Yukinoshita's Correction Method

Yukino Yukinoshita pointed out the key. "Dolls don't talk, so of course the person who took the doll told her."

"Sato?" Yui Yuigahama was confused. "But how did Sato know who Sagami liked? And why would he tell her?"

"Sato didn't know who Sagami liked. He only wanted to take the doll Sagami had picked up." Dong Yunshan pictured the scene in his mind. "'This is my girlfriend's doll. Can I hold on to it?' That was probably what Sato said at the time. And then Sagami learned that the person she liked already had a girlfriend."

"So Saga..." Yui Yuigahama cried out, then immediately covered her mouth and lowered her voice. "Sagami likes Sato?! But I'm not close to Sato."

"Kaori, who's in the Handicrafts Club with Sato, is very close to him—or rather, they've been dating for a while." Dong Yunshan recalled the obvious hostility in Sato's eyes when he had spoken with Kaori. "And she has a doll similar to yours. The string on your doll broke, so Kaori's doll was probably in the same situation. It may even have gone missing before yours did."

"Wait... my head's a little messed up." Yui Yuigahama held her head. "Let me think..."

Yui Yuigahama's doll had gone missing, and while looking for it, she had run into Minami Sagami by chance.

When Sagami heard she was the owner, her attitude suddenly turned cold, and she told her the doll had been picked up by Sato.

Yui Yuigahama saw her own doll in Sato's bag, but Sato said he had never seen it.

The matter was still the same matter, but three premises had been added.

Namely, Minami Sagami liked Sato, Sato and Kaori were dating, and Kaori's doll might also have gone missing.

In that case, while Yui Yuigahama was looking for her doll, Sato had also been looking for Kaori's doll.

The two dolls were very similar. When Sato saw that Minami Sagami had picked up Yui Yuigahama's doll, he thought it was Kaori's, so he took it away on the grounds of "this is my girlfriend's doll."

Minami Sagami, who liked Sato, heard that Yui Yuigahama was looking for a doll and assumed Yui Yuigahama was the girlfriend Sato had mentioned, so her attitude suddenly turned cold, and she even showed obvious hostility.

"Huh?" Yui Yuigahama spotted a problem. "I can understand Sato mistaking the doll... but what Sagami said was 'she saw Sato pick up the doll,' not 'Sato saw her pick up the doll.'"

"That involves a discrepancy in description. Before I asked you, you only said Sagami seemed to be in a bad mood, and didn't explain the changes in her attitude before and after in detail." Dong Yunshan explained carefully, "Sagami, who was hostile toward you, naturally wouldn't describe the whole process of 'the doll she picked up being taken by Sato' to you in detail. She would just tell you the final result."

"Then why didn't Sato give it back to me?" Yui Yuigahama pressed. "He didn't give it back to Kaori either, and even deliberately let me see it..."

Dong Yunshan blinked. "In romance, there's a situation called a 'cold war.'"

Yui Yuigahama murmured, "Cold war?"

"In a friendly and intimate relationship between two people, a cold war refers to a state of cold violence and confrontation that arises because both parties ignore each other, or because one party becomes cold toward the other." Yukino Yukinoshita provided the reference answer. "It is a form of psychological violence."

"I do know that much, okay, just not in such professional terms..." Yui Yuigahama's face flushed. "Sato and Kaori are in the cold war stage, so... Sato wanted to use the doll he picked up to make Kaori take the initiative to talk to him?"

"But the one who took the initiative to find him wasn't Kaori, it was you." Dong Yunshan guided Yui Yuigahama's thinking. "If you were Sato, what would you think?"

"Kaori doesn't want to talk to me, but she can't bear to part with the doll, so she asked a good friend to help get it back..." Yui Yuigahama suddenly understood. "So that's why he deliberately let me see it, then said he hadn't seen it. He was actually using me to convey an attitude to Kaori and make Kaori go to him herself to ask for it!"

Yui Yuigahama couldn't help recalling Yukino Yukinoshita's earlier judgments.

"'She isn't in a bad mood. She saw you and felt jealous.'"

"'If he didn't want to give it back, he would definitely hide it instead of deliberately letting you see it.'"

"'It's nothing more than a little boy's boring trick to attract attention.'"

Those judgments were indeed correct.

"'As long as you point out how boring this behavior is and call out how nasty he's being, he'll obediently hand the doll over.'"

The solution Yukino Yukinoshita had given was also correct.

It was just slightly off.

In reality, as long as Yui Yuigahama followed Yukino Yukinoshita's method, changed her habit of reading people's expressions, bravely expressed her own thoughts from the very beginning, and made things clear with Sato, there would have been no subsequent troubles.

Even now, as long as she learned to bravely express her own thoughts, this matter could be easily resolved.

Yukino Yukinoshita's method was correct.

But Dong Yunshan had a better method.

Knock, knock, knock.

There was a knock on the door.

Yukino Yukinoshita looked at Dong Yunshan.

"Come in," Dong Yunshan called in response.

The clubroom door was pulled open. Sato froze when he saw the people inside, then looked toward Dong Yunshan somewhat awkwardly. "I... have something I need help with, so I came... came to take a look."

"If you mean the matter of you and your girlfriend being in a cold war," Dong Yunshan brought his index and middle fingers together and lightly tapped his temple twice, "I just thought of a decent method."

P.S. Thanks to [Heaven-and-Earth Snow Wind Dear] and [-Ayatsuji Tsukasa-] for the tips!

I didn't expect to get 10,000 in tips so soon...

This little newbie is overwhelmed by favor and trembling in fear.

Time to write! Time to stockpile chapters!

First Meeting in First Year: The Whole Story

"I'm really sorry!" Sato bowed deeply. "I didn't mean to drag other people into it, but in the end I caused you so much trouble..."

"No, no!" Yui Yuigahama hurriedly waved her hands, then glanced in Yukino Yukinoshita's direction. "Part of it was my own fault too. I overthought things. If I could have... Oh, right, I still don't know when you and Kaori started dating..."

Yui Yuigahama's expression was a little downcast.

Her close friend had started dating someone, and she had known nothing about it.

Sato looked uneasily toward Shizuka Hiratsuka.

"What are you looking at me for?" Shizuka Hiratsuka snapped, giving him an irritated glare. "I don't know either."

Sato had never thought he would end up talking about relationship problems in front of a teacher. "It's been a while already. Kaori originally wanted to tell you, but... her doll went missing."

Yui Yuigahama immediately understood what Kaori had been thinking.

Just like how she had lost her doll and hadn't wanted Kaori to know.

Kaori had lost her doll too, and hadn't wanted Yui Yuigahama to know.

After discovering the doll was missing, Kaori, who had originally wanted to share the joy of falling in love with Yui Yuigahama, began avoiding Yui Yuigahama instead.

"Our cold war was because of the doll too." Sato sighed. "That day, we went on a date. I'd prepared a lot of surprises, but after we met up, she realized her doll was gone and insisted on looking for it no matter what. 'It's just a doll, isn't it?'—I said something that awful."

Kaori had been furious and told Sato, "That was proof of my friendship with Yui."

"I was angry at the time, so I asked her, 'Which is more important to you, your boyfriend or your friend?'" Sato lowered his head. "She didn't say anything. She left by herself. After I calmed down, I felt that just apologizing wouldn't be enough, so I thought I'd find the doll she lost."

When people got emotional, reason inevitably went temporarily offline.

Once he calmed down a little, Sato realized how impulsive he had been.

As her boyfriend, he should have faced all kinds of problems in life together with Kaori.

Not, when she was already dealing with a problem, given her another question where every possible answer was wrong.

Sato wanted to find the doll first, then talk to Kaori.

He wanted to solve the problem Kaori had run into together with the problem he himself had caused.

But he had never managed to find the doll.

As time dragged on, Sato finally realized belatedly.

Maybe it would have been better to talk to Kaori first, then look for the doll together with her.

It was at that moment that he saw Minami Sagami pick up the doll.

He had originally wanted to take the doll and go find Kaori.

But after finding the doll, a new question surfaced in his mind.

He hadn't talked to Kaori all this time because he had wanted to find the doll first.

Then why had Kaori not spoken to him all this time either?

With that question in mind, Sato placed the doll in a spot in his schoolbag where other people could see it, hoping to use that to make Kaori take the initiative and talk to him.

But in the end, the one who came was Yui Yuigahama.

That was why, even knowing full well that Yui Yuigahama had seen the doll, he still insisted that he hadn't seen any doll.

He wanted Kaori to come herself.

At the same time, to keep Kaori from secretly taking it away, he stopped leaving the doll somewhere visible in his schoolbag and put it away instead.

He just waited for Kaori to take the initiative and come talk to him.

And that wait lasted two whole days.

Until Dong Yunshan came to the Handicrafts Club.

"If you have any worries you need help with, you can come find me at the Service Club."

Sato's worry was why, when Kaori knew the doll was with him, she still wasn't willing to come talk to him.

The answer was... Kaori didn't know.

"Which is more important, a friend or a lover? That kind of question is just like asking whether Dad or Mom is better. It's childish and boring." Sato took the doll out from the inner compartment of his schoolbag and handed it to Yui Yuigahama. "I was too immature..."

Yui Yuigahama looked at the doll in his hand.

It was proof of her friendship with Kaori.

It was also the beginning of her and Kaori avoiding each other.

And it was the trigger for the cold war between Kaori and Sato.

"After this..." Yui Yuigahama accepted the doll. "What are you going to do after this?"

"Keep looking, of course." Sato sighed. "I don't want to make Kaori forgive my thoughtless words with some flimsy apology."

Dong Yunshan suddenly spoke. "What are you trying to find?"

"The doll," Sato answered. "Kaori's one."

"That's not right, is it?" Dong Yunshan raised one eyebrow. "What you're trying to find isn't the chance to talk to Kaori?"

Sato looked at the doll in his hands. "You mean..."

"You wanted to find the doll she lost before apologizing to her, but after trying for a long time, you only found Yuigahama's doll." Dong Yunshan spread his hands. "You're not close with Yuigahama, so you can only ask her to pass it on for you."

Sato stood there blankly for quite a while. "You can do that?"

"Why couldn't you?" Yui Yuigahama handed the doll to Sato. "Hurry up and go!"

"I... I'll go right now!" Sato solemnly took the doll, turned and walked two steps, then suddenly stopped, turned back, and bowed. "Thank you so much!"

Not long after Sato left, Yui Yuigahama received an email from Kaori and hurried over.

"The Service Club's first request is officially complete." Shizuka Hiratsuka clapped her hands. "The winner has been decided. According to our earlier agreement, Dong Yunshan won twice, so he may make two demands of Yukino Yukinoshita. Now then..."

Before she could finish, her phone rang.

Looking somewhat irritated, Shizuka Hiratsuka answered the call, waved a finger between the two of them to signal that they should settle it themselves, and left the Service Club.

The clubroom, which had been so lively just moments ago, suddenly fell quiet.

After a long silence, Yukino Yukinoshita looked at Dong Yunshan. "How did you notice?"

"Notice what?"

"The flaw in my judgment."

"I didn't notice it," Dong Yunshan admitted. "I just didn't believe it."

"You didn't believe my judgment?"

"I don't believe anyone can reconstruct the entire truth from a few scattered words, and that such a person just so happens to be sitting beside me." Dong Yunshan pointed at himself. "I couldn't be completely certain you were right, but I couldn't point out where you were wrong either. And yet I couldn't ignore my own doubts—so I could only verify it through actual action. Not to prove whether you were right or wrong, but to eliminate my suspicion."

It was the same as doing a problem.

The top student glanced at it and gave the answer; the poor student just stared in confusion.

How did they figure that out? They didn't just guess, did they?

The simplest and quickest way to dispel that doubt was to plug the answer back into the question and check it.

Yukino Yukinoshita narrowed her cold eyes slightly. "And?"

"And I wanted to see how embarrassed you'd look when you lost after being so full of confidence." Dong Yunshan smiled as he savored the memory. "It was even cuter than I imagined, though it still fell a little short of you landing on your butt."

Yukino Yukinoshita pressed her cherry lips together and shifted ever so slightly in her chair.

"...Awful." As if trying to drive away a phantom pain that had surfaced, Yukino Yukinoshita brushed back her long hair. "How did you know I would admit defeat?"