章節 18: All Right! Fine! I Will Take You! – Chapter 16.5 – Haruno Can’t Get Drunk
It may come as a surprise that some of the best whiskies in the world are brewed in Japan. Suntory Holdings Limited, for instance, has even managed to snatch the title for the best whisky in the world with a very memorable sherry-cask-aged single malt.
I know the heir to the company. Mother introduced us at a gathering of… family heirs, what else? Nice enough guy, didn't even brag about his father's company and managed not to get offended when I didn't even touch the whisky on offer at the party. I usually don't go for the hard stuff unless I'm feeling particularly up to it.
Also, I didn't want to get his hopes up about getting some next-generation heirs out of me.
Still, the fact remains: some of the best whisky in the world is brewed in Japan.
Which is why I'm downing my fourth glass of Glenmorangie.
Stupid.
My phone rings again. It's Hachiman.
Again.
So stupid.
I could've proceeded with the plan, just have Shizuka accept my terms as the loser. Or I could've lost, accepted her win, and moved on.
I could've done plenty of other things. It's not like I'm limited in options.
But I didn't. No, I had to go for the stupid, "genuine" thing.
And I lost control.
I could've… Could've…
It's a single malt, too, but this one is aged in an oak cask. It's a bit fruity, far softer than one would expect from straight whisky, but I still feel the burn down my throat. Especially now that the ice is gone and I haven't bothered to replace it.
I don't care what some snobs say: I prefer my whisky slightly watered down, even if only with the tiny amount of half-melted ice.
But… I don't feel like getting up.
The last time I got drunk on this sofa, I was mellow. Melancholy, yes, but also drowsy and relaxed after a release that I felt had been a long time coming. So I took my wine and [experienced] it, seeing each and every way it interacted with my senses.
Now I take my glass of eighteen-year-old Scotch and swallow a large gulp out of it. It's room temperature, and what should be smooth and sweet goes down harshly. But I'm already at the point where there's that slight separation between sensation and thought, and I can only feel a detached curiosity over my urge to cough it up.
And that's what I should have felt as Shizuka managed to once again shatter my expectations. Because she now [cross-trains,] of all things. Can't even plan a single fight with the insufferably unpredictable woman…
So I should have felt curious, taken the time to analyze what she actually got out of those few lessons, seen what kind of tricks she had up her sleeve, and teased them out with a few probing atemi strikes. I didn't need to rush, to go straight for a too tempting finisher by grabbing her hair when I know all too well nobody serious about fighting leaves it that long Not without taking some kind of precaution.
She didn't tie it in a ponytail before the fight, didn't put it in a rushed updo. She let it down, waving behind her with every swaying motion.
And I was stupid enough not to see it for the lure it was.
It's… hard. It's hard to know when people are clever. Because they usually don't see what is glaringly obvious, so it's hard to take into account that they can see something I don't. But Shizuka…
I should've known.
I should've [accepted] it.
But… It was going well. Hachiman did everything I expected out of him and more, managing to get even the brat a chance at a happy ending and—
He [slapped] her.
Oh, that was just [precious]! The look of absolute incredulity on her face even as he himself didn't quite know when his body moved… That mental video file is going in the family album.
Belatedly, I feel the smile tugging on my lips, the cheer slowly spreading through the haze of the alcohol.
And my phone rings.
It's Hachiman. Again.
I… I'm tempted to pick up, to hear his voice, his sarcastic barbs, his earnest concern, his bewildered reactions at my teasing, the way his breath caught as I pushed him against the wall, the way he looked at me as my lips caught his, how his body felt against mine when I—
I hang up.
I had it all planned out.
When has that ever worked out for me?
No, really, when has that done anything but spoil things? The plans work, they do, but what do I get out of them but the ever-growing distaste for predictable puppets? When have I ever gotten anything that I actually, truly wanted out of one of those schemes?
I lost my virginity to one of those, just to see how it felt.
It felt [empty]. Unsatisfying at a level that I didn't understand until I was weak enough to take Shizuka's lips, to confess to my first love, to [feel], actually feel what it's like to meet the body of someone you love with your own, to welcome them into your own, accept them as they accept you until it all turns out to ashes and burning disappointment as they stop being the person you love even if you still love them, because they failed, but they still were there when it counted, and I could not have made it without her, I would still be trying to fit inside a mask until either the mask or I broke and that kiss, that damned [kiss] that promised so much that it couldn't ever give me—
Can't get drunk, but I can very well try.
So I drop the empty glass on the sofa cushion, and I take the bottle by its neck before taking a long, burning swig out of it.
I consider for a moment whether to wipe my mouth with my sleeve. I finally decide not to bother.
Thoughts are murky now, disconnected, slow in coming. It lacks the precise clarity, the sharpness of my mind that I also lacked this afternoon on that red-tinted rooftop.
She was my first kiss.
And I told her, the words as much of an attack as anything I had done up to that point. But them being an attack doesn't make them any less true.
Hachiman was my second.
Am I… Yes.
I am crying.
The man who broke my sister's heart even as he mended it by sacrificing both of his first loves. The man who took my own first love and a cheeky young thing I need to learn how to handle. Such a greedy, selfish, giving, selfless man.
The room is spinning in that way that goes backward whenever I focus, and I feel like I'm sinking into the couch. I lift my hand and look at my waving fingers, the action somehow far more amusing than it has any right to be, and I laugh even as tears blur my eyes.
Because Hachiman Hikygaya would have been within my grasp just a few days ago. Not even a week.
And I pushed him toward Shizuka, a woman he won't ever betray.
A woman who will never take me.
A sob tears through my throat, intense enough that I feel it through the alcohol's numbness.
I… may be a little drunk.
Because I didn't even hear the door to Yukino's apartment open, and now I'm confronted by the shocked faces of my younger sister and her new girlfriend as they stare down at me from behind the couch's backrest.
"Sis—sister?! What—" The brat starts to say before she shuts up and rushes to the other side of the couch, kneeling beside me and taking my face between her hands.
If she kisses me, she will be my third.
I wonder what face Hachiman would make if I told him?
Yui takes the bottle out of my limp grasp and looks at me with worry.
"Yukinon, I'm gonna get a glass of water for her," she says, trying not to fret.
"Right. Right, thank you… Yui." Aaaand there's that cute blush.
"You two are adorable together," I manage to say without a pronounced drawl. Yui yelps and Yukino's hands stiffen on my cheeks.
"Sister…?"
And I grab her shoulders and drag her down to me, her face resting over my chest as I kiss the top of her head.
"You know, I always was kind of jealous of Hachiman and how he ranted about his little sister."
"Sister, I don't think—" and there's that hint of frost and affront in her tone that has been missing since her defeat. I didn't miss them at all.
"I always wanted to brag about you, you know? Tell him you were the cutest one, that I wanted to coddle and spoil you rotten."
"I—" Yes, that uncertainty suits her far better.
"I'm sorry, Yukino. Mother always said I was a genius at everything, but that was a lie. There's something you are much better than I am at, and it always made me angry that you didn't even notice, that you didn't even try to take advantage of it, stuck on your stupid, childish competition with me." It takes effort to push the words out. Some of it is due to the alcohol.
"Sister… stop teasing me, I never was better at—"
I grasp her head and turn it, forcing her to look at eyes ugly with dried tears that are about to renew themselves.
"No. No, you were. You are. You are so much better than I ever will be, even if you are still leagues behind normal people."
"What are you even saying?" And there's that confusion again, that part of her Hachiman managed to drag out, the part that had been buried for years. I could love him just because of that.
And Yui enters my field of view at just the right moment, as if I had planned for it.
Except that I hadn't. And so it works.
I kiss Yukino's forehead and turn her head to the bewildered girl by our side.
"You are so much better at being loved, Yukino…"
And I smile, and laugh, and cry.
And, for the first time in years, prodded by the girl who'll have to deal with my sister's overabundance of failings and frailty, Yukino hugs me.
And my little sister comforts her older, drunk sister.
Yet another thing I owe him.
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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 84 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, 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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