『VOLUME 7.5』
『Start』
『』『』『』『』『』
23rd of December
The Winter Vacation.
The sky was clear.
Karuizawa slowly opened her eyes after a deep sleep. Even though she had just opened her eyes, it still felt as though she were in a dream.
Nothing felt real to her at the moment.
She felt different.
What had changed, exactly? If someone asked her, she would have said nothing at all. She didn't have anything to say. Right now, she felt like she was somewhere in between, something she couldn't quite explain or even understand.
But she did know what had caused it.
It had happened yesterday, after the second semester's closing ceremony. Ryuen summoned her to the roof and viciously bullied her. It sounded lame when she put it like that, but it was the truth.
Faced with his cruelty, she hit rock bottom. No, she slowly sank to rock bottom. She thought she was cursed, doomed to hell once more, doomed to repeat those days and live in her own hell all over again. She had run to this school in search of salvation, only to be trapped all over again.
She felt pity for herself.
She felt despair for herself.
And in the end,
She felt hatred for everything.
But she was saved.
She was saved by Kiyotaka.
Even though he was the one who had first tried to cut off their relationship all of a sudden, saying that he didn't want to get involved anymore and that they shouldn't contact each other anymore. In the end, the one who threw her away was also the one who saved her.
Ayanokouji Kiyotaka. First year, Class D.
At first, Karuizawa hadn't even noticed that he existed. He was just a background classmate, that was all. Some classmates thought he was cool or whatever, but she wasn't interested. Besides, they quickly forgot about Kiyotaka. You had to be able to talk to people to be popular, and Kiyotaka lacked that skill. It didn't matter how good you were at school or sports. If you couldn't make others want to follow you, you'd never have much influence. That was why Yousuke-kun, Class A's Hashimoto, and Class B's Shibata were way more popular than Kiyotaka.
But she hated him.
She hated how, after using her, he simply swept in and acted normally. She hated how late he was. She hated how he never told her anything. She hated how cruel he was. She hated how cold-hearted he was. She hated everything about him.
But...
Even though he was cold-hearted and cruel, he still saved her in the end.
"Ahh..."
Karuizawa let out a heavy sigh.
Kiyotaka was always on her mind. Since yesterday, she hadn't been able to stop thinking about him.
To be perfectly honest, Karuizawa didn't remember much of what had happened on the rooftop yesterday.
It wasn't that she didn't remember. It was more like her mind hadn't been in the right state to properly take everything in. Rather than not remembering—she simply hadn't paid much attention to begin with. All she knew was that Ryuen and his underlings had bullied her, and Kiyotaka had saved her.
That was pretty much it.
After that, when she left the rooftop with him, the former student council president and Chabashira-sensei were waiting for her. They didn't say much, but they were considerate and careful not to attract any attention. They told her that they were acting on Kiyotaka's instructions.
But for some reason, she had the feeling that there had been someone else on that rooftop yesterday. She just didn't know who.
Kiyotaka hadn't said anything about it either. Though, to be fair, she hadn't asked him about it yet.
For some reason, however, she didn't want to know who that other person was.
She was scared to find out.
Feeling conflicted about the whole thing, Karuizawa got out of bed and went to take a hot shower. After all, she had plans with someone today.
And while she was thinking about that, a message suddenly popped up on her phone.
—Today at eleven. I'm counting on you, Karuizawa-san.
The text was from her classmate, Satou Maya.
Satou and she belonged to different friend groups, so they didn't usually interact all that much. Of course, it wasn't that they didn't get along. They did. But this was the first time she'd invited her to hang out alone.
So even after what happened to her yesterday, Karuizawa had to act like nothing had happened. Given that she'd had buckets of water dumped over her head in the freezing outdoors yesterday, a normal girl probably would've caught a cold. She might've slept for three days and three nights after torture like that.
But she just needed to act like nothing had happened.
Nothing happened yesterday.
She grabbed her clothes and headed into the bathroom. The moment the hot water touched her skin, she let out a small sigh.
The warmth felt good.
She simply stood beneath the shower and let the hot water wash over her.
After finishing her shower, Karuizawa dried herself off and changed into her clothes. She then stood in front of the mirror and began fixing her hair. Karuizawa took a deep breath and looked closely at herself in the mirror.
"I look horrible..." she muttered.
Karuizawa looked exactly the same as usual.
But she couldn't help but see herself as horrible.
Right now, standing in front of the mirror, she looked just like she always did. Yet somehow, she looked almost dead. Her face was expressionless, and she couldn't see herself smiling.
How do you smile again...?
Karuizawa then used both of her index fingers to push the corners of her cheeks upward, forcing her face into a smile.
"Like this...?"
She stared at herself in the mirror.
The smile looked strange.
"I can't even express my feelings properly anymore, huh..."
The self-deprecating joke slipped out almost too easily.
But what she saw in front of her couldn't be denied.
It didn't look like her at all. No, it looked like someone else's. It wasn't just her smile—Even the human being named Karuizawa didn't look like Karuizawa anymore. It was as if she were looking at someone else's story from a third-person point of view. It might not make much sense, but it felt like looking at a book while someone else narrated the story.
It reminded her of a Sherlock Holmes book.
The famed detective created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
While she wasn't a fan of mystery books herself, she had read a couple of them in the past. She didn't remember why, or even what the names of the books were, since apparently there were around sixty stories about the adventures of Sherlock Holmes.
But she knew that there were two stories narrated not by his assistant, Dr. Watson, but by Sherlock Holmes himself. These were controversial works among Sherlockians and were sometimes even treated as apocryphal. But in one of them, The Adventure of the Blanched Soldier, Mr. Holmes begins with these words:
"The ideas of my friend Watson, though limited, are exceedingly pertinacious. For a long time he has worried me to write an experience of my own. Perhaps I have rather invited this persecution, since I have often had occasion to point out to him how superficial are his own accounts and to accuse him of pandering to popular taste instead of confining himself rigidly to fact and figures. 'Try it yourself, Holmes!' he has retorted, and I am compelled to admit that, having taken my pen in my hand, I do begin to realize that the matter must be presented in such a way as may interest the reader."
While she didn't have the ability to fully understand or even grasp his exploits, like most people, she was fascinated by Sherlock Holmes's near-superhuman abilities as she read about them. And she understood that those words uttered by Sherlock were none other than his "true feelings."
How does he do that?
Feelings and emotions were inherently different, yet they were also inherently the same.
Right now, Karuizawa's mind was in shambles. Her heart especially was in shambles. Rather than not knowing how to—it was more accurate to say that she simply didn't remember how to.
Karuizawa then began to play with her face. She raised and altered the smile on her face, looking almost like a child playing with clay. But after a while, she managed to make the most natural smile she could.
She didn't know whether it was actually natural or not, but in her opinion, it looked just right.
But for the time being, karuizawa banished that thought from her mind and started getting ready to head out.
Right now, it was 10 o'clock, thirty minutes before the promised time.
From what she knew, students on winter vacation tended to flock to Keyaki Mall, making it more crowded than usual. It wasn't surprising, since there wasn't really anywhere else to go during the winter vacation. That was why it would be better to get there early.
The meeting place was a cafe in Keyaki Mall, so she wanted to get a table in advance in case the cafe was crowded as well.
Karuizawa took the lift down from the dorm. Since she was alone inside, she took the opportunity to play around with her smile a little more, using her phone as a mirror.
Ding!
When the lift arrived at the lobby, Karuizawa quickly put her phone back into her bag and acted as if nothing had happened.
But only a couple of steps after she got out of the lift—
『Oh? What a coincidence. 』
Karuizawa froze.
Her heart gave a sudden, violent thump.
The person across from her slowly walked toward her, and with each step, her heart began to tremble.
『It's been a while, hasn't it? Looks like you've grown while I was away from school for the last two weeks. 』
Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap—
『Did something good happen? 』
The footsteps grew closer and closer until the person finally stopped right in front of her.
『Eh, what's wrong? You look like you've seen a ghost. 』
For a brief moment, a fragment surfaced in her mind.
She didn't remember who had been on the rooftop yesterday, but she remembered the voice. It was the only thing that had registered in her mind at the time.
—『I was deceived. 』
Karuizawa stared at the boy standing in front of her.
Kumagawa Misogi.
The person in front of her was definitely on the rooftop yesterday. This was probably why Karuizawa hadn't registered him in her mind at the time. She was scared.
She had been avoiding him ever since the summer vacation at the pool because she was scared of him.
"Are you... going somewhere, Kumagawa-kun?" she asked, trying to suppress her fear while hiding the slight tremble in her hand.
『I have promise with Kikyou-chan you see. 』
"Kikyou-chan, huh..."
The girls had been rather surprised when they heard Kumagawa call Kushida by her first name the other day. It wasn't really anything worth making a big deal out of, but with the rumors that Kushida and Kumagawa had dated in the past, some of them had wondered if they really were dating. After all, they were childhood friends and were often seen spending time together.
Kushida, of course, denied such rumors.
『Anyway, glad to see you're doing well! 』
"...Yeah."
He was awfully excited.
This was more than just being upbeat.
She could only nod, unsure of how to react.
『Especially after what happened yesterday. 』
Her heart sank.
For a moment, Karuizawa forgot how to breathe.
"...Yesterday?"
『Yeah. Yesterday. 』
Kumagawa's tone hadn't changed, but the words that came out of his mouth were enough to make her nervous. Karuizawa tightened her grip on the strap of her bag and tried to keep her expression calm.
But she didn't know if her face was calm right now.
Just earlier, she hadn't even known how to smile properly, so how would she know whether her current expression looked anything but calm? And now Kumagawa was staring at her without saying anything.
"Were you there?"
She just needed to make sure.
Right now, her memories were anything but dependable.
『Ahaha, of course I was. 』
Her heart gave another violent thump.
"So you saw... everything?"
『Everything? 』
He repeated the word slowly, as though thinking about it.
『I saw quite a lot, but I wouldn't say I saw everything. There were some things I probably shouldn't have seen, and there were some things I probably missed. 』
Karuizawa didn't know how to respond to that.
It was too vague.
『But don't worry about it. I'm not here to bother you about yesterday. In fact, you could even say I'd turn a blind eye to what happened yesterday, even though it would definitely go against my duty as the vice president. 』He let out a heavy sigh. 『Man, doing the opposite of the things I love... No matter how many times I do it, it's never easy. 』
"Then why did you bring it up?"
『Of course it's because I was curious. 』
The simple answer made Karuizawa's stomach tighten.
『Hey, hey, don't look at me like that. Just because I'm turning a blind eye doesn't mean I can't be curious, right? Besides, I'm still the vice president. It'd be pretty strange if I didn't know what was going on around me, wouldn't it? 』
Kumagawa smiled.
『And we haven't really talked in a while, have we? I thought it might be nice to have a proper conversation for once. 』
"...."
Karuizawa remained silent for a moment.
She wanted to refuse. She had plans with Satou, and more importantly, she didn't feel comfortable being alone with Kumagawa.
But...
"...For how long?" she asked, trying to sound confident.
『Ahaha, you're so kind, Karuizawa-san. But don't worry, I won't take much of your time. Ten minutes should be enough. 』
He raised one hand and smiled.
"..."
How should she put it?
His smile─scared her.
She felt an honest fear.
Her heartbeat quickened as she followed him. Since earlier, her heart hadn't calmed down even for a moment. Even now, she could still feel it trembling inside her chest.
Kumagawa then walked over to one of the sofas in the dorm's lobby and sat down.
『Well, come on. Have a seat. 』
She took Kumagawa's suggestion and decided to sit down for a moment. She honestly felt dizzy right now, whether it was because of her trembling heart or the uneasiness she felt. Either way, she knew she couldn't handle the situation without sitting down. So Karuizawa moved over to one of the sofas and sat down.
『Huh? Why did you sit there? 』He asked as soon as she did, or maybe even a little before she did.
Huh? What? Why? He was the one who had suggested it.
『No, that's not what I mean─this dorm lobby is full of sofas, so I wanted to know why you picked that one. The farthest one away from me.』
"..."
Why would there be a reason? She had simply felt like sitting there. That was what she wanted to say, but now that he had asked, she couldn't figure out how to explain it. The most obvious reason was probably because she didn't want to get too close to him, even if it was only for a conversation. Besides, if she was going to sit down, it made the most sense to pick the closest sofa.
"I... just felt like it."
Of course, that was the only answer she could give.
『Felt like it? 』 Kumagawa repeated. 『You just felt like... that was the easiest chair to sit in? Maybe it looked the most comfortable? 』
"I don't think there's much difference in how comfortable any of these chairs are, it's just—"
Suddenly—
『Excuse me. 』
"—!!?"
He brought his face closer, but not close enough to cross the boundary called 'personal space', yet still close enough to startle her. He pored over her face as if he were going to lick it, as if he were inspecting her skin, her eyeballs, her nose, her eyebrows, her lips, each individual part.
"W-what are you doing, Kumagawa-kun!?"
She tried to push him away.
As hard as she could.
『Huh? You still haven't changed? 』
"Hah? W-What are you talking about?"
『And you don't realize it either? Ahaha, that's hilarious. 』
Zero manners, zero consideration.
That was Kumagawa's personality.
『Not only that, you even went to the extreme, ahahaha. 』 He laughed with zero manners and zero consideration. 『You really are something, aren't you, Karuizawa-san? Forget ten minutes. I honestly think we shouldn't have this conversation at all. 』
"What are you—"
And she was cut off.
『But still, I thought that, judging by what happened yesterday, you would've had a change of heart. Didn't both of your friends bully you enough back in middle school? 』
"...!"
Her heart immediately sank.
『Uh-oh. What's the matter? It's not like something came to mind, is it? Sorry if I was being insensitive. 』Kumagawa said it as though he were apologizing. No, he wasn't apologizing, Karuizawa felt like he was savoring it. At some point, he had changed positions and was now standing directly behind her. 『Did you just recall─something you didn't want to recall? 』
Her memories.
They were being stirred.
Each word Kumagawa uttered stirred her memories and stung them─not like a rose's thorns, but like a porcupine's quills.
Now feeling scared and desperate, Karuizawa asked him: "K-kumagawa-kun… What do you know?"
『Nothing. You're the one who knows. For example─ 』
Kumagawa finally sat on the sofa across of Karuizawa while staring at her.
『You mentioned your friends from middle school before, right? What were their names again? Shizue-chan and Shizuka-chan? 』
"..."
『What? Did you recall something by any chance? Or maybe it was something you didn't want to recall? 』
Still seated, Karuizawa could only stare at the floor as unpleasant, hellish memories flashed through her mind like fragments of broken glass, each one stinging her like a porcupine's quills.
Karuizawa bit her lip and fell silent.
Only after a while did she manage to utter the sentence that had been stuck in her throat. "...No, that's... not it. I haven't recalled anything."
Indeed, she hadn't. Because she had never forgotten it to begin with—How could she ever forget something that has never happened in the first place?
"Guh…
Karuizawa covered her mouth and immediately turned away, trying to hide her pale face.
Her stomach twisted as another unpleasant sensation rose from deep inside her. Karuizawa quickly covered her mouth and lowered her head, trying to suppress it.
Her throat tightened.
She felt like vomiting.
Karuizawa swallowed hard and took several slow breaths, hoping the feeling would pass. Her hands trembled slightly as she pressed one against her stomach.
『Heheh. So it's that painful, huh? No wonder you look like someone who might commit aggravated assault. You look like someone who would do anything just to get out of your predicament. 』 Kumagawa said it with a grin as he moved around and stood in front of Karuizawa again. His attitude made it difficult to tell how serious he was about mocking her.
"...What are you talking about?"
What kind of expression was she making now?
Let alone smiling, could she even make an angry face right now? Could she even form a natural expression at all? Even when she had been thinking about Ayanokouji back in her room, aside from feeling frustrated, there hadn't been any real change in her expression.
Not even once.
It was as if the muscles in her face were completely dead and unresponsive.
『Of course I'm talking about your eyes! 』 he said dramatically. 『Didn't people say that someone's eyes reflect what kind of person they are? Though your expression is practically dead right now, your eyes are those of a weakling. 』
"Weak...?" Karuizawa's voice was grating.
『Hmm... It's probably a little vague for you, especially when you don't even realize how pathetic you are right now. But in simple terms, it's your way of thinking—In other words, your weak mentality. 』
"What do you know?!"
She tried to shout.
Or rather, she wanted to.
Her voice was so subdued that it couldn't even be categorized as a shout or a scream. It wasn't even a normal speaking voice, but more like a murmur. But the amount of hatred in that sentence was so appalling that it clearly conveyed her meaning, regardless of her volume—or lack thereof.
『Eh? Are you angry? That's a real shame. I wasn't trying to make you angry. In fact, I spoke with the best of intentions. 』
"Best intentions? Stop it. Are you mocking me? Are you trying to say that I'm weak? That after everything I've been through, after everything I've done to change, I'm still the same pathetic girl I used to be? Is that what you're trying to say?"
『Ahaha, of course I am. Just because you're trying to act strong doesn't mean you're strong, right? Even if you're acting like someone else, that doesn't mean you're not the same weak Karuizawa, right? 』
"What right do you have to call me weak?! You don't know anything about what it feels like to be bullied! You've never been in my position, so how could you possibly understand what it's like to have everyone turn against you?! You can stand there and talk about weakness all you want because you've never had to experience it yourself! Don't look at me like you understand what I've been through when you don't know the first thing about it!"
『..... 』
She suddenly became short-tempered.
It was probably because she was being mocked, cornered, and made fun of that she became so short-tempered. In other words, she had become the completely powerless girl she used to be. In this open space of the student dorm lobby, she felt completely cornered, as if she had been pushed into the corner of a room with nowhere to go.
『Ahaha, why are you angry at me? 』
It as if all of karuizawa anger for him was nothing more than fondness, and at face value too
『You know there's a difference between being strong and acting strong, right? With the way you act, instead of looking strong, it looks to me like you're begging to become a target again. Not only that, you even doubled down after what happened yesterday. You're throwing your own sense of self down the cliff—You're such a fool. 』
A true fool, laughed Kumagawa.
『But look... you reap what you sow, right? You would've ended up breaking down regardless of how things went. I mean, even after everything that happened, you still don't realize how pathetic you are right now. So resenting me for pointing that out would be like barking up the wrong tree, wouldn't it? Ahahaha. 』
He laughed again.
『No matter how you look at it... it's not my fault! 』
"...."
The air grew tense.
Karuizawa wanted to retort to his arguments. She felt as though his words had trampled over her entire being simply by being spoken. She wanted to deny every word Kumagawa had just uttered. She wanted to tell him that he was wrong, that he knew nothing about her, that he had no right to judge her, again and again and again, until her voice went hoarse.
She wanted to.
But she couldn't.
So, these were the only words she could muster:
"I hate you—Kumagawa-kun."
Karuizawa let out his name with so much hatred that Kumagawa bet he'd speak the devil's name with more cheer in comparison. She more spit it out than let it out, leaving no room whatsoever for compromise.
And her eyes.
Her gaze.
Her hatred and revulsion toward Kumagawa outweighed her fear of him. It had grown throughout the conversation—negativity growing with it.
And just like that, Karuizawa turned away from him.
She didn't say anything else.
She simply turned around and walked away.
『』『』『』『』『』
Kumagawa watched her leave the dorm, her figure slowly disappearing into the distance. He continued watching until she was finally out of sight.
After a while, a voice entered his ears.
"What was that all about...?"
『So, did you hear everything, Kikyou-chan? 』He looked at Kushida, who was standing near where Karuizawa had been standing earlier.
"Of course..." she said.
It would've been strange if she hadn't heard it, considering she had been standing nearby for quite some time. Not long enough to hear everything, perhaps, but enough for Kushida to infer what had just happened from the conversation alone.
Rather, Karuizawa was the strange one for not realizing that Kushida had been standing nearby for a while. Had her conversation with Kumagawa given her such severe tunnel vision that she hadn't registered anything except him? Was her hatred really that intense?
"But why were you provoking her out of nowhere, Kumagawa-kun? For her to look at you like that in such a short time..."
Karuizawa Kei hated him.
That much was obvious.
Her gaze had been filled with such contempt, the kind of deep hatred you might feel toward a homewrecker—in fact, Kushida couldn't help but wonder what Kumagawa had done to become so hated, or what had made her hate him so much.
Hating a specific person to that degree had to be pretty stressful.
Granted, Kumagawa's nature wasn't exactly likable. He wasn't particularly amiable or attractive, either. Even so, Kushida couldn't recall him doing anything drastic or over the top that deserved to be met with a gaze like hers.
『Ahaha, I honestly don't know. I don't recall doing anything to her that merited such hatred. Most of the hostility she directed at me was unearned. 』
"Then you must've hit a sore spot, huh?"
『Come on, Kikyou-chan. What are you talking about? It's my duty as vice president to address every little problem within the student body, whether it's personal or social.』
"Yes, Kumagawa-kun, I understand that. Thank you for fulfilling your role as a student council member while off duty and voicing your honest opinion."
She simply agreed with him for the sake of it. There was a high chance she would've been led around in circles if she had tried to argue with him just now. If only things were this easy when it came to handling him... but this was what she had willingly signed up for.
Still…
"But why aren't you helping her?" she asked.
『Huh? What? What'd you just say? 』
"Aren't you supposed to be an ally of the weak? Despite her obvious hatred toward you just now, Karuizawa-san looks pretty weak mentally. She looked like she was one step away from going mental."
And committing assault, too.
『Hmmm, let's walk. 』
He suddenly invited her to join him and began walking without waiting for her response.
Though she was confused, she didn't hesitate. She began walking after him and caught up in no time. From there, she walked beside Kumagawa.
『Kikyou-chan, you have a bad past, right? You cause misfortune, and you also suffer misfortune, especially back in middle school. 』
"How rude." She pouted. "While it's true that I caused misfortune for my classmates and got punished for it, it's probably not that bad, is it?"
One- or two-people's social lives might have been destroyed. But it was pretty unfair to say that it was all her fault.
『Then do you regret what you did? Or maybe what happened that day? 』
"Aren't we talking about Karuizawa-san? Why are we talking about my past all of a sudden?"
Kushida did everything she could to probe and search her brain for a reason why he was on this topic.
『Well, to get to the point, Karuizawa-san hates her past and wants to change herself because of what happened back then. 』Said Kumagawa with a teasing grin.
Knowing it's about Karuizawa, it's probably about her being the victim of bullying, right? Kushida thought.
So hearing that wasn't particularly strange, but Kushida still didn't understand what he was trying to get at.
"But isn't that normal? Hating your own past and wanting to change?" Kushida asked as she looked at him.
While Kushida wouldn't go as far as saying that she understood what Karuizawa was going through, after all, she didn't have a single thing to regret about her own past, and even if she did, she would probably just accept it. But didn't humans at least ponder about their past once or twice in their lives and end up doing what Karuizawa was doing?
So she didn't quite understand what Kumagawa's problem with her was.
『That usually is the case, but in Karuizawa's case, not only does she hate her past self, she even denies her own past. 』
"Denied it?"
『Yup. She hates her past so much. She hates it, she loathes it, and she abhors what happened back then. So rather than forgetting it, she just wants to deny it altogether. 』
"....Is that why you don't want to help her? Because she denied her past?"
Kushida couldn't help but feel a little surprised.
Karuizawa's situation was one that could be called pitiful.
Not only had she been bullied in the past, to the point of it bordering on assault judging by the wounds Kushida had seen in the video back on the cruise ship , but she was also used by Ayanokouji and became a victim and target for Ryuen yesterday. It wouldn't really be shocking if Karuizawa had gone to the extreme with her past, considering everything that had happened to her.
But she didn't expect Kumagawa not to help her.
After all, Karuizawa was practically a walking textbook definition of a pitiful and weak person, so she thought Kumagawa would help Karuizawa the same way he helped her.
『I probably wouldn't care that much about it, but she even went above and beyond to the point that she doesn't just deny her past, she denies herself. 』
".....?"
『You seem pretty confused. 』
Indeed, she was.
In the first place, this whole conversation had been so vague that she didn't even know where Kumagawa was leading her.
Kumagawa looked at her, seemingly satisfied.
Then he spoke again.
『Simply speaking, Karuizawa is throwing away everything that made her Karuizawa. She throws away her past, her personality, her mentality, and even herself, acting as if what happened in the past never happened—In other words, she chose an extreme way of coping with her situation. 』
"....."
『Do you know what I hate most on this planet? 』
"Elites?"
『Ahaha, you really do know me, don't you? 』
He laughed. Then continue.
『Well, it's one of the things. There are a couple of others too, and Karuizawa's mentality is one of them. 』
"So you hate her because she denied her past?"
『I wouldn't really say I hate her, but it's true that I don't really like her. 』
To think that the person called Kumagawa is also able to dislike someone.
To think that someone like Kumagawa was also capable of disliking someone.
Usually, it was the other way around. Karuizawa, who had spat such a hateful gaze at him earlier, was probably the more normal example.
Still, it was hard not to hate someone who hated you. If it were Kushida, she wasn't kind or twisted enough to adore someone who glared at her like that, nor was she the type to subject herself to those prickling acts of spite that might not be outright attacks. That level of twistedness wasn't for her.
But Kumagawa was that kind of twisted person, so his reason for disliking Karuizawa had to be something else.
At least, that was how Kushida saw it.
『What I dislike is how she refuses to acknowledge her past and outright denies it. Her act of trampling over her own misfortune like that is pretty distasteful, even to me. It would be fine if she decided to forget about her past and move on. But we Minus couldn't think like that. 』
He said it plainly.
『If she denies her past, if she throws all of it away like that, then she's also throwing away all the good things along with it. And in the end, all the bad things would turn into nothingness. 』
"Is that so...?"
So that was his line of reasoning.
Refuting it was difficult. She couldn't deny it—he was probably right.
Throwing away oneself.
It really was extreme, no matter how one interpreted it.
So much so that it became self-denial—Ultimately, Karuizawa hated her own past more than anyone else did, especially the weak version of herself from back then.
It really was something to admire, that she had managed to remain mentally sound until just recently. Granted, Ryuen had caused her to develop PTSD, but considering what she had gone through in the past and what had happened recently, it was pretty impressive that she hadn't completely broken down and had still managed to hold on.
In that sense, she was mentally tough.
『Tough? I don't know. It looks to me like she's bullying herself. 』
"Bullying herself…"
『She's so weak. A heavyweight weakling, even. She unconsciously tries to put herself in bad situations, intentionally driving herself into corners. You might even call it a roundabout suicide. No matter how awful things get, maybe they aren't ruinous enough for her. 』 Kumagawa said nastily.
Kushida guessed he could be this biting about Karuizawa because the person in question wasn't here. But then again, this was Kumagawa. He might say the exact same thing to Karuizawa's face if it came down to it.
Even in the face of someone so weak, someone who would crumble at a touch, he might refuse to ease up.
Saying, Fool.
Just like earlier.
"Hmmm..."
『What's wrong, Kikyou-chan? 』
"...Nothing."
How should she say it?
The more he talked, the more she understood what kind of person Kumagawa was. But at the same time, the more incomprehensible he became.
She could understand his reasoning for not helping Karuizawa, but at the same time, she couldn't understand it. She could empathize with his thoughts, yet still feel completely disconnected from his train of thought.
She couldn't understand his goal at all.
But it must've been nice to live at his own pace.
Should she try to imitate that a little? Of course, she would have to restrain herself. She didn't want to end up going down the twisted path of a Minus like him if she could avoid it, but right now probably wasn't the right time, especially considering how volatile her own circumstances were.
Still, maybe in the future, she should try living like that.
"Anyway, where were we heading?"
『Hm? Mmm, nowhere, really.』 He answered casually. 『I go for walks on my days off. I'm just strolling around with nothing to do. 』
"...."
『Mmm? What's wrong? 』
"You must at least have somewhere you're heading, though."
『No, I don't. I don't have any plans to go anywhere. 』
"But aren't you the one who invited me to go out today?"
That was what Kushida had assumed when she agreed to go out with Kumagawa today.
There was also a very high chance that he would throw a tantrum if she rejected his invitation and somehow bring trouble right to her dorm room. She had that kind of unsettling feeling about him.
『Ahaha, then I suppose I fooled you. 』
"....."
Kushida offered a meager smile—kindly telling him that smiling wasn't always a sign of good intentions.
But of course, just like everything else in his life, he simply let the intention pass through him, ignoring the unkind meaning behind Kushida's smile.
Seriously, what did she even expect?
She'd reaped what she sowed.
『Anyway, we should probably hurry. If we take too long, the place might get crowded. After all, it's winter vacation. 』
Without waiting for a response, Kumagawa started walking again, leaving Kushida behind him.
"....."
Letting out a sigh in the middle of winter, Kushida reluctantly followed him.
『END』
『』『』『』『』『』
Heya!
Wow, I didn't expect this one to take so long to write, considering it's only around 6k words.
Well, aside from the sudden business in my life, I somehow got stuck on the psychological part of this chapter. I just wanted to dive a little deeper into Karuizawa's psychology, especially regarding her trauma and everything surrounding it.
Part of it is probably because I'm interested in psychology, and the other part is because I've always been somewhat dissatisfied with how Volume 7 handled her trauma, considering that the reason Karuizawa came to ANHS in the first place was to escape from her past.
Even if people say that it had been building since Volumes 4, 5, and 6, all Ayanokouji really did was order her around. So, for her to suddenly find strength in something like Ayanokouji saying he would protect her, when she had been bullied in the past, feels a little strange to me. She should have trust issues, which kind of defeats the whole point.
Well, that's just my take, so don't think too much about it.
Besides, I like dark things.
Anyway, that's it for the first chapter of Volume 7.5.
[Thanks for reading]
P.S. This is Kumagawa in his casual outfit for this winter vacation.