I Will Inspire Your Insipid Days - Volume 1 Chapter 1.4

Thus

She naturally threw a question my way.

“I was seen through at a glance.”

When I answered frankly, Satsuki-san narrowed her eyes.

“Liar.”

“Do you think I need to lie?”

“No, this is no laughing matter.”

“Do I look like I’m laughing?”

“Enough with the sophistry! Eh? Why? I don’t get it!? Where did Tachibana Natsume see through that you’re a boy? The voice… it can’t be. Yonon, you haven’t gone through voice change, have you?”

“I have!”

I admit my voice is still high. The fact that I don’t have an Adam’s apple is due to my physical constitution.

Satsuki-san sighed heavily and held her head.

“It’s hard to believe. Seriously?”

“I’ve properly asked her not to tell anyone else. I don’t know if she can be trusted, but I don’t think there’s any benefit for her to go around spreading it.”

“Besides, Tachibana Natsume doesn’t come to class, right? She’s always holed up in her room.”

“There’s no one to tell…” I suppose that’s one way to think about it. “But just in case, I’ve also made a promise that if she helps conceal the fact, I’ll fulfill a request of hers.”

“And what might that be?”

“Supporting Tachibana-san’s school life. Like now, if there’s something she needs to submit, I’ll act as the intermediary, and also, prepare meals, clean her room… well, various things.”

“Isn’t that like being a servant?”

“I’ve been doing household chores every day at my family’s mansion, so it’s not a bother… Besides, Satsuki-san, you’re using my position to make me do chores, too, right?”

“Ah-ah, I can’t hear you.”

“Bad adult!”

“So, what? Yonon is becoming Tachibana Natsume’s support character?”

“Tachibana-san called it being a tutorial character… I don’t know the difference.”

“Hmm… I see.”

Continuing to hold the back of her head, Satsuki-san looked up into the sky and murmured.

“…So, the monster who already had a reputation as a creator at the time of admission really does have a different sensory organ than normal humans, huh?”

“At the time of admission? What do you mean?”

“Ah.”

Her expression said she’d slipped, covering her mouth.

“No, it’s nothing.”

With that tone, it couldn’t be ‘nothing’.

My intuition told me so.

I leaned in quickly, my eyes moistening, and urged Satsuki-san with an upward gaze.

“Tell me more.”

“Your face is too close! …Ah! Fine, whatever.”

Scratching her head in resignation, Satsuki-san told me.

“Do you know ‘Natsume’? ‘Summer’ with ‘Eye’, that’s ‘Natsume’. It’s Tachibana Natsume’s pen name.”

Natsume.

At that moment, the memories I had accumulated connected like a continuous movie in my mind.

“That’s why the sketches looked familiar…”

Connecting the dots, lines were formed amidst the vast memories.

“‘Natsume’ is a special student at Shumonzuka Girls’ Academy. It’s of great significance for her to smoothly go through school life, provide masterpieces to the school, and continue to inspire other students until ‘graduation’… Honestly, she’s incredibly difficult to handle. But, no matter the circumstance, it’s fortunate that a connection with Yonon has been made…”

Exhaling the purple smoke of her cigarette, Satsuki-san said,

“Wait…?”

With a sly smirk, she muttered.

“This might work out well.”

Feeling uneasy about her ominous expression, I hesitated to interrupt.

Surely, she was contemplating something outrageous.

And most likely, I… would not be able to avoid the eventuality.

***

A mysterious painter who neither shows their face nor form. With a multitude of fans, their age and gender unknown.

The person who continuously posts works to their SNS account—that’s “Natsume”.

Famed for their painfully sharp satire, this emerging creator cuts through society’s widespread pain and hardship with a unique perspective, gradually permeating public awareness.

One of their representative works is “Chronic Ailment”.

A grotesque painting of a large rickshaw wheel, with numerous agonized faces in the center, surrounded by dismembered limbs.

The wheel, engulfed in massive flames, seems about to roll tumultuously at any moment.

What’s particularly alien is that a salaryman in a suit is pulling the rickshaw. Inside the frame of the handle, men in suits are packed tightly, moving the wheel with copy-and-paste-like expressionless faces.

The rickshaw moves through a business district, with skyscrapers and railway lines intertwined like tangled cords, forming a serpentine shape.

“Natsume”‘s SNS account, already popular with tens of thousands of followers, became widely known after this single illustration spread widely.

In addition to this, released works have been spread, compiled by viral media, and published as collections, making them visible in various media.

Furthermore, as an artist active online, they’ve provided illustrations for famous artists’ MVs, making them a well-known name even among those not deeply versed in painting.

A few days after my encounter with Tachibana Natsume, on an afternoon after school had ended.

I visited the rooftop again and spoke to Tachibana-san.

“When I saw Tachibana-san’s paintings, I felt a sense of déjà vu. I tried not to think about where I had seen it before because it was obvious. The familiarity was in the style of the painting, but the paintings themselves were new to me.”

“I just draw what I see realistically, but it seems to come across as fresh to others. Sometimes, critics add their interpretations to my paintings, and each time I think, ‘Huh, so it can be seen that way.'”

“It was a shock to realize such an incredible creator was in the same classroom.”

“I’m not in the classroom, though.”

Indeed… I could only agree.

“I never thought a boy would be disguised in a girls’ school either, so I guess our shocks canceled each other out.”

“Neutralization doesn’t mean they become zero, you know.”

“Huh, that’s good to know. I’ll title this painting ‘Neutralization.'”

“You talk too casually!”

This conversation was going nowhere.