Crossover Fan Fiction ❯ Dark Sarcasm ❯ Camping ( Chapter 7 )

[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]

SEVEN

 

My phone rang a text notice. Naturally, I’d replaced the standard sound with the morse code for SOS. I don’t get many text messages. I am not a social person. SOS started clicking pretty good, over and over. My phone rang. I ignored it. More SOS noises. I finally picked up my phone, putting down a really good book on the 1929 stock market crash, and found that Sensei was demanding I pick up my phone, that there was club business this summer break.

I put a finger to my head and intoned: “I forsee a dark time ahead for you. Three curses must be struck from the akashic record or you will forever know sorrow and pain, because women never forgive!” My phone rang again. I picked up.

“Hello, Hiratsuka sensei. It sure is nice to hear from you during my summer vacation. Are you having a nice vacation? Doing vacation things? Working on your tan, hitting some dance clubs, meeting friendly people who want to know you better? Maybe put a ring on your finger?” I teased. There was ice from the other end of the line.

“That was a step too far, Hikigaya,” she promised.

“Oh? Really? Why would that be? You’re an attractive woman in her prime,” I pointed out cheerfully.

“For SOME reason they lose interest,” she muttered darkly.

“Could it be aggressive text messages and threatening phone calls are a bad choice for communicating, Sensei?” I teased.

“You wouldn’t dare speak to me like this in person, Hikigaya,” she warned.

“That’s true enough. You like punching me, and I’m not very fond of that. I think it’s unattractive, like aggressive and needy text messaging. It seems like that would give a man a poor impression of you, and reveals some potential personality problems likely to harm a marriage. No man wants to marry someone who’s mean, sensei, and you have this side to you that’s not so nice, which is a real shame because when you’re nice you’re really pretty and have a nice smile,” I pointed out, using the phone as an absolute defense for her favorite tactic of violence.

“Hikigaya,” she snarled, then got herself under control. I heard something break on the other end of the line. “I called because the service club is participating in an interscholastic field trip to Chiba Mountain Village, to act as group counselors to the elementary school. Your sister has already agreed to come along. I’m sure you’d like to keep an eye on her and make sure she’s okay on this trip, as well as stand with your club, who also agreed to this quest, as you call it.”

“Oh. Okay. You should have said. Needy text messages and threats are very counterproductive, and that makes me sarcastic. Simply asking politely with an actual explanation is very effective. When is this?” I asked her.

“Meet at Chiba station tomorrow at 8 AM. I’ve got a van. Bring an overnight bag and two days of clothes. Food, drink and accommodation are provided.”

“Sure thing Sensei.” She sure was fun to rile up. I suspect that when she gets a steady boyfriend he’s going to realize that getting her riled up will probably make her better in bed. I don’t know this for sure because I’m not Hayama the Chad, but I suspect this is true.

The following morning my sister and I met with Sensei at Chiba Station. Yukino and Yuigahama also turned up in loose summer clothes and overnight bags. We put them in the van and moved onto the expressway, headed for Chiba Mountain Village, which is the summer camp used by the various Chiba prefecture schools for short overnight summer camp and outdoors events. Sometimes these things revealed a kid’s hidden talents and changed their life for the better. It was similar to how art classes might reveal a hidden talent.

A second van arrived and disgorged the popular kids from my classroom and Totsuka. They were helping as counselors too. The head of the site was a fat man who spoke to the large crowd of elementary students, all of them short, and sent them out to do an orienteering course in groups. Our job as high school students is to act as counselors and help them keep out of trouble or getting lost. Hayato, being the pretty boy he was, got plenty of attention from the little girls.

My evil eyes merely observed, getting some comprehension of the area and found themselves drawn to a little girl with a pink digital camera she kept fidgeting with. A loner, like me, pushed out of the crowd she was forced to work with. Girls’ true natures are destructive. They don’t have friends, they have allies of the moment. Meat shields to throw in front of enemy fire. There are good reasons women aren’t soldiers. And these girls Hayato was cheerfully instructing had tossed this loner onto the mine field so they could walk over her corpse. Hayato, and other adults with his mindset, probably think this loner-girl should just accept this fate and forgive them so they could do it again. It’s this mindset which aggravates me most about Japan. Victimize people and expect them to take it again and again. It’s no wonder our economy has been crap since the Crash of 1989. Use people up and then pretend you can do it again? People learn. And they learn there’s no point to innovate or start new businesses or work harder for a boss who punishes you. It’s all crap.

Its like Miura over there. She’s got a mad love for Hayato, and they’ve clearly been intimate, but she can’t get enough. Probably wants to nail him down. So she hangs around, is fawning and available and he does it with a slew of other girls, once, and moves on. The problem is that this entire school we all go to is a feeder for the university system. We’re on an escalator. Go to class, study for exams, pass exams, go to college for a major required by your future employers, graduate university, go to contracted job, pay off college, buy house, get married… if you’re male.

If you’re a woman you care about your career instead and keep working, try to get promoted, work long hours, realize you’re 35 with no life outside work. And it’s too late to have kids. Your looks are gone. Your personality is terrible because business destroyed you, and you’re going to die alone, lady. Every girl in our school is destined to be a cat lady in the future. Lots of them are giving it up to Hayato specifically to see if there’s anything to physical love, to see if they catch feelings or if it’s just some biology at work and can be shrugged off. And you know what? Girls like Miura are the minority. Most of the girls who sleep with Hayato feel nothing after they shower it all off. They get cured of their curiosity and forget about this until they’re 35 and it’s far too late. So romance at Soubu? It’s a joke. Every girl at Soubu is a cat lady.

I think if things hadn’t opened my eyes to female nature with Orimoto back in Middle School I would probably be really upset over the truth of women at Soubu. If I’d been successful with her back then, which is unlikely in its extreme because she was fake, like most girls, I might have realized that the place for his school romance is one of the many girls’ schools that had recently gone co-ed, like Osai Academy. If my family were upper class, they would have sent me to schools for the elite where high school romances lead to actual marriages and business empires creating closer ties. A place like Ouran High School. Chiba wasn’t rich enough to have many entitled rich kids, and Yukinoshita Yukino was a loner rather than a gadfly like Haruno. The Yukinoshitas required votes to retain the Diet position, so couldn’t be see as snobs, thus no going to Ouran. They sent their girls to Soubu, which was open to commoners and had reasonable fees and was in the heart of Chiba City. It was a feeder school to the universities because that’s what students needed to do to succeed financially. But that also meant that the girls of Soubu wouldn’t have kids to send to Soubu in the future because their Careers would prevent having a family. So it was up to the boys who got successful careers to marry women they would meet in the distant future, rather than the girls who literally spurned their affections out of ambition and the brief pursuit of Hayato Hayama’s Alpha smile. The bitterness of those spurned men may make them leery of trusting women, and men talk to each other. We know women aren’t trustworthy. We know about the divorce rate, and about cheating.

Japan has a long history of unhappy marriages, which allows cheating and misandry and misogyny. Men want women who are friendly and less complicated. Women want kids and an ATM, not a husband. Their perfect dream is relaxing all day and getting fat in the coffee shop with other women, gossiping poisonously. So basically Lucky Star but with wedding rings. Women win child support in the courts and ever since the end of arranged marriages for the general public, divorce rates are very high. Men know that getting married is a sure fire way to lose your money, savings, throw away all the work you did getting to that point, because your wife doesn’t love you and never did. So Japan is mostly singles under 50. Isn’t that something? Do these girls know that? They probably do, the high school girls anyway. Sometime between elementary school, where the girls’ hormones change them from cheerful kids to scheming bitches, they learn to treat men like garbage. Probably from their mothers. Women don’t get married without a plan to divorce and take their man for all he has. It’s a scam.

Overly emotional women like Hiratsuka-sensei, and obviously devious women like Haruno, these are easily detected and avoided. Just thinking about her caused Hiratsuka to turn and glare at me. That’s some scary radar you got there. All the rest of the women are better at faking their natures long enough to get a ring, but those women aren’t at Soubu. Soubu was full of ambition. And despair.

The hardest part for men is that the prevalent media personification of women is happy endings and love, which are both fictional. Real women are parasites. They don’t love men. They love their kids, and that’s all. Men are just tools to abuse and discard for the next man they can steal, until they get rejected and the mirror shows they’ve hit The Wall, and their inner ugliness is on the outside. Is a nice girl like Yuigahama thinking about divorce? Is Yukino? What am I to them, other than something they use to get club projects resolved? Someone to practice their wiles on, to tease and practice their charms at? For the Alpha they always want. Regular men haven’t got a chance in this world. I swear this is depressing the hell out of me.

The loner girl finally and reluctantly follows Hayato’s fawning crowd of little girls. I stand back, using the shade under these nice trees, seeing her slump and all her body language indicating she’d rather be alone. I get you, kid. I really do. In a few years your hormones will take control and you’ll be a resentful bitch like all the other women in the world. My little sister will too. The one female in the world who understands me will be lost to her own inevitable nature.

The crowds of kids worked their way through their orienteering courses, several routes that lead to the same endpoint. The Boys were excited and tended to make more mistakes, needing more help arriving. The girls argued or one of them did it and the rest followed, ignoring the entire process.

I did my job unobtrusively, enjoying a walk in the woods. I don’t often get out of the city. I probably should. The city is full of people, but lots of those people don’t know or recognize me so I’m lost in the crowd. Lately, thanks to the Service Club, I’ve gotten attention for my efforts. This is not what I actually wanted. This is what Sensei wants. She feels responsible for creating monsters like Haruno, probably, and has decided to insure a couple quiet loners like me and Yukino end up being forced to socialize and bend our own wills to supporting idiots neither of us likes.

Yukino claims Noblesse Oblige is behind her drive to commit acts of charity on her lessers, which considering she’s a rich girl of a noble family is credible… but why do I have to do this? For the crime of being right about how awful people are? And proving this with every one of my solutions? Why is this my problem? I could be home playing games, resting my skinny malnourished body and avoiding fattening foods and poor sleep with all these people. Sigh. Yes, I know I’m malnourished. I don’t exercise enough, I don’t eat enough protein, I don’t go out of the house enough, I live a quiet slacker lifestyle, but at least I’m not obsessed with dating, personal gratification, or delusional thinking. Telling THEM this is worthless. They don’t think. They don’t have to. They’re on the escalator with a promised job at the end and a mortgage and child support payments to look forward to. Good job!

I don’t know what Yukino is thinking. It’s a minor fault of mine, even to wonder it. She’s rich, snobbish, yet insists on this Service Club thing after school every day. We’ve helped several people, and will probably help more of them before the school year is over. If it were just me and Yukino bickering this farce would have ended already and I’d be released to my favorite club: Going Home. I could get back to cooking meals with my sister before she turns into a monster, and do my homework and write my essays without interruption.

We shifted from the orienteering to making curry for lunch at a large outdoor kitchen using firewood to heat the food. I helped cutting veggies, sharing conversation with Yukino and even Tobe though I still kinda dislike how loud he is. He gives the impression of being dumb. I wanted to watch the pots simmer, but Sensei threatened me away to “mingle” with the kids. I retreated.

Hayato imposed himself on the loner girl who showed exasperation I know well.

“I’m not really interested in curry,” she answered and stormed off rather than be attacked by her classmates for hogging the cute boy. It was a good answer. Hayato was at a loss. His charming smile worked on older girls, and not on the self-aware loners. This is also why Saki and Yukino were repelled by his advances. The sixth grade girls glared at the loner girl’s back, promising retaliation no doubt. The hormones made them very poisonous. My sister had gotten through that phase a few years ago and was mostly genki, most of the time.

“Let’s add some subtle flavoring,” suggested Hayato, trying to redirect the kids attention away from his conversational blunder. “Anyone got any ideas?” he asked. The girls waved their hands around bouncing happily.

“Yeah! Let’s add fruit, like peaches,” suggested Yuigahama. While this is technically possible with mangoes, peaches would fall apart. I have a theory that women with strange tastes for foods that don’t make sense are probably magical girls or aliens or high level martial artists. We saw this trend first in Ranma ½, after all, and there’s other examples through literary history. Non-human tastes are a sign of a super power. It is a shame that it’s just a joke and sign of a bad cook. Yui is still learning, and still has a lot to learn before she’s going to be a competent homemaker who should be experimenting with variations. Don’t rush yourself, Yui.

“Is she retarded?” I commented.

“Totally. They’re all retarded,” the loner girl agreed, having climbed up to me from my perch on an embankment above the food prep area, chased off by Sensei.

“Well, most of the world is like that,” I said casually. “Good for you to have realized that so soon.”

“Aren’t you a part of that group?” Yukinoshita contradicted me.

“I possess the talent to be a loner even when I’m part of the group or most of the world,” denied her.

“You’re probably the only one who could say that so proudly,” Yukino sneered. “Baffled doesn’t even begin to describe it. I’m contemptuous.”

“Name?” asked the loner girl, interrupting our bickering.

“Name? What about it?” I asked her.

“I’m asking you what your name is,” the girl insisted. “I figured that much was obvious.”

“You’re supposed to introduce yourself before asking for someone’s name,” reminded Yukino.

“Tsurumi Rumi,” answered the loner girl.

“I’m Yukinoshita Yukino,” she said. “That guy over there is Hiki… Hikiga… Hikifroggaya?”

“Why do you know my nickname from fourth grade?” I demanded. Those were Bad times. And people wonder why I’m bitter?

“I’m Hikigaya Hachiman. And this is Yuigahama Yui,” I introduced my cheerful classmate as she climbed up the embankment to join our conversation. She introduced herself to Rumi.

“I think those two are different from everyone else,” said the girl. “I’m different too.”

“Different? How so?” asked Yui.

“They’re all just brats,” said Rumi. “That’s why I’m fine being alone.”

“But I think elementary school friends and memories are important,” Yui said.

“I don’t need memories,” answered Rumi. “Once I get into Middle School I’ll make new friends and memories with the new people.”

“Unfortunately, that’s not gonna happen,” denied Yukino. “The people giving you trouble now go the same Middle School. History will only repeat itself. Only this time, the outsiders will be part of it too.”

“I knew it. I was doing the stupidest things because this one girl made us do them, and then we’d forgive the ones we excluded and do it again to someone else. And then they were excluding me, but it hasn’t ended.”

I think that this sort of pattern could go on, but I now have a pretty good grasp of this female bullying tactic.

“So let me ask you this: do you want to be friends with girls who act like that? Are they worth anything? They sound evil and will keep being evil for the rest of their lives,” I pointed out. Rumi looked crestfallen.

“One real friend is worth more than a dozen bad friends who enjoy betrayal and shunning. Odds are you can find a real friend in Middle School and ignore these other girls.”

“That never worked for me,” pouted Yukino.

“But you found two friends in high school,” I responded.

“Yeah, Yukino! We’re your friends,” insisted Yuigahama, as expected.

“Really? You think so?” asked Yukino, looking conflicted. I sensed a tide of hurtful sarcasm rising.

“I’m sure that the two of you are friends,” I confirmed. Yukino shut her mouth, glaring at me.

“So that is what I have to look forward to in four years?” asked Rumi.

“Probably,” I admitted. “If you go to Soubu, understand that you’ll only be here to study and get into a good college for the sake of your career. Any friends from Elementary will be long forgotten, and Middle School trauma will probably curse you for life, so avoiding such things will probably better prepare you than trying to fit in with terrible people. You’ll get plenty of experience dealing with terrible people when you get a career. It is why so many office oneesans are lonely single drunks, after all,” I explained. “Most of them never get married or have a family. If you don’t want that for your future then Soubu might be the wrong place to go. But since you’re a loner already, like Yukino and I, marriage and family probably aren’t in the future anyway. Yuigahama on the other hand is friendly and genki and probably will get married and have a bunch of kids. You have to be really social to go that route.”

Yui looked stricken then with a certain amount of youthful shame and slapped my arm. I blinked at her.

“I think she’s shy about this topic,” I admitted.

“So if I want a boyfriend and romance I have to be like her?” asked Rumi, pointing at Yui.

“Most likely. Unless your family is very traditional and uses you like currency for an omiai and arranged marriage,” admitted Yukino. I frowned at that.

“Is that so?” I questioned her. She shrugged very slightly. Only 20% of Japanese did arranged marriages anymore. The other 80% got divorced.

“I never thought I’d get up this morning to explain romance to a sixty grader. Life is still full of surprises,” I said out loud.

“So all the girls in your school are there to get careers?” Rumi confirmed.

“Pretty much,” admitted Yukino. Yui shrugged.

“What about Kaihin High School?” asked Rumi. “What are they like?”

“They didn’t pass the exams to get into Soubu, so they end up salarymen working for managers from Soubu, probably. They’re basically henchmen and assistants and yes-men if they’re clever enough,” I admitted. I’d done research on the place and studied my ass off to get into Soubu. I would rather ben lonely the rest of my life than hench like my parents did. “Kaihin graduates aren’t smart or independent enough to start their own companies, and not determined enough to go to technical schools and get a job. Girls there probably hope to marry someone from Soubu or become a rich manager’s mistress or second or third wife. Since the average man and woman in Japan divorces four times each, this is not a great outcome, but probably less lonely than going to Soubu.”

“So what happens to girls like me?” asked Rumi.

“You’re a loner. See if you’re good at something. Being good at sports rarely turns into a job, but crafts might. You could find you have a technical talent you can turn into a job. One of our classmates is good at sewing. Another can draw manga. Maybe you can do something like that.”

“Are you good at something?” Rumi asked me.

“I am good at writing essays,” I said. Yukino laughed at that.

“I’ve heard sensei complain about your essays.”

“She only gets to see a few of them. I write them at home too, for myself.”

“What do you write about?” Yui asked in curiosity.

“Economics, biology, science, engineering, sociology, statistics, history, literary criticism, politics, human behavior. Whatever strikes my fancy,” I said.

“What’s an essay?” asked Rumi. “Is that like a book report?”

“Not a terrible comparison, but with more opinions on the topic and with facts to back up your opinions, often from multiple sources, which you have to reference by the end of the article so other people can read them and see if you’re telling the truth or just making things up.” Rumi made a face at that.

“Yeah, but that’s how science works. Opinions without facts are what politicians do,” I commented. Yukino bristled. “And those people are called Blowhards.”

The various kids and my sister and service club members went to the nearby stream and played in the water, wearing swimsuits. Miura and Yuigahama had ample charms. Yukino confirmed my initial survey of her as flat, which is sad. She hasn’t grown in the last six months. Sensei looked seriously hot in her swimsuit, and Komachi is still my little sister regardless. Ebina Hina was surprisingly well filled out. Pity she’s mad as a box of spoons. Tobe couldn’t take his eyes of her. I sense trouble, there.

A couple hours later we ate our dinners together, and sensei asked how we are going to deal with Rumi’s social problem. The others started suggesting bullying her into apologizing to “her friends” and other nonsense.

“Stop. Just stop,” demanded loudly. The others stopped talking, shocked that I would raise my voice.

“You’re thinking like herd animals. Rumi is a loner like me. She won’t die from being excluded from nonsense social activities with backstabbing little girls she already knows she can live without. She has a plan for next year, and we should just butt out. I talked to her already with Yui and Yukino. This isn’t your responsibility to fix. Respect her choice,” I insisted. They all sort of blinked at that, because they think like herd animals.

“But her friends?” complained Miura.

“Those aren’t her friends. She knows better. She’ll find new friends in Middle School,” I answered. “She isn’t like you. Neither am I.” They recoiled at this reminder of the distance between us. As people we are worlds apart. Yui looked resigned. Yukino seemed to silently agree with me.

“Besides, your plans would result in complaints and get sensei in trouble. Maybe cost her her job.”

So the test of courage went unmodified and things remained as they are.

 

Returning to Chiba City the following day was a quietly exhausting ride. Sensei stopped a couple times to smoke and glare at me, probably for being right and thinking about her job, and we got dropped off at Chiba station. A limo arrived, the one that broke my leg, and Haruno emerged. Yukino said her goodbyes and left. Yui also looked like she recognized the car.

“Did she tell you she was in the car that hit me?” I asked her.

“No. Why didn’t she?” Yui asked, confused and a bit hurt. I hugged her side briefly.

“Shame? I don’t know. I don’t understand her thought process. Maybe you can ask her,” I suggested to Yui.

I returned to summer doldrums.