Chapter 39: We’re Gonna Settle Who the Real “Childhood Friend” Is, Dammit!!
“…Haaah… haaah…”
My hands were shaking.
Until now, somewhere deep down, I think I had been arrogant enough to believe that most things in this world would go exactly the way I wanted them to.
And for the first time, that arrogance was being shattered.
For the first time, I was being forced to confront just how inadequate I really was.
Large beads of sweat gathered on my forehead.
My heart was pounding far faster than normal.
Was I… nervous?
Me?
Still carrying that frustrating sense of helplessness, I turned to look at the person beside me—Inugashi Kaito.
This guy…
The guy who had started this whole event floating on cloud nine, overflowing with confidence and excitement…
Now—
He looked like a man who had been reduced to a pile of pure white ash.
“L-Ladies and gentlemen! The Childhood Friend Derby is finally reaching its climax! The next question will be the very last one! Commentator Taketsuru-san! What do you think of the match so far!?”
Barasaka-san’s energetic voice echoed hollowly throughout the venue.
Everyone already knew.
There was no need for commentary anymore.
Every single person present understood.
This event had long since transformed into something completely different from what anyone had originally imagined.
“Commentary…? I mean… uh… Kirishiro, is this really the world you wanted?”
Taketsuru’s words pierced straight through me.
How was I even supposed to answer that?
All I had wanted was to host an event that would determine the true “childhood friend.”
A fun competition.
A lively atmosphere.
A clean victory for myself.
That way I could strengthen my relationship with the Event Management Club, solve Inugashi’s problem, and survive the midterm exams at the same time.
Three birds with one stone.
That was all I wanted.
Yet somehow…
Somehow it had become this.
Kirishiro Gouto: 70 Points
Inugashi Kaito: -120 Points
“How exactly am I supposed to salvage a match with a one hundred and ninety point difference…?”
I never could have imagined that Inugashi Kaito was this hopeless.
No, hopeless didn’t even begin to cover it.
At this point he’d evolved beyond incompetence into something truly spectacular.
Honestly, once the score gap exceeded one hundred points, there had already been nothing I could do.
The crowd’s enthusiasm had frozen solid.
Even the heckling had become strangely considerate.
“Kirishirooo! End this as gently as possible!”
“You can figure something out! We believe in you!”
“We wanted a public execution, not a public mincing machine!”
People had completely given up on cheering for Inugashi.
Instead, they were begging me to show mercy.
Perhaps I should explain how things ended up like this.
At the end of the first question, when the score difference was only twenty points, the match was still salvageable.
At that stage, I deliberately answered incorrectly while trying to create opportunities for Inugashi to score.
Then came Question Two.
I earned zero points.
Inugashi earned negative ten.
The gap widened to thirty.
Realizing that simply throwing my own answers wasn’t enough, I moved on to my next strategy.
I would intentionally aim for penalties myself while doing everything possible to help Inugashi score.
As an aside, I exhausted all of my available hints during this phase.
Then came the result.
I earned zero points.
Inugashi earned negative ten.
The gap widened to forty.
At that point, Meiko—wearing an expression of incredible irritation—somehow got angry at me.
“Answer seriously.”
For some reason, I was the one being scolded.
She forced me to stop intentionally giving wrong answers simply because I prioritized understanding a childhood friend’s feelings over winning points.
At the same time, a special rule was activated for Inugashi after his score dropped below minus thirty.
Anyone with a negative score would now receive unlimited hints.
Furthermore, they would be allowed to consult directly with audience members before answering.
In theory, this should have changed everything.
For Inugashi to mount a comeback, he needed to answer all seven remaining questions correctly while limiting my correct answers to two or fewer.
The odds were already abysmal.
But not impossible.
The audience had begun sympathizing with him as well.
Several spectators were randomly selected and assigned to help him think through the answers.
Then came Question Four.
I gained ten points.
Inugashi lost ten.
The gap increased to sixty.
That was when Kuwajima snapped.
Explaining exactly why she snapped was difficult.
Perhaps it was because Inugashi had completely ignored a woman’s perspective.
Perhaps it was because he accepted everyone’s advice only to discard it and stubbornly follow his own judgment every single time.
Whatever the reason, her internal “Enemy of Women” meter had apparently reached maximum capacity.
Unfortunately, all of her insults came out in thick Kumamoto dialect.
As a result, only about thirty percent of the intended damage actually reached its target.
Even so, it was enough.
After being verbally shredded, Inugashi ended up on the verge of tears.
Meanwhile, Meiko laughed so hard she could barely breathe.
Around that point, new handicaps were imposed on me.
Questions would be reduced to intro-only clues.
I was also blindfolded and given earplugs to prevent me from gathering information from my surroundings.
Meanwhile, Inugashi was granted the support of the entire venue.
The competition had effectively transformed into:
Me
Versus
Literally everyone else.
Then Questions Five through Eight arrived.
I accumulated forty points.
Inugashi accumulated negative forty.
The score difference ballooned to one hundred and forty.
That was when Taketsuru snapped.
Completely.
“Why?”
That was his central question.
Why, after receiving endless advice from everyone around him, did Inugashi insist on ignoring it all?
People like him, Taketsuru declared, were exactly the kind of incompetent commanding officers responsible for countless deaths on the battlefield.
“If this were an actual war,” he had said, “I would have killed you myself.”
He had been absolutely furious.
Apparently Inugashi had stumbled onto some deeply personal trigger.
Inugashi’s eyes became even wetter.
Meanwhile Meiko enthusiastically shouted from the sidelines:
“Kill him!”
Then came Question Nine.
At this stage my handicap had become so absurd that the question consisted of a single character.
One character.
I had absolutely no idea what was even being asked anymore.
Meanwhile, Inugashi received a multiple-choice question with only four possible answers.
He was explicitly warned that any answer outside those four choices would result in a penalty.
The result?
I earned ten points.
Inugashi lost thirty.
The score difference finally reached one hundred and ninety.
After being scolded by literally everyone present, Inugashi defended himself by saying:
“There wasn’t a correct answer among the four choices.”
The audience immediately stopped supporting him.
The atmosphere, which had already sunk near rock bottom, froze solid.
For the record, however, beer and grilled skewers sold incredibly well.
Apparently nobody could stay sober while watching this disaster unfold.
And now we had arrived at the present.
At this point, there wasn’t a single person in the venue still on Inugashi’s side.
Among the girls, a faint but unmistakable atmosphere of dislike had even begun to spread.
Even so, I stood up and declared:
“I’d like to propose a special rule!”
The crowd fell silent.
Everyone else had abandoned Inugashi.
Everyone except me.
No.
That wasn’t quite right.
I wasn’t his ally.
I never had been.
I was the only person here who had been Inugashi’s enemy from the very beginning.
Everyone else had believed in him at least once.
That was why they felt disappointed.
Why they felt betrayed.
I was different.
I had started as his enemy.
I remained his enemy.
My expectations had never risen in the first place.
Which meant…
I was the only one who could still believe he might actually do something.
“Why don’t we make the final question worth two hundred points?”
“An incredibly bold proposal from Kirishiro-kun! If the final question is worth two hundred points, and Kirishiro-kun answers incorrectly while Inugashi-kun answers correctly, the final score becomes seventy to eighty! Inugashi-kun could achieve a miraculous comeback! But what advantage does that give Kirishiro-kun!?”
Advantage?
That was difficult to answer.
The original purpose of this event had already collapsed beyond repair.
Even if a miracle occurred and Inugashi somehow won, nobody in this atmosphere would genuinely conclude that he was the more suitable childhood friend for Meiko.
Not after everything that had happened.
In other words, there was no reason to give him another chance.
I could have said that.
But…
“Inugashi. I want to ask you something.”
“W-What?”
“Are you really satisfied with this result?”
“Huh?”
His spirit had already burned itself out.
He looked completely empty.
So I threw my words at him with enough force to feel like a punch.
“Is this enough for you? More than a hundred people just witnessed proof that you don’t understand a single thing about Meiko. Are you satisfied with that? At this point you don’t even look like a childhood friend—you look like some obsessive stalker. Anyone could beat you. Anyone. Are you really content ending things after humiliating yourself this badly?”
“N-No… that’s not…”
“Then what were you trying to accomplish?”
I stepped forward.
“Everyone gave you advice. Everyone tried to help. And yet you insisted on doing things your own way. Why did you come here? Why were you so determined to stay true to yourself? Wasn’t there something inside you that you absolutely refused to compromise on?”
“I… I…”
The truth was simple.
With Inugashi performing this horribly, anyone standing in my position would have beaten him.
Even if he somehow overturned the score now, nobody would acknowledge him.
But that also meant nobody would acknowledge me either.
Beating someone anyone could defeat carried no value.
Winning like that wouldn’t make me worthy of being Meiko’s childhood friend.
Only by defeating someone who could truly stand against me could I prove my worth.
So, Inugashi.
Just once.
One final time.
I’ll change the atmosphere for you.
This is your last chance.
So—
“If you’re really Meiko’s childhood friend, then show us at least one thing that proves it! Come on! You’re not planning to end this as a loser, are you!? We’re supposed to be deciding the true childhood friend here!!”
“…!”
For the first time all day, life returned to his eyes.
“I know that! Of course I know that! Next time! The next question! I’ll answer it perfectly! Because I am Meiko’s childhood friend!”
His shout echoed throughout the venue.
And somehow—
Just for this moment—
The crowd united once more.
Everyone had already given up.
Everyone had already accepted that nothing could save him.
But if the man himself was willing to stand again…
Then perhaps it wasn’t wrong to hope.
Even just a little.
The atmosphere changed.
It changed completely.
“…Come on, Ninja. If you’re going to talk that big…”
“We’ll at least collect your bones afterward…!”
“You’re probably doomed anyway—but even a ninja has the right to go down fighting!”
The crowd’s voices pushed Inugashi forward.
Reading the room perfectly, Barasaka-san turned first to Kuwajima, then to Taketsuru.
“What do you think, you two? For Inugashi-kun’s final challenge, could you allow this special rule just this once?”
“If someone who has fallen to the earth wishes to rise again, then no one has the right to stop them. If he’s willing to endure that humiliation and still move forward, let him.”
“If that’ll satisfy him, then sure. Go ahead. I think it’s pointless, though.”
“Thank you very much! Then the final question will be a bonus question worth two hundred points! Is that acceptable, Nekoyanagi-san!?”
A tiny spark of hope ignited within the venue.
Most people still thought it was hopeless.
But they wanted one thing.
Just one thing.
They wanted to see a miracle.
Meiko listened to all of it.
Then she released an enormously long sigh.
“Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah…”
Finally, she spoke.
“Fine. But I’ll be the one asking the final question.”
The entire venue held its breath.
Everyone waited.
After a moment of thought, Meiko turned.
For the first time all day, she looked directly at Inugashi.
Then she asked:
“What is my favorite novel?”
Inugashi froze.
Then his eyes widened.
For the first time, it seemed as though he truly understood the meaning behind her words.
Not what he wanted them to mean.
What she actually meant.
Without hesitation, he grabbed his answer board and began writing.
His marker flew across the surface.
Then he held it up.
“The answer is Holy Remains Chromaconia… right?”
The audience watched in complete silence.
Meiko stared at the board.
Then she let out a short sigh.
“Correct.”
For a single heartbeat, nobody moved.
Then—
The venue exploded.
“NNNIIIINJAAAAAA!! YOU DID IT!!”
“A COMEBACK! A MIRACULOUS COMEBACK!!”
“NINJA!! NINJA!! NINJA!!”
It felt as though every previous mistake had been erased.
Like a defeated hero rising at the final moment.
Like the protagonist of a story reclaiming center stage.
Even Barasaka-san’s commentary reached fever pitch.
“WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!! INUGASHI-KUN HAS DONE IT!! HE FINALLY GOT ONE RIGHT!! I BELIEVED IN YOU, INUGASHI-KUN!! HIS SCORE IS NOW EIGHTY POINTS! HE HAS FINALLY SURPASSED KIRISHIRO-KUN!! AN INCREDIBLE COMEBACK!! INUGASHI-KUN HAS FINALLY EARNED HIS PLACE ON THE BATTLEFIELD!!”
“Oh, my answer was Holy Remains Chromaconia too.”
“THE MATCH IS OVERRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!! KIRISHIRO-KUN WINS IN A LANDSLIDE WITH TWO HUNDRED AND SEVENTY POINTS!! THANK YOU ALL FOR YOUR SUPPORTTTTTTT!!”
The audience stared at me.
Their expressions collectively conveyed:
“…Eh?”
“Kirishiro… seriously?”
Meanwhile, my “childhood friend” and my “best friend” merely looked at me with the exhausted expressions of people whose expectations had been fulfilled.
Of course he did.
That’s exactly what we expected.
Why was everyone acting like I was the bad guy here?
And so the Childhood Friend Derby ended.
It became slightly more exciting at the very end.
Then immediately became far less exciting than before.
And that was that.
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After a fierce back-and-forth battle, the protagonist emerged victorious in spectacular fashion!
What a thrilling match!
The outcome remained uncertain right until the very end…!