In the middle of the afternoon modern language class.
Akira was busy adventuring through dreamland, routinely continuing his previously interrupted sleeping schedule.
Hiratsuka Shizuka, standing at the podium, instantly knitted her brows the moment she noticed Akira’s desk was once again occupied by a fast-asleep student. Her hand moved swiftly, scribbling a line of text onto the blackboard. "So, does anyone know the meaning behind this classical quote?"
The silence of the classroom offered no answer. Shizuka suddenly spun her body around with rapid speed, flicking a piece of chalk from her hand with full force straight toward the back row desk.
*SWOOSH!*
The chalk cut through the air at a breakneck speed.
Akira, whose eyes were still tightly shut, suddenly sensed a dangerous object approaching his face. His eyes snapped wide open.
*SNAP!*
With a completely calm, lightning-fast reflex, Akira’s index and middle fingers on his right hand locked onto the chalk, clamping it tight just centimeters away from his nose.
Akira raised his gaze. His eyes immediately locked with Shizuka’s glare, which was already burning with pure fury at the front of the room.
'Crap, my body's reflexes just moved on their own.'
"Heh." Shizuka flashed a thin smile that felt incredibly cold before folding her arms over her chest. "Kitahara, why don't you translate what that philosophical quote on the board means: *If a man learns the truth in the morning, he may die content in the evening.*"
Shizuka then glanced toward the desk next to Akira's. "Kato, you are forbidden from whispering any hints."
Kato Megumi, who had just been about to slide her textbook toward Akira, instantly froze dead in her tracks.
Akira let out a resigned sigh, staring at the row of text on the board without a shred of pressure. "If I were to translate it freely... *If I manage to find the way to your house tomorrow morning, I’m willing to die without regrets tonight.*"
The classroom instantly fell dead silent.
At the front of the podium, Shizuka’s fist clenched so hard that a faint popping sound echoed. 'Patience... my blood pressure is going to skyrocket if I deal with this brat!'
Shizuka pointed her index finger straight out the door. "Get out. Stand in the corridor until the period ends!"
"Yes, Ma'am!" Akira obediently stood up from his chair and walked out of the classroom without a single argument.
***
After school.
Shizuka stood at the threshold of the classroom, staring down at the two problem students left in the room. "Kitahara, follow me to the office. Hikigaya, you too."
Akira and Hikigaya Hachiman exchanged a brief glance before falling into step behind their teacher.
*FFUUHH...*
The moment they arrived at the faculty office, Shizuka slumped heavily into her office chair, lit a cigarette, and exhaled a thick cloud of smoke into the air.
Akira leaned against the edge of a desk, giving his teacher a warning look. "Hiratsuka-sensei, women who love smoking usually have a hard time finding a marriage partner, you know."
A sharp glare immediately flew from Shizuka straight toward Akira. "You little brat, that’s none of your business."
After taking a few more drags from her cigarette, Shizuka snuffed out the embers in an ashtray and began opening the files on her desk. "Kitahara, it’s already been a month since the new semester started. Why do you sleep in class every single day? What exactly keeps you so busy at night that you're this sleep-deprived?"
Akira scratched the back of his neck. "Ah... it's pretty much like that. If I told you that I have to go out and save the world from monsters every night, would you believe me, Sensei?"
Seeing Shizuka's face go completely blank as if she were listening to a toddler’s fairy tale, Akira could only let out a defeated sigh. There was no way his teacher would believe it.
Shizuka massaged the bridge of her nose, feeling a massive headache coming on. "Haaah... to be honest, when your uncle entrusted you to me at the start of the semester, I was completely confident I could guide you. But why has your situation turned into such a total disaster?"
Shizuka looked at Akira with a serious gaze. "If your grades keep plummeting because you're sleeping in class, your academic future for getting into a university is going to be completely ruined."
'I don't even know if I can survive long enough to graduate high school,' Akira thought to himself. However, the words that actually left his mouth were completely different. "Um... actually, the savings I have right now are more than enough to support me until I'm old without ever needing a job."
That wasn't a bluff. As an orphan, Akira had inherited all the property assets and tens of millions of yen left behind by his parents in Tokyo. As long as he didn't make any foolish spending choices, living a comfortable, lazy life until he died wasn't a problem at all.
"Then... what about marriage?" Shizuka slapped the desk, visibly becoming emotional as this sensitive topic poked directly at her own single status, which was rapidly approaching thirty. "No girl wants to marry a man with zero life ambition! You definitely don't want to end up single until you're thirty or forty years old, right?"
Akira chuckled quietly, trying to break the tension with a bit of a joke. "Actually, I think my chances of hitting on Kato are pretty good. Worst case scenario, I can just become a househusband and take care of the kitchen while she works..."
*GLARE...*
The temperature in the room instantly dropped to absolute freezing. Akira could feel two pairs of eyes locking onto him with an incredibly heavy intensity.
Shizuka stared at him with a look of pure disgust, while Hachiman stared at Akira with the cynical glare of a dead fish looking down on a fellow man.
Shizuka's chest rose and fell as she held back her anger. To redirect her frustration, she pulled a sheet of essay paper from her desk drawer and slapped it right in front of Hachiman's chest. "Hikigaya, do you still remember the topic of the essay assignment I gave you last week?"
Hachiman took the paper awkwardly. "Eh... reminiscing about the beautiful days of high school?"
"Then look at what you wrote here! What the hell is up with this sentence: *'Youth is a lie, a sin full of pure hypocrisy'*?! You..." Shizuka launched into a full-blown rant, pouring out all the frustration she had been holding back because of Akira.
Seeing his teacher in full-on berserk mode, Hachiman wisely chose to shut his mouth tightly and pretend to be a statue.
After several minutes of venting her emotions, Shizuka finally sounded exhausted. "The two of you are truly the most troublesome combination of problem students."
Shizuka stood up from her chair, slowly walking over to where the two students were standing.
Hachiman reflexively took a step back, completely bewildered by his teacher's sudden movement.
*WHACK!*
Without a single word of warning, Shizuka unleashed a swift left hook straight toward Akira’s stomach.
*SLAP!*
Akira moved a step faster. The palm of his right hand instantly cut off the trajectory of Shizuka's fist, deflecting the strike with high precision before it could even touch his uniform.
Akira released his grip and stepped back to maintain a safe distance. "Hiratsuka-sensei, using physical violence on a student breaks a teacher's code of ethics, you know."
Shizuka pulled her hand back and let out a soft snort, a smile of pure satisfaction etching onto her face. "Hmph, your reflexes are pretty good, brat. Follow me."
Shizuka walked right past the two of them toward the exit corridor. Akira immediately stepped forward to follow from behind, while Hachiman swallowed hard before tagging along with resignation.
***
The small group halted in front of a clubroom located at the very end of a deserted school corridor. A small wooden nameplate hanging on the door read: **The Service Club**.
"The Service Club? What a weird name..." Hachiman muttered quietly to himself.
*SLIDE!*
Shizuka slid the door open with a solid thud.
The inside of the room was remarkably spacious, with stacks of empty chairs piled neatly in the corners to provide an open space right in the center. Right at the focal point of the room, catching the light from the window, a beautiful teenage girl with long, exquisite black hair was sitting completely alone with a thick book open on her lap.
Hearing the door slide open, the girl shut her book calmly, then shifted her gaze toward the threshold. "Hiratsuka-sensei, if I recall correctly, I have frequently reminded you to knock before entering another person's room."
"Ah, don't fuss over such minor details. Yukinoshita, look, I brought you two new members for your club today." Shizuka gave a hand gesture, signaling Akira and Hachiman to step inside the room.
Akira scrutinized the girl in front of him from head to toe. 'As expected of Yukinoshita Yukino. Her visuals are completely top-tier... too bad there's a certain asset on her chest that looks remarkably disappointing.'
Yukinoshita crossed her arms over her chest, staring at Akira with a look of extreme vigilance. "I'm sorry, but I am forced to decline. This boy named Hikigaya-kun might still be tolerable, but I cannot guarantee my personal safety if I am to remain in the same room as a pervert who just stared at me with such filthy thoughts."
Shizuka cleared her throat loudly, trying to straighten out the situation. "Just take it as a personal request from me, Yukinoshita. Can you help change Hikigaya's overly cynical and gloomy personality, while fixing Kitahara's attitude so he can take his school life a bit more seriously?"
Yukinoshita fell silent for a moment, staring at Shizuka before finally letting out a soft sigh. "Since this is a direct request from Hiratsuka-sensei, I have no choice but to accept."
"Hey... if I recall correctly, I never gave my consent to join this weird club," Hachiman, who had been completely ignored until now, finally tried to voice a protest.
Shizuka placed her palm heavily onto Hachiman’s shoulder. The grip of her fingers suddenly tightened with immense force, while her face flashed a sweet, deadly smile. "Hah?! What did you just say, Hikigaya? Do you really not want to join?"
Feeling like his shoulder bone was about to shatter, Hachiman instantly changed his expression into absolute obedience. "No... I mean, please allow me to join this club!"
Shizuka finally released her grip with satisfaction, then stepped out of the room after giving a brief instruction for the three of them to get along with one another.
Akira walked over to the corner of the room, pulled a wooden chair from the stack, and sat down casually.
For a moment, an awkward silence enveloped the entire clubroom.
Akira cleared his throat softly, trying to open up a conversation to break the tense atmosphere between them. "Alright... so here’s the thing—"
"Even though I know it is completely natural for an ordinary high school boy to have wild fantasies when trapped in a closed room with a beautiful girl like me," Yukinoshita cut off Akira's sentence while pressing her phone against her ear, "but please, you pervert, control yourself. Otherwise, I will be forced to call the police right now for my own personal safety."
Akira massaged his temples, feeling a sudden headache coming on. "My name is Kitahara Akira. I'm not a pervert, so could you please stop calling me that?"
Yukinoshita turned a page of her book with an elegant motion. "The way your eyes scanned my body when you first stepped into this room doesn't exactly give you a convincing defense."
"I was just looking at you like I look at anyone else, okay? I have to admit you are indeed a very beautiful girl. But too bad, you’re just like the Venus de Milo—a beauty with a glaring flaw." Akira intentionally cast a brief glance toward Yukinoshita's flat chest. "Besides, I have absolutely zero interest in women who lack sufficient chest assets."
Yukinoshita's eyes immediately narrowed into sharp slits. Her arms crossed over her chest again, a clear trace of annoyance showing on her face. "Ha. Judging a person's beauty solely from the perspective of shallow, primal lust... your actions are no different from an ape that failed to evolve."
Hachiman, who had been quietly observing while leaning against a desk near the door, finally spoke up. "Um, setting aside your little debate... what exactly does this Volunteer Club do? Does its function match its name?"
Yukinoshita instantly shifted her cold gaze toward Hachiman. "Hikigaya-kun, please clear out all the perverted and dark thoughts lurking inside your head. The core foundation of this club is *noblesse oblige*—a duty for those who possess greater capabilities to reach out and help those in distress."
Akira crossed his legs, trying to simplify the lengthy explanation. "Well... in short, this club is basically like a Yorozuya."
"No. We will not solve their problems from start to finish," Yukinoshita countered firmly. "We only provide the necessary assistance and encouragement. In the end, the most crucial part is the client's own ability to stand up and rely on themselves. As the old proverb goes: it is better to teach a man how to fish than to simply give him a fish."