Uneasy daily life

"We need an elite, professional vanguard team, selecting men and women of similar height and good looks, dressed in uniform, and equipped with their own sound system, so that even in away games, they can project the presence of the home team..."

After the discussion came to an end, the secretary in charge of taking notes was trembling; this was a workload he had never experienced before.

It was almost evening when Bai Ying led Angelina away from the student council office and onto a fresh road home.

Yu Sheng rubbed his overheated head and reorganized the discussion—hiss! Why does it feel like all this talk and pointing from Bai Ying has been from beginning to end? Is this how other people feel when they're facing him?

And most importantly, how did Bai Ying know about him...?

Yu Sheng raised her head: "Zhe Ben, classmate..."

"See you tomorrow!"

Zheben, carrying his schoolbag, hurriedly disappeared through the doorway.

……

Hoo-ho!

Angelina took a sip of the hot drink she had bought and exhaled a puff of white breath—it really was a wonderful feeling to eat and drink for free.

"Sir, are you planning to go against Yukinoshita this time?" Angelina casually remarked.

Bai Ying emphasized, "This is my grand plan to restore my kingdom!"

“Dri dri dri.” Angelina rolled her eyes. “I see now, it’s clearly you two flirting.”

White Shadow: "Huh?"

"Hmph, you think I don't know?" Angelina said logically, "Make Yukino angry, make Yukino happy, make Yukino shy, and get Yukino involved in weird things—like the kind of behavior where a boy pulls a girl's hair!"

After a moment's thought, Bai Ying reached out and grabbed Angelina's left ponytail, giving it a tug.

Angelina, who was just showing an expression of knowing the truth, tilted her head and immediately bared her teeth: "I didn't mean for you to actually pull my hair and hang you on a tree!"

"Then I'll broadcast your weight on the entire frequency."

"Ugh! Still using the same old jokes! I'm going to lock you in a dark room and make you write!"

"Hmph! Then I'll just kill off your favorite character!"

"Waaaah!"

Angelina was furious, racking her brains for another angle to launch an attack...

"Wait a minute—!"

A voice suddenly came from behind.

Angelina turned around curiously and found that it was the atmosphere generator carrying a backpack... oh no, it was Orimoto.

"Hmm? Is this possible?" Bai Ying asked curiously. "Did you need something from me?"

"I guess so..." Orimoto smiled, then suddenly realized, "Huh? My name is Orimoto Kaori, not 'That's okay'—although I often say 'That's okay,' you can't just use your catchphrase as someone else's nickname, can you?!"

Bai Ying waved her hand: "It's okay, you can call me by my nickname, I won't mind."

Orimoto Kaori: "I do care!"

"Ugh……"

A long sigh interrupted the conversation. Angelina said bluntly, "This is fine... cough, Orimoto, don't take your superior too seriously. Just say what you have to say, otherwise the conversation will quickly drift into the philosophical realm of 'Who am I?'"

"Hmm..." Orimoto Kaori quickly regained her composure, clearly somewhat intimidated by the white shadow's language skills. "Ahem! I want to ask you something, about Hachiman Hikigaya..."

When Orimoto Kaori saw the sudden brightness in their eyes, her brows twitched involuntarily.

Did I ask the wrong person?

Chapter Sixty-Nine: Let's Take Revenge!

"Reunion is not a pleasant word."

"If, after many twists and turns, you encounter romance and beauty again, that's naturally good. But if, unexpectedly, you revisit embarrassing past events, it adds to your troubles. And there's an even more awkward situation—what you thought was a long-awaited reunion turns out to be just one person's sighs and lamentations."

"Reunion is like meeting an old friend; the past is gone and I know it all by myself."

On her way home, Bai Ying sighed with a touch of artistic sentiment.

Kaori Orimoto gave the other person a strange look: "Aren't you embarrassed to be able to say such literary things all the time? These kinds of words are usually written in personal signatures and status updates. I've never seen anyone say them out loud."

"Do you find it interesting?"

"Okay."

"Then I'll teach you how to speak, starting with simple things..."

"stop!"

Angelina interrupted, "Didn't Orimoto want to ask about Hachiman? Why are we suddenly discussing speaking issues?"

"Oh right." Kaori Orimoto smiled sheepishly. "I wanted to ask about Hachiman. You guys are quite familiar with Hachiman, right? After all, you're both members of the student council."

“We’re quite familiar with Hachiman, we’ve known him for two years,” Angelina replied, then couldn’t help asking, “Does Orimoto know Hachiman?”

Bai Ying raised her hand and tapped Angelina, immediately drawing an angry glare from Angelina.

"Two sentences about the map, and then you pull out a dagger? Who cuts a melon open with a single punch?!" Bai Ying scolded. "To eat a melon, you need to find a good entry point, make precise cuts, and cut the melon into even triangles. Only then can you eat a melon perfectly whole!"

Angelina covered her head and argued, "Wasn't that just a normal question born of curiosity?!"

"Okay, cut that part." Bai Ying turned her head and said, "Let's pretend nothing happened and continue."

Kaori Orimoto's expression was strange: "Shirokage's fans possess a level of activism and enthusiasm that other fan groups lack. While other fans want to get closer to their idols, Shirokage's fans only want to perish together with their idols—now I understand why your reputation in the entertainment industry is so strange..."

Bai Ying: "You flatter me. I just wanted to tell everyone the downsides of idol worship."

Kaori Orimoto had mixed feelings. She felt that asking the other person about Hachiman was a mistake, but if she filtered out the strange descriptions from the white figure, it was actually quite believable in some ways: "I want to ask, is Hachiman still the same after he went to high school?"

Bai Ying thought for a moment and described, "Do you mean someone who is taciturn, good at daydreaming, has almost no one to talk to, is invisible in group activities, has a very rich inner life, likes to make sharp comments about other interpersonal relationships, and is good at sacrificing personal reputation to solve problems, etc."

"?"

Kaori Orimoto, quick to speak her mind, said, "Huh? It sounds like you're even more problematic than you were in junior high."

"Really?" Bai Ying asked, "What were your symptoms when you were in junior high school?"

"A subordinate general?"

“I used to be the head of a club, and he was a member. Now I am the student council president, and he is the assistant. It’s a very simple subordinate relationship.”

"That sounds pretty impressive." Kaori Orimoto shook her head. "It's still hard to imagine that Hachiman could make friends..."

Bai Ying stroked his chin: "You seem to have a very low opinion of him?"

Kaori Orimoto chuckled twice, not denying it: "Well... Hachiman has been a pretty strange person since middle school. He's usually not very noticeable, and he always has a deadpan look in his eyes. He seems like a very gloomy and aloof person—how should I put it? Most people don't like people who look particularly negative, right?"

“You seem to care about Hachiman.” Angelina was still gesturing with a dagger, trying to cut the melon open.

“Well…” Orimoto Kaori smiled, “After all, we were classmates in junior high. From the outside, Hachiman hasn’t changed much. He’s still not very talkative and still has that deadpan look… But he has changed, hasn’t he? Because he got a girlfriend?”

Angelina scratched her head: "Really? It feels about the same as before."

Kaori Orimoto followed up with, "I heard he was called 'the ultimate novelty person' at Soubu High School. I thought he just hadn't changed on the surface, but his heart had become sunny and cheerful."

"Sigh, it's just a teasing nickname." Angelina couldn't help but sympathize. "Calling someone a 'real-life person' is already a form of teasing, but adding the word 'big' amplifies the teasing tone..."

Huh? Wait a minute, wasn't I supposed to be cutting a melon? How did the topic veer back onto the right track?

Angelina looked at the white figure—Sir! Use your mind-reading ability on her!

“The subordinate has always been quite sunny and cheerful,” Bai Ying said earnestly. “He has a lot of inner thoughts, but he rarely shows them. He is good at observation and good at coming up with clever ideas. Although he has always been pessimistic about interpersonal relationships and himself, there is still a difference between pessimism and passive escapism.”

Kaori Orimoto's feelings were complicated. Hearing someone praise Hachiman Hikigaya, a flood of thoughts welled up inside her: "You mean Hikigaya? Isn't it just someone with the same name?"

“You seem to disbelieve that the subordinate has any merits.” Bai Ying clicked her tongue and shook her head. “That’s prejudice—the subordinate is gentle. Even if he doesn’t like someone, he’ll help them when they’re in trouble, even if he’s willing to hurt himself. He probably hasn’t had any social energy expenditure, which has honed his excellent observation skills. What’s even more commendable is that he’s not deeply entrenched in prejudices about interpersonal relationships…”

Bai Ying concluded, "Compared to his peers who act and behave solely based on instinct and emotion, the subordinate has at least become quite adept at using his brain."

"?"

Kaori Orimoto was speechless for a moment, her face full of bewilderment and her eyes full of question marks. She couldn't match the image described by the other person with her own impression.

"Hachiman saved your life? Are you sworn brothers?"

"No, no, not at all," Bai Ying said with a smile, waving her hand. "At most, it's just that he confessed to me before."

"?" Orimoto Kaori's brain overloaded, and she blurted out, "He confessed to you via email? Wait—he confessed to you?!"

"A confession via email?" Angelina's eyes widened, savoring the surprise. "Really? Hachiman was never this casual before?"

"You can't say that."

Bai Ying immediately helped Hachiman Hikigaya explain: "From my observation, the general should still have had hope when he was in junior high school, even if he was just an ordinary, quiet nobody. People who are quiet but not negative usually have very rich inner worlds, and once their emotions erupt, they often create a strong contrast with their taciturn personality—him confessing to you via email is probably because his emotions just happened to be running high, and he is used to not taking the initiative to contact others and rejects face-to-face conversations, so he impulsively chose to confess via email."

"For someone who is good at or used to social environments, confessing their feelings via email is casual, but for an introverted and emotionally rich person who is socially awkward, confessing their feelings via email is precisely an emotional outburst and a way of expressing their true feelings."

Orimoto Kaori: "Are you kidding me?"

She couldn't understand it at all!

Snapped!

Bai Ying snapped her fingers, her expression changing instantly—her eyes flashing with a mixture of fear, unease, barely concealed excitement, and a absent-minded distraction.

He began to speak to himself in the voice of Hachiman Hikigaya.

"I remember talking to her, and just thinking about her makes me especially happy."

"It must be because I like her."

"I think our relationship is okay? We've been chatting lately."

“I don’t have much social interaction with anyone else, but I’m very close to her—thinking about it carefully, she was the one who took the initiative to talk to me.”

"I'm such a loner, nobody talks to me, yet she took the initiative to talk to me... Could it be that she likes me?!"

"Hahaha, how could that be~"

"No, maybe that's possible?"

"Yes! That's possible... so... so..."

Bai Ying's muttered voice gradually filled with emotion. Holding his phone, he walked forward while circling around Angelina, looking as if his IQ was rapidly dropping to zero: "Just confess! That's right, confess, send her an email—how should I write it?"

"That's it! Send!"

"Oooh, ooh, ooh!"

Bai Ying pressed a button on her phone, then pressed it against her chest, and began to spin and twist rapidly while making indescribable noises.

Angelina silently moved two steps to the side, trying to draw a line in the eyes of passersby.

Kaori Orimoto couldn't help but take a step to the side, wondering if the other person had a medical history.

In short, that's it.

Bai Ying turned back to the center and instantly returned to normal: "I think the subordinate was probably rolling around on the bed with his phone in his hand, struggling under the covers, and after sending the email, he probably even tested the wall's hardness with his head—an email confession is lame, but it has nothing to do with being casual."

Kaori Orimoto's brow twitched, a vague sense of opening a door to a new world mixed with awkwardness and complicated feelings: "But no matter what, this is just too..."

"It's annoying, it's baffling, it's embarrassing and disgusting—right?" the white shadow said quietly. "We're just ordinary friends who exchange a few words, and suddenly the other person throws a huge surprise at you, causing a whole uproar... You hate Hachiman, don't you?"

"Hate?"

Kaori Orimoto paused for a moment, then pondered, "I guess I'm a little annoying, but not entirely annoying, how should I put it..."

"Yes! There's still hatred!"

Bai Ying said in a deep voice, "Think about it carefully—you clearly meant well by reaching out to someone who was ignoring you, and what happened? He inexplicably confessed his feelings to you, and in such a flippant way as an email! You had no choice but to respond... Rejection was inevitable, but both actively rejecting and being rejected are awkward things, especially since you've never had the experience of having to cut ties with a friend because of something. It's just too awful!"

Kaori Orimoto couldn't help but empathize; the other person seemed to have clearly and completely understood her confused and hazy feelings—a true confidante!

"Yeah, yeah! It's so inexplicable! He suddenly sent an email confessing his feelings, I have absolutely no idea what he was thinking..." Kaori Orimoto complained incessantly, "Just because nobody talks to him usually, and I'm the first person to talk to him? It's just..."

Bai Ying: "Yandere."

Orimoto Kaori: "What is a yandere?"

Bai Ying explained, "There's a type of person whose emotions are so heavy that they make others uncomfortable, like someone with a mental illness—a kind of lovable person."

"?" Orimoto Kaori's eyes widened. "You're speaking Japanese, right?"

“I think the subordinate fits the definition perfectly.” Bai Ying shrugged. “Didn’t you get tormented by him enough?”

"Yes, I still feel a bit awkward thinking about it now."