Vol 1 CHAPTER 12: Planning with an Ally ①【Volume 1: Preparation Arc】

The sun had long since set, and the café terrace was now bathed in the dusky twilight. In the dim seating, illuminated only by the city lights, I studied the girl sitting across from me.

“I’m Takanashi. Takanashi Chiyu.”

And so I learned her name.

She was beautiful—genuinely so.

Her hair color, unusually pale and unnatural-looking, shimmered with a lustrous sheen. Her eyes held a somewhat languid, sleepy gaze, yet there remained a mystical luminescence within them.

Like a masterpiece carefully crafted by a god himself.

She was a second-year student from a different academy, and apparently an old childhood friend of Ichinose-senpai. That’s how she was introduced to me.

“Well then, first I’d like to hear your story,” she said, prompting me even before the introductions were finished.

Confused, I nonetheless steeled myself and told her everything.

Starting from when I’d seen Kotofuki and Ichinose-senpai emerging from a hotel the other day, to my decision to pursue “retribution,” to my scheme to make Ichinose-senpai cheat on her. Everything.

Takanashi listened quietly until the end, but once I finished, she let out a troubled breath and murmured:

“That bastard actually cheated…”

—Oh no. This girl is terrifying.

I felt my abdomen tighten for a moment before I asked her:

“Are you Ichinose-senpai’s girlfriend?”

“He probably just thinks of me as an ex at this point.”

“So… you are aware of that?”

I continued asking about her situation.

Apparently, she and Ichinose-senpai had been childhood friends since childhood, and had been in a romantic relationship until middle school.

“But when I was about to advance to the next school, my family circumstances changed and we had to move. Satoru took that as an opportunity to suggest we break up.”

“Why would he do that?”

“He always hated being tied down.”

“I… that must have been painful for you.”

“…Why do I have to be comforted by you?”

“I’m on the side of guys who’ve been dumped.”

After all, I’d been dumped spectacularly myself.

When I said that, Takanashi seemed to reconsider me, saying, “You seem like a fool, but you’re actually a decent guy.” I didn’t feel particularly complimented, but I accepted it.

“But even after being dumped, you didn’t give up? I can’t say I don’t understand the feeling, but normally, when someone says something that harsh to you, wouldn’t you just… move on?”

“You got a problem with that?”

“No. On that point, I have absolutely no right to say anything.”

After all, I was the guy trying to “get back” at the girl who’d been stolen from me—there wasn’t a more hypocritical position than that. If anything, her refusal to accept the breakup was somewhat endearing.

“It’s just that, generally speaking, I don’t think people would want to continue liking someone who treated them that way. And… I’m sorry to say this, but I don’t like Ichinose-senpai. I naturally feel that he’s lacking as a man.”

I was essentially asking her, What do you even see in a guy like that?

I thought I might offend her, but surprisingly, she seemed to understand, and opened her mouth.

“The reason Satoru and I got together in the first place… it started with him forcibly taking my body.”

“Huh? What? Where did that come from? That’s… shocking.”

I gave a blank stare at the unexpected topic, and a sharp glare was directed at me. But she continued without paying attention to my reaction.

“When we were middle schoolers, he didn’t really understand what love was, but he grabbed me and forced himself on me. Even when I said ‘stop, I’m scared,’ he didn’t listen. Unbelievable, right?”

“Ah, yes… I mean… I’m sorry. I don’t know what to say.”

Wait… that’s seriously heavy… and isn’t that just… a crime—

“So I decided he’d take responsibility for it—with his entire life, in fact.”

Takanashi declared this matter-of-factly as “the reason I’m so obsessed with him,” but—

“…Huh?”

“What do you mean ‘huh’?”

What?

I was utterly confused.

I’d essentially asked, What do you see in that guy? And the answer I received was: Because he was a serial rapist.

—How does that make sense?

I was terrified. The incomprehension was suffocating.

“You’re… not angry with him?”

“I’m angry and I love him.”

She said it so casually.

I trembled. The woman in front of me didn’t seem like the same species as me.

“Maybe… we could look for clinics together? Therapists, I mean?”

“Hah? Unfortunately, I’m in perfect health.”

She said she ate well, slept soundly at night—as if nothing was wrong. And I finally threw up my hands.

Reason doesn’t apply here.

I’d always thought men were creatures who reasoned about things. That’s why I couldn’t understand this.

This has to be driven by emotion alone.

The foundation of it all: Takanashi loves Ichinose-senpai. That feeling is immovable. On top of that foundation, he’d committed the worst possible atrocity, and so the girl before me had become so… twisted.

I forced myself to accept it on those terms.

Truly, this world is full of peculiar things.

“I’m too scared. I want to go home.”

“What? Don’t mess around.”

The twilight meeting continued.

Vol 1 CHAPTER 13: Planning with an Ally ②【Volume 1: Preparation Arc】

“I’m thinking about crushing that girl Kotofuki to pieces. What do you think?”

“I’m begging you—please don’t do that.”

I gave a firm refusal to this terrifying girl’s outrageous proposal. I had no idea what she was planning to do.

“Let me pursue my plan to ‘steal’ the girlfriend. Just… let me do it.”

“That won’t work. My pride won’t allow it.”

“Of course, I’ll make sure it benefits you too.”

“How, specifically?”

I explained to the suspicious-looking girl:

“I’m planning to show Kotofuki evidence of Ichinose-senpai’s infidelity—to tear them apart that way.”

“And?”

“Beyond that, I’m going to approach Kotofuki when she’s hurt and offer her gentle words. Me, specifically.”

“That’s quite the underhanded tactic.”

“But it’ll work, won’t it?”

When I said that, she reluctantly nodded and said, “Well… I suppose you’re right.” I too was confident that part was certain.

A person who’s been betrayed is unstable.

And when Kotofuki reached that state, I’d offer her kind words, making her believe: This person alone won’t betray me. That was the plan.

Some might argue that isn’t love—it’s just dependency. But there’s nothing easier to mistake for romantic love than mutual dependency.

At first, I’d cultivate her dependence so deeply she couldn’t function without me. Then, gradually—very gradually—I’d shift those feelings toward romantic love. That’s when my “retribution” plan would come to fruition.

That’s precisely why I’d worked so hard to maintain a good impression with Kotofuki.

I was going to succeed. I had steeled myself with that determination.

“And how exactly does that benefit me?” Takanashi asked.

I answered proudly:

“In the process, I’ll have Kotofuki renounce her feelings for Ichinose-senpai.”

I’d get her to dump him cleanly. To tell him: I don’t love you anymore.

“Once that happens, Ichinose-senpai’s still just a guy. If he gets thoroughly rejected, he’ll feel down. Even someone like him probably has some male pride.”

“So I swoop in and turn Satoru into my puppet…? Is that it?”

“The fact that you can say ‘puppet’ so casually is terrifying… At least call him a ‘slave to love’ or something.”

That’s the method I’d described earlier. There’s nothing more dependent than someone who’s already been knocked down.

As for dealing with the now-useless Ichinose-senpai after all this—I was planning to leave that to the beautiful girl in front of me.

“My plan in broad strokes is that: If it succeeds, you eliminate the annoying rival, and I help you turn Ichinose-senpai’s attention your way.”

“I see… I see,” Takanashi murmured.

When I asked “So what do you think?” she fell silent and said, “Let me think about it for a bit.”

While I waited for her response, I thought about various things.

There was still so much vague about my plan. The time and effort required to execute it remained unknown. Maybe I’ll be the one who graduates before I even finish my “retribution,” I thought, half-joking.

But if I could secure Takanashi as an ally, the outlook would become much brighter. After all, she was a girl who admired Ichinose-senpai yet felt no natural romantic affection—someone willing to go to any length to capture his heart.

There was no better asset.

To be honest, the biggest difficulty I’d anticipated was securing an “affair partner” for Ichinose-senpai. I’d already considered the possibility I wouldn’t find one—and had even thought about hiring a professional “relationship-breaker.” I’d been losing sleep over how to scrape together the astronomical fees involved… But if Takanashi agreed to help, that entire problem would be solved.

I wanted her so badly.

That’s how much I was depending on her. So I desperately wanted a positive answer.

My prayers must have reached her, because finally, her mouth opened:

“Fine. I’ll cooperate. What do I need to do?”

It seemed my “retribution plan” was progressing steadily.

Vol 1 CHAPTER 14: Planning with an Ally ③【Volume 1: Preparation Arc】

As Takanashi and I went over the details of our plan, she suddenly opened her mouth:

“There’s something I should tell you, by the way.”

What could it be?

I showed an easygoing attitude and indicated I was listening, but she immediately sighed dramatically at my demeanor. Once I straightened up, she adopted an almost aristocratic air and delivered her message:

“After listening to your story, something bothered me…”

“Yeah?”

“That thing about how Satoru supposedly saved that thief girl Kotofuki from street harassment—I’m pretty sure that’s a lie.”

“What?”

I was caught off guard by her unexpected statement.

I’d certainly explained my own situation when I shared my story, including how I came to lose Kotofuki to Ichinose-senpai—and I’d mentioned how they first met. But… it was a lie? Did that mean Kotofuki had been dishonest with me about their meeting? When I asked that, Takanashi shook her head and said:

“No, it’s not that. It’s—”

“That thief girl probably just misunderstood that Satoru saved her.”

“What do you mean?”

Her response only deepened my confusion, so I pressed her to explain in detail. When I earnestly asked her to tell me everything, Takanashi hesitated for a moment before slowly beginning to speak:

“There’s just too much that doesn’t add up. I mean… Satoru wouldn’t risk himself to help a complete stranger—even if she was his type. I can’t imagine him doing that.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, absolutely. He wouldn’t do something like that unless he was completely sure he was safe. He’s not exactly lacking in conscience, but… he’s just a wimp. He doesn’t have the courage for that kind of thing.”

“Hmm…”

That’s weird. I don’t have any loyalty or debt to Ichinose-senpai anyway, so I can accept that… but hearing it from his childhood ex-girlfriend seems harsh.

So I couldn’t help but ask:

“Do you actually… dislike Ichinose-senpai?”

“How rude. Obviously I love him more than anyone in the world. It’s just that the love is strong enough to kill him.”

“I don’t understand, but… I’ll accept it.”

There’s no point pressing this any further. Analyzing the thought patterns of this terrifying girl would be a waste of time.

“So basically, Kotofuki misunderstood their encounter because of that?”

“That’s probably what happened. Actually—”

Takanashi prefaced her next statement by saying, “I heard something like this,” and then continued:

“Apparently, a few months ago, Satoru was trying to create a new girlfriend—maybe as a way to spite me, or for some other reason, I don’t know.”

“Yeah, I actually heard about that.”

According to the testimony of Ichinose-senpai’s classmate, there was a period when he’d been approaching girls indiscriminately. Now, after exchanging information with Takanashi, I could piece it together: He probably wanted to find a new girlfriend before she showed up, so he’d have an excuse to break up with her.

“He was trying to use a new girlfriend as an excuse to dump you, wasn’t he?”

“Probably. The thing is, when he was actually faced with me, he couldn’t bring himself to say it—that’s so like Satoru. Anyway, around that time, he and his friends went into the city to do some hitting on girls.“

“Huh… hitting on girls.”

Not that I have a problem with the act itself. If a healthy young man wants to blow off steam in that particular direction, that’s natural. As long as it doesn’t cause any trouble for women, there’s nothing wrong with it.

But if Ichinose-senpai gained Kotofuki’s trust by “heroically” saving her from persistent harassment, and yet he was actually the one doing the harassing… that stinks.

And my suspicion was correct.

“Apparently, he and three of his old friends from childhood went out into the city. The other two are Sub and Yasu—but their names don’t really matter.”

“And then?”

“They’d approach random women, but… nothing would come of it. I mean, none of those three have any actual skill at flirting. So Satoru and his friends got desperate and tried something ridiculous—”

Takanashi then told me what this ridiculous scheme was:

“Two of them would aggressively approach a woman, and a third would pretend to be a passerby and ‘heroically’ intervene. A setup. A complete orchestration.”

“That’s…”

When I heard that, I was at a loss for words.

I mean… while someone might think of something like that, actually doing it seemed like the kind of thing you absolutely shouldn’t try. It was the kind of picking-up-girls method you’d see in manga sometimes—pure fantasy, ridiculous, embarrassing…

“So Kotofuki was essentially the victim of that match-and-pump scheme?”

“Who knows if it actually worked? I didn’t ask that far. But the timeline matches too perfectly, so…”

“That girl’s an idiot. She probably fell for some ridiculous performance and thought it was destiny, didn’t she? She’s got flowers for brains.”

Takanashi’s harsh judgment of Kotofuki would normally make me want to defend her. But this time, I couldn’t bring myself to do it.

Kotofuki did have a romantic, somewhat dreamy side—that much was true. I’d found that gap between her usual dignified demeanor and her more vulnerable moments cute.

But now that it came to this, I felt she deserved to reflect on herself a little.