Ichinose's Confession

Seeing that Shiraishi Makoto had seen right through her, Ichinose Honami gave an awkward smile.

"Just as I thought. I can't hide anything from you, Shiraishi."

"You couldn't even be bothered to come up with a decent excuse. That flimsy lie was so obvious even Shiranami could see through it at a glance." Shiraishi Makoto rolled his eyes helplessly.

"And you haven't even considered one thing. Even if pretending to be lovers makes her back off for now, once we 'break up,' if Shiranami still can't let go, she'll come looking for you again. So all this effort is pointless."

"This isn't even kindness anymore. You've backed yourself into a corner and nearly become obsessed."

At Shiraishi Makoto's words, Ichinose Honami suddenly shuddered.

"What's wrong?" Ichinose's reaction was clearly unusual. Shiraishi Makoto thought he might have been too harsh, so he quickly softened his tone.

"N-no, it's nothing..." Faced with Shiraishi Makoto's concern, Ichinose Honami managed a strained smile and gently shook her head.

"Then what happened? Would you be willing to tell me?" Shiraishi Makoto could clearly feel that Ichinose Honami's whole demeanor had crumbled just moments ago.

Ichinose Honami turned her face toward him. Meeting his serious gaze, she was silent for a long while before speaking in a hoarse voice:

"The truth is... I'm a criminal."

"?" Hearing how she began, Shiraishi Makoto understood what she wanted to tell him.

But he had no reason to know about it yet, so he could only pretend to be confused and listen closely. "Why do you say that?"

"My family is a single-parent household. My mother raised my younger sister and me on her own. We weren't well-off, but I still thought we were very happy." As she talked about her family, Ichinose Honami smiled warmly and continued recounting her past. "But when I was in my third year of middle school, my mother suddenly fell ill and was hospitalized. She was the pillar of our family, and our only source of income at the time. My younger sister's birthday was coming up, and I knew she wanted a hair clip just like one worn by a certain celebrity."

"So I went to a convenience store and asked if I could work there, but you had to be a high school student at the very least to get a part-time job. And that hair clip was a limited-edition item. Once the collaboration ended, it wouldn't be sold again." Ichinose Honami looked sad as she spoke. "I wanted my sister to have the perfect birthday, so I took a chance and stole the hair clip."

"And then?" Shiraishi Makoto offered no opinion, quietly listening.

"I could have told my sister I'd saved up and bought it, but I couldn't fool my mother." Ichinose Honami continued, "My mother found the hair clip. After she was discharged, she took me to the store to confess and return it. The store forgave me, but there's no denying that I did something illegal."

"Because of that, I didn't go to school at all during my third year of middle school. I was too afraid to face my classmates."

"That's probably why I ended up in Class B." Ichinose Honami gave a bitter smile and lowered her head, her eyes full of shame and self-reproach. "Shiraishi, do you think someone like me is really qualified to lead the class or be a member of the Student Council?"

Ichinose lowered her head, her voice trembling slightly. But after waiting for about ten seconds, she still got no response from Shiraishi Makoto.

She lifted her head again and found him wearing an expression like he wanted to say something but couldn't. His gaze was also strangely difficult to read.

"If there's something you want to say, Shiraishi, go ahead."

"Ichinose, if that's what you think, then are the more flawed Class C and Class D full of murderers?"

"Huh? That's not what I meant..." Ichinose Honami panicked and quickly waved her hands.

"I know that's not what you meant. I just think you're taking this too seriously, Ichinose." Shiraishi Makoto finally understood why Ichinose Honami had suddenly brought it up.

Ichinose Honami took her mistake too seriously. Because of a petty theft, she held herself to such a harsh standard that she felt she had to devote herself to good deeds. It was almost like self-punishment.

That was why she'd reacted so strongly when Shiraishi Makoto said she'd become obsessed.

It was also why she had always been so naive and weak in the original story. She placed herself beneath everyone else and saw herself as a criminal, helping anyone she could as a way to "atone."

In a way, she and Kushida Kikyo had similar circumstances. They both had a past they didn't want others to know about, but they'd taken completely opposite paths.

"But what I did was illegal. I did something wrong..." Ichinose was still stubbornly clinging to her fixation.

"You did do something illegal, but we have to consider the circumstances. For example, killing a protected animal is a crime—but what if that animal attacked you in the wild?"

"But I deliberately committed a crime..."

"First of all, you didn't do it for yourself." Shiraishi Makoto interrupted Ichinose Honami. "You stole it because your mother was sick. You couldn't bring yourself to ask your ill mother for money out of filial concern, but your sister's birthday was coming up, and you wanted to give her the perfect present."

"Legally speaking, it was a crime, but society needs compassion, too. That's why the store owner forgave you and didn't report you, and why the school placed you in Class B instead of Class D."

"I'd even bet that the reason you were placed in Class B had absolutely nothing to do with your petty theft. It was because you shut yourself away in your room afterward, stopped going to school, and the school thought you might have psychological problems."

"Why do you say that?" Listening to Shiraishi Makoto, Ichinose Honami found it hard to believe.

In her mind, anyone with a history of stealing deserved to be despised and shunned.

"It's simple. By ordinary standards, what you did really isn't worth making a fuss over." Shiraishi Makoto shook his head.

Even after Shiraishi Makoto said that, the furrow in Ichinose Honami's brow didn't ease.

This had been weighing on her for the past year, and she was also incredibly stubborn. Shiraishi Makoto knew he couldn't talk her out of it just by arguing.

"Honestly, given your current state of mind, I can't convince you." Shiraishi Makoto thought for a while. "Tomorrow in class, I'll tell everyone what happened, exactly as it was. Then we'll let them decide whether you can keep leading the class."

"I..." Hearing Shiraishi Makoto's plan, Ichinose Honami instinctively wanted to refuse, but when she met his serious gaze, the words died in her throat.

"All right." Perhaps she had thought of something. Ichinose Honami closed her eyes and agreed to let Shiraishi Makoto go ahead.

Watching Ichinose Honami resign herself to fate, Shiraishi Makoto stood and held out his hand.

"Then let's go."

"Huh?" Ichinose Honami opened her eyes and stared at the hand Shiraishi Makoto had offered, momentarily at a loss.

"I already told you: in my eyes, this doesn't count as a stain at all. If anything, it only makes me more certain that you're absolutely someone I can trust, Ichinose." Shiraishi Makoto spoke earnestly.

"No matter what our classmates think, I believe being friends with you is something to be happy about."

"Let's go get something to eat."

Listening to Shiraishi Makoto, Ichinose felt her eyes grow hot. A few tears slipped down her cheeks. She hurriedly wiped them away with her sleeve, then gently took his hand.

"Yeah!"