Disclaimer : I do not own Oregairu. All characters in this story are fictional and have nothing to do with real-life events.

Memories and Regrets

"Class dismissed", I said as I stacked my paperworks and headed out of the classroom.

It's been a year since I, Hikigaya Hachiman, joined Sobu High as a japanese literature teacher and I have to say, it has been anything but outrageous amounts of work and all the different types of students in the class does not help my case either.

"To work is to lose" is my motto and yet I am working my behind off. Guess that only signifies that I have changed drastically. Huh... alright society you win. But don't worry even through this ordeal of mine, my love for MAXX Coffee and Komachi have not decreased in the slightest. Especially for Komachi.

I know what you are thinking right now. Probably something along the lines of "Ewwww, siscon", but let me defend myself by saying that if you had a sister like mine, you would be the same. Not that I am saying that you will have one that is.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw one of the students from my class approach me and that brought me out of my internal monologue.

"Hikigaya-san, I have a request", he said. In case you are wondering, this was none other than Kawasaki Taishi, younger brother of Kawasaki Saki. You know the blue-haired delinquent-like classmate I had once.

"What is it, Taishi?", I asked in a tone that only emphasised my lack of enthusiasm. If possible, I would have straight out ignored the guy and walked away, but alas, since I was his teacher, I could not do that.

"Well... my sister has been acting strange recently...", he said, his face showing how much distressed he was.

Taking this moment to crack a joke, "When was she normal to begin with?", I said while smirking. His face immediately morphed from distressed to a look of comtempt.
I made a mental note to keep my keep my big mouth shut unless I really needed to talk.

"That's rude, you know", said Taishi ,"and personally, I think you are the one who is weird", Oi, you shrimp, you wanna pick a fight?

"Anyways, what is your request?", I asked, growing increasingly impatient.

"Well, you see, last week Nee-san saw you at the mall while she was doing groceries and approached you to talk", I listened intently, "But when she did approach you, she started feeling self-conscious and so she backed off"

"Okay, so what?", I asked, my irritation as clear as day due to my tone.

"So I was thinking if you could take my sister out once to clear away your misunderstandings... and maybe stop her from randomly uttering your name in front of our parents", he added

Okay, now I was not expecting that. Maybe her sister was rather fond of me, but to literally daydream about me. Well done Kawasaki, you have exceeded my expectations.

"Basically, you are asking me to take your sister, who has taken a liking to me, on a date", I said with authority in my voice.

Taishi flinched and I could see him shaking vigorously as if his legs were about to give in. Oi, I am the one who should be nervous not you.

"Yes", he answered meekly. As cold as I was, even I could not shrug off the attempts of a caring brother trying to help her elder sister.

"Alright", and besides, I have some unfinished business with his sister to begin with.

Taishi's face immediately lightened up. He bowed in appreciation and literally hopped away from me. Seriously, their family has issues. Not that I am one to speak.

Ahem... So what is this nostalgic feeling I am having. Oh, now I remember, this request reminds of the service club.

The Service Club. The place where I have some of the most fondest memories of my life. I would not be exaggerating if I say that whatever I am today is almost completely because of the service club.

My vision started blurring and I could see a table. A mug with an image of a very familiar looking panda on it. The orange rays of the setting sun invading the room. The other two occupants of the room, sitting on the far side of the table, were doing their own routines. One was playing with her phone while the other was graciously turning the pages on her book. The orange light from the sun that shone onto them made it a picteresque scenery, one any artist will be willing to pay billions for.

The three of us would tackle any request that would come our way and it would look as if we were almost unbreakable. But, that was only at surface level. We may have solved the request of many people but we failed to solve the problems between us. We never reached out to understand each other and as a result our connections were thinner than a string. Any smallest disturbance would cause our relations to crumble. And there were many disturbances in that short period of time I was there. But those disturbances made our bonds stronger and at one point I thought that I had found that genuine thing I was looking for.

Until...

It was graduation day. Everyone was rejoicing their success and sharing their struggles and experiences with their juniors. Me, well, you already guessed it, I was at a corner alone, drinking my MAXX Coffee and occasionally being congratulated by the teachers. It was until the service club president approaced me and asked me for a walk.

"It is not a surprise that none of your peers would approach you given those rotten eyes of yours", she said while smirking.

"Yukinoshita, I think you are running low on firepower. All you have been criticizing lately are my eyes and nothing else", I said in a mocking tone.

"Ara, I was doing you a favour by not pointing out the lecherous looks you were sending the girls of our class, but I guess..."

"Alright, Alright, stop there", I interrupted her before I was subjected to even more mental abuse. I could see her smirk growing wider until she started giggling and finally it turned it full blown laughter. I couldn't help but laugh along with her.

"So what did you want to talk to me about?", I asked deciding to move forward in this conversation.

"Oh, you see, I am going abroad in a week", she replied while avoiding my gaze.

"I know", I had already heard it from your sister, Haruno.

"Oh, is that so?", she said in a dissappointed tone , "so that doesn't leave much to talk about then, does it?"

"No" I replied curtly. I could see that expectant look in her eyes and I knew exactly what it was for. Yet, I did not make my move.

Why? Because I was scared. Scared what if my assumptions were wrong. Scared of potentially losing the bonds I had nurtured for so long. Scared to see the tear-filled eyes of Yuigahama.

Bottomline, I was a coward. And for that I hated myself. I was doing exactly what I hated the most and that was maintaining superficial bonds. I hated stagnation and yet that is the very thing that I was promoting in this situation. I fervently hoped that Yukinoshita would do something about this, although I know that was rather selfish of me.

"Then lets head back", but here is the problem. She is trapped in the same loop as me.

We walked back to campus in utter silence. The tension between us was palpable.

Upon reaching the campus, she congratulated me and headed towards her classmates. I watched her disappear into the crowd just like my hopes had disappered into the clouds.

I walked out of the campus and headed towards a nearby park. It was quite empty, maybe because it was reserved for the students of our school and believe me, this was by far the best decision taken by school authority for this ceremony.

I found a secluded place in the park and I literally collapsed. I knew that this could very well be the last time I get to see her and that ended rather disappointingly. Couple that with the fact that I was being an absolute pussy down there, and you get the perfect reason to cry yourself to death. And crying is what I did. If only that could make me feel better.

As you would expect, nobody even noticed my absence, or atleast I thought.

"Hikki, what are you doing here?" asked the other occupant of the service club, Yuigahama Yui.

"As you can see, I am having a lot of fun here, so Yuigahama if you would be kind enough to leave me alone for a while, it would be greatly appreciated.", I said in mock sarcasm.

"Mou, Hikki you know you can be quite rude at times", she said, although her voice lacked any form of hostility.

Then something unexpected happened. I suddenly felt a hand on my wrist and the next moment, I crashed into something, or someone.

Turns out, Yuigahama was giving me a huge bear hug. In any normal situation, I would be completely flustered and stutter weird things, but not now. I was not in my usual mental state and seems like Yuigahama picked up on that and was trying to comfort me. I broke down and started crying. It was like a damp inside me had been broken. I cried for a good 10 minutes and she only kept patting my back while occassionally muttering "It's alright, It's alright".

After that we broke the hug, and Yuigahama sat next to me. She gave me a look that could only mean "Speak up or I will use my Cutenihalator 100 on you". Wait, is that even a thing?

Anyways, I explained to her the whole situation and she patiently heard through my whole rambling while not interrupting a single time.

She then gave me a motherly look and said,"Look, Hikki, you and I, we both know how Yukinon is. She would not have said anything even if her life depended on it. So it always had to be you who needed to take the initiative."

Ano, Yuigahama-san, I thought you were comforting me, not applying salt to the wound.

"But you see, that is the thing. You and Yukinon are like the opposite sides of the same coin. You both like to overthink and so at the end of the day, you both decide to remain stagnant."

What she said was so accurate that it left me speechless for a while.

"And also, we cannot always get what we want, can we? So let us learn from our failures and move on."

Although simple, her words carried a lot of value.

Moving on, an inevitable part of life. We will lose many things in our lives, whether that be our new hot wheels or someone precious to us. But what is important is to learn from these events and have the strength to carry on with our lives. I may have lost her, but that doesn't mean I should sulk all day and do nothing. I have long ago given up on my dream of being a househusband. So I must move my lazy behind and work my way to the top. That is what Yuigahama was trying to say.

They say that you can distinguish your true friends from the fake ones in times of distress. I don't know who said this, but whoever did must know their stuff. I had undoubtedly found a true friend in Yuigahama. One who would stick with me to the bitter end. And for that I was truly grateful to her.

"Thank you, Yuigahama", I said with utmost sincerity in my voice.

"You're welcome"

But that was only the tip of the iceberg. Our universities had started and we both got extremely busy. Also, Yuigahama was attending a different university to mine and consequently, we started to drift apart. She would occasionally call me and ask about my well being, but a friendship requires both parties to be involved. Since there was no effort from my side, our relationship slowly but surely drifted into oblivion. I won't say that I did not do it deliberately. In fact, I did do it deliberately because I thought that I was being a burden to her. So I cut off all my connections from her and Oh boy, do I regret doing that now. I once became lonely and have been living like that ever since.

I could justify my actions and say that I was merely following Yuigahama's advice, but I of all people know that was the furthest from the truth I could go. My true motives were to cut of all bonds to go back to the life I used to live before I was enrolled into high school. No friends, No expectations and hence no drama. But once you grow accustomed to something, it is very difficult to let go. Especially if that something is something that you crave subconsciously.

Humans are flawed creatures. We are filled to the brim with imperfection, duality and hypocrisy. We decide things based on our emotions and not through logic and that bears consequences. Yet, at the same time, that is the exact thing that makes human beings so intriguing. It is our flaws that make us unique from others. It is our emotions that make our interactions more interesting. Otherwise, interacting with a human and a robot would have very little difference in them. We humans have the ability to sympathize, make biased decisions based on personal experience. We have the double-edged sword known as emotion. For that, I had decided to forgive myself for all the mistakes of my past and move on.

Coming back to the present, I walked into my house, where I live alone, mind you. I walked into my room where I looked into the mirror only to see a fine line of liquid flowing down my eyes. Huh, I wonder what it could be. I thought that I had forgiven myself. But that was just me lying to myself. Maybe if my regrets could also be washed away with these tears, then maybe I could justify myself crying. Get a hold of yourself, Hachiman. You need to focus on the task at hand. Go to the kitchen, get yourself some tea and watch some cat videos to cool yourself off.

But I felt like something was off about the way that Taishi had requested me. I swear if that brat is trying to move me out of the picture to make a jump on Komachi, then I will hire some yakuza to kidnap him and personally torture him until he finally gives up on my sister.

Okay, sadistic tendencies aside, there was this gnawing feeling at the back of my head that this request might bring something good along with it.

Who knows, maybe this is my chance at redemption.