The moment Yui touched Yukino, the girl suddenly tackled her and clung to her tightly, as if she were a drowning person desperately grasping at a straw floating on the water.
"Don't leave me..."
Her eyes were squeezed shut, her fingers trembled, and her whole body shuddered in the darkness.
Her faint voice, thick with tears, sounded like a taut string on the verge of snapping.
"Don't go. Please, big sister..."
Later, Yumiko told Yui that when Yukino was little, some classmates had locked her in the school bathroom with the lights off. She had called for help for nearly the entire night, but no one had come.
After that, she'd probably developed a bit of a fear of the dark.
A bit? Yui had never seen Yukino so completely broken and out of control.
At the time, Yui had just stood there, dumbfounded.
How ironic. She didn't even know something like that about her friend.
What kind of friend was she, really...?
The exam results wouldn't come out until next week, but everyone already looked like wilted leaves under the scorching sun.
For young people who hadn't been through much yet, failing an exam, breaking up, or being rejected by someone they had a crush on could feel like the end of the world.
In the classroom, Miura grabbed Yui by the collar just as she tried to sneak away, and snapped, "As we agreed, you're coming to my house this weekend to study!"
The pink-haired dumpling let out a pained cry.
"...Can it wait until next week?"
Miura sneered. "Retakes start next week. Are you trying to set a new class record by failing yours?"
Yui felt so embarrassed. "All right, all right, I'll come for tutoring..."
Her expressions were vivid and lively. Whether happy or downcast, she had the sort of cheerful, energetic charm that made people feel at ease just by looking at her.
Yukino had heard that Yui was popular not just in their class, but with the younger students and the older ones, too.
It wasn't hard to understand. Everyone liked things that were cute and sweet.
Unlike Yukino, who was cold, sharp-tongued, and difficult to get along with—like a shard of clear ice, cold and cutting.
Whenever the adorable, sweet rice dumpling accidentally met the ice shard's gaze, she always looked a little guilty and uneasy, then instinctively looked away.
[The system has selected the best option to reverse your Negative Image: comfort Yui.]
Comfort her?
Was she upset?
The thought circled through Yukino's mind a few times before she finally understood. Perhaps Yui felt guilty about the Warehouse Incident a couple of days ago.
Kamizawa and Ono had been chasing each other down the hallway for some reason. In the end, Ono gave a dramatic little cry and leaped into Kamizawa's arms like a launched cannonball, knocking her back several steps and nearly sending her into the wall.
Whenever the two of them got together, they were always childish and affectionate like that. Miura's brow twitched as she hurried after them.
"Hey, hey! Don't do anything that dangerous in the hallway!"
"Be careful not to fall!"
Miura could be incredibly childish about certain things, but at times like this, she acted like a nagging mother.
Only Yukino and Yui remained where they were.
Yukino thought for a moment. "Yui."
Yui Yuigahama nearly snapped to attention and saluted. "Yes!"
Yukino tilted her head and glanced at her. "What happened that time was an accident. Don't dwell on it."
Yui froze. She lowered her head in silence and murmured, "Oh."
It hadn't been an accident. It had all happened because of her foolishness and self-righteous assumptions.
After Yukino had been overcome with fear in the darkness that day, she'd fainted. Yui and Yumiko had taken her to the infirmary together.
The school nurse was nearly at her wit's end with them, since they were practically regulars in the infirmary.
That day, Yui had seen Yukino lying in bed, her brow furrowed in pain even in her sleep.
Her forehead was damp, and tear tracks streaked her face.
She had nearly broken down in the sudden darkness.
Yui felt guilty and regretful. Even though she herself had experienced pain, she never wanted Yukino to suffer like that.
When she came back to herself, Miura had finished lecturing Junko and Kaho and was stomping back, still fuming. She happened to overhear them.
"What accident?"
Without changing her expression, Yukino pushed Miura's head back around. "You're scolding everyone else, but you were running around the hallway yourself."
"Oh, come on. Teacher Hiratsuka isn't here, so what accident are you talking about~?"
Yui smiled as she helped Yukino out. "It's about what happened in the warehouse that day..."
Miura's expression briefly faltered before she smiled. "Oh, right. That really was an accident. Yui, don't overthink it."
Yukino had woken up soon after they took her to the infirmary. She'd said the warehouse door had accidentally blown shut in the wind.
She'd said she was sorry, that she had a slight fear of the dark but had mostly recovered, and that it had only happened because she'd been caught off guard and the warehouse was so dark.
She'd told Miura not to worry.
Back then, Yui had thought that Yukino used to say "Don't worry" only to her.
Yukino said nothing about the brief confrontation between herself and Yui. Naturally, Miura had no way of knowing about it either.
Twisting a lock of golden hair around her finger, Miura turned her face away, looking awkward.
"Junko, Kaho, and Yui are all coming to my house to study this weekend, so, um, Yukino, do you... do you want to come too?"
Even though she'd found a reason to invite her, she was still terribly shy.
Or rather, she always found it easy to get shy around Yukino.
"No. I have to go home this weekend."
Miura looked puzzled. "So you've never gone home before?"
Yukino nodded. "I rent a place."
Miura really did want to learn more about Yukino, but the situation and timing weren't right. All she could manage was a stiff, "Oh."
"Then have a nice weekend, Yukino," Yui said from beside them, smiling softly.
"What's that supposed to mean? Yumiko only wished Yukino a nice weekend?" Miura said.
Miura immediately grew flustered and angry. "What kind of nice weekend do you think you're getting, Yui? You're going to do problems, so get to it!"
The pink-haired girl let out an adorable, dejected whimper.
"I'm home..."
When Miura got home, her parents weren't there.
Both of Miura's parents were senior executives at the city's medical group, and work had been busy lately. Still, they paid close attention to their only precious daughter.
When she went to the fridge for a cold drink, she saw a sticky note that read, [Don't drink too many cold drinks. Dinner's in the kitchen.]
In the kitchen, there was a note on the rice cooker: [I made Yumiko's favorite chicken wings. There's a surprise for you behind the sofa.]
Back in the living room, Yumiko knelt on the sofa and stretched to retrieve the gift her parents had hidden behind it.
It was a full set of cosmetics from a famous brand's latest line, probably worth around five hundred thousand yen altogether.
Miura went back to her room and started unwrapping the gift, unable to stop thinking about Yukino.
She'd grown up surrounded by the love of her parents and their friends. She couldn't even imagine what Yukino's Living Environment was like.
That rich girl obviously came from an incredibly complicated family. She looked like a pitiful little thing, unloved by both her father and mother.
Now that she was going home this week, would something awful happen to her?
—I can't stop worrying.
Miura set the half-unwrapped gift aside on her bed and took out her phone. She opened Yukino's Line chat, but after hesitating and editing her message over and over, she still didn't send anything.
Even friends could be too clingy, couldn't they?
She let out a long breath and lay down on her side. That was when she noticed the can of cola on her bedside table.
It was the first gift Yukino had ever given her.
Miura thought back to the Warehouse Incident. When she'd seen Yukino hugging Yui, her mind had roared with static, and tears had welled up in her eyes without her realizing it.
Why?
Miura asked herself.
Why had she cried?
Japan's administrative divisions weren't quite like those in other countries. Prefectures were larger than cities; for example, Chiba City fell under the jurisdiction of Chiba Prefecture. A prefecture was nominally called a prefecture, but its administrative level was roughly comparable to a province or state elsewhere.
Of course, only roughly.
Yukino's father was not only a prefectural assembly member, but also the head of one of the most prominent construction companies in the prefecture. Madam Yukinoshita, meanwhile, was a prominent figure in Chiba's education, charity, and social circles.
Throughout Chiba Prefecture, the Yukinoshita name belonged to a powerful family that could not be ignored.
Yukino had grown up in a family like that.
"Madam will surely be very happy to see you home, Miss," Mr. Ito said with a smile as he drove.
Yukino's schoolbag sat neatly on the other side of the back seat. She held her hands in loose fists on her lap and gazed calmly out the window.
At his words, she simply replied, "It'll be enough if Mom doesn't get a headache because of me."
Mr. Ito said, "That was before. You're different now, Miss."
How could she possibly be different?
Although she thought that, Yukino still felt nervous.
In the eyes of everyone else, she had only been away from home for a little over a month. In reality, though, Yukino hadn't seen her family for a year and four months.
How would they regard her? How would they view Yukino, who had disappeared for so long and then suddenly returned?
Yukino looked at the progress bar on the system page and pressed her lips together slightly.
[Negative Image: 60%, possession success rate: 60%]
Over the past month, she'd first farmed points from Miura, then from Yui and Kasumigaoka. Only then had she managed to raise her Negative Image and possession success rate to this level.
60%.
That was still a rather high probability.
In other words, she still hadn't completely eliminated the possibility of being possessed?
Just then, the system, which was always hopping around after she poked it, had been struck in a sensitive spot—[strikethrough]—a keyword.
[Achieve the top score in the entire school to receive an achievement reward.]
Well, this was the first time Yukino had seen the point-farming system mention anything other than farming points!
What's more, Yukino remembered that getting the top score in the school had originally been one of the three main quests the Unscrupulous System had given her to reverse her Negative Image.
But because the quest took too long and its success rate was too low—just 31%—Yukino had abandoned it and chosen the option with the highest success rate: making up a story about liking girls.
She also remembered another option involving dating some very earnest boy.
[System, does that mean every completed main quest comes with an achievement reward?]
This time, the system responded. [Once the host selects a main quest, all remaining quests become side quests.]
[Do I have to complete this thing?]
Before you continue