Hiratsuka’s car came to a smooth stop in front of the upscale apartment building where Yukinoshita lived.
The nighttime streets were especially quiet.
Only the occasional sound of a distant car broke the stillness.
“We’re here.” Hiratsuka pulled the handbrake.
Through the rearview mirror, her gaze shifted between Hachiman and Yukinoshita, a mischievous grin tugging at the corner of her lips.
Deliberately adopting a teasing tone, she said, “So, our little hero—care to exercise some gentlemanly courtesy and escort Yukinoshita to the elevator?
She was dreadfully worried about you today, you know.”
Hachiman couldn’t help rolling his dead-fish eyes at this, replying testily, “…You didn’t need to say that.
I was going to anyway.”
He understood this much in the way of basic courtesy.
Besides, today he had indeed made her…
and Yuigahama too, worry themselves sick.
Yukinoshita paid no attention to her teacher’s teasing.
She merely murmured a quiet “Thank you, Sensei.
Sorry for the trouble,” and opened the car door on her own.
Hachiman got out as well.
The two walked side by side toward the apartment lobby, neither speaking.
The automatic glass doors slid open soundlessly, then quietly closed, sealing the outside world away.
In the spacious, brightly lit yet somewhat cold lobby, only the soft echo of their footsteps on the polished floor could be heard.
Stepping into the elevator, the confined space only amplified that silent awkwardness.
Hikigaya stared at the changing floor numbers, feeling more tense than when he had faced those thugs.
Yukinoshita kept her head slightly lowered, her gaze fixed on the tips of her shoes, making it impossible to read the expression on her face.
A subtle current filled the air, as if something were pressing to break through, yet was firmly blocked by the walls each of them had built around their own hearts.
Ding—
The sound of the elevator reaching the designated floor broke the silence.
The doors slowly slid open.
One after the other, they stepped out of the elevator and arrived at the door of Yukinoshita’s apartment.
The corridor lighting was soft and gentle, so quiet they could hear each other breathing.
Hachiman stopped walking and watched as Yukinoshita took out her key.
Dryly, he said, “…I’ll leave you here.
Get some good rest tonight.”
His task was complete.
He turned around, ready to leave.
Just as he had taken half a step—
A warm, faintly trembling body pressed gently against his back from behind.
Hachiman’s breath caught sharply in his throat.
His feet felt as if they had been nailed to the floor.
He could clearly feel the warmth transmitted through his back, and through the thin fabric of their school uniforms, the faint yet unmistakable trembling.
It was Yukinoshita Yukino.
She…
was holding him?
This realization made Hikigaya’s mind go completely blank.
His heart felt as if something had seized it in a crushing grip, and then it began pounding wildly.
Then, he heard Yukinoshita’s voice come from behind him.
That voice was no longer cool, no longer calm.
It carried a suppressed, tearful tremor and lingering fear—something he had never heard from her before.
Softly, yet with piercing clarity, it sounded beside his ear.
“Hachiman…”
She called his name, without any honorific.
“This time…
I was truly so afraid…”
Her arms tightened slightly around him, her voice trembling uncontrollably.
“Next time…
don’t ever do that again…
I beg you…”
That “I beg you”—it brushed like a feather against the softest place in Hikigaya’s heart, carrying a vulnerability and entreaty he had never known from her before.
Hikigaya’s rigid body, under the impact of such direct and fragile emotion, gradually softened, degree by degree.
He was silent for a few seconds, feeling the dependence and fear conveyed through the warmth against his back.
Then, in a voice unusually gentle yet resolute—one he himself barely recognized—he answered with earnest gravity.
“Mm.
I promise.
Next time…
I won’t.”
The moment his words fell, he could feel the body pressed against his back seem to relax a little.
Yet, in the very next instant, something happened that even Hachiman himself hadn’t anticipated.
His body seemed to move with a will of its own—he turned around gently, facing Yukinoshita.
Under the gaze of those ice-blue eyes, still glistening with moisture and wide with astonishment, he extended his uninjured right arm.
Clumsily, yet with unshakable resolve, he drew her softly into his embrace.
It was a hug so brief it almost felt like a mirage.
A touch, then separation.
He hadn’t even dared to hold her tightly, nor dared to linger.
After this impulsive act, Hikigaya released his arms as if burned.
His face flushed crimson at a speed visible to the naked eye—even the tips of his ears were dyed red.
Not daring to look at Yukinoshita’s expression any longer, he stammered out an incoherent “I-I’m going!” and then, as though pursued by a wild beast, practically fled toward the elevator, arms and legs nearly moving in tandem, jabbing frantically at the down button.
Only when the elevator doors slid shut—sealing away that corridor still faintly carrying the fragrance of her and the astonishing sensation of that embrace—did Hikigaya lean his back against the cold elevator wall, gasping for breath.
He felt his heart was about to leap straight out of his chest.
What…
had he just done?!
He had actually…
hugged Yukinoshita Yukino?!
That Yukinoshita?!
The elevator slowly descended, the floor numbers shifting one by one.
Hikigaya stared at his own reflection in the mirrored wall—that red, panicked face—and his mind churned in chaos.
“After this…
what on earth is my daily life going to turn into…” he muttered in despair.
The peaceful (rotting) life he had originally pursued seemed to be careening wildly, at full speed, toward a completely unpredictable and absolutely, insanely troublesome direction.
…
Yukinoshita still stood rooted in place, as if she had turned into a sculpture.
The soft light at her apartment door spilled over her, yet she felt as though all the blood in her body was rushing to her face.
Her fair cheeks were now as red as a ripe apple, even her neck flushed pink.
She…
what had she just done?
She had actually…
held Hikigaya Hachiman from behind?
And…
said those things to him?
And what was even harder for her to believe…
He…
had turned around and hugged her back?
Though it had lasted only a fleeting moment, that warm sensation, those steady arms, and that presence so close—carrying a faint scent of disinfectant yet somehow so reassuring—everything was etched into her senses with piercing clarity.
“I…
just now…” Yukinoshita unconsciously raised her hand and lightly touched her own still-burning cheek.
Her ice-blue eyes brimmed with confusion and an unprecedented fluster.
That surge of emotion she hadn’t been able to control, that heart-wrenching fear when she saw him hurt, that impulse-driven act that had crossed a boundary…
and, when he held her, that fleeting, unfamiliar flutter and sense of reassurance that had flickered somewhere deep in her heart…
What was all of this?
This unfamiliar, intense, disorienting feeling—when had it begun, quietly growing, until today it had finally burst through the walls of cool composure she had so carefully constructed?
She leaned her back against the cold door and slowly slid down to sit on the floor.
Burying her burning face in her knees, she tried to sort through the tangled mess of her thoughts.
But all that replayed in her mind, over and over, was the sight of his reddened ears as he turned to flee…
and…
that brief, yet heart-stopping embrace.
…
Hikigaya burst out of the apartment building practically at a sprint.
The cool night breeze hit his face, but it did absolutely nothing to cool the heat on his cheeks.
Hiratsuka was still leaning against the car, a slender cigarette held between her fingers, its red ember glowing and fading in the night.
Seeing Hachiman emerge in such a flustered state, his face still bright red, a knowing, teasing grin spread across her face.
She exhaled a puff of smoke and drawled lazily, “Yo, back down so soon?
Looks like our little hero’s offensive wasn’t quite fierce enough.
Still, kid, take a word of advice from your teacher—trying to keep a foot in two boats is dangerous business.
Careful you don’t end up getting chopped to mincemeat one of these days.”
Hikigaya, already deeply unsettled, found his irritation flaring at this teasing.
He snapped back without much thought, “…I don’t need a life lecture from a single woman your age, staring down thirty without a boyfriend in sight!”
“Hah!?” Stung where it hurt most, Hiratsuka’s eyebrows shot up.
She raised her hand as if to deliver one of her signature “Fists of Love,” but her movement halted when her gaze fell upon his left arm, wrapped in gauze.
She lowered her hand resentfully and let out a huff.
“Brat.
I’ll let you off this once, since you’re a wounded man today.
Get in the car!”
Hachiman pulled the door open and climbed back into the rear seat.
Watching the nighttime scenery flash past outside the window, his heart remained a storm-tossed sea.
Too much had happened today.
Getting hurt.
Being rescued.
Yukinoshita’s tears and her embrace.
And his own uncontrollable response…
His high school life, from the moment he joined the Service Club and met Yukinoshita Yukino again, had been destined for anything but peace.
And ahead, it seemed, even more “trouble” and “surprises” lay in wait for him.
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