Chapter 5: I Want to Awaken Dependent-Type Talent — Step 5: Adding Yandere Spice

Alright, from now on I’ll shift to the step of cultivating her yandere talent.
This is where things really begin, to be honest.

First, as a characteristic of the dependent type, they tend to cling because they’re afraid of being alone.
So first, whether it’s friendship or romance, I need to make her think that maybe I’m not exclusively hers.
If I do that, I should be able to draw out the feeling of wanting me to look only at her.

But how should I do it…?
To make her feel that way, I need to show her that I’m close with people other than her.
Fortunately for me, I have many friends but keep things casual with them, so it’ll be easy to show her me being friendly with others. For now, I’ll try increasing the time I spend talking with people other than her.

Also… I want some spice even while we’re at home.
Since we’ve already exchanged contact info, I should make use of it.
Alright, I’ll reply to messages as quickly as possible.
That way, it should make the contrast more obvious—why does he reply to messages immediately but won’t talk to me during the day?

For now, I’ll go with this spice.

Hmm, I don’t know if it’ll work.
The idea that she has talent is just something I’ve decided on my own, and I don’t even know if creating a yandere is possible in the first place.
If it doesn’t work out, this could end up destroying the relationship she and I have built so far.

However, either way, if things stay as they are, she’ll only be able to get along with me, and her charm might fade away with time without anyone noticing it.

That would be such a waste!
For her to become more attractive, for me to create the intangible cultural heritage known as “yandere” in this world, I’m the only one who can make it happen.
With renewed determination, I headed to school.

First, spice number one.
I’ll greet her, but before our daily routine of talking about books each morning, I’ll talk to someone else.

“Good morning,” I said.
She responded as if she’d been waiting for it, saying “Good morning” with a smile.
Ugh, betraying this smile right now is painful.
But it’s to create an even better smile from you.

As soon as I greeted her, I headed toward a different classmate.
When I glanced at her face, she looked a little lonely, but she immediately went back to reading.
Hmm, maybe it’s not very effective?

To begin with, she and I don’t talk much except in the mornings.
We talk about novels in the morning, but during other times I have other friends, and sometimes I need to study for quizzes, so we don’t talk much.

In other words, if I miss the morning time, I end up not talking to her almost the entire day.
Not talking in the morning is a change, but not talking outside of morning is normal, so it’s hard to judge whether it’s effective.

Hmm, I’ll try continuing for a few days.
I have to try it—if this doesn’t work, I’ll think of another method.

However, contrary to my anxiety, little changes started appearing.

At first, even when I went to talk to friends, she didn’t really watch and just read her book. But after a few days, she started glancing toward me and my friends, and I could see signs of her trying to talk to me outside of mornings.

Oh! Isn’t this a big result?
She’s concerned about me.
This method looks like the typical romance strategy of “if pushing doesn’t work, try pulling.”
But that’s fine.
Yandere traits often get revealed while advancing a romance.
In other words, if someone has yandere talent, there’s a high possibility that yandere behavior will emerge during the normal process of building a romantic relationship.

So, in the process of normal romance, whether it becomes just a regular romantic relationship or results in a yandere birth depends on that person’s talent.
In other words, this will be the major turning point for whether I can create a yandere or not.

And then, I sent her a message like this:

We haven’t been able to talk much lately. Let’s at least talk on social media.

She replied immediately.
From there, a rally between her and me began.
Messages returned and replied to in seconds.
Yes, yes, this is what I need. For the spice to come.
I hope I can make her bloom with just one more spice.

Chapter 6: I Want to Awaken Dependent-Type Talent — Step 6: Yandere Birth?

I hope I can make her bloom with one more spice.
The other spice I came up with is:

Delaying my replies.

It’s a commonly heard idea, but I believe this is essential for yandere cultivation.
Even in romance techniques, there’s the common advice that if you wait about 15 minutes before replying, the other person will think about you.
However, that’s a self-contained thing like:

I end up thinking about them the whole time.

But what if they had yandere talent?

Why isn’t there a reply?
Usually replies come back in seconds.
Could it be they’ve come to hate me?
And then they send dozens, hundreds of messages.

In other words, I think you can tell if they have talent by this reaction.
Furthermore, to cultivate this talent, you need the contrast that comes after instant replies have become the norm.

All the necessary pieces are in place.
Let’s try it.

That night, I waited for a message from her.
Around 7 PM, she messaged:

We couldn’t talk much today either.

Alright, it’s here!
So I’ll leave it alone for now… though that’s too hard for me, so I’ll just take a nice long bath.

I postponed replying to her and headed to the bathroom.

30 minutes later

Phew, I feel refreshed. At first, the guilt of not being able to reply was intense, but after a while I started getting excited wondering if a torrent of messages from her had come in.

Alright, let’s see. If this doesn’t work, all my efforts until now will have been for nothing.
I opened my phone nervously.

Ba-dump, ba-dump.

And then—
There were 7 messages from her.

What’s wrong?
Are you eating dinner?
Maybe you’re in the bath?
Are you studying?
Sorry, did I bother you?
I’ll message you again later.

Hmm, honestly, it’s kind of ambiguous. This could be interpreted as normal messages.
I was expecting dozens of messages, so I was a little disappointed.

In her case, she’s not really the type to message friends a lot. So maybe this is actually a lot for her, but with 7 messages I can’t tell for sure.

I sometimes end up sending about 7 messages too when I’m in a hurry.
Well, based on the content of what she’s asking, it does feel like she might have talent though.
What should I do?

I was walking after school, worrying about it.
I’d hit a complete dead end. If she had talent, I thought showing her scenes of me talking with others and delaying replies would make her bloom, but the way things are now, she’s still in bud form.
Just a normal girl.

Isn’t there one more push, some light to guide her toward yandere?
As I was thinking about that in circles—

“Ah, Takashiro-san! What a coincidence,” she called out to me. It was her.

“Really. What a coincidence,” I replied, though internally I was imagining:

“Actually, it’s not a coincidence. I was waiting for you. For so long, so long…”

What am I doing?

While I was thinking about that, about five high school girls came walking toward us from ahead.
They had a flashy vibe, giggling loudly.
They look a bit scary, so I hope we pass by them quickly—but then one of the five said:

“Oh my god, isn’t that Sugisawa? Long time no see lol,” and started hassling her.
Huh? So they’re Sugisawa’s friends? My bad.

Thinking that, I glanced at her face, and her face had gone pale and her breathing had quickened.
Don’t tell me…

“Why are you ignoring us! You’re so full of yourself, Sugisawa!”
“Wait, is that your boyfriend? lol”
“Huh? Seriously? That’s hilarious lol. Does your boyfriend know what kind of person you are?”
“So funny lol. You’re seriously so stuck-up. Ugly bitch.”

The five of them started insulting her relentlessly.
So those rumors were true after all.
What terrible timing, right when her talent is about to bloom.
I trembled with anger.
Is it because of people like you that she can’t cultivate her talent?!

Trembling with anger, I said, “What rude people, Sugisawa. Let’s go,” and I pulled her hand to get us out of there.

What’s with him? So annoying lol.
Stop playing hero.

I could hear insults like that, but I didn’t care.
More than that, I couldn’t bear for her to be hurt any more than this.

Before I knew it, we’d arrived at a park.
Hah, is it okay now? Thinking that, I looked toward her, and she was still looking down.

What should I say to her? As I was thinking that, she started talking bit by bit.

“You know, I was bullied in middle school, by those five.
I was ignored every day, had insults said about me, and I thought I didn’t want to go to school anymore.

But when I entered high school, I wanted to change, to forget about being bullied and do my best.

So, Takashiro-san, you were the last person I wanted to find out. About this embarrassing side of me…”

And then she started crying.

I didn’t know what to say.
Her and I—we’re still not that close.
Honestly, I don’t know if I have the capacity to accept that heavy past.
And she probably hadn’t told me precisely because she didn’t know that either.
But…

“I have one or two things I find hard to tell people too. You don’t need to worry about it. If anything, they’re the embarrassing ones. Even though they’re in high school, they think it’s cool to insult you. That’s what’s messed up. So… um… well…”

Ugh, why can’t I come up with even one good thing to say?
This is why I’m no good.
I was disgusted at how useless I was.

However, she didn’t look at me that way with disgust, but instead said:

“Thank you. I’m glad you were here today, Takashiro-san.”

She said it with a smile, even though tears were welling in her eyes.

Her smile at that moment was the most radiant one I’d ever seen from her.