บท 12: Hikigaya Way Of Help
AUTHOR NOTE - [ SORRY FOR NOT GIVING YOU ANY CHAPTER OF ANY NOVAL . I HAD EXAM THIS WEAK SO I WAS JUST BEASY IN EXAM SO PLEASE FORGIVE ME THERE WILL BE DAILY CHAPTER FROM NOW ON . ]
A few minutes later, the home ec room was enveloped in an aura of suspense.
"These are real homemade cookies? They're lopsided and uneven sizes.
Plus, some of them are burned. These are…" Yukinoshita gazed at the
objects on the table dubiously.
Yuigahama peeked at us from off to the side.
"Bwa-ha! You talked big, but these are nothing! What a laugh! They're
not even worth eating!" Yuigahama burst into derisive laughter. She was
actually cackling her head off. I'll remember this, you jerk.
"C-come on, don't say that. Just give them a try, please." I held back the
twitches tugging at the corners of my mouth and didn't let my unperturbed
smile falter. I would let my smile show them that I'd set everything upperfectly, was ready to turn the tables, and positive I would win.
"If you say so…" Yuigahama tentatively put a cookie in her mouth.
Yukinoshita plucked one from the plate without a word.
Pleasant crunching sounds rang out, followed by a moment of silence.
"Oh! W-wow." Yuigahama's eyes opened wide. The flavor had arrived at
her brain, and she struggled to find the appropriate words to describe it. "It's
not like they're anything special, though, and it's also kinda gritty. Frankly,
they're not that good!" She veered wildly from shock over to anger.
The
violent swing from one pole to the next made her grimace in my direction.
Yukinoshita said nothing, but she looked at me suspiciously. Apparently,
she'd noticed.
I tolerated both glares for a moment before gently dropping my gaze.
"Oh… They're no good, huh? I tried my best, though…"
"Oh… Sorry." When I cast my eyes down, Yuigahama awkwardly
lowered her eyes to the floor as well.
"Sorry. I'll throw them out," I said, snatching the plate away and turning
from them.
"W-wait a second!"
"What?"
Yuigahama took my hand, stopping me. Instead of replying, she picked up
one of the lopsided cookies and tossed it into her mouth. She made a
crunching sound, chewing up the gritty thing. "Th-they're not so awful you'd
have to throw them out… I couldn't call them bad."
"Oh… So you're satisfied with them?" I smiled at her, and Yuigahama
nodded wordlessly before immediately spinning around to look away. The
setting sun was flowing in through the windows, making her face look red.
"Well, they're the cookies you just made."
"What?"
I smoothly and casually let her in on the truth. I'd never said I was the one
who'd made them, so I'd never lied.
"…Ehh?" Yuigahama repeated stupidly. Her eyes had turned to dots, and
her mouth hung entirely, exaggerating the effect of her foolishness.
"Huh? Huh?" Blinking and wide-eyed, she turned from me to Yukinoshita
and back again. She didn't even remotely grasp what had just happened.
"Hikigaya, I don't quite understand. What was the point of this farce?"
Yukinoshita sized me up, clearly displeased.
"There's a certain saying… 'If you have love…love is okay!'" I gave her
a thumbs-up with a big grin on my face.
"That's so old!" Yuigahama reacted quietly. Well, that show did air back
when I was in elementary school. Yukinoshita didn't appear to have gotten it,
and she tilted her head to the side with a look like Question mark?
"You set the bar too high." A smile slipped onto my face. Ooh, what was
this? This feeling of superiority? This feeling like I was the only one with the
correct answer? It was too much. I couldn't help but blab on about it. I
chuckled. "The goal of hurdling is not to jump over the hurdles. It's to reach
the finish line with the best time. There's no rule saying you have to jump to
get there. It do—"
"I get what you're trying to say. That's enough."
—esn't matter if you knock over the hurdles or send them flying or try to
crawl under them. Was what I was going to say when Yukinoshita
interrupted me.
"You're saying we've mistaken the means for the goal." She didn't seem
quite convinced. But that was just what I'd been about to say, so I had no
choice but to nod and then continue.
"She went to all that trouble to make some handmade cookies. If you
don't play up the handmade part, then there's no point. A guy isn't going to
be happy if you hand him something exactly the same as store-bought. It's
actually better if they taste a little bad," I said, but Yukinoshita still didn't
look convinced.
"It's better if they're bad?" she asked.
"Yeah, that's right. If you emphasize that, while you couldn't do it
perfectly, you tried your best! then he'll get the tragically false impression
that oh, she tried so hard for me!"
"It can't be that simple…" Yuigahama looked at me, doubtful, as if to say,
What are you talking about, you virgin?
I sighed. I had no choice. I'd have to tell her a story to persuade her.
"This story is about a friend of a friend of mine, from back when he'd just
started eighth grade. It was the beginning of a new year, so they had to pick a
class representative in homeroom. But, this being eighth grade, none of the
boys wanted to be class rep. So of course, they had to draw straws. And this
guy was born with no luck at all, so of course, he was picked to be class rep.
So the teacher gave him his assignments, and then they had to decide on the female class rep. He was a shy, bashful, and timid guy, so it was really hard
on him."
"All those words mean the same thing. And you're taking way too long to
get to the point."
"Shut up and listen. And that's when a girl volunteered as a candidate.
She was cute. And thus, auspiciously, the boy and girl class reps were
decided. The girl said shyly, 'I'm looking forward to working with you this
year.'
"After that, she would come and talk to him from time to time. He started
to go, 'Huh? Does she like me? Now that I think about it, she volunteered
after I was chosen as the boys' rep. She comes to talk to me a lot, so she must
like me!' It didn't take him long to come to that conclusion. About a week."
"That's fast!" Yuigahama, who had been nodding and hmming, voiced
her surprise.
"You moron. Time and age gaps or whatever, none of that has anything to
do with love. So anyway, after school one day, when they were handing out
papers like the teacher told them to, he resolved to confess his feelings for
her:
"'U-um, hey… Do you have a crush on anyone?'
"'Huh? No!'
"'Come on, if you're saying it like that, I know you do! Who is it?'
"'Who do you think?'
"'I don't know! Come on! Give me a hint!'
"'I don't know if I can…'
"'Oh, then his initials! Tell me his initials! Or just the first letter of his last
name or first name is fine, c'mon!'
"'Hmm, well then, I guess I can do that.'
"'For real?! Yes! So what's the letter?'
"'H.'
"'Huh? Is that…me?'
"'Huh? What're you talking about? Of course not. What? Huh? That's so
gross. Just stop.'
"'Ah-ha-ha. Of course… I was just kidding.'
"'Who in their right mind would… We're done here, so I'm going.'
"'O-okay…' And as I was left alone in the classroom, I watched the
setting sun, tears rolling down my face. What's more, when I went to school the next day, everyone knew about what had happened."
"So it was about you, Hikki…," Yuigahama mumbled awkwardly,
averting her eyes.
"Hey! Don't be dumb. No one said it was about me! The first person was
just, y'know, a mode of storytelling."
Ignoring my explanation, Yukinoshita let out an annoyed sigh. "It was
suspicious from the moment you said 'a friend of a friend.' You don't have
any friends."
"What?! You bastard!"
"Your trauma is irrelevant. What was your point?"
It wasn't irrelevant. That incident had made the girls hate me even more
and had prompted the boys to start teasing me left and right, giving me the
nickname 'Egogaya,' and, well, I guess it was irrelevant.
I pulled myself together and went on.
"In other words, you know…guys are depressingly simple. We'll get the
wrong idea if you do so much as talk to us, and just getting handmade
cookies is enough to make us happy. So…"
I paused and looked intently at Yuigahama. "Cookies that are nothing
special, sometimes gritty and not that good, are still good enough."
"Ngh…! Shut up!"
Her face tinged red in anger, she threw everything she had at hand at me
—plastic bags, wax paper, and so on. How kind, to choose things that
wouldn't hurt if they struck home. Huh? Does that mean she likes me? Ha-
ha, just kidding. I'm not going through that again.
"You really piss me off, Hikki! I'm leaving!" Yuigahama glowered at me,
grabbing her bag and standing. She turned her head away with a hmph and
began walking toward the door. Her shoulders were shaking.
Oh, crap, maybe I'd gone to far. I really wasn't keen on the prospect of
nasty talk about me flying around the class again. I'd have to amend that
statement. "Look, it's like…if you can get across the fact that you tried,
you'll sway him."
Yuigahama turned around at the door. The light was coming from behind
her, and I couldn't see her face. "Would it sway you, Hikki?"
"Huh? Oh, I'm already swaying like crazy. I'm so bad, you just have to be
nice to me to make me fall for you. And hey, don't call me Hikki!"
"H-hmph," Yuigahama replied indifferently to my flippant remark before immediately looking away again. She put her hand on the door and moved to
leave.
Yukinoshita spoke to her back. "Yuigahama, what are you going to do
about your request?"
"I don't care about that anymore. I'm gonna try doing it my own way next
time. Thanks, Yukinoshita." Yuigahama turned around, smiling. "See you
tomorrow. Bye." She waved and left for real this time, her apron still on.
"Is that really a good idea?" Yukinoshita mumbled, still looking at the
door. "I think that if you have room to improve, you should push yourself to
the limit. That would be better for her, in the end."
"Well, that's true. You'll never betray yourself if you put in effort, but
you may end up betraying your dreams."
"How are those two things different?"
The wind stroked Yukinoshita's cheeks as she turned around, her two
braids swaying.
"Even if you do make an effort, your dreams won't necessarily come true.
It's actually more likely that they won't. But the fact that you tried alone is
comforting."
"That's just something you tell yourself to feel better."
"Even so, you aren't betraying yourself."
"You're so naïve… It's disgusting."
"Both you and the rest of society are hard on me. I at least have to be kind
to myself. Everyone should pamper themselves more. If everyone's a failure,
then no one's a failure."
"This is the first time I've ever seen someone argue pessimism as an ideal.
If your ideas were to become popular, the world would fall to ruin."
Yukinoshita looked disgusted, but I was quite fond of my ideology. One day
I'd like to found Neetoria, a government of the NEETs, by the NEETs, for
the NEETs… I guess it would probably crash and burn within three days after
all.
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