"So, what you two were just talking about—" Asakura said after admiring Ijichi Nijika's cute shy expression for a moment, "was just Hitori's casual clothes state?"
"You almost made me forget the most important part with your clowning around."
Nijika gave Asakura an annoyed look. She hadn't really made such impolite expressions towards Asakura before, but it felt like after that joke, the psychological distance between them had shortened considerably.
"That's right, our real adventure has just begun—" Yamada Ryo added from the side.
"What's with this line that sounds like the last panel of a manga that got canceled midway…" Asakura retorted.
"Asakura, you know that if Bocchi-chan receives a certain amount of mental shock, she becomes quite abstract, right?"
Ijichi Nijika ignored Yamada Ryo's antics and continued.
She probably finally realized that if she kept getting led by Yamada Ryo's rhythm, the conversation would never end.
"Yes, depending on the type of shock, there are also different subspecies like cyberization and slimefication."
Asakura also nodded seriously and said.
"There are so many variations? I thought it was just falling to the ground and losing color, needing a period of time to recover, that was the norm…"
Nijika mumbled, then continued: "So, if you continue to pressure her in that situation, do you know what will happen?"
"…I say, you two did that to someone else's girlfriend, and you actually came to me, her boyfriend, and told me everything?"
Asakura looked at Ijichi Nijika with dead fish eyes: "If I didn't know your character, Nijika, I'd think you came specifically to provoke me."
"I am here to provoke you."
Yamada Ryo said triumphantly: "I, Ryo, was the first to see Bocchi in her casual clothes!"
Amidst Ijichi Nijika's hesitant, worried expression, as if she wanted to explain that Yamada Ryo was just joking, Asakura merely said very calmly.
"You pay for what you ordered for this meal."
"I'm sorry, I was wrong, please forgive me."
So Yamada Ryo instantly prostrated herself.
"Anyway, if you continue to pressure Bocchi-chan when she's already under a lot of stress, something very bad will happen."
Ijichi Nijika tried to pull the conversation back on track.
"What will happen? Will she turn into Godzilla and destroy the world?" Asakura asked casually.
"Asakura, you should still remember that Bocchi-chan's song on the Soubu High School Founders' Festival stage had quite astonishing infectious power, right? Even those very calm and composed celebrities on TV at the time showed expressions like they were really hyped up."
Ijichi Nijika suddenly brought up an unrelated topic: "Great singers all have some similar infectious power, which is why live performances are far more atmospheric than watching through a screen."
"It seems so, but so what?" Asakura asked noncommittally.
No one understood better than him what Gotō Hitori's performance at the Founders' Festival meant.
"I just wanted to say that Bocchi-chan's infectious power, or rather, her ability to interfere with the 'atmosphere,' is probably far beyond what ordinary people imagine."
Ijichi Nijika then spoke seriously: "At that time, Ryo and I were too interested in Bocchi-chan's other casual clothes, so we ignored Bocchi-chan's own feelings and just wanted her to try on a few more outfits."
"Then Bocchi turned into a puddle." Yamada Ryo chimed in.
"A puddle…" Asakura was stunned.
"It should just be a hallucination, the strong sense of rejection Bocchi-chan emitted about changing clothes made the atmosphere of the entire room incredibly negative at the time—" Ijichi Nijika added: "At that time, we saw Bocchi turn into dust like a vampire exposed to sunlight… And we were also infected by that negative emotion, feeling completely drained. We wasted an entire afternoon in Bocchi-chan's room, and finally, Bocchi-chan's mom came to the room to wake us up."
"It wasn't infection, it was inhaling Bocchi-bacteria." Yamada Ryo said confidently.
"I told you, it must have just been a hallucination!" Nijika held a different opinion, after all, it wasn't the first time they had encountered a similar situation, and Gotō Hitori was quite abstract normally: "What is Bocchi-bacteria?!"
Just as the blonde girl was about to comfort Asakura, telling him not to take it too seriously, she noticed that the slightly frivolous smile he had before had disappeared at some point, replaced by a rare look of seriousness.
That stark contrast to his usual demeanor made the girl's heart pound a few extra beats.
"Can you tell me in detail what the situation was like at the time? Even if it was an illusion, it doesn't matter, please be as detailed as possible."
He asked.
Ijichi Nijika tried to calm herself down and recounted the 'illusion' she had seen to Asakura, with Yamada Ryo occasionally adding a sentence or two.
Asakura fell into a long period of contemplation after hearing their words.
Firstly, he felt that what Nijika and the others saw was most likely not an 'illusion'.
The reason was simple: in a situation where a social recluse was already quite nervous, continuing to apply extreme pressure was the simplest way to break their mental state, wasn't it?
And once Gotō Hitori's emotions fell into extreme negativity, the phenomenon Asakura had seen before would naturally occur.
Curse deterioration.
What Nijika and the others encountered should have been the runaway situation after Gotō Hitori's Curse deteriorated.
After the Curse deteriorated, the girl emitted something similar to spores, which Yamada Ryo called 'Bocchi-kin'.
Once inhaled, it would immediately cause extreme depression.
However, looking at it this way, being able to be awakened by a normal human like Hitori's mother, the harm caused by the Curse deterioration didn't seem particularly great.
'No, that's not it.'
If he thought about it carefully, Gotō Hitori's Curse deterioration occurred in her room, a nearly enclosed space, which is why the harm was limited, and the victims were only Nijika and Yamada Ryo.
But what if the girl's Curse deteriorated on the street, and the negative spores spread directly into the atmosphere?
Even if it didn't cover the entire world, just affecting half of Chiba, causing half of Chiba's residents to fall into depression and be unable to act, it could still cause quite serious consequences.
And this was still assuming that the 'spores' wouldn't grow into anything strange.
What if it really could grow into something indescribable…
Goodness, Saya no Uta is also a [Song], right?