Crossover Fan Fiction ❯ Happy Endings, And Other Lies ❯ Happy Endings: 12 ( Chapter 12 )

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

Chapter Twelve

 

Mediocrity. I despise settling for mediocrity unless it is as a protest against stupidity. Then I’m all for it. But most of the time? Most of the time I see it for what it is: not being the best you that you can be. You become one of Them. The Riajuus I despise held themselves back for the sake of not standing out. They choose mediocrity. Even Hayama realized this on the Kyoto trip and got the point of Fight Club. He no longer tries to find the middle ground in endless middle manager compromise. I have no idea how things are going for him in Law School, or how he’s coping with Miura pursuing him (still), but I can only hope she will either prove there’s nothing there for her own peace, or convince him she’s actually worth caring about. Is it wrong for me to think that when Yui was doing largely the same thing? Well, she’s not at Okami with me, at least, so she hasn’t lost her mind and become a stalker like Miura did, but Yui also found a man to love her as she is, and no longer has to chase after me as I kept getting further and further away. She’s a good girl. A Nice girl. I even wrote an essay about Nice Girls for one of my volumes, with a private apology to her in advance reminding her that the novels aren’t true. That they’re Wrong, as expected. The layers of meta in my novels do make me laugh at times. Shinoaki actually stormed downstairs to complain I’d given her nightmares last time I did that out loud.

Shinoaki’s illustrations are gorgeous and very detailed. I want to ask her to meet with the art director at the animation studio but I’ve had second thoughts. She’s too good. My anime got approved. Yes, finally. I finished volume seven and they agreed that was enough. I have started meeting with the studio development team and some of the voice actors, which isn’t normal, but they asked after getting recruited for the job. Eguchi Takuya reads my intro essay, Seishun, from the day I joined the Service Club and its magic. He really gets my feelings across. I want this anime to have impact, even if it’s a light love comedy about high school. The real fans got the real message, and understand the critical bits I’ve insisted have to remain in the story. The essays after the fact, narrated in bitterness. The reaction of the sensei, whom is being voiced by Yuzuki Ryoka, a good stage name. Wild Woman.

I have been getting lots of positive reviews from the releases. The sales numbers increased with the announcement of the anime. There’s no problems at this point, but there are others in Chiba, and back at school. I have to deal with them, or avoid them until they go away. Oddly, this may even be a time where that avoidance will work.

“When can you give us a script for the game we want to do?” asked Hashiba over the phone. I sighed. I’d waited to get off the train in Chiba before I called him back because it is rude, in Japan, to speak on your phone on a train, full stop. So I waited, and the delay seems to have made him more aggressive. See your woman if you’re feeling this way. She’ll fix you.

“Kyouya. I have to be clear here. I don’t care about video games. Not dating sims either. I’m into literature. And my anime got approved so I’m super busy working on that. I don’t have time to deal with your game.”

“Man. Okay. Sorry. That’s a pretty big deal then. I’ll… I’ll ask around. See if I can find someone who wants to help me write a script,” he apologized and hung up. I feel like I’ve let him down, but he really did ask too much. Maybe if I was a dedicated scriptwriter this would be more something I’m interested in, but not this time.

Chiba City hadn’t changed at all in the six months I’d been gone. I’d changed, but it hasn’t. They say you can’t go home again, but they’re probably using the wrong map software.

Haruno texted me. I checked Lines and found a lingerie shot of her on my phone. I covered the screen with my shirt, looking around. A housewife tittered, walking away. I am dying of shame here. Then I looked around again and stared intently at the screen. Damn it all. I saved the picture in the same locked folder.

She must know I’m keeping these. She must know. I don’t tell her to stop, which for Haruno is the same as encouragement. I looked around. She was grinning about fifty meters away. I sauntered toward her. I wonder if she lowjacked my phone. Of course she did.

“Haruno. I’d say I missed you, but we stay in touch, and you really left a lasting impression,” I said. She pouted cutely, which was both weird and sexy when I know she thrives on mischief.

“I enjoyed that brief taste, but I want a bigger bite,” she vamped salaciously, holding it a moment longer before breaking into a peal of laughter.

“Your face,” she laughed. I admit I probably revealed too much just now.

“If I wasn’t dating your sister I would be sorely tempted,” I reminded her.

“You’d be sore, alright,” she promised. You can’t outvamp the pro. She’s just too practiced at this kind of harassment. Probably been hearing it for a decade from dirty old men from business and politics.

“Its good to see you in person, Haruno,” I said more gently. Maybe this tone would work.

“Sure. You came all this way to see Me,” she taunted. “Yukino is waiting.” She gestured to the limo, the window cracked. I noted my best girl glaring at me, then her sister.

We got in, me doing the gentleman thing for Haruno before joining them in the back. It seated three, barely. Haruno had managed to chaperone herself in the way, grinning in triumph.

“Isn’t this just cozy!” she exclaimed, the eyes sending an entirely different message.

“I have missed you, Yukino. Nara has been good for creativity, and my writing, and I’ve made new friends, but I still missed you.”

“Are you really going to deny all that activity in your dorm? I’ve seen the pictures of those girls,” she complained, angry. Jealous. Not like her.

“Both of them are interested in the same guy, and it’s not me. The drama between those three is sometimes, rarely poignant, but mostly it’s just interrupting my sleep from all the noise. They are talented artists, especially the girls, but less functional at normal living requirements. Trying to get them to cook is a disaster, though the guy they are after isn’t terrible.”

“Is this that manager guy?” asked Haruno, with some interest.

“Hashiba, yeah. He wanted me to help with a class project but I can’t make time for it. I’ve got all these contracts and work with the studio in Tokyo. He’s running herd on the girls and trying to find a scriptwriter interested in video game writing. I’d point Yoshiteru at him if I can prove he has any skill for otome games. It’s not his normal thing, and he might be terrible.”

“It’s also hundreds of kilometers away,” pointed out Yukino. She was dressed for summer, enjoying the warm weather.

“Email attachments don’t care about distance,” I reminded. Haruno humphed.  

“I believe he’s pretty busy working on his novel.”

“He’s writing a novel?” I asked. “I should call him more. What’s it about?”

“It’s about you, sort of. You sleep with an ice maiden despite having a crush on an emotionally vulnerable sensei who cries in front of you on a windblown roof, and then you find out their mom has married your dad, who is widowed and vulnerable to her charms and you end up with the two women who have most affected your sense of romance as step siblings,” answered Haruno lowering her phone with the description lighting up her face from below, like a devil. “So it’s realistic.”

Yukino chose this moment to slug her sister. Haruno made lots of crocodile tears the rest of the way to their house. Yukino was no longer staying in the luxury apartment now she’d reconciled with her mother, probably as a long term consequence of helping me two years ago. I am also obligated to make an appearance. I am in business clothes from visiting the studio first before coming out this way. The Yukinoshita manor, if you could call it that, was large, imposing, and spoke of wealth that survived and thrived after the war. I did not spend much time investigating that, as it would probably be rude and might change the way I felt about these two women.

“I got to meet some of the voice actors who will be playing the characters in my novels.”

“Oh? Who’s playing me?” Haruno jumped the line.

“Nakahara Mai. She’s been in about a hundred anime so you’ve probably heard her voice. She’s very skilled and can pull off the poisonous tone you like to use.”

“Me? Poisonous? I’m a flirt,” she denies.

“Yes, that.”

“What about me, Hikigaya?” asked Yukino from the far end of the seat.

“Hayami Saori. She’s also well skilled. A resume of anime she’s done as long as my arm. I think you’ll be impressed there. The pre-production staffers have been given permission to visit Soubu and take reference photos for the studio animators and get the backgrounds done. Our high school is going to be famous.”

“Shizuka is going to be so smug,” sighed Haruno, admitting thoughts about others. We entered the mansion, met inside the door by Mrs. Yukinoshita in less formal clothing, on the way back from the gym probably rather than the heavily concealing public kimono I usually found her wearing in public. That had to be a restricting life, but as the wife of a Diet member, is probably necessary to appease the more conservative elements of both government and business. I bowed politely.

“Mother.”

“Mother.” The girls were formal.

I felt the small hand of Yukino take mine firmly.

“Ah Hachiman. How progresses your studies in the South?” she inquired.

“Well. There is plenty of inspiration and I found the coursework on modern business very helpful. My best selling novels are getting an anime adaptation. Your lovely daughters will be characters in the story.”

“I am informed it is a proper production with nothing scandalous?” she inquired.

“Nothing scandalous. It’s a popular media program and will be shown to all ages on national television, with potential for overseas export. Reviewers have been positive, as has unofficial promotion by fans.”

She pursed her lips. Turned to Yukino holding my hand.

“I trust this development is suitable advancement?” she asked. Yukino blushed prettily, nodded. “Very well. I’m sure you have things to discuss.” Haruno and her mother drifted away and we went another direction in the large house.

Yukino’s flush did not fade. We found a quiet table in the library, which was extensive and might even be used sometimes. It was mostly filled with law books and histories and biographies, meant to be seen. There was a small section of children’s books near the corner.

“These were mine. Mine and Haruno’s. Daddy would read to us. Sometimes mommy. They had to spend so much time fending off problems I think we had to raise ourselves. The servants came and went, so its hard to hold onto relationships like that. I always wanted to do what big sister did, always chasing her. She teases me about that. Afraid I won’t want something for myself. But I do now. You have mother’s approval.”

I found the box I’d been carrying this afternoon. “Will you be mine?” asked her, looking up.

“Yes, Hachiman.” I slipped the engagement ring on her finger. We kissed.

In another world, if I was a different person with less maturity and understanding, I might have ruined this moment. I might have dithered over choices, even over Haruno’s overt sexuality or Saki’s desperate animal passion, but at the end of the day you still want a woman you can wake up next to and love the following morning because of basic compatibility rather than temporary chemical madness like attraction. I would have to use what I knew in my writing, because it was all fuel, all drama for the public to flavor their rice. Even Ebina would probably be happy with the anime, as much as she didn’t want to help me profit from her misplaced emotions. So we kissed and something sharp inside me let go.

We looked at each other before moving to sit on a loveseat nearby. A maid brought tea and cookies.

“Komachi is going to tease me,” I finally said. “You should visit.”

“I had hoped you would stay the night, considering,” she countered.

“Is this where you want to be?” I asked, the First Time unspoken. She nodded.

“Very well. I’ll let her know. I still have to finish dealing with business in Tokyo for the rest of the next week, and then I’m returning for Fall classes down south. What I’m learning there is lucrative and useful. You could stay with me, you know. Its not opulent, but its lively and there’s enough room.”

“I think mother would allow it, considering circumstances,” she admitted. “How will this affect the end of your books?”

“I’m still planning to keep the tragedy because its critical to the developed story arc. Hachiman in my story is self destructive. He is going to end up alone,” I pronounced.

“That isn’t what is actually happening in reality,” pointed out Yukino, sipping a good quality tea. I tried it. Like the clubroom tea. Exactly like the clubroom tea. The rock on the ring sparkled, a sapphire shining blue in the light of the library’s tall curtained windows. Outside was the traditional gardens with weaving paths, a waterway, some symbolic religious stone statues appropriate to Japan’s long history. The ring had been made by an artisan from the Jewelry arts track from the campus. I’d paid her to install the lab grown, undoped, high clarity sapphire the exact shade of Yukino’s eyes into a ring of titanium with the correct oxidation for the blue to shine from it rather than silver or gold color more commonly applied. It should be durable and exotic enough to impress any level of government. It should be. I spent half the signing bonus for the anime contract to have it made.

“This is what you used to serve us,” I said about the tea. She nodded. I considered its complex flavors changing on my tongue as I calculated the right set of words to answer her important question.

“Our marriage is not going to be secret, but it also won’t be common knowledge to the fans because this is between us and those who actually care, our close friends and family. My title allows for layers of dissimulation, much like how I changed the story for the Service Club tasks as if I’d been there to ruin things.”

“You didn’t ruin things,” countered Yukino.

“Not in life, not really. But in the story my protagonist makes more mistakes and this builds the overarching dramatic tension and despair he feels, and expresses in the post-story reflection essays. I made sure to get Yui’s approval on the Nice Girls essay, you know. I didn’t want to hurt her.”

“That was reliably thoughtful of you, Hachiman. Her crush on you and that essay would have driven her to suicide.”

“In my novels and the anime she never changes her hair and the side bun is a huge flag indicating she is still emotionally a child. In reality, sitting beside me in the hospital matured her a great deal. Much like you giving up your apartment to appease your parents and beg for financial help to my family for the cost of the operations.”

“Did you know the Miura’s have done that operation another fifteen times for other needy kids? There are crippled kids that can walk now because of what they learned with you.” I was surprised. I shouldn’t be. Nothing happens in a Japan that goes truly unnoticed. She smiled gently at my expression, putting down her cup again. She moved mine back to the table and then leaned forward, kissing me. This went on longer and was very distracting. Hot and cold. She was a symphony of opposites, my Yukino. I can call her that now, in my own mind.

Somehow we maneuvered to the private family wing, to her bedroom and the servants withdrew, our clothes fell away in a slow dance of competing distractions and a soft bed was tested for two for the first time.

Afterwards, entangled, cooling, Yukino could only coo gently, unable to form words. I kept quiet, stroking her perfect skin. People tease her about being a doll, but she has been living in a very different world from most of our peers. Even when she lived on her own, in that luxury highrise apartment. So lonely. I rolled her atop me and enjoyed the look she gave me.

“Again?” she asked first surprised and then pleased. We did.

Later we showered together.

“Your scars have faded a lot,” she said, washing me beneath the stream of water, her hair up in a plastic bag for that purpose. Her hair was long and it was something I enjoyed about her look. We dried off and dressed for dinner with her family.

Her father, who used to date my mother back in the day, was an imposing man, though not physically any larger than me, though probably thicker. He wore a long mustache appropriate to a daimyo, another conservative affectation. He observed the glow from his younger daughter, examined me carefully and eventually nodded to himself with an eye to his wife.

“When will you have the announcement and the ceremony?” her mother asked. Yukino began listing a series of dates and places, all totally appropriate.

“And Hachiman has asked me to join him Nara while he finishes his education there.”

“Is that suitable?” asked her mother.

“It is youthful, and the talents there will only improve your reputation. Students made the ring I gave Yukino. Its fascinating from both a technical and artistic merit, by both industrial production standards and up-and-coming jeweler artisans with non-standard materials.”

“I had wondered about that blue. It matches. Did you request that exact shade?” asked Haruno, being the most polite I’d ever seen her.

“Yes. They can color match the gem stones before production. It is state of the art techniques.”

“That will be of interest to some of our business supporters.”

“I don’t recognize the metal,” admitted Mrs. Yukinoshita.

“Titanium, with a special oxidation applied. It is hard and durable, as strong as steel, but non-reactive to human tissue. My thigh bone is manufactured from the same metal. I thought it symbolic. It is both delicate and strong, and won’t tarnish or corrode.” Yukino looked at the ring more closely and blushed.

“So some time down south to broaden your horizons and remain by the side of your husband. Are you comfortable with this, Yukino. Perhaps we should advance the timing of the nuptials,” suggested her mother. Haruno did the wave with her eyebrows across the table from me, winking. That girl. Woman.

“I… yes. I agree,” she said eventually.

That night we spent together in her room, repeating the afternoon’s activities at a less frantic pace, sleeping between, getting used to each other physically after years of dancing around and verbal sparring. More knots in my soul unraveled.

The following morning we went to my family home, meeting my parents again after months of absence. I would need to go to Tokyo later and was preparing while mother examined her new daughter in law in the light of day, and the rock I’d given her. There was a certain smugness to her expression.

“Did you remember to check his teeth?” she teased Yukino.

“No more horse jokes, mom,” I called out from the other room. Today was going to be going over production goals and my part to meet them, including author reviews and approval during the process. Many authors lost control of their works when they became anime. Some of them came to regret it, and studios could ruin a series that way. Haganai was a great example of this, predicting a surprise reveal that wasn’t written yet and killed the series for good. I had to stay on top of this to prevent some artistic license wrecking my work and killing future sales. Fujoshi death threats were all in good fun, especially if they ever learned about Robert Paulson and the Fight Club meme I’d accidentally started at Soubu, but I don’t want to end up like Evangelion, having to go into hiding for murderizing the entire cast of the story and then cutting off the end as funding dried up before it could be finished. Popsicle sticks like Kare Kano is totally not okay either.

Great projects cannot be compromised.

Yukino decided to return to her home and get on with all the planning for our wedding. It would, apparently, be a Shinto cememony because Christian is not acceptable to their conservative supporters. This would mean six hours of purification rituals wearing special one-time-use bridal robes and probably filmed for the slightest infractions of posture. It would be excruciating torture for the right to sleeping in the same room and doing what we did last night for the rest of our lives. So I bore up under the imposition and tried to concentrate on my meetings. Komachi, who had missed the visit due to date with Taishi, sent me a series of emoticons and demands for information, which she interrupted with more demands after speaking to Mom. It was endearing, though the beeping notifications required I set my phone to silent after the first two.

“Something to share, Hikigaya-san?” asked my agent.

“A private matter. I got engaged,” I said, not explaining further. I could see the series director was really excited so I just smiled my disturbing smile which made women uneasy. We were indoors, so my eyes were visible too. He shuddered. Still got it.