<h4>Chapter 382: Prologue : The Monologue of Yōsuke Hirata</h4>


    To me, my ssmates are important existences.


    ...No, that''s not quite right.


    To me, my ss is the important one.


    I know very well the contradiction within that statement.


    To protect my important friends, I have to protect the ss.


    If I can protect the ss, I can protect my friends.


    The ss is a gathering of several students. There are as many different ways of thinking as there are the number of people. They start fighting each other over the most insignificant things.


    That''s why I have to protect them.


    Eventually, protecting my ss became my duty.


    However— that''s not my true self.


    I was never the center of my ss originally. Instead, my existence was that of a shadow.


    Using ss C as an example, I may have been simr to Ayanokōji-kun perhaps.


    That''s why I sometimes see him ovepping with my previous self.


    But I changed.


    After that incident, there was no way I wouldn''t.


    When I was little, I had a very good friend. A friend who was together with me from kindergarten to middle school. He was being bullied without me noticing and ended up attempting suicide.


    No, the fact that he''s still alive is pure coincidence.


    Him dying wouldn''t be strange at all.


    That day.


    From that day on, my life began to change.


    I began to think of how to get rid of bullying.


    But I failed.


    The ss was being pinned down because they were making the wrong choices. The fights within the ss itself have disappeared, but at the same time, so did the smiles. And then, yet again, the same thing was about to happen right in front of me. I cannot let the same mistake repeat itself. That was the single answer I reached.


    The only way to protect this ss.


    That is—


    The scene spreading out in front of me was filled with my ssmates watching me with surprise on their faces.


    "Horikita... can you shut up a bit."


    Words containing no signs of intelligence.


    Vulgar and full of violence. My own words.


    A voice far from anger or sadness.


    My ssmates, including Horikita-san, look at me strangely.


    That doesn''t matter.


    At this stage, it doesn''t matter anymore.


    <Illustration>


    At the very end of this worst special exam.


    I, I—


    ■■■


    <ILLUSTRATIONS>