I don't get all the hate around Yami and Yuu, yes, Yami kissing you right now is kind of strange/dubious, but i don't think they are wrong for doing that, Yami clearly likes Yuu and it's reciprocal, I'm kind of cheering for them mora than I'm for Hikari !Welp, I didn’t expect this reaction from Hikari at all—it seriously caught me off guard. Also, Yuu really decided to still not be honest with Hikari, huh? At this point, he’s just utterly pathetic. Yami and Yuu truly deserve each other, and Hikari deserves so much better than both of them.
That said, it’s extremely disappointing that after all this time, we still haven’t seen what happened with Yami and Yuu. What led to the slap? And what about the aftermath of the kiss? It’s incredibly frustrating.
Maruto on X:
Novel Chapter (MTL):
Chapter 36: After the Festival, Before the Storm
"Yami-senpai, I..."
"Shut up! You're just Yuu!"
...
...
It's a Saturday in late September.
Outside, the rain has intensified without notice, accentuating the "darkness" of the night.
The school building, now empty after the cultural festival, has only minimal lighting in parts of the hallway and near the shoe lockers. Both the classrooms and the corridors are likely devoid of people.
However, from the wide-open doors of the gymnasium, where the after-festival event is about to begin, a dazzling light and the cheerful voices of students spill out, as if carrying over the atmosphere from the festival just moments ago.
I... Shirakasa Hikari, am standing in the first-floor hallway of the school building directly opposite the gymnasium.
From the window, I take in the light and commotion from the gym.
...Alone, in the middle of the pitch-dark hallway.
The colorful flyers still pasted on the windows and walls of the surrounding classrooms, and the signs standing in the hallway, only enhance the darkness and silence, making the corridor feel eerily ominous.
No, that's not it.
Perhaps it's just my current state of mind that makes the scene feel eerie and terrifying.
The scene I just witnessed in my own classroom.
The boy I like, Ta-kun, and the girl I like, Aya-chan, were alone together...
Two people who should never have met.
A boy and a girl whose paths should never have crossed.
"Friends of friends" who were supposed to get to know each other from now on...
The conversation between those two keeps spinning around in my head.
Ta-kun called her "Yami-senpai," an old nickname of my best friend.
Aya-chan called him "Yuu," dropping the honorifics as if they were childhood friends.
It might have been a side of them I never knew existed, a "time of their own."
The rain is getting heavier.
Outside the window, the bright and lively gymnasium, just a short distance away, is being obscured by the sound and color of the raindrops.
Yuu: "Hikari..."
Hikari: "......"
Hikari: "Then, why didn’t you check LINE?"
Yuu: "Actually, um... my phone died..."
As if he could see right through my thoughts, he started making excuses for all the times we’d missed each other, even though I hadn’t asked.
But, you know, that’s a lie, right?
Because, just a moment ago, it showed as "read."
Yuu: "And then, I was wandering around the school... before I knew it, it got completely dark..."
Truth is, you probably forgot about me until you checked your phone, didn’t you?
You only started frantically looking for me after you saw the notification, right?
Are you really that shaken up that you’d tell such an obvious lie?
Yuu: "The cultural festival’s over, huh... I’m really sorry."
Yeah, it’s over.
While you were kissing Aya-chan, you know.
...
...
Yuu: "...I get it if you can’t forgive me. Hikari, you were looking forward to it so much, and I ruined it because of my stupid mistake."
It must have been about a minute.
But it felt like an hour.
He kept apologizing to me the whole time.
Yuu: "I... I wanted to go around the festival with you too, Hikari... I really did."
Hikari: "......"
His words, his attitude—they felt so sincere.
At the very least, he was "seriously lying."
He’s clearly shaken up by what happened in the classroom.
Probably feeling incredibly guilty toward me.
And surely...
He genuinely thinks the reason I’ve been silent this whole time is because he stood me up on our promise to go around the festival together.
He doesn’t have the slightest clue that I saw "that moment," does he?
Yuu: "So, cheer up, Hikari..."
Hikari: "......"
Hey, hey, Ta-kun?
You know I wouldn’t make you apologize to me over and over for something like that, right?
Sure, I’d sulk.
I might even cry a little...
But I definitely wouldn’t stay silent—I’d get mad right away.
Then, as you apologized, I’d gradually cheer up, and in the end, I’d forgive you with tears and a smile, right?
And as a sign of making up, I’d probably make a little selfish request, you know?
Like making you treat me to dinner tonight.
Or getting you to promise me our next date.
But one thing’s for sure...
If things were normal, I’d be talking nonstop right now.
I’d be that super chatty, noisy girl.
Are you so distracted by something else that you don’t even notice how off I am?
Like, maybe... thinking about her? Ta-kun...
Hikari: "...Ta-kun."
Yuu: "Ah, H-Hikari!"
At the sound of my voice—the first he’s heard in hours—his expression lights up.
Probably because he thinks the "proper fight" is finally starting.
He believes the moment he’s been waiting for—the moment I’d get mad at him—has arrived.
Hikari: "The cultural festival... it’s not over yet, you know?"
Yuu: "Huh?"
Hikari: "Look, over there."
Without turning to face him...
No, because I don’t want to face him, I point outside the window.
Hikari: "Over there, they’re about to start the after-festival dance party."
There, the gymnasium stands, drawing in students like moths to a flame, a place where everyone continues to gather.
Hikari: "It’s an annual tradition. To celebrate the end of the festival, everyone dances and goes wild together."
It’s a door to paradise, where the lingering afterglow of the festival is shattered in the best way, and everyone lets loose one last time.
Hikari: "Want to go together? Ta-kun..."
Yuu: "But... isn’t the after-festival dance usually just for current students...?"
Hikari: "No... no one really follows that rule, you know?"
I turn to the side.
No, I turn to face him.
I turn away from the window and face him directly.
Hikari: "Let’s dance, okay?"
Yuu: "Hikari..."
I reach out my hand to him.
His profile, illuminated not by moonlight but by the lights from the gymnasium, still carries a look of confusion.
Hikari: "It’s not over yet... right?"
But I desperately steady my trembling voice and fight to keep my crumbling expression in place.
Hikari: "Let’s make this time fun, okay? The cultural festival."
Hey, God.
Am I smiling right now?
Wait, what does it even mean to smile?
...
...
Shirakasa Hikari, 16 years old...
I’m going to confess, right?
No matter what happens, I’m going to confess... right?
Thanks for the chapter!
Imasara desu ga, Osananajimi wo Suki ni Natte Shimaimashita - Ch. 36 - After The Festival、Before The Storm
- Thread starter MangaDex
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I'm mostly with you here.
Despite people saying they did, we have no real reason to believe Yuu and Yami fucked. For all we know they did what they should have done a long time ago and had an open and honest conversation, and just lost track of time. We don't even know precisely how long it has been since the kiss. Certainly longer than it should have taken Yuu to talk to her, but we don't know. Knowing what happened in that time gap is really important to knowing whether or not Yami or Yuu are at all redeemable, and I'm going to be pretty frustrated if we just never find out.
Anyways, Yuu is definitely being a piece of shit here, but I do think we need to keep some things in mind.
1. AFAIK Yuu did not know that today was anything other than hanging out with his friend at the festival. Hikari clearly considered it to be something like a first date, but unless I'm misremembering, Yuu didn't know that.
2. Hikari is not entitled to Yuu. All things being equal, it would be totally fine if Yuu and Yami decided to get back together. She doesn't get to declare Yuu off limits and get mad at her friend for having already had feelings for him. Yami definitely should have talked to her about her relationship with Yuu when she realized who Hikari's crush was, but I can actually understand being in her position and being terrified to have that conversation and lose someone that she seems to genuinely consider a friend.
3. Yami did not want to run into Yuu. Whether that's because she was trying to respect Hikari's feelings and she didn't trust herself to not do what she did here, or because she was afraid of seeing him again because she knew she hurt him. This was obviously a traumatized teenage girl doing her best, and while she fucked up badly, I'm of the opinion that it was genuinely a mistake, that she had every intention of talking to Hikari about this depending on how Hikari's confession went. My guess is she offered to clean up for Hikari in the first place assuming that Hikari would find Yuu right away and spend the day together, and then the next day Hikari would tell her how that went and that information would inform how Yami would proceed. It's also possible that she just didn't think that far ahead. She is a teenager and obviously does not always make the best decisions in the long term.
I'm going to pretend the whole "pretending to sell Hikari into prostitution" thing didn't happen because honestly that whole thing is pretty clearly the author really not understanding how fucked it was. It's obvious to me he thought it was a kind of messed up joke, rather than an attempt to put Hikari's life in danger and potentially ruin her life for the foreseeable future.
Considering all of this, I agree with you that this could ultimately be a genuinely good opportunity for all 3 of them to grow as people. Hopefully Hikari learns how to have better boundaries and respect for herself. Hopefully Yami learns how to better talk about her feelings rather than avoiding them. Hopefully Yuu learns not to be a trash fire of a person that always makes what is the easiest decision in the moment because he's too much of a coward to do anything else.
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First of all, good for you if you're cheering for them.
Second, since the start of the manga the POV is centered around Hikari trying to win over Yuu, so some of us are cheering for Hikari to win, and the sudden BOOM! Your crush has a history with your best friend certainly didn't help.
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I understand what you're saying but I don't really agree. I don't think Yuu should be burned at the stake or anything, we don't know of his feelings for Hikari and he for sure doesn't know about how she feels, so him kissing or doing whatever with Yami is not really a problem.
The problem is that he promised Hikari that he was going to hang out with her and then he ghosted her for hours. He could've sent her a message, lied to her or made something up but Hikari didn't even cross his mind during the whole afternoon.
That's something that makes you re-evaluate a friendship, it would make me do it at least.
Again, I don't think he deserves to die or anything like some other people here, I think he's a prick, he's obviously in the wrong here and no amount of buts or ifs changes that.
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Yeah I'm not rooting for them per se, but we'd all do well to remember that Hikari isn't entitled to Yuu. There would be absolutely nothing wrong with Yami and Yuu getting back together, with the caveat that Hikari would also be well within her rights to decide it hurt too much to see them together and stop talking to either of them.
Personally I hope none of them end up with each other. If Hikari ends up with Yuu I'd want it to be after they've spent a long time repairing their friendship. If Yuu and Yami end up together, I'd want it to be after Yami had more time to heal and grow as a person.
And if Yami and Hikari ended up together (which is absolutely not happening but a girl can dream), then they'd need to spend time repairing their friendship.
Seriously though this being a stealth toxic yuri would be absolutely amazing.
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God, this is just peak.
It's so fucking real.
You can find plenty of reasons to sympathize with AND hate everyone in this story!
Yami is being a horrible best friend, but you can't exactly tell your innocent, pure best friend that you casually fucked the CHILDHOOD FRIEND she's crushing over without completely scarring her! But holy fuck, YOU KNOW SHE'S INTO HIM HOW CAN YOU JUST DO THAT NOW, EVEN IF SHE NEVER SAW IT! BITCH WHAT!?
Yuu is being a really shitty childhood friend by lying about what he's been doing, but how do you explain what happened to her if you assume she didn't know about it? "Yeah, sorry I was busy making out with/potentially fucking? my ex who I wasn't expecting to see and haven't seen in years, you know how it goes" lmao
Hikari is the most innocent here, as she hasn't done anything wrong, but as people have pointed out, she can't really fault them for what happened because she was projecting this perfect idea of Yuu in her mind, and what they did had nothing to do with her (well, at least outside of Yami kissing the guy she knew Hikari was into, that's pretty fucked).
I get the hate, but holy shit I love this haha
It's so fucking real.
You can find plenty of reasons to sympathize with AND hate everyone in this story!
Yami is being a horrible best friend, but you can't exactly tell your innocent, pure best friend that you casually fucked the CHILDHOOD FRIEND she's crushing over without completely scarring her! But holy fuck, YOU KNOW SHE'S INTO HIM HOW CAN YOU JUST DO THAT NOW, EVEN IF SHE NEVER SAW IT! BITCH WHAT!?
Yuu is being a really shitty childhood friend by lying about what he's been doing, but how do you explain what happened to her if you assume she didn't know about it? "Yeah, sorry I was busy making out with/
Hikari is the most innocent here, as she hasn't done anything wrong, but as people have pointed out, she can't really fault them for what happened because she was projecting this perfect idea of Yuu in her mind, and what they did had nothing to do with her (well, at least outside of Yami kissing the guy she knew Hikari was into, that's pretty fucked).
I get the hate, but holy shit I love this haha
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The light novel expands on this, but apparently her message is marked as read just before he shows up. So we know he didn’t notice until just then when he finally checked it, hours later, and ran to find her. So we can surmise that he was preoccupied until that time.
Additionally we know that when Yuu arrives he doesn’t seem distressed or hurt. He appears overly apologetic, lies, and tries to blow it off, and when caught in his lie he immediately changes his story and doubles down, but keeps the details suspiciously vague. This tells us that he’s not in as bad of a mood as you would expect following a fight, or as dower as you’d expect of someone who had just shared a final goodbye, if anything his initial mood is arguably forced relief.
Finally we discover from Hikari’s monologue in the LN that Yuu would absolutely know that Hikari would not normally let him sit and apologize for this long, let alone stay silent. So he should be aware that her behavior is abnormal, but does not explain further, simply apologizing more and doubling down. With this we can infer that either he feels shame about why he took so long to come find her, or that he’s not allowed to talk about it.
I have a pessimistic theory and an optimistic theory. Optimistic theory is Yuu in some way came to terms with Yami, but she made him promise not to tell Hikari, possibly even pushing him to go to her at the end of their talk. Pessimistic theory is that Yuu and Yami hooked up and he’s slithering home like a cheating husband coming home late.
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So like, the exact times are conveniently absent from everything, so we don't know how long it was from Yuu's arrival until the end of Hikari's shift, how long from end of shift to Hikari's return to her classroom, from kiss to beginning of this chapter, etc., but:
When Hikari found Yuu and Yami, it was back at her classroom. So he probably went there looking for Hikari and found Yami instead. Naturally, Hikari did not stick around, and we have no idea what she or anyone else was up to. But even if his phone was dead you'd think he'd find one of her friends or have her paged or something.
Still sucks, looks super bad on him, but probably isn't quite "he totally forgot she existed." Chapter provides no answers, only lies.
Edit: Webnovel provides answers, though. Bad ones. Dude sucks.
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Even Hikari?
the artist didn't include it, but in the novel chapter yuu eventually read her message, but ignored it. he lied to her face that his phone died as if she didnt notice that he read it and when ditching her, saying "cheer up" is the absolute shamelessness that rivals that of yami's.
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Ah, that is a... real shame. I like your optimistic theory, because only the pessimistic one occurred to me and right now I can't get past the question of whether he burns or hangs.
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Note that even the optimistic theory, there’s gonna be a lot of drama upcoming untangling secrets and lies and histories before we can even hope for a happy ending.
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Yeah, this is Yami and Yuu's story afterall. No room for third wheelers
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The only lesson left amidst the rubble is "teenagers are dumb." They're hornier than is good for them. The "risk vs reward" section of their brain is not fully developed and overvalues the rewards: aka, sees pussy, ruins everything.
We're finally getting to the point of this tragedy and I'm ready to watch the fallout.
We're finally getting to the point of this tragedy and I'm ready to watch the fallout.
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Hikari, my child. Now's not the time to mope around. Pick up a steel chair and bash that hoe's face in!
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Looks like it’s
lights out for Yami.
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I wouldn’t be surprised if it was a college setting/similar story where one gets knocked up by a sugar daddy and he feels “responsible” or so if she suddenly wants to be a mom vs just aborting but idk how complicated that is in JP
There have been some josei/shojo manga out there like “i ran into an ex whose a single mom now” that’s a bit more wholesome than this story but I imagine at this point Hikari would either confront and break things off with the both of them or “forgive” and try to make a relationship out of it tho at this point I can’t imagine their next “date” not being awkward
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I'm not exactly sure what you're not agreeing with here - I literally said that it was shitty to blow off Hikari like right at the beginning of my comment. I just also think it's pretty clear he has a lot going on, most of which we, as the audience, are not privy to. Also of course he's a prick, he's a teenager, they're all pricks.
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