Chapter 25: I Want to Awaken My Worship-Type Talent – Step 2: Try Observing Her

When I tried following after her, I found out she’s in the class next to mine.

Huh. So there was a girl like that. She’s pretty cute, and with that small-animal kind of look, I feel like she could’ve become at least a little bit of a rumor.

Thinking that, I took a quick peek into that class.

That class, too, felt split between lively people and quiet people, just like mine. Same vibe, basically.

Um, she was… ah, there she is, there she is—wait, what?

When I watched her, she’d suddenly trip over nothing, drop things, bump into people… like, wow. Okay, so she’s a seriously clumsy girl.

I think that’s the first time I’ve ever seen a clumsy girl that intense in real life.

I asked a friend in the class next door.

“Hey, what’s that girl’s name?”

Like that.

And I managed to get all kinds of info.

First off, her name is Yashirosaka Ruri.

Apparently she’s the only daughter of the Yashirosaka Group. And if we’re talking the Yashirosaka Group, it’s one of those top-tier groups in Japan that basically everyone knows. A major company that handles everything from stationery to furniture to airplane parts.

If she’s their only daughter, you’d think she’d be super stuck-up, right? But it’s the total opposite.

Even when you ask her what she wants, she goes, “Anything is fine.” Basically, she’s shy, easily swayed—put simply, she looks like she doesn’t really have a self.

She doesn’t state her opinions and she tends to match whoever she’s with. People take that as her not having much of an opinion, and it makes her kind of… not fun to talk to, or like she’s hard to notice, and apparently she can’t really blend in well with everyone.

And then my friend said, well, besides that, she’s insanely rich, so even if she didn’t have that personality, she’d probably stand out from her classmates anyway.

Huh. So that’s why she hasn’t been much of a rumor.

Honestly, she’s cute, and she seems a little clumsy, but she also seems straightforward and kind—so it feels way too lonely for her to be standing out just because she comes across like she has no ego.

Well, sure—if the girl you talk to every day always just agrees with you, you might get irritated like, “Say what you actually think,” too.

But even those negative parts of hers will change if her yandere talent awakens.

The part where she can’t express her own opinions well is the same as being able to respect the other person’s opinion.

Her lack of confidence becomes a trait of lifting someone else up and valuing them. And her not being able to state her own opinions—by using someone as her standard—lets her establish a sense of self, shifting from “me with no confidence” into “me who can stand by the opinion of the person I like.”

So yeah, I think she has yandere talent hidden in her, but it’s a little tricky.

What’s tricky is, not many people know what she’s like on the inside—and she also has this vibe that kind of resembles Sugisawa, so it’s easy to think the odds are high she’s a Dependent-Type, too.

I think people with Dependent-Type talent and Delusion-Type talent look similar.

Not that Dependent-Type would be bad, but if she’s actually more gifted in Delusion-Type, then I want to grow that instead, and…

Yeah. Tricky!

For now, I’ll talk to her and figure out which way her talent buds are leaning.

Because if I don’t do that, there’s no way I can know what kind of talent she has. I’m just a yandere-lover, not a yandere master. I mean, I’ll become a yandere master someday, but still.

Actually, I feel like I’m getting used to talking to girls, too.

I think that, while I’m awakening yandere talents, I’m also improving my own resistance to the opposite sex. Amazing—this is ridiculous growth!

If my conversation skills improve more, I can create even more yandere, and then more people can meet yandere, and inside that gentle yandere circle, new yandere will be born again and…

Wait, isn’t that the best? I need to grow more, too!

Well, anyway—right now, I’ll focus on creating the yandere in front of me.

For now, my next target is her.

Chapter 26: I Want to Awaken My Worship-Type Talent – Step 3: Meeting (From Her Perspective)

“You’re going to take the entrance exam for this middle school. Understood?”

“Yes, Father.”

Father is always thinking about me. Even the elementary school I go to, and my lessons—he decides everything for me.

Ever since I was born, I’ve been allowed to live a blessed life. I’ve never struggled with money, I’ve been allowed to take lots of lessons, and I even go to cram school.

I’m not very good at deciding things for myself, and Father says that, too. If I just do what Father tells me, I won’t be wrong.

And Father says so, too.

“Doesn’t that girl always just agree with everything?”

“Ah, you mean Ruri? Yeah, I get it. It’s like she doesn’t have a self—or rather, she agrees too much and it’s annoying.”

That was a conversation I heard when I was about to go back home after school in middle school, and I was about to step into the classroom. I realized for the first time, Oh… that’s how they saw me.

What’s wrong with matching people? Because she said that was what she wanted, so I thought, Okay, then that’s fine.

Is it not okay? Was I supposed to say something?

But… what should I have said? I don’t know. I want someone to tell me.

I thought we were close friends, so I never imagined they thought about me like that.

Huh? Somehow my vision is warping. The tears won’t stop spilling out. What am I supposed to do, me?

From that day on, I couldn’t really go to school properly. But I don’t know what I should do, and I don’t even know why I couldn’t go anymore.

But for someone like me, Father gave me a pamphlet and said, “From high school on, go here.”

I see. If Father says so, then next I should go to this high school. Thank goodness Father is here. If I keep doing what Father says from now on, I won’t be wrong, right?

Thinking that, I entered high school with hope. I think things went well at first.

When people talked to me, I answered, and I listened to everyone’s opinions, too.

But little by little, things stopped going well. I’m not good at starting conversations, and even when people talk to me, I can’t answer well.

But if I just match everyone, it’ll be fine, right?

Mm-hm, yeah. That’s true.

I think it’s good.

Everyone thinks things through, and if I just follow everyone, I won’t be wrong, right?

But then, the next day… and the next day… more and more people, one by one, started disappearing from around me.

Huh? Before I knew it, everyone was gone from around me. Why?

I don’t know, but I ended up alone again.

At school, Father isn’t there, and I don’t know what to do.

I’m no good, huh. Why can’t I do it right? Everyone else interacts with people so well.

And I’m not just bad at talking—I’m so clumsy it amazes even me.

Falling over nothing is just something that happens a lot, and I lose things all the time, and I show up wearing mismatched socks on the left and right, and…

I want to be a little more put-together, though.

Ah—I’m going to fall!

By the time I thought that, I’d already fallen, and my things were scattered everywhere.

Ahh… I fell again. Why am I like this? I hate it.

I was about to cry when a hand suddenly reached out in front of me.

“Are you okay?”

The person who spoke to me was someone I didn’t know at all. But he smiled with such a gentle-looking expression, and he started picking up the things I’d scattered.

I’m happy… even when I fall, everyone is usually indifferent…

Who is this person, I wonder.