Side Story 5: Black Monologue
Translator: Soafp
On my way home from a part-time job, I passed by a house.
The house of someone I used to be very fond of.
I caused many problems in the past. Because of that, I hurt many people and lost many things. The same goes for the people who lived in this house.
I was a simple child.
From an early age, I was not good at standing out, and at school I would read in the corner of the classroom. I didn’t have many friends, and I was never popular with the boys. My appearance was also very plain; I wore glasses and did my hair in pigtails.
But I was not always plain and dark.
At home, I was cheerful, and in front of my family I was a cheeky little brat. I was shy, or rather, I just didn’t like the way a lot of people looked at me.
So I always spoke my true feelings inside without saying them out loud.
“I-I’m sorry.”
…… Damn it. It’s your fault, you piece of sh*t.
It was like that. I was apologizing with fright in my mouth and cursing in my heart. Even so, I hid my true feelings, and I am sure that I appeared to those around me as a dark and unsophisticated child.
It is not that I have a dual personality. Just a very intense front and back. A typical small girl who was scared on the outside and was a jerk only on the inside.
I hated going to school.
I was bullied in elementary school. In the lower grades, when I was getting along like I was at home, the bullies took notice of me. The bullying broke my heart and I missed a lot of school. My daily life was hard.
My support was my childhood friend and my first love, my older brother. When I was a child, I adored him as if he were my real brother, and my feelings for him turned into a love affair.
I knew that love was not fruitful.
It was my sister that my brother was crazy about. I knew they were in love with each other, and it was a battle that was unwinnable from the start. Sister is pretty in my eyes.
I was living with smoldering feelings deep in my heart. Although I never made any progress, my brother was my emotional support.
One day before I was about to enter junior high school. At a family gathering, a drunken old b*****d touched my breasts.
I was shocked.
I was well-built, so I had felt the stares of boys at school. I even had a teacher look at me funny. But that was the first time I had ever been touched, and I shivered because I felt so uncomfortable.
I developed a hatred of men. Other than my father and brother, I had become averse to men.
In junior high school, my classmates who had reached puberty started talking about love and friendship.
I was still a stranger to them. Even in the classroom, I was a complete nobody. I was only looking forward to reading books, and I made fun of those who talked about good-looking or beautiful girls.
After finishing school lunch, I went to the library in search of my favorite books. No one ever came near here. It was my own private paradise.
My life in paradise lasted about a year.
When I was in the second year of junior high school, that person started coming in and out of the library. He was a dark, gloomy, and shy boy who wore glasses. I couldn’t speak for others either, but he had a very negative aura around him.
I didn’t even know his name at first.
While I was reading in the classroom, that boy passed by in the hallway. At that time, a girl in the vicinity started whispering secretly.
“Do you know it? I heard that that Mukawa is stalking Akazawa-san.”
“Huh, I think that’s a misunderstanding. Yuuhi-chan said they were childhood friends.”
“Is that so? I heard he got his heart broken, and then–“
As they talked, the girls headed for the restroom. I wanted them to finish, but they were not talking to me, so I had no choice.
A childhood friend with a broken heart?
I am in the same situation. That is why I felt a kinship with Shota Mukawa.
When I gathered up the courage to talk to him, he was surprisingly normal. He looked gloomy on the outside, but when I talked to him, he was friendly, just like me, and I got excited.
Mukawa-kun had the same scars as me.
The scar of having had your first childhood friend break your heart.
We were very similar, and we became good friends. We got along well with each other, but it was like wounded people sharing their scars. I was originally a shy and man-hating person, so I never developed a romantic relationship with him, and I never looked at him in that way.
The conversation was about our childhood friends.
It was a little bit funny that we were bragging about each other’s childhood friends even though we were both heartbroken.
Mukawa’s childhood friend was Yuuhi Akazawa.
Even at the time when I had no friends, I knew her as a famous person. She was an idol at school and was often talked about in my class. It was also a topic of conversation that she had a handsome childhood friend, and as someone with a special attachment to childhood friends, she was a person of interest to me.
The mysterious time we spent bragging about our miserable first love was strangely comforting.
However, such a comfortable time did not last long.
A guy I didn’t know was coming in and out. I didn’t even know his name, but he was apparently active on the soccer team.
He was looking at me with a weird look in his eyes. I was uncomfortable because I knew he was looking at my breast, but I didn’t say anything about it. I was thinking that if he tried to touch me, I would yell out and kick him.
That day, the incident happened.
While I was reading in the library as usual, that guy started talking to me in a friendly manner. He had been quiet until then, but it seemed he was waiting for an opportunity to leave the room empty. He came at me forcefully.
He grabbed me by the arm and I went crazy. I saw the old b*****d’s face in my mind, and I shook him off with all my might. I rolled on the ground, hit my head and fainted.
“……”
When I woke up, I was in my room.
After the incident, I shut myself in.
I was scared. When I was grabbed by the arm, I didn’t scream out, but my whole body stiffened and I couldn’t move. I shuddered, thinking that I had been so shallow as to think of kicking him away.
After the incident, my brother came to visit me every day.
Thanks to him, my heart gradually recovered. My brother was already in a relationship with my sister, so my love for him had almost disappeared, but I was still happy.
It was more than a week later that I went back to school after taking care of my heart.
“Are you okay?”
It was a gal-like girl who approached me.
“Eh, uhm, …… yeah.”
“Thank God. We were all worried about you.”
“…… is that so?”
With her guidance, I was able to integrate into the class.
My classmates were kind to me. They began to talk to me and I was no longer isolated in a group setting. For the first time, I felt that school was fun.
Then I started spending my lunch break in the classroom.
The library was traumatizing, and the classmates talked to me, so I didn’t feel uncomfortable in the classroom.
So I didn’t even notice what was going on with Mukawa-kun.
I guess my classmates were just being cautious of me. No one mentioned Shota Mukawa’s name.
Then there was an accident in which Mukawa-kun fell down the stairs, and soon after, he stopped coming to school.
After he stopped coming to school, that was. As expected, the rumor had spread too far and I had heard about it.
When I was unconscious, Mukawa-kun was attempting to attack me.
At first, I believed the rumor. Since I was unconscious, the only source of information was the voices around me. I was terrified of him.
On the first day of school in the third grade, I heard that Mukawa had transferred to another school.
I was relieved.
However, it was not until a few days after Mukawa-kun transferred to another school that I realized that this was a big mistake.
That day, I went to the library. The man who had tried to attack me and Mukawa-kun were gone, so I was able to enter the library.
In the library, I bumped into Renji Inuyama.
At that time, he radiated a murderous rage. It is only natural now that I think about it, but at the time I was scared because I had no memory of him staring at me.
The moment my eyes met Inuyama’s, he opened his mouth as if he couldn’t hold back anymore.
Looking back on it now, Inuyama-kun was kind too. I honestly believe that if I had been in the opposite position, I would have reached out and harmed him.
Then I learned the truth.
That the woman had accused Mukawa-kun of a crime, that the man who had tried to attack me had graduated without punishment, and that the very sight of that woman and I having a good time together had hurt Mukawa-kun.
I was shocked. I wanted to know the truth, so I questioned her. Yes, that gal-like girl who made me fit in with the class.
“Eh, no, even …… it looked like.”
When I asked her about it, she said that Mukawa-kun had denied it. He said he was only protecting me from the falling book.
The girl said that she had made her own judgment based on Mukawa-kun’s bad reputation and had just said what she thought was appropriate on the spot.
“It wasn’t my fault. I just said what I thought. Everyone believed it, and that’s what you do every day, right? To tell you the truth, I didn’t think he had the guts either.”
It was at this point.
With a snap, a string snapped in my head.
It was all my fault. It was my fault he had to move out.
After that, it was …… rough.
I had a makeover. I went to school with a new look, feeling reborn.
“It’s all your fault!”
While everyone was surprised by my changed appearance, I confessed to them the deeds of that person who was my friend. I went to the trouble of confessing in front of many of my classmates.
It seems that someone posted the story on social networking sites, and he was slandered by many strangers. He seemed to have lost his mind, became a recluse, and transferred to another school.
Then, I found out where the guy who tried to attack me went to school and informed the high school that I was about to be attacked. The man was expelled from the high school he had just entered. After that, the man who complained about the expulsion apparently went on a rampage and the police were involved.
On one occasion, I beat up a student who was saying bad things about Mukawa-kun at school. I was willing to use violence to restore his credibility.
It was my fault that Tobu Junior High School got a reputation as a rough school.
A fistfight, a big accusation to a withdrawal, and then a police action by a graduate–
It’s all messed up.
I did something so spectacular that my family has been informed of my deeds. When I told them what had happened, my parents showed a certain amount of understanding, even though they said violence was wrong.
However, my sister, who is basically a good girl, said in a big way that violence is not allowed. It turned out to be a sisters’ fight. My brother was confused, but at that time I didn’t care anymore.
“Shut up. You don’t know anything about me, so don’t talk to me like that!”
I kicked her out of the room. I was bigger than her, so I didn’t feel like I could lose in a fight.
“You’re really annoying me. Get lost.”
She shed tears at my words and attitude.
Later, when she became a college student, she started living with my brother. That was the last time I saw her. I don’t regret anything, and I don’t feel like apologizing.
However, the last time I saw my brother’s face, it looked very complicated, and that expression stuck in my mind. Somehow, I knew that my relationship with my brother would remain awkward from now on.
After that, I finished my retaliation, and I was living my life with a somewhat unfulfilled feeling. I finished my junior high school life with my reversed front and back personality intact.
curz0
April 7, 2022 at 10:28 pmThanks for the chapter!
Omnefarious
April 8, 2022 at 12:39 amThinking about it some more, I do believe Black is the most sympathetic of the four. She’s been through a lot of BS herself and has trauma because of it. She honestly did not know what happened because she was not conscious. And compared to the others, she never tried to proactively hurt Shota (like Red and the Cat) or even badmouth him behind his back (like Nekoda and Blue) despite being under the (not unreasonable) impression that he tried to take advantage of her after another boy tried to force himself on her. If anything, it all stems back to Akazawa and Nekoda’s actions creating a bad reputation for him, and their crappy schoolmates condemning him based on nothing but baseless rumors. Hell, she seems to have done the most to clear Shota’s name, aside from best boi Renji.
Even so, she still owes him an apology for not giving him the benefit of the doubt and asking for his side of the story.
#teambromance
StonksCoffee
April 8, 2022 at 1:26 amI thought something similar too. Unlike the other three, blacks fault was that she didn’t do something right rather than doing something wrong. Still sucks that she believed the rumors, but at least she got some revenge.
DBAV
April 8, 2022 at 4:58 amRed is the main culprit here, Cat acted like a good slave would act, White just gave him the last critical but Blue and Black are so innocent it wouldn’t feel strange if the MC prostrated before them begging forgiveness for causing the misunderstanding or something like that.
Tt
April 8, 2022 at 7:00 amI wouldn’t say blue is innocent, since unlike renji she knew the rumours before it was too late and could have cleaned them up but rather she made him purposely look bad even in elementary school to keep her friendships
DBAV
April 8, 2022 at 2:53 pmTt, The MC asked Blue to ignore him so her reputation doesn’t suffer, the only “bad” thing she did was push him down the stairs and we know how that happened, it’s a pity since the author could’ve just made Blue and Black cowards that abandon their friend for popularity but instead made both victims.
Omnefarious
April 8, 2022 at 3:17 pmIt’s arguable and subjective who the worst of the four demons is if we are trying b***h-ranking them (as one commenter so aptly put on a previous chapter). That said, Blue is objectively NOT innocent. Her selfishness and cowardice led to her abandoning her self-proclaimed best friend at his lowest point, joining in on bad-mouthing him with her “friends” behind his back, and causing him serious injury due to her carelessness (overexerting herself to the point of illness) and again selfishness (trying to preserve her perfect attendance record).
Then and only then did she finally pull her head out of her a*s, as it dawned on her how much of a solipsistic twat she had been. No one is saying its easy to stand up to the mob for the sake of a single friend, but that doesn’t mean one gets a pass or deserves praise for picking the “safe” route…ESPECIALLY when that requires sacrificing the one person you claim to care about the most (and who has treated you better than everyone else).
Strawberry Milkshake
April 8, 2022 at 4:26 amSo Black isnt that severe, she didnt something wrong like the other two.
curz0
April 8, 2022 at 4:28 amThanks for the chapter!
DTJ
April 8, 2022 at 5:47 amBlack is the only one so far who’s somewhat redeemable.
Gatts
April 8, 2022 at 7:31 amThank you for the chapter !
Unknownhell
April 8, 2022 at 5:59 amWell, even if blue and black are as bad as red and white (in term of personality).
What they end up doing (even if it is due to rumors, coincidence or be part of the social norm) is bad if it happened as standalone situation.
What I am interested to find out, is what happen to the sister of black and red
john claude van damme
April 8, 2022 at 6:56 amI actually don’t like black the most right now. She blindly believed the rumors that Shota attacked her even though they were talking and becoming friends with each other, basically meaning that time they spent with each other meant nothing even though from Shota’s PoV it was just her rambling for the most part. It almost feels like she has no remorse for her actions, only doing the things she wanted to do from the start without care now. She got on the bad side of her family for no good reason, acting like a hardass literally sizing up her sister for a fight. Comparing her love problems with her childhood friend she calls her older brother to be the same to Shota’s when his was objectively far worse than hers, the older man grabbing her breast was bad but the fact that the man she liked loved another woman is more of a typical thing to occur. And literally the only reason she became anywhere near remorseful was when the best boi Renji tells her that she’s a b***h basically, and becomes full on violent woman. I think red and blue are bad, but at least they’re trying to redeem themselves now, for black it looks more like she’s now just being what she wanted to be in the first place.
Unknownhell
April 8, 2022 at 11:59 amWell, even if blue and black are as bad as red and white (in term of personality).
What they end up doing (even if it is due to rumors, coincidence or be part of the social norm) is bad if it happened as standalone situation.
What I am interested to find out, is what happen to the sister of black and red
john claude van damme
April 8, 2022 at 12:56 pmI actually don’t like black the most right now. She blindly believed the rumors that Shota attacked her even though they were talking and becoming friends with each other, basically meaning that time they spent with each other meant nothing even though from Shota’s PoV it was just her rambling for the most part. It almost feels like she has no remorse for her actions, only doing the things she wanted to do from the start without care now. She got on the bad side of her family for no good reason, acting like a hardass literally sizing up her sister for a fight. Comparing her love problems with her childhood friend she calls her older brother to be the same to Shota’s when his was objectively far worse than hers, the older man grabbing her breast was bad but the fact that the man she liked loved another woman is more of a typical thing to occur. And literally the only reason she became anywhere near remorseful was when the best boi Renji tells her that she’s a b***h basically, and becomes full on violent woman. I think red and blue are bad, but at least they’re trying to redeem themselves now, for black it looks more like she’s now just being what she wanted to be in the first place.
Angry gent
April 8, 2022 at 9:04 pmI read most of the comments and it really made me think that I must be reading another novel…
People are all around saying she wasn’t the worst, but let me ask, didn’t she got to know Shota in an intimate base? Didn’t they opened up to each other as friends? So when she fell and hurt her head, when she woke up, why didn’t she even tried to talk to him to ask him what had happened? After all, she did remember being assaulted by the senpai (it’s in the text, when she talked about her brother helping her overcome the assault, thinking that she was crazy to think that she could even shout for help), but because she felt integrated in class she believed all those rumors AFTER having talked for so long with Shota…
And she complicitely muted herself about the false accusations. Hey, a voiced answer and a silent admittance are the same thing.
And after finding out that she pushed the another fourth of the nails in Shota’s coffin, she started abusing physically everyone and even her older sister?!
Bah, these girls are all trash.
EQUALLY.
DBAV
April 9, 2022 at 2:19 amYou’re not wrong but the author is pushing the interpretation of the poor androphobic girl skipping class for a time due to the shock and not being up to date with the rumors, so when she heard everything we are supposed to believed she exploded in a fit of righteous rage to defend her “friend”. I would’ve like the author to push the “she’s getting a bit drunk on attention so she stopped thinking about other stuff” rather than this flimsy excuse we are getting fed.
oh yeah mr krabs
April 9, 2022 at 10:50 amI agree with both of you guys here. Black annoys me greatly for the fact she demonized Shota until Renji tells her she’s a b***h basically, fearing Shota even though they did spend so much time together. I keep seeing people say she’s the only redeemable one but so far, we haven’t seen White’s POV yet, in my opinion she really seems the least remorseful of her actions. And again with what the first commenter said, she literally cut her relations with her older sister and brother for literally no reason basically for this really making her seem more like a crappy person.
Overall though, the fact she literally was scared and demonized Shota before Renji straight up tells her just really makes me hate Black a lot, definitely as much as I hate Red and Blue right now. It was also really irking me that so many people kept saying she’s the only redeemable one. For me personally they’re all on the same page on how bad they are. Redeemability is more about how they’ll act from here on out if they really make it right or not, however I don’t believe Shota should have a romantic or platonic relationship with any of them after this. It goes with the saying “Fool me one shame on you, fool me twice shame on me” and man should avoid the twice part.
Omnefarious
April 9, 2022 at 5:41 pmTo clarify, I am not trying to defend Black. I (and I suspect the others commenting to the same effect) am pointing out that she didn’t DELIBERATELY betray, abandon, and/or hurt the MC. She avoided him and tried not to get involved in any way after going through a traumatic experience that she had some reason to believe he was involved with. Compared to the first two demonesses (and Nekoda), Shota’s LIFELONG friends who tossed him aside and treated him like crap, Black is not AS BAD, at least in my humble opinion. HOWEVER!
That DOES NOT mean Black is blameless or justified in how she acted, including towards her family. Renji may have gotten some of the finer details wrong regarding their motives (not that it should matter much after what happened to his bro), but he still accurately identifies and rightly calls the four girls out on their transgressions (which is why they don’t try to rebut him). For Kuromine, even though it wasn’t with the intent to garner sympathy or manipulate others into doing what she want, she did play the victim to an extent: justifying her jealousy towards her sister and childhood friend, using her past experiences as an excuse to not giving Shota the benefit of the doubt, and getting caught up in having a “friend” and the attention her classmates where showering upon her that she did implicate Molester-senpai right away (leaving Shota stuck with the blame). There’s also the fact that she’s putting on the bitchy yankee facade to hide her weakness, rather than growing a backbone and being genuine.
So no, Black is no saint; she’s just not as s**t as the the competition (including White), at least when it comes to how she treated the MC. For all that she’s done to redeem her mistakes and clear Shota’s name, she still needs to own up to her actions (and lack thereof) and apologize to him DIRECTLY without making any excuses or using her trauma as a shield. Even then, he is not obligated to forgive her. She should also apologize to her sister as well. As much as she probably resents her sis for “taking” their childhood friend and condemning her violent actions, treating her like an enemy and destroying their relationship wasn’t the way handle it.
Apollo1245
April 10, 2022 at 4:27 pmIf i had to say, red, black and blue all of them are the same b*****s. Due to Red acting like she hated Shota which led to Nekoda spreading the tumors she is totally not redeemable. Then Blue who basically betrayed Shota to keep her status in her friend’s circle and pushed him down the stairs though not deliberately but she also didn’t apologize to him regarding that which led to Shota becoming even more abandoned. Last but not the least Black is as responsible as the both of them, for not believing in Shota when they were even good friends and not even talking to him when she got integrated in the class until Renji told her about it. This makes her as irredeemable as Blue and Red plus her behaviour towards her surrounding people for her own discretions. But i also feel a little sympathy for her as she was traumatized due to the sexual harrasment of the old dude. But she ain’t no saint for that fact alone nor a victim she is as bad as Blue, Red, Nekoda. Well let’s wait for the next chapter and the pov of White.
xeredge
April 9, 2022 at 1:22 amBlack is the only redeemable one.
Krauss
April 9, 2022 at 3:21 amUntil now red and blue are the worst. Red with all that jealousy thing. Blue who prefers other friends than her best friend for some rumors.
drkstarmage
April 11, 2022 at 10:02 pmi think white will always be the worse using him to cover her incest love for her brother
xeredge
April 9, 2022 at 7:22 amBlack is the only redeemable one.
drkstarmage
April 12, 2022 at 4:01 ami would say maybe in a small way she did beat up a girl talking bad about the mc and got the other guy kicked out of the hs he went to after tracking him down
Krauss
April 9, 2022 at 9:21 amUntil now red and blue are the worst. Red with all that jealousy thing. Blue who prefers other friends than her best friend for some rumors.
drkstarmage
April 12, 2022 at 4:02 ami think white will always be the worse using him to cover her incest love for her brother
ゼロ35
June 5, 2022 at 12:57 pmI totally think Black is blameless. You might think why she did not talk to the mc, but she was unconscious and did not know the full picture. The already sexually harrased girl who became androphobic was attacked leading to becoming unconscious and later told that she was attacked by another boy, even if they talked to each other and was somewhat close. It should also be noted that she was sexually harrased by a relative which will skew her trust issues. The people are really taking child sexual abuse and the way it affects the childs mind lightly…….
canalnoodle
January 18, 2023 at 7:56 pm“she was unconscious”
What a lame excuse. She remembers clearly that the senior was the one who attacked her but let Shota take the blame because of rumors…
DLP
December 30, 2022 at 5:59 amYeah Black is a victim of circumstance. She didn’t wrong him at all, at least intentionally. Her circumstances make all of her actions and thoughts reasonable and blameless in my eyes.
Blue’s kinda sympathetic too, for the same reason in that she wasn’t trying to hurt him. Peer pressure is an unstoppable force. I won’t absolve her of blame though she still should have stuck by him even if almost everyone else had a different opinion.
Screw Red though. Really and truly, screw her. Idk what White’s backstory yet but I don’t have a high opinion of rich girls in light novels so I doubt I’ll sympathize with her in any capacity. (Not to mention reviews on NU seem to have an opinion split between Red and White being worst girl)
canalnoodle
January 18, 2023 at 7:58 pm“Blameless”
Remembers who her true attacker was but stayed quiet and let Shota take the blame. Sure, blameless…