Christmas – that age-old herald of the winter holidays – came to town, and with it arrived all the poignancy, melancholy, and healthy doses of self-reflection that inevitably accompanied the eve of the current year. The coming of Christmas naturally also meant the end of our school term, and of course, the occasion that wrapped it all up: the Christmas collaboration event, a grotesque, slipshod amalgam of half-hearted high-school student performers, tone-deaf elementary schoolkids, and a smattering of parents and family friends who only had eyes for the one or two boys or girls they could actually pick out from a crowd of dozens. Perhaps the highly informal and underwhelming nature of the affair was partly due to the lack of any actual collaboration between the two schools who had nominally joined forces to host this charade, but in any case, as long as whatever took place wasn't a complete and utter embarrassment, there would be little room for complaint.

I stared out from the curtains shielding the back of the stage, watching as the school orchestra wrapped up the final number on their repertoire, yet my mind was far removed from the cacophony of thoroughly mediocre-quality music that was being unleashed unto the pitiful onlookers sitting before them. At the back of the assembly hall, where a row of slitted apertures ran the length of the wall near the ceiling, I could spot a thin layer of snow gathering against the glass, clusters of snowflakes crowding around the ledges, peering into the warmth within.

On that day, right after she had divulged her thoughts to me on the future of her beloved club, Yukinoshita, seemingly condemning herself to her fate, had descended the steps into the triumphantly expectant embrace of her sister, and had been guided towards the sleek car that I'd once had the great misfortune of encountering – in a painfully physical fashion – before, that mysterious black box whose night-tinted windows forbade any and all inquiries into the make of its interior. The car's passenger door had opened and closed, and I had not seen her again since – not even at this event which she had played such a significant part in bringing to fruition.

I wondered if I would see her again before the year drew to its close. Not that I particularly wanted to see her – just as she never particularly wanted to see me – but the words she had spoken that day were clawing at the recesses of my mind, begging for release through clarification. If I took her statement to its most obvious end, perhaps by the turn of the new year, I would no longer have a club to go to. But it was infinitely better to know that now for certain, than to have the myriad possibilities eating away at my mind across the entire span of the winter break.

A smattering of applause shook me back to the present. The concert had been dragged to its conclusion, and so too had the collaboration event as a whole. The orchestra stood, bowed to an ovation it scarcely deserved, and exited into the murk of stage left as the spotlights were ceased. The audience rose to their feet, beckoning the grating sound of scraping chairs and absent-minded chatter.

It was all over. Finally, we could rest.

As part of the cleanup crew – not voluntarily, by the way – I remained long after the main attractions had packed their bags and left, hefting equipment and boxes to and fro, climbing up and down flimsy ladders, detaching and rolling up the decorations that were splayed across the hall and around the nearby corridors outside. By the time my watch was ended, it was nightfall, and the school, now completely devoid of its earlier buzz, had drifted into a hollow, haunting hush.

Just as I was contemplating whether to leave what little remained of the debris to the stragglers who had remained with me, I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned around, and something sharp jabbed into my cheek. "Ow."

"Gotcha." Isshiki twirled her finger and grinned. "Some things never change, huh, Senpai?"

I rubbed my face to soothe the damage – more to my dignity than anything – and groaned. "This is all the thanks I get for you roping me into staying behind and clean up your mess? I should've just headed home after the event ended."

"My mess? Let me remind you, Senpai, who it is that got me in this 'mess' in the first place." She placed her hands on her hips and let out a haughty harrumph as her eyebrows crossed into a frown. "It's your mess as much as it's mine. We're partners in crime now; there's no getting out of this one for you. You're stuck with me for as long as I'm still learning how to be student council president. You got that?"

"I… guess."

"That's what I thought." She folded her arms and carried on her act of indignation, though the slight twitching of the corner of her lip and her sideways peek at me told me everything I needed to know. "Like I said a few weeks ago, you gotta take responsibility. Remember?"

The fleeting image of a late-night train flashed past my mind. "Only too well," I responded resignedly. "So, how long am I going to have to act like your manservant for?"

"That's for me to know and for you to guess." Isshiki winked. "C'mon, Senpai. Don't act like you're not secretly enjoying being pushed around like this. You've revealed your masochistic tendencies to me, haven't you? It's only fair that I indulge you as a reward for all your hard work. Don't disappoint me, okay?"

"My only hope is for you to be disappointed for the rest of time." I shoved a nearby crate into one of the few open spaces amongst the clutter that surrounded me. "Anyway, why are you still here? Not like you could move any boxes around with that emaciated body."

"I think of all the unimaginably rude things you've said – or wanted to say – to me so far, that one has to take the cake," she huffed crossly. "Forget it. And I was gonna ask if you were free over the break, too."

If it were possible for ears to blink, mine certainly would have done just then. "Really? What for?"

"Oh?" Isshiki, who had turned away as if making to leave, cocked her head backwards slightly. "Are you interested?"

I stiffened. My rational intuition told me that she was most likely leading me down yet another well-trodden garden path, though my fully flowered, unabashedly maidenless self could not help but be curious. "Not particularly."

"Of course you are. Too bad, though. I thought you said I was your type, but I guess I'm just too thin and underdeveloped for you, huh? Maybe someone like Yui-senpai would be a better fit. She's got enough stored up there to feed a family of four. Plus, I don't think she'd be against the idea."

"I never-"

"You don't need to, Senpai. I know all guys like bigger ones." She locked her fingers behind her head and spun around dejectedly on the spot. "There goes my chance to appeal to single, future-NEET loners like Senpai and make them do my bidding, I guess."

"You know what, maybe it is for the better that I didn't say I was free over the winter break."

"Oh, so you're not free?" Isshiki blew a breath through her mouth. "Shame. I had something real exciting lined up, too. But I guess you'll be missing out."

"…I didn't say I wasn't free, either."

"You're not?" Isshiki's features abruptly brightened. "Well, of course I should've expected that. Senpai is Senpai, after all – not like someone else, aside from your cute little sister, would want you around for Christmas. It'd totally spoil the mood."

I rolled my eyes. "I really can't tell whether you're trying to ask me out or not," I remarked.

As the words left my mouth, I immediately realized the unexpected gravity of the situation I was currently in, a revelation that hit me like a black, tinted-window car, completely and comprehensively derailing my train of thought. Here was a pretty teenage girl who, but for her insincere and mocking vernacular – which seemed to be a recurring theme amongst the female presences in my life – would have had me bending over backwards to gain her favor in some other not-so-far-removed universe, and she was currently asking if I had any plans for Christmas, as though she might invite me somewhere should I answer in the negative. A month ago, such a notion would have been so far removed from reality as to transcend even the realm of my wildest fantasies, yet here it was in all its manifest and very much real glory.

Maybe what I was thinking was showing a little too patently on my face, because no sooner did my heart begin to rise in hope did Isshiki move to crush my spirits with insouciant abandon. "Who said I was asking you out?" she snickered. "I was just wondering. I have my own plans for Christmas, you know, Senpai. Too bad for you – I guess you'll have to spend it with Komachi again, just like every other year."

"Alright, I'm going home." I had no one to blame but myself for getting all worked up over something that was never there in the first place, but that didn't stop me from feeling somewhat annoyed at Isshiki's teasing. I thought I'd gotten used to it by now, but perhaps the limits to such things could only be discovered by reaching them in the first place. "You can handle the rest, President. Have a good time with whatever you're doing over the holidays."

"Hey, wait-"

I stopped, but didn't turn around. "What is it?"

"…It's nothing. Have a good break, Senpai."

"I'll try." And with that, I walked out of the assembly hall and into the empty corridors, the all-consuming quiet only punctured by my quiet footsteps and sullen heartbeat. A tinge of regret itched at my chest, but I batted it away – after all, there was nothing to apologize for in the first place.

She was the one making the overtures, not me. She was the one suggesting something that didn't exist, not me. As correct as she was that I would most likely spend my holidays at home, waiting idly as the days passed me by, and as foolish as it was for me to think that I might have some chance at changing that, I still had my own pride and my own sense of amour propre, no matter how whittled down and diminished by the ravages of time and circumstance they might be. There was only so much more beating an already bruised and battered ego could take.

Look on the bright side, I told myself as I exited the school campus for the final time that year. At least I won't have to deal with her for the next few weeks.

Somehow, though, that wasn't as relieving a prospect as I expected it to be.


At long last, Christmas Day arrived, accompanied by all the excitement that usually went hand in hand with such an occasion in the Hikigaya household. Which, owing to my parents' unimaginably busy and borderline inhumane work lives, meant that there was not much excitement to be found at all. I didn't blame them for putting in the hours needed for us to live comfortably – the work-mad culture deeply entrenched within Japanese society was, in my humble opinion, at fault for that – but a day off to spend time with their children, especially on a day like this, would not have gone amiss.

As usual, I woke to found my sister alone in the kitchen, humming to herself as she made breakfast. "Morning," I yawned. "Merry Christmas."

"And a very happy Christmas to you too, Onii-chan." Komachi seemed unusually chipper today, though to the untrained eye, she might not have appeared any more jovial than she always was. "Looks like Komachi gets to have you all to herself again for Christmas this year. That should give Komachi the chance to score a lot of points. Ain't that right?" She placed the plates, already filled with toast and eggs, onto the dining table and smiled. "What should we do today?"

"No idea." The snow from the night before had cleared, though the pavements were still packed with sparkling white fluff, making any journey outdoors ripe for slipping and sliding atop the smooth and wet concrete. I said as much to Komachi, though she remained adamant that we ought not to hole ourselves up at home for the entire day. I wouldn't have particularly minded doing so, but she evidently thought otherwise, which I knew was as much for my sake as for hers. As always, I was reminded of just how much of a blessing it was to have someone care for you in the way that she did for me.

"It's Christmas, Onii-chan," she protested. "We have to do something." And when she put it like that, with her features scrunched up in a mini-pout and her eyes pleading earnestly, there was nothing I could do but wholeheartedly agree. So, as lunchtime drew close late in the morning, we put on our mitts, boots and thick down jackets, and set out for the wintry wonderland beyond.

As we crunched our way through the crisp snow and cool air, Komachi commented, "It's been a while since we went out like this."

"Uh-huh."

"Is 'uh-huh' all you have to say, Onii-chan?" Komachi grumbled. "At least try and put some effort into agreeing with Komachi."

"But that's me agreeing with you, isn't it?"

Komachi punched me in the shoulder. "Stupid Trashii-chan. This is why you'll be single forever." She breathed a cloud of warm vapor into her palms and squinted up at me. "You've been coming home late a lot recently, haven't you?"

"Have I?" I hadn't really noticed, but now that I pondered on it, the fuss and hubbub of the last two weeks had indeed taken up far more of my after-school time than I had anticipated. Usually, when it was clear that the Service Club would not be adding to their meager clientele for the day, we would be allowed by our benevolent club president to go home just a little earlier, an occurrence which was far more frequent than any of us would probably like to admit. Isshiki and her student council shenanigans in the mix, however, had thrown something of a wrench in my daily routine. At least that would come to an end once the new term started… assuming I even had a club to attend by then.

Maybe I could just return to being a member of the go-home club, just as I'd always done prior to meeting Yukinoshita. Or maybe, just maybe…

"Hey, Onii-chan. Isn't that your girlfriend?"

"It's too early for jokes, don't you think?" I glanced at where Komachi was pointing, and my jaw veritably dropped out of its fleshy socket.

We had arrived at the edge of the city proper, where the expected crowd of people enjoying their day off had well and truly formed around the streets, milling about as they laughed, talked, and basked in the mutual warmth of their companionship. And there in the middle of it all, a static silhouette in shifting sands, was a girl sitting alone, staring up at the clock tower that overlooked the plaza. If she was waiting for someone, she certainly didn't show it – not once did she lift an eye to look around, or to observe the vortex of passersby that swirled around her. She simply continued to stare, unmoving, unblinking, fixed upon some distant point that no one else could see.

Before I could stop myself, I had swiftly approached her, with Komachi following close behind after being momentarily taken aback by my sudden forward locomotion. The girl looked up, apparently just as surprised to see me there as I was to see her, though her gaze of shock quickly gave way to a highly unusual expression by her standards – one that seemed to betray, of all things, some barely tangible hint of embarrassment on her part.

"What are you doing here?" I asked Isshiki.