Ayato POV — by reader request, slotted in before the next arc.
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I’d been gifted from birth — natural talent that made me better than people around me at both academics and sports.
So Yuito never won against me no matter how hard he worked. His effort meant nothing against my talent.
At some point I started looking down on him. I was drunk on the superiority of being more capable.
But there was one person I could never beat: our older childhood friend, Yuki Kano. She was higher-spec than me. (Suzuno was average by contrast.)
As a kid I used to challenge older-and-bossy Kano. Lost in every category. The frustration sticks.
I started seeing her as the enemy I had to defeat — and that gradually shifted into the person I couldn’t stop thinking about. The classic origin: think about someone constantly to figure out how to beat them, eventually fall for them.
”…But she chose Yuito, not me.”
When she said yes to my question, her face was deadly serious — not a joke, not a deflection. I don’t remember how I got home.
“Why Yuito…”
I know why. I’m a coward without courage. When situations exceed my comfort zone I lock up and do nothing.
”…That’s why I couldn’t help Kano-san back then.”
When she was being bullied in elementary school, I’d wanted to help and done nothing. Yuito — inferior to me — found the courage and acted. Got beaten badly — but the bullying ended because of him.
From Kano’s point of view, Yuito must have looked like a savior. That’s when my inferiority complex to Yuito began.
To outsiders I look obviously superior. But internally I see myself as someone who can’t touch Yuito’s strength.
That’s when I started being harsh to Yuito — propping up my own self-esteem by belittling him. (My self-esteem disintegrated entirely the day I froze at the movie theater.)
“I wish Yuito and I had been swapped.”
Trade all the academic and athletic talent for the heart-strength Yuito has. Why didn’t the gods make us the other way around?
Yuito has been visibly brighter recently — after the period when he’d been at his worst, quitting soccer over his complex about me — and I envy him intensely. He’s almost too bright to look at.
“Of course Kano picked the brave one and not the coward.”
If I were in Kano’s place I’d have picked Yuito too. She must have seen through me completely — that’s why no matter how many times I confessed, she shot me down.
”…Suzuno will be disappointed too once she sees the real me.”
Suzuno is in love only with the high-spec Kujo Ayato. Everyone — Suzuno included — overrates me.
What happens when the mask comes off? Just imagining it terrifies me beyond words.
“What am I supposed to do.”
In this collapsed state, no amount of thinking would produce an answer. I was stuck in a closed negative loop.