Hirano and Kagiura by Kotoko Hachijo and Shou Harusono

Author:Kotoko Hachijo and Shou Harusono [Hachijo, Kotoko and Harusono, Shou]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Yen On
Published: 2023-02-08T00:00:00+00:00

Hirano got back to the dorm just before dinner ended. Since he’d gone straight to the cafeteria without putting his stuff down, it was bath time for the first-years by the time he showed up at the room. Kagiura was just leaving and only had time for a quick hello, but he thought Hirano looked a bit angry.

Hirano often talked a little rough, but it was rare for him to seem genuinely out of sorts. Kagiura wanted to ask him about it but wasn’t sure if he should. What if it was something too sensitive to discuss with him? Every day, he was self-conscious about the one-year age gap—and associated life experiences—between them. He felt anxious and wasn’t able to talk to Hirano the way he did with his friends.

If this was something Hirano couldn’t deal with himself, then the chances of Kagiura being able to help seemed awfully slim. And what if he made things worse by sticking his nose in? At the same time, he decided he couldn’t just do nothing. He was still fretting about how to approach the subject as he left the bath and jogged back to their room.

“I’m done washing up,” he called, knocking gently on the door, and was rewarded with “Nice, welcome back.” But Hirano sounded more subdued than usual. Kagiura found him sitting at his desk, and there was indeed a hard look in his eyes.

“What’s happening with you today?” Kagiura ventured, feeling like the intensity of Hirano’s gaze might overwhelm him.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you were pretty late getting back, but it didn’t seem to be a committee thing…”

“Oh… Sorry, man. You were worried about me?”

“Yeah. I was.”

Worry. That’s what it was. When Hirano said it, Kagiura realized. The clinging unease he’d felt all afternoon and evening was painfully similar to the lonely isolation he’d felt as a child when he was alone in the house. A swirling anxiety that gnawed at him and made him wonder if something had happened to his parents to keep them from coming home for so long, or if some awful fate had befallen his older siblings or his little sister.

“Oh… Well, it ain’t exactly a pretty story.”

“Yeah?”

“See, there was a fight at school today—really just a straight-up assault. One guy just attacked another. Totally outrageous.”

One of the junior members of the Disciplinary Committee had nearly stepped in to stop the fight, and one of Hirano’s friends had tried to stop him, then jumped in instead and ended up getting hurt in the process of breaking things up. Hirano had gone with his friend to the committee room and gotten his story, after which he’d also talked to the first-year who’d been hit and the junior committee member and then finally consulted with the faculty adviser about what to do—and that was why he’d been late. Hanzawa hadn’t heard about any of this because, although he was vice president of the committee, the faculty adviser had hesitated to call back a student who’d already returned to the dorm.

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