The Lion's Fang and the White Flower: A Secret Love of Missed Confessions
The summer before their second year of high school. Botan, a member of the literature club, is called out by her classmate, Raiga Shishio, who she secretly has feelings for. With a serious face, Raiga says, "There's something I've always wanted to tell you." Botan's heart races.
But his shocking confession is: "I have a crush on your best friend, Suzume. I need your help." Hiding her heartbreak, Botan forces a smile and agrees. Thus begins a week-long slapstick romantic comedy filled with tangl
The Lion's Fang and the White Flower: A Secret Love of Missed Confessions - Bared Souls, Shattered Classroom
The classroom door clicked shut.
The small sound of the latch echoed unnervingly loud.
The school building at night was eerily silent. The hallway that had overflowed with cultural festival preparations was now completely empty. Only the faint green glow of the emergency lights dimly illuminated the corridor.
Botan and the other three crept quietly up the dark staircase, muffling their footsteps.
One step. Another.
With each step she climbed, a whirlwind of emotions churned inside Botan's chest.
*(Raiga spoke to me on the day of the sports festival.)*
She had been so genuinely happy then. She'd been carrying the heavy tent poles all alone, no one helping her, on the verge of tears. And then Raiga had come.
*("You okay? Let me help.")*
That single sentence had saved her.
*(Ever since that day, I've...)*
Fallen for him.
But.
*(Right now, even those feelings...)*
Seemed about to be drowned out, in the face of Suzume's secret and Reiji's confession.
*(Who am I supposed to believe?)*
*(What have I been working so hard for?)*
She didn't know.
But.
Only a premonition that there was no turning back now kept Botan's trembling legs moving forward.
They arrived in front of the classroom for Class 2-3.
Moonlight streamed through the windows, casting the empty room in a pale, bluish light.
Botan placed her hand on the door.
*—Let's talk about everything in this classroom.*
Our true feelings, our lies, the things we've hidden.
Everything.
A small creak echoed through the night school building.
No one spoke.
The classroom was steeped in dead silence. Only the moonlight shining through the windows eerily illuminated the four figures.
On the blackboard, yesterday's cultural festival schedule remained, scrawled roughly in chalk.
Raiga stood by the window, looking outside.
Suzume sat slumped at her desk in the very back row, her head hung low.
Reiji leaned against the wall near the door, arms crossed.
Botan just stood rooted to the spot in front of the teacher's podium.
No one could utter the first word.
The carnage in the literature club room from moments ago still echoed in their ears. Suzume's screaming cries. Reiji's quiet declaration. Raiga's frozen face.
Everything they had kept hidden for so long had shattered in that place.
But.
It wasn't enough.
Deeper, uglier emotions still festered deep within each of their chests.
It was Suzume who broke the silence.
"...You've always been like that, haven't you, Botan?"
Her voice was hoarse, as if she'd cried herself raw.
It wasn't her usual bright, innocent tone.
It was a sharp, cold voice, like a blade.
"Always hiding your own feelings, pretending to be the good girl. Do you even realize how miserable I am?"
Suzume lifted her head.
Her large hazel eyes were wet with tears.
Those eyes stared straight at Botan.
"I've liked Reiji since middle school. But Reiji is always, always looking at you. And you even used Raiga. I'm the worst, aren't I?"
Words blaming herself.
But at the same time, they became a blade aimed at Botan.
"You've got it so easy, Botan. Everyone always likes you. Even when you do nothing, Reiji protects you like that. Pretending to worry about me... weren't you really just thinking of me as some pitiful girl?"
*—That's not true.*
Botan tried to say it.
But her voice wouldn't come out.
"That's... not true..."
The voice she finally squeezed out was trembling pathetically.
"It is true!"
Suzume suddenly shot to her feet.
Her chair clattered over.
"You're always like that! Hiding your feelings, smiling and saying it's for my sake! And then you're just waiting for me to say 'thank you,' aren't you!?"
No.
No, no, no.
"I'm not your doll, Botan!!"
Suzume's scream echoed throughout the classroom.
At that moment.
BANG!!
Raiga kicked over the desk in front of him.
The desk toppled with a deafening clatter.
"Don't screw with me...!!"
Raiga's voice trembled with rage.
His hands were clenched into tight fists, his shoulders shaking minutely.
"I was serious...! I was trying to face you properly! And you say you were just using me...!?"
Raiga's eyes pierced Suzume.
Those eyes were stained with a color deeper than anger—the color of deep hurt.
"What did you think my feelings were...!?"
Suzume flinched for a moment.
But she immediately bit her lip and glared back at Raiga.
"I don't know! You've never once told me you liked me!"
"How could I say it!? There's a right time for that kind of thing..."
"Then when was it!? All that time you were consulting with Botan, that wasn't the right time!?"
Raiga's words caught in his throat.
"You're always like that, leaving everything to someone else, never doing anything yourself!"
Suzume's words were nothing more than lashing out now.
She knew it herself.
This was wrong.
She was just taking out her own misery—the misery of Reiji never looking her way—on someone else.
But.
She couldn't stop.
"Shut up...!!"
Raiga kicked the desk again.
The unpleasant screech of metal legs scraping the floor echoed through the classroom.
"Back in middle school, I fell for the same person as my best friend, and our friendship fell apart! So I swore I'd never do anything that would hurt anyone again! And yet, you—!"
Raiga's voice trembled for the first time.
"...Why didn't you just tell me?"
It wasn't anger.
It was a cry of pain.
Suzume couldn't answer.
Because it was the first time she had seen Raiga's face so deeply wounded.
"...How ugly."
A low voice sliced through the silence.
Reiji, still leaning against the wall, looked down at the three of them with cold eyes.
"You all just say whatever you want. In the end, you can't see anything but yourselves, can you?"
"This has nothing to do with you, Reiji!!"
Raiga snapped at Reiji.
Reiji didn't pay his best friend's anger the slightest mind.
"It does have to do with me. Because you all have been hurting something precious to me for a long time."
Reiji's eyes turned toward Botan.
"Botan was crying alone on the day of the sports festival. No one helped her. You all thought everything was fine as long as she was smiling, and you never tried to see anything else."
Suzume's face went pale.
Raiga was at a loss for words.
"Raiga. You've been taking Botan's help for granted all this time. Have you ever once thought about what she was feeling behind that smile?"
"...That's..."
"Suzume. Do you think you're the most unfortunate, pitiable heroine or something? Just because Reiji won't look at you, you take it out on your best friend. Does that make you feel better?"
"...!"
Suzume bit her lip and hung her head.
"You're one to talk, Senpai! All you ever did was stay silent and watch from the sidelines!"
When Suzume raised her head, anger and tears mingled in her eyes.
"That's just cowardly! Watching from a safe place so you wouldn't get hurt yourself!"
"Yeah, you're right. That's what I've always done."
For the first time, Reiji's voice sounded as if he was blaming himself.
"But—I was scared too. Scared that if I got close to Botan, she'd reject me. That she'd treat me coldly, like she always has. That's why I kept quiet until now."
"Reiji..."
Raiga looked at Reiji in surprise.
"But I can't keep quiet anymore. If you two hurt Botan any more than this—"
"Raiga, you... Botan..."
Raiga's words stopped mid-sentence.
In that instant.
For the first time, Raiga's face truly looked at Botan.
Not as a collaborator.
But as a girl.
It was the face of someone who had just realized, for the first time, that the person standing there was Botan—the one who always smiled and helped him.
"...Botan, could it be..."
"Stop."
Botan, who had been trembling with her head hung low the entire time, spoke for the first time.
"Just stop it... This is, this is just—"
She raised her head.
Large tears were spilling from Botan's eyes, one after another, overflowing.
"Let's stop this already!!"
Botan screamed.
Her voice echoed throughout the classroom.
Everyone stopped, stunned into silence.
Tears streaming down her face, Botan staggered toward Raiga, closing in on him.
"I... I loved you, Raiga! Ever since that day, the sports festival!"
Botan grabbed Raiga by the lapels of his shirt.
"That day, I was carrying the tent all alone, and no one would help me...! But you were the only one who came. You asked if I was okay, and you lent me a hand!"
Sobs choked her words.
"I've loved you ever since that day! But, but—"
Biting her lip, her face crumpled as she cried, Botan was no longer the girl with the usual bright mask.
"I love Suzume too! So I thought... if the two of you could be happy, that would be enough... I thought I could just watch over you...! But because of me, everything fell apart...!!"
Her grip on Raiga's shirt tightened.
"Because I hid my feelings! Because I pretended to be the good girl! I hurt everyone...!!"
Her voice dissolved into tears and vanished.
"I'm... so, sorry..."
The strength left her hands, and they fell away from Raiga's chest.
She collapsed to the floor on the spot.
"...Uu, uwaaaaaah...!!"
Words were no longer possible.
Having poured everything out, Botan simply sobbed like a child.
Only the sound of Botan's crying echoed in the classroom.
The other three couldn't move.
*—Silence.*
The space that had been filled with angry shouts moments before was now impossibly quiet.
Botan's confession, as if wrenched from her very soul, had quelled everything.
"...I'm sorry."
Suzume crumpled to the floor.
"I'm sorry, Botan... I'm so sorry, I—"
Suzume reached a hand out toward the collapsed Botan—and stopped.
She felt she didn't have the right.
*(The things I said to Botan.)*
*'Pretending to be the good girl.'*
*'Do you even realize how miserable I am?'*
*(How much those words must have cornered Botan—)*
Suzume covered her own mouth.
She felt sick.
At her own, overwhelming ugliness.
"...I..."
Raiga stood rooted to the spot, staring at his own hands.
He clenched his fist tightly over the spot on his chest where Botan's hands had been gripping moments before.
*(What have I... been doing to her?)*
*'Help me out.'*
How cruel that single phrase had been.
How had he not noticed the tears hidden behind the face of Botan, who had smiled and accepted?
"...Botan."
Raiga murmured her name for the first time, as if in prayer.
But he couldn't say anything more.
He had no idea what he, as he was now, could possibly say.
"...I was wrong."
Reiji quietly spoke.
He stopped leaning against the wall and turned to face the three of them.
"I was just looking down on you all too. Thinking I was the only one who understood Botan, putting myself on a pedestal like that."
Reiji casually wiped at something running down his cheek.
"...I called you all filthy, but I was the filthiest one."
No one could say anything.
Only time slowly passed.
How long had they been like that?
Suddenly, they noticed that the sky outside the window was beginning to lighten.
The eastern sky was shifting to a pale blue.
Morning was coming.
*—The morning of the cultural festival.*
"The literature club presentation... what do we do?"
It was a small voice, hoarse from crying.
No one could answer.
"I... can't do it."
Suzume, still hanging her head, spoke in a thin voice.
"I can't stand in front of people... when I'm such a mess like this..."
"...Honestly, I don't know either."
Raiga shook his head weakly.
"I can't face everyone."
Botan lifted her head.
Her eyes were red and swollen from crying.
"...We have to do it, don't we?"
Her voice was trembling.
But unlike the despair from before, a small light of determination flickered deep within her eyes.
"We all worked so hard to prepare for it."
"It's your choice."
Reiji spoke quietly.
"But don't let it end like this. You'd hate that more than anything, right?"
He whispered the words gently, as if meant only for Botan to hear.
Botan couldn't answer.
Sh
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