Crushed by the icy pressure radiating off Pekoyama, I quietly returned to my seat and resumed eating. Then, out of nowhere, someone slipped into the chair across from me and whispered under his breath.
"Hey... K, you got a minute?"
"Hm? What's with the sudden secrecy?"
"At 2:30 this afternoon... come to the supermarket on this island..."
"The supermarket?"
"Shh...! The others can't find out about this!"
Watching Souda hiss at me like we were plotting a state assassination, I suddenly realized what this situation was.
This was that event scene. The one where you get to see the girls in swimsuits.
"Wait... are we talking about spying on the girls at the beach—"
"Idiot!!"
"...Ghk!"
Souda's eyes bulged so wide they looked ready to pop clean out of his skull, and he clamped a hand over my mouth in a panic. The food I was chewing went down the wrong pipe, and I spent the next several seconds hacking like I was about to die.
"What is this...? O familiar of the dark god... what manner of being could inflict such agony upon you...? Tell me, that I may know..."
"Y-you stay out of this! This has nothing to do with you!"
After shooing away the curious Tanaka, Souda leaned in again and urgently whispered to me once I'd more or less stopped choking.
"You moron! If you already knew, why the hell would you say it that loud...?"
"I mean, I'm not even that interested... what am I supposed to do, stare at girls in swimsuits...?"
In truth, I desperately wanted to see it. But if Kyoko Kirigiri found out, I couldn't even begin to imagine what kind of horrifying aftermath awaited me, so I was prepared to skip this event entirely...
"Your detective girlfriend's going too, though..."
"Let's go."
Missing an event like this would be a disgrace to manhood. At long last, the time had come to prove my masculinity.
'...Wait. Is this actually masculinity?'
I had a brief moment of philosophical doubt, but come on. I had a chance to see Kyoko Kirigiri in a swimsuit. What possible force in heaven or hell could make that not matter? So Souda and I began whispering together in conspiratorial tones, hammering out a plan to infiltrate the beach outing.
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"Hnnngh... Kyoko Kirigiri noona..."
All the stress I'd been carrying seemed to melt away at once as I rolled around on the bed in my cottage. Kyoko Kirigiri in a swimsuit. Not just that—a living, breathing Kyoko Kirigiri in a swimsuit. I had never, not even in my wildest dreams, imagined a day like this would come.
Come to think of it, if I ended up swimming with them, wouldn't I need to wear a swimsuit too? I lifted my shirt and glanced down at my body. Pathetic. If I'd known it would come to this, I would've begged Oogami to put me through brutal training ages ago. At this rate, I really needed to learn some exercise basics from Nidai soon.
'So... what do I do until then...?'
There was still time before 2:30, and I was trying to figure out how to kill it when the doorbell suddenly rang.
Ding-dong♪ Ding-dong♪
"Um... K...? I came because of what happened yesterday..."
"...Koizumi?"
Right. I'd completely forgotten the promise I made with Koizumi last night. I got up from the bed and opened the door, and there she was, standing there with a faintly tense expression.
"Don't just stand there. Come in."
"Okay..."
Koizumi stepped awkwardly into my room. I'd totally forgotten about meeting her because of the upcoming beach event, but at least I'd prepared for something like this in advance by grabbing tea and coffee from the supermarket.
"Tea? Or coffee?"
At last, I got to use a line I'd always wanted to say at least once. "Tea? Or coffee?" Wasn't that the stock phrase of high-ranking drama characters and counselors everywhere? For some reason, my mood started lifting immediately.
"Um... I don't know... I don't really feel like drinking anything..."
"The aroma and flavor of tea help calm the mind, and coffee energizes the body and chases away gloomy feelings. Considering how anxious you are right now, it'd be good for your mental and physical health to drink one or the other."
Since I was already getting carried away, I decided to throw out some half-remembered trivia and pretend I was a professional. Koizumi rested her chin on her hand, then spoke in a small voice.
"...Then coffee."
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"It is good... Did you actually learn how to make coffee properly?"
"If you're going to give good counseling, knowing how to make coffee and tea is basic stuff. It helps the person opening up feel at least a little better."
"Huh... so despite appearances, I guess your one Ultimate-level talent really is pretty impressive."
"Haha... it's nothing special..."
It really wasn't. I just pretended to use the coffee machine while secretly relying on instant coffee mix, and as for counseling, I'd never done it before coming to the Danganronpa world. I was barely holding things together with game knowledge and sheer bluffing.
Still, if the result was good, that was all that mattered, right? Koizumi was sipping the coffee with a satisfied smile, so using the coffee mix had clearly been the right call.
"...So. The reason I came here is..."
"Because of the game we were given as a motive, right?"
"H-how did you know that...?"
"I played that game too. I more or less figured out what happened. So you don't need to explain it."
At my words, Koizumi fell silent. She lowered her gaze, and a bleak expression spread across her face.
"Honestly... I don't want to believe what's in it... but ever since I played that game, I've felt anxious every single day. Even when I'm doing nothing, these strange memories keep surfacing..."
"Monokuma didn't hand out that motive for no reason. He deliberately made us play something like that to plant the seeds of suspicion between us. So you don't need to let it eat at you so much—"
"I want to do that... I do...!"
"...Koizumi?"
Suddenly, Koizumi's voice started to tremble with tears.
"The girl in the game over scene... the one who got beaten to death with a baseball bat... that was definitely... my friend Sato...!!"
Damn it. I hadn't thought of that. Even if her face was lowered and hidden by her hair, there was no way Koizumi wouldn't recognize her own friend. She'd already realized the game was true without even seeing the [clear bonus].
"I didn't want to believe that ridiculous story about our memories being erased... but if that's true... then what about Sato...? And... if the ending credits were telling the truth... then the person who killed Kuzuryu's little sister was...!"
"Koizumi, calm down."
"S-Sato... killed Kuzuryu's sister... and then... the one who killed Sato was... Kuzuryu..."
"....."
Koizumi was forcing herself to say the truth out loud. It looked like she'd already pieced together most of it. This was bad. What was I supposed to do here?
"I... I don't know what I'm supposed to do... Yesterday, when Kuzuryu called me to the park... I wanted to apologize... I did... but...!"
Without warning, Koizumi slammed her fist onto the desk and spoke through a twisted expression.
"K-Kuzuryu also... in the end...! He killed my friend too...! He committed murder too... so why... why am I the one being cornered like I'm the murderer?!"
Just moments ago she'd been drowning in guilt, and now she was seething with rage at Kuzuryu. That alone told me how unstable she was. Her emotions were lurching wildly from second to second, and she couldn't control any of them.
"E-even if that game is true... I-I didn't do anything wrong... K-Kuzuryu doesn't have the right... to come after me for revenge now!!"
In a way, she wasn't entirely wrong. But in Chapter 2, Koizumi says exactly that to Kuzuryu's face. And that's what leads to murder. Yeah. I had to intervene here.
"...Right. Your friend was the one who killed Kuzuryu's younger sister, and Kuzuryu really was the one who killed that friend. Those are facts. They can't be denied."
"R-right...! So then...!"
"But it's also true that you tried to destroy the evidence and cover up the case for a friend who committed murder."
".....!"
Koizumi's eyes began to shake. I kept going.
"In a situation like this, the relative weight of each sin doesn't matter. This place doesn't have the laws and rules of modern society. The only rules here are Monokuma's rules—the ones designed to incite all of us into killing each other."
"....."
"You know why Monokuma used this as a motive, don't you? This wasn't aimed at everyone. It was aimed at you and Kuzuryu specifically. It's a trap meant to turn one of you into the killer and the other into the victim. Even knowing that, are you still going to dance to Monokuma's tune?"
"I... I..."
"I understand how you feel about that case. I really do. But if you keep clinging to that attitude in a situation like this... something irreversible is going to happen. If you'd said to Kuzuryu yesterday at the park what you just said to me now, what do you think would've happened?"
The color drained from Koizumi's face.
"See? You can picture it, can't you? So no matter what you really think... this time, swallow your pride and apologize to Kuzuryu. And after that, you can receive an apology from him too. Otherwise, the only one who benefits is Monokuma."
"B-but... even if I apologize... what if Kuzuryu has already decided to kill me...? W-what if he's already made a plan... and he's just waiting for the right chance...!?"
"Kuzuryu is angry because you're avoiding the situation. He just wants to face the truth of all this and set things right. So if you apologize first... it should be enough to calm down Kuzuryu, who's worked himself into a frenzy right now..."
Koizumi nodded at my words, but then her eyes welled up again and she spoke in a trembling voice.
"I-I want to... but I'm scared... I can't do it..."
"....."
"Honestly... the reason I kept avoiding Kuzuryu... the reason I kept rationalizing that he had no right to take revenge on me... it was because I was scared... I'm... a coward. A pathetic coward..."
"A pathetic coward...? What are you talking about?"
"I've always been like that... always looking away... always running from things... so..."
"Then can I at least hear why you think that? I know it'll be hard, but... could you tell me?"
"....."
Koizumi opened her mouth, then shut it again. Judging by the pained look on her face, this was tied to something deeply shameful—some trauma she didn't want exposed. But I needed to know if I was going to stop this situation from spiraling into despair, so I pleaded with her as earnestly as I could.
"Please. I know this is your trauma we're talking about, so of course it'd feel awful to say it out loud. And even if you don't tell me here and now, I can understand that. But..."
".....?"
"I want to crush this killing game."
"C-crush the killing game...?"
"Yeah. And to do that, we need to neutralize the motives Monokuma keeps throwing at us. And if we're going to neutralize Monokuma's motive this time, then I need your courage right now."
"M-my courage...?"
"Yeah... so please, Koizumi."
At last, with tears gathering in her eyes, Koizumi began to tell her story.
"I wanted to be brave... like my mother, who's a war correspondent... I always wanted to take pictures with her... but I was too afraid to go with her..."
"What were you afraid of?"
"I was afraid of photographing other people's unhappiness... afraid of capturing faces twisted in pain... afraid of recording horrific scenes of devastation... I was afraid to face the fact that photographs don't only preserve happy moments..."
"And then?"
"So... every time I had a chance to go with my mom... I made excuses about needing to take care of my lazy dad... and I always ran away from it... And even now... I'm doing the same thing..."
"....."
"In the end... even in a situation like this... I'm still just a pathetic coward... You think I'm pathetic too, don't you...?"
Watching her speak in that timid, tearful voice almost made me laugh. It was hard to believe this was the same sharp-tongued girl who was always grumbling whenever she saw some unreliable guy acting pathetic.
Well then. Now that I'd learned the side of her the game never showed, it was time—as a fan of the series—to comfort her properly. I gave her a faint smile and started to speak.
"It's kind of funny hearing you ask if you're pathetic, when you're the one who's always looked down on useless men for being pathetic."
"Th-that's..."
"I know. You blamed your lazy father, but the real reason you hated pathetic men was because you were projecting yourself onto them, wasn't it?"
".....!"
"But you're not a pathetic coward. You're not pathetic at all. If anything, you're brave."
"No...! I'm not...!"
"Tell me—how many people do you think can lay bare their true feelings as honestly as you just did in a conversation like this?"
"...Huh?"
"People with emotional wounds hate exposing their trauma or their shame. Even if the other person is a counselor, they're still a stranger. So instinctively, their defenses go up."
"....."
A good example suddenly came to mind. I closed my eyes for a moment, then calmly said what I'd really wanted to tell her.
"I... no, someone I know spent years in counseling and still never managed to open up in the end. That person didn't have the courage to face their fear. But what about you?"
"I..."
"You told me everything, didn't you? That makes you incredibly brave. A real coward probably wouldn't be able to say a single word—they'd just clamp their mouth shut and stay there."
"But...! I'm still scared...! I want to apologize to Kuzuryu... but what if he attacks me...!?"
"Then I'll go with you."
"...What?"
Koizumi's eyes went round. I declared it to her without hesitation.
"When you go to apologize to Kuzuryu, I'll come with you. Then there's no problem, right? If anything happens, I'll—"
"Protect me?"
"Quickly hit the personal alarm and call Kyoko Kirigiri— uh... I mean... that's not... I mean, of course I'd... p-protect you myself, right?"
A brief silence fell over the room. Then Koizumi burst out laughing and shattered it.
"Pfft... If you're protecting me, then nothing could possibly go wrong? What kind of conclusion is that...?"
"N-no, I mean... I do have a personal alarm and all..."
"You're really weird. One second you seem incredibly dependable, and the next you're completely unreliable again. I seriously can't figure you out."
"Uh... was that a compliment? Or an insult?"
Ignoring my hopeless question, Koizumi stood up from her seat.
"Thanks. You really helped me a lot, even if you're unreliable. Mr. Counselor whose one talent is weirdly exceptional. I know what I need to do now."
"Well, that's a relief."
"Then I'll be going..."
"Wait, you're going to apologize now? Then I'm coming too!!"
"Huh...?"
It was a relief that I'd managed to pull Koizumi back from the brink, but Kuzuryu was still an unresolved variable. If Koizumi apologized first, maybe he'd accept it—but there was still a chance he'd fail to contain his fury and lash out. If I wanted to prevent disaster, I had to go with her somehow.
"Y-you really weren't just saying that, huh...?"
"When I say something, I mean it. Are you going now? Then let me get ready and—"
"No, I want to go right now, but... I'm a little exhausted at the moment... I was thinking I'd calm myself down first and go this evening..."
"Oh, if that's all, then actually the girls are going to the beach. Why don't you join them? Hanging out with everyone might help settle your nerves."
"I did get invited earlier... so maybe that's a good idea. Thank you. Really."
Thank god Koizumi accepted my suggestion. That meant, at the very least, her safety was secured until the beach event.
A smile spread across my face at the thought that I'd half-succeeded in crushing the second motive. Koizumi smiled back at me, then turned toward the door. I hurriedly called after her.
"And! When you go to apologize! Make sure you call me! Seriously, don't forget!"
"Good grief... I said I got it."
"That's a promise, okay!?"
"Yeees, yeees."
With that, Koizumi opened the door and left my room. I stared at the doorway for a moment, then threw myself onto the bed with a triumphant grin.
"All right, one problem solved... Now I just need to go with Koizumi to apologize and somehow talk Kuzuryu down..."
With the tension finally draining out of me, my thoughts immediately drifted to what kind of swimsuit Kyoko Kirigiri might show up in at the beach.
"...Then why do I suddenly have chills?"
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"I see... so Koizumi-san would also like to join us at the beach...?"
"Yeah... would that be okay? Or is it too late...?"
"No... it's not that, but..."
Koizumi had gone to find Sonia so she could join the beach outing, but when Sonia responded with a puzzled expression, Koizumi wound up looking just as puzzled herself.
"Um... Sonia? What's wrong? Did something happen...?"
"Well... Koizumi-san, are you feeling ill by any chance?"
"...Huh?"
"Your face is very red..."
"Th-that's... this is... i-it's nothing!"
"K-Koizumi-san...?"
Koizumi suddenly started stammering, then whipped her head away and bolted off at full speed, leaving Sonia in a state of utter confusion.
"Sonia, may I ask you something?"
Kyoko Kirigiri, who had been standing nearby and staring coldly after Koizumi, addressed Sonia in a flat voice.
"Kirigiri-san? What is it...?"
"If a dog you were raising... started wagging its tail at strangers without a care in the world, what would you do?"
"Hmm... strangers can be dangerous, so I suppose I would have to discipline it firmly so it wouldn't do that."
"Exactly... I agree."
"Y-yes... but why bring that up all of a sudden...?"
"So it understands very clearly who its owner is... firmly... but only enough that it won't be damaged..."
"....."
Sonia closed her eyes and offered a brief silent prayer for the dog Kyoko Kirigiri was apparently raising.