Kusunoki's Flunking Her High School Glow-Up - Vol. 4 Ch. 24 - I was hopelessly in love with you

[Cozmo]

Autists don't realise trauma doesn't have to make perfect sense, something bad happened to him when he was younger and it got ingrained into his psyche, simple as.

She on the other hand just has zero sense of empathy since she doesn't seem to care how her actions might affect other people or just doesn't care if they do.

 

[SakuraMan]

His childish mentality is what needs to grow I guess. Harsh but that's reality. We've all been through it.

Yeah the thing I want to see most rn is his character development.

I can understand the pain he’s dealing with but it’s clear that with hibe returning into his life that he still has a lot to work on as a person.

Whether that be through therapy or the power of friendship I really just hope he doesn’t have some cliche triumphant moment over hibe and actually moves on, letting go of his past grudges

 

[SakuraMan]

Ah yes, teenage angst. Teenage angst is when you’re traumatized from being isolated and mocked by your peers during some of the most important developmental years of your life and the ONE person that treated you like a person and dared to think of as a friend proceeds to insult and demean you in front of her friends, revealing that you were just a step stone to her social reputation all while looking you dead in the eye as she says it.

Yeah I kinda agree, from what we’ve seen he’s been ridiculed, bullied, isolated by his peers, and overhearing what hibekawa said was the straw that broke the camels back.

Like he went through years of suffering and that was probably already destroying him even before hibekawa screwed him over.

It’s not super serious trauma that leaves him unable to function but there is more to this than just “loser meets mean girl WOMP WOMP he’ll get over it with a sitcom dad speech about love”

 

[Guralub]

And people are really forgetting that Keisuke used this happening to him as fuel to change his life.

He got slimmer, managed to learn how to talk to people and now he has a pretty normal high school life, while helping kusunoki to also get better.

His only fault right now is his weak mental, born from years of self-doubt and his experience with Hebikawa.

But I guess he's weak for not having his mental on top shape at the ripe age of 15.

 

[Nodens]

Based Hebikawa. She handled the whole thing in much more mature manner than Shizuki.
I like how it puts into perspective just how immature Shizuki has been acting about that the whole time.

Was she mature? Maybe a little but she was also very cold and unkind to someone she literally spent chapters cornering him and provoking him into reacting.

She found an open wound and then stuck her finger in and twisted until she got a reaction and was then disappointed with the results.

Both in her past interactions and present with the protagonist, I keep remembering the proverb "The axe never remembers, and the tree never forgets"

 

[himesaminako]

Seems par for the course now lol the "ex-girlfriend needs a place to stay" manga discussions are even worse.

I think people are getting too wrapped up in who is "in the right" in this story and missing the whole point. I don't think MC is a pathetic loser and I don't think Hebikawa is a total bitch.

Like, the only thing she's guilty of is being fake. It's not a "good" trait to have in every day life but it's not "evil", shit everyone who works in the service industry has to fake it a little bit every time they interact with customers.

The point I'm trying to make is that she was nice to him to keep up appearances but nothing she did was overtly hostile or malicious; her comment that crushed his feelings was callous indifference at worst. Him falling in love with her and getting sad about it was entirely his own doing. It's no different from the cashier at your grocery store smiling and being nice to you every week and feeling devastated when you learn she's married and does not in fact think about you at all outside of the 2 minute interactions you have at her job.

Oh no, I fully agree, I just didn't understand what you were trying to say there because it sounded like you were excusing/justifying her behaviour as if it's a good/okay thing to do. I pretty much wholly agree with you, but she wasn't being nice to him to keep up appearances, she said it herself, it was for personal advantages

Other characters in story expressed she was black-hearted, so narratively, she's not a regular girl just being generically nice, it goes a bit further than just "keeping up appearances". That kinda downplays her personality trait. I'm not trying to make her out as someone that's pure evil either, but she has a bit more than just "keeping up appearances" in mind when she's doing things

 

[Baddan]

Everyone casually forgetting about the time she called him disgusting in the very first chapter.

 

[raze2012]

Everyone casually forgetting about the time she called him disgusting in the very first chapter.

First page, in fact:

The only caveats here is that Keisuke isn't necessarily a reliable narrator, so he may have recalled it more harshly.

But yeah, her line and stare here makes a lot more sense now than back then. She in fact, hasn't changed lol. Keisuke simply caught her interest once he saw her with the other "popular girl". A contrast to Shizuka who did remember him for him

But yeah, as a middle school boy in puberty, you can see how this can traumatize them. Think you found a ray of hope and acceptance and then they are no better than the others. Meanwhile, It was just a Tuesday for Hebikawa. Of course she doesn't remember. Of course she doesn't care about blackmailing someone who was beaneath her, before and now (well, not yet lmao. Good job revealing your weakness, Keisuke).

 

[raze2012]

I think people are getting too wrapped up in who is "in the right" in this story and missing the whole point. I don't think MC is a pathetic loser and I don't think Hebikawa is a total bitch.

Like, the only thing she's guilty of is being fake. It's not a "good" trait to have in every day life but it's not "evil", shit everyone who works in the service industry has to fake it a little bit every time they interact with customers.

The point I'm trying to make is that she was nice to him to keep up appearances but nothing she did was overtly hostile or malicious; her comment that crushed his feelings was callous indifference at worst. Him falling in love with her and getting sad about it was entirely his own doing. It's no different from the cashier at your grocery store smiling and being nice to you every week and feeling devastated when you learn she's married and does not in fact think about you at all outside of the 2 minute interactions you have at her job.

I think there's a difference between "getting the wrong signals" and as she says in Ch. 1, staring into his eyes: "He's disgusting, plain and simple. But if you are kind to those below you, doesn't it raise your own stock"? There's definitely malice there. And it makes it worse realizing 2-3 years later that your "canon event" was just a Tuesday for her.

That's not a valid reason whatsoever, what actually triggers that puking?

you really trying to gatekeep trauma? If we could control that we probably wouldn't call it "trauma" anymore.

Here's a quick breakdown:

1. He felt queasy when revealed the only person who talked to him also thought he was trash.
2. therefore, clearly the whole school think's he's trash. And anyone being nice is just playing him
3. queasy feeling, Maybe he even threw up that day.
4. She was pretty, so he assosiates all pretty girls with that experience (if you think that's sexist. Maybe. But same thing happens with SA victims, so again. Who am I to define trauma and how you protect against it?)
5. congrats, trauma!

6. any future encounter with pretty girl recalls 1-4

 

[TNT261]

I really don't have any idea what's going on anymore.

People are going back and forth on this and forgetting that it's not meant to be the main plot. For all intents and purposes this was a character flaw and foreshadowed subplot that'd eventually get resolved as the main character grew... except that didn't happen. It was just kinda shoe horned in out of nowhere with improper buildup (like the MC working to cure it or improve it or even a POV from the girl so we could see if it mattered to her). I mean this meetups came out of nowhere and makes like no sense. The MC isn't confronting his trauma and he didn't get anything from it. The girl herself we have no idea what her goal was with this meetup but she literally did nothing. She didn't comfort the MC and cure his trauma (she may have thought she was but we have no idea without her POV and only got the MC's POV and he just feels worse now), she didn't accomplish getting closer to the main heroine for popularity or taking her down or whatever, and otherwise we don't know why she even wanted to meet. This just felt like a waste of everyone's time and from what we currently know about these characters there was no reason to do it. I mean heck, the MC's trauma hasn't even been an issue recently because I swear the author forgot they said it was all pretty girls and not just this specific one. And it's not like the MC has been actively working his trauma (I'd get getting used to the main heroine but that's it).

Like literally what even is the plot here? Because it's starting to feel like it's nothing that was setup in the first chapter.

 

[Gilthwixt]

I think there's a difference between "getting the wrong signals" and as she says in Ch. 1, staring into his eyes: "He's disgusting, plain and simple. But if you are kind to those below you, doesn't it raise your own stock"? There's definitely malice there. And it makes it worse realizing 2-3 years later that your "canon event" was just a Tuesday for her.

I might have misremembered it, because on first read it I thought he was outside of the classroom and overhearing a conversation she didnt know he was present for. That changes things, but isn't quite the same as intentionally misleading him solely to enjoy pulling the rug out from underneath him or just outright tormenting the guy daily for fun.

 

[Remissio]

That's not a valid reason whatsoever, what actually triggers that puking?


Her being close is not an explanation, never in my entire life has a woman made me puke just because she was "close", only valid reason that would happen is if she smelled horrendously


I highly doubt that's the case with Hebikawa

Reading into stuff with outside perspectives isn't always possible, specially given different cultural ideas about things.

One possible reading that could make sense, but I am not familiar enough with how it is perceived over there, could be that after this perceived betrayal. MC turned to extreme methods of dieting in order to lose the image of being gross or disgusting that Hebikawa enforced. One possible extreme measure could have been forcing himself to puke his food after meals so as to not gain weight. Over time associating her comments and presence with this act would possibly result in a conditioned response of running into her resulting in something akin to reflux or the such.

This would specially be the case if every time he forced himself to puke he was picturing her in his mind and the comments she made. But it's been a while since I read the earlier chapters and I doubt they'd put something like that in the manga but who knows. All I know is that it's a possibility and there are other reasons for someone to feel like puking aside from someone being smelly. It's also possible that seeing here strongly reminds him of his "disgusting self" and that is somehow enough to make him wanna puke.

 

[TNT261]

I think there's a difference between "getting the wrong signals" and as she says in Ch. 1, staring into his eyes: "He's disgusting, plain and simple. But if you are kind to those below you, doesn't it raise your own stock"? There's definitely malice there. And it makes it worse realizing 2-3 years later that your "canon event" was just a Tuesday for her.



you really trying to gatekeep trauma? If we could control that we probably wouldn't call it "trauma" anymore.

Here's a quick breakdown:

1. He felt queasy when revealed the only person who talked to him also thought he was trash.
2. therefore, clearly the whole school think's he's trash. And anyone being nice is just playing him
3. queasy feeling, Maybe he even threw up that day.
4. She was pretty, so he assosiates all pretty girls with that experience (if you think that's sexist. Maybe. But same thing happens with SA victims, so again. Who am I to define trauma and how you protect against it?)
5. congrats, trauma!

6. any future encounter with pretty girl recalls 1-4

It really feels like the author just forgot the first chapter 😂 or doesn't want to go through with it anymore. The story itself is gaslighting the MC and us readers at this point. I don't even know the last time he felt sick around a pretty girl and not just the snake eyes (I get being comfortable around the female lead who he's used to, but either the plot made him largely get over his trauma in the most forgettable way or just changed the rules behind our backs).

 

[WolfOfDimensions]

Is everyone here forgetting what it used to be like as a preteen/teen? Every little thing could make the world feel like it was ending. Especially during school. He is a kid. He is allowed to feel kid emotions even if immature. He will grow out of it. It's weird how this chapter has somehow allowed people to justify snake eyes who has outright planned to do things just cause she knows it's bothersome or to use people. This is a messy situation and after this they need to just stay away from each other and call it a draw

 

[poppinnow]

lool people still arguing that she’s not that bad
I get the way he handled this is wrong but come on she is a manipulative freak, why do people choose to ignore the entire chapter where the FMC tried to go out with her and she purposely treated her like shit?
While admitting she only wanted to use her. She is objectively a bad person who only looks at other people to use them

Spoiler

and she still hates her.. for the great reason of ‘nobody can be this perfect’

 

[aveney41]

He should really really put himself together and grow some spine over his past

Can't grow if you can't move on

You're right but I can't say I was all that put together as a 10th grader. His shock is understandable but he needed this. I think this is the start of him moving on.

Anywho, like others said, I don't think Hebikawa is the evil supervillainess but I sure still can't vibe with her personality. I hope she also learns a bit about empathy.

 

[aveney41]

lool people still arguing that she’s not that bad
I get the way he handled this is wrong but come on she is a manipulative freak, why do people choose to ignore the entire chapter where the FMC tried to go out with her and she purposely treated her like shit?
While admitting she only wanted to use her. She is objectively a bad person who only looks at other people to use them

Spoiler

and she still hates her.. for the great reason of ‘nobody can be this perfect’

Right? I don't get the sudden love for her just because he fumbled his spaghetti. She's still not a great person IMO.

 

[Naian]

MC got better physically, but mentally, he needs grow some more. That's some teenage inflated ego, thinking you were worth to be blackmailed with when you're at best average. Somewhere deep inside him, he wanted to be someone that mattered in Hebikawa's eyes, but she sure shoot him down. Although her putting so much interest in him by going after him multiple times a wee bit too mcuh, but once she figured him out, what's his current worth, she can put him out of her mind. This girl is pretty down to earth, not some exaggerated villain, I hope the manga stays this way. Like next chapter, we won't be seeing that MC got a new nickname because """someone""" spread a disparaging comments on him, like vomitman on the account he vomitted on Hebikawa. There's no need of such developments, as Shizuku is reminded once again he is just a boy, the story can let him find a goal, go through his school life and grow as a person. Befriends Kusunoki for real (maybe even couple).

 

[fulani]

damn she told it to him straight

 

[poppinnow]

Hebikawa has her own self-interest

thats all she has fakest person ever award