I made eye contact with Zaimokuza. Why the hell are you giving me a thumbs up?
I made eye contact with Totsuka. Why the hell are you looking at me with all that hope your eyes?
I made eye contact with Yuigahama. Stop cheering for me so loudly, dammit… It’s embarrassing.
I made eye contact with Yukinos--ah, she looked away. She tossed me a ball instead.
“You know, right…? I might dish out insults and abuse, but I will never dish out falsehoods.”
The wind stilled, which might be why her voice rang out so clearly.
Yeah, I know… The only liars here were myself and them.
7-5
An unnatural silence fell over the courts, with the only audible sound that of the ball bouncing against the court surface.
In the middle of that strangely tense atmosphere, I forced my consciousness deep, deep within myself.
I could do it… I could do it… I would believe in myself--no, I did believe in myself.
After all, there was no reason for me to lose here.
I was a man who had survived this pointless, sad, painful school life by myself, who had lived through this wretched, agonizing “youth” by myself. There was no reason for me to lose to people who had depended on a throng of other people every step of the way.
Lunch break would be ending soon.
This would usually be around the time I finished eating my lunch next to the nurse’s office across from the courts.
The memory of talking with Yuigahama there, of chatting with Totsuka there for the first time, crossed my mind.
I strained my ears.
I couldn’t hear Miura’s scornful voice; I couldn't hear the cheers coming from the audience…
But I heard that sound… That sound which I, and probably only I, had been listening to for a year.
At that moment, I hit a serve.
It was a easy, powerless, light serve that flew high into the sky.
I saw Miura joyfully dash for the ball. I saw Hayama quickly follow her. I saw the audience give looks of disappointment. I caught a glimpse of Totsuka softly looking down at the floor. I missed looking at Zaimokuza tighten his fists. I made eye contact with Yuigahama as she began to pray. And then my eyes fell on Yukinoshita’s triumphant smile.
My shot followed an unstable, uncertain path.
“Hyahhhh!!”
Miura let out a feral snake-like cry and got to where the ball was going to drop down.
At that very moment, a gust of wind blew.
Miura, you probably don’t know…
…about this special sea breeze that comes around at the end of lunch time, unique to Soubu High and its surroundings.
The ball was completely shaken and swept up by that wind. It got away from Miura and hit the edge of the court, but Hayama was running for the ball already.
Hayama, you probably don’t know…
…this wind doesn't blow just once.
I was the only one who knew about it: I, who for the entire year had sat there alone, not talking to anybody, just spending my time quietly… And that wind was the only one that knew about that tranquil time I'd spent alone.
And so that was the miracle curve ball that I, and only I, could hit.
The second gust of wind swept up the ball even as it bounced back up.
Like that, the ball fell to the ground in the very corner of the court and rolled away.
Everyone’s mouth was shut, their ears were strained, and their eyes were wide open.
“Ah, now I remember something I’ve heard… There’s a skill that allows its user to freely control the wind, ‘Wind Successor, Eulen Sylpheed!’”
Zaimokuza was the only person who didn’t get with the program and yelled out loudly.
Don't randomly assign names to that move, dammit… You’ve completely ruined the mood.
“I-impossible…”
Miura seemed completely shocked. Her muttering began to set the audience off; they buzzed softly at first, but their voices soon turned into exclamations of “Eulen Sylpheed!” “Eulen Sylpheed!” God, please don’t let that catch on…
“We failed… That sure was some miracle curve ball there.”
Hayama faced me and gave me a bright smile. He was smiling like we had been friends for years… As I was hit with that smile directly, I gripped the ball tighter and stood there, stock still.
I really didn’t know how I should respond in situations like this.
So instead, I just struck up a pointless conversation.
“Hayama. Did you play baseball when you were younger?”
“Oh, yeah. I played a lot… So what?”
Hayama looked puzzled at the question I had suddenly thrown at him, but he still answered me directly. He really might be a good person…
“How many people did you play with?”
“Huh…? If you don’t have the full eighteen players, then you can’t play baseball.”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought… But, you know, I played by myself all the time.”
“Huh? What do you mean?”
Hayama asked me back that question, but I don’t think he’d understand even if I told him.
I didn't just mean solo baseball.
Do you people honestly know the pain of pedaling a bike alone like an idiot through swelteringly hot summers and blisteringly cold winters? All those things you distract yourselves from with complaints among yourselves--“It’s too hot, it’s too cold, this is terrible”--I got through all of them by myself.
As if you could know… As if you could understand the fear of not asking anyone about the content on an upcoming test, and instead just studying silently alone and then facing the consequences directly later. You lot have come this far by checking answers with each other, by comparing test scores, by calling each other idiots or overachievers and escaping from reality, while I’ve faced that reality head on.
How do you like that? Don’t I seem like the strongest?
Swept away by those emotions, I prepared to serve the ball.
I bent one leg in front of me and drew the other one taut, tightening my body like a fully drawn bow. Then I tossed the ball high in the air. I gripped my racquet tightly with both hands and rested it on the back of my neck.
The blue sky, the departing spring, and the oncoming summer… I'd take all those things and send them to hell.
“Adolescence, GO SCREW YOURSELF!!!”
With all my might, as the ball fell towards me, I hit the ball up into the air with an upper swing.
The ball made a crack! as it connected right on the hard frame of my racquet and flew up into the air, being swallowed by the blue sky.
The ball kept on rising and rising. At one point, the ball just looked like a speck smaller than a distant grain of rice.
“T-That is… The spirit of destruction which soars through the heavens, Meteor Strike!”
Zaimokuza leaned forwards and shouted that loudly. Again, why the hell are you naming my tennis shots?
“Meteor Strike…” The other people in the audience also began to whisper that. Seriously, why are you guys agreeing with him?!
It really wasn’t a big deal… It was just a game of bat and catch.
Let me explain: When I was a kid, I didn’t have many friends, and so I invented the new sport of one-player baseball--I would throw the ball by myself, hit it by myself, and catch it by myself. When I tried to devise a scheme to make the game last as long as possible, I realized that super bat-and-catch was the best way to lengthen the game.
If I caught the ball then the batter was out, and if I missed the ball at first but caught it on one bounce it was a hit. If I hit the ball way too far off, I counted it as a home run. The one weak point of this game was that once I decided to root for one side (either the batter or the catcher), then the game would get completely one-sided. To play this game, it was important to be as objective as if I were playing rock paper scissors with myself. Boys and girls, please do
n’t learn from me; play baseball with your friends.
But that was the symbol of my isolation, and it was also my strongest weapon.
It was the hammer that would fall down from the void and crush those fools who glorified youth.
“W-what the hell is that?”
Miura looked up at the sky in bewilderment. Hayama also stared up at the bright sky, but his expression suddenly became panicked and he shouted.
“Yumiko! Get back!”
Hayama yelled at Miura, who was now standing stock still with a look of shock still on her face. As expected, Hayama had realized what was going on… But he was too late.
The tennis ball continued to go up and up but gradually lost speed under the influence of gravity, until the two forces balanced out and it stopped.
And then, when that balance was broken, the ball’s potential energy converted into kinetic energy. The ball began to freefall. Upon impact, that energy would explode.
After its long, long trip through the sky, the ball whipped up a cloud of dust and once again soared back into the air.
Miura chased the ball through that dust cloud with uncertain steps, trying to hit it. The ball flew unsteadily towards the wire mesh fence in the back of the court.
Oh, crap… Miura was going to crash right into the fence.
“Ugh!”
Hayama tossed his racquet away and ran for Miura.
Would he make it?! Would he not make it?!
The two of them disappeared momentarily from view in that cloud of dust.
There was a moment of sheer silence.
I heard the sound of someone gulping… In fact, it might have been me.
And then, the cloud of dust dispersed, and the two of them came back into view.
Hayama's back had crashed into the fence; he was hugging Miura to protect her. Miura had a blush on her face as she snugly gripped onto Hayama’s shirt.
In the next moment, the audience erupted into loud cheers and thunderous applause. It was a full-participation standing ovation.
Hayama was comfortingly stroking Miura’s head, and Miura’s face was getting redder and redder.
Still cheering, the audience surrounded Hayama and Miura.
“HA~ YA~ TO~ GO!! HA~ YA~ TO~ GO!!”
In place of a celebratory fanfare, the bell rang to signal the end of lunch break. It seriously felt like we were headed for a kiss scene and then the ending credits.
In the end, everyone was enveloped by a certain feeling of accomplishment and exhaustion, like they had just finished watching some feel-good epic or finished reading some superb youth romantic comedy.
And like that, with shouts of “hip hip hooray!” the students lifted them into the air and disappeared off into the school building.
FIN.
Oh, what the hell.
7-6
Soon, we were the only ones left on the court.
“I suppose you could say we won the battle but lost the war?”
Yukinoshita sounded pretty apathetic, but I couldn’t help but laugh.
“Don’t be ridiculous… I wasn’t a match for them from the very beginning.”
Those who celebrated youth were always the ones in the spotlight.
“Yeah, that’s true… It only turned out like this because Hikki is here. Getting ignored even though you won… That’s just too sad.”
“Hey, Yuigahama, be careful what you say. You should realize that sometimes your honest feelings can hurt people more than words filled with ill will.”
I gave Yuigahama a scornful look but she didn’t seem apologetic at all.
Well, I guess everything she said was true, so she had no real reason to feel apologetic. From the very beginning, Hayama and Miura didn’t really care about the competition or the match or anything like that.
I was amazed that they were able to take a miserable defeat and turn it into just another treasured page of their beautiful youth.
What the hell was that? Youth, just go blow yourself up, dammit…
“Ugh, dammit, what the hell is up with Hayama… If I was born and raised differently then I could’ve been like that too, dammit…”
“In that case, then wouldn’t you just be a completely different person…? Well, it’s certainly true that you might need a full reset.”
Yukinoshita gave me a cold look even as she used a roundabout way to tell me to go die.
“…b-but, I mean, umm… I guess I’m glad it was Hikki, or, umm… Well, it wasn’t a bad thing, umm…”
Yuigahama mumbled something inside her mouth. I couldn’t hear her at all. Try to speak clearly, please… You remind me of myself in a clothing shop when a shop attendant tries to talk to me.
However, Yukinoshita did seem to hear what Yuigahama had said; she smiled faintly before giving a quiet nod.
“Well, there are a few people who have been saved by your twisted way of doing things… Unfortunately.”
Yukinoshita said that and then suddenly looked somewhere else. When I followed her gaze, I saw Totsuka walking over slowly while being careful of his grazed knees. Zaimokuza was also following him over like some creepy stalker.
“Hachiman, well done… As expected from my partner. But, unfortunately, there may come a day when we must settle things once and for all…”
For some reason, Zaimokuza went glassy-eyed and began talking with himself. I ignored him and spoke up to Totsuka.
“Are your knees okay?”
“Yeah…”
At that point, I suddenly realized that I only had guys around me. Maybe it was because Zaimokuza had shown up, but Yuinoshita and Yuigahama had both disappeared at some point.
Hayama was able to get girls to dote on him like he was James Bond, but here I am surrounded by guys. So he gets the James Bond ending, and I get the A-Team ending… What the hell was up with that imbalance?
Romantic comedies are just urban legends.
“Hikigaya-kun… Umm, thank you.”
Totsuka stood right in front of me and stared directly at me. He said that, then seemed embarrassed and averted his gaze. From this position, I almost wanted to hug him and give him a kiss, but then I remembered he was a guy…
This romantic comedy was all wrong, and so was Totsuka’s gender. Also, Totsuka had thanked the wrong person.
“I didn’t really do anything. If you want to thank someone, then you should thank those guys...”
I tried to find the people I was talking about and looked around. When I did, I saw a pair of twin-tails unsteadily swaying back and forth by the side of the tennis clubroom.
So that’s where they were?
I headed over to the clubroom, thinking that I would at least thank them.
“Yukinoshi… Ah.”
She was completely in the middle of changing.
The front of her blouse was open, and I could catch brief glimpses of her light lime-green bra. She still had her skirt on, but that sense of unbalance just served to further accentuate her well-proportioned, slender body.
“W… Wha wha wha-“
Ugh, why are you being so noisy when I’m trying to concentrate and carve this into my memory? Oh, Yuigahama, you were here too.
She was also completely in the middle of changing.
It seemed that she was the type of person who buttoned up from the bottom. Her shirt was wide open, and her pink bra and cleavage were peeking through. She was holding holding onto a skirt with one hand and holding it out to Yukinoshita… Well, in short, she wasn’t wearing a skirt.
A well-proportioned butt extended out of her matching pink underwear, and her lower legs were covered by dark blue high socks.
“Seriously, go die!”
Wham! She hit me full-force in the face with her racquet.
…ahh, yes, this was more like a romantic comedy.
Great job, romantic comedy gods. Sob.
Chapter 8 - And then, Hikigaya Hachiman thinks
Youth.
It is just one simple word, and y
et it is a word which so fiercely moves the human heart. It gives mature, independent adults a sense of bittersweet nostalgia, it gives young maidens a sense of eternal longing, and it gives people like me a sense of intense jealousy and hatred.
Yahari Ore no Seishun Rabu Kome wa Machigatteiru - Volume 01 Page 22