Konomin’s Apology

“—Hey, did you hear? Apparently Tojo-kun got expelled.”

“Seriously? Guess he couldn’t fall back on his usual trick of crying to someone for help this time.”

“There were always a lot of shady rumors about him.”

“I heard there were even movers at his place.”

The day after the stream, with spring break just around the corner, word of Tojo’s expulsion had apparently finally gotten out at school, and everyone was buzzing about it.

Tomo and I were directly involved—or rather, I had been the cause of the whole incident—and Yuika knew what had actually happened, so all three of us could only exchange looks and wry smiles as we watched the other students getting excited over the rumors.

“If they’d managed to hide it until spring break, they probably could’ve just said he transferred. Wonder where it leaked from.”

“Who knows? Probably spread from one adult to another or something. I mean, forget us, there’s no way they could keep something like that hidden forever.”

“Looks like nobody knows about that part, though.”

By that part, Tomo was probably referring to the fact that Tojo and the others were currently in police custody.

Apparently, on the day I had been running around dealing with everything involving Reine, Tomo had also been asked to come in and cooperate with police questioning, so she seemed to know what had happened afterward.

“So, Rinne.”

“Hmm?”

“What did you do to those guys?”

“I told you, I didn’t do anything. I just took you home, Tomo.”

Hmm. Tomo never pressed me too hard, but lately she had been like this.

She seemed to have vaguely realized that I had done something, and while she wasn’t persistent about it, every so often she would suddenly remember and ask me what I had done.

Well, she had seen me go wild right in front of her, so she could probably guess that I was capable of doing something.

She didn’t seem interested in making a big deal out of it either, so apparently she had no intention of digging too deeply.

“—…Taki-san.”

“Hmm? Oh, Konomin. Morning.”

“Uh… huh? I mean, yes. Good morning…”

The person who called out to me from behind was Konomin, the very girl who had led me toward the old school building that day.

I didn’t know her surname.

I leaned back against my chair and tilted my face upward to look at her, and for some reason she answered with a deeply confused expression.

She seemed to have dark circles under her eyes too…

…I see.

Maybe “Konomin” was a nickname she only allowed people close to her to use.

“Sorry, Konomin. I only know you as Konomin, so I don’t know what else to call you.”

“…Um, I don’t mind if you call me that?”

“Huh?”

“Huh?”

“Then why are you so confused?”

“…Because you leaned back like that and just kept talking to me.”

“…I see. So, what is it?”

“If you understand, then sit normally!”

Whoops, right.

Come to think of it, Konomin was one of those young people with a short fuse.

I straightened myself with a little heave, only to see both Yuika and Tomo looking at Konomin with somewhat severe expressions.

“…Rinne, were you close with Azuma-san?”

“Azuma?”

“Azuma Konomi. Her. She used to hang around with Tojo pretty often.”

“Oh, really?”

Well, otherwise they probably couldn’t have used her as some kind of errand girl for an errand boy.

Still, apparently it had been fairly well known that Konomin spent time with Tojo.

I hadn’t known that at all.

“We weren’t exactly close, but we had a little interaction. So, Konomin, what’s up?”

“…I wanted to talk to you about what happened the other day.”

“Hmm. I don’t really care about it, though? Actually, this probably isn’t the best place to talk, so want to go somewhere else?”

“…Yeah. Aizawa-san and Tachibana-san can come too. Especially Tachibana-san…”

…Aizawa?

I had learned the other day that Tachibana was Tomo’s surname, so did that mean Aizawa was Yuika’s?

While I was thinking about that, Konomin’s unfinished sentence made both Tomo’s and Yuika’s expressions visibly change.

If she had something to discuss that especially involved Tomo, then it was obviously about that incident.

And if Konomin, who had apparently been close to Tojo, was bringing it up, then naturally they weren’t going to stay quiet.

Nobody around us knew that Tomo had been captured.

Aside from Tomo herself, only Yuika and I knew.

She was an aspiring idol, and neither of us wanted her to end up with a history of having been abducted by a group of men.

Apparently Yuika had taken that into consideration and told Tomo’s workplace that they had been unable to contact her because of a traffic accident.

Though she had apparently made it clear that Tomo hadn’t suffered any serious injuries.

If they got heated and started arguing here, it could easily invite all sorts of strange speculation.

I wanted them to understand that and hold back, but Tomo and Yuika were already giving off such a hostile air that I could feel people glancing our way as if sensing that something was going on.

Just as Yuika and Tomo were about to speak, I clapped my hands once.

I had put just a trace of magical power into it, causing the sound to crack sharply through the classroom.

The entire room fell silent, and Yuika and Tomo both widened their eyes and looked at me.

“Stop. This isn’t something we should talk about here, so let’s move.”

“…Ah, yeah. You’re right.”

“Ahaha, sorry about that, everyone. That came out a little louder than I expected. Please don’t mind us~”

Laughing, “Ohohoho,” I headed out of the classroom while calling back to everyone, taking Tomo, Yuika, and Konomin with me.

“Yuika, Tomo. Know anywhere good?”

“Huh? You’re asking us?”

“Oh, then how about the rooftop? At this time, it should be empty.”

“Wait, our school actually lets students onto the roof?”

“Yeah. Though it’s completely boxed in with fences and stuff.”

I had thought schools with open rooftops were basically an urban legend in modern society, or something you only saw in anime and manga.

With spring break close, and given the nature of our school, taking time off around this season was almost encouraged.

The school placed a lot of emphasis on independence—or rather, its stance was basically that students were expected to manage their schedules properly.

That meant the only students who bothered coming to school around this time were those still short on attendance days.

Yuika and Tomo had missed a lot of school because of work, but apparently they were close to clearing their quota—or rather, the required attendance.

As for me, I had decided to start my spring break tomorrow, a little earlier than Yuika and Tomo.

That was because I needed to work on Reine’s model, and my practice sessions and collaborations for the 『OFA VtuberCUP』 were about to increase considerably.

I wanted to get various things sorted out during spring break.

Anyway, that was why the school had fewer students than usual as we made our way to the rooftop.

Sure enough, there were sturdy fences and netting all around, clearly designed to prevent accidents or anything else from happening.

The fences were a little too solid and tall for me to call the view spectacular, though.

It was a little different from what I had imagined, but a rooftop was still a rooftop.

Just being on a high-school rooftop made it feel like some kind of youth buff had activated.

As expected of the rooftop.

Today was quite warm and comfortable too, and the breeze felt pleasant.

Temperatures fluctuated horribly around this time of year, switching between warm and cold, so you couldn’t let your guard down.

Once all four of us stepped outside and confirmed that nobody else was around, Konomin moved in front of us and bowed her head sharply.

“—I’m sorry, Taki-san!”

“…Hmm? Why are you apologizing to me?”

“…Huh?”

Konomin raised her head again, eyes wide with surprise.

It wasn’t like she had actually caused me any trouble.

Oh, right.

“Actually, Konomin. Thank you.”

“…Hweh?”

Where did that pathetic little noise come from?

“If you hadn’t taken me there, I wouldn’t have known about Tomo, and I probably wouldn’t have figured out where she was either. If that had happened, I might not have made it in time. So I was thinking I needed to thank you.”

“…Rinne, what do you mean?”

“Huh? Didn’t I explain?”

“You definitely did not.”

…Huh?

Come to think of it, I had only told Tomo and Yuika something like, “One of Tojo’s underlings showed up, and I made him tell me where you were”…

Yeah, I hadn’t told them.

It wasn’t exactly wrong, but I hadn’t properly explained the whole thing.

After all, Reine had suddenly appeared that day, and I had been in a bit of a hurry to get home.

So, long story short.

Konomin explained that Tojo’s underlings had threatened her into calling me out, while I filled in all the details about how I had snapped, swept one of the men’s legs out from under him, kicked him in the crotch, grabbed his head, and slammed him into the ground.

“…Well, Rinne feels stronger than the fighters you see on TV anyway…”

“Scandinavia is incredible.”

“Wait, is that really because she’s Scandinavian? That has nothing to do with it, right…?”

At first, Yuika and Tomo had looked ready to get angry when they heard Konomin had dragged me into it.

But the moment the story reached the part where I had crushed one of the men like that, this was their reaction.

Tomo had this distant look in her eyes, like she was thinking, Ah, right, that’s just the kind of girl she is, while Konomin was busy correcting Yuika.

“Anyway, jokes aside, Rinne.”

“Yeah?”

“You don’t hold anything against her, right?”

“Nope, not at all. If anything, thanks to Konomin, I found out what was happening to Tomo and learned where she was.”

“There you go. And for what it’s worth, I don’t blame Azuma-san either. What about you, Yuika?”

“Huh? I wasn’t directly involved anyway. If Tomo and Rinne don’t care, then I don’t either. Unless she starts defending Tojo or complaining about what happened to him or something.”

“I don’t care what happens to a guy like him. But I knew what might happen to Taki-san. Even then, I couldn’t stop it. I was too afraid that something awful would happen to me if I resisted, so I did what they told me and called Taki-san out. I was a coward…”

“Hmm? But they were already after me in the first place, so why worry about that?”

“Huh…?”

“I mean, I was their target. If that’s the case, then I think it’s better that you didn’t force yourself to resist and end up getting hurt too.”

“…But…! That only worked out because you were strong…!”

“Yeah, exactly. That’s why there isn’t a problem.”

“Huh…?”

If I hadn’t possessed magical power or any ability to resist, I wouldn’t have wanted to get dragged into a complete stranger’s problems either.

I might have done exactly what I was told too.

Well, maybe I would have immediately called the police or something.

But even that was only an easy choice for me because I had no connection to Tojo.

Konomin might have had reasons that made doing so impossible for her.

In the end, once you started talking about “what if,” there was no end to it.

“It’s important to do your best when dealing with what’s going to happen next. But what already happened in the past is something you can only accept, Konomin. I don’t know what you were dealing with back then. But what about now? In the end, your decision wasn’t wrong, and none of us hold it against you. Since this is the outcome, there wasn’t a problem. If anything, couldn’t you even say you made the right choice?”

“…!”

“Well, if it had been someone other than Rinne, things probably would’ve turned really bad. But, you know, it was Rinne. She’s just… ridiculously strong.”

“I didn’t see it myself, but everything turned out okay, and if Rinne doesn’t care, then isn’t that enough? Besides, Azuma-san, you didn’t really have a choice except to obey them, right? There wasn’t anything you could do.”

“…! H-Hic… ngh…!”

Oh, she started crying.

There was nothing else for it, so I hugged her, and she fit completely inside my arms.

She really was tiny.

She might not even be 145 centimeters tall.

Thinking that, I held her close and gently stroked her head.