What did "three men make a tiger" mean?
If one person claimed a tiger had appeared in a bustling market, surely few would believe it. If two people said so, people would be half-convinced and half-doubtful. But if three people claimed a tiger had appeared in the market, people would rush out to watch the spectacle...
It was actually a simple, easy-to-understand principle, yet countless stories of "three men make a tiger" still unfolded in this country.
This was especially common in school bullying.
Utaha Kasumigaoka had experienced it before. While she was being ostracized...
"That Kasumigaoka girl is obviously a slut, yet she acts so aloof all day!"
"She must be hard to get along with, right?"
"She doesn't have any friends at all!"
"Just look at how she acts like she's trying to seduce men. Who'd dare associate with her?"
"Exactly!"
The more isolated and rejected someone was, the more likely they were to fall into the trap of "three men make a tiger."
And now...
Utaha Kasumigaoka had encountered another kind of "three men make a tiger."
When one person said your partner wasn't good enough for you, you could laugh it off. But what if two people said it? What if it wasn't two or three people, but everyone you met around you?
Would you start wondering, Could it be that I really was blind to fall for that guy?
These boys had learned nothing else, but they had mastered the art of bullying. Or rather, they were bullying Sogo Doma right now, preparing to isolate him.
Except...
The person they faced was Utaha Kasumigaoka, who had once been bullied through precisely this kind of cold violence and rumor-spreading.
And Utaha Kasumigaoka was not the only one in this class who had suffered through that.