FML

A Hayate the Combat Butler Fic

By

EvilFuzzy9

A/N: Here's another installment of FML! ... Although this chapter (at least at the time of writing this author's note, after the reviews but before the actual chapter) is mostly just a vehicle for my reviews of the two most recent chapters of the manga. Because I enjoy doing them, and if I do them enough times I might actually eventually get some feedback on them and find out whether or not I'm the ONLY one who likes my reviews.

On a completely unrelated note, I recently watched Yu-Gi-Oh! Bonds Beyond Time Abridged and Lord Slug Abridged. Am I the only one who cracked up at that post-credit bit in the latter one where Super Kami Guru narrates a letter to Lord Slug and signs it "your Evil Half"? Because I found that bit both amusing AND appropriate, given the former character's characterization in the (abridged) series proper.

And back on a more pertinent note, I was a little disappointed that chapter four of this didn't get any feedback, but it WAS kinda rushed and not as good as the previous chapters.

But enough of my incessant rambling. On with the show!

To serve is the lot of the butler. To fight is the lot of the soldier. To love is the lot of the lover. ... But to get screwed over by the universe time and again? THAT is the lot of one Hayate Ayasaki, cosmic plaything and full-time woobie.

And this is his story.

"What's in a dream?"

That is the question I find myself wanting to ask every time I hear people talking about their plans for the future – what they want to be when they grow up, what they want to do with their lives. It is so odd, really, how they talk so casually about having such lofty aspirations. They all believe -with such conviction!- that they will go on to do great things, that they will go on to become the great men and women of their age.

They are so sure, so confident. They aspire to greatness, to exceed the sky and go ever upwards, to pierce the heavens with their hearts and forge onwards to a better future.

And it vexes me, because I have never had any "dreams" – nothing like they have had, at any rate. I do not have anything like what they would call a "dream" or an "aspiration"... They call me lazy and unimaginative, because of this. Because of this, they say I must be an unmotivated layabout, a worthless lout. Even they who are closer to knowing the truth than the rest... even they who have managed to worm their way through my defenses and approach my naked heart... even they say that I should "dream" – that without a "dream" I will forever be stuck as a "freeter"[1], a blue-collar freelancer doomed to constantly perform grueling menial labor simply to scrape by.

But they are mistaken. Even if everyone else has the potential to do great things and become great people, I do not. I live a star-crossed life, damned to poverty and hardship and misery regardless of what I do. I know this. Oh, I know this all too well.

Believe me when I say that I have TRIED to change my fortunes – tried so hard. A hundred times over, I have done everything within my meager power in my attempts to change my fate, but to no avail.

Ever and always to no avail.

I work myself to the bone. I keep my nose to the grindstone. I forgo all bonds of friendship in favor of finding employment wherever I can. I do my best at everything I attempt and prove myself time and again a hundred times more reliable and more competent than anyone else. I do all this and more, but it makes no difference.

Nothing I do makes any difference. Any time I come close to paying off one debt, They go off and dig us into a hole thrice as deep. Any time I start to really prove myself at a given job, something happens to get me fired or otherwise laid off. Any time I begin to make my way in the world, fate conspires to throw all my hard work in my face and set me right back to square one.

So how could I, who have so often tried so hard only to fail without fail, ever dream of a better future? What point would there be in deluding myself like that? I might give my all at everything I do, but in the end it won't matter. I'm fighting against the inevitable, swimming against the current, waging a losing battle against fate, but it is not because I believe that I can change things that way.

No, I know that nothing I can do will ever make a difference. I know that I am an insignificant worm, the lowest of the low. I know this all too well, and so I fight not for a better future.

I fight, because I know that if I give up, then I will be no different from my parents. I fight so that I can at least die knowing that, even if I can never be a truly good person, I am still a better person than Those Two.

And that's it. That's all that really matters.

... ... ... but it is still such a curious thing, this tendency to "dream"...

- Hayate Ayasaki

[1]: This is a slang term derived from a combination of the words "freelance" and "arbeiter" (a Dutch term for blue-collar worker).

"Freelance" + "Arbeiter" = "Freeter"

A/N: Well, this was an interesting chapter. I mean, the content itself is not necessarily any more interesting than that of any of the other chapters of this fic, but it IS interesting to me, as the author, inasmuch as the inspiration for it goes. Specifically, it was inspired by two separate things. The first inspiration was a bit in the manga where Chiharu, while discussing Nagi's ambitions with Hayate, talks about dreams, causing Hayate to make some rather... interesting comments about having dreams; something along the lines of: "But if she has a dream like that, then won't she only be setting herself up for failure?", which causes Chiharu to respond with something about having an impossible dream being better than giving up on one's dreams, and then asks Hayate if he doesn't have such a dream, to which he is pointedly silent with a decidedly melancholy look on his face. And the second inspiration was a review from Shuji Nonohana for my recent, super-depressing HnG oneshot And None Shall Mourn Thee [subtitle: In Either Life or Death] (which you should totally read and R&R, BTW, if you haven't already), particularly a line where he writes:

"Our Hayate always thought something along the lines of, 'They can work me dry, they can torture me, treat me like shit, leave me in unendurable emotional agony, but the moral high ground is mine. I may be a worse person than everybody else, but I will always be a better person than my parents.'"

... and I simply had to use that concept somewhere, so I used it here. Thanks for the inspiration, Shuji~!

And now, for the part none of you were waiting for:

EvilFuzzy9's first impressions of chapters 344 & 345! (Because why the hell not?)

.

344

Before

Time - 11/21/2011, Monday, 10:19 A.M., Central Time.

Note: Well, starting the chapter, it looks like it's picking up from where it last left off with Hayate asking Kayura to be Nagi's manga adviser, only for Kayura to say no. And now we'll likely find out the reasoning behind her refusal.

As for my predictions for how this chapter goes? Hrm, I dunno... One part of thinks it'll have Hayate continuing to entreat Kayura for her aid, while another part thinks the first part is stupid and that something else will happen instead. And a third part of me is still obstinately maintaining that something will happen to make Kayura fall for our dear butler, while the second part says that the third part is also full of shit and stupid and that something ELSE will happen, instead. So yeah, going by gut instinct, I gotta say: not a damn clue.

So, yeah... Let's just read and see what happens.

.

After

Time 11/21/2011, Monday - 10:31 A.M., Central Time.

Note: Well, looks like the second part of me was right inasmuch as "something else" happening. And I gotta say that Kayura's speech was definitely very passionate, though to me it almost seemed like her advice would be more applicable for Hayate in the sense that he's more the one fighting against the odds, but on the other hand he doesn't seem to really have a dream right now, does he? At least, not any that he hasn't given up on. ... Heck, even that dream of having his own flat is as far off for him as Nagi's dream of writing a manga that will sell a trillion copies is for her.

But that is, once again, probably just me.

Also, hahaha, Kayura stripped in front of Hayate and neither one of them was the least bit perturbed (though in Hayate's case he probably just sees Kayura as a child, much in the same way he views Nagi) and Nagi was the only one freaked out by this. Then the scene cuts to Nagi suddenly wearing a different outfit with Kayura and Hayate in the room with her. Now, sure, common sense might tell you that Nagi simply shooed Hayate out while she changed and then let him back in once she was finished, but I like to imagine that Hayate never left the room and simply watched with a vapid smile on his face. Because he's an idiot. But we still love him, because he's OUR idiot.

Also, also, am I the only the only one who sensed some yuri vibes from Kayura's interactions with Nagi near the end of this chapter...? Because the sparky-bubbly background seemed pretty... suggestive... to me, but maybe that's just because I'm a fanficcer.

.

345

Before

Time - 11/21/2011, Monday, 10:52 A.M., Central Time.

Note: Okay, so this chapter starts off at Tachibana Video Rental, with Wataru talking about opening a new store and something about a contract along with a narration about how he quit Hakuō to work full-time at his store. The page ends with him going "Hm?" about something.

Gah, I can't make any predictions because my gut is so friggin' anxious about this possibly FINALLY bringing a resolution to his bet with Ayumu. And, before reading this chapter, I would like to reiterate my sentiments from my A/N at the end of the fifteenth installment (or twelfth real chapter) of Om Nom Nom, Hamster-chan!:

'Oh... okay, so maybe I will concede that Hata certainly has set it up for her to sorta be like a maid to Wataru, depending on whether or not what he did would fall under "confessing his love". But I swear to God, Pain, Dende, and Baby Jesus that if Kenny even thinks about trying to pair the spares or tie up romantic loose ends by having Hamster-chan fall for Wataru, I will fly all the way to Japan and KICK him in the FUCKING BALLS! ... or, you know, bitch and moan impotently about it online. But the first one sounds better.'

So, yeah, here's hoping he doesn't do something like that. Because my inner shipper is a paranoid, trigger-happy sumbitch. That's really one of the few things I hate about being so emotionally invested in a series, in that I have no real control over my inner shipper, so even if I intellectually know that the couple it has chosen to ship will almost certainly never come to pass (in particular, my ardent NaruHina phase -which was mostly well before the "Pain's destruction of the Leaf" arc- was a special kind of Hell) I will still feel disappointed when nothing happens with it.

... ahem.

Well, enough of that awkward tangent: on with the show! (i.e., reading the frickin' chapter, already because what the fro this "before" section seriously took me twenty minutes to type even though like a quarter of it was copy-pasta'd in)

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After

Time 11/21/2011, Monday - 11:25 A.M., Central Time.

Note: ... ... ... ... ... Jesus H. Christ. All that anticipation, and it turns out it's just a chapter about Saki's twenty-first birthday. Albeit, a chapter with plenty SakiWata fluff, Sakuya guilt-tripping Wataru like a pro, and Hayate showing once again that he is reliable in all matters save those of money and love (the former because one god or another seems to have cursed him from birth, and the latter because a maybe-goddess used good old fashioned physical abuse to give him terrible self-worth issues – no, I will never let that issue go, because it is a big goddamn deal).

Also, on the subject of birthdays, maybe I'm just blanking out on it, but for the life of me I cannot recall anything ever being done for Hayate's own birthday, despite the manga having gone on for well over a year in-story and him being the main character (ostensibly). The only thing I can think of is some faint notion of Maria and Nagi doing something for him, but this could very well be something from my imagination. So, yeah, I don't know what to think about that. If it hasn't been covered in story, or no one has done anything for that, then I suppose that's s'more angst fuel, but cripes isn't this supposed to be a comedy manga? I dunno, is it me? Am I just being perversely obsessive in insisting to myself that this is secretly a terribly depressing series? Am I just seeing tragedy and angst where there isn't any?

I dunno. But it's also fun, after a fashion, so I suppose that's all that matters, eh?

[This chapter was uploaded Saturday, 11/21/2011]

[Previous chapter was uploaded Monday, 11/12/11]

[Third chapter was uploaded Saturday, 10/29/2011]

[Second chapter was uploaded Monday, 10/24/2011]

[First chapter was uploaded Thursday, 10/20/2011]

TTFN and R&R!