Work Text:
It was his fault, to be honest. He should've known better than to stop to look at it while surfing the waves of his memories when he had company that did not share the experiences.
It might've been a tall order for someone like Hachiman: Someone who seldom shared these small moments with someone else. Though, with all the respect that Shijo deserved, she simply shouldn't have jumped to conclusions that easily.
"Oh. Does Ai-chan have a pet?" She had asked without knowing anything. As far as she was concerned, Ai might still have a couple of cats or something like that. She didn't know anything, so the surprise in her tone was all that colored her question.
Hachiman had been thinking of his high school days when the question assaulted his neurons. Grinding his mind to a halt and confusing him to no end.
"What? No." His answer hadn't carried any second meanings or irony. Yet Shijo, ever the creative girl, quickly ran through confusion and into the five stages of grief. Where each new expression in her face simply made Hachiman's stomach drop further and further. Ending in sheer panic when the girl became completely unable to look him in the eyes.
"Oh! I-I see how it is! Yup…!" The green-haired idol was trying very hard to avoid his gaze now. Actively rotating away so that not even his hands would enter her field of vision.
At this point, it was pretty clear to Hachiman what was going on, what the confusion was, and the label that Shijo stuck to him while she robotically walked away from the window that allowed this particular shop to exhibit its products.
"No, wait. Arisa. I—!"
"No, no. It's okay. I get it. I really do." Even though Shijo was pretty small, her steps still covered enough distance that Hachiman struggled to follow after her. Though that might have more to do with wrestling with his own embarrassment while moving. Which debuffed his speed and dexterity significantly. "Being into this and that is not that uncommon. Mhm. It's just, err… I didn't expect the boldness!"
"It really is not that." Hachiman insisted. Now dying of embarrassment even more when he noticed the weirded out stares that he was gathering. "I was just remembering Yui's birthday. That's all!"
"Weh?!" Shijo span around, face still red. But now truly and well in panic mode. "Yuigahama too?!"
"No!" Hachiman cut her path off, arms spread to either side so that she'd not try to run away. "We bought it for her birthday once! And she got the wrong idea too!"
"'We'?!" Shijo all but screeched. "Who's 'we'?! What the hell, Hachiman?! That's way too advanced for me!"
"It was for her damn dog, Arisa." Hachiman hissed, feeling veins pop somewhere in his head. He even felt a little dizzy, but that was probably nothing to be concerned about. "The collar was for her damn dog."
"Oh." Shijo's mind finally put the brakes on her nonsense. But her face took longer to go back to its original color. "Did she think it was a choker or something?"
"…Yes." Hachiman let out a sigh of relief. But looked at the green-haired idol with puzzled eyes. "How did you know?"
"She told a similar story about the cousin of a friend." Shijo replied, more like her usual deadpan than the full-blown panic of before. "You know how it is."
"…Yes." Hachiman repeated, once again letting relief wash over his whole body. "I was remembering that."
"Man, you really can't just stop in your tracks to stare at a pink dog collar with that much intensity." Shijo groaned. Her previous panic now replaced with an incredible amount of annoyance. "People can get the wrong idea quite easily!"
"No. I think there's only a very particular kind of people that would get the wrong idea…" Hachiman looked away from Shijo.
It might've been kinder not to imply anything here. It'd be the more gentlemanly thing to do anyway. But, after making a scene, Hachiman felt like he deserved this small win.
Shijo looked at him with a deadpan, opened her mouth to say something sarcastic, then thought twice and closed it with a deeper frown.
Seconds ticked down but nothing came out of her mouth.
Shijo once again spedran the five stages of grief in front of Hachiman.
"Nuh-huh." She said with the most serene expression that he'd seen out of her ever.
The hell you mean 'nuh-huh'?!
"Do I even want to know?" Hachiman added, rolling his eyes while he turned around to go back to the shops they left behind. Now fully intending to look at the prices and all that.
"No. Wait. You misunderstand me." Shijo almost ran behind him, as she was now the one that had to defend her honor or face the label of 'freak' forever. "I was just teasing, okay. All in healthy and good fun. I didn't think about anything in particular, okay?!"
"Oh, no yeah. Absolutely." Hachiman replied in the most ironic tone he could muster. "Totally understandable. You did not really blush for real, for real. It was all a trick, huh. You're pretty good at acting."
"No, Hachiman. Really. It's not like that." Shijo's face, which had managed to look more like a face than a tomato, began losing ground to her rushing blood once more as she struggled to make her case. "I-It was a slip, okay? It's nothing, really."
"Oh, so now it was a slip." Hachiman scoffed. "We're getting closer to the truth, huh."
"No, no, no. I was joking, see?"
"Oh, another pivot." Hachiman added with a flat tone. "Very convincing, Arisa."
"So what if I thought you were a freak?!" Shijo finally stopped trying to negotiate and went full on the defensive. "That's your fault, as far as I'm concerned!"
Hachiman knew where this was going. He'd been in this sort of situation many times; both on the offense and defense. So he chose to cut this short and face Shijo head on.
"So, whose Christmas tree will the collar end up under? Yours or Kamei's?"
"AAAAAHHHH!" Shijo fell to her knees, the cold of the accumulating snow and the dirt from so many people going through these streets did nothing to prevent Shijo from throwing away her dignity. "Please forget it! Let it go! I'm begging here, Hachiman—! No! Hachiman-sama!"
"I'm getting flashbacks here and I don't like it." Hachiman replied when he realized that he'd had someone glaze him like this after he did something for them, although he didn't fully remember the context for this particular memory. "Just tell me who uses it. I won't tell on you."
"No! I won't! I won't let you walk all over my dignity like that!"
"I see…" Hachiman looked away. Now realizing that he didn't actually want to know the truth. "Is this part of the roleplay or…?"
Shijo screeched in a way that sounded less like a human and more like a goose being strangled by a giant crab's pincer. Utterly hellish.
"Okay, okay. I'll stop teasing you." Hachiman sighed. "No need to send a thank you gift when Kamei uses it for the first time—"
"No! Don't buy it! Please! I'll pay you good money for you not to buy it." Shijo clung to his coat. And Hachiman now regretted going this far.
Damn it! He was teasing an idol, someone used to all the cutesy stuff that required throwing away one's dignity! Why did he think he could get away with teasing Shijo like this?!
"Alright, alright! I was joking! Get off the floor and release me!" Hachiman tried to push Shijo away, but it was no use. The girl really was making a scene, and neither of them wanted a police officer to show up. But she was just so—
"Ummm…" A hauntingly familiar voice interrupted Hachiman's thoughts. Making both of the idiots freeze in place as they slowly turned their heads to see a brunette with wavy hair stare at them alongside someone else from Hachiman's past. "Are we… Are we interrupting something?"
Hachiman couldn't even gulp from the internal screaming that this person caused him.
"Heeeh! So you have family outside of Chiba?! I didn't know!" Orimoto Kaori might've grown in the time Hachiman hadn't seen her. But that innocent way she spoke about the obvious, as in this case they'd never talked about Hachiman's family before, hadn't really changed. "You get along pretty well!"
"Yeah." Shijo said as dryly as she could. Looking fine, if a little bothered, but probably still wrestling with the crippling shame that she felt from being seen and having to interact with people after her little stunt before.
The four moved away from the stores and into the zone of town that had restaurants and coffee shops. And got some crepes while Hachiman introduced them to the green-haired glasses-wearing girl desperately trying not to reveal that she actually belonged to the most popular idol group of recent time.
"You even sound kind of similar!" What the hell was that supposed to mean? Orimoto had heard Shijo say one (1) word after being teased to tears and she sounded similar to Hachiman?
"Yeah! I kind of see the resemblance!" The fourth person there, a guy from Hachiman's high school days, beamed with an energy that reminded Hachiman of their trip to Kyoto. "Let me guess, let me guess! It's… From Hikigaya's mom's side!"
…
Ummm, actually, had they ever agreed to this part of the—?
"You're pretty smart, Tobe-san." Shijo replied without missing a beat. "Our moms are sisters."
Right. It sounded like something they'd have agreed to.
"Oh~! Yeah, I kinda see Komachi-chan in your face!"
Never, ever call Komachi 'Komachi-chan' in front of Hachiman's face again. They'd gone through this, even if he was on good terms with Tobe: He'd not allow any men to call his sister so casually.
"Heh? Is that right?" Orimoto looked at Shijo's dead inside expression and compared it against Hachiman's dead inside frown. They were obviously and glaringly not the same at all, since Shijo's blue eyes still showed some hope because of all her idol training and time spent with a certain someone. "Eh, I kinda see it."
For real…?
"Well, that's how it is." Shijo pushed her crepe toward Hachiman and beckoned him to do the same. They exchanged food, taking a bit of one another's before returning them silently. "Sugary."
"It's a dessert, Arisa. What did you expect?" Hachiman retorted. Still deadpan in spite of the evident danger of the idol being recognized.
"Mine has cheese." Shijo stated plainly. "I expected less sugar."
"Oh! Mine has cheese too!" Orimoto beamed, ever the social butterfly. "Did we order the same thing?"
"No." In spite of all her public appearance training, Shijo looked all but incapable of adding anything else that would be meaningful to the conversation.
"Oh, ummm…" Orimoto smiled awkwardly. "You're family, alright."
"An astute observation." Was Hachiman's deadpan reply.
"That's what we said, yes." Shijo retorted before taking an uninterested bite of her crepe.
"Oh my gosh, can't imagine there being two of you in middle school!" Orimoto laughed it off. Honestly so. She didn't sound like she was trying to end the awkward non-conversation, but rather she made an organic connection with all of this to continue talking.
Social skills were, at the end of the day, still skills. And someone like Orimoto certainly had polished them thorough her life.
"Or in high school!" Tobe added, also finding the comment kind of funny. "Man, imagine two people silently glaring at you from the back of the classroom!"
"Is my gaze that heavy?" Shijo turned to Hachiman and took off her glasses. She clearly couldn't see well without them, so she ended up with a half-lidded stare that looked nothing like the idol in posters and stuff.
"Compared to whose?" Hachiman growled back. Because Shijo was the kind of person that could sneak an insult into a seemingly innocent question.
"Tch." Shijo just put her glasses back on. "It'd have been impossible, though. I went to private schools all my life."
"Oh, for real?" Orimoto accepted the change of topic easily enough: She hadn't meant anything with her previous comment.
They still could hurt, of course. Hachiman idly noted that while the conversation unfolded. Which… Well, he'd mused over this topic for months and months, years even. When Orimoto was involved… Was there anything that Hachiman hadn't said already at this point?
"Yeah. But it'd probably have been cool." Shijo zipped her jacket a bit further up. Since it was getting colder.
Hachiman didn't know why she insisted on showing off her midriff. But guess she did have a sense of temperature after all.
"Hmmm, well… Yeah. Seeing Hikigaya talk to someone from time to time might've made it easier." Orimoto mused. As soon as Shijo began fiddling with her jacket, she fixed her scarf a little. Orimoto had her nose go red from the cold, and the scarf hugged her cheeks in a rather cute way.
Hachiman didn't need to look away: It had been so long already, and he had other things in mind. But time still didn't help when his mind betrayed the fact that, in spite of everything, Orimoto was still a cute girl.
"I guess?" Tobe scratched his chin like he was trying to solve a particularly tricky math problem. "But I feel like they'd look like they were scheming or something. You know?"
"Oh, yeah! Murmuring and whispering to themselves. I can totally see that!" Orimoto chuckled at the notion.
Hachiman tilted his head toward Shijo. The girl didn't seem bothered by this turn of events; she probably only cared about her stage name remaining hidden, so Hachiman felt like hurrying things along would only make things more suspicious.
"So, uh, what are you two doing out here?" Hachiman knew these people. There was no way he'd be able to leave before exchanging pleasantries. So, even if he couldn't hasten things along, he still wanted to be relatively quick about this chance encounter.
"Oh, we're going to a mixer!" Tobe beamed, finally able to talk about something he cared about.
Eh… A mixer, huh.
"We got lost." Orimoto chuckled awkwardly. "Or, rather, Kakeru got lost. I was looking for some gifts before I went to pick him up. Some friends told me that there are some pretty cute things out here, pretty cheap too."
"Yeah. Some of the production facilities that work for big brands end up selling the logo-less products around here." Shijo nodded, though she didn't actually tell them where exactly. "There's a lot of off-brand stuff for that reason. But it's basically the same thing but way cheaper."
"Oh, is that what you meant about this place?" Hachiman was actually quite curious about this. Since Shijo had the kind of resources to throw a party in a small villa for a couple of days and see none of the receipts for whatever they spent.
She might not be the heir to the Shijo 'dynasty'. But girl had money to spare and zero care for her father's credit card.
"Yessir. Mei showed me some stores." Shijo smiled. The sort of smile that she reserved to when she visited the Hikigaya residence or she showed Hachiman the photos of her latest date. "Her parents bought presents here when her family struggled the most. And… Well, there was no reason to stop coming here. Besides, it's a trip for Christmas presents. Any kid would eat that up without a second thought."
"Oh, so it's pre-approved then." Tobe rubbed his gloved hands evilly. "I might get away with saving some cash, then!"
"Man, don't go saying stuff like that out loud!" Orimoto gave him a backhanded pat on the shoulder. "People do notice these kinds of intentions, y'know?"
"There's nothing wrong with saving some money during this season." Hachiman shook his head. "Christmas was designed to boost sales by dressing the culture of consumption up in family holiday colors."
"You don't have to go saying those things either." Orimoto deadpanned. "Man, you're this old and still don't know how to take a hint…"
"I am looking for presents too." Hachiman pointed out. "I'm just saying that fighting it a little is a good thing."
"It's Christmas, Hikigaya. Christmas!" Orimoto placed her hands on her hips, somewhat annoyed at him. "Cheer up! Invite a girl to see the city's decorations! I don't know, dress up as Santa!"
"Public dates are overrated." Shijo looked away.
"…" Orimoto dropped her hands, looked at Tobe, and looked back at the two of them.
"You two are a handful after all…" Tobe scratched the back of his head. "Good thing you weren't together at school."
"I respect your right to be right." Shijo commented without much care. "But I'll ignore your facts and change the subject entirely: So you were on your way to a mixer?"
"Right!" Tobe hit a fist on his palm, like he just remembered about something important. "Care to tag along? I was promised that there would be girls from other unis… Ah, boys too!"
"Ooohh…" Shijo's tone did not change at all. But her smile did become cheeky when she bumped her shoulder on Hachiman's ribs. "He's talking to you."
Hachiman just scoffed.
"Eh? No. I was talking to you, Tachibana-san…" Tobe, lacking the evil mind that Hachiman and Shijo shared, did not get the jab at all.
No matter. Hachiman didn't want to have to explain himself. That was private information that had to do with Ai: It was none of their damn business.
"Oh! That's right, I heard about Yukinoshita…" Orimoto seemed to realize that there were some things left unspoken in this conversation. "Pretty sure you don't wanna talk about it but… If you want to try your luck again…"
Hachiman idly noted that, if this had been his high school years, that would've sounded like Orimoto was scouting for something here.
"I'll pass." Hachiman replied dryly.
"Really? We're not that far away. Two more people probably won't make a difference." The brunette sounded a little surprised.
Hachiman and Shijo exchanged a glance.
"Two people won't make a difference? Sounds like there's way too many." Shijo replied with a tired expression.
"I'd rather not ruin the mood by awkwardly standing there without talking to anyone." Hachiman added with a tired sigh.
"Oh, c'mon man! I can totally wingman for you if you ask!" Tobe pointed at himself with a thumb while smiling radiantly. It almost gave Hachiman some courage. Almost. "Maybe you just need a friendly face to guarantee the quality of the goods, eh?"
That was the worst possible way he could've put it. It might've made Orimoto laugh a little, but Hachiman was sure that she wasn't laughing because it was actually funny.
Task failed successfully and all that.
But Hachiman knew that the comment didn't come from a place of malice, so…
"We're gonna have dinner with the family later." Hachiman looked away. He didn't want to be caught lying; he didn't want to lie to begin with. But the discomfort could clearly pass for disappointment all the same. "Can't go missing thorough the night if things go, uh, too well."
"Oh, damn. Happens to the best of us." Tobe snapped his fingers, though the cloth covering them didn't let the sound to properly convey his disappointment. "That's why I told mom preemptively so that she wouldn't make any plans for today! The face grandma gives me when I show up after skipping a family gathering is a bit…"
"Yeah, mom gets all pouty too." Orimoto chuckled awkwardly. "It's so childish! But I can't tell her that. It's like she can use some sort of power on me. I just can't defeat the puppy eyes!"
"They seriously know how to defeat us in an argument, huh." Tobe chuckled as well. And the mood improved a whole lot now that the two were in sync once again. "It's so unfair, man~"
Hachiman's gaze sharpened.
"Didn't you say you were going to a mixer?"
"Eh?! Of course! We're not bothering, are we?!" Orimoto was quick to come to her own conclusions. Though Hachiman couldn't fault her, since his tone wasn't that friendly.
"No, no. I'm just wondering…" Hachiman looked away. "You sure get along well, huh."
"Eh?" Orimoto didn't know how to react, so she looked at Tobe for help.
"Man, are you jealous? Is Hikigaya-kun getting jealous of me?!" Tobe sounded like he had won in something, though Hachiman couldn't quite understand in what. "No way, no way! That's such a riot!"
"Who says 'riot' nowadays…?" Shijo mumbled to herself.
"No, no, no! We just go to the same uni." Orimoto waved the question off.
She didn't look that concerned, so it'd probably not hurt Tobe's pride…
"Oh, really?" Hachiman scrambled his brain for the correct information. Even if he realized that he didn't know what Orimoto was studying.
Not like they'd kept that much contact. If she told him at some point, his mind couldn't even recall.
"Yeah… I tried to enroll in an arts school. Kind of as a joke…" Tobe scratched the back of his head awkwardly.
"Oh. Did you pivot into politics by any chance?" Shijo perked up a little.
"E-Eh? No way. Why?" Of course, Tobe didn't understand Shijo's comment. Hachiman only did because she'd used the same joke with Zaimokuza, followed by the suggestion of growing a funny mustache. It had been a pretty bad joke then, surrounded by friends. And it was a bad one here, when they were talking with strangers.
Hachiman bonked her on top of her head.
"She thinks she can do standup comedy." Hachiman grumbled. "If she says something strange, just laugh and pay her no mind."
"Well, your humor isn't very standard either." Orimoto elbowed Hachiman a couple of times. "So what does that make yours?"
"A refined acquired taste tailor-made for learned people." Hachiman didn't miss a beat to make his reply as dry as possible.
"Sure, sure!" Orimoto might've been rejecting his words. But she still chuckled at them. Again, probably not due to the desired reason. But Hachiman would still take it as proof that his humor was good.
Was that double-faced? Maybe. But faulty data collection still counted as data (as long as you don't get caught); so he'd not acknowledge the fact at all.
"Maaaan, I missed those weird comments for real!" Tobe went ahead and slapped Hachiman's shoulder… Err, let his hand drop on it. "Let's hang out some time later! We have a lot of catching up to do!"
Hachiman really, really didn't like the sound of that.
"If there is time." He gave the guy empty words, for his routine had become pretty packed since the events at the beginning of the year.
"Tsss, I'll make room!" Still, Tobe really sounded pretty excited about seeing Hachiman. "If you're out here fooling around, then good things have been happening recently, right? I'd love to hear about it all!"
Hachiman looked at the guy's hand, still on his shoulder, and sighed.
"Yes. Things are fine." Hachiman smiled weakly. In the end, this sort of initiative was the main reason why Hachiman could never hate Tobe in the end. "We even patched things up with Yukino."
"Eh?!" Orimoto sounded kind of outraged. "Did you two get back together?!"
"No." Hachiman replied flatly.
"I heard from Yui." Tobe crossed his arms and nodded in approval. "Leave it to Hikigaya! You always had a strange power to make everything work out in the end!"
Shijo gave Hachiman an odd look.
"…Nothing of the sort." Hachiman chuckled darkly. "I always wind up messing things up."
"Nah, nah, nah!" Tobe pushed Hachiman playfully. "You have a special something, man! No need to be humble!"
"The special-est boy in town…" Shijo mumbled in a sing-song tone.
"I am not special." Hachiman sighed. "It's the people around me who are."
Snow began lazily falling as they bid the odd popular duo goodbye. For a couple of minutes, both Shijo and Hachiman stayed silent. Going through the conversation that just unfolded around them. Making peace with the small cuts that Tobe and Orimoto's happy life had caused.
"Is she 'the girl'?" Shijo asked after crossing a less crowded street.
"What could you possibly be talking about?" Hachiman played dumb, looking at the displayed goods from shops they walked by.
"So that's how it is…" Shijo nodded once. "I guess you've always been into girls that are just a handful, huh."
Hachiman couldn't help scoffing.
"What is that supposed to mean? Orimoto's considered someone everyone can easily get along with."
"I am not 'everyone'." Shijo complained. "That was exhausting."
Hachiman looked up, feeling the irony drip from those words.
"Statistically speaking, that sounds more like a 'you problem' and a 'skill issue' than anything."
"Hmmm, maybe." Shijo lazily replied. "Not like I haven't gone through my own share of 'it was never going to happen's."
Hachiman opened his mouth to ask about it, but realized how dumb that instinct was. So he simply shut up and continued to walk in silence.
"In the end, it's all about compatibility, huh." Hachiman sighed.
"And interest, and opportunity, and interference…" Shijo scoffed. "If relationships were as easy to forge as in cliché romance manga, 4chan would not exist."
"But we'd soon run out of heroines as a handful of dense randoms steal them all, so that'd be a problem." Hachiman pointed out, just vaguely amused.
"If the world was riddled with boring guys, it'd be the renaissance of Girls' Love." Shijo clapped her hands together, as if to pray to the gods of romantic comedies.
"If that happens, Shinzo Abe would come back from the grave for how much more awful the natality of the nation would turn out." Hachiman placed a finger on his chin, running the simulation of humanity's demise by way of the loss of regular families.
"Eh, if that's such a problem; then a few harem protag-kuns can survive then. As a treat." Shijo chuckled.
"That'd probably damage the gene pool too." Hachiman gave Shijo a pointed look. "If your utopia suddenly loses the big thighs gene because of how plain the dads are…"
"Oh, damn. That'd be a terrible world to live in." Shijo opened her eyes wide. Realizing that she'd have to get more creative if she wanted to avoid the loss of random fetish points in this imaginary world. "Imagine there's no more big breasts in the world!"
Hachiman placed his hands together, not at all thinking in a few women that he knew in real life.
"May we be freed from such horrors." Hachiman mumbled.
"Preach." Shijo also clapped her hands together, joining in the prayer. "We'll need to breed better harem protagonists, then."
"Congratulations, you've reinvented eugenics to keep your yuri harem world." Hachiman deadpanned.
"It's not crunch culture at fault for our declining birth rates! It's the immigrants' fault!" Shijo raised a finger to the sky while talking in an exaggerated authoritarian voice. "Our nation is the only pure and blessed one! Or whatever."
"At that point, just call martial law already. At least that way, I'd have an excuse not to buy presents."
"It's pretty depressing, isn't it?" Shijo looked around at the people walking by. At the families and groups of friends, and the couples holding hands and laughing together. "Will you spend the day with your family?"
"Yeah." Hachiman nodded. "Though, nowadays, it feels more and more awkward after I realize that we don't really celebrate anything in particular."
"There's nothing to celebrate." Shijo nodded.
"Mhm. More like… I can tell my parents are bracing for going back to work." Hachiman stared at his empty hands. "It's… Depressing."
"A token celebration can be way worse than no celebration at all." Shijo sighed. "There are the lights, the food, the decoration… But…"
"Stony faces and empty congratulations?" Hachiman offered.
"Yeah." Shijo kept walking but looked at the street instead of ahead of her. "It doesn't help that people upload the parties and stuff. And everyone looks so damn happy…"
"You believe what you see in social media?" Hachiman sounded pretty surprised even to himself.
"Of course not!" Shijo sounded outright offended by Hachiman's words. "But they can at least fake it, y'know. It stings."
"Can't argue with that." Hachiman mumbled to himself.
"So you really aren't gonna go watch us?" Shijo asked, like she didn't care too much but her eyes kept moving his way.
B-Komachi would use the holiday to promote themselves. Many people would go to their concert; and Saitou apparently had an event planned for all those people that didn't have anyone to celebrate Christmas with but still could spare a few hundred thousand yens in their favorite unreachable girls.
"No." Hachiman shook his head. "I want to be with my parents."
"I see…" Shijo nodded with enough sadness that Hachiman actually felt somewhat bad about this.
He'd had this conversation with Ai before. He did not need to have it once again with someone else.
"It's one of the few times I get to see them, Arisa." Hachiman added. Not in an attempt to soften the blow. But trying to give the girl the upside to this. "Think about it. You girls will probably be all tired and done afterward."
"Eh…" Shijo moved her hands in a 'so-so' way. "It'd be pretty refreshing to see a familiar face afterward."
"Then go crash at my place if it has to be after your concert." Hachiman groaned.
"Eh? For real?"
"Yes?" Hachiman looked at her dubious stare. Looking for the malice that probably laid beneath. "I mean, if you can."
"I have a driver, Hachiman." Shijo reminded him.
"Doesn't he get a break on Christmas?" Poor man. And Hachiman thought that Shijo wasn't as evil as anime made rich people to be.
"The guy's the one that got us the concert on that day. He can take an extra workload without complaining."
"Oh, you're talking about Saitou. Yeah, screw that guy." Hachiman's mood changed instantly. "We don't wanna cook for the day, so we're gonna buy something the day prior. Got any requests?"
"I'll ask Mei's parents."
"…I invited you. Maybe Kamei as well. But her whole family…?"
"There's four of us. They no longer have any more family." Shijo gave Hachiman her best puppy eyes.
"…What about Ai's family?" Hachiman looked away. That attack was way too powerful for Hachiman to withstand.
"Oh, so you did invite her!" Shijo pointed a finger at him.
"I… Haven't." Hachiman confessed. "I thought that she'd spend Christmas with her parents."
"Eh? Then why did you tell me to run Ichigo-san through the grinder?" Shijo looked honestly confused.
Hachiman's face was burning now.
"Well, if they couldn't make it home on time…"
"Oh my goodness, Hachiman. Just invite her over!" Shijo looked ridiculously taken aback by Hachiman's (admittedly idiotic) plan.
"But then I'll have to fight her on staying out of going to the concert, and—"
"She'll understand! Have you seen how clingy she gets with Miyako-san?! She totally understands wanting to hang out with your parents!"
It wasn't just Ai who he'd have to fight, though!
"I… Have my reasons…" Hachiman looked away when Shijo circled around him to force him to look her in the eyes. "…Auntie Ari."
Shijo froze in place just to reset her expression and walk like nothing had happened.
"Eh? Did you say something?"
"Nothing…" As Hachiman feared, this would be a stressful end of the year.
So why couldn't he stop kind of looking forward to it?
Better make sure to have those two extra gifts ready if he wanted to have even a lick of a chance to win the oncoming argument.