Yukinoshita’s Method of Correction [20]

“You said it was a symbol of your friendship, right?” Higashigumo Sugi asked, puzzled.

“It was a symbol of our friendship,” Yuigahama Yui replied, her expression complicated. “But after it got lost… it ended up being the reason we avoided each other. It ended up hurting our friendship instead.”

That was fair.

The plushie had carried far too much weight in this whole situation.

Not only had it kicked off the cold war between Satou and Kaori—it had nearly spelled the end of their relationship.

So when Kaori offered to return the plushie, Yuigahama hadn’t really wanted to accept it.

After everything they’d gone through, it had come to represent something heavier, more complicated.

And more than anything… she felt that Yukinoshita Yukino had been right.

If you can just express how you feel honestly, a lot of things become easier.

So she’d told Kaori directly: the plushie may have symbolized their friendship, but their friendship didn’t depend on it.

Even if Kaori’s own plushie had been lost, that didn’t mean their bond was broken.

And now that there was only one left, instead of letting her keep it, she thought it’d be better to turn it into a keepsake—marking the end of Kaori and Satou’s cold war.

“That makes sense,” Higashigumo nodded approvingly. “The plushie symbolized your friendship—and now, its loss is part of that friendship’s story too.”

“Yeah… Wait, huh?” Yuigahama blinked. “The loss too?”

“Both of your plushies got lost around the same time, right? That means you were both keeping them on your bags. The straps wore out together.” Yukinoshita calmly explained, “And you both noticed right away when they went missing. That shows how much they mattered to you.”

“Oh! I see now!” Yuigahama’s eyes lit up. “That’s so clever, Yukino-chan!”

“…He said it first.” Yukinoshita’s composure wavered just slightly. “Also, don’t call me that. It sounds weird.”

“But it’s cute…” Yuigahama trailed off, then quickly corrected herself, “I mean—Dongyun!”

“…Just call me Dongyun,” Higashigumo protested. “No need for a ‘little’ in front of it.”

“Hehe~” Yuigahama scratched her head sheepishly, then reached into her bag and pulled something out. “This is from Satou—he asked me to give it to you.”

It was a small wooden carving, shaped like a heart-shaped trophy.

At the center of the heart was a carving that looked like a hand—or maybe a dove.

Higashigumo accepted it. “What’s this?”

“A gift from Satou,” Yuigahama replied, then pulled out a handful of stickers. “And these are for Yukino-chan.”

“…I already told you not to—” Yukinoshita sighed.

“And this is mine!” Yuigahama held up her phone, showing off a tiny mushroom charm. “Kaori was busy working on all this while they were still fighting.”

After their interrupted date, Kaori had realized she should’ve handled things better.

But Satou wasn’t speaking to her—and she didn’t want to be the first to talk to him either.

So while Satou had been looking for the plushie, Kaori had been trying to carve something out of wood—a gift, using the same skill Satou was good at.

She’d wanted to use it to express her feelings.

But the moment she picked up the tools, she realized it was way harder than it looked.

She started with a mushroom as practice.

It was supposed to be palm-sized… but the more she shaved it down, the smaller it got. In the end, it was only good for a keychain.

Then she tried making a heart-shaped trophy.

But even the finished piece was still pretty rough.

So she decided to go with something simpler—stickers.

But once she’d made them, it didn’t feel sincere enough.

So time passed. She still hadn’t talked to Satou.

Not until the day Satou returned her plushie—and everything came pouring out.

“I thought things would just fizzle out,” Yuigahama said softly. “But then Satou talked to Kaori, and once he started, it was like he couldn’t stop. Told her everything. And then she asked me to bring over the gifts.”

“…Hah.” Higashigumo exhaled, inspecting the wooden heart more closely. He noticed the carving on the heart was much more refined than the rest—obviously, Satou had added finishing touches on Kaori’s rough piece while keeping her original work intact. “Too young to keep anything bottled up.”

“If they’d just been honest with each other from the start, none of this would’ve happened.” Yuigahama looked seriously at Yukinoshita. “That’s what you taught me. So this gift—you can’t refuse it.”

“…You’re clearly not going to change how you address me,” Yukinoshita sighed.

“And the mushroom too!” Yuigahama circled back to her earlier point. “Kaori wanted to give me something else, but I picked this. I told her it wouldn’t be a big deal if I lost it—and she said if I did, she’d just make me a new one.”

“So in the end,” Higashigumo said thoughtfully, “everything got resolved using your approach. Meaning, this round should go to you.”

Yukinoshita narrowed her cold eyes. “‘Should’?”

“Okay, okay,” Higashigumo said like he was pacifying a child. “You won. There.”

“No.” Her reply was frigid. “You won.”

Yeah… that didn’t work. Higashigumo realized then and there that blurring the lines between winning and losing was not going to fly with her.

“Um… right, yeah…” Yuigahama sensed the shift in mood and quickly tried to pivot. “Romance really is exhausting, huh? Even when both sides want to get along, it still nearly falls apart.”

“That’s youth for you,” Higashigumo said, flicking the wooden trophy with his finger so it spun like a top. “Sweet and sour, awkward and adorable. When you grow up, it all just turns into a resource exchange.”

“Hey, be careful with that!” Yuigahama flinched, worried the spinning wood might go flying. “And why do you sound so old? You’ll still fall in love as an adult!”

“Adults are busy,” Higashigumo shrugged. “No time for love—just skip straight to marriage.”

Yukinoshita carefully stacked the stickers together. “From the way you talk, it sounds less like you want to fast-forward to marriage and more like you want to skip to raising kids.”

“Wrong,” Higashigumo caught the spinning trophy and grinned. “I want to skip to the part where the kids are raising me. Like, boom—they hand me a bank card at birth and tell me to spend responsibly.”

“Good luck with that.” Yukinoshita shot him a sidelong glance. “Who knows—maybe someday you’ll meet a living ATM who’s willing to marry you.”

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This is a fan translation of 雪之下的矫正方式 by 微凉温热 All rights to the original work belong to the creator. Please support them by exploring their original work or sharing it with others if you can. Thank you for reading and supporting my efforts to bring this story to a wider audience!