I, Who Longs To Be A Dependent, Have Decided To Be Owned By A Yandere - Chapter 22

Memories of Kinugasa Yura 3

and the Imaginary Kinugasa Maria

“I left the letter in his shoe box… But are you really sure about this?”

As the baseball team’s shouts echoed in the after-school air, Maria-kouhai looked up at Maria with uncertainty.

“Yeah, it’s okay.”

“That… Maria, you’re my senpai, right?”

With eyes full of incomprehensible thoughts, the junior stared at Maria.

“I researched ‘imaginary friends’ when I got home… It says that an imaginary friend can enter someone’s body and cause a personality switch…”

“Well, something like that.”

Maria sighed, unable to doubt anymore the complete change in Maria-senpai’s demeanor right before her eyes.

“Is it just a coincidence that we have the same name?”

“Maybe it’s fate.”

Maria gave a charming wink.

“How strange that we share not only the same last name but also have an imaginary friend with the same first name… If two coincidences happen like this, maybe it’s fair to call it fate, right?”

“Fate…?”

Kinugasa Maria looked tenderly at the girl who shared her name.

“Her ‘first imaginary friend’ was me, and her ‘first real friend’ was you.”

She spoke with a touch of pity.

“Perhaps it’s time for her to take a hard look at ‘reality’… and the one who brought this about is ‘Kiriyama Akira’… Whether intentional or accidental, the ‘trigger’ for everything is that boy.”

“That guy, he’s always been a troublemaker. I think the number of times he’s caused fights over women would break a Guinness record.”

Under the cloudy sky, Maria placed her hand on her chin in troubled thought.

“…Maria, have you ever been struck by lightning?”

“Huh? Of course not!”

“That’s normal. But, believe it or not, there are people who have been struck by lightning ‘seven times’. The odds are 1 in 22,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.”

“Is such a thing possible?”

“Normally, it’s not.”

As if gazing into an abyss full of falsehood, Maria looked up at the cloudy sky.

“But it’s possible if it’s not normal. And in this world, not being normal is normal.”

The sound of stepping on fallen leaves reached even the back of the school building, and Maria, deep in thought, abruptly looked up toward the direction of the sound.

“Th-Then, I’ll be going. Good luck.”

“Mm, see ya.”

She waved her hand fluttering and ran off. Maria watched her go, then softly closed her eyes, longing for the moment of confession.

One second, two seconds, three seconds… Footsteps stopped behind her.

With a heart full of love that seemed to caress her own skin, she tingled all over with her racing heartbeat. She exhaled, turned around—and she was greeted by the honor student everyone knew, Minatsuki Yui.

“Mi-Minatsuki-san? Why are you here—”

“He won’t come.”

Minatsuki said with a smile on her face

“He won’t come here. He asked me to pass on a message.”

“A message?”

“‘Men are indifferent to each other by default, but women are natural enemies from birth.'”

“…Huh?”

“Schopenhauer.”

Brushing her black hair behind her ears, the Yamato Nadeshiko-like beauty started walking.

“…You were rejected before you could confess.”

Whispered in passing—and within Maria, Yura began to rage fiercely, swinging around her innocent love and overconfident affection, then overheated with the delusional self-contradiction that “My Maria could not be rejected without even meeting”…

“So, I guess I’m ‘Yura’…”

She reached the conclusion of a “personality switch.”

“And, Akira…-sama is almost like a god…! Yes, yes, that’s right, he had fulfilled two ‘wishes’…!”

Ever since she was a child, the girl who neglected communication with others had never once faced rejection from someone dear to her. She never formed any bonds of friendship. Neither had she ever harbored any love.

That’s why she, having mistaken what true affection is, became a yandere.

“That’s right…I, I harboring feelings of love towards Akira-sama, it’s such an audacious idea…The ‘Maria’ who is in love with him had ‘run away’ before I arrived here, didn’t she…!”

“Yura! Look here, Yura!! Yura!!”

Yura, wandering around the school while clutching her head, could never see the form of Maria screaming at her from within the mirror.

“That’s right…I, I should create a shrine to worship Akira-sama…If I do that, Akira-sama will, ‘he will meet me’…he will praise me…!”

All that was reflected in her eyes—

“Akira-sama…would he, would he praise me and Maria…If I work hard for Akira-sama’s sake, would he call my name again…”

—was nothing but the fictional Kiriyama Akira, who had been idolized as a god.

“First, I have to go to Maria’s place… if she’s there, she’ll understand me… if she doesn’t, I’ll have to “persuade” her…”

“Yu, Yura, where are you going? That way is towards the house―― stop!! That girl is not Maria!!”

She’s covering herself in a black-hair wig that she stole from the drama club, mumbling something to herself as she heads toward the “real” Kinugasa Maria

“Yura, please!! Stop!! Yura, Yura!!”

“Ah, wait a moment, Senpai! I’ll open it now!”

Answering the intercom, Maria sticks out her face―

“Let’s spread Akira-sama’s teachings together in the world.”

With a big smile on her face, Yura “dragged” her in.

Minatsuki-san was surprised to see the black-hair wig slip off

Kinugasa hurried to hide her face――bravely smiled as if she had given up.

“…Was I exposed?”

Kinugasa Maria offers no resistance as she’s laid below Minatsuki-san, staring at me.

“I wonder if Kiriyama already knew.”

“I didn’t think it was same person until I saw the mole near your collarbone.”

Kinugasa violently lifts her face up and screams.

“Kiriyama! You remember the name Kinugasa Yura, don’t you!? Why didn’t you come that day!? You read the letter didn’t you!?”

I couldn’t say.

‘Ah, I read it (the next day).’

I couldn’t say that on the promised day, I skipped school and was merely playing games at home.