With Hiratsuka—the bridge between people—gone, the atmosphere in the clubroom instantly became quiet and awkward.
Yukino returned her attention to the book in her hands. Raize glanced at Hikigaya and paused the game for the time being.
"Don't just stand there. Find a place to sit, Hikigaya. I was just cooperating with Shizuka-sensei earlier."
Raize gave the uniquely characterized Hikigaya a friendly smile and gestured for him to grab a chair.
Given what he knew of Hikigaya, Raize thought he was someone worth befriending.
Besides, leaving him standing there was awkward, so Raize was just giving him an out.
"Okay. Sorry."
Hikigaya was a bit flustered. He followed Raize's suggestion and sat down stiffly on a chair not far from Yukino.
After sitting down, he glanced at Raize, who was busy on his laptop, then slightly turned to look at Yukino—only to meet her gaze directly.
"Is there something?"
Yukino asked calmly, her expression blank.
Feeling restless, Hikigaya was well aware of both Raize and Yukino's reputations.
One was his classmate; the other was the most famous girl in the international class.
He wasn't good at dealing with either of them. Being addressed directly, he nervously scratched the back of his head and asked:
"N-no… I just don't really understand a lot of things. So… what kind of club is this?"
He was genuinely curious what kind of club would have these two people, each doing their own thing, sharing the same room.
Hearing this, Raize—who was testing the game—spoke up.
"Sorry to interrupt, Hikigaya. Yukinoshita and I are just sharing the clubroom. My club is the Game Development Club. The name pretty much says it all."
"And Yukinoshita's club is called the Service Club. Including you, it only has two members."
Since Hikigaya was now a member of Yukino's club, Raize explained why they were in the same room—to avoid him misunderstanding later.
"Sharing a clubroom… Service Club? What kind of club is that?"
Hikigaya understood Raize's explanation, but he didn't quite get the part about Yukino's club.
And seriously, why were these two sharing a clubroom anyway?
"When those with abundance, moved by compassion, give their surplus to those in need, people call it volunteering. The activities of the Service Club are to extend a helping hand to those facing difficulties."
"Welcome to the Service Club. Since I've accepted the request, I'll carry it out responsibly. I'll correct your issues according to Hiratsuka-sensei's request. You should be grateful."
Yukino calmly explained her club's philosophy. At the end, she looked proudly at the twitching-faced Hikigaya in typical Yukino fashion.
After finally getting a client, and influenced by what Raize had said and done to her earlier, Yukino felt an unwillingness to lose.
Even if I act within my limits, I can still do what I want properly.
She wanted to prove her abilities to Raize, so she took Hikigaya quite seriously.
As for what Hikigaya was thinking now…
This damn woman…
He felt she wasn't cute at all. Cute face, but a mouth full of poison.
My issues?
Hikigaya clenched his fist in secret, feeling dissatisfied with her insistence on "correcting" him.
"I'd say I'm actually a pretty outstanding person."
Yukino's expression shifted slightly as Hikigaya stood up from his chair and turned sideways to introduce his achievements.
"Seventh place in grade-wide Japanese exams, reasonably handsome, and aside from having no friends or girlfriend, I'm basically a winner."
Raize—the boss of Raiden Games Company, owner of thousands of tons of gold and diamonds, with beautiful girls living both inside him and at home—felt he probably counted as a "winner" by Hikigaya's standards too.
Hearing Hikigaya's self-praise, Yukino curled her lips slightly and looked at him with admiration.
"Being able to say that with such confidence… in a way, Hikigaya-kun, you're quite impressive."
"What a weirdo. You even make me feel sick."
She folded her arms again, clearly wanting to keep her distance.
"So annoying. You're not qualified to talk about me, you weird woman!"
Hikigaya shot back—she wasn't any better herself.
"Pfft…"
A faint sound suddenly rang out. Hikigaya and Yukino both turned their heads toward Raize, who was expressionlessly playing his game.
The keyboard clacking continued without pause, making them wonder if it was just their imagination.
Two people with no friends facing off like this—Raize found the Springtime Youth Romantic Comedy happening right in front of him quite entertaining.
Turning their attention back, Yukino maintained a faint smile as she examined Hikigaya.
"In my view, the reason you're so isolated is because of your utterly rotten nature and twisted sensibilities. As for your looks, your evaluation is purely subjective."
"In other words, in this situation, I'm the one who's correct."
"It sounds messy, but what you're saying does seem to make sense…"
Hikigaya's eye twitched as he looked at the smug Yukino. Dealing with someone like her was unbelievably exhausting.
"All right, that concludes the simulated dialogue with a specific target."
Yukino said to herself with a pleasant smile, lightly brushing her smooth hair by her ear.
"Huh?" Hikigaya looked confused.
Yukino then showed him a beautiful, pure smile. In his eyes, it was as if faint white wings appeared behind her as she spoke.
"If you can talk with a girl like me, then you can talk with most people. Haven't you been corrected a little?"
Hikigaya immediately turned his head away, forcing himself not to look at her smile. His words remained firm.
"Let me be clear—I'm not someone who can't talk to people. I just don't like pointless chatter. I don't need you to correct me."
Yukino withdrew her smile, sighed, and pinched her chin with one hand as she looked at him helplessly.
"But I feel like you've already rotted to the point where, if you don't change, you'll become a danger to society."
Clatter—
The Service Club's sliding door opened. Hearing the sound, both of them looked over to see Hiratsuka leaning against the doorframe, smiling as if she'd expected this.
"Sorry to interrupt, Yukinoshita~"
"Knock…" Yukino pointed out expressionlessly.
"Sorry, sorry. But it looks like your correction of Hikigaya isn't going very smoothly."
Hiratsuka rudely cut her off and walked over, smiling.
Yukino closed her eyes helplessly and dumped all the blame onto Hikigaya.
"It's all because he has no self-awareness…"
"That's not true at all!"
Hikigaya immediately cut off her excuse. Stop throwing all the problems onto me—don't you have issues yourself?
Facing Hiratsuka and Yukino, he said bluntly:
"The way you talk… changing or not changing—I don't want people pointing fingers at my nature!"
"You're clearly just running away."
Yukino frowned at the extremely resistant Hikigaya.
But the battle-hardened Teacher didn't fall for that at all.
"Isn't so-called change just another way of running away from reality? Why can't you affirm your present and past self?"
"Those words…"
Hiratsuka shifted her gaze to Yukino. Yukino lowered her head slightly, clearly reminded of something by Hikigaya's words. She clenched her small fist, then looked up seriously at him.
"If that's the case, then problems will never be solved! No one will ever be saved!"
Staring directly at her, Hikigaya felt a resolute force that cut off his rebuttal. He leaned back slightly.
They both had things they absolutely wouldn't compromise on. Their wills and beliefs were completely different.
Yukino was enforcing her ideals, while Hikigaya just wanted to maintain the status quo, refusing to change.
In Raize's view, neither of them truly understood the other. The entire exchange was no different from pointless arguing.
Yukino didn't understand Hikigaya at all—so how could she possibly correct him?
Continuing like this would only mean forcing her own will onto Hikigaya.
"Both of you, calm down a bit."
Seeing the two of them arguing, Hiratsuka spoke up to quiet them down. After drawing the attention of the two problem children, the female teacher cleared her throat, gathered her thoughts, and said:
"Since ancient times, when two sides' sense of justice collide, the solution has always been to settle it with a match! That's a classic shounen manga tradition!"
"What is this person even talking about?" Hikigaya looked at Hiratsuka, who was talking to herself, with a completely speechless expression. He felt nothing but secondhand embarrassment at what she was saying.
However, Hiratsuka completely ignored Hikigaya's dissatisfaction and continued enthusiastically:
"So, right here in this club, you'll compete to see who's better at serving others!"
"This is just nonsense!" Hikigaya complained bluntly about such a proposal.
"The winner gets to give the loser any order they want~"
In the end, Hiratsuka revealed the reward for the winner. That reward made Hikigaya, whose inner monologue was always overactive, unconsciously swallow a mouthful of saliva, his imagination running wild.
By 'any'… she really means any, right?
"Hey, hey! Everyone, look over here!"
Raize, who had been busy testing his game's performance, paused the game, raised his hand, waved, and spoke up to draw the attention of the three of them.
The three, who didn't know what was going on, turned their attention to Raize. With a smile on his face, Raize said:
"Since the Service Club is going to have a competition anyway, I just so happen to have a very easy commission for you. Are you two interested in taking it?"
Hikigaya and Yukino didn't quite understand what Raize meant by an 'easy commission', but Hiratsuka, clearly intrigued, asked:
"Oh? That's perfect timing. We can use it as the competition task. So what's the commission?"
Under the curious gazes of the three, Raize smiled and turned his laptop around, pointing the screen toward them.
"It's a very simple request. Play a game."
"Play a game!?" ×3
"That's right. More specifically, I want the two of you to help me test the performance of a new game. Afterward, I'd like some feedback from players, or for you to point out any shortcomings. My game is going to be released soon."
Since the Service Club was already holding a competition, Raize figured he might as well make use of it and gather some player feedback at the same time. After all, the people here specialized in accepting requests and helping others.
He felt the game was already fine, but player opinions were still something he needed.
"I almost forgot, Raize, you make games," Hiratsuka said with interest as she walked up to him and looked at the laptop screen. "So you want Hikigaya and Yukinoshita to act as your game testers?"
Raize nodded, then pointed at the laptop screen as Hikigaya and Yukino walked over.
"You just need to play the game and test for any flaws, then give me some valuable feedback. Will you take this commission?"
Yukino frowned slightly as she approached the laptop. She had always been curious about what Raize was working on so often in the clubroom. After looking at the game interface on the screen, she nodded.
"Alright. The Service Club will accept this commission."
As a guy who often played games himself, Hikigaya was also quite interested as he looked at the screen. To be honest, Raize's commission really was pretty easy. Playing games was something he was good at.
Raize then took another spare laptop out of his bag, making Hikigaya secretly click his tongue. This classmate was really rich.
He recognized the model immediately—it was one of the highest-performance laptops on the market. He hadn't expected Raize from the Game Development Club to be such a big spender.
Hiratsuka glanced at Raize's bag and, with her sharp eyes, noticed there was still another computer inside. Smiling, she tried to negotiate:
"Raize, how about letting me join in too? I'm also interested in your game. One more person means more valuable feedback, right?"
Valuable feedback? You just want to play games, you game-addicted teacher.
Raize nodded in agreement. After launching the game on all the machines, the first thing that appeared on screen was a purple lightning bolt emblem.
This was the logo of the Raiden Game Company. When Hikigaya saw it, his eyes lit up slightly, and he gave Raize a subtle once-over. Clearly, he recognized the logo.
After all, he had played games from Raiden Game Company before. He hadn't expected Raize to be connected to the Raiden company.
That was mainly because Raize had never gone around advertising himself, which was why Hikigaya didn't know about his connection to Raiden Games.
The current Raize was the same—he didn't like to show off. If he was going to promote something, it should be the game itself.