Chapter 59: I Want to Awaken an Other-Exclusion Talent — Step 9: A Step Toward Yandere Awakening?

Getting my arm grabbed out of nowhere scrambled my brain. The idea of him closing distance on me made my mind freeze for a second.

That can’t happen. It can’t happen, based on everything I’ve experienced so far.

What is this? Sudden dere? I’m not opposed to that, but—no, that’s not the point!

I shook my head and forced my spinning brain into order, then talked to Wada.

“What’s up? You need something?”

I put on a calm voice, but the agitation wouldn’t go away. What am I supposed to do?

My brain is running at full speed.

Why did he stop me? Is he mad? I don’t know!

But no matter how you look at it, Wada talking to me on his own is impossible. I know that from experience. Absolutely impossible. So me speaking first had to be the right move.

And yet, he doesn’t say anything.

Ah! What do I do?

This area only has rooms for classroom moves, so during three-way conferences nobody walks through here.

That silence just makes me even more uneasy.

I have no idea what he’s trying to say. Honestly, if he’s going to insult me, I want him to do it already.

Based on everything so far, it’s always either insults or getting ignored. Which means now that he actually stopped me, it’s basically guaranteed to be the insult option.

And yet he says nothing.

Stop it—if you’re going to stop someone, take responsibility for it.

How many minutes passed after that? It felt like an easy hour.

What am I supposed to do? I spin my brain desperately at full speed. With him grabbing my arm, I can’t just do nothing and shake him off.

While I’m thinking that, he finally opens his mouth.

“Nothing. Just hurry up and go. Your three-way conference.”

Huh? What was that?

After saying only that, Wada let go and started walking back the way we came.

No, no—wait.

There’s no way it’s “nothing.”

I don’t know what it is, but I’m not dense enough—or stupid enough—to just let this go and go back like nothing happened.

I grabbed his arm without thinking.

“Huh?” Wada looked shocked. Total reversal from a second ago. He looked shocked, and at the same time, like he wanted to run away.

Yeah, I’m not letting go. Because that action was your first clear show of intent toward me—I’m not letting it go to waste.

“Like, okay—my grades suck, so I didn’t want to go to my three-way conference. But Wada’s got it easy, right? Your grades are good, so—”

I just started blurting things out.

Honestly, I have no idea what Wada actually wanted to say. Maybe he wanted to yell at me but couldn’t get the words out—only Wada knows.

But I think that any form of courage from someone with yandere talent has to be used, no matter what it looks like.

I was blurting so much I can’t even remember what I said. But if I try to expand it any further, then along with my own embarrassment I’d have to bring up that “his face was awful” thing—and I’d end up looking like a delusional guy who might’ve just misread everything.

But I can’t stop now. What do I do?

While I’m thinking that—

“That’s enough! Just go already!”

He shouted in a loud voice I’d never heard from him before.

And that snapped me back to myself.

Ah—what was I even doing… well, not that much, but still.

After spitting his usual abuse, Wada walked back the way we came.

I just spent a chunk of time I can’t even explain…

—Wait, my three-way conference!

Chapter 60: I Want to Awaken an Other-Exclusion Talent — Step 10: Someone I Didn’t Plan For Shows Up

In the end, I showed up to my three-way conference about twenty minutes late, and it was a disaster—my parent chewed me out, and my homeroom teacher chewed me out too.

“Have more self-awareness,” “Don’t inconvenience the people around you,” and a whole pile of other stuff—so much that it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say it barely even felt like a three-way conference.

Well, I can’t exactly argue that I wasn’t the one at fault for being late.

But for me, no matter what they said, I honestly didn’t care anymore. Because none of those words were getting into my ears at all.

Why? Because of course—my head was completely full of what just happened, and what it meant for how I should deal with Wada from here on out.

Even after I got home, my head was still full of how to handle Wada.

First, I needed to look back on what happened when I cut in between him and his mother. Even thinking back on it, I have no idea if what I did was right.

I don’t know if cutting in or dragging him away was the right move.

Seeing how his mother didn’t shout at me, maybe it wasn’t actually such an unbearable relationship for him to be around her… I don’t know.

And then the important event: Wada grabbing my arm.

Considering that even Wada talking to me at all would’ve been huge progress, him grabbing my arm feels like a pretty serious message from him.

I just don’t know what the message is…

But if I calm down and think about it, it’s easy to imagine that Wada’s harsh personality is influenced by that mother.

No matter how you look at it, someone who screams in an environment where the homeroom teacher and other people are around isn’t exactly “normal.” And comparing him to his brothers and putting him down like that is proof the relationship isn’t very good.

That might be the root of his personality.

At home and at school, he covers himself in a hard shell and can’t be friendly. He’s doing everything he can just to protect himself—he doesn’t have room to care about anyone else.

Yeah. That tracks. If you’re constantly getting exposed to the poisonous parts of a mother like that, maybe it really is hard to live straight.

But once you know the cause, it’s yours!

How many talents do you think I’ve awakened so far? This one’s been pretty rough, but that’s only because I didn’t know what was getting in the way of his awakening.

If I know, then I can deal with it. Simple as that.

And then I looped back to the origin: the one who can save him is yandere talent awakening. That’s what I think.

By thinking it through, I was able to recognize my original goal again—and his talent too.

Yeah. My direction isn’t wrong!

Riding high, I went to sleep.

I woke up feeling clearer than usual.

Thinking, today feels like it might be a good day, I left home in a bright mood—still not realizing it.

That there was someone else who’d noticed his talent, too.

“Alright, let’s do this today,” I thought as I strode into the classroom, fired up—and then I saw a bizarre sight.

Wada was talking to someone.

I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.

Huh? Why? What is this? Who is he talking to?