Yukinoshita's Correction Method

"No..." Dong Yunshan helplessly held his forehead. "This really was something my friend went through."

"Mm-hmm, I understand." Komachi Hikigaya's eyes reddened slightly. "Can you tell me what type you like? There might be someone around me. I can introduce you."

"I'm not planning on dating right now." Dong Yunshan sighed. "Don't misunderstand. This wasn't my personal experience."

Yukino Yukinoshita rarely showed a gentle smile, her eyes filled with concern. "I know a few banks with especially pretty-looking ATMs..."

"You're the worst one here!" Dong Yunshan accused her in grief and indignation. "How did this turn into introducing me to ATMs?"

Yukino Yukinoshita: "I remember that was the type you liked."

"Who has ATMs as their type?" Dong Yunshan snorted. "I like rich older women too, so why don't I see you introducing me to any?"

Yui Yuigahama and Komachi Hikigaya looked at Yukino Yukinoshita, then turned to Dong Yunshan. ""Ohhh~~~""

"In any case..." Yukino Yukinoshita glared at Dong Yunshan. "Sasaki's girlfriend is very likely fake."

"Huh?" The topic was suddenly dragged back, and Yui Yuigahama let out a puzzled sound. "But why would he..."

Dong Yunshan reminded her, "There's a pair of childhood friends in the club."

"And even though Miki chose her own poster, she changed her choice because she was worried about Hojo's feelings, so that's why Sasaki..." Yui Yuigahama adjusted the video progress bar. "Wait, didn't Tanaka film it here?"

"He filmed a silhouette." Komachi Hikigaya played the video. In that brief span of time, the silhouette did not move at all. "For Sasaki, who makes props, creating a model and casting its shadow on the curtain wouldn't be hard—but somehow no one ever noticed."

"Hojo probably noticed some clues, but he didn't know Sasaki's girlfriend didn't exist. Instead, he suspected Miki was Sasaki's secret girlfriend." Yukino Yukinoshita pointed at the poster. "That was why he drew posters at school until very late every day, and deliberately left the door open."

"In that case, his actions here make sense too." Yui Yuigahama watched Sasaki in the video walk out of the prop room, set the model aside, and reach toward his pocket. "He wasn't looking for fishing line. He wanted to lock the door. But when he thought about his fictional girlfriend being inside the room, locking the door when there was someone inside would seem strange, so he didn't lock it."

"Then, while Sasaki and Tanaka were filming downstairs, Miki went to the prop room to get a model for Hojo as reference." Komachi Hikigaya followed that line of thought and analyzed it. "Miki probably knocked first and asked if anyone was inside. After getting no response, she went in, only to see a figure on the curtain. She thought it was Sasaki's girlfriend and called out a few times, but got no answer, so she walked over to the curtain to take a look..."

"Most likely, she saw a model wearing clothes and a wig... Connecting it with the clues from before, she understood what was going on." Dong Yunshan felt that scene had to be pretty eerie. "Maybe she wanted to take a closer look, or maybe she was scared, but Miki accidentally knocked over Sasaki's 'girlfriend.'"

"And when Sasaki saw something moving in the prop room, he knew someone else had entered, which was why his expression looked so terrible." Yukino Yukinoshita looked at the video playing. "After going upstairs and seeing the Film Research Club's model, he knew Hojo or Miki had entered the prop room."

["Hojo wanted to use the prop to get a feel for it,"] Miki explained somewhat embarrassedly in the footage. ["You weren't there, so I went and got it myself. I'll bring it back to you later."]

Sasaki said nothing and only looked at Miki.

["Oh, right."] Miki seemed to suddenly remember. ["Your girlfriend asked me to tell you she had something to do and left first."]

["...I see."] Sasaki nodded and quickly walked away.

"This is where Miki explained why she entered the prop room. Miki didn't want to expose Sasaki, so she found a reason to help him cover it up." Komachi Hikigaya instantly understood the somewhat strange interaction between Miki and Sasaki. "And here too. Sasaki deliberately piled the props at the entrance to stop Tanaka from entering the prop room, making it easier for him to check the situation inside."

When Tanaka arrived at the prop room, Sasaki had already thrown the Blue Demon models at the entrance and gone inside alone.

Tanaka spent quite a while before he finally carried the Blue Demon models into the prop room one by one.

That amount of time was enough for Sasaki to confirm the situation.

"When he went back downstairs to film with Tanaka, Sasaki seemed distracted and kept playing with his phone. He was probably communicating with Miki." Just thinking about it made Yui Yuigahama feel so awkward her scalp tingled. "After Miki found out, he also realized his own... Anyway, he thought he should stop this kind of... um..."

Yui Yuigahama paused several times, trying to find the right words, but came up with nothing.

"Sasaki, who had been immersed in the fantasy he built for himself, felt an indescribable emptiness amid unspeakably complicated emotions the instant someone else intruded into his dream." Dong Yunshan tapped his temple lightly. "So when Tanaka asked about it, Sasaki, who wanted to end everything, told Tanaka that he and his girlfriend had broken up."

Yui Yuigahama nodded repeatedly. "As expected, someone with the same experience as the person involved..."

Dong Yunshan looked at her expressionlessly.

"...has a friend who can describe it more accurately." Yui Yuigahama avoided his gaze and shifted the topic along with it. "But the reason this matter was exposed in the end was Tanaka's sudden arrival, so Sasaki first returned to the prop room and hung the blue foreign object outside to scare Tanaka a little."

"Komachi, after your brother stopped writing his divine-realm diary and organization reports," Dong Yunshan turned his gaze to Komachi Hikigaya, "how did he deal with his old diaries and reports?"

"He found a big box and solemnly sealed them away." Komachi Hikigaya's eyes shifted. "You mean... that blue foreign object was actually Sasaki's girlfriend?"

"Even if she was fake, the emotions Sasaki invested in it were real. Whether he wanted to seal it away or say goodbye, he wanted to bring home the girlfriend model he'd made." Dong Yunshan shook the rope tied around the book. "But if he took it downstairs directly, Hojo, who was drawing with the door open, would see him. So he used the method I mentioned earlier, wrapped his girlfriend model in blue cloth, and hung it outside the Film Research Club's window."

"That way, once he scared off Tanaka outside, he could go outside the special building and take his girlfriend home without Hojo or Tanaka noticing." Komachi Hikigaya came to a sudden realization. "But because Tanaka was worried about Sasaki's mental state, he didn't see the blue package and went upstairs to find him instead."

"That's why Sasaki reacted like this before leaving the prop room." Dong Yunshan pointed at the handheld console. "Seeing Tanaka worry about him, Sasaki didn't want to scare him anymore and planned to retrieve the blue package."

["I... um... yeah..."] Tanaka stammered in the video. ["Let's go back together."]

["I still have something to do."] Sasaki refused coldly.

["Then I'll wait for you."] Tanaka walked into the prop room and found a place to sit.

["...Forget it. I'll talk about it later."] Sasaki walked out of the prop room. ["Let's go."]

"But Tanaka said he'd wait for him, so Sasaki had no choice but to leave with him." Yui Yuigahama finally understood completely. "But on the way out, Tanaka kept following Sasaki, leaving him no time to retrieve the package. On top of that, Tanaka's question provoked him, so Sasaki deliberately turned the camera toward the special building."

Tanaka noticed the blue foreign object and was startled.

Sasaki dragged Tanaka away from the scene, sent off the still-shaken Tanaka, then came back and took the package away.

"One more question!" Komachi Hikigaya raised her hand like an elementary school student. "If the package was hung that high, how was Sasaki supposed to retrieve it?"

Dong Yunshan: "I..."

Yukino Yukinoshita cut in, "You have a friend?"

"I really do know how to do this one." Dong Yunshan picked up the rope, threaded it through the schoolbag's handle, looped it around the steel pipe, and tied the two ends together. "As long as you tie a slipknot, this loop can hold the package up. Then you leave the rope end a little longer, tie a heavy object to it so it falls to the ground, and tug it from below—"

Dong Yunshan tugged on the end of the rope, and the knot came undone. The loop turned back into a single rope, so naturally the schoolbag could be taken down. "That's how you lower a suspended package. It's a basic knot. If you can tie your shoelaces, you can do it easily."

"So that's what happened..." Yui Yuigahama quickly ran through the whole sequence of events in her head. "No wonder you didn't want to say at first."

Dong Yunshan's theory answered Komachi Hikigaya's questions.

What was the blue foreign object?

Who had put it there, and for what purpose?

At the same time, it could also dispel Tanaka's fear.

But that would require telling Tanaka the truth that Sasaki had only been pretending to have a girlfriend.

"This theory would be really easy to verify... All we need to do is ask Miki what she saw in the prop room." Komachi Hikigaya lowered her head and repeated what Dong Yunshan had said at the very beginning. "If the guess is wrong, the problem won't be solved. But if it's right... that's not great either."

Just like Dong Yunshan had said earlier when he told the story about his friend:

["I should be honest, but the truth is too sad."]

So sad that... revealing the truth became a kind of cruelty.

Komachi Hikigaya raised her head helplessly. "What... what should I do?"

"Contact Miki," Yukino Yukinoshita said, her voice almost completely flat. "Ask her to come here."

Yui Yuigahama said, "Huh?"

"I knew this was how it would go. As expected of you." Dong Yunshan looked at Yukino Yukinoshita helplessly. "Is that really necessary?"

"It is very necessary." Yukino Yukinoshita's gaze was firm. "If Sasaki deliberately frightened Tanaka, then he deserves punishment. If Sasaki didn't do it on purpose, then he shouldn't be falsely accused."

Dong Yunshan raised one eyebrow. "What did you say?"

"I'm only going to ask one question whose answer I already know." Yukino Yukinoshita brushed aside the smooth black hair hanging over her shoulder. "And then, outstanding Dong, you will concede defeat."

"All right." Dong Yunshan copied the way Yukino Yukinoshita had looked back then and crossed his arms over his chest. "If you can really do it, I'll count it as two wins for you."

"Ooooooh!" Yui Yuigahama's eyes lit up. "Ms. Hiratsuka isn't here, so I'll be the judge this time—I approve! If Yukino can make Dong concede with one question, it counts as two wins for Yukino. But if she can't, then it's two losses."

"Things suddenly got intense..." Komachi Hikigaya looked at the three of them in shock, having no idea what was going on. "What is this situation?"

"This is Yukino and Dong's little love—little game!" Under Dong Yunshan's and Yukino Yukinoshita's stares, Yui Yuigahama changed her wording in time. "The winner gets to make all kinds of demands of the loser!"

"You Service Club people sure know how to have fun..." Komachi Hikigaya stood up. "Miki should be at the Film Research Club right now. I'll go ask if she has time."

"Oh, and tell her one thing." A confident smile appeared on Yukino Yukinoshita's face. "I'll solve Hojo's problem as well."

"Huh?" Komachi Hikigaya froze for a moment, not expecting Yukino Yukinoshita to be able to solve even a problem with drawing. She agreed, then headed to the Film Research Club.

Seeing Yukino Yukinoshita take out paper and a pen, Yui Yuigahama asked in surprise, "Yukino, you even know how to draw?"

"I studied it for three days." Yukino Yukinoshita took out a highlighter used for marking key points and drew a line on the paper.

"Three days... If it's you, three days should already be enough for you to get pretty good. But even with your guidance, Hojo won't improve that quickly, right?" There was doubt in Yui Yuigahama's tone. "Don't tell me you're going to draw it for him?"

Yukino Yukinoshita, who believed it was better to teach a man to fish than to give him a fish, should not have done something like drawing in someone else's place.

And even if Yukino Yukinoshita drew a better poster, Hojo's problem still would not be solved.

It was already hard to rank art in the first place. Besides, Yui Yuigahama felt that what Hojo cared about was not whose poster was better, but the fact that his childhood friend Miki had chosen someone else's work.

"I won't do something like that." Yukino Yukinoshita shook her head. "Nor is there any need to."

"Huh?" Yui Yuigahama was completely confused and was just about to ask Dong Yunshan, only to find that he was playing with his phone.

It looked like he was looking something up.

Before long, Komachi Hikigaya returned to the Service Club with a red-haired girl.

That female classmate was precisely Miki, whom everyone had previously seen in the video.

"Hello." Miki greeted everyone, her gaze pausing on Yukino Yukinoshita for an instant.

Most people at Chiba Municipal Soubu High School had heard of this beautiful girl.

Yui Yuigahama waved enthusiastically. "Hi there~"

Komachi Hikigaya briefly introduced the two sides, and Dong Yunshan brought over a chair for Miki to sit down.

"My question is..." Yukino Yukinoshita handed Miki the paper with a line drawn on it in yellow highlighter. "What color is this?"

"Huh?" Miki blinked. "Pink... I think."

In an instant, everyone's eyes focused on Miki.

On the white paper, the yellow line drawn by Yukino Yukinoshita was exceptionally clear.

Yukino Yukinoshita looked at Dong Yunshan. Under her gaze, Dong Yunshan let out a long breath. "I concede."

"Huh?" Yui Yuigahama looked left and right. "Why is it like this again?"

She did not feel there was any obvious problem with Dong Yunshan's guess.

How had he conceded all of a sudden?

"Don't tell me..." Komachi Hikigaya thought of something. "Back when you dyed your hair, did you really think the colors looked about the same?"

"Dyeing your hair?" Miki blinked. "Ah... it's just a slight color difference."

"That is not just a slight color difference," Yui Yuigahama reminded her. "Flaxen is yellowish, princess walnut is reddish—huh? Red-green color blindness?!"

"It's not red-green color blindness." Dong Yunshan showed them the result he had found on his phone. "It's blue-yellow color blindness, which at most one in ten thousand people have."

Miki lightly bit her lower lip. "I only found out recently, too."

"Blue-yellow color blindness? So that means you can't tell blue and yellow apart?" Yui Yuigahama didn't understand. "But Miki can't tell pink and yellow apart."

"The name blue-yellow color blindness is somewhat misleading. People with blue-yellow color blindness have difficulty identifying blue and yellow. It isn't that they can't tell blue and yellow apart, but that they see blue as a kind of green, and yellow as a kind of red." Yukino Yukinoshita paused. "In other words, they can't distinguish red from yellow, and they also have difficulty distinguishing blue from green."

"She can't tell red and yellow apart, so flaxen and princess walnut seem like pretty similar colors to her." Komachi Hikigaya looked at Yukino Yukinoshita in admiration. "You guessed that just from one thing I said?"

"There are three other pieces of supporting evidence." Yukino Yukinoshita reminded her, "Do you remember the two glass bottles of ramune Miki bought?"

Komachi Hikigaya adjusted the video progress bar to check. "Green melon flavor and blue blueberry flavor..."

"You can tell which flavor it is from the color of the soda." Yukino Yukinoshita pointed at the handheld console's screen. "But when you picked up the soda, you turned the bottles around inside the plastic bag. You were looking at the labels, weren't you?"

Miki nodded lightly.

Yui Yuigahama couldn't wait to ask, "Then what are the other two pieces of evidence?"

Yukino Yukinoshita picked up two posters. "The second is the posters."

On the poster Sasaki had drawn were four people, three men and one woman. Behind the four of them, each with a different expression, was an enormous face colored blue-green, nearly deep blue.

The poster Hojo had drawn was a little more restrained. The picture likewise showed three men and one woman, walking together toward a Western-style mansion surrounded by dense forest.

The shadows of the forest had been adjusted to a color close to deep cyan, and with the clever arrangement of branches and shrubs, they secretly outlined the silhouette of the Blue Demon.

"The poster Sasaki drew directly highlighted the theme of the Blue Demon, but the poster Hojo drew used the deep cyan shadows of the forest to outline the Blue Demon's silhouette." Yukino Yukinoshita tapped the deep cyan shadow. "If you can't tell blue and green apart, then the green shrubs and branches and the deep cyan shadows will all blend together and become hard to make out, while also taking up a large amount of space."

Komachi Hikigaya suddenly understood. "So that's why you didn't pick Club President Hojo's poster, Miki."

"I couldn't see it at first. I thought he hadn't drawn the Blue Demon. A poster should at least have the theme on it." Miki raised her hand and traced twice over the poster in the air. "But later, I looked at it carefully and noticed it through the light-and-dark contrast, so I chose Hojo's drawing after that... but he still wasn't very happy."