(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.

“So… I think there’s still time now. To avoid destroying family harmony twice, won’t you hold me?… Kyo-kun?”

Tachibana-san apparently noticed me standing behind Aoyama-san.

She calls out to me.

“Hey, how about it? Don’t you feel sympathy, Kyo-kun? You heard that story just now, right?”

“I heard most of it…”

Honestly, I felt sympathy.

But more than that, I felt just as much anger toward the adults who used a child’s cries for help—both toward her parents and those adults.

If I didn’t clench my fists, I felt like I’d lose control from anger.

Unforgivable—that’s what I thought just from listening.

“Don’t make such a scary face. Come here and feel good. I don’t know, but apparently it feels good? So, hold me. Then everything will work out well and we’ll both benefit, right?”

Work out well, huh.

That “working out well”… I was about to say that, but Aoyama-san spoke first.

“Work out well, what?! What do you mean work out well? What are you trying to make work out?! Your relationship with your mother?! Family reconciliation?! What’s going to work out well from you being held by Takeda-kun, Mizuri?!”

“My relationship with mother too, and if I do as mother says, I won’t get scolded. It connects to father coming back and becomes a happy ending. …Though I don’t know why.”

Her way of speaking is like it’s someone else’s problem.

So dismissive, like she’s not even living.

It makes me think she’s given up on life.

I grit my teeth and want to say [That’s not true], but I hold back.

The one who should say those words probably… isn’t me right now. It should be said by the person who has been with her to share her troubles.

“There’s no way that would be a happy ending!!”

Aoyama-san grabs Tachibana-san’s collar and appeals to her.

“Whose happy ending is that? Who’s supposed to be happy?… Your mother might be as you say, and other dirty adults might be too. But at least I can’t see even a hint of a future where Mizuri—you—are included in that happy ending, where you’re smiling there! Trying to do such a thing, I can’t forgive it!”

“Can’t forgive…?”

While her collar is being held, Tachibana-san laughs mockingly.

“Did you… listen to the story?”

“Yeah, I listened.”

“Then! Then why does it turn out that way? After knowing my past, what are you going to do?… What is Setsuna, who claims to be my best friend, going to do? What are you going to do for me? What if you fail as a result? Last time Haruko acted on her own and became the trigger for my family’s destruction. This time is a chance to fix that! Then things might return to how they were, so—so it’s fine, right? Hold me, Kyo-kun.”

Looking terribly irritated, Mizuri-san seems like she doesn’t understand why she’s becoming like this.

Her emotions seem lost.

Instead of her usual bright face, she was looking at us with clinging eyes.

Emotions.

So pitiful.

That’s exactly why I can’t forgive the people who made her this way…

“I said I’d stop you… didn’t I?”

Aoyama-san steps bodily between me and Tachibana-san.

She glances back at me, her eyes appealing for me to leave it to her.

I nod back to her too.

Tachibana-san looks at Aoyama-san’s action with annoyance.

“Are you, who claims to be my best friend, going to destroy my family again?”

Again… huh.

“You’ve been saying various things, but… can I say one thing?”

“…?”

Aoyama-san takes a deep breath and shouts toward the sea as if pouring out all her feelings.

“I don’t give a damn, you idiot!!”

“…!?”

A voice that echoes throughout the harbor.

Both Tachibana-san and I are stunned by the sheer volume.

“I heard Mizuri’s circumstances, I was happy you told me!… And on top of that, I’m incredibly pissed off. If your father or that teacher were here, I’d beat them to a pulp, that’s how irritated I am. But on top of that, let me say one thing first—I’m not Akaumi Haruko!! Don’t just lump me together with her!! Even though we’re both best friends, Akaumi-san is Akaumi-san, and I’m me!!”

Aoyama-san spins her words as if releasing pent-up frustration.

“I’m not as smart as your friend Akaumi Haruko and I don’t have a sense of justice! In the first place, from what I’ve heard, she and I are completely different. The only thing we have in common is being your best friend. What am I going to do for you?—Let me be clear, there’s no way a high school student like me could fundamentally solve your deep-rooted problems! I absolutely can’t do it alone! I can say that definitively!”

“Y-you’re being definitive?”

What a way to declare it.

But that’s like Aoyama-san.

“Yeah, I can’t do it alone. It’s absolutely impossible if you don’t want to change. But conversely, if you want to do something about it, we can manage anything and I’ll help you!”

“My… will?”

“Yes, your will! Just what you want to do—with just that, we can do anything for you.”

“But when I tried to do that, when I made that decision, because she was tempted by her, my family was destroyed. Both father and mother told me so. So with my own will…”

Because of her best friend, huh.

That’s how they justified themselves.

That meeting them was also Tachibana-san’s fault.

So them dating and not coming home was also Tachibana-san’s fault.

Because mother created the trigger, she started using violence.

They should really blame father, but since they couldn’t do that, they targeted someone easier.

So, so frustrating.

A parent-child relationship shouldn’t be like that.

What’s this about “disciplining because there’s love”?

It makes me sick.

Sayaka-san and Rio-san didn’t get along well with their parents either.

But that was just misunderstanding—they had feelings of caring for each other.

But Tachibana-san’s case is different.

It’s just one-sided imposition, even treating the child like a convenient existence.

…Such a frustrating story.

“That’s wrong! That’s not it!”

“Setsuna?”

“It’s not Mizuri’s fault! That damn teacher just used you as an excuse to get close! You were just used as a pretext. It’s absolutely not your fault. And what Akaumi-chan said wasn’t wrong either, her feelings weren’t strange. It was just dirty adults who corrupted and used that. Neither you nor Akaumi-chan did anything wrong. Listen? Your father leaving and the Tachibana family collapsing was absolutely not your fault. That was a family problem, and the ones who should have done something about it were probably your father and mother. There was nothing a child like you could have done.”

Aoyama-san is right.

After all, there’s only so much a 10-year-old child can do.

It’s not Tachibana-san’s fault that she couldn’t stop father’s violence, that she didn’t consult anyone, or that he cheated with another woman because of that.

It wasn’t a problem a child could handle from the start.

They say “children are the bonds that hold families together,” but there’s no sin in not being able to hold them together.

“There was nothing I could do…?”

“Yeah, there was nothing you could do. It’s too late to regret it now, your father who left won’t come back. The past can’t be changed!”

“…”

But, Aoyama-san shows a gentle expression.

“Even if the past doesn’t change, the future can be changed… at least I think so. Even if your relationship with your dead father doesn’t change, your current environment can be changed.”

“But… what if I fail at that? What if I fail?”

Frightened eyes.

Failure… huh.

“I don’t know what you mean by failure. Just expressing your emotions won’t fail at anything. What I’m talking about now is just wanting to hear your feelings. But if you tell your feelings and that leads to something fatal… let’s see, then adults will handle it.”

“A-adults, but that’s…”