Chapter 87: Volume 3 - CH 4.3

At my words, Namase’s expression twitched. “Who knows… That’s not for me to say.”

In other words, he knew—exactly as I thought.

“Yuzu’s keeping you from telling me.”

“I can’t tell you that either,” Namase implicitly acknowledged.

Well, if I were in Yuzu’s shoes, the first thing I’d do would be to stop him from talking, and rightly so. There was indeed a way to make him spit it out, but I’d rather not do that.

Namase called out to me in a concerned manner as I was deliberating what to do, “Hey… Izumi, did you and Yuzu get into a fight?”

Unable to suppress his doubts, Namase boldly took a step forward with his words.

In response, I shook my head helplessly. “No… we didn’t even get into a fight. In fact, we ought to have had one of those fights.”

We had always argued about trivial things, but we couldn’t even put up a fight when it mattered the most.

I should have told her not to go.

“I see. I think I kind of understand.”

Namase nodded his head as if he sympathised with my oblique words.

Suddenly, I remembered what happened a few months ago.

These people couldn’t express their true feelings, and because of that, they didn’t get into a fight. He must have had some thoughts about it, as he had hit the same problem a step earlier than me.

“Alas… I have my loyalty to Yuzu. Sorry, I can’t help you out, Izumi.” His words were filled with firm determination.

For Namase, their clique’s interests were his priority. It was a given that he wanted to avoid any unnecessary problems that could stir the group.

“Sure. I’m sorry for the trouble I put you through.”

Giving up any further attempts to pursue the matter, I turned on my heel.

“You’re not gonna threaten me?” Namase asked me from my back.

My steps halted and I turned my head around.

He then added with a somewhat grim face, “You could just say ‘If you don’t tell me, I’ll ruin it for Kotani’ and I’d have no choice but to leak the information.”

Upon hearing that, I shrugged my shoulders, “It just didn’t occur to me to resort to such an unscrupulous method.”

“Liar. Izumi, aren’t you good at doing such things?” Namase flatly denied my evasive words.

…Well, truthfully, I’d already thought of that method to force him to talk from early on.

“…How can I bring myself to do that, I know how much you guys have struggled so far.”

I knew how much they had suffered to get here. I had discovered firsthand just how desperately each group member wanted to break the invisible barriers that they themselves had erected.

“On top of that, what I need from now on is to love myself. If I do that, I’d just despise myself instead.”

Thus, I wouldn’t resort to such dirty means. Doing so would only make me even lose the qualification to proudly say that I love Yuzu.

“You also have problems on your side… yet you are so thoughtful of others. Izumi, you’re too good-natured,” Namase had a somewhat helpless expression.

I chuckled in response, “…You have a point. Even though I used to dislike that side of me.”

However, in order for me to not hate myself, I aspired to be the good-natured guy once more. If I were to ask myself why I bothered to go to all that trouble again, the answer was easy.

“Well, maybe it’s because I fell for a good-natured girl?”

Unmistakably so. I was dazzled by Yuzu who made things complicated from her good-naturedness and eventually got the short end of the stick; even so, she tried to always view her situation in a positive light.

Thanks to her, I should have disliked myself, but now I liked myself a little bit more.

“But still…sorry, my mouth is shut. I can’t tell you where Yuzu is,” Namase put on a pained expression.

In the end, it seemed that his determination was solid.

“However, if it’s where Kotani will hold his confession, I can tell you.”

My eyes widened at those words.

“Namase…”

Yuzu planned to come and watch over Kotani’s confession. So, as long as I knew where Kotani’s confession would take place, I would be able to find out Yuzu’s whereabouts from there.

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah. She didn’t swear me to secrecy on that point.t. Furthermore…” Namase wore a somewhat relaxed smile, “I’ve said it before, but I still think Yuzu-cchi needs Izumi.”

“…I’m indebted to you,” I expressed my deep gratitude and I adjusted my posture to listen to him.

“Aki will confess in front of the fountain. Thirty minutes from now, the fountain area will be lit up. Aki is supposed to confess to Sota at this time. If things go well, both of them will go home by train; that’s our plan.”

In other words, by that time, Yuzu would surely appear near the fountain.

“…I got it. I’ll thank you again later.”

“Don’t worry about it. What you could really use is a friend, ya know?” Namase shot me a somewhat mischievous look.

I smirked when I realised that it was a reference toward ‘someone who just happened to be allocated to the same class for eight months’1.

“Right. I’ll keep that in mind this time,” I replied and ran out of the alley.

The fountain was only a hundred metres away from here. But it would take a long time to move in the crowd. Furthermore, if I wanted to find the hidden Yuzu from there, would thirty minutes be enough time? Right when my head was full of these thoughts, my eyes caught something in its view.

“Oh yeah, I also have to avoid being discovered by them…”

Once again, I saw Kotani and Sakuraba’s figures as they headed towards the fountain. If those two found me, I would feel very sorry for Namase, who had lent me a hand.

After checking the surroundings, I found a descending staircase a little further on.

“It looks like I can bypass them from there.”

The only problem was, could I stay undetected until I got there?

Oh please, don’t turn around.

I wished so, but it seemed that… God was not fond of me; suddenly Sakuraba turned around as if he was bothered by something.

“Oh no…!”

As soon as I said that, I jumped to the staircase in the nick of time.

Alas, haste led me to my doom. I missed my footing and had the sensation that I was not stepping on a staircase, but something strange—a transparent PET bottle shrouded in the darkness of the night.

Softly, a floating sensation enveloped my entire body.

“A Holy Night strewed with garbage—oh so sinful!”

For a moment, the conversation I once had with Hina flashed through my mind2. Once the recollection faded, I tumbled down the stairs in a single swoop.