As I stood there, struggling to keep up, Isago suddenly raised just her right pinky and held it out toward me with a smile.
“Here! Kage-kun, you hold yours out too?”
“Uh… l-like this…?”
Obediently, I extended my own pinky.
She hooked hers around mine, then narrowed her eyes happily.
“Then it’s a promise! We’re friends now!”
“A… promise? For what?”
“A promise to stay best friends forever! Fuhehe, I’ve always wanted a boy as a friend!”
“Huh? Oh… uh, sure…”
“Yeah! So you absolutely cannot betray me, okay?!”
“…………”
“If you do, I’ll never forgive you!”
“……………………”
“Pinky swear!”
With all the energy of a pinky-swear ritual—though hers carried a slightly different nuance—Isago declared it so.
(Cut. Don’t push it. Wait, no, those phrases mean roughly the same thing.)
“Yay! Now we’re really friends!”
“Uh… yeah…”
Isago Isago beamed, clearly overjoyed, before continuing.
“You should come hang out with me a lot from now on!”
“Well… I mean… sure.”
“Yay! I’m so excited! What should we do first?! Actually, I’ll make sure to keep next month’s one-month anniversary free! Fufufu, what should we do? Hey, Kage-kun, what do you wanna do? Oh, wait, when’s your birthday?! I’ll need to prepare in advance, so tell me now—”
“—Sorry, time out.”
“Okay!”
What was this? Something—I didn’t know what, but something—felt fatally off. This weird atmosphere… What… just what? For now, all I knew was that it was terrifying.
Half-desperate, I glanced toward Minase, who was standing nearby.
Coincidentally, Minase was already looking at me, and our eyes met midair.
The moment they did, she quietly pressed her hands together in prayer.
“…Kageyuki sama. Thank you for the bread.”
“Uh… yeah.”
“And also—my condolences.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?!”
She didn’t answer.
Instead, Isago—still clinging to my finger—spoke up.
“Hey, Kage-kun, are you free today? Let’s hang out after school! Oh, wait, actually, I wanna visit your house! Ehehehe, I should bring a souvenir!”
“W-w-wait, hold on! Isn’t this way too fast?!”
“—Is that… not okay?”
Isago’s face instantly went blank.
…Whoa. Scary.
Terrifying. What was this? Too terrifying. And way too hard to refuse.
I could feel it—the dormant instincts inside me screaming at me to run.
But my pinky was still locked in hers. If I ran, she’d chase me—and then it’d be checkmate.
Weird, huh? A pinky swear and a pinky loss are practically the same thing, but the impressions they give off are worlds apart.
Just as I was reaching my limit, a lifeline finally appeared.
READ THE ORIGINAL TRANSLATION AT LOCALIZERMEERKAT.PAGES.DEV
“Kageyuki-san, do you commute by train?”
Minase’s voice was quiet but deliberate.
“Uh, yeah… why?”
I nodded. The moment I did, Isago gasped in shock.
“Wait, really?! Oh no, that’s no good… I can’t handle trains… Crowds will kill me…”
Her shoulders slumped as she mumbled sadly.
I glanced at Minase.
Her expression was as blank as ever—but she subtly gave me a thumbs-up.
—An angel?
Thank you, Minase. I don’t fully get it, but I’m pretty sure you just saved my life.
“Ugh… Fine, then at least let’s exchange contacts!”
Pouting, Isago pulled out her phone.
At this point, even that felt like too much—but seeing her clutching her phone with both hands, staring up at me with teary eyes, I couldn’t muster the courage to say no.
“Uh… s-sure… okay.”
“Ehehe, yay! Thanks, Kage-kun!”
Her face lit up like a sparkler. The fact that she was this happy was my only solace.
I turned to Minase, half-begging with my eyes.
“Minase, can I have yours too?”
“Sure.”
“Thank you…!”
“I have a feeling Kageyuki-san and I will be seeing a lot of each other.”
Maybe. Because I definitely couldn’t handle Isago alone.
—And so, just like that, I had obtained the contact info for two of the three people mentioned in the student council’s directive.
Calling this progress would be a stretch, though—things had gone way off-script.
“Yay! Fufu, look, Kage-kun!”
Isago eagerly showed me my name displayed in her messaging app’s Friends list.
For some reason, seeing it made me feel like my heart had been grabbed. And yet, she just kept smiling.
“Ehehe. Now we can talk anytime!”
“…Am I really your only male friend?”
Honestly, she didn’t seem the type—if anything, the opposite—
but when I asked, she nodded with a radiant smile.
“Yep! —As friends! Oh, though right now, I don’t have any non-friend guys either!”
“What do you mean?”
“I just deleted all the other boys’ contacts! Right now!”
“———————”
What do you mean, right now?
Like, just now?
“Well, I’d been meaning to do it for a while. I just forgot because I never really used them. I only got them in the first place for club stuff, but everyone quit anyway.”
Club stuff—she probably meant the Second Literature Club.
“So the guys who quit… they weren’t friends?”
“Hmm, I guess none of them wanted to be friends with me. It’s sad, but… with boys, things always get weird somehow. So Kage-kun’s my first real friend!”
“…………By the way, just asking… any ex-boyfriends?”
“Huh?! Why would you ask something so mean?! But fine, I’ll tell you!”
She started counting on her fingers.
“Hmm… three, four… five, maybe? So far.”
“…………”
“But they all dumped me! Guess I’m just unpopular, ahaha—! …Ugh, now I’m getting depressed again… Why does everyone always choose some other girl over…?”
Her cheerful smile vanished in an instant, replaced by a look on the verge of tears.
Her emotions were unstable—no, more like outright manic-depressive. Just wildly volatile.
But right then, I remembered Minase’s earlier words.
—Because Isa joined.
—That’s why all the other members quit.
Back then, I hadn’t understood what she meant. Now, I had an idea.
In short—Isago Natsuki was…
…probably dangerous.
3
Before lunch break even ended, I fled—no, excused myself from the Second Literature Clubroom.
“You’re leaving already? Stay a little longer! Actually, wanna skip afternoon classes? Let’s play games together!” —and so on. I somehow managed to dodge Isago’s relentless onslaught and regain my peace.
I’d been marked by a real piece of work.
But honestly, how could I have seen this coming?
At least I’d made some progress.
Getting their contact info was a big step. Probably.
…Was it, though? Did I actually achieve anything? Maybe not. ☆
“…This sucks…”
Currently, sixth period.
I half-listened to the lecture while turning Isago and Minase over in my mind.
In the end, I still hadn’t found out what their special talents were.
I needed to be careful—who knew if it was even safe to ask? But if I thought about it that way, getting closer to them was progress… except, well, I might’ve gotten too close.
What even is this?
That said, I had met people like Isago before—like one of my sister’s friends. Super pretty and popular, but somehow off. This felt similar.
“Hey, Sou-san…”
In my sister’s friend’s case, she just had terrible taste in men. Isago seemed different, though—more like she had some kind of thing about male friends.
[Sou. Stay away from girls like that. You’ll get sucked in.]
My sister’s advice had been completely useless this time.
Yeah, no kidding—by the time I realized, it was already too late.
“Sou-saaan?”
—Anyway.
At this point, I wanted to reach out to Shiranui too, but when I checked after lunch, it turned out she’d gone home early, apparently feeling sick.
That meant I had no choice but to talk to Isago and Minase again… but honestly, I wasn’t feeling it.
Isago was heavy. In every sense.
—I was still mulling this over when the sixth-period bell rang. School was out.
As I absentmindedly packed up, I checked my phone.
No messages from Minase or Isago.
Back in middle school, I’d once been treated as a free therapist by that aforementioned friend of my sister’s. At her worst, she’d spam me over a hundred times a day.
(My sister eventually snapped and put an end to it.) But compared to that, Isago not messaging me at all was… almost normal? Maybe there was hope.
Okay.
—Time to go home.
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