Imaginary Things
Summary: 'Love' turns out to be a principle of anarchy, as expected.
*
Love is blind. Love is kind. What a nauseating bunch of romcom crap. I wonder if the golden hearted hime-samas could have lovingly endured a warty toad or a hideous beast throughout their lives. Love makes you kind? Yeah, right. Love is just an acceptable brand of selfishness, like cats. To think that you love someone is the best kind of self-gratification that there is. Nobody loves anyone just as they are, dead fish-eyes and all. It's ideas people fall in love with. When the inevitable disillusionment comes, "pop" goes all love.
Nobody understands that when it really comes down to it, all love is Platonic. Ah. The irony.
Now that Yuigahama and Tobe are prancing around all the time like a couple of labra-doodles, all perky ears and wagging tails, the ambience of the club room has changed all too perceptibly. Funnily enough, even though it isn't the way it was after I turned down Yuigahama, it's just as disconcerting. Yukinoshita's comebacks now feel a bit forced. The controlled jubilance about her insults I find so masochistically endearing, is gone somehow .
Perhaps the choreography has suffered because the cute pacifist our group is missing.
I wonder if Yukinoshita now resents me for a different reason altogether.
Whatever it is, it feels different. Hikigaya Hachiman hates different. Yuigahama's offer was not acceptable precisely because of this: it would have irrevocably altered the status quo. But what I failed to understand then was that things had already changed. There was no right answer to Yuigahama's question. Ugh. It's always the nice ones who ruin things.
Yuigahama pops in the clubroom once in a while these days, with Tobe in tow. What are they, Siamese twins? But she seems genuinely happy. That's something I guess, after I had hurt her with the best of intentions.
One day after the exuberant couple bounce away, I sigh with relief. Their enthusiasm is grating. I wonder what it's like, when life feels like a giant trampoline. Hmm. Yuigahama on a trampoline would be quite a sight.
Yukinoshita, revitalized by her dear friend's visit, pounces with lethal grace.
"Regretting your rotten decision now, are you, Hikigaya-kun? Surely you didn't except someone like Yuigahama-san to keep pining for the rest of her life? It's pretty unfortunate, I suppose. You rejected possibly the only proposal you'd ever receive in your life. Of course, with your abysmally low levels of intelligence, that was expected. Worms shall really be trying your virginity*. Poor worms."
Wow. You repeatedly surpass yourself, woman.
"To the contrary. I was just thinking how ridiculous the idea of love is if it it can be transferred to someone else so easily."
"Ah. You are forgetting the most important variable in this equation, Hikigaya-kun. It's you we are talking about. Given your generally rotten character, it's obvious Yuigahama-san focused her affections so soon on someone else. You are rather exceptional that way."
Way to cheer a person up, Yukinoshita. May you grace us all with your condescension for the rest of our miserable lives.
As time passes, things gradually fall into a routine. Yukinoshita's snarkiness slowly regains its original spontaneity. She even manages to coerce me into reading a 700 pages long pretentious piece of crap. To my great surprise, I slog through it. Just to prove her wrong about my "contra-evolutionary cognitive capabilities". Though it pretty much turns out the same in the end when she mocks my abominably inadequate powers of understanding when I argue that it's just self-congratulatory navel-gazing under the veneer of self-deprecation.
Some things you just can't win.
*
It's been a while now. Yuigahama is still with Tobe, who still calls me Hikitani. Perhaps they have found something genuine, after all. Who knows? As for Yukinoshita and I, we are alright. Our new group dynamics proved to be more successful than I had hoped for.
Don't get me wrong. I haven't had a revelation about love or something. As far as I'm concerned, it's still pretty much the same as the Loch Ness monster. Nessie. Messy. For something that is essentially an unspoken contract for maximal functionality, love brings far too many expectations and unnecessary headaches. Then as if shit isn't troublesome already, there's that dangerous virus called Disney.
All that being said, kissing Yukinoshita feels fucking fantastic, cliches and complications be damned.
*
p.s. Since I'm not gonna be writing something with any real depth in the foreseeable future, these facile renditions will have to do. *sighs*
Yukinoshita's scathing comment about worms is an allusion to Andrew Marvell's fabulous poem To His Coy Mistress. In my humble opinion, look no further than poets like Donne, Neruda and Cummings for classy tips on seduction. "License my roving hands"? You bet.