Chapter 71: Every Bomb Explodes Eventually!
Yui had never even heard of something called Genshin Impact, but Saku's mention of it immediately sparked her curiosity.
So she began pestering him to tell her more.
Saku wasn't stingy with the details. He started from The Outlander Who Caught the Wind, gradually unfolding the world of Teyvat through their casual conversation.
Yukino was different.
She was interested in the story too, but most of her attention remained on what she'd heard from Saku's inner voice earlier.
Now that she knew the true trigger behind Hikigaya's future self-destruction, Yukino couldn't help wondering whether it could be changed.
Stopping it wouldn't be difficult.
If she really wanted to, she could simply reject Tobe's request outright.
Hikigaya was only a club member.
As president of the Service Club, Yukino had the authority to decide whether they accepted a request at all.
But if she did that, the pressure and resentment would simply shift onto her instead.
More importantly...
Would Hikigaya accept that?
Yukino thought about it.
Probably not.
Hikigaya could be cowardly about certain things, but Yukino knew he had principles and his own personal lines he wouldn't cross.
If she stepped in and forcibly ended the matter, he wouldn't be happy about it.
Of course, whether Hikigaya was happy wasn't what Yukino cared about.
What mattered was whether intervening this time could actually change his values.
She remained silent as they walked, watching Yui enthusiastically question Saku about Genshin Impact while turning the matter over in her mind.
Eventually, she arrived at a pessimistic answer.
No.
Hikigaya had his own fundamental nature.
He himself was a bomb waiting to explode.
Tobe and Ebina were merely fuses.
Yukino could certainly extinguish the flame before it reached the bomb.
But she couldn't spend the rest of her life putting out every fuse that appeared.
Unless Hikigaya himself changed, sooner or later...
The bomb would explode anyway.
Even if Yukino intervened now, she would only be treating the symptom rather than the cause.
As for making Hikigaya reject the request himself...
Saku made it sound easy, but everyone had a different personality.
What Saku could do without hesitation didn't mean Hikigaya could do the same.
Strictly speaking, Hikigaya simply wasn't good at refusing people once he'd decided something was his responsibility.
Yukino suddenly remembered a line Saku had once written:
A person's character determines their fate.
The more she thought about it now, the more sense it made.
It wasn't fate manipulating people into making certain choices.
Rather, the choices people repeatedly made were what eventually formed their fate.
At some point, Ebina Hina accepted Tobe's eager offer to hang her ema for her.
While Tobe busied himself with that, Ebina quietly approached Hikigaya.
To anyone watching, the two of them merely happened to end up standing beside each other.
In fact, from a distance, they almost looked like they were helping Tobe line up the perfect opportunity.
But beneath that perfectly natural appearance, Ebina and Hikigaya had already begun talking.
Because the approach was so casual, nobody would've imagined that Ebina had deliberately sought Hikigaya out.
Yukino, however, had already been warned by Saku's inner voice.
She immediately noticed what was happening.
'If Saku's right...'
'This should be when Ebina gives Hikigaya her request.'
If Yukino wanted to, she could step in at any moment.
In the end, however, she chose to watch from the sidelines.
Hikigaya had already self-destructed once during their first-year school festival.
Now, the same pattern was simply repeating itself.
Yukino was increasingly convinced that she couldn't permanently stop Hikigaya from behaving this way.
As for following the original story's path and using romance to somehow break through that part of him...
No.
She'd rather not.
Yukino had already stepped beyond her own comfort zone.
She was no longer trying to live as her sister's shadow.
And she no longer wanted to become anyone else's shadow either.
Now that she'd finally begun moving forward on her own...
She had no intention of turning back.
As for Hikigaya...
She could talk to him afterward.
Having made her decision, Yukino finally stepped forward and interrupted Saku and Yui's conversation.
"You can continue the bedtime story tonight."
She held out her ema.
"For now, help me hang this up, Jinnai-kun."
"..."
Saku had only just reached the part involving the Holy Lyre der Himmel and Dvalin.
Being interrupted there left him visibly unsatisfied.
Still, he smacked his lips and accepted the ema.
"Fine."
"Where do you want it?"
"Next to yours."
Yui immediately raised her hand too.
"Then I want mine next to Yukino-chan's!"
She handed hers over as well.
"Please, Jinnai-kun!"
"Sure."
Saku didn't mind.
Taking both ema, he headed off alone to hang them.
"Oh no!"
Yui had originally been about to chat with Yukino.
Then she turned her head and happened to see Ebina standing beside Hikigaya.
That sight was so unusual that the contents of Saku's earlier inner voice immediately came rushing back to her.
Without even thinking, Yui started toward them.
No matter what, she wanted to stop Hikigaya from self-destructing and becoming the target of everyone's resentment.
But she'd barely taken one step when Yukino grabbed her wrist.
"Yukino-chan?"
Yui turned around in confusion.
"What... are you planning to do?"
After everything that had happened lately, Yukino had gradually reached conclusions similar to Mai and Utaha.
She couldn't be completely certain about everyone.
But the girls who had gathered around Saku?
Yukino was almost positive they could all hear his inner voice.
Taking that logic one step further, any girl who was a heroine from one of the original stories probably had a high chance of hearing it too.
So Yukino wasn't surprised at all that Yui could hear Saku's thoughts.
And if that assumption was correct...
Then Yukino could more or less guess exactly what Yui was trying to do.
"Huh?"
"I... I..."
Yui stumbled over her words.
How was she supposed to explain this?
She couldn't exactly say she'd heard Saku's inner voice and learned fragments of the future from it.
That sounded completely insane.
Yui herself didn't care if Yukino thought she was weird.
What frightened her was accidentally exposing Saku's secret.
But if she said nothing, how was she supposed to explain why she'd suddenly tried to interfere?
That brief hesitation was enough.
By the time Yui looked back, Hikigaya and Ebina's conversation had already ended.
Ebina Hina walked away toward Tobe with a cheerful smile.
Tobe was grinning like an idiot.
Hikigaya's expression, meanwhile, looked terrible.
Yukino and Yui immediately understood.
They were too late.
"How could this happen...?"
Yui's shoulders fell.
They'd known what was coming.
And yet they'd still failed to change anything.
Guilt immediately overwhelmed her.
Seeing that expression, Yukino gently pulled Yui into an embrace.
"Yui."
"There are some things we can't change."
Her voice was quiet.
"A bomb will eventually explode unless it stops being a bomb."
"Yukino-chan, you..."
The comfort itself didn't do much to ease Yui's guilt.
But the wording completely redirected her attention.
Even Yui, as slow as she could sometimes be, realized something was very wrong.
How did Yukino know what she'd been about to do?
Why had she stopped her?
And how did she know what had just happened between Hikigaya and Ebina?
A thought suddenly struck Yui like lightning.
'The truth is always one!'
Detective Yui reached her final conclusion.
Yukino could hear Saku's inner voice too.
The shock hit even harder than her guilt from moments earlier.
She desperately wanted to ask.
But when she opened her mouth...
Nothing came out.
"What are you two doing?"
Saku returned after hanging the ema and immediately found the two girls hugging each other.
His expression changed at once.
Damn it.
He was jealous.
"How can you leave me out?"
Saku spread both arms shamelessly.
"I want a hug too!"
He'd just done them a favor.
As far as Saku was concerned, that absolutely qualified him for one.
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