Two firsts in this final arc: a Hayama-centric episode, and seeing him angry for the first time. Someone saw him and Yukino together at her birthday party, and started a rumor that they are dating. That's the camel's straw, and Hayama reacts with a death glare. Normally the spirit of sunshine (is it a carefully constructed front, like Iroha's cute and clumsy act?), it's refreshing to see he's capable of fury.
Yukino reacts precisely the way we'd expect ("Just like human trash to have their minds in the gutter"), but that's nothing new. Rather, it's another confirmation that there's a lot more to Hayato than meets the eye. Yumiko, for example, seems nothing more than a fairly superficial girl whose most attractive quality is that she's in love with a good guy, and that makes her a bit more likable. But we don't know Hayato hardly at all, and only know Yukino as well as Hachiman does. We don't know her poisonous family, for instance, and we never get inside her head the way we do Hachiman's. It is why the different characters, beloved protagonist aside, are so difficult to read: because we read them through Hachiman, and only through his experience. That is why it's much easier to understand the interactions of others than it is to understand your own. That's why we can only really guess at what Hayama's relationship with Yukino is or was like, since the latter refuses to discuss it.
Back at summer camp, Hayato let slip he was into a girl with the initial Y, which could either be Haruno or Yukino. Uncharacteristically, he does not date and hasn't his entire time in highschool. "It just seemed like Hayato belonged to everyone," quips Iroha. But his family is close to the Yukino family, they've known each other for ages, and it's hard to imagine upper-class families like Hayato and Yukinoshita not considering that their daughter and son would make a good match. So there was probably something like grade-school crushes that went on. Normal and unremarkable.
As the series has emphasized time and again, the trio and Hayama's clique are practically the same. Yumiko is trying desperately to keep her friendships from deteriorating after graduation, and the same desire animates Yukino, Yui, and Hachiman. How their friendship is expressed of course changes and will change constantly, but they want that friendship to stay the same, even (especially) Hachiman. Social sadists like Haruno don't help of course (she's dropped the nice act and is simply demeaning and belittling her sister now. It's ugly to watch. If someone I knew treated me like that I would cut them off completely - never meet or speak to them again. I don't know how much lower my opinion of her can get), but nobody wants what's beautiful to end.
Because we never get inside anybody except Hachiman, we have to play his game of reading between the lines to understand other people. He notes (correctly, I'd argue) that Yumiko made other girls keep their distance from Hayama, so she was useful to him. Normal popular highschool boys would pursue relationships, so the reason Hayama isn't points in one direction: Yukino and Hachiman, whom Hayato claims to see as a hateful superior. In a roundabout way, he also tells Hachiman Yukino's in love with him (does he really not know yet? It's stamped all over her face, especially when they're alone together), and chooses the same college field as her. For her part, Yukino is courteous and polite to Hayama, the very model of what her parents drilled her to be, but is entirely genuine. Even so, there is no hint she feels for him anywhere near what she's feeling for Hachiman, and Hayama, who's probably in love with her, easily intuits this. Hence his statement that he does not intend to lose to Hachiman.
On the other hand, all that could be entirely wrong and I'm completely missing the mark. It could be as simple as Hayama wanting to live up to his own expectations instead of his family's, just like Yukino, or some combination of the two. But there is no way to tell for sure. Other people are and remain a mystery. Hachiman is one of the most well-written characters I've encountered, and even he's a mystery, given his talent for self-sabotage and self-deception. How much more then, are characters (like Yukino) who are mediated through their interactions with Hachiman. It's the opposite tack Monogatari takes, where several arcs (Sodachi, Hanekawa, and Sengoku, for instance) get you into the very souls of the respective characters, yet it works perfectly to help us understand ourselves and others.
Yukino reacts precisely the way we'd expect ("Just like human trash to have their minds in the gutter"), but that's nothing new. Rather, it's another confirmation that there's a lot more to Hayato than meets the eye. Yumiko, for example, seems nothing more than a fairly superficial girl whose most attractive quality is that she's in love with a good guy, and that makes her a bit more likable. But we don't know Hayato hardly at all, and only know Yukino as well as Hachiman does. We don't know her poisonous family, for instance, and we never get inside her head the way we do Hachiman's. It is why the different characters, beloved protagonist aside, are so difficult to read: because we read them through Hachiman, and only through his experience. That is why it's much easier to understand the interactions of others than it is to understand your own. That's why we can only really guess at what Hayama's relationship with Yukino is or was like, since the latter refuses to discuss it.
Back at summer camp, Hayato let slip he was into a girl with the initial Y, which could either be Haruno or Yukino. Uncharacteristically, he does not date and hasn't his entire time in highschool. "It just seemed like Hayato belonged to everyone," quips Iroha. But his family is close to the Yukino family, they've known each other for ages, and it's hard to imagine upper-class families like Hayato and Yukinoshita not considering that their daughter and son would make a good match. So there was probably something like grade-school crushes that went on. Normal and unremarkable.
As the series has emphasized time and again, the trio and Hayama's clique are practically the same. Yumiko is trying desperately to keep her friendships from deteriorating after graduation, and the same desire animates Yukino, Yui, and Hachiman. How their friendship is expressed of course changes and will change constantly, but they want that friendship to stay the same, even (especially) Hachiman. Social sadists like Haruno don't help of course (she's dropped the nice act and is simply demeaning and belittling her sister now. It's ugly to watch. If someone I knew treated me like that I would cut them off completely - never meet or speak to them again. I don't know how much lower my opinion of her can get), but nobody wants what's beautiful to end.
Because we never get inside anybody except Hachiman, we have to play his game of reading between the lines to understand other people. He notes (correctly, I'd argue) that Yumiko made other girls keep their distance from Hayama, so she was useful to him. Normal popular highschool boys would pursue relationships, so the reason Hayama isn't points in one direction: Yukino and Hachiman, whom Hayato claims to see as a hateful superior. In a roundabout way, he also tells Hachiman Yukino's in love with him (does he really not know yet? It's stamped all over her face, especially when they're alone together), and chooses the same college field as her. For her part, Yukino is courteous and polite to Hayama, the very model of what her parents drilled her to be, but is entirely genuine. Even so, there is no hint she feels for him anywhere near what she's feeling for Hachiman, and Hayama, who's probably in love with her, easily intuits this. Hence his statement that he does not intend to lose to Hachiman.
On the other hand, all that could be entirely wrong and I'm completely missing the mark. It could be as simple as Hayama wanting to live up to his own expectations instead of his family's, just like Yukino, or some combination of the two. But there is no way to tell for sure. Other people are and remain a mystery. Hachiman is one of the most well-written characters I've encountered, and even he's a mystery, given his talent for self-sabotage and self-deception. How much more then, are characters (like Yukino) who are mediated through their interactions with Hachiman. It's the opposite tack Monogatari takes, where several arcs (Sodachi, Hanekawa, and Sengoku, for instance) get you into the very souls of the respective characters, yet it works perfectly to help us understand ourselves and others.
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