Hachiman POV:

This kind of sucks balls.

Pioneers aren't always hailed as heroes. Sometimes progress is measured by sampling poison. Sometimes a heartbeat decision that feels just right, like a moment in which the whole world stops to witness it happen takes an anti-climatic turn.

Moments such as the one that has been plaguing my mind for a couple of weeks now. The moment in which I fucked up what could have been the moment I had been waiting for my whole life.

…Or not.

Truth is, it really wasn't in my hands. I could go on for hours about how cruel fate is, or the cosmic dice who rolled and gave me a shitty number, or the rom-com gods or any other image of a higher being that enjoys my suffering. Or the old me would have anyways.

Like I said, it's been a couple of weeks since Yukinoshita Yukino rejected my hasty and desperate confession, and I've gotten a lot of thinking done about it.

Initially I was in so much pain I felt numb, the one thing I had desired after a lifetime of plain existence had been denied to me. The one time I felt like I wanted to make decisions that could alter the circumstances we live in and not the other way around, the one time I paired logic with faith it backfired magnanimously.

And I don't regret shit.

I did everything in my power to convey how much I wanted it, because my initial confession was a product of a discussion about us that I cornered myself into admitting how I felt and was subsequently shot down.

That would be that for the Hachiman of always. I took a bet and lost, I then promise myself to never bet again, everyone knows how that goes.

But Sensei's words, a tug in my gut that reverberated my soul and one of those moments when you see your whole life flash before your eyes all summed up to tell me to keep pushing forward. I perfectly knew that losing immediate contact with Yukino would have meant losing her for good, so I insisted on keeping her in my life, even if she didn't reciprocate what I felt for her romantically, she said it herself. 'If our bond could be destroyed this easily then it wasn't meant to be.' I wanted to preserve our bond.

Even if we couldn't act like it hadn't happened, nor did we have that much time to start all over again, but I was faithful to us, we could find a way. If two people could have adapted to shitty conditions and remain connected, I thought that could be us.

That wasn't us.

I truly did wish hard for this, and I put in all of me to see the ending that I wanted. The gods know it would have been the first time I really cared about if I got it or not.

But even if I didn't. It was like getting pinched hard in the hand to wake up. It stings, it sucks. But I took it for what it was actually worth. Just this once, I wasn't a powerless deadbeat groaning about life.

Granted, it stung like poison when I occasionally ran into Yukinoshita in the hallways and she refused to look me in the eye, but I don't resent her.

Mainly because we did it, we really fulfilled the purpose of the Service club. It might've not been a happy ending to it per se, but we're free. We made our own choices, we followed what we wanted and we learned.

I know I did. Yukinoshita… well it's up to her to determine if she feels comfortable with her choices. With every honest bone in my body, however few there are in there, I wish she is. I still have feelings for her, of course I fucking do.

A huge part of me still dissociates in class with scenarios about us, during the first couple of weeks of aftermath or so I really tried to be butthurt about it, but I couldn't really do it. If you're ready to offer yourself fully to someone, you have to be ready for the possibility that you won't get accepted.

I mean, of course I wasn't actually ready. But life teaches you that way, the absolute beating I took from this episode actually taught me some things. No, that's an understatement, it taught me a lot of things and it made me understand well some other things.

For starters I can now really agree with Hiratsuka-Sensei, Yukinoshita, Komachi and every other person that said I was a dead-inside fucker all this time, but I also don't consider it wasted time or regret that I really gripped those beliefs and lifestyle. Without every aspect of myself, without every choice, questionable or not I wouldn't be here right now.

It took years of emotional numbness, it's taking this pain I'm feeling right now. But this is the point in which I'm finally free from myself. From now on, I really am Hachiman Hikigaya again.

There are a million things I would want to say to some people if I could see them right now, mainly Hiratsuka and Yukinoshita, really, millions of things. But in essence, I am content with bowing to them mentally for the time being. As gratitude for helping me become Hachiman again, as gratitude for everything.

"Oe Hachiman! Get your head out of your ass man, we're getting fucking obliterated!" Saki pulled me out of my dissociation and my eyes landed on the questionnaire again.

"Yeah Hachiman, they're already 3 questions ahead of us!" Saika also whined.

"Right right, sorry."

The other team was composed of Yoshiteru, a girl named Nakamura Akemi and a guy named Hirano Kenzo. At this point where the entrance exams for Chiba U are half a month away we're all on a first name basis. Needless to say I started studying with Saika, then Yoshiteru joined in, then one time I brought Saki and she stuck around, and we adopted these two in our makeshift group.

"Next question. It'll be Saki against Kenzo."

"Right." The girl with the moonlit looking hair nodded and Kenzo grinned excitedly.

"History. Post-restoration. What was Japan's first 'equal treaty' with a foreign country?"

"Uhhh..what does that even mean?"

"Equal as in, we didn't fuck or get fucked with, it was literally two countries acknowledging each other's existence across the sea and opened up trade."

"Netherlands?" Kenzo said after a short team-back discussion

"It wasn't a western power."

"I think it's Mexico, they sent a couple of naval expeditions in the late 1800's, they accomplished jackshit but we signed a treaty of friendship, commerce and navigation." I whispered to Saki

"Mexico! A signed paper to signal 'hello' across the Pacific and nothing more." Saki stole from Kenzo's fuck up

"What year?"

"18…" Saki looked at me with the eyes of a deer and I shrugged with widened eyes. I had no fucking clue.

"88?" She guessed

"Well I'll be, you actually got it. Shooting blind as it was, it's actually 1888."

"Get fucked you three! We're turning this thing around!" Saki jested, me and Saika couldn't help but join the shit-talking.

After a while we got tired and our team didn't make the comeback we wanted, much to the embarrassment and annoyance of Saki.

It was a nice Friday, we're all confident in our chances to take the exam today, let alone in two more weeks. It feels good.

"You guys want to go get some dinner?" Akemi asked and everyone agreed.

"Maybe even get some beers afterwards, I feel like we kind of deserve them." Kenzo followed

"Oh yes, we need a few drinks already." Yoshiteru followed and I scoffed playfully

"Heh, you twat are the youngest out of us and the most eager, don't use the diet's Asahi and Kirin lobbyists as a free pass for cirrhosis." [1]

"What can I say my friend? You can feel thirst of the dangerous kind already. So let us go enjoy some."

Huh, with the right people, your feet on the ground and your feelings true, that vulgar and careless youth ain't that bad.

"Alright, but lemme grab a MAX first, it's been centuries since I've had one. And for me, that's a more dangerous thirst."

"Want me to come with?" Akemi asked me.

"Nah, it's a go and come back from the vending machine, I'll catch up with you guys at the gates."

I walked peacefully to the machines, my head pretty much empty. I was content.

But my emptiness of thought ended abruptly when I found Hayama Hayato in the vending machines.

He also stopped mid sip, he looked at peace before he noticed me, but now he's tense. I suppose he has a big reason to feel uncomfortable, I should be as well in theory. But seeing him is kind of bittersweet. Yeah, I got cucked to the likes of him and yeah sometimes I still get melancholic about it.

But he won fair and square, and most importantly, Yukinoshita chose him to keep her company in her life. If what they need and want is each other, it's their call. I've made my peace with it.

He was still frozen in there, awkward as hell as I was taking my sip. The silence was unbearable.

"Yo Hayama."

"Hello Hikigaya." He said, still like he wished he was anywhere but here, yet he wouldn't leave.

"Ah to hell with it.

"Hayama, no need to tiptoe, no need to pretend, no need for anything. What happened happened, it's no one's fault if the choices we all made led us here. I'm not guarding resentment towards you or Yukinoshita."

He stayed quiet for a moment and looked at me.

"...I'm not pitying you Hikigaya."

What?

Oh.

"It's not about pity Hayama, I still don't want it but leave that aside. Are you happy with what went down? Are you comfortable with the decisions you made?"

He looked even more uncomfortable with my prying, but I had the need to end it here if he was ever going to be free with what he has.

"I-I am. I'm happy with how things ended."

"...Then that's all you need to worry about."

"But…I…"

I raised my brow at the broken tone he was starting.

"...I feel like I don't deserve her, you do. You were there all the way, and she ditched you for me. It's like, look at me, the asshole that all of his life took things for granted got back what he wanted just by wishing for it. You in turn-"

"Shut the fuck up Hayama."

He cringed at my interruption, and internally so did I, but he was pissing me off.

"Listen. In this year that has passed since I was shot down I've accepted some things, I've kept some from before and I will now pass you down some of Hiratsuka's wisdom.

"The universe does not give a fuck, not a single one. You may think that you've given enough, you've given everything, and the indifferent asshole will still take more. And we can curse our position of helplessness to change that, or we can not care and do what we want.

"We as persons, make choices that will make people happy and make people suffer, we give everything of ourselves for what we want and sometimes we get denied that. It happens, a lot.

"What follows? We reorganize, we think, we suffer, we feel and we try again."

Hayama took in my words one by one.

"And suddenly, the cruel universe disappears. It's just choices of everyone involved. I am not particularly happy with how things ended but I am comfortable with the choices I made. It was Yukinosh- Yukino's decision to prescind of our involvement and to seek you."

"You think?"

"I know. It was her heart, her mind, her soul, whatever. Something told her that she needed and she wanted you close and stuck to her guns, so it wasn't a wrong or cruel choice. It was just what she wanted to do, and that is what it is."

"...wow."

"Now, does your gut, soul, heart, balls, whatever, tell you to be there for her and understand her?"

"Yeah, I want to."

"Then stop feeling like you owe anything to me or that it isn't fair and be a man. If you both want it then make it, nobody did anything wrong."

"That's…actually very mature Hikigaya. I'm impressed."

I scoffed lightly.

"I have the school of Hiratsuka in me, literally. Who would've thought that a chimney otaku woman would be such a great philosopher and person?... I owe her everything. And also I learned by trial by fire."

He smiled.

"See you around Hachiman."

"Yeah."

I took a final sip from my can and tossed it away. Suddenly a text arrived to the group chat, it was Kenzo.

[Yo 8man, are you drinking a fucking gallon of coffee? Hurry up man.]

[Coming assface]

We move forward.

A/N:

[1] Read Luna, that part was a clusterfuck but across all my stories the canon is that the Japanese drinking age was lowered to 18.