It had been sent back for as long as two weeks only, but somehow, I wasn't homesick. Probably, it was because I had a strong sense of duty after meeting that middle aged lady. The question however, was why I decided out of nowhere that the world ten years earlier was the right place to be in.

"Hikigaya-kun, this is very important, you know?"

Maybe it was because of this girl.

"Like I said, I'm not good at science, Hiratsuka.."

Yes, this girl, Hiratsuka Shizuka, the person who would become a Japanese teacher ten years later.

"Oh, come on! No one was able to help me, not even you", Hiratsuka said, pouting.

Maybe that was why she became a Japanese teacher in the first place, logic of the physical world was too hard for her. I don't blame her, it's not like I'm any better.

Then, there was a knock, followed by the sliding open of the club door. A figure that emerged from it was a girl, about as old as I was. The girl's hair was as long as Yuigahama, the difference was that Yuigahama's was sort of orange, and the girl's was black. Also similar in fashion to Yuigahama was the fact that the girl tied her hair to the left of her head, but she did not curl it up into buns.

"E- excuse me, is this The Service Club?", said the person, sounding nervous.

"Yes, this is it – is there anything that you want us to help with?", Hiratsuka asked the girl.

"Yes", the girl said as she walks to the table where Hiratsuka and I sat, "My name is Hanasaki Saki. I'm from 2A"

"Right, Hanasaki. How can we help you?", I asked.

Before she could answer, there was a lot of fidgeting on her hair. If I am not mistaken, she was also shaking a little bit. 'What are you hiding, spit it out!', I thought – of course, I did not say that out loud.

"My classmates. They're trying to prank me.. I think", she said.

Pranking, huh? It was quite popular back in my childhood years, especially if the practice was to be done on me. But then, I can't really say "back then" when that's literally where I was.

"What are they trying to do?", said Hiratsuka.

"They are trying to get me to go out with a guy, always cheering and squealing as we get even slightly close to each other", she said.

So he was a Riajuu.

"That's horrible. Forcing someone to do things like that is forgivable", Hiratsuka said, even though she had yet to know that in the future, she'll be forcing a certain loner to join the very same club because he wrote a well written essay. Hiratsuka-sensei is unforgivable!

"Well, nevertheless, we'll have to know this 'guy' to figure out how to help you", I said.

"His name is Katakana Kana", Hanasaki said.

'Hah, I am more than a hundred percent sure that he writes his name in Katakana! [0]', I thought, although, I don't feel shame for the fact that I actually almost said that out loud. Then there was another knock, followed by an immediate sliding of the club door.

"Excuse me! is this The Service Club?!", a guy said, panting, as if he was running all the way from somewhere to the clubroom. As soon as he opened his eyes, he was shocked by what was what in his sight. His face.. it somehow reminded me of Tobe.

"Hanasaki?!", the guy exclaimed, "what are you doing here?!'

"I would like to ask the same question", Hanasaki replied, "Katakana-kun"

Huh?!

After some explanation by the guy, we concluded that he was the Riajuu that Hanasaki was talking about earlier, and just like her, he came here to ask for help in regarding to their classmate's prank.

"So, that's the whole story", the guy said.

"I see. So you're here for the same reason as her", Hiratsuka said.

"Yeah"

"I myself am not really experienced in this sort of stuff", Hiratsuka said, "but we'll try our best to help you out". That is really something you should not have said when someone asks you for help because they knew you were the only one who could help.

"If you were to allow us to witness your classmate's actions, maybe we'd get some idea of what to do", I said. It was true; we didn't know who their classmates were, let alone their motive for trying to hook the two up.

"That's alright for us", the guy said, and then Hanasaki nodded as an agreement. "Actually, you're more than welcome to", she added.

We four came to an agreement that both Hiratsuka and I go to their classes and observe, and that's exactly what we did the next day, first time during lunch time where majority of the class' population stays at their homeroom, save for Hanasaki who went out to do take care of her personal business. What surprised me was the fact that when we both went in, the class was relatively quiet. People barely spoke to each other, just something about their homework and the weather. It was like people didn't even know that each of themselves existed.

This is a perfect classroom in my opinion, but one thing about it bothered me – shouldn't a class that gets hyped up for a couple be more rowdy?

"Hey, hey. She's here", somebody tried to whisper to someone, but it was still loud enough for me to hear. That was as a response to the opening of the classroom door.

As soon as Hanasaki entered the classroom, everyone else stopped what they were doing and paid all their attention to her. According to both of them, their seats would be right next to each other. Of course, knowing this, I thought the classmates wouldn't let this chance pass by. Everybody stood up and moved closer toward the two with the girls surrounding Hanasaki and the boys surrounding Katakana.

"Hey, when are you guys going to confess to each other?!", a girl spoke.

"How jealous I am of you both!", another guy said.

Oh, how quick I was to just give an analysis. As soon as those two get even remotely close to each other, the classroom went from just being regular citizens to men at arms. Feared of being seen suspicious, Hiratsuka and I slowly backed off from the class, and then left, heading for our own class.

"I didn't expect it be that bad", Hiratsuka said, at least I remember her saying it. I was in deep thought, the usual of my cynical self, you could say. 'Is there a point in forcing two people together?', I thought. There was a very simple answer to that, one that I shouldn't have missed had I not dig too deep. But I didn't know that, and spent the whole afternoon, even during classes, trying to piece together all the possibilities.

Alas, I couldn't figure it out.

"You've been really quiet, Hikigaya-kun", said Hiratsuka as we ride on the train home.

"Huh, then that's normal, isn't it?", I replied, reminding Hiratsuka that, yes, I don't talk much.

"No, I mean, you're unusually quiet today", she said, "are you still thinking about those two?"

She was right on the spot.

"Yeah", was the only thing I said in response, though.

She gave me a smile, "that's so you, Hikigaya-kun". I still don't know what was so special about that statement, but it was able to heat my cheeks up. Oh, I don't want to imagine how idiotic my blushed face looks.

A moment later I heard footsteps coming from beyond Hiratsuka, it was probably some other passengers, except that it wasn't. The one who walked in from the other side of the train was a policeman, wearing a usual blue vest and cap. I thought he looked familiar, and that I felt like I've seen him somewhere before.

I almost thought it was just me, and was about to return to ponder about what I should do about the 2A guys.

Not until he pulled out a small kitchen knife from his trousers, to which, I quickly returned all my attention back to him. A normal person wouldn't bring out a knife in the middle of a train ride, no? He then changed to a battle-like stance and held the pointed down knife with both hands.

'Ok, that's not normal', I thought.

What happened next, I could barely remember, but the police officer charged toward Hiratsuka, pulling that knife up with both hands.

"Hiratsuka, move away!", I yelled, moving in with both hands aiming to stop the officer's arm from striking Hiratsuka.

Yukinon didn't say much once again, but at this point, she couldn't bare being in the clubroom without Hikki around;

She stopped coming to school altogether.

We always thought that the club was about all three of us being there, but no matter how well we may phrase it, it's obvious the focus is on Hikki. The reason why he was there in the first place wasn't because he wanted to, wasn't it?

But that was just my personal opinion. Hikki's life maybe on the line when we both just sit around, expecting that maybe one day, he may just come back to us.

Which was why I decided to give it one more try. One day, I went to the police station again to try to convince the officer to convince his boss once again. I stepped inside of the building, heading straight to the administration.

"Excuse me. I would like to see the police officer who was in charge of Hikki.. uh.. I mean Hikigaya Hachiman's disappearance", I said, which made the desk person looked troubled.

"That would be officer Hansaki Kazunari – he's not in today, unfortunately", the desk person said.

"What?! he's not in?", I said.

"Don't worry", the desk person said, "he'll probably be back by tomorrow. He's always doing some weird battle moves during this time of the day; you won't miss him"

I was able to stop the officer's attempt on doing harm to Hiratsuka, but at a cost. Both of my hands caught on the edge of the knife, and started bleeding.

"Hikigaya-kun!", I heard Hiratsuka yelled.

[0] – Katakana is one of the writing systems used in Japanese (together with Hiragana and Kanji), usually used for foreign/loan word.

A/N: As a reply to ArmatusCumPinnae: Yes, there will eventually be whole chapters on the present time line, but before that there are couple of things I have to get out of the way :) . As for the others, thank you for all of the reviews/suggestions so far! Happy new year, and happy anticipating!