Chapter 50: The Other Side of Celebration.

"Yeah, I'm still on the line Komachi. Yeah, I'm listening. Yeah, yeah. Uh-huh. It's not it. Sorry about the noise. Sorry I can't do anything about it. You take care now. Yes, I know. But I still worry. Okay, yeah, alright. Take care now. I will call you later. Yeah, goodbye now. Look after yourself. Give my love to mom and dad. I will call them too. Okay. Yeah, see you soon."

The short call came to an end and he looked at all the commotion that was taking place in the background. It was a big room, one of the biggest rooms in the entire campus and it looked like everyone that was everyone was here, partaking in the celebration. What was it about again, he couldn't quite really remember.

"Who was on the phone?" Ai Hayasaka asked.

"My sister." Hachiman replied.

Ai Hayasaka gave him a look which clearly meant he should elaborate further, but he kept his mouth shut. What was there to talk about, he wondered.

"Family problem?" Shouko Nishimiya signed after she grabbed his attention by tugging on his shirt sleeve.

Hachiman worked up a smile. "Not really. But I doubt there is a family around which doesn't have its own problems."

Shouko Nishimiya didn't know what to say to that other than giving him a thumbs up, to let him know the progress he had made on his sign language skills. That was a really big and difficult sentence to communicate and he pulled it off magnificently.

"Did you just upvote family problems?" Yumiko Miura asked. "That makes no sense."

"I think what she meant was everyone has family problems." Hachiman tried.

Shouko Nishimiya shook her head. Hachiman didn't know what to make of it. But from the looks of it he didn't need to make sense of the situation. For that he could simply rely on –

"Ara, ara, Hikigaya-kun. How bold of you to cheat on me with other women. That too, in front of me. Your senpai doesn't approve of this behaviour. But it's okay. I will forgive you, because I love you."

"What the fuc-"

"Himejima-senpai. Nice of you to crash this party." Hachiman said testily.

"Crash this party? What do you mean?" Akeno Himejima acted innocent. "I was sent an e-invite."

"That's not possible." Mashu Kyrielight spoke up. "I was in charge of sending out e-invites. I think her name was specifically asked to be left out of the list by multiple women. I thought it was odd, in fact, I thought perhaps this was some kind of bullying. But I did as I was asked. It's not my fault, senpai!"

Hachiman Hikigaya made a face. "I didn't say it was your fault, Kyrielight-san."

"But it was someone's fault." Yukino Yukinoshita said. "I think we should get to the bottom of this. And for the time being, we should throw her out of the -" she received a playful chop on the head, which was close to a love tap. The culprit was none other than her older sister, Haruno Yukinoshita. "Ara, ara, Yukino-chan, you shouldn't make that much of a big deal about this. It's a party, a nice, big, all welcoming party. There's no need for you to be a party-pooper. So what if Akeno-san came in uninvited -"

"Ufufufu, Haruno-senpai, why must you speak such lies." Akeno Himejima had her eyes closed and she was smiling, but there was something about the air in the room, which suddenly took a turn for the worst. "It was you who said, it would be fine to show up."

"Did I?" Haruno smiled and cocked her head to the side. "Well, maybe I forgot all about it. Who's to know? Besides the way you were going on about, it sounded like you had an actual invite. But that's not the case -"

"You made it! That's awesome!" Kakeru Tobe burst into the foray. "Himejima-senpai, what did I tell you? It would be a blast if you showed up. We have food, we have booze and now we have the right kind of women too! Yahoooo! It's time to paartaay – ahck!"

Unlike the gentle pat on the head Haruno Yukinoshita had given Yukino Yukinoshita, Hayato Hayama had dealt a much severe blow, at the base of the neck to render the loud mouth unconscious. He was subjected to second hand embarrassment, courtesy of his friend.

Hayato Hayama gave a small bow. "Sorry about, Tobe. He's the easily excited type." He looked at the women, then let his eyes settle on Hikigaya for a second, before gently giving out a smile. "I hope you ladies have a wonderful time. You too, Hikitani."

Hikigaya bristled at his comment. Hayato Hayama really got on his nerves. He didn't know what was up with the guy, whether he had done something wrong, but – it doesn't matter. Now was not the time to bitch and moan about this kinda stuff.

"He didn't even look at me." Yumiko Miura said, saddened.

"Fuck him." Ai Hayasaka said, consoling her friend. She then turned to Hachiman and gave him a look. He didn't know what to do.

"Yeah, what she said." Hachiman said lamely.

"I don't see how that is helpful." Rio Futaba joined them. "I think that's what got her into this mess in the first place."

"More like not fucking led to this whole mess. Really, I don't understand men and women of this godforsaken age. Yo Hikigaya!" Mordred Pendragon greeted. "Aren't you glad I showed up? What's with that face, huh? Not to worry your best man is here and I'm gonna bring the house down!"

"I hope you don't mean that literally. I don't want tomorrow's headline to read, 'Rowdy University Goers Died Under Rubble.'" Hachiman said humorlessly. He then looked at what she was holding to the side of her waist, with one arm. "What's that?"

"You mean who's that?" Mordred Pendragon smiled, triumphantly. "This is Mashiro Shiina. We live at the Sakurasou complex. She wanted to come to the party, but she was walking way to slow for me. So I picked her up and walked all the way here. Can I get a drink over here?" she sounded impatient. "You guys are literally in the presence of royalty. I'm the true heir of King Arthur. And I demand some goddamn beer."

"You are royalty, huh. Big whoop." said Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanova. "Here's a piece of candy I stole from a baby. Do whatever you want with it. I don't care."

Mordred Pendragon blushed like the woman she was. "I don't need your stupid candy. And you are being awfully high and mighty for someone who still plays with dolls you bitc-"

"I will take it." Mashiro Shiina said.

"Here you go." Anastasia said politely. The two of them chose to ignore the blushing Mordred Pendragon. Well, that is until, Anastasia had to open her big mouth. "You speak ill of Viy. But here you are with a doll of your own. I take it, it's a living doll, and it doesn't compare with what I have, but all you have to do is wait for it to die and then with a bit of taxidermy you will have your own doll, my poor traitorous knight."

There was quiet for a full second. Hachiman decided to make do with what little he had. "Your holyship." He addressed Anastasia. "Correct me, if I heard wrong, but did you just say, you stole this candy from a baby?"

Anastasia smiled a teasing and naughty smile. "Well, when I said baby, I meant more of a, what shall we say, a Lolita."

"A Lolicon?" Miura made a face.

Anastasia gave her a look which said she was an idiot. "No, a Lolita. There's a book by a famous or rather infamous author from my home country -" Anastasia stopped because suddenly there was a lot of commotion. "I guess that is my signal to leave. Take care, Hikigaya-kun. I will meet you again, sometime."

"Yes, Anastasia." He forgot to call her holyship. But it didn't look like she minded.

But after sometime, the commotion, the chaos, the utter destruction waiting to be unleashed came and stood before him.

"Where is she?" Honey-senpai asked, quietly.

Hachiman tried not to look death in the eye. "She left."

Honey-senpai left without a further glance. Mordred Pendragon lowered her sword. "What was that thing?"

"Oh, so that's what the ice bitch meant by Lolita." Tomoko Kuroki said.

"Excuse me?" Yukino Yukinoshita asked frigidly.

"Not you, the other ice bitch." Tomoko Kuroki said.

"Would you care to repeat that, Kuroki-san." Kaguya Shinomiya asked.

"Okay, this is getting ridiculous." Hachiman said. He looked at Tomoko and asked. "Who was that little guy?"

"He's Honey-senpai from the Host Club." Tomoko Kuroki explained.

"Oh…that." Hachiman didn't say anything else. He didn't have anything else to say.

"Excuse me? May I borrow, Hikki for a bit. Thank you!"

His eyes widened. Yui Yuigahama had come out of nowhere and grabbed his arm and now she was taking him outside, taking him away from all the noise, the commotion, the happiness, the crowd, back to where he wanted to be right now. Did she know, she possibly couldn't have. But then again, she was way cleverer than people usually gave her credit for. She also knew how to read the room, or in this case, read him. He made matters easier, because what he was feeling was close to being written right on his face.

Needless to say he was not feeling the party mood.

"Hikki, what happened?" Yui Yuigahama asked earnestly, looking into his eyes.

She knew, she understood. How could she not. After all, she had one of those herself, didn't she. What was it's name again. Sable, yeah that's right. Somehow they found a way into your heart, even one as rotten as his. It was truly a miracle.

"Hikki." She said softly.

Why was she speaking like that, and, and, what's this. Was this tears in his eyes. Actual tears. What the hell, he was being a real idiot. Showing emotions like this, crying over something so…so…he couldn't say it, the word died on his lips.

Ah,

Poor choice of words.

"Kamakura is dead." Hachiman said.

Yui gasped.

Saying it out loud, it really hit him. He thought back to the phone call, what Komachi said, how she wanted him to come back home, really was that possible. People will laugh won't they. You are crying because your cat died, you want to go home because your pet kicked the bucket.

The voices came back, it came back to haunt him. No, he couldn't deal with this, not now, not now. Shouldn't he be trying to pretend and enjoy the party that was -

"Hikki!"

Using both her hands, Yui grabbed hold of his face and lowered it until he was looking into her eyes. He looked at her. There were unshed tears in her eyes as well. What the heck, this foolish woman was crying with him. How, how – he couldn't really find the words to express what he was feeling. Maybe he didn't need to.

"I don't want to go back inside." Hachiman said.

"You don't have to." Yui said.

Hachiman couldn't dare, could he. It was selfish, purely selfish. But, he was hurting as it is, what will a little rejection do to his heart, he wondered. In the end, he could muster up a single word

"Stay."

Yui Yuigahama reached for his hand and gave it a small squeeze. She too didn't have much to say. All she managed was-

"Okay."

A/N: This fic crossed 1600+ reviews. Thank you everyone for your love and support. It couldn't be possible without you guys.

I…I also want to dedicate this little milestone to GB, my pet dog who passed away last Tuesday. If the last few chapters were of inferior quality, I apologize. I was not in the right headspace to write. But, I felt like I had to write something to cope with the situation. Guess, I handle grief rather weirdly.

Anyway, let's move on from the sad topic.

…I think, I again didn't go with the character who won the vote. Sorry about that, but I just wanted to write this, to get this weight off my chest.

Hope you don't mind.

As always,

Leave lots and lots of reviews, follow and fave.

Won't betray your dreams.