It was a little past eight in the evening, and I dropped off Fuyunagi-san, my supposedly real girlfriend, at her home.

We were both students, so it went without saying that staying at a boyfriend’s house late into the night wasn’t an option, but she seemed unable to accept this and threw a tantrum, refusing to go home for quite some time, which was pretty exhausting.

At school, she presents herself as a pure beauty with long black hair, but in private spaces, she has absolutely no intention of maintaining that façade. Her emotional maturity plummets, and her speech and behavior become remarkably childish and naive.

It just shows how much she has to fake her usual self when she’s at school.

“What an exhausting way to live…”

Crafting a persona inside the school.

Because she holds the position of a popular girl, she has to maintain a character that fits that image.

A personality fitting for a beautiful and popular girl.

Friends fitting for a beautiful and popular girl.

A lover fitting for a beautiful and popular girl.

I see. If she honestly came out and said someone like me was her boyfriend, there’s no telling what people would say.

As far as I’m concerned, what others say isn’t worth worrying about, and other people’s opinions are utterly useless. But for her, the evaluations of others seem to hold significant meaning.

I suppose I’m needed as an outlet for the immense stress that accumulates from constantly maintaining a character different from her true self…

But why me, specifically? That’s what I wonder.

She said I was a source of comfort.

I’m not handsome or cute.

I have average height and a typical Japanese face; I’ve never had anyone fall for me before. People say everyone experiences a period of popularity at least once in their life, but I can confidently say that such a thing is completely foreign to me.

And by the way, I’m not counting my current situation with Fuyunagi-san as being popular.

I just felt it was different somehow.

As I was lost in all these thoughts, a LINE message from Fuyunagi-san came in.

The content was truly meaningless.

The kind of message that seemed like it had something to say, but actually didn’t.

She didn’t want to talk about anything in particular, but she was lonely and wanted me to keep her company.

That’s what I gathered from the message.

Instead of just me, she could message Sado on LINE too, I grumbled to myself, but I still kept replying to her messages even after getting home, right up until I went to bed.

And then, the next day.

The usual school life unfolded without incident.

The group of popular kids was energetically making noise as always. In the center of it all, a black-haired beauty smiled purely. Fuyunagi Shizuku. She stood out in a different way amidst the flashy and assertive crowd with her calm demeanor. The boys around her blushed at her graceful smile. Speaking of which, when I looked at the girls around her, they had bored expressions on their faces.

I see… If I observed carefully, it seemed that Fuyunagi-san was being subjected to hate from the girls and seen as an object of jealousy. It’s easy to understand why she’d be talked about behind her back by her female friends.

As I thought about this,

“So? Who actually said it?”

I heard a girl’s cold, cutting voice.

When I looked toward the sound, a beautiful girl was confronting two other girls.

She was Natsume Kano, our class president.

She’s extremely serious, inflexible, and the type who prioritizes efficiency, logic, and rationality above everything else.

Because of that, she’s treated as a nuisance in the class, disliked, and completely isolated.

However, she is a beautiful young woman who suits a dignified attitude, and has hidden popularity as a pure beauty different from Fuyunagi-san… but she’s also famous for being someone you wouldn’t want to befriend.

“If you stay silent, how will I know? I’m asking which one of you said it!”

“I–I told you, it was Yamada-san! I really heard Yamada-san talking behind your back, Natsume-san! I swear it’s true!?”

“H-huh!? I never told you that! Don’t mess with me!”

“You’re the one messing around!”

“No, you’re the one messing around!! Right? Natsume-san, please believe me! Okay?”

“Hey? I’m asking which person said it, okay? So? Which one? Can you be clear about it?”

“Eh… um…”

“I… I didn’t say anything…”

The classroom was enveloped in a gloomy and dark mood from the morning.

Cut it out, this is exhausting first thing in the morning…

“Yo! Good morning!”

The one who whispered that to me was Kato, the resident “best-friend character.”

“Morning, what’s with all that?”

“Ah, about that,”

Summarizing what he told me, it seems that a girl named Kashiwagi went to Natsume-san and tattled that someone was talking behind her back—and that’s what escalated into the situation we’re seeing now.

“Yamada-san was apparently badmouthing Natsume-san behind her back, isn’t that messed up?”

…and so on. It seems like a faction formed to oppose Yamada is starting to take shape—something along those lines. However, Kayanagi-san

“Hmm… Is that true? Then I’ll go ask Yamada directly.”

Ignoring Kashiwagi’s protests, she went all the way to another class and brought Yamada here with her.

“Now then? Yamada-san says she doesn’t remember saying anything. What do you make of that?”

“Eh… ? Ah, um…”

And so, things are currently unfolding like this.

For Kashiwagi, who tattled that Yamada-san was the one talking behind Natsume-san’s back, this must be completely outside anything she anticipated. She probably never imagined Natsume-san would actually go this far.

“Hey? Can you hurry up and tell me? Yamada-san says she didn’t say anything. But you’re saying she did. So which one of you is lying? Hmm?”

“Um… maybe we should stop here? I need to go back for homeroom soon.”

“Oh, right. Sorry for bothering you.”

“No problem, well then…”

Saying that, Yamada returned to her classroom. 

In the end, nothing was actually resolved, but Kashiwagi—the one who tattled—ended up having to sit through several hours of class looking like she was about to cry.

“Scary girl, huh?”

“Yeah… ”

We, the guys on the sidelines, once again experienced the terror of girls.