Even Today, the Genius High School Programmer Cashes In on Day Trades, Completely Flustered by Beautiful Girls' Growing Affection. - Chapter 36: It’s Okay to Be Angry!

It’s Okay to Be Angry!

There are moments when temptation strikes — and it always seems to happen at times like this.

“If I had been a kid like Yukina, would my parents have doted on me?”

“Huh?”

Yukina looked at me with a slightly startled expression.

I was half-lost in a dreamy haze. My mouth wouldn’t stop moving. It felt like water slowly leaking from a dam.

“It started around the time I entered middle school. My dad’s company went through tough times and he got laid off. That was the trigger. My parents started fighting constantly.”

“Mm…”

“At the time, my mom was really falling apart. She stopped cooking, cleaning, doing laundry — everything. She still went to her part-time job, but she started coming home late at night, drunk more often than not.”

“I see…”

“But you know what my personality is like, right? When something doesn’t make sense to me, I can’t just stay quiet. I have to say it clearly.”

“Yeah…”

“So I’d ask her things like: Why are you drinking until so late? Why did you stop making my lunch? Is it really okay to leave the house this messy?”

“…”

“We clashed a lot. But I spoke with logic, while my mom spoke with emotion. Our words never connected. She hated being hit with cold, hard facts more than anything. So whenever she couldn’t come up with a good response, she would always say…”

‘You really aren’t cute at all! I wish I had never given birth to someone like you!’

“I know it was just her lashing out because I had lashed out first. But I never asked to be born. Was I not supposed to be born? Was I not allowed to live? You two are the ones who brought me into this world, right? You’re the ones who fell in love with each other. Is this the result? Then don’t fall in love in the first place. Don’t do something so pointless. Am I just a victim here? If that’s how it is, then…”

“…Yukina?”

“Sniff…”

Oh no!

What the hell had I just been saying?

My head was still foggy. Wake up! Snap out of it, brain!

“That’s horrible…”

Yukina was crying.

Her face was twisted as tears streamed down one after another, endlessly.

“That’s so horrible! Kousuke-kun is such a kind person! You’re so right! You understand people’s feelings so well!”

“Um… Yukina?”

It was no use. Once Yukina started glitching like this, it was hard to stop her.

“Of course you’re allowed to live! Of course it’s good that you were born! If you hadn’t been born, I would never have met you! Hina wouldn’t have, Aoi wouldn’t have, and even Makise-kun wouldn’t have met you!”

Tears kept pouring from Yukina’s eyes.

The usual delicate beauty on her face had vanished. Her features were scrunched up as she cried, raw and messy.

She was angry.

“Kousuke-kun has always helped me! You pulled me by the hand and ran away with me! You taught me how to study! You praised me, saying I worked hard! You told me I was cute! You said my yukata looked good on me! Even though you’re such an amazing guy… of course you’re allowed to live!”

It was practically a cry from the soul.

For some reason, I found myself watching her from a slight distance, as if observing from above.

Why was she getting this angry?

“Kousuke-kun, why can you stay so calm!? It’s okay to be angry! It’s okay to scream and cry! Call them idiots! Say there’s no way something this unfair should happen! Tell them to stop messing around! Tell them not to make fun of you! Tell them to knock it off! Something like that… something like that is just wrong!”

Finally, Yukina broke down completely.

“Uwaaaaah—!”

She wailed like a baby. Her eyes were like a broken faucet. Her mouth like a broken siren. The glitched-out Yukina showed no sign of stopping.

“Yukina.”

I slowly placed my hand on top of her head.

Her body twitched for a moment, but she continued crying. I gently stroked her hair.

I still didn’t quite understand why she was crying like this.

But perhaps…

She was crying for me.

She was getting angry for me.

She was shedding the tears I couldn’t cry, and voicing the anger I couldn’t express.

When that thought crossed my mind, an indescribably warm feeling enveloped my chest — warmer than anything I had ever felt before. It was as if Yukina had lit a fire in a cold, unused fireplace deep inside my heart and gently added more firewood.

Yukina had affirmed me.

She had affirmed everything about me.

That it was good I had been born.

That it was good I was alive.

Nothing could have made me happier than that.

I kept gently stroking the head of Yukina, who showed no sign of stopping her tears.

Seeing this girl crying and getting angry not for herself, but for someone else… I found her unbearably, unbearably precious.