Yukinoshita's Correction Method Chapter 4

"The difference between giving someone a fish and teaching them how to fish," Yukino Yukinoshita explained further. "Volunteer service should provide people with the means to help themselves, rather than directly giving them the result. I can't guarantee I'll be able to solve your troubles, but I'll do my best to help you gain the ability to solve them."

"Th-that sounds amazing!" Yui Yuigahama wore an expression that said, So that's how it is. I totally get it now.

"So," Dong Yunshan urged bluntly, "what's troubling you?"

"I... I lost my plush..." Her lowered hair cast a shadow over Yui Yuigahama's face. "It wasn't especially expensive or anything, but a friend from the Handicrafts Club gave it to me. It was proof of our friendship."

Dong Yunshan's voice softened. "Friendship in youth is precious too. I understand how you feel. Even if your friend doesn't mind, the guilt in your heart is still hard to hold back. Don't worry, I'll do everything I can to help you find—"

"Actually... I already found it." Yui Yuigahama pressed her lips together. "But that person won't give it back to me."

"I see." Dong Yunshan leaned back against his chair. "Then just ask a teacher to step in, or I'll help you get it back."

"Huh?" Yui Yuigahama let out a surprised sound.

It wasn't that she was surprised Dong Yunshan had come up with a solution so quickly. Rather, she could clearly feel that Dong Yunshan, who had been so enthusiastic just moments ago, had suddenly turned cold.

"Dong Yunshan." Yukino Yukinoshita cast him a look as if she were inspecting garbage. "Could you please not rush to guide someone else's anguished emotions with words, only to then grow arbitrarily disappointed when you discover the matter is easy to resolve? This does nothing to correct your warped personality, and it harms the Service Club's reputation."

Yukino Yukinoshita's expression darkened by another visible degree. "If the problem could be solved simply by having a teacher step in or asking someone to help get it back, Yuigahama wouldn't have come here. It seems someone learned yesterday how to see through appearances to the essence, only to forget it today."

"To see through to the essence, you first have to identify the right problem. The urgent issue right now is Yuigahama's trouble," Dong Yunshan reminded her. "If you make the proper effort, you might even surpass your past of empty theorizing."

Scorching magma and a glacier of extreme cold collided violently, sending dense steam surging through the cramped space of the Service Club's clubroom and forming a suffocating pressure.

Caught in the middle of it, Yui Yuigahama blinked her big eyes. "You two have such a good relationship!"

Yukino Yukinoshita & Dong Yunshan: "Huh?"

"Ordinary friends are polite to each other. Only really close friends can bicker like this..." Under their stares, Yui Yuigahama's voice gradually weakened. "...Right?"

"To avoid unnecessary misunderstandings." Yukino Yukinoshita lowered her eyes slightly. "Yuigahama, please continue with your topic. What kind of plush was it, when did you lose it, how did you find it, and what trouble followed after that? The more clearly you explain it, the more effective the method I can provide will be."

"O-okay!" Yui Yuigahama couldn't help sitting up straight. She took out a phone covered in lots of sparkly things and showed them a photo inside. "It's this kind of plush."

It was a palm-sized plush, heart-shaped overall, as if sewn from cloth, decorated with cute embroidery and soft tulle trim.

"It was originally tied to my schoolbag, but two days ago, the string broke, so I went back along the route I'd taken to look for it. I happened to run into Minami Sagami—she's my classmate. After I asked her..." Yui Yuigahama's expression turned unnatural for an instant. "She said she saw Sato—he's a member of the Handicrafts Club—pick up my plush, so I went to find Sato. I saw that my plush was right there in his bag, but he said he'd never seen it..."

Seeing that Yui Yuigahama did not continue, Yukino Yukinoshita raised a question about what she had just said. "Aside from you, does anyone else have the same plush?"

"This was made specially for me by my friend from the Handicrafts Club—Kaori. Only she has one similar to it." Yui Yuigahama showed Yukino Yukinoshita another photo. In it, a girl was holding another similar plush and smiling cutely at the camera. "But the embroidery on it is different."

Dong Yunshan glanced at it and felt there wasn't much difference. "Is there any other supporting evidence?"

"Mm-hmm." Yui Yuigahama pulled up another photo. "Because one time Sable—that's my dog—bit it, there are two little holes here and here... I saw it very clearly. The one in Sato's bag had the same holes too."

A few too many names had suddenly popped up, so Dong Yunshan sorted through them in his head.

Yui Yuigahama's friend from the Handicrafts Club—Kaori.

Another male member of the Handicrafts Club—Sato.

Yui Yuigahama's classmate—Minami Sagami.

Yui Yuigahama's dog—Sable.

The plush Kaori had given Yui Yuigahama was lost. Minami Sagami saw Sato pick it up. With the help of the bite marks Sable left behind, Yui Yuigahama confirmed that the one in Sato's bag was the plush she had lost, but Sato said he had never seen it.

A gift from Kaori, bitten once by Sable, with Minami Sagami as the witness and Yui Yuigahama as the owner.

Clearly, the problem lay with...

"Yuigahama, the problem lies with you," Yukino Yukinoshita said coldly. "You're aware of that too, aren't you?"

Dong Yunshan: "Hm?"

"Dong Yunshan," Yukino Yukinoshita said with a smile that held no warmth, "I've already worked very hard not to look at your unintelligent expression, so please work hard as well and refrain from making unintelligent sounds."

Dong Yunshan raised one eyebrow. "I see the green hills as charming; the green hills must see me the same way."

"Reflexive escapism. What you should be refuting is my correctness, not my attitude—your correction can proceed slowly." Yukino Yukinoshita turned her gaze to Yui Yuigahama. "Yuigahama."

"Here!" The girl immediately sat up straight.

"With sufficient evidence, you can prove your ownership of the plush to anyone," Yukino Yukinoshita said sharply. "You could ask for it back on the spot, ask Minami Sagami to testify, ask Kaori for help, or have a teacher step in—what is the reason you gave up on all of these methods?"

"Um... Minami Sagami seemed to be in a bad mood..." Yui Yuigahama lowered her head. "So I didn't want to bother her."

Dong Yunshan remembered that when Minami Sagami had just been mentioned, Yui Yuigahama's expression had indeed turned unnatural for an instant.

After years as a corporate livestock animal observing people's expressions, the changes on a high school student's face could not escape his eyes.

"Kaori and Sato are both in the Handicrafts Club. I don't want there to be a rift between them because of me. And it was a gift she gave me. If she found out I accidentally lost it..." Yui Yuigahama lightly bit her lower lip. "If I asked a teacher to step in, the whole thing would get blown up too much... Dong Yunshan?"

Noticing the strange smile on Dong Yunshan's face, Yui Yuigahama couldn't help shrinking her shoulders.

"Hm?" Dong Yunshan looked utterly innocent. "What is it?"

"She was merely frightened by your gloating nature." Yukino Yukinoshita sighed. "Does seeing other people troubled make you that happy?"

"To be agonizing over such a small thing—that's youth." Dong Yunshan's smile was peaceful. "I feel like my corpse is warming up. Even the livor mortis has faded."

Compared with the workplace's deception and scheming, this kind of trouble from their student days, born from goodwill, instantly dragged Dong Yunshan back into memories of campus.

The rustle of pages turning by his ear, the warm sunlight outside the window, the cool breeze in the corridor—those trivial fragments of time pieced together into a dreamlike scene and took shape in his mind...

It was only natural that a smile appeared on his face.

"If you can't properly carry out Service Club activities, then at least don't get in the way." Yukino Yukinoshita looked back at him as if she were staring at a corpse. "Rest in peace."

"If I don't do any Service Club activities, then I really will just be enjoying someone else's misfortune." Dong Yunshan stood up, twisted his neck, and flexed his wrists. "As thanks for putting me in such a good mood, I'll help you solve this."

Before Yui Yuigahama could speak, Yukino Yukinoshita pressed him first. "How?"

"Getting back a lost item while taking other people's feelings into consideration is simple." Dong Yunshan put his index and middle fingers together and made a pinching motion. "I have a magician friend. I learned a few tricks from him, so I can, without anyone noticing..."

Yukino Yukinoshita summed it up concisely. "Steal it."

"Take it." Dong Yunshan corrected her. "Return it to its rightful owner."

"N-no, no..." Yui Yuigahama hurriedly waved her hands. "Don't do that kind of thing..."

"I also have a friend who's good at getting back what belongs to him." Dong Yunshan immediately switched to another method. "After school, we find somewhere quiet, take his schoolbag, then scatter everything inside all over the ground..."

Yukino Yukinoshita summarized again. "Rob him."

"Retrieve it." Dong Yunshan corrected her. "Pick it up and return it with interest."

Yui Yuigahama panicked even more. "That's no good either!"

"I also have a friend who's good at gaining people's trust." Dong Yunshan came up with a new idea. "Give me a little time to prepare. We'll say the school has a character assessment that affects advancement..."

Yukino Yukinoshita cut him off. "Lie to him."

"Collect it." Dong Yunshan corrected her. "Return the jade intact to Zhao."

Yui Yuigahama really looked like she was about to cry. "That really won't work..."

"I originally thought that if you weren't corrected, you would become a defective product that would find it very difficult to survive in society." Yukino Yukinoshita pressed her temples as if she had a headache. "Now it seems that if you aren't corrected, you'll become a dangerous product that disrupts society."

"I... I'll think of something myself." Yui Yuigahama looked completely stunned and murmured blankly, "There has to be some way..."

"This is exactly what I was worried about: your influence on the Service Club's reputation. Now I not only have to complete Yuigahama's request, I also have to reverse the Service Club's reputation." Yukino Yukinoshita brushed aside the smooth long hair hanging over her shoulder. "However, these two matters can be handled at the same time—Yuigahama, after entering high school, you've become cuter and cuter."

"Huh?" Yui Yuigahama's face instantly turned red. "N-no, I haven't... Why are you suddenly saying that... You, you're the same."

"I'm different from you." Yukino Yukinoshita lightly pressed her fair palm to her chest. "I've been cute since I was little."

"Ah... Mm." Yui Yuigahama's big eyes blinked and blinked.

What kind of expression was she supposed to make at a time like this?

Fortunately, Yukino Yukinoshita didn't pay any attention to her reaction and went on by herself. "It was probably around the upper grades of elementary school. The boys around me all had feelings for me, and it's been that way ever since."

Yui Yuigahama naturally looked toward the only boy in the clubroom.

"I agree with that." Dong Yunshan sat back down, his movements relaxed and at ease. "The way you landed on your butt really was pretty cute."

"And there were even more people like that." Yukino Yukinoshita gave him a death glare in return. "In elementary school, my indoor shoes were hidden sixty times. I had no choice but to carry them back and forth every day."

Sympathy appeared in Yui Yuigahama's eyes. "That sounds so hard..."

"It couldn't be helped. After all, I was so cute." Yukino Yukinoshita narrowed her eyes slightly. "The important point is that fifty of those times were done by the girls in my class."

Dong Yunshan understood what Yukino Yukinoshita meant. "Jealousy?"

"When people face someone similar to themselves yet far beyond them, they develop the desire to make that person disappear. They're like irrational beasts... No, they're worse than beasts." Yukino Yukinoshita let out a cold laugh. "There were many people like that at my previous school, people who could only confirm the meaning of their existence through such pitiful methods. That is the reason for the cold attitude others have toward you. She isn't in a bad mood. She feels jealous when she sees you."

Yui Yuigahama opened her mouth as if she wanted to defend Minami Sagami, but no words came out.

"But that can't be helped either. After all, no one is perfect. People are weak, there is ugliness in their hearts, and they easily ostracize others because of jealousy. The more outstanding a person is, the harder their life becomes. Don't you think that's ironic?" Yukino Yukinoshita turned to look at Dong Yunshan. "That's why I'm going to change humanity, and this world as well—this is the true meaning of the Service Club and its activities."

Just as Yukino Yukinoshita had first declared, she was carrying out Service Club activities and reversing the Service Club's reputation at the same time.

The problem was...

"Leaving aside whether the speculation about Minami Sagami's attitude is accurate." Dong Yunshan pointed out the key issue. "The root of Yuigahama's troubles is that Sato picked something up and won't return it."

"Very good, that's progress." The look Yukino Yukinoshita gave Dong Yunshan carried relief, like she was looking at a child who had learned to brush his teeth by himself. "Yuigahama, during this time, who have you thought about the most?"

"The person I've thought about the most?" Yui Yuigahama quickly had an answer. Who else could it be? Of course, it was the person who had picked up her plush toy and refused to give it back... "Sato."

"If he didn't want to return it, he would definitely hide it, not deliberately let you see it." Yukino Yukinoshita gave a cold snort. "It's just a childish little boy's boring trick to attract attention."

Yui Yuigahama found it hard to believe. "How could he..."

"I've always been cute, so I recognized this kind of situation long ago. You only became cute after entering high school, so you're unfamiliar with this sort of thing." Yukino Yukinoshita offered guidance from experience. "As long as you point out how boring that behavior is and call out how nasty he's being, he'll obediently hand over the plush toy."

"But if I do that..." Yui Yuigahama looked troubled. "Sato will be really embarrassed."

"That's what he deserves. Causing trouble for others out of selfishness is a kind of behavior that can only be eradicated after experiencing enough distress and pain—the above information comes from my own experience." Black miasma seemed to churn around Yukino Yukinoshita. "A tooth for a tooth, an eye for an eye. What is right must not yield to what is wrong!"

Yui Yuigahama's face was full of worry. "Wouldn't that be a little too..."

"That's why I said from the start that the problem lies with you." The coldness in Yukino Yukinoshita's eyes seemed to condense into tangible frost. "You habitually cater to others, trap yourself in worries of your own making and can't get out, refuse to let others go and refuse to let yourself off either—just looking at it annoys me."

"I thought you disliked me because of the Service Club." Dong Yunshan was genuinely shocked. "So this is how you talk to everyone."

"I..." Yui Yuigahama's eyes reddened, her voice choked, and her shoulders trembled slightly.

Well... it was only natural for high school students to be like this.

Dong Yunshan had been very fragile back in his school days too.

"So cool!" Yui Yuigahama clenched her little fists excitedly, her eyes sparkling as she looked at Yukino Yukinoshita. "Not a single empty phrase—every word was the truth... You were seriously so awesome!"

"Wh-what are you talking about..." Yukino Yukinoshita floundered, avoiding Yui Yuigahama's eager gaze. "Did you even understand what I said? I was being very blunt."

"No! That's not true! Ah... I mean, you really were very blunt, and this is the first time I've ever run into something like that, so it did scare me a little, but..." Yui Yuigahama took a deep breath. "I think everything you said was true. It was like when you and Dong Yunshan bicker—it's an effective kind of communication. But I'm always watching other people's faces, and even though it looks harmonious, I've never really communicated with anyone—I don't even know what I'm saying anymore..."

Yukino Yukinoshita raised a hand to fuss with her hair, using it to block Yui Yuigahama's line of sight. It was clear she had never encountered a situation like this before either, and was at a loss, only able to try hard to look very busy.

Yukino Yukinoshita did not know how to respond, and Yui Yuigahama, who no longer knew what she was saying, also stopped.

An awkward silence filled the clubroom.

At a time like this, a mature, reliable adult was needed to break the awkward mood.

"We've been talking for ages. My throat's dry." Dong Yunshan stood up. "I'll go buy some drinks. What do you want?"

"I'll have Vegetable 100's strawberry yogurt." As if she had been saved, Yukino Yukinoshita stated her request.

Yui Yuigahama hurriedly waved her hands. "How could I trouble you..."

Dong Yunshan cut her off. "It's a benefit the Service Club provides to its clients."

"But..." Yui Yuigahama suddenly stopped, took a deep breath, and puffed out her chest. "I-I'd like strawberry yogurt too."

Yukino Yukinoshita smiled like she was watching a child learn to brush their teeth.

Dong Yunshan turned and left. "Just a moment."

There was a vending machine in front of the school store on the first floor of the special building. Aside from the usual drinks, it also had strange boxed beverages that could not be found in ordinary convenience stores.

Dong Yunshan tucked two boxes of strawberry yogurt into his pocket, opened an ice-cold cola, and took a big gulp.

So...

Dong Yunshan lightly squeezed the cola can.

Just what exactly was wrong?