87 Hikigaya Hachiman: I'm running… ah~
"…"
"Hikigaya-kun, let's meet."
"…I… got it… I'll come back this weekend."
Hikigaya Hachiman took in a sharp breath, glaring furiously at Jabami's toes.
The smooth and icy touch slid from his jaw down to his chest, with a faint momentum to go even further.
The moment he answered the call, Jabami Yumeko snapped out of her euphoric space and back into reality—her first move was to target Hikigaya directly, using the same foot he had touched earlier to attack his sanity.
She could tell that the cool voice on the other end of the line sounded somewhat similar to her own.
Fueled by jealousy, she launched a surprise attack while Hikigaya was distracted with his phone call—and it was clearly effective.
"Hikigaya-kun, is something wrong over there?"
Yukino had picked up on the odd tone in Hikigaya's voice. He was breathing heavily, as if trying to suppress something.
"Ah? I'm… running right now."
Embarrassed and furious, Hikigaya used both hands to press Yumeko's two small feet—clad in black stockings—against his chest, not allowing them to slip any further.
To be honest, he had really almost lost control a moment ago.
The sudden icy sensation, combined with the gentle feminine voice in his ear—this double stimulation had made something within him begin to stir.
Running, huh...
Yukinoshita Yukino nodded thoughtfully to herself. She mused that Hikigaya's physical condition must not be what it used to be—how else could he sound so winded just from talking?
She decided she would prepare something nutritious to restore his stamina when they met this weekend.
"Hikigaya-kun, come over to my place for dinner this weekend," she suggested.
By "my place," she meant the little home she had moved into after becoming independent.
To ensure Hikigaya wouldn't refuse, Yukino decided to sweeten the deal by involving her older sister:
"My sister will be there too. The three of us can have dinner together."
"Su… Sure."
On the other end of the line, Hikigaya no longer had the capacity to think. The cunning Yumeko truly was like a slippery serpent.
Her dainty feet had somehow managed to slip free from Hikigaya's grip.
Like a little girl picking mushrooms—diligent and pure.
Hikigaya was a man of rather humble physical proportions, but after repeated provocation, the taut fabric of his school trousers gradually started to reveal a striking outline.
Jabami Yumeko's cherry-pink lips unconsciously formed an "O" shape again. She quietly retracted her foot, then bit down on her red lips and began crawling toward Hikigaya on the caregiver's cot.
Her short skirt was bunched around her black-stocking-covered calves. Her waist lowered slowly, and her ample chest was about to press against his…
Bang—
Hikigaya ran.
He didn't even care how disheveled and awkward he looked anymore. He leapt up from the chair in a panic and stumbled his way out. Under the bewildered gazes of the nearby patients, he fled the hospital through a relatively quiet path.
Though his relationship with Jabami Yumeko was mutual, somewhere between close friends and not-quite lovers—technically, even if they did do something, no one could blame them...
Still, doing something in a hospital, of all places—especially right after he'd promised her older sister that he would take good care of her...
Hikigaya's conscience wouldn't let him off the hook.
Besides, he hadn't even ended the phone call yet.
If it were a quiet sunset evening, in a secret hideout meant just for the two of them, with no one around to interrupt—then Hikigaya felt he might actually make the first move.
"Hikigaya-kun, did something happen?"
"Yukinoshita, something came up. I'll contact you later. I'll be back in Chiba this weekend."
Hikigaya Hachiman abruptly hung up, leaving Yukino staring blankly at her phone as the dial tone echoed in her ears.
'Something's not right.'
Yukinoshita Yukino, who had thoroughly read Hikigaya's detective novels, sharply sensed that something was off with Hikigaya Hachiman.
With her understanding of him, he wouldn't normally keep his phone on him while exercising.
He would only answer someone's call once he was certain he was in a "still" state. Clearly, Hikigaya-kun was not exercising just now—rather, after answering her call, he had encountered a sudden attack.
There was even the sound of a collision just now. Could Hikigaya-kun be in trouble?!
With that thought, Yukinoshita Yukino became restless.
As a pure-hearted high school girl, she clearly lacked life experience and had no idea what Hikigaya Hachiman had just been subjected to.
She instinctively called her older sister for help and described what had just happened.
"Onee-chan, could something have happened to Hikigaya-kun? Maybe you could have someone from the Tokyo branch check on him…" Yukino's voice was full of anxiety and worry.
The cold and aloof image she maintained at Sobu High had now completely collapsed.
She looked just like someone deeply lost in love.
Still working overtime at the company, Yukinoshita Haruno fell silent, the veins on the back of her hand faintly bulging.
"You don't need to worry about this, Yukino. Leave it to me." Rubbing her temple, Haruno muttered those words before promptly hanging up the call.
Slumping into her executive chair, she muttered to herself, "Hikigaya Hachiman is really going too far. Just what does he think of Yukino?"
She stared at Hikigaya Hachiman's contact info on her phone, gritting her teeth:
"He actually talked to Yukino while doing that with someone else? What a bastard!"
As a mature older woman, Haruno had already figured out the truth just from Yukino's description.
The adult world was incredibly dirty, and she had heard of people who were into these kinds of twisted plays. There had even been scandals in the Chiba circle—one involved the female president of a listed company who, while doing sex with her lover, called her live-in husband. The husband had been waiting outside with a lawyer and brought everything crashing down—her reputation ruined and her assets split.
She never would've imagined that Hikigaya Hachiman had already been so tainted by the cesspool of the Hyakkaou Private Academy despite not being there long.
What was this supposed to be? He enjoyed the debauchery of the big city and then returned to his hometown to marry a good, honest girl (Yukino)?
Too much! What does he take the Yukinoshita family for?!
The more she thought about it, the angrier Haruno became. She decided to call Momobami Kirari.
In truth, she had withheld part of the information from Hikigaya.
Originally, her real agreement with Kirari had been: to help her obtain the "life plan" of the person sent in.
From the beginning, Yukinoshita Haruno had planned to use Kirari's power to obtain Hikigaya Hachiman's life!
After acquiring the plan, she wouldn't have confessed immediately. Instead, she intended to have Kirari convince Hikigaya to return to her and Yukino.
Haruno could see Hikigaya's ambition—she admired people like him.
But affection is inherently selfish. More than she admired Hikigaya, she loved her little sister.
No matter what means she had to use, even if she had to bear Hikigaya's resentment, she was determined to bind Hikigaya Hachiman to the Yukinoshita family, to Yukinoshita Yukino's side.
Even if it was a fairy tale fabricated by human hands, she wanted to give Yukino the most beautiful future.
That was her conviction as Yukinoshita Haruno.
But now, everything was heading in a bad direction.
She had to act.