"Do you know? When people want to do—or have already done—something they don't want to admit to, but still want to know what others think about them doing that sort of thing, they'll often make excuses like, 'I have a friend who did this and that...'"
Eriri and the others understood the "making up a friend out of nowhere" joke, but what did that have to do with the blow Sogo had just mentioned? They were thoroughly puzzled. "So?"
"Mashiro really does have such a friend..." Sogo Doma said, raising an index finger with a radiant grin. "And not the superficial kind of friend, either!"
The moment he said that, Yukino Yukinoshita AND Eriri Sawamura felt the agony of being instantly slain: ▄█?█● They dropped to their knees.
Damn it, wasn't Doma just trying to mock them for not having had friends before?
Still:
"Wait a second..." Though it had been called an instant kill, they had more or less gotten used to it by now. Yukino Yukinoshita especially had been repeatedly provoked by Doma and Kasumigaoka to the point where she could even say, like a certain someone, "What storm hasn't she weathered?"
A blow like that was nothing—Miss Yukinoshita could revive at full health in seconds!
"Doma..." Yukino Yukinoshita even managed to wear a smile as refreshing as a spring breeze. For some reason, though, the temperature around her seemed to have dropped by several degrees. Then again, considering the phenomenon of late spring cold snaps, well, there seemed to be nothing wrong with that.
"Are you changing the subject right now?"
"Hm?"
"What does any of this have to do with you calling yourself Mashiro's owner?" The second young lady's smile remained unchanged—though so did the illusion of falling temperatures...
"Of course it's related..." Only Sogo Doma