A Serendipitous Enigma
Chapter 1: Curiousity Killed The Cat
I stood with my eyes closed amidst a mass of people heading in the same direction on this train, doing my best to preserve energy for the day to come. A rude awakening by an alarm clock followed by not having any MAX coffee stocked in the fridge set the tone for my day to come.
Without the sweetness of MAX coffee to offer me any respite from the bitterness of daily life, the best I could manage was to at the very least not use up all of my remaining energy for the day before arriving to class, hence the shut-eye I was currently in the process of acquiring.
I was still in the process of getting used to the daily commute to, and from, The University of Tokyo.
That's right, I was no longer living in the most wonderful prefecture in Japan, namely Chiba, instead I now lived in the midst of the metropolitan center of Japan, Tokyo.
Having nearly aced most of my subjects by the end of my last year at Sobu High, aside from the scholastic war crimes known as math and physics, it would have been smooth sailing getting accepted into Chiba University as I had initially planned.
However, upon seeing my final results, my parents convinced (read; threatened), me to apply for more prestigious schools such as Keio and UTokyo. Whilst I can agree upon Keio and UTokyo being on a level of prestige and academic accomplishments unmatched across the country, they both lacked a critical aspect.
Neither of them was located in Chiba.
So not only would the amount of time and work dedicated to my studies be increased tenfold, I would also need to leave beautiful prefecture of Chiba, my wonderful sister Komachi and well… The master of the household, Kamakura the cat.
Though I reckon the latter one would barely notice me being gone, considering how much he lazed around, damn feline, how I envy you.
But leaving Chiba and Komachi only to have to dedicate an even greater amount of my life to studies? Not something I was keen on, so my parents decided they had to find a way to motivate me.
And a carrot for motivation they found indeed, namely a decently sized apartment in Shinjuku, all mine for the taking provided I could graduate with good results, until then it would be mine under the lease of my father.
My father and I did not always see eye-to-eye on things, especially my future career as a house husband. He was a hardworking man, leaving in the early hours of the morning and arriving late in the evening, sometimes not making it in time for dinner and just opting to go directly to bed after exchanging a few words with us.
So, when he, together with my mother offered this, which would leave a significant dent, if not a gaping hole in both of their wallets, I started thinking about it more seriously.
I mean considering if your father works in real estate, and has been absent from sizeable parts of your childhood due to work, you should be able to get something from it, right?
Furthermore, having a place to live was half the challenge of being a house husband, right? See it is right there in the name, 'house' husband!
With those thoughts in mind, I eventually caved in and accepted their offer.
Having passed the entrance exam to UTokyo a couple months ago, I left Chiba behind roughly three months ago for my studies which started shortly after I arrived.
Life since has been… hectic, but also rather dull. Whilst Tokyo is a bustling metropolis filled with as many conveniences and events that could possibly be found in a modern-day city of this scale, it still felt as if I left a part of me behind when I left Chiba.
God that sounded cheesy just thinking about, like something Zaimokusa would write about in his questionably thought out novels.
But alas, all was not lost. Stealth-Hikki, my art of blending into the surroundings, was effective in Chiba, but here in Tokyo it was super effective. Turns out when there's more of something it's harder to stand out, who would have thought?
Furthermore, living on one's own was not such a terrible experience. Sure, you have to procure sustenance to yourself in the form of cooking, and on occasion when money allowed, eating out, but it also provided me with an immense amount of freedom, something I did not know I was yearning until I experienced it for myself.
On the other hand, not being able to see the pride of the Hikigaya household, my wonderful sister Komachi and Kamakura, whenever he decided to show himself, on a daily basis had started to wear on me.
Luckily, I am a loner with however many days I have lived, of experience to draw upon. Solitude is wonderful, but at the same time you also require something to anchor yourself to reality. During my childhood, it was my sister, and during later years, the club.
Without an anchor, days easily drift by, blending into each other.
Furthermore, provided this goes on for long enough, the person would eventually cease to exist. At least that is my theory, I should probably submit it and receive the Nobel prize for my research.
Hikigaya Hachiman, renowned doctor in loner studies, had a nice ring to it but I digress.
I was snapped out of my thoughts by a voice on the speakers announcing the imminent arrival at my intended station.
The Komaba campus of UTokyo, where I am performing my studies, was just a couple minutes of walk from this station, a convenience well appreciated after having to deal with the morning rush on the train every morning. Especially on a rainy day such as this one.
As the gates of the train opened, people started flooding out in a relatively orderly fashion, the people waiting on the station patiently letting us get off before attempting to hop on, I silently thanked these pillars of our society who had the patience to wait about twenty seconds instead of rushing on like animals.
Making my way towards the exit of the station, I could already hear the rain pouring down on the pavement outside, luckily, I always make sure to keep an umbrella with me during this part of the year. It is called the rainy season for a reason after all.
Bringing out an umbrella from my bag, I briefly inspected it for a moment, admiring the fact that such a simple device kept hundreds of millions of people from the elements each year.
Umbrella in hand, I ventured towards the exit, when suddenly something caught my eye stopping me dead in my tracks.
At the exit stood a person I had not met in months, and never expected to run into again, the older sister of my old class president, Yukinoshita Haruno.
She solemnly stood at the exit wearing her slim fitting beige coat, glancing at her phone with an unreadable expression on her face.
I only noticed that I had frozen in place when a businessman grumpily bumped into me as he was hurrying away, snapping me out of my trance.
She must have heard the commotion, because her eyes left her phone in favor of looking at the mass of people moving towards the exit.
I saw her gaze wander in my general direction for a moment and it felt as if time itself had come to a crawl. An immense torrent of thoughts burst through my mind, what was she doing here? Will she notice me? Do I even want her to?
Before I was able to find an answer to any of those questions, our gazes met.
As soon as our eyes met, her eyes widened in surprise in an instant, before a mischievous smile graced her face shortly thereafter.
Noticing Haruno putting away her phone, I took that as the cue to move forwards again.
Had this encounter happened over a year ago, I would undoubtedly have attempted to blend into the crowd of people to avoid her, but things had changed between us in the latter part of my third and final year at Sobu High.
Having seen how the dynamics of the Service Club had taken a turn for the worse, she decided to step in, giving us the cold and hard reality of what the relationship between me, Yukinoshita and Yuigahama actually was.
Something we had not seen, or rather, decided not to see.
During my final duel against Yukinoshita Yukino, regarding the creation of the prom, my attempts to solve the situation resulted in the status of our relationship becoming abundantly clear.
If our codependency had evolved from the feelings that we held for each other, or if it was the other way around, I did not know. What I do know however, is that my attempts at helping Yukinoshita had actually been harming her, unbeknownst to us both for the majority of our time spent in the club.
What I had foolishly assumed was a love triangle, had turned out to be something else entirely. A reality which resided upon three pillars, that threatened to come crashing down if any of the pillars started to crumble away.
As it turned out, the only true way for me to save her, had been to let her go.
It hurt. A lot. And it still does.
But it would have hurt us all more to let things remain stagnant, none of it would have been genuine.
They say that curiosity killed the cat, and perhaps that is why Kamakura only lazes his days away, avoiding wasting any of his nine lives. Unfortunately for me, I do not have nine lives, yet I was about to find out if that statement is accurate enough.
For against my better judgement, I had approached Yukinoshita Haruno.
"Yahallo!" She greeted me in a nostalgic manner with a smile on her lips.
There was only one response I could give.
"Yo."
Authors Note
Whew this will be a long but important A/N!
First of all, allow me to thank you for reading the first chapter of this story. This first chapter marks my return to the platform after not having published anything at all for nearly two years!
I apologize for the short chapter, I have much more written for the story, but I wished to start off with a bite-sized chunk so that you, my lovable reader, can get the general idea of my writing style in tandem with a soft introduction to the story itself.
As you hopefully have noticed, this story is centered around Hikigaya Hachiman and Yukinoshita Haruno. There will be other characters from the Oregairu universe featured, but the absolute majority of the story will cover these two quirky individuals.
Each character in Oregairu has a unique personality which makes it really interesting seeing how they interact with one another. Name practically any character and I have at the very least a story sketch laying around regarding them.
So, you might wonder why was Hachiman and Haruno's story the first one to materialize?
In my personal opinion, Yukinoshita Haruno is the character I find the most interesting due to her enigmatic nature. The official story only revealing a tiny bit about her further enhances this. I have read practically every single English fanfiction regarding this pairing on the site and seeing the many different takes on her character has been really inspiring.
If you have managed to make it this far, but are unsure of the pairing, I urge you, more than existing fans of this pairing, to stick around for at least another chapter or two when she is properly introduced into this story to see my take on her character.
To clarify the setting, this story covers an alternative route of what could have happened if the final season of Oregairu had ended in a different manner.
Although I to the best of my ability try to portray the characters based upon how they act in canon, you will notice differences in the behavioral patterns as the story progresses, perhaps some of you have already detected hints in this first chapter!
These changes in behavior are intended to portray the characters in a more realistic manner based upon how I believe they would have handled the alternate ending to the story in tandem with the experiences they have during this story.
Thus, I hope that you will enjoy following the experiences of these characters, and how they come to learn and mature from them. It is my personal pet peeve when it comes to this site that a lot of authors are able to write a brilliant story, but the characters themselves act the same way in the first chapter as they do in the last.
Furthermore, allow me to say that while the characters in this story will experience ups and downs, the story itself is not one of tragedy, and I hope that I will be able to instill upon you a moment of respite from all the crazy things going on in the world right now, when you read this story.
So, wrap yourself up in your blankets, grab a hot cup of coco and follow along!
I would also like to point out that I have a clear direction of where the story is going from the first chapter, to the last. You can expect full coherency between one chapter to the next, but this in turn will slightly slow down the rate at which I publish chapters.
Even if I am by no means as talented as many authors on this site, I do take pride in my work. If I am not able to feel satisfied with what I have written, it will undergo another pass of editing until publishment.
The second chapter is practically done at this point, but it will remain in a reiterative editing phase for the next couple of days until I am ready to publish it.
I apologize once again for the length of the Authors Note in comparison to the chapter itself, this will not be the standard going forward, it is merely intended to give you the information to decide if this story of mine is worth your time or not!
Last but not least, thank you for reading all of this. There is not a single thing in the world that motivates me more than hearing from people enjoying my work, so regardless of what you think so far, I would be eternally grateful if you could let me know in a review.
Until next time ~
-VermillionVS