I Was Reincarnated As the Hated Scummy Best Friend in a Gal Game and the Protagonist Is Useless

63

19. Sakuya Tanigawa’s Paradise

—Was I seen!?

It was careless of me to be stopped just after parting with the girl in the cage.

I’m scared, my mind goes blank, not knowing what will be done to me.

Emi Sasaki leans in to look at my face and says with a bright, cheerful voice.

“Come on, Sakuya-chan! This is school, isn’t it? There’s no way I’d do anything. You’re too scared—silly girl.”

While poking my cheek, Emi Sasaki laughs.

Don’t call me by the name my father gave me so lightly.

Don’t touch the body my mother gave birth to so casually.

All the things I want to say burst like bubbles before I can speak them.

“What do you want…?”

“Oh, nothing much. I just thought it’d be nice if we could be friends, Sakuya-chan.”

She brings her face close enough that I think she might kiss me.

I’m almost swayed by the scent of a woman, the smell of her hair.

I clenched my lips tightly.

She looked at my face and smiled bewitchingly.

“Please… don’t joke around.”

“Oh dear.”

I took a step back from Emi Sasaki and let out what I wanted to say.

“What is it!? If you have something to say, just say it! Was it wrong to warn that person!?”

“I never said it was wrong. The fact that Sakuya-chan didn’t kill the master doesn’t violate the pledge. That’s not my concern, but rather Hidetoyo-kun’s domain.”

She continued to approach me, step by step.

I don’t understand, I don’t know what she wants.

“Sakuya-chan, you’re so adorably frightened. Ufufu, even though you’re scared, you gave a warning and even complained to me, how lovely. I like girls like you. Shall we become friends?”

Emi Sasaki lifted my chin.

Friends…?

Who would want to be friends with someone like her!?

I brushed off the hand that lifted my chin.

“……..!?”

I ran away from Emi Sasaki as fast as I could.

Faster, faster, faster—!?

I have to get back to the store.

She wasn’t chasing after me.

But the mere fact that Emi Sasaki recognized me was terrifying enough.

——–

A few days later.

I heard a rumor in the school corridor.

“They say that Miyamura-san’s mother stabbed her father to death and then committed suicide.”

“Really? A lovers’ suicide? What about Miyamura-san?”

“She’s fine. She’s alive and attended the funeral.”

I don’t know who Miyamura-san is.

But I had a hunch that it was probably that girl in the birdcage.

In the end, my warning was of so little value to her.

A few more days passed.

After a long time, I passed by the girl in the hallway who used to be in a birdcage.

The birdcage was supposed to have been destroyed.

But the destruction she had envisioned was far from the reality that unfolded.

There was no sparkle in her eyes.

“Living dead,” such a contradictory image fit her perfectly.

Without a sense of style, her hair seemed unkempt, as if she hardly cared for it anymore.

All those friends, and Emi Sasaki among them, had vanished from around her like bubbles.

As if to mock, as if they had never really existed at all.

She became a loner, just like me.

“Sakiya, please. Don’t sympathize with strangers, take better care of yourself…”

“I’m sorry, Dad…”

I felt like I was breaking, overwhelmed by the stress of her breaking.

My health deteriorated, and I started missing school more often.

Upon entering the second year, the names “Hideyori Akechi” and “Emi Sasaki” were in my class, and I couldn’t go to school at all.

Physically I was fine, but mentally, I couldn’t step outside the house.

I was completely labeled as a truant problem child.

Yet, Dad never complained and kept me at home all the time.

I didn’t go to high school, couldn’t go.

No attendance, no studies.

I felt completely abandoned by the world.

One day, I was shocked to hear some news from my father.

“Hideyori Akechi, Emi Sasaki have died.”

That was the content.

I thought it was poetic justice, and they probably didn’t have a good end.

But that was it.

Happy.

Sad.

Painful.

None of these emotions came to mind, just a light feeling of, “Ah, is that so?”

Their deaths didn’t change my past, nor my personality, way of life, or living. Nothing changed at all.

I never leave the house anyway.

From noble mtl dot come

The happiest moment in my life is now, living with my father.

I doubt I’ll find greater happiness, no matter what I do.

Miyamura-san (was that his name?) spoke of wanting to escape the caged life, but for me, this caged life is enough.

A space where time stands still.

Unchanging human relationships.

A life where I don’t have to do anything.

Because for me, this place is a paradise, a birdcage.

I have no interest in anything outside this paradise, this cage.

†

If Tanigawa Sakuya follows the original route, she breaks mentally and dies around the age of 20.

She dies before her master.

Sakuya has no connection with the protagonist, Togamijima Takeru, so there’s no storyline where he saves her.

In that sense, there’s no difference in treatment between her and Emi, who also dies in the original story.

The only difference is whether they die sooner or later.

Perhaps if she had taken the route to become friends with Emi, as described at the beginning of this page, things might have changed, but it still wouldn’t have led to a happy ending.

To follow a happy route for Sakuya, like in the main trashy game, Hideyori would have to continuously hit over a hundred Sakuya survival flags while he’s still in elementary school, an impossible game forced upon him.

Making her happy is like a miracle for a character who will become unhappy and die around the age of 20 if even one flag is missed.

I never imagined she would become such a prominent character.