Tsuki no Mori Girls' High School — Middle School Division.
The sky was overcast today, clouds sealing the heavens from edge to edge.
Was there really such a difference between middle school and elementary school? Between an elite girls' academy and an ordinary one? Maybe everything had changed so fast that Soyo had simply gone numb to it all.
She didn't feel like the differences were all that great.
Her mind had been thoroughly scrambled by Yoshiiro Chiose's tenderness — she was completely incapable of rational thought.
[A cherished person? A cherished person! A cherished person...]
How was she supposed to properly care for someone she cherished... especially when that someone was a person who was like a mother to her?
Give gifts, offer her blessings — or maybe accomplish something worth being proud of, so that person would feel proud of her?
Hmm... or perhaps try all three at once?
"Nagasaki-san, please pay attention."
The teacher murmured as she passed Soyo's desk, low enough that no one else noticed.
Flustered, Soyo hastily nodded and dropped her gaze to her textbook.
[Ah — when did the teacher walk over... how many times have I spaced out this week?]
Today was Wednesday of the last working week before the Golden Week holiday.
But the number of times Soyo had zoned out this week already far exceeded the number of actual school days.
It was Chiose.
It was her, again and again, quietly eroding every other sensation until nothing remained but memory and imagination — endlessly sketching the movements of that silver-haired beauty.
Soyo's daydreams had carried her through more than a month of ordinary school days without her even noticing, acting like a kind of adhesive that slowly eased her into this new rhythm of life.
Until —
"Soyo, I want to tell you a secret — and you have to promise me you won't tell anyone!"
Haizuka Kyoumoto — her white-haired, golden-eyed classmate — came to Soyo's desk after class and beckoned in a low voice for her to follow.
"Hm? Okay."
Soyo glanced over at a group of girls not far away. Under normal circumstances, when she wasn't swamped with schoolwork, she'd spend every break chatting with those familiar classmates.
They were good people.
At least, that was what Soyo believed.
"Soyo!" Haizuka Kyoumoto tugged her along to the orchard beneath the school garden's fruit trees, scanned their surroundings to confirm no one was watching, and then finally spoke.
"Your parents — are they divorced?"
"!!!"
Soyo's heart lurched. She genuinely hadn't expected Haizuka-san to say something like that.
The words hit like a wave, washing away the good mood she'd carried all day and jolting the still-hazy Soyo fully awake — like a bucket of cold water to the face.
"No, they're not. Why would you ask that?"
She rarely dropped her polite speech entirely, but she did now. The smile on her face was already struggling to hold.
Soyo was fairly sure that little secret was only known to a handful of her close friends... and she had only let it slip by accident once.
So how had it reached Haizuka Kyoumoto?
"Soyo, don't lie to me — it's true, isn't it."
"..."
"Sorry, Kyoumoto, I actually have to go deal with something right now... I..."
"Soyo, don't you want to know how I found out?"
"How did you find out?"
Soyo felt like someone was picking at a wound. And she had a creeping suspicion she already knew who had told Kyoumoto.
Had it been one of the girls she'd always gotten along with — one of them who'd gone and told the Haizuka girl?
"It was Niiharu-san who told me. Mm — did you do something to upset her recently?"
Niiharu-san. A white-haired, golden-eyed girl who looked about eighty percent like Haizuka Kyoumoto.
"Huh? What?"
Soyo racked her brain trying to trace back through everything that had happened, but no matter how hard she thought, she couldn't land on a useful answer.
I upset a classmate? Really? How?
Watching Soyo's blank, at-a-loss expression, Haizuka Kyoumoto didn't hesitate for a moment before pressing on:
"She told me everything about you. Mm — wasn't there a time she invited you to her birthday party, and you turned her down?"
She spread someone's personal secrets over something as small as that? Surely not...
"Of course it wasn't just because of that. Hmm... how do I put it — at the time, she was probably talking about the invitation in front of a lot of people? So she must have felt like you embarrassed her. You were pretty distracted that day, weren't you."
"This is too..."
What on earth. Why was someone dumping all this messy, aggravating drama on her first thing in the morning?!
Soyo drew a deep breath and did her best to keep her polite smile in place — but it was almost beyond her.
Why had she turned that classmate down in the first place?
Because it was a Friday.
Soyo had been counting down the hours to get home and spend a full day properly with Chiose — bathing together, eating together, sharing a bed, doing all the things a normal mother and daughter would do.
Mm... the phrase "things a normal mother and daughter would do" came entirely from Nagasaki Soyo's own imagination. She didn't actually know what an affectionate mother-daughter pair did on an ordinary day.
Not that her relationship with her real mother was bad — it was just that Chiose-mama spent so much more time with her. Ahhh.
"So that's why I came straight to you. Aren't I a good friend to you?"
This girl was waiting for praise? But...
"Why are you telling me all this."
"Because we're good friends, and my impression of you has always been pretty good — so I came to tell you."
Soyo took a step back. Something felt very off.
Like someone was... setting a trap for her? How strange.
"Is there anything else? I want to know more."
"There is — quite a lot more, actually. Mm, basically everyone already knows your business."
"Huh? What? Which parts of my business?"
"Everything you ever shared with your friends. They put together a little group chat. Yesterday, after lunch, when you got back to the classroom and everyone seemed to be missing — they'd gathered for a meeting."
Haizuka Kyoumoto seemed to feel her explanation was incomplete, and added a few more words.
Her voice didn't stop: "A meeting about you."
"???"
What?
Huh?
The more Soyo heard, the more disoriented she felt — it was like being read a fairy tale.
"You're saying... they've already cut me out, and there's a group chat where they're sharing my private information?"
"That's right. And some of them are planning to expose certain private things about you publicly — like your mother complex, and the fact that your parents are separated. Seems like they're really not happy with you."
A mother complex?!
Huh?!
"That's slander... how could they do that..."
"Slander? I wouldn't know about that. Anyway, that's everything I wanted to say to Soyo-san."
Haizuka Kyoumoto placed both hands on Nagasaki Soyo's shoulders, her tone carefully calibrated to project warmth:
"Soyo-san's social life really is a complete mess, isn't it. Right now, I'm the only one who's still willing to tell you any of this."
Those golden eyes glittered and shone — and how many lies lay hidden behind them, nobody could say.
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