The awkward atmosphere at the Service Club door was temporarily dispelled by the figure inside the clubroom, who was thoroughly absorbed in his own world, utterly oblivious to his surroundings.
With a sense of resigned exasperation, Hikigaya was the first to push open the door, which had been left ajar.
Creeeak—
The sound of the door opening startled the “uninvited guest” inside.
The heavyset boy with white hair, who had been sitting with his back to the door, spun around with a motion so exaggerated it belonged on a stage actor.
When he saw clearly that the person entering was Hikigaya, the eyes hidden beneath his somewhat long bangs lit up with a strange, peculiar glow.
He spread his arms wide in an intensely theatrical pose and declared in a booming, cadenced voice, steeped in some archaic style.
“Ooh!
Can this be a reunion ordained by fate itself?!
Transcending the barriers of this mortal realm, my dearest comrade, the great Bodhisattva Hachiman!
You have at last descended upon this most mundane of places!”
Pfft—
An extremely soft, barely suppressed snort of laughter came from behind Hikigaya.
It was Yukinoshita Yukino.
She had clearly been tickled by that excessively bizarre form of address—”the great Bodhisattva Hachiman.” Though she immediately covered it with a light cough, the curve at the corner of her lips, which she hadn’t quite managed to suppress, was sharply caught by Hikigaya.
“Eh?
Hachiman…
Bodhisattva?” Yuigahama Yui blinked in utter bafflement, looking from Zaimokuza to Hikigaya—whose face radiated a profound desire to cease existing—clearly unable to grasp the “essence” of this form of address.
But upon hearing Yukinoshita’s soft laugh, she couldn’t help letting out a giggle of her own, finding this chubby boy’s way of speaking thoroughly entertaining.
An invisible black line sprouted on Hikigaya’s forehead.
Ignoring the reactions of the two girls behind him, he directed a textbook dead-fish eye straight at Zaimokuza and cut off his “aria” in a tone utterly devoid of inflection.
“Zaimokuza.
Speak like a normal person.
What are you doing here?”
Faced with Hikigaya’s merciless interrogation, Zaimokuza not only failed to rein himself in—he straightened his back even further, as if he were a monarch proclaiming a decree to his subjects.
Waving his arms, he began to explain in an even more floridly ornate, yet even more incomprehensible manner.
“My arrival here is for the purpose of seeking wisdom most supreme and judgment most just!
In this present world, so choked with chaos and base desires, only this place—this sacred sanctuary of service—can bear the weight of my treasured work, can grant it the radiance and critique it deserves!
I entrust here the crystallization of my heart’s blood, the embodiment of my very soul, in the hope that its true value may be glimpsed—whether it be the North Star blazing in the firmament, or something destined to sink into the depths of the Styx…”
He rambled on and on, his sentences lengthy and convoluted, stuffed with invented terminology and metaphors that sounded grandiose but were hollow to the core, completely immersed in his own oration as if he had forgotten everything around him.
At first, Yukinoshita had barely managed to maintain a posture of polite listening.
But as time wore on, her fine brows furrowed more and more tightly.
The other party was completely ignoring her existence, merely carrying on with his own lengthy and meaningless monologue.
For someone who valued efficiency and logic, this was practically a form of torture.
Finally, just before the last thread of her patience snapped, she drew a deep breath and cut him off in the calmest voice she could muster—though it already carried a trace of coldness.
“Zaimokuza…-san, was it?
Please state your purpose for being here directly, and specify what your request is.”
However, Zaimokuza seemed not to have heard her at all—or had selectively ignored her words.
He continued waving his arms and pressing on with his “epic” speech.
“…Thus, bearing a heart of pure sincerity, I have traversed…”
A vein seemed to be throbbing faintly on Yukinoshita’s forehead.
The temperature of the air around her felt as though it had abruptly dropped several degrees.
She no longer attempted to maintain surface-level politeness.
Her ice-blue eyes locked onto Zaimokuza with razor sharpness.
Her voice was like a blade drawn from its sheath, carrying an undeniable, frosty edge as she enunciated each word with crystal clarity.
“Get.
To.
The.
Point.
What.
Exactly.
Are.
You.
Here.
For?”
This sudden interrogation—so charged with an overwhelming aura and icy fury—crashed over Zaimokuza like a bucket of ice water, instantly extinguishing every last ember of his “performance drive.”
His massive frame visibly trembled.
His speech came to a screeching halt.
Like a small animal suddenly finding itself in the crosshairs of a predator, he shrank his neck inward.
The exaggerated expression on his face collapsed in an instant, replaced by a fluster that bordered on terror.
“I-I’m sorry!” He lowered his head almost as a conditioned reflex.
His voice became considerably more normal—though it still carried a tremor and a residual chuunibyou inflection, at least it was now comprehensible.
“I-I wanted to ask you…
to take a look at a novel I wrote!
And then…
tell me how it is!”
He had finally stated his true purpose for coming.
Hikigaya looked at Zaimokuza—so imposing and grandiose just moments ago, now cowering like a frightened quail—then at Yukinoshita beside him, whose expression remained cold but whose anger seemed to have dissipated somewhat.
He sighed in exasperation, stepped forward, and gave her a light pat on the shoulder.
“Yukinoshita,” he explained in a low voice, his tone carrying a hint of appeasement.
“This guy’s not doing it on purpose.
He’s just…
simply, really bad at—or rather, has absolutely no idea how to—talk to girls normally.
Don’t take it too seriously.”
Feeling that light pat on her shoulder, Yukinoshita’s body paused, almost imperceptibly.
She turned her head and glanced at the resigned look in Hikigaya’s eyes.
The frost on her face thawed just slightly.
A very faint blush quietly stole across her cheeks.
She let out a soft “Hmph,” then turned her head toward Zaimokuza, who was still keeping his head lowered.
Her tone, though still cool, no longer carried its earlier sharp edge.
“…Understood.
Since it is a request, the Service Club has no reason to refuse.
We accept this request.”
“R-Really?!” Zaimokuza jerked his head up.
His face instantly blossomed with incredulous, ecstatic delight, his eyes wide and round as if he had just heard music from the heavens.
In a flurry of frantic movements, he pulled from his bulging school bag a thick stack of printed pages, carefully bound in a clear file folder.
With immense solemnity—bending nearly ninety degrees at the waist in a deep bow—he handed copies to Hikigaya, to Yukinoshita, and to Yuigahama, who had curiously drawn closer.
“I-I entrust this to all of you!
Please, I beg of you, render the harshest, most impartial judgment!”
He maintained his bowing posture, speaking in a tone that was still somewhat peculiar but at least now intelligible—a gravity akin to a great general entrusting a mission to his retainers.
Then, without waiting for the three to respond, as if he had just completed some monumental task, he fled from the Service Club room with an agility that belied his physique.
He was gone almost instantly, leaving the three of them staring at one another.
Hikigaya looked down at the weighty manuscript in his hands, its title printed in an exaggerated font—Blazing Inferno of the Fallen Celestial Knight and the Apocalypse of Final Annihilation.
He then raised his eyes to look at Yukinoshita and Yuigahama, who were also now holding copies.
The corner of his mouth twitched uncontrollably.
“So…” He lifted the manuscript in his hand slightly, his voice laden with deep skepticism and a foreboding sense of doom.
“Are you two…
really planning to read this?”
He recalled the occasional glimpses he’d caught back in middle school of Zaimokuza’s “creative works”—rife with elements like “darkness,” “evil eye,” “world destruction.” His stomach was already beginning to ache faintly.
“Knowing what I know about this guy Zaimokuza,” Hikigaya’s expression was grim, as if he were announcing an impending catastrophe, “this thing…
is probably going to be incredibly hard to get through.
No—it’s going to be extreme…
psychological contamination.”
Yukinoshita lowered her head and flipped through the first page of the manuscript.
It was packed with invented terminology and exaggerated descriptions.
Her brow furrowed, almost imperceptibly.
Yet she still spoke with composure.
“Since we have accepted the request, we must carry it out diligently.
That is the principle of the Service Club.”
Yuigahama, on the other hand, was full of curiosity and optimism.
She leafed through the manuscript.
Though the complex setting and convoluted names made her head spin a little, she still said with a smile, “Let’s just give it a read!
What if…
what if it’s actually really good?
Zaimokuza-kun seemed so serious about it!”
Hikigaya looked at Yuigahama’s innocent, encouraging smile, then at Yukinoshita’s profile—resigned yet still earnest.
In the end, he let out a deep sigh and spoke in a tone of tragic solemnity, as if marching toward his own demise.
“Let’s just hope…
that after we finish reading this, our eyes and our souls won’t have sustained irreversible damage.”
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