In near-future Japan, a sudden genetic mutation has caused the birth ratio of men to women to collapse to 1:50. Men are protected by the state as living national treasures, while women fight desperately to win a man's heart and secure a future. High school student Yuma Arimura transfers into a mixed-gender school where boys are almost nonexistent. The moment he walks into class, girls scream, faint, snap photos, and whisper about wanting to be his. Yuma just wants a normal life, but everywhere h
National Treasure High - After School of Collapse
The air in the classroom had been rotten since morning.
The moment Arimura Yuuma opened the door to Class 2-A, he felt as though he had stepped into sewage. The murmuring stopped all at once, and forty pairs of eyes stabbed into him. No—that wasn't it. The gazes passed right through him and fixed on the girl behind him.
"...Good morning, Yuuma-kun."
The same slow, polite speech as always. But from behind her came whispers dripping with unmistakable malice.
"Look, she's here. That girl."
"The one from the stairs... Is it true about the attempted murder?"
"No way, she's got such a cute face. What a psycho."
Attempted murder. Psycho. The stairs.
The words he'd heard from Inori's mouth last night had already been scattered across the entire school by this morning. Rumors spread faster than a virus. Sumika walked past the teacher's podium with her back straight, heading for her seat. Her steps were so quiet, it was as if she couldn't hear anything at all.
(*Is she really okay with this?*)
Yuuma set his bag down at his own desk. But he couldn't bring himself to sit. All around the classroom, girls were holding up their smartphones, secretly filming Sumika. Every time a lens pointed at her, her silhouette was carved out as an enemy of society.
"Hey, cut that out."
Yuuma covered a nearby girl's wristgear with his hand. The girl looked at him in surprise.
"Y-Yuuma-kun...? But she's a murderer—"
"She's not a murderer. It's just a rumor."
His voice trembled. It was always like this when he was surrounded by girls. His voice got smaller, and the ends of his sentences faded with uncertainty. But he couldn't back down.
That was when it happened.
*Clatter.*
Sumika's textbooks were knocked to the floor by the girl sitting next to her. The contents scattered everywhere. Modern Japanese, math, English—pages flew open, revealing countless scribbles and permanent black letters. "Murderer." "Get out." "Die."
The defaced textbooks lay spread across the floor.
"Oh my, I'm so sorry. My hand slipped."
The girl in the next seat raised her voice with theatrical innocence. In her hand was a small lighter. She crouched down and picked up one of the scattered textbooks.
"Hey, should we burn this?"
The lighter's flame drew closer to the corner of the textbook. *Click.* The sound of ignition echoed through the classroom.
Yuuma was already moving.
Before he knew it, he had grabbed her wrist.
"Stop."
The temperature in the classroom dropped instantly.
"...That hurts. Let go."
"Don't set it on fire. I'll pick up the textbooks."
Yuuma took the textbook from her hand and began gathering the books scattered on the floor. He dropped to his knees. The defaced pages lay open before him, violent and raw. "Accomplice of a murderer." "You're just as guilty."
He pretended not to see, stacked them up, and placed them on Sumika's desk.
The classroom fell deathly silent.
Sumika was looking up at him. Her narrow, elegant eyes were quietly wet. But she said nothing.
"...Thank you."
Her voice was barely audible.
---
The bell for first period rang.
But the moment Yuuma sat down next to Sumika, the atmosphere in the classroom completely shifted.
"No way, Arimura-kun is sitting next to *her*?"
"He's siding with the psycho."
"He's a guy—why would he stay next to someone like that?"
The voices grew louder, deliberately loud enough for him to hear. The admiring gazes that had always been directed at Yuuma turned to confusion and contempt. In this academy, where being male alone should have guaranteed him preferential treatment, Yuuma was now—for the first time in his life—seen as an enemy.
(*So this is what it means.*)
Yuuma thought to himself.
Protecting Sumika meant making an enemy of the entire classroom's atmosphere.
But after seeing those textbooks scattered on the floor, there was no option of not sitting beside her.
Even after class began, the gazes stabbing into his back didn't fade. Yuuma pretended to open his notebook and clenched his fist under the desk.
Suddenly, Sumika's fingers grabbed the sleeve of his uniform.
"Yuuma-kun."
"...Yeah."
"I'm sorry. Because of me."
The grip on his sleeve wasn't the kind she used when she was being affectionate—it was the desperate strength of someone clinging for dear life. Sumika's fingertips trembled faintly.
"It's not your fault."
Yuuma answered without turning his head.
"I did this on my own."
The fingers gripping his sleeve tightened for an instant. There was no reply. Instead, her black-purple hair swayed slightly, and he sensed Sumika lowering her head.
---
After school.
The entire day had been a bed of nails. Every class, his textbooks were hidden. During lunch, a piece of paper reading "Equally Guilty" was placed on his desk. When they moved to a different classroom, someone whispered "fallen National Treasure" from behind. He heard all of it. He ignored all of it.
Sumika, too, had continued to ignore everything.
But when the after-school bell rang, Sumika's hand pulled at Yuuma's sleeve, and she led him out of the classroom.
"I want to go to the rooftop."
Her voice was quiet.
---
The rooftop garden of Seirei Academy.
One of the few quiet places reserved for boys. The scent of herbs planted in the planter boxes drifted on the evening breeze. Three wooden benches, an old wooden railing. This was the only place where they could escape the conflicts of the girls.
The setting sun dyed the rooftop orange.
Sumika stood before the railing and turned around, the sunset at her back. Her waist-length black-purple straight hair flowed in the wind, scattering flecks of light. A small crescent-shaped scar at the base of her neck emerged, illuminated by the setting sun.
"...Yuuma-kun."
"What's with the formality?"
Yuuma stood at a slight distance. Sumika's eyes pierced straight through him, clearer than usual.
"I'm tainted."
Her voice was torn apart by the wind.
"You know all the rumors, don't you? About the girl on the stairs. About how I pushed her."
Yuuma didn't answer.
"That girl tried to get close to you. She was still young, couldn't see what was around her, and tried to have you all to herself. So I..."
Her words cut off there.
Sumika's shoulders rose and fell, just slightly.
"I pushed her. I hurt her. That's my sin."
"Sumika."
"But, Yuuma-kun."
Sumika took a step closer to him.
"I don't regret it."
A chill ran down his spine.
In the sunset, Sumika's eyes glowed eerily. Whenever her emotions wavered, those eyes always shifted into the deep color of night.
"Because if she had gotten any closer, you might have been in danger. To protect you, I would do the same thing again. As many times as it takes."
Her voice was calm—maddeningly calm.
"Even if the whole world hates me. Even if you're afraid of me. As long as I live, I will protect you."
Yuuma's throat made a small, convulsive sound.
Terror and affection exploded in his chest simultaneously. This girl was serious. She would seriously kill someone for him. And she seriously loved him.
That weight was terror itself.
"...I..."
His voice was dry.
"I... didn't want you to hurt anyone."
That was all he managed to say.
Tears spilled from Sumika's eyes.
"Uu... no... I don't want this..."
The quiet composure shattered, and Sumika collapsed on the spot. Her sobs were swallowed by the sunset sky.
"I just wanted to say I love you normally...! But... but why can't I be anything but this...!"
She covered her face with both hands, curled up, and kept crying. In that moment, she was just a seventeen-year-old girl.
Yuuma stepped forward.
Then he crouched down and gently placed his hand on her trembling shoulder.
"...Sumika."
He tried to say something. *I'll protect you.* *It's okay.* Words like that.
But all of them felt like lies.
Could he protect her?
Was she really okay?
He didn't know. So he just kept his hand there. Until the sun went down.
---
In the shadow of the stairwell leading to the rooftop.
Shirase Inori watched the scene unfold.
Her platinum blonde ringlets glowed faintly in the dark shadows. Her cold blue eyes looked down icily at Sumika's crying, crumpled form. Her red lipstick curved into a quiet smile.
"...Heh."
Inori began operating her wristgear. The screen showed the two of them side by side on the rooftop. Footage she had been recording for the past hour.
"That's a nice shot."
Inori turned and descended the stairs without looking back. Toward the classroom.
More than a dozen girls still remained in Class 2-A after school. The moment Inori appeared, everyone went perfectly still. A third-year, a lady of the Shirase group. Her presence alone dominated the air.
"Oh my, everyone. Good work today."
Elegant, polite speech. Standing at the classroom entrance, Inori smiled bewitchingly.
"Hey, did you know? Hikami-san and Yuuma-kun are alone together on the rooftop right now."
The girls reacted all at once, stirring restlessly.
"Yuuma-kun is protecting her. I saw them walking together into the boys' garden."
Inori continued without pause.
"Yuuma-kun is on her side. ...I wonder just how deep their relationship goes."
That one line was enough.
The girls' expressions twisted with jealousy and hatred.
"No way..."
"So Arimura-kun is involved with the psycho?"
"Then Arimura-kun is just as bad."
Inori smiled with satisfaction and left the classroom. As she walked down the hallway, she murmured in her heart.
(*With this, Yuuma-kun is completely isolated.*)
She had made Sumika cry into her pillow. She had forced Yuuma to confront that woman's madness directly. And now, she was turning the jealousy of the entire school toward Yuuma as well.
Shirase Inori's plan was meshing together perfectly.
---
The sun was nearly down.
After sending Sumika home first, Yuuma was called to the back of the school building, where no one would be. To be precise, a message from an unknown sender had arrived on his wristgear. "I need to talk to you. Now that you've come back from the rooftop."—No signature. But that red lipstick and those cold blue eyes couldn't possibly fail to come to mind.
Behind the school building, the long shadows of the structure covered the ground, and there was almost no one around. The smell of damp earth and the distant sound of cars rode on the wind.
"I knew you'd come."
Inori was waiting with her back against the school wall. Even through her uniform, the supple lines of her body were apparent. In the twilight, her white skin and platinum blonde hair seemed to glow.
"...What do you want?"
Yuuma's voice was low and guarded.
"Don't be so wary. I just thought I'd tell you the truth."
"I already know the truth. Sumika's past, the stair incident—all of it."
"Oh? Is that so. Then this will be quick."
Inori pushed off the wall and slowly approached Yuuma. Her heels clicked a dry rhythm.
"Yuuma-kun. Today, you sat next to Sumika and got stared at by the whole class."
"You're the one who spread the rumors."
"Yes, it was me."
Inori admitted it without hesitation.
"Because it's to crush her. It's a clear method, not a personal grudge."
"You spread Sumika's sins across the whole school, and you're saying it's not personal?"
"Yes. I am a daughter of the Shirase family. For my goals, I'll swim through any mud. Only the weak are swept away by emotion."
Her voice was cold. But beneath that voice, Yuuma remembered the cracking mask she had shown in the garden last night.
(*She's putting on an act again.*)
Inori reached toward Yuuma's chest.
"Hey, Yuuma-kun."
Her slender fingers traced the chest of his uniform. They circled the first button once. Then they touched the knot of his tie and slowly moved downward.
"What are you—"
"Right now, after having Sumika's suffering shoved in your face, you have a weakness. You want to protect her, but you're also afraid. You're wavering."
Inori placed her palm over Yuuma's heart.
"Do you want to know the real truth behind the stair incident?"
Yuuma's breat
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