Before Ike could get his balance again—
Hikigaya pressed [Send] without a second thought.
Ike froze mid-step, his eyes widening in disbelief. His outstretched hand trembled as if he could somehow reach back in time and undo what just happened. But it was too late.
"No… no, no, no…" Ike's voice broke into pieces. "You didn't… you actually sent it… right? You didn't— you can't—"
He didn't answer.
Hikigaya's thumb lifted from the phone. He didn't even look at it anymore. His eyes were fixed on them with deadpan gaze barely showing any difference.
"It's done, you two" he said simply. "Your time's over."
For a second, no one spoke. The sound of the faucet dripping somewhere behind them was the only thing that existed.
Ike's head shot up his eyes were wide and wet. "Why? Hikigaya! Why are you doing this to us?!" His voice shook with a mix of fear, confusion and anger. "Why are you being so cruel?! What did we even do to suffer like this?!"
Yamauchi standing beside him, burst out as well. "We already apologized to you Hikigaya! We said we were sorry! And we said it so many times. So why— why would you have to go this far?!"
"Why am I doing this?" he repeated in a quiet, detached tone. "Hmm… that's a good question."
"You ask what you did to suffer like this? I think you two should already know the answer to that question yourselves."
Neither Ike nor Yamauchi responded. They just stood there, unsure whether to speak or stay silent on what he just said.
"But… if you still haven't realized that…" He let out a faint sigh before continuing. "Then I guess you could just say your stars were simply bad."
Then Ike's lips began to move. "Our stars were bad…?" he muttered under his breath, disbelief creeping into his voice. "That's it? That's what you're calling this? A BAD LUCK?"
He laughed, a shaky humourless sound that cracked halfway through. "We're getting expelled, our lives are ruined and you just… call it bad luck?"
Yamauchi's voice rose next "You… you think this is funny, don't you?!" He stepped forward a half-step, "You're actually enjoying this, aren't you Hikitani?! Seeing us like this?!"
Hikigaya looked towards him.
"Funny, Yamauchi?" he repeated. "I'd like to say no, since it's too sad seeing everything fall apart like this. But maybe that's exactly why it feels a little funny too."
Hearing that Yamauchi couldn't help but scream out, "What's so funny about this, YOU PSYCHO?!"
"I mean think about it," he began as his tone turning faintly mocking, "This school is so amazing, isn't it? A hundred percent employment rate after graduation, top-of-the-line facilities, all the freedom you could ever want and every month a hundred thousand points just for existing that's basically free money."
"And on top of that, teachers who actually don't care what you do, as long as you pass."
He let out a soft chuckle, "A perfect little paradise for students like you. There are people who work their asses off just to get in here, and now you two—"
He looked between them, his voice dropping to a cold murmur.
"—are about to lose it all. Not in a year, not in a month… but in just eight freaking days. Can you believe that?"
Yamauchi's lips quivered. "Stop… stop saying that…"
"And you two worked your way in here," he said slowly. "All that studying, all that effort, all that hope. Getting accepted into a state-of-the-art school, the dream everyone outside envies."
He gave a small, pitying smile. "Only to barely even taste it… before getting expelled in just eight days. And for what? Something this stupid…?"
''He's right… all that— all of that for this?' Ike thought blankly. 'After everything… is this how it's going to end?'
He let out a faint breath almost like a laugh. "I mean, it's hard not to find it funny, don't you think?"
Yamauchi went silent, his mouth still half-open as if trying to argue back, but nothing came out. After hearing that, for some reason, everything around him started to feel heavier.
Ike's breathing hitched, "You don't get it! You— you think this is some kind of game?! We didn't mean for any of this to happen! We were just trying to fix things, damn it!"
His voice kept rising "YOU THINK WE WANTED THIS?!"
Hikigaya tilted his head slightly, "Wanted it?" he echoed calmly. "No, I suppose you didn't. But that's the funny part, isn't it? You didn't want this, and yet here you are."
He took a slow step toward them. "So, Ike. Yamauchi. Tell me, how does it feel?"
Both froze. The question lingered in the air, but he didn't wait for an answer.
"All that effort acting like you belonged here and bragging to your families. To your friends. 'I made it to the Advanced Nurturing High School.' Sounds nice, doesn't it?" He smirked faintly. "And now what? You'll go back home in less than two weeks, with your bags packed and your head down."
His eyes softened briefly just enough to make it unclear whether it was pity or Sadness.
"I wonder," he continued quietly, "How will you explain that you got expelled within a week? That you couldn't even last eight days? To your parents. To your classmates back home. To everyone who congratulated you."
Neither could meet his gaze.
"You'll go back there," he said. "And everyone will see you for what you really are. Not as some victim or unlucky guy, but just as… failures. Heh… how sad.
Yamauchi couldn't take it anymore. His breathing turned ragged, his hands trembling as if he were choking on air itself. The words "failures" kept echoing in his head over and over until his fear and anger tangled together, blurring into something desperately uncontrollable.
Before anyone could react, he lunged forward, grabbing Hikigaya by the collar and slamming him against the mirror behind his back. The glass shuddered under the impact but didn't break.
Hikigaya made no effort to stop him or even resist. As Yamauchi grabbed his collar, he just stared back at him with that same dull gaze. Only now it looked even creepier, so much that Yamauchi found it hard to look him straight in the eyes.
"DON'T YOU DARE SAY ANOTHER WORD, YOU PSYCHO" Yamauchi shouted, his voice breaking halfway through. "You don't know what it's like! You don't know how it feels! Stop saying that— I don't want to think about it! I don't want to imagine that!"
His grip tightened, trembling. Images flashed in his head his parents' faces, his friends' laughter, the humiliation of going home as a failure. It made his stomach twist.
"Yamauchi, stop!" Ike tried to intervene by grabbing his arm. "Calm down, man, just calm down!"
But his voice wavered too. And though he tried to pull Yamauchi back, he didn't really put strength into it. Because part of him… wanted to yell the same things.
His hands trembled as his grip tightened. "Fix this! You hear me?! FIX THIS, HIKIGAYA! Just take it back! Delete it! Say something—anything—to make it stop!"
"I can't Yamauchi, what's done is done."
He glanced down at Yamauchi's trembling hands clutching his collar, then back into his wide, panicked eyes.
"And even if I could," he continued, "it wouldn't change anything. You'd still be what you are now a pair of losers who can't do anything but shout."
Hikigaya's words sank in like poison.
A choked, furious noise erupted from Yamauchi's chest. The last vestige of fear dissolved into something hotter. "AAAAAH—TAKE THIS! YOU STOP—YOU JUST SHUT UP!"
He pulled back his fist and slammed it hard into Hikigaya's jaw, the other boy making no move to stop or resist it.
THUD.
Hikigaya's head turned slightly from the impact, a faint smear of red appearing at the edge of his lip.
But that was all.
He slowly moved his head back to face Yamauchi. He lifted his hand and wiped the blood away with his thumb, his gaze remained unblinking as he stared straight into Yamauchi's eyes.
A hollow, pitiful laughter escaped Hikigaya's throat.
"Look at yourselves, Ike. Yamauchi," he said, compelling them to look at the shattered figures reflected in the mirror behind him.
"Are you not ashamed? Ashamed of living like this? Having no achievements of your own, nothing to call your own but insecurities piled upon insecurities? You're walking lies. You live on empty promises, desperate to believe the delusion that you matter, that all those pitiful lies mean something, that you're anything more than cowards who needed a weaker person to feel strong for as long as it took to forget how weak they really are."
Ike was stunned, his mouth hanging open, every brutal word shredding the carefully constructed lie he lived by. 'I don't get it… I don't get it. I want to yell back, to deny it all… but I don't even know what to say. Because… because he's right, isn't he?'
"But I bet you already know that… don't you?" he said softly. "You've known it for a long time. You just never had the courage to admit it."
He nodded toward the mirror, his tone flattening into something almost tired.
"And if you still don't get it… keep looking at this mirror in front of you. The one staring back at you right now will tell you all.
For a moment, neither of them moved. Slowly, almost unwillingly, Ike and Yamauchi focused on the mirror again.
What they saw wasn't what they believed themselves to be. It was something worse.
Their faces looked pale, distorted under the harsh bathroom light, eyes wide with a mess of ugly emotions and every trace of confidence, every ounce of pride, was long gone.
It was the look of someone who suddenly realized they had nothing left.
As the crushing realization struck Yamauchi, he found himself unable to endure the final destruction of his self-image. For some reason, even if he didn't know why, he let out a raw scream and as he lifted his fist to hit another punch.
Still pinning him by the collar against the mirror, his body trembling with a desperation that barely looked sane. His fist came forward, wild and unrestrained—
But this time, Hikigaya did not allow the blow.
As he shifted his head to the other side at the last moment, and Yamauchi's knuckles slammed into the mirror behind him.
CRACK.
The glass splintered outward, thin white lines spreading like veins across the surface. A few tiny shards fell and tinkled against the sink. Yamauchi froze, staring blankly at the thin line of red on his knuckle.
That brief second of shock was all Hikigaya needed.
His knee shifted slightly then his foot struck forward, burying itself into Yamauchi's shin.
"Ghh—!" Yamauchi let out a strangled cry.
But as he staggered, trying to keep his balance, Hikigaya's hand shot up and grabbed his jaw firmly, his thumb pressing against the same bruised part of his cheek from the previous day. He went rigid, his breath hitching as panic and pain collided in his throat.
But Hikigaya didn't squeeze or press on the injury. He only applied light pressure, just enough to guide him and pushed him backward.
Yamauchi, already off balance from the shin kick, stumbled back and fell hard onto the floor. His palms hit first, followed by a dull thud as his back met the ground.
For a moment, he just sat there, dazed staring blankly at the broken mirror and the faint drops of blood that dotted his knuckles. The sharp pain running up his arm and the dull ache in his back were enough to snap him out of his desperation-fueled outburst.
He looked up at Hikigaya the sterile light above flickering across the other boy's still figure. Hikigaya stood over him silent and his expression was completely unreadable.
The raw ache in Yamauchi's body began to sink deeper, twisting into something heavier something that hurt far more than the pain in his limbs.
All at once, it hit him.
The weight of everything he'd done.
The humiliation of being like this.
The hollow realization that there was nothing left to fight for.
Tears welled up before he even realized it, his chest heaving as his lip trembled. Then, without warning, it all broke out of him.
A choked sob escaped his throat.
Then another. And another. Before he knew it, he was already wailing like a child on the floor.
"H-h-hnnn... WAAHH! I hate this nnn-haaa..." Yamauchi clutched at his shirt with trembling hands, his body curling in on itself as the tears streamed down his face.
"I uhh… it to stop…" he mumbled weakly, I can't... WAAHH... please... hnn-hnnn... I'm sowwy..."
He wasn't just crying from pain. He was crying because there was nowhere left to direct this ugly feeling in his heart, nothing left to blame.
The raw, miserable sound of Yamauchi's breakdown was the final trigger for Ike.
Ike stood tense as his body was shaking faintly. His eyes were wide and wet, unable to hold back the anguish anymore. He didn't rush to Yamauchi instead, he just stood there, stunned, as his own shame and fear finally overtook him.
"G-g-ghhh..." Ike gasped, a sound of choked. "W-we're ruined... g-ghh-hnnn... The points... the school... everything... we lost... w-we're done..."
Ike whimpered, "We just… we just wanted to fit in… hnnn..."
The room was filled with their cries, uneven and broken, mixing together until it was all that could be heard.
Hikigaya stood over them, silent, watching the miserable end of their delusion. He let out a long sigh, the sound of exhaustion rather than relief.
"...Well," he murmured under his breath, his voice barely audible. "It's finally done."
For a while, he didn't move. Ike's sobs had turned into weak hiccups, and Yamauchi's cries came out in rough, broken gasps. All the fight in them was gone, not just their anger but their will to resist at all.
"Well, it's about time I leave. Classes must've started already," he said quietly. Then, after a pause, he added, "But before I go, I want to ask you two something."
Both Ike and Yamauchi flinched at his voice, their breathing still ragged.
"I think I deserve at least that much… right?" Hikigaya's expression didn't change. "Since this is the end for you two, and maybe the last time we'll ever talk."
Neither said anything, but their eyes lifted toward him, red and wet.
"I just want to know that," he continued. "Who do you think is truly responsible for this entire mess? For everything that happened until now?"
For a moment, neither of them spoke. The only sound in the room was the faint dripping of the faucet and their shaky breathing.
"It's… hnn-hnnn… it's me. It's us. We…" His face crumpled again, but he forced the next words out, a shocking act of self-recognition. "It was our own fault. Mainly. We… we were wrong."
Ike nodded slowly, "Yeah… he is right we did this. All of it." His voice cracked. "We blamed you, we blamed everyone… but it was always us. We were the ones who messed up everything."
"We thought… if we just pushed it onto someone else, maybe we could keep pretending. That we weren't the problem."
He let out a broken laugh that sounded more like a sob and scoff. "There you have it… that's what you wanted to hear, isn't it? Happy now?"
"So, you finally get it, huh?" Hikigaya said quietly. "For a while, I was starting to wonder if you ever would."
Neither Ike nor Yamauchi looked up. They just sat there on the floor, their breathing shallow, eyes red and swollen.
"It doesn't matter now," Yamauchi muttered hoarsely. "It's too late anyway. What's the point of realizing it now…?"
"Yeah… it's already over. We can't fix it. It's done."
For a moment, there was only silence. Then—
"Well," Hikigaya murmured, "better late than never, I suppose."
Both Ike and Yamauchi froze. Their heads turned slightly toward him.
"What… what do you mean by that?" Ike asked cautiously.
"There could still be a chance for you two," Hikigaya said, voice low but steady. "A small one. But only if you're willing to do exactly what I say."
Their tears halted midstream. Both stared up at him, disbelief flickering in their eyes.
"Are you serious?" Ike's voice cracked. "Please… tell me this isn't another joke."
Hikigaya's gaze didn't soften. "That's for you to decide. Whether I'm serious or not doesn't matter."
He paused, letting the silence press in before continuing, "What matters is what you'll do. If you're truly willing to follow my words completely, without hesitation, then maybe you'll get your chance to stay."
Yamauchi blinked through the blur of tears. "A… a chance?"
Ike asks him "But how? How could that be possible? Didn't you send that report to the Student Council just now? Surely by now, they would have seen that already."
Hikigaya didn't respond immediately. Instead, he slipped a hand into his pocket and took out his phone. The screen lit up as he turned it toward them.
"How clumsy of me," he said. "Seems like I forgot to turn on my data at that time."
Their eyes widened in disbelief, Ike's mind struggling to process what he'd just heard.
"You're… kidding, right?" he stammered. "You mean to say… you never sent that message?"
"That means you've been toying with us this whole time?"
As both of them finally realized what had just happened, they looked at Hikigaya and knew this wasn't just some scary classmate. No, this guy was on a completely different level. For them, he wasn't human anymore. He was the living embodiment of a demon lord.
"So," he said quietly, "are you two up for it? Also, there can't be any room for failure here."
"W-what do you mean by that?" Ike asked carefully, his tone shaking. "You mean… if we mess up—"
"There won't be a next time," Hikigaya cut in flatly. "If you're in, you give it everything. If you're not… then you might as well start packing your bags now."
He folded his arms, watching them in silence. "So, what's it going to be?"
Ike swallowed hard, glancing at Yamauchi, who looked just as uncertain, but in the end they both knew there wasn't really a choice.
"I… I'll do it," Ike said finally, "Whatever it is… I'll do it."
"Me too."
"Alright, Then I want you two to—"
____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Author's Note:
Hey everyone, this chapter is finally done! I hope it turned out alright.
This is the second part of the confrontation from the previous chapter, the one I originally wanted to include back then. I couldn't, mostly because of exhaustion, but I somehow managed to finish this one in just two days. Honestly, even I can't believe that myself.
Well, with this, that whole Ike and Yamauchi mess is finally over. Funny thing is, when I first planned it, I thought I'd wrap it up in just two chapters. Clearly, I overestimated myself. There were a few scenes and thoughts I wanted to include here, but I decided to hold back since it would have dragged things out a bit too much. Hikigaya's thoughts are still kept vague for now, and the full picture will be revealed in the upcoming chapters.
I know this arc has gone on for quite a while, but we're nearing the end. I'll try to finish it within the next two or three chapters. Thank you all for being patient with me through this stretch.
Also, there might be a few small mistakes here and there since I didn't have much time to proofread, so please bear with it for now. I'll definitely fix them later once I get the chance.
If anything feels off, whether it's pacing, structure, or character interactions, please let me know. Your feedback really helps me improve.
Thanks again for giving this story a chance. Your comments and encouragement mean a lot to me and keep me motivated to keep writing.
Stay tuned for more.
—Raijinmaru