Chapter 27 "The truth and punishment."

[Sigh--]

On my way to school, I can’t help but sigh after parting ways with Sakura-chan.

I'm just saying,

"Why is Momoi so cute?”

There’s a reason why I said that.

What…?

Is that what you call a happy sigh?

 

You idiot!

It's not that good!

That's because, until recently, Me and Momoi used to hate and always argue with each other.

And yet, for some reason, Momoi has been sticking around me since the scuffle we had three days ago.

...No, I'm not bragging, okay?

Listen to me a little more.

Indeed, it's a good thing that Momoi's character has improved.

The cold-hearted Momoi has disappeared into the distance, and the girlish and cute Momoi has descended.

Yes, that in itself is very gratifying.

But the distance between us is too close....

Do you understand this feeling of helplessness?

Yeah, I know, you're probably thinking I should go explode. [EDN: Of course we do][TLN: HELL YEAH GO EXPLODE]

No, it's not.

Momoi's personality is very cute now, and her appearance is as pretty as an idol.

What?

I'm exaggerating?

No way!

I'm sure she’s the only one who kept the number one spot in a popularity ranking in this mammoth of a school.

Just a few days ago, the number of people who have confessed to her was one hundred and fifty. And now, before I knew it, it somehow increased to two hundred and fifty.

You're being too aggressive, First-Years. 

How does the number increase so much in such a short period of time!

No, of course she’s gotten more confessions than last year...

Though, the numbers should begin settling down now.

After all, that's what happened last year.

Only the first few tried to confess, but they were all rejected and crumbled in dismay, so no one is foolish enough to try confessing recklessly anymore.

Though, I'm just saying that you should have known that sooner....

I mean--

If you don't calm down soon, I'll be in trouble. ......

This is because the Momoi of yesterday wouldn't have bothered me at all, but now I'm a little afraid thinking of Momoi confessing to me.

Is it really just a little?

Don't take the liberty of expanding on that, okay?

........I've gone off topic, but well, that's just how cute Momoi is.

Yesterday, I was working all day, and she was reading novels beside me the whole time.

And that's all. No, there was one thing that did change. Since I hid that book from her, Momoi started sulking when she couldn’t find the novel.

What?! Sulking??

You should be angry instead!

She’s just too cute to handle...

So, I lent Momoi another interesting one, though it's not one I would recommend. Momoi just kept on reading it beside me.

...I wanted to ask “What are you doing on your day off?”, but there's no way I can ask Momoi that.

And the thing is, the reason Momoi is so attached to me is because she’s accepted me as family.

I mean, it's not like she sees me as a man.

If I look at her with an oddly favorable look--she'll begin to hate me instantly, you know?

Well, to sum it up, I'd say this.

Momoi treats me like family and is very close to me, just like Sakura-chan.

I get very nervous when I'm being glued to the cute Momoi, and I find myself staring at her more often. If Momoi finds out about it, she'll hate me

It's just torture…

What do you expect me to do…!?

God, What do you want me to do??

Am I doing some kind of spiritual practice right now??

Well, I was pretty troubled regarding that.

However, I can't tell Momoi to stay away from me since she's being so nice to me, and the biggest problem is that I'm a little happy about it.

...Like I said, it's only just a bit, alright.

I'm afraid that if I don't, I'll have irreparable feelings for Momoi.

What the hell should I do…?

And there was another reason for my distress.　

It's just that I haven't heard from Hanahime for three days now.

We used to message each other frequently, and on holidays we used to communicate all day long, but yesterday all we did was say good morning when we woke up and good night before going to bed...

[TLN:What a simp]

The last 3 days were similar.

The day before yesterday, it came around mid-afternoon, but because I had some business to attend to, I was only able to reply in the evening, so I guess that's why it came before I went to bed.

Is it creepy that I remember the number of times we messaged each other...?

...Leave me alone.

It was just stuck in my head because I was curious.

I mean... maybe there's a reason why?

Did I do something to make her hate me?

Or maybe she got a boyfriend?

I wonder why I feel like this...... I'm not her boyfriend, and I don't even know what she looks like, but for some reason it's starting to bother me quite a bit when I think about it....

No. It will make me look like a pain in the ass who can't tell the difference between reality and the internet.

I know that people already see me that way, but it’s not true, it’s just false accusations.

Well, just like that, I was sighing on my own.

Hah, what's up with this...

As I opened the door to the classroom, I muttered to myself, feeling depressed.

And when I opened the door and walked in--

“ “ “ “ Good morning, Kanzaki-san!” ” ” ”

For some reason, I was greeted respectfully by my classmates.

…eh?

”What’s happening...?”

“What’s wrong Mr. Kanzaki-san?”

”Why did you call me Mr….?”

I couldn't help but look over at my classmates who had their heads down.

And in the midst of it all, I spotted one blonde-haired gal with her head up, looking annoyed and sloppy, scratching her cheek with her finger.

......It's her fault isn’t it!

“Hey, come here for a second!”

I walked over to the blonde gal, Saijo, and tugged on her arm.

"Ouch Kaito, It hurts! Wait a second! It hurts, it hurts, let me go!”

I ignored Saijo shouting behind me and dragged her to a secluded place in the hallway.

２

“What the hell’s going on here?”

Moving to a secluded place, I kabedon Saijo against the wall to question her.

[TLN: Kabedon is when you push someone against a wall. Here's the wiki page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kabedon]

"I don't know....”

Saijo said, not making eye contact with me.

“What do you mean you don't know?! Why is it that when I come to school after a small break, my classmates start to politely greet me by calling me ‘sir’!? What the hell did you do?”

"I don't know, I really don't know! I didn't do much! I didn't do anything wrong, in fact, I did something good!”

"Huh.... why don't we hear about that good thing instead then?”

"Aah!”

Saijo makes a face that says, "Oh no!”

 

“No, you know, I didn't see this coming either, you know? I really didn't mean to…”

“Just tell me what you've done.”

When I said that, Saijo told me what had happened on Saturday.

To summarize, she threatened a classmate trying to harm me, and somehow this happened.

“Seriously....”

I certainly can't be mad at Saijo for this.

“You should be really grateful for that.”

“I mean- When did you get all of our classmates to follow you?”

I knew that Saijo was the leader of the class, but as far as I could tell, she didn’t have that many followers.

No, they were all people who listened to Saijo from the beginning, but I'm sure they only listened to her because of money or because she was cute.

But from what I saw earlier, it looked like Saijo was dominating them with fear.

[TLN: WOOOOOOO A S, Im sorry its too late in the night im tired]

"Hmm? I really don't know about that... When I entered, somehow the atmosphere was like that.”

“What kind of threat did you make...?”

Saijo tilted her head in response to my question.

"No, if you don't have any idea why they follow you, then the only thing I can think of is that your threats were so scary that Nishimura and the others warned our classmates about it.”

"Oh, I just smiled and said, 'Don't you dare touch him, okay?’ That's all I said, right?”

Then, perhaps trying to recreate the moment, Saijo smiled.

...Is it true? 

There's something fishy about this...

She wouldn't tell me if I questioned her anyway.

“In the meantime, please do something about this...”

“That's not interesting at all...”

When I asked Saijo to do it, she gave me a boring look in return.

I glared at Saijo.

Then Saijo laughed happily, blushed a little and nodded, ‘Okay.’

...So why does she look so happy when I glare at her?

I mean, I have bangs, can you even see me glaring at you?

Well, fine.

We don't have much time. So let's just go back to the classroom now.

“――Hey”

"Hmm?”

When I tried to go back to the classroom, Saijo stopped me.

“Ah.... no, it's nothing.”

When I turned around, Saijo smiled like she was trying to hide something.

I stared at Saijo.

"What? It's embarrassing when you look at me so passionately.”

With that, Saijo put her hands on her cheeks and wriggled her body.

I asked Saijo without mentioning the way she’s wriggling

“You want to talk about it?”

When I asked this, Saijo's gaze wandered around with a troubled expression on her face. In the end, she just looked down.

"...Why don’t you tell me to just go and apologize to Momoi?”

Saijo asked me with a downcast look.

She wants me to tell her to apologize

What should I do……?

 

I took a look at Saijo.

Saijo just kept looking downcast without making eye contact with me.

She looked like a defendant waiting to be trialed by a judge 

"...Well, there are three reasons."

The moment I saw Saijo like that, I decided that I should tell her everything.

“That's something I have to deal with myself - but if you're going to hang around me, I thought I should let you know.”

"What is it?

Saijo continued to look down, not looking back up

I'm here to help Saijo.

“The first reason is the same as yours, Saijo.”

-I replied.

“......?”

Saijo looked up reflexily from surprise

"If you talk to Momoi about apologizing, you’ll remind Momoi of what had occurred that day. You don't know why, but Momoi was going on with her normal student life the next day. That's why you didn't want to appear in front of Momoi. It’s so you wouldn’t remind her of that time, right?”

“What makes you think that’s the case?”

“It's because you claim to be my girlfriend, but you don't want to apologize to Momoi. Most people would apologize when they do something wrong, isn't that common sense? If you didn't do that, you would think that I would never forgive you. And yet, you haven't gone to apologize to Momoi. That's how I know you're thinking.” 

When I said that, Saijo tilted her head.

She seemed to be asking if that was really enough to deduce what she was thinking.

"If you were stupid, I wouldn't think so. But you're smart, so I think you're good at judging another person's character.”

At my words, Saijo scratched her cheek and looked away.

I guess my prediction hit the mark.

“...But then, why didn't you make us apologize then and there?”

Saijo looked me in the eye and asked.

At that time, Saijo didn't have time to apologize and she shouldn't.

“That's the second reason. Hey, Saijo--don't try to make it easier by apologizing.”

“What?!”

When I say it in a low, conscious voice, Saijo looked shocked

“Apologies are important. But it's only for things that can be forgiven with an apology. And Saijo, what you did to Momoi is not something you can be forgiven for. So I will not allow you to apologize to Momoi.”

“Can I ask why...?”

“In the end, apologizing is an act of asking for forgiveness. If everyone was in a forgivable relationship or a forgivable incident, that's fine. But saying you're sorry for something you can't get away with, is just self-satisfaction. Don't say that you want to feel better by apologizing.”

When I said that, Saijo looked down again.

Saijo probably knew that, too.

Maybe I shouldn't have bothered to say anything. 

But this is what I've been telling myself.

[bell ringing--]

“Class has begun?......”

Well, that's not really a problem, because this is a secluded place and that was the plan when we decided to talk.

I call out to Saijo, who’s still looking down.

“But I can only say this because I'm a third party. I don't know what Momoi actually thinks about. Maybe she wants you to apologize to her. And to tell you the truth, I didn't really like Momoi during that time. In other words, I was just pissed off at you guys for what you did. That's why I had the luxury of thinking ahead and could say that I didn't care, which is different from forgiving. However, if it had been Momoi's sister who’d been hurt, I would have crushed you guys right then and there without thinking about the future.”

That's what I'm talking about.

For me at that time, even if it wasn't Momoi who was getting hurt, I would have crushed y’all just as much. and I'm sure they would have done the same thing.

But if it had been Sakura-chan, I probably would have seriously lost my mind.

After all, even with just Momoi, I’d already lost half of my mind.

If it was my precious Sakura-chan, I can already imagine the rest.

I'm not going to tell Saijo this, because that's partly why I'm able to hold a normal conversation with her.

If this had been a crime party, or if Sakura-chan got beaten up, she would have replied that he wouldn’t forgive them, regardless of what Saijo's background was.

But now I'm beginning to re-evaluate Saijo.

That's because she ran away, stood up, made mistakes, and yet she never gave up and instead, tried to change.

That’s why I was evaluating her so highly.

Plus, I don't want her to go under.

Well, I might be influenced by the final reason…

"So Saijo, don't expect forgiveness. Don't apologize unless Momoi wants you to. And keep worrying about whether Momoi would forgive you for the rest of your life. If she's in trouble, help her. Don't think about being forgiven, just keep helping her. That's your punishment.”

I made a conscious effort to keep my voice gentle for the last sentence.

"Yeah… Yeah...”

Saijo replied, looking down.

I could tell she was crying from the water drops falling from her face onto the floor.

She knows she's done something she can't take back.

That's why, as I said before, don’t apologize.

But then, she wouldn't know what to do.

And as a result, she tried to distract herself from her sin by clinging onto me.

Perhaps, she was consciously trying to not think about Momoi.

Nevertheless, she couldn't keep ignoring it.

I guess that's why she stopped me at the spur of the moment.

Well, the only reason I know that is because I'm just like her...

So I’m the one who can truly understand that feeling...

３

And that's the last reason.

About ten minutes after Saijo started crying, I took a deep breath.

This has nothing to do with what Saijo did this time.

”What I'm about to tell you now is something related to my past.”

“I'm talking about the mistakes I've made before.”

"Hey Saijo, did you know about the rumors about me pushing my classmate?”

When I asked this, a teary-eyed Saijo looked up at me curiously, perhaps due to the change in the conversation.

But she nodded her head quickly.

"Actually, I have no memory of what happened that time. But, the laughter you made when you cornered Momoi reminded me of my classmates at that time... and then I remembered everything.”

When I said that, Saijo tilted her head and opened her mouth.

"What- do you mean….?”

Her voice sounded withered, as she was just crying.

I looked into Saijo's eyes.

She tried to speak - but when she was about to say something, she suddenly felt thirsty.

I felt a tightening sensation in my chest. But I needed to tell her that.

Because it wouldn’t be right to tell her all this and not tell her about my past that I didn't want her to know about.

“That classmate-- he fell into the yard because of me”.

Saijo's eyes widen at my words.

I guess she thought they were just rumors, that I didn’t really push him off.

But that’s a misunderstanding.

"I didn't push him down."

So I'll just say it like it is.

"What does that- mean......?

“The only reason he fell is because I ducked when he tried to push me down.”

“Isn't that what-.... he deserved then?”

I shake my head at her words

“That time, right after I ducked, he fell over the railing. The fact that there's a railing means that even though I just ducked, he wouldn't fall straight down, he went over the railing and fell. The fact that there's a railing means that even though I just ducked.... you know what this means, don't you?”

When she heard my words, Saijo gave me a surprised look.

Then she slowly opens her mouth.

"Could it be that....you left him... to die when... you could have saved him?

I nodded.

Yes - I was able to save him that time.

And yet, I didn't do it.

“At that moment, when he hit the railing and tried to climb up, I was able to react. But I couldn't move my body.”

"But that was… on the spur of the moment, so... it can't be helped, right...?　

“No,... I hesitated for a moment. I wondered if I really needed to help him. And I reached out right away, but not in time. If I hadn't hesitated for a second, he would have survived.”

…...

Saijo had a troubled look on her face.

Maybe she's trying to figure out how to say it.

So I continue speaking.

“So I'm just like you, you know. I made a mistake that I can't take back.”

“That's not true!”

Saijo immediately shouted in response to my words.

The expression on her face was one of grief.

I don't know what I did... to make Saijo look like this.

“I did something irreparable to Momoi, who did nothing wrong! But Kaito was just dodging that guy, right? He tried to push you down and fell, so that's what he deserved!”

“Do you really think so? The fight only started because the guy provoked me, and I took the initiative. He fell from the second floor and was hospitalized with serious injuries. But that's only because he was lucky that there was a garden below us. If he’d have fallen on concrete, he would have definitely died. It's true that I didn’t do anything wrong. But you know, what I did was one wrong move away from being a murderer.”

“What...?”

Saijo looked sad again at my words.

No.. I don't want Saijo to look like that..

“I'm not telling you this to make you feel sorry for me.”

But in order for you to understand, I have no choice but to explain everything.

“I became a loner because I didn't want people to look at me like I didn't know what I was thinking, or that I was a dangerous person who tried to kill my classmate, and that I should stay away from them. Why should I be looked at like that when I didn't even do anything like that? But the truth was different. Even though I couldn't remember, I was subconsciously aware that it was my fault that he fell, and I couldn't stand the way my classmates looked at me because I felt like they were really blaming me, you know? The human brain is designed to erase shocking events from its memory in order to protect itself. In other words, I've been forgetting that I had left my classmate to die in order to protect myself. And I interpreted it in a way that was beneficial to myself. It really sucks, doesn't it? That's why I used to want friends, but now, I guess I'm just not supposed to be around anyone.”

When I said that, Saijo shook her head and grabbed my hand.

“No, you're not. Hey, if you're talking like that for me, I don't want it. Even if Kaito thinks so, in the end it's that guy’s fault for trying to push Kaito. It's true that Kaito may not want to save that guy. But that's just what you think. You might have been so upset that you really couldn't move your body, right? You forgot about it until recently, so it's entirely possible that you were imagining things.”

I shook my head at Saijo.

All of this was just an explanation for what I'm about to say next

I've already come to a conclusion about this.

So I don't need Saijo's sympathy.

“What really sucks about me is that I don't feel bad about it.”

"......?”

Saijo looks up at me with a puzzled expression on his face. That said "What the hell are you talking about?".

She thought I was regretting that.

"It's like there’s two of me now. One that regrets it, and one that says it was right to let him die.”

"You mean like a dual personality?

“I don't know… Maybe it's not that big of a deal. But from that conclusion, if he really hates me, he can continue to hate me. I'm not going to ask him to forgive me. I won't do anything for him and I won’t seek people out on my own. That said, there's a part of me that doesn't like to reject people who come to me, and there's a part of me that doesn't want to end up doing nothing in my life.”

"What the hell? Sorry, I don't understand...”

Saijo gave me a troubled look.

”Yeah, I know.”

I'm deliberately making it hard to understand.

“I'm just saying that you're much more sane than I am because you're sincerely regretting what you did to Momoi. Also, if you still want to be around me even after knowing who I am now, I won't reject you anymore.”

I replied with a smile.

In the end, I made a mess of things, but that's mostly what I wanted to say.

I'm sure you're not the only one who has done something irreversible and doesn't feel bad about it, but you're the only one who’s truly remorseful. And if she still wants to stay by my side, I won't refuse her anymore.

The real meaning of the words that Saijo didn't understand just now is this: I don't feel bad about what I did to Kiriyama, so I won't do anything to help him.

But I've done something I can't take back, so I'm going to give my whole life to the people who actually want me.

I won't seek people out on my own.

I will dedicate my life only to those who truly want me.

That's my punishment.

_________

TL Notes:

Well I kinda lied about the 1 week thing, I was like "Hmm, Lemme read ahead, Damn this chapter was hype". Well remember how I said chapters are consistently 9k characters, Well its not so YAY more work. Guess chapters would not be coming out consistently. Each chapter is like 20k characters which is 3-4k words so its unlikely I'm gonna translate this fast without maintaining quality so bear with me. Man I suck

Moving on, Big thanks to HamletJr, AJ1703 and Semperfi201. As well as Spynine01 for being my editor. Proofreaders Child(e)simp, Hyou and Animu. They all are cool people. If you see any typos or mistranslations feel free to leave it in the comments or join Hamlet's server . Imma put a note here but this is not my server I'm just very active in it so feel free to come in and say hi, Id most likely respond, If you read Koinante or Sweet Fiancée, You can go in and flame Hamlet .

Oh and I also got a Kofi if you like my translations and have extra money feel free to donate, I really can't promise chapters for money since each chapters are quite long for me. But Id motivate me to work more. You can also join the server to flame me  .Well if you really have extra money and don't mind spending on my bad translations here's the Kofi link. 

https://ko-fi.com/deadtl

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