Unfortunately enough, against whatever fibres of logic I still had left in my body, I arrived at the library the next day to meet Miura after school. It was just going to be a quick chat, I thought. Nothing major. Just something to settle the fact that Miura had not actually seen Hayama and Yukinoshita together and they weren't actually dating and I could go back to reading my trashy light novels in my clubroom in peace. I sat down at the secluded corner of the library we'd agreed to meet at beforehand and waited for Miura to arrive. She was late. I thought she might've at least bothered to show up on time, given how she was the one who invited me there, but she turned out to be even more useless than I thought. When she finally did arrive she looked like she was scowling, as if she were unhappy about something, but I honestly couldn't tell if it was that much different from what she tended to look like most days regardless.
"You're late, Miura."
"I don't want to hear you lecturing me, Hikigaya-brain."
"Don't casually slander my name like that! Hikigaya isn't an insult!"
"Whatever. Some idiots from the Planning Committee suddenly roped me into having to do some work for them. At first I was, like, no way, right? But then I saw Hayato was with them, and he was asking me as well, so how could I say no? Not to mention that wench Yukinoshita was there too..."
"Wait. Hayama and Yukinoshita are on the same committee together...?"
"Yeah, duh. You would've known if you weren't asleep in class the day the voting was drawn. They're totally staying behind after the meetings to spend some one-on-one time with each other. I'm sure of it!"
"Miura, that doesn't make any sense. There's loads of people on the Planning Committee. What does the two of them being a part of it at the same time have to do with anything?"
"Because that's what I overheard the other third-years in the toilet saying, okay?! They said they were meeting up before the meetings, after the meetings, how Hayato treats her better than anyone else on the committee... all totally signs that they're dating!"
"And that's why you're convinced you need to stalk them now...?"
"Of course! Like, don't you see?! Think of all the opportunities they have now to spend time in the meeting room together! They could be holding hands under the table! They could be kissing each other when no one else is looking! And... and... when they finally get the room all to themselves, they might even have... s... s... s-s-s-s-se..."
"I hope you're aware you sound like a total virgin right now."
"Shut up! You're a virgin too, you know! I don't want to hear that from you, you... loner super virgin!"
"Look Miura, don't be ridiculous. Assuming you're right, there are all sorts of explanations for those rumours. They could be meeting up to discuss things related to the cultural festival that they didn't have the time for otherwise. And of course they'd treat each other well. Yukinoshita was one of the biggest contributors to the success of last year's cultural festival. Anyone would go out of their way to treat her with respect."
"But... but... doesn't it still seem strange to you? Don't you want to know, just to find out if they really are dating or not?!"
"Well, I..."
The truth was that it did bother me, even if just a little. I wouldn't be secretly meeting Miura after school in the library like that if it didn't. I wanted to find out for certain, because if they weren't dating, then I could drop the issue and life would go back to normal. But if they were...
"I... forget it," I said. "That doesn't matter. I don't care if they're dating or not. I just want to prove you wrong so we can get this stupid mess all over with. Besides, you called me out here, but we're going to get nowhere talking like this. If what you say is true, then what's the plan? How are we going to confirm for ourselves?"
"Um, that's simple. We're going to confront them head-on, obviously."
"Head-on? How the hell do we do that? Do you want me to ask her myself? Are you crazy?"
"Of course not, dummy. I would never ask my Hayato something so personal. That's why we're going to join the Planning Committee ourselves."
And that's how we somehow found ourselves the day after that standing outside the door to the cultural festival Planning Committee meeting that was already taking place. I stared at it in all of its dull, undecorated glory, and it stared back, reminding me of everything that had taken place in that room during the cultural festival preparations last year—and all of the work I had to do because of it. I was not particularly fond of that room. I was even less fond of it when Hayama caught us standing outside through the circular window panes on the door that let you see in and out of the room and walked over to greet us with a smile on his face. It seemed like whether we liked it or not, there was no turning back on the plan any longer.
Originally, I thought Miura's plan to join the Planning Committee was stupid and completely insane. With preparations for the festival well underway, what good would it have done to join the committee then? That wasn't even to mention how it was easily the fastest way for them to suspect that we were up to no good. If we wanted to know if Yukinoshita and Hayama were really dating, wouldn't it have been better to follow them home after school and see if they made any secret visits to each other's houses? That's what Hikigaya Hachiman, the Normie Hunter, would've done. If only society wasn't so unfair to Normie Hunters like me, because doing so would've probably also gotten me arrested.
Hayama opened the door to greet us, and the entire meeting stopped. Everyone's eyes were now focused on the newcomers that had just arrived, wondering what on earth we could have possibly wanted from them this late into the cultural festival planning process. Yukinoshita too, but she seemed additionally confused by the fact that I had actually taken the initiative to go anywhere for once on my own accord. I turned my eyes back to Hayama, who smiled at us as if we were right on cue.
"Yumiko! What a surprise to see you here! And Hiki...tani-kun, was it? Did you have business with the Planning Committee?"
"Oh, H-Hayato! This is, like, totally such a coincidence! I didn't expect to see you here!"
"Are there any seats? Because we're here to sign up for your stupid committee. I also hope you wipe that smile off your face and go die in a fire."
"S-Sorry, Hikitani-kun, w-what was that?"
"I asked if we could join the Planning Committee."
"Really?! That'd be great! We're a little short on hands right now. We could use all the help we can get!"
"Um, I know I said being on the Planning Committee was super lame and all that, but I totally had a change of heart! Now it's, like, totally cool as! Right, Hikio?"
Don't look at me to give you an excuse for your own mistakes!
"R-Right..."
"We'd love to have you on! What do you think, Yukinoshita? I think they'd make a great addition to the team."
Yukinoshita looked at me, then looked at Miura, then looked back at me again, then took a deep sigh and returned to the work in front of her.
"...It is fine, I suppose. The two of you may take the two seats available over there."
She gestured to the two empty desks along the row in front of the windows facing outside with stacks of papers taller than anyone else's in the room. We made our way over to take our seats as quickly as possible. I tried to keep my head down as I approached Yukinoshita's desk to avoid thinking about how this was the most awful, obviously suspicious plan I had ever taken part in, but I could still feel her intense gaze on me even as I walked past. I wasn't sure how to explain to her why I'd suddenly decided to join the Planning Committee that day, and especially why I'd decided to join with Miura, of all people, at the same time. Hikigaya Hachiman, volunteering to work? She probably thought I was out of my mind. And considering just what exactly we'd joined the committee for, I was really beginning to feel the same.
"Yo! What up, Yu-mi-ko! The hell you doin' here?!" yelled a familiarly irritating voice towards us from the other side of the room.
"Huh? Kakeru?! You're in the Planning Committee?!"
"Hehehe! What a surprise, Miura-san! I never expected to see you join as well! Hehehe!" squeaked the short guy sitting next to him with a face that would've surely already gotten him arrested if this was a normal episode of Psycho-Pass.
"O-Ouoka?!"
"F-F-F-F-Funny seeing you h-here in the committee like th-th-th-th-this. I-I thought you said you didn't want to w-w-w-waste your time doing w-work after school like those i-idiots in the s-s-s-s-student council," stammered the tall and slow-looking guy sitting next to him.
"Oh my god, this can't be happening. Yamato? You too? You're all a part of the Planning Committee?"
"I know, Yu-mi-ko! It's totally lame! The teacher caught us skipping school one day and threw us in here as punishment! Now we're stuck doing all this paperwork every afternoon! That's, like, totally not cool, man!" yelled Kakeru again with a voice that was at least twice as loud as it needed to be.
Ouoka, Yamato, and Kakeru Tobe, the Three Stooges of Hayama's clique. I didn't know much about them except that they were cool, popular, and seemed like the kind of guys who smoked cigarettes and had casual sex all the time. In other words, normies. Enemies of Hikigaya Hachiman, the Normie Hunter.
"Ugh, this is the worst..." Miura suddenly mumbled in a voice only I could hear. "The entire goon squad is here. I didn't expect this at all..."
I couldn't help but stifle a chuckle.
"Goon squad...? I didn't know that's what you called them. I thought they were supposed to be your friends."
"I mean, they're fine on their own, but when they're together..."
"B-But what about you, M-M-Miura? I-I'm more surprised to see y-y-y-y-you here. A-Aren't you too d-d-d-d-dumb to be doing this kind of w-w-w-work?" said Yamato, somehow sounding like both a giant nerd and a giant asshole at the same time.
"Hehehe! Yes, I definitely didn't expect this from you, Miura-san! Did you join to get closer to that boyfriend of yours? Hehehe!" piped Ouoka along with him, the small laughs that kept accompanying his words starting to make my skin crawl already.
"Huh?! Hayato is not my boyfriend! Can't you guys stop saying that?!"
"I dunno, man! That's just, like, totally what his girlfriend would say, ya hear me?! I bet you two have already done the dirty, if ya know what I'm sayin'!"
"Ew, no! What're you—what're you talking about?! We haven't done anything! I mean—ugh! For the last time, we are not going out!"
Miura sighed, and started mumbling quietly to me again.
"When they're together... this happens."
"Now, now, everyone. Let's calm down. There's no need to get heated when two people have just joined the committee. Let's focus on the work we're here to do today," said Hayama's soothing and utterly punchable voice.
Get heated? The only people trying to start anything were Kakeru and his band of tools. Give me a break. Don't try to pin the blame on the rest of us.
"Thank you, Hayama," said Yukinoshita from the front of the room. "I hope the three of you will refrain from inciting such petty squabbles in the future. Now, if the new joiners are settled, I would like to quickly move back to what we were discussing before. Have we confirmed all of the participating clubs?"
"All done!" yelled a voice from the room.
"Have we reached out to all of the classrooms to finalise what stalls they will be holding on the day?"
"That's still in progress, but it should be confirmed by the end of the day," said another.
"And how are preparations going for the school play?"
"Underway, but we're facing some issues. We haven't found a volunteer yet to lead the performance with the children from the local daycare centre," said a third.
"'Yet'...? Please, this is not the time for jokes. The cultural festival is next month. I recall discussing appointing someone to the role several weeks ago."
"I-I understand, Yukinoshita-san, but there appears to have been a shortage of volunteers..."
"That's just 'cause no one wants to do it, man! Who the hell wants to work with kids? They're, like, as smelly as my armpits, dude!" yelled Kakeru from across the room suddenly.
"Hehehe! We had volunteers for other roles in our class, but none for this one! I have better things to do than to look after the diapers of some silly children every day! Hehehe!"
"N-Not to mention you'll be in c-c-c-c-c-charge of the performance, w-which means spending your time a-after school every day w-w-w-w-with them. G-Gives me n-nightmares just th-th-th-thinking about it..."
"This is not the time to be complaining," said a stern Yukinoshita from the front of the room. "Preparations and rehearsals with the daycare centre will take the rest of this month at a minimum. We need someone in that role now. If there are no volunteers, perhaps I will pick one of you three instead, seeing how you all seem to be so eager to speak your minds today."
There was a silence in the room. It was clear that the role was very unpopular, as no one bothered to put their hand up or say anything lest they might've been chosen to work with children for the rest of the month. I personally felt the same way. I couldn't stand the idea of having to look after a bunch of disgusting snot-nosed brats every afternoon. I already knew what kind of disaster it was like having to look after Komachi when she was younger and our parents were out of the house. And that was only one of them. I didn't want to think about how much worse it could be to have to look after even more.
But, then...
"I... can do it."
To my complete shock and horror, I turned to my right to see Miura with her hand up. I couldn't believe my eyes. Yumiko Miura had just volunteered to do something for what I could only imagine was the first time in her life. Not only that, she'd volunteered to do something no one else in our entire class had wanted to do. Was this really the Miura I knew?
"Excellent. I see you have joined this committee at a valuable time," said Yukinoshita.
"Yu-mi-ko?! You want to work with those kids?! That's, like, totally wack, man!"
"Hehehe! That's awfully strange of you, Miura-san! I had no idea you were secretly a baby-lover all along! Hehehe!"
"W-What's wrong, M-M-Miura? I thought you said you h-h-h-h-hated children. I-I didn't know it was your dream to be a b-b-b-babysitter!"
"Knock it off, guys. I'm just doing it because no one else is volunteering, okay? I mean, It's not like I want to or anything..."
"Calm down, everyone! Let's work out our differences together!" chimed Hayama in a way that only made me want to punch him even more.
"Yeah, Yamada, you gotta relax, man! This is, like, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity! We're gonna get to see Mama Yumiko out of this! The kids will be all 'goo goo gaga!' and she'll be all 'Shh, mommy Yumiko is here'! Then she might take her top off and start breastfeeding them! We gotta, like, totally get this on camera, man!"
"Hehehe! You've got a point, Kakeru! I'm starting to look forward to this! I might even start calling her Miura-mommy! Hehehe!"
"H-Hey, M-M-Miura-mommy, I'm a bit h-hungry! W-Would you let me b-b-b-breastfeed from you t-t-t-too?"
"Oh, all of you, shut up! I'm only doing it because none of you idiots want to pick it up! If you think it's so funny then why don't you try doing it yourselves?!"
Yukinoshita cleared her throat from the front of the room, and everyone went silent. It seemed even those in the Planning Committee had been made fully aware of what Yukinoshita was capable of when people weren't properly following her orders.
"I believe I have made it clear that I will not tolerate such incivility in this meeting room. I will leave this as your last warning, the three of you, unless you wish to face the consequences. Now, if we are done playing around, I would like to address the details of the play at hand. In particular, we have settled on a dinosaur-based theme for its reliable popularity with children. You will be expected to dress in a dinosaur costume and dance with the children on stage..."
"Yo, that sounds hilarious! Yumiko's gonna be a dino-mommy, man! Dino-mommy-Yumiko!"
"Hehehe! That Yumiko Miura, dressed as a dinosaur to play with kids on stage? What are the girls going to think of this?! I can't wait! Hehehe!"
"I-I bet the children are going to enjoy being b-b-b-b-breastfed from a dinosaur like M-M-M-M-Miura."
I turned to Miura on my right. Her face was white-hot and seething with rage. She was not taking this lightly.
"Yeah? You all think this is funny, huh? You shits wanna try saying that to my face again? Call me dino-mommy one more fucking ti—"
"Everyone, everyone! Please, calm down!" bursted Hayama in his most frustratingly soothing voice yet. "This is not the time for disagreements amongst ourselves. Now is the time to get together for the cultural festival and work towards something great! Last year's cultural festival was loved by everyone, so let's make the one this year even better!"
"...Hayama, you're kidding, right?"
This time, the one to interrupt wasn't Miura, or Yukinoshita, or even any of the Three Stooges responsible for this mess. This time, somehow, the one to finally snap was me.
"You've been going on and on about how everyone should 'calm down' and 'get over their differences' and all that, but do you realise who's creating these differences in the first place? Who keeps distracting us from doing the work you've assigned us to do? Can you look at me with a straight face and tell me that Miura was even partially responsible for the ruckus we're seeing now? That she was the one who instigated this mess, and not the three spineless attention-seekers over there? You're one of the leaders of this committee. Your friends are misbehaving, and deserve to be punished. Why aren't you punishing them? Why aren't you even calling them out and saying what they're doing is wrong?
"W-Well, I..."
I didn't know what made me blurt out something like that so suddenly at the time. I definitely wasn't doing it because I wanted to defend Miura or anything like that. I couldn't care less about her drama with her friends or what kind of names they were calling her that day. But there was something that irritated me about it all. Something about how Hayama refused to call out his friends for being the insufferable assholes they were, or how those insufferable assholes thought they were free to make fun of someone like that without any repercussions. Maybe they even thought they were free to precisely because their friend Hayama was there. But it didn't matter what the reason was. I was profound loner Hikigaya Hachiman, the Normie Hunter, and I was not going to let a normie injustice like this go unanswered.
"Heeey, man! Look who it is! Hi... Hiki... Hikitani-kun, was it? The guy who always sits by himself in class?"
It's called Observation you ape. I know more about the social dynamics of every relationship in the classroom than you ever will, but it's not like an idiot of your calibre would ever understand that.
"Ah... yeah... I'm a 'lone wolf' and all that, haha..."
"Ha! Yo, that's a good one, Hikigami-kun! What a cool way to say you're a loner! Haha!"
"Haha... ha..."
You should be careful who you're talking to, Tobe. The only Hikigami around here is the one that's going to rip that indecent tongue out of you the next time I get the chance.
"Hehehe! Now that you mention it, you walked in together with him, didn't you, Miura-san? What's going on there, I wonder?! I didn't know the two of you had that kind of relationship! Hehehe!"
"Y-Yeah, M-M-Miura! S-Since when were you h-hanging out with M-Mr. King Dweeb h-h-h-h-himself? W-What is he, your white k-knight now? T-T-T-T-Talk about lame!"
King Dweeb? Interesting. Maybe I'll let your friends use that name to describe your murderer when I show up to strangle you in your sleep.
"Oh I have had ENOUGH!" screamed Miura as she stood up and banged her hands on the table. "I can't take another second in this room with these people. You all can take your cultural festival and shove it!"
Miura practically threw her chair against the wall before storming across the room and out of the door. Hayama seemed lost. He tried to call out to her to stop her, but to no avail. Miura wasn't listening. She headed down the stairs to the ground floor below and left the rest of us to deal with the uncomfortable silence that followed after.
"...I suppose we should take this as an opportunity to resume our work. Have the festival posters been set up across all of the school notice boards?" said Yukinoshita in her usual unshakeable tone.
"Sheesh, what's Yumiko's problem...? We were just, like, joking and stuff, man. She didn't need to get so offended by it..."
"And you three. For successive violations of the peace and order of this committee, despite repeated warnings to cease to do so, the workloads of the three of you will be tripled, as of today, with the extra work to be delegated from other members of the committee. I will hear no objections. I hope the three of you will see to it that this does not happen again."
Yukinoshita looked at me in that moment, but I could only look away.
Some time passed after that until the meeting was finally over. The Three Stooges stopped bickering once Miura had left the room, so the remainder of the time was spent going through the same boring paperwork I had to do during the preparation for last year's cultural festival. I guess some things in life just never change. I couldn't help but feel a little bitter over having willingly signed up to spend my time after school sitting in the most boring two hours conceivable to the human imagination. And I wasn't alone. By the end of the meeting, save maybe Yukinoshita with her machine-like work ethic and Hayama with his unflagging optimism and can-do attitude, everyone else was so exhausted from working that they didn't even have the energy to get out of their chairs to go home. Even the Three Stooges spent the rest of the meeting in dead silence. And it wasn't like I gained any useful information about whether Hayama and Yukinoshita were dating or not that day. If this whole ordeal really ended up being as pointless as I thought it was, Miura was going to have some hell to pay me back.
One-by-one, as people started regaining consciousness, they got up and limped their way to the front desk to hand over the paperwork they'd finished that day for Hayama and Yukinoshita to review before leaving the room to go home. I was ready to call it a day as well. Miura wasn't even there anymore, and I wasn't sure I was ready to answer the kind of questions Yukinoshita probably had for why I suddenly joined the Planning Committee that day. So I waited until I caught her turning around to return a few documents into some filing cabinets before I made a break for it to head out of the door and down the hallway to go home. All I had to do was keep my head down, avoid eye-contact, and walk as quickly and quietly as possible...
"And where do you think you're going?"
Uh oh.
I turned around to see the menacing figure of Yukinoshita standing outside the door with her arms crossed, staring at me like how you'd stare at a child who was trying to pretend they somehow weren't the one who broke the neighbour's glass window while they were playing outside that day. It seemed like everyone else had left the room by now, so it was just Yukinoshita and I, standing in that hallway, alone. I suppose she was expecting me to have some explaining to do.
"I'm sure you know what I am about to ask, Hikigaya-kun."
"...That I did such a great job today and you wanted to know if I'd be available to come back again tomorrow?"
"I would cease your arrogance if I were you, unless you wish to get first-hand experience of what that fool Tobe and his friends had to go through this afternoon."
"Sorry, ma'am."
"I am still having trouble comprehending the situation. Why would someone like you, Hikigaya Hachiman, the enemy of work, collaboration, and progress, deliberately join the cultural festival Planning Committee to do exactly that? And what a peculiar timing to join, too. I hope you are aware we are more than halfway over the preparation timeline. If you were to join at any point, would it not have made more sense to join right at the beginning, and not when the cultural festival planning would be well underway? But, perhaps most peculiar of all, is how you ended up joining simultaneously with that spoiled blonde animal, Yumiko Miura. Am I to believe there is some strange coincidence to this? Or am I to take this as a sign that you should be barred from entering our clubroom ever again under suspicions of collusion with the enemy?"
"You see, I, uh, can explain..."
Yukinoshita sighed and unfolded her arms. The conversation had barely just begun and she'd already given up, apparently thinking she wouldn't have been satisfied no matter what answer I gave her.
"...It is no matter, I suppose. I must thank you, Hikigaya-kun. We have been short on hands for some time now, and it is hard for me to criticise you for coming in like this during such a busy time. For that, and that alone, I am willing to forgive this line of questioning. I appreciate you joining, even if you do prove worthless as usual. But whether Yuigahama-san would agree on the matter, I am not so certain..."
"'Worthless as usual'? That's a funny way to say 'most reliable member of the cultural festival Planning Committee of last year'. Unless I'm mistaken, I was the one who was having to stay behind every day because everyone else was dumping their extra workloads on me. And I survived that, all by myself. I didn't even have any friends to help me. If there were ever any argument to be made whether collaboration might be better than solitude, the sheer fact of my existence would swing the debate to the side of solitude every time."
"How amusing. You received no help because you have no friends? I appreciate your lack of shame in freely admitting something so sad."
"Don't discredit my cool loner moment so easily!"
We talked for a while after that. We talked about what the Planning Committee was doing, what Yukinoshita was responsible for, and how she'd been feeling since she didn't have the time to attend the Service Club anymore. She said she was doing fine, but I don't think anyone would've believed her. She clearly didn't want to bring up how Yuigahama might've been feeling about all the times she'd been absent from the clubroom, and couldn't give a proper response when I mentioned how even I was starting to miss the idle days we spent in the clubroom together as well.
Some time in the middle of our conversation, Hayama stepped out of the committee meeting room we were all just in and walked over to Yukinoshita's side to greet the both of us with his usual sickly sweet smile.
"Nnnnnnnnhhhaaaaaaaa! Phew, that was exhausting! But that's all of today's documents finally approved now. Oh? What are you two still doing here? Shouldn't the two of you be heading home already?"
"Funny coincidence. I was just about to head off myself..." I grumbled, annoyed all of a sudden.
Hayama Hayato. Even putting aside what I originally joined that stupid committee for, I wasn't too happy that he showed up to interrupt our conversation like that. I was never particularly fond of him, and none of what I'd seen that day was doing anything to change that. It was hard for me to believe he and Yukinoshita were really dating, and it wasn't as if I even saw them give any special attention to each other that day. I was sure that, logically, it was all a misunderstanding of Miura's imagination. She was the kind of person to come up with something as crazy and delusional as someone 'taking her Hayato away' because they happened to be on the same committee as he was.
And, yet...
"Oh, okay! Have a safe trip then, Hikitani-kun! I'll see you tomorrow!"
"There is still lots to do. I take it you will be coming back, Hikitani-kun?" said Yukinoshita, smiling.
"...Yeah, whatever."
I turned around and started on my way home. It was only our first day in the committee, and I still had answers to uncover. I doubt either Miura or I would've been satisfied until we'd fully uncovered the truth. Tomorrow would be another long afternoon in the Planning Committee, no doubt.