More often than not, ignorance is something that many willingly choose over truth.
These people, more than anyone else, are truly aware of just how painful the truth was—of how much change it was going to bring into their lives, how much it was going to affect their relationships with other people, how much it would rend apart piece by piece the everyday life they had learned to live with. And because they fear the sudden change so much, they would rather pull the wool over their eyes and pretend the problem wasn't there—pretend that everything is fine, that the Sun rises from the east, and sets in the west.
By willfully choosing ignorance, they dull the pain they know already existed. It lets them get through another day, deluded by the very lies fabricated in contradiction with the harsh reality they live in. But this choice, this continuous lying to one's self—it's not the cure to this cancerous patch on the arm that's spreading gradually yet is still ignored as if it didn't exist at all. Lying to convince yourself that everything is just the way it is is a band-aid solution to a terminal illness that worsens with each passing day.
All because the truth was something so hurtful.
To be honest, I myself have been part of this wool-pulling for so long. For this reason alone, I despised myself, for I was the biggest liar I have ever met. All because I didn't want to fully accept the gravity of the situation, I made excuses for the people I wanted to understand—people who conversely did not want to understand me. At all. Because no matter how much I wanted to understand them and become more aware of the small things that made up relationships, everyone else was convinced that I was someone not worth being spared any sort of positive relation.
I told myself that getting invited to a birthday party, being given the wrong location, and having my gift laughed at because it was handmade was just the childish pranks and teasing of elementary classmates.
I told myself that being excluded from extracurricular activities by teens my age was just them feeling awkward since I've never really interacted much with them.
I told myself that having my name not remembered at all was my fault for not having the guts to approach them and introduce myself.
I told myself that the reason why no one seemed so concerned about getting my contact number or mail was that these were studious people, who didn't have time for small talks on the phone when they were so engrossed in studying to get into nice high schools.
I kept telling myself these things; and in the end, the lies did nothing to soften the impact for when the truth finally hit me—for when I accepted it wholeheartedly, and without regret.
Yet when I did accept it, the pain changed. Just as volatile as the truth, the realizations we come to meet are just as fickle—pain was forgotten, and in its place stood disgust, anger, pity, and indifference.
Disgust because these idiots followed the rumors like cattle would their shepherd to the slaughter.
Anger because they so easily believed Lucifer's silver tongue, when he was no longer an angel [1].
Pity because they lacked so much insight. So much compassion. So much common sense.
Indifference because they became strangers—not acquaintances, not even classmates.
The whole wool-pulling phenomenon had ended once I'd finally come to class, the day after the staged confession. Still, mere minutes before I finally faced the truth head on, I still clung on to the faint hope that perhaps Orimoto and the rest of the class weren't the kind of people my dad predicted they would be, that she and my classmates at least had the potential to be people worth putting a genuine effort into to at least be acquaintances with.
The moment I stepped into the room, the stares, the snickering, the sneers, and the laughter pressed onto me like a roaring wave. I spotted Orimoto and her clique over to the side, chuckling like yesterday's events and today's rumors were just some kind of joke that would blow over after a few days.
And yet it was no simple joke.
Staged and fake as it was, and though I had been acting like a cheap actor on a low-budget script, I had earnestly poured out whatever (misguided) affection I had for the girl.
I felt like I'd been hit with a truck driven by a speed demon when the realization came.
I was numb for the rest of the day. The hours felt like seconds. The rumors, the gloats, the insults, and the mocking sounded like whispers. I saw nothing else but the truth, and the images of these fakes seated all around me were replaced by white silhouettes of unimportant characters.
I've never felt so dumb in my entire life. Deluding myself, for the sake of these fakes? Tch. What a joke.
I didn't even realize when I'd gotten home. When I checked the watch, it was already way past curfew. When I checked my phone, it glowed with more than a dozen text messages and missed call notifications from my mother and from Komachi.
The moment I opened that door, I'd been assaulted by the frantic Hikigaya matriarch, and I'd received the most aggressive dressing down of my life before I was tackled into a fierce hug, and told never to worry her like that again.
Komachi cried her eyes out on my shoulder, thinking that I was never coming back. I'm sorry little sister, I'm sure I lost a lot of points for that.
God, and I told myself that my family was so distant to the point they didn't worry this much. It made me feel worse—yet the genuine affection did make me feel a little better.
After I finally got to eating dinner (or what small amount of it I touched), dad had taken me aside for man-to-man talk.
"How bad was it?"
"… What do you think?"
Perhaps I should've held back on the snark there, but at the time I was feeling so frustrated with everything. It was as if nothing made sense anymore, and that even if I had stopped trying to lie to myself, nothing else felt right.
"That bad, huh. Was I right?"
I nodded briefly. "Go ahead and lord it over me as much as you want to."
Dad chuckled. "I'm not so petty and childish that I'd be dancing to the jig of 'you were wrong, and I was right'; it just doesn't work that way."
Silence pervades for the next few minutes, but no discomfort was present. In fact, it was calming me down and lessening my discomfort a little.
"For what it's worth, you really were right. After you made those conclusions just from watching her closely in that video, I wanted to reject what you said, to deny it, even if I didn't even say anything to you.
"And yet, here we are. I've come to see just how ugly the truth was, and just how ugly the reality is of having people like those as classmates. Assumptions without basis. Conjectures without proof. These people are far too shallow, and are colored only by the pretentiousness that they exude.
"If this is how society works in a smaller scale; if this is how people easily cut off those they think are beneath them, then how am I supposed to believe in making relationships?! How the hell can I believe in people if they—if I—can so easily delude myself into thinking that willful ignorance of another is just a common thing to do when there's something wrong in sight?!"
I've had enough of trying to understand others. I've had enough of trying to have others understand.
"… I'm sick of all… this. Maybe it's better to live a life just like you have, dad. Maybe it's easier to shut everyone out, because in the end they get in the way and just screw everything up with ideals, with their greed, and with all their lies."
They lie to themselves for the sake of self-gratification. They project assumptions onto others for the sake of creating an imagined hierarchy that they use to define people on their own terms.
Understanding? Compassion? Sympathy? Don't give me that crap.
If there existed nothing but these mountains towering with falsifications, then perhaps solitude would be the best way for me to get through this screwed up world.
"Just because the world pushes you around doesn't mean you have to push back as hard." I turned to look at him, about to snap at what kind of cock and bull crap he was trying to pull—
But whatever I wanted to say died at my throat.
Dad looked at me—not with sadness, pity, disappointment, disgust; not like those who didn't want to understand—and in his eyes, I saw naught but regret.
"I've told you before, right? I don't want you ending up doing what I've done." A tired sigh escapes him, and his expression greets me this time with a lopsided smile. "Bear with me a moment—have I ever told you how I met your mother?"
Confusion marred my face before I end up pinching the bridge of my nose. "… Dad. I'm sort of having a moment here. Your sappy meeting with mom doesn't really sound like it'll help."
He gave a snort. "You damn well bet it will, Hachiman. Moment my ass…"
Language, please! Don't be such a dirty-mouthed model to your son!
"Anyway, because I'd become a recluse who wanted nothing with the world, I was basically a social retard during college. As such, I spent everything on academics and studying, and almost no time at all goofing off.
"I got good grades, well enough to warrant the attention of some parasites who were too fattened up by their own ego to try and make some efforts themselves. I brushed the fakes off, and soon enough I pretty much hated the majority of university students I came across.
"Then came your mother—met her when she was defending her thesis, I was the student next to go after her. A graduate student was filling out for one of the sick professors supposed to be seated as a panelist, and when the smug bitch attempted roundabout questionings to make the presentation look bad, your mother decked her with the meanest right cross I've seen, and proceeded to dress down the chick with the wittiest, iciest thesis defense delivery I've seen.
"What I wanna say, is that you shouldn't lose hope that easily. It may not mean much from a loner like me—I still am one—but believe me when I say that you shouldn't think in such a fatalistic manner." He brings a hand on my shoulder, and somehow the gesture calms me down to think a little better on the problem.
"Having met your mom, I've come to desire one thing, and one thing alone from this world that, as you've said, is built atop a mountain of lies."
Hikigaya men, as far as I've heard, have always had dead eyes.
In my father's eyes, however, there was a spark that I have never thought would be there for someone like him—a maddening glint, burning away silently and was nigh impossible to miss.
"Your mother made me see that perhaps it isn't such a bad world if we can find genuine things. After meeting fakes for so long and recognizing people who are so concerned with impressions, it was so refreshing to finally meet someone who wasn't afraid to show people who she really was."
Genuine. Real. Not something made with deception, filled with lies, and surrounded by fakes.
Was such a thing attainable? Was it even as real as it sounded? Hearing it now, it sounded like some faraway notion that belonged only in children's fairy tales. The word felt weird on my tongue, and sounded foreign to my ears.
But there was something to it that just… pulled.
Was it okay to hope?
Was it okay to believe?
Is it something worth reaching out for?
"Hachiman."
I was broken out of my musings, and on his face was but a meaningful look.
"So that you won't come to regret things as much as I have, perhaps I can entrust the same dream to you."
My dismay with the world remained. It would never disappear. However, maybe it wasn't so bad to believe in such a thing—no matter how small the likelihood of it being attained was.
Then again, if my father—a loner at heart—was able to reach such a thing…
Huh. It might not be so bad.
"… That so? Well, won't stop me from turning down people, though."
"Like I've told you before: it's fine to read between the lines, but not too much. It's fine to take things at face value, but don't just believe everything. How else do you think I do so well in my job?"
The atmosphere had lightened dramatically, and we even shared a bout of laughter.
Dad may not be completely right, but he wasn't wrong either.
As much as it would have been easier for me to just push people away, doing so was just running away from my problems, and pretending that they didn't exist in the first place. Ignoring people who might actually be more beneficial than detrimental to be around with was just as bad, and claiming that everyone would just be out to get me, dress me down, and push me onto the dirt was unfair to people who would actually care.
In short, I would returning to the willful wool-pulling that I have so turned away from earlier; I would have turned away from lying to myself, just to come back and lie to myself all over again.
I would start detesting any change to my way of life, and would be content with deluding myself with my way of living.
This would simply not do.
Perhaps it's time to outgrow this pitiful, middle school self crafted by mine and others' insecurities.
"You know, for a supposed loner, your wisdom makes it sound like you know how things are going to unfold."
Dad shrugged. "I guess. Well, it just comes with the experience I've had, I guess. Besides," a mischievous glint made itself known on his face, "I might just be you from the future, who's traveled back in time to get rid of the possibility of my past creating a trashy transgression that screws up the future." [2]
This time, it was my turn to snort. "That's dumb. Besides, time travel isn't real."
"It might explain why we're so alike, though. Hehehe."
I can't believe I'm actually unnerved by this. "Seriously? Stop joking around."
His expression turned wicked, complete with synchronization from his Hikigaya eyes reaching a maddening crescendo.
"Go ask your mom—I can't tell a joke to save my hide."
I paled.
What the hell, old man?!
[1] Lucifer, once an angel, fell from grace because his pride blinded him from God's real intentions, when God had ask him and the other angels to love humanity as they (angels) loved Him. He took up arms, and revolted—for this, he was cast out of Heaven.
[2] Fate Stay/Night. Archer, anyone? LOL.
I've rewritten this thrice, and this is the most content I was with the revision. Although I'm a bit unsure if I dealt with the father-son talk with the finesse needed… I dunno. Well, feedback would be appreciated on how I did. :D
Since it's still the semestral break (at least in my uni), I've decided to keep writing as much before the return for next semester (November 7). Expect the updates to slow down to about once or twice a week by then, but right now I'll be doing my best to churn out as much as I can.
PS. Nanashi was joking. There is absolutely no time travel shit happening here. LOL.
TheLegendary Icehole: Thanks! I love the way you write, too! No homo, if you're a dude!
Sorashita Charyubi: Zaimokuza just has that effect on people—but a comrade is a comrade, eh? And I ain't finished with Orimoto yet. Though, it'll be a while before she surfaces again.
ArmantusCumPinnae: Yep, Sith through and through—the Dark Side has MAXX Coffee, so it's a great deal. Though Nanashi's 108 will be different from Hachiman's 108 techniques. ;)
Guest: I hope you stick around for the ride!
TH1s: Well, that is the aim! Since events are happening differently from canon, expect that a different Hachiman will be the result—although he would still be retaining a lot of what made him the 8man we know and love. :D
Nignug: Please look forward to it. :D
Guest #2: Sure! Not stopping now!
Guest #3: Thank you!
Chryshauzer: Wait for a bit more, and Nanashi'll be in action. As we are now, we're just nearing the canon start, and that's where Nanashi will be a bit more hands on. :D
Leave a review, drop a line—I'll see you guys next chapter!