>((@Thread: big update in progress, sorry for the delay!))

1/4 softmeats 2018/04/25(Wed)17:34 No. 880711 ID: f26f5b
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>Figure out what you want to say to Saeko and write it down.
Well, that'd mean handing her a blank piece of paper, and that's just wasteful.

>That'll hit the news. You can explain things just fine.
Somehow you doubt it'll go that smoothly, but... maybe it's worth trying...? You'd honestly rather lie and be punished for it than tell the truth and be punished for lying, but sure, why not. Fuck it. What have you got to lose other than another sliver of dignity and self-esteem?

>First, check if the gate is actually locked. Always cover your bases.
A nice, solid, useless clink. Yep. It's locked.

>Climb over the wall, using that planter on the right side?
>Just hop up the planter, then the wall.
>Use your expert climbing skills.
You are fucking awful at anything athletic. Just wretched. But that does seem like the fastest way to get in. Or to get a few broken bones.

Okay, how to... hmm. If you can just kind of get one foot braced against the wall, and hook your hands up over the top - oh, that's not a fun texture - why do you have to be so fuckin' scrawny, you bet tall people don't have these problems - and just kind of push up and - oh fuck the planter broke this is not ideal this is NOT IDEAL -

FUCKIN' AAAAGH

2/4 softmeats 2018/04/25(Wed)17:34 No. 880712 ID: f26f5b
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Somebody suddenly shoves you hard from behind, sending you flopping all the way over and to the ground. Fuck. Ow. Shit. Goddammit. Who the fuck was that?! What the fuck? Who does that? There's no planter or anything on this side, so you're not tall enough to look over and catch the ass-pusher. Lucky for them. You'd track them down and shove your foot up their ass.

3/4 softmeats 2018/04/25(Wed)17:35 No. 880714 ID: f26f5b
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Running, running, c'mon... the less late you are, the less shitty this will maybe possibly hopefully be...

Why are schools so purgatorial? Lifeless, dead, wretched. It's not like in any fucking anime, where everybody has these active social lives and cares about things, or maybe it is at nicer schools and you just go to a shitty one, who knows. This place is just... it's like, emotionally grayscale, hard to even register the shit that goes on around you unless there's some specific detail to focus in on. Just being here feels like astral fucking projection. Then again, is that really much different from the rest of your life?

The first thing you see walking in the door is Emiko waving to you, so you get one whole second of happiness before you turn to see Mr. Takahashi's half-shaven garbage face glaring at you, wordlessly demanding an explanation for your hideous crime of not being at a place fast enough.

4/4 softmeats 2018/04/25(Wed)17:35 No. 880715 ID: f26f5b
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"Sorry," you say, gearing up for a futile effort. "My, um. Train was running late. Somebody jumped on the tracks." Your eyes flick nervously to the side; Emiko looks... not shocked, really, but at least concerned.

"Is that so," Mr. Takahashi says, narrowing his eyes.

"No, it's not," a sugary sweet voice chimes in, and you turn to stare in outrage at the asshole sitting next to your best friend - Takahashi Maki, the teacher's daughter and your maybe-sort-of-worst-enemy. Does someone count as your enemy if you could not care less about them, but they keep acting like there's a weird rivalry there anyway and absolutely refuse to leave Emiko you alone? Maki smirks like she's winning at something. "We take the same train, and I didn't see her on it."

Okay, well, that's bullshit, because you sure as fuck didn't see her there and you actually were on the fucking thing, and why is this necessary? Why the lying and the constant needling? What the fuck does she get out of it?

"Take your seat, Miss Watanabe," your dog-penis teacher says, sounding about as sick of the shit he perceives to be yours as you feel about his and his stupid daughter's. "I'll have a word with you after school. Don't try to weasel out of it with any other tasteless excuses."

... There's no point in wasting any more energy, so you just nod, chew furiously on your tongue, and flop down on Emiko's other side, across from that petty sack of shit Takahashi.

Why do you ever explain anything to adults? Nobody listens, nobody cares, and when you've been called a liar often enough, even you start wondering if it's true. If maybe you're just lying to yourself.

God, what a great start to your school day.

All you have to do is show them a news report on the fact a body got scraped up off the tracks, since it's the truth. You know his assuming it's untrue isn't gonna look good, and your mom may or may not care, and/or be on your ass about it.

You have a phone, right? Wait, shit, it's 2005...School computer? TV station? Newspaper?

Hold the phone, which may or may not still have a swirly cord attached. If she takes the same train, how did SHE manage to get here on-time?

>Why the lying and the constant needling
Simple: It's a tried-and-true method to underhandedly pursuing her career. She's practicing how to lie while also psychologically damaging her potential rivals. You'll note that she will always take efforts to spare those she finds too humble to climb and too useful to sabotage. And the reason why her parents don't punish her for this behavior is because they ENCOURAGE it; it got them ahead in life.

>Nobody listens,
Not true most of the time.
>nobody cares,
That's more like it.
>and when you've been called a liar often enough, even you start wondering if it's true
Don't give in to the pressure. Self-doubt is important for self-improvement, but when you start believing what others force into your ear, you're @#$%ed. Always wonder why people are saying things to you, you might not always understand where they're coming from, but a hypothesis usually feels less stressful than an unknown ball of sheer spiteful hate.

A phone call to the transit authority or the station you came from to ask if there was a delay on the train you took this morning and the reason for it would be incontrovertible proof. Do it on speaker phone in front of Mr. Takahashi after school and he can't deny it. It'll also prove his daughter was lying. Better remember to dig up a phone book at lunch time and get the number to call. Even better, do a practice run call so be sure they'll share that info.

Write down your plan so that you remember it.

For now, just survive the class. Teacher will probably pressure you on things that you missed at the start of the lesson. If he was any good at all he would want the class to go smoothly, but he has an ego to stroke...

Y'know, if he hassles you enough, you could throw a tantrum, yell "I know you must hate your daughter's new boyfriend, but don't take it out on me!", and when he follows it up you tell him that the train was late, so someone else took her into school... If he doesn't even know who then... ouch... and say it in front of the whole class to get the rumours flying. But never use rumours again, rumours are bad and terrible and one is enough for anyone and only in times of desperation!

Then be cripplingly heartbroken when you find out that Emiko took her to school and her big thing is that they hooked up...

Then the late thing...
Fact 1: Trains are big. "I didn't see you" doesn't equal "you weren't there". Her insinuation is garbage and if the teacher cares about her at all he will be sad to hear of her absent reasoning skills.
Fact 2: Your train really was late, and you didn't do anything note-worthy on the way here. So if she isn't late then either she sprinted, which you can see she didn't, or she wasn't on it. Maybe she was on the earlier train? Seems doubtful though, it is a significant time difference. So she got in some other way. Teacher will want to know about that because it might mean a boyfriend she is hiding...
Fact 3: A phonecall to the train station or something can confirm that the train was late. They might not say why, but a teacher wanting to know if a kid is caught up in anything shady is a good enough excuse to get them to say if a train was delayed.

Of course, teacher doesn't want to listen, and bothering to make a call is too much to ask for just to find out if a kid is lying. He might even assume you are lying and fake the call... The hook is that his daughter is up to something and he doesn't know what it is.

Don't come on too strong. open with your own train issues and then lead into his daughter's illicit activities. Make sure that you get the correct train, but insist that he check for other late trains in that time-period on that route, it is not a big thing to ask. If he claims they have confirmed that it wasn't late then tell him you know that someone is lying and you think that it is him.

And really fight for this. Throw up a fuss. Yell loudly enough to get other teachers in. Do whatever it takes to get this followed up. The train was for-reals late, you can prove it, and a win would feel good for once. Not to mention that sticking to you guns will scare off more hassling...

>>880714
Oh yay... quadratic formula.
I guess your learning that now (at least from what I see on the teachers whiteboard).

Crumble a piece of paper that says "lying cunt" and throw it at Maki when the teacher isn't looking.

>>880801
What? The girl demonstrates her ability to get us in trouble by lying, you suggest giving her fuel to get us in more trouble by guessing the truth and presenting it as though it were confirmed fact? Great plan.

Instead just pay attention (or at least appear to) in class so as not to attract additional ire from the teacher, and begin work on getting accurate transit authority info to debunk her claim whenever reasonable.

1/1 softmeats 2018/04/27(Fri)12:14 No. 881105 ID: f26f5b
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You take a moment to subtly wave back to Emiko, with sort of a "well this only contributes to my advocacy for human extinction but hey what can ya do" look on your face.

>All you have to do is show them a newspaper report((...)) You have a phone, right? ((...)) Hold the phone, which may or may not have a swirly cord attached. If she takes the same train, how did SHE manage to get here on-time?

Finding proof would be great, except that you don't have a phone, so that makes everything a lot harder. You had a phone a while back, a shitty flip-phone, but it kinda got obliterated and after that Mom was like, nope, trusting you with technology is just a waste of resources. Thanks a lot, Mom.

... Wait a fucking second. How did she get here on time? Did she take an earlier train to get to school early, or... fuck, this would be a lot easier to figure out if you actually knew where she lived, but no, she's kept her Secret Bitch Headquarters well under wraps.

>Simple. It's a tried-and true method to underhandedly pursuing her career.
As much as you'd love to picture Takahashi as some kind of ruthless Machiavellian social climber, she wants to become a veterinarian. Somehow you don't think there's a lot of politics to practice for, there. And it's not like she's especially popular at school; she's not an outcast like you, but it's not like anybody with any clout knows her name. She just really, really hates Emiko? you, specifically.

Ugh, it should be illegal for assholes to care about animals. Shouldn't people like her be kicking puppies, not excitedly looking forward to saving their lives?

>((...)))when you start believing what others force into your ear, you're @#$%ed.
Well, color you well and thoroughly fucked, then.

>A phone call to the transit authority or the station you came from to ask if there was a delay on the train you took this morning and the reason for it would be incontrovertible proof.
Yeah, sure, but you don't have easy access to a phone. Emiko doesn't either, for some reason, even though it never seems like she's exactly lacking for anything material. You guess you could try to check the computer lab later and see if the squishing incident is on the news? That's something to keep in mind for later.

>Write down your plan on a piece of paper so that you remember it. ((Rest of suggestion is an enormous multi-paragraph step-by-step guide to using your evident mastery of language to make a big scene and probably worsen your already terrible class situation.))
Okay, no, now you're thinking in circles, making this a big fuckin' thing when it's not like shit like this doesn't happen to you every other goddamn day. Making a big fuss has basically never gotten you anything but trouble in life, whether that's at school or at home, so if you're actually going to try to pull some kind of nebulous life victory out of this - which would feel like evidence that there's a point to staying alive pretty nice - you'll have to be relatively chill about it. Espionage isn't exactly your forte.

Putting some steps to your wicked pursuit of justice down on paper probably won't hurt, though. If worst comes to worst and you almost get found out, you can just eat it! Maybe you'll pretend it's a cyanide pill. That'll cheer you up a bit.

>Oh yay... quadratic formula.
Good ol' quadratic fuckula! You can never remember this thing, no matter how hard you try. Math ain't your strong suit. The best you can usually do is the first few letters and then it's all just a blur.

>Crumple a piece of paper that says "lying cunt" and throw it at Maki when the teacher isn't looking.
You don't know enough English for that specific thing, and anyway, calling the teacher's kid nasty things is tooootally gonna work out for you. Toooooootally. That'll for sure get you out of trouble.

>[...]you suggest giving her fuel to get us in more trouble by guessing the truth and presenting it as though it were confirmed fact? Great plan.
It's always worth taking a second to mentally berate yourself for having stupid, counter-productive thoughts about vengeance. The best thoughts about vengeance are the ones that might actually work.

Ho-kay, you're pretty sure you've got paper in your desk somewhere... You'll just have to root around for it...

((Your desk contains: Matches, Pencil (chewed), Pencil (unchewed), Pencil Sharpener (broken), Blank Paper, Mysterious Paper, Half-Eaten Cracker Package, Gross Wads of Gum (three), Mysterious Grit (mysterious), Doodles of Emiko (by you), Doodles of You (by Emiko) Thumbtacks, Security Mousestrap))

Get distracted, attempt to assemble security mousetrap + matches into some sort of intruder-activated incendiary device.

>veterinarian. Somehow you don't think there's a lot of politics to practice for, there.
I don't know, there's a lot of terrible stupid pointless politics in nursing and medicine in general. I could see that extending into veterinary care.

>teacher's kid
I guess that supports her getting to school on an earlier train, if she traveled with her dad, and he needs to be a school before classes start. ...but if that's so he'd know she wasn't on the train with you.

>Doodles of Emiko (by you), Doodles of You (by Emiko)
Oooh, ooh, examine doodles. Let's see some artwork.

>Thumbtacks
Funtime prank: separate the handle from the metal piece of one. Then you can fake stabbing yourself to freak someone out.

>Mysterious Paper
You should pocket that to read later. Jerk teacher already has it out for you today, if he catches you reading notes he'll totally make you read it to the class or some bullshit.

>quadratic @#$%ula
Yeah, trying to memorize all the formulas just leads to mental instability. The slower but smarter method is try to derive it yourself, and memorize when you can't.

>How did she get here on time
Maybe she knew that that train would've been delayed and took a different transport option. Could she be the cause of that.. accident? Conspiracy ahoy!

>veterinarian
I bet the "veterinarian" is just one of the lies she tells people to make her look compassionate.

>vengeance
Oh? To be able to resist selfish impulses like that is quite mature for a kid like you. But I don't think it would've mattered since we're eventually going to establish to the teacher that Maki's a liar anyway.

>Pencil (chewed)
Maybe chewing on the pencil will calm you down and allow you to focus better on the class.

Matches? Just, in your desk? Contemplate burning things, but ultimately ignore the urge. Wait until the teacher isn't looking, then make sure bitchface Mcgee isn't watching you like a weird, predatory gerbil. Inspect mysterious note, then imagine Takahashi being mauled by a giant badger. The last part isn't important, but it will be fun.

1/3 softmeats 2018/04/30(Mon)00:13 No. 881701 ID: afb70a
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>((...)) then imagine Takahashi being mauled by a giant badger.
A girl can dream.

>((...)) attempt to assemble security mousetrap + matches into some sort of intruder-activated incendiary device.
It's a great idea, and you're pretty fond of fire, but it won't work. You'd know. You've tried. More than once.

>((...)) but if that's so he'd know she wasn't on the train with you.
No, unfortunately they don't actually live together. There was some big drama about that a few years back, when you only really knew her as 'the kid in your class that big drama kept happening to' and not 'a person with a name who hates you who would be for sure better off smeared on the pavement.' Either her mom cheated on her dad, or her dad cheated on her mom, or maybe they both cheated on each-other, fuck if you know, you're no good at sorting through half-overheard rumors.

In any case, she lives with her mom, in some other location. Maybe the sewers. She definitely has the personality of some sort of weird Sewer Princess.

>((...)) Then you can fake stabbing yourself to freak someone out.
You'd rather just actually stab yourself to freak someone out. They'd be like, AAAAH, and you'd be like, FUCK GOD THIS IS SO WORTH IT, and try to get your blood on their face... hmm. Actually, that sounds super not worth it. Either way, there's nobody to bother freaking out... for now.

>You should pocket that later. Jerk teacher already has it out for you today.
Weird... who left a note in here? Was it Emiko? She would have known about Security Mousetrap, but she doesn't know how to get past it safely. One way or another, you've been betrayed by Security Mousetrap. What's left to trust in this cold, cold world?

... You could pocket the note, though... You'd better wait for a good moment when nobody's looking.

>((...)) Could she be the cause of that... accident? Conspiracy ahoy!
This is the dumbest thought that's crossed your mind all day. You wish she was some kind of genius murderer. At least that would make her an interesting nemesis.

>I bet the "veterinarian" is just one of the lies she tells people to make her look compassionate.
Hmm... not likely. You've run into her walking people's dogs around town, being disgustingly cute with them. She doesn't even seem to pick on anyone else. You're pretty sure she just hates Emiko? you, personally. Why, though? It's been like this for months and months and you still have no clue.

>To be able to resist selfish impulses like that is quite mature for a kid like you.
Okay, self, tune it back a little. No need to pat yourself on the back for being a 16-year-old with more maturity than a 13-year old. Save the self-aggrandizement for a theoretical future where you've done at least one thing you can feel good about.

>Maybe chewing on the pencil will calm you down and allow you to focus better on the class.
That's pretty much why it's a perforated wreck of a pencil. You should get another spare soon, this one is like, a day or two's gnawing away from snapping in half.

By god, you'll put in those gnawing hours, though. Gotta have some kind of distraction.

>Contemplate burning things, but ultimately ignore the urge.
Oh, you always do. Contemplate, you mean. If you're just hanging out with Emiko, you tend to indulge the urge.

2/3 softmeats 2018/04/30(Mon)00:13 No. 881703 ID: afb70a
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>Examine doodles.
Emiko says "anybody can draw with enough practice!"

You are not convinced.

3/3 softmeats 2018/04/30(Mon)00:14 No. 881704 ID: afb70a
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>Wait until the teacher isn't looking, then make sure Bitchface Mcgee isn't watching you like a weird, predatory gerbil. Inspect mysterious note.
You tap your foot idly on the floor, waiting, waiting... it takes a few minutes before the moment arrives. Takahashi is busy being a normal student or some idiotic shit like that - you bet she's good at math, the absolute bitch - and Mr. Takahashi is focused on the whiteboard.

Chitose-chan,
I know you're the one who set that fire in the school bathroom last night.
Don't think you're going to get away with it. =)

... there's only one person this can be. Takahashi.

What fire is she even talking about? Dammit, you'd probably know if you hadn't been late. You wish it had been you who set whatever fire this was, then at least you'd be getting accused of something you got to have fun with. It was probably something stupid, like some delinquents busting into the school after dark and smoking in there.

Shit, you and Emiko should do that sometime. You could hide there in the dark, the glow of the cigarettes cutting through the gloom. Huddle together against the cold. Maybe tell ghost stories or something. Then accidentally start a fire, which would spread unrealistically quickly through the whole building, and you'd have to run and try to escape, but at the last second the ceiling would start to fall in and you'd shove Emiko out of the way and be crushed by the debris. It would be amazing.

Wait, no, you're getting distracted with beautiful fantasies when you've been wrongfully accused of doing something cool and dangerous! Ugh! What the fuck is her problem? You wonder if she's just making up more bullshit, or if she actually thinks you did the thing. She always seems like she thinks you're evil, or sinister, or something - like she's on some righteous crusade with her lame bullying. And she's not totally wrong. You're a horrible person. It's just that she doesn't actually understand why.It's not too much of a stretch that she might honestly suspect you.

Oh well. This all sucks, but you probably can't do much about it for the moment. What are you gonna do to kill time until lunch?

There wouldn't actually be anything wrong with getting caught with this message. It is probably some sort of protracted blackmail thing that will get super-annoying if it lasts. You could kill it now without looking bad if you make teacher seeing it look like an accident, just by reading it for a little too long. And it throws off future blackmail with things that you actually did by making it look as though you can't keep a secret like that...
If it is proper arson then they need to do a proper investigation, and you were nowhere near there at the time. Do you have an alibi?

That picture is pretty terrible, but it is better than a stick-figure, and you know better than to compare yourself to Emiko. I wonder what Saeko would think of it.

Draw yourself and a personification of "time" in a guro setting.

Turn the note in to the teacher. Explain that his daughter's trying to blackmail you over something you didn't even know about, and couldn't possibly have done because you were at home when it happened.

>You'd rather just actually stab yourself to freak someone out.
The main advantage of faking it is there's no evidence, so the other person looks like they cried wolf.

>Emiko says "anybody can draw with enough practice!"
>You are not convinced.
Skill does beat out raw talent eventually, it just takes a lot of practice to get past the initial hump. Lots and lots and lots.

>what do
Lame note. If she was gonna frame you, she either already did it, or can't. The note is to goad you into doing something that plays into her narrative, or is a shot in the dark.

>>881722
Turning in the note is actually pretty clever. "Someone was passing notes in class." You don't even have to accuse her (there's no signature) and damage your credibility. Just let him recognize his daughter's handwriting.

Just remembered Emiko had a thing to talk about! Is that what the fire was? Did she set a thing on fire without you?

1/3 softmeats 2018/05/02(Wed)10:43 No. 882155 ID: 56f3fc
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>It is probably some sort of protracted blackmail thing that will get super-annoying if it lasts.
Maybe... but what would Takahashi actually blackmail out of you? She doesn't want anything you have. Her motives in all of this are completely mysterious. Unless Emiko knows something she's not telling you. It's kind of nerve-wracking, not being sure what the goal is.

>((...)) if you make the teacher seeing it look like an accident.
>Turn the note in to the teacher.
>Just let him recognize his daughter's handwriting.
You could try, maybe, but you already have a strike against you this morning, and even on a good day you really don't want him seeing something like this at all. He doesn't have any reason to give a shit about fairness, here, and while he doesn't have it out for you like his bitch-spawn does, he's not a lenient person. You don't have the best reputation, either; you used to get in a lot of trouble.

On the bright side, if you can say one thing about the mess that is Watanabe Chitose's high school rap sheet, it's "at least there's no arson." So that's something. Kinda.

>Do you have an alibi?
Well, yeah, of course you...

... Wait. Mom was out until, like, 10 PM last night at least, because you were asleep by then and she still wasn't home. You didn't so much as say hello to Saeko after getting home from school. All you really did was hang around and listen to a CD Emiko burned for you... that was... 8:30, right, because Emiko is precious a big nerd and wanted you to listen to it a specific time, and she'd listen to the playlist at the same time, so... y'know. Obviously you did that.

Fuck. You don't have an alibi. That's not ideal.

>Draw yourself and a personification of "time" in a guro setting.
That's one way to keep your anxiety a little bit further away from blowing up on you. You set in to start scribbling, but then it occurs to you... it would be a lot more accurate be a lot more - ahem - engaging if it was time killing you.

2/3 softmeats 2018/05/02(Wed)10:43 No. 882156 ID: 56f3fc
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>I wonder what Saeko would think of it.
What Saeko would think of your drawing? Well... she's obnoxiously positive about every dumb thing you used to do. Or at least, she was. You remember...
little-you looked up to her for the cool stuff she used to draw.
or was it that she looked up to you for the cool stuff you used to draw?
one of you was always better at art, but it's weird...
somehow you're not sure if it was her or if it was you.
You guess time really does a number on childhood memories.

3/3 softmeats 2018/05/02(Wed)10:43 No. 882157 ID: 56f3fc
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Caught in slowly rising waves of anxiety, you just try to get through the morning without letting anything on or making any hasty decisions, and surprisingly enough, it goes by quickly. You'd think the stress would slow things to a crawl, but no, before you know it, it's time to fuck off for lunch.

>Just remembered Emiko had a thing to talk about! Is that what the fire was? Did she set something on fire without you?
... Shit, did she? You don't - that doesn't seem too likely, she'd almost definitely want you in on it, no, she'd absolutely want you in on it, she wouldn't just go do something super cool and important without you, right? And... she was supposed to be hanging out at her house or something, listening to that CD. Unless she just... didn't do that. But if she didn't, then why not? Are you less important to her than you thought?

No, okay, wow, getting ahead of yourself. You don't know that she did the thing, and she probably didn't do the thing. But if she did do the thing... you want to know about it. She's your best friend, so. You have to at least ask.

Once people start stampeding for the door, you steel yourself to bring up the fire and ask her if she had anything to do with it. You stand up, figuring she's about to do that too - kind of necessary for leaving the room - and then, just as you're trying to nail down your phrasing, Emiko nudges your shoulder. You startle, turn her way, and she looks up at you, seeming... kind of shocked, kind of scared. She's still planted squarely in her seat.

"Are you okay?" A dumb question, she's obviously not okay, and you'd rather be asking about the whole fire thing, but -

"... Hey, Chitose? How do you know if you've been - if you've been robbed?"

Emiko IS precious. That's probably why Takahashi has it out for you in particular while seemingly nice and normal to everyone else: she's yandere for your definitely-not-girlfriend. I mean, who WOULDN'T crush on Emiko?

...and oh geeze, that' not a fun secret, like arson. Why does she think she might have been? What is she missing?

>she was supposed to be hanging out at her house or something, listening to that CD. Unless she just... didn't do that. But if she didn't, then why not? Are you less important to her than you thought?
If Emiko was up to no good, she might have arranged the mutual listen time but not followed through herself as a way to protect you, or keep you out of it.

>How do you know if you've been - if you've been robbed?
Um, you notice something missing, or you find signs of the break in. ...is something of yours missing? (Stealing from Emiko? You'll kill them).

Knowing if you've been robbed is difficult. Things go missing for many reasons, and discounting them all is often impossible.
Do you remember being robbed? If so, how did you find out? How would Saeko have known that part of her omelette had been swiped?
If something is missing, and you have ruled out all the plausible locations and allies who might have moved it, then theft is a reasonable explanation. It is ultimately impossible to know what happened to a thing without tracking down what happened to it...

You can usually tell if you've been robbed if you're missing the item in question, along with some signs that things may or may not have been moved around. It's not a perfect answer, sometimes people can cover their tracks well, but if you think someone has the desire to rob you in the first place then it may be a viable option.

Please comfort Emiko. She's ya' bud!

WELL THEN, that sure is a reason to read more about breaking and entering later (Acquire Lockpicking Skill, Steal Paperclips). Also, what the hell. You really need to talk to her more about this robbery stuff. Go home with her and see what's up with this robbery thing later.

What a strange question. Ask her which item she's missing.

Apologize for stealing her heart, but in your defense she stole yours first.

>>882787
HA! This!

softmeats 2018/05/06(Sun)21:52 No. 882948 ID: 64fff8
File 152566877941.png - (157.69KB , 360x360 , 038.png )

>She might have arranged the mutual listen time but not followed through herself as a way to protect you, or keep you out of it.
You don't want to be protected. You don't need to be! That would be totally stupid and not make any sense at all. You've dragged her into worse shit than bathroom fires. And after a lifetime of never being protected... you'd rather be the person doing the protecting, instead.

>(Stealing from Emiko? You'll kill them.)
Fucking right you will. Or at least punch them in the dick, or - kidneys, or - whatever punchable hurtmeats present themselves most easily to your small, furious body. You don't want to murder anybody, if only because you don't want to go to prison.

>Sometimes people can cover their tracks well, but if you think someone has the desire to rob you in the first place((....))
That's the only thing that would make sense, right? She isn't the paranoid type, not as far as you've ever seen. If she's missing something, it's weird that she'd leap right to robbery...

>That sure is reason to read more about breaking and entering.
It sure is. Movin' that up the ol' priority list. Who knows when you might have to steal something back from someone? Life brings all kinds of stupid surprises like that.

>Please comfort Emiko. She's ya' bud!
>Ask her which item she's missing.
>Apologize for stealing her heart, but in your defense she stole yours first.
"Look, I'm sorry I stole your heart, but in my defense - ah fuck." She suddenly looks like she's about to cry. Nice try on that one, bitch-shit. Because dumb jokes about unrequited crushes are totally going to make her feel lessbad, right? ... Then again, she's so distressed you're not actually sure she even processed it. "Hey, whoa. What? What's - chill out, first of all. Whatever happened, it'll be okay."

nothing is ever okay

Emiko doesn't have your bad luck in life, and if it starts getting worse, you'll just make up for it yourself. You hope she realizes that if you're around, nothing bad is ever going to happen to her, and if it happens anyway, there'll be hell to pay for it.

"Right. Um. Sorry." She looks a little bit ashamed now, which is not what you wanted, like, at all.

"No, don't be sorry, just... what's missing?" You're nervous that it's something important, or else why would she look so out of it?

"... my wallet's missing." Oh. Well. Fuck. That's a problem. "I mean, it's not... the one I mostly use. There isn't any money in it, or identification, it's... mostly just old things that I don't use anymore. But there's something - um. Well, it's important to me. That's all."

"Wait, so why do you think it's... stolen? I mean, I'm not saying I don't believe you, but couldn't you just have lost it or something? Who would want to steal a wallet without anything valuable in it?"

"... Maybe I did lose it somehow," she says quietly, "but I don't think so. It's always in the same place." It doesn't slip by you that she didn't answer the last part of your question. You don't like being annoying nosy, but...

"Do you have any suspects, then?"

"I -" She hesitates, biting her lip. Trying to figure out the best lie. "Maybe. I don't know. I don't... want to think I'm right. No, this is silly. I'm sure I did misplace it somehow. Maybe it fell into some of my other belongings, or..."

"We'll find it," you cut in. "I'll find it, if you're too like, freaked out, or whatever's going on there. Okay? So... cheer up." Just smile. Please, please smile. If she doesn't smile, then who will?

"Yeah," she mumbles. "You're right." And she smiles.

"Let's go get some fucking lunch and worry about this when we're not starving to death like wolves that suck at wolfing."

Go get some fucking lunch.

>>882972
But not in that order.

>>882948
Yes cafeteria sounds good, eat! drink! be merry! find wallet! get married!

In a mighty showing of wolf courtship drag one of the mutilated corpses of your classmates to Emiko's feet before howling at the nearest celestial body.

After that go get some fucking lunch, maybe hold her hand if you're feeling un-chitoseristically brave, or just offer her moral support. We believe in you.

>old wallet missing
From the sound of it, it's a sentimental item, or it contains sentimental items.

...hopefully this isn't what she had to tell you?

>Who would want to steal a wallet without anything valuable in it?
The kind of person who steals wallets for money would probably grab it and get away before stopping to check what's inside, unfortunately. If that is what happened, they'll probably discard it soon, which means it might be found.

The uglier alternative is if it's someone who knows Emiko and took it on purpose because they know what it means to her.

Best case is that it's lost, not stolen.

>It's always in the same place.
Does she keep it with her, or does she get it someplace?

>You don't like being annoying nosy, but...
Well then, don't open it if you find it first.

Unrequited crush? HEY look over there FOOD! And mystery? I mean it's probably petty sack of shit Takahashi(TM), because that's probably exactly the stuff she does, but maybe she has weird crime friends to do it instead.

1/2 softmeats 2018/05/10(Thu)17:09 No. 883730 ID: 6e039b
File 152599739412.png - (94.23KB , 360x360 , 039.png )

>Unrequited crush?
Well - yeah. Duh. Obviously. She cares about you doesn't she? but - she doesn't - look, good things don't happen to you. Period. You're lucky enough that she exists and hangs out with you. Anything else is just... a dream. A great dream - beautiful, even. But... the thing about dreams is that eventually you wake up.

So... you're not going to hope too much, or bother trying. It's staying 'probably unrequited' forever. As long as you don't try, you can't actually hear a "no." You can pretend that maybe, just maybe, someday it'll still be possible.

>In a mighty showing of wolf courtship drag one of the mutilated corpses of your classmates to Emiko's feet before howling at the nearest celestial body.
God, you wish you could. You really would kill for Emiko, is the thing. You wish life would give you an excuse to do it.

>...hopefully this isn't what she had to tell you?
It... probably isn't? Wow, that would be the most disappointing thing. But no, you're pretty sure that's not it, because she didn't seem to get upset like that until the end of class. Maybe she was just holding it in, but... that doesn't feel quite right to you.

You should try to find out, though. Just to be safe.

>The uglier alternative is if it's someone who knows Emiko and took it on purpose because they know what it means to her.
That makes a disturbing amount of sense... but who could that even be? You're basically the only person she talks to.

>((...)) go get some fucking lunch, maybe hold her hand if you're feeling un-Chitoseristically brave, or just offer her moral support.
Walking to the cafeteria, you have a sudden, almost painfully intense urge to like... try to hold her hand. Because you're the worst, most pathetic, sentimental, gross piece of shit. You could - you could make it seem like - like a Best Friend Comfort Gesture, though, couldn't you? And that would also be a true part of the thing, so it wouldn't be completely selfish. ha. yeah, right. you've never had an unselfish urge in your life.

Fuck it - do or die, right? Possibly do anddie, even. You're already walking next to Emiko, so you could just - casually drift your hand over, look away so she doesn't see you blush like an absolute goddamn loser - aaaand ohgod ohgod what are you thinking no wayyyy no fuckin' chance do you have the guts, it could go so incredibly wrong in so many ways, and now your hand is just frozen a couple inches away from your waist, uselessly, and you're the worst, too much of a coward to even properly be selfish -

And then you feel her fingers touch yours. Except you didn't reach out far enough. At all. And you feel her hesitate, for a second, and you almost trip while wrestling with your short-circuiting brain, and then, somehow, you're holding hands. Sort of. It's so tentative, so light, fingers not quite interlaced. But it's still what it is, isn't it? It is.

... Hey, that's, y'know, no big deal though, right? You're both girls, people do this stuff all the time, probably, maybe, once in a while, specifically in anime. It's just. Close friends doing a thing. Gals bein' pals.

Even if all it means to her is comfort, it's still the best feeling in the world. Even when knowing that makes your heart ache so hard it feels like it'll split in two.

2/2 softmeats 2018/05/10(Thu)17:10 No. 883731 ID: 6e039b
File 152599740485.png - (153.28KB , 360x360 , 040.png )

Cafeteria! It's the place where you food, and stuff like that! You find one of those sitting circles and consume it with your presences, and kind of levitate ten feet above your own body for a while. Like the second her hand touched yours in the hallway you shifted over to watching yourself like a character in a movie, except not, except kind of. You can barely parse your surroundings through an overwhelming fog of "that just happened."

You are probably eating food - you can taste food - it's just. So irrelevant. Time is probably also passing.

Weren't you... there was stuff to ask or talk about, wasn't there? What should you ask? You have all of lunch to talk, however the fuck long that is. Lunch-length. Numbers are too complicated for your gay, half-melted brain.

>>883731
"Aghll."
(Translated: "I love you.")

>'probably unrequited' forever
Well the way you're framing it doesn't sound very fair to Emiko! You make it sound like she knows but has chosen to not address it, or leave you hanging, which she's obviously too good a person to do.

>Weren't you... there was stuff to ask or talk about, wasn't there? What should you ask?
You wanted to find more about the thing that got stolen and/or lost. When did she last have it? What's it look like? (So you can tell it apart from any old wallet). Did she have it with her? Maybe figure out where to look for it.

You also wanted to ask Emiko what she wanted to tell you. That's the reason you even bothered to come to school, remember! Although that sweet hand holding was already worth it.

If you need more conversation topics, maybe share tales of glabella insanity.

This is strange. You two have been best friends for a long time. Surely this isn't the first time the of you have touched each other, so why the extreme reaction? Calm yourself. Also, handholding is too lewd.

Ask her what did the wallet look like and where had she last seen it.

Heck maybe she’s interested but hasn’t really done anything because you refuse to do the most basic of intimate gestures, leading to the belief that friendship is as far as you wanted to go with this.
Besides look how happy she is now, you got this.

Accidentally put some of the food in her mouth instead of your own.

1/3 softmeats 2018/05/13(Sun)00:52 No. 884087 ID: 1b31f3
File 152619793639.png - (195.99KB , 360x360 , 041.png )

>You make it sound like she knows but has chosen not to address it.
No, you don't think she does. You've always been awkward and dumb and weird, so really not that much you could do would be that fuckin' unusual to her. You think if she knew she'd be creeped out and ditch you forever at least be nice enough to turn you down to your face.

>Surely this isn't the first time you've touched each other.
Well, not the first time, obviously. But Rule One for having a stupid crush you have to keep secret is to not be touching someone all the damn time on account of it makes you blush and stutter and shit and then at best you're even more useless and bizarre than usual and at worst you give it away and end up completely alone in the world again humiliate yourself.

>Maybe she's interested but hasn't really done anything becuase you refuse to do the most basic of intimate gestures, leading to the belief that friendship is as far as you wanted to go with this.
She's not. At all. Emiko isn't like you. She's weird in her own way, but she's not shy about anything, even if she's a little bit quiet. When she wants something she takes it. When she wants something to happen, it happens. Emiko is the kind of person who the world loves unconditionally can just reach out and get shit done. If she... if she liked you, you'd damn well know by now.

>((An old suggestion, revisited!)) In a mighty showing of courtship drag one of the mutilated corpses of your classmates to Emiko's feet before howling at the nearest celestial body.
God, you're still so far out in space. You have to like, come down from this high already, force the world back into focus before she notices anything's up. Maybe if you just - do something with your hands? Shit, that's it, you'll draw something while you talk. Then you can get to the endless reliving of your ridiculous hand-holding experience later, at home, probably with your face buried in a pillow making dumb squeaky noises.

2/3 softmeats 2018/05/13(Sun)00:52 No. 884088 ID: 1b31f3
File 152619794699.png - (189.93KB , 360x360 , 042.png )

You're still thinking about wolves for some reason, so you already know what to draw.

3/3 softmeats 2018/05/13(Sun)00:53 No. 884089 ID: 1b31f3
File 152619799792.png - (151.81KB , 360x360 , 043.png )

>You wanted to find the thing that got stolen and/or lost. When did she last have it? What's it look like? Did she have it with her?
>Ask her what did the wallet look like and where she had last seen it.
"Uh - um - so!" You clear your throat and instantly regret how awkward that is. "You're missing a... wallet, I think? Where did you have it last?" Problem solving mode. That's doable. You're actually pretty decent at solving other people's problems. And only other people's.

Emiko immediately deflates a little bit, which is almost physically painful to see, but... it's necessary.

"... I always keep it in my desk. It's very rare for me to actually take it anywhere. That way I - that way I can look at it if I want to, but... I don't have to see it all the time." She looks... weirdly ashamed as she says that last part. Which is dumb. That's literally exactly what you did with the stupid rabbit Saeko made for you way back when. But... what would Emiko have that she hates seeing most of the time but would completely crush her to lose doesn't want to lose?

"Fuck. Okay, well, I guess I see why you think it might be stolen... shit. So, what does this thing look like, anyway?"

"It's very pink and girly, maybe a little bit childish, somewhat worn out, with a... a keychain charm on it. It's difficult to overlook." Huh. You've definitely never seen this thing before. Well, she did say it was old. It must be from before the two of you met.

"Alright. At least there's that. If it is lying around somewhere random, it'll be easy enough to spot it."

>You also wanted to ask Emiko what she wanted to tell you.
"Oh hey," you say. "I just remembered. Wasn't there something you wanted to talk to me about? Is that... related to this, or?"

Emiko blinks, and for a second she looks... really far away. Then she shakes her head, takes a breath.

"No, it's not. I..." What is her deal today? She looks almost like she's fighting herself on something, or trying to say something hard. Then again, maybe that's just you projecting how you always feel about literally everything you try to say to anyone... "I think it would be better to talk about it after school gets out. Maybe before we go home."

"Alright," you say, trying not to make it weird. Emiko actually already made it weird, which is normally your job, but you'd still rather not compound the weirdness unless you have to. "No problem! I'll try to remember to ask about it later I guess?"

"Don't worry," she says quietly. "I won't forget."

Normally one would first report the theft to a teacher so.. ask her if she'd be ok with you asking one of the teachers for assistance on the matter. Well, the teacher would then most likely tell all the students in the class about it so this is basically you asking her if she wants this to be made public or not.

Oh, look at the time. Better get back to the class~

>that way I can look at it if I want to, but... I don't have to see it all the time.
Yup definitely important.

>what do
Okay time to lie to your bff-slash-crush. "Don't worry, it'll all be okay."

Then try to cheer her up by talking about something dumb.

Oh hey, you ARE getting better at drawing with practice! And quickly, too! Emiko was right!

...Though, given that there's someone trying to blackmail, and possibly also someone stealing things from people's desks, as nice as that drawing is, you should probably destroy it before it falls into the wrong hands. Maybe eat it! This artistic triumph can become a part of you!

Give Emiko a hug! She needs it!

Ok, so things to ask. Did she keep it in her school desk? Is that why she seemed really freaked out at the end of class, but not the start? If so, it would be important to know who got to class before her. If she kept it at home, it would be more important to know where the heck she lives in relation to people that know her.

passe with all this other nonsense, go for the real meat, talk about phantasmal sector online. then combine pictures of her and you that you both drew to use as incentive to make her feel like gaming, final straw use the Mysterious Grit to... i dont know, but it aut to do something magic right? actually if its magic you should probably use it on yourself, at worst you'll visibly be crying over your friendship collage. at best? Magic.

1/4 softmeats 2018/05/24(Thu)20:21 No. 885956 ID: 7dcdc0
File 152721847740.png - (175.78KB , 360x360 , 044.png )

>ask her if she'd be ok with you asking one of the teachers for assistance on the matter. Well, the teacher would most likely tell all the students in the class about it so this is basically you asking her if she wants this to be made public or not.
You really doubt she'd want to go public with this shit, but... hmm. If that's what it takes and she does agree to it, you'll go that far. Nowhere is too far if it's for her. For now though... you're gonna exhaust some other options before you bring up anything that potentially stressful.

>Yup definitely important.
It sure is. You feel sort of weird that you don't know what it could be. Like a little itch in your brain, a tiny voice asking why wouldn't you know? She knows about the stupid rabbit. Why doesn't she want you to know everything about her?

>"Don't worry, it'll all be okay."
You'll include something like that in your next little round of conversation. That's all you've got, isn't it? Empty reassurances. You hope those are better than nothing.

>Oh hey, you ARE getting better at drawing with practice! And quickly, too!
Haha, wow, you are, aren't you? That's weird. The sketches at home are old, but the doodle in your desk is from like, last week. You... guess she IS right, isn't she? It's probably normal to sometimes have weirdly sudden jumps like this, right? You can't draw Emiko right, but you can draw other things, is that how it is? Probably they're just flukes, anyway. Tomorrow you'll be... right back to sucking! Where does your effort come from? Why are you better at drawing things that aren't her?

Well, anyway, it doesn't matter. You have waaaay more important stuff to think about right now. it doesn't matter.

it really doesn't matter at all.

>As nice as that drawing is, you should probably destroy it before it falls into the wrong hands. Maybe eat it! This artistic triumph can become a part of you!
You don't wanna... eat it. That's a little bit much. Also, eating paper is gross. You were a little kid once, you've made bad choices, you know. Bleh.

>Did she keep it in her school desk? Is that why she seemed really freaked out at the end of class, but not the start? If so, it would be important to know who got to class before her.
She said she did, yeah. That's probably why... she didn't notice until partway through class, and then, boom, the thing was gone and she was all shaken up.

>Then try to cheer her up by talking about something dumb.
Oh, you've got the perfect dumb thing: the drawing you literally just did! That might actually make her feel a little bit better. Shit, for once you actually did something useful.

"Check this out," you say, trying to look cheerful. Maybe if you seem happy it'll be contagious. You hold up the drawing for her to see.

She smiles, bites her lip like she's trying not to laugh, and for a second you feel like you're God.

2/4 softmeats 2018/05/24(Thu)20:22 No. 885957 ID: 7dcdc0
File 152721852218.png - (151.38KB , 360x360 , 045.png )

Then something changes, and... suddenly she looks upset. What just happened? What the fuck, what went wrong? It was - you were helping.

... Wait, why do you feel like you're being watched?

3/4 softmeats 2018/05/24(Thu)20:22 No. 885958 ID: 7dcdc0
File 152721855020.png - (397.36KB , 360x1080 , 046.png )

Oh fuck, it's Takahashi. What does that bitch want? She - oh FUCK, it's TAKAHASHI and you're holding a picture you drew of you and Emiko as wolves devouring her guts, that's not gonna look great -

There's only one thing to do, against your previous judgment: eat the drawing as fast as you can.

You shove it in your mouth, trying to crumple all the paper in as fast as you can in a drawn-out moment of slapstick idiot panic...

... And Takahashi, possibly sensing its importance, fucking snatches it out of your jaws. Part of the drawing rips off in your mouth and you swallow it instinctively, but she has the bulk of it.

4/4 softmeats 2018/05/24(Thu)20:22 No. 885959 ID: 7dcdc0
File 152721856089.png - (182.79KB , 360x360 , 047.png )

"... What the fuck is this?" She looks from the picture to you, and she looks - angry, yeah, which you expected, but more than that she actually looks sort of freaked out. As if she saw something scary instead of some dumbass vent-doodle.

She takes a little step back, staring at you warily, still clutching the slightly-slobbery artistic rendition of her gory death in her hand.

"Is that me?"

>((The writer and artist would like to apologize for the delay in updates; life happened.))

I'm torn between "Apologise" and "pretend to be choking to death as a distraction"

>>885959
>"Is that me?"
Gurrr, gmumble glu?

Attempt to answer, come out with exactly zero words because your mouth is full or soggy half-chewed paper.

>>885959
"Oh, get over it, drama queen. You act like such a bitch; I have to vent somehow."

Don't panic, you have a bunch of other weird gore drawings. Just say it's part of your attempts to get better at drawing, blood is just conveniently complicated, and you don't know that many people. In other related stuff, you probably can't draw Emiko because you aren't confident enough in your drawing, and panic drawing her. There's absolutely nothing weird going on, no mam.

Well, it does make sense that she's genuinely freaked out! Most people probably don't draw vent art with such lovingly rendered intestines, because most people are boring.

Two directions you could go here: either try to reassure her that you aren't dangerous so you'll only get in normal levels of trouble and not extra special trouble for potentially violently crazy kids, OR double down and hope she's TOO scared to do anything about it.

Emiko doesn't know everything about you, does she? What about your crush? Maybe it was icky. like fungus growing on her feet. Or boring, like financial records.

Thinking about how you would have shown it and grabbed it, you would have bit off the top right, so she can't cite you for language. But how she is holding it, it would be the bottom left, so Emiko wouldn't be depicted.

It's yours, she has no right, grab it right back.
Maybe she recently watched a yandere marathon. Chitose, don't be a yandere. Even if they win, they never get a happy ending.

softmeats 2018/05/25(Fri)02:28 No. 885986 ID: 7dcdc0
File 152724048324.png - (155.63KB , 360x360 , 48.png )

>It's yours, she has no right, grab it right back. 
God, it's really tempting, but you're gonna avoid escalating THAT far. For now.

>I'm torn between "Apologise" and ((...))
>There's absolutely nothing weird going on, man.
>try to reassure her you aren't dangerous so you'll only get in normal levels of trouble.
>"Get over yourself, drama queen. ((...)) I have to vent somehow."
"Uh - kind of? Maybe? I mean, I don't - it's not serious, I just... draw stuff to vent sometimes?" Oh god. This isn't coming out right at all. She doesn't respond well, either, crushing the drawing a little in her fist.

"To VENT? You drew me getting my arm ripped off by a wolf! What kind of lunatic vents that way?!" Ugh, come on, why is she like this?!

"It's a fucking drawing! Can you chill out and not be a bitch for like, one second?"

Weirdly enough, just as it looks like she's going to explode... she actually does. You're ready to yell at her some more, and then she takes a deep, shaky breath, and... turns to Emiko, who looks surprisingly frozen. Oh god, this can't go anywhere good, can it?

"I... overheard this goblin talking to you about... you losing a wallet, or something?" Takahashi sounds anxious, almost stumbling over her words. What the fuck is even going on? What is she planning here? "And I thought... I don't know... maybe I could help you look for it?"

Emiko just stares at her, totally paralyzed. The look in her eyes is... fucking complicated. You can't even begin to guess what she's feeling.

And where does Takahashi get off just suddenly talking to Emiko like it's - like it's not even unusual? Like she's somehow expecting a response other than 'fuck off?'

A few whole seconds go by, Takahashi staring awkwardly while Emiko opens her mouth, shuts it again. Stares, like she's totally torn about... something.

You have no idea what's going on, but you're not about to sit here and do nothing.

First things first look at Emiko and try and see how okay she is. Maybe go for a totally platonic hand squeeze in the process, you know, as a friend.

Secondly ask if Takahashi knows anything, and when she started to care??? Try to lean towards the passive part of passive aggressiveness.

>You have no idea what's going on, but you're not about to sit here and do nothing.
Let's ignore all the stuff that doesn't make sense and focus on what's important: Emiko, and helping her.

If Takahashi wants to actually help find Emiko's missing wallet, that helps Emiko. That's your priority here, full stop. It doesn't matter that the bitch isn't worth spending time with, or if she has some ulterior motive, or if there's something complicated in the background.

>I thought... I don't know... maybe I could help you look for it
So step into the awkward not talking they're doing right now and accept Takahashi's help on Emiko's behalf. Yes, thank you, we could use help looking.

>goblin
"Okay, that's it. Takahashi, I want you to tell me, to my face, why you [i]need[/b] to put me down. My life has been horrible for the past @#$%ing decade. I suck at everything. My family hates me. All I want is to be left with what little I have. WHY do you risk your reputation and future just to destroy what little I have left?! Seriously, I don't understand at all."

>Can I help you find Emiko's wallet?
"Well, if you find it, let us know."

If you help Emiko you can maybe get the drawing back without further incident and also have the leeway to tell takashi to go pack sand.

>Where does your effort come from? Why are you better at drawing things that aren't her?
You care more about Emiko, so you pay too much attention to what you're doing, and stress about the result not being as good as what's in your head.

When you draw something you care about less, you just do it with lower expectations and not overthinking or getting in your own way.

>As if she saw something scary instead of some dumbass vent-doodle.
She probably hasn't seen a vent-doodle of her own death before. And you trying to destroy the evidence probably added weight. Like they were plans to hide rather than idle fantasy.

>>885989
Why get worked up over the insult? It's not like goblin is worse than what Chitose has called Takahashi or called herself.

So... Takahashi has the wallet, and is letting Emiko know she has it while trying not to let YOU know, because she has seen what's inside of it and figured out that it is something that Emiko doesn't want YOU to see. That's what's going on here, right? It's about the only thing that makes sense. So... reassure Emiko that YOU will help her get her wallet back, and also there is literally no way you could ever be seriously mad at her no matter what it is that's inside of it, and you won't be nosy about it anyway.

Takahashi sits right next to Emiko, and she arrived early, didn't she? How do we know she didn't take it. This could all be another one of her lies. How can we trust her with anything after she lied about us just this morning! But... if this is al a setup... she will probably "find" Emiko's wallet quite quickly... Maybe we should just let her, for Emiko's sake.

>>885993
It is not about what words are used, it is about what they mean. Chitose has called Takahashi a horrible person who she wants nothing to do with and wishes misfortune upon. Takahashi called Chitose a non-person who should be controlled and contained. "Goblin" is much worse.

Ok, you don't really understand what's happening right now. This is probably a dream/hallucination. Maybe you died and the universe figured you were used to everything getting worse, so your personal hell is just everything being confusing? Screw it, roll with the hallucination. At least hallucination Takahashi wants to help hallucination Emiko. This is your life now, I guess.

you love Emiko more than you hate your enemy, tend to your friend.

softmeats 2018/06/02(Sat)03:12 No. 887266 ID: e493b1
File 152793434914.png - (118.25KB , 360x360 , 049.png )

>First things first look at Emiko and try to see how okay she is. Maybe go for a totally platonic hand squeeze, you know, as a friend.
Oh, she's super not okay, like, sometimes Emiko isn't the easiest to read, but on the Emiko Apparent Okayness Scale this is pretty fuckin' low. How often have you even seen her look this upset? A handful?

... How many of those times had something to do with Takahashi?

>You care more about Emiko, so you pay too much attention to what you're doing, and stress about the result not being as good as what's in your head.
Yeah... that must be it. That's gotta be it. Haha, jeez, what a weirdo you are, getting freaked out over something that simple. Dumb as hell, that's you. You have enough stress in your life without worry about shit like this.

>How do we know she didn't take it?
Fuck - there's a paranoid thought outta nowhere. Or is it? Takahashi fucks with you pretty regularly, and she seems to have a weird, intrinsically damaging effect on Emiko, but... ugh, she's so straight-laced other than that. You can't rule it out, but it would be a big step up for her in terms of bullshit.

>This is probably a dream/hallucination.
That's a nice thought - kinda, in certain ways, and in others it isn't - but you're pretty fuckin' sure this is reality! Nothing is out of the ordinary other than people behaving weirdly, and that seems like a thing that happens in life.

Not to mention you banged your ass on the ground outside school and that really stung. You don't think you've ever felt pain in a dream before. And you've gotten weird about "what if my whole life is a dreaaaam" shit a few times, you know how to test whether you're dreaming, as stupid as that is. If this was a dream, words and numbers and stuff would be changing when you looked away - that's almost always how it works. But the writing on the whiteboard, the drawing that says "lying cunt" on it? Those never changed at all.

>You love Emiko more than you hate your enemy, tend to your friend.
It's... stupid to let Takahashi get to you so much. Or at least it's stupid to let that distract you from what's important. As much as it's frustrating... you can't make this all about you and your own crap. You're having a pretty fucking awful day, but what does that matter if Emiko is unhappy? You have to keep your priorities in mind.

>((A really genuinely surprising number of suggestions to work with Takahashi, or at least to be open to trying.))
>"WHY do you risk your reputation and future just to destroy what little I have left?! Seriously, I don't understand at all."
"Okay, hold the fuck up," you say, raising your hand because... hmm, why are you raising your hand? You guess just because it seems to fit the moment. "Look, I don't give a fuck what you do. Whatever Emiko wants is up to her. I'm gonna help her find the thing, and if you want to tag along for some reason and she okays it, I'm not gonna be a bitch about it. But... what is your problem with me? What did I ever, literally ever, do to you? Ever since you came to this school you've been picking on me. What is your deal?"

Phew, that was a hell of a speech. You think you handled that... relatively well? Maybe not perfectly but... you're being pretty goddamn magnanimous. Emiko is just shooting nervous glances between you and Takahashi. As for your nemesis...

Takahashi glares at you like you ate her parents in front of her or something. If looks could kill you'd be a smear on the far wall of the cafeteria.

"Because you're a freak," she says, "The sick, poisonous kind of freak who ought to be quarantined somehow. I don't care what you want and I don't care how you feel about what she wants. I refuse to cooperate with you. If you really wanted to help her you'd - you'd..."

Takahashi bites off the end of her sentence before finishing, grits her teeth, turns back to Emiko while you kind of stare at her in shock. Emiko, for her part, looks... not really nervous now, more tired, wounded, like she's been stabbed and is already halfway bled out.

"Well, there you have it," Takahashi says to Emiko. "It's her or me, so choose already. You've never had any trouble doing that before, have you?"

... This is some bullshit. This is all kinds of fucked up. She's an asshole and a bully and watching her look at Emiko is making you physically ill. Hearing her talk to Emiko is making you ill. Knowing she exists near Emiko is making you sick to your FUCKING stomach.

But what now? You meant what you said about letting Emiko decide, so... should you just... swallow your pride and shut up, let her handle this? Or is enough e-fucking-nough already?

Trust in the heart of the cards. The cards being Emiko.

She’s your friend, she cares about you! Regardless of what you think of yourself she thinks a whole lot of you. Let her know that you’ll stand by her decision and that whatever happens you love her. Platonically.

Should this sappy course of action backfire feel free to go on a murderous rampage with a plastic knife though.

Just don't let your imagination run away with you, this is not a case of Emiko having a crush on Takahashi the same way you have a crush on her, and her only being weird around her because she knows she hates you, her best friend, with whom she could only be friends. Also, this isn't a case where Takahashi found out and is basic giving her an ultimatum to ditch you so they can be a couple.

"Emiko, if she finds your missing wallet right away, that probably just means she's the one who stole it in the first place."

>"Because you're a freak," she says, "The sick, poisonous kind of freak who ought to be quarantined somehow.
Time to use crushing depression as a super power!

"Well I guess we agree on something, then."

She's the one person who can actually see how fucked up you are, and is offended by it! That's... sort of a relief in a really sick way.

>"It's her or me, so choose already. You've never had any trouble doing that before, have you?"
That's really fucked, though. She shouldn't be putting Emiko in that position. Don't put that crap on her.

>so... should you just... swallow your pride and shut up, let her handle this?
Maybe? Emiko probably actually knows what's going on between her and Takahashi, unlike you, so maybe she'd be better able to say something to get the bitch to calm the heck down.

Also, you trust Emiko, and she's her own person, and you can't speak for her. The line here is... you'll let Emiko speak because you should. But you won't like, shut up and stare at Emiko and be a jerk forcing her to play the "her or me" game alone. That's just cruel, you'd rather speak up than help put her in that situation.

One possible compromise: split up to search? It's not like having 2 or 3 people in the same place is as good being in different places. That way Takahashi doesn't have to work with you, directly.

You may not know why Emiko bothers with you, but she does, and Takahashi of all people is trying to force her not to? Emiko deserves better than to be bossed around like that. [spoiler]Even if she is making a mistake.[/spoier]

You're there for Emiko whenever she needs you. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. It kinda feels like Takahashi used to be Emiko's friend, but there were a few ifs. Don't put an "if" in your friendship with Emiko, even an "if I'm not good enough." Don't leave her.

You may be poisonous but Takahashi is venomous.

>>887266
"... Fair enough. Are you going to tell the teachers about it?"

>Of course I'm going to tell-
"That's nice. You'll point fingers and scream, 'demon, demon!' and when I'm taken away to be locked up in a rubber room, you're going to pretend that I never existed. But it won't matter, the whole school will know that you pointed a finger and some powerful thing ceased to exist. You'll be ostracized by all the cowards in a five mile radius for playing witch hunt with your friends, and then the rest of the crowd will follow suit and make you the fall girl to tease or ignore, whichever suits them best. And then they'll do the same to Emily because they know you care about her, so if they hurt her it would make you squeal like a clown and that would be so funny to everyone. But hey, go ahead, order a mortar strike on this demon and blast us all to kingdom come."

>They wouldn't believe me-
"For all the things adults know, there's a lot of things adults won't believe. They won't believe that miracles can happen. They won't believe that their darling little children could grow up to become sociopathic killers and homophobic CEOs. They won't believe in a god that doesn't care about them, and they won't believe in a devil that walks these halls. They won't believe that I'm sick in the head... unless they believe that YOU'RE a rabid, spiteful yandere to rationalize why you would ever take the time to research another student to the point of stalking."

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>It kinda feels like Takahashi used to be Emiko's friend, ((...))
>Just don't let your imagination run away with you.
Oh, it's fucking running, and you have no goddamn clue what's happening here, and a thousand different stupid theories are running through your head, but... you can't actually know anything from wild guesses.

You're a little too shaken up to be thinking rationally enough to think irrationally, anyway.

>She shouldn't be putting Emiko in that position.
>Emiko deserves better than to be bossed around like that.
>She's the one person who can actually see how fucked up you are, and is offended by it! That's... sort of a relief in a really sick way.
>One possible compromise: split up to search?
>Let her know that you'll stand by her decision and that whatever happens you love her. Platonically.
>she's her own person, and you can't speak for her.
>Don't put an "if" in your friendship with Emiko, even an "if I'm not good enough."

So many thoughts are ping-ponging around the inside of your skull - things you could say, things you should say, things that would only make everything worse. All you can do for the moment, you guess, is see what Emiko does and go from there.

Emiko shuts her eyes for a second, takes a deep breath. When she opens them again, she smiles, if you can call it a smile when there's so much hurt oozing from every pore in her skin, etched into the set of every muscle.

"Maki," she says, because apparently Emiko is calling this asshole by name now, or was she always, and you just never knew? "What happened?" Takahashi blinks, completely thrown off her game.

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"You - know what happened to me -" she says, her voice cracking just a little bit. Emiko cuts her off.

"No, what happened to you today?" Emiko sounds... sad, yeah, but... more than that she sounds worried. Takahashi just stares. Everything resembling an expression sloughs off her face, leaving her eerily blank. "Was it... your mom? Or your dad? Or -"

"Stop it," Takahashi says, weird and hoarse and low. "Why would... you..."

"I'm sorry," Emiko continues. "But... I can't accept your help. I don't think... that I deserve it. And I don't really think you deserve to get to give it, either. So please, just... leave us alone." Us. Not "me." Us. What does that mean? Why is she making the distinction?

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"... oh," Takahashi replies. She sounds like the emotional equivalent of a hollowed out pumpkin that just got thrown off a highway overpass and run over by a truck. "I... see how it is." Glances toward you, sort of wildly. "You realize you're only dragging her under, don't you?"

"Yeah," you say, without entirely meaning to. "Obviously. You're right, I'm poison, but it's not really my decision to make anymore."

Takahashi flinches. You don't even try to interpret that. At this point, you honestly have no idea why anyone's doing or feeling anything. And then she goes cold again, quietly furious, maybe, but... no, this is even colder than before. Emptier.

"Then someone has to make it for you," she says, and before you can say 'yeah, no shit, Emiko will,' she turns and stalks off across the room, disappearing through a swell of students in the middle distance.

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At least ten actual fucking seconds go by, both you and Emiko staring off at the empty space where Takahashi was just standing, before you break the silence.

"I'll help you find that thing you lost," you say, wondering exactly which thing it is you're referring to. "We'll do it together."

Emiko smiles, and it's still complicated and it's still a little twisted, but you think there's a trace of actual happiness in it, this time.

"Maybe we will," she says. "Even if we don't... thank you anyway."

... You think there's probably time to do one more thing or talk about one more thing before lunch is over.

>((Note from the writer and artist: sorry about the delay again. Life. You know how it is.))

Well I think we can say with confidence you have no idea what's up with Takahashi and Emiko. At the very least, it sounds as if something bad happened, or is happening to Takahashi (abuse? Emiko asked which of her parents it was) and Emiko knows about it.

...whatever it is, it's out of bounds. You can't try to use something against her if you only know it because she trusted Emiko with the information.

Part of the problem here is it's hard to make any good calls about any of this when you don't know how much your own emotions are clouding your perspective.

>... You think there's probably time to do one more thing or talk about one more thing before lunch is over.
Okay maybe now it's time to lighten the mood with dumb tales of boob sliders and glabellas.

HUG THE GIRL!

HUG HER YOU RUBE!

Aww, Emiko loves you too. Time for that manic to flip in the other direction and you to be hyper aware of how awkwardly happy you are that she chose you over Takahashi, with all the angst that comes from trying to figure out how not to act happy that she chose you in an obviously heart wrenching decision.

>>888865
Wait, what?

>>888866
I think you should talk to someone before she does something stupid. Just tell a teacher that Maki was arguing about some insignificant MMO mechanic and then suddenly went catatonic.

>>888867
Talk about the MMO. Emily could play as a lv1 socializer / secretary of loot. Maybe conversation will be easier online.

I think Maki MAYBE decided she's going to kill you or something, because that's the most ominous as hell thing I've heard a high schooler say.

This is getting way too dramatic. Suddenly everyone's crying!

Tell her that you have no clue what happened between her and Maki but, whatever it is, it shouldn't be affecting her so much - it shouldn't be a part of her problems.

Ask her if she'd like to draw something also.

Normal friend schoolgirls hug, it is totally a thing that they do, normally, all the time, probably. Just a friendly hug, it will be the friendliest hug! No- ouch- phrasing...

Emiko is Yandere catnip. We have to use our wanton murder powers to stay alive, without losing ourselves to wanton murder. We need to figure out our powers. I assume we have the basic package that allows us to drag mutilated corpses across the school without raising suspicion from authorities and also the one that allows us to accomplish literally anything provided we do it off-screen...