Accusations that I had helped someone skip class on the very first morning,
the fact that I seemed close with Okazaki and Sunohara,
and even the ridiculous suspicion that I was some kind of pervert who had been moved by a curtain.
All sorts of strange rumors had sprung up on my very first day after transferring.
Because of that, I had expected to attract a great deal of attention right away,
but no one approached me.
"..."
Honestly, that was better.
[Rare pattern detected in Suho.]
[Saved to database.]
What are you saving it for?
[Ordinary transfer students feel lonely.]
Is that so?
[This is a highly rare case.]
I really am pretty strange.
Once again, the system made me reflect on myself.
And so, the morning classes passed more peacefully than I had expected.
...
Then, after school.
"All right, the ringleaders are all here."
Fujibayashi Kyo flung open the back door and strode in, making that declaration without preamble.
In one hand, she was dragging Sunohara along, who had clearly been caught while trying to escape.
"Who are you calling ringleaders?"
Okazaki muttered lazily, resting his chin on his desk.
"You two, trying to skip class on the first day..."
Fujibayashi's sharp gaze landed squarely on my face.
"And that pervert on his first day of transferring who was moved by a curtain."
Ah... I said it was beautiful once, and now apparently I was moved by it...
It hurt to see my supposed words being updated in real time.
"...Could you please stop bringing up the curtain?"
"Hmph!"
Fujibayashi snorted and folded her arms.
"..."
After school on my first day as a transfer student.
Apparently, my hardships were only just beginning.
No.
Maybe they had begun the moment I closed those curtains.
"Come on, follow me. There are plywood boards and paint for the sign in the supply storage room behind the faculty office."
Kyo said coolly as she took the lead.
...
Was it just my imagination?
It still felt as though the way she looked at me was a little cold.
She was the class representative who had helped me when I was nervous and had even praised me.
But she had seen me getting into trouble with two delinquent students on my first day of transferring,
so perhaps she could not possibly think well of me.
Maybe she's disappointed in me.
It might have been a needless thought.
But.
I could not easily get it out of my head.
...
She was someone who had helped me on my first day.
At the very least, I had not wanted to cause trouble for Fujibayashi.
For some reason, a corner of my heart stung.
[Fujibayashi Kyo: Registered as friend candidate.]
"..."
Are you trying to say she doesn't hate me?
The system did not answer.
...
Still.
Somewhere in my heart, I felt relieved.
In the supply storage room we reached, there was a large wooden plywood board, a board with nothing but the words "Welcome, New Students" printed on it,
and unfinished wooden frames scattered everywhere.
"Haah... You expect us to finish all this today? I don't know about this!"
Sunohara whined as he plopped down on the floor, while Okazaki stared at the plywood with his arms crossed, looking troubled.
[New Quest]
[Create a Welcome Sign for New Students]
[Estimated Time Required: 50 minutes]
[Estimated Time Required (Including Sunohara): 1 hour 40 minutes]
[Reward: An appropriate reward will be given.]
Why does it take nearly three times as long if Sunohara is included?
[Primary cause: Sunohara Yohei.]
I had not known him for long, but somehow, I understood why.
"Hey, Morita. Do you know how to build things?"
Okazaki asked, nudging a stray wooden beam with his foot.
"I'm not sure... I've used tools for assembly work before, so I think I can manage somehow."
For some reason, my experience in the military—following officers around to do leftover work instead of resting in the barracks—seemed like it would help here.
"All right. That idiot Sunohara is full of energy, so we'll have him carry the heavy plywood. You and I can put the frame together."
At Okazaki's reasonable division of labor, Sunohara immediately sprang to his feet in protest.
"Hey! Okazaki! Why am I the only one doing the heavy labor?! I can handle delicate assembly work too!"
"You want me to hand you a hammer and risk smashing my fingers too? Stop talking nonsense and move those plywood boards."
"That's too cruel!"
Sunohara cried out indignantly.
"An accurate judgment."
Fujibayashi immediately agreed.
"Let's just get started already."
At Okazaki's words, everyone began to move.
Sunohara grumbled, but lifted the plywood,
and Fujibayashi organized the paint and brushes.
I too naturally walked over to the wooden frame.
...
My first day as a transfer student.
I had never imagined I would be doing something like this.
[Crafting-related action detected.]
[Collecting data.]
Still.
It was different from leftover work in the military.
The fact that I was making something with friends—and a friend candidate—gave me a little motivation.
...
We had been working silently for quite some time when Sunohara broke the silence.
"Ah... I still can't accept this."
Smack!
Hearing Sunohara mutter, Fujibayashi mercilessly brought the plastic hammer in her hand down on the plywood.
"I'm the one who can't accept it!"
Fujibayashi shouted, glaring fiercely.
"Why do I have to keep an eye on you idiots?!"
"Exactly! You should've looked the other way! If you hadn't opened the curtain, we'd have escaped!"
Those words made me sad for no reason.
Strictly speaking.
Fujibayashi was the one who opened the curtain,
but I was the one who had suspiciously closed it beforehand.
"It's because you got in our way that this happened—"
As if she could not listen to another word, Fujibayashi cut him off by holding the claw of her hammer right beneath Sunohara's nose.
"That's what you call having the nerve to blame someone else!
If you can't understand it with your brain, should I crack open your skull and shove it directly into your head?"
They were the most chilling and brutal words I had heard since coming to this world.
"Eek! Her eyes are serious, her eyes!"
Sunohara, too, seemed horrified by Fujibayashi's murderous aura. He flinched and shut his mouth.
"Honestly! This is why I never wanted to be class representative!"
Had she not been elected, but simply assigned the job?
Was that how things worked in Japan?
[You are tired in every aspect of life because you worry about things like that, Suho.]
"..."
I could not refute it.
"Let's finish this quickly and go home."
Okazaki settled the situation while casually hammering away.
"None of us wants to waste time over something like this, right?"
"Besides, Morita is already almost done with his part."
"..."
In an instant, everyone's eyes turned toward me.
"Uh... haha. I'll help you."
Was I really so pathetic that I could not even accept such simple praise naturally?
[Psychological state analyzed.]
[You need to practice accepting others' goodwill without suspicion.]
[Not every compliment needs a reason.]
"Hmm."
Fujibayashi looked down at the wooden frame I had assembled.
"You did a more decent job than I expected."
Thank goodness.
It seemed I had been of some help.
"What was your name again?"
Fujibayashi said, looking down at Okazaki.
Ah.
They still did not know each other's names?
Even though they were in the same class?
Come to think of it,
I did not properly know anyone's name except Fujibayashi's either.
...
Right.
I did not know them either.
[It seems raising your intelligence would be difficult for you, Suho.]
[You tend to assume that everyone remembers everyone else.]
"..."
What was even more irritating was that I could not really deny it.
"Okazaki Tomoya. And you?"
Okazaki introduced himself as if it were nothing.
"I have no name to tell a delinquent."
She asked his name first, then refused to tell him hers.
Maybe she was pettier than I expected.
"You just thought I was petty, didn't you?"
Fujibayashi glared at me with fierce eyes.
"?!"
My heart sank at the unexpected accusation,
but I kept up my poker face and turned my gaze away as if nothing had happened.
"No, not at all."
"Liar."
Her response was immediate.
Was she using some kind of mind-reading ability?
Just as cold sweat was about to break out,
Clang! Crack!
"Aaargh!"
I heard Okazaki scream—a sound I never thought I would hear in my life.
He had been distracted watching Fujibayashi and me trade barbs,
and apparently smashed his own finger with the hammer.
"I told you my name, so tell me yours too!"
Clutching his throbbing finger, Okazaki shouted.
He must have thought she was petty too.
[Insufficient evidence.]
Is that so?
After watching Okazaki pitifully for a moment, Fujibayashi's gaze turned back to me.
I reflexively avoided her eyes.
With a hand on her hip, Fujibayashi said,
"No. I don't want to be close to idiots who plot bad things."
Fujibayashi said firmly.
"Did you hear that, Sunohara? She doesn't want to associate with you."
Okazaki naturally redirected the target.
"Why am I the only one included?!"
Ignoring Sunohara's outburst, Okazaki continued to clutch his injured finger as he said,
"You've got quite the personality."
At Okazaki's sarcastic mockery,
Fujibayashi did not back down. She swept her hair back and smiled sweetly.
"Oh my, so you do have an eye for people? I suppose I can give you a chance to talk to me."
"Did you hear that, Sunohara?"
"Why me again?!"
"At least I got a chance. It seems you didn't."
"You bastard?!"
The plywood boards standing beside us had been leaning precariously against one another,
and at the instant Sunohara's toe bumped one of them,
the countless boards shook and began to fall over Fujibayashi and Sunohara's heads.
Okazaki and I, watching, both widened our eyes.
"That idiot!"
At the same time as Okazaki's shout, my body moved before I could think.
Crash! Rumble!
I threw myself forward on reflex.
With one hand, I shoved away the falling boards,
while with the other, I pulled Fujibayashi back.
Once the dust settled, an odd silence fell over us.
The back of my right hand and my forearm throbbed from being scraped while I hastily knocked away the pile of plywood,
but more important than the pain was checking whether my friends were all right.
"Are you okay, Fujibayashi?"
"Ah... y-yeah. I'm fine. More importantly, Morita, just now you..."
Fujibayashi's purple eyes were wide as she looked back and forth between my face and my injured hand.
All right, Fujibayashi was safe.
But what about Sunohara?
"Sunohara!"
"...Huh?"
I hurried past Fujibayashi, who had been about to speak, and ran toward the pile of plywood under which Sunohara was trapped.
"Aren't you going to save me too...?"
A strangely sorrowful voice came from beneath the pile.
...
Thank goodness.
If he could speak, that meant he was alive.
"Hang on, Sunohara!"
"Okazaki, help me quickly!"
"Yeah!"
I began clearing away the boards together with Okazaki, who had already come over.
Fujibayashi, who had been standing there in a daze, seemed to come to her senses. She shook her head hard and hurried over to lend us her strength.
After moving a few boards, Sunohara's head came into view.
"Ha... Thank goodness. Really."
Once I saw with my own eyes that he was alive,
the tension drained away, and it felt as though all the strength had left my body at once.
"Hey, Morita. Your head's bleeding—"
"What?"
Okazaki caught me as I was about to sink to the floor from the release of tension.
Wondering what he meant, I touched my forehead.
It was wet.
When I looked down at my palm, it was smeared with red blood.
"Ah..."
At that moment.
Throb.
Only then did I begin to feel the pain.
I must have scraped it on something when the plywood collapsed earlier.
[Pain signal detected.]
[Minor abrasion.]
[No threat to life.]
Then there's nothing wrong. Everyone's safe, so that's enough.
[I cannot hide my shock at the way you treat yourself, Suho.]
Ignoring the alert,
I looked at Sunohara as he crawled out from beneath the pile of boards.
"Sunohara."
"Huh? Hey! Morita, I was the one trapped under there, so why are you more hurt?! Are you okay?"
Sunohara hurried over when he saw me.
"Sunohara, I'm sorry."
I lowered my head.
"What...?"
"I'm truly sorry I couldn't save you too, Sunohara... I saw it happen."
"Huh?! What, what are you talking about right now?!"
Sunohara shouted almost like he was screaming, his eyes darting all over the place.
Though he had been buried under the boards and was a mess from head to toe, he looked even more pale as he stared at me bleeding.
"Hey! Morita! Why are you apologizing?! I'm the one who touched the plywood and caused this whole mess! And as you can see, I'm fine right now!"
"..."
"Okazaki! Look at this guy! He hit his head—has he gone crazy?!"
Sunohara grabbed Okazaki's arm and shook it, looking anxious.
But instead of making his usual joke, Okazaki only watched me silently with deep, somber eyes.
"Morita."
Okazaki called softly, gripping my shoulder tightly.
"Sunohara's fine. There's absolutely no reason for you to apologize. And I share the blame for not moving quickly enough to save him too."
"If anything, you're the one who got hurt because of this idiot."
"But... I saw them falling, and I only have one body, so I couldn't grab both of them at once..."
[Psychological trauma and compulsive sense of responsibility detected in Suho.]
[Warning]
[Failing to save everyone does not mean you have failed.]
[The user is not a hero.]
[The user is only one person.]
Ha...
For some reason, those words caught in my chest.
I knew.
I knew that I was a person too.
There were people I disliked,
and it was not as though I had some grand ambition to save everyone.
But.
She was no ordinary person.
She had been the first person to reach out a hand to me in this world.
The first person I had eaten with,
the person who had helped me when I was nervous,
the person who had pushed me forward and told me it was okay.
I did not want to see someone like that get hurt right in front of me.
Trying to push aside the system's criticism, I reached for my dizzy forehead,
when suddenly, my wrist was firmly seized in midair.
"...Idiot."
A voice muttered lowly.
When I raised my head, Fujibayashi was standing in front of me before I knew it.
"Are you really an idiot?"
"What?"
"Why are you bleeding while apologizing to that idiot?"
As she spoke, Fujibayashi examined my forehead.
"..."
"Someone else is the one who should be apologizing."
Holding a handkerchief, Fujibayashi shot Sunohara a fierce glare.
"Hey! ...No, I'm sorry."
Sunohara, who normally would have brushed it off with a joke, awkwardly turned his head away, apparently embarrassed and guilty.
That was unexpected.
Fujibayashi let out a deep sigh and adjusted her grip on the handkerchief.
"Don't move."
"What?"
"You're bleeding."
With those words, she pressed it firmly to my forehead.
It was warm.
Not the handkerchief.
The action of someone worrying about me.
...
[A bond has been formed with key individuals.]
[As the number of people has increased, they will be displayed in subcategories.]
[Friends]
Ichinose Kotomi
Okazaki Tomoya
Sunohara Yohei
[Candidate]
Fujibayashi Kyo
Candidate? What kind of vague label is that...?
[Fujibayashi Kyo does not yet recognize the user as a friend.]
Ah.
That made sense.
She had pegged me as a pervert this morning. Becoming friends over something like this would be...
"The bleeding has stopped."
Fujibayashi said, slowly removing the handkerchief.
Maybe it was because I had raised my stamina, but fortunately it had only been a light scrape, so the bleeding did not seem severe.
"That's a relief."
"So next time, don't just throw yourself in without thinking. Got it?"
"..."
"Did you hear me?"
"Yes, I understand."
Only after receiving my promise did Fujibayashi smile in satisfaction.
After that, the work proceeded smoothly without any further accidents.
Surprisingly, even Sunohara had quieted down and focused silently on the work.
The atmosphere had become a little awkward because of what had just happened, but we quickly finished making the sign.
Come to think of it, the estimated time including Sunohara was right after all...
Thinking something so pointless,
I looked at the completed welcome sign for the new students.
[Quest Complete]
[Create a Welcome Sign for New Students]
[Reward Granted]
[Skill Acquired]
[Handicraft Lv. 1]
...
I did it.
A bonus will be granted for exceeding the objective.
[Bonus condition fulfilled.]
[Protected others from danger.]
[Action record saved.]
[Trait Acquired]
[Protective Instinct]
When acting for others,
your abilities temporarily increase.
[Caution]
Does not apply to the user.
Wait.
Why doesn't it apply to me?
[The user is not someone to be protected.]
What am I, then?
[The user is more accustomed to protecting others than being protected.]
...
[Analysis indicates that this is not beneficial to your current mental health.]
That suddenly hurt.
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