Hikigaya doesn't want to be a force of strength

"...Well, your personality is destined to be like this."

Horikita Suzune sighed. The two of them had already arrived at the school's wooded corridor. There were almost no extra people in this place, so naturally there would be no extra listeners.

She then slowly exhaled and spoke softly, "Where should I start to tell you?"

"Try to be as detailed as possible." Hikigaya said seriously, "Because I only know that you two are not on good terms right now."

After what happened last night, Hikigaya is now a little more serious about matters related to Kushida. He doesn't want anything to happen again that he would regret because of his inaction.

"Let me tell you first, I don't have a deep understanding of Kushida Kikyo." Horikita Suzune seemed to want to be the first to distance herself from the matter and asked, "Where did you and Kushida first meet?"

“It was in the bus.”

"Yes, just like you, I first met Kushida-san on the bus on the day of enrollment."

"You said so?"

Hikigaya recalled what happened that day. He, Horikita Suzune and Kushida Kikyo were indeed on the same bus, which had a great impact on his subsequent school life.

"Yes, that was the first time I met Kushida Kikyo, I can guarantee that." Horikita Suzune sighed deeply, "I didn't recognize her at all at that time. She was the famous student in our junior high school."

“When you say famous, is that a positive or a negative thing?”

"Both."

Horikita Suzune answered, "Kushida and I were in the same junior high school. That school was located in a different prefecture than the one we are in now. It was a very special school, so normally, it would be impossible for someone from that school to come to Tokyo Metropolitan Koukou Ikusei High School. But I chose this high school specifically for my brother, to follow in his footsteps, so Kushida probably never dreamed that there would be someone from the same junior high school as me."

"You mean, Kushida chose such an out-of-the-way high school in order to avoid running into his former classmates?"

"exactly."

Horikita's nod almost set the tone for what was to come, so Hikigaya waited patiently, wanting to hear what the other party would say next.

"I didn't notice Kushida right after I entered school because I'm not that kind of person at all." Horikita Suzune shook her head silently, "Besides, my junior high school is a large school with more than a thousand students, and I was never in the same class with Kushida, so there's nothing I can do about it if he doesn't remember me, right?"

"But Kushida doesn't seem to think so."

"Yeah, she won't let me go."

The two of them did not go straight to the shopping street, because they thought that the conversation would delay them to some extent, so they took a detour.

The farther away from the cafe, the less people there are, which is convenient.

Honestly, if the conversation wasn't so serious, the two of them walking side by side like this would look like they were on a date.

Well, words like that should never come out of your mouth.

Otherwise, you will definitely be beaten by the other party.

Even now this guy's reaction is still not cute at all. Horikita is really arrogant and coquettish!

"Kushida is a very capable person, I have to admit that." Horikita didn't notice Hikigaya's thoughts and continued to speak, "When she was in junior high school, she received the same or better evaluation than she does now in this school. This is the only thing that can't be wrong."

"Looking back, I've seen her at various events, always at the center of attention among her classmates. She was kind to everyone, and she made a good impression on everyone, so she was a very popular person. Although she didn't seem to join the student union at the time, she should have been quite cohesive."

"Is it because she didn't join the student union, or because she doesn't have the ability to join the student union?" Hikigaya suddenly couldn't help but speak up. "A person like Kushida would definitely want to show off more, but she is actually very rational and knows the limit of her own ability."

"Yes, this may be one of the reasons why Kushida hates me."

Horikita did not shy away from stating that he was more capable than Kushida.

After all, this is indeed true.

Horikita is just not good at socializing, but in terms of formal abilities, she is far better than Kushida.

"If that's the case, then why did Kushida-san, who is so loved and popular, not want to talk about anything related to the past in the end? What happened at that time?"

Hikigaya decided to get to the bottom of the matter.

"Well, the key is what I'm going to say next, but you have to remember that this is completely a rumor. Only Kushida knows the truth." Horikita Suzune took a deep breath and spoke seriously, "One day when I was about to graduate from junior high school, I heard that a class in the same grade was absent collectively. After that, the entire class continued to collapse, and it didn't even return to its original state until graduation. Everyone in that class suffered serious psychological trauma."

"Is this the class you are talking about?"

"Yes, that is the class that Kushida Kikyo is in."

Chapter 500: The reason why Kushida targeted me was actually because of you, Hikigaya

Hearing Horikita's words, Hikigaya took a deep breath.

Although he already had some guesses about Kikyo Kushida's past, he was still shocked when the truth was laid before him.

"You mean, Kushida destroyed her class?"

"I'm not sure about the details."

Horikita Suzune didn't seem to want to go into too much detail, so she spoke quietly, "Anyway, the news reached my ears not long after - it was said that a certain girl was the instigator of the class's collapse."

"That girl is Kushida Kikyo?"

"That's right, but I don't know why they were forced to disrupt the class order. The school may have completely concealed the news. If it were to be exposed, the school's reputation would be reduced, and it would also have a huge impact on many students' further studies or employment. Even so, the truth cannot be hidden, and students are spreading rumors based on various speculations."

"This is normal."

Hikigaya is well aware of the ugliness of adults and knows very well that if a scandal occurs in school, the school's first reaction is not to resolve the conflict and deal with the problem, but to try every means to suppress the problem and conflict and prevent the news from spreading.

Lying is a characteristic of adults.

"So what happened?" Hikigaya looked at Horikita suspiciously, "You don't actually know anything, do you?"

"I'd like to know."

Horikita didn't fall for Hikigaya's provocation and continued to describe in a calm tone, "I heard the news from other people's conversations long after the incident was over. It is said that the students in the class that Kikyo Kushida was in originally respected and liked Kushida, but suddenly one day, everything was reversed. Kushida's desk was messed up, and the blackboard and desk were full of slanderous graffiti."

"All the slanderous graffiti? Are you saying that Kushida Kikyo was bullied?"

"It's a bit like this." Horikita's words were unclear, and she herself didn't seem to have a clear idea of ​​the situation. "The specific truth is mixed with many rumors, but it should be true that Kushida Kikyo was treated badly by her classmates. It's just that I don't understand why she was originally a popular and respected character, so suddenly there was such a big contrast."

"It's hard to imagine that Kushida has ever been bullied."

Hikigaya muttered to himself, he really hadn't thought that there was such a part in Kushida's past.

"About bullying, this incident should be true, but it didn't last long." Horikita Suzune sighed, "Because after only two or three days, all the students who bullied Kushida stopped coming to school like her. The whole class was almost destroyed in an instant and fell apart. Even the school got involved in time to put pressure on them, so that no one dared to discuss it openly, and it was treated as if nothing had happened from the beginning."

"The destruction of the class has something to do with Kushida?"

"It should be inevitable." Horikita frowned, looking thoughtful. "She fought back hard when everyone attacked her. Although I want to think so, it is hard to imagine how Kushida destroyed the entire class. The most important thing is that I had no interest in anything other than myself at the time, and I didn't even think of investigating."

Horikita Suzune reluctantly admitted the fact that she knew very little about Kushida Kikyo. The information she knew was almost all from rumors, and there was not much that was close to the truth.

Seeing this, Hikigaya couldn't help but complain: "If Kushida knew that you only knew this little, he might not come to target you."

"That's not the case. She won't believe me, and I feel like she's targeting me not just because I know her past."

"What? Kushida has other reasons to hate you."

"I'm not sure." Horikita first glanced at Hikigaya, then spoke in a complicated tone, "And should I say it's a woman's intuition? Although I have always hated this so-called intuition, I always feel that the fact that Kushida targeted me seems to have something to do with you."

"Hey, don't blame me for your problems."

Hikigaya spoke with a guilty conscience. In fact, he himself felt that there was something strange about the logic of Kushida's actions, and there was a certain sense of incongruity.

But at least he didn't want to admit that all this had anything to do with him.

Horikita Suzune also spoke silently:

"Yes, now that things have come to this, I don't intend to push my responsibility onto others. I also know very well that even if I tell Kushida that I actually know very little about the truth and have never been interested in her, and that I came to this school to achieve my own goals, she will find it difficult to believe me."

"In fact, I am the one who wants to complain more. Because of Kushida's actions, she caused the evaluation of our entire junior high school to decline. Many students with high deviation values ​​have been affected in their further studies, and I am one of them."

If a school class collapses, it is a serious incident in Japan that will affect academic advancement. Although the perpetrator may not be aware of it, all students in the same class will feel confused.

Perhaps because of this, Kushida targeted Horikita so much, because Kushida had a preconceived notion that Horikita must hate her, and she would not allow anyone who knew about that to exist in this school.

If this were to be exposed, Kushida's current position would almost certainly be ruined.

After understanding Horikita Suzune's thoughts, Hikigaya sighed and said, "To put it simply, Kushida once caused an extremely serious incident in junior high school, which caused the entire class to collapse and the students to enter a whirlpool of public opinion. Horikita, you don't know the details of that incident. As for Kushida, she unilaterally believed that as a student of the same junior high school, you knew all the inside story, so she targeted you like this."

"I know that Kushida caused an incident, and it's not wrong for Kushida to target me like that."

Horikita sighed, clearly having faced the reality.

Although she knew that Kushida had misunderstood her unilaterally, she didn't think there was any room for resolving the matter. No matter what she said, Kushida would not believe it.

This was already confirmed before she even revealed that she knew the truth, otherwise Kushida would not have targeted her so much at the beginning of the school year.

"Kushida hates me, but I won't let her do whatever she wants." Horikita Suzune seemed to have made up her mind, "If she really intends to attack me, I will never hold back and will expel her first!"

Chapter 501: Kushida destroyed the class not by lies, but by the truth!

Horikita Suzune has obviously made up her mind that she will never surrender to Kushida Kikyo, even if she needs to force her to drop out of school herself.

Faced with Horikita's heartless look, Hikigaya naturally wouldn't say any words of persuasion.

As the saying goes, don't persuade others to do good unless they have suffered.

Hikigaya is not in Horikita's shoes, so he naturally has no right to ask Horikita Suzune to let go of the conflict, let alone not resist Kushida's actions.

However, when he saw that he had to choose between Horikita Suzune and Kushida Kikyo, he was still shaken and recalled what Kushida said yesterday.

'No matter who you choose, no matter whether you make a choice or not, you will be forced to face the consequences of your choice. This is fate.'

For the first time, Hikigaya realized that so-called fate is real.

"Ahem, coming back to the topic of the destruction of the Kushida class we just mentioned, what was the reason?" Hikigaya forced himself to change his train of thought.

"I don't know. The news had already been suppressed by the school."

"The school certainly doesn't want this kind of content with a bad influence to be spread, but this is really a mystery. How could a normal class suddenly fall apart? Do you think this would really happen?"

"The fact is that it has already happened." Horikita Suzune sighed, "I was also surprised at the authenticity of this news, but the entire empty class and Kushida's attitude proved the authenticity of this matter. It is hard to imagine how horrible it is for just one person to destroy a class."

Simple bullying can only destroy one or two people at most. Even if the impact is deliberately expanded, only some interpersonal relationships in the class will collapse.

To the extent that the entire class would completely collapse was beyond even the contemplation of it.

For example, even in the current D class, which is a very disorganized class, even if extremely huge bullying and scandals occur, it will not cause the entire class to fall apart.

Huh? Wait, it may be impossible for someone else to destroy Class D, but if it's Kushida Kikyo...

All of a sudden, a terrifying possibility occurred to Hikigaya.

While he was simulating this in his mind, Horikita Suzune had also started thinking:

"I have thought of ways to destroy a class. I have thought of using violence and external force to suppress the entire class and cause it to collapse as a whole, but that requires too much power. Kushida herself certainly doesn't have it. Even if she really has this ability like Ryuuen, it would be difficult to implement because everyone would probably have to be sent to the hospital. But at the time, Kushida's class didn't show any signs of that."

"That's right. If it's a violent method, it's impossible to destroy a class out of thin air without anyone noticing."

If Kushida had gone on a rampage with a chainsaw or some other weapon, it wouldn't have become an incident that could be controlled by the school's silence, but would have directly turned into a situation that would have been broadcast on TV.

Besides, this is Japan, not America. How could a school shooting happen?

Horikita also expressed her understanding of this. She didn't think this possibility was real, but she really couldn't imagine how Kushida would destroy a class.

Hikigaya then slowly spoke: "It's not just physical violence that can destroy people, there are other things on the psychological level, and Kushida just happens to have such an ability."

"Have you thought about how she caused the class to fall apart?" Horikita looked at Hikigaya in surprise and analyzed on her own, "If I were to think about it, psychological destruction is using someone's power and status to oppress the entire class?"

"Your imagination is great, but it's hard to implement in a school like this where there's no power structure."

"That's true." Horikita agreed with Hikigaya. "Power is very powerful, but it's hard to use it in school. Even the student council president of this school can't use power to destroy a class."

She thought about it for a while, but still couldn't figure it out, so she could only look at Hikigaya silently.

"What is the answer to this question?"

"If you want to bring a class down, there are two ways I can think of, and they are mutually exclusive."

“Mutual exclusion.”

"The first method is lies. If you spread a lie that involves everyone in the class, and the lie is true enough, it may cause the collapse of a group."

The method Hikigaya described has appeared many times in human history.

From the classic Trojan Horse to the straw boat borrowing arrows, there are many wars and military operations in which lies are used to cause one group to collapse and another group to gain the upper hand.

"Lies... Yeah, maybe that's the case." Horikita seemed to have a deep understanding of lies. "Whether it's a white lie or a malicious lie, it will have a devastating impact on a person."

"But can this really destroy a class?" Compared to Horikita's approval, Hikigaya took the initiative to deny it, "Horikita, if you were asked to create a lie, could you destroy the current D class?"

"I won't say it's absolutely impossible, but I can't say for sure that I can do it." Horikita sighed, "It's okay to create a lie that one person believes, but it's impossible to make the whole class believe the lie I told."