(Un)Fortunately the Yandere is Not After Me

Searching for Answers

Sitting in class, Arata could hardly keep still. This had to be all one sick joke or nightmare. Even lunch was a pain, with his eyes shifting from left to right. The others were concerned for him, but he did everything he could keep them off his back. Right now, there was only one person he could trust.

"What's the problem." Erina met him right by their usual meeting spot. The big oak tree. "And what's up with using notes? You have my number." She held up the note he placed in her locker to his face.

"First off, my phone broke." He answered that part first. Things were going to be hard for him until he got a replacement. "More importantly... This." He held up the threatening note he received in the morning. Along with a picture that proved his secret.

"What?!" She couldn't believe her eyes.

"Is this some type of joke?" He accused her.

"No... Please I'd never do something like that again." She spoke with fear in her voice. That was enough for him to believe her.

"That's what I thought, but I just had to make sure." He calmed her down. "Now we should try and figure out who's behind this."

"I didn't think anyone else would want to pull this on you." She thought about it. "Do you have any ideas on who it might be?" Hearing about him getting blackmailed again. The feeling of guilt returned to her. Not too long ago, she was the one that made him suffer. Seeing him acting so anxious like this, It made her feel like she was reliving her dirty past.

"Hmm... Well given the first part of the message. It has to be someone close to us." He figured that would be the most logical direction to move. But why would any of them want to get rid of him? If it was about Yogi, he had already shown that he was supporting all of them.

"Maybe we should check out the picture." Erina believed that might lead them to a potential clue.

"Right." He looked over it again.

"Um..." She was judging him pretty heavily for this. Since it was of him holding his anime body pillow.

"Before you say anything, I'm perfectly pure. So get whatever you think I do with it, get it out of your mind." He wanted to nip that in the bud. This was humiliating him to no end.

"R-right." Seeing it, while it was weird. Stirred some feelings for her. Feelings of jealously. Immediately, she brushed those thoughts out as soon as possible. "I'm not really seeing anything that shows anything about them.

"Well, given that I was awake during this, that means whoever took this is pretty quiet." He contemplated for a moment. Trying to think who might fit that description. Then it hit him. "Yuki..."

"Yogi's cousin?" Erina looked at him confused.

"Right, that could make sense." He rationalized. "Everyone else should know that I'm not against any of them. But she's family, and she said she hates my name. Maybe she meant to say that she hates me."

"You're really still hung up on that?"

"Hey, Arata's a perfectly good name!" He crossed his arms and pouted. "More importantly, she knows my secret..." Arata Muttered.

"What?! How did she do that?"

"It's a long story." He lied, not wanting to admit how easy it was for that girl to find out. "But we should go look for her." He needed to get to the bottom of this quickly. Or else things would go rather sour, very fast.

Erina agreed, so they returned back inside the school. On the hunt now for Yogi's cousin. That girl was pretty small, and always seemed to do a good job at hiding away. So this wasn't going to be easy. Nor did the fact that a certain person stopped them while they were on their search.