"Big brother, your eyes are scary..."
Komachi leaned back a little. It seemed my gaze had become a bit too serious. It couldn't be helped. She was my idiot little sister, after all. If I didn't keep a close eye on her, who knew what might happen? As her family, worrying about her was only natural. What if some strange man lured her away? That would be a disaster. As her brother, I absolutely would not allow that!
"Anyway, if you have any problems, just tell me. Didn't I say before that I joined this weird club called the Service Club? So maybe I can help with something."
After I said that, Komachi burst out laughing.
"Big brother, you're really serious about this!"
× × ×
Dawn broke. Sparrows chirped outside, and the night I had spent with my little sister came to an end.
I suddenly opened my eyes and saw an unfamiliar ceiling—well, actually, it was the ceiling of my living room. It seemed I had fallen asleep halfway through studying last night. I only remembered asking Komachi about her relationships with friends. Everything after that was a blank.
"It's morning, Komachi."
Only after calling out did I realize my sister wasn't there. I looked around, spending two seconds searching for her, then looked out the window, taking three seconds to confirm that the sun was already high in the sky. Finally, sweating coldly, I looked at the clock with a terrible premonition—nine thirty. No matter how many times I looked, the hand still pointed at nine thirty. Confirming that took another five seconds.
In total, I spent ten seconds coming to terms with that devastating fact.
"I'm horribly late..."
I hung my head in despair, only then noticing a ham-and-egg toast and a note on the table.
"Big brother, Komachi didn't want to be late, so I went to school first. There's a limit to how late you should stay up!
SP: Make sure you eat breakfast properly!"
Below that was a drawing of a girl glaring at me with vicious eyes. It was probably a self-portrait of Komachi.
"Idiot... Do you think you're a security guard or something...?"
It was supposed to be a PS, not an SP. Written as "PS," pronounced "PlayStation."
There was no point hurrying now, so I leisurely ate breakfast before getting ready for school. My parents seemed to have already left for work as well. Ours was a dual-income household, so someone was always up and moving early in the morning. Mom made breakfast, while Komachi handled dinner most of the time.
Still, nobody had woken me up this morning. Could it be that they didn't love me...? Though I worried about that a little, I chose to believe they had kindly decided to let me sleep.
I put the empty plate in the sink, changed into my uniform, made sure the door was locked, and headed to school.
My bicycle glided leisurely along the road built beside the riverbank, while the cumulonimbus clouds overhead seemed eager to stretch themselves out.
The road to school was especially quiet today.
Normally, this bike path would have turned into a street racing circuit for Sobu High School and the other schools.
When a racer shouted, "Go! Charge Horn!" as he overtook someone else, it felt unbelievably exhilarating. And if someone else refused to lose and yelled, "Don't lose, Sonic!" it got your blood pumping even more.
But today, the people on the road were all middle-aged women trying to shed weight, middle-aged men walking their dogs, and a few fishermen. A change of scenery once in a while wasn't bad.
Honestly, just riding a bicycle beneath a blue sky put me in a great mood. It was like skipping class to watch a daytime variety show—the fun factor increased by fifty percent compared to normal.
Still, why did I suddenly start feeling depressed when I got close to school...?
Even so, I walked through the school gates openly rather than sneaking in. Right. At this hour, every teacher in the school was teaching class, so nobody would notice I was late and fly into a rage. Worrying about that was unnecessary. That was something I had learned from being late seventy-two times last year. Today was my eighth tardy of the year. If I kept this pace up, I might even break my record. I hoped to achieve two hundred victories over my three years of high school.
Getting through the school gates had gone smoothly, but the next checkpoint—the classroom—was the real problem.
After parking my bicycle, I slowly headed toward the stairs. The moment I entered the school building, the pressure doubled. Was this Vegeta's Planet?
I climbed to the second floor, walked down the empty hallway, and finally reached my classroom. I took a deep breath at the door before putting my hand on the handle. The tense moment had come.
—Click.
Dozens of eyes silently turned toward me at once. The classroom fell silent. The whispers of my classmates and the teacher's voice from the front vanished completely.
It wasn't that I hated being late. I hated this atmosphere.
For example, suppose Hayama had been the one late today. How would everyone react?
"Hey, Hayato, why are you late?"
"Hayama-kun, you're so slow!"
"Hahaha, Hayama, you're really hopeless."
You didn't need to think about it. It would definitely be like that.
But if it was me, everyone just stayed silent. For a moment, some of them even looked at me like, "Who are you?" I dragged my heavy feet into the utterly silent classroom, and the instant I sat down, intense exhaustion flooded through my body.
Sigh... I couldn't help letting out a breath, and someone immediately twisted the knife.
"Hikigaya, come see me after class."
Hiratsuka-sensei said that while tapping the teacher's desk.
"Yes..."
...This was the worst.
I lowered my head in reply. The teacher nodded slightly, flipped up her white coat, and turned back to continue writing on the board.
Come to think of it, there were only fifteen minutes left until class ended.
The time before the bell passed cruelly fast. I shoved the lesson aside and started devising "One Hundred Excuses for Being Late," but before I got halfway through, the bell rang.
"That's all for today. Hikigaya, remember to come see me."
Hiratsuka-sensei beckoned me over. I barely suppressed the urge to run away and headed toward the podium at the front of the classroom.
When I reached the podium, the teacher glared at me first.
"All right. Before I punch you, let's hear your excuse for being late."
She had already decided to punch me!
"No, Sensei, you've misunderstood. Please hear me out first. Don't big bosses always arrive at the office late? So someone like me, a future elite, should start practicing now."
"Didn't you say you wanted to become a househusband?"
"Ugh! Th-that is... Treating tardiness as a sin is completely wrong! Isn't it? The police only mobilize after something happens, and heroes always appear at the very end. They're all late! But does anyone blame them? No, right? Therefore, we can infer that being late is justice!"
After hearing the cry from the depths of my soul, the teacher's gaze somehow drifted into the distance.
"...Hikigaya, let me tell you something. Justice without power is no different from evil."
"P-power without justice is even more ev—wait! Don't punch me!"
Evil is to be cut down! Hiratsuka-sensei's fist struck me squarely in the gut, sending damage throughout my entire body. I collapsed on the spot, coughing nonstop.
Hiratsuka-sensei looked at me writhing in pain on the floor and sighed helplessly.
"Honestly... Why are there so many problem students in this class...?"
Yet she didn't sound disgusted. If anything, she sounded rather pleased.
"And here's another one."
The teacher left me where I was and walked toward the back door of the classroom in her heels. I turned in that direction and saw a girl with a bag slung over her shoulder arriving at school only now.
"Saki Kawasaki, are you a big boss too?"
The teacher asked with a smile. But the girl called Kawasaki merely paused, silently bowed to her, then walked past me toward her seat.
The girl's black hair carried a bluish tint and was nearly as long as she was tall. The excess fabric at the hem of her clothes was tied in a loose knot. Her slender legs looked nimble, while her eyes seemed to gaze idly into the distance, devoid of energy. Beneath her skirt, she wore black embroidered lace panties, exquisite enough to seem handcrafted by an artisan.
I felt like I had seen that girl somewhere before... Then again, we were in the same class. Of course she looked familiar.
If I kept lying on the floor and got suspected of peeking up a girl's skirt, that would be trouble, so I immediately climbed to my feet.
Then I suddenly remembered something.
"...Black lace?"
The next instant, the question lingering in my mind was answered.
An image from not long ago flashed through my mind. She was the girl I had encountered on the rooftop, the one who had called me an idiot for no reason. So we were in the same class?
I was about to confirm it with Saki Kawasaki herself when Kawasaki, who had been walking toward her seat, stopped and lightly turned her head toward me.
"...Are you an idiot?"
That was all she said. She didn't kick me, didn't punch me, and her cheeks didn't turn red from embarrassment or anger. She simply wore a bored expression, utterly uninterested.
If Yukino Yukinoshita was cold, then Saki Kawasaki was ice-cold. Dry ice and regular ice were fundamentally different, after all. Touching Yukino could give you frostbite.
Kawasaki wore an exasperated expression as she swept her hair upward, then finally walked to her seat. After pulling out her chair and sitting down, she immediately stared out the window in a daze.
She had probably chosen to look outside because she didn't want to look at this class.
Nobody spoke to her, and her whole body radiated an aura of "Don't talk to me." Still, that alone showed how inexperienced she was. If she had attained my level, even if I radiated an aura of "Please come talk to me," nobody would pay any attention.
"Saki Kawasaki..."
"Hikigaya, don't say a girl's name with such emotion after looking up her skirt."
Hiratsuka-sensei said that with a hand on my shoulder. That hand felt especially cold.
"We need to talk about this. Come to the staff room after school."
× × ×
After enduring nearly an hour of scolding and punishment from Hiratsuka-sensei, I was finally allowed to go home. On the way back, I made a detour to the bookstore inside MARINPIA.
I scanned the shelves, chose a book, and bought it. After saying goodbye to a thousand-yen bill, all that remained in my wallet were jangling coins.
After buying the book, I planned to study at a café. But apparently everyone had the same idea, because the café was already packed with students.
Guess I really should just go home... Just as that thought crossed my mind, I suddenly spotted a familiar face in the café.
Totsuka Saika, dressed in a tracksuit, was staring down the cakes in the display case. Incidentally, students at our school could choose whether to attend in uniform or tracksuits.
That sight was sweeter than whipped cream and instantly stole my heart. Like an ant drawn to sugar, I approached. The nursery rhyme said, "The water here is sweeter," didn't it? Wait, that was probably about fireflies.
"All right, next it's Yukino's turn to ask a question~"
Then I saw two more familiar faces—Yuihama and Yukino.
They didn't even want to waste the time they spent waiting in line at the counter, seriously preparing for the upcoming exams.
"Okay, here's a Japanese question. Complete the second half of this idiom: 'When the wind blows...'"
"...The Keiyo Line stops running?"
Correction, this wasn't a normal quiz at all. It was the Chiba Savvy Quiz, and Yuihama had gotten it wrong. More accurately, the answer should have been, "It doesn't stop as often lately, but delays have increased."
Hearing Yuihama get it so wrong, a dark cloud seemed to form over Yukino's head.
"Wrong... Next question, geography. Name two local specialties of Chiba Prefecture."
Tick-tock... The seconds passed one by one as Yuihama swallowed with a serious expression.
"Miso peanuts, and... boiled peanuts?"
"Hey, does Chiba Prefecture only sell peanuts?"
"Whoa! I-it's the loner guy. I thought some creepy old man was hitting on me..."
Damn it. I had meant to come another day, but I had accidentally joined the line just to correct Yuihama's answer... Damn! I really hated how much I loved Chiba!
Hearing Yuihama's excited reaction, Totsuka turned around and looked our way, then broke into a radiant smile.
"Hachiman, were you invited to join the study group too?"
He stood beside me smiling brightly. Of course, I hadn't received any invitation, while Yuihama wore an awkward expression that said, "Oh no~ An uninvited guest came~" Hey, don't react like that. It brought back painful memories of an elementary school classmate's birthday party. I had even prepared a present, but when I got there, I found there wasn't even a fried chicken leg for me. I nearly cried.
"I did not invite Hikigaya-kun to the study group. What are you doing here?"
"Yukino, could you not repeat that just to shatter my heart?"
Seriously, if my heart had been any weaker, you would be in serious trouble right now. To be specific, I would have wailed, then lifted a chair and smashed it down. So you should be grateful for my extraordinary mental fortitude.
"No, we were going to ask you too, but the teacher called you to the staff room first..."
"It's fine. I don't care at all anyway..."
I had long since gotten used to this kind of thing.
"Did Hikigaya-kun come here to study?"
"Yeah... More or less. You too?"
"Of course. There are less than two weeks left before the exams."
"Before you start studying, I think you should properly review some information about Chiba Prefecture. That last question was a free point."
Before you continue