I'm Ebina Hikana. Just a fujoshi otaku girl who lives for her rotten delusions in the corner of the classroom.
But I have a secret I can't tell anyone. I've accidentally seen the whole messy, tangled relationship between Hachiman, Yukinoshita, and Yuigahama—the three people who should be the center of the class.
At first it was just observation. Hachiman's eyes full of resignation, Yukinoshita's back that looked so lonely, Yuigahama's smile that she forced to be bright. No one else noticed, bu
After School Black Hole: Ebina Was Watching - The End of the Observer — The Confession, and the Four Beyond
The special wing after school was utterly silent.
The setting sun streaming through the windows dyed the linoleum floor of the hallway a languid red. Pushing Yuigahama's wheelchair, I stopped once in front of the stairs leading up to the fourth floor.
Yuigahama in the wheelchair had a thick cast on her right leg. White bandages wrapped around her head. But her face, compared to when I'd seen her at the hospital, was facing forward much more firmly.
"It's okay, Hina-chan. I'm right here with you."
Yuigahama said that without turning around. Her voice trembled slightly. Even so, she gently placed her hand over mine on the wheelchair's armrest.
The warmth of that hand almost made me cry.
*(If I lose my nerve here, then bringing Yui-chan along was pointless.)*
I took three deep breaths.
Cold air filled my lungs to the bottom. The area around my heart ached, tight and sharp.
"Let's go."
I voiced my resolve out loud.
Step by step, I climbed the stairs. The sound of the wheelchair's wheels biting into each concrete step, one by one. I felt that all of that weight was something I deserved to carry.
The Service Club room—the old AV preparation room on the fourth floor of the special wing. I had come before that door again.
How many times had I stood here? Until now, I had been someone who only stood before the door, listening to the voices inside, jotting things down in a notebook.
An observer.
But today was different.
I would open this door by my own will.
Yuigahama looked up at me and gave a small nod.
I placed my hand on the doorknob.
The cold feel of metal.
I inhaled, held my breath, and turned the knob.
The old hinges creaked—*gii*.
The air inside the room mixed with the cold air outside, and the boundary dissolved.
Once again, I crossed the boundary.
Inside the Service Club room, the western light made it dim.
The east-facing windows no longer let the sunset shine directly in. A blue-gray air hung heavy in the room.
Two long desks faced each other. Six folding chairs. An old CRT television sat silently against the wall, watching us. On the bookshelf, Yukinoshita's personal paperback collection stood with spines perfectly aligned.
A tea set beside the hot water pot.
This room had always been quiet, and yet it was a place packed with the time the three of them had spent together.
And now, in that place, there were two figures.
Standing before the window was Hikigaya Hachiman.
His back turned, looking outside. That back seemed even smaller and more hunched than when I'd seen him at the hospital. The line of his shoulders looked so thin it might snap at any moment, his white dress shirt seeming to float away from his body.
He wore nothing over his casual clothes.
His profile, reflected in the window glass, sank hazily. The same dead-fish, rotten eyes as always.
But something deep in those eyes was decisively different.
They reflected nothing.
Eyes that had completely, cleanly given up on trusting people.
Beyond the long desk, in a chair at the back of the room, sat Yukinoshita Yukino.
Back straight, both hands neatly folded on her knees. Her glossy black hair caught the remnants of the sunset, gleaming coldly. White skin. A face too perfectly composed.
Yukinoshita was truly beautiful.
But she was so expressionless it was frightening to look at her.
Like a doll with every trace of emotion stripped away.
Something had vanished from her even more than when she'd submitted her withdrawal form to Hiratsuka-sensei that day.
Both of them were frozen.
As if time in this room had stopped even before we entered.
I pushed the wheelchair into the room, just one step's worth.
The wheels made a soft *kotsu* sound.
In that instant, Hachiman's shoulders twitched.
He slowly turned around.
Those rotten eyes first caught me, then moved to Yuigahama in the wheelchair.
I could see his breathing stop.
Hachiman's colorless eyes widened.
His lips trembled faintly, trying to say something, unable to.
"...Yui."
A low voice, wrung out. A voice that took everything he had to produce.
Yukinoshita also raised her face.
The moment she registered Yuigahama's appearance, her pale cheeks lost even more color.
Her long eyelashes quivered finely.
"...Yuigahama-san."
Her voice was quiet, as if punching a hole in the air.
Both of their gazes were drawn irresistibly to Yuigahama's cast, to her bandages.
These two—right now, looking at Yuigahama was more painful than anything.
Of course it was.
Hachiman was cursing himself, believing he was the cause of Yuigahama getting hit by that car.
Yukinoshita was trying to erase herself, believing that because she was a member of the Yukinoshita family, the two of them got hurt.
Both of them were desperately averting their eyes from Yuigahama, just to keep living.
And I had brazenly brought the one thing they least wanted to see right in front of them.
I was doing something cruel.
I knew that myself.
But even so.
"...Both of you, don't run away."
My voice was hoarse, barely audible.
I lowered my bag.
I opened the zipper and took out a single notebook.
A B5-sized, cheap, blue-covered college notebook.
Worn from heavy use, corners rounded, the cover marked with countless creases and a small coffee stain.
My observation notebook.
My third year, my third volume.
I held the notebook with both hands and placed it at the very edge of the long desk.
Then I opened the pages.
They were packed densely with writing.
Records of the three of them, from one year ago to today—everything.
Observation results.
Relationship diagrams.
Intervention plans.
And all the sins I had committed.
"...Ebina, what is that?"
Hachiman asked in a low, guarded voice.
"My observation notebook."
I straightened my back.
I put strength into my stomach to suppress the trembling.
"From the day before the entrance ceremony a year ago, up until today—I've written everything in here."
Hachiman's rotten eyes narrowed.
Yukinoshita didn't move a muscle. But I could see her pale fingertips gripping the fabric of her skirt tightly.
"...What did you write?"
To Hachiman's question, I answered quietly.
"Everything about you, Yukinoshita-san, and Yuigahama-san."
I felt the air in the room drop a degree, audibly colder.
Hachiman's entire body tensed.
"...What... did you say?"
I continued speaking.
"The conversations in the Service Club, what happened at the tennis court, the day of the accident—I saw all of it. I knew. From a long time ago."
"...What the hell are you?"
His voice trembled. Low, laced with anger.
I clenched both hands tightly. The blood drained from my fingertips.
"I'm Ebina Hina. Just a fujoshi otaku. Cushion material that doesn't belong between people."
I smiled.
Even I knew it was a pathetic smile.
"...And I'm the stupid perpetrator who secretly watched you all like some kind of god, tried to make you happy on my own, and failed."
I decided to begin my confession.
Making sure not to get the order wrong.
The truth that should be told first—first.
"Hachiman. I knew that you got into an accident the day before the entrance ceremony a year ago."
Hachiman said nothing.
"That day, you protected Yuigahama's dog, Sable, from a car and got hit. You were hospitalized for three weeks and missed your chance to make friends. It was the day your life went drastically off course. And—"
I took a deep breath.
For a moment, I closed my eyes and pictured that day's scene in my mind.
One year ago. April. The evening before the entrance ceremony, as the cherry blossoms began to fall.
"That car was from Yukinoshita-san's family. A limousine. And in the back seat—Yukinoshita-san was riding in it."
The silence shattered.
I swear I heard the sound of the air cracking—*bakin*.
Every trace of expression vanished from Hachiman's face.
Only his eyes flew wide open, piercing toward Yukinoshita as if to shoot through her.
"...Yukinoshita, you—"
His voice caught in his throat.
Yukinoshita didn't flinch.
Head bowed, her long black hair swayed heavily.
"...Yes. Everything Ebina-san said is true. That day, that car belonged to the Yukinoshita family. And in the back seat—I was there."
Her voice was transparent and cold, like sharp glass.
But it trembled, faintly.
"...You kept quiet about it all this time?"
Hachiman's voice held more shock than accusation.
Yukinoshita slowly raised her face.
That face was terrible and beautiful in a way I'd never seen before.
"...There was no way I could say it."
Her eyes looked as if something might overflow at any moment.
"I couldn't do anything from inside the car. The one pressing the accelerator was the family driver. I wasn't the one who hit the brakes. I was just sitting in the back seat, reading a book, when suddenly I felt the impact and looked up—"
Her words broke off.
"I saw you and Yuigahama-san's dog collapsed, bleeding."
Hachiman gasped.
"From then on, I never had the courage to tell you—I couldn't even say a single word of apology—every time you joined the Service Club, every time I saw your face, it stabbed into my chest, over and over—"
Yukinoshita's voice lost its composure.
"I thought I didn't even have the right to apologize to you. Because that accident—even if indirectly—I had ruined your life."
"Yukinoshita..."
"That's why I was harsher to you than necessary. I tried to push you away from the Service Club. So that you wouldn't have to feel guilty toward me—"
Her long eyelashes trembled finely, and a single tear spilled over.
"...I didn't want you to know about this sin, even a little. I didn't want to hurt you. So I wanted you to hate me."
Hachiman was at a loss for words.
I couldn't speak either.
Yukinoshita was now, of her own accord, tearing open the deepest depths of her heart and showing it to us.
The weight of the guilt she'd hidden for a year—she was letting it crush her, willingly.
"...Hachiman, I'm truly sorry for deceiving you for a whole year."
She bowed her head, deeply, deeply.
Her black hair swayed softly.
I looked down at the notebook.
My hands were shaking.
*(It's not over yet.)*
*(I have to confess my sins too.)*
*(I can't be the only one staying in a safe place.)*
I raised my face.
"...Not yet."
Hachiman slowly turned his face—every emotion suppressed—toward me.
Yukinoshita also looked at me, her face still wet with tears.
Yuigahama, eyebrows drawn into a worried shape, stared at me with a face on the verge of tears.
"I have to confess too. There's something I need to apologize for most of all."
I began speaking without pause.
"I used Totsuka."
Hachiman's shoulders moved slightly.
"I knew you only opened your heart to Totsuka. So I brought Totsuka close to Yukinoshita-san right in front of you, trying to shake your feelings. I wanted to provoke your possessiveness, your jealousy."
"...You set that up?"
Hachiman's voice was low and hoarse, suppressed.
I nodded.
"Yes. That was my Phase 1. The first stage of a perfect scenario."
I felt nauseous.
What I was doing was so ugly it made me sick.
But the words wouldn't stop.
"Then I leaked Yuigahama-san's true feelings to Miura-san."
"...So the reason Miura came at me like that was because of you?"
His voice sharpened.
Yuigahama lowered her face slightly.
"Yes. I told Miura-san everything—how much Yuigahama-san likes you, how much she's suffering. Then Miura-san blamed you like that. And that day, Yuigahama-san saw you and Miura-san arguing—"
My voice trembled.
"And she ran into the road."
Silence fell over the room.
A heavy, oppressive silence.
Only the second hand of a wristwatch ticked—*chi chi chi chi*—strangely loud.
"...It's all my fault."
I said that, finally.
For a while, none of the three spoke.
Yukinoshita looked straight at me.
Hachiman, his face twisted like he'd bitten into a bitter bug, stared at the notebook.
Yuigahama was shedding large tears, one after another.
"...Hina-chan."
Yuigahama called my name through her tears.
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