(Un)Fortunately the Yandere is Not After Me

Information Gathering

It was the next day and Arata was still in shock over the revelation from yesterday. He felt like such an idiot for not noticing sooner. The boy was starting to empathize with those harem protagonists who seemingly don't realize the number of girls in love with them. Or are even unaware of the feelings of specific ones in the first place.

"I really hope that there's no one else." He muttered to himself as he headed towards the library once more. Though, he didn't want to make any assumptions. There was no point in overthinking things now that someone else revealed who they really were. Especially now with something else more important in his mind. That being to meet with Yurime for a little bit of a secret meeting. "I need your help with something." Those were the first words out of his mouth the moment he stepped inside.

"Wh... Arata, what are you doing here?" The girl was caught off guard as she leapt up a bit from the fright he gave her with his arrival.

"I was wondering if you could come with me on a little bit of... Journalist investigation?"

"You won't help us with our campaign. Why should I be helping you right now?" She was busy, and time was of the essence. However, he was certain that he could give her a good reason that involved her as well.

"Surely you'd like to check out the competition too, right?" He put out a compelling case for her to want to do this, as it was beneficial for both parties. "Plus, I kind of wanted to talk with you privately about... You know who."

"You do?" Her heart tightened when she heard him mention their common friend. It made Yurime wonder what his decision was going to be. "Then, I have a little bit of time I can spare." The two of them left the library to head to the destination of Arata's desire. This time, it would be heading down to the lower floor to check on some of the 1st years. Particularly in search of a certain candidate running for student council president. While doing so, he also took this time to talk about the elephant in the room.

"So, I'm taking it you already knew." He brought up the subject first. "How long has it been like that?"

"I can't say for certain when it really started." She answered. "But, I can tell you it became clear to me shortly before the Christmas party we all took part in." Now that he was thinking of Ichiri's behavior with a new lens, it made more sense. "She confided in the two of us officially when she came to the decision to run for president." Though at that point, the two other members of the library committee were already aware. Unfortunately, that news wasn't taken very well.

"And let me guess, she wanted to run so that she could get me to fall for her." Somehow, despite that girl's brains. She was incredibly naive when it came to courting a boy. "That's silly, if I cared about that sort of thing. I'd already be dating Misei."

"Because that girl likes you too, right?"

"What? How did you..." Arata was dumbfounded that Yurime spoke with such confidence in knowing that fact.

"I can tell from the way she acts around you." She answered his inevitable questions. "Actually, I'm a lot more aware about the girls' feelings than you even know." That certainly brought an interesting perspective to his situation. Of course, it takes one to know one, and there's a good reason why she seemed to be able to notice these types of things with the rest of the girls. "If that's the case though, what are you gonna do?"

"I should've just rejected her for pulling this stupid stunt." He answered her honestly. "But, I've only ever seen her as my junior. So I can't say for certain what my feelings are until I think about it harder."

"It looks like you've been doing a lot of that lately." He couldn't argue against that. It had been several months since Hifumi, the first girl to make her feelings clear to him, confessed to him. Back then, he kind of rejected her, but maybe things were a little more different when he gave it more thought.