"Something on your mind?"
"On my mind? No — nothing at all."
The car was faintly touched by Chiose-mama's warm, spicy scent, and Soyo's ears caught the soft murmur of her voice. Together, they gradually eased the coil of tension that had wound itself around Soyo all day.
She had been strung so tight today that she hadn't even managed to have a proper chat with Chiose. And she had been looking forward to Friday for so long.
"Is that so."
"It is..."
Well then.
Yoshiiro Chiose said nothing more, and simply kept driving.
The silence on the ride home was a warm one. Soyo felt herself slowly coming back to herself. Now and then Chiose would murmur something — perfectly calibrated words of care, never heavy enough to make Soyo feel any pressure.
And then at last, they were home.
The house in front of her was just as it had been when Chiose had scooped her up and brought her home back in fifth grade. The décor unchanged. The feeling unchanged.
She stood quietly in the doorway, watching Chiose — eyes warm with a smile — head toward the kitchen to cook her dinner. And all of a sudden, she thought...
[Maybe... there isn't really anything to be anxious about?]
Even if she was being ostracised...
[I still have Chiose-mama here with me, don't I? Chiose-mama will always be here.]
Yoshiiro Chiose placed the steaks she'd bought into a sink full of water to thaw — and then a small, soft someone wrapped their arms around her from behind.
"What is it, my darling girl."
How precious. As she'd always suspected, a daughter was most entertaining when she'd been poached from someone else.
"I... I have something I want to tell you, Chiose-mama... my head's all in a mess right now... is it alright if I tell you? Will it be too much trouble for you?"
Nagasaki Soyo ventured two small experiments at once.
One: attempting to ask for help.
The other: attempting to call Yoshiiro Chiose simply "Mama."
Normally she called Chiose "Chiose-mama" — she rarely used just "Mama" or "Mother" — but today, looking at Chiose's back, she simply couldn't hold herself back from hugging her.
She really, truly wanted to call her... Mama today.
"Of course, sweetheart. Let me wash my hands and we'll go sit in the living room and talk properly, alright?"
Chiose rinsed the blood from the beef off her hands, and reached up — she'd meant to ruffle Soyo's hair, but caught herself, afraid her hands might still carry the faint smell of raw meat.
Her hand had already lifted halfway into the air when she tried to draw it back.
But Nagasaki Soyo caught Yoshiiro Chiose's hand and pressed it firmly down onto her own head.
"It's fine. I don't mind at all, Mama."
"Pfft."
What a precious daughter. Had she been completely won over already?
That laugh that escaped Chiose now was entirely genuine.
She was already regretting not having filmed that moment to send to Miss Nagasaki. What expression would the woman make, watching her daughter get stolen right out from under her? It would have been priceless, surely.
So this was what they called being a [cuckold] — how terrifying.
Though, Chiose mused, if she really had filmed it and sent it over, Miss Nagasaki would probably just have complained loudly that she wanted to pat her daughter's head too.
Hm. Perhaps Miss Nagasaki hadn't received enough love when she was little herself.
Chiose washed her hands again — then wiped them on the hem of Soyo's school uniform — then took Soyo's hand and led her to the living room.
Tea was brewed. Tea was poured. They watched the leaves slowly unfurl and rise through the cup — and only then did the words Soyo had been bottling up finally spill free.
"Mama... today I..."
"So, someone told you that your friends had started a group chat where they were gossiping about you and sharing your private business — and then you went to a girl from the next class over, who confirmed that yes, people were talking behind your back... is that what happened?"
"Yes, exactly... so what should I do?"
"Let me think this through carefully."
Yoshiiro Chiose took a small sip of tea. If she were being honest, she far preferred coffee — was practically devoted to it. But for Soyo's sake, she'd deferred and joined her in drinking tea.
"I think... this is actually a very interesting trap."
"A trap?"
"Yes. I've been in a situation like this before, actually. Little Soyo — have you heard of the Empty Fort Strategy?"
"From Romance of the Three Kingdoms?"
Yoshiiro Chiose nodded, and said nothing more — only drank her tea.
The Empty Fort Strategy: the ruse Zhuge Liang played on Sima Yi, where a city with no soldiers inside somehow scared off an entire army.
"So?"
Soyo wasn't quite sure what Chiose was getting at.
"What I mean is — isn't it possible that this [Haizuka] and this [Niiharu] have set you up in exactly that kind of empty fort?"
For some reason, when Chiose said the name 「Haizuka」 ... Soyo thought she could hear something — a faint grinding quality in her voice? A clench of the teeth?
Was she imagining it?
"Eh? Why would you say that, Mama?"
"Well, think about it — the whole thing fits rather neatly. Say these two are working together. Niiharu goes first and says a few unflattering things about you to a handful of people. Then she has Haizuka come find you and tell you there's actually a whole clique operating behind the scenes."
"But that clique might not exist at all. All that business about [of course the people in the group aren't going to tell you they're in it] and [I'm the only one who would tell you this] — it's really quite clumsy, when you look at it."
As she spoke, Chiose had been slowly, imperceptibly leaning closer to Soyo — so gradually that even Soyo, hanging on her every word, hadn't noticed.
"Ah? But..."
"Put it all together: they constructed a group that doesn't exist. The actual effort they put in was probably nothing more than whispering a few throwaway comments to one or two classmates. Then they handed you this grand [concept] — and let your own imagination do the rest, running you ragged, keeping you up at night."
"A tiny investment, and the phrasing seems airtight on the surface — but it sends you spiralling into self-doubt and anxiety. Isn't that frightening? That's the power of words and imagination for you."
By the time Chiose finished saying this, her arm had already settled, almost lazily, over Soyo's shoulder.
Young girls were just so easy to unsettle.
A little wind and frost, and she was trembling like a leaf. Without someone here to soothe her, she'd probably have spent the next few days drowning in misery.
If she'd known it would come to this, she would have told The System to hold back a little. After all, this was her [daughter] — if she frightened her too badly, who was going to compensate her for a new one?
"They're trying to make you suffer, little Soyo. Everything they've done has been to get under your skin! A secret clique? A meeting where everyone talked about you? Sharing your private secrets? It all sounds very alarming, doesn't it — but when you really think about it, what does any of it actually amount to?"
Chiose's voice was like a sinuous melody drifting up from the depths of hell — and Soyo found her entire train of thought flowing helplessly along its current.
"They have been manipulating you from the very beginning, little Soyo. Leading you down the path they wanted you to walk. Remember this — whenever someone tells you [only I will tell you the truth] or [only I care about you], it's a lie."
"The only one who tells little Soyo the truth is me, your mother. Because the people in this world who truly care about little Soyo... might only be me..."
Chiose paused, thought for a moment, and added a few more names:
"And Miss Nagasaki, and Mr. Ichinose as well, I suppose. We would never, ever hurt you."
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