Wasn’t it too late to just take back the fact that Kotori murdered Sango? Besides… more than just Chieko had said that. There was too much outweighing All of that. Chieko was…. trying. Why were all of these people apologizing to her? What difference would it make, anyway? What was done was done, and really, in this case, Kotori was the one in the wrong.
She addressed the bow first and foremost. Hopefully that got her idea across with as few words as possible. She, herself, was starting to want to go to sleep for the rest of the day. When did she wake up, anyway? 11PM? After falling asleep at like… 2PM yesterday. Haha, fuck. Maybe at least a nap or whatever.
“I wouldn’t want to spend time with a murderer either…. I hope you feel better, Chieko-chan.”
Kotori provided her own, albeit smaller, bow.
Onto Komaka’s questions. What… was this really all that interesting? Well… she supposed cults weren’t COMMON, so maybe? Kotori just kind of wrote her teacher off as weird and left it at that.
“…. Victim? … No, I don’t… think so? … Itsuki Sato…. tutor. I was homeschooled, kind of.”
She paused to take a breath, drawing up some memories, some of which were… more recent than others, actually. What to cover, huh? … Oh, actually…. uh.
“… He convinced me to go to a ritual once. There were a lot of people sitting in the middle of the room, I think? … I sat outside on a chair. I don’t… remember what happened. Sato-sensei stopped talking about it after then.”
That was the longest paragraph she’d given thus far.
Chieko didn’t straighten for a bit, before looking at Kotori. She bit her lip. She was doing a lot of that.
“I was wrong... You’re not a murderer... I hope you can forgive me for how cruel I was before... I’m really... really sorry. I’ve been a horrible friend and person.”
She lifted a hand to her face before shaking her head. She then looked to Komaka.
“If you think your hunches are usually wrong, then why do you seem to insist on this one? With no reason, other than your own assumptions. Sorrel-chan is right, we all make mistakes, but we need to try make up for them. You’re not Despair. The only thing making you that is your lack of desire to change. You have Chikako-chan. You have Stern-san and I don’t know who else. You have people around you. The person making you this so-called Super High School Level Despair is yourself. I don’t think you’re Despair. You’re just another person. Like myself. These titles don’t make us who we are. Despair is not who you are, nor am I just an Ontological Coach. I’d argue I think I’ve lost the right to that talent with everything going on. There’s just Komaka Shinko in front of me. No title necessary.”
She shook her head, giving Kotori another look, and opening her mouth, but took a moment to think over her words first. She eventually spoke.
“... I made a mistake and I hope you’ll let me make things right. Not right now because I don’t think I can do it right now... but maybe... we can talk tomorrow or something...”
“If you want... You can decline.”
Chieko was pretty much preparing to leave, but she just said a thing to Komaka.
