Summary: In which Hikigaya Hachiman has a new neighbour. A Kubo-san Doesn't Leave Me Be (a Mob) x Oregairu crossover.
Disclaimer: I do not own 久保さんは僕 (モブ)を許さない also known as Kubo-san Doesn't Leave Me Be (a Mob) as it is property of Yukimori Nene. Nor do I own やはり俺の青春ラブコメはまちがっている (My Teenage Romantic Comedy Snafu, also coined as Oregairu) by Watari Wataru and ponkan8.
Visibility
There is something about Kubo Nagisa. What exactly it is, he is not quite sure. There is just this thing that draws people in, that makes them blink, taken aback. All of them have asked, he is sure, "What is this girl?" And none of them really know the answer.
She stands out like a flash of light that cuts through the darkness. She is neither the sun nor the moon, but she is a star in her own right. That smile of hers should be illegal. Especially when it has been directed at him - what reason does he have to deserve it? - because it just tells him that she is what people call a "nice girl." And nice girls are, truthfully, the cruelest of them all.
Kuno Nagisa is someone whose presence is unavoidable, though. Two weeks have passed since she moved into the house next door and two weeks since the empty desk next to his finally had a soul to sit in it. Two weeks since Komachi found a new 'Onee-san' to admire. Or two of them, really. Kubo Akina reminds him of another troublesome older sister he knows but she's a lot less malicious. As goofy as she is though, she's undoubtedly reliable. Source: Kubo Nagisa. Knowing that she raised the girl herself, Hachiman can say that Kubo Akina might be a goddess among women for achieving what she has thus far and will continue to achieve, given what he foresees.
All this aside, it is not as though he is friends with either Kubo. They are merely, outside of his own volition, part of the process that he calls his day to day. His observations are his own, made with the simplest of thoughts and the barests of glances. His life is his own; they cannot intrude on it, despite Komachi's insistence that they come over from time to time. (They have already been over three times since they have moved in.)
Of course, Kubo Nagisa has some words to say about that. Or rather, actions. After all, actions speak much louder than any words do. It starts with the fact that she always waits for him to exit his front door, waves to and smiles at him in the morning, greets him with the softest of voices, and walks with him to school - his bike is left forgotten at home; both Komachi and Kubo Akina would kill him if he doesn't go with the younger Kubo - and even sticks with him until they both put their bags in their desks. But even after that, she stays. She refuses to turn away and go off in her own direction, even when she has already made friends. Instead, she sits and talks with him until someone dares to drag her off. And even when that happens, she sends him another wave, another smile.
He is unsure what to make of it but he accepts it in stride. She will tire of it eventually, he tells himself. He is sure of that. Niceness does not last. Nothing does, he repeats in his head. Nothing ever will.
But it does.
An everyday incident becomes the turning point that makes him stare at Kubo Nagisa in shock. Not quite awe, but something akin to it. She becomes a fixture in his life because she decides to fix it. And it all starts with just another day a few months into her tenure as his deskmate.
Tobe Kakeru is an idiot - everyone knows that - but he is a well-meaning, mild-mannered idiot. Except when he makes jokes; sometimes, he takes it too far. Tact has never been his strongest suit. But then again, it is well within human nature to toe the line. The difference is that when he says something leaning just too much toward cruelty, and yet the kind of joke that Hikigaya Hachiman is all too familiar with, Kubo Nagisa slams her desk and glares at him.
Everything stops. There is, for once, absolute silence without a teacher in the room. And everyone knows the source of said silence. Kubo Nagisa doesn't say a word, just uses her eyes to convey her displeasure, and waits. And waits. Slowly, Tobe gulps and utters an apology. She lifts a brow, and suddenly, there's heat in the room. The class clown swallows, looks at Hikigaya Hachiman, and apologizes. Within seconds, the miasma vanishes and in place of defiance there is a smile, kind, soft, and sweet.
Hachiman can hardly believe what he just witnessed; he blinks, shakes his head, and looks everywhere but the mess of goodness that is his neighbour. Or so he tries. The pull of her stare is magnetic and he can feel the flush creep along and under his skin, a slow crawl that bursts into a tidal wave. Finally, he turns and catches her face in his peripheral. Kubo Nagisa beams with the vibrancy of a cloudless day until he mouths a soft "Thank you" to which she giggles at.
Hikigaya Hachiman is not someone who likes to be proven wrong. Logically speaking, it smarts; especially for a youth with an ego his size. But his practical side also states that logically speaking, smart people are more wrong than not because they think way more, they do way more, so they must face truth and failure in much greater quantities. So, he lets this slide and accepts that he is just a boy and that he can be wrong.
He hums as he glances around the classroom, aware of all the attention piled on him. He ducks. Then there is panic. His thoughts run and he wants the earth to swallow him whole. He wonders if he should run. He wonders if this was good after all. He wonders-
Suddenly, everything is broken by the clack of the door and their next teacher walks in. Everything shifts back to normal, as though the previous events were just a step out of place. Things fall back to their regular positions and the cogs turn just like normal. But memory is not something that can be removed when such strong emotions bring them to the fore. Everyone wishes that it was easy enough to forget something like that. After all, they forget things all the time. But that? Not a chance.
No one bothers Hikigaya Hachiman after that.
Following The Incident, Hikigaya Hachiman and Kubo Nagisa are still not friends. Unsurprisingly. Despite her constant endeavor to break his shell, he keeps her at a distance. Close enough that they are more than strangers and halfway past acquaintances, but definitively far away from the state of friendship. No amount of her grins, laughs, pouts, and pokes can break him. A lesser man might have crumbled by this point, Hachiman thinks to himself. (He thinks back to the him of junior high.)
But he can admit that there is a charm to her that is absolutely undeniable. She is easy to get along with for schoolwork for one thing. That she helps him with Komachi is another. She is bright and sunny but she is no star of her own; she is filled with blemishes, much like any other human. And that, to him, is the most terrifying thing. Because it makes her all the more beautiful. He is sure that if he gives himself the space, he will find himself falling over her and he cannot have that. So he does not.
It is difficult, but it is doable. However, that is not to say that he can escape her entirely. He gathers bits and pieces of Kubo Nagisa from stray words here and there and the subtlety of observation. He learns that she happens to enjoy baseball quite a bit and dislikes sweating but loves to jog in the evening anyway. He learns that her favorite animal is in fact, neither the bunny nor the kitten, nor even the puppy. It is in fact the komodo dragon. He learns smaller things too, like the fact that she thinks dark purple is cute but light purple is funny, that cyan is adorable and yet indigo is not.
There are quirks that he cannot help but laugh at. Not things that hypnotize him, but things that catch his attention because he shakes his head in exasperation at how funny they are. Such as the way she scrunches her face when her elder sister cooks carrots, or how she likes to play in the rain but is adept at slipping. How she feels shy around people she has spent a large amount of time around and never talked to yet has an innate ease in her to approach strangers on a whim.
There are also a number of things that bother him, but they are still things about her that unfold the layers of Kubo Nagisa, one by one. Like how she refuses to change her mind whenever she makes a decision. Stubbornness only takes on so far. He would know. Or how she thinks school is extremely important and that everyone should always do the absolute best because it matters. Not to say that his grades are ridiculously low, but he does not care to ensure that all of his marks are near perfection; he knows his own limits and what he cares about. And while he cannot say he loathes spending time with her, the fact that she drags him out from place to place while they go out on occasion makes him upset. She knows it, too. He does not possess that same extraversion and tires out easily.
In the end though, he supposes that it is impossible to not feel some factor of gratitude toward someone willing to intrude upon his life, no matter the cost or consequence.
Nine months into knowing Kubo Nagisa, Hikigaya Hachiman realizes that he has failed. In spite of all his efforts, he finds himself irrevocably captivated. In a rather painful fashion. The epiphany hits when Kubo Nagisa mentions, excitedly, that she will finally be able to go and visit her boyfriend for the first time since moving here.
The moment those words leave her lips, it is almost as if everything is on pause. There is the sound of something cracking and he knows that it is not the street beneath his feet but rather the brutal ravaging of his glass heart.
Kubo Nagisa turns to him and tilts her head and asks in that careful, worried voice of hers if he is okay, demands to know if there is anything wrong with him. He shakes his head and tells her he just thought of something. She bites her lip and all of a sudden, that drives him crazy but he laughs, manages not to crack his voice, and gives her a nudge. He tells her that they should keep going and that everything is okay. (Everything is not okay.)
Every step seems infinitely longer. Time stretches itself but eventually, they make it back. He waves her goodbye; she replies in kind. The door shuts behind him with a light clack. Komachi is not yet home, and he finds himself in the void of silence. Everything feels light as he slips off his shoes and digs his feet into slippers. He carries himself upstairs and deposits his bag gently on the floor, then turns his body toward his bed. He collapses with ease and closes his eyes.
The tension does not bleed. It does not drain. His breath heaves, and everything is not okay. It hurts, he thinks to himself. There is no need to scream in anguish or ask why. He already knows. A stinging sets into his eyes; he blinks and everything hurts and then it all becomes black.
When he wakes, the pitter patter of rain calls his eyes to the window. Night has already fallen. He stirs slowly, yawning and stretching out a groan. As he pulls himself out of bed, he wonders why he gave in to the temptation. He looks in the mirror. Gaunt eyes, drawn thin to the point, lines sunken just beneath, with a pallid template for skin. His grimace stares back at him as he itches his nose, red from allergies and he runs a hand through his long locks, tangled and matted.
He cannot help but contrast his image to that of Kubo Nagisa's. To the image of her suitor and lover, who he can only imagine matches that brilliance of the younger Kubo sister. A snarl threatens to break out, but it comes off more as a choked cough. The scratchiness of his laughter taunts him.
Why does this have to happen to him, he asks the air. He made sure to keep himself separate from her. He made sure not to do anything too much whenever she had a bad day - going around town with her, giving her sweets was normal, right? - and he knows that she spends the majority of her time with people aside from him, even if both Kubo sisters come on the two days of his weekends.
When their birthdays came and went, they had a joint party for just the four of them, two Kubos and two Hikigayas, but that was nothing special. They just happened to be born during the same week; it was just for convenience.
Eventually, the onslaught of thoughts hits a wall, like a river dammed. His fingers tighten as they grasp the bedsheets. His face burns, his earlier flush returning with a vengeance. His head ablaze, he wonders idly whether or not a fever has decided that he is to be its prey. He closes his eyes again, thoughts of his schooling and future abandoned in favor of wallowing in the gloom of the present. He does not even have the energy to curse as he heaves a breath out, attempting to steady a rhythm.
It, of course, fails. Frustrated, he grits his teeth. The burning does not stop; he is unsure of how long it goes on for, or how many times he falls asleep and wakes. By the time morning rises, he knows that there is no way he will attend school. Hiratsuka-sensei's voice is tender as she tells him to rest; he supposes that his torn does more speaking than he does, and he hangs up after he hears his teacher wish him well.
A weight takes itself off his shoulders as he rolls over, ready to fall back into the darkness. Then he remembers something else. He texts Komachi an apology for the previous night and for today, telling her that her useless older brother is going to be a bit more useless and not to bother him so that she will not catch his uselessness or his illness. She responds with a string of cute emojis that make his phone buzz; which, unfortunately, only serves to irritate his head more. He quickly sets his phone on mute before the onslaught can continue, groans, and falls back asleep.
When he wakes, sunlight is bursting to be let in. He struggles to move but makes it up and opens the window, careful not to knock anything over his desk. Hikigaya Hachiman sets himself down in his chair and plucks a volume down in front of him. Its title is only fitting, as it is loosely translated to be "The Wretched," centered on a man whose world is against him. It is the fifth time he has read it and each time, the mourning grows a bit deeper. Five chapters go by and then ten and then twenty; he puts the book down and stretches, finally checking his phone for the time.
One unread message, the screen tells him. There is a picture of a crying bunny with the accompanying words: "How are you doing?" It is also followed with a question as to whether or not his neighbour can visit after school. Every bone in his body tells him to say no but all the blood in his veins burns at the thought, sings into a howl that makes him reply to Kubo Nagisa that he is okay. He pauses for a moment before sending her a second short line that his door is always open to her.
As Hikigaya Hachiman leans back into his chair, he laughs quietly to himself and rubs his eyes. He supposes that, in the end, is a fool after all.
In the end, Hikigaya Hachiman never once tells Kubo Nagisa that he likes her.
They enjoy each other's company, but only as strangers that have become acquaintances. He still refuses to call them friends, even as she and her elder sister worm their ways even further into his life.
Time passes slowly but steadily. They remain classmates for the rest of their high school tenure. As for university, Kubo does not surprise him when she tells him she plans on moving to Tokyo. He smiles softly at her.
More months go by, and before long, it is time. Winter is just about to start - she wants to move to Tokyo early to get reacquainted with the area, she says - and so they wait for the train to arrive. Both Kubo women, Nagisa can hardly be called a girl anymore, Hachiman, Komachi, and a few of Kubo Nagisa's gaggling friends sit by the station and the majority of them trade stories and farewell wishes.
Before the train is set to come, everyone gives her their final hugs. Everyone except him. He glances back at everyone else still watching and contemplates if they matter at all. He concludes that they do not. But he also concludes that there is no point in stirring the pot and spilling tension into the air when there is no need or use for it. So he bites down and holds his tongue.
Instead of telling her that he has slowly started falling for her since their second year of high school, Hikigaya Hachiman finally tells her thanks. That he is grateful for her. And that he knows she will do more than well, that she will excel because she is as bullheaded as a mule. He gives her that grin that she still has not noticed is reserved just for her, and wonders if he should smile. But something breaks his concentration. He catches a look in her eye and through the light and the glimmer of strength, he sees weakness. In that moment, he understands. She is still scared despite the reassurances that she has heard a thousand times. So he switches tactics. He drops an F bomb out loud and people blink, gasp, and choke; Hikigaya Hachiman is crude but not profane (publicly speaking).
He takes a breath and tells Kubo Nagisa the story of a girl and how she did something that no one expected her to do. She stepped into a whole new world and instead of waiting for a prince to drag her through, she finds her own street urchin to push navigate with. And that each obstacle along the way is overcome with wits, patience, and vigor, carefully giving her examples of just how this imaginary girl helped this imaginary boy through two of the toughest years of his life thus far. So Hikigaya Hachiman tells Kubo Nagisa there is no way that said girl could cry a river and drown the whole world; he tells this girl that it is okay to cry, but he hopes that she can smile. Because he loves it when she smiles.
The hustle and bustle of feet shifting alerts them as much as the rush of wind: the train arrives, but Nagisa stands stunned. Hachiman shakes her and points, telling her to go. There is no time for her to stand here wide-eyed and unmoving. His last words to her are for her to pursue her dreams, to be whoever she wants to be, but to remember who she is, and that if she ever needs to come back, she can come home.
That snaps her out of her trance. She turns around and rushes onto her ride and he can hear the tears more than the sniffles. He does not bother to hold his own back and smiles crookedly as he watches the girl he likes depart for her city of hope.
Notes and Acknowledgements:
I read the Kubo-san manga up to the current chapter in a day and was also reading Pumpkin Time before I thought of writing this. I've been trying to expand into fandoms other than Oregairu but find myself often stopping fairly short, unable to care or focus about them even half as much as I do about this one. Thus, I find myself stuck along the road until I either inevitably scrap the story or end up involving it as a crossover with Watari Wataru's beloved series.
Concepts and Guide:
1. Kubo-san moves next to him (both in house and school), is nice to him
1a. He doesn't open up to her; it takes time, it takes effort
1b. Months pass before his resolve breaks
2. He likes Kubo-san but finds out about Shiraishi Junta
2a. He finds out in a nonchalant way; it isn't dramatic
2b. He doesn't become bitter; he laughs, it rains
3. Hachiman and Kubo-san do not end up together; he is depressed about it
3a. Life goes on, this is not the end of him