"..."
In response to Kamijou Mutsuki's barely disguised schadenfreude, Mutsumi shot him a hollow-eyed glance, then quickly moved over to Soyo's side.
"Soyo…"
Sakiko and Soyo were both her friends. With things turning out like this, the one truly suffering in the middle was Mutsumi.
"Hey, Mutsu…"
As if she'd given up entirely, Soyo didn't bother caring about how pathetic she looked in front of her friend anymore. She didn't even try to maintain her usual sweet, affected tone.
"Why… why won't Sakiko talk to me? Why won't she come back?"
"…What exactly went wrong?"
A wisdom born of collapse, pitiful beyond words.
"..."
Faced with Soyo's question, Mutsumi was instantly left speechless.
What could she even say?
That Sakiko was no longer the Sakiko she knew, but had turned into Customer Service Xiao-Saki?
If she really said that, no matter how Soyo reacted, Sakiko would definitely explode.
"Sakiko… is different now…"
Perhaps truly moved by Soyo's abject desperation, Mutsumi spoke honestly for once instead of acting like a doll—carefully leaking information without hurting Sakiko's side.
"The new band… is good. Don't… look for Sakiko anymore…"
However, being on par with Taki in her own way, Mutsumi's linguistic skills were clearly not something ordinary people could easily understand.
"Sakiko… has her own life…"
She's busy being Customer Service Saki-chan. Don't drag her back into singing. Your current band is already good enough.
"So that's what you think, Mutsu?"
Soyo's emotions were already unstable to begin with. After Mutsumi's words, she naturally snapped on the spot.
"Mutsu… you never intended to help me get closer to Sakiko from the very beginning, did you?"
It wasn't that Soyo couldn't sense the goodwill in Mutsumi's words—but she couldn't accept them.
Back when Sakiko dragged her into this, she'd talked about a "community of fate." Soyo had been happily dreaming of a one-family-of-five future, and then Sakiko herself quit first.
She'd exhausted herself trying to rebuild this broken family, only for Mutsumi to hit her with a single line—"Sakiko has her own life"—and completely break her.
When she was dragged in, it was advertised as a yuri band game. And now you're telling her the characters have lives of their own?
"I…"
Mutsumi ran out of words. Even if she hadn't meant it that way, objectively speaking, it really was the case.
"How high and mighty of you, Mutsu!"
Soyo struggled to her feet, tilting her head up at a forty-five-degree angle, her eyes completely devoid of light.
"..."
Mutsumi hadn't expected that she'd dodged Sakiko only to get hit by Soyo instead.
Caught between two close friends, constantly lowering herself and getting hurt from both sides, only to receive this kind of evaluation—Mutsu felt deeply wronged.
"You only ever do things I don't care about. The things I actually want, you never help me with."
Soyo completely let loose now, venting all the negative feelings she'd long held toward this friend.
"You never truly wanted to help me bring Sakiko back. Back when CRYCHIC disbanded, you were part of it too…"
"…If you hadn't said that!"
"It's all… Mutsu's fault!"
"..."
Words meant to stab the heart. Even the doll-like face wavered.
"Alright."
Seeing that Soyo was about to keep going, Kamijou Mutsuki—who had been silently watching for a long time—finally reached out and pressed a hand on Soyo's shoulder.
"I don't think venting your emotions at your friends is a very good habit…"
Even if it was pretty entertaining to watch, Mutsumi was still his fiancée in name. He couldn't just let her keep getting bullied.
"And what right do you have—"
Already worked up, Soyo showed no sign of calming down. She just switched targets—but Kamijou Mutsuki wasn't Mutsu. He cut her off directly.
"Tch—you really are…"
The two locked eyes.
"…someone whose head is completely full of yourself."
It was super effective. At the very least, Miss Soyo finally snapped back to her senses—however…
"Soyo!"
Watching Soyo fling off Kamijou Mutsuki's hand and flee in panic, Mutsumi instinctively tried to stop her, but could only watch her figure disappear into the distance.
"Mutsuki…"
In the end, Mutsumi could only turn her gaze toward her fiancé.
"…If we just leave her alone, something will happen to Soyo."
"Alright then—want me to go after her?"
"…Mutsuki should go. Soyo… probably doesn't want to see me."
"Mutsu, your humility breaks my heart."
Batman was already hospitalized from exhaustion. There were just too many clowns to catch.
"It's my fault. That's why Soyo got angry…"
Even if her original intention had been to draw fire away from Sakiko, it was indeed Mutsumi who dealt the final blow to that already-wobbling band.
And afterward, in the dynamic between the three of them, she had always leaned toward Sakiko. Because of that, Mutsumi had always carried guilt toward Soyo.
"..."
Kamijou Mutsuki didn't reply. He just thought that the red on his fiancée's nose looked more and more obvious.
"Then be careful."
"…I'll have the driver take me home first."
-----------------------------------
On the other side, Soyo was now fleeing in panic just as miserably as Sakiko had earlier.
If Mutsumi had chased after her too, it would've been a famous scene replay.
But clearly, Mutsumi was much more sensible than Soyo.
By the time Miss Nagasaki Soyo came back to her senses, she realized she was completely in an unfamiliar environment.
Where had she run to? Was she even still in Tokyo?
Night had fully fallen. Looking at the pitch-black sky and the unfamiliar surroundings, Soyo—who was, at her core, still just a high school girl—immediately started to panic.
Worse still, without realizing it she'd run into a secluded side road, the kind of place where accidents were prone to happen.
In just a few short seconds, scenes from certain novels she'd read before flooded into her mind.
Originally it was nothing, but she ended up scaring herself into trembling.
"Guys, I found a Tsukinomori rich young lady. She's coming home with me!"
Just like in her imagination, a voice striking up a conversation rang out as expected…
Wait, why did this voice sound so familiar?
......................