Yuigahama is no longer intends to come…”

In the special room on the fourth floor, Yukinoshita Yukino was sitting in her normal spot in the very heart of the Service Club with her usual cold, unchanging expression.

What was different about her was that she was reading a fashion magazine rather than her usual paperback novel. How uncharacteristic of her. Well it would have been if one did not look at the outside factors. Her new friendship with Yuigahama.

People who do not have many friends, treasure the few that they do. They try to find similar interests and common ground to talk about. I guess in this case, Yukinoshita had finally decided in becoming more proactive with her friendship. Pity it came at a bad time.

Or maybe a good time.

Oh and there was something else that had changed. It was that she had shifted over to the summer dress code. Instead of her blazer, she was wearing the school-prescribed summer vest. School-prescribed was a synonym for tacky-looking, but Yukinoshita gave off a refined air when she wore it, and she looked strangely good in it.

"Yo," I said.

Yukinoshita let out a short, terse sigh. "Oh, it's you, Hikigaya-kun." Her eyes instantly dropped to the fashion magazine.

Ah the daily arrow to my heart. Pity arrow against stone is ineffective. No damage taken. Full health status.

"I am sorry for acknowledging that seeing you is most unappealing."

Hey I thought we had finished our daily greeting. And by 'our' I mean just yours.

Like always I brushed it off with a shrug and moved on with my life. Huh, perhaps that should be my motto.

"I apologise. I'm afraid I wasn't thinking," Yukinoshita said with a small giggle. Her pretend lack of awareness was not adorable. I will state it again, I am not a masochist. Please keep your bitchy comments to yourself, K thanks. "I spoke again just now without thinking, so please don't mind it."

"Uh-huh. Cool."

Now to get back to analysing the Stock market.

Yet I could not focus on my future. Yukinoshita was probably expecting that Yuigahama would come today as per her routine. The dark haired girl would soon find out that I am now a deterrent to Yuigahama thanks to the fight we had. Even if she did appear, there was no doubt she'd act stiffly around me like she did this morning. Yukinoshita was no fool and would easily pick up on it. Perhaps with her lack of social awareness, she would point it out. Could be a catalyst to see what the final decision Yuigahama has to make.

If she did not show or appear at all often then I knew all too well what would result from this kind of interaction. We'd end up sort of drifting away from each other and not really communicate anymore, and eventually, we'd stop seeing each other altogether. Source: me.

My elementary school classmates, my middle school classmates – it was how I stopped seeing all of them. The same thing would probably happen with Yuigahama.

It was quiet in the clubroom.

The only noise that could be heard was the flimsy sound of Yukinoshita turning the pages of her magazine.

Odd.

The chatter from the two girls and mindless usage of Yuigahama on her phone was like white background noise. Not an unpleasant one. Like rain on the window while one tried to sleep.

That reminded me. Our club had been full of ruckus lately. In the beginning, when only Yukinoshita and I were around, silence had reigned. Now and again Yukinoshita would open her mouth to make malicious comments which I would ignore it, most of the time unintentionally.

In only one or two months, this had all become a thing of the past, and as I gazed vacantly at the door, Yukinoshita opened her mouth as if she had seen right through me. "If you're expecting Yuigahama-san, she won't be coming today. I just received a text from her."

Ah.

She has made her decision.

"I see."

I took my attention away from the door and looked at Yukinoshita. She was sighing softly.

"She said she needed to take some time off. I wonder if Yuigahama-san no longer intends to come…"

That was pessimistic of you, what had Yuigahama wrote in her text?

"Why don't you ask her?"

Not knowing was the worst thing in the world. If it was the worst case scenario then you could try and do something about it. Not knowing just leads to mindless worrying.

It seemed that Yuigahama was still keeping in contact with Yukinoshita perhaps it was only me she was trying to ignore, not the club. If Yukinoshita asked she would probably answer.

But Yukinoshita shook her head weakly. "I won't go that far. If I asked her, she would probably answer that she would come. Even if, perhaps, she did not want to… she would most likely do it anyway."

"Yeah, I guess…"

Yuigahama Yui was that kind of person. She prioritised other things over her own feelings. And so she would even talk to a loner and come over to you if you texted her.

But that was kindness and sympathy and mere obligation. It was all too easy for it to become a burden to her. I wish these things were easier to come to terms with, I really do. A clear definition in the boundaries of relationships, healthy communication and mutually agreed plans for the future.

Yukinoshita stared at me silently. Being gazed at so intently made squirm slightly in my chair. I may not give a damn about most people, but like most people I don't want to be stared at like the love interest from a Yandere.

"Y-you want something?"

"…did something happen between you and Yuigahama-san?"

Clever girl. Either she figured something was up by the way I had been acting or Yuigahama's text was a lot more insightful.

"Nothing," I answered promptly.

"If it was nothing, I don't believe Yuigahama-san would stop coming. Did you have a fight?"

"No, we didn't. I think." I stated a tad too quickly at what Yukinoshita said.

Only, it wasn't a lie. I had no way of judging whether it was a fight or not. We weren't close enough to have a fight in the first place. If you had a stranger come up to you and argue with you about what you were doing and your beliefs, odds are, you would ignore what they said and not take it to heart. As they don't know you, you don't know them and so why should you take what others said seriously?

I haven't been in a fight (verbal or physical) for years. The only kind of fight I knew about was sibling squabbles, and that was all history by the time I finished elementary school. Komachi would invariably tell our dad on me and that would knock out all my life points before the fight even began. If we fought when our father wasn't around, she'd activate her trap card (read: our mother), and it would be my loss anyway.

My parents would lecture me, and then at dinner we'd make up and sit close together at the table, and that would be the end of our sibling squabble.

Huh, thinking back on it, that was the time I realised the kind of power the female sex had over their male companion. Was that the reason I had started to drift/stay away from my little sister? And any/all other females in my life?

As I contemplated all of this, Yukinoshita opened her mouth again as if on cue. "Yuigahama-san is indiscrete and has no dignity. She blurts things out without thinking, she constantly intrudes on someone else's personal space, she lies to get out of trouble, and she's noisy."

"You sounds like you are the one she's having a fight with…"

Yuigahama would probably cry if she heard all of that.

"Don't interrupt me. She has many shortcomings, but… but she is not a bad person."

Predictably enough, she had been listing Yuigahama's shortcomings before concluding she wasn't a bad person and that her faults weren't serious. Yet when I saw how she blushed and looked away furtively as her murmuring voice trailed off into silence, I understood that this was the highest compliment Yukinoshita had ever uttered. Yuigahama would probably cry if she heard all of that – from happiness.

"I, too, understand. We're not really fighting or anything. You can only have a fight with someone if you're close to them in the first place, pretty much. So it wasn't really a fight but more like…"

As I trailed off and thought of a more appropriate word, Yukinoshita put a hand on her chin in contemplation. "A dispute, perhaps?"

"Ah, close but no cigar. Not a bad guess, I suppose."

"A battle, then?"

"Getting colder."

"A slaughter then."

"Weren't you listening? You're way off."

Why was she thinking of progressively more violent situations? Her instincts were way too much like Oda Nobunaga's.

"So… you were having communication issues, perhaps?"

"Mm, more or less." That was not correct but was the best thing I could think of.

"I see. So it can't be helped." Yukinoshita closed her magazine with a small sigh. Behind her nonchalant words, her attitude was resigned, and she seemed so very frail.

With that, she stopped asking questions. Yukinoshita and I kept up our usual distance.

The way we held on to our emotional distance was probably rather similar. It was quite rare for her to encroach on someone's privacy by gossiping or focusing on one aspect about them. "How old are you?" "Where do you live?" "When's your birthday?" "Do you have siblings?" "Where do your parents work?" I'd never heard her ask those sorts of things herself.

I could suspect any number of reasons for that. Perhaps she had little interest in the hobbies of others, or perhaps she didn't want to step on any landmines. Or perhaps she was just bad at asking questions, as loners tend to be. Without any logical reason behind it, asking questions made them extremely uncomfortable.

Without prying or stepping on someone's toes, they size each other up like swordsmen in a duel.

From what I had gathered via despicable means, Yukinoshita was burnt before in the past when she trusted her childhood, who let her down. Add in her current home life, it truly wasn't a surprise that she was a pseudo Ice queen.

"You know how it is in these situations. It's those events that will always happen. If there's a meeting and a relationship then there's always an end."

Everything ends. Time erodes all.

"Pretty words, but a disturbing outlook on life…" Yukinoshita said disgustedly, but really, life is full of these events.

It was like that time back in elementary school, when some of my classmates were transferring to another school. Even when they promised to stay in touch but to no surprise children rarely did. I did get a reply from Kenji-kun, though…

A wise man does not court danger; he does not outstay his welcome. That was probably the only way not to lose to risks.

"And yet… staying connected to people is indeed a surprisingly difficult matter," Yukinoshita whispered. "Bonds can break so easily from such a trivial thing."

Her eyes welled with pain directed at herself. I was at a loss from seeing this strong woman like this.

At that moment, the door suddenly swung open with creak.

"But you can also fix those trivial things, Yukinoshita. It's still not time to give up."

The person spouting cool lines at random as she walked towards us, her white coat fluttering, was none other than my Hiratsuka-sensei. I mean our Hiratsuka-sensei.

"Sensei, knock first…"

Completely disregarding Yukinoshita's demand, Hiratsuka-sensei surveyed the room.

"Hm. So it's true. Yuigahama hasn't turned up. She came by the office to tell me that she wanted to skip the Service Club for a couple of days, maybe for a week. I came here as I wanted to know as to why because Yuigahama did not really give me a proper answer when I questioned her," she said with an air of exposé.

"Don't really know," I replied not unkindly. "Was there anything else you wanted?"

"Oh, right. Hikigaya, I told you about it before – about the conditions for your hypothetical 'contest'."

Hearing the word contest made me remember. Indeed, it was something about deciding who was better at helping people – Yukinoshita or me. In a manner very much reminiscent of a game company, Hiratsuka-sensei had announced that she wanted to change part of the rules. Her business today probably had something to do with these new rules of hers.

"I came to present the new rules." Hiratsuka-sensei folded her arms and towered over us. Yukinoshita and I fixed our postures and sat up attentively. Well I tried to anyway. Hard to give a damn about a prize when there was a 99% chance you were not going to win, even if you did 'win'.

Looking at the two of us in turn, Hiratsuka-sensei sighed in satisfaction. She paused for dramatic effect before opening her mouth and solemnly announcing. "You kill each other off till there's only one left."

I checked my neck. Nope. No explosive collar.

I checked the back of my right hand. Nope. No magically formed tattoo signifying my position as a Master.

I checked my clothes. Nope. No leather or futuristic clothing indicating I had to do battle with similarly dressed others.

I think I shall pass on the Last Man Standing mod, thank you very much.

***

"...how old."

After body checking myself I looked at Yukinoshita. Yukinoshita was looking at Hiratsuka-sensei with the sort of cold gaze you'd normally reserve for trash on the roadside. Come to think of it shouldn't that be the look she should give me whenever she sees me?

With keen understanding of what Yukinoshita's piercing glare meant, Hiratsuka sensei coughed sheepishly. "Ahem. A-anyway! To put it simply, it's making use of the rules of Battle Royale. Having a three-way battle is a surefire way of lengthening a battle manga. Basically, that's how the arcs work in Yaiba."

'A classic title…' I thought while I sat back and watched the façade unfold.

"Since it's a three-way battle royale, naturally there will be alliances too. Not only will you guys be fending each other off, you'd also do well to lend each other your strength."

I see. It was true that conspiring with the weaker combatants and killing them off later was an established tactic in a battle royale.

How else was the weak but honest main character going to survive?

"So what you are saying is that Hikigaya-kun will always be fighting with a disadvantage…"

"Pretty much." I accepted that scenario without any resistance. No matter you how thought about it, it was going to end up as a "me vs two" arrangement.

But, opposite of my resigned attitude, Hiratsuka-sensei cracked a fearless smile. "Rest easy. This time, new members can be recruited at will. Of course, you'll be the ones doing the recruiting. In other words, you can increase your number of comrades through your actions. Gotta catch 'em all! Aim for 151!"

Hiratsuka-sensei spoke with such authority on the subject, but the number of comrades she mentioned really showed her age. It was closer to a million these days, you know. Ah how commercialism can ruin a once great franchise.

But come on, increasing your number of comrades was easier said than done.

"Either way, these rules put Hikigaya-kun at a disadvantage," Yukinoshita said. "He is unfit for recruiting."

"That's a bit rich coming from you…" I said. The words slipped before I could help it. Though that double meaning, if only it was intentional.

"What, I'm just asking you to recruit one person," Hiratsuka-sensei insisted. "Don't think too hard about it."

Well, when she put it that way she was right. It wasn't really about being the very best, like no one ever was.

Actually, the one who was the very best at this sort of thing was Yuigahama, who wasn't around anymore. As if realising that too, Hiratsuka-sensei's expression clouded slightly.

"Come to think of it, now that Yuigahama will not be coming around these days… this is a good opportunity. Even if it means possibly filling a vacant position, you ought to embrace this chance to acquire a new club member," Hiratsuka-sensei said, prompting Yukinoshita to lift her face in surprise.

"Hold on just a second. It's not as if Yuigahama-san qu-"

"It's the same thing if she will never shows up. I, for one, have no use for a ghost club member."

As soon as I saw the look on her face, the pleasant atmosphere from before vanished. Yukinoshita and I recoiled from Hiratsuka-sensei's cold, hard gaze.

"You guys are caught up in some misunderstanding, aren't you?" She did not say it like a question. It looks like I had underestimated her intellect, for she had managed to look underneath underneath. Plus from the way she phrased it, it was an implicit reprimand meant to stir up guilt in us.

Yukinoshita and I fell silent without answering, and Hiratsuka-sensei went on.

"This is not a club for you to play friendsies. Go somewhere else for that wishywashy teenage nonsense. You're here in this club to change yourselves for the better. It's not a place to get complacent and lie to yourselves."

Silence.

Here was me thinking that this place was to help others, when in fact the original intention was for the Club to help us improve ourselves.

Her lips pursed tightly, Yukinoshita furtively avoided Hiratsuka-sensei's eyes.

"The Service Club isn't a game. It is a recognised club activity at Soubu High School. And, as you guys know, you only deal with unmotivated people until compulsory education is over. People came to this club out of their own volition, and those without the dedication have no choice but to leave."

Motivation and dedication, huh…?

"Excuse me… can I please leave since I don't have the motivation or the dedication…?" I really didn't. The next person coming for help about anything, Yukinoshita could handle it. It was about time for her to pull her own damn weight around here.

"You think you have any choice in the matter when you're being punished?" Hiratsuka-sensei cracked her fists and glared at me.

I sighed.

"I-I thought as much…" So I really couldn't run away from this, huh…

After she was done subjecting me to her light intimidation, Hiratsuka-sensei turned to Yukinoshita. Even as Yukinoshita remained stony-faced, it was easy to see how disgruntled she was.

Having noticed that, Hiratsuka-sensei smiled somewhat uneasily. "But you know, thanks to Yuigahama, I now see that there is a positive correlation between club activities and member count. It would be good to have another member to balance things out. With that in mind… you have until Monday to find a replacement possessing the motivation and dedication to be in this club."

If Monday was the deadline, though, then we only had eight days if we included today and Monday itself. Finding someone motivated to join the Service Club and dedicated to changing themselves for the better in that span of time was an extremely tough task, in my opinion. What was this? The tale of the bamboo cutter? Ah, so this might be why Hiratsuka-sensei couldn't get married. Just like Kaguyahime, she'd have to leave home sooner or later.

"You tyrant," I said pretending to be bitter. The words came out easily.

After all, what would happen if I lose the game? Oh, Yukinoshita gets to order me around. Big whoop.

Hiratsuka-sensei smiled broadly. "I'm sorry you think that way. This is my way of being nice to you."

"I don't see any niceness…" I stated, playing the role of a juvenile child.

"It's fine if you don't see it. Right, today's club activities are over. Time to think about getting the job done," Hiratsuka-sensei said as she pushed Yukinoshita and me out of the room. As she slammed the door shut, our schoolbags fell to the floor outside the room.

She locked the door promptly, and with that she started walking away briskly.

Yukinoshita called out to her back. "Hiratsuka-sensei. I want to confirm one thing, and that is whether we are permitted to fill the vacancy with anyone, are we not?"

"Indeed, Yukinoshita." And with single, short statement, Hiratsuka-sensei left.

.... Ah.

So that's what both of your plans were. Clever girls.

Only, when she looked back over her shoulder, I could see a sort of smile on her face.

Very clever.

As we waved Hiratsuka-sensei off, Yukinoshita and I looked at each other.

"So, how do you plan to fill the vacancy?" I asked, playing the role I now knew I should be doing.

"Who knows. I have never once invited someone so I wouldn't know. But I do happen to know someone close to joining."

"Who? Totsuka? Totsuka, right? It has to Totsuka." Granted I did actually know who she really meant, Totsuka wouldn't be that bad of a back up right? I mean it's not like I also wanted to get Kawasaki Saki interested in hanging out here to improve herself? What would be my hook? 'Hey you want to hang out with me after school in a room where we explore how we could make ourselves better people together?' Yeah like that would work.

Yukinoshita regarded my 'boundless passion' for Totsuka with boredom. "Wrong. Although he might join if asked…" she mused. "Is there not a simpler way?"

Playing the role, I pretended to think. When I 'thought' about it, I suppose there was Hayama Hayato, one of the rare pure riajuu. He might help us out if we asked, I guess.

But I rather stab myself than spend any time with him in a room. Oh wait I already do, damn school! Making people be in close proximity with sociopaths. Plus I doubted he really needed/wanted to improve himself in any way.

I really couldn't think of anyone else. Hm? Zaimokuza? What funny spelling for a name. So who was he again?

As I lost interest in that train of thought, Yukinoshita looked at me and let out a small sigh.

"You don't get it? I'm talking about Yuigahama-san."

Surprise, surprise.

"Huh? But hasn't she quit?" I said playing dumb.

Yukinoshita flicked her hair over her shoulder and looked at me with an undeniably steely gaze. There, I could see none of the resignation she had shown up until now.

Good.

Your friendship with her was one of the few human interactions I could state as 'genuine'. You better fight for something as pure and as good as that. I would.

"So what?" she asked. "We only need to get her to join again. Hiratsuka-sensei did say it was fine as long as the vacancy was replaced."

"Yeah, I guess…" I replied sounding reluctant. I want you to take the reins on this one. Save your friendship, save the Club, actually do something for once. Indeed, filling the vacancy would solve the problem.

But what about the spanner in the works? Her motivation? The balance she has with her social life involving others? Pray tell, how do you intend on fixing that?

Yukinoshita seemed to have realised this herself, because she stroked her chin tentatively. "In any case," she said after a pause, "I'll try to come up with a way to get Yuigahama-san to return to her usual self."

"She had some serious motivation," I said, prompting Yukinoshita to smile bitterly at herself.

"Indeed." She was silent for a moment. "I only realised this just now, but I have grown fond of that part of her over these last two months."

I stared at her. For Yukinoshita to utter such a thing…

Dismayed by my silence, Yukinoshita's face reddened slightly. "W-what? You had a weird look on your face."

"Oh, nah. It's nothing. And I didn't have a weird look on my face, seriously."

"Yes, you did."

"No, I didn't."

"Allow me to correct myself. You currently have a weird look on your face."

Yukinoshita began to walk as if telling herself to get a move on. From the side of her face, I could see none of the depression from before, only an expression of utter self-assurance. Yukinoshita was back.

Watching her leave I could only thing of one thing,

I too had grown fond of Yuigahama over these last two months.

But was it enough for me to assist?