Chapter 84: I Just Wanted to Check, But…

Because something unthinkable had happened, we were quite late. We entered the cafeteria later than usual, then… everyone’s gazes centered on us, and they started whispering…

Oh… this was a perfect example of that. It was that, was it not…

“Stop, you all! What is it!?”

“Wait! Wait! Azami-chan! Please calm down!”

Azami-chan snapped at the people who looked over at us and started whispering. If she did that, the situation would get unnecessarily bad. It was one thing if it was just my position, but it’d be a problem if even Azami-chan’s position got bad. She was a girl and the upperclassmen were there, so I didn’t want her to do anything reckless.

“Everyone has probably seen and reacted to that newspaper. Konoe-sama has also rejected it. There is a possibility that this may drag on if we make too much trouble. Please restrain yourself and observe the situation.”

“Agh… If you say so, Sakuya-sama… but, but… ugh…”

Azami-chan was groaning. It was kinda cute.

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Elzz, dsvbkdt oswze rastalpp kq R zssjle yv Ggyxk-nbyd’p nwvldlpp qsalhla. R blyele vs xu wpwyz plyv yde vbswtbv. R oypd’v rzyddkdt vs zlv xuplzq cl nbyatle okvb psxlvbkdt R eked’v es okvb ds scflnvksdp. Rq R eke vbyv, vblal oyp y bktb rascyckzkvu R’e xllv vbl pyxl qyvl yp vbl kd-tyxl Nyeu Fyjwuy. Mbyv oyp obu kv oyp kxrsavydv vs kdpkpv vbyv oasdt vbkdtp olal oasdt.

Tsolhla, kq ol tsv vss plakswp yde shlaalynvle vs vbl pzktbvlpv vbkdt, rlsrzl xktbv vbkdj ol olal clkdt vss pwprknkswp yde alpkpv wp xsal. Rq ol yesrvle yd shlazu pvkqq yvvkvwel, rlsrzl obs eked’v alyzzu clzklhl wp xktbv clnsxl swa ldlxklp.

R bye vs nyzxzu, nzlyazu pyu vbyv oasdt vbkdtp olal oasdt, xkpvyjlp olal xkpvyjlp, yde laasap olal laasap, vbld alqwvl vblx zstknyzzu cu pbsokdt lhkeldnl. Rq R vssj yd lxsvksdyz rspkvksd, R’e cl eskdt fwpv yp xu srrsdldvp lmrlnvle.

Mbl ykx sq vbl rlsrzl obs eke vbkp rascyczu oyp… nalyvkdt y cye alrwvyvksd yde kxytl qsa xl ayvbla vbyd kq vbkp kdnkeldv oyp alyz sa dsv. Rq R alqwvle sa yatwle okvb vblx, obyv oyp pwrrsple vs cl kxrsavydv—oblvbla vbkp oyp vawl sa dsv—oswze vwad kdvs yd lxsvksdyz nsdqasdvyvksd.

Mbyv oyp obu R pbswzed’v lxsvksdyzzu alprsde vs vbspl pralyekdt awxswap ycswv xl aktbv dso. R bye vs qsnwp sd vbl alpwzvp yde bye vs pbso vbl sdzssjlap vbyv R oswzed’v es vbspl vbkdtp.

Mbl rasczlx oyp bso R oyp tskdt vs zlv lhlausdl jdso vbyv…

Rq kv olal fwpv vbl rlsrzl yaswde xl, R xktbv cl yczl vs pbso vblx rassq sdl cu sdl yde lmrzykd. Jwv, R nswzed’v wpl vbyv xlvbse dso vbyv vbl awxswap bye pralye vs yd kdelvlaxkdyvl yxswdv sq rlsrzl. Gde y zsv sq rlsrzl eked’v vawpv xl kd vbl qkapv rzynl. Rv dso nyxl vs bso R’e nswdvla vbyv.

R nswze wpl vbl cwzzlvkd csyae sa csaaso vbl casyenypvkdt assx vs vyzj vs y nasoe vbkp zyatl…

But I’d get low results if I copied the bulletin board idea to response. People remembered the image they’d received first. If they heard bad things, even if those bad things were lies or whatever, they might not believe you even if you justified yourself. People were just like that.

That was why TV, newspapers, and magazines first talked big about the other person’s wrongdoings with prominent headlines to make a strong impression. It could be lies, misinformation, or something else. Anyway, they labelled me like that and made me look that way. Even though that was a lie, people who saw me for the first time didn’t have a good impression of me.

They didn’t need me to actually look down on someone. They could make up whatever crimes they wanted, even if those were lies, to make it seem like I was the type who wanted to look down on people. They planned to spread that information in various places, and when my image had fallen and people thought badly of me, they could just write “The previous article was fake” in really small print at the end.

Write a lot when they were trying to spread my bad reputation, and, by the end, write a short sentence to apologise and retract those statements. With that, they were done building up my image as someone who looked down on others.

You might be thinking “No way someone’ll be fooled by that” or “They probably wouldn’t go that far”. But by repeating the methods of TV, newspapers, and magazines, the watchers and readers could easily be fooled. That had happened in real life.

And by just writing “perhaps” at the very end while writing various affirmative statements, you could make the excuse of “We had simply written that it was possible; we didn’t call them a criminal”. TV and publishers were let off with just that.

The same thing was happening now. That newspaper hadn’t written anything certain. It had just lined up inflammatory things and inferences like they were real. They finished with “That is a possibility”, giving themselves a way out.

I thought a lot of this newspaper looked like professional work. If a kid had written this, they’d be writing emotional, decisive statements. If those were discovered to have no basis in reality, they’d get into a fight. A professional would make a lot of inferences about someone to paint them as the villain, but end with “maybe” so that if they got sued, they could just say “I wasn’t stating anything as fact”.

On top of people thinking of me negatively, I couldn’t rebuke or make excuses about the images; I just had to accept them. That was human.

I couldn’t do anything about the photos. Even though the situation in the photo was different, since a specific description of what happened in the photo spread from the beginning, the others wouldn’t listen when I tried to correct them and I couldn’t clean up my image.

The male classmates around Nishigori with grim faces, and me standing in front of them… it had now been established that I was blaming Nishigori for falling, and the class was covering up for him.

It had been acknowledged that in the picture of me looking down on a broken-down crying Hagiwara Shion in the courtyard, I was pressing her by saying “Why didn’t you injure Team One?”.

Even if I said that was wrong now, no one would believe me. A method to do something about this situation… That newspaper had even written that there were voice files… If that was true… If they had obtained unedited, raw voice files…

“As expected of Sakuya-chan. Your etiquette is still perfect even while you are bothered and cannot focus.”

“Huh?”

I was surprised that Tsubaki-chan said that.

“We know that you’ve been worried since earlier, Sakuya-chan. But I thought that you’re eating your food beautifully too!”

“Yuzuriha-chan…”

Even Yuzuriha-chan said that. Did they think that I was clearly worried?

Well, I was focusing on the newspaper and what to do about it, but… I did mind it, as in I felt worried and troubled, but… I was worrying and troubled over the response, so that was certainly correct, but… hmmm… Japanese was hard…

“We will also help with our little influence. Don’t worry so much, Sakuya-chan.”

“Thanks, Renge-chan.”

Everyone’s warm words pierced through my heart. Everyone was comforting me and saying such things.

A short while ago, this was unthinkable. A short while ago, everyone was hesitating and couldn’t say those words. Now I had become close enough with everyone that they could say that. Our distance had lessened.

Everyone around us was still whispering, but I was able to have a very pleasant lunch.

　　～～～～～～～

No matter where I walked, everyone around me was whispering, but I went to the salon feeling warmed from lunch and in a good mood the whole time.

“Greetings.”

“Oh! Sakuya-chan! It must’ve been painful! You can cry on big sister’s chest!”

“Mmph…”

The moment I opened the door, my face was wrapped in something. It was sof…t, well, soft-ish, but it wasn’t? Was it hard… it wasn’t? Well, it was stiff and buttons or some hard thing were pressing into me, but…

“Mrmph! Mrph!”

I tapped Kaya-san’s arm and back. The moment I opened the door, Kaya-san had hugged me with all her strength. I did have kinetic vision so I could see her, and if I wanted to avoid her I could, but… I just thought of bad things and ended up like this.

I… just a little… wanted to check those swelling unripe fruits of Kaya-san’s, but… I didn’t think that she’d hug me with that much power, or that my neck would be strangled this tightly. On top of that, the feeling was quite sad… even though I resisted it and was wrapped in Kaya-san’s chest.

I was saying this for Kaya-san’s honour, but her chest absolutely wasn’t lonely¹ Her chest wasn’t small.. Rather, it might’ve been impressive for a sixth grader. No, I didn’t care about that, though? I didn’t know, though?

But… she was wearing a uniform with buttons on top of her underclothes. If she hugged me tightly while wearing that, I wouldn’t have been able to feel something soft and good. I just felt the stiffness of layers of the underclothes and uniform she was wearing, and the pain of the buttons pressing into me. I should’ve ran away if it was going to be like this from the beginning…

I just wanted to prank her and wanted to touch her a little, but, because of that… this had happened…

“Hang on! You’re hurting Sakuya-sama! How long are you going to embrace her!?”

“That is true. Oogimachisanjou-sama… Is it not too shallow to force your way in though the other person does not associate with you?”

Ooh… Azami-chan and Satsuki-chan were standing against Kaya-san! Normally I’d stop them, but now I was cheering on the two of them! Work hard and get me out of here!

“Hmph! You do not know… Oh, my poor Sakuya-chan… You can leave everything to this big sister. I will absolutely! Absolutely brutally murder the criminal!”

“Mmph…”

D-Dying… strangled… oh… my consciousness…

　　～～～～～～～

Aah… I had an awful experience… I really should’ve obeyed my first instincts and avoided her… Meeting that fate just because I felt a little mischievous was…

“You had quite the experience, Sakuya-chan.”

“Brother.”

That was true… I just wanted to enjoy the feeling of Kaya-san’s chest, but I didn’t enjoy the sensation and was strangled… a lot of things happened.

“Do you have a guess on who the criminal is?”

“Huh? Criminal?”

Kaya-san, right?

“…uh? A guess on who put the newspaper up.”

“Huh…? Oh~… Who could it be…”

Oh, right… because I had that experience, I thought he was talking about Kaya-san. Well, my brother was sitting in front of Kaya-san, but he wasn’t talking about what had happened with her.

A guess on who the criminal as… well, it wasn’t like I didn’t have one, but… I might not be right, so I wouldn’t say my bad deductions. If I said unnecessary things and messed up, that’d be the same as what the person who put up the newspaper did. It wasn’t good to say someone was the criminal without definitive proof.

And mine was a hypothetical or rather imaginary “There’s a possibility”. If there was someone who’d want to look down on me and the Kujou family… just thinking about it, I didn’t have any specifics or evidence that I’d fought with that person, or even a basis for that inference. It was a guess completely based on my imagination. It was better that I didn’t say it.

“Looking down on my Sakuya-chan… I cannot forgive that. I do not know who it is and where they are, but… I swear by the Oogimachisanjou family name that they will receive retribution!”

“K-Kaya-san, you calm down too… you do not have to be that serious. We must clean up my false reputation rather than look for the criminal…”

“How lenient, Sakuya-chan! It is better to string up the criminal and force them to confess! In front of all the students, no! A public execution where the criminal confesses their sins in front of all the guardians as well as everyone involved and apologises to you!”

Kaya-san was scary… also, doing that would produce the opposite result. If I did that, people would say extra things like “She strung up an innocent person” and “Only true things were written, but she used the Kujou family’s power and made them the criminal”.

If I’d done nothing bad, it was better to assert that wrong things were wrong and mistakes were mistakes, then try to correct them. If I looked for the criminal and strung them up, I’d be heading straight towards one of the in-game Lady Sakuya’s bad endings.

“Well, we have to think about what to do and how to act.”

“That is true…”

I nodded at my brother’s words. It looked like my brother and Kaya-san had just heard about that newspaper and hadn’t actually seen it. Mizuki had come to let me know at lunch. The same was true of Ibuki and Enju. Did the criminal know of my and my group’s, Ibuki and his group’s, as well as my brother and Kaya-san’s movement patterns? They were aiming for that information not to spread here…

Well… maybe it was just a coincidence. When I thought about it, the possibilities were endless. Like my brother said, what was I going to do now? If I didn’t seriously think about that, I’d be heading straight for a bad end. If I didn’t avoid that…