Hachiman Hikigaya was long accustomed to being a loner.
The only companions on his walk home were the ceaseless hum of traffic and the occasional drunk salaryman muttering to himself.
He had no complaints about this.
Learning to enjoy solitude was practically a required course in growing up—or rather, a badge of inner strength.
Only those who loudly romanticize youth but are fragile on the inside feel the need to eat lunch or use the bathroom in groups.
Anyone listening might think they couldn’t take a proper dump without a formation of friends standing guard.
Go explode, you herd-forming normies.
In short, Hikigaya always walked home alone.
…Until today.
“Hey, Himeragi. School’s over. You don’t have to keep following me, right?”
“Senpai, what are you saying? I have to monitor you properly.”
“Then don’t you need to go home?”
“My home is in this direction.”
Ah.
That made sense.
It wasn’t that we were walking home together—just that our routes happened to overlap.
As if.
She was already trailing me right up to my doorstep.
“Himeragi. There’s a chance this is my house.”
“I live next door.”
A question mark slowly bloomed on Hachiman Hikigaya’s forehead.
Last he checked, an elderly woman lived in that building next door.
When did Himeragi move in?
“You rented it?”
“No. Bought. The previous tenants have already moved out.”
Yukina Himeragi’s tone was eerily calm—like she was talking about buying slippers, not real estate.
“So you’re actually rich, Himeragi?”
“The Lion King Organization prepared the house. I’m just living in it. They do give me a high-risk work allowance, though.”
High-risk work allowance?
What exactly was dangerous about her job?
Hachiman felt vaguely insulted.
“How much?”
“The Three Saints said I was assigned the highest level of danger. They gave me ten million yen to buy whatever I wanted.”
I thought it’d be a lot.
Allowances are always stingy.
A thousand yen for high-risk work is—
Not a thousand.
Ten million yen?
Hikigaya whipped his head around, convinced he’d misheard.
“Himeragi. Let me confirm. You said ten million, not a thousand, right?”
“Senpai, my math is actually very good,” Himeragi replied, deadpan, as if that was the funniest joke she’d ever tell.
Ten.
Million.
Yen.
“I don’t doubt your academic ability, Himeragi. I doubt your common sense.”
She wasn’t completely disconnected from the world, sure.
But her upbringing was nothing like a normal person’s.
There was definitely some gap in her understanding of how money worked.
Not that it mattered.
Because right now, in Hachiman’s mind, the idea of teaming up with Himeragi to fleece the Lion King Organization for everything they had was growing exponentially.
He wasn’t bragging, but if monitoring a cynical, overly cautious high school boy earned ten million yen for “high-risk” work, he could bankrupt the entire organization if he really tried.
He’d leave the Three Saints without their underwear.
“Well then, Himeragi. Let’s go home together—meaning you go to yours, and I go to mine.” Suppressing that dangerously tempting thought, Hikigaya turned toward his own front door.
“Um… I actually can’t go home yet.”
Yukina Himeragi hesitated, fidgeting slightly.
That line sounded like something a female lead in a romantic comedy would say before inviting the protagonist in for a home run.
But Himeragi wasn’t that type.
If anything, acting coy didn’t suit her at all.
If Himeragi were in love, she’d be the type to seriously remind you to buy contraceptives before stepping through the door.
“Did you forget your keys?”
“More like I don’t have them. The mission was so sudden I was staying in a hotel until yesterday. The Lion King Organization bought this house in a hurry, so someone’s coming later with the keys.”
“I see.” Hikigaya nodded.
“Want to sit at my place for a while? You’re just waiting, right?”
“Thank you, Hikigaya-senpai. I never thought you were the type to invite a girl over.”
“Don’t misunderstand.” He raised a finger.
“The identity you have upon entering this house is not my junior, not my friend, and certainly not some weird surveillance agent. I didn’t invite you, either.”
“…Huh?”
Hikigaya smirked.
When it came to twisting reality into whatever interpretation suited him best, Hachiman Hikigaya would lose to no one.
Not even a god.
Well—except for that girl Yukinoshita.
While opening the door and changing his shoes, Hachiman turned around with a perfectly confident expression.
“The only reason you are able to step through this door,” he declared, “is that you are Komachi’s classmate. There is no other reason besides that.” Follow the newest chapters on g.com.
“I just happened to be on the same route home as you,” Himeragi said flatly.
“I just happened to open the door for you.”
“There is no connection between us.”
“And another thing…”
Now for the finishing blow.
“Komachi! Your classmate is here to see you!”
After changing into his slippers, Hachiman stood in the entryway and called inside, summoning the omnipotent goddess Komachi.
At this hour, she was usually sprawled on the sofa.
And as long as you called the goddess’s name, a response was guaranteed.
“Eh? Eh? Brother, who’s here?”
The goddess Komachi lived up to expectations, rolling off the sofa a moment later.
It seemed she’d taken a second to straighten her clothes—Komachi’s sleeping posture at home was notoriously disastrous.
“Your classmate. That one named Himeragi.”
What a rude way to introduce her.
Behind him, Yukina Himeragi went from confused to trembling with quiet indignation.
They had fought together.
Made cookies together.
How could this awful senpai switch attitudes faster than someone flipping through a manga?
“Yukina-chan! What made you decide to come visit me?”
“No, um, actually…” Yukina hesitated.
“I haven’t received my keys yet.”
“Eh? Even if Yukina-chan is super cute, I’m not giving you our house key. Of course, if you manage to win over my idiot brother, that’s a different story.”
“It’s not that. I just happen to be moving in next door, and the keys haven’t been delivered yet.”
…
Hachiman wasn’t good at dealing with girls.
So he decided to leave the problem to Komachi, who was infinitely better at it.
Compared to these unimportant matters…
Studying is more important.
“Studying is more important,” Hachiman said aloud, retreating to his room.
He took off his jacket and prepared to hit the books.
Sobu High School was actually quite excellent.
In terms of deviation scores, it was firmly in Chiba’s top tier.
If you wanted to maintain your rank, you couldn’t slack off.
After all, Hachiman Hikigaya had never once considered himself a genius.