CH 267

Childhood friend.

Ryuzaki was clearly upset at those words.

“What’s that? Childhood friends? You and Yuzuki? There was no sign of that…Yuzuki was right next to me the whole time.”

Ryuzaki was desperately trying to deny it, and it was very pathetic to watch.

“Nakayama, you’re lying, right? If you were childhood friends, you must have had more special feelings for each other.”

“Like you?”

The only point of view this guy still has is his own.

I guess he was insensitive to other people’s feelings because he could only talk about things subjectively.

Recently, he seems to have relaxed a little, but he is still a bit self-absorbed.

“Even childhood friends have various kinds of relationships. They can like each other like Ryuzaki, or they can be bitter like Shiho.”

And,

“Like me and Yuzuki…, even if we used to be good friends, we can go our separate ways.”

It wasn’t always like this.

We used to have a closer relationship.

The only thing is that now it is not.

That’s all there is to it, so why is Ryuzaki so upset?

“You mean… you know more about Yuzuki than I do?”

“Oh, yes, I do. At least, I think I know more than you do.”

However, it would be strange to say that you don’t know anything about her.

The part of you that doesn’t try to know people this close to you is proof that you still only think of yourself.

“… I see. I didn’t know that…!”

And Ryuzaki clenched his fists in frustration.

He gritted his teeth and looked at me aggressively.

Then this guy uttered some unbelievable words.

“In other words, Yuzuki is a ‘hand-me-down’ of yours?”

For a moment, I did not understand what was being said.

I couldn’t understand how Ryuzaki could think this way about a human being.

“Hand-me-down…why…”

How could he have such a perception?

Because Yuzuki is no one’s property.

Just because we were childhood friends doesn’t mean that she and I have a special relationship.

We just happened to be together when we were young.

Just as you and Shiho were, so were I and Yuzuki.

Even though it was only that, … apparently Ryuzaki had an incredibly ‘inferior’ feeling.

“I thought Yuzuki only liked me? That’s why I tried to take responsibility for her, but … I made her like me, so I was just trying to do my duty.”

… Oh, that’s right.

Once again, I understand.

Ryoma Ryuzaki is distorted.

He was born to be the protagonist of a story, and he’s too hung up on roles and relationships.

In this respect, he may resemble me.

He thinks he is a mob character and tries to act only according to that role, just like me.

Showing an unusual attachment to the relationship of being childhood friends.

He makes abnormal assumptions to justify his actions.

In these ways, he is just like me.

That’s why I don’t like him.

It’s as if I am looking at myself in the mirror, and it disgusts me.

But the degree of distortion is stronger than mine.

Ryuzaki’s distortion is not only on the surface, but also at the root.

“If you’ve known each other since childhood, you’d normally like each other, wouldn’t you? You and Yuzuki originally had that kind of relationship,… and even if you didn’t, you must have been as close to being in love as possible, right?”

“No, no. Me and Yuzuki weren’t very close.”

We just knew each other.

We were childhood friends and shared a lot of time together, so we just have a lot of information about each other.

It’s true that I had special feelings for her for a time, but if you ask me if I ‘loved’ her just because…, I’d say not.

That’s just because we were childhood friends and I just cared about her.

That was the only relationship I had with her, and she was not interested in me at all.

There was no way she could have called me a “hand-me-down” in that situation.

No, even if we had been in a relationship, that expression is ridiculous.

(How can I change a guy like this…?)

I understood again after meeting him head-on.

Something is still wrong with Ryoma Ryuzaki.

But the mistake has been made right by opportunism, and the distortion is unrecognizable.

I thought it was … impossible to change such a person…