I was eating kurinkinton on New Years when I came to a shocking realisation.

Could it be that Kaburagi had been rejected by Yurie-sama!?

What if those test scores were the result of being in such shock that he couldn’t concentrate. And then because of that he went on a journey to deal with the heartbreak.

Whoa, I’m so sharp this year…

But that wasn’t what happened in Kimidol. I mean, he never went on any journey in the manga, and he should have been rejected after he was a little closer with Wakaba-chan.

Hmmm… Maybe the story had changed from the manga a little bit. To begin with, the main perpetrator of the bullying campaign was sitting here eating.

And it felt like the personalities of the main characters were a little different too. The Emperor who I fangirled over in the manga would absolutely never have had such a deviant-level of pa.s.sion towards cavalry battles, nor was he some weirdo athletics carnival maniac who would criticise others over their lack of animal noses for the costume race. He was cooler. And Enjou had been the kind and gentle person who watched over Emperor and Wakaba-chan, not this scheming b.a.s.t.a.r.d. To begin with, just failing to have honey-brown hair was a departure from the manga.

Also… it kind of felt like Wakaba-chan had become… little bit of a dope…

Why was it, I wondered. Why had all the main characters turn into such unfortunate alternates of their manga selves.

And on the other hand, people who hadn’t appeared at all in the manga like Oniisama and Imari-sama and Tomoe-senpai were so d.a.m.ned cool! If they had been in Kimidol they would have been so popular too! Especially Tomoe-senpai. He’s cool like the manga Emperor had been.

With all these other irregularities, would things progress differently than the manga? Well, as long as my own life was nice and quiet I didn’t particularly care though.

Anyhow, I saved away all of the New Years money that I got. Although the one that I got from Oniisama was going to be enshrined next to my bed.

Kaburagi wasn’t there at the Term 3 opening ceremony. Was he still on his journey?

Even the middle schoolers were talking about his absence by now. It was astounding how one student truanting could have such an effect.

When I went to the salon, Enjou was there for the first time in a while. He was surrounded by people asking about Kaburagi.

“Masaya caught a cold during the New Year, so he’s been resting. He should be back at school in a few days.”

A cold? Had he finally returned from dealing with heartbreak? No, no, it’s not like I knew for sure that he had been rejected. He could have been purely soul searching. Not that I personally held much stock in going on a journey to do so…

When Enjou spotted me, he excused himself and came over.

“Happy New Year, Kisshouin-san.”

“Happy New Year, Enjou-sama.”

Enjou led me to somewhere there were less people and then handed me some kind of sack.

“Here, this is for you. Technically a souvenir from when I went here and there to fetch Masaya. Actually your hush money.”

Eh… This is kind of scary.

“…I, thank you for the consideration.”

And so with a smile, Enjou handed over the most unwanted gift.

So Enjou actually went out to get Kaburagi. And by ‘here and there’, that means he had to go to a lot of different places? Even during the busy New Year, he was still so serious about his friends.h.i.+ps. Whatever else, he was actually pretty good at looking after others.

“You mentioned that Kaburagi-sama was down with a cold?”

“Yeah. He’s at home resting right now, actually. He went somewhere awfully cold, you see. But I guess it’s true what they say about sickness beginning with the heart. He was really weakened.”

“I see…”

Somewhere awfully cold?

Sickness beginning with the heart?

Then he really did go on a heartbreak journey!?

If he was somewhere cold, then I suppose it must have been northern Europe or Russia maybe. Oh, but wouldn’t it be pretty bad to have Emperor Napoleon travel to Russia?

But imagining Kaburagi travelling the Siberian Tundra was kind of funny in a way. I pictured him discovering a mammoth. Uppftpfftt.

“But he’s not feverish so he’ll be fine in no time. Once Masaya’s back, I’ll leave things to you.”

“…Huhu?”

I had no idea what he was on about, so I just laughed to avoid the subject.

When I got home, I opened up Enjou’s souvenir bag.

“Toujinbou Cookies”

“Kegon Falls Shortbread”

“Sea of Trees Manjuu”

I’m sorry for laughing at you, Kaburagi…

Who would have thought that you’d try and go even further in your journey… Kaburagiii… Come back!!

But to think the journey taken by the esteemed scion of the Kaburagi not even failed to leave j.a.pan, but failed to even leave our Honshu island. It was a little surprising.

A few days later, for the first time in about a month, Kaburagi showed up. He looked exhausted.

His skin looked dull, and his eyes were dead. Uwahh… This settles it…

He was difficult to approach, but in a totally different way now. n.o.body was sure what to do. I pretended I didn’t see him.

Most people thought he was like that because he had just fought off an illness, but that was absolutely wrong. Also some of the girls were talking about how his exhausted self was dreamy as well.

I was depressed too when my love for Tomoe-senpai didn’t work out, but even I wasn’t that bad. A lot of it probably came down to how unlike my crush of a few months, his was over ten years.

Sometimes it was a bit painful to see normally energetic people weak, wasn’t it. Kaburagi, it’s time for a new love, d.a.m.nit! You’ve got a destined love named Wakaba-chan right here!

Speaking of Wakaba-chan, she was still couldn’t hide her happiness at the results of that last exam. Her scholars.h.i.+p was relying on it after all.

While the whole school was worrying about Kaburagi, Wakaba-chan didn’t seem to care at all. I suppose sometimes she did look at bit confused about the mood though.

Since they weren’t in contact, he wouldn’t vent on her. To begin with, he didn’t seem to have the energy to do that.

Maihama-san came to pick Kaburagi up. Normally he would have totally ignored her, but this time he didn’t resist as she took his arm and brought him into the care.

Plenty of people had seen Maihama-san during the school festival, so there was a huge fuss when they saw the two going home together.

“Who is that girl!?”

“Maihama Ema from Yurinomiya! Apparently because she’s close to Yurie-sama she’s been clinging to Kaburagi-sama!”

“How could Kaburagi-sama go home with any girl other than Yurie-sama!”

Uwaa, uwaah, it’s pandemonium.

Everyone was making faces like ogres!

Even the girls in my group were narrowing their eyes dangerously in the direction of the departed car. Serika-chan and Kikuno-chan were spouting curses.

Kaburagi, are you really okay…? Speaking of which, where on earth was Enjou?

I looked around but he was simply staring severely in that direction as well.

All of this was making me kind of scared, so I pretended not to notice and quietly slipped away.

That night, Aira-sama sent me a text saying that she wanted to meet and talk.

My stomach was hurting again for the first time in a while.