Chapter 5: Breakdown

It certainly hadn't escaped Yui how long it had taken the two to discover that the Yukinoshita household had run out of snacks. But she made no comment when Hachiman excused himself.

She probably wouldn't even have made a comment if Hachiman had declared to leave on a quest to defeat the Great Demon King. She looked downright ill, as if her sickness had never been a lie. Browbeaten, she cowered in a corner of the couch.

Yukino put the tablet with the tea and some fruit juices on the table and placed herself in the seat Hachiman had occupied so far, diagonally across the table from Yui.

"Yuigahama, it looks as if in the meantime you've realized what you have done. I understand, or at least I think I do, you were aiming to put things into movement again? But as a result, you put the relationship between me and Hikigaya in jeopardy."

Yui just nodded quietly.

"Believe it or not, I took my time in the bathroom mainly to recall what exactly had happened and had been said this evening, and to make sense of your behavior. Where to start? The letter. Of course you knew we would find out about your prank, and fast. It didn't matter to you."

"It would have forced you to talk about it. Your feelings."

"But he rejected me," Yukino reminded her.

"Maybe today. But tomorrow is another day, and the day after that..."

"You arrived here," Yukino continued, "acting provokingly cheerful and unconcerned."

"Why did you take this so serious in the first place if there's nothing between you and Hikki? Not long ago you would just have bantered about that letter."

"I doubt that. And haven't we already put on record that there indeed is 'something between me and Hikki'? In any case, my point is, you wanted to make us angry, correct? You tried your own little Hikigaya maneuver," Yukino concluded.

"It just would have helped if you got a little angry at me. Band together against me. For a while," Yui protested, "just for a while. That's not like what he did. I didn't try to... to..."

"... cut and burn yourself out of our lives?"

"... creep you out for good and forever, yeah."

"I'm willing to believe you. Still, now as the noble Hikigaya had stepped in to protect our friendship, you looked through his acting way before me. Because you had been following a similar script up to this point."

"He really tried to put it up to eleven, right?"

"But you weren't expecting the kiss."

"No. I didn't think he would go that far."

"But after that you knew he must have reached his limit. So you kept cool, raised the stakes."

"I wasn't feeling like being 'cool'. But yeah. I had to."

"But nevertheless, in retrospect, would you agree that your plan had spectacularly failed and backfired at that point?"

"I'm not good with plans, Yukinon," Yui confessed.

"Well, Hikigaya's plan backfired spectacularly too. After that, pardon me, you were running around like a headless chicken, figuratively speaking. Trying to force him to kiss you to make me jealous. Then trying to force a confession out of me."

Yui bolted up. "I was angry. I felt I had earned that kiss. I'm not much of a schemer, Yukinon. And also not a robot. I'm just a girl. But..."

"... but?"

"Yeah, it would have helped. If it had made you jealous."

"Well," Yukino took a sip from the cup she had brought from the kitchen. "I now understand the what. Let us move on to the why."

Yui looked at her fingers. "You won't ask me about that final kiss?"

"That's... a different chapter altogether. We'll come to that. But since you've brought it up... was it sincere? Or your last hurray? To, how did you put it, 'creep me out for good and forever'?"

"Maybe it was my last hurray. But it was sincere, too. I am sorry."

"Don't be sorry. For the latter part, that is. Yuigahama, you haven't even touched your cup yet. Please drink. And relax a bit. You look terrible."

Hesitatingly, Yui took it up.

"The why is were it gets murky. You're anything but a schemer, true. If that were your forte, I'd torment my mind about your real intentions now. But I believe you told me the plain truth. You really wanted to do this for us. Please explain why."

"I already told you why. What is it you don't understand?"

"You were convinced Hikigaya and me were in love or at least would fall in love if you weren't somehow in the way, is that correct? I do not want to start this discussion again, so..."

"He said he cares for you," Yui interrupted her. "You said you have feelings for him."

Yukino sighed. "You achieved at least one of your goals, you know? In the kitchen, we talked about our feelings. But at the moment, I don't see a future for them."

"Yukinon, just tell me why. I know you were in love with him. Or at least falling for him. But then… you somehow chickened out. And then everything just stopped."

"I didn't chicken out. I made a decision."

"Then please explain it to me," Yui begged.

Yukino sighed again. "Maybe it's really for the better. If we had made our arrangement a bit more explicit, and if we had explained it to you and each other, maybe this all wouldn't have happened. You heard what he said about choosing.

"He said when you're pondering which girl to choose you're not in love. Stupid."

"Why stupid? This is admittedly not my field of expertise but wasn't it a romantic thought, in a way?"

"It's romantic. And stupid. Hikki is so negative because the real world will never be as perfect as he wants it to be. Well… at least it means he still feels something for me too, right?"

Yukino was quite sure that Hachiman had talked about the very act of making a conscious choice in the first place and not so much about being unsure who to choose if he had to. But she let Yui's interpretation stand. There was no need to add fuel to her friend's depression.

"But what about you, Yukinon?" Yui asked on.

"Yuigahama, I fought so much to gain some independence from my family. What would it have been good for if I had just thrown myself into Hikigaya's strong arms a minute later?"

"Why do you put it that way? It wouldn't need to be that way."

"Do you remember the meeting with Haruno? Just me and her?"

"How could I forget that. You cried in my arms. So much. But you wouldn't tell me anything."

"We argued. We fought. We screamed the worst things into each other's faces. She had planned to hook me up with Hikigaya, you know? She said 'You can take him or not, that's your decision to make.' Mocking me. In her arrogant and contemptuous voice."

"And? I don't understand."

"How could I ever have gained independence from her if I had just taken the path she had plotted for me? She said, it was my decision. So I made a decision."

Yui was shocked. "You gave up on Hikki to get back at your sister? That's the most stupid..."

"Not to get back at her. To step out of her shadow."

"And if she had said, don't jump from that bridge..."

"That comparison is a bit polemic, don't you think?"

"Yukinon, I'm really angry. You could have had what I wanted so much. And you threw it away like it's nothing."

"Not nothing. I didn't expect things to be easy. I knew I would have to make great sacrifices to distance myself from my family. The sacrifices just turned out to take a different form from what I had expected."

Silence.

"Yukino, you said 'It's not simple.'," Yui finally continued. "I can see that now. Even if it's stupid beyond belief. But you also said you don't love Hikki. And I still don't believe that. Less than ever."

"Yuigahama, what I think is right and feel is right aren't completely unrelated things. I said I have feelings for him. The rest is semantics. Of course I thought about us becoming lovers. To sleep with him, and..."

Yui was taken aback. "You have strange ways to look at some things, you know..."

"Isn't that what it's about in the end? When you're close already anyway?"

"No. It's… well… I don't know but… whatever… Yukinon, maybe you need friends to have girl talk with, you know."

"I have you."

Yui beamed. "That's right, in the future we should..." Her expression darkened. "Or maybe we won't."

"We should. We definitely should. Are you still trying to hook me up with Hikigaya?"

"If I take myself out of the equation your and his feeling will soon turn into something else, I'm sure."

"Yuigahama, Hikigaya and myself aren't trains you can just put on tracks and they'll run to where you want them. You were trying to manipulate me. It hurt me very much. Now you should understand why this hurts me so much. But as you might recall I didn't want to dwell on my relationship with Hikigaya. The question is, why would you even try this? You're saying you love him, you insist on it, so why? You're not that selfless."

"I'm not. But I can make decisions too. You can't have everything."

"Yuigahama, 'everything' is a keyword, thank you for reminding me. You mentioned that kiss at the end. I'm afraid, we might have to talk about 'everything'. Not long ago you told us you wanted to take 'everything', do you remember?"

"Our date at the aquarium, yes."

"Back then you sounded as if you were at least willing to pick up a fight."

"Did I?"

"'Everything', I understood that you wanted Hikigaya to become your lover while I would remain your friend."

Yui opened her mouth but Yukino just went on. "Somewhere along the line you seemed to have had a change of heart and would have been satisfied with Hikigaya being my lover and you being our friend."

"Well..."

"This change of heart was one thing that puzzled me when I was thinking this evening through. Now I think I understand you a bit better. 'Everything' couldn't have been what I thought it was. 'Everything' was way more than that, correct? After all that I've learned today... I put two and two together. Well, that arithmetic is a little off in this case..."

Yui looked very uncomfortable. "I didn't want to be understood. At all. I just wanted to have said it."

"You..."

"There are dreams, you know? Like the prince on his white horse. And there is the real world. You don't wake up in the morning expecting a prince on a horse at your door when you leave for school. And the point is, you wouldn't even want one."

"So Hikigaya and me becoming lovers wasn't something else entirely. It was just less than everything."

"Can we stop talking about that? I said, I made a decision too. It is the best thing that could happen to us. In the real world."

"To Hikigaya and me, you mean?"

"To us."

"Because you thought you and Hikigaya becoming lovers instead couldn't happen in the real world anyway?"

"It's mainly because I could cope with it. Could you? You only have us."

"So you can 'cope'. I think we're going in circles, Yuigahama. I still don't understand. Why would you be willing to give away your love so easily, if it's real. Why don't you fight to win? Have you really thought that through?"

Yui smiled a sad smile. "Thought that through? Yukinon, if you and Hikki became a couple. How do you think I should react then? How would you react if you were me?"

"I would be angry. Very sad." She looked away. "Not if I were you. I would be. We were three. And suddenly there are two and one. And I'm the one. That would make me sad, regardless of the exact nature of my feelings."

"Can I tell you a little story?"

"Yes?"

"I come to the club one day. And it turns out it's finally that day." Yui's eyes became unfocussed as she began to talk, "You wouldn't keep it a secret. That wouldn't be fair. So you tell me. Break it to me gently. During the following days, you're trying not to show your affection when I'm around. It doesn't work that way of course. It's too obvious. Often I see you kissing and don't know if I should look at you or away. And it hurts. So much. And you're feeling guilt and pity." She swallowed.

"Yuigahama..."

"I cry in my bed. But that's not the worst thing. The worst thing is when I'm crying in front of you. Then you're feeling more guilty and pity me more and that's the last thing I want.

But there are also the good times. We're going out and have fun together and don't think of all the problems. Like in the best days we had before. And you're much more outgoing now, not sitting silently behind your books. And in time, it hurts less. And because it hurts me less you're feeling less guilt and pity. But the fun things, they don't go away. They stay." She actually had started sobbing as if to mock her own words.

"We graduate and might go to the same university. You're looking forward to it because by now, you know, the fun things have become more important than guilt and pity. And we three are still having fun together, or just you and me. And sometimes you can't make it and it's just Hikki and me. Then you're feeling a bit jealous even though you also know it's nonsense, because you know Hikki loves you and you know I would never betray you either.

And one day in the future you tell me 'Do you remember how you brought Hikki and me together?' And then you actually remember and feel a bit guilty again. And you're asking yourself how many years it had been since you last felt guilty. And I laugh because I ask myself how many years it had been since it just stopped hurting."

She was crying her heart out by now. Her last words were hardly understandable. "And you're telling me 'Have you really thought that through? You should be like angry or sad or something.'"

Having heard what her friend had bottled up inside of her, and not knowing how to react to that, Yukino was desperate. "Yuigahama, what can I..."

The answer was incomprehensible.

"What did you say?"

"Hug me."

Author's Notes

That was chapter 5 of our little chamber play. Yui's outburst was hard to write. I'm not gonna lie.

I'm well ahead in the editing process and the next chapter will be out on Monday, I hope (meaning: it will still be Monday somewhere, at least).

More girl talk coming up. And we'll read about Hachiman literally trying to defrost the Ice Queen. No, literally. Yes, literally literally.