Perspective: Hachiman
I have always thought of romance as a futile and unrealistic idea that people used as a means to make themselves "happy". I have always thought that all romance would end in heart break and it would be a never ending cycle of pain and sorrow trying to find that "perfect one". That's what I have thought since the days of middle school because whenever I made a move, I was always rejected with "We should just be friends." or something along the lines of "gross". This would then lead to my confessions spreading around the school and massive embarrassment and pain towards me. That's the reason why I worked so hard to get into Sobu High School, so I could escape my past. And throughout the entire year, I carried on as a loner so I would not make the same mistakes again. I kept my emotions buried deep inside of me, that way I couldn't feel any more pain like before. But as high school carried on, I found emotions start to show because of various events with the service club, to which I tried extremely hard to push down. This worked until the initial confession of Kawasaki Saki, my first ever girlfriend. From the events following her confession, I let many of my desires from middle school flow out like torrents of raging water off a waterfall. Nothing perverted mind you. And honestly, I was having mixed feelings about it. For one, I was happy that someone would ever come to like me and want to be close to me, but at the same time, I couldn't help but feel that it would all just end in heartbreak. But for now, I'm ok with this. Even if it does end in heartbreak. Because at least I can finally experience what love was like.
"Hachiman."
A voice ran out from the distance, calling my name.
"Hachiman wake up."
My body started to shake and the surrounding area started turning from its blackness to a blinding light.
"Hachiman!"
My eyes opened to see that I am face to face with none other than Saki.
"Finally you woke up; I've been calling you for like 5 minutes. Jeez you're just like Taishi, you both sleep like rocks!" Do you know how important it is for a guy like me to sleep? It's the only real way that I can stand going into those crowds of idiots at school. I also need to keep my handsome face in good shape or I'll lose it. Really sleep is important all the way around.
"Come on, get up. I made us some breakfast."
I groan and stand up. What time is it anyway? Looking down at the alarm clock, I see that it reads 6:30, which should be enough time to eat breakfast and get ready. Following Saki into the kitchen, I'm greeted by the smell of... pancakes? Sure enough on the stove was a pan with pancake batter in it with a large plate of pancakes beside it.
"Go ahead and help yourself." She states from the stove this is when I notice that not just being in her school uniform, she's also wearing an apron. It's a simple green one with a plain design, but it does look really good on her. Grabbing three pancakes from the plate and placing them on my plate, I make my way to the living room and sit down on the couch. This is the life that almost every man dreams of, waking up and having a beautiful woman cook for you. Many guys my age would only dream of having a girl sleep in their bed with them, but sorry lads you'll have to keep on pervertedly dreaming. Looking back at Kawasaki, I notice her hair isn't up in its usually band, allowing me to see her bedhead. She looks rather relaxed while cooking too, she's humming a quiet tune and she's even moving to the beat. Could it be that she's used to doing stuff like this? It would make since given how much time this girl spends on her family.
"Did you sleep well?" She asks from the kitchen, finishing another pancake
"I think I did, given I had some company over the night."
She blushes at this and proceeds to walk out with her own plate of pancakes. She sits beside me and takes a bite of her pancakes.
"How is it?"
"They're really good." I reply truthfully. These pancakes are better than when mom makes them. They're soft and quite flavorful. This idle chatter is kind of pointless to me, but strangely enough it's kind of nice. Saki seems to notice this and silence ensues. Saki leans her head on my shoulder as we continue eating.
"Oni-chan! Something smells good so it's definitely not your cooking!" What happened to my praise for my curry last night? Is that the only thing you think I can cook because I make one hell of a instant ramen.
"Don't worry Komachi-san, your brother didn't try cooking anything. I made some pancakes, they're by the stove if you want them." Even my girlfriend is against me!
"Thank you nee-san!"
"We're not married sis."
"But you will be! My Komachi sense says so!" This causes both of our faces to flare red and Komachi giggles before taking her plate and sitting on the opposite couch. Jeez sis, don't embarrass us like that, it's very rude of you!
"A-Anyway we should get ready for school Hikigaya-kun."
"Y-Yeah.." Going into the laundry room and picking up my clothes from the drier, I head into my room and quickly change into my school uniform. Looking in the mirror, I straighten out the rinks in the clothing and lightly fix my hair. A guy like me has to look in top shape you know. Exiting the room, I find Saki and my sister idly chatting while she fixes her hair. She's about to put in her hairband, oh no you don't!
"Saki-san." She jumps a little bit before turning to me. I must have startled her.
""Yes, Hachiman?"
"You agreed no hair band." I say flatly, I cannot let the cuteness of my girlfriend be lessened. Not that she didn't look cute before, it's just her hair going loose looks way better honestly. This fair maiden shall not lose her elegance and beauty from a silly hairband!
"But we're going to school Hachi..."
"You said that you would keep it like this." Cuteness must not be corrupted. DEUS VULT!
"Ok Hachi... if it's for you.."
I hear a loud thud and look back to see my sister is lying on the ground. Komachi down! Komachi down! We need back up over here!
"Komachi!" I yell as I quickly run to her side. "Sis what's wrong?!"
"Oni-chan's actually acting like a decent human being. It's like I'm dreaming." Wow sis, way to make me feel like a good person. I sigh as I stand up.
"Ready to go?" I ask
"Yeah." Saki says, opening the door. Komachi shoots up like a rocket and waves us off.
"Bye oni-chan and onee-san! Don't go too far at school, it's illegal to do those things in public you know!" Both of our faces flare red at this as we walk out of the house. We walk silently side by side towards the school. Taking note of the weather, it's actually fairly nice even if it's in the middle of winter. Though the coldness of winter blows throughout the streets, I somehow feel very warm. But this could not be said for the girl next to me, as she was shivering and holding onto herself. Silently take off my coat and wrap it around her, to which she looks up at me. What? You forgot your coat at the house, I'll look like an asshole if I have a coat and you don't.
"Thank you.."
Wait a minute! I've made a huge mistake! I gave up my only source of warmth so now I'm going to freeze. Damnit, why do I have to be nice now of all times? She then grabs onto me and presses her body against mine as we walk.
"You're really warm Hachiman…"
That's the remainder of the warmth that kindness stole from me. She notices my obvious discomfort and she blushes slightly.
"I don't want you to get a cold, so you're just going to have to deal with this."
When we finally make it to the school, the students around notice us and start to whisper amongst themselves.
"Woah, who is that?"
"Is that Kawasaki Saki from class 2F?"
"Who's that guy that she's with?"
"Are they going out?"
"That guy's eyes are gross."
These are just some of the various comments that were swirling around us as we made our way to the classroom. But this is what these rats do best I guess. As soon as someone starts going out, especially someone who is known, it spreads around the school like wildfire and soon every student knows that you're going out. And some will even try to break up your relationship. This is what they do to try to make their ultimately uninteresting lives just a tad bit more interesting in their eyes, but it's all futile in the end. I look down to Saki to see that she seems wildly uncomfortable with everyone's eyes on us and she's even buried her head into my side. While this may have been very cute and I would have wanted to witness it much longer, I grew tired of everyone's eyes so we quickly rushed to the classroom to escape. But upon making it in, the eyes of Hayama's pack, Yui, and everyone else locked on us. Just great.
"Woah Hikitani-kun and Kawasaki are going out?! I didn't know he had it in him." Thanks a lot to the guy who couldn't get Ebina to date him.
"My BL Dojinshi!" Ebina exclaims as she falls to the ground. Who the hell did you place in that dojinshi of yours?
"Congratulations Hikitani and Kawasaki." Hayama says politely, you're too much of a nice guy for your own good. The class starts whispering and talking, presumably about us. Kawasaki seems more relaxed in the classroom. So I head to my seat, but not before I spot Ebina recover from her grief and quickly rush to Saki's desk.
"Saki-san, when did you and Hikitani start going out?" She asks eagerly
"Umm, well…" I chuckle with that and look around to see Yui, with her head down casted, what's going on with her? Well it's none of my business, but maybe I should ask about it later. Soon enough, Hiratsuka-sensei enters the classroom and class begins. My eyes begin to wander, but mostly rest on Saki, I didn't even bother to pay attention to what Hiratsuka was saying, it's not like the subject was hard to grasp, it could wait till later.
After a few hours, lunch period finally let out, Yui seemed to rush out very quickly which I find odd. Soon enough everyone leaves the classroom, leaving me alone to eat my lunch. I open my bag but see that it's not there. DAMNIT, I FORGOT MY LUNCH! Now I'm going to have to go through the day hungry, just fucking great.
"Umm, Hachiman.."
I look up to see Saki standing in front of me, with two bentos in her hands.
"You forgot your bento this morning, here."
She sits down in the seat beside me and faces me. We open our bentos and eat in silence, it's times like this that I love, sweet and utter silence. Saki lightly taps my shoulder and look to see she has a piece of chicken in her chopsticks.
"Say aah Hachi." I comply and take the whole thing into my mouth. Holy hell that's good.
"That's actually really good."
"Thank you Hachi…."
"Do you normally cook for your family?"
"Yes I do actually! I usually make Tashi's and Sei-ch- I mean, my siblings bentos."
"That explains it." The silence returns but this time, we both start feeding each other from our bentos. Which I find really cute given Saki's here. But what I wasn't expecting was Ebina to walk in on us when I was feeding Saki. She falls onto the ground with a large trail of blood shooting out from her nose.
"Are you alright?" I ask
"Yea-h.. *cough* I just came to get my stuff." She says as she rushes to her desk and retrieves a bento from her desk and quickly leaves. I look back to Saki and see that her face is beat red so I pat her head which seems to calm her down a bit.
"Oh yeah, Hachi,"
"Hmm?"
"My parents told me to ask you if you wanted to come over for dinner tonight. They really want to meet you."
Oh god. Here we go. The moment of judgment has come upon me. This is the time when the parents either deem you an angel or a demon, and if the father deems you demon, he will hunt you down like a dog if you do anything that upsets him or his daughter. This is an unfair trait of being in a relationship. Where are the cries in the feminist movement for this type of equality?
"W-When?" I ask nervously
"Today, they want me to bring you home with me."
I cannot refuse or my chances of being deemed demon rise dramatically.
"Y-yeah, I'll go."
"Great! Meet me outside of the school at the end of the day and we'll go."
"Ok." It's a good thing that the service club is on an off day today. I really don't want Yukino to attack me for not coming. Soon enough, the bell rings and everyone starts to pour back into the classroom. Tonight is going to be hell.
Authors Note: Hello again everyone! I'm sorry this chapter took so long without any notice about update time. My phone got chewed up by my dog and I lost all of my progress and had to rewrite this entire thing. It was so annoying, so sorry if this feels rushed and all. But anyway, I plan to be updating whenever I get the chance, but the maximum amount of waiting time is one week, so you guys may get frequent updates. I'm going on vacation tomorrow too with my family which should be fun. But anyway, thank you everyone for the support, please review this story. I really love to read the feedback. I tried to improve upon some of mistakes in the last chapter and gave Hachiman more internal dialogue and tried to make him more like him. Anyway, I will see you all in the next chapter!
