"Fewer and fewer children can count to one hundred in the bathtub these days."
"Exactly! It's a consequence of a lenient education. Kids just don't have the patience anymore!"
On the television, two so-called experts were pontificating and criticizing the practice of lenient education.
Irisu Makina was instantly furious, scoffing at the two's on-screen commentary: "It's not like I'm lenient with myself because I want to be! Sachi, we must become women who can count to ten thousand in the bathtub!"
"Mm." Komine Sachi nodded in response to Irisu Makina's joke.
When dinnertime arrived, Suou Amane noticed Komine Sachi had been in the bathroom for a very long time with no sign of coming out. She pushed open the bathroom door, which was so clouded with steam she couldn't see inside, only to find that Komine Sachi had long since passed out in the hot bathwater.
This gave her quite a scare. She frantically pulled Komine Sachi out of the tub, changed her clothes, and called for Jhin to help carry Komine Sachi to her bedroom.
"Honestly, Makina, you know Sachi's personality. Don't go saying strange things to her." Suou Amane, having figured out what happened, lightly tapped Irisu Makina as a mild punishment.
"Waaah~ Sachi!" Irisu Makina wailed so miserably it was as if Komine Sachi were terminally ill and beyond saving. In reality, she had just fainted from the heat, and Suou Amane was applying ice and a towel to her forehead to cool her down.
The next morning, Komine Sachi had recovered and was immediately pulled into a tearful hug by Irisu Makina.
"Sachi, I'm sorry!"
"Are you feeling okay now?"
"Thanks to everyone, I'm perfectly fine now. I'm so sorry for making you all worry."
"Huh? Where's Jhin?"
"It seems he said he had something important to do and took the day off."
...
"The final exams are coming up soon. I hope everyone studies hard and doesn't fail." Tachibana Chizuru gave her students a special reminder before leaving after class.
"Argh!" Michiru Matsushima frustratedly messed her hair into a bird's nest. She was never good at studying, and exams always gave her a headache. If she failed, she would have to stay at school for remedial classes during summer vacation. No way she wanted that!
"Hey, Sachi," Michiru Matsushima said as if she'd had a great idea, turning to look at Komine Sachi sitting in the back row. "Make the exams disappear. You're so capable, even making the exams disappear should be a piece of cake for you, right?"
"Eh!?" Komine Sachi was clearly encountering such an outlandish request for the first time. She felt it was improper but couldn't bring herself to refuse Michiru Matsushima's request. Her gaze flickered about, and she looked left and right with an indecisive expression.
It was Suou Amane who slapped Michiru Matsushima on the head, stopping her absurd idea. "Don't trouble Sachi by saying such ridiculous things."
"Oww!" Michiru Matsushima rubbed the back of her injured head and mumbled, "It's not like I really wanted her to do it. I was just kidding."
"No, please leave it to me, Miss Michiru." Komine Sachi accepted Michiru Matsushima's absurd request with a serious and determined gaze, stunning everyone else in the classroom. No one knew how she planned to accomplish this task.
Jhin returned to the student dorm, walking along the path illuminated by the night lights, and saw Suou Amane looking troubled as she knocked on Komine Sachi's bedroom door. "Sachi! Dinner's ready."
Jhin asked her, "What's wrong?"
"Jhin!" Suou Amane immediately recounted what had happened in the classroom that day.
Jhin comforted her: "So that's what happened. Don't worry, I was the one who asked Michiru to say that in the classroom. I can't tell you the reason just yet."
Sakaki Yumiko, who had also been paying attention to Komine Sachi's unusual behavior, leaned against the wall with her arms crossed and asked, "Is this a similar situation to what happened with Miss Matsushima back then?"
"You can pretty much understand it that way. That's also why I took the day off today."
"I understand. I won't ask any more questions. However, I want you to promise me that you won't let Miss Komine get into any danger."
"You can leave it to me, Yumiko."
"Yumi..." Sakaki Yumiko still wasn't used to Jhin calling her so intimately. Her pretty face flushed red, a plume of steam shot from the top of her head, and she scrambled back to her bedroom with flustered steps.
"Then I won't ask either. As the big sister, I can't always be questioning my little brother's decisions." After saying that, Suou Amane also left.
Don't worry, Komine Sachi just wants to fulfill the dream of countless students to blow up the school. It's not anything dangerous.
Jhin watched the two of them leave,吐槽ing silently in his heart.
Over the next few days, Komine Sachi often dozed off in class, which was completely out of character for the well-behaved class president she had always been. When she really couldn't take it anymore, she simply took a leave of absence and stopped coming to class.
She was nowhere to be seen even on the day Jhin made desserts for everyone. Michiru Matsushima began to regret agreeing to Jhin's request to say something strange to Komine Sachi. Her dissatisfaction with him transformed into appetite, and she decided to quickly devour the pudding in front of her.
"Just need to deliver these last two portions to Chizuru." Jhin packed two puddings separately and prepared to head out to the principal's office.
"Why does Chizuru-Chizuru get to eat two portions every time?" Irisu Makina said with a plastic fork in her mouth, full of envy, jealousy, and hatred for Tachibana Chizuru's two desserts. Her pearly white teeth ground against the fork.
"Who told her to be the principal?" Leaving that sentence behind, Jhin went out.
Komine Sachi stood in her dimly lit bedroom, repeating a single phrase to the mirror.
"I must be an obedient, good girl..."
...
Until the day before the final exams, Komine Sachi still hadn't come to class. Late at night during this period, Jhin followed behind her, watching her survey the layout of the school building and place homemade explosives, which she had researched online, in various hidden locations.
Each explosive was wired to a timer. As long as she pressed the controller in her hand tonight, after a ten-minute countdown, Komine Sachi could fulfill Michiru Matsushima's seemingly absurd and impossible request.
If the school gets blown up, the exams will naturally cease to exist, won't they?
Without a hint of hesitation, Komine Sachi pressed the red switch on the bomb controller in her hand. With a ticking sound, the bright red countdown on the timer began to decrease second by second.
Just as she confirmed there would be no accidents and was about to retreat from the classroom, Jhin's figure appeared in the moonlit corridor.
"Jhin!? Why are you here?"
"I was thinking that since the semester is almost over and we haven't done any activities together, I called everyone over for a test of courage." Jhin wore a puzzled expression, as if to say, 'why can't I be here?'
"No, it's dangerous here! Quickly, tell everyone to leave!" Komine Sachi's face instantly turned pale, her eyes filled with fear and panic. The hand holding the controller trembled, and her lips quivered uncontrollably.
Solely focused on how to blow up the school, she hadn't designed a stop function for the timers on these bombs. This meant her actions could potentially kill everyone here.
Since she hadn't seen anyone other than Jhin yet, there should still be time for everyone to leave the school building. Komine Sachi comforted herself with this thought as she looked at the timer on the explosive placed in a desk. The crimson numbers filled her with despair.
"0:05"
"Jhin, run!" Komine Sachi knocked over a desk and threw herself onto the explosive, hoping to shield Jhin from the blast with her own body.
As the timer let out a crisp beep, the countdown reached zero. Komine Sachi shut her eyes tightly, hugging the explosive as she knelt on the floor. The explosion she imagined never came. Or perhaps, she was already dead?
"Don't worry, I've tampered with your bombs. They can't be detonated by the timer. That said, to be able to achieve this much through self-study alone... you're really amazing."
Jhin's words were like pulling a drowning person from the water. Komine Sachi gasped for air, and at the same time, under the moonlight, a transparent puddle rapidly spread from beneath her maid skirt.
"Sorry, it seems I scared you a little too much."
Jhin faced the window, gazing into the night. Behind him, Komine Sachi was changing into a tracksuit, her soaking wet maid outfit and underwear discarded on a nearby desk.
"A few days ago, I went to the park where you and I first met. I found your uncle and heard from him about the accident your parents were in."
"Yes..." Mentioning this, Komine Sachi gently closed her eyes, as if reminiscing, or perhaps, escaping.
Komine Sachi's family used to run a small factory, and her parents doted on her. But whenever the factory got busy, they had no time to spend with her. It was during those days without her parents that she met the young Jhin.
Time passed, and it was the day of Komine Sachi's tenth birthday. Her parents had specifically decided to take the day off to spend with her. However, Komine Sachi, who had long harbored resentment for their constant absence, argued with them and ran off to the park where she often played alone.
As she sat on the swing, crying with regret over her actions, she heard her parents' anxious calls. She happily answered and ran towards them. Her parents, overjoyed at finding their runaway daughter, failed to notice the traffic light and ran into the middle of the crosswalk to welcome her home.
Naturally, they were hit squarely by a speeding truck.
"Mom never woke up from the hospital, and Dad..." Komine Sachi's expression was pained and sorrowful, as if shrouded in a dark cloud. "It was because of my selfishness that they had the accident. So, I have to be a good girl. I must be an obedient, good girl."
"Asako once told me when she was looking after me that a child who is too honest and obedient is heartbreaking to watch. During that lonely time, your parents must have been holding back their love for you. In the end, they still chose to put you first. Come back there with me tomorrow. You might find your answer there."
Jhin gently placed his hand on Komine Sachi's head and slowly stroked it. "You've done a great job trying so hard on your own until now, Sachi."
"Uu..." Komine Sachi choked back a sob and buried her head in Jhin's solid chest, weeping silently.
Afterward, using a fireworks show he had arranged outside as cover, Jhin detonated the explosives he had collected from the school building, piled up on the sports field. Although it blew a large crater in the field, that was no longer his concern. He'd leave it for Tachibana Chizuru to handle.
The next day, Jhin took Komine Sachi to the factory her parents used to run. He used the key her uncle had given him to open the door that had been sealed for seven long years.
At the far end of the factory was a wall her parents had decorated for her tenth birthday, along with a long-overdue birthday letter.
"To Sachi:
Happy tenth birthday,
May your future be a happy one,
May you always wear a smile,
This is the wish we had when we named you Sachi,
Love might still be a difficult concept for you to understand,
So we'll express it with these words: Thank you for being born as our child, Sachi."
The girl tearfully whispered her parents' names. For Komine Sachi, this belated letter was like a hot iron, smoothing out the tangled knots in her heart.
And she was finally, as she herself had hoped, allowed to change.
__
🔥 New stories are available now! 🔥
Genshin Impact: Starting by Stuffing Columbina
✅ Access up to 40 advanced chapters of ALL stories!
✅ Receive exclusive content and updates!
Help us hit our community goals:
🎯 100 Powerstones = +1 Bonus Chapter for everyone
🚀 80 MEMBERS = +5 extra chapters of ALL STORIES!
👻 P - Walnutchan