The Mechanism of Bullying

<Lala>

Time passed, and peaceful everyday life returned. I was prepared to be arrested, but thanks to some invisible force at work, everything was quietly dropped.

There must have been many adults working behind the scenes, on our side. I can never thank them enough.

Ms. Elise and Akira were released and have gone back to their own lives. Sharp-kun was hospitalized for some tests, but in a week, he’ll be back at school.

“Good morning! It’s been a week!”

A lively voice echoed through the classroom. It was the return of a hero.

“Sharp is gross.”

“Yeah.”

I overheard a conversation I shouldn’t have. Of course—Sharp-kun can’t be accepted back into the class so easily.

The magic police have ordered us not to talk about his achievements with the karma points. It’s so frustrating not being able to tell people that he’s the hero who saved the school and the world.

That’s why—even if I want to speak up, I end up lost for words while searching for the right ones. I really need to learn how to handle these tough situations better if I want to survive in the adult world!

I feel so frustrated at my own lack of practical skills—so stuck in my head, always arguing with logic.

Essentially, bullying happens when small or large groups, whose hearts don’t truly connect and who are weighed down by communication problems and anxieties, start forcibly searching for shared values as a means to bond. Bullying becomes a method to build pseudo-unity. Once it starts, paranoia and anxiety feed on themselves and bullying escalates.

But it’s not just bullying. Cult murders, genocides based on ethnic hatred, and the witch hunts you see in history textbooks all have the same roots: deep down, the perpetrator group doesn’t really believe in their own bonds. Violence becomes a temporary stimulant to ease their insecurity.

What they’re truly afraid of is having their false sense of unity exposed to the light of day. That’s why they can’t stop bullying—because it’s their way of clinging to fake bonds.

In some boys’ manga, it’s considered an epic development when former enemies become allies and fight even stronger foes. But light and darkness are two sides of the same coin—separated by only the thinnest of lines.

Let’s look back at what happened the day the bullying of Sharp-kun began.

That day, there was the Princess Test. Our classmates, each labeled with a “price tag” of the gender of their heart, as if they were being appraised, fell into a state of mutual distrust. The soil was fertile for bullying to take root. Sharp-kun, marked as an outlier, became a perfect target for everyone else’s anxieties.

The fundamental solution is to restore trust among classmates. That means building things up, bit by bit, through small efforts. Sharp-kun being accepted back into the class is probably the final step in that process. There’s no point in rushing the result.

There are already some good signs. The student council president, Mido-senpai, is working behind the scenes to resolve the issue. And as the karma points system is being reformed, the school’s management policies are gradually shifting toward humanism.

“Sharp-kun is actually pretty easy to talk to, once you get to know him. Don’t say things like that.”

Those words made me stop in my tracks. The speaker was Stridente. She used to be so harsh to Sharp-kun... I wonder if something made her change her mind. Maybe they reconciled in a way we don’t know about.

“Ehh, of all people, you’re the one saying that?”

“We made up and became friends. I won’t let anyone badmouth him anymore.”

The two who’d been gossiping exchanged looks and then went back to their seats. Maybe I’d been overcomplicating things in my head.

The Princess Test. Maybe it really is a kind of number—one I’ll need to study, experience, and fight in the world of adults, beyond what I can learn from textbooks.