Chapter 48

Wedesday, After school 

As Eden walked to his club, he thought about how boring the day had been. After consummating his relationship with Ryoko over and over again, he sent her on her way because she thought her mom would be worried if she was out all night. After that, he went home himself, enjoyed a nice night of study, and then woke up to an uneventful day at school. Now, heading to the service club, he looked to see that it was like yesterday, with only the three of them and no Yui in sight. Eden thought that maybe she had gone to get Kana since she might want some more advice, but he thought the girl would be able to get here herself. While thinking that, he sat down in his normal spot.

"Nice to see you two," he said as he sat, seemingly interrupting the conversation the two were having. "Eden, can you please help me convince Hikagaya-kun here why he should not join another club?"

"Because we like his company so much," Eden said, confused about the conversation that he was being brought into.

"No, she thinks I could never understand 'Group Psychology' and I will forever be a loner," Hikagaya said.

"That's also true," as Eden said that, Yukinoshita smiled at Eden, agreeing with her point. "I just think that out of all four of us, she does not have the right to talk about me being a loner," he said.

"Of course, I have experience with group psychology…" After stating that, Yunkinoshita went on to tell a story about how when she transferred into a school and all the girls hated her for being better than them, both more pretty and more talented. "Eden, you must have had the same experience," she said, looking over at him.

"No, I was homeschooled all of elementary school and most of middle school. Then I skipped most days in my third year of middle school," he said. Eden was homeschooled mainly because of, well, his skills. When he was younger, he really did not know how to control any of his active skills. While Future Sight and Eye of the Magi were active and turning on randomly, that did give him headaches since his intelligence at the time was not high enough to handle all the information. The other two problematic skills were Civilization Erosion and allure. Sometimes when he was stressed or worried, he would activate allure at maximum, which made everyone near him fall in love, leading to people under the spell trying to kidnap him. And if he ever got really angry, Civilization Erosion would activate, destroying and deactivating all tech in the area, which one time led to him accidentally downing a plane, but thankfully it landed away from a populated area, leading only to all the people on the plane dying. So because of both skills and mainly allure, he only had tutors and sometimes his aunt or mother to teach him.

"I will say you seemed to get lucky," Yunkinoshita said. "You know if you want, we can find and beat up all the people who bullied you," he said after a slight silence. Yunkinoshita just smiled before saying, "Thank you for the offer."

"Can you two stop whatever you're doing and get back on topic? What can we do to help the tennis club?" Hikagaya said.

"Tennis club," Eden responded. Hikagaya then filled him in on what he had missed before he came about how Hikagaya wanted to quit the service club and join the Tennis club to help them out.

"First, can you even play Tennis, and second, you know you can be part of more than one club?"

"Really?" Hikagaya answered. "Did you not read the school handbook?" Yunkinoshita then said.

"Stop trying to get off-topic. What should we do to help them?"

"I suppose I'd make them run until they died, do practice swings until they died, and play tennis until they died," Yunkinoshita said with a slightly sadistic smile. "I like your style, but you should make them do it until they almost die so they can get as little rest as they need to keep training before starting the cycle again," Eden then said.

"You are totally right, Eden. If they died during the first round of training, how would we have them train more?" Yunkinoshita said.

"Sociopaths, you both, sociopaths," Hikagaya said. "I may be a sociopath, but I feel that Yunkinoshita-sempai has more psychopath feels." And before Yunkinoshita could respond, there was a voice from outside the room.

"Yahallo," the familiar voice he heard was from Yui as she came into the room with someone like yesterday. Behind her was a shy-looking boy who reminded Eden of Gasper. He was wearing the green athletic uniform of the school and had short white hair and very feminine facial features. As he walked into the room, he looked shyly from behind Yui until he saw Hikagaya, which brightened up his face. "Oh… Hikigaya!" he said. "I brought another person with a request, heh-heh," Yui said, maybe she liked being the diplomat between the service club and the outside world.

"Yuigahama, I need you to do something," out of the blue, Yukinoshita said.

"What do you need, Yukinon?" 

"Well, you're not actually a part of the club. I checked yesterday, so I need you to sign some paperwork."

"Really? I'm not? What do I need to sign? Give it to me now." After Yui said that, she got the piece of paper from Yukinoshita and started writing things down frantically.

Eden, ignoring her, fixed his attention on their new guest. He was about to speak, but Yukinoshita beat him to the punch. "So, Totsuka, what do you need?"

"U-um… can you help me get better at… tennis, right?" Totsuka said.

"I don't know how Yuigahama explained it to you, but the Service Club is not your personal genie. We only provide as little assistance and encourage your independence." As soon as she finished her statement, Totsuka looked a bit down, so Eden decided to step in.

"Yukinoshita-sempai, I don't think Totsuka here wants us to be his genie or anything. Someone who is the tennis team captain should know that getting good at tennis is not that easy, right Totsuka?"

"Yes… Um, any help you guys can provide will be much appreciated," Totsuka said and then bowed. After saying that, Yukinoshita seemed more open to helping Totsuka and scheduled a training meet for tomorrow during lunch. While Eden was a bit disappointed he would not get to meet Ryoko for lunch tomorrow, but sometimes duty had to come first.