Contents

Cover

Insert

Title Page

Copyright

Cast of Characters

1 This is how Hachiman Hikigaya spends his summer vacation.

2 No matter what you do, you can’t escape Shizuka Hiratsuka.

3 Hayato Hayama is socially adept with everyone.

4 Out of nowhere, Hina Ebina begins proselytizing.

5 All alone, Yukino Yukinoshita gazes up at the night sky.

6 Unfortunately, Hachiman Hikigaya did not bring a swimsuit.

7 In the end, Rumi Tsurumi chooses her own path.

8 With Yukino Yukinoshita aboard, the car drives away.

Afterword

Translation Notes

Yen Newsletter

1

This is how Hachiman Hikigaya spends his summer vacation.

“Wh-whoa…”

The whirring electric fan drowned out the tiny gasp, gently shaking its head side to side. Komachi slowly did the same. “Bro, you didn’t have to go this far. Not this far…” She softly laid the sun-faded composition on the table. “I know what you’re like, but this essay is too much… It’s too much, man!”

“Shut up,” I replied. “You’re the one who wanted to copy my essay. If you don’t like it, then don’t look at it.” I was saddened that Komachi had decried my essay and embarrassed that she had seen my writing from so long ago, and I snatched the paper from her hands.

“Hey, c’mon, I’m sorry. I’ll just use the parts that look useful. So let me have it! ” Komachi pleaded. “…Well, most of it looks useless, though,” she added, for no discernible reason, before she reclaimed the essay and started copying it down into her notebook.

This was about her summer homework. Apparently, in some elementary schools, they hand you a study workbook called the “Summer Vacation Companion,” but once you hit middle school, you don’t get that anymore. In other words, your summer vacation is devoid of companions. To express that in a cooler way: Friend/Zero. Not many characters in that one. I bet illustrations would be a cinch.

Komachi was working on her book report. My old middle school, the one she currently attends, doesn’t assign much summer homework. You get worksheets for English and math, a supplementary kanji workbook for Japanese, an independent research project, and an essay or a book report.

As Komachi moaned and groaned, writing in fits and starts, I watched her with an ice-cold MAX Coffee. There’s a unique sweetness to the condensed milk that tightens your throat and percolates up into your head in a way that no café au lait can imitate. I also recommend pouring it over shaved ice.

Even adults need some sweetness in their lives. So when I need coffee, I make it MAX Coffee.

That’s my idea for a stealth marketing campaign, since that’s been so popular lately. Well, it’s not like I’m getting paid for it, so it’ll never actually happen.

The table was cluttered with a variety of textbooks. This mess had resulted from a vice characteristic of kids who don’t know how to study: just open all the books at once. I pulled out a single sheet of paper from the pile and skimmed it briefly. The sheet had middle school third-year summer homework printed on it, and below the title were the specifics of Komachi’s summer assignment. Said details were, well, what I previously explained. A single sentence on that page caught my eye.

“Hey,” I said. “It doesn’t have to be a book report, so why don’t you just write a regular essay?”

“Huh?” Komachi raised her head, half rose from her chair, and peered at the paper in my hands.

“Look, here. It says, ‘a book report or an essay on the subject of taxes.’”

Kids who don’t like writing about books often don’t enjoy reading them in the first place, and kids who hate reading inevitably end up being terrible writers. Komachi fit the model perfectly. She didn’t generally read books, and aside from e-mails, she hardly composed anything. A regular essay with no required reading would probably be the easier assignment for a kid like her.

“Yeah, but taxes? I don’t understand all that…,” said Komachi.

“Hold on. I think I wrote about that in middle school.” I began fishing through the cardboard box on the table. It was basically a case of memories. My mom had collected stuff I’d left lying around, like essays, class albums, and independent research projects, and stored them in that box. Komachi wanted to rip off one of my old book reports, so that was why it was out. As I rummaged around, I encountered a paper that appeared to be the right one. “I think this is it.”

“Gimme, gimme!” Komachi jumped at me, twining around my arm, and yanked the paper away.

On Taxes

by Hachiman Hikigaya, Class 3-C

The institution of progressive taxation is evil. Those who earn more are taxed more, which is indistinguishable from receiving no reward for your labor. The more you earn, and the more you work, the more taxes are levied on you, and you receive nothing in return. In other words: Get a job and you lose.

If the purpose of progressive taxation is to make everyone equally happy, then I am forced to call the idea foolish. Equality in happiness is, in the first place, impossible. Most of all, the attempt to gauge the contentment of individuals through monetary means alone is shallow and thoughtless. At this point, we should explore introducing a progressive tax measure on normies, where people are taxed based on the number of friends and significant others they have.

Komachi read the first part of the essay and then immediately folded up the paper into a tiny square. “I’ll write the book report…,” she muttered with a short, subdued sigh.

“O-oh…um, sorry, I guess.”

“No, I’m sorry…”

The fan shuddered and whirred with a low mechanical hum. A large brown cicada began chirping as if it had just remembered it should.

“…So, well…,” I said, “I’ll help you with your independent research project, ’kay?”

“Okay. I’ll be here. I don’t expect much, though,” Komachi replied, returning to her notebook.

Homework and projects are essentially meaningless if the students don’t do the work themselves. But I wasn’t trying to help Komachi with this just because she was cute. If that were the reason, I’d only help her with the book report.

“Haah… I have to get this done fast. I’m supposed to be studying for entrance exams… I won’t make it in time for the practice tests right after the holiday!”

“You’re supposed to build up your knowledge over time.”

“Hey, I’ve been building up plenty, okay?”

“Yeah, a pile of unread textbooks…” If this were Tetris, she’d be screwed. And yet she was gearing up to take entrance exams. “Just for my information, do you seriously intend to get into my high school?” I asked.

My sister was unquestionably an idiot. She embodied the sparkling, distilled essence of stupidity. “I’m serious,” Komachi replied with utmost sincerity. “If I weren’t, I wouldn’t consider copying your work.”

Not like I care, but that attitude doesn’t generally make people want to help you. Well, if that was what she wanted, then all right. The problem was her grades. “You’re setting a damn high bar for yourself, though,” I told her. “You’re hovering around one hundredth place.”

“But I wanna go to your school.”

“…”

My eyes suddenly watered. My sister, who usually didn’t spare me an ounce of respect, had unexpectedly shown me a glimmer of warmth and love. My eyes burned. A single droplet of rain prepared to fall from the heavens.

“When we’re going to the same school and I say I’m your sister, I look like a supergood girl by comparison! I started middle school when your reputation was at its worst, so everyone thought I was great! They all treated me like an angel! I’m totally an angel!”

That’s a terrible source of motivation. “…Oh. Was it now?” I replied. What part of that is angel-like? She’s a devil. A fiend. Crush devils! Yeah, Komachi is totally a demon. “Well, you know. Just do what you can.”

“Yeah, I’ll try my best,” she replied, once again scribbling away with her mechanical pencil.

She was going for the book report, though, so I had no idea why she was suddenly writing her draft on that grid paper. Read the book first! Wait. Are you one of those people who get all holier-than-thou every time they start a new anime? “It was crap, so I dropped it before the opening credits started,” or “It was trash, so I dropped it before the ad break”?

I marched toward the bookshelf in search of Kokoro. If I remembered correctly, I originally bought it because they got a famous manga artist to draw the cover for the special edition. They sold more copies just by giving it a face-lift. Light novels really are 90 percent appearance. Well, not that Souseki Natsume is a light-novel author.

My finger slid across the row of spines. A book called Science Magic: Party Tricks You Can Try Out Right Now! caught my eye. It was fairly old, and it led me to wonder about the worries my dad might have had back when he was a young salaryman at the bottom of the corporate ladder.

No life is more constrained than that of a free man thrust into a society of vertical hierarchies. I bet my dad got that book for year-end parties when his superiors would be like, “Hey, Hikigaya. Say something interesting,” or “Show us your hidden talents, come on.”

If it were me, I probably wouldn’t have been invited in the first place, and even if I were, I wouldn’t be able to say much at all, so I probably wouldn’t be invited again and thus would have nothing to worry about. And what the hell is with calling year-end parties “forgetting-it-all parties” anyway? Don’t just get rid of your memories. Also, please don’t forget about me, either.

Anyway, the book appeared to have potential for Komachi’s independent research project, so I decided to illicitly borrow it. Then I pulled out Kokoro from the shelf immediately below. “Here,” I said, handing the volume to Komachi. “For now just read the book before you write anything.”

Komachi accepted it with a reluctant groan and then began reading.

After I checked to see that she actually was, I turned my attention to the book of science magic something-or-other I’d just found. As I flipped through it, the pages were full of party tricks. Like sticking a toothpick in a cigarette so that no ash will fall when you light it, or like soaking a bill in alcohol so that if you set it on fire, only the alcohol burns and the bill remains untouched. When I thought about it, I realized that even if I memorized these tricks, I’d never have the opportunity to use them. But the scientific explanations between tricks were oddly fascinating, and before I knew it, I was completely engrossed. It was the same sort of phenomenon that would occur when I cleaned my room.

Suddenly, I came to my senses, and I heard the telltale even breathing of sleep. I looked over at Komachi and found her drifting through the Land of Nod. Studying for exams is tough, huh?

I set the fan to low, took the thin summer blanket from the sofa, and gently pulled it over my sister’s shoulders. Keep at it, Komachi.

July was already over, and outside, the great brown cicadas were chirping in grand chorus. Figuring I should take care of the household errands for a while in order to lighten Komachi’s workload, I left the house to do some shopping. While I was out, I’d go hunt down some reading material that could prove useful for her independent research project, like Newton, Science, or Mu.

In the heat, a shimmering haze was rising from the asphalt. The afternoon city buzzed with the din of cicada songs and cars whizzing by. Not many pedestrians were around. The people of this residential area were not fond of going out at such a hot time of day.

Damn, I should have waited for the sun to go down a little bit. It’s been so long since I last left the house, I didn’t even think of that.

My goal for the summer that year was to avoid going outside as much as possible. I mean, the original reason we had such a long vacation was because of the heat. This has always been the consistent and unshakable rationale for vacations. As proof, Hokkaido has an extremely short summer vacation and longer winter vacation; they have cool summers and frigid winters. This corroborates the idea that long vacations were established based on the weather. In other words, the purpose of this break is to protect people from the heat, and if we were preserving the original intent of the holiday, we wouldn’t be permitted outside at all. Leaving to hang out and stuff during summer vacation is a legal gray zone, you see?

And I, of course, was an exemplary student who minded his manners and followed the rules, so I obediently spent the summer shutting myself away at home. No, don’t call me a hikki for that. Well, I guess you could. I got plenty used to that malicious gossip back in middle school. But for my adorable little sister, I will occasionally venture out of the house. I must do it, for love.

When I arrived at the station, as you would expect, the people were more numerous. I waited for a while at the bus stop, took a bumpy ten-minute ride, and headed to Kaihin-Makuhari. The neighborhood supermarket was fine for groceries, but the new city center was more convenient for getting books.

The Kaihin-Makuhari area boasts considerable crowds during the summertime. There’s the Summer Sonic, the pro baseball night games have fireworks, and most of all, it’s near the ocean, so marine sports are a major draw. The problem is that none of these things have anything to do with me, and I find the swarms to be purely and fundamentally irritating.

I entered said irritating swarm and faded unobtrusively into the background. You could argue that I already was an unobtrusive element of the background. Still, I felt even more alone in large crowds like this than I did when I was by myself. Essentially, the designation loner does not indicate the density of population around oneself, but rather the spiritual nature of the individual. No matter how close people may be physically, if you do not acknowledge them as similar to yourself, your social thirst will not be quenched.

The cliques out walking with their friends, family, or significant others were moving incredibly slowly. Maybe it was because their attention never left their companions, or maybe it was because they were concentrating on conversation and ignoring their feet, or maybe they just wanted to spend just a moment longer together.

Gah! Don’t walk all spread out! You there, that group of three! What’s going on? Are you doing flat back three or what? How strong does your defense need to be?

I slipped past the trio as nimbly as a star soccer player. Next was a group of four uniformed high school girls blocking my way in catenaccio formation. But they were all so preoccupied with their hyperanimated laughter and cell phones as they talked, that whole group was unbelievably sluggish. I passed them, too, with no trouble at all.

Shall I tell you what’s lacking? Just this! Passion, elegance, diligence, sophistication, insight, dignity!

And the most important thing of all…

Y o u ’ r e   f a r   t o o   s l o w !

I talked to myself in my head, though it was all worthless nonsense, and quickly threaded around the people as they cheerfully ambled through the city without a single care in the world. A loner like me, with no friends or girlfriend beside him, could fly alone on the wind and transform the world into an amusement park any time with sheer imagination. Boys who usually walk around alone are always thinking such thoughts. It’s pretty fun. As I mentally trained myself for survival on the off chance I ever got embroiled in a war, my feet carried me to the shopping district that had an outlet mall, the various specialty shops of Plena Makuhari, and more.

As I wandered around, I caught sight of a familiar-looking bordered, fluorescent tracksuit. It was the same one I usually wore during gym class. Someone from my school, huh? I’ll do my best to keep them out of my line of sight, I thought, but try as I might, my eyeballs just wouldn’t listen to me. In the end, my whole body turned toward that tracksuit. To put it simply, yes—it was fate.

Silky, flowing, beautiful hair; white arms and legs reflecting the blinding, brilliant light of the sun… When he adjusted the racket on his back, he let out a soft sigh that dissipated into the air, summoning a gust of wind.

It was Saika Totsuka. He didn’t notice me. Instead, he turned around as if he had just caught sight of something behind him. Oh man, talk about a beauty looking back.

He was like a momentary mirage of the heat waves rising from the asphalt. For just an instant, the throng that had once been such a hindrance had become a flat stage backdrop. It was as if Totsuka and I were the only ones in the world. My face relaxed into a smile at the notion. No matter where we were, I would be sure to find him. I knew it in my soul.

“Totsnerkle.” I tried to call his name, but it stuck firmly in my throat. Instead, I wheezed out a sort of weird huffing noise. People out with their families gave me a wide berth and weird looks as they hurried away.

I turned a quiet gaze toward Totsuka. This was because I had noticed someone running up behind him, waving his hands wildly. The boy’s tracksuit was identical to Totsuka’s, as was the racket case on his back. I guess he was late for their meet-up or something, as he pressed his hands together in a casual gesture of apology, and Totsuka shook his head. Even from afar, I could easily spot his shy smile. The two of them exchanged a few words and then strolled off together into Plena.

My mind was blank for a while, and my legs carried me automatically.

…I see. Totsuka has friends from his club, too. Mm-hmm. It’s summer vacation, so of course he has club activities. It’d be normal for him to go hang out after practice. Yeah, it’s not surprising he’d smile like that to a tennis buddy.

I wonder when I started thinking I was his only friend. In both elementary school and middle school, the kids who talked to me got along with everyone and had lots of friends… I might have thought we were friends, but they wouldn’t, and even if they were my best friends, I wasn’t theirs. I was already aware that this often happened to me.

Damn it, I can’t believe I’m letting this shake me up. I’m mushier than tofu. I’d probably taste good with soy sauce.

Somehow, I reached the escalator and leaned against the handrail. I could zone out now and let it carry me upward automatically. But right in the middle of the ride, I saw a familiar face coming down in the opposite direction. Only one idiot in my circle of associates would wear a trench coat in the middle of summer. Though associate was an unnecessarily long word, in this case. He was just an ass.

Zaimokuza was engaged in a friendly chat with the two guys with him, who I figured were his so-called arcade buddies. The following is an excerpt from their conversation.

“Arcana chance.” (Translation: Do you wanna play Arcana at the next arcade?)

“Take.” (Translation: Sounds good.)

“Chance.” (Translation: I’ll go, too.)

“ACE chance.” (Translation: Are you guys okay with the ACE arcade?)

“Sacrifice.” (Translation: ACE is too far; we can’t.)

“Admiral sleepy.” (Translation: I’m tired, and I don’t want to.)

“Garbage.” (Translation: You guys aren’t into that, are you?)

“Total sacrifice.” (Translation: It’s a total sacrifice.)

“Sacrifice chance.” ( I have no idea.)

I let their words wash over me. It sounded like they’d established a language understood by them alone. You can’t just converse using individual lexemes. You’re relying too much on the inherent ambiguity of Japanese.

I’d feel bad if I bothered them when they were enjoying themselves, and plus, it would be bad for my reputation if people thought we were friends, so I pretended not to notice. But the moment we passed by each other, his sharp eyes discovered me, and for a single moment, our gazes met.

“Oh?” he called out to me.

“…Fwaah.” I immediately looked elsewhere and faked a yawn. In so doing, I was indirectly accentuating how I couldn’t possibly have seen him. I’m an expert at such avoidance tactics.

Of course, the escalators were not about to stop. Zaimokuza and I continued to accelerate away from each other, and then he faded from view. The escalator carried me up to the third floor, and the current of people swept me into the bookstore. I didn’t even have to look around; I knew where my shelf was. To the right of the entrance were manga, and beyond that were light novels. On the other side of the aisle were the medium-sized books, and the shelf behind that was for smaller books. Phew, perfect. So…where are the cookbooks? Usually, I didn’t read those, so I had no idea. Well, people only pay attention to what interests them, so that’s no surprise.

Of course, asking the staff wasn’t an option, so I decided to just browse. But, like, I mean, it wasn’t because it would take courage to talk to them or whatever. I was just a nice guy, and I would’ve felt bad bothering them over something so trivial. It wasn’t a big store, so it wouldn’t take much time to walk through the whole thing.

“…”

As I sauntered around, I felt eyes on me. Oh, a security guard, huh? You’ve got it all wrong, sir! This book isn’t too naughty, and it’s, like, uh… It’s for my summer independent research project! I know, it’s bad!…Or so I prepared to defend myself, but when I turned around, I locked eyes with someone unexpected.

She wore a cardigan over her shoulders and leggings under her skirt, presumably to prevent the sun from darkening her skin. Her current attire suggested a more active personality than her uniform did, but still, her accessories, like her watch and bag, kept her modest charm intact and brought it all together elegantly.

It was Yukino Yukinoshita, the captain of the Service Club, of which I was a member. If I recall correctly, she does live around here, right? So she was here at the bookstore, too.

“…”

“…”

Neither of us said a thing. We just stared at each other for about two seconds, more than enough time for recognition. Then Yukinoshita deftly returned the book in her hand to the shelf and strode straight out of the store.

Ouch!

She ignored me so hard I was actually impressed. Come on, this has surpassed regular snubbing. This is outright silent contempt. She treated me like the Potsdam Declaration. This is one for the history books. We had been standing less than a meter apart, eyes locked, and she had still refused to acknowledge me. Compared with this, the way I usually get overlooked in class is nothing at all. I mean, they just ignore me because they don’t even know I’m there. Wait, that’s pretty hurtful, too…

…Well, that was very like her, though. Cracking a vaguely bitter smile, I circled around to the shelf where Yukinoshita had just been standing. At a glance, this section appeared to be the photo books. So she looks at albums of actors or pop idols she likes, too. How surprisingly girly of her, I thought, skimming over the shelf, but every single one featured animals. A particular book caught my attention: a photo album of cats. Just get a cat already.

I picked out a number of volumes from the store, including both books that could be useful for Komachi’s independent research project and purchases of my own. My shopping bag felt heavy… I guess I had used summer vacation as an excuse to splurge.

Before the summer holiday starts, I always come up with all these plans (about four months’ worth), like how I should read all of Ryotaro Shiba or finish all the games I’ve dropped, or get a summer job, or go on a trip on my own. But when summer actually starts, I’m like, It’s still okay. I still have a month. Naw, just two more weeks is enough. Oh, I think a week is plenty of time to have some fun… Huh? Only three more days? Time just flies by.

I left the building and emerged into the bright light of the sun. The day was ending, but it was still hot, and a sticky, lukewarm sea breeze was blowing by. Though it was the height of summer, the cicadas’ chirps sounded far away from this patch of reclaimed land covered in skyscrapers. I began walking toward the bus stop. Sweat was oozing from my hands, so I adjusted my grip on the shopping bag.

But with my plentiful purchases, I would be able to live a comfortable lifestyle of reading for the next little while. The great thing about summer vacation is that you can read a long series all in one go. For instance, I’d recommend the Delfinian War, the Twelve Kingdoms, or the Moribito series.

Summer vacation isn’t just partying and fooling around with friends.

I mean, everyone assumes that summer = the beach, pools, BBQ, summer festivals, and fireworks.

Reading alone and indoors where it’s cool, getting out of the bath and yelling Ahh! as you eat ice cream alone and naked, catching a glimpse of the Summer Triangle in the sky alone in the middle of the night, lighting a mosquito coil, and dozing off alone to the sound of a wind chime—all wonderful summer memories. You can get by just fine on your own during the summer. Being alone is best. It’s hot, y’know?

The world spun on as usual that day, even without me. It felt so real then, the way the world kept going ’round despite Hachiman Hikigaya’s absence. That knowledge is a quiet relief to me. Isn’t it terrifying, the idea of something irreplaceable? Knowing if that thing disappeared, it could never be undone. You could never fail. You’d never get it back again.

That’s why I’m somewhat partial to the relationships I’m building now, the kind that barely even qualify in the first place. If something were to happen, I could cut them off easily, and nobody would get hurt. No contact, no intrusions, that’s how I deal with her—

“Oh! Hikki?” A voice pierced right through the bustling noises of midsummer, though it was only a murmur. Maybe the reason I heard it was because she was on my mind. Yui Yuigahama was sliding by me sideways, almost automatically, with a friend of hers. Her hair was in its usual bun, and she was decked out in full summer mode: a black camisole, a loose-knit white cardigan, booty shorts, and gladiator sandals on her feet.

“Hey…,” I casually greeted her in return.

Yuigahama grinned brightly at me. “Yeah, long time no see.” I guess she was hanging out with the person behind her: Yumiko Miura. She was also in Class 2-F, as well as occupying the top of the Soubu High School caste. Nearly all the boys were terrified of this queen of hellfire. Her glamorous attire consisted of a little black dress with a plunging back and tall high-heeled mules, which were tapping in displeasure. She was glaring at me, and her eyes were painted pitch-black with mascara or eyeliner or eyeshadow or whatever, like Destrade. Is there a game this afternoon?

“Oh, it’s Hikio,” she said.

You only got the first two syllables right…

You may surmise from how she talked to me that she was attempting to insult me, but such was not the case. The boys and girls at the top of the social pile generally do not hold any animosity toward those of lower status. Forget animosity; they’re not even concerned with us in the first place. It’s exactly like how people are naturally apathetic toward things that don’t interest them.

“Yui. I’m calling up Ebina,” Miura said. Without waiting for Yuigahama’s reply, she moved a few steps away into the shade. She’s doesn’t care about me, so she would never interact with me. Top dogs like her who make no effort to get involved are nice and easy to deal with. When you strictly adhere to a hierarchical system based on social status, you avoid conflict. Many quarrels originate in class conflict. Such clashes are born out of attempts to force people from different worlds into the same framework. If you segregate the classes entirely, they’ll never encounter one another in the first place.

Miura leaned against the wall and began her call. After checking that Miura was occupied, Yuigahama spoke. “I thought I’d hang out with Yumiko and the girls today… What’re you up to, Hikki?”

“…Uh, shopping?” I raised the bag in my hand to show it to her. It was the first time I’d spoken to anyone aside from my own family in a long while, so maybe that was why I could only manage one short phrase.

“Oh, really? You’re not gonna hang out with anyone?”

“No.”

“Huh? Why not? We’re on break.”

Why, she asks me. How terrifying that she so naturally concludes that vacation is equivalent to hanging out. Is she, like, one of those kids with that syndrome that gives them anxiety if their planner isn’t packed to the gills with activities?

I had all kinds of replies in my head, but none of them reached my mouth. “It’s summer break. It’s for taking a break.” Somehow or other, I managed to squeak out two sentences.

All right, I’m gradually becoming capable of holding a conversation again. If I rush things and try to do three sentences, I’ll make some creepy, awkward laugh, so I gotta watch out for that.

“…Are you, like, in a bad mood?” Yuigahama asked rather uneasily. She was probably trying to be considerate because I was so taciturn. But her attempt was just a bit misguided. If she really wanted to be understanding, then she would have avoided asking me the question in the first place.

2

No matter what you do, you can’t escape Shizuka Hiratsuka.

The cicadas were so loud in the mornings.

Someone had left the TV on, and the news was heralding the biggest heat wave of the summer or whatever. Don’t you guys say that every day? It’s like those outstandingly talented people who you only encounter once a decade and yet somehow appear every year.

Grumpy from the heat, I switched off the TV, sank into the sofa, and turned on my handheld console. That day was another one frittered away lying around inside. Komachi was studying in her room, so I was alone in the living room. It had been less than two weeks since the start of summer vacation. I lived out each day the same way I did every summer. I’d sleep until noon, watch Pet Encyclopedia, watch Summer Vacation Kids’ Anime Festa, go out to the bookstore when the urge struck me, and in the evening I’d read or play games and study. I liked this lifestyle.

Summer vacation. For a loner, this time is our sanctuary. No, not an angel sanctuary. I can laze around for the whole day without causing trouble for anyone. Well, now that I think about it, I never get involved with people in the first place, so I don’t normally create inconveniences anyway. I’m such a good boy.

Anyway, during summer vacation, nobody can tie me down. Yes, I am free. In English, the word can also mean “freedom.” Like the Gundam. I am…we are Gundam. I don’t have to do anything. It’s great. It means that the world I live in is content. I wonder why it felt so nasty when I was at a part-time job and they were like, Agh, just don’t do anything. That stung. It hurt so much, I quit.

Now that I think of it, it’s been a long time since I last had a job. Before I joined the Service Club, I’d worked part-time here and there, but…most of the time at those places, all the interpersonal relationships were already in place when I showed up, so I couldn’t squeeze in, and then I ended up quitting within about three months. After last time, I was too embarrassed to go return the uniform, so I mailed it to them, cash on delivery. Anyway, come to think of it, I realized the Service Club was robbing me of considerable time. But they held no power over my summer vacation! Fwa-ha-ha-ha!

As I loudly cackled to myself, my phone chirped. Another delivery notice from Amazon? Has my package been shipped from the warehouse in Ichikawa city, Chiba prefecture? I wondered, picking up the phone from where I’d left it on the table. When I checked the screen, I had one e-mail. The sender was Miss Hiratsuka.

I turned off the screen.

Phew, that’s that… Now all I had to do was send her a late-night reply to the tune of Sorryyyy, my battery ran out or I think I was out of range! She would be unable to respond. Source: me. When I was in middle school, every time I screwed up my courage and e-mailed a girl, about 40 percent of the time she’d answer with something similar. By the way, about 30 percent just didn’t reply at all, and the remaining 30 percent were from some foreigner named Mailer Daemon. Nothing good comes of making an effort.

With a sense of accomplishment, I returned to the sofa and picked up the handheld that I’d put into sleep mode. It’s nice; just about all handhelds can sleep these days, it seems. They allow you to make the best use of your time. The problem is that if you get one that’s too newfangled, it’ll have all these incomprehensible functions, and that’s not even getting into the connectivity. And when they start talking about “playing with the rear touch panel,” it doesn’t even make sense. It just sounds dirty.

My phone rang again.

What, which burgers do they have a special deal on now? I thought, going to get my phone. But this time, the ring persisted for an oddly lengthy interval. Apparently, I was receiving a phone call. Considering when the e-mail arrived, it was probably Miss Hiratsuka. I doubt many people would be horribly pleased to get a call from their teacher. Of course, I wasn’t, either. Plus, now that I had ignored her once, she could chew me out for that if I picked up now. I chose to disregard the call as well. Eventually, she gave up, as the ringing stopped short. But my relief was only momentary, and this time, I started getting a bunch of rapid-fire e-mails.

What the hell? I’m scared. Is she like this with her boyfriends, too? There were so many. I was filled with trepidation as I opened my phone. I read the e-mail at the top of the folder—that is to say, the newest one.

Sender: Shizuka Hiratsuka

Subject: This is Shizuka Hiratsuka. Once you’ve checked your mail, please reply.

Body: Hikigaya, I have an urgent message for you regarding Service Club activities during summer vacation. Please return my messages. Are you still sleeping? (haha) I’ve been texting and calling you over and over. You’ve actually read them, haven’t you?

That’s scary! You’re scary! I’m slightly traumatized here! I felt like I’d just gotten a glimpse of one of the reasons Miss Hiratsuka couldn’t get married. Geez, woman, just how obsessed with me are you? You’re scary. Also terrifying.

When I reviewed the e-mails, all of them had the same content. In summary, they were instructing me to volunteer long-term during the holiday. This was no joke. It was time to feign total ignorance. With no hesitation, I switched off my cell phone. At times like these, it’s convenient to be a loner. You won’t get calls from anyone else anyway!

Right about when I had finally relaxed again, Komachi came down from her room on the second floor. By all appearances, she had spent the day in the clothes she’d slept in. All she was wearing besides her underwear was my hand-me-down T-shirt.

“Taking a break?” I asked.

“Yeah,” she replied. “I’ve basically done everything but the essay and the independent research project.”

“Nice work. Do you want a drink? There’s coffee, barley tea, MAX Coffee…”

“Coffee and MAX Coffee are two different things…? I’ll go with barley tea.”

MAX Coffee does not count as coffee. That’s common sense. MAX Coffee is categorized as condensed milk. The category error of the coffee world—that’s MAX Coffee. By the way, the category error of the light-novel world is Gagaga Bunko. “Here,” I said.

“Yoink.” Komachi accepted the tea in both hands and gulped it down eagerly. With a satisfied Ahh, she set the cup on the table. “Now then, Bro.” She suddenly adopted a grave expression. “I studied really hard.”

“Yeah, that’s true. You’re not done with everything, though.” She still had the book report and the independent research project. And with entrance exams, the end was that it was never-ending. It was Golden Experience Requiem. Still, she had finished most of her homework over the past few days, so you have to give her credit for applying herself.

“I did so much work, I think I deserve to treat myself,” she said.

“Are you some big-city office lady?” Seriously, what is it about the phrase treat yourself that evokes the image of an unmarried woman? For an instant, Miss Hiratsuka’s face flashed before my eyes.

“Anyway, I need a treat,” said Komachi. “So you have to go out with me to Chiba.”

“Your reasoning is something else. That leap of logic could win you the Japan International Birdman Rally,” I replied.

Komachi pouted and huffed. Apparently, no wasn’t an option.

“Well, I get what you’re saying,” I said. “You want something in particular? I can’t buy you anything too expensive, though. I only have four hundred yen in my wallet.”

“You can’t even get something cheap with that… I don’t really need anything, though. I just want to go out with you. Oh, that just scored some serious Komachi points!”

“You’re so obnoxious…” She probably wasn’t trying to pester me into purchasing anything, though, so she basically just wanted to go out and have some fun. I felt like she should call her friends for that, but, well, I didn’t want her going to Chiba Station with her girlfriends and getting hit on by some guy. In fact, there’s a place not far from the amusement district near Chiba Station that’s called Pick-up Road. I’ve avoided it ever since that one time I was going by and someone mugged me out of my allowance, though.

Also, if she got mixed up with boys, I’d have to stain my hands with blood. Going along with Komachi now would be best. “I’m fine with going out, but get changed,” I said. “If you go out dressed like that, I’ll have to shine a laser pointer in the eyes of every boy on the street. Oh, that just scored some serious Hachiman points, you know?”

“Uh, that sister complex of yours is creepy, frankly. Also, that’s a terrible thing to do.” My little sister retreated a couple of steps.

…Is that so? I should have had about eighty thousand points, though. ’Cause I’m Hachiman. But I quietly kept my smug reply to myself. Komachi’s grading system was strict.

Guys in Chiba with younger sisters have a high chance of developing a sister complex. And mine is actually this cute, so there’s nothing I can do about it. Some guys are always like, My little sister isn’t cute at all, but that’s because she’s your little sister. That’s why she’s not endearing to you. “I don’t know what we’d do at Chiba,” I said, “but if you want me to go with you, I will.”

“Whoo! Thanks. Okay, I’m gonna go get ready. You change into something easy to move around in.”

Something easy to move around in…which means… Are we going bowling? Well, at least it’s not boring. I’m not much for punching holes in stuff.

When you tell me to dress for unhindered movement, going naked seems like the best option to me, I dunno… When we did the fifty-meter dash in elementary school, some guys thought that way. They’d say I’m getting serious now! and do it in their bare feet. Yeah, that was me.

I grabbed a random T-shirt and a button-down shirt, along with a pair of jeans. As I was putting on my socks, Komachi was dashing this way and that and ransacking the house. What was she doing, scurrying around like that? She was like a little squirrel. It was driving up her cuteness gauge, though. I zoned out (my special skill) and waited for her, and Komachi finished changing. She had undressed and redressed in front of me, as usual, but this process was so mundane, I don’t think it even registered for me.

“There we go!” At last, she looked at herself in the mirror and posed.

Yeah, yeah, you’re cute, you’re cute. Could you hurry it up?

Komachi donned a newsboy cap and turned to me. “Okay, let’s go!” she declared, holding her provisions in both arms. There were two bags, packed full of stuff and looking fairly heavy. I wordlessly reached out a hand, and Komachi passed me one, rather happily. Don’t get all gleeful over a little thing like this. Are you one of those easy-to-please heroines who’re all the rage these days?

Before we left, I checked that the door was properly locked, and then we set off for the station.

“So, like, what’s with these bags?” I asked Komachi. “Are you trying to make me your mule? I’m not carrying anything illegal for you.” I pointed to the bag in my hands as we walked.

Komachi quietly put a finger to her lips. “That’s a secret! ” She shot a wink at me while she was at it.

“You’re so obnoxious…”

“Heh. Secrets are what make a woman a woman, Bro.”

“Are you Shelley or what? You learned that from Conan, didn’t you…?”

One of the unique characteristics of guys with younger sisters is that we have this strong tendency to share manga communally, especially the ones bought back in elementary school. This tendency becomes especially noticeable when it’s a series popular with both boys and girls. So we’ll often get each other’s references like that… Oh, it wasn’t Shelley—it was Vermouth, wasn’t it?

…Anyway, when I’m reading manga, Komachi will come to peek over my shoulder, and our mom will see it and be like, Let Komachi see, too. For a while, whenever I was listening to music with my earbuds in, Mom would tell me to share. How stupid. Are we a lovey-dovey couple? Or high school boys on the train home? Now there’s something that’d give Ebina a nosebleed…

As I herded Komachi toward the sidewalk side and she fiddled with her phone, I casually surveyed the quiet city. The sun was beaming down brilliantly over the road to the station. The trees on the boulevard took the opportunity to rustle and stretch out their branches, and a stray cat lay on its side, fast asleep in the shade. The smell of a mosquito coil and the sounds of an afternoon TV show filtered out from someone’s yard.

As we walked side by side, a group of elementary schoolers on mountain bikes passed by in a brief burst of animated chatter. Komachi and I paused, watching them absently, and then started again at a pace a little slower than I was used to. I matched my speed to Komachi’s, and we wound our way to the station. When we arrived, I stepped toward the ticket gates, but my sister tugged my sleeve. “Bro, this way, this way.”

“Huh? But if we’re going to Chiba, the train’s…,” I began, turning around.

Komachi was going “Over there, over there!” as she pointed and tugged me along all the way to the bus loop, where we encountered a mysterious parked minivan with a black figure in front of the driver’s-side door. From the curvy silhouette, I could easily tell that it belonged to a woman. She was sporting a black T-shirt with rolled-up sleeves, jean shorts, and hiking-boot-esque footwear. Her black hair was gathered up in a ponytail under a khaki baseball cap, and her sunglasses hid her eyes from view. When she turned to me, though, her mouth twisted sardonically.

I have a bad feeling about this.

“Now then…let’s hear why you didn’t answer your phone, Hachiman Hikigaya.” She removed her sunglasses with a click and faced me with sharp, flashing eyes. Needless to say, it was Miss Hiratsuka. Whoa, someone’s mad…

“Oh…my cell reception is unstable. I think there’s a connection between the number of antennas they have and the number of hairs on their CEO’s head. Sorta like Kitaro’s antenna. Seriously. I always suspected there was something weak and flabby about a company with a name like that. What the hell is with calling themselves soft?! Get creative with your cell phone reception before you start creative publishing! I do like reading those books, though!”

“Bro, you’re gonna die… You’re gonna get punished in the name of justice…” Komachi, worried for my safety, stepped forward to stop me. But it would be fine. He was actually a pretty good guy. …I’ll be okay, right? Also, please do something about my reception.

“Hmph, whatever. I didn’t expect a decent excuse from you in the first place,” Miss Hiratsuka said.

Then please don’t ask…, I was about to say, but my teacher didn’t give me the chance.

“Well, as long as you aren’t involved in any accidents or other incidents, that’s enough,” she continued, smiling. “That’s happened before, so I was a little worried.”

“…Miss Hiratsuka.” She was probably referring to the time I got hit by a car. Of course a teacher would hear about an accident involving a student of hers. I guess…she’s serious about her job. She’s a good person.

“Good thing I pulled some strings and got hold of your sister.”

“…You’re scaring me.” That storm of e-mails, the way you check up on my safety… You’re freaking me out! That’s basically stalker behavior! I now know how terrifying it is to be loved…and I don’t need love, summer.

“So, like, did you want something? I’m going to Chiba with my sister right now,” I said.

Miss Hiratsuka blinked a few times in surprise. “Huh. So you haven’t read my e-mails yet. We’re going to Chiba, too, as part of a Service Club activity.”

“What?” Did she send me a message about that? The first one I’d read had given me major creepy-girlfriend vibes, so I’d turned off my phone in terror. Figuring I should take another look, I pulled it out.

That was when I heard a voice behind me. “Hikki, you’re late.” When I turned around, I saw Yuigahama with a very full plastic bag from a convenience store in her hand. She wore a hot-pink sun visor with the kind of T-shirt and short shorts that make you want to go Whoa, not enough cloth there. It was like she was living for summer. These days, even elementary schoolers don’t wear short sleeves with shorts like that.

Yukinoshita was standing behind Yuigahama, as if hiding in her shadow. Unusually for her, she was in jeans, paired with a shirt that had a stand-up collar. Though she wasn’t showing much skin, she still looked breezy and cool.

“Huh? Why’re you guys here?” I asked.

“What do you mean? This is for the Service Club. Aren’t you here because Komachi told you about it?” Yuigahama said nonchalantly.

Agh, I’m starting to see what’s going on here. Miss Hiratsuka tried to invite me to this club thing, but I totally stonewalled her, so she contacted Yuigahama, who in turn got in touch with Komachi. Damn it! This isn’t fair! I can’t believe they would take advantage of my brotherly love, knowing full well I’d be excited to go out if Komachi was the one asking! And I fell for it and left the house!

The cruelest one was Komachi, who had lured me here with lies by omission. The more you hate her, the cuter she gets. She was so cute now, I could hardly stand it.

When she saw the two older girls, she gave them a jubilant greeting. “Yui! Yahallo!”

“Yahallo, Komachi!”

Is that greeting in now? It sounds so dumb. Stop.

“Yukino, too! Yahallo!”

“Hey…hello, Komachi.” Yukinoshita was almost tricked into saying it, but she came to her senses in the nick of time. She instantly blushed.

Komachi squeezed Yuigahama’s hand. “I’m so glad you invited me!”

“Thank Yukinon,” replied Yuigahama. “She’s the one who called me. She told me the teacher had asked me to call you.” Oh-ho. So in other words, the order went Miss Hiratsuka Yukinoshita Yuigahama Komachi me, huh?

Komachi responded by glomping Yukinoshita. “Really? Thank you so much! I love you, Yukino!”

Yukinoshita faltered for a moment in the face of Komachi’s straightforward declaration. She averted her gaze slightly and cleared her throat with a cough. “…Oh, um…I just thought we would need someone to look after that.”

Yes, hello. I’m “that.”

“…Nothing I did was worthy of praise,” she continued. “It was just because of how things normally are with you two.”

Yuigahama and Komachi burst into affectionate grins as Yukinoshita blushed.

3

Hayato Hayama is socially adept with everyone.

The jagged contour of a far-off ridge suddenly appeared in my field of vision. “Whoa, mountains,” I muttered.

“You’re right, there they are. Mountains,” Yukinoshita parroted with a nod.

Miss Hiratsuka followed suit. “Hmm. Indeed. Mountains.”

Chiba natives live in the embrace of the vast Kanto Plains, so crags and peaks are a rare sight for us. On very clear days, you can see Mount Fuji along the coastline, but you don’t get much of a chance to see any others, especially not lush green ones like these. That’s why even a glimpse of a mountain will get us excited. You wouldn’t expect Yukinoshita to be impressed, but even she let out a sigh of wonder.

After that, it was silent in the van. Yukinoshita and I watched the vistas roll by outside the windows.

Yuigahama’s head lay on Yukinoshita’s shoulder as she breathed gently in sleep. If I twisted around farther, I could see Komachi and Totsuka in the back row, also snoozing. At the beginning of our trip, they’d been bouncing around playing cards or Uno or something, but they must have gotten bored. As for me, I’d been obliged to converse with Miss Hiratsuka the whole time… Why did we have to recount our top ten anime to each other?

The sight of everyone sleeping gave rise to a few pangs of nostalgia, though. It was like the ride home on a bus after a field trip or a school camping trip. My classmates would expend all their energy and fall quiet with exhaustion after so much fun, but I would never really have an opportunity to tire myself out, so I would just stay fully alert and stare out the window the whole time.

The line of mountains loomed authoritatively over the high barriers to either side of the highway. The dark mouths of tunnels opened wide, illuminated with vivid orange lights. As I watched the scenery flowing past my window, I was assaulted by an intense sense of déjà vu.

…Now I remembered.

“Oh yeah,” I said. “Chiba Village was the place I went for that nature program back in middle school.”

“I believe it’s a resort located in Gunma prefecture, belonging to Chiba city,” Yukinoshita added.

“Oh, you’ve been there, too?”

“I returned here in ninth grade, so I didn’t participate in the nature program,” she explained. “I only know about the program at all because of the photos in the middle school graduation album.”

“You ‘returned’? From where? Actually, why did you come back?”

“My, you sound spiteful… Not that I care.” I turned to find Yukinoshita gazing out the window. It was open a crack, and the resulting wind was mussing her hair and hiding her expression from view. “I was studying abroad. Did I not tell you before? Your memory has the storage capacity of a floppy disk.”

“That’s not much… Don’t point any magnets at me, or I’ll forget everything.”

“Do kids your age know about floppy disks?” asked Miss Hiratsuka with considerable surprise.

Well, it wasn’t that long ago that you could still find PCs equipped with floppy-disk drives. The last holdouts. “Oh, I think they still had them right around the time I was born,” I said.

“I’m impressed you remember. Your memory is on par with an MO disk.” Miss Hiratsuka joined the conversation, chuckling in gleeful pleasure at her own witticism. But her choice of MO disk as a synonym for high memory capacity only provided evidence for her age.

“Uh, most people wouldn’t know about those…,” I said.

“I know about MDs, but…” Yukinoshita trailed off.

“Ngh! I can’t believe you don’t know about MO… So this is what it means to be young…” Miss Hiratsuka raised a tragic cry.

I somewhat pitied her, so I decided to soften the blow. I’m so nice. “Well, you know. MOs were mostly used by businesses, so they weren’t in common use in households. Just because she’s not familiar with them doesn’t necessarily mean you’re old.”

“Oh, so you do know about them!” Miss Hiratsuka reached out to punch me!

“Hey, hands on the wheel! The wheel!” I cried.

“Just remember, you’ll pay for that once we’re out of the van…,” she muttered.

“Please don’t have such high expectations for my MO-level storage banks,” I retorted. An MO can hold way more than a floppy disk, though.

The car zoomed toward Chiba Village. Though it was a weekday, there were a fair number of cars on the road. We even hit a few congested stretches, about a kilometer each.

“It’s surprisingly busy out, huh?” I commented.

“There’s plenty of campgrounds around here, and it’s also a popular spot for hot springs,” Miss Hiratsuka replied. “I thought it was customary to make middle school students from Chiba city walk around the Sarugakyou springs?”

“Uh, you can’t expect me to remember the names of every place…”

“I see. I suppose that’s because it holds so many painful memories for you… It’s understandable you would forget.”

“Don’t act like some old school outing is my dark past. I may not look it, but I’m an expert at field trips.”

“So you’re the type who comes out of his shell at parties, huh?” she said. “I know many students who are more outgoing during special events.”

“Uh, no… I meant I’m good at switching off my mind to make it through…,” I replied. When I had revisited the old photos in my middle school grad album, I had been startled by my dead expression. My classmates might have been even more alarmed. You know, like… Wait, was this guy with us?

“The plan is to stay two nights, just like that nature trip. Will you be okay?” asked Miss Hiratsuka.

“Two nights? Huh? We’re staying overnight? I didn’t pack anything!”

“It’s okay,” Yukinoshita cut in. “It looks like Komachi packed for him.”

That was when it clicked. Oh, so that’s what those bags were. I guess there’s two because one’s mine and one’s Komachi’s.

“Your little sister’s character is even better than I’d imagined,” Miss Hiratsuka marveled.

“Right?” I replied. “She’s my pride and joy. She’s delicate, dainty, and darling. All three Ds.”

“Functionally, that’s only one…” Yukinoshita rolled her eyes.

After exiting the highway onto a side street, we turned off again onto a mountain road. The minivan smoothly ascended up the twists and turns of the slope.

When I stepped out of the van, I smelled the rich scent of grass. Somehow, the oxygen felt richer here. Maybe it was the lush green forest making me feel that way. A few buses were parked in a small open area: the Chiba Village parking lot. Miss Hiratsuka had stopped the van there.

“Hnnn! I feel great!” Yuigahama got out and stretched as wide as she could.

“…Yes, I’m sure you do, after using someone else’s shoulder as a pillow for your lengthy nap,” Yukinoshita sharply retorted.

Yuigahama put both her hands together and apologized. “Urk… I-I’m sorry, geez!”

“Wow…we really are in the mountains,” Totsuka commented, filled with wonder as he stepped up behind the girls. Longing for the hills as one who lives on the plains—he was indeed a Chiba native.

“I came here just last year, though!” said Komachi, but she was taking in the mountain air and enjoying herself well enough.

Well, I was no Yuigahama, but the comfortable light filtering through the trees and the cool wind blowing over the plateau were indeed pleasant. Someday, I’d like to isolate myself in a place like this and become a hermit. I’d do all my shopping online.

“Yeah, the air’s so sweet,” Miss Hiratsuka remarked, just before lighting a cigarette. How can you even tell if it’s sweet or not? “We’ll go the rest of the way on foot. Unload your things from the van,” she said, letting out a deep breath, as if the atmosphere was truly marvelous.

As instructed, we unloaded the van, and that was when another one drove up. Well, the place had a campground and stuff, too, so I shouldn’t have been surprised that there were regular visitors. It was a public facility, so it was cheap. Maybe this was one of those great destinations not many people knew about. After the van unloaded its passengers, it returned along the same road. Apparently, it had only come to drop off a group of four young boys and girls. They looked like they would be at home in something called Love Story of Four Boys and Girls, the type of people you’d see biting into midsummer fruit. They were the kind who would have a barbecue or something on the sandbar of a river, get left behind, and end up having to call for rescue. Or go hiking in regular street clothes as if it were a picnic and get themselves stranded.

As my mind wandered, one member of the quartet turned to me with a casual wave. “Hey, Hikitani.”

“…Hayama?” To my surprise, Hayama was among them. And he wasn’t the only one there. Upon closer inspection, I recognized his whole posse. There was Miura; Tobe, the blonde party type; Ebina, the intense fujoshi… Huh? Where’s assimilating virgin Ooka? “Why are you here?” I asked. “Did you come for a barbecue? If so, I recommend doing it on a river sandbar.”

“Oh, we’re not here for a barbecue.” Hayama gave a wry smile. “I wouldn’t have had my parents drive us all the way here for something like that.”

Okay, so that’s not it. Guess I should recommend hiking in street wear, I thought to myself.

Miss Hiratsuka crushed her cigarette. “Hmm. Looks like everyone’s here.”

Everyone’s here? I guess that meant Hayama’s crew was a part of the plan all along.

“Now then, do you know the reason I’ve called you all here today?” she asked.

We all exchanged glances. “I heard we were staying here two nights for a volunteer activity,” Yukinoshita offered.

Totsuka nodded. “Yes, we’re helping out, right?”

Beside them, Yuigahama responded with puzzlement. “Huh? It’s not like a cabin thing?”

“I heard that we were gonna be camping,” said Komachi.

“I never heard anything about this in the first place…,” I added. Come on, which one is the right answer? This is like a bad game of telephone.

“I heard that this would give us extra community service points for our student record…,” Hayama said with a smile that appeared rather strained.

“Huh? I came because I thought it was a free camping trip.” Miura tugged and sproinged her tightly wound curls.

“Yeah, right?” Tobe chimed in, combing up the long hair at the nape of his neck. “I mean, if it’s free, man, you gotta!”

“I heard that Hayama and Tobe would be camping, hnnnggg.” Ebina’s reason for being there was the only one that struck us as weird. And yes, she really did say that last part.

Miss Hiratsuka gave a mildly long-suffering sigh. “Hmm. Well, you’re all more or less right, so I’ll leave it at that. You’re going to be engaging in some volunteer activities over the next few days.”

“Um, what kind of volunteering…?”

“For some reason, the principal has ordered me to supervise service activities for the region…,” she said. “That’s why I’ve brought all of you here. You will be working as support staff for an elementary school camping trip, helping out the workers here at Chiba Village, the teachers, and the children. In short: You’re doing odd jobs. More frankly: You’re slaves.”

I wanna go home… Even shady companies will sugarcoat the job description at first. Well, hiding their practices is precisely the reason they’re called shady, though.

“This is also a camp for the Service Club, and as Hayama said, you may receive extra points in my unofficial scoring system depending on your performance,” Miss Hiratsuka continued. “During your free time, you may go have fun.”

Aha, I see. Everyone had basically grasped the situation, in their own ways. They had just absorbed only the parts that interested them.

“Well then, let’s get going. Once you’ve dropped off your bags in the main building, you’re going to work,” she said, taking the lead.

We all plodded after her. Still, we didn’t exactly form a unified group. Yukinoshita and I followed immediately behind, with Komachi and Totsuka behind us and Yuigahama trailing farther back. At the rear, Hayama and the others lagged after us. With Yuigahama in the middle, we somehow managed to pass for one single group.

The path from the parking lot to the main building was paved. As we trudged along a little gloomily, Yukinoshita said, “Um…may I ask why Hayama and his friends are here?”

“Hmm? Oh, are you talking to me?” Miss Hiratsuka turned around.

“Well, she’s asking so politely, so she’s got to be,” I commented. Miss Hiratsuka was probably the only person Yukinoshita would speak to with such courtesy, I thought.

Yukinoshita gave me a disturbingly sunny smile. “Oh, that’s not necessarily the case, good sir. It is my opinion that polite language can be employed not only when speaking to one’s superiors, but also to distance oneself from another. Don’t you agree, Mr. Hikigaya?”

“Oh, yes. You’re quite right, Miss Yukinoshita,” I replied, as both of us forced odd, haughty laughter.

Miss Hiratsuka cut off our exchange. “You two never change. Oh, and as for the reason I invited Hayama’s group… It was looking like we wouldn’t have enough people, so I posted a recruitment flyer on the school bulletin board. I suppose you didn’t see it. I didn’t think anyone would apply for this, though…”

“Then why did you go to the trouble of posting a flyer?” I asked.

“It was just a formality. It wouldn’t be very interesting if it looked like I was only focusing on you guys. It was for the sake of appearances. I’m no good at dealing with normal kids and all their energy. The sight of them wounds me emotionally.”

Listening to her was wounding me emotionally. Please! Someone marry this woman!

“Still, I’m a teacher. I have to treat you as impartially as possible,” she continued.

“Uh-huh. Sounds rough, being a teacher.” She can call it preferential behavior or special treatment or whatever she wants, but all she does is beat me up.

“Not just teachers. It would be more accurate to say that of all adults. Situations like this often occur out in the real world,” Miss Hiratsuka said, her expression darkening.

To become a member of an organization also means to bear the burden of its flaws. And that’s not even getting into how you’re forced to consider your far-off future when you conduct yourself for long-term employment. You bow even when you don’t want to, attend drinking parties you despise, and listen to things you’d rather not hear. You don’t just run into people you hate every single day; you have to collaborate with them. If you want to avoid that, you have no choice but to become a househusband or a NEET. Not only do you have to do your job, you have to deal with all the social crap, too. It’s like a sadistic game. Do they even properly compensate you for dealing with your coworkers? It’s weird that there’s no additional pay for that. I really have to avoid getting a job.

Miss Hiratsuka smiled gently back at me and Yukinoshita. “This is a good opportunity for you two. You need to learn the skills necessary to get along with another social circle.”

“Uh, not gonna happen. We’re not gonna be friends with them,” I said.

“That’s not what I mean, Hikigaya. You don’t have to be friends. I’m saying you should get along. You need to gain the skills necessary to deal with them smoothly, with no trouble, in a professional manner, neither antagonizing them nor ignoring them. That’s what it means to conform to society.”

“I dunno…” If I’m not allowed to ignore them, then I’ve got no tactics left.

“…” Yukinoshita’s response was silence. She did not reply or object, but neither did she acquiesce.

Miss Hiratsuka regarded us with a wry expression. “Well, you don’t have to do it right now. Just keep it in mind.” We continued walking in silence.

Getting along, huh…? It probably wouldn’t be that hard. Becoming friends is a matter of feelings, but smooth interactions are simply a matter of skill. Starting new conversations, nodding in agreement, showing you sympathize with their concerns. In so doing, you narrow down your opponent’s strike zone and indirectly reveal to them the range of your own defenses. I could probably squeak by. At first, I probably wouldn’t be very good at striking up conversation, and the back-and-forth might grind to a halt. I might make the wrong replies. But just as with other skills, I would be able to learn it through repetition and practice. After all, the entire process of “getting along” is nothing more than a cycle of deception. You’re lying to yourself and others. They acknowledge that they’re being deceived, and you acknowledge that they’re deceiving you.

It’s no big deal. In the end, it’s no different from what all those other kids learn and put into practice at school. This ability is necessary if you want to associate yourself with a group or an organization, and the only difference between how children and adults use it is scale.

In the end, it’s nothing more than falsehood, suspicion, and deceit.

We left our bags in the main building and were subsequently hustled off to somewhere called the meeting plaza. Waiting there was a group of nearly a hundred elementary school kids. I thought they were all in sixth grade, but their wide range of sizes made for a motley crowd. When you look at high school students in uniform or salarymen in business suits, there’s a uniformity that prevents even large crowds from looking disordered. But everyone in this teeming mass of kids was wearing whatever they wanted, and the brightly colored palette made for a chaotic picture.

Nearly everyone was talking at the same time, which was terribly loud. Their squawking was unbelievably obnoxious and overwhelming. Once you reach high school, you almost never see a group of elementary schoolers up close. The sheer power (to put it nicely) was startling. Is this a zoo or what?

Looking to the side, I saw Yuigahama slowly backing away, and Yukinoshita’s face had blanched a little.

A teacher was standing right in front of the kids, but there was no indication that anything was getting started. The instructor was just intently studying a watch. After a few minutes had passed, the kids seemed to notice something was going on and began settling down. There was chatter…whispers…and then silence… “All right, it just took three minutes for everyone to quiet down,” said the teacher.

Th-th-th-there it is! This was the legendary sentence that teachers always use to open a lecture during school assemblies and meetings. To think I would hear it again at my age…

As I had predicted, the teacher started with a reprimand. I guess this was the standard method for teachers to let their kids have it and quash their excitement at going on a trip. I remember the experience from my time in elementary school, too.

After the scolding, the teacher announced the plan for the day. The first activity for day one was apparently orienteering. I think you also call them stamp rallies. All the kids opened their school camping trip guidebooks as they listened to the explanation. On the cover was an anime-style illustration. Oh, that must mean a girl drew it. Probably some committee girl or one with artistic skills, like, I—I could draw it if you want… I could only pray that down the road, this would not become a skeleton in her closet.

“All right, and finally, let’s introduce the boys and girls who will be helping us out. Let’s give them a warm welcome! Hello!”

“Hello!” the students chorused. It was one of those formalities, those group chants like the drawn-out Thanks for the fooood everyone has to say before eating the school lunch. It’s like the call-and-response at school graduation ceremonies. They’re like, The field triiiip! and then we reply with Left us with so many memories! That sort of thing. I had to join the chant, too, and I was indeed left with many unpleasant recollections. It wasn’t a lie.

Suddenly, all the children’s eyes were on us. That was when Hayama took a soft step forward. “We’re going to be helping out for the next three days,” he said. “If you need anything, feel free to ask us any time. I hope this camping trip will be a wonderful experience for you all. I’m glad to meet you guys!”

The crowd broke out into applause. The elementary school girls were squeeing, and the teachers were clapping with gusto.

Whoa, Hayama’s amazing. He’s a natural at this. Not many people can make a speech appropriate for that age level without any prior planning. If it were a matter of mere skill, Yukinoshita could possibly pull it off, too, but… “You’re the captain of the Service Club,” I said to her. “Why don’t you say something?”

“I don’t really like standing in front of people.”

No surprises there. She already drew attention without even trying. That reality had caused her certain hardships… Maybe she didn’t like deliberately exposing herself like that.

“I do love standing above them, though…,” she added.

Do you, now…?

“All right, let’s begin the orienteering.” At the teacher’s signal, the students clumped into groups of five or six. They must have decided who was going with who beforehand, as the process finished quickly. They would probably be in the same groups for the whole trip.

Maybe for elementary school kids, dividing into groups isn’t often a cause for upset. Everyone looked similarly cheerful anyway. I suppose at that age, the school castes hadn’t yet become set in stone. Once they went on to middle school and high school, they would undergo a brutal and precise segregation. Their time in elementary school would be a brief and sheltered paradise. Man, elementary schoolers are the best! …Being one, I mean.

At loose ends during this process, us big kids ended up clustering together ourselves. As we surveyed the mass of children, Tobe ruffled his hair and commented, “Man, elementary school kids are so tiny! We’re, like, totally old.”

“Hey, could you not talk like that, Tobe? You’re making me sound like an old bag.” Miura shot him a threatening glare.

“Hey, I’m not being serious! That’s not what I meant!” Tobe defended himself, flustered. For an instant, I thought I felt Miss Hiratsuka’s eyes on us, but it was probably my imagination. I very much prayed that was the case.

“But when we were in elementary school, high school kids seemed so adult, huh?” Totsuka sounded nostalgic. I guess Tobe’s comment struck a chord with him.

Komachi touched her pointer finger to her chin and tilted her head. “High schoolers seem adult to me, too, you know? Not counting my brother.”

“…Hey,” I protested. “I’m super grown-up, though. I make idle complaints, tell dirty lies, and do unfair things.”

“You sound like ‘A Night at Fifteen,’ and that’s not mature at all, Bro,” Komachi retorted.

“Is that your mental image of adults, Hikki?!” Yuigahama joined in.

Giggling, Totsuka patted me on the back. “Maybe you don’t see it much at home, Komachi, but at school, Hachiman seems very adult. He’s so calm and composed. Right?”

“T-Totsuka…” I was so touched, I almost sobbed.

Suddenly, a cold voice interjected with an edge of scorn. “He only looks that way because he has no one to talk to. It would be more accurate to say that he is isolated and miserable.” When I turned around, Yukinoshita’s face was frozen in a chilly smile.

I faced her, returning her frigid expression with one of my own, and pitched my voice high as I haughtily replied, “…How would you know how I act in class? Are you stalking me? Are you aware of antiharassment laws? Would you like to have your life ruined?”

“That one was even better than last time…,” said Yuigahama with an astonished grin.

Beside her, there came the snap of a foot breaking a dead twig. “…Was that…supposed to be an impression of someone?” Even though it was summer, I could have sworn I saw a blizzard blowing around behind Yukinoshita.

Your smile keeps twitching, and it’s really freaking me out! I’m sorry!

Hayama, who had been listening to our exchange from the side, nodded as if he’d just figured something out. “Oh, I see. So that girl is your sister, Hikitani. She didn’t look enough like Totsuka to be related to him,” he said, moving to stand in front of Komachi.

Hey, not so close…

“I’m Hayato Hayama,” he said. “I’m in Hikitani’s class. It’s nice to meet you, Komachi.”

“Y-yeah, it’s nice to meet you, too. Thanks for always being so kind to my brother.” Komachi took a step back in mild alarm and then half hid behind Yuigahama to observe him from a greater distance.

“There’s no way she could be Sai-chan’s little sister, Hayato!” said Yuigahama. “She looks more like she’d be Yukinon’s sister!”

You’re just talking about her hair color…

Hayama shook his head. “No, Yukinoshita doesn’t have a younger sister.”

“Oh, reall— Wait. How do you know that, Hayato?” Yuigahama asked.

“Well, I…” Hayama glanced over in Yukinoshita’s direction.

Yukinoshita did not engage with him and kept facing the elementary school kids. “I wonder what we’re supposed to do?”

“Oh yeah,” said Hayama. “I’ll go call over Miss Hiratsuka.” He withdrew from the group, probably sensing the awkwardness in the air.

Yukinoshita really seemed to have something against Hayama. She was always severe with me, too, but with him, her snippiness was more aggressive. Her attitude toward Hayama struck me as more of an attempt to exclude. Maybe she’s allergic to normies or something. Well, actually, I’m allergic to them, too. Can you use antihistamines for this?

Once Hayama was gone, Komachi tiptoed up to me. “Oh no, Bro! What a disaster!”

“What?”

“You’ve got zero chance of winning against that hottie! That’s a red light!”

“Shut up. Leave me alone.” She came all the way over just to tell me that? What a dumb sister I have. I mean, I have no interest in competing with Hayama over anything in the first place. As long as he doesn’t do anything to me, I don’t give a damn about him.

But a follow-up attack came from an unexpected source. “She’s right,” Ebina added. “This could be rough. Your aura just screams ‘bottom,’ Hikitani, and not only that, you’re especially weak. If Hayama makes his move, you’ll go down immediately.”

“I—I see… I’ll watch out for that,” I replied. Now that I think if it, this was the first time Ebina and I had ever spoken. I wanted to earnestly pray that there would never be a second, if possible. What the heck is a bottom aura? I’m not emitting anything like that.

Meanwhile Hayama had returned with Miss Hiratsuka in tow, and she explained our role. “So what we’ll be asking you to do for this orienteering activity is to prepare the meals at the goal. You’ll set out box lunches and drinks for the kids. I’ll bring everything there first in the van.”

“Are we riding in the van, too?” I asked.

“There’s not enough room for that. Walk quickly. Oh, and be sure to get there before the kids do.”

If we were supposed to be preparing their lunches, it would indeed be bad if we didn’t reach the goal before the kids. Already a fair number of children had set off. We should probably hurry it up.

Orienteering is a sport where you pass through established checkpoints on the field of play in a fixed order, competing to reach the goal in a set amount of time. Yes, it’s apparently a sport. It’s supposed to be a fairly serious competition, rushing as fast as you can with a map and a compass. But what the elementary school kids were doing that day was not a real race. It was basically just for fun. They meandered around the mountain in small clusters, and when they reached the checkpoints on their maps, they would answer a quiz. They were scored based on the number of correct answers they had and the time it took to complete the course.

Upon reflection, I remembered doing an activity like this before, too. My group had been full of abysmal idiots, though, so our answers had been a disaster. I was the only one who knew the right answers, but the group hadn’t listened to me when I mumbled them, so in the end, we’d had a pile of wrong answers, and everyone was moaning, like, Aww maaaan…

The plateau was cool even at the height of summer, and the leaves rustled softly with each gust. We weren’t actually participating, so we headed straight for the goal. On the way, we caught sight of kids hunting around for signs, their heads all bunched together over their tiny pieces of paper as they solved the questions. Everyone appeared to be enjoying themselves, so that was good.

Every time Hayama or Miura noticed the kids, they would call out, “You can do it!” or “The goal’s waiting for you!” just like proper camp volunteer types. It was only natural that Hayama would do that, but I was a little surprised to see Miura joining in.

“Hey, hey, Hayato,” she said. “I actually kinda like these kids. Aren’t they supercute?”

…She was just saying the word cute in an attempt to make herself look cute. I thought about trying to emphasize my own lovability, but as a guy, it would only result in accusations of having a Lolita complex, so I decided against it.

Once Hayama and Miura started calling out to the kids, Tobe, Ebina, Totsuka, and Yuigahama followed suit. What friendly boys and girls. And they were all attractive people, so the children would latch on to them immediately.

We ran into several little parties, some of them more than once, apparently. I wasn’t watching all that closely, and I wasn’t really engaging them, so I didn’t remember much. Actually, I just couldn’t tell them apart. They were uniformly loud and excited and radiating boundless energy. On one path that turned off to the side, we encountered a gang of five girls. They were especially energetic, active looking, and fairly fashionably dressed. Their interactions with each other made them sound like a giggling gaggle of gossips. I got the impression that this quintet would become central figures in their grade level once they went on to middle school. They were normie eggs, so to speak.

Apparently, such girls admired high schoolers, especially in-crowd types like Hayama and Miura. They went out of their way to come talk to us, in a mostly one-on-one fashion. And that meant none were approaching me nor poor little Yukinoshita. No indeed.

They would begin the conversation with the polite formalities and then go on to chat about fashion and sports and middle school… As they walked along with us, we ended up hunting down their checkpoint with them.

“Okay, we’ll help you with just this one. But you’ve got to keep it a secret from everyone else, okay?” said Hayama. The kids cheerfully agreed.

Sharing a secret, huh? I was rather impressed. So this was another one of those techniques for greasing the wheels with people.

I would generally describe these girls as a bunch of cheerful and openhearted types, but one thing about them bothered me. Most of these little clusters had a proper sense of unity, or else they would be divided into two mini-groups with a loose connection, creating a single unit. With this group alone, you could detect an irregularity. One of the five was walking about two steps behind the others.

Her limbs were long and slender, and her straight black hair gleamed purple. Her impression was somewhat more mature than the other girls’, and her feminine attire also seemed more refined. Honestly, she was more than a bit cute. She drew considerable attention. But even so, nobody seemed concerned that she was falling behind.

Oh, they noticed. The other four girls occasionally looked back at her, conveying things only they understood with smiles and stifled giggles. There was less than one meter between the outlier and the rest. It would only be natural for an observer to group them together. But there was a screen between them that could not be seen, an invisible wall, a distinct break.

The girl had a digital camera hanging from her neck, and occasionally, she touched it as if she had nothing else to do. But she didn’t take any pictures. A camera, huh? When I was in elementary school, digital cameras were not yet mainstream, and everyone was using those disposable ones, like QuickSnap or whatever. I would go buy a new one every time, but I didn’t have any friends and I didn’t take group pictures, so I couldn’t use up all twenty-four. Instead, I’d go back home and end up finishing off the film roll with pictures of Komachi’s dog. Digital cameras are nice because you can take—or not take—as many photos as you want.

At the very back of the group, the girl’s eyes wandered toward things the rest of her party ignored. Just as Stand users are drawn to one another, loners also apparently excel at discovering their kind.

“…”

Yukinoshita let out a small sigh. Apparently, she had also noticed the uniqueness of this girl. Well, that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. There comes a time or two in life when you should face isolation. No, you have to. Constantly being accompanied, having someone by your side always and forever—that is far more abnormal and creepy. I’m positive you can only learn and feel certain things when you’re alone. If there are lessons to gain from having friends, then so also are there lessons from not having friends. These two things are two sides of the same coin and should be treated as equally valuable. So this moment, too, will also have worth for that girl.

With that conviction in my heart, I decided to pretend that I hadn’t noticed. Leave it, leave it. But, well, there are many people in this world who wouldn’t agree.

“Have you found the checkpoint?” Hayama called out to the girl.

“…No,” she replied, giving him an uncomfortable smile.

Hayama grinned back at her. “Okay. Then let’s all look for it together. What’s your name?”

“Rumi…Tsurumi.”

“I’m Hayato Hayama. Nice to meet you. Don’t you think it might be hidden over there?” he said, guiding Rumi with a hand to her back.

…OMG, Hayama!!

“Did you see that just now?” I said to Yukinoshita. “He was super-natural about inviting her to join in, and he casually asked her name.”

“I saw it. It was a feat you’d never manage, even if you spent your whole life trying,” she said with a disparaging sniff. Then, her expression immediately hardened. “But I can’t say that’s a very good way to go about it.”

Hayama escorted Rumi right into the middle of the group. But she didn’t look particularly happy about it. Just as before, she was looking away from the other girls, focusing on the gaps between the trees or the pebbles on the path.

Rumi wasn’t the only one who wasn’t enjoying herself. As she joined her companions, a flash of tension quieted their chatter for a moment. It didn’t go so far as hate, but you could sense her presence was an intrusion. They didn’t openly avoid her. They didn’t reveal their feelings by clicking their tongues or kicking the ground in frustration. They didn’t attack her. They communicated via atmosphere alone. Without even raising their voices, their accusation was clear. Their violence was nonverbal, nonphysical, and nonactive: just coercive.

Yukinoshita sighed as if to say this was just what she expected. “Of course…”

“So it even happens with elementary schoolers, huh?” I commented.

Yukinoshita looked at me. “There’s no difference between children in elementary school or children in high school. They’re all human.”

4

Out of nowhere, Hina Ebina begins proselytizing.

When it comes to camping, you always think of curry.

Obviously, a proper househusband should be able to make a curry or two. In fact, I’m so good at it that no matter what I cook, it always ends up as curry. Honestly, as long as you put in the roux blocks, you can make it out of anything. It wouldn’t even be an exaggeration to say that every kind of food is a potential ingredient.

If we’re talking Chiba curry, Sitar is the most well-known restaurant, but of course, in Chiba Village it would be cooked with outdoor camping implements. Sitar is really good, though.

Anyway, dinner for the night was this camping staple. First, we started by lighting up the charcoal fires to show the kids how it was done. Miss Hiratsuka was the one who demonstrated by starting the fire for the teachers. “First, we’ll give you an example,” she said, and before she was even done speaking, she was stacking up charcoal and stuffing crumpled-up newspaper underneath to get the fire going. She ignited the newspaper, and it started burning.

She made a halfhearted attempt at fanning the flames with a plastic hand fan to help them reach the charcoal, but I guess it was taking too long for her tastes. After only a moment, she suddenly sloshed cooking oil over the fire. A pillar of flame immediately flared high before her.

This is dangerous stuff, so absolutely do not try this at home, kids. You could seriously get hurt.

5

All alone, Yukino Yukinoshita gazes up at the night sky.

From the washing area came the classic kapon sound of the bath. I’ve always wondered what that noise was supposed to mean. The sound of a water bucket hitting the tile? I quickly washed my head, body, and face and then slipped all the way into the water.

This was a hot spring, they’d said. I was all refreshed after rinsing off the sweat, and I felt like the water was saturating me.

There was a big bathhouse in the visitor lodge. As is often the case for most field trips, camping trips, and other school events, when students stay overnight, they allot separate times for the boys and girls. This time, though, I was soaking in the regular bathroom in the manager’s building.

Since our discussion earlier had gone on so long, there was only time for one group to use the big bathhouse, even though they clearly needed time for three: the boys, the girls, and Totsuka. After some negotiations, they let the boys use the regular bathroom. But, well, this tub wasn’t much bigger than the one in a normal home, so we were going in one at a time. Most of the guys probably wouldn’t be keen to share a bath with other guys anyway, so it all worked out.

Maybe if Totsuka and I bathed together, we could have both fit in at once, but in that case… Well, it’d be kinda like, you know, sorta… I mean, if on the off chance that Totsuka was actually a girl, my Gae Bolg would be sure to activate, and if he’s a guy and my Gae Bolg went off, one thing might lead to another, and I’d have to remove the Bolg part…

So this was for the best.

When a guy has a bath, he finishes up as quickly as a crow in a birdbath. If Totsuka had bathed right before me, I’d be taking a slow soak, but it was Tobe and then Hayama, so I finished up quick. I toweled myself nice and dry in the small changing room and then groped around in my clothes basket. “Underwear, underwear…huh?” My hand encountered my boxers just as the door opened. In other words, even if I did put it on right that instant, I wouldn’t have made it in time. Hawawa! Master, the enemy is here! >.<

The door slid open, and Totsuka’s face greeted me. “Oh, Hachi…”

“         ”

And time resumes.

“Ah! Ah-ah-ah-ah! S-sorry!” Totsuka stammered.

“U-uhhhhh… U-uh, sorry, I guess!”

Flustered, Totsuka swiftly closed the door, and I swiftly got dressed. I got my underwear snugly Pilder-On and followed up with my T-shirt and shorts. All told, it probably took less than ten seconds.

“Y-you can come in now,” I called.

The door opened slowly and extremely hesitantly, about three centimeters wide. Totsuka peeked through the gap, checking to see if it was safe. Letting out a sigh of relief, he entered the changing room. “S-sorry. I thought you were already done…” Totsuka apologized with a bow. But when he raised his head and his eyes met mine, his face flushed bright red, and he immediately looked away.

…Why is he blushing? Now I’m getting embarrassed.

“S-so…I’ll be taking a bath now,” he said.

“Y-yeah,” I replied, and then we silently considered each other for a while more.

“Um… I’m going to…get undressed, so…”

Totsuka gazed up at me, eyes moist and almost accusatory as his hands grasped the hem of his shirt. “It bothers me a little…if you’re watching the whole time.”

6

Unfortunately, Hachiman Hikigaya did not bring a swimsuit.

I had a dream, a lovely dream.

Small, soft hands were gently rocking my body. Through them, I could feel the faint body heat of someone who had only just woken up themselves. A sweet voice called my name with some concern. It was terribly pleasant. But I knew it was all in my head. My sister doesn’t usually come to wake me up, and my parents invariably leave the house while I’m still asleep. I am always awoken from my dreams by the inhuman, unforgiving alarm of my cell phone. Thus both my body and mind judged this to be a dream.

“Hachiman,” the voice said. “It’s morning. You have to get up…” The words repeated a few times as my body rocked, and finally, I opened my eyelids. The morning light was dazzling, and under the brilliant rays was Totsuka, smiling awkwardly. “You finally woke up,” he said. “Good morning, Hachiman.”

“……Hey,” I replied, but the sight before me was so divorced from reality, my mind was totally blank. White sunlight was flowing in through the window, and outside, sparrows or skylarks or some unidentified birds were twittering. I saw one tousled, slept-in futon. And then, as I lay on the floor, there was Totsuka at my side.

“Uh…”

No way… Is this a morning-after scene?! Did I cross over that horizon in the middle of nowhere, that line that should never be crossed?!

While I was busy being lost and confused, Totsuka pulled the blanket off me and began folding it. “If we don’t hurry up, we won’t make it in time for breakfast,” he said.

With this newfound information, I started to process what was going on. Oh yeah, we were camping, weren’t we? I thought we’d suddenly moved in together or something.

I dragged myself into a sitting position and started folding up my futon like Totsuka. “Where are the other guys?” I asked.

“I told Hayama and Tobe to go ahead and leave without us. You just weren’t waking up…” He gave me a stern, reproachful look.

Why do I feel so guilty now…? I’ve never once felt bad about being late for school or late for a job, but this time I feel like I’ve gone off the deep end and I’m about to start shouting nonsense. Geisha! Hara-kiri! Fujiyama! Huh, even geisha has the word gay in it… “Sorry…,” I apologized, sincerely regretting my misdeed.

Totsuka was still pouting, though. “You haven’t been keeping a proper sleep schedule during summer vacation, have you, Hachiman?”

“Y-yeah, well, I guess not.”

“And you’re not exercising at all, are you?”

“Oh yeah. I haven’t really thought about doing anything. It’s too hot.”

“That’s not good for you, you know? You have to get some exer— Oh, I know! Let’s play tennis together sometime!” Totsuka proposed, clearly excited about the idea.

“Oh…yeah, whatever, sometime. Call me whenever.” Reflexively, I provided my default response, the one I use whenever anyone invites me to do stuff. When you’re hanging around the fringes of a group, people will make offers just to be polite. Sort of like, Uh…you wanna come, too? No, seriously, don’t bother. I don’t care. Whenever people say that to me, I have to give them a half-assed reply in the name of courtesy, too. Also, people who say Yeah, whatever, sometime usually don’t get invited out again. There’s a nugget of wisdom for you. Source: me.

But now I was getting flustered, worried that maybe I’d triggered that reaction in Totsuka. I looked at him.

“Okay, then!” he said. “I’ll be sure to call you!” But I was probably in the clear, for once. Totsuka’s cheerful reply set me at ease.

There’s generally no reason to refuse an invitation from a guy. Though it’s another story if it’s Zaimokuza calling, or if you have some kind of plans, of course. But my schedule is practically nonexistent, aside from my time with Komachi. I’ve got so much free time that if there were a Hanging-Out Championship, I’d take the freestyle division, no sweat. I’m rarely invited to hang out, and more important, I never do the inviting. Ever since that time in middle school when I thought about hanging out with this guy Oiso, but when I called him up, he said he had to do some house chores, and then I went to the arcade by myself and saw him going into the karaoke parlor next door with Ninomiya, I’ve tried not to ask anyone to hang out. It’s just because, like, I’d feel bad about forcing them into rejecting me. I’m just trying to be nice, you know?

“Okay, let’s go get some breakfast,” I said.

“Yeah. But, u-um… I—I don’t know your e-mail address, Hachiman…”

Oh yeah. I usually treat my phone like an alarm clock / time-killing device, so I’d totally forgotten that Totsuka and I still hadn’t exchanged contact info. So his address will finally be within my grasp… A flood of emotions surged through me as I took out my phone and immediately readied myself to input his information.

“Huh?! Hachiman, why are you crying?”

“Oh, my eyes are just watering ’cause I yawned.” I was so moved, I had shed a few tears.

“I suppose you did just wake up,” he said. “Okay, then what’s your e-mail?”

“Here.” I showed it to him.

“Um…” Totsuka wasn’t very good with electronics, and he slowly checked both phones and pecked away, character by character. As he typed, he’d occasionally make quiet comments to himself, like “Wait, no. Huh? This one?” It was a little concerning. If he input my address wrong and my messages ended up not reaching him, the overwhelming regret could send me into convulsions. “Okay, done…I think. I’ll try e-mailing you.” Slowly, he began hunt-and-pecking away at an e-mail. At one point, he paused to tilt his head in thought. Finally, he nodded. “I sent it.”

“Oh, thanks.” A few seconds later, my phone rang. I caught a Totsuka! (Pi-Pikachu!)

Phew, that’s a relief. Now I just have to input his info into my phone, I thought, opening up my inbox. That was when I saw it.

Subject: It’s Saika~!

Body: Good morning, Hachiman! This is my first time e-mailing you. I hope we’ll be sending each other lots more!

That string of characters was just too much for my heart to take. I spontaneously burst into a violent coughing fit.

“Hachiman?! Wh-what’s wrong?! Are you okay?” Totsuka panicked and immediately started rubbing my back.

Ack. His hand is so small, but it feels so warm and soft… “I-I’m okay…”

“All right, then…,” he replied.

I finally stood up straight again, but Totsuka shot me a questioning look. I put on a cheerful smile in an attempt to evade it. “Come on. We really should go get breakfast.”

“Oh, of course.”

I hurried Totsuka along, prodding his back as we walked. That tilted head just a moment ago had been him considering what to write. It was a no-frills message, but it was also dripping with cute. Totsuka’s got some serious literary talent. Someone give the guy an award.

Anyway, I’d have to be sure to save his e-mail address. And also to set a special ringtone for him and make a special Totsuka folder. And just in case, I’d back it all up on my PC, too.

The elementary school kids had already left the lodge. The only ones there were the usual suspects, plus Miss Hiratsuka.

“Good morning,” I greeted her.

“Yeah, morning,” she replied, newspaper rustling. Somehow, this felt very old-fashioned. Nostalgia hit me like a truck.

Totsuka and I sat down together in a pair of open seats. Yuigahama was opposite us.

“Oh, morning, Hikki,” she greeted me with the standard AM salutation. Apparently, yahallo was not for morning-time use. She probably started using it after noon.

“’Sup,” I replied.

Beside Yuigahama was Yukinoshita, and beside her was Komachi. “Morning!” my sister chirped, but even as she spoke, she was scrambling to her feet to scuttle off somewhere.

Yukinoshita and Totsuka greeted each other, and then Yukinoshita turned her gaze to me. “Good morning. So you did wake up after all…”

“Hey, don’t look so disappointed about it. Good morning.” My conscientious greetings these days are indicative of my fine character, I feel.

I heard the tump of a tray being set down on the table in front of me. “Here ya go!” said Komachi. “Sorry for the wait. And one for you, too, Totsuka!” She had gone to get breakfast for me.

“Thank youuu. ” I thanked her in a singsong tone, like a part-timer at McDonald’s. Let me explain. Whenever the burger patties are done, the timer on the grill goes off, like McDooonald’s, McDooonald’s, and when the fries are ready to come out of the deep fryer, the timer sounds like it’s singing friiiies, friiies. So when the clerk tells the customer “Thank you” at the end of a transaction, they say it in the same singsong tone. That explanation was totally unnecessary.

“Th-thanks… I guess I’ll eat, then,” said Totsuka.

I put my hands together. I wasn’t doing any alchemy or anything; it’s just the polite thing to do before a meal. “Let’s eat.”

The breakfast before us was classic home cooking. White rice, miso soup, grilled fish and salad, omelettes, natto, flavored nori seaweed, pickled vegetables, and an orange for dessert. Imagine standard hotel fare, basically. As we ate in silence, I immediately ran short on the rice. By my calculations, the mere presence of natto and flavored nori entailed at least two bowls of rice for me. At a Japanese-style inn, they’d even serve you a raw egg, too, and then it’s a real serious issue.

Noticing that my bowl was near empty, Komachi spoke up. “You want more rice, Bro?”

“Please.” I held it out to her.

For some reason, Yuigahama was the one to take it. “I-I’ll get it for you!” I guess she was feeling chipper for some reason. She hummed as she began digging up a large serving for me from the wooden serving bowl. “Here!” she said. The overflowing helping she handed me was like something out of Manga Japanese Folk Tales.

Not that I minded. I’d been intending to have a third bowl anyway, so I wasn’t going to complain.

“Thanks…,” I said, lifting the bowl high in the air in thanks and straining my wrists in the process. And then I went back to eating.

Free food sure does taste good.

We all had a proper breakfast, and when we were done, we sipped some tea. Totsuka took a bit longer than the rest of us, finally putting his hands together to say thanks and reaching out for his tea. The conversation wandered into a discussion of the trip so far and our plans for that day.

That was when Miss Hiratsuka began to fold up her newspaper. “Now, then,” she said. “It seems you’re done eating, so I’ll let you in on the schedule for today.” She took a sip of tea and then continued. “The kids have the entire day to spend as they please. In the evening, there are plans for a spooky-forest trek and a campfire afterward. I’m going to ask you to set those up.”

“Huh. A campfire, huh?” I repeated the English word she’d used.

“Oh! The thing you dance around when you do folk dances!” Yuigahama’s face had scrunched up at the unfamiliar vocabulary, but then her face lit up with recognition as she whipped out another English term.

Once Komachi heard that, the light bulb went on over her head, too. “Ohhh! Are they gonna make a circle and hold hands and go ‘Bentora bentora’?” she asked.

“Did you mean to say ‘Oklahoma Mixer’? …That’s not even close…,” Yukinoshita said, somewhere between astonished and exasperated.

Bentora bentora is like that thing, right? You get together in the park late at night and chant those words to communicate with aliens.

“It’s not much different when the people you’re dancing with already treat you like an alien, though,” I said.

“Hachiman, that’s a terrible thing to say…,” Totsuka admonished me.

But I didn’t think it was. I get to have my say, too! “No, really, that’s what they think… The first girl I danced with was fine. But at around the fourth one, the girl was like, ‘We don’t actually have to hold hands, right?’ and all the girls after that copied her. Then it was just the Air Oklahoma Mixer…”

“Hikigaya, your eyes are more rotten than ever,” said Miss Hiratsuka. “…Well, they’ll make you a great monster, though. You can help haunt the forest.”

“So that means we’re going to be doing the scaring?” I asked. Well, these things are standard for school camping trips. Still, being in the forest at night is distinctly more frightening than any jump scares.

“Yep. But they’ve already made up the course, and I’ve got a set of monster costumes for all of you, so all you kids need to do is follow instructions and get it over with. All right. I’ll show you what you’ll be doing. Let’s go.” Miss Hiratsuka stood up, and we cleaned up our dishes and followed after her.

We picked up Hayama’s group on our way there and returned to the big plaza. The place was like a sports arena surrounded by forest. By one edge, there was something that looked like a toolshed.

Miss Hiratsuka explained to the boys what their tasks would be, and we began setting up the campfire. Totsuka and Tobe split the firewood and carried it over. Hayama piled it up, and I arranged it into a square.

“Quietly stacking up wood like this all by myself feels like Jenga,” I said.

“Huh? You can play Jenga alone?” Hayama asked, in all sincerity.

What, you can’t? I thought for sure Jenga was in the same category as card towers…

As for the girls, they were drawing a big white circle with the campfire in the center. I guess that line was for the folk dance.

We chopped the wood, piled it, and stacked it neatly. It wasn’t long before we were done. The hard work was rough going, though, under the blazing sun. I wiped sweat off my dripping forehead. “…It’s so hot,” I moaned.

“Seriously…,” Hayama agreed. He sounded like he wanted this to be over, too.

“Good work.” Miss Hiratsuka, come to see how our work was progressing, held out two cans of juice. When I gratefully accepted one, she said, “The others are done, too. You’re free to do as you please until it’s time to get ready for the haunted trek this evening.”

Everyone else had most likely been liberated after they completed their tasks, since only Hayama and I remained in the plaza. But now we were done, too. For the moment, I was a free man. As we started back the way we had come, I considered what I should do next.

“I’m going back to our room for now,” said Hayama. “What about you, Hikitani?”

“Oh, me too—,” I began to say, but suddenly a thought occurred to me. If I headed straight back, I’d have to walk there together with Hayama. It wasn’t a big deal, but I was mildly averse to the idea.

To draw an analogy, it’s like when you’re on the way back from a class meeting, and you end up leaving in the same direction as someone you’re not really friends with, and then you have to make awkward conversation. What can you do to avoid such incidents? There is only one answer. “Oh, I’m gonna drop by somewhere else first.” Frankly, there’s no reason to be stopping by anywhere; it’s just a little white lie that you can use to avoid walking home with someone. Some people might fail to take a hint and be like, Huh? Where are you going? I’ll come with! But well-mannered people won’t butt in on your business unnecessarily. I think Hayama is one of those.

“All right. Well, I’m off, then,” he said, raising a hand, and then went on back without me.

I gave him a noncommittal reply and saw him off.

Okay, then. What to do now…? If I just headed back to our room, then I’d run into Hayama, thus nullifying the point of splitting up with him in the first place. The correct thing to do would be to go kill time somewhere and then head back.

I mulled over my options as I meandered along the path wherever my whims took me. That’s when I heard a trickling, babbling brook. Come to think of it, I have gotten all sweaty… The water in the area was clean, and there were no human habitations upstream. It was probably just fine for washing my face. I headed toward the sound, and the path eventually led me to a tiny trickle flowing along. It was shallow, small, and just about the size of an irrigation trench. I guess you’d call that a branch. So that meant if I were to follow this, I should come out at a slightly bigger flow of water. It would probably be the perfect spot to rinse off. As I walked, the dense foliage around me gradually began thinning out.

The rushing water got louder, and I emerged at a spot that was markedly more open. It was the river beach.

“Huh. This is nice.” The remark just came out on its own. I’m good at talking to myself.

The river was about two meters wide, no more than thigh deep, and the current was calm—just the right place to splash some water on myself. I was gazing at the sparkling surface as I proceeded along the river for a while, when, out of the quiet forest, I heard the sound of feminine shrieks and cries. Sounded like someone was having fun.

“It’s so cold!” It was Yuigahama’s voice.

“It feels great, huh?” Komachi’s voice followed. When I looked toward the voices, I saw the two of them splashing around in the river. Even from a distance, I could tell they were in their swimsuits. What are they doing…?

“Oh, it’s my brother,” said Komachi. “Heeey! Over here, over here!”

“…Huh? Hikki?”

While I was busy wondering if I should turn back, my sister had spotted me.

Now that Komachi was beckoning me over, I was forced to go. Oh…well…I really didn’t have any intention of going, and a gentleman like me can’t just be randomly approaching girls in swimsuits…but now that she’s called me over there, I really have no choice—and oh, right, I have to wash my face, don’t I? Tsk, there’s no helping it. I’ll sprint straight over!

“What’re you guys doing?” I asked. “And why are you in swimsuits?” My pace had been just slow enough that I wasn’t out of breath.

“Wasseroi!” cried Komachi, splashing a huge wave over my head. It ran down my hair and dripped all over me… It was freezing. I had been starting to get excited, but that fizzled out quick. Come on, that’s never happened to me in a bathroom stall…

I glowered at Komachi for a moment, my eyes dull, but she didn’t show the slightest smidgen of regret as she responded nonchalantly to my question. “We got hot from all that work, so we’re going for a swim.”

“We brought swimsuits ’cause Miss Hiratsuka said there’d be a river,” added Yuigahama. “Wait…what’re you doing here, Hikki?” She must have been embarrassed about her swimsuit, as she was using Komachi as a shield.

“Oh, I just came here to wash my face…,” I began.

“More important, though!” Komachi cut in before I could finish. “Look! Look, Bro! I got a new swimsuit!” She did a nonsensical pose, like she was trying to show it off. Her pale-yellow bikini was decorated with a frilly border for a southern, tropical feel. The water sparkled in the light as she animatedly splashed around. Damn, is she a splash star or what? She spent a few moments in a variety of poses and then gave me a hard look. “So? Whaddaya think?”

“Hmm, oh…yeah. You’re the cutest in the world,” I told her.

“Wow, you sure don’t sound enthusiastic,” Komachi whined, discouraged and openly disappointed. She was evidently unsatisfied with my reaction.

But, like, you wear that sort of thing at home, too…

Then Komachi got a twinkle in her eye and reached around behind her. “Then…what about Yui?!” She yanked Yuigahama out from her hiding place and set her front and center.

The move had been so sudden, Yuigahama wasn’t even able to react and staggered toward me. “Hey! Komachi—hyaa!” she squealed.

The first thing that caught my eye was a vivid blue. Yuigahama squirmed with embarrassment, and with each movement, her light skirt fluttered. The bikini was a rich color, quite pretty on her silky skin. Their horsing around earlier had left her wet, and the water-resistant swimsuit sent droplets sliding down her sleek skin. They traced the dainty curves of her face, down her neck, pooling for a minute in the hollow of her collarbone, and then sliding down into her rounded cleavage.

Damn. Frankly, I couldn’t take my eyes off her. Somehow I managed to steel myself and tear my eyes away. If I didn’t make a conscious effort to keep my gaze upward, they’d automatically be drawn toward a certain location. So this is what they call the law of boobiversal gravitation, huh…? The resulting force is indeed proportional to the product of those two masses.

“U-um…uh…,” Yuigahama mumbled, blushing as she looked away. But when I didn’t say anything, her eyes flickered toward me in a moment of uncertainty.

I can’t have her asking me what I think of it. Why is this happening to me? Suddenly, I wanted to die. Trying my best not to be creepy, I maintained a calm tone of voice as I picked out the safest reply. “Um, well. It’s nice. It looks good on you.”

“O-oh… Thanks.” Yuigahama smiled shyly.

I couldn’t manage to look directly at her. I suspected that I was also blushing now, so I knelt down by the river and scooped up some water. It was cool, and the clear liquid felt good on my flushed skin. I splashed my face a few times, and that was when a familiar voice caught me by surprise.

“Oh my. You’re groveling to the river?” The remark was cold and intended to provoke.

“Of course not,” I retorted. “The holy land is in that direction. I do my worshipping five times a day…” My head snapped up. That’s when I forgot to breathe for a moment.

Yukino Yukinoshita was, as her name suggested, the embodiment of snow. Her skin was white enough to be transparent, her slender legs formed an elegant contour from her calves to her torso, her waist was surprisingly tight, and her chest was, while modest, emphasized. But my glimpse of her was only momentary, and her body was immediately concealed by a sarong.

That was close! I almost suffocated.

“Don’t you usually call yourself a Buddhist?” she asked.

“Y-yeah…” That’s right, I’m a Buddhist. Which is why I won’t let a petty temptation like this beat me! Don’t underestimate ascetics, man. Still, even Gautama Buddha had kids. What’s the deal with that?

“Oh, you came, too, Hikigaya?” A pat landed on my shoulder, and when I turned around, I saw Miss Hiratsuka with Miura and Ebina behind her. Miss Hiratsuka was clad in a glamorous white bikini that freely exposed her long legs and full breasts. Her toned limbs and shapely belly button was alluring in a fit, healthy way. Or maybe it’d be better to say she had a wild appeal.

“You can do it if you try, can’t you, Miss Hiratsuka?!” I said. “You could even pass for thirtysomething!”

“…I am thirtysomething. Grit your teeth. I’ll splatter your guts!”

“Gah!” An intense blow to my stomach sent me to my knees. Clenching my teeth didn’t do a damn thing. As I moaned and groaned at the dull pain running through my body, Miura and Ebina proceeded right by me.

Miura wore a purple, somewhat fluorescent lamé bikini. It was painfully shiny, but the style was exactly what you’d expect from the queen and close to perfect. She probably put in special effort to achieve that kind of beauty. Her labors supported the confidence in her walk, and her pride made her all the more attractive.

As for Ebina, surprisingly enough, she was wearing a one-piece athletic swimsuit. The functional design of the navy-blue suit complemented her slender body and modestly sized chest. The shoulder straps crossed over her back, highlighting the beauty of her shoulder blades.

As Miura passed by Yukinoshita, she gave a satisfied smirk at the other girl’s chest, chuckling. “Heh. I won…” There was a nearly emotional undertone to her voice.

Yukinoshita’s gave her a quizzical look. “Hmm? At what?” Apparently, she didn’t realize what Miura was smiling about.

I figured it out, though. “O-oh, I see…” This was probably where I should pat her on the shoulder and offer some encouragement, but, um, it’d be a little embarrassing to touch her bare shoulder, and my hands are sweaty. “Well, you know,” I said, “your older sister’s got it, so I think you’ve still got it, genetically speaking.”

“My sister? What does she have to do with this?” Yukinoshita knit her eyebrows together in displeasure.

That was when Komachi cut in, giving a big thumbs-up. “It’s okay, Yukino! A girl’s value is more than that, and everyone has their own unique qualities! I’m here for you, Yukino!”

“O-okay… Thank you…,” said Yukinoshita, confused, but also a little bashful. But once she had calmed down, that seemed to enable her to gradually put two and two together, repeating “Sister, genes, value, unique qualities…” over and over. “……Oh.” She glared at me, her face bright red.

I panicked and looked away. She’s scaring the crap out of me; she’s gonna kill me; I’m gonna die. Also, why am I the one she’s glaring at? Miura’s the one who said it!

“I don’t really care about that at all, really,” Yukinoshita said. “Superficial features of that nature are not what decides victory or defeat, and even if we were going to compete over that, we should really be using relative evaluation, and generally speaking, the objective would be overall balance. So I don’t mind at all, and in fact, the question we should be asking is: Who is the real victor here?” she railed. Her cheeks were a little flushed, probably with anger.

Miss Hiratsuka patted her on the shoulder. “Yukinoshita. It’s not time to give up just yet.”

“Yukinon, you’re really pretty, so don’t let it bother you!” Yuigahama immediately tried to comfort her.

“I just said it doesn’t bother me…” Yukinoshita reacted to their consolation with indifference and repeated “It…doesn’t” under her breath. As she did, her eyes flickered over Miss Hiratsuka’s and Yuigahama’s breasts, and she gave a particularly discreet sigh.

Before things could turn into even more of a pity party for Yukino Yukinoshita, the girls got into the river and began goofing around in the water. Around then was when a few newcomers appeared, late to the party.

“Man, I’m so stoked about this river!” Tobe cried.

“Oh, you came too, Hikitani,” said Hayama.

“Hmm, yeah. Just happened to come by,” I replied.

The pair were in their swim trunks, too. They were like, well, normal swimwear. I looked away, not like I gave a damn, and that’s when I noticed Totsuka behind them.

He hopped up to me. “You didn’t bring swim trunks, Hachiman?”

“T-Totsuka!” He was positively radiant—his skin was so pale, from his dainty toes and ankles and calves to his thighs. He wore a white zip-up short-sleeved hoodie that was a little large on him. The size and the blinding whiteness made him look like he was naked underneath a men’s white dress shirt, which was a problem for me. The sight of such fragile forearms extending from his three-quarter sleeves made my heart feel fragile, too. Wearing clothing over his trunks only made him more captivating. It was like by concealing his body, he highlighted his charms.

“What’s wrong?” he asked. Sometimes, blindness to your own allure can be sinful. When Totsuka tilted his head with a puzzled expression in that outfit, he only made my heart beat faster.

“Um, that hoodie…”

“Oh, this?” he said, tugging on the chest of the garment. “I tend to burn easily. I don’t want to catch a chill, either.”

I can’t do it. I can’t look straight at him. “I—I see… Take care not to catch a cold out there in the river.”

“I won’t. Thanks!” he said, dashing off to the water.

When I looked over toward the river, everyone had already begun playing around. The girls were splashing each other and grabbing some dolphin-shaped inflatable tube someone had brought, chattering and squealing and having a grand old time.

The boys were throwing themselves into some kind of special warrior training, like trying to grab fish with their bare hands.

If only I had brought swimwear, too… I wanted to splash Totsuka… All I had was the pair of trunks I had for swimming classes back in middle school. I’d had no plans to go out during the summer, so I hadn’t bought a pair since finishing middle school. Well, no use regretting it now. I had nothing to do, so I decided to retreat into the shade of the trees for the time being. A cool wind blew past me as if invited by the burbling water, and the sunshine filtering through the trees and down onto me felt nice. Normally, a moment like this would be rather boring, but when you’re at my level, you can kill time doing anything.

7

In the end, Rumi Tsurumi chooses her own path.

They were calling it a spooky forest, but it was still just a school camping trip event. We obviously weren’t going to employ any serious makeup or visual effects. It was the sort of simple setup that everyone vaguely remembers: making recordings of voices chanting Buddhist sutras, shaking trees under cover of night, putting on masks, chasing the kids around.

The forest at night was scary enough on its own, though. The stirring trees sounded like the voices of otherworldly beings, and when the wind blew, you felt the dead caress your cheeks.

That was how the forest felt around us as we performed preliminary inspection of the course, nailing down our plans for the evening as we went. We did a basic check over the whole thing and then left a stack of talismans printed on straw paper at the end on top of a thermometer screen decorated to look like a small wayside shrine. The kids’ mission would be to take one of these back.

Though the course had already been prepared, we still checked over any potentially dangerous points to make sure the kids wouldn’t get confused and end up lost. We consulted each other briefly as we proceeded, throwing out suggestions like Let’s put a person dressed as a ghost here, or Let’s put a traffic cone here to make sure they don’t go past this point. I wasn’t participating in the conversation, but I was mapping the whole thing out in my head. Mappy knows all about that. Mappy knows that road is a dead end.

When we came back to the starting line, Yukinoshita got the inevitable conversation started. “So what are we going to do?” she asked. That question was not in regards to the spooky-forest event itself. She was asking how we were going to help Rumi Tsurumi. All those who had been so active with their suggestions before now had nothing to say.

It was a difficult problem. Just paying lip service to the idea that everyone should be friends would have absolutely no effect, and more important, telling the kids something of that nature might temporarily smooth things over, but ultimately, the same thing would recur.

For example, let’s say Hayama were to draw Rumi into the center of the group and use various social techniques to protect her. He was popular, so everyone might be friendly with her for a while. But Hayama wouldn’t be able to stay with her 24/7. You had to strike at the root of the problem. But at this point, we had failed to come up with a clear answer.

Cautiously, Hayama spoke. “Perhaps all we can do is have Rumi talk to the other girls. We could create an environment for them to talk.”

“They’ll all probably still bully her anyway…,” Yuigahama said, her gaze on the ground.

But Hayama didn’t back down. “Then what if she talked to them one by one?”

“It’d be exactly the same. They might act nice at the time, but secretly, it would just start up again. Girls are way scarier than you realize, Hayato,” Ebina said in a shiver-inducing tone. That made even Hayama fall silent.

“What, are you for real? That’s so scary!” For some reason, that freaked out Miura. Well, she was the type to be straight about whatever was on her mind. Maybe being the queen for so long means you don’t get involved in these shadowy politics.

Either way, being a normie sounds like a pain in the butt. So it’s not just the good stuff you’re supposed to share with your friends, but the bad stuff, too, huh? Well, I guess in this case, they’re just sacrificing her on the altar of the status quo, though.

Something had to be done about that. “I have an idea,” I announced.

“Forget it.” Yukinoshita immediately rejected it.

“You jumped to that conclusion way too fast…,” I said. “You’d really be bad at buying real estate.” Spend some more time deliberating over it, come on. “Well, just listen. We’ve got this spooky-forest thing going on. This is a great opportunity to take advantage of.”

“How would we do that?” Totsuka tilted his head.

I decided to ease in to my proposal in order to explain it as thoroughly as possible for Totsuka. “There’s a certain something that happens very often during spooky-forest treks. You get my drift?” I said.

Everyone was slow on the uptake, though. I doubted Ebina was listening at all. Yuigahama was hmming in thought, but then she clapped her hands. “Oh! Everyone gets all jumpy and scared because of the spasibo effect? And that makes them feel closer?”

“I think you probably mean the placebo effect.” Hayama smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. They were too full of pity.

“…More important, the phenomenon you’re referring to is the suspension bridge effect,” Yukinoshita said, quietly lowering her gaze in grief. Suddenly the mood was grim, like this was a memorial service in remembrance of Yui Yuigahama.

“Wh-whatever! The important part is the idea!” Yuigahama rattled on, blushing.

“The idea’s no good, either,” I said. “Think about what often happens during spooky-forest treks.”

“…Being startled and dying of fright, huh?” said Yukinoshita. “That wouldn’t leave any physical evidence, it’s true, and I believe you could explain it away by calling it an accident. But to go to such lengths… It’s inhuman.” The look she gave me was full of reproach.

“Wrong. You’re the one with the inhuman ideas…” I cleared my throat and announced the correct answer. “What I’m getting at is that while you’re busy trying to take photos of ghosts, you’ll bump into a delinquent who’s halfway through, and then he ends up chasing you around.”

“That doesn’t happen.” Yukinoshita shut me down.

“Yeah, I don’t think so,” Hayama agreed.

“Shut up. Yes it does,” I said.

Indeed, that gloomy girl who had been like, I can sense spirits… (for some reason, there’s one like that in every class) had set the chain of events in motion. And then I’d been like, Well, I can sense spirits, too, can’t I? Or it’d be cool if I could. And I had gone off to try to take photos of ghosts, and then it happened.

What I had ended up finding was not a wandering soul but rather a clique of delinquents. They had also apparently been in the middle of their trek, and when I encountered them with particularly poor timing, I had scared the crap out of them, resulting in some unjustified resentment on their part, and they had chased me around, and then, well…that’s enough of this story.

Yukinoshita sighed in exasperation. “…This isn’t building up to the worn-out platitude that plain flesh-and-blood humans are the scariest of all, is it?”

“Delinquents are scary, though!” Komachi was nodding vigorously. But…

“Close, but no cigar,” I replied. “While it’s true that humans are indeed the most frightening, the object of fear in this scenario is not the delinquents.”

“Then what is?” Yukinoshita asked.

I paused for effect before I replied. “What’s really scary are the people who are most familiar to you. You sort of trust them, so you don’t expect them to betray you. It’s terrifying because it’s unexpected. In the case of these girls, well, I’d say friends are the scariest.” I was explaining in a straightforward manner, but they still weren’t getting it. “Let me be more specific.” It’s not that complicated. “People reveal their true nature in extreme situations. If they feel really, truly afraid, they’ll do whatever they can to protect their own hides. People are incapable of considering others. They want to save themselves, even if it means making sacrifices. And once people have revealed the ugly side of themselves to one another, they can’t be friends anymore. That’s all you have to do to rip the group apart.” I explained the plan dispassionately, but the reactions from the crowd were lacking. Nothing but grim silence.

“If they all become loners, there won’t be any more fighting or conflict.” My point was already made, but I still hammered it home.

“Wh-whoa…,” said Yuigahama. By the time I was done, she was rather freaked out. Yukinoshita was glaring at me with her eyes so narrow they were practically slits.

“You’re pretty twisted, Hikitani…,” said Hayama. And he was the kind of guy who never said anything bad about anyone.

I sort of wanted to cry. I hadn’t experienced a reaction as harsh as this since that time in elementary school when it was my turn to take care of the class crayfish, but then they cannibalized one another until all of them were dead, and then everyone blamed me for it at the class meeting.

Totsuka was the only one nodding with fascination. “You come up with so many ideas, Hachiman.” Coming from anyone else, that would have sounded sarcastic, but Totsuka being Totsuka, I could honestly trust that the compliment was sincere. If it were anything else, I think I might have destroyed the world.

Yukinoshita deliberated for a while. “It’s not like we have any other ideas… In this case, I don’t think we have any other choice.” Through process of elimination, she seemed to have reached a decision. This was what we had to work with. There wasn’t likely much else we could try.

Hayama didn’t seem happy about it, though. “…But that won’t resolve the situation, will it?”

He was right. This wasn’t the right answer. I knew full well that this was all wrong. “But it will cancel it out.” I raised my head.

Hayama was looking me straight in the eye. His gaze was so direct, it was uncomfortable. I looked away. But I wasn’t wrong.

When you have problems with your social relationships, if you destroy the bond, then you won’t have anything to worry about anymore. You can avoid that downward spiral by cutting the whole thing off at the source. That’s the best way to handle things.

Saying you can’t run away—that’s just the rationale of the strong. The world is wrong, for forcing that mind-set on people. Claiming It’s not my fault, it’s the world that’s the problem may sound like an excuse, but it’s not entirely wrongheaded. It’s not always your fault. There are many times when it’s society, the world, your surroundings, someone else that’s wrong. If no one else is going to recognize that, then I’ll be the one to do it.

Hayama gave me a long, hard look. But then he broke into a smile. “So that’s the way you see it… I think I’m starting to get why she’d look out for you.”

I was just about to ask who the she he was referring to was, but he immediately got back on topic. “Okay. Let’s go with that… But I’ll be betting on the chance that they’ll all come together to handle the situation. If this is about their true nature, I want to believe that is their true nature. I think they’re all good kids at heart.”

I was unable to reply to that effulgent smile. We were always in on it for different reasons, even when it was the exact same plan.

“What? I’m the one getting screwed with this plan!” complained Miura.

“Totally. It’s too harsh for me, too,” agreed Tobe.

“Come on, you guys.” Hayama pacified them and then faced me again. “We’ll go with your idea, Hikitani. I’ll let you handle the direction.” For some reason, he said the final word in English.

“…All right,” I replied. Hayama’s role in this would be an unpleasant one, but he’d agreed to do it anyway. So I had no choice but to respond to his spirit in kind.

So…what does direction mean in Japanese? What should I be doing right now?

When it was time to do the prep for the test of courage, Miss Hiratsuka called us all together in a room of the lodge and announced our mission. “They’ve requested that you tell some ghost stories in order to get the kids in the mood for the haunted forest.”

Where there’s a haunted anything, there’s ghost stories. We’d get them worked up by telling some thrilling tales, and their ensuing fear might lead them to see ghosts. There’s a saying: A ghost seen is naught but leaves. It means that people imagine the abnormal just because they’re afraid.

You could even say that most supernatural phenomena are born from such false impressions and misconstructions. In other words, both the bowl of hot miso soup slowly gliding across the table and that sensation that there are still a few kernels of corn potage stuck in the pull-tab can are such errors. There’s nothing supernatural about the world we live in.

“Do any of you have any special ghost stories?” she asked.

We all looked at one another.

Well, none of us are professionals like Storyteller Tamori, so we didn’t have much. Aside from me, Tobe was the only one to raise his hand.

“Hmm,” said Miss Hiratsuka. “Tobe…and Hikigaya, huh? There’s a frightening combo. Tell me your stories.”

If we were going to work the kids over for their haunted trek with spooky stories, then we’d be presenting in front of two classes of thirty, totaling sixty. We really couldn’t afford to bomb our presentation. After borrowing one of the rooms in the lodge, we sat in a circle. We picked up some candles, too, to give it some atmosphere. Tobe and I both eyed each other silently to decide who would go first. I don’t know if Tobe picked up on my cues or what, but he humbly raised his hand. “So, I’ll go first…,” he said.

The lights in the room were already off, and the only source of illumination was a few flickering and unreliable candles. A lukewarm draft blew in through where the window was open a crack, making the flames tremble and distorting the faint shadows they cast.

“This is about an older kid I know,” Tobe began. “He was sort of like a street racer. One day, he was zipping through this pass all alone like usual, and he got pulled over by the police. He wasn’t speeding at the time, which was strange. The policewoman came out of her cruiser and told him, ‘You can’t carry a passenger on your bike without a helmet… Huh? Where did that woman riding on the back go?’

“But this guy always rode alone. He never had any passengers. So…what on earth was it that she saw? A few days later…” Tobe wiped the sweat off his forehead and gulped. “He had a dansu with baddo rakku…”

He ruined it all with that ending. What’s with the random English…?

The entire audience reacted with disappointment, but Tobe soldiered on. He’s made of some sturdy stuff. “Now he’s a dad with two kids. He stopped street racing, got a job, married the officer who stopped him that day, and now he’s part of a happy family. These days he says his wife is scarier than any ghost.”

“I didn’t ask for weak comedy…,” Miss Hiratsuka grumbled.

Heh, good grief. You can’t call something like that a ghost story. I’ll teach you the real meaning of fear.

“I’ll go next, then,” I said, pulling a candle in front of me. The flame flickered, and the candles cast an array of shadow clones across the wall. I’m gonna tell you all a real scary story now, believe it!

“This is a true story…” I began with the conventional line, and the chatter around me subsided. The sound of everyone breathing was particularly loud to my ears. “It happened when I was on a camping trip in elementary school. We were doing the same walk through the haunted forest that they do every year. Yes, it was a warm summer night…just like this one.

“We were supposed to split up into groups to go pick up talismans from the small shrine deep in the woods. Each team went in order, and finally, it was our turn. They were calling this a spooky forest, sure, but in reality, the teachers had just set it up. There were no real ghosts. We cowered at scarecrows and teachers draped in sheets, retrieved the talisman from the shrine, and made it back without a hitch. Nothing happened. It was just a good time, an opportunity to screech and scream. Or so I thought. But then Yamashita, a guy in my group, happened to say something.

“‘Who grabbed the talisman?’ he asked.

“That threw the group into an uproar.

“‘Was it you?’ they asked.

“‘No, it wasn’t me.’

“‘Not me… Then who was it?’ Not a single person in the group knew who had taken the talisman.

“Terror filled my heart. I was trembling so hard I could almost cry. Because…” I trailed off there, all eyes locked on me. Or perhaps the object of their focus was something else—the clouds of pitch-black darkness billowing out behind me. “…Nobody had noticed that I was the one who had taken the talisman…” I finished the story and blew out the candle.

In the dead silence of the room, I heard Yuigahama sigh. “That’s just a loner story…”

“It would have been a lot more terrifying to hear you were friends with everyone in that group.” Yukinoshita shot me a chilly glare. She was completely right, and there was nothing I could say to that.

“Good grief.” Miss Hiratsuka exhaled a deep, deep sigh. “Are those pathetic attempts the best you kids can come up with?”

“Hey, come on,” I replied. “You can’t just ask an amateur to conjure up a scary story out of the blue. It’s not gonna happen…”

“Hmm… It’s a desirable skill for an adult, though. At drinking parties, people are going to want you to tell funny stories. It’s always a good idea to polish those skills. It helps you grease the wheels of your professional relationships.”

I was shocked. I-it can’t be… “Wh-what did you say? I don’t think that’d be possible for me. I think, for the sake of everyone out there in the workplace, it’d be best for me to never, ever get a job at all.”

“What a perverse way to express your concern… Well, let me show you how it’s done, then.” Miss Hiratsuka lit the candle.

I suppose she did have the wisdom of age. Finally, we could hear a ghost story from an adult. The audience all turned expectant eyes toward Miss Hiratsuka, as if to say, Tell us a story, one we don’t know! Trembling, trembling…

Miss Hiratsuka returned all those gazes with a bold smile and slowly began. “This is about someone I suppose I’d call a close friend. Her name was Haruka Kinoshita. But then, about five years ago, Haruka Kinoshita was no more… Right before she disappeared, she left me with a single phrase: I’m going first. Then she was gone. I never saw her again.

“But just a few days ago, I met a woman who looked somehow familiar. She seemed exhausted, but she wore a faint smile. It was the woman who had disappeared, or so I thought. I was about to call out to her, but then I saw a face behind her, grinning…” As she recounted her tale, Miss Hiratsuka’s face blanched. It was as if the terror of that moment had returned. Her expression was so chilling, it sent shivers down our spines as well.

“…The baby on her back was already three years old. It was truly horrifying.” Miss Hiratsuka blew out the candle before her, and the room went black.

I couldn’t help but break the stone-cold silence of the room. “She just got married, changed her surname, and had a baby…”

Someone please marry this woman, seriously. Otherwise I’m going to feel so sorry for her, I’ll marry her myself.

In the end, we just weren’t any good at telling tales of fright, so we unanimously agreed that would play the Ghost Stories DVD that someone had left at the lodge.

While the kids were occupied with the DVD, we were steadily setting up their trek. As Yukinoshita’s group was getting ready, Hayama called me over to discuss the details of our plan. We outlined the plan and its most important points and then started hammering out the details.

“It’d be best to make sure Rumi’s group is going at the right time,” Hayama said.

“Yeah. It’ll probably take a while, so we should make them go last,” I replied. “So do we fix the lottery draw?”

“No, that’s not very practical, and it would take time. We’ll just tell them when they have to go. Yeah…we can just say it’s so the kids will never know what’s coming. That it’ll make it more exciting.”

My briefing session with Hayama went extremely smoothly. I like to think my brain is made of the good stuff, but talking to him, I felt like he was one step ahead. Even delivering flimsy excuses, he seemed so cool, like everything was all well and good. It was weird.

“…All right, I’ll let you handle that,” I said.

“Roger. Who’s going to lead them there?”

“I’ll use traffic cones and stuff to herd them down the path toward the dead end,” I explained. “You guys just have to be waiting back there.”

“Got it. Also, about Tobe and Yumiko, I don’t think either of them is capable of remembering overly detailed instructions.”

Yeah, they seem like they’d be bad at memorization. “Just give them directions via cell phone. It wouldn’t look off for them to be goofing around on their phones. In fact, the more time they spend doing that, the more realistic it’ll be.”

“I see…” Hayama’s fingers danced over the surface of his tablet typing out the details. It really did make him look competent.

You know, though, talking is easy when it’s about work. You don’t have to try to come up with topics, and you don’t have to agonize over how the other person might feel. It’s nice; you’re even allowed to be harsh when it’s necessary for the task at hand.

“I guess that’s about it,” he said. “I’ll tell Tobe and Yumiko.”

“Thanks.” They probably wouldn’t listen to anything coming from me anyway.

“Then I’ll see you later,” he replied, finishing up the session, and we parted ways. He was going over to set things up with Miura and Tobe, and I would help Yukinoshita’s group with their preparations.

There wasn’t really much to set up, though, and it wasn’t like we were gearing up for anything elaborate. We were basically just startling the kids as they walked around the woods at night. These events don’t really focus on concept and detail like haunted houses do. It’s more about the impact and making it into a game. Especially since these kids were just elementary schoolers. They’d have more fun if it felt more like a theme park experience as opposed to having some sort of cohesive narrative. Bluntly speaking, they’d have the most fun if we just sprang out at them from the darkness to scare them. During the spooky forest on my school trip back in elementary school, a bunch of unfamiliar old dudes were jumping out at me, then in another area voices were suddenly chanting sutras, and at the end, bedsheet ghosts were staggering around. It was total chaos.

Facilities that often host school camping trips, such as this one, always have the relevant creepy props on hand, and the teachers should have collected some things, too. And they did have stuff, but…when I saw what they had for us, I held my head in my hands.

“A demon costume…cat ears and a tail…a white yukata…a witch hat, robe, and cape…a priestess outfit…” This was going a little too far, even for a theme-park-style performance. This was more like Halloween.

Miss Hiratsuka had said the provider of the costumes was an elementary school teacher. There were no two ways about it: I was positive that the one responsible just wanted to see teenage girls in cosplay. It made me want to be a teacher…

First, there was Ebina’s priestess outfit. Despite being a member of Miura’s clique, she had an established reputation as the modest one, so traditional garb suited her. But in my opinion, the costume was less scary and more vaguely mystical. Maybe she would present a more ghastly picture if we had her stand out by the wayside shrine.

As I considered where each person might be stationed, I looked around to see how everyone else was doing. That was when I caught sight of Totsuka, tugging the brim of his pointy hat down over his eyes. He plucked at the sleeves and the hem of his robe, muttering in confusion. “Does a magician count as a monster…?”

“Well, if you’re speaking as broadly as possible, I guess so,” I said. He was clearly a witch girl, though. Sharanran.

“But it’s not scary, is it?”

“No, it’s scary. You’re fine.”

Yes, truly frightening. I’m about to head straight down the Totsuka route right now—terrifying. Phew…are you the one who cast that naughty spell on me? What am I even saying?

“Bro! Bro!”

Someone was tapping on my shoulder, though it was softer than a tap. When I turned around, a stuffed animal–esque cat paw was beckoning me. “What’s that? A monster cat?” I asked.

“Probably…”

I think there was something like that in one of those big-time musicals… That was what my little sister reminded me of, standing there. Komachi was covered in black fake fur, sprouting cat ears and a cat tail.

“I don’t really get it, but it’s cute, so whatever,” I said. A pretty girl looks nice no matter what she wears. She’d probably even be cute in a mobile suit. Source: the Nobel Gundam in G-Gundam.

As Komachi waved her gigantic kitty paws, experimenting with the appropriate gestures, a ghostlike figure quietly materialized behind her.

“…” Without a word, the specter reached out to Komachi’s kitty ears.

Smoosh, smoosh.

“U-um…Yukino?”

Pet, pet.

Yukinoshita grabbed the tail next.

Brush, brush.

Then she nodded. What? What are you approving of here? Enough with that look on your face, like you’re evaluating antiques on Nandemo Kanteidan. I feel like she’s gonna bust out with a line like, “Oh, well done there.”

“…I think it’s quite nice,” she said. “It suits you.”

“Thank you very much!” Komachi replied. “You look amazing, too, Yukino! Right, Bro?”

“Yeah,” I said. “You look damn good in a kimono. Just like a yuki-onna. You look ready to kill a whole bunch of people.”

“…Was that supposed to be a compliment?” Yukinoshita’s eyebrows twitched upward.

A sudden chill slid down my spine. “Yeah, that’s it, that icy feeling. Exactly like a deadly spirit of the snow. That outfit suits you, it really does.” I complimented her as hard as I could.

Yukinoshita swept her hair off her shoulders and glowered at me. “That zombie outfit suits you, too, Hikigaya. The way your eyes are rotting is fit for Hollywood.”

“I’m not wearing any makeup or anything, though…” I shot Yukinoshita a casual but leaden-eyed glare, but she gave as good as she got. I broke the eye contact before I could stop myself. Scary.

8

With Yukino Yukinoshita aboard, the car drives away.

In the car on the way back, the ride was quiet.

The occupants of the seats behind me had been annihilated. They’d all conked out within thirty minutes of departure, as is common on car trips. Up in the front passenger seat, I felt like I might nod off, too, if I didn’t concentrate. But I’d feel bad for Miss Hiratsuka if I fell asleep right then, so I made an effort to stay awake.

The highway was empty. It felt kind of surreal, since it was vacation time for students like us, but for the rest of the world, it was a normal weekday. It wasn’t even the Bon festival yet, so there was no reason for the highway going into Chiba city to be busy. I’d just have to put up with another two or three hours, and we’d be there.

“I plan to drop all of you off at the school. Are you okay with that?” asked Miss Hiratsuka. “It’s just a little too much work to take each and every one of you around to your homes.” It sounded like she was just deciding how we would get home.

“I think that’s fine,” I replied, and she gave me a nod and a hmm in return. She was probably tired, too, so I sensed that it would be best for her if this trip ended as soon as possible.

Still facing forward, Miss Hiratsuka quietly commented, “This time around…you crossed a rather dangerous bridge. If you had made even one wrong step, it could have become a problem.” I didn’t remember telling her all the details of what had happened, but she’d apparently learned it from someone. She was most likely talking about the Rumi Tsurumi incident.

“Yeah, I’m sorry,” I apologized.

“I’m not criticizing you. I’m sure it was unavoidable. In fact, I think you did quite well, considering the time constraints,” she said.

“It was a horrible way of going about things, though.”

“Yeah, you’re awful.”

“Why are you evaluating my character here…? I thought we were talking about my methods?”

“Only a horrible person would think of a plan like that. But maybe it’s precisely because you’re so low that you can approach someone else at rock bottom. That’s a valuable talent.”

“What a mean way to compliment me…” I drooped.

Miss Hiratsuka, on the other hand, was humming along cheerfully. “Now then, how will we work out the points this time?”

“This is a total victory for Hachiman, right?” I said. This one was all me: planning, design, and production… Though I have serious doubts that what I did was ultimately helpful, it was only appropriate that I be evaluated based on my ambition, interest, and attitude.

“Hmm. But if Yukinoshita had not made the decision to undertake the project in the first place, you probably wouldn’t have gone into action. And if Yuigahama hadn’t talked everyone into it, you wouldn’t have found a reason to act in the first place.”

“Ugh. So we’re all tied at number one, huh…?” Man, so close! I thought.

But then she smirked back at me, and I had an ominous suspicion. “How long have you been under the delusion…that you’re all tied at number one?” she said.

“That again?”

“You originally tried to skip out of this. So minus one point for that, and if Yukinoshita and Yuigahama have one point each, you’re at zero.”

“I had a feeling this would happen…”

“But anyway, good work.” Suddenly, her hand reached over from the driver’s seat. Her other hand still on the wheel, Miss Hiratsuka patted me on the head.

“It’s embarrassing for you to treat me like a kid,” I said. “Please stop.”

“Don’t be shy, come on!” Miss Hiratsuka seemed to relish teasing me. She stubbornly persisted in her head patting.

“Oh, no, I don’t mean me. I thought you might be embarrassed. Treating a high schooler like a kid really makes you look old and—”

“Hikigaya. You may sleep now.” She knife-handed me square in the neck, and my consciousness plunged into a black tunnel.

Someone was shaking me roughly. “Hikigaya. We’re here. Wake up.”

“Mm…” When I opened my eyes, before me was a familiar sight. It was my school. The time looked to be sometime past noon. I must have been exhausted; I’d slept like a rock, deeply enough that I didn’t remember falling asleep, and now that I was awake, I felt refreshed. “Sorry,” I said. “I must have fallen asleep at some point.”

“Hmm?” It was Miss Hiratsuka. “……Oh yeah. Don’t worry about it. You were probably tired. Come on, out of the van,” she prompted, being uncharacteristically kind.

I stepped out of the vehicle with the thick air of high summer clinging to my skin. The atmosphere gets like this around here, close to the sea. It had only been two or three days since we had left, but I had missed it.

After some stretching and yawning out on the street, we unloaded our bags from the van and drowsily prepared to go home. The reflected heat from the asphalt was seething hot. We all checked to make sure we hadn’t forgotten anything and then formed a sloppy line, like we felt we should.

Miss Hiratsuka observed us with satisfaction. “Good work, everyone. This trip isn’t over until you’re at home, so take care on the way back. You’re now free to go.” She was looking pleased with herself for some reason. She’d probably been planning to end the trip with this classic teacher-student exchange since even before we’d left…

“So, Bro, how are we getting home?” Komachi asked me.

“I guess we’ll take the bus to the Keiyo Line,” I said. “We’ll do some shopping on the way back.”

“Aye-aye, sir!” she replied cheerfully with a crisp salute. Then she turned to Yukinoshita. “Since we’re taking the Keiyo Line, will you be coming with us, Yukino?”

“Oh, all right… Partway, then.” Yukinoshita nodded.

Yuigahama and Totsuka looked at each other. “I guess Sai-chan and me are taking the bus, then,” said Yuigahama.

“Yeah, I guess so. See you…,” said Totsuka.

We were all saying our good-byes, heading our separate ways home. That was when a jet-black limo pulled up beside us with the smooth, low purr of an engine, slowly slinking past. In the left-hand driver’s seat sat a middle-aged man with silver-gray hair peeking out from underneath the hat of his driver’s uniform. The rear passenger-seat windows were tinted to obscure the interior.

“What an expensive-looking car…,” I commented. There was some kind of flying golden fish ornament on the front, and the hood had been polished to a shine, not a single smear on it. I feel like I’ve seen that before… As I examined the car more closely, the stylish driver stepped out, gave us a sharp bow, and briskly opened the rear door.

A woman emerged from the car, the kind who would make you feel the comfort of a cool autumn day, even at the height of summer. “Hey there, Yukino-chan!” Haruno Yukinoshita was adorned in a bright white sundress as she stepped gracefully from the car.

“It’s my sister…” Yukinoshita trailed off.

“Huh? Yukinon? …Your sister?” Yuigahama blinked rapidly, comparing Yukino and Haruno Yukinoshita.

“Wow! You two look a lot alike…,” Komachi murmured, and Totsuka nodded vigorously. The pair were on opposite ends of the spectrum, but they closely resembled each other, like Nega and Posi.

“Yuki, you were told to come back home for summer vacation, but you didn’t,” said Haruno. “I was so worried, I came to pick you up!”

“How did she know where we were…?” I quietly asked Yukinoshita. “Frankly, I’m terrified now…”

“She probably tracked me down through the GPS in my cell phone,” replied Yukinoshita. “Good grief. She’s always trouble.”

Haruno cut in. “Oh, it’s you, Hikigaya! Ooh, so you were hanging out together after all. Hmm? You’re on a date! You’re on a date, aren’t you?! I’m so jealous! Oh, to be young!”

“Not this again…,” I groaned. “I told you, we’re not dating.”

She was prodding me with her elbow. This girl was the most obnoxious person ever. I gave her my you’re-bothering-me look, but she didn’t back down. In fact, she escalated and practically glued her body to mine. She was annoying, and soft, and in the way, and nice smelling, and I frankly wanted her to get lost.

“U-um! Hikki doesn’t like that.” Yuigahama tugged my arm, pulling me away from Haruno.

The older woman stopped immediately. She surveyed Yuigahama with curiosity, but I also caught a sharp glint in her eyes. She put on a calm smile and then faced Yuigahama. “Hmm, so this is a new character, huh? Are you…Hikigaya’s girlfriend?”

“N-no! Nothing like that!” Yuigahama stuttered.

“Oh, that’s good,” Haruno replied. “I was just thinking, whatever would I do if you were in Yukino-chan’s way? I’m Haruno Yukinoshita, her sister.”

“Oh, nice to meet you… I’m Yui Yuigahama. Yukinon and me are friends.”

“Friends, huh…?” Haruno was grinning broadly, but her tone was ice-cold. “So Yukino-chan has a proper friend, huh? How nice. That’s a relief.” Her words were soft, and her tone was soft, but the atmosphere enshrouding her suggested if you were to touch her, thorns would burst out from underneath. “Oh, but you’re not allowed to touch Hikigaya. That belongs to Yuki.”

“No he doesn’t.”

“Seriously, no.”

Yukinoshita and I responded practically in unison.

“Look! You’re perfectly in sync!” Haruno chirped with pleased laughter. Was this teasing for fun, or was it just part of her act?

“That’s enough, Haruno.” This time, it was Miss Hiratsuka who spoke.

Haruno’s laugh immediately broke off. “It’s been a long time, Shizuka-chan.”

“Don’t call me that.” Miss Hiratsuka jerked her head away. I guess that embarrassed her.

I was surprised the two of them were acquainted, though. “You know her, Miss Hiratsuka?” I asked.

“She’s a former student.”

“Does that mean—?” I attempted to probe for the real meaning behind Miss Hiratsuka’s all-too-brief answer, but Haruno cut me off.

“Well, we can do some catching up another time, right? All right, Yukino-chan. Let’s get going.”

But Yukinoshita showed no indication of moving. She was practically ignoring her sister.

“Come on. Our mother is waiting,” Haruno said.

Yukinoshita had maintained her arrogant attitude up until that point, but at that word, she twitched. She showed the slightest hesitation. Then she breathed a resigned sigh and turned to me and Komachi. “Komachi. I appreciate your invitation, but I must offer my apologies. I will not be able to go with you.” The way Yukinoshita spoke was stiff, formal, and somehow distant.

Komachi’s reply was bewildered. “Um, o-okay… Well, if your family is waiting, then…”

Yukinoshita gave a clear smile and then, in a voice so soft it seemed to become entirely inaudible, she whispered, “…Good-bye.” Haruno prodded her back, and she disappeared into the car.

“See you, Hikigaya. Bye-bye!” Haruno gave me a flighty wave, climbed into the car, and said to the driver, “Tsuzuki, let’s go.”

The driver bowed and quietly closed the door. Without a glance our way, he slid into the driver’s seat. I guess that initial bow had not been directed at us but at Yukinoshita.

I couldn’t see what was inside the car beyond the tinted windows. But I got the feeling that Yukinoshita was sitting ramrod straight, as usual, facing front, with only her eyes turned toward the window to the side.

The limo started its quiet engine, and the car smoothly drove out. It departed in a long, straight line and then disappeared around a corner.

I watched it go, stunned. Yuigahama gave my sleeve a gentle tug. “Hey…that car…”

“Well, those chauffeured rental limos all look about the same. And I was in a lot of pain, of course, so I don’t remember everything about that car,” I said, but I wasn’t being sincere.

The truth was, the moment I saw that limo, I knew.

I did not see Yukino Yukinoshita again that summer.

Reference:

Natsume, Souseki. Kokoro.

Afterword

Hello. This is Wataru Watari.

As I write a story set in the middle of summer during the middle of winter, I feel quite acutely that this was why I became a light-novel writer. So anyway, how are you all doing this season? I’m doing well.

And so, the story finally breaks into summer. When you think summer, you think of the season that youth shines brightest. Summer wear, swimwear, sheer bras! Just after I wrote that, I realized that, oh yeah, my mom is reading this book, too… So anyway, summer. It’s so important for high school romantic comedies, you’ll end up waiting in the summer.

I’ve always been more miserable in this season than any other time—I really hate it—it was a painful, miserable chapter of my life. I always just wanted to be a representative for the JSDF (Japan Secluded Defense Forces), if I could, staying at home to make sure my house is safe. It wouldn’t even be weird to call me a soldier of ancient Japan, protecting my assigned area. I’d love it if they would include a Jitaku no Moribito: Guardian of the House in the Moribito series. That’s how much I hate summer.

I mean, Marine Day? That’s just discriminatory. Some people don’t go to the ocean in summer. I think they should take that into consideration and make a “House Day” and make that a national holiday. Actually, I really just want more days off. People talk about “summer vacation” or whatever, but adults don’t get one. Once you get a full-time job, summer vacation is just, like, three days. Are you kidding me? That’s just the Bon holiday! And I got so excited about it, too! “Vacation time!” I said. “I can have so much time off! Yay, summer break! Wataru loves this vacation!” I deserve an apology here.

So anyway, this has been Volume 4 of My Youth Romantic Comedy Is Wrong, as I Expected. Please look forward to more of Hachiman Hikigaya’s summer vacation in the next book. Below are my acknowledgments. In English, you say special thanks, and in German, uh…danke schoen?

Holy Ponkan: I only wrote this book because I wanted to see you draw swimsuits for it. Thank you for the illustration book, too. Thank you so much. The swimsuits are the best!!

Mr. Hoshino, my editor: we would be just chatting casually about making a drama CD or a limited-edition illustration book, and then you made that stuff happen in reality. I was blown away. Are you Shenlong or what? Thank you so much.

Mr. Kenji Inoue: Thank you for your comments on the ad wrap, despite the fact that we’ve never met. Exhausted as I am by deadline after deadline, your words have been very encouraging to me.

All my writer friends: Thank you very much for getting together while I was busy drinking and making up an alibi for me as my deadlines were looming.

And to all my readers: I feel like I can keep going thanks to your support. There have been rough times, but I do love this job. Thank you, honestly, so much. I hope you will continue to stick with me.

All right, I think that’s about enough. I will set my pen down here.

On a certain day in February, in a certain place in Chiba, while drinking warm MAX Coffee,

Wataru Watari

Translation Notes

On Souseki Natsume’s Kokoro

1 Souseki Natsume (1867–1916) was one of the most prominent Japanese novelists of the modern era, the most famous of his books being Kokoro (meaning heart, mind, or spirit). It explores the relationship between the anonymous narrator and his older friend, a man known only as “Sensei” (teacher). While the book does explore themes of isolation, Hikigaya’s interpretation of the book is particularly misanthropically simplistic. That said, the book is pretty heavy reading for a kid in eighth grade.

2 The Meiji period was from 1868 to 1912, and it encompassed a time of revolution. Japan went from being under the rule of the shogunate, the military government, to the rule of the emperor. It was a time of fast-paced modernization and militarization. Kokoro was published in 1914, and one of the major themes was the arrival of modernity.

Chapter 1 … This is how Hachiman Hikigaya spends his summer vacation.

1 “…Friend/Zero.” Reference to Fate/Zero, the light novel by Gen Urobuchi that was a sequel to his visual novel Fate/stay night. There is also a manga and anime adaptation.

2 “Crush devils!” Hachiman is referencing a particular ad for the video game Idolmaster 2, a game centered on managing your pop idol group. It features the well-known voice actor Shigeru Chiba. He looks at the default name for the group Namco Angels, decides he doesn’t like the name, and declares he’ll call them Crush Devils.

3 “…I had no idea why she was suddenly writing her draft on that grid paper.” This is referring to the kind of paper pictured here. Hachiman wasn’t using it correctly—the purpose of the paper is to keep your characters a uniform size, writing one character per box. In Japanese schools, all essays are handwritten on this sort of paper.

4 “…they got a famous manga artist to draw the cover for the special edition.” Shueisha printed an edition of Kokoro with cover art by Takeshi Obata, the artist behind Death Note, Bakuman, and Hikaru no Go.

5 “And what the hell is with calling year-end parties ‘forgetting-it-all parties’ anyway?” In Japanese, the term for “year-end party” is bounenkai, meaning “forgetting-it-all party.” They’re ubiquitous in business settings and usually involve heavy drinking.

6 Mu is a monthly magazine focusing on occult subjects, like UFO cover-ups, astrology, and ESP.

7 “As proof, Hokkaido has an extremely short summer vacation and longer winter vacation…” Hokkaido is the northernmost island of the four main islands of Japan. Summers are cooler than Honshu.

8 “No, don’t call me a hikki for that. Well, I guess you could.” In the Japanese, Hachiman uses the word hikki, a shortened version of the word hikikomori, or a total shut-in who never leaves the house. This is also why Hachiman hates Yui’s nickname for him.

9 The Summer Sonic Music Festival is a two- to three-day music festival held simultaneously in Chiba and Osaka, with both Japanese and international guests, including big-name performers.

10 “Shall I tell you what’s lacking? …You’re far too slow!” This is a monologue from Straight Cougar, an Alter user from the shonen anime S-CRY-ed whose power is superspeed.

11 Beauty Looking Back is the name of a famous ukiyo-e print by the artist Moronobu Hishikawa (1618–1694) of a woman turning to look over her shoulder. It has come to be used more generally to refer to this particular pose in art and photography.

12 The Potsdam Declaration was issued in 1945 by Allied nations as a call for Japan’s unconditional surrender. Prime Minister Kantarou Suzuki’s response was to treat the declaration with silent contempt.

13 Ryotaro Shiba is a prolific and wildly popular writer of historical fiction and nonfiction, his most famous work in the West being The Last Shogun.

14 “…I’d recommend the Delfinian War, the Twelve Kingdoms, or the Moribito series.” Record of the Delfinian War is an eighteen-volume series of fantasy novels by the prolific author Sunako Kayata. The plot is standard fare involving taking back the throne to a kingdom and a visitor from another world turned hero. The Twelve Kingdoms series by Fuyumi Ono is another fantasy series that involves visitors from another world entering a fantasy world based on ancient China. These novels are available in English, as is the forty-five-episode anime adaptation. The Moribito series by Nahoko Uehashi has a twenty-six-episode anime adaptation and stars a warrior named Balsa who, in her journey, happens to save a prince’s life and so becomes his bodyguard.

15 Orestes Cucuas Destrade is a former pro baseball player.

16 “Do you know about thermal expansion?” Hikigaya is referencing an Internet meme that originated from a line in Volume 17 of A Certain Magical Index. There is a scene where a character drops a gun into a cup of hot tea, claiming that thermal expansion will now cause the gun to stop functioning. The Internet reacted to this with incredulity and mockery.

17 Saburo Ohmura is a pro baseball player with the Chiba Lotte Marines.

18 Chiiba-kun is the mascot of Chiba prefecture. He’s a red dog with a very pointy nose. His design was based on the shape of Chiba prefecture, giving his nose that distinctive pointed shape.

19 “There’s Ojaga Pond…that old abandoned telecommunication place.” Ojaga Pond is a reservoir in Togane. There is a legend that a woman killed herself there by jumping over the falls and still continues to haunt the place. The statue of Kannon at Tokyo Bay is so tall, it was also a popular spot to commit suicide until they built barriers to prevent people from doing so. There is also an extremely creepy tunnel that leads up to it. The university Hachiman refers to is Chiba University, and there was in fact an execution ground there in the Edo period. The old telecommunications place he’s referring to is the Kamigawa Radio Station, which was used by the Japan public telephone corporation to conduct secret military tests in World War II. It’s a very creepy-looking, old concrete building.

Chapter 2 … No matter what you do, you can’t escape Shizuka Hiratsuka.

1 Pet Encyclopedia is a short, five-minute show that does highlights on real peoples’ pets.

2 Summer Vacation Kids’ Anime Festa is a summer programming slot for children’s anime like Doraemon that would normally air on weekend mornings and such. During the summer, it will run on weekdays.

3 “No, not an angel sanctuary.” Hachiman is referencing the gothic angels-and-demons manga Angel Sanctuary by Kaori Yuki.

4 “Yes, I am free… I am…we are Gundam.” This is a reference to Freedom Gundam, a mecha from the anime Mobile Suit Gundam SEED. The phrase “I am Gundam” is the catchphrase of Setsuna F. Seiei, a Gundam pilot in Mobile Suit Gundam 00. He says it so often and in such seriousness, it’s a popular target for parody among fans.

5 “…the category error of the light-novel world is Gagaga Bunko.” Gagaga is the imprint that publishes the original Japanese editions of this series. It’s also known for publishing material that doesn’t really “count” as a light novel, despite its being a light-novel label. The designation of “light novel” is fairly arbitrary in the first place, but generally speaking, they are dialogue heavy, character driven, light on prose, and otaku oriented.

6 “…the end was that it was never-ending. It’s Golden Experience Requiem.” Golden Experience Requiem is a Stand power in JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure by Hirohiko Araki. This Stand’s power is to “turn anything to zero.” When killed by this Stand, it will result in an infinite death loop, and thus, “the end that is never-ending.”

7 “I should have had about eighty thousand points, though. ’Cause I’m Hachiman.” This is a pun. Hachiman can mean “eighty thousand” in Japanese.

8 “Oh, it wasn’t Shelley—it was Vermouth, wasn’t it?” Hachiman and Komachi are talking about the kids’ detective manga Detective Conan (or Case Closed) by Gosho Aoyama. Shelley is a character who formerly worked for the antagonist, the Black Organization, and Vermouth is their agent, so you could conceivably get their character types mixed up.

9 “Oh…my cell reception is unstable… I do like reading those books, though!” SoftBank is a major Japanese conglomerate that is most well-known for their cell phone network. They are known for being the cheapest of the big three cell networks (the other two being Docomo and au), and also the least reliable. Their CEO and founder, Masayoshi Son, is of Korean ethnicity, the second richest man in Japan as of 2015, and a known philanthropist. He’s also going bald. The name Masayoshi (a common Japanese name for a boy) is written with the characters for “justice.” SoftBank is also involved in various publishing ventures, including digital publishing. Its publishing subsidiary is SB Creative Corp., which in turn owns GA Publishing, a light-novel label.

10 “Sorta like Kitaro’s antenna.” Kitaro is the protagonist of the classic 1960s manga GeGeGe no Kitaro by Shigeru Mizuki. The story revolves around spirit monsters from folklore. One of Kitaro’s special powers is his antenna, which can detect spirit activity.

11 “…I don’t need love, summer.” Ai Nante Irane Yo, Natsu (literally “I don’t need love, summer”) is the name of a 2002 romance TV drama.

12 “In English, you would say his smile could cure me with pretty.” Hachiman is referencing Smile Pretty Cure! the ninth installment of the magical girl anime franchise Pretty Cure.

13 Comiket is the massive biannual fan comic market hosted at the Tokyo Big Sight.

14 The Sword of Promised Victory is the name of Saber’s sword in the visual novel Fate/stay night.

15 “How long have you been under the delusion…that we were headed to Chiba Station?” This is playing with a dramatic line from Aizen in Volume 45 of the manga Bleach by Tite Kubo. The original line goes, “How long have you been under the delusion that I haven’t been using Kyouka Suigetsu?”

16 “You thought our destination was Chiba Station? Too bad! It’s Chiba Village!” This is a twist on a Japanese Internet meme not unlike Rickrolling. Someone creates a tempting link that appears to be one thing, but when clicked, it leads to an image of Sayaka, a character from the anime Magical Girl Madoka Magica, with the text “Too bad! It’s Sayaka-chan!”

17 “The daily grind marches on, aside from during the Bon festival.” The Bon festival is an annual commemoration of the dead. It’s generally regarded by most Japanese people as one of the major holidays, and workers often take time off to go home and spend the time with family.

Chapter 3 … Hayato Hayama is socially adept with everyone.

1 “Your memory is on par with an MO disk.” MO is short for “magneto-optical disk.” It was a form of media storage somewhat like the MiniDisc, and it never really took off outside Japan. It was most often used in corporate settings rather than in home computers. Visually, it looks like a floppy disk but has higher memory capacity.

2 “I know about MDs, but…” The MiniDisc (MD) was a competitor to the cassette tape that, like MO, did not really take off outside Japan, though it was not quite as obscure as MO. Eventually, it was crushed by compact discs.

3 “…the type of people you’d see biting into midsummer fruit.” This references the title of a sappy love song about young summer love by the Southern All Stars (an old rock group that formed in the 1970s) called “Manatsu no Kajitsu” (Midsummer fruit).

4 “They were the kind who would have a barbecue or something on the sandbar of a river…” Hachiman is referring to a well-publicized incident in 1999 when a group of people had a picnic on the sandbar of the Kurokura River. The water came rushing in, and they had to be rescued.

5 “Ebina, the intense fujoshi” Fujoshi literally means “rotten woman” and refers to women who enjoy BL manga and fantasizing about sexual or romantic relationships between men. The Japanese counterpart of the slash fangirl.

6 “It’s like the call-and-response at school graduation ceremonies.” At school graduation ceremonies, the whole class recites a sort of call-and-response chant together. One student will lead the chant, beginning with phrases such as “The field trip!” and the entire class responds in unison, “Left us with so many memories.” Often, these lines are exactly the same across schools.

7 “Man, elementary schoolers are the best! …Being one, I mean.” This is a quote from Subaru, the protagonist of the loli light-novel series called Ro-Kyu-Bu! by Sagu Aoyama. Subaru is a teenage lolicon and coach for a sixth-grade all-girls basketball team.

8 “You sound like ‘A Night at Fifteen’…” “Juugo no Yoru” (A night at fifteen) was Yutaka Ozaki’s debut single in 1983. The lyrics are about teenage malaise and rebellion against the stifling, strict, and unfair nature of school and society. It was based on Ozaki’s experiences as a teen.

9 “Just as Stand users are drawn to one another…” In Hirohiko Araki’s long-running manga JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, a “Stand” is a kind of superpower, and Stand users are drawn to each other by fate. This is the central conceit of the series, as the members of the Joestar family and their allies are drawn to the villain, Dio Brando, as they all share these powers.

10 Yamanashi prefecture is located in central Japan near Tokyo. Yamanashi also means “wild pear.”

11 “Well, Tottori and Shimane do kinda feel the same…” Tottori and Shimane are neighbouring prefectures in southern Honshu. They are the least populous and second-least populous prefectures in Japan, respectively.

Chapter 4 … Out of nowhere, Hina Ebina begins proselytizing.

1 “‘It’s nothing, it’s nothing.’ Are you the opening song of Azuki-chan?” Azuki-chan is a shoujo manga by Yasushi Akimoto and Chika Kimura that ran from 1993 to 1997. The story focuses on the normal everyday life and relationships of an elementary school girl. In the opening song of the anime adaptation, the first line of the chorus is “Nandemonai, nandemonai” (It’s nothing, it’s nothing).

2 “‘What the heck is a book boy…?’ It’s true that I do like books, but it’s not like I eat them or anything.” Hachiman is referencing the Book Girl light-novel series by Mizuki Nomura. The protagonist is a spirit who eats stories by consuming the paper they are printed on.

3 “You can do, like, konjak noodles and daikon and stuff… I’m like, is this hot pot or what?” Shirataki are clear noodles made from konjak. They’re typically tied up into tiny little bundles in soup. They don’t get mushy, no matter how long you boil them. Shirataki, daikon (a sort of turnip), fried tofu, and chikuwa (a tube made of fish paste) are all typical ingredients for hot pot. You don’t normally see them in Japanese curry.

4 Pixiv is a popular site for users to upload their art to share and display. It’s like the Japanese equivalent of DeviantArt.

5 “Hikki knows all about that. I know that bay leaves come from bay laurels.” This is in reference to an Internet meme. The original is “Moppii knows all about that. Moppii knows everyone loves her.” Created by 2ch, Moppii is a cute blob character, a “witch who watches over threads regarding sales of anime products.” She was originally based on the character Houki Shinonono from the Infinite Stratos series, but she took on a life of her own as a meme.

6 “Laurier…doesn’t mean pads…” Laurier is a well-known brand of menstrual pads in Japan.

7 “They’ve evolved. Warp digivolved.” In the Digimon franchise, the term warp digivolve is used to describe a digimon skipping a stage in monster evolution, going straight from rookie to ultimate level.

8 “What a Cinderella story. A Super Dimensional Cinderella.” Super Dimensional Cinderella is the pop star Ranka Lee’s nickname in the Macross F anime.

9 “…you could even call it a Reality Marble.” Reality Marble (literally “innate bounded field”) is a concept particular to Type-Moon’s Fate series. It involves an individual turning himself or herself into an entire world or reality.

10 “Her nickname from now on is Rumi-Rumi. Is this Nadesico?” In the 1996–1997 anime Martian Successor Nadesico, Ruri Hoshino is an aloof and arrogant twelve-year-old girl whose catchphrase is “bunch of fools.” Her nickname is Ruri-Ruri.

11 “Why is it that the more you say absolutely do not tell anyone, the more they spread it around? It’s like, are you Ostrich Club?” This is a popular gag in Japanese comedy. It originated in a segment of the variety comedy show Super Jockey (1983–1999) that involves people climbing into a tank of extremely hot water. Ryuuhei Uejima of the comedy team Ostrich Club begins by climbing over the tank, grasping the sides with his hands and feet, saying “Don’t push me…don’t push me…absolutely do not push me!” This scene was in fact staged, of course, and “don’t push me” was code for “I’m still getting ready, don’t push me yet,” while “absolutely do not push me” was the signal to push him in. The reveal of that fact lead to the phrase “Absolutely do not ” actually meaning “Please do ” in comedy shows and on the Internet.

12 Nestlé Milo is a chocolate-and-malt powder that’s something like hot chocolate mix or Ovaltine. It’s popular in Asia and Australia but not typically sold in the United States aside from Asian grocery stores.

13 “There’s no such thing as a girl who hates yaoi!” This is a quote from Kanako Ohno, a character from the manga Genshiken by Shimoku Kio. Genshiken is about a college otaku club.

14 “It’s a geas, an evil law.” The term geas originates in Irish folklore, meaning a sort of vow or spell that certain individuals are compelled to follow. The term was spelled as geass in the anime series Code Geass, which began its original run in 2006. In the series, a geass is a special power the main character is endowed with that enables him to give orders through magic force that others are compelled to obey.

15 “You’ve got guts, kid! You’re a little firefighter.” This is a quote from the manga Firefighter! Daigo of Company M by Masahito Soda. As a child, the protagonist runs back into a burning building to save a dog, and the firefighter who rescues him says that line to him, inspiring him to become a firefighter.

16 “Is this Medoroa? This is so bad, even the Great Demon Lord Vearn would be in trouble.” In Dragon Quest: The Adventure of Dai, a manga spin-off of the Dragon Quest video game series, Medoroa is a combination of the two most powerful fire and ice spells. Vearn is the main villain of the series.

17 The Three Kingdoms era (220–280) is an era of Chinese history that is particularly popular in historical fiction, likely owing to the Chinese literary classic Romance of the Three Kingdoms. The shogunate era is a broad term covering the Kamakura, Muromachi, and Edo eras of Japanese history, from 1192 up until the Meiji revolution of the nineteenth century. Basically, it means the era of the samurai class system and the military government. Both of these eras are popular settings for historically based BL.

18 Ikebukuro is a commercial district in Tokyo. It’s also the site of “Otome Road,” or more bluntly, “Fujoshi Street,” a small cluster of otaku merchandise, doujinshi, and manga shops, with even a butler café or two, that bends toward feminine tastes, in contrast with Akihabara, which is more stereotypically associated with male interests.

Chapter 5 … All alone, Yukino Yukinoshita gazes up at the night sky.

1 The Gáe Bulg is a mythical spear in Irish mythology, but Hachiman is most likely familiar with it as a recurring weapon in the Final Fantasy series or the Lancer’s weapon in Fate/stay night, localized as Gae Bolg.

2 “Hawawa! Master, the enemy is here! >.< ” This is a quote from Shokatsuryou Koumei in the erotic visual novel Koihime Musou. The story is loosely based on Romance of the Three Kingdoms, except the entire cast is moe girls. She has a habit of saying “Hawawa!” earning her the name of the “Hawawa strategist.”

3 “And time resumes.” In Hirohiko Araki’s JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, the villain, Dio Brando, has the power to briefly stop time. His iconic line when he activates his powers is “THE WORLD! Time, stop!” and when his ability is at its limit, he says, “And time resumes.”

4 “I got my underwear snugly Pilder-On…” This refers to an Internet meme that originated from the classic 1970s mecha anime Mazinger Z. A Pilder is a vehicle that serves as the command center for a giant robot. “Pilder On” is what they say when it docks into the main unit. The Internet applies this to various scenarios, like a cute animal landing on the head of a character and presumably “taking control” of the “main unit.”

5 I Don’t Like You at All, Big Brother! is the title of a faux-incest (not related by blood) manga by Kouichi Kusano. Of course, the character who is saying that is in love with her big brother.

6 “A combination worthy of despair, like a Potara-fused Goku and Vegeta.” In the Dragon Ball series by Akira Toriyama, the Potara earrings are one means of fusing two people together in order to create a being who combines both their powers. Vegito is the combination of Goku and Vegeta into one ultrapowerful entity, via said earrings.

7 Grander Musashi is a kids’ fishing manga by Takashi Teshirogi that ran from 1996 to 2000. The titular character, Musashi Kazama, travels the world with his friends looking for legendary fishing lures, or “legenders,” that have the power to attract more fish.

8 “Oh, so she wasn’t doing the At the Mercy of the Sky thing? So was this the Heaven’s Lost Property thing, then?” Sora no Manimani (At the mercy of the sky) is a manga by Mami Kashiwabara. Running from 2005 to 2011, it was a drama about a high school astronomy club, with a twelve-episode anime adaptation. Sora no Otoshimono (Heaven’s lost property) is a manga (2007–2014) by Suu Minazuki about an “Angeloid” fallen from heaven, with an associated anime, game, and light novel.

9 “Never mind a Date with defeat, she’s a Nobunaga with defeat.” Date Masamune was a Sengoku-era (1467–1603) daimyo, famed as an outstanding tactician. Oda Nobunaga was the general famed for uniting Japan and ending the era. He was also known as a brutal and merciless man who even called himself the “Lord of Six Hells.”

10 “Like some kind of legendary end-of-century leader.” This is a reference to the comedy manga Seikimatsu Leader Den Takeshi (End of century leader-legend Takeshi) by Mitsutoshi Shimabukuro. The main character is a “born leader”—born with a beard, his first word was leader.

11 “He was probably raised on classic manga from Shonen Jump magazine.” Weekly Shounen Jump is the most popular manga serialization mangazine in Japan, serializing many of the popular adventure, action, and sports titles, like Naruto, Bleach, One Piece, Slam Dunk, Death Note, Gintama, and the older arcs of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure. Aside from certain odd outliers, most of the titles have themes revolving around the “Jump triangle” of friendship, competition, and hard work. They’re generally about good, old-fashioned heroes saving the world and achieving their dreams.

12 “I want to know defeat.” “I want to know defeat. What is defeat?” was a line often said by the professional competitive 2D fighting gamer Daigo Umehara and then popularized to a meme level by 2ch. He may have originally gotten the line from Keisuke Itagaki’s martial arts manga Grappler Baki, but it’s not certain.

13 A yamato nadeshiko is the traditional ideal woman.

Chapter 6 … Unfortunately, Hachiman Hikigaya did not bring a swimsuit.

1 Horizon in the Middle of Nowhere is a light-novel series by Minoru Kawakami. It’s a science fiction story that really has nothing to do with the sort of lines that Hachiman is talking about crossing.

2 “I wasn’t doing any alchemy or anything; it’s just the polite thing to do before a meal.” In Hiromu Arakawa’s manga Fullmetal Alchemist, certain individuals, including the protagonist, perform alchemy by creating a circle with their arms, putting their two palms together.

3 “The overflowing helping she handed me was like something out of Manga Japanese Folk Tales.” Manga Nihon Mukashibanashi (Manga Japanese folk tales) is a series of animated shorts from the 1970s featuring classic fairy tales like “Momotaro.” The part Hachiman refers to is a scene where a man eats from a bowl of rice piled abnormally high. This is such a popular scene that a “folktale serving” has become shorthand to mean a “giant serving of rice.”

4 “Ohhh! Are they gonna make a circle and hold hands and go ‘Bentora bentora’?” The “dance” that Komachi is talking about originates from a 1964 interview with the American UFO “expert” George Van Tassel, who claimed to be telepathically communicating with aliens. He describes communicating with aliens by speaking their language. Bentora is supposed to be an alien word meaning “spaceship.” The popular idea is that four or five people should get together, join hands in a circle, and chant “Bentora bentora” to summon aliens. While this interview faded into obscurity in the West, it gained a foothold in Japanese pop culture, and though George Van Tassel himself is largely forgotten, the idea that “Bentora bentora” summons aliens persists among occult fanatics.

5 “Did you mean to say ‘Oklahoma Mixer’?” The Oklahoma Mixer is in fact a real folk dance from Oklahoma, but you’d be hard-pressed to find an Oklahoman who has actually heard of it. It’s extremely well-known in Japan, though, as a “classic American folk dance” that’s taught to elementary school children, a practice that most likely originated during the occupation. It involves couples joining hands and dancing in a circle.

6 “‘Wasseroi!’ …Come on, that’s never happened to me in a bathroom stall…” This is a reference to the gag manga Pyu to Fuku! Jaguar (Make it toot, Jaguar) by Kyosuke Usata. There’s a scene where the protagonist cries “Wasseroi” while watching a toilet flush, calling it a “toilet festival.” Wasseroi is an essentially meaningless cry like “yay!” that’s typically associated with celebrations or festivals.

7 Splash Star is a spin-off in the Pretty Cure magical girl anime franchise.

8 “Yukino Yukinoshita was, as her name suggested, the embodiment of snow.” Yukino Yukinoshita means “saxifrage flower of the snow.” A saxifrage flower, in Japanese, is written with the characters meaning “under the snow.”

9 “I’ll splatter your guts!” This is Tokiko Tsumura’s catchphrase in the shonen battle manga Busou Renkin (Arms Alchemy) by Nobuhiro Watsuki.

10 B-Daman are a line of toys by Takara. They’re little plastic humanoid robots that shoot marbles—as one would expect, since biidama means “marble.” They’re meant to be used in competitive games.

11 “That’s not a marble! That’s an ant!” This is playing with a line from the film Grave of the Fireflies, in which Seita tells his little sister, Setsuko, “That’s not a candy drop! That’s a marble!” This is a particularly dramatic scene, right before Setsuko’s death of starvation, but the Internet picked it up and turned it into a rather dark meme, since hajiki means both “flat marble” and “pistol,” leading to the obvious joke of “Setsuko, that’s not a candy drop! That’s a gun!” The meme spun on from there, leading to jokes in the pattern of “That’s not an , it’s an ,” made all the more iconic by Seita’s particular regional accent.

12 Continuous Energy Bullets are a form of ki attack in the Dragon Ball series by Akira Toriyama.

13 “…when I woke up, the classroom would be empty, and I’d think I was in a closed space or something.” In the Haruhi Suzumiya light-novel series, “closed space” is an alternate dimension that overlaps reality; it is characterized by gray skies and isolation.

14 “Come on, are you the computer grandma or what?” “Computer Grandma” is an NHK children’s song from the 1980s. It’s basically a song about how Computer Grandma can do anything and everything. It’s part of a TV program called Minna no Uta (Our songs), in which they play children’s songs with short animated videos repeatedly in between children’s shows. Generally, the same songs will continue for months, so they’re highly memorable.

15 “A: You become the god of the new world.” This is a rather infamous quote from Light Yagami of the manga Death Note by Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata. Light’s idea of changing the world involves killing a lot of people.

Chapter 7 … In the end, Rumi Tsurumi chooses her own path.

1 “There’s nothing supernatural about the world we live in.” This is a quote from Akihiko Chuuzenji the protagonist of the popular Kyogokudo series of mystery novels by Natsuhiko Kyogoku. Chuuzenji solves mysteries with seemingly supernatural elements, but he does not believe in the supernatural himself, judging the root of each incident to be purely psychological.

2 Storyteller Tamori is a Japanese television icon who has been around for decades, known for his trademark sunglasses. One of his many television roles was as host of a series called Yo ni mo Kimyou na Monogatari (Tales of the Unusual), which consisted largely of creepy paranormal stories somewhat in the vein of The Twilight Zone.

3 “He had a dansu with baddo rakku…” This is an iconic quote from Haruki Wanibuchi, a character from the 1990s delinquent / street racer manga Kaze Densetsu: Bukkomi no Taku (Wind legend: Taku of the biker gang) by Hiroto Saki and Juuzou Tokoro. In this chapter, Wanibuchi, a gang leader, drifts to evade some pursuers, who end up crashing into a truck. He comments that his pursuers “had a dance with bad luck,” emphasizing that he didn’t engage in any violence himself, and it was all an accident.

4 “…Tell us a story, one we don’t know! Trembling, trembling…” This is a line from the song “Grow Up,” the opening theme song of the 2000–2001 anime Gakkou no Kaidan (literally “school ghost stories”), localized in English under the title Ghost Stories. The English version is infamous for having a completely rewritten comedic script, but the original Japanese show was standard fare.

5 “He was clearly a witch girl, though. Sharanran.” Majokko Megu-chan (Little Meg the witch girl) was an early magical-girl anime from the 1970s, and it was highly influential on later titles like Sailor Moon. The opening theme song begins with the nonsense line “sharanran.”

6 “Source: the Nobel Gundam in G-Gundam.” The Nobel Gundam in G-Gundam is the only Gundam in the Gundam Fight to be piloted by a woman and, as such, is heavily decorated in tertiary sexual characteristics, with a design that makes the giant robot look as if it is wearing high heels and a schoolgirl uniform and has long blonde hair.

7 “Enough with that look on your face, like you’re evaluating antiques on Nandemo Kanteidan. I feel like she’s gonna bust out with a line like, ‘Oh, well done there.’” Nandemo Kanteidan (The Evaluate-Anything Team) is a variety show that began running in 1994. In each episode, experts evaluate antiques, collector’s items, and such. Seinosuke Nakajima, a regular on the show, is famous for saying, “Oh, well done there.”

8 A yuki-onna, which literally means “snow woman,” is a type of spirit in Japanese mythology. While her traits and method of killing vary from tale to tale, she is generally described as having pale white skin and long black hair; sometimes she is wearing a white kimono or is nude. She appears in winter, often in snowstorms, and causes people to freeze to death.

9 Gachapin is a green bucktoothed dinosaur with a sleepy-looking face and was originally the costar of a variety show for small children called Hirake! Ponkikki along with his companion, Mukku. He’s sort of like Barney the Dinosaur. His role has gradually expanded to be a general Fuji TV station mascot celebrity, making cameos on a wide variety of shows.

10 A sakaki is a sort of flowering evergreen tree native to certain parts of Asia. It’s considered sacred in the Shinto faith and is used for a number of ritual practices.

11 “Does she ship Seimei/Douman or something?” An onmyouji is a traditional Japanese practitioner of the occult, and this is a popular subject in anime and manga. Abe no Seimei and Ashiya Douman were prominent onmyouji of the Heian period (794–1185); they were also rivals.

12 “In a Grove” is a short story by Ryuunosuke Akutagawa (1892–1927) that features a variety of different characters telling the same story from different perspectives, and the inspiration for Akira Kurosawa’s film Rashomon. In Japanese, “in a grove” has become an idiom to describe a situation in which everyone’s story is different and the truth is unknown.

13 “I’ve read that before in Kooky Trio.” Zukkoke Sannin-gumi (Kooky trio) is a series of children’s adventure stories about three boys. The series spans over fifty volumes.

14 “Is that supposed to be Vega style or what?” Vega is a character in the Street Fighter series of video games who wields claw weapons (imagine Wolverine’s claws).

Chapter 8 … With Yukino Yukinoshita aboard, the car drives away.

1 “The pair were on opposite ends of the spectrum, but they closely resembled each other, like Nega and Posi.” Nega and Posi are two cat mascot characters from the 1980s shoujo anime Creamy Mami, the Magic Angel. The two cats look exactly the same except for their swapped blue and pink color palettes, but as their names imply, they are like negative and positive, with completely opposite personalities.

Afterword

1 Waiting in the Summer is the name of a 2012 high school romantic comedy anime.

2 JSDF actually stands for “Japan Self-Defense Forces.”

3 Marine Day, the third Monday in July, is a national holiday in Japan. The purpose of the holiday is to consider the importance of the ocean to Japan, as an island nation.

4 Shenlong is the dragon that grants wishes to those who gather all the dragon balls in Akira Toriyama’s manga Dragon Ball Z. It was based on the Chinese myth of a spiritual dragon by the same name.