(Chastity Reversed) The Legitimate Wife War: How I, a Harem-Hater, Ended Up Creating an Ultra-Eccentric Harem with a Villainess, a Sadistic Beauty Teacher, a Scheming Classmate... etc.

Aoyama-san quickly approached and slammed my body against the rooftop fence with that momentum, holding me down with her arms.

It hurt. And Aoyama-san was stronger than I thought.

“—I won’t forgive you.”

I could feel actual killing intent.

Her emotions were running quite high.

Well, if she thought I had hurt her best friend, it was natural for her to be angry.

But unfortunately, I hadn’t done anything to hurt Tachibana-san.

I had barged into the bathroom once though… eh, when she said “hurt,” was she talking about that?

…No, that should be different. That was two months ago, we made up afterward, and we even went on dates after that.

Unless Tachibana-san had been holding a grudge… but…

“I’ll talk, I’ll talk. Calm down and let go of me once? I can’t talk properly in this state.”

“Ah… s-sorry.”

When I said that, Aoyama-san let go of me.

However, her gaze looking at me was still stern.

“First, you think that Tachibana-san and I have a relationship beyond school, right?”

“Y-yeah, but you two—”

“—Because you saw us going into the same house, right?”

“Eh, how did you know?”

This much was as we had imagined.

But the part I didn’t understand was what came next.

“I’m telling you this because I trust you, Aoyama-san. As you guessed, Tachibana-san and I aren’t just classmates and friends.”

“I knew it.”

It seemed Aoyama-san had expected as much.

It was common knowledge that I was participating in the fiancée system. Considering that—

“—You’re cousins, right?!”

“No, that’s wrong. We’re fiancées.”

“Eh?”

Why? Where did the cousin thing come from?

Aoyama-san was wide-eyed with surprise… did she really think that?

She was still looking at me with suspicious eyes.

“No, really, we have no blood relation. The government recognizes this too.”

“So you met through the fiancée system and became engaged this March?! Not old acquaintances or childhood friends or anything like that?!”

“Yeah, nothing that romantic at all.”

Besides, my childhood friend was Mio-nee.

Well, now she’s my step sister.

“…Now that I’ve told you about our relationship, I’d like you to tell me something. Why did you think I was Mizuri’s cousin, and what’s this about wounds you mentioned earlier?”

“Ah…”

Suddenly Aoyama-san’s tone dropped and her eyes started darting left and right.

“N-no. If it was just a misunderstanding… it’s fine, right? Mizuri told me not to say anything, so yeah, let’s pretend this conversation never happened…”

Aoyama-san glanced at my face.

I nodded back with a smile.

There’s no way I’d let this go—my unspoken intention seemed to get through, and Aoyama-san held her head.

“Ugh, I messed up! She told me not to say anything…”

I thought to myself that she probably shouldn’t have mentioned being told not to say anything either, but I didn’t voice that.

I needed to extract information here.

Aoyama-san had been groaning for a while, but eventually she seemed to give up and nodded once.

“Not saying anything would be wrong… Yes. I want to make it clear that I wasn’t suspecting you at all, okay?”

No, you were totally suspecting me though.

Isn’t that a bit much to claim now?

I decided not to press the point now in order to hear the story.

To summarize Aoyama-san’s story:

She had accidentally discovered wounds from abuse on Mizuri-san but had been silenced by her.

Her tone at that time was apparently like a completely different person.

She was forbidden from talking about it, but wasn’t told she couldn’t do anything about it herself, so she thought she’d secretly solve it and started investigating. That was very much like Aoyama-san…

And while continuing her investigation, she accidentally saw Mizuri-san and me going into the same house.

Since Mizuri-san’s wounds seemed to be from long ago, she thought maybe I was a relative of Mizuri-san, like a cousin, and might know something about her wounds—if not the direct cause, then perhaps someone who was overlooking it.

After hearing the whole story, I took a deep breath and sighed.

I could even hear Kazari-san clicking her tongue unusually through the earphone.

“Hah, I see… Setting aside what Aoyama-san thinks of me for now.”

Honestly, that doesn’t matter right now.

“What kind of wounds were they?”

“Eh, what kind? Um, how should I put it? Most of the wounds looked like bruises that had changed color after being hit. I also caught a glimpse of what looked like cigarette burns. There were also some recent marks from being hit. I didn’t look for long so I didn’t see that much… but another thing was that Mizuri seemed to have given up and thrown everything away.”

“…Given up?”

That means… her heart was already…? No, probably not completely, but she was probably in a precarious state.

That’s probably why Aoyama-san moved quickly too.

“…I see.”

Honestly, I didn’t know what to say.

Now that I think about it, that’s why back then, in the bathroom, she was concerned about me seeing her naked.

To check if I had seen her wounds.

Thinking I hadn’t seen them, Tachibana-san was relieved. She wasn’t checking if I had seen her skin, but if I had seen her wounds.

If I had known, I would have noticed that sense of wrongness at the time.

…If only I had noticed earlier.

I couldn’t suppress my regret.

I was angry at myself for not noticing.