Speaking of which, this seems to be the Service Club.
This strange name gave Hachiman Hikigaya a deep impression at the beginning.
But later, discovering that there were spirits, snow women, and a vampire or something in the classroom, Hikigaya had already regarded it as a reading club for supernatural creatures.
A quiet corner of the school where the non-humans gathered to pretend they were ordinary students.
Although he didn’t want to admit it, honestly, Hikigaya felt quite comfortable staying here.
It was not because of such a shallow reason as being surrounded by beautiful girls—though that was objectively true, he would never say it out loud.
Rather, it was the feeling of the Service Club itself: there was interaction but no disturbance.
The four of them chatting and reading books in a casual, low-pressure way suited his heart quite well.
Not to mention that he also met the holy Archangel here.
The radiance of Yuzuru Yamai would surely illuminate the world!
Oh, he added, because the angel has a bit of chuunibyou, she is quite approachable.
Normal angels would be too intimidating.
Yuzuru is the perfect balance of divine and ridiculous.
However, when Yui Yuihama came to ask for help, Hachiman Hikigaya finally came back to his senses.
This was, indeed, a club with the theme of helping others.
Not just a supernatural book club with excellent vibes.
“I’m a bit thirsty.” Yui fidgeted with her hands, her hesitant expression making Hikigaya realize something.
The content of the girl’s request for help might be somewhat private—perhaps not suitable for boys to hear.
“I’ll go out and buy a box of SPORTOP.”
“I’ll just have Vegetable Life 100 Strawberry Mixed Yogurt.”
Yukino Yukinoshita was ruthless.
She was exceptionally good at ordering people around, her tone carrying the unspoken assumption that everyone else existed to serve her.
Is this what a young lady from a wealthy family is like?
Probably, Hikigaya thought.
Definitely.
“What do you want to drink, Yuzuru?” Hachiman Hikigaya turned his head and asked Yuzuru gently, then added: “Kaguya too.”
“Protest.” Kaguya raised her hand, her face perfectly calm.
“Kaguya is also Hachiman’s friend. Opposed to differential treatment.”
Not to mention, Hikigaya noted, Kaguya saying this with a calm face is also quite cool.
She has a certain deadpan charm.
“Fine, fine, fine.” He waved a hand.
“So what do you want to drink?”
“Yuzuru wants Takachiho Farm yogurt, desu!”
“I want KAGOME Vegetable Life vegetable juice.”
“Got it, got it.”
Hachiman Hikigaya opened the door and left the classroom, leaving four girls behind to discuss whatever private matters Yui needed help with.
The vending machine was on the ground floor of the teaching building.
In order to leave enough time for the girls to discuss—and to avoid awkwardly standing in the hallway like a lost duck—Hikigaya slowly wandered downstairs.
Forget it, he thought as he walked.
I might as well buy one for that Yuihama-whatever-her-name-is.
After all, all four people in the classroom have drinks.
It wouldn’t be good to leave her out.
Not that I care about normie social etiquette, he added quickly.
It’s just…
basic decency.
Nothing more.
However, Hikigaya, who walked to the vending machine, frowned.
Is it an illusion?
He always had the feeling of being watched.
A prickling sensation on the back of his neck, like someone was breathing down his collar.
Honestly, Hikigaya’s intuition was ridiculously accurate.
Especially after becoming a vampire.
Whether it was intuition or a sixth sense, Hikigaya always had an exceptionally sensitive feeling for the peeping of others.
It was like an itch he couldn’t scratch—annoying, persistent, and impossible to ignore.
“Come out.” He kept his voice casual, his eyes on the vending machine buttons.
“Stop hiding.”
Anyway, he reasoned, saying a word won’t make a piece of meat fall off.
Holding the idea that it doesn’t matter to trick the other party…
Hachiman Hikigaya pretended to be calm and spoke as if he knew exactly what he was doing.
He did not know what he was doing.
“How amazing?”
The voice that responded was melodic—too melodic, too theatrical, like someone performing in a one-woman play.
“Can I be discovered even when hiding in the shadows of time? Your insight is truly shocking.”
…There was actually someone there?
Hikigaya turned around slowly.
That was a girl with long black hair tied in twin tails.
Her skin was as smooth and fair as milk—almost luminescent—which looked exceptionally charming against the red and black clothes she wore.
And she was a lunatic wearing a gothic lolita outfit at school.
Hikigaya wanted to make this judgment about her.
He really did.
If not for that strange eye—one of her eyes was a clock, an actual clock, with golden hands ticking backward—he would have dismissed her as just another eccentric.
…Wait, he corrected himself.
That’s not the point.
The point is that she’s clearly not human.
That clock-like eye was clearly not an effect that could be achieved by contact lenses.
Just looking at it felt like being tempted by a demon—like staring into something ancient and hungry and utterly unconcerned with human morality.
“Sorry.” Hikigaya met her gaze with his dead-fish eyes.
“I just said that casually. I didn’t expect there to really be someone.”
“Uh.”
The girl with the clock eye was stunned for a moment.
She had already thought of the mysterious and seductive lines to follow—the dramatic introduction, the veiled threats, the whole gothic lolita villain monologue.
It was supposed to be a high-level, strong-vs-strong dialogue, a battle of wits between supernatural beings.
But it seemed to be pulled down to the level of a comedy anime all of a sudden.
“You seem to love joking.” She recovered quickly, her smile returning.
“But please allow me to introduce myself first—”
“No.” Hikigaya cut her off.
“I’m not joking. I really didn’t discover you. I was just bored and tried to bluff.”
Can’t this man read the room?
the girl’s expression seemed to say.
Can’t we just happily flatter each other and enter a normal style?
No, Hikigaya’s expression replied.
We cannot.
“Kurumi Tokisaki.” She pressed forward regardless, her smile fixed in place.
“Please treat me well.”
“We are not familiar.” Hikigaya turned back to the vending machine.
“Nothing to treat well.”
Hachiman Hikigaya couldn’t possibly have any interaction with such a strange beautiful girl.
Only the Fourth Progenitor could.
And as far as Hikigaya was concerned, that title meant nothing.
He was just a high school student trying to buy drinks for his friends.
Friends, he thought.
I have friends now.
Plural.
This is new.
No matter what purpose this woman had—Kurumi Tokisaki, clock eye, gothic lolita, clearly supernatural—Hachiman Hikigaya had no interest in saying another word to her.
Click.
Click.
Click.
The vending machine dispensed five bottles.
They almost emptied Hachiman Hikigaya’s pocket money for the week, but they couldn’t be wasted.
Hikigaya carefully placed the drinks on the ground next to the machine, organizing them so he could pick them up all at once.
“Sigh.” Kurumi’s voice came from behind him—closer now, much closer.
“Don’t be so heartless. If you could show mercy and lend me a little bit of your time…” She paused, and when she spoke again, her voice had dropped to a whisper.
“I would do anything for you.”
Anything.
The word hung in the air like a trap waiting to spring.
Hikigaya slowly straightened up, his back still to her.
Then he picked up the drinks, turned around, and walked past her without breaking stride.
“I’m a virgin,” he said flatly.
“But I’m not that kind of virgin.”
And he left her standing there—gothic lolita, clock eye, ancient spirit—alone by the vending machine, her dramatic entrance completely deflated by a dead-fish-eyed high schooler carrying five bottles of yogurt and vegetable juice.
…Huh, Kurumi thought, watching him go.
This one might be interesting after all.
“Is that so? Then may I ask, what is the interest rate of the loan? By what means will it be repaid? What is the maximum repayment period in years? From what date to what date?” Hikigaya didn’t even look back.
“What measures can I take if repayment is not made on time? And what collateral can you offer to exchange for this loan?”
One bottle of yogurt for Yuzuru, he thought, one vegetable juice for Kaguya, one strawberry mixed yogurt for Yukinoshita, one SPORTOP for the normie, and…
He paused, mentally reviewing his purchases.
…I forgot to buy something for myself.
Great.
Just great.
Behind him, a series of questions had almost burned out Kurumi Tokisaki’s CPU.
She couldn’t understand this man’s character setting.
It felt completely unrelated to the demeanor of a strong person—no gravitas, no mystery, no sense of ancient power barely contained beneath a mundane exterior.
Just…
a high school student complaining about beverage logistics.
“For an immortal Progenitor,” Kurumi said, her voice strained, “your time is almost endless. Why be so stingy?”
“I really hate this theory of yours.” Hikigaya finally turned around, his dead-fish eyes flat and unimpressed.
“Just because my time is endless, it can be borrowed without limits? What is the difference between this and a beggar saying ‘you have money so you must give it to me’?”
Entitlement disguised as reason.
I’ve seen it before.
I’ll see it again.
And I’m not falling for it.
It hardened.
Kurumi’s fist hardened.
Her knuckles went white around the fabric of her gothic lolita skirt.
Her smile—that perfect, theatrical smile—flickered at the edges.
Very timidly speaking—and Kurumi Tokisaki was not accustomed to timidity—she did not want to have a conflict with Hachiman Hikigaya.
That was the legendary strongest vampire.
The Fourth Progenitor.
Even if the rumors had exaggerated or false components, the identity of the Progenitor was definitely genuine.
Only a vampire Progenitor would possess such endless time—the golden river flowing through his veins like an eternal spring.
Being an enemy of such a powerful and mysterious creature was undoubtedly an extremely unwise act.
But…
But Hikigaya’s temptation for Kurumi was too great.
The only Progenitor without a country.
Without retainers.
Without the protection of a nation-state or the loyalty of an army.
The only Progenitor who walked alone, vulnerable and exposed.
The only object from which Kurumi Tokisaki could possibly obtain a large amount of time.
Just by looking at the boy in front of her, she could see it—the time flowing wantonly in his body like a golden river, inexhaustible, eternal, endless.
It was beautiful.
It was intoxicating.
It was everything she had been searching for.
As long as she could get it.
As long as she could get even a small part of it…
“Is it really not possible?” Kurumi’s voice dropped—softer now, almost pleading.
“Luminous Twilight Earl. I only need a small part. Insignificant to you.” She met his eyes.
“I am willing to pay any price for it.”
Hikigaya studied her for a long moment.
Then he said, “Your behavior doesn’t look like you want to purchase it through legal channels.”
Because if you did, he didn’t say, you would have brought a contract.
You would have brought collateral.
You would have brought something other than a desperate smile and empty promises.
But you didn’t.
So here we are.
A revolver had already appeared in Kurumi Tokisaki’s hand—old-fashioned, ornate, utterly out of place in a school hallway.
The clock behind her—Zafkiel—slowly emerged from the shadows, its golden hands ticking backward in defiance of time itself.
The temperature dropped.
The air grew heavy.
And Hachiman Hikigaya—dead-fish eyes, five bottles of drinks in his arms, and approximately three hundred yen left to his name—did not run.
He did not flinch.
He did not even blink.
He just sighed.
“Look,” he said, shifting the drinks to his other arm.
“I don’t know what kind of dramatic supernatural showdown you’re trying to start here. But I have yogurt that’s going to get warm, a best friend waiting for me, and absolutely zero interest in being anyone’s time donation center.”
He turned around.
“So if you’ll excuse me…”
And he walked away.
Step.
Step.
Step.
His back was wide open.
Unprotected.
Vulnerable.
Kurumi’s finger rested on the trigger.
One shot, she thought.
One shot and I could take it.
A fraction of his time.
Enough to—
Enough for what?
Enough to keep going?
Enough to finally—
She lowered the revolver.
Damn it.
Damn it, damn it, damn it.
Kurumi Tokisaki watched the Fourth Progenitor disappear around the corner, carrying his ridiculous assortment of beverages, and she couldn’t decide if she wanted to laugh or scream.
This one, she thought again, might be interesting after all.
Interesting and infuriating.
…I hate him already.