CHAPTER 7
Stargazing and a Scolding
“So, uh… Ready to do this?”
It was seven at night, and all club activities had finished for the day. After eating an early dinner of convenience-store meals in the student council room, Masachika hesitantly looked side to side at the two girls with him.
“L-let’s do this…,” cheered Maria, her voice trembling as she raised a fist in the air, clearly terrified.
“Let’s get this over with.”
Meanwhile, Alisa was wearing a straight face as if this wasn’t a big deal, but she was restlessly tapping her finger with her arms crossed… Masachika was genuinely worried already, and they hadn’t even started.
“Uh… Masha? Are you okay? Because you don’t look okay at all.”
“Wh-what? Of course I’m okay. I… I’ll do my best!”
Though her eyes were twitching, she set her lips in a straight line and held up her clenched fists, showing that she was more than determined to do this. Her display of strong will was something that would naturally bring a smile to anyone’s face, but…
“Saying you’ll ‘do your best’ means you’re obviously not okay.”
Because that meant she was scared. Her anxiety forewarned of the difficulties that lay ahead, and yet Masachika simply added:
“Just don’t force yourself to do anything you don’t want to do, okay?”
He then shifted his gaze to his other side.
“What about you, Alya? Are you okay?”
“…? Yes? Why wouldn’t I be? I’m not a scaredy-cat like Masha.”
Alisa lifted an eyebrow skeptically at Maria as if she wanted to roll her eyes, so maybe it was only Masachika’s imagination that she was pretending to be okay. Regardless, bringing that doubt up wouldn’t lead to anything good, so Masachika simply sighed and opened the door to the student council room. Immediately, the motion-sensor lights illuminated the hallway.
“See, Masha? The lights still turn on. Besides, it’s not even dark outside yet, so there’s nothing to be afraid of.” Masachika shrugged, looking back.
“Yeah…,” Maria agreed with a nod as she timidly stepped out into the hallway, followed by Alisa, who looked kind of annoyed as she closed the door.
“So… How about we start with the art room, then check out the area behind the school building? …After that, we look for the Red Schoolgirl while making our way back around the building.”
“O-okay.”
“Sure, that works.”
After receiving their consent, he took a step forward—
“Wait!”
—when all of a sudden, Maria grabbed his right hand from behind. He promptly turned around to find her on the verge of tears and glancing at the window.
“Don’t go too far ahead! I’m scaaared.”
“…You can stay in the student council room and wait for us, you know.”
“I’ll be attacked the moment I’m alone!”
“By what?! None of the school’s ghost stories were about monsters or killers, you know!”
He couldn’t help pointing out the obvious, since Maria was uncharacteristically jabbering with terror as if she were being chased by a stalker like in a horror movie. Nevertheless, she continued to anxiously glance at the window, and her delicate hands, holding Masachika’s right, were trembling with fear.
“It always happens like this… You think everything’s okay one second, and then the next, bam—something comes flying in through the window, right?”
“None of the ghost stories we talked about had anything flying through the window or attacking anyone. Is this better?”
Masachika sighed and moved to Maria’s side to shield her from anything that might break in through the window. Meanwhile, Alisa sighed as well and took Maria’s other side just in case.
“…There. Now you should be okay if anyone suddenly comes out of one of the classrooms, too, right? That’s not going to happen, but you get my point.”
“Y-yeah… Thanks, Alya.” She nodded awkwardly, wrapping her hand around Alisa’s left hand. Immediately, Alisa’s eyebrows rose sharply, but she noticed Masachika’s gaze on the other side of Maria, stopped herself, and shrugged. Masachika and Alisa were now indirectly connected through his right hand and her left via Maria, and because Maria was a head shorter than them, she looked like a child going on a walk with her parents…despite the fact that she was the oldest among them.
“This in itself is a trope in horror movies, though. One second, you’re holding hands like this, and the next thing you know, the person you were holding hands with is now something else, and—… Sorry.”
Masachika immediately apologized when he saw the look in Maria’s eyes. They were the eyes of someone who couldn’t believe what they were seeing. However, she almost immediately gasped, turned to Alisa, and timidly asked:
“Alya…? You’re the real Alya, right?”
“Yes, so stop taking Masachika’s jokes so seriously.”
She was mentally slamming her head against a wall.
“<Then where is my biggest mole?>” Maria asked suddenly in Russian.
“<…What kind of question is that?>”
“<Don’t worry about it. It’s not like Kuze understands us.>”
He understood. Painfully so. But after Alisa glanced in his direction, she almost immediately looked away and muttered:
“<…On the inner side of your right thigh.>”
Oof…
It was not like he could do anything with that information, though. Maybe he could wonder if Alisa had a mole, too? Regardless, he couldn’t help but glance at her thighs hidden under her skirt while he simultaneously thought back to what happened today at the gymnasium’s detached storeroom. Now, then… Did she have a mole on her thigh? wondered Masachika as his mind explored the possibility.
“Yep! You are the real Alya!”
However, Maria immediately glanced back in Masachika’s direction, causing him to look away in a fluster. He wasn’t confident that he managed to avert his gaze in time…but Maria didn’t seem to be concerned in the slightest, curiously tilting her head and grumbling in thought.
“Now, then… Kuze… You…”
After racking her brain for another few seconds, she placed a hand over her mouth as if she was in complete shock.
“Wh-what are we going to do?! I can’t think of a question I could ask him to prove he’s the real Kuze!”
“Oh… Yeah.”
“Alya? Can you think of any good questions?!”
“Huh…?”
Alisa frowned in annoyance, but after seeing how desperate Maria was, she began to think, allowing her eyes to wander. A few moments went by before her lips unexpectedly curled into a malicious grin, as if she was struck by the most sinister of ideas.
“All right… Tell me exactly what you said to me when you offered to run with me for student council president.”
“Wh-what kind of question is that?”
“What’s wrong? The real Masachika would know the answer to that.”
His lips pulled back in a grimace, and his expression tensed at her obvious bait.
Yeah, I remember… I remember the extremely embarrassing thing I said! And you want me to relive that moment right here, right now?!
It was as if she was using this for some sort of humiliation fetish, but right when Masachika was about to demand that she change the question, Maria gently stepped away from him with tears welling in her eyes. It was as if her pleading gaze was saying, “What? No! This can’t be happening. Tell me this isn’t happening,” which was something he couldn’t ignore.
Sigh… Tsk! Looks like I’ve got no choice.
Acting embarrassed meant losing. In fact, if he was bold about it and reenacted the dialogue with pride, then it would end up embarrassing Alisa instead.
It’s your fault for making me do this, Alya. You’ve got no one to blame but yourself. Take this!
After mustering up the courage, Masachika cleared his throat and put on the most serious expression he could, then faced Alisa, gazed into her eyes, and recited:
“‘You’re not alone. From now on, I’ll be there for you and support you.’ That sound about right?”
“…It was, ‘You won’t be alone anymore. From now on, I will be by your side to support you,’ but you were close,” corrected Alisa in a strangely discontented tone, wiping the smug grin right off Masachika’s face.
“Huh? Oh, right.”
Not even another second went by before he was overwhelmed with unbearable embarrassment, and his face gradually turned red.
Huh…? Seriously? Wait. The hell is she doing memorizing what I said word for word? This goes way beyond just being embarrassing!
The fact that she accurately memorized a quote from an embarrassing moment for Masachika—the fact that Alisa etched those words forever in her mind as if this was a cherished memory for her—made Masachika mentally writhe in agony.
“Wh-what are you blushing for?” sassed Alisa with a piercing glare…right as her cheeks began to flush as though she was suddenly overcome with embarrassment as well. She immediately averted her gaze, perhaps realizing this herself, and faced Maria as if to play it off while hoping Masachika didn’t notice.
“See? He’s the real Masachika…so come on. Let’s go,” she dryly demanded with a straight face. However, Maria seemed like a completely different person from a few minutes ago. She was smiling warmly with her head tilted.
“You’re so cute, Alya.”
“Wh-what? Where did that come from?”
“Ah, to be young… Oh, hey. I know. How about we do this?” said Maria. She pulled Masachika’s and Alisa’s hands together and essentially made them hold hands.
“There. I figured you two should be holding hands, since you’re so close.”
“What?! Why?!”
“I feel like we’re talking about something completely different now.”
Alisa and Masachika immediately let go of each other’s hands, which made Maria raise an eyebrow as she lovingly smiled.
“Oh, come on, you two. You’re both so shy.”
“I have no idea what you’re even talking about.”
“Weren’t we holding hands because you were scared, Masha?”
“Yep. ♪ That’s why I want you two to hold hands, okay?”
“I’m sorry, but I’m not sure how that’d help you.”
“Masha, at least make sense.”
They sharply pointed out the obvious to Maria, who somehow perfectly left out any reason why that would make any sense…which, for some reason, made her pout with displeasure, slide over to the opposite side of Masachika, and hold his left hand.
“Fine. I’ll just hold hands with Kuze if you’re going to be like that.”
“I still have no idea what’s going on?!”
“M-my poor sister has lost her mind…”
Masachika shrieked hysterically while Alisa placed a hand on her forehead as if she had a headache, but when they saw how strangely smug Maria was holding his hand, they promptly gave up trying to understand her. After exchanging tired glances, Masachika and Alisa joined hands once more, and the sight instantly made Maria smile in satisfaction.
“Good. Now let’s move out. ♪”
She mirthfully pointed forward…still holding Masachika’s hand with her right hand.
“……”
Alisa glared at her sister like some low-level thug, with one eye wide open and the other one closed as if to say, “The hell?! I thought you’d let go of him if I held his hand! Tsk!” Nevertheless, she almost immediately realized that she would be wasting her time arguing, so she let out a brief sigh and faced forward.
“Shall we get going? Let’s just get this over with.”
“…Yeah, let’s do this.”
Masachika, who was also in a state of resignation, stared into the distance as he began to walk. In his right hand was Alisa’s slightly cold, slender hand, and in his left was Maria’s warm, soft hand.
Hmm? Is this a harem? Hooray… A beautiful woman on each side… I’m peaking in high school…
Despite the stupid things he was thinking, he was actually very nervous. Although he had held hands with Alisa a few times before, he was far from used to it, and this was the first time he was holding hands with Maria. The fact that these two things were happening at the same time fried his brain to the point that he didn’t know what to do. Should he swing his arms? Were his hands getting sweaty? Was he walking too fast? Too slow? More important, was he even holding their hands the right way? Countless questions crossed his mind; there were so many that he was having trouble containing himself any longer.
Th-this is… Yeah… I need to solve these mysteries as soon as I can and end this.
Sandwiched between a strangely mirthful older sister and a somewhat annoyed little sister, Masachika decided that he needed to put an end to this investigation as soon as possible. Therefore—
“Nothing unusual about the art room! Next!”
“Nothing unusual about the cherry blossoms behind the school! Not blooming yet! Next!”
“We barely looked around?!” complained Alisa, since Masachika was spending only around ten seconds on each mystery. And yet he shrugged with an air of nonchalance, as if he wasn’t concerned in the slightest.
“The whole point of our investigation was to prove that these mysteries were baseless rumors, right? So what’s the big deal? I made sure to take photographic evidence, too.”
“Sure, but…”
Being a serious person by nature, Alisa seemed bothered by their process, but when she glanced over Masachika’s shoulder and saw her sister, her discontent was replaced with a sigh.
“Masha… Stop being scared already,” she requested unreasonably.
“…?! I-it isn’t a switch I can just flip on and off,” Maria replied pathetically as she slouched over. The night had finally begun to swallow their surroundings in darkness. Her eyes darted around fearfully while she gently leaned into Masachika.
…Alisa frowned and huffed.
“Plus, the next mystery we’re about to investigate—… It sounds so scary. I mean, there’s no way I cannot be scared.”
Maria appeared to be avoiding talking about the next mystery at all, and she leaned into Masachika more…until she was essentially clinging to him. With her right hand still latched on to his left, she wrapped her left arm around his forearm. Their arms were wrapped around each other’s. It wasn’t long before his elbow disappeared into the mounds of her chest, his expression disappeared, and Alisa’s patience…disappeared.
“…Let’s hurry up and get this over with,” she hissed with irritation as she strode off, jerking Masachika along by the hand. But even then, Maria continued to cling tightly to his right arm, and Alisa’s knit brow only continued to furrow when she saw that. After stomping her way back to the school, Alisa began to rush down the hallway.
“H-hey, maybe we could slow down a little…?”
“Why? We still need to circle the entire school building, right? So the faster we finish, the better.”
“Yeah, I guess…”
And yet he felt like something was off with her being in such a hurry, so he timidly asked:
“…You okay? You’re not pushing yourself too hard, right?”
“……”
Alisa’s hand, which was wrapped around his, twitched, but even then, she still didn’t look back at him.
“Alya doesn’t like to show weakness,” whispered Maria.
“Wait. What? Alya, are you scared?”
“…No,” she replied like this was no big deal, but she still didn’t look back. Luckily, she started to gradually slow down, which allowed Masachika to catch up with her, but she promptly looked away as if to hide her face.
“…Are you afraid of ghosts or something? You seemed completely fine last year when everyone was telling ghost stories and playing scary games while preparing for the school festival.”
“I told you already. I’m not scared,” claimed Alisa stubbornly, still facing the other direction.
“Yelling ‘boo!’ and trying to scare Alya doesn’t really work, but she doesn’t like scary stories,” explained Maria.
“Oh, I can see that. She lets her imagination run wild and ends up scaring herself, huh?”
There was a sense of understanding in his voice, but Alisa still shot Maria a piercing glare before immediately looking away once more. She couldn’t have made how she felt more obvious.
“Well, I guess there’s nothing you can do about that,” he said with an awkward smile. After all, the Red Schoolgirl was much closer to a real ghost story than the others, and there were about as many detailed witness accounts of this mystery as there were of more famous ghost stories like the Slit-Mouthed Woman and Teke Teke.
They said that a schoolgirl would appear somewhere inside the main building after school, wearing Seirei Academy’s school uniform with a green ribbon. Her long black hair extended to her waist, and she would always be bleeding whenever she appeared, which was how she got the name the Red Schoolgirl. Seeing someone hurt would make most people worry for them, but you must never talk to her or help her, no matter what. In addition, even if you did happen to check on her, she would simply say, “Thanks. I’m fine now, though,” before walking away. However, within a few days, those who spoke to her would find themselves wounded in the exact same spot she had been. It was as if the Red Schoolgirl were transferring her injury—her pain—to others…
But it’s not like a little cut’s gonna kill you or anything. There’s something strangely realistic about this story… The fact that it happens within a few days increases the amount of uncertainty, too.
Whether this story was true was unclear, but there was a way to deal with this schoolgirl if they ever ran into her. First, they couldn’t approach her. Instead, they were to leave the school building as quickly as possible. They should be able to tell her apart from the other students, since they knew what she looked and dressed like. Plus, the motion-sensor lights shouldn’t turn on if she were a ghost, so if they saw a girl standing all alone in a dark hallway…then they needed to proceed with caution.
Honestly, a lot of that feels like it was made up after the rumors started coming out…but there have been victims, apparently.
According to Touya, there were two incidents of students getting hurt. The first incident happened last year in November. A male student in the track-and-field club ran into the Red Schoolgirl, who had hurt her right leg. Three days later, he tore his Achilles tendon. The second incident happened this year in June. The vice manager of the brass band club happened to run into the Red Schoolgirl, whose shirt was soaked in blood around the stomach area. Five days later, that same vice manager was in the hospital for appendicitis. The rumors after that spread like wildfire due to the popularity and personal magnetism of this brass band student, and it was unintentionally what would spark this entire “seven wonders of Seirei Academy” craze.
In other words, this Red Schoolgirl was the alpha and the omega of these seven mysteries. Huh, it sounds kind of cool when you put it that way.
Masachika smiled softly as his wild, nerdy imagination took off. He was very confident going into this compared with the Kujou sisters, but that was simply because he didn’t believe anything about this ghost story. It wasn’t that unusual for someone in track and field to tear their Achilles tendon, and the whole appendicitis thing was a bit of a stretch. The student didn’t bleed from their stomach, so it was kind of hard to believe that this was some sort of injury transferred from the Red Schoolgirl.
It’d be far more believable if that kid got stabbed in the stomach or something.
After giving them a brief summary of his observations, he shrugged and looked over at Maria.
“Besides, the other mysteries up until now have been completely bogus. I mean, you never heard any woman weeping in the clubhouse, right?”
“Y-yeah… I guess you’re right.”
After all, Maria, Yuki, and Ayano patrolled the Weeping Clubhouse earlier that day for almost an hour, and they didn’t hear even a single sniffle. When they eventually cracked open a window, they concluded that the howling wind was the culprit…or at least, that was the story they went with. Out of the six mysteries so far, they only actually solved the one about the cat in the storeroom. The rest were all fakes, according to their investigation. Therefore, it was highly likely that this last ghost story was some student’s work of fiction as well.
“This is how all ghost stories are. Whenever something kind of weird happens to a student, they embellish the story when they tell it to their friends, and then the rumors start, and the story gradually transforms into something completely different,” stated Masachika, showing no signs of fear. If anything, he was kind of making fun of the entire situation, which seemed to help ease the other two girls’ fear. Maria was finally able to slightly loosen her grip around him, and she slowly nodded.
“Yeah… It makes sense when you put it that way…”
“Right? Plus, making it a schoolgirl is way too cliché. Wouldn’t you agree? So many of these ghost stories and urban legends use young women for some reason. You have Hanako, the Slit-Mouthed Woman, Teke Teke, Lady Hasshaku… I mean, these stories would be way more believable if you told me some greasy, fat, balding middle-aged man was randomly appearing in the school building at night. At least, that’d be original,” argued Masachika with a completely straight face.
“That’d also be something you’d call the police for,” joked Alisa.
“True that.”
The three laughed. Even Maria’s expression relaxed, and she seemed to ponder for a moment.
“Wait. Isn’t there an evil spirit that looks like an old man, though? The, uh… The sly baby geezer?”
“Is he supposed to be a baby or a geezer? Or a newborn old man? Anyway, it’s crybaby geezer.”
“I’d rather run into a greasy middle-aged man than whatever that is…”
The tension in the air almost completely disappeared thanks to Maria’s ridiculous comment. Before they realized it, the investigation they started on the first floor had already made its way to the hallway on the third floor. They continued to casually peek into each classroom. Eventually…
“…Hmm?”
Once Masachika approached the last classroom at the end of the hall, he experienced a faint warmth in his pants pocket. It felt like having a hand warmer in there, despite it being the middle of summer.
“What’s wrong?”
“Not sure…,” he replied vaguely to Alisa’s skeptical gaze. He promptly shoved his hand in his pocket until his fingers were touching the source of the heat.
“Oh my. What’s that?”
“Chisaki lent it to me…and it’s getting hot for some reason…”
In his hand were the black prayer beads. It was the rosary with the strong-sounding name that he had been given just in case, and for some reason, it was burning warmly in his hand…as if it were trying to tell him something.
“Tsk. Quit trying to scare us. Get a hobby.”
“Huh? No, I’m not trying to scare anyone… But if this were a horror movie, the most common trope would be that these had been possessed by an evil spirit…,” joked Masachika, trying to explain things to his frowning election partner… Suddenly, a hand appeared from around the corner of the hallway a few meters ahead.
“…?!”
It was an eerily white hand clutching the wall while slithering around the corner.
“““……”””
Each of their eyes were drawn to the hand. They watched in absolute silence as the fingers gripped into the wall. It was at this moment that Masachika’s gut was telling him that something horrifying was about to emerge from the darkness, and his survival instincts were violently ringing an alarm, telling him to get out of there as soon as possible. And yet, despite that, his legs wouldn’t move. Both Alisa and Maria seemed no different. They, consciously or unconsciously, clung tightly to his arms without taking a single step away. Before long, the hand grabbing the wall pulled a body around the corner, revealing it: a Seirei Academy uniform and a green ribbon, long black hair, and, peeking out from under those bangs, the bloody face of a woman.
“Eek!”
“N-no…!”
Maria and Alisa each tensely shrieked. Even Masachika genuinely wanted to scream, but their trembling warmth pressing against his arms temporarily diluted his fear. He was surprised by how calm he felt as he rapidly racked his brain for ways to get them out of there.
Maybe we should run…but Alya might not be able to, and Masha definitely won’t be able to. If she did, she’d probably collapse in fear. I mean, this entire situation must be very traumatic for her… Then that leaves me with…!!
After making the split-second decision, he threw their arms off him, put on a half smirk, and began to run…forward…heading right for the blood-covered female student.
“Come on, seriously?! This is way too creepy! I didn’t tell you to take it this far!” Masachika scolded, his voice trembling. His bright tone was flat, unfitting for such a tense moment, but he felt as if it helped free the two behind him from fear, even if only temporarily.
His decision was to make them think that the Red Schoolgirl was a prank that he was in on, so he was sprinting toward the girl while making it humorously seem like he felt she had gone too far. However, he was tightly squeezing the prayer beads that Chisaki lent him, and though he was acting like he was joking around, he planned on taking this very seriously. What Masachika needed to prepare himself for was the potential of getting injured, and he couldn’t hesitate to resort to violence if necessary. He purposely rid himself of every other emotion and thought:
Wow… I’m probably gonna die tonight.
The thought popped into the back of his mind as if it had nothing to do with him. At the very least, he knew he wasn’t going to get out of this unscathed because he instinctively knew this was real, and all he had were some beads that he didn’t know would work on it. The odds were against him, but there was no other way out of this. To make matters worse, this mysterious girl’s face was bloodied and injured, so if the ghost story was true, then that would mean Alisa’s and Maria’s faces were in danger. And as their friend—as a man—he wasn’t going to allow that.
First, I’ll push her back around the corner, then punch her with these prayer beads… Even if that doesn’t work, the Red Schoolgirl’s curse only hurts whoever she first talks to. Plus, the effects should appear within a few days, so I should be fine, since it’s still summer break.
He probably wouldn’t be able to go to the beach with the others, but at the very least, he would be able to protect Maria and Alisa both mentally and physically.
So bring it on!
Once he got into range, he quickly eyeballed the girl in search of the best place to strike… Then he realized something rather peculiar.
Huh? She’s bleeding from her side, too… Wait. Her legs and right arm are bloodied up…
She has way too many injuries, right? That was the first seed of doubt that was planted in his mind, when suddenly, another hand reached out from around the corner and grabbed the schoolgirl’s neck from behind.
“I’ve got you now… Oh? Kuze?” uttered the owner of said hand as she emerged from around the corner, looking pained.
“What the…?”
It was their student council vice president, who wasn’t supposed to be there, making Masachika unconsciously freeze.
“Oh! Masha, Alya, hey.”
“Huh? Oh. Hey?”
“Good evening?”
The Kujou sisters replied awkwardly, taken aback by the unexpected twist. Chisaki, on the other hand, was acting no different than usual and continued: “The meeting ended early, and I was a little worried, so I came… Anyway, is it okay if I handle this?” Then to the mysterious female student, she said: “I’m not going to let you get away this time,” Chisaki barked, glaring hard and making her jump. She immediately turned to Masachika with her blood-filled eyes and reached out to him.
“H-help…,” she cried in a hoarse voice before being helplessly dragged away by Chisaki, disappearing around the corner, never to be seen again.
“D-don’t come down too hard on her, okay?” Masachika requested (for some reason) as he tilted his head curiously.
Uh… What? What was that? That wasn’t a real ghost…right? Which means that was just someone trespassing who Chisaki beat up? I guess that is a lot more plausible…setting aside the fact that it’s strange she’d beat up a weak, little girl.
Or perhaps it was some sort of prank that Masachika had no knowledge of and nothing to do with. The girl could have been an ass who liked scaring people, and if that was the case, then the so-called blood smeared all over her face might have been something she did partially to conceal her identity.
Yeah, that sounds about right. Wow, I guess I shouldn’t jump to conclusions, huh? I can’t believe how serious I got… How embarrassing! Ha-ha-ha!
Masachika desperately did everything in his power to forget the fact that Chisaki had sacred paper talismans wrapped around her left hand like a makeshift boxing glove. He continued to scratch his head to hide his embarrassment… Two hands tightly clenched his shoulders from behind.
“Masachika… What’s the meaning of this?”
“Kuze? Do you think you could explain yourself?”
After hearing those two bone-chilling voices coming from behind, he turned his head stiffly like a rusty gear and checked over his shoulder. Alisa looked like she was smiling, but her eyes definitely weren’t, and Maria’s lips were blissfully curling so much that it seemed unnatural. They were genuinely even more terrifying than the bloody girl from a few moments ago…to Masachika, at least.
“No, uh… W-we, uh… It was a prank. She just went a little overboard, so Chisaki had to…go have a talk with her…or something?”
Words once spoken could not be taken back…which meant Masachika had to try to make his story consistent, but it was all in vain. Alisa’s eyes immediately creased, while Maria’s smile deepened. Both of their fingers slowly tightened, burying themselves into his shoulders.
“No, I… I was the one trying to tell Chisaki that she had gone too far, so…”
But their grips didn’t loosen. Instead, they ended up lecturing him for a while after that, despite the fact that he was completely innocent.
Heh. Whatever. I’m a man… I don’t do the things I do in hope for something in return…
Sitting on his knees in front of the two girls, he let his eyes idly drift in a daze toward the heavens outside the window. The stars forming the constellations in the Summer Triangle sparkled brightly in the night sky. Being a knight that night was such a wonderful feeling, and to be able to see these beautiful stars with two beautiful sisters was like a dream come true. Today was—
“Masachika! Are you listening?!”
“Kuze, you need to reflect on what you’ve done!”
“…Yes, ma’am.”
—his unlucky day, apparently. One shouldn’t run from their problems.
A few days later, the student council used its connections to inform the masses of what they found during their investigation of the seven school mysteries, and thus, it put out the fire before the week even ended. Although the students half joked about Vice President Chisaki defeating the Red Schoolgirl, the members of the student council accepted it without question.
“Is it just me, or is this way more mysterious?”
“You can say that again.”
A certain pair of siblings were still discussing the seven school mysteries after all was said and done.
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