That Wednesday morning, Hachiman and Komachi head out to school together. The floating woman is also there, but Komachi doesn't know that.

As they're stepping out of the house, Komachi elbows Hachiman. "I looked up that magic trick you showed me, but I still can't figure out where you got it from," she complains. "How does it even work, anyway?"

"I'm an esper," Hachiman deadpans. "The Agency is going to approach me any day now."

Komachi rolls her eyes. "Yeah, right."

Hachiman doesn't notice the way Komachi grimaces right after she says that.

XXX

It's only until he gets to school that Hachiman gets to labor under the mistaken impression that he'll have nothing much of note happen to him until Friday. As he and the woman are meandering down one of the school's hallways en route to Hachiman's homeroom, before they can turn the corner, the woman slows to an unexpected stop. Hachiman stops too, to glance back suspiciously at her over his shoulder.

"What?" he asks, already bracing for something ridiculous.

"Listen," she instructs.

She's conditioned him well, it seems, because Hachiman does as he's told and strains his ears. Sure enough, he hears conversation from down the corridor, beyond the corner.

"I'm just saying," insists a poisonously sweetened voice, "It's not like Yui can't have other friends, right? I mean, if you're this clingy, people might get the wrong idea about what you're like, Yumiko…"

Hachiman cringes. Discreetly, he peeks around the corner.

There, a bit of a ways away, is a gaggle of girls, split distinctly into two factions. One consists of Miura, with Yuigahama surreptitiously hiding behind her, and the other is made up of Sagami, who is the girl that had spoken, and two henchwomen. Hachiman knows Sagami, her beady eyes, and her tryhard pixie cut only in passing, but she's also in his class.

"And I'm just saying," Miura snaps, arms crossed and eyes dangerously narrow, her venom bare. "That you should mind your own business. Me, Yui, and Hina already have plans that day, and that's that."

"I'm only worried about you guys," Sagami pushes on. From where he is, Hachiman can't see her smile, but he's seen enough girls go for the throat to presume how thin and transparently gleeful it is. "Ever since the other day, some people have been saying that you're too pushy, Yumiko, and as your friend too, I couldn't just stay quiet. And lately, even Hayama seems to think that you're kind of—"

Hachiman and Yuigahama both wince. Miura inhales sharply, apoplectic.

So that's what this is, Hachiman thinks, vaguely despairing. The opposition party of mean girls has moved in for the kill.

He grimaces.

Sorry, Miura. Even you don't deserve to be compared to the LDP.

Before Miura can really bite Sagami's head off, Yuigahama hurriedly interrupts, distressed.

"It's not like that at all, Minami!" For punctuation, Yuigahama waves her hands emphatically in front of herself. "And me and Yumiko already worked all of that out, anyway. In the first place, I was the one who should've talked to her sooner… If someone bailed on me out of nowhere like that, without even warning me first, I'd be annoyed too. Right?" More frantic waving. "So everything is totally fine now!"

That seems to take Sagami and her henchwomen aback. They must have been counting on Yuigahama to turn on Miura, then. But now that Hachiman considers it, of course Miura wouldn't cut Yuigahama off so quickly after having been publicly humiliated; now more than ever, with sharks like Sagami in the water, she needs to consolidate power.

Hachiman doesn't want anything to do with it, frankly. But to get to homeroom, he needs to get past them.

He breathes in and steels his resolve. He informs the floating woman, unprompted, "This is one of my one hundred and eight skills."

She perks up, mildly interested. Hachiman then fixes his posture, minds his body language, and slinks out around the corner. He continues on in this manner past the group of girls, unnoticed, and all the way down the corridor. After turning the next corner, the woman at his back, Hachiman smirks a bit, smug.

"Stealth Hikki," he concludes, like he's a battle shonen cool-guy, name-checking a special ability.

Immediately, searing embarrassment settles like a lead weight in his stomach. But if he can't indulge his vestigial Eighth Grader Syndrome impulses to the invisible, intangible god who follows him around, then what's the point of even having something like that around?

All the woman says, though, is, "I thought you didn't like that nickname."

"I don't," Hachiman confirms. There isn't anyone else around, so he might as well, and he's already in this deep. "But calling it Stealth Hachiman would be even worse. I need to mentally distance myself from it somehow."

Her gaze focuses with disapproval. Hachiman jolts.

"Either commit to it, or don't bother," is her verdict. "Only doing things halfway is cowardly."

"Are you always this serious?" Hachiman asks her, weakly.

"Yes."

He chooses to blatantly change the subject. Brought about by the confrontation between Miura and Sagami that they'd seen, Hachiman wonders, "When you and your friends were bossing the Stoneworkers around, did they still have sexism?"

"They had it when we found them," the woman recalls. She scowls. "And they reinvented it towards the end, as their civilization was falling apart."

"Figures," Hachiman says. "Guess you should've used more force."

The scowl deepens. "That's what I thought too."

But it wouldn't be up to the woman alone, would it? The Fifty-First God is kind of a random placement on the Periodic Table, anyway. If the Stoneworkers' gods had one leader, Hachiman's money would be on the First God, who rules over Hydrogen.

It almost occurs to Hachiman to try to question the woman on the matter, but he squashes that impulse instantly and with prejudice.

If he admits to himself that he's become even the slightest bit invested in her situation beyond what's practical for him, he loses.

XXX

The woman pops out for a bit during second period, to do whatever it is that she does. Hachiman isn't terribly enthralled with the lesson, so he finds himself zoning out, staring out of the windows that line the classroom wall opposite to where his desk is.

At one point, he squints out, thinking that he sees the woman returning, but it turns out only to be a crow.

Is it a bird? Hachiman thinks, obligingly, to himself. Is it a plane? No, it's the God of Repulsion.

He shakes his head, somewhere between amused and squirmish. But then, another thought occurs to him, and it gives him pause.

If the floating, green woman goes around flying everywhere all the time, what about any other gods that might or might not be awake? The way she'd put it before, it sounded like if people were open to the idea of seeing one of her kind, they might just be able to. So what if another god zipped past the classroom window, or across the sky on an on-site news broadcast? Would Hachiman be able to see them then?

Actually, is this something Hachiman should be really worried about?

Dutifully and with an edge of desperation, Hachiman stuffs the whole notion as far into the back of his mind as he's able.

XXX

Minami Sagami is another individual with whom Hachiman would like as little to do with as possible, perhaps even more so than the extremely dangerous god to whom he's been bound. Unfortunately, Sagami takes matters into her own hands, tracking him down during lunch.

That much is no small feat, since Hachiman always eats lunch alone. At least, he did, before the woman had started occasionally opting to join him. But still, that day, the weather permits him to abandon the classroom in favor of the place behind the school where he's staked his breaktime claim. It's squashed between the school building and the tennis courts, and Hachiman likes to sit on the steps leading up from the yard to the school's raised foundation. He eats his sandwich and the woman sits beside him, elbows on her knees and face in her hands, glaring determinedly into the middle distance.

"You have company," she tells him, right before Sagami turns the corner and comes into view.

"What, other than you?" Hachiman deadpans, quiet enough that Sagami won't hear.

"Hikigaya!" Sagami greets, once she's closer. She comes to a stop some paces away from him, from his other side to the woman.

Hachiman's eyes narrow. Just a few days ago, Sagami probably didn't even know his name, and even now, the fact that she's forcing herself to be cheerful when addressing him means she wants something.

"Do I know you?" he fires back, deliberately blank.

The woman snorts, just barely. Sagami's eyebrow twitches.

"I'm Minami Sagami," Sagami says, her smile frozen and unpleasant. "I'm in your class."

"I don't really talk to the girls in class," Hachiman tells her, in the same tone as before. He doesn't really talk to the guys either, actually. He barely even talks to Yuigahama, his clubmate.

Hachiman knows immediately that he's made a mistake, because Sagami relaxes.

She giggles, muffled ineffectually behind one hand. "No, you don't, do you? Except for the other day…"

Hachiman looks away. Somehow, it feels like he's been pushed onto the back foot. "I don't know what you mean."

Sagami giggles some more. She comes over and sits on the edge of the school's concrete foundation, her legs dangling just barely above the ground below.

"I mean, that thing with Yumiko," Sagami chirps, far too happy with herself for Hachiman's liking. She leans back on her hands. "Everyone thought that was really cool of you, standing up for Yui like that. I honestly wanted to say something too, but with how Yumiko is, I was worried I'd just make things worse."

"Probably," Hachiman agrees, which makes Sagami's eyebrow twitch again, but she laughs it off. She's really determined to get Hachiman in her pocket for the war she's in the process of declaring on Miura, then. He'd almost be flattered, if he wasn't so busy being annoyed. "But if that's really how you feel, Yukinoshita did way more for Yuigahama than I did. I just wanted Miura to take it somewhere else."

"It was still cool of you," Sagami maintains, sidestepping all mention of Yukinoshita. "And Yumiko really was out of line. Seriously, that was so out of character for her… I hope she's alright."

She's baiting me to say that that's what Miura's always like. Hachiman squints at Sagami.

Just for a second, he's struck by an impulse to confront Sagami about her real intentions, to question her about what her plans are from here. Cut the crap, lay all his cards out on the table, and try to speak with Sagami frankly.

But Sagami isn't like Zaimokuza, or like Yukinoshita, or even like Miura, who won't hide her fangs for anything. No, for Sagami, it's important that her self-image as a good, not especially manipulative person stays intact.

It isn't really Hachiman that she's so committed to lying to, is it? It's herself.

Since Sagami's showed up, the woman hasn't looked up once. Hachiman tries not to read into it, but her thunderous, murderous glower speaks for itself.

"Miura's life isn't anything to do with me," is what Hachiman says, in the end. He glares at Sagami slantways. "My least favorite type of girl is a girl who'd drag me into other people's problems."

Sagami gets the hint. Her eyes widen, and her nostrils flare. Hachiman is sure that to her mind, it's a great charity that such an oh so pretty girl is even talking to someone like him, and it wouldn't be strange at all for him to mistake her interest for interest and become smitten, eager to please. So even if she never did and never would explicitly come on to him, the implication of his rejection will have absolutely stung her ego.

Not that, Hachiman qualifies, Sagami is likely to be thinking in such specific terms. She's just trying to recruit him onto her side of the social schism.

Regardless, Sagami draws herself up and smiles at him, strained and furious. She makes herself laugh along.

"Well!" Sagami exclaims. "You sure are a private person, huh, Hikigaya?" Before he can respond, she gets up and dusts herself off. "I guess I shouldn't bother you too much. I'll see you in class, Hikigaya."

Diplomatically, Sagami makes her escape. After she's gone, Hachiman huffs into his sandwich.

"She handled that better than I thought she would," he allows. "She must really be worried about rocking the boat with Miura."

"It's not going to make her happy," the woman mutters. "No matter how things shake out, in the end." She grits her teeth, radiating disgust with the world. "I really hate it. You're children, and you're all miserable."

"I'm not," Hachiman protests. "I mean, I'm not perfectly happy. But I'm definitely not miserable."

"Because you have Komachi and Kamakura," the woman concedes. "But it's still a significant source of frustration for you, that it's such a pain to establish genuine connections with others. That they mostly don't even consciously understand that it's something to prioritize."

I didn't really consciously understand it either, Hachiman acknowledges to himself, with some reluctance. But he feels that he has a better grasp on it now, and it really has been beneficial to his morale to be more appreciative of what he has, and to get to be all superior about it. That's what he tells himself, anyway.

"Well, yeah," is what he says. "But what can you expect? Most people are shallow by nature."

"Everyone is," the woman counters, strangely neutrally, for her. It takes Hachiman off guard, and he blinks at her. "You're humans. At your core, you're fearful and fragile, trapped in bodies that fail you and a universe that doesn't care. Of course your base instincts would demand for you to latch onto the first semblance of comfort, safety, or peace that you run across."

She phrases it like merely a statement, rather than a critique, which is intensely suspicious for what Hachiman knows of the woman. "You're not mad about it?"

"I'm not pleased with it, but it isn't wrong of your kind. It is what it is, and in your position, the ability to make snap judgments on the basis of limited information contributed to the long term survival of the species broadly," the woman reasons. Her expression collapses back into a deep scowl, which is reassuring in its own way. Familiar, at least. "But there's no one, nothing, to teach you what goals to set for yourselves to get your hands on personal, individual fulfillment. Securing and protecting physical necessities is obvious, it's common sense, but your social needs…"

"We get so worked up protecting things that seem important on a superficial level, like our self-image or our image in the minds of others," Hachiman finishes, cottoning on, "That we don't even really consider that we'll be happier finding someone to be honest with. Because that would mean having to seriously think about whether we were being dishonest or not, and nobody likes to think of themselves as dishonest."

"It isn't an individual's fault," the woman complains. And it really is a complaint. "Individuals are still, at a point, individually responsible for their own actions. But it's your social structures, your civilization, and everyone around you that reinforces this idea, that's created this environment. Being dishonest makes you a bad person, but it's wrong to tell the truth. It's paradoxical. It's ridiculous." She exhales. Hachiman can imagine steam rushing out, like a kettle. "It incentivizes people to conduct themselves dishonestly, insincerely, and then lie to themselves about it. You humans, you don't even notice yourselves doing it. It really is nature."

Hachiman turns his sandwich over in his hand. "And you're mad that we're all in such a bad position to learn to be better."

"That's right," the woman concurs. "It's also nature for humans to learn." Her eyes, blue like the summer sky is blue, are hard and harsh as stones. "But as much as learning, as improving, will make you happier, will it help you to get ahead in this world that you've created? In this world, the way it is now, it's difficult even for me to hold it against children that they lie. Of course you lie. It's a way of protecting yourselves, so that you can keep on living."

"That doesn't make it right." Even though his throat feels dry, Hachiman polishes off what's left of his sandwich.

"Of course it isn't right," the woman snaps. "But you haven't told anyone about me being around either, have you?"

Hachiman winces. He looks away. "That's different and you know it."

"It's an untruth you maintain because the alternative would be presently inconvenient." The woman sits up. She props her elbows up on the stair behind her and inclines her head to Hachiman. "It's not so bad, since you're aware that you're doing it, and it's on purpose. Because that's the case, you can always easily change your mind about it, if the situation changes. But either way, it isn't wrong of you, in-context. It's necessitated by outside forces."

Hachiman crumples up the wrapper his sandwich came in into a little ball. "I still don't think people are as willing to learn as you're giving them credit for."

"That depends on the person," the woman dissents. "It's just another skill. And since there's people like you, and people like your sister, there's bound to be other people who were lucky enough to get to a similar point. The hassle is in finding those people." She spears Hachiman with a look. "It's pure arrogance to believe yourself unique. There are eight billion humans on this planet."

Hachiman bristles. "For the god of rejection, you're pretty gung-ho on people connecting with each other."

"Rejection is a vital part of this process." The woman crosses her arms. "Sometimes, two perfectly good people just have incompatible personalities, and that's okay. If you don't accept and embrace the possibility of rejection, you'll never connect to anyone."

Hachiman stands. He begins to head to the nearest garbage can.

"Easy for you to say," he grumbles, with his back to the woman. "You're a god. If anyone ever did reject you, or even hate you, why would you care? You don't need to be liked like us monkeys do." Hachiman glares at nothing in particular, without much conviction. "For us, it hurts."

"So does a fever breaking." She doesn't get up to follow him. "The only way out is through, Hachiman."

Hachiman doesn't know how to react to that, so he doesn't, and it isn't until he's already disposed of his trash and made it to the vending machine that he realizes it was the first time that the woman had used his name.

Are all the other gods this overly familiar too? he wonders, nebulously, as he's punching in the number for a can of MAX Coffee.

When he gets two of them, he blames it on his inattention, but it would be a shame to waste the spare, so Hachiman goes back and tosses the second can to the woman. She inspects it, accepts it, and even thanks Hachiman for it. Then, Hachiman starts on his way to class, and the woman flies off to who knows where.

She never told me whether or not it really doesn't hurt, for them, it occurs to Hachiman, later. He grimaces. Probably not.