Chapter 1: Hikigaya Hachiman Thought It'd Be Easy

"Living on your own is a great and admirable endeavor. The most difficult part of which is certainly the isolation, for most people, but that should be no problem for me. None. I, Hikigaya Hachiman, am a loner by choice." A young man walking down the street thought to himself, "Yes. This is how things should be. When I moved into an apartment near my school, I thought it'd be smooth sailing from there on."

"Nope. Turns out even with your parents helping out by paying some of your bills, living the life to which you are accustomed is much harder in the wild. Oh? Ha. 'In the wild' of social interaction I still successfully get by as a loner— I give myself points for that one. Maybe I was right about nature the whole time." Hikigaya continued to monologue to himself. Hachiman laughed to himself under his breath as he walked towards his new job.

In order to pay for food and to support his hobbies, the young college student had decided to take up tutoring part time. Being a student at a prestigious university sure does make finding clients easier though. He had just joined the tutoring firm and made my account a few days before, and already had received a request. Tutoring was a win-win job; not only did he get paid to tell people they were wrong, but he could even use the time that he wasn't answering questions to study on his own. Double win. More points for Hachiman, the boy thought to himself as he continued to follow his GPS.

He had graduated high school and recently started living alone. Hikigaya was attending a good university in hopes of finding a well driven heiress for whom he could be a trophy husband. Fortunately, the university was at least relatively close to home so if Hikigaya had happened to spend too much on a Light Novel series or game and didn't have money for food that week, he could happen to be in the neighborhood and could manage to grab a bite to eat at home with Komachi. Little sisters are useful. However, there's only so many times one can do that before the subject of just coming back home comes up.

This is how he found himself standing in front of the house of his first client. Putting his phone away, he rang the doorbell. The house was pretty nice— decently sized, seemed like your average upper middle-class home. A moment later, a young woman opened the door and called out to him.

"My daughter isn't here yet~! Please come inside and enjoy some tea!"

"Easy win." Hikigaya muttered to himself again as he made his way up to the front steps, and was ushered inside.

Once inside, he took a seat at the table in the living room. The kind mother had taken to setting out some sweets and preparing a pot of tea. The living room was cozy, but orderly, with some pictures sat on a table across the room. It would be rude to look further, but Hachiman was curious about who would be his first student. He had failed to check the name and just read the address of the where he would be going.

Quite the blunder.

"What high school did you attend Hikigaya-kun?" the woman called from the kitchen, interrupting the boy's study of the living room.

"Ah-" Hikigaya started, "I went to Sobu High School."

"Uwaa~" the mother chimed before Hikigaya could say anymore, "That's where my daughter goes to school! What a coincidence."

Danger. Something told Hikigaya Hachiman that he had been wrong. Gravely, terribly, undeniably wrong in his assumption that this would be easy. Was this the moment where he would lose his job and reputation because of his self-sacrificial practices in high school? No. Not quite. That couldn't happen. No way. From his perspective, the probability of someone even remembering him from high school was low. He just needed to do his job and it would all work out.

"Something the matter?" the woman asked as she sat down beside him, and poured him a cup of tea.

It was then that Hachiman noticed the golden-brown hair. Puzzle pieces started moving together in the young man's head, and just as they clicked together, the door opened.

"MOM, I'm home!" called a familiar voice.

"I was wrong." Hikigaya sighed to himself.

(********)

"Hey, Iroha you wanna go somewhere after class today? A few of us are heading out to karaoke and…" a young boy started after walking up to Iroha's desk during a break.

"Ah sorry I'm busy with student council work and then a tutoring session later." The third-year student replied, without looking up from her workbook, "Also please don't use my first name so casually we don't know each other that well. Though I appreciate the invite, I must decline. Sorry."

Her very curt reply shocked the boy, but Isshiki was too absorbed in her studies to notice that she had let her inner-self slip out.

"Leave her alone for now, she seems to be in a bad mood…" one of her classmates said looking worriedly at the two, "We can try again another time, right?"

The girl escorted the boy away, taking one last concerned look back at the isolated Isshiki. Pity wouldn't necessarily describe how her classmate felt. The feeling was more like confusion. Isshiki was the hyper popular student council president. She had received confessions fairly frequently in their second year. However, since the later half of their second year, it had seemed that she'd become much more driven than she was before. Since they had started their third year, she had somehow seemed a little sadder, too.

Isshiki continued her studies until it was time to head to the student council room. There she delegated different tasks to her board and went about doing her own managerial work. As she was leaving, however, she was stopped at the gate.

"Isshiki-san it wouldn't hurt to relax a little sometimes… won't you please come with us tonight?" the girl asked.

"Ah, sorry sorry… you're right about the whole relaxing thing, but sometimes I forget that hehe…" Isshiki replied, putting on her cutesy act, "But I really do have to get home today. My parents got me a tutor recently, and it seems they're coming over today. Maybe another time…"

"Hana— it's Hana." The girl said, "I will hold you to that though. Can we at least exchange line IDs?"

"Sure!" Isshiki agreed, before thinking to herself, "Ehhhhh what a pain, it was so much easier when I could use my upper classmen as a shield."

"Thanks!" Hana said before running off to catch up with the crowd that had headed towards the train.

Iroha sighed as she watched the girl scurry away. She'd been missing a lot of her friends from the year before recently. Though the absence of one particular friend left her feeling a little extra lonely, she missed the whole of the service club dearly. She'd since stopped managing the soccer club, but was apparently still idolized by the boys that hoped to fill Hayama's shoes.

"Haah I wish I had my human shield again… or maybe I just got used to not acting so cutesy all the time… it got more exhausting." Iroha sighed to herself as she began her walk home.

Suddenly, her phone lit up.

"Yahallo~~ Iroha-chi!"

It was Yui. The two had kept decent contact— better than she kept with Hayama, Yukinoshita, or… well the rest of her friends. The two chatted for a little while Iroha walked home. It wasn't safe to walk and study with all the traffic on the way home, but texting was fine. Yui had joined a cooking club at her school, and the two exchanged recipes for certain dishes every now and then.

"Hey hey, how are things going with the student council?"

"Fiiiiinneeee~ I left early today since I have a tutor"

"Wooah! so studious! Who's your tutor?"

Iroha started to type a reply before realizing that when her mother had told her the tutor was coming, she hadn't asked for any information beyond that it was a boy.

"Uh oh"

"Uh oh?"

"I forgot to ask my mom for his name! teehee! (ㅇㅅㅇ) "

"Jeez! You'll have to let me know how it goes~~ and if he's cute :P"

Iroha laughed, Yui always seemed to have love on the brain... yet she somehow never managed to confess to Senpai.

"Not that I'm much better." Iroha sighed and put her phone in her bag. Rushing the last bit of the way home.

She pushed through the front gate and made her way to the front door. Whoever her tutor was, she'd get a handle on them pretty quick. She just needed to get the answers and some help out them. That was it. All so she could get into his university; she had the recommendations down pat thanks to her track record with the student council, but she still needed a good test score on the national exam.

"Look out Senpai. I'll catch up to you!" She declared before pushing her way through the front door.

"MOM, I'm home!" Iroha called as she made her way inside, kicking off her shoes, "Hey did my tutor get here yet or am I…"

Iroha's face froze as she rounded the corner to see Hikigaya Hachiman. The back she was chasing, sitting at her living room table, with her mother having tea like it was the most normal thing in the world.

(END CH1)

Uwaaa, haven't watched this show in a while but this ship sends me. I'm writing this to get some excess sugary sweet energy out of my system while I work on a more serious personal work. I'll update when I update lol. I do sincerely apologize if any of the characters are… well out of character. Especially in this chapter. Iroha's personality really shines for me when she's around everyone else so especially writing her solo part was hard, had to sneak Yui in there to relieve some of her melancholy lol. We all know what near constant studying is like lol at least I can relate to having lots of upperclassmen friends graduate before me. I take any and all feedback, even if someone is mean about it :P.

Ah also heavy inspiration on this particular scenario is from another work that was being translated, I don't own the idea or the source material or characters and all that, but other than the whole tutor thing the rest is on me so please give me your honest feedback. Though I reserve the right to ignore it too 3

I look forward to telling this story for you guys… when I feel like it, See you!

-Bread.

Edit: Made some light changes, hope you enjoy!