"Katsura, it seems I was being too presumptuous..." Sogo Doma said again. "I thought the reason you stood by and watched this girl sneak food without reacting was because..."
"Sogo!" Kotaro Katsura interrupted before he could finish.
"Was I wrong?" Sogo Doma blinked and looked at Honoka Kosaka and the others. "You dare say you didn't know from the start that someone was tailing them?" Hearing this, Nico Yazawa, still curled up in on herself, went silent. "..." What!?
?
"Mr. Katsura?" Honoka Kosaka and the others were equally stunned.
"Otonokizaka Academy's idol club was founded a very, very long time ago..." Kotaro Katsura said, answering a question with another question. "And at its peak, it had countless members..."
"Shut up!" Nico Yazawa panicked before he could finish.
"Ah..." Kotaro Katsura merely glanced at her. "Why can't I say it? If I remember correctly, you weren't the president of the idol club back then, were you?"
"Shut up, shut up..."
"Mr. Katsura?" The sight left Muse utterly dumbfounded.
"Running away was never a solution!" Kotaro Katsura said. "Facing the problem head-on is the proper path. Besides, it wasn't your fault to begin with!"
"What do you know?" Nico Yazawa shot back.
"I probably know everything I need to know..." Kotaro Katsura said. "A group of young people with dreams of becoming idols came together, but unfortunately, they couldn't make it to the end for all kinds of reasons. You said Muse wasn't qualified to become idols—wasn't that because you saw the shadows of your former selves in Honoka and the others?"
"You..."
"However..." Kotaro Katsura continued, "Kotori and the others are different from how you all were back then. They won't give up halfway through. Just watching them lets you see that force that keeps moving forward..." Honoka Kosaka and