It felt staged and well planned, yet deep down inside I knew it was just a coincidence, one that could not be possible in the three days time period. The meeting of my teacher's younger self still had me lost – only that day, I had been accidentally calling her "sensei" for about ten times, which, while she didn't get angry, she did give me weird looks. To make matters worse, I was then introduced to the younger version of the one person I hoped to never meet the older counterpart if I could, Haruno.
"Yukino.. spelled with the friend and era characters, right?", I asked, thinking that there was a possibility that this is a different Yukino, and therefore a different Haruno. In fact, I hoped it was.
"No. The first character is snow", she said, shattering my hopes and dream completely, "Get it right, Onii-chan!"
As a final hope, I tried once again to twist the reality, this time by asking her name instead.
"So what's your name?", I asked.
"My name is Haruno", she said.
"And the first character?"
"Spring. Onii-chan, you're weird. You keep asking how to write our names"
"Yeah, Hikigaya, you keep asking her weird stuff. I just noticed it now, but are you a lollicon?", Hiratsuka asked suddenly, giving me weird looks with a slight hint of disgust. No, I am not – how does asking about one's name make you a lollicon, anyway? Wouldn't people see you as some language fanatic instead? "No", I said, replying as simply as I can, trying to cut the topic off her mind as fast as possible.
"Well then, let's begin our search", I said for the last time before we set our foot out of the school area and began searching for the kid named Yukino.
"If we were to include the day that we last seen him, then Hikigaya-kun has already been missing for four days", I said, stating the facts to Yuigahama-san who planned the meet up at my apartment to discuss about Hikigaya-kun's sudden disappearance.
"This is strange. Usually he wouldn't just be gone without saying anything", said Yuigahama-san, "I'm worried that something had happened to him"
It was a statement that I had no choice but to agree. It is true that Hikigaya-kun consider himself a loner and that he does not care about the existence of others. But at times, however, he demonstrated otherwise, like that time he falsely confessed to Ebina-san to keep Tobe-kun from being hurt from rejection, and also that time that he invited Rumi-chan to be the part of the play. Well, at least, it what was I believe was his true intentions. With that in my mind, I couldn't imagine that he would have done something like leaving his "acquaintances" worried about him. So what happened, I thought.
Then I heard a series of knocking on the door. The force put into it sounded like that of a man trying his best to suppress his strengths, and tried to be as gentle as possible on each knock. It took me several seconds to get from the living room to the door, but I did get there fast enough to respond to the person through the sound device attached to the wall.
"Yes? This is Yukinoshita", I said.
"No need for any introductions, I do know who you are", said the person who sounded like some women.
"Ok? What is it that you need?", I asked.
"I don't need anything, young lady. Rather, I'm here to respond to your need"
"What exactly do you mean by 'my need'?"
"It is information that you need, young lady. I know the whereabouts of Hikigaya Hachiman", the person said.
"What?! How?!", I said louder than usual due to already being in partial shock. Usually, I wouldn't have believed it, but something about her voice told me indirectly that she was being legit. I can't explain exactly what kind of feeling it was, but I guess the closest word would be "familiarity". Yes, her voice felt "familiar" to me.
"Yukinon, what's going on?", Yuigahama-san asked from across the living room.
"It's the mailman", I replied loud enough for Yuigahama-san to hear. "Do you know where he is?", I asked the lady, focusing my attention back to her.
"Not only that I know the where, but I also know the when, Yukinoshita", the lady said.
"What do you mean by "when"?"
"I don't have time to answer any of your questions, Yukinoshita. I need to go now"
"Wait", I said, immediately reaching my hand to the knob and opened the door. At that moment, I expected to see a lady whose age and height is around that of Hiratsuka-sensei, but what awaited my sight was a dark navy blue, almost black, vest that was worn over some light teal dress shirt that had it sleeves folded up.
"Uhh.. hello, Yukinoshita-san", the person asked nervously, not knowing what I had gone through the moments ago.
On his vest, there was a coat of arms, and that coat of arms is also attached to the front of his cap.
It was a police officer, the one who Komachi-san explain her brother's mysterious disappearance to.
"Hello, Officer", I said, "what brings you here?"
"It's about Hikigaya Hachiman-kun, Yukinoshita-san", the officer said.
Of course. Why else would a police officer who Komachi-san talked to come all the way to an acquaintance's residence.
"Yes. Any updates on him?", I asked.
"Sadly, I don't have any good news to bring to the table. In fact, the purpose of me being here is to tell you the opposite", the officer said, "The Commissioner ordered the search to come to an end. 'We have wasted to much time on one kid', was what he said"
"But you merely went out to look for him for a day – how is that too much time?"
"I do not know of the details, Yukinoshita-san. And quite frankly, so does the rest of the department", the officer said, "We tried to persuade him to the best of our abilities, but he always said the same thing over and over"
"I'm sorry, Yukinoshita-san"
"It's not a big problem, Officer, from this point on we'll just look for him on our own", was what I said. But in reality, what I thought was why would the Commissioner stops a search on a missing citizen? I didn't make sense to me one bit, and to me, this shows that the department is irresponsible.
Of course, I can't tell this to Yuigahama-san, not just yet.
"Yukinon, who was that? He doesn't look like a mailman to me", said Yuigahama-san, who I didn't know since when had been standing right behind my back.
And of course, I didn't want to let her know at all.
"Yuigahama-san, I have something to tell you.."
I think I had already spent three hours walking around town, looking for this one girl who I had not seen for days, well, at least the younger version of her. Looking for her was one thing, but looking for her while having a girl riding on your shoulders is a different story.
"Onii-chan, go faster! If you go at this pace, we'll never find Yukino!", Haruno said.
I couldn't say anything, I just couldn't. I just somehow wished the world could have been more merciful on me.
A/N: I'm sorry if this chapter is a bit short. I promise that the next will be longer, and filled with the Yukinoshita's younger moments.