All Right! Fine! I Will Take You! [Oregairu, Poly]

The planning scene.

We've already established its multiple purposes, the way it rarely manages to surpass its deplorable origins as pretentious exposition, how it sets audiences' expectations, and the understanding of both the stakes and the rules of the conflict about to unravel. How it, in some circumstances, may be just the backdrop for the true conflict, that of the tsundere with Western tastes and the male kuudere who's a Japanese traditionalist dueling over culinary dominion to British royalty's delight.

What is sadly pertinent to my current circumstances, though, other than trying very hard not to imagine Haruno's mature, developed curves straining against the tight confines of a Tohsaka Rin cosplay (never mind an Ishtar cosplay), is that, more often than not, the planning scene exists to be foiled by that old, ever reliable adage:

No plan survives contact with an Iroha.

What's that, you say? I messed up the ending of that particular quote? It should be 'enemy' rather than 'Iroha?'

Well, that's fantastic. Now how about you go and explain that to the girl with bust-emphasizing crossed arms glaring at me from across the hall?

"Grossther?" Komachi's mildly concerned voice asks from the other end of the line.

"My apologies, my dearest, most precious little sister, but it seems like your big brother is about to undergo a bad end."

"… You have three girlfriends. Three girlfriends. And you couldn't keep yourself from sticking it in the nice boat?!"

"Wha—no! That's not about to unfold in any way whatsoever. I have done nothing at all with a yandere, unless you count Haruno, which you likely should, or Shizu, who has the traumatic backstory to pull it off, or Iroha, who already performs the stalker part perfectly and may only need to improve her knife work to qualify—"

"I would appreciate it if my boyfriend didn't loudly tell the whole school that I'm a stalker," somebody who just crossed a school hall fast enough to qualify for a jump scare yet is still sadly deprived of both blank eyes and a kitchen knife says.

Right in front of me.

Glaring.

'Don't get an erection, don't get an erection, don't get an erection—'

I'm talking to Komachi, Brain-chan!

'Definitely don't get an erection, then.'

"I'm not talking loudly?" I tell the short, irate, irrationally endearing girl shooting (at the moment) non-literal daggers at me.

"You are," two short, irate, irrationally endearing girls snap at me at once.

…

"I'm going to have to ask you both not to do that. It's very disorienting for my little sister to react in precisely the same way as my girlfriend, given that I've come to associate Iroha glaring at me with matters quickly turning sexual, and—"

"Aaaaaaahhhhhhh!" Komachi yells right into my ear loud enough that I wince in hissed pain.

And then she hangs up.

… Rude.

Also, Iroha is kicking my shin. For some mysterious reason.

"You—you!" she states as if in condemnation, which, really, just brings to mind all the times Komachi has used 'Hachiman' as a derogatory term, thus signaling Iroha immediately ignoring my earnest plea of mere seconds ago when it comes to them not reacting at all similarly.

Which, I guess, leaves me with no choice other than to instigate circumstances in which I'm assured that their reactions will, in fact, be entirely dissimilar.

… Hopefully.

"Wha—" Iroha starts to protest right as I grab her by her armpits and lift her suddenly limp body so that eyes that will never stop being luminous honey to me slowly blink at mine.

"Hey," I say with a tone just barely above a pillow-adequate murmur.

"I… Uh… Why aren't your arms trembling?" she says as she fidgets in my grasp, her cheeks steadily tinting beyond pale pink.

"I work out," I say with no humility whatsoever.

"Ah," she says.

She's biting her lower lip, looking between my arms, and not resisting at all in my grasp.

So, really, is it any wonder that I bend my arms to get her closer as I tilt my head to the side so that I can meet her lips and—

"Get a room," a spiteful, venom-laced voice says.

I blink.

Realize I'm still in the middle of a school corridor beset by the foot traffic of the lunch break, with maybe more people than usual staring at me and my endearing, already-established tendency to break social conventions.

Meet Sagami's narrow stare.

"You know," I tell her, displaying as much calm and steady nerves as I don't feel while trying to ignore the currently crimson Iroha still dangling from my grasp, "you gave me quite good advice for our first date, so, really, when you take that into account, everything that's going on right now is your fault."

Her gaze does not narrow so much as sharpen in a way that calls to mind both an ominous sound effect and floating katakana in a color-shifted background.

I struggle to keep my arms from trembling. Merely not to disappoint Iroha's newly found respect for my training routine, you understand, and not at all due to my nerves failing under the combination of the whispers being exchanged all around me by nameless extras—I mean, respected classmates—and the former second queen of the classroom pulling a very passable Jojo villain's impression at the moment. Really, she's even posing, what with her angled body, her tilted head, her hands grasping her elbows as if she was about to flex…

…

This can't all be a coincidence.

"Is that a Jojo reference?" I can't help but ask as the Pillar Men's theme starts going off somewhere in Brain-chan's living room.

"Wha—no! I'm just answering your delusional statement silently and hatefully like you deserve, you moron!"

"That sounds like a Jojo reference. Particularly the part where you verbosely explain what you're doing and, or, about to do. In fact, I'm pretty sure that your next line's going to be—"

"My next line's going to be my foot up your ass!"

"Gasp! You anticipated the Joseph Joestar special maneuver! That can only mean that you are a closet otaku, and—"

"My kinsman," a booming voice calling out from right behind me states in a way that definitely does not send shivers down my spine, "you are treading upon dangerous ground."

"Ah, but isn't that precisely the one kind of ground that needs to be trodden upon? What merit is there, nay, what challenge, on retreading worn paths that have been safe for generations?" I explain while Iroha's blush goes incomprehensibly darker and her head hangs down while avoiding the gaze of all those present, as if she found her current situation anything but comfortable and pleasant conversation.

"Did you just quip about stepping on me?" Sagami says.

I blink at her.

Zaimokuza, his reassuring frame covering my back more adequately than any non-sumo wrestler could, holds himself very still.

Iroha keeps being uselessly silent.

Really, do I need to do everything myself?

"To be fair, I was only following your boyfriend's lead," I calmly explain. "It's not on me if you interpret every little thing I say in a depraved, sexual light. Truly, Sagami, that says more about you than me."

The whispers stop.

And Sagami explodes forward.

"Fly, you fool! I can only contain her wrath for so long!" the man keeping her kicking girlfriend aloft urges me.

"You can't contain me! I shall visit my wrath upon his worthless, fish-eyed self! I shall wreak untold vengeance upon him so that untold generations may only whisper his name in dread as if a bloody curse was about to visit them! I shall—"

"Yoshiteru! Quick! Use your forbidden technique!" I say as I franticly backpedal away from the explosion about to happen while trying not to look like I'm shielding myself with a limp Iroha.

"What? A forbidden technique? What secret battle wisdom may you refer to, my liege—"

"You're a fat NTR bastard! Do the math!"

"That is hurtful…" he says with a pained glance sent my way over Sagami's wildly whipping red hair.

"I say that in the most positive way possible! I've got nothing but respect for your tsundere-taming ways!"

"I am not a tsundere, you creepy fuck—" Sagami hurtfully states.

Which is when Yoshiteru turns her around and silences her with what, from here, looks like his tongue shoved in and out of her throat until she stops struggling in his grasp and wraps her arms around his neck, letting out sounds that should warrant the auditory equivalent of a black bar.

"Well, that is kinda impressive," I say.

And then I run away.

━❖━

"Hate you. So much," my girlfriend says, her words mismatched with her actions as she sits on my lap and keeps having me petting her back even as she buries her face between her raised knees.

"Please, don't. I don't want you to turn into a tsundere after Yoshiteru just demonstrated how overwhelming his innate advantage is against that particular type," I tell her, trying to remain still and comfortable for her despite the cold seeping into my manly derriere from the concrete stairs under both of us.

"I am not a tsundere—"

"That's what a tsundere would say—"

"I am just horribly mad at you and trying not to think about how I can never again show my face in school. I'll need to get a transfer before the week's over, and then how will I ambush you during lunch break? Really, Senpai, this is the most inconsiderate you've been to me in ages. You're going to have to pull out all the stops to make it up to me."

"So… cosplay sex?"

Iroha's curved back tenses even further, and she slowly turns to glare at me over her shoulder.

"Sex is not the answer to all my emotional turmoil," she slowly and frigidly says.

'Lying as naturally as she breathed.'

Well, likely, but just in case, maybe we should come up with something that won't end up with me self-fulfilling the yandere prophecy.

'What is it with yanderes and time weirdness, anyway? Really, I don't get why the trope features so prominently in those works.'

Maybe it's an easy way to showcase the mind-bending nature of a phenomenon that slowly crumbles away the very basis of cognition, shifting around cause and effect until the world surrounding the main characters stops making any rational sense, consequences for one's actions become mere side notes until the next do-over, and reality becomes a sequence of disjointed events in which one can only spectate while the madness unfolds, enveloping and consuming both thoughts and the will to carry on past unending insanity as the hope that it will one day make sense turns to dust scattered over the ruins of a mangled psyche?

'Sounds about right.'

Yeah. And kinda familiar.

'Reminds me of rom-coms.'

Speaking of, do you think we should pay any attention to Iroha's glare, or can we remain safely isolated in our reassuring back-and-forth monologue where nothing can hurt us?

'Why are you asking me? This seems to be Self-Preservation-kun's department?'

You're a spiteful bitch, you know that?

'Praise me more.'

"Senpai, you're ignoring me," a terrifying woman says.

"To be fair, it's more like I'm pretending you don't exist in the vain hope that will somehow bend reality into a shape in which I'll be spared the consequences of my actions."

"So. Now you're hoping I don't exist."

"Anything can sound bad when you put it that way…"

Iroha, just to remain consistent, glares at me. I, for pretty much the same reasons, grin in a horrified rictus that is likely to come across as a mortuary mask rather than the conciliatory smile I was aiming for.

"… I can't even stay mad at you. And that makes me mad," she says, deflating with a sigh.

"That makes no sense whatsoever."

"I am a girl. It's my privilege."

"I feel like this is a bad time to bring up how much of a stalwart defender of gender equality I am."

"Senpai, are you trying to complain on the basis that you make sense?" she says with a tone of voice that rudely displays her incredulity.

"Look, I am not the one rehearsing erection-inducing monologues when I'm by myself…" I say in what some may uncharitably describe as a defensive grumble.

"You are the one benefitting from those."

"Arguably, seeing how you're usually quite happy with the results…"

She rolls her eyes, puffs her cheeks, and turns to look away from me before leaning back against my chest.

I surround her with my arms, lean my cheek on her soft, light hair, and… breathe.

Just… breathe.

The scent of her chamomile shampoo, the one she uses to further lighten her hair, is as soothing as she usually isn't, the bundle of energy and mischief in my arms only relaxing when we're in close contact, taking warmth from one another, sharing a closeness that I would've thought impossible not that long ago.

Resting. Safe.

"I love you," I say. Because I can.

"I love you too," she answers almost automatically, yet still conveying sincerity and truthfulness with every word.

"Why are you mad?" I ask after a brief pause in which I just listen to Iroha's breathing as I feel her expand and contract between my arms and against my chest.

"… Really," she answers in a very unhelpful manner.

"I mean… other than being collateral damage in my ongoing mission to make Sagami unable to come back to school?"

"You were talking with your sister."

"That is, in fact, a thing I do."

"You were talking with your sister rather than seeking me out to tell me, in person, how yesterday went."

"Ah."

The landing of the stairs grows silent as we don't quite fall back into the earlier, shared peace and just stay close together, the underlying tension of the moment not enough to make either of us want to pull away.

Really, at this point, I don't know what would. And it's a stark realization to… to know, to understand, that I would rather face anything that may come with Iroha by my side.

I used to find peace in solitude, you know? That's… that's when I was allowed to be myself, without any filter or artifice. When I could be Hachiman Hikigaya, with all the wounds I hesitated to show even to Komachi.

That was… was.

"I was worried about her," I say.

"And not about me?" she shoots back.

"That's not fair," I tell her.

She takes a moment to hold herself still. Tense. And then she slumps back against me, and her hands raise to press against mine over her chest.

"I know. Sorry," she says before turning back to lay a single, fleeting kiss over my cheek.

"No, don't worry, I… I know it's not ideal. It just was the first night I spent out of the house, and… Komachi doesn't do well with solitude."

"How is she dealing with it?"

"I… Mom got home earlier. Apparently. They spent the evening talking and cooking. Had some fun."

"You're bitter about it," she says without any accusation.

And that makes me smile.

"Yeah."

"Want to talk about it?" Her fingers squeeze my hands, and the top of her head rubs against my cheek until I turn down to kiss the spot in the middle of swirling hair.

"It just… I know it's not it, but… I feel like they manipulated me into leaving just so they could play at being a functional family without me getting in the way…"

"Manipulated you?"

"My parents. The money, the chance to help Shizu with her finances while she recovers from losing her job… they pressed all the right buttons."

There's another pause in which I suppose I should be thinking about what else to say, what arguments to bring forward to make my case, to logically state things in an unassailable manner that can't be pierced by another sharp mind looking for the holes in my view of the world.

But I'm talking with Iroha, and this isn't that kind of conversation.

Even if, for a long time, most of my conversations were.

"You think your parents manipulated you?" she asks.

"Not really, but… the way they presented things—"

"Your parents?"

"I feel like I'm missing something obvious, what with the way you're talking to me as if I am missing something obvious. It is not a feeling I enjoy, seeing as my keen insight often makes it so—"

"Hachi. Honey. Dear. Sweetheart. How, precisely, would your parents know what buttons to push to manipulate you?" she asks.

I blink.

She turns in my arms to look at me not as if I'm missing something obvious, but as if I deserve to get government subsidies to deal with my special learning needs.

"Ah… I mean, they are my parents," I start, trying to shield myself from—

"Your parents. Who just had spent a few hours talking with your sister."

Yeah.

From that.

"Iroha, I—"

"No. No, listen, I know you. I know that you're about to make this into a thing. Now, before you do, could you use that brain of yours to see things like she would have?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that, as much as the little savage—no. No, I don't mean anything, just… think. Think like I know you only do," she says with… with a painful amount of faith in me.

So I look into her eyes, into luminous honey that seems to glow in the shadowed recesses of this flight of stairs where too many things happened at once.

Her hand has gone from mine to my arm, clutching at me with earnest, gentle, pleading—with support. With all that she can offer me with a single gesture and look. Without words getting in the way with their inadequacy to convey how much Iroha cares for me.

I swallow something that has a bit to do with the sister who just hung up on me moments ago and a lot more to do with the girl telling me she loves me with every fiber of her being.

"She thinks she's doing it for my own good," I say.

"What else?" Iroha prods me.

"She's convinced my—our parents that it is. That giving me the chance to get away is the right thing to do."

"Why?"

"Because… Because they all saw me. You all saw me. When my father told me he was proud of me… and I shut down. Fled."

She nods.

Without words.

And then, slowly, gently, almost frightfully, she reaches up until her lips lie a single, soft caress on my own.

Her eyes are closed, more peaceful than when I've seen her asleep on top of me, burrowed against my chest while seeking a warmth I was afraid I couldn't offer her, but that she showed me again and again was still there. Was still something I could share.

Something I could find.

Her fingers reach up to trace my cheek, light enough to verge on tickling, gentle enough to hurt.

"Iroha…" I breathe out. Demanding.

She opens her eyes and smiles.

"Thank you," I say. "Thank you for… for worrying about me. For helping me… keep being myself," I say, thinking about all the ways in which I could've reacted and haven't thanks to reassuring warmth and gentleness resting against me.

"What? Senpai, are you telling me that I'm your emotional anchor? That you can't imagine living without me by your side? That every single day we spend together is just a prelude to the life you want to have with me on it? That you… that your stupid, overly-dramatic, socially unaware self… that you… that…" her words trail off, the airy diatribe turning into something else right in the middle of her eyes meeting mine and becoming unable to look away.

"That I love you," I say, my throat clenching at the tears in her eyes before I lean down to kiss them away until she lets out a wet giggle and warm palms push back on my chest.

"That you love me. Are you telling me that you love and want us to remain like this forever, never letting me go? I'm sorry, Senpai, but you'll have to do it at one point. After all, it will be hard to walk down the aisle if I'm holding your hand," she says with red cheeks, glittering eyes, and another nervous giggle.

I should panic. Really, I should run.

I, instead, turn her around on my lap so that her legs surround me and lean down to kiss her breath away.

Like maybe I should get used to doing before she goes off on another of her monologues.

"That is not an answer," she mumbles with an adorable pout.

"Forever," I growl before biting down on the side of her neck.

"Hn! That's—oh… Oh, that's more like it," she murmurs in a dreamy voice.

Which makes for quite a nice contrast with Sagami's shrieks when she and Zaimokuza stumble on us on their way to the rooftop.

━❖━⧫━❖━

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