop fleeing.

I can see the twisted thing behind broken eyes stirring, trying to see what just happened from all the angles she can conceive of, making and discarding plans as fast as Haruno would, even if in entirely different ways, because Haruno's mind has been shaped by experiences Hana never had and disciplines that she never trained in. Because Haruno, as forceful as she innately is, was trained in [aikido], and so she understands the importance of letting go in a way that I just know Hana never did.

Even if Haruno never let me go.

Because there's always a bit of madness in being in love.

"What would I even hire you for—" she starts, trying to appear calm and composed despite the ruined makeup because that's the only strategy that she was ever allowed to use. Because I can see the shape of the one who hurt her into never acting emotionally or, at least, pretending she doesn't.

But I also see others.

I see Iroha, acting as the bright child she would've been if her father wasn't scum and her mother hurt, trying to fit in despite the bullying she was subjected to for years.

I see Hachiman, not quite acting and not quite pretending, except doing both things in the very worst way possible. Showing the world a ruthless, sincere part of him that would shield the softer ones.

I see Haruno. Haruno and her collection of masks. Her acting games. Her personas to be put on and discarded according to who she was trying to be a friend to because she never learned to just [be].

I see a crying girl sitting on the floor of a school's corridor because she'd been used and discarded by a stupid boy who likely never realized what he did to one of my students when I was just starting out and learning what it was about teaching that I actually cared about.

And I see Inoue. Inoue and his doomed attempt at hiring a school counselor with a psychologist's degree years before he decided to bet on me and my doubtful reputation as a rookie teacher with a penchant for meddling.

So I…

I answer.

"To head your new charity," I say.

And she shuts her mouth.

The thing behind her eyes moves.

And I go back to my seat.

***

"You can't expect me to agree to this. It would cost millions just to set up," she says, more comfortable now that we're talking about numbers rather than people.

Or, well, now that [she] is.

"Remember when I told you I wouldn't threaten you?" I say.

"Vividly. And I would rather not take that utterance as a show of how trustworthy your word is."

"You didn't ask why," I say.

She raises an eyebrow. It comes across as elegant now that she's taken the time to clean the tear streaks to appear tired and drained rather than utterly broken.

"I assumed it was a way to soothe your conscience," she says with the sarcasm dripping off every syllable.

"Almost," I say. "It was a way to soothe theirs."

Her eyes narrow, and I take that as a silent invitation for me to continue.

My fingers itch to reach for a new cigarette, but I restrain myself this time because I've already used too many of them as shows of aggression for me to light up another one and not expect that to be seen in the worst way it could be seen at this very moment, so, when I take a sigh and slowly let it out, there's no curtain of purple smoke pouring out of my lips.

No matter how much I wish there was.

"They know me. Every single person I love knows me because I was never any good at hiding who I am, and whenever I tried, I only hurt myself and others. And they know how much it would go against my principles to just… just point at something you did wrong and take that as my win."

"A draw, at the very best," she says, meaningfully looking for a brief moment at her own weapons.

I snort.

She… may have not taken that well.

"You've hurt your daughters all their lives because of the conglomerate you've convinced yourself is the only thing you will leave them. You've sacrificed everything to get them their legacy and wealth. And both of them have threatened to destroy that very legacy out of repugnance for your actions. Do you [really] think that's a draw, Hana?"

She pales. And, without the artfully applied makeup she wore at the start or the tearful mess of moments ago, I can see the very life drain out of her as her shoulders slump, and even rage flees from slack lips.

"I'm sorry," I say. Because I am. "That's… that's part of it, you know? That I [am] sorry. But I also am sorry for the people you've hurt over the years. And I… I [can't] just learn about something this [horrible] and be happy about getting my way. I need to do something about it, or I wouldn't be myself, and maybe I can take that wound, but I can't take Haruno looking at me and knowing I've betrayed myself because of her. That's… that's just…"

I trail off and look at her, begging her to understand without any more words.

She, of course, doesn't.

Or, at least, she pretends not to.

"You're a hypocrite," she says.

And I almost laugh when my mind immediately comes up with somebody saying in a punchable, smug way that not only is he a hypocrite, but that he's proud to be one.

Damn it, Hachi, stop making me mushy in the middle of my fated duel.

"Maybe," I say with a shrug that makes me keenly aware of the cigarette holder in my coat's inner pocket moving up and down with the gesture. "But think about it, Hana: the Yukinoshita conglomerate taking a stance for the mental health of Chiba's youth, being in contact with all the local schools, managing to reach out to the community—"

"[Mental health]," she says like it's a swear word. "Out of all the inane things you could be begging me for, you resort to [mental health]."

"Yes. Yes, I am. Because I [can] give up teaching if it's for this, and neither Haruno, Iroha, or Hachiman will feel like it's a defeat."

"Of course it wouldn't be. You'd go from a teacher's salary to—"

"To going to college and getting my psych degree while living off my savings."

She pauses.

Her eyes narrow at me, and I can see the attempt at sliding the ice back in place, a barrier between her and a world she never quite managed to understand. A Haruno who never…

A Haruno who never met me.

And there's that pity again.

"Some would say that would be a good career investment," she says.

"[Some] don't have the slightest clue of what it will take for me to maintain my apartment and car while studying and working part-time jobs for years of no financial stability whatsoever as I stress out of my goddamn mind about whether you'll fulfill your end of the deal," I say, scoffing with no attempt whatsoever to disguise what I think of the accusation.

"My word is far more reliable than that of a violent thug."

"I'll take 'violent thug' over 'abusive partner and groomer,' thank you very much."

"Those are not mutually exclusive terms."

"Your [face] is not mutually exclusive."

She blinks.

"That makes no sense whatsoever."

"I'm drained after days of wringing my brain and trying to come up with a way to solve this that doesn't end up with my boyfriend destroying my girlfriend's family, and I just put my future in the hands of someone who unapologetically hates me, so my wit may not be at its best. What's your excuse?"

"I've been hit and berated by the woman who seduced my daughter in her teens and claims to have the moral high ground on me, then slapped with my other daughter betraying her family just to indulge her older sister's scandalous, impossible to ever become public, romantic entanglements, and the woman who seems to be behind all of this is now pressuring me into founding a charity that will bind the Yukinoshita name to one of the most unpopular causes in the country."

I tilt my head.

"Admittedly, that [does] sound like a good excuse," I say.

She snorts.

And I almost cheer at her finally being at least a little bit human.

***

The cool air of early spring hits me when I finally exit the Yukinoshita compound, a mild breeze tugging at my coat's tails and making my pants cling to my ankles.

I stand there, in the middle of the broad sidewalk, in front of the double gates, and I finally fall into temptation and pull out my cigarette holder out of my coat's inner pocket, opening the silver case to find the three remaining white cylinders and…

And an engraving.

['Please, for my peace of mind, quit it.']

My shoulders are still tight with the tension of the past few hours, and the yearning for nicotine is harsher than ever.

I still smile.

At the concern. The words that mean so many things. The line that he told me time and time again when he learned of yet another instance of me meddling where I shouldn't, putting myself in harm's way because of a kid that would stop being in my life just years or months after I had crossed a line for them.

I smile, soft and tender, taking this moment for myself before I call Iroha and Hachi to let them know that Haruno is finally free and before I gear up for the rant I'm going to throw in the infuriating woman's face as soon as she gathers the courage to visit me again.

Taking this moment just to remember Dad's concerned, caring, [proud] voice.

And then…

Then I take a cigarette out and snap the silver case closed before I walk away with something white and unlit dangling from my lips.

==================

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 105 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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