Volume 3 Chapter 11.2 (1/2)

Volume 3 Chapter 11.2

Translator: Kureha

Editor: Weasalopes

What happened to Hirsohi was worse than what everyone had imagined.

「… well, that’s just cruel…」

「… no wonder you ended up having a phobia…」

Hiroshi told the full story to his friends afterwards, to which Tatsuya and Makoto gave a mumbled comment. Others could not believe such a thing have happened and was frozen on the spot completely silent.

The following is a shortened version of what Hiroshi has told.

It was on Valentine’s day during the second year of middle school. It started with at the beginning of the first period when Hiroshi discovered a time bomb under the name of acquaintance chocolate hidden in his desk. He saw the chocolate from an anonymous sender and immediately knew something was odd. So, he has decided to pretend that he didn’t saw the chocolate, but that plan has failed. The girl who was sitting next to him noticed it and told everyone in the class. This was a very unfortunate moment for Hiroshi.

Six months prior to this incident, the bullying towards him was getting worse by the day. The bullying took place as if it was a daily routine for everyone else. Even with this incident, it was hard to say that it was bullying at the initial stage. After all, all they asked for him to do was to take a bite out of the chocolate and give his opinion.

If this was just disgusting chocolate, all he needed to do was take a forceful bite and lie about how delicious it was; everything would have ended there. However, this chocolate had mince which has clearly gone off in it and all the extra seasoning was a complete mess as well. Understandably, when Hiroshi took a bite, he ended up spitting the chocolate right out. Then, the girls from athletic clubs pinned him down, punched him a couple of times and forced him to eat all the chocolates.

Seeing that Hiroshi was acting weird, the boys in the class tried to stop the girls. However, in general, that would be an act of rejecting chocolate which was given out on Valentine’s day. So, even the girls who weren’t actively bullying Hiroshi was joining in as well. No male student would have been able to step into this situation. If the male students had joined in, Hiroshi’s phobia towards female would have been a phobia towards people and he would have never been able to leave the hospital.

As eating something like that would obviously cause some type of illness, Hiroshi started showing signs of food poisoning before the lunch break. Fortunately and unfortunately, he ended up throwing all the contents of his stomach at the nurser’s office. If he hasn’t vomited then, nobody would have even considered the incident and his bullying would have only gotten worse.

Another fortunate thing for Hiroshi was that morning, he hasn’t eaten any breakfast as he has slept in. Also, he ate his dinner the previous day earlier than usual, so he has been fasting for over 12 hours. As his stomach would have been practically empty, the only possible cause of food poisoning was the chocolate.

The incident was also brought to teachers’ attention as the symptoms of food poisoning Hiroshi had was severe. He was on a blink of death for three days and three nights. Due to other symptoms he had, Hiroshi had to stay at the hospital for another two weeks. While he was at the hospital, the girls who have forced him to eat the chocolate came to apologize when his relatives were absent. The girls quietly went back home after they apologized for the incident and the bullying they have done previously. However, the few friends Hiroshi had in his class saw the chocolate incident coming and secretly took a video of the incident as well as the girls’ apologies. This matter became a major issue when the video was uploaded to a streaming website.

As the cruel scene of bullying was streamed all across Japan, some of the couples in Hiroshi’s middle school broke up from horrible fights. Due to this, some of the girls had a petty hatred towards Hiroshi and have attempted murder on him. However, the culprit who has left the chocolate in his desk has not been determined yet. Before the attempted murder, some of the girls have gone up to Hiroshi and placed the blame for their breakups on him (the hospital has prohibited visitors yet some of the girls managed to sneak in, pretending to visit someone else at the hospital). So, Hiroshi ended up developing his phobia and for about two months, he was under intensive care. He received special treatment via 24hr VR system and went to counselling for another six months. He wasn’t able to go to school until the end of summer vacation. Even then, he would go straight to the nurse’s office and only go to his class once or twice a week.

By the start of summer vacation, Hiroshi has moved to the suburb which he currently lived in. So, in his last year of middle school, he has only gone to school for a total of two weeks.

「By the way, what do they mean they still can’t find the culprit?」

「Tis easy, nobody knows for sure who put dat chocolate in my desk.」

「What?」

「Unfortunately, no matter how many times we’ve looked back at za security footage, dere was nobody in za class who could’ve placed dat chocolate in my desk.」

Only looking at the question of “who put that chocolate in Hiroshi’s desk?” all his classmates were innocent. There were still three suspects outside his class. However, two out of three suspects have no trace of making chocolate close to Valentine’s day. Also, the last time their household has bought minced meat was over a month ago, so it was unlikely that those two were the culprit. The third suspect has sold off their house, moved overseas and have not returned to Japan since. The reason for their sudden departure was their father has been assigned to an oversea work to make up for the loss which he has caused to the company. As there was nothing suspicious about the leave, apart from the period, and due to the suspect being under juvenile law, the police department could not force the family to come back to Japan, unless there was sufficient amount of evidence. Thus, the investigation has been postponed.

「So, dat’s why chocolate triggers my phobia. I used to like chocolate but after dat incident, I can’t even stand the smell o’ it…」

「That’s understandable…」

「Wait, is that why you look a little tense whenever you see a dish with mince in it?」

「Ye, tis ‘ight, but since there were allot o’ chocolate ‘round it, it didn’t really leave the impression o’ there bein’ meat. So it doesn’t trigger my phobia as badly as chocolate does.」

Hiroshi added with a weak smile but Haruna could not smile at all.

「By the way…」

「Hm?」

「You don’t seem like the type of person girls would hate on so much…」