A familiar sight. Medium-sized room. Stained carpet. Messy drawers. Hiratsuka-sensei's apartment.
I blinked to lubricate my dry eyes. I heard a soft chuckle somewhere to my right.
"Oh my god. That's insane," the voice laughed quietly.
Muted dialogue and colorful light dancing off the walls around us. A crunching sound and more faint chuckling. "You know what I don't get?" the voice started.
I turned my face slightly and regarded Hiratsuka-sensei with a blink. "What?"
"Why Jonobo never jusht upsh and," she paused slightly to swallow a mouthful of starchy potato chips. She struck her chest with a curled fist, and an oily belch poured from her lips. "Excuse me," she coughed. "I don't understand why Jonobo doesn't just kill Kenshin-sensei," she started. "I mean, honestly. Even from the first episode, you could tell that he was like barely one power level shy of Kenshin's max. And that was at the start!" she exclaimed. "And now that he's got the sword of Akashita, he could take him out easily. You know, one feint mortality strike could probably do the trick." She grabbed another chip out of the bag and proceeded to chew loudly.
It was this conversation again. I supposed there were bound to be repeat discussions when you were marathoning twelve straight seasons of Metalloid Cruiser, but it was starting to grow alarming how often this specific topic came up. "Maybe he doesn't want to kill him because Kenshin's a part of the team?" I said with a raised eyebrow. "Once again, what's with the random hatred for Kenshin-sensei? You act like he personally killed your family or something."
She scoffed and a few bits of chip flew from her mouth. "What's not to hate about that smug douche?" she started with an extended hand. "He's a terrible fighter, he betrayed the entire squad for the tiniest chance of bringing back his dead wife, and then he has the gall to beg them for forgiveness afterwards!" she said loudly. "What a dick. He's not even a good teacher, either. He's taught Jonobo one good move, and Jonobo ended up mastering it without his help anyways," she continued.
I shrugged. "I guess you're right. You know what they say about those who can't do," I offered evenly.
I felt a chip bounce off my cheek. "Oh, shut up. The squad would be better off without him and we both know it," she said with an air of finality. I merely shrugged. I had no strong opinion one way or the other.
Several hours and one and a half seasons of battle anime later, Hiratsuka-sensei stood up and walked over to the small black console with a yawn. She fiddled with the controls on the compact disc player, and after a second, a slight hissing noise was heard as the eject button was pressed. "So," she spoke. "Shall we move on to season fourteen, or should we take a short recess first?"
My brain was fried. I blinked tiredly. "Recess," I answered.
Still crouching down, she turned to look at me over her shoulder. "Fine then," she said. "I suppose a short break couldn't hurt."
She made her way into the adjoining bathroom, and shut the door behind her. After a few minutes, she plopped down beside me on the bed again. "What's wrong? You seem out of it today," she asked after a beat.
I shrugged my shoulders automatically. "Nothing. Just a long day at school."
She regarded me with calm eyes for a moment before speaking. "…More club problems?"
I looked at her, then shrugged again. "I guess you could say that."
"I see," she nodded. "My offer still stands you know."
"Yeah, I know," I answered. "Thanks, but I'd rather try to work things out before I do anything too drastic."
"Your call," she said disinterestedly.
We sat in silence for a while. Between the stuff going on with exams, the issues with the club, breathing in the stale apartment air, and the hours upon hours of mind numbing television on a tiny flat screen LCD, I suppose did feel tired. I spoke softly. "Hey," I started absently.
"Hmm?" she said as she flicked at her lighter.
"You want to go out this Saturday?"
Her fingers stilled and she turned her face slightly to regard me. She blew out a plume of smoke before speaking. "Where?"
I shrugged. "I don't know. I didn't have anything specific in mind. Maybe that new coffee shop that opened on Fukawa. Or a movie or something."
She looked at me with a questioning gaze. "What brought this on?"
"Nothing," I said. "There were just some things I wanted to check out downtown and I thought we could go together."
"I see." She blew out another lungful of smoke. "I thought we already talked about this."
"Well, you said restaurants and shopping. Going to a coffee shop or watching a movie is different."
"Marginally," she sighed.
"Students go to coffee shops with their teachers all the time," I began. "And movie auditoriums are dark. Once you're in your seat, you can't see a thing, and neither can the people around you."
"Students and teachers go to coffee shops to work on their essays or to review exam material," she said. "And the movie theater downtown is where all the students from Sobu hang out. I may not be as young as you, but I'm still pretty up to date on the hot spots."
"I could bring my paper along. The poetry analysis one. It's pretty crappy right now."
"I can take a look at it right here."
"We could try the theater in Narashino. Students don't usually go there because it's not really close to any school."
"A couple of my friends live in that district."
"We could walk around the park for a while."
"My legs are usually sore after standing up in class all week. It takes a full weekend for them to recover."
"There's a new—"
I was cut short by a sharp sigh. "Come on Hikigaya. Stop already." I blinked once. "You know as well as I do why doing any of those things would be a bad idea." Her voice wasn't necessarily sharp, but it held a frayed edge to it.
Almost as if waking from a shallow nap, I felt my mind clear a bit and my faculties return to me. I blinked the groggy exhaustion from my eyes as I sat up slightly. "Oh. Yeah, I know. Sorry. I was out of it for a second there." I shook my head again to clear my muddied thoughts. "I get what you mean. They were just…" I paused to find the right word. "suggestions," I shrugged.
She looked at me sympathetically. "Look, I know that our relationship is complicated," she started softly before letting out a breath. "And I do want to be able to go places with you, and eat out, and muck around the streets," she paused. "But you have to know that there's a reason that we can't go around flaunting what we have. A very good reason at that."
I looked at her expectantly even though I knew what she was referring to. "Once you graduate, I promise we'll go on as many dates as you want." She gave a small smile. "But until then, we'll just have to make due with what we've got. I know watching old anime in my room isn't the most exciting thing in the world, but at least we're able to do it together. Am I right?"
I blinked lazily. "I guess."
"Exactly. I mean, why ruin a good thing?"
Maybe good wasn't the best adjective. "I guess," I shrugged as I lazily settled back into the mattress. Hiratsuka-sensei clicked something on the remote before putting out her cigarette on the nightstand ashtray.
The TV let out a staticky noise before the select menu for season fourteen of Metalloid Cruiser popped up on the small television screen.
She laughed when Kenshin-sensei had his life force drained by the dark witch doctor Akenmaru.
I winced at the sharp pain. Come on, you've dealt with worse. This is just a flesh wound compared to OW OW OW!
I clenched my teeth as the stinging alcohol washed over the jagged lacerations on my knee. Another night ride home, another careless bicycle accident. I set the clear bottle on the kitchen counter as I applied pressure to the wound.
Was I really that tired? So tired I couldn't even steer straight?
I supposed that watching hours of television did tend to fry one's mind a bit, but I didn't think I was that out of it. Who knew that doing literally nothing could make somebody feel so damn drained afterwards?
It was somewhat odd, the routine that Hiratsuka-sensei and I had fallen into recently. There would be some days where we couldn't even wait to get to her apartment and would tear into each other the very second we were alone (more often than not her car on some deserted street served as the backdrop). But then again, for every passionate, lust-fueled day, there would also be a day where we would laze around for hours and power through her old anime box sets while gorging on crappy, processed foods. Like had been the case today, it always left me feeling remarkably exhausted after.
The point was that our relationship seemed to be marked by extremes. It was either pure, unbridled passion—be it in the form of sex, or more frequently, bouts of barely restrained anger and hostility, or it was us lazing around in a small, dark room numbing our minds with old television programming while barely even speaking to each other. It was one or the other.
Hiratsuka-sensei never did quite strike me as a particularly moderate person, but wasn't there middle ground to be found somewhere? Couldn't we maybe spend some time together outside the confines of school or her dark musty room? Wasn't there more to a relationship than having sex and silently wasting time together? That wasn't a rhetorical question. In my inexperience, I really didn't know.
Though, there was the whole 'inappropriate' relationship angle to consider too. What Hiratsuka-sensei had said earlier was technically correct. There was a big chance of getting spotted while we spent time together in public places. That would undoubtedly invite a host of unwanted, and in our case, even fatal questions. Well, fatal enough to put an end to whatever it was we had, to be more specific.
All of that was true, but I couldn't help but think that if we really wanted to, couldn't we find anywhere we could go where there would be absolutely no chance for someone to see us? It certainly didn't have to be anywhere fancy. I would be content simply going to an arcade or something with her. Something stupid like that. Weren't guys supposed to take their girlfriends out to places?
Then again, it sounded odd to refer to Hiratsuka-sensei as my girlfriend. I suppose that for all intents and purposes, that was what she was, but it still didn't roll off my tongue the way I wanted it to. It was a little bit surreal how many hours of my youth I wasted running through scenarios in my head on what I would do with my girlfriend if I finally managed to get one. However, funnily enough, none of those scenarios ever quite played out like the reality that I found myself in now. I couldn't decide which was better and which was worse.
I shrugged unconsciously. Maybe Hiratsuka-sensei just didn't want to be seen with me in public? Perhaps she really did think that staying in to watch Metalloid Cruiser four nights in a row was fun. I honestly couldn't say. And that bothered me more than I cared to admit. I thought that by entering a relationship with her, I would be able to understand her better. After all, wasn't that the point of a relationship in the first place? To get to know someone better? I thought that I would be able to, but as had been proven time and time again, that just wasn't the case; I was just as clueless as before, if not even more so. Perhaps I was wrong to think that I could ever hope to understand women.
I was dabbing absently at the wound on my knee when I heard the familiar sound of an opening door. With a quiet creak and the sound of hissing air, the door came shut with a whisper.
"Huh?" a voice asked quietly in the distance. A familiar face peeked in through the frame of the living room entrance and blinked a few times as it regarded me. Judging from the voice alone, I could tell that it was Komachi.
"Oh. It's you Onii-chan," she said with a slight tilt of her head. "I was wondering why the lights were on. I thought mom and dad passed out on the couch again."
Her tilted head and surprised expression reminded me of someone else.
"Nope. Just me unfortunately," I answered.
She nodded absently. "Yeah. That really is unfortunate…"she said as she made her way over to the fridge.
"Gee, thanks."
"No prob Onii-chan. That's what Komachi's here for." She laughed quietly as she pulled out a carton of milk and a box of cereal. After pouring both into a ceramic bowl and slicing a small banana into it, she joined me at the counter.
I eyed her with a raised eyebrow. "Cereal at this time of night? Is that healthy?"
She scoffed indignantly in that cute, pouty manner of hers. "Oh, give me a break. I haven't eaten anything since dinner."
I blinked. Oh right, it was pretty late. Speaking of which… "Right. So where have you been all night? Isn't it a little late for you to just be coming home now?"
She looked at me out of the corner of her eye and squinted slightly. "That's a rather funny thing for you to say. I think this is the first time this week that you've come home earlier than I have." She scooped a spoonful of cereal into her mouth. I tensed.
She was right. I had come home rather late every night this week, and the only times I had really seen Komachi were when I barged into her room to wake her up for school in the mornings. "Uh, what do you mean by that?"
"Come on, my test scores might not be as high as yours were, but I'm not dumb," she said with a slurp. "Normally you would be home around three in the afternoon, but Komachi's noticed that you don't get home until the wee hours of the night nowadays. Very suspicious." She eyed me with a crooked glance. "So, have you finally gotten a girlfriend Onii-chan? Is that what all this sneaking around is about?"
"Uh…"
"Because if it is, then you have Komachi's wholehearted forgiveness!"
I swallowed. "No, it's not necessarily—"
"Is it Yui-chan? Ooh, it's Yukino-chan isn't it? I always knew you had a thing for her. Good job Onii-chan! Komachi approves either way!"
I raised my hands. "Nah, it's really nothing like that," I interrupted in a more direct tone. And it wasn't, really. "I've just been busy with some stuff."
I cringed at my overly vague language, but I couldn't think of anything that would reliably excuse my recent tardiness, so I tried my best to brush it off. I couldn't tell if she bought it or not. "Yeah, Komachi's not buying it," she said haughtily. Figured. "You're not a very good liar you know."
"I didn't even lie…"
"Oh well," she shrugged. "You don't have to tell if you don't want to."
I paused to look at my normally nosy sister. "Really?"
"Sure. As long as Onii-chan is satisfied with his love affair then so is Komachi. Onii-chan's happiness is my number one priority after all," she said with a raised spoon. I sighed in relief. "Oh! That right there just scored the Komachi point jackpot!"
I rolled my eyes affectionately. Still as lame as ever. "Right, but jackpots are usually won at random you realize."
She paused for a second to think. "Hmm, compliments paid to Onii-chan are so far and few in between that when one does happen, it's essentially like a stroke of fate isn't it?" she asked cheekily.
I shook my head. "Just eat your cereal," I said as I wiped at my bleeding knee with a piece of torn gauze.
Komachi who was chewing through a grin, paused when she looked over at me. "What happened?"
"I cut my knee falling off my bike. It's no big deal."
"You're bleeding all over the place Onii-chan…"
"Huh? Oh, it's really not that bad. I took care of most of the blood. I just need to wait for it to finish disinfecting before I wrap it up."
She looked unsure but nodded. "Okay…"
When enough time had passed, I gingerly placed the bandage pad on my knee, only wincing slightly as the adhesive bonded to my skin. After a sigh, I turned to address Komachi, suddenly remembering that she had never given me an answer to my previous question. "So, where have you been all night?"
She looked at me for a second, before saying, "I was at the mall with my boyfriend."
I almost knocked the bottle of rubbing alcohol off the counter in my surprise. "Boyfriend?" I asked with slightly wide eyes.
"Yup. You know him I think," she said with a slight tap of her finger against her chin. "You met him a while ago when you were working on the case with his nee-san. Does Kawasaki Taishi ring any bells?"
I took a moment to collect my scattered thoughts. Komachi had a boyfriend..? I suppose that did explain why she had been gone so often in the past few weeks. And the name she mentioned did ring a bell. And if by bell, she meant a gong, then yes, that gong was clanging loudly, like a red alert warning in my head. "You mean that little insect that kept calling me Onii-chan?"
"That's the one."
I eyed her with a frown. "Aren't you a little young to have a boyfriend?"
She returned the gesture, and added a furrowing of her brow. "Onii-chan, just because you're undesirable and you didn't have a girlfriend when you were my age, that doesn't mean that I'm too young."
I regarded her for a second. "Fair point," I shrugged.
"Besides, it isn't like we're serious or anything," she said between a mouthful of cereal. "All we do is hang out and stuff. I let him buy me snacks and clothes and things, but we don't do much other than that really."
I struggled to hold back my sigh of relief. "Oh," I said. After a moment I asked, "If that's the case then why do you call him your boyfriend?"
She paused for a moment, as if to collect her thoughts. "I don't know," she shrugged. "He insists on it. He says he likes how it sounds."
Her seeming indifference to the whole situation caught me slightly off guard. Was my little sister really so jaded that she could brush off relationship stuff so casually? "I hope you don't have any intention of going too fast or anything. Despite what you might think, you're still pretty young," I added before pausing. "You're not planning on moving things forward, are you?" I felt slightly uncomfortable talking to my dear little Komachi-chan about things like this, but a pang of curiosity drove me to press on.
She chuckled lightly. "Eh, no. Probably not," she answered candidly. "I like Taishi-kun, but just as a friend."
I regarded her for a second as I stared at my freshly bandaged knee. "Isn't that…" I began quietly. "Isn't that kind of leading him on?"
She blinked. "Hmm," she hummed to herself before chuckling. "Not really. We're just both benefitting from a good situation. Komachi gets her clothes and trinkets, and Taishi gets a beautiful girlfriend to hang off his arm for a while!" Her 'cute' voice had made a sudden return.
I didn't answer her immediately, and elected to just keep staring at the stain on my rolled up pants. I thought for a second that Komachi seemed unnecessarily flippant and cold about the whole situation. Was that really how she felt about this type of thing..? "You kind of sound like a predator," I said half-jokingly.
"A predator?" she repeated thoughtfully. She laughed. "Be more mature Onii-chan. That's just how these things work these days."
I nodded slightly. We sat in silence for a while, me gazing absently at some spot on the floor, and Komachi chewing her cereal with her phone in hand. After a few minutes, I stood up on shaky knees. I winced slightly, but didn't let the pain show on my face. "Well, I'm gonna go to sleep. Make sure to turn off the lights when you're done," I told her.
"Yeah yeah Onii-chan," she said dismissively. "Good night."
"Yeah. Night," I answered as I rounded the corner.
However, before I had a chance to completely climb the stairs, I heard a voice call out through the darkness. "And Onii-chan?" it asked.
I paused where I was standing. "Yeah?"
"You should take a shower. You smell like smoke. It stinks."
I frowned, and didn't answer.
After retreating to my room, my eyes fell into their usual pattern of staring idly up at my dark ceiling. Poor sucker, I thought sullenly. I didn't know who I was referring to.
Although I was tired out of my mind, it was hard to find sleep.
"How many times have you seen this?" I asked after a long stretch of silence.
Hiratsuka-sensei eyed me with a curious glance. "Dunno. I've lost track," she answered, turning her attention back to the brightly lit screen in front of her.
The animated, dancing figures on the screen twirled about and spouted out profanities as they did so. She chuckled lightly when one of the main characters slapped the other for being a pervert.
"Hey," I said after a while of silence. I could feel myself losing brain cells after staring at the television for so long. I felt that if I didn't say something, I might've gone crazy right then and there.
"Hmm?" she hummed absently, her eyes still on the screen.
"How was your day?"
"About as good as any other day."
"Oh," I said, turning my eyes back to the screen. "Wanna hear about mine?" I asked after a beat.
"I'm trying to watch here. Tell me later."
I sucked on my lip before tapping absently on my knee.
"Could you not?"
I stopped.
"I can't just keep blowing them off like this," I said evenly. "I told them before that I'd show up more often."
Hiratsuka-sensei let out a breath through her nose. In her dark apartment bedroom, it was hard to see much, but I could tell that her features held a vaguely annoyed expression. "And I told you not to worry about it. You'll show up when you have free time."
"It doesn't seem like I have a lot of that these days," I replied.
"Well, you didn't think that being in a committed, adult relationship would be a cakewalk, did you?" she asked with a snort. "Obviously you're not going to have all the time in the world to sit around and chit chat around with your friends. I have needs that need to be met."
I was lying on my back and my eyes were staring up at the ceiling. "Still," I shrugged. "Like I told you, I need to go at least a few times if only to keep up appearances."
She regarded me for a cold second before speaking again. "Whatever," she muttered under her breath. "Do what you want." She flicked at her lighter.
We'd had this conversation so many times before that our bickering almost felt scripted. I felt exasperation, but it wasn't the kind I had initially felt when this topic was first breached. It was dulled and less explosive, but there all the same.
"You're not jealous are you?" I asked impulsively. My voice came out shakier than I was expecting.
She looked at me incredulously. "Jealous? Of who, Yukinoshita?"
I shrugged my shoulders. "Or Yuigahama," I said.
Her eyebrows knit together. "Jealous of those two? Please," she started with a derisive snort. "I know your type Hikigaya. You like smart, sophisticated, elegant women," she said as if checking off a list. "That's why you're with me."
She certainly did hold a high opinion of herself. But I knew that already. "So you're not jealous then," I continued.
Her offended expression deepened. "Do I have a reason to be?" she asked, her voice sounding oddly restrained.
"No."
"Good."
"So then what's the problem with me attending club?"
She paused slightly and turned to look at me through messy bangs. "Nothing. Go right on ahead." She gripped a handful of covers before turning to her side. "It's late. You should get going. It's a school night and all that."
I regarded her prone form for a second before I slipped my shirt on over my head and stood. "Right. I'll see you tomorrow then."
She snorted. I didn't end up going to club that next day, much to her relief.
The days slipped by quickly, night turning to day, then day into night. I went to school, often stopped by Hiratsuka-sensei's apartment afterwards, and then would bike home tiredly after a few hours of doing the few things we were limited to doing there, there.
On a few occasions at school, Yuigahama would come up to my desk and ask me if I was going to club that day, and I would answer in the negative every time. I felt slightly guilty for rejecting her so many times when I'd told her not too long ago that I'd make more conscious of an effort to turn up, but if it bothered her, she didn't show it. She simply said okay, shrugged, and then set off by herself.
Hiratsuka-sensei and I would either have sex or laze around doing whatever in the evenings. The topic of me going to club came up once or twice, but we never really saw eye to eye on it as was to be expected. As far as she was concerned, I had outgrown it, and as far as I was concerned, I didn't really feel like getting into another argument about it. In the back of my mind, I still did want to show up to club out of what was a sense of duty, or responsibility, or camaraderie, or something, but I never did.
Our routine became predictable. But it didn't stay that way for long.