Yukinoshita's Correction Method

"In order to make everything logical and reasonable, he also has to add settings like being the reincarnation of a legendary warrior, chosen by God, or some kind of agency operative, and then act according to those settings." Yui Yuigahama sighed, recalling the helplessness on her friend's face when she talked about it. "He writes action reports at regular intervals and submits them. To save the world, he even uses clothespins to build the strongest robot, refines self-defense weapons out of rubber bands and aluminum foil, and uses his dad's coat and his mom's faux-fur scarf for role-playing..."

"I understand." Yukino Yukinoshita summed it up. "This classmate, who is about to become a second-year high school student, is acting out scenarios based on settings he created himself, just like a second-year middle school student."

"Mm-hmm." Yui Yuigahama had not expected Yukino Yukinoshita to understand so quickly. "That's pretty much it."

Yukino Yukinoshita pressed her cherry lips together lightly. "This is bad."

Yui Yuigahama: "What's bad?"

The Service Club was in trouble.

Yukino Yukinoshita turned her gaze in one direction.

Yui Yuigahama followed her gaze and saw Dong Yunshan.

Dong Yunshan had one foot planted on a chair. He slapped his right hand against his thigh, then held two fingers together like a sword and pointed them at Yoshiteru Zaimokuza. "You wretched Swordmaster General. Do you truly refuse to speak?"

Yoshiteru Zaimokuza, who had gradually curled into a ball during Yui Yuigahama's account, suddenly had his eyes light up. Then his face filled with resolve. "Truly!"

Dong Yunshan leaned forward slightly and lowered his voice. "You really won't talk?"

Yoshiteru Zaimokuza threw back his head and laughed. "Really!"

"A true hero!" Dong Yunshan swept his hand grandly. "In that case, I won't force you. I respect you as a real man, so I shall let you go!"

"You're letting me go?"

"How could such a hero be buried here?" Dong Yunshan cupped his hands. "The green mountains will not change, and the clear waters will flow forever."

Yoshiteru Zaimokuza returned the gesture solemnly. "When we meet again in years to come, until that day."

Dong Yunshan raised a hand toward the door. "Please!"

Yoshiteru Zaimokuza turned and left. "Farewell!"

Dong Yunshan casually closed the door. "Done."

Club Activities: As Always

Yukino Yukinoshita had known it would turn out like this.

Dong Yunshan's habitual formalism came from the emptiness in his heart. He could not even confirm his own existence, and could only package himself through imitation in form.

At its core, this situation was the same as Yoshiteru Zaimokuza acting out scenarios based on settings he had created himself.

If one had to point out a difference, it was that the setting Dong Yunshan had created was an ordinary student, while Yoshiteru Zaimokuza's setting was a student with superpowers.

Judging from Dong Yunshan's behavioral logic of even changing into a butler outfit for Service Club activities, when he faced Yoshiteru Zaimokuza, this chuunibyou case, he would absolutely switch instantly into the same chuunibyou mode.

That was Yukino Yukinoshita's judgment.

And the situation was exactly as she had judged.

"This..." Yui Yuigahama stared, dumbfounded. "That worked?"

"Easy." Dong Yunshan made a gesture as if he had everything in his grasp. "This is the Service Club, not an interrogation room. If he doesn't want to talk, just let him go back and think about it."

"Of course that won't do." Yukino Yukinoshita's fine brows furrowed slightly. "This is the Service Club. Since he came here, we can't let him leave like that."

"I didn't let him leave." Dong Yunshan corrected her. "He left on his own."

"You guided him into leaving with your words." Yukino Yukinoshita shot him a sideways glance. "You're avoiding his problem, and you're also teaching him to avoid his problem."

"Um..." Yui Yuigahama pointed at the round window in the door. "He doesn't seem to have left."

Dong Yunshan opened the door, and sure enough, Yoshiteru Zaimokuza was still outside.

"Ahem." Yoshiteru Zaimokuza avoided the three of them's gazes. "I... after much deliberation, I still..."

Dong Yunshan was just about to get into character when Yukino Yukinoshita spoke first. "In short, your request is to cure this problem of yours, correct?"

"Um, I..." Yoshiteru Zaimokuza turned to look at Dong Yunshan. "I heard Teacher Hiratsuka's counsel and came here... Friend Dong Yun, according to the arrangement of fate, I shall..."

"I'm the one talking to you right now." Yukino Yukinoshita reminded him in an icy voice. "Not him."

"One day apart feels like three autumns." Dong Yunshan cupped his hands. "Please!"

And so Yoshiteru Zaimokuza sat back down in the chair from earlier. "I..."

Yukino Yukinoshita's gaze grew even colder. "Don't talk like that."

"..." Yoshiteru Zaimokuza did not dare speak anymore.

"Why are you wearing a coat?" Yukino Yukinoshita looked him up and down. "At school, you should wear your uniform."

"This is one of my twelve divine artifacts. After I reincarnated into this world, I specifically transformed it into the form most suited to this body..."

Yukino Yukinoshita crossed her arms in front of her. "Watch your wording."

"Ah..." Yoshiteru Zaimokuza shrank into a ball. "Yes."

"What's the meaning of your fingerless gloves?" Yukino Yukinoshita discovered a new problem. "They can't protect your fingertips like that."

"Mm, ah, uh... These are one of the twelve divine artifacts I inherited from my previous life, special gauntlets capable of shooting adamant steel wires. In order to operate them freely, the fingertips were deliberately left exposed... I—"

Yukino Yukinoshita's cold eyes narrowed slightly.

Yoshiteru Zaimokuza's voice stopped abruptly.

"Dong Yun..." Yui Yuigahama lowered her voice. "This really isn't an interrogation room, is it?"

Dong Yunshan said, "In my humble opinion, this place has already—"

Yukino Yukinoshita shot him a vicious glare.

"I mean... if this questioning keeps going, it really will turn into an interrogation room." With no one playing along, Dong Yunshan lost interest in his one-man act too. "Zaimokuza, is there anything I can help you with?"

"I... I wrote a light novel and want to submit it to a newcomer award," Yoshiteru Zaimokuza said with a light cough. "But because I don't have any friends, I can't hear anyone's impressions, so I wanted to find someone to help read it."

Yui Yuigahama tilted her head. "You just said something really sad like it was nothing..."

"If it's a light novel, you should get light novel readers to judge it," Dong Yunshan said bluntly. "Which one of us looks like we'd read light novels?"

Yoshiteru Zaimokuza glanced over them.

A fitness enthusiast who was often absent and only occasionally showed up to class;

An elegant, overbearing young lady from a wealthy family;

A beautifully made-up, flashily dressed, very normie pretty girl.

It did seem like none of them looked like they would read light novels.

"Aren't there lots of weird websites for that?" Yui Yuigahama suggested. "You could put it online and let everyone take a look."

"No." Yoshiteru Zaimokuza flatly refused. "They talk too directly. If they criticize it as completely worthless, I might die."

Online, no one knew each other, so of course people didn't have many scruples when they spoke.

If it was classmates from the same school, they would at least be a little considerate.

Logically, that was how it should be.

However...

Dong Yunshan turned to look at Yukino Yukinoshita.

Yukino Yukinoshita looked back at him in confusion, not understanding why.

Although Dong Yunshan felt this was not a good choice, Yoshiteru Zaimokuza had brought it up, so the Service Club could not simply ignore it.

When he came to the Service Club again the next day, Dong Yunshan had a bad feeling.

Today's Service Club would probably really turn into an interrogation room.

He just hadn't expected there to be such a beautiful sight in the interrogation room.

Yukino Yukinoshita was sitting in her usual seat, but unlike before, she was not reading. Instead, her eyes were closed as she dozed.

There was clearly a desk right in front of her, yet she had not laid herself down on it. Her hands rested over her legs as she sat properly, her head swaying in tiny motions, her smooth black hair swaying along with it.

Normally, if Dong Yunshan so much as looked at her a couple more times, it would basically count as a declaration of war.

But now, even after he looked several times, Yukino Yukinoshita still sat there quietly.

Her closed eyes did not have their usual coldness. For the first time, Dong Yunshan noticed that Yukino Yukinoshita's eyelashes were very long, their curved shape catching the sunlight and rippling with a hazy halo.

There was no sternness on her snow-soft face, and her pink, crystal-clear lips were not pressed together, making her whole aura turn gentle.

For a moment, Dong Yunshan could not even connect the way she looked now with how she usually was.

"...Mm." Her lips moved slightly, and Yukino Yukinoshita opened her eyes. The dazed expression lasted only an instant before vanishing completely. "I was wondering why I was having a nightmare. So it was because you came."

"I was wondering why the temperature suddenly dropped." Dong Yunshan finally managed to connect the person before him with the image in his memories. "So it was because you woke up."

Today, the atmosphere in the Service Club was as harmonious as ever.

"You're as energetic as ever today." Yukino Yukinoshita covered her mouth and yawned, then stretched deeply. "It seems I underestimated your stamina. After reading all that, you're still this lively."

Her slender body tensed and stretched, pressing her school uniform into a beautiful curve.

The way Yukino Yukinoshita stretched really made her look like a cat that had gotten its fill of sun.

"Looks like reading it was pretty rough for you." Dong Yunshan even had the urge to put a cat-ear headband on her. "Don't tell me you finished it all in one night?"

"Yes. It's been a long time since I stayed up late, and I've never read works of this kind before." Yukino Yukinoshita rubbed her soft cheek. "The process was torment. It seems I can't bring myself to like it."

"Hm?" Perhaps because she had just woken up, Yukino Yukinoshita's reaction was a little slower than usual, but she still caught the key point. "From the way you said that, you haven't finished reading it?"

"I'm the one who wants to ask why you finished it."

"This is a request to the Service Club." Yukino Yukinoshita's gaze sharpened. "Naturally, it should be treated seriously."

"Looks like you really haven't read light novels before." Dong Yunshan pulled over a chair and sat down. "A so-called light novel is a novel you can read lightly. If I can't keep reading it, that's his problem, not mine."

"Stopping as soon as you discover one problem is irresponsible of you." Yukino Yukinoshita rose from her chair, looking down from above with an unfriendly gaze. "The Service Club's reputation will only get worse and worse because of that irresponsible attitude of yours."

"On the contrary, the person who will affect the Service Club's reputation is you, the one who forced yourself to finish it." Dong Yunshan stood, immediately going from the one being looked down on to the one looking down. "Teach a man to fish rather than give him a fish. That was the principle you proposed. And you, trying to find every problem in Zaimokuza's work, are depriving him of the right to discover those problems himself."

"My principle is not an excuse for you to slack off." Yukino Yukinoshita took a step forward to increase the pressure, her icy gaze like Snape seeing Harry Potter cast Sectumsempra.

"Laziness is the ladder of human progress." Dong Yunshan likewise took a step forward and raised his hand, waving it over Yukino Yukinoshita's head. "And now, the difference is clear."

"Guh..." Yukino Yukinoshita rose slightly on tiptoe. "Whether a human succeeds or fails is not determined by external characteristics. Even if victory or defeat truly had to be decided by physique, it should be judged through a relative evaluation based on overall balance..."

Just as the two of them stared each other down, neither giving an inch, a lively voice rang out.

"Yahallo~" The bright and lively Yui Yuigahama pulled the door open and walked in. "Dong Yunshan, Yukino—I, I didn't see anything!"

Yukino Yukinoshita was standing on tiptoe, letting Dong Yunshan pat her head!

So... so cute!

One more look.

By the time Yui Yuigahama, who had instinctively looked away, shifted her gaze back again, Dong Yunshan and Yukino Yukinoshita had already gone their separate ways.

"Remember to knock when you come in." Yukino Yukinoshita returned to her seat and sat down. "And I believe I told you that your misunderstandings make me very unhappy."

"I was actually going to ask what you thought," Dong Yunshan said, looking Yui Yuigahama up and down as she practically sparkled with energy, "but seeing how lively you are, I'm guessing you didn't get through many pages."

"I didn't mean to interrupt you two, so why are you suddenly ganging up on me?" Yui Yuigahama said, looking pitiful. "You two actually get along really well, don't you?"

"It doesn't matter if you didn't read it." Yukino Yukinoshita didn't want Yui Yuigahama to have any more strange misunderstandings. "It was enough that I read it alone."

"I didn't read many pages either." Dong Yunshan had only said it offhand, but when paired with Yukino Yukinoshita's words, it ended up sounding a little too cutting, so he tried to patch it up with a couple more lines. "This isn't your fault."

"Now you're comforting me together too..." Yui Yuigahama was completely baffled by the change in their attitude. After thinking it over, she reached a conclusion. "So you two really are especially close."

Dong Yunshan & Yukino Yukinoshita: "..."

Knock, knock, knock.

"I have arrived as promised!" Yoshiteru Zaimokuza announced, striding in with great confidence. He plopped down onto a chair and crossed his arms imposingly over his chest, his slightly bulky body seeming even bulkier thanks to his inflated self-confidence. "Now then, let me hear everyone's thoughts."

Speaking of thoughts... Dong Yunshan tried to recall the contents of the work.

To put it simply, it used a certain city as its stage, depicting a mysterious organization and superpowered people with memories of past lives appearing and vanishing like ghosts in the night. Then, an utterly ordinary young male protagonist discovered the power hidden within himself and defeated enemies one after another.

"I'm sorry," Yukino Yukinoshita said, unusually showing an expression that suggested she found it hard to say, "but I'm not very familiar with works of this kind."

"No matter." Yoshiteru Zaimokuza had expected as much. "I was just hoping to hear the opinions of the mundane. Speak freely."

Dong Yunshan looked at Yoshiteru Zaimokuza with sympathy.