Chapter 13: Yukinoshita Yukino Reveals Herself, Just a Little

(Author's Note: High Ratio of "Boku" Compared to our usual)

The school, having plunged into the extraordinary event known as the Cultural Festival, was unusually lively.

I looked around, watching the boys and girls passing by in the hallway.

Students soliciting for their own classrooms held brightly colored signs, raising their voices so as not to be drowned out by the noise.

The female students chatting happily in front of the haunted house were wearing unfamiliar high school uniforms.

A couple of Sobu High students walking down the hallway laughing looked so incredibly happy that if Hikigaya-kun saw them, he would probably say, "Normies, go explode."

Seeing such a happy scene, it finally hits me that I was able to fulfill my role as an executive committee member. My chest fills with a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction. I feel like all those grueling days were rewarded just by being able to see this sight today.

I wonder if Hikigaya-kun felt this way, too.

As I slowly looked around, a certain sight caught my eye. In front of a classroom running a cafe, I spotted a characteristic ahoge and a sluggishly hunched back.

Naturally, my feet headed in that direction.

"Even though it's so lively around here, you look like you're the only one attending a funeral, gloomy Hikigaya-kun."

"Hah. I'm just acting the same as always. If anything, the guys getting completely carried away over a single school event are the weird ones."

He replies while looking around with those rotting eyes of his.

However, behind that attitude, I could almost see the hidden joy and relief that the Cultural Festival we worked so hard to prepare for was successfully held.

"Are you working?"

"Yeah, on patrol."

Monitoring the students who are completely caught up in the extraordinary atmosphere of the festival to ensure they don't cause any trouble is also an important duty of the Cultural Festival Executive Committee.

Well, part of it is also that I don't want to show my face at the fashion show my class is running. If I go back to class, I will undoubtedly be turned into a dress-up doll.

"Are you getting your recording job done?"

"Yeah, it's going okay."

Hikigaya-kun holds up the camera hanging from his neck. The armband on his arm read, "Festival Committee - Recording." It seems he was getting his work done, too.

We walk side-by-side down the noisy hallway for a bit. Because of my patrol duties, I walk while observing each classroom. Next to me, Hikigaya-kun absently gazes at the festival scenery.

There was no conversation, but being next to him strangely put me at ease.

It must be because I was able to show him the real me (boku) that day. I analyzed my own feelings in that way.

The two members of the Service Club accepted me even when I interacted with them not as Yukinoshita Yukino, but as me (boku). In front of those two, I felt that the obsession of having to be perfect—something that had clung to me ever since I was born into this body—eased up just a little.

"That class is doing something different from what they submitted in their application."

The sight that suddenly caught my eye was a certain class's attraction. From inside, I could hear the rattling sound of something running and joyful screams.

"...Are they running a roller coaster or something?"

"If they followed their application, it was supposed to just be a gondola that slowly runs through the classroom to show off the scenery. ...Um, is the class representative here?"

As I said that, I was gripped by a strange sense of déjà vu. I feel like I've seen this plot somewhere before...

"Crap, it's the festival committee."

"What should we do? Just make them ride it for now?"

"Make 'em ride! Make 'em ride!"

The students, flustered by my words, seemed to discuss something, then grabbed my arm and tried to force me into the gondola.

Faced with this sudden crisis, I instinctively looked toward Hikigaya-kun, as if asking for help.

"Is that guy Bun-jitsu, too?"

"Put him in, too!"

Hikigaya-kun, who was realized to be committee because I looked at him, was also grabbed by the arm and led into the classroom.

Before we knew it, Hikigaya-kun and I were forced into the narrow gondola. Hikigaya-kun, who was loaded in after me, closed in on me, looking cramped.

Getting to this point, even I understood. This was an event that happened in the original story too. I had completely forgotten. It seems I was equally carried away by the festival atmosphere.

The gondola Hikigaya-kun and I were crammed into started moving with a loud noise.

...Even so.

"Hikigaya-kun, you're too close!?"

"It can't be helped, it's cramped. Hold on a sec, it's moving..."

"Hya! Where are you touching!? I'm gonna get mad!"

"...Ah, my bad."

Hikigaya-kun's cool hand touched my bare skin, causing me to let out an instinctively high-pitched squeak. Hikigaya-kun muttered an apology in a low voice.

Having somehow fixed his posture, Hikigaya-kun stops moving. Regaining my composure, I observe him amidst the shaking of the gondola.

The rattling sound of the running gondola was drowned out by the sound of my own heartbeat. With Hikigaya-kun's body right next to mine, my heart is terribly noisy.

—If it were the 'me' (boku) from a little while ago, I would have felt disgusted by my heart thumping like this and rejected my own feelings.

But the "me" (boku) now is different. Now that I’ve been accepted by the two in the Service Club, I find myself thinking that maybe it’s okay to stay like this.

Honestly, I still don't quite understand the true nature of this heartbeat. I can't distinguish whether it's romantic love, friendship, or admiration for him as the protagonist.

But I decided that was fine. When I’m with Hikigaya-kun and Yuigahama-san, my chest feels a little warm. For now, that fact alone is enough.

Hikigaya-kun's body, leaning over close to me, was surprisingly large, making me acutely realize that my own body was much smaller than his.

Only by getting this close did I realize that this is what he smells like.

If I raised my head, Hikigaya-kun's face was right there; it felt like if the gondola took a big swing, our lips might even touch.

Inside the gondola, which continued to sway so unsteadily it felt like it could derail at any moment, I kept gazing at Hikigaya-kun's face.

The festival known as the Cultural Festival had ended, and only memories remained. No, wait, in my case, work remained. The final job for the festival committee: the report.

The eventful Cultural Festival had safely concluded, and I was walking down the hallway of the special building, illuminated by the setting sun. There was no one in the orange-dyed corridor. The sight was terribly lonely; it was hard to believe that just a short while ago, it had been colored by the extraordinary event known as the Cultural Festival.

There wasn't any grand reason for me to be walking in a place like this. It was just that, having been surrounded for so long by a noisiness that I usually have no connection to, I might have been seeking out a quiet place.

Loners aren't usually in crowds, so when they are constantly placed in environments surrounded by people, they start wanting to return to their own sanctuary. ─Therefore, it might have been inevitable that I would meet her there.

My destination was the Service Club room, a place I felt like I hadn't visited in a while. When I slid the door open with a clatter, there stood a beautiful girl illuminated by the setting sun.

"...Oh, Hikigaya-kun. What's the matter?"

Yukinoshita, who was doing some sort of paperwork, tilted her head as she asked me this upon my arrival. Her blank expression, bathed in the sunset, was so beautiful that I slightly averted my eyes.

"Nah, I was just looking for a place to work on the festival committee report. If you're using this place, I'll go look somewhere else."

"No. I don't mind, so why don't you use it?"

Facing a Yukinoshita who lacked her usual venom, I somehow felt hesitant to refuse, so I closed the door and sat in my usual chair.

I spread the report out on the desk and began filling it in. Yukinoshita, who had been following my actions with her eyes, spoke to me with an unusually soft expression.

"What are you doing? Let me (boku) see, too."

"Ghk! Cough, cough!"

The moment I heard those words, I was so shaken that I ended up coughing violently.

"What's wrong?"

Yukinoshita tilted her head with a cute koten.

"...No, it's just that you suddenly started calling yourself 'boku'."

I was surprised she so casually blurted out the very thing she had been stubbornly trying to hide until just a little while ago.

That was all there was to it. But when Yukinoshita heard my words, she put on a slightly anxious face and said:

"Umm... do you hate the real me (boku)?"

She looked down bashfully, but her gaze was turned up towards me. With blushing cheeks, Yukinoshita tilted her head up and asked. ...Cute.

"..."

...Whoa! Danger! That was close! I lost consciousness for a few seconds there. If I hadn't developed a resistance to "Boku-ko" (first-person-boku girls/tomboyish girls) because of Totsuka, I would have died on the spot.

"Nah, you can do whatever you want, can't you?"

Verbally, I said it as disinterestedly as possible, but internally, that wasn't the case at all.

Cute. She’s way too cute. That’s cheating. I wish she’d stop acting like that out of the blue when she usually has that composed face; I might get the wrong idea. My sanity is in danger.

Unaware of my pounding heart, Yukinoshita continued.

"Umm, I thought a lot about what Yuigahama-san said to me, and I figured I'd stay like this, at least inside the Service Club room. Only when it's just the three of us, just for a little bit."

Her way of speaking gave off a more childish, or rather, androgynous impression than usual. The girl who used to hurl insults at me seemed to have gone somewhere else entirely.

Looking like that, it was a Yukinoshita with an incomparably softer impression than normal, but she suddenly cleared her throat and abruptly returned to her usual prim expression.

"Ahem... That’s right, Hikigaya-kun. I hear you’ve become the most hated person in the entire school? How does it feel?"

"Ah, it’s great. I’ve never had this much attention in my life."

"I wish I could learn from that positivity..."

Returning to her usual "watashi," Yukinoshita let out a deep, deliberate sigh. She was the Yukinoshita I had grown used to over the past few months; that soft expression from a moment ago felt like a lie.

"...What, is the 'real boku' over already?"

When I said that teasingly, Yukinoshita directed a sharp glare at me. The intimidation factor was tremendous, and a weird sound escaped from the back of my throat.

"Who would say something so embarrassing? Could you please stop leaking your disgusting delusions?"

"Ah, yes ma'am."

It was a totally unreasonable way of speaking, but defeated by the pressure in her eyes, I obediently raised the white flag.

"There's no way I could keep doing something that embarrassing for so long..."

Yukinoshita muttered in a voice barely audible.

"But, thanks to you, Hikigaya-kun, Sagami-san won't be blamed anymore. ─You really end up saving just about anyone, don't you."

"It’s not that big a deal."

Sagami, who had been exposing her immaturity as the executive committee chairwoman right from the preparation stages. It got to the point where she went completely incommunicado, along with the tally results for the regional awards that were supposed to be announced before the closing ceremony.

Having abandoned her duties as chairwoman and caused trouble for so many people, Sagami surely would have been held accountable under normal circumstances.

"Sagami-san, who made a huge mistake, was originally supposed to be condemned. However, when she returned, she had settled into the position of a victim who was told terrible things by Hikigaya-kun. If I don't call this thanks to you, what else should I call it?"

"What if I told you I wasn't thinking about anything like that, and I was just pissed off at Sagami?"

"I know well enough that you wouldn't do something so meaningless. —How long do you think I (boku) has been watching you?"

At those sudden words, my heart jumped with a thump. Being told she was "watching" me makes me want to harbor strange expectations.

To cover up the heat in my face, I spat out some random words.

"Yeah, considering how accurately you hurl insults at me. You're watching real close."

"It's simply because you are so full of flaws that an endless amount of insults spring to mind."

"My bad, but I actually quite like myself the way I am."

"Ah, I also—"

"Yahallo!"

The moment Yukinoshita tried to say something, the Service Club room door was thrown open vigorously along with a cheerful greeting. In the hallway stood Yuigahama, who seemed to be in very high spirits.

"Good work on the Cultural Festival! So with that, let's go to the post-festival party!"

"I'm not going. And what's a post-festival party?"

"You refused without even knowing what it is!? Hey Yukinon, let's gooo!"

Yuigahama then turned toward Yukinoshita and started pleading, almost throwing a tantrum.

"Even if someone with a narrow social circle like me went, it would only make everyone feel awkward."

"Ehh. ...Ah! Yukinon, didn't you say the word 'watashi' was banned in the clubroom!?"

Yuigahama suddenly blurted out a mysterious rule, but Yukinoshita seemed to recall it, as she slightly averted her face.

"I have no idea what you're talking about. Isn't that just a misunderstanding on your part, Yuigahama-san?"

"You did say it! Yukinon, you admitted it at the end!"

"She was talking in her 'boku' tone until just a minute ago, you know."

When I told Yuigahama the truth, her already large eyes widened even further.

"What does that mean, Yukinon!? Are you saying you only show your true self in front of Hikki? That's not fair, Yukinon! Show me your cute side too!"

"...It’s hot in here."

Yuigahama, finishing her high-tension declaration, clung tightly to Yukinoshita and began chanting "Not fair, not fair, not fair" like a mantra.

The clubroom, illuminated by the slanting rays of the setting sun, continued to hold a gentle warmth.