"You guys are really taking your time, I've been waiting for ages."
When Asakura and the others walked through the woods and arrived at the forest camping zone, Hiratsuka, who was already sitting on a camping chair drinking beer, shouted toward them.
"We're already considered fast."
Asakura replied testily: "When you had Totsuka cajole... cough, seductively entice Hikigaya, we were still over two hundred kilometers away, you know."
"Why the hell did you correct yourself?! The second phrasing is even more uncalled for! Don't make me sound like I'm the type of guy who gets seductively enticed by boys, hey!"
Hachiman, who was following behind him, stumbled over his own feet, staving off his awkwardness by feeding himself peanuts with a grimacing face.
Asakura shot him a surprised glance that practically said, 'Is that not the case?'
Hachiman mumbled something under his breath, but because he really had been dragged all the way out here by a single phone call from Totsuka Saika, he ultimately couldn't say anything in the end. He simply looked toward Komachi, who was walking at the very back: "Komachi, are you tired? Do you want onii-chan to give you a piggyback ride?"
"I feel like onii-chan being this gentle today is a little disgusting."
Komachi complained: "It's almost as if you've done something terrible behind Komachi's back."
"...That's completely not the case, this is just pure sibling love."
Hachiman, who was indeed feeling guilty and acting overly protective of his younger sister because the scene of Asakura burning away Komachi's memories had left a subtle impact on him, spoke with a hollow heart.
"No need." Komachi stared intently at her brother's face for a long moment, but failing to read anything out of those dead fish eyes, she could only give up: "Komachi is no longer at an age where she needs a piggyback ride from onii-chan."
"I can't tell if that means you think you're too young or too old."
"Definitively not too old! If anything, if Komachi ever gets to an age where she's old enough to need a piggyback ride, onii-chan, you'll only be in even greater need of someone to look after you, right?!" Komachi looked sideways at her older brother: "It might actually turn out to be a case where you need Komachi to look after you instead, you know."
"Oh, oh, to think you've already given thought to a time like that? Onii-chan is incredibly moved."
"Oh no... I accidentally took it as a given conclusion by reflex that onii-chan won't be able to find a wife..." Komachi held her head: "Ugh, I have to work even harder to find onii-chan a sister-in-law..."
"Though it feels a bit late to ask this now," Hiratsuka set down the beer in her hand onto a cardboard box serving as a makeshift table, only then looking toward Asakura with curiosity: "But why exactly are Asakura and Hikigaya mixed up together?"
"The story begins three years ago—" Asakura cleared his throat, entering his storytelling mode.
"Too long, condense it into three sentences for me."
"A shooting star plunges through the night sky,"
Deep within the crust of the hidden Spirit World,
The Musubi reminisces about the village of old."
"What kind of completely jumbled-up haiku is that? Is your Literature score genuinely number one in the whole grade?"
"Just a stroke of luck." Asakura offered a modest smile.
"Tsk..." Hiratsuka smacked her lips, finding herself unable to stand watching this guy show off.
Asakura paid no heed to his Literature teacher, instead greeting the young girl standing quietly to the side: "Long time no see, Yukinoshita. Were you also press-ganged into coming out here by Hiratsuka-sensei?"
"Volunteer activities align with the mission of the Service Club; there was no reason to refuse."
Yukino spoke in her usual cool and clear voice.
"Service..."
Hachiman, standing off to the side, was taken aback by the club's name.
"It does not carry that sort of vulgar connotation; it is simply a club dedicated to helping others. Extending a helping hand to those in difficulty is the core activity of this department." Yukino immediately stated in a freezing cold manner, as if she had long anticipated that anyone hearing the club's name would let their minds wander to the gutter.
Hachiman instinctively shuddered.
Even though the tone the other party used to speak didn't seem to have any discernible difference, he always felt that Yukino's attitude toward him was a fraction colder.
No, or rather, should it be said that her attitude toward Asakura was a bit better?
Hachiman cast a quiet glance at Asakura, sensing that if he got dragged into a bizarre relationship dynamic things would become highly troublesome, so he decided to act as if he hadn't noticed a thing.
"Did you and Hikigaya know each other prior to this, Asakura?" Hiratsuka immediately pressed upon seeing herself being ignored by her students.
"No, we only met for the first time yesterday." Asakura shook his head.
"No-no-no, aren't you two classmates in the same room?" Hiratsuka complained.
"Apologies, I belong to the school of thought that objects to wasting brain memory to record NPC background faces." Asakura said in a deadpan manner.
"I am truly sorry for having a background character face." Hachiman muttered.
"It's fine. If we overlook the dead fish eyes, onii-chan's character model is still very excellent." Komachi offered words of encouragement from the side.
"Komachi..." Hachiman looked deeply touched.
As expected, his own little sister was the absolute best.
"And looking at it from another angle, doesn't a background character model save much more rendering space?" Komachi continued her efforts.
"...I can't feel happy about this kind of advantage at all." Hachiman's emotional wave of gratitude instantly jammed.
"That's a fair point." Asakura nodded in agreement: "That's great for you, Hikigaya!"
"Why am I receiving praise in such a bizarre category?!"
"Exactly!"
"Exactly what?!"
"Hikigaya, that line just now was me talking to Hiratsuka-sensei."
"Eh?"
Hachiman blanked, his cheek twitching slightly as if a few rather unpleasant memories had suddenly been jogged.
"Yes, I can pretty much understand now." Hiratsuka nodded.
"Understand what? Did that exchange just now contain any actual information besides me getting mentally taken advantage of?" Hachiman was dumbfounded; no matter how one looked at it, his Language arts grades were consistently top-five in his entire year, could his comprehension skills truly be lagging behind by that much?
"What Asakura means is that the reason he has a good dynamic with you is because the chemistry between you two is quite compatible." Hiratsuka answered.
"What chemistry?!"
Hachiman felt himself grow even more panicked, his thighs squeezing together by reflex.
"That guy Asakura has an incredibly erratic train of thought, frequently bringing up topics completely out of nowhere," Hiratsuka noted, "While you, Hikigaya... although you appear rather gloomy and cold on the surface, for some reason your reactions to Asakura are quite pronounced. You always instinctively catch whatever topic he throws out. To put it simply, it's just like the dynamic between a pitcher and a catcher."
"Precisely! The only one who can catch my supernatural breaking ball which clocks in at over three hundred and forty kilometers per hour—The True: Thor's Meow-Meow Ball—is you, Hikigaya!" Asakura declared grandly with a serious face.
"No-no-no, there is absolutely no catching that, it would kill me! That's twice the speed of the fastest ball in human history! And what the hell is up with that name, the contrast with that terrifying pitch speed is way too massive!"
"The target is the batter's face."
"A beanball! That's a foul, hey!"
"It doesn't matter. As long as the batter ceases to exist, it counts as our victory!"
"Rather than a declaration of victory, that is clearly a murder notice!"
Hiratsuka shot a look toward Yukino that plainly communicated, 'See what I mean?'
Meanwhile, Komachi knitted her brows tightly, muttering in a tiny whisper: "First it was Totsuka Saika, now it's Asakura-senpai..." "Though his luck with women is rather poor, his luck with men seems to be surprisingly thriving..." "I don't know whether to be happy or sad about this," and other musings of the sort.