Crossover Fan Fiction ❯ From Beta To Sigma ❯ My Own Path ( Chapter 1 )

From Beta To Sigma

[Oregairu]

By Terdwilicker

ONE

“Can’t we just be friends?” Orimoto Kaori replied to my heartfelt confession. Her face was stricken, and I realized, as I should have, I’d made a terrible mistake. I’d done this where others could see. My classmates were grinning, finding a new victim they could abuse. I could take it, or I could fight.

I should have known. When I noticed Kaori being nice to me, I had assumed she actually liked me. This was false. She was presenting a front, and I was validating her behavior without realizing it. I started reading female psychology books from our excellent library and discovered many things other men had learned about female nature. Things I probably wasn’t meant to know until it was too late.

Hiding from Kaori’s defenders meant they gossiped and built up an excuse for the violence that they actually craved to explore. They were trash, and the book warned me that some women just liked to watch men bleed. Kaori’s little friends started attacking my desk, leaving nasty messages on the seat. The teacher glared, then ordered me to clean it up, which became a daily problem. The abuses escalated to threats on the chalk board, which the teacher kept blaming me for. Strange how his tires went flat.

The abuses went on and I carefully noted who was causing me grief so I began my own little retaliations. I put baking soda into street shoes, and into the class shoes. They were fake leather and very sweaty. The complaints of bleeding feet eventually emerged, but our Middle School has no cameras in the shoe locker area, and my tacks eventually stopped so I stopped with the baking soda. We found some level of détente. I applied to a top High school in downtown Chiba, which NONE of my classmates would ever qualify for. I spent all my time studying, becoming educated well beyond Middle School. I wanted to catch up and surpass other people. I wanted to prove I was better than them so I could hurt them when they started to find my appeal. Or if I could level up my own stoicism, find joy in being alone. There were plenty of jobs in Japan where that was possible. I wasn’t wasting any more time on fiction or fantasies of escape from the dreary world of suffering through boring education jail and eventually enslavement to a crotch parasite and a mortgage and a terrible job that drained my soul. I knew this was how it worked. I have parents.

The only girl I knew who was decent and good is my little sister, who worried about me. She was still in the cute stage of life, not having discovered her inner bitch, and having the wits to understand actions have consequences, and men have memories. I am bitter, a fact little Komachi pointed out often, and I took to drinking coffee with a splash of milk. Bitter and murky. That’s me.

Kaori may be a victim of her friends’ excuses to abuse me, but I wasn’t forgiving her. And I certainly wasn’t validating her anymore, or any other girl in Middle School. Eventually the school year ended and I walked away from the place, burning my uniform in a happy ceremony on the BBQ grill. Good riddance.

Soubu was such a relief that I left for school early on my bicycle. Have plans to take up bicycle camping, which would combine fitness with backpacking, and Japan was loaded with inexpensive campsites once you got away from Tokyo. Much of the nation was wild and mountainous. The mostly flat valley floors were often full of rice paddies and irrigation canals and farmers working those fields, which is just fine on a bicycle. I had plans. And they were ruined when I heard a dog barking. A quick twist showed it running into the street ahead of a black limousine going too fast and I had a split second to help or dodge the car that would likely hit me. I lifted the dog and got my leg broken for my trouble. Two weeks in the hospital was a terrible bill and debt my parents would have to swallow, or would have if not for the limo occupants paying the bill. There was potential scandal there. The owner of the dog apparently visited Komachi at home, giving her candy meant for me, which she told me about eating and didn’t bring me any. And Komachi is a GOOD GIRL, comparatively. I sighed. I cannot count on my sister. Her Bitch phase is already starting. She was in Middle School a year behind me and well-liked by everyone because she had a bright and cheerful disposition. She’d be choosing a high school this year and planning for entrance exams. I’d prefer she got away from the sort of creeps our middle school produced.

Reading my text books and doing homework assignments took up my time while I healed. The doctor said both bones in my lower leg were broken so a walking cast was out. I healed slowly but well, at least. I had begun to write a series of essays on my Middle School discoveries about women, and their behavior. Reading through, and refining them helped me resolve to never again be a Beta Male, a doormat for women to walk all over. I didn’t want to tell other people what to do, or use and discard women, so I was no Alpha. This left me a Sigma male, seeking my own company and peace and quiet. Women generally find such men to be their kryptonite because they cannot figure us out, or use us. I resolved to walk this path, thanks to the abuses of Orimoto and her little thugs, and when finally declared healed and done with final checks was allowed to attend school two months after it started. My teachers were impressed with how I’d kept up with homework and were sad to report that while my grades were good enough for the international class, attendance was mandatory and I’d missed too much. I was assigned to class 1F and a boring invisible seat on the inner wall side of the room. The popular kids were in the back corner, where protagonists and Alphas lived… and they fit the stereotype. Two blondes who were dating, a demented fujoshi, a couple of sports bros, and a chesty beta girl with red hair. I sighed and got back to studying while they made all the noise. There were some other kids in the class but I paid little attention. People no longer interest me. I’m a Sigma male. Life is about my own self improvement, my own journey. Not these passengers in the education system.

When I was strong enough I started working out to get strong. I had to take a part time job to earn enough to buy a new bicycle because my prior bike was run over by that limo. I got a road bike suitable for touring, with pannier attachments and a frame made of steel. It was thin and light and over thirty years old. Steel frames never wear out. They do, however, require maintenance. I worked my way through the list, and the bike got faster and faster as I figured out bearings and how tight to make them. I improved everything until I could attach panniers to carry some luggage. This slowed me down a lot, but most of that is mental. Once you got yourself to speed, maintaining that speed is a matter of cadence, moving your legs. I did this, getting more fit with each weekend of training.

This was when I made a mistake. I’d been assigned an essay about looking back on youth and my high school memories, of which I had few, by my modern Japanese teacher, a single woman in her late 20s. She was about to hit The Wall. The Wall is what happens when a woman’s vitality is drained away as she passes her peak fertility and begins the descent into middle age, wrinkles, weight problems, and despair. The time when women no longer get all they want just by asking for it. The time when bad personality actually becomes important. It’s when their looks go. The Wall affects all women. Those with good personalities may stay married. Those with bad ones are divorced or unwanted and get cats. The Americans call them Cat Ladies, and most are known to be insane and avoided like the plague. Hiratsuka-sensei was on the verge of being a cat lady, and she knew it. She’d managed to look hot and sexy in front of a classroom of hormonal teenage boys, an inappropriate move in my opinion, but couldn’t find or keep a man to satisfy her needs, much less nail down for a marriage. She’s clearly wasted her youth, and now she was paying for it. This made her angry, and I’m poked the bear with my essay. My bad.

“What is the meaning of this?” she demanded, furiously sucking down a cigarette like it owed her money. I was in the teacher’s lounge, and she was smoking, angry, and would probably be considered sexy by some Beta male. I sighed.

“You asked us to write an essay about our high school memories. What memories do I have in the last month of being here? I arrived too late to make friends. All the cliques were filled up and didn’t want some transfer student late arrival with evil eyes, did they? So my memories here? I am alone. I have written my essay about studying, and solitude, and the joy of future freedom on the open road, with nothing and no one to hold me back, to encumber me with their useless tripe about friendship and feelings. What are those to me? And considering your condition, who are you to complain?” I demanded back. She did not like that. She blasted a punch past my right cheek. If this were an anime, there would be a throbbing forehead vein on her temple right now.

“Sensei, some day I’ll be in a position to invest my financial earnings and I’m seriously thinking about cat food companies. Do you have any comment?” I taunted her. She gritted her teeth, clenching the arm of her chair and crushing the cigarette. She crushed it out in the full ashtray with disgust and grabbed my tie.

“Come with me. You’ll pay for your insolent attitude by joining a club,” she insisted. I was dragged by the neck through the after school hallways drifting with discarded paper and a light breeze, up a stairwell to the largely unused wing. Japan’s falling population thanks to women hating men and mortgages being unreachable for modern low paying jobs meant there were unused rooms for clubs here. I waited and the sensei knocked on a sliding door twice before slamming it open.

“I thought I asked you to wait after knocking,” complained a soft voice. So this was the lure. A beautiful girl with long Yamato Nadesico hair fluttering in a breeze complete with sakura petals blowing in the window. I sneered. So staged. I glared at Sensei, pulling my wrinkled tie from her grip. I would need to iron this.

“What is This?” demanded the girl, expression going from soft lure to contempt. That was more honest. That was the kind of woman I saw all the time. The inner ugliness always appeared, and the worse you looked the sooner you saw the real woman hiding under a pretty mask. Women are fishing lures. They hide a hook. “I fear for my chastity!” she complained. I sneered back.

“Please. Restrain your projection,” I caustically responded as decorum allowed.

“Despite how he looks, Hikigaya has a finely honed instinct for survival. I want you to reform him. He’s to be your new clubmate,” sensei ordered. This room was mostly stacked chairs and desks. No bookshelves or unlocked cupboards for craft supplies. I have no idea what this club is supposed to be. There was a teapot, an electric kettle, and some reasonably good quality china cup and saucer being used by the girl. She was reading a book of historical poetry. Probably for either an assignment or out of personal interest.

“Hmm. What kind of club is this?” I asked her. Sensei retreated and shut the door.

“Take a look around you and guess,” the girl said. She still hadn’t told me her name. Rude.

“Not literature, not crafts. No tatami mats so not a tea club. I give up. Oh, and my name is Hikigaya. May I have yours?” I asked her. I can be civil, even if its totally pointless. She’s a teenage girl. Fully embracing her inner bitch.

“I am Yukinoshita Yukino. You may bow. As for the club, we are the Service Club. We help students with problems,” she explained. The Diet reps daughter then. No wonder she acted like a spoiled princess.

“I dislike politics,” I said.

“So do I. We have that in common,” she responded, poised, distant, icy. Unapproachable. A future cat lady.

Sensei chose this moment to break in without knocking once more, annoying the girl even more at the disruption, and explained some useless contest with the fate of telling each other what to do in the balance.

“Kotowaru,” (I refuse) I said to Sensei. The girl mimicked me at the same time. So she does see reason.

“You want me to give up my personal time to help students I don’t care about solve problems they should resolve on their own. That’s how people grow. These aren’t MY problems. I don’t care about other people, sensei.”

“The two of you are going to have a hard time in life if you can’t get along with other people,” sensei threatened, getting angry now.

“So what? Ninety percent of our country is mostly empty, with farmers the only company. What do I care about Tokyo and this hive of scum and villainy? And why do I care about the rich girl? She’s either going to be married off to some aging politician’s family or live with a bunch of cats. That’s her life. Not mine.” Sensei punched me in the guts then. Resorting to violence is second nature for sensei. She’s a frustrated woman, and the Wall is undefeated.

“You think you’ve won?” I gasped, trying to get my breathing in order. The punch had contracted my abdomen and it wasn’t wanting to breathe, crippling my ability to stand up or face my attacker. I want to learn martial arts. Or failing that, learn not to insult women who like violence, which is all of them.

“I’ll bring your first student tomorrow. Be here and don’t give me any lip,” she warned.

I managed to get my breathing under control and left club for the day, angry. I was mad with myself as much as the violent teacher. Women are allowed to do whatever they want, make all the mistakes they want, hurt people and kids all they want, and never face the consequences except through pregnancy. And in Japan, abortion was on demand. The clinics would abort babies right up to near term, and do so without parental notification or thought about the damage they did. A woman who had an abortion was often damaged internally and unable to have children later, instead suffering a series of miscarriages. It was one of the terrible things that Feminism did to women, and this fact was suppressed, secret. One of the books on women’s nature revealed this to me, and I was very disturbed by it. I supposed this was the reason there were so few children in Japan. The bad girls couldn’t have kids, unless they kept their first one in the usual pregnancy-marriage trap. This trap often failed, since the boy they slept with was often young, had no job, and fled for another city and a new name, leaving the girl to either abort and become barren, sterile, or have the baby as a single mother in shame. It is a lot of work to raise a child. They often don’t turn out well if there’s no father around. The books were clear on this, and cited a lot of statistics, which I found were updated on Japanese government websites, if you found the correct information and could decode what it really meant. The abortion rate matched up with the population crash perfectly, so Japan’s future collapse would be a direct result of Feminists instituting free abortion clinics. It was literally killing us, as a country.

I was even more resolved to not participate in this racket, and leave the stupid women to die alone. They chose this path, believed the lies, supported the laws that abused men, or dated men that abused them instead of making homes and getting and staying married. There are consequences for every aspect of this disaster and they aren’t my problem. My problem was getting stronger so I don’t have to rely on anyone. I don’t want to need other people. My goal is self sufficiency, and personal achievement. I can do this. Other men have. So can I.

The following day was more classwork and the Beta girl with red hair showing up for help at the service club. She was surprised to see me. I suppose she is cute, but maybe she’s so self destructive her inner bitch isn’t able to get out. She was the type of girl to be very unhappy and sabotage her own efforts, to give up early, to never achieve the things she thinks she wants. A shame, but again, not my problem. Or it wouldn’t be if I wasn’t forced into this stupid Service Club. I played along, being polite, without promising the impossible. We listened to her problem, and goal. She wanted to back cookies, but wasn’t good at it and needed teaching. The school actually has a kitchen lab for home economics. It is a mandatory class for all students to graduate, though many seem to just form cliques and make bland or generally bad food and take credit for the one of them that can cook. I can cook. I have to. My sister and I take turns because our parents work too much as corporate slaves. A fate I plan to avoid. I am good at cooking. So, apparently, is Princess Yukinoshita. She presumes me to be incompetent due to my gender, so I step back and do my own baking while the cold girl explains measuring, mixing, resting dough, and baking temperatures. I make several batches of spice cookies while they burn some sugar cookies to a crisp, dark brown to black. They didn’t set their timer, and the oven they’re using is clearly hotter than it should be. They aren’t adjusting to this properly. I share my cookies with the girls and get a glare from Yukinoshita.

“I am at a loss here. Yuigahama is the most unable cook I can imagine. How can you get so many things wrong despite seeing me show you the right way to do everything? You even put too much salt in this cookie, then burned it,” Yukino complained.

“If I may?” I offered. Yukino glared at me, daring me to keep silent. I refused.

“The oven is too hot. Shortening has a different baking time from butter. Measuring should be precise, not heaping, and we don’t have the time to do rested dough properly. That needs hours to be right, and we don’t have the time. Try piped cookies or peanut butter cookies instead. Even American chocolate chip don’t need rest time, though turn down the oven 15 degrees or switch to another one that works right.” Yukino stared at me. Yuigahama’s mouth was open.

“Wow, Hikki. It’s like you know this stuff or something,” Yui exclaimed.

“Who is Hikki?” I asked her. She pointed at me. I sighed. I decided not to be mean. I pushed the plate of cookies to her and let her eat them. Yukinoshita also ate my cookies and glared at me, clearly angry because they were good and I was right. I wonder which annoyed her more?

I withdrew another sheet of finished cookies from the oven I was using, not burned, and began their cooling process on wire cooling rack. The two girls began a fresh batch of cookies and tasted them each step of the way, eventually piping them from a pastry bag onto a sheet of parchment atop a cookie sheet. They lowered the oven temp as I’d directed and I set a timer and reminded them it was almost time to pull them out. Perfectly done. They made use of the rack I’d vacated and I finished my own cleanup and bagged some cookies for my sister at home. The Baking skill is a matter of attention to detail and practice. It isn’t magic. Yukinoshita had clearly learned to bake correctly, and presumed incorrectly, that she was better that me because she was female. I had just proven her wrong, so she was angry, and would seek a means to retaliate and satisfy her feelings and need for revenge. She was a girl. It’s what they do.

Yuigahama presented us both with decorative bags of cookies, saying it was a thank you for our help. It could have been charcoal, but it was a proper cookie in a heart shape, for some reason. I thanked her and ate it.

“Good. Now you can bake cookies for your friends any time you like,” Yukinoshita suggested.

I guess we tied on this one. The student went away happy and I headed home to cook dinner for my sister, do my homework, and get some sleep. Dealing with people is so exhausting.