Chapter 98: Chapter 98: Yukinoshita Haruno
Iris found the person somewhat familiar, but she couldn't remember where she had seen them before.
"Hm? Who are you?"
"Sister? Why are you here?", Before Iris could ask about the person's identity, Yukinoshita Yukino, who had been comforting Sakurase Shino, called out the person's background.
"Yukinoshita-san's sister? Hello.", Iris suddenly realized, 'so this is Yukinoshita-san's sister. No wonder she looks a bit familiar.'
"What are you doing here?", Yukinoshita Yukino, however, didn't give a warm welcome to her sister, who had appeared before her.
"If I said it was a coincidence, would you believe me?"
"No.", Yukinoshita Yukino didn't believe that her sister just happened to pass by here on the weekend and ran into her. There was no such coincidence.
"Hello, everyone. I'm Yukino's sister, Yukinoshita Haruno. Thank you all for taking Yukino out for shopping.", Yukinoshita Haruno didn't mind her sister's cold response at all. She smiled brightly as she looked at the people around Yukinoshita Yukino, her gaze subtly sweeping over Hachiman, Ichinose Ayano, Iris, and the others.
"Yukinoshita Haruno?", Hachiman looked at the suddenly appearing Yukinoshita Haruno with some surprise, 'It couldn't be such a coincidence, right?'
He wasn't unfamiliar with Yukinoshita Haruno. Back when he played Koikatsu, he liked how neatly arranged the Yukinoshita family was.
[TL/N: Koikatsu is a Japanese Video Game]
However, to him, Haruno's charm mainly lay in the fact that she was Yukino's sister. If she wasn't, then she would be somewhat uninteresting.
"Does this student know me?", Yukinoshita Haruno looked at Hachiman with a full smile.
She knew Hachiman, and she knew he was the president of the Service Club. However, like Ichinose Ayano and the others, she couldn't understand why this originally unremarkable-looking, now only slightly more handsome, ordinary guy had managed to win the favor of the Elf Princess. Even more so, he had gathered so many girls as beautiful as her little Yukino into the Service Club.
"I roughly know that Yukinoshita-san has a very outstanding older sister.", Hachiman responded vaguely. Compared to those doujin characters he had gone through in the past, Yukinoshita Haruno—his big sister-in-law—was someone he hadn't really fantasized about. He just thought she was very beautiful and very cunning.
A woman with such a strong personality was probably an ideal candidate for him to be a househusband.
However, lately, he was focusing on researching how to make angels and demons support him together. As for Yukinoshita Haruno, that could wait for later.
Politically, he planned to develop connections with Ichinose Ayano. In business, he intended to seek help from Rurikawa Tsubaki. The Yukinoshita family, merely a politician's household, didn't seem to have much that particularly attracted him.
"It seems like you pay a lot of attention to Yukino.", Yukinoshita Haruno kept her smile as she looked at Hachiman.
"Well, I am the president of the Service Club, after all. I should care about the members of my club. If the Service Club wants to complete requests and help others, we can't have unresolved internal issues.", Hachiman glanced at the expressionless Yukinoshita Yukino. In reality, the biggest problem in the Service Club was Yukinoshita Yukino. Her emotional knots probably couldn't be solved as easily as the others' through forceful physical means.
"Oh right, I forgot to introduce myself. I'm Hikigaya Hachiman, the president of the Service Club."
"At the moment, your sister, Yukinoshita Yukino, is trying to take my president position."
"Well, that's quite unfortunate. Little Yukino has always been very competitive. Maybe she did this because she wants to be friends with you.", Yukinoshita Haruno smiled as she glanced at the nearby Yukinoshita Yukino.
She didn't know why Hachiman specifically mentioned that Yukino wanted to take the president's position. Was it a warning? Or a reminder?
The available intelligence was still too little. Even Shizuka-chan didn't have much understanding of Hachiman. She couldn't quite grasp his intentions.
"If that's the case, then that would be great. I thought Yukinoshita always hated me.", Hachiman sighed. If it were just the two of them in the Service Club, he might have had a chance to develop feelings with Yukinoshita Yukino over time. But now, in Yukino's eyes, he was probably a total scumbag. In this situation, it was unlikely she would ever like him.
"No, you're not mistaken. I do hate you.", Yukinoshita Yukino coldly said as she glared at the two people talking about her as if she weren't present.
"If you don't mind, Hikigaya-kun, you can call me Haruno nee-san, just to make things clearer.", As if she didn't hear Yukinoshita Yukino's words, Haruno continued with a bright smile.
"Alright, Haruno nee-san."
Hachiman glanced at the ice-cold and silent Yukinoshita Yukino, then smiled and nodded in agreement.
He knew Yukinoshita Haruno wouldn't just let him call her nee-san for nothing. She probably had some ulterior motive in trying to get closer. But in front of Yukinoshita Yukino, getting close to her sister felt oddly satisfying.
Wasn't Yukinoshita Yukino trying to take his president position?
Then, what if he took her place in the Yukinoshita family?
He really wanted to see what kind of expression Yukinoshita Yukino would make when that happened.
"What exactly are you doing here?", Yukinoshita Yukino, who had been watching her sister joke around with outsiders, couldn't hold it in anymore.
"I already said it was a coincidence. Why don't you believe me? Alright, since you don't like it, I'll leave now.", Seeing her cute little sister about to explode, Yukinoshita Haruno chuckled and prepared to leave.
"Oh, right, Yukino. Mother wants to see you. Remember to go home tomorrow.", Before leaving, Yukinoshita Haruno suddenly remembered something and added as she turned back to Yukino.
"..."
Yukinoshita Yukino fell silent upon hearing that her mother wanted to see her.
She was currently living alone in a single-person apartment, but occasionally, her mother would still call her back for discussions. She didn't know what it was about this time.
However, no matter what it was, in front of her dignified and authoritative mother, she had no room to refuse.
"Goodbye, everyone. Have fun with little Yukino.", Seeing Yukinoshita Yukino fall into silence, Yukinoshita Haruno smiled, greeted everyone, and then turned to leave.
She hadn't appeared here by coincidence.
Ever since her cute little sister came to her for help regarding a campus bullying incident, she had been paying more attention to school affairs.
Especially when she had just been planning to deal with a certain Bully who might pose a threat to Yukino, only to find that he had already been ambushed and taken down near the school by some unknown party.
If it were her, she wouldn't have been so bold—she would've just secretly settled the score.
After that, she checked in with Shizuka-chan about Yukino's recent situation and discovered that the Service Club Yukino had planned to establish already had quite a few members. It wasn't just her alone as she had initially imagined.
However, unexpectedly, Yukino was not the president of the Service Club—there was someone else in that role.
What was even more surprising was that the elven princess, Iris, who served as a goodwill ambassador, had also joined the Service Club.
It wasn't particularly rare for demi-humans from another world to be transfer students at Sōbu High. Although the officials hadn't widely publicized the fact that the elven princess had integrated into society as a student, many people knew about it.
She had never expected her socially oblivious younger sister to get along with the elven princess, but now that the latter had joined the Service Club, and even the daughter of Councilor Ichinose had been sent to join as well, she couldn't just ignore it anymore.
The Ichinose faction and the Yukinoshita faction had some tensions between them. If the other side was trying to get close and win the favor of the elven princess, then even if they didn't actively seek her favor, they at least couldn't let the Ichinose faction form a connection with her. Otherwise, all the votes would be drawn to the Ichinose faction, making life difficult for the Yukinoshita family.
However, she wasn't here to recklessly approach the elven princess. She simply wanted to observe how Yukino and the elven princess were getting along.
The moment she arrived, she could tell the relationships among the Service Club members just by looking at their positions.
The bad news was that Yukino was still as solitary as ever, not forming good relationships with the Service Club members.
The good news was that the Ichinose family's daughter wasn't doing any better.
"Yukinoshita-san's older sister... is completely different from Yukinoshita-san in style.", Hayase Saki muttered softly, watching Yukinoshita Haruno's quickly departing figure.
Yukinoshita Yukino was unsmiling and cold as ice, while her older sister was cheerful, generous, and always smiling.
Although she wasn't sure if it was just her socially anxious and introverted nature playing tricks on her, Hayase Saki felt that Yukinoshita Yukino's sister wasn't as friendly as she appeared on the surface.
Compared to a seemingly bright and friendly older sister who might have hidden schemes, Hayase Saki felt that the cold and distant Yukinoshita Yukino was actually easier to get along with. At least, she could tell at a glance whether she was happy or angry.
"It's normal for siblings to have different personalities. After all, they're not twins. As long as there's an age gap, a generation gap is normal, let alone differences in personality.", Iris heard Hayase Saki's soft murmur and responded with a sweet smile.
Beside her, Aegis, who silently stood guard, nodded deeply in agreement.
Even though they both lived in the Elven Forest, the other elven princesses were all around a hundred or two hundred years old, yet none of them had a personality similar to hers.
If she didn't know for sure that she and Iris were truly sisters, she would have doubted whether she was actually an elven princess. The other elven princesses were all slender, delicate, cute, and beautiful—nothing like her, a rough, burly giant.
Of course, the elves weren't completely isolated from the world. Some adventurous ordinary elf girls would even leave the forest to become heroes and fight the Demon King.
But those were the minority. Most elves preferred a stable life, peacefully farming, hunting, and conducting research in the Elven Forest.
"Mm-hmm, an age gap is definitely a huge generational gap.", Gabriel thought of her own older sister and younger sister and couldn't help but agree.
Her older sister was strict and rigid, constantly imposing harsh expectations on her. Meanwhile, her younger sister was innocent and adorable but also a troublemaker.
Ever since she descended to the human world, she had felt much more relaxed. However, before she could enjoy a few peaceful days, she was already feeling a new kind of pressure around Hachiman.
"But having siblings must be more fun, right? You can talk to each other about things you can't say to adults.", Komachi giggled. Although her onii-chan had always given her many headaches, both in the past and now, it was probably a happy kind of trouble.
After all, their parents were often busy with work and rarely home. If she had to spend her childhood alone at home, she couldn't even imagine what it would have been like.
"Mm, family is... different.", Asougi Shion gently nodded. She didn't have any friends to compare with, but she still felt that friends and family weren't on the same level.
"..."
Hayase Saki, Sakurase Shino, and Ichinose Ayano, the three only children, looked at those with siblings talking sentimentally. They exchanged glances, suddenly feeling a sense of camaraderie as fellow sibling-less individuals.
"Let's continue. First, we'll watch a movie, then grab something to eat afterward.", Knowing full well that her own sister's relationship with her was nowhere near as harmonious as what they were discussing, Yukinoshita Yukino didn't participate in the conversation. Instead, she forced herself to check the time and continued with today's plan of guiding Sakurase Shino.
Her plan wasn't particularly special. She simply wanted to change the environment a bit and take Sakurase Shino out of campus to relax—shopping, eating, watching movies, and so on.
By engaging in these typical high school activities, she hoped to encourage the socially withdrawn Sakurase Shino to slowly open up.
She actually knew some things about Sakurase Shino—her parents had passed away when she was in middle school, and she had been living alone ever since.
However, her middle school records didn't indicate any significant social withdrawal tendencies, only that she was rather introverted. Yukinoshita Yukino wasn't sure if Sakurase Shino had gradually become socially withdrawn due to family reasons or if she had experienced school bullying or similar incidents.
From her observations, Sakurase Shino merely seemed unwilling to communicate with others. She was capable of taking care of herself and keeping up with her studies. This level of social withdrawal wasn't particularly dangerous. However, Hiratsuka Shizuka believed that since Sakurase's parents had passed away and she had been living alone since middle school without anyone caring for her, leaving her unchecked could lead to major issues.
This kind of mild but stubborn social withdrawal was actually quite tricky to deal with.
After all, they were just a student club and could only use gentle methods to guide Sakurase Shino. If they tried anything too aggressive, it could easily backfire.
Yukinoshita Yukino felt that she wouldn't be able to take the club president position from Hachiman this time—but at the same time, Hachiman wouldn't be able to win against her either.
At the very least, in the next two days, there was no way he could do better than her.
Make her call him "President-sama" with a "nya" added?
Even making her wear white thigh-highs, cat ears, and a maid outfit while calling him "Master"?
'Hah, dream on!'
———
Somewhere in a movie theater in Chiba.
There weren't many people inside. Hachiman and Yukinoshita Yukino's group approached the counter to get their tickets.
Last night, they had already discussed which movie to watch today.
The screenings available today included a mystery film, a romance film, a horror film, and an action film.
If it were just her choice, Yukinoshita Yukino would definitely pick the mystery film. But today, she wasn't alone, and a mystery film might be boring for everyone.
She, who prided herself on not needing friends, also had no interest in watching a youthful romance movie.
Horror movies were also a no-go.
That left only one option in the theater—an exciting and intense action movie.
Hmm... Even though most of them were girls, watching an action movie together shouldn't be a problem.
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