Kotobuki Yuzuki wasn’t good at socializing. To be more precise, she wasn’t as good at socializing as Hikari. Although Hikari and Yuzuki were born into this world as twins, despite their similar appearance, their personalities gradually took different paths.

It wasn’t that Yuzuki was bad at interacting with people; it was that Hikari was abnormally good at making friends.

However, this didn’t mean that Yuzuki felt inferior to Hikari. While Hikari possessed things that Yuzuki didn’t, Yuzuki also had things that Hikari lacked.

“Hmm…”

It was Monday night.

Kotobuki Yuzuki flopped onto her bed in her room with a groan. Fresh from the bath, she was enveloped in fluffy pajamas, a birthday present she had exchanged with Hikari a year ago.

Incidentally, the present Yuzuki gave Hikari that year was also pajamas, and, whether it was a miracle or not, they were the same design but in a different color than the ones she received.

Even though they didn’t plan it, their thoughts sometimes overlapped. At times like that, she would realize that they were twins, and it would make her laugh.

Yuzuki was looking at her smartphone. Displayed on the screen was a video from Twitter. It was a recording of a boy who had gallantly appeared and helped her mother when she collapsed in the street a few days ago.

The boy was wearing the uniform of the high school Yuzuki attended. In other words, they went to the same school, but there was almost no other information about him. His face was unfamiliar. Knowing the color of his tie would have helped determine his grade, but for some reason, he wasn’t wearing a tie that day. There was the initial question of why he was wearing his uniform on a day off, but she decided to set that aside for now.

Yuzuki wanted to meet him. Of course, she wanted to thank him and repay her debt of gratitude. More than that, she wanted to know more about him.

She had never seen him. She had never spoken to him. He was a stranger.

But when she thought about him, her heart pounded.

The fact that he had saved her mother’s life was a significant reason for this feeling, but Yuzuki still wanted to follow her emotions.

So, today, she had tried asking her classmates and friends at school, but to no avail. Even Hikari, who had a wider network of acquaintances than her, couldn’t get any information about him.

Apparently, not only the first-years, but also the second and third-years didn’t know him.

Yuzuki frowned. That was strange.

Could such a thing be possible? It wasn’t unreasonable for students from different grades not to know him. However, even though Hikari had checked with students from all grades, not a single one of them knew anything about him.

It was puzzling.

Was he an exceptionally inconspicuous student? Or perhaps he didn’t attend school regularly? Or was he just a cosplayer?

“…Ah.”

At that moment, Yuzuki realized something.

There was a girl in the video talking to him. It was noisy, and she couldn’t make out everything they were saying, but the girl occasionally called him “Onii-chan.”

In other words, he had a younger sister. If she could contact this younger sister, she might be able to get closer to him.

Hikari would likely use her extensive network of connections at school again tomorrow to try and find him.

So, Yuzuki decided to try and reach him through a different route.

Just because she wasn’t good at socializing didn’t mean she couldn’t find someone.

!next

The following day, after school, Yuzuki used the pretense of feeling unwell and left school early at the end of the fifth period.

The place she headed to was in front of a certain junior high school.

His younger sister called him “Onii-chan.” Yuzuki had spent yesterday thinking about how the two of them happened to be in that place.

If they had continued walking a little further, there was a shopping mall. Conversely, there wasn’t anything noteworthy besides that. There was a shopping street, but it was hard to imagine a girl of that age heading there with her brother.

While the possibility wasn’t zero, she temporarily excluded it and set the shopping mall as their likely destination.

If the two of them lived far away, it would be strange for them to be there if they were on their way to the shopping mall by train. Because there was a station right next to the shopping mall. Therefore, she could assume that they weren’t from far away.

From the video, it didn’t look like they were riding bicycles. There was a possibility that they had gotten off somewhere else, but she considered that line to be thin and tentatively ruled it out. They could go a little further on bicycles, but if they were on foot, the destination would all the more likely be the shopping mall.

The important thing here was that the two of them lived relatively close to that location.

And since the girl in the video looked like a junior high school student, Yuzuki decided to visit the junior high school in that area.

“…This is just barely okay, right?”

If someone didn’t stop her and point out that it was probably a bad idea, she wouldn’t stop. If she had told even one person about this plan, they might have stopped her, but unfortunately, this was Yuzuki’s solo operation.

There was no one to stop her.

Having managed to arrive before the sixth period ended, Yuzuki took a deep breath to compose herself. Even though they were younger, talking to strangers was nerve-wracking.

Besides, there was no guarantee that they were even at this school. It was possible that this would be a wasted trip. In fact, that was more likely.

If she asked a passerby, “Do you know the girl in this video?” and they coldly replied, “No,” she might lose heart.

As she shivered at the thought, a stream of people began to emerge from the school building. It seemed like classes had ended.

With so many people appearing all at once, she didn’t know who to approach.

++Um, uh…++ As she hesitated, people continued to pass by.

Yuzuki made up her mind and called out to a girl who happened to be passing in front of her at that moment.

“Excuse me, could you spare a moment?”

“Huh? Yes, me?”

The girl seemed flustered at being suddenly addressed.

She had a brown bob haircut. She had brown bobbed hair. She resembled Hikari a little, and Yuzuki felt a sense of kinship with her.

“Do you recognize the girl in this video?”

Yuzuki regretted skipping the explanation, but she couldn’t take back the words she had already spoken.

“Ah, this video.”

“You know it?”

Yuzuki saw a glimmer of hope in the girl’s reaction. She could feel her heart pounding in her chest.

“Yes, it’s been a hot topic in our class.”

“So, you know this girl too?”

“Yes, she’s in my class.”

“If you don’t mind, could you introduce me to her? I really want to thank her.”

“Thank her?”

The girl tilted her head, wondering what she meant. Perhaps she should have explained this first.

“I’m the daughter of the woman who collapsed, and it’s thanks to these two that my mother was saved. So, I want to thank them.”

After hearing Yuzuki’s explanation, the girl’s face lit up in understanding.

“That’s what it is!”

And since she was a very kind girl, she said, “I’ll go get her!” and headed back into the school building.

++Thump.++

++Thump.++

++Thump.++

Yuzuki continued to take deep breaths to try and calm her racing heart. Standing in front of a junior high school, taking deep breaths, she probably looked suspicious enough to be mistaken for a dangerous person.

About five minutes after the girl headed back into the school building.

“Sorry to keep you waiting.”

She returned, with the girl from the video beside her.

“This is Shuka-chan.”

The girl introduced the girl next to her with a cheerful tone.

The girl with the black bob, thus introduced, bowed her head slightly and said, “Hello.”

“I’m Kirishima Shuka.”

“…Kirishima?”

!next

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