It began with a question
Chapter 3: It began with a study session
Not necessarily tied to the previous chapters
~Start~
I can spin a pencil between my fingers.
I'm not saying that I'm particularly proud of having that as a talent, many others can too, after all, but the matter still stands:
I can spin a pencil between my fingers.
Yes, a talent such as this one comes only with endless hours of practice – hours that a loner like me has in spades – and dedication. I'm pretty good at it too, if I do say so myself. The speed of which the pencil travels between and around my fingers is nothing short of amazing, nothing short of mind-blowing.
I'm not saying that I'm particularly proud of having that as a talent, I'm really not, but if any words of praise or amazement come my way I'll happily take them. Once again, not proud.
Okay.
Doing this, spinning a pencil, helps pass the time, I find. There's something about the sophisticated movement of something as rigid as a writing utensil in my hands that just captures my dead fish eyes and keep them locked on. I take a moment to think if this is strange, being so enamored by my own actions that time seems to fly by, and as dirty as I made it sound, I know the answer:
Not really.
What with my technique, anybody'll get caught by the mesmerizing motions coming from my hand. I'm so positive about this that I can feel a rebuttal coming from the universe to dampen my mood, but it never comes.
I sigh.
The fact that I myself acknowledge that the universe is against me is concerning and a little sad, but oh well.
I take my eyes off of my hand and focus them on the paper before me, giving it an once-over one more time. Everything seems to be correct, which is to be expected considering the subject is Japanese, my specialty, but something catches my attention near the bottom of the page.
There's a stray pencil mark uncharacteristically present there that I don't recall making.
I like my papers to be tidy, if possible, by the way.
It's really nothing to get worked up over, I know, but that doesn't stop me from quickly assassinating the stray mark with the eraser on the bottom end of the pencil I was previously spinning between my fingers.
There, mistake gone.
…
I'm just about ready to carry on with spinning the pencil between my fingers, but I pause as I notice something about it.
It has a smear, not the pencil, but the eraser.
It's an ugly contrast to how it used to look, a black smear on what was once a white eraser.
The mistake is gone, but not forgotten I guess.
That's a funny – but not really – way to look at it. You can try all you want, but you can't completely get rid of mistakes. They find a way to stay.
You try to erase one? You get a dirty eraser. Try to erase too many mistakes and you get a dirty paper.
You try to white it out? It becomes obvious to everyone you made a mistake and tried to cover it up.
You can always throw the paper away and start again, but not if it's a handout or a document of some kind.
And the pencil?
Who throws away a pencil simply because the eraser is dirty?
No, mistakes find a way to stay. Some way or another.
This pencil is still good, even with the black ugly smear on the eraser stemming from a simple mistake.
One of many to come.
At some point it'll look less like an eraser and more like an abused chunk of asphalt on the road, and maybe at that point I'll consider tossing it out. Even if the pencil itself still had a lot of life left in it.
A healthy pencil with an ugly eraser just tells everyone you make too many mistakes with the minimal amount of times you've written with it.
A short pencil with a clean eraser tells everyone you don't make mistakes even after you've used all the lead writing with it.
But nobody is perfect.
Everyone makes mistakes at one point or another, and mistakes need to get rid of. Everyone also wants to give the image that they never make mistakes.
That's why you see everyone with a separate, stand-alone eraser.
Make a mistake? Erase it.
Another one? Erase it.
Three more? Five more?
Erase them and throw it away.
Get another one.
Repeat.
Overused pencils with clean erasers. All the mistakes in the world. None of the evidence to show it.
Everybody wins. Nobody makes mistakes. Eraser companies thrive.
Bull. Shit.
I place the pencil down on the paper, eliciting a small clap from it hitting the surface of the short wooden table center of my living room. I get up from my sitting position, drawing the attention of the intruder sitting adjacent to me, and walk to the kitchen.
Not all mistakes can be erased so easily.
Not all mistakes can be erased.
Doesn't stop people from trying, though.
To give the image of perfection – to have "clean erasers" if you will – people would do almost anything. They'll follow trends. Dress a certain way. Behave a certain way. Keep their mouths shut or never stop using them.
Separate, stand-alone erasers.
Nobody in their right mind would willingly admit in making a mistake if there's the odd-chance they can get away with nobody knowing about it and those that own up to their mistakes willingly just do so because it is in their character to do so – good or bad.
Everybody wants to be clean.
The world doesn't work like that, no. Just as there is falseness in this world, there are truths. For every pleasant falsehood there is a cruel truth.
The cruel truth in this?
Everyone is smeared with the mistakes they have done.
I catch my reflection on the plastic water bottle I'm holding.
Some more than others.
If I were an eraser on a black road, nobody would be able to tell the difference between the two.
The world knows I've tried.
I tried.
And it is because that I've tried that I have no qualms to make my mistakes known to those willing to hear them. I have no way to hide them, my mistakes, so I don't bother anymore. A dirty eraser can hide mistakes, but it cannot lie.
Successfully.
And that's just the way it is.
Walking back into the living room, my eyes met a brown pair of orbs looking at me.
…some mistakes can't be erased so easily.
The intruder quickly shifts her brown eyes to the bottle of water in my hand before looking back at me. She's sitting on one of my family's floor pillows, her legs underneath the short table I had been using just a couple seconds ago. There's a prep book, some pencils, pens, highlighters and papers scattered across her part of the table. She smiles at me.
She's Orimoto Kaori, the intruder currently in my house.
That's right, intruder. To call her a "guest" would imply that she was invited in, but that's not what had happened, no. She forced herself in to my house, thus, intruder.
She reaches her hand outwards, expectantly.
I don't even bother hiding the way my eyes roll to the side as I hand her the water bottle she's been eyeing since the moment I walked in with it.
It was for her to begin with, anyways, so it doesn't matter.
She smiles once it's in her hand, almost as if that was her way of saying thanks.
I don't say anything, she doesn't seem to mind.
The day is Sunday.
Late morning, early afternoon.
Doesn't matter.
All that does matter is that I'm upset. Upset at the loss of the last day of my weekend for something like this.
Orimoto looks at me and suggestively nudges her head towards the empty spot next to her where I had been sitting before. If this were any other situation than the one we were currently in I might have indulged her, but I won't today.
Upset at the loss of the last day of my weekend for someone like her.
I won't let my weekend be ruined by this.
Not on my Sunday, damn it.
There's an almost puppy-like look of betrayal on her face a second after I walk past her and take to my couch for comfort. I dig out my handheld console from my pocket and power it on as I get comfortable like I usually do every weekend.
I enjoy my weekends. I love being able to sleep in – especially now since I've been waking up earlier than usual, much to my annoyance – all I want into the afternoon where I then laze around playing games or reading a book or even spend time with my sister. The weekends are a magical time for someone like me.
Doesn't she get that?
"Hikigaya!" She whines. "What are you doing?"
Of course she doesn't.
"Trying to salvage the rest of my Sunday." I hope she can hear the bitterness in my voice. Something tells me she can't. "If I can't sleep in today I'll at least play my games." I add.
She lets out a confused "Hoh?" before completely turning her body around to face me properly. "But I thought you said you were going to help me." She's not angry, but she's not exactly amused either.
I glance at her, almost challenging the outrageous claim she spewed out. "I don't remember saying anything like that, Orimoto."
"But in the texts from yesterday-"
"I said that a study session with a friend would help you better prepare for the exam." I strategically cut in before she went on a wrong assumption.
As of recently, our conversations have been revolving around the various exams we have coming up. And while I don't have anything in particular to be worried about, except maybe for mathematics and science, Orimoto expressed her concerns over her ability – or lack of – with English. She was concerned about the upcoming exam, so I gave her advice – empty advice, honestly – on how to go about it.
"I'm here, aren't I?" She doesn't skip a beat with her reply, her bangs bouncing with her words.
Her words and her careless way of expressing them catch me off guard. That's dangerous, don't you know, Orimoto? That carefree attitude of yours can be very misleading.
And it worries me.
"At the very least," she starts, her tone somewhat sad; her brown eyes grow soft with her smile "we're friends, right? Hikigaya?"
I feel my face get warm, but I mentally push it aside. I can feel myself getting slightly upset.
"Keep talking like that and you'd convince anyone, Orimoto." I reply somewhat evenly, my attention back to the game in my hands. Through my peripheral vision I can see her frame slightly droop.
Doesn't last long, though.
"And what's that supposed to mean, Hikigaya?" I can tell she's pouting, but her tone is more confused than insulted.
It means you're a nice girl, Orimoto. A lie.
If you're nice to me, you're nice to everyone. If you can call us "friends" so easily I can only imagine what you say to others.
…
That thought bothers me more than it should and that alone worries me even more. I'm not sure why, though.
Orimoto and I have history with one another. We used to go to the same middle school together and past the occasional conversations we used to have with one another we had nothing else going for us. Even back then she was nothing but a nice, pretty girl that treated everyone kindly, including me, social outcast in the making. It was her nice personality towards me that made me misinterpret her neutral feelings towards me as something positive, leading to me foolishly confessing my – more than likely inflated – feelings for her.
It was a mistake.
One of many.
One that can't be erased.
And even after all of that, after all the teasing and whatnot, I still consider her a nice girl.
It worries me.
"It means what it means." I reply halfheartedly, my attention split between my thoughts and on keeping my hunter from being carted.[1]
She doesn't seem to like that answer as she hastily turns her attention back to the papers on the table behind her. "Whatever!" She scoffs. "Not like I needed your answer, or anything. I know we're friends."
My eyes narrow at that. She's far too confident in her words. "Why do you sound so sure?"
She's working on her papers so I half expect for her to not respond, but after a couple of seconds of silence she begins to explain.
"Well, you let me in this morning didn't you?" She suggests.
Wrong. "You practically barged in the moment I opened the door, Orimoto."
"You could have told me to leave." She adds playfully.
"I did. Repeatedly." I retort.
"Most people would have called the police if someone who wasn't a friend "barged" into their home, Hikigaya~." She's taunting me, I know it.
"I still can." I bluff.
"And yet I'm still here." She immediately calls my bluff and shoots me down.
My jaw drops and I'm left stunned, unable to form a single word, partly because what she says is somewhat true.
She's been getting better at dealing with… well, me, I realize with a grimace. And I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't getting used to her at all, that too I realize at that moment. It's not that it's too hard to believe, we have been talking with one another for a while now and our interactions together have turned into a daily thing, after all, but… it's strange.
I had seen her through the glass on the door before I even reached for the doorknob; I saw that she had her schoolbag with her, the texts from the day before were still fresh on my mind. I could have easily connected the dots in the short moment before I opened the door, but…
She begins to hum a tune.
…but I didn't.
If I truly didn't want her here, I wouldn't have opened the door, I would have been more adamant in telling her to leave, but I don't think I have it in me to call the police over something like this – but if it had been a certain pretty boy with his clique outside my door I'd have no qualms in dialing the authorities as fast as possible.
Maybe she knew that.
Maybe she knew that and came in with the confidence she had, knowing that I probably wouldn't have done anything serious to get her to leave. To take advantage of that fact.
Maybe.
There's a sadistic charm towards believing in that possibility, but, no, no I happen to know better. I happen to know her better than that.
I'm not looking at my game anymore, giving my attention to the girl who had suddenly stopped humming as she seemingly got stuck on a problem.
Orimoto is a nice girl to the core of her being. Kind to anyone she sees, her carefree attitude makes her very easy to approach. She has an air about her that gives the implication that she's not above or below anybody, not necessarily on par with those around her either, but she's… there. It's this common ground between both extremes that she has that makes it so easy to get along with her, at least, that's what my thoughts are. But nobody is perfect.
Not even Orimoto.
Her carefree attitude in her words and actions can come across as rude or as blunt to those who don't know her. Her words can hurt – I know this personally – but there's no malicious intent behind them, there never is. All bark and no bite, as the saying goes. What may look like teasing coming from her is actually nothing but her joking around. She doesn't have it in her to be mean, doesn't have it in her to be genuinely mean, at least. She has every tool at her disposal to be the biggest bitch the world has come to know, but that isn't her.
Even the prettiest flowers have thorns.
So what does this all mean?
Orimoto didn't come to my house to take advantage of the fact that I have trouble saying no to her. She isn't like that. She came because she thought I could help her with her studying.
And I let her in and let her stay because… I'm… I'm not sure, honestly.
When I came back from my thoughts, the words "Quest Failed" were on the screen of my console. I think nothing of it before I put it aside, my interest in it completely gone. I sit up from my laying position on my couch and absentmindedly stretch upwards, but not too take a peek at her paper, mind you! I'm just stretching!
Suddenly, her body seems to give out and her head collides with the table.
"O-Oi, are you-"
"Hikigayaaaa~ help meeee…" I can faintly hear her pathetic whine for help.
"Seriously?"
A sniffle is all I get as a reply.
…
"This is what I meant when I said you should have a study session with a friend…" I mutter as I look at the paper she was working on.
"But-"
"A friend that is taking the same class as you." I cut her off. Her paper is dirty with stray pencil marks, half erased answer choices and chicken scratch littered everywhere. "It would have made things easier."
As someone who likes their papers clean, this is painful to look at. Luckily for her – and for me – this is just a regular sheet of paper she's copying the questions from the book on and not an issued document from class.
"But aren't you like, super smart, Hikigaya?" She's in a far better mood than she was when she had cried for help. N-not that I care. "This should be a piece of pie, right?"
"Cake." I correct her.
"Hm?" She tilts her head in confusion, her bangs follow shortly with a little bounce.
"That saying, that's how it-"
She cuts me off with a frantic shake of her hands. "I know, I know I got the saying wrong! I told you I need help, Hikigaya~!"
"Yeah, well, English is hard. Don't worry too much about it." A grin finds a way to my face at her blatant irritation.
"It's like, super hard!" She corrects me with an exasperated sigh. "It's so confusing!"
I nod, but only for show. Comparing the questions from her paper to the kind I get in my English class, however, I can immediately notice the degrees in difference. Is Sōbu really that different from the other schools?
"So, can you help me, Hikigaya?" She asks me one more time, almost as if I had been discouraged to help once I took a look at her paper.
English is not that hard to get used to. It's a steep climb in the beginning, sure, but it isn't impossible.
The hard part is getting introduced to it, everything after falls into place.
"Hm, yeah." I respond slowly. "This doesn't look all that difficult."
There's a brief pause in our words when it's her turn to reply. Curious, I shift my eyes to my right and the first thing I see is her smile – a warm one, an assured one.
"I knew you'd help me." Her hand reaches out and lightly grabs the paper in my hand, but doesn't tug on it or pull; rather, it stays suspended between us.
I'm not as affected by this as I thought I would be, because maybe in some way, I knew so too. When it came down to it, when she first started saying she needed help, maybe I had unknowingly already decided that I would help her if she came my way.
It would explain why I responded to her text earlier this morning when she asked if I was awake, why I was ready when she first knocked on the door, why I let her stay.
I don't think I can blame my kindness for this whole thing, I mean, would I do the same for anyone else? Would I do the same for Yukinoshita? For Yuigahama? I'm not sure.
And that worries me.
All this constant exposure that I've had with her these past couple of months has done something to me. Something I can't place or something I don't want to think about.
And I'm not sure if that's a good thing.
She motions the paper down onto the table space between us before pointing out a specific problem.
And so we begin.
…
"Hey, hey, Hikigaya~!" I hear her calling my name with excitement. "I think I finally got it!"
"Finally." I can't help but sigh. We have been at this for more than hour now, so can you blame me for being a little relieved? No, no I didn't think so.
She nods, missing my sarcastic tone. "Totally! Come look, come look!"
I shamble over to her from my position on the couch and sit down next to her. Orimoto places her paper on the table space between us and inches her body closer to mine as if to get a better angle on her end.
I try to ignore it.
The first thing I noticed once I saw her paper was that she didn't use a pencil this time around.
"Why did you use a pen?" I ask her. "You can't erase ink."
She nods, her smile shining something mischievous before she responds. "I thought if I used a pen it would force me to try harder not to make a mistake, you know?" She laughs afterwards. "It's totally dumb, but I just thought…" She mutters the rest of her sentence to the point that I can't understand her anymore.
"I see…" I don't know how to respond to that so I try to move things along. "Let's look at problem one."
She breaks out of her stupor and nods. Her hand slides the paper closer to me, the rest of her body following suit seconds later. Our shoulders are touching and before I can ask what she's doing she interrupts me.
"Did I make a mistake, Hikigaya?" Her right hand is on the table, finger on the question, but her eyes aren't focused on it. They're focused at me.
My face feels like it's about to catch fire at the close proximity with her. Damn her carefree attitude! It needs to be nerfed! I want to tell her that she's too close, I want to move away, but I don't, or maybe I can't.
I'm frozen in place, at least, that's what it feels like. I'm nervous – more so than I normally should be in this kind of situation – but I'm also anxious for some reason. I can feel suspense begin to build, almost as if this were similar to the scenes right before the climax of a horror movie. You can see that something is about to happen but all you can do is wait.
That is how this feels like.
This isn't the first time I've felt this, either. This feeling only comes when I'm with her, I know this, but it never reaches a conclusion – the climax is never reached and the buildup isn't normally as strong as it is now.
Despite what I want to say and what I want to do, I stay still and let our close proximity remain. A part of me wants to see what's going to happen if this continues, if this suspense finally reaches a conclusion and yet, there's another part of me that is terrified to find out.
I release a breath I wasn't aware I was holding and glance at her paper. T-that's what she's referring to, after all.
"Is it wrong, Hikigaya?" She repeats herself, her tone is hard to decipher.
The first problem… she got it right. "N-no, it's not." I tell her, stammering on my words.
Her left shoulder rubs against my right one as she lets out a relieved sigh. She's in my personal space now, basically leaning on me, her left arm dangerously close to my right side. She taps on the next question with her finger, but her eyes are more or less still focused on me.
"A-and this one?" She stumbles in her words, her face rosy.
P-problem two… I find it hard to look away, but I can see that she got it right as well. "…correct. Y-you got it correct…"
"So…" she nods slowly, "…It's not wrong then, Hikigaya…?" The way her body approaches mine is slow and careful, almost like a predator stalking its prey. She wants confirmation to something she already knows, again.
"…no, it isn't." It feels as if there are two conversations going on and I'm answering to them both simultaneously.
"I don't want to make any more mistakes, Hikigaya…" She softly tells me. "…but if I do, I want you to tell me, okay?" Her tone is somewhat serious, but there's emotion behind her words; anxiety, and fear. The deep blush that spread across her face is the only indication that she knows what's going on and is as nervous as I am.
What's happening right now?! My heart is racing! There's a pressure in my chest that feels like it is about to explode! I'm not used to this kind of thing at all! My hands grip the floor pillow I'm sitting on, giving me a sense of security – a sense of balance that I sorely needed right now.
We're staring at each other, her warm brown eyes locked with my decrepit fish eyes, but through my peripheral vision I see her right hand move when her finger taps on the next question.
"What… about this?" She asks me mere seconds before I feel one of her fingers from her left hand stroke the back of my right hand under the table. "I-Is this wrong…?"
My mind shuts down for a moment and I don't have it in me to properly react to this otherworldly situation.
How does a stranded man react when they first meet land after seventeen years of floating in the ocean…?
How does a man stuck in a desert for seventeen years react when he first finds water…?
They don't react.
"…did I mess up, Hikigaya?" I can hear Orimoto ask me, her finger on the back of my hand went still.
I'm not sure what possessed me to think that she was still talking about the problems, because when I foolishly broke our stare to look at the paper she interjected.
"H-Hikigaya." I freeze before looking back at her. Once my eyes meet with hers again, she asks one more time: "…did I make a mistake?"
This isn't like her. Nothing is ever this serious when I'm with her. She's all laughs and smiles. She's supposed to be all laughs and smiles! But right now, she's not doing either of those things. Nothing is ever this serious with her, or, or maybe it just never gets this serious as the time we share together is normally short! You're supposed to be blunt, Orimoto! Why are you beating around the bush like this?! Better yet, why are you even doing this?!
What brought this on?! The atmosphere?! The room?! The situation itself?! I… I don't know!
I'm lost.
This isn't like me. I know that this isn't like me. I could easily move away from her right now, call whatever this is off, and get my senses back, but I don't. All of this seems off, it doesn't match what would happen to me at all! I'm supposed to be a loner and loners don't have experiences like this! A loner like me… doesn't have experiences like this.
Her warm brown eyes darken at my silence; her finger begins to move off of my hand.
Damn it all!
"…No." She stops. I stop. "…you… d-didn't make a mistake." My heart is pounding, threating to break out from my ribcage. The intensity of the blush on my face matches the one on hers.
What have I done…?
This feels like a recap from that day! This isn't like me! Then why am I doing this?!
"S-So it's not…I'm not wrong…?" Damn her constant need for confirmation! I shake my head.
"No… you're not." It took me a moment to finish my sentence. Too embarrassing! All of this is too embarrassing! Stop making me do stuff like this, Orimoto!
I feel her finger land on the back of my hand again. "Then… how about this?" I can feel her other fingers dig into the space between my hand and the pillow I'm clutching until her hand is simply laying underneath mine, her thumb lightly cradling the back of my hand with soft strokes.
"What… what are you-" I try to talk but she cuts me off.
"I-Is this wrong…?" There's hesitation in her normally confident voice, her hand tenses up.
"N-no, I…" I'm mumbling like an idiot now. There's an expectant gleam in her brown eyes, a product of her mind in war with itself. Her confidence is deteriorating right before my eyes – her very character is wavering.
And it worries me.
It worries me.
She worries me.
Orimoto Kaori worries me.
And right now, I'm worrying her.
How did it get like this?
It isn't guilt that pushes me forward. It isn't pity. It's something…else.
"…no." I answer her, voice intact but not confident. "It isn't wrong."
I feel her hand relax underneath mine. She's relieved, very much so, her smile that has been absent for a good while tells me so. "This isn't wrong, Hikigaya?" She gives my hand an experimental squeeze, soft yet firm now that she got confirmation.
"No." I'm still nervous, but this doesn't feel all that terrible… "…n-not at all."
She leans in closer, her… soft… her… Orimoto's Orimotos are against my arm.
"And this…?" She asks, her smile is something else.
I swallow and answer. "No."
She gets closer. "Am I wrong, Hikigaya~?"
I don't budge. "N-No."
Even closer. "Hikigaya-"
"No."
Her face is not too far away from mine now. My heart feels like it's been given a dosage of adrenaline with how hard it's beating. Judging by the way she's looking at me, I understand I'm not alone in that sentiment.
"H-Hikigaya…"
I hesitate. Her hand squeezes mine, once, twice, and she waits, her lips slightly parted, her eyes focused on mine.
This isn't like me…
…but is that a bad thing?
"…No."
She smiles and makes her move, leaning towards me slowly.
I brace myself, ready to take a punch if necessary.
The door opens.
"…onii-chaaan… are you awake?"
She stops. I stop. We're both frozen in place, our lips just inches away from one another. Our eyes are wide, locked with one another.
I inhale and back away from Orimoto, not at all ready to suffer the consequences that await me. Orimoto looks morbidly embarrassed as she does the same. Our hands separate.
I turn to the door and see my younger sister, Komachi, rubbing her eyes from just waking up. Her ahoge is limp; the little hair atop her head was slack towards her face. There's hope.
There's hope.
"H-hey, Komachi." I greet my younger sister, who had still not finished rubbing her eyes. "How did you sleep?"
"Morning, onii-chan…" She mutters and stretches. It seems like we're in the clear until her eyes shoot open in realization. "Onii-chan?!"
Uh-oh.
"You're awake?!"
What.
I can't help but frown. My little sister can't be this dense!
Before I can say anything, I hear Orimoto begin to giggle, turning into a laughing fit seconds after. And just like that, with Orimoto's laugh, the tension just disappeared.
Komachi looks at me, blinks, and then looks at the still laughing Orimoto.
Orimoto calms down, but not before Komachi herself begins to giggle. My cute little sister clutches her head, a confused smile on her face, and turns to the door.
"…Onii-chan awake this early on a Sunday…? With a cute girl in the same room as him…? Haaa… I must be dreaming…" She leaves the room, her hands rubbing her eyes some more.
There's a moment of silence.
Orimoto laughs even harder than before.
…
Just like the previous times, once the tension had all but disappeared, it stayed that way. As if nothing had happened.
Half an hour after the event, Orimoto begins to pack up her stuff into her bag and I walk her to the door.
"Thanks for everything, Hikigaya~! You'd make a good teacher, you know?"
The thought has crossed my mind before, honestly. If someone like Hiratsuka-sensei can get that kind of job, what's stopping me?
But I shake the thought away.
A house-husband is my future.
"Don't mention it." Seriously don't.
"I think I'll do great on my exam thanks to you." She tells me, her smile wide. "Thank you, Hikigaya." She thanks me one more time.
I nod my head, creating a silence that isn't necessarily awkward, but it isn't very lively either.
"I'll get going now." She opens the door and goes through it, only turning around to say: "Bye-bye, Hikigaya~!"
The door closes and the rest of my Sunday is left to me.
…which is good.
Great even.
…
I can't lie, there's a bitter taste in my mouth at the way things ended today. My face is flushed as I enter my living room where it – whatever "it" means – could have happened. I look to the table and am surprised to see that Orimoto had forgotten her pencil. I pick it up and inspect it.
Its eraser is all but used up, black from the countless mistakes she had made today. I think of throwing it away, but it finds itself in my pocket, I mean…
Who throws away a pencil simply because the eraser is dirty?
I take my spot back on the couch, console in hand ready to start that quest again, but before the game loads up, there's a knock on the door.
I'm not one for getting excited, but I doubt there's ever been a time that I've ever gotten out of my seat faster than I have right then and there.
I see her before I even open the door, thanks to the glass on the door. My heart can't help but skip a beat, overused cliché I know.
The door opens and she barges in, nearly tackling me.
Her head digs into my chest, her left hand scrambles in search of my right hand. When she finds it, she lets out a deep breath into the material of my shirt and squeezes my hand tightly.
It all comes rushing back to me. The tension, the emotions, everything.
I squeeze her hand back. She looks at me, her brown eyes lock onto mine.
"I… I make… I've made a lot of mistakes, Hikigaya." She begins, voice slightly uneven. Did she run back over here? "But, I just wanted to let you know… that this isn't one of them."
I can't contain the devastating blush that spreads across my face at that moment. Is this the climax that all this tension had been building up towards? Did we finally reach it?
What does it mean now?
For us?
What are we now?
That day, it began with a question.
"Is this a mistake, Hikigaya?" She gives my hand a squeeze, her head nuzzling to my chest.
"No... No it isn't." I follow suit.
But today, it began with a study session.
~End~
[1] Carting: Common slang in the Monster Hunter games that refers to the act of being knocked out, seeing as you get pushed back into the starting area in a cart.
So sorry for the long wait! Had several exams in a row over here in my university that I needed to study for. To make it up, have a slightly longer than usual chapter!
Gosh, this chapter was hard to write, but oh so, satisfying too. Orimoto is a fun character to write as she is a direct counter for Hikigaya in almost every way! In the end, I'm happy with the way this chapter ended up.
Oh yeah, I updated the cover image! Honestly, finding good pictures of Orimoto made me appreciate how cute she is. Seriously, google 'Orimoto Kaori' and witness her cuteness! Anyways, the cover image shows what happens when Orimoto decides to take a surprise selfie when hanging out with an unsuspecting Hikigaya! Do you guys like it? Let me know!
Anyways, thank you all so much for reading, following, favoriting, and reviewing! It helps out tremendously so be generous! Please review!
Thank you all so much for reading, and as always, have a good day!
-TheRedGhillie
