Hirata, who had hidden his head behind a textbook, immediately said in a weak voice, "...Kasumigaoka said that if I told you where she was, she'd make sure I'd regret it when she got back."
She was the kind of person who, the moment someone hit a nerve or touched on one of her interests, would instantly shed her disguise and reveal her vicious, passionate, and fanatically obsessive nature.
She was practically a walking powder keg.
But in front of outsiders, Eriri Sawamura was quite capable of maintaining the flawless decorum expected of an eldest daughter.
"Ah, I see..."
Smiling as she lightly tapped her chin with her index finger, Eriri said softly, "Well, then, I'll have to reconsider the information about Ryoko you promised me~"
Hirata's eyes widened. "But last week, Eriri, you promised you'd get me information about Ry... about Nakano!"
Eriri had once considered Kasumigaoka her archenemy, so of course she wanted to keep tabs on her.
Third-year Hirata and his classmate Ryoko Nakano clearly liked each other, yet somehow never managed to get together. Eriri was Ryoko's close friend in their class, so she was fed a steady diet of their lovey-dovey antics every day. And on top of that, she had to help the two of them find out information about each other.
Enough already!
Eriri smiled sweetly. "I did say that, yes. But Ryoko is so cute, and lots of boys from other classes have asked me about her too. Should I tell them what I know?"
Hirata dropped to his knees in an instant. "Kasumigaoka's on the rooftop..."
Eriri flashed the smile of a victor. As she turned to leave, she heard a desperate wail behind her: "Please don't tell Kasumigaoka I was the one who snitched..."
How naive!
Who else would have snitched besides you?
Eriri found Utaha Kasumigaoka on the rooftop.
She was leaning against a bench on the roof, staring at her phone with a bored expression. Her figure was so mature that she exuded a certain allure, somewhere between a girl and a grown woman.
Eriri's blood boiled at the sight.
With anger!
"Kasumigaoka, are you chatting with that two-timing homewrecker again?!!!"
Kasumigaoka looked up with a deeply pained expression. "You're here..."
Hirata was so useless.
He couldn't even hold out for a few minutes between classes. How could a guy who finished that fast possibly be dating anyone?
Stay single for the rest of your life, damn it!
Eriri casually locked the door behind her, finally allowing herself to wear the smug expression she would never show in front of outsiders.
"You've been avoiding me for the past two days, but I finally caught you, Kasumigaoka-senpai~"
She tossed her twin tails smugly. "All right, tell me straight. What exactly is your relationship with that woman?"
Kasumigaoka sighed and put away her phone. "I've already told you. We're just a tutor and her student."
"Do you take me for an idiot, Kasumigaoka? I saw you that day. She walked you home!"
"She walked me home because it was late. That's all." Kasumigaoka folded her arms. "Besides, is there a law against a student walking her teacher home? Or is that some law in Sawa Country?"
Eriri was momentarily stumped. "...B-but I also saw how close you two were that day!"
"You noticed how close we were, but did you miss the cat between us? We just found a stray cat downstairs at my apartment building that day and looked at it together."
Eriri froze for a moment, then drew a deep breath. "Stop lying to me, Kasumigaoka..."
Her voice had taken on a faint, choked quality.
"You're such a horrible person, so difficult to get along with, nasty, obsessive about cleanliness, sharp-tongued, and suspicious of everyone... If you really hated that woman, Yukino, how could you possibly let her get so close to you?"
This time, it was Kasumigaoka's turn to freeze.
Some tiny emotions in her heart, which she hadn't noticed—or perhaps hadn't dared to notice—were like a fragile bubble. In that instant, Eriri, an outsider, popped it with ease.
She wanted to argue, but she opened her mouth and couldn't say a word.
They had been bitter rivals for years. Just as Kasumigaoka knew Eriri well, Eriri knew her just as well.
When it came to certain things, lying to herself was easier than lying to Eriri.
Seeing Kasumigaoka at a loss for words only made Eriri angrier.
Relationships between girls were both strong and fragile. They could grow close by hating the same person, or fall apart because they liked the same person.
Kasumigaoka looked uneasy. She tried to say a few words in Yukino's defense. "Actually, Yukino might not be the kind of person we used to think she was..."
"Kasumigaoka, are you an idiot??? Yukino once called you a fat woman right in front of Tomo?!!!"
Oh, had that happened?
Maybe it had...
But if Eriri hadn't brought it up today, Kasumigaoka might not even have remembered.
The Yukino of the past and the Yukino of the present seemed so different to Kasumigaoka that, without realizing it, she had started treating the two sides of Yukino as two separate people.
Kasumigaoka looked awkward. "...Maybe there was some misunderstanding?"
Eriri stared at her in disbelief, her expression growing increasingly aggrieved. "Then what about when she called me a brainless idiot and said I deserved to keep getting cheated on despite being blonde—that was a misunderstanding too???"
Kasumigaoka: "..."
Eriri's eyes reddened. "We agreed we'd hate her together, but now Tomo and you..."
She rubbed her eyes, her voice choked with sobs. "So now I'm the only one left behind?"
Kasumigaoka felt guilty. "Um, actually, Yukino's changed her ways now..."
"I don't care about that!" Eriri tossed her ponytails. "Kasumigaoka and Tomo are both idiots. It's just Yukino, for crying out loud. You're the only ones who'd fall for her tricks!"
Her eyes were red, but her expression was stubborn.
"Even if I spend a whole month around Yukino, I'll hate her more than ever. I'll never weaken, and I'll never compromise!"
Kasumigaoka: "..."
Actually, she wanted to ask Eriri something.
You were so determined to give yourself away—were you acting out Calabash Brothers Save Grandpa or what?
The universally dreaded monthly schoolwide exam at Sobu High School finally began.
Two days had also passed since the Warehouse Incident, when the three of them had stared at one another in the storage room.
"Yukino, did you bring all your pens?"
Before the exam, Miura specifically asked Yukino if she was prepared.
Yukino nodded.
But after asking, Miura picked up Yukino's pens and checked them one by one. Only after confirming that they were all fine did she hand them back.
"I heard Teacher Fukukon is one of the teachers setting questions for the second-years this time, Yukino."
Yukino tilted her head slightly and looked at Miura.
Miura knew that this was how the taciturn Yukino expressed confusion.
Teacher Fukukon was a stern, strict old teacher at Sobu High School. Whenever he set exam questions, they were always extremely difficult.
Naturally, that brought countless students to their knees in despair.
"With Teacher Fukukon setting questions, this exam will probably be pretty hard." Miura lowered her voice. "Even if you find the questions tough, don't panic. The exam will be hard for everyone."
Yukino nodded again.
Maybe it was because she wasn't wearing that unapproachable expression. Even without saying a word, she looked especially well-behaved right now.
Miura even wanted to pat her on the head, but in the end she managed to restrain herself.
Yukino looked at her in confusion, unsure why Miura seemed so worried.
Even her own mother had never worried so much about all the different aspects of her life.
Come to think of it, her parents rarely paid attention to her. They hardly ever attended her school events.
They were busy with work and had to attend all kinds of important functions. Things like parent-teacher meetings, where the time spent was inversely proportional to the returns, were basically never on their list of priorities.
Yukino breathed out softly and let those thoughts drift away.
She had been through this countless times already, and no longer had any feelings to spare for it.
Clearing her mind of every distraction, Yukino spread out the exam paper, uncapped her pen, wrote her name, and began answering the questions.
At that moment, the exam paper was her battlefield, and her pen was her sword.
At that moment, she no longer forced herself to seek other people's approval or affection. She was fighting only for herself.
Her life had already been turned into a complete mess by Blonde Yukino. She no longer needed to place unreasonable expectations on anyone.
This month's practice exam was really difficult. Even Yui, whose grades were below average, found it a struggle.
She'd done her best to review the key points Yumiko had picked out for her at the last minute. First she answered the questions she felt certain she could get right, then gritted her teeth and tackled the ones she had some idea about but wasn't sure of. Finally, she all but gave up on the difficult questions she had no clue how to solve.
Even if she studied for another ten years, she'd never be able to solve those. So there was no point in making herself feel bad about it~
This was the super-optimistic way Yui Yuigahama tackled exams!
Japanese, geography and history, civics, science, and foreign language: after six subjects over two days, it was Friday, and the weekend break began as soon as the exams ended.
Before school let out, Teacher Hiratsuka came in for the usual homeroom lecture, earnestly persuading them—by force.
She smacked the desk loudly with her lesson plan while cheerfully warning that anyone whose practice exam scores next week were too awful would be put on the school's retake exam list.
The class groaned again.
Yui felt guilty too. Even with Yumiko's help cramming at the last minute, she figured she'd fail at least one subject.
She glanced over at Yukino without thinking. Yukino still looked calm, as if it hadn't even crossed her mind that she might end up on the retake list.
Yui leaned back over her desk, lost in thought.
By the time of the Warehouse Incident, Yui Yuigahama had been forced to face a truth, no matter how unwilling she was to admit it.
Yukino really wasn't the same Yukino as before.
Back then, she and Yukino had been partners in failing classes and retaking exams.
Yukino would give her a dazzling smile that showed all eight teeth. She would dye her hair all sorts of weird colors, discuss with Yui which nearby nail salon was truly amazing, and affectionately call her Yui.
Of course, she would also painfully and reluctantly draw a line between them. She told Yui that she had actually fallen for Hikigaya. She mercilessly berated Yui for being brainless and deserving to be deceived, and said she had only approached her because she had been on good terms with Hikigaya at the time.
For the girl who had just started high school, her first friendship had come from Yukino, and so had her first betrayal.
She had tried her best to convince herself that there was nothing to be done about it; Yukino was just that kind of person, and Yukino had changed her appearance again.
She treated everyone coldly. She was as silent as ice buried beneath the snow. It was as if she had never known Yui.
She called her "Yuigahama."
Yui couldn't tell which hurt more: being abandoned or being treated coldly.
That day, in the dark and silence of the locked storage room, timid Yui had finally found a certain kind of courage.
She said, "Yumiko's my most important friend. I don't want her to end up hurting the way I did."
The room was silent. Yukino gave her no response.
Yui continued, "I told you before that if you wanted to use me or make a mistake, you could do it to me... I still mean that, Yukino."
Yukino still said nothing.
Yui sighed softly. "You don't need to feel like you can't bring yourself to do it. It's not like this is the first time it's happened to me... I can handle more of it than Yumiko can."
Silence.
At last, Yui realized something was wrong.
She hurried forward a couple of steps. In the faint light from the doorway, she saw Yukino curled up on the floor, hugging her knees and trembling.
"Yukino? What's wrong? Say something!"
Yui anxiously crouched and reached out, only to touch Yukino's sweaty forehead and cheek.
Before you continue