Apr 12, 2023
Seems like someone is a real womanizer... not just towards his energetic class representative, but towards a mysterious young lady from the store he's working in as well 😏
Still really mean from the girls of throwing the quiet girl's sketchbook into the mud. Hope Eiji gets the chance of bringing it back to her
The whole setup for this seems really classy to me ... 🤔 So just for reference later on, let me take a guess on what this would to develop into if we'd go after all the tropes: The quiet girl is the root of the curse. She has been bullied for a long time and her anger and bottled-up rage manifested into or attracted the malevolence that is surrounding the school. In his "first mission" Eiji has to follow the trail of breadcrumbs to find the demon/evil being (that maybe even possessed the quiet girl?) and exorcise it. There we'd have our into into the plot ... but let's see how far you stray from this most classical structure. Surprise me! 😉
I'm still not fully sure about my hypothesis with the quiet girl and Hatsue ... 🤔 By now the setup seems to hint very clearly at Hatsue being the soon-to-be love interest, but I mean you wouldn't be this obvious and simple with the foreshadowing, would you? 😅🫠 ... WOULD YOU!
Okay, I guess I just have to wait for the next chapters again 😂
[(Hopefully) Spoiler Warning on this lower part - heavy theorizing ahead 😅]
And btw. it didn't skip my attention, that Eiji is living alone now, but was "being taking care of [...] by someone else"(?). If that doesn't sound utterly suspicious. My theory about that was that he lived with Hayato and his little sister Yume (who was about Eiji's age). What if they ...
Oh wait, just as I'm writing this, I just had a real hot take: What if the quiet girl is NOT unknown to us, but actually non other that Yume! 😱🤩🤯 I mean this would probably defy my theory of Eiji having spent his childhood with Hayato and her: I mean he would definitely recognize her if they lived together. Or maybe he did, but just didn't talk because he is an edgelord ... that could make both theories turn out to be true and explains why he took her sketchbook (to return it to her later). But I don't know ... it would be a stretch of course. Maybe he didn't live with them and Yume recognized him, but he didn't recognize her ... 🤔 A possibility as well
But let's not get hung up on where or who he lived with, but rather talk about what supports this theory: Both girl's described features from the quiet girl and Yume coincidentally slot in together really well 😏
Yume's eye color was never described, the quiet girl has honey-colored eyes;
Yume's face shape was never described, the quiet girl has a rounded face;
Yume had a mole at her lip, the quiet girl did not have any skin blemish described;
Yume behaved really shy, the quiet girl behaved shy as well, while still trying to appear extroverted 🤔;
Yume is a year younger than Eiji, the quiet girl is a first-grader (I don't fully remember if Eiji's grade was explicitly mentioned, but he is either a sophomore or a senior)
Yume's NAME has been mentioned, while the quiet girl's name was never mentioned
Only their hair color is much different: Yume had light brown hair, the quiet girl black hair with red strands. But hair can be dyed - as far as I'm concerned, some schools in Japan even require students to dye their hair black when they have brown hair (at least the red strands are dyed, I hope we can agree on that). Nonetheless, it could even be a fashion choice or justified differently. I necessarily did a quite similar thing in my novel as some might know 😉
Lastly, I don't see a reason why the quiet girl would have spoken up to the gyaru, essentially trying to protect Eiji in the first place. She has no gain from criticizing the gyaru and probably knows that she is making herself the target of her bullying. You played it off as something she said in the heat of passion, but this could also hint at the fact that she knows and cares about him.
And let's be honest here: I think your narration has to bend a little in some places - saying that Eiji has been taken care of by "someone else" for example, to avoid saying who that someone was. Maybe I imagine this a little, but you also seem to avoid making Eiji talk with the quiet girl. It's really subtle and becomes only apparent once you pay very close attention to these circumstances.
You still did an amazing job with this though ... without the idea of Yume = quiet girl and the theory that the quiet girl might in fact be the actual love interest, I would have just taken those things as given. All of this (probably ... hopefully!) is a real peak plot twist preparation!
One thing I also remembered just now was the epilogue from 66 Hours, where a few of the characters from this novel were already introduced: A tall, brawny young man with abnormally spiky hair and a short girl with black hair, a bob cut and a red streak through her side fringe who seemed to be younger than him ... She also called the guy "senpai". I guess I don't need to tell you who we met there and who will probably important in this story ... we've got a few things ahead of us 😉
I think we already see a pattern emerge and that's a few coincidences too much for my taste 🕵️♂️ If we spin (supposedly) Yume's change in outward appearance further we can probably even deduce her character motivation and development. That she wears her skirt short, dyes her hair and in general tries behaving more extroverted could maybe have a deeper plot-relevant background we don't know yet, but if we assume my earlier theory of her (Yume + quiet girl) becoming Eiji's love interest is true, HE could be the reason. This contradiction between her inside and outside world with her COULD mean that she is trying to be noticed by someone ... by Eiji! He doesn't seem to care about anything that much (even not about girls or even young women flirting with him). If we suppose that Yume has an eye on him, this might be her try of making him notice it.
So what are the two options that might emerge out of this here:
a) The "other people" who took care about Eiji were in fact Hayato and Yume. He pays them a visit, casually dropping Yume's sketchbook at their place, trying to not get noticed.
b) The "other people" never get mentioned again and are not Hayato and Yume. Still, Yume recognized Eiji at school and tries seeking his attention through her new clothing style.
I was tending more towards a), but after reading the 66 Hours epilogue, I'm a bit split: The girl there called him "senpai", which is something you wouldn't use with someone who you spent your childhood with, bot rather with "just" an upperclassman. That would rather hint at b), but I'm hesitant to let this be the one splitting point, when it might as well be a misuse of the honorific. So I present both options to you without a decision on which I prefer, take it or leave it 😂
Oh man, you sick son of a meh! What a mastermind would construct something like this!! 😂😂😱😱🤯🤯
I think I've grown way too attached to this idea already. PLEASE, make this happen (even if my theory might be wrong 😂😅)! Just, don't make me disappointed! I want this so badly now and I am way to enthusiastic about how all of it will unravel now 😂
This would make Yume and the quiet girl the same person and BOTH my theories of them being love interests + my theory of Hatsue being a romantical red herring true! 😂
Uff, that was a long comment again (My thoughts up there might be a little bit convoluted, but I'm not even pretending to try and organize this more 😂) ... I'm feeling really positive about this theory, though ... maybe I should add a spoiler warning at the top ... that's how determined I am right now! 😂
Have a great day, hope I didn't shatter your dreams 😅
