Chapter 31: The Secret She Wants to Hide
"An incident?" Hikigaya showed a curious expression.
"Yes. At that time, I was accumulating a lot of stress from trying to play the gentle role everyone expected. Finally, I decided to relieve it by writing a blog, where I recorded all the hateful things I encountered." The blond girl turned around, her eyes slightly moist.
That sounds pretty normal. Hachiman-san also has an "Absolute Unforgivable List." Incidentally, Yukinoshita-san, who frequently insults Hikigaya, is at the top of that list.
"Although I properly anonymized it and hid or modified the names of the people involved, the content was all true. But, one day, a classmate discovered it, and then everyone found out about my private insults toward them. Naturally, I was hated by those guys after that." The girl frowned unhappily, seemingly recalling the past.
"Oh, and then what?"
Hearing this, Hikigaya was slightly intrigued. After all, he was an expert at being hated by everyone.
'Ah, it's really exhausting to be on everyone's mind all the time. Such a struggle.'
"Afterward, all the students blamed me. They had received so much help from me all along, yet they suddenly turned their backs on me. The boy who always smiled and said he liked me unceremoniously shoved me down because I wrote in the blog, 'I was confessed to, I feel so disgusted, I might as well die.' The girl I used to exchange gifts with was dumped by her boyfriend, and she angrily kicked my desk, because I had listed the detailed reasons for her breakup and mocked her."
'...That sounds pretty normal.'
Hikigaya has also experienced similar things.
People who were friends yesterday would turn around the next day and use another person's secrets as gossip to please others.
When young boys and girls enter middle school, they start experiencing love and probably have someone they care about or like. They must want to find someone to confide in about their inexperienced and confusing feelings, but it's embarrassing to say it out loud, so they can only find a trustworthy person and reveal their true feelings through conversation.
Why did those people spread what others had said, which they swore to "keep absolutely secret"? They revealed their secrets because of trust, yet those secrets became material for attack.
Hikigaya can laugh about these things now, but at the time, it was a bitter, sad, and painful experience for him.
The blond girl in front of him had done something similarly excessive.
But if that was all, it shouldn't make her so desperate to hide her dark side.
"Yesterday, they praised me, saying I was 'hardworking and ambitious.' Today, they called me 'vain.'
Yesterday, someone respected me because I was 'smart.' Today, they slandered me, saying I 'looked down on those who didn't study well.'
Yesterday, I was 'cheerful and lively.' Today, the description changed to 'a noisy attention seeker.'
Those guys formed cliques and judged me like a criminal. Respect and envy vanished, turning into fear and hatred. Anyway, I felt a crisis then, since I was against the entire class of over thirty people." Tears finally began to well up in the blond girl's eyes, and her voice grew softer.
'There are no villains cast from a single mold in this world. Ordinarily, everyone is a good person, or at least an ordinary person. The terrifying thing is that these people can suddenly turn into bad people when a crucial moment arrives, which is why we can't be careless.'
This quote from Natsume Soseki suddenly flashed through Hikigaya's mind.
There are no villains cast from a single mold. Everyone believes this, including themselves. People believe they are kind, but if their own interests are violated, they will show their fangs.
When one's mistakes and dark history are exposed to the public, and when the person who couldn't possibly be a bad person becomes bad, people start making excuses. To maintain self-consistency, they have no choice but to push all the blame onto others.
Though his mind was racing with thoughts, he said nothing, quietly waiting for the rest of the story.
"After being ostracized by the whole class, I couldn't bear the malice coming from all directions, so I chose to take a leave of absence. After my parents found out what happened to me, they also put me under house arrest. It wasn't until later that I was told about the existence of this school, so with a hopeful thought, I came here.
After being put under house arrest by my parents, I seriously thought things over. I'm not the person I used to be.
Although I still feel stressed when I encounter people I dislike, what I pursue has changed. I want to grow into someone who is trusted and liked by everyone even without having to be intentionally gentle toward them.
So, I won't repeat that mistake. I swear it. That's why I was full of excitement for the new school life. I had already made up my mind to succeed this time."
"No, you're lying." Hikigaya suddenly frowned, abruptly interrupting her words.
"Is there something wrong?" The blond girl looked at Hikigaya with weak, teary eyes, as if she were a pear blossom covered in rain. "Because you're the only one who saw my other side and
didn't show disgust or rejection, so..." Even though the girl was crying, Hikigaya couldn't shake a strange sense of incongruity.
"—So I hope we can become friends," Hikigaya completed the rest of her unspoken sentence in his mind.
'So that's what it is...'
The blond girl in front of him is not as simple as she claims.
After being told that her fingerprints might not be collected, she lost the basis for blackmailing Hikigaya to keep her secret. Since neither of them knew each other, after seeing Hikigaya's shyness from being touched by a girl, she immediately changed her strategy and instantly adopted the "Frail Girl Operation."
Just imagine: a high school boy who exudes loneliness accidentally discovers the other side of a cute girl.
The girl cries and tells the boy about her unknown past, showing a vulnerable side, and even says the boy is the only one who hasn't rejected her, hoping to become friends...
'What a youthful and classic plot...'
As long as Hikigaya offers a few words of comfort and then enters the classic "secret exchange" segment, he would surely be able to become friends with the girl, or even win her favor and admiration, right?
However, once he is induced to reveal his secret, it would play right into her hands, handing over his leverage to the opponent.
Hikigaya stared expressionlessly at the delicate, pitiful blond girl: "Of course there's a problem. Think back. The moment I discovered your dark side, you immediately took... you took that measure to stop me from spreading your secret. But now you're saying you passively took a leave of absence because of your class's ostracization, and that completely contradicts your behavior just now."
Hearing Hikigaya's analysis, the blond girl fixed a sharp gaze on Hikigaya.
"Actually, you never intended to tell the truth from the start, did you? Instead, you wanted to use a web of true and false lies to gain my trust and sympathy.
Let me take a guess at the truth.
When you were ostracized by the whole class, you didn't just sit there. Instead, you chose to bring everyone down with you, meaning you exposed all the secrets you possessed, destroying all interpersonal relationships.
After that, your classmates fell into a state of mutual rejection and internal strife because of the truths you revealed, so naturally, no one pointed the finger at you anymore. It was
precisely because you caused such an uproar in the entire class that you, despite your good academic and physical abilities, were assigned to first-year Class D by the school."
The blond girl's eyes were no longer moist; a flame of loathing burned in her dry gaze.
Seeing the girl's terrible expression, Hikigaya, knowing he had guessed the correct answer, quietly sighed.
"This is the secret you truly wanted to hide."
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