Soyo-chan, Version 2.0—Courtesy of Me! [103]

"Momoka, Subaru, Chihiro, she..."

"Don't get involved." Momoka sighed. "Everyone has things they don't want others to know, right? Just like how, Nina, you wouldn't want people asking why you came to Tokyo?"

"That’s..."

"Anyway, don’t overthink it. At the very least, I can see it now—Tsuzuki Chihiro may have a lot of secrets, but Nina, your instincts about people aren’t wrong."

"..."

Meanwhile, Togawa Sakiko had no idea that Nina and the others were gathered, discussing none other than the girl standing right in front of her. All she knew was that she had to find a way to comfort this girl—this girl who had just been driven out by Soyo.

"But… why?"

"It's not her fault. I didn’t do my job well."

Tsuzuki Chihiro shook her head with a soft smile, concealing some details while ensuring she wasn’t lying. "Soyo is good to me, but I let her down."

"I didn’t accomplish what she entrusted me to do the way she had hoped. That’s why she’s upset."

"Your job..."

Togawa Sakiko had completely forgotten that she was just a store clerk and Chihiro a customer. All she wanted in this moment was to ask the questions on her mind—and to hear Chihiro’s answers.

"Chi-chan, are you talking about… cleaning?"

"Cleaning..." Chihiro raised an eyebrow. After a brief pause, she nodded. "You could put it that way. She wanted me to clear out the unnecessary things, to help her find the important things she had lost."

"But I think… even though those lost things are important, the so-called ‘excess’ in her home has its own meaning too."

"After all, they have thoughts of their own. Maybe they don’t want to be discarded so carelessly by Soyo."

"I see… That’s just like you, Chi-chan."

Sakiko didn’t quite understand what those "things" were, but she admired Chihiro’s gentle way of looking at the world.

Even when it came to inanimate objects, the girl believed they had thoughts of their own.

"Sakiko, what do you think? Do you think the dolls Soyo received—ones she didn’t like—deserved to be abandoned by their owner?"

"I feel like… if those discarded dolls were ever lucky enough to experience a night of revival, and gain human thoughts, they would cry over it too."

"...Yeah."

Whether past dolls or present ones, they all deserved their own happiness.

Chihiro’s words sparked a fleeting inspiration in Sakiko, but more than that, they reminded her of the day she left the Togawa household.

When she passed by the piano at home, she had taken something that, in the eyes of many, should have long been forgotten—her mother’s doll, a relic of the past.

"Sakiko… I want to perform on stage."

"Huh?"

Sakiko was caught off guard. She hadn’t noticed when their conversation had shifted in this direction, though she had been curious about it.

Almost instinctively, she glanced over at the three people standing nearby, wondering about their connection to Chihiro.

"Soyo told me, Sakiko can play the piano, right?"

"So she really did tell you..."

"Mhm." Chihiro gazed at the girl before her, whose expression was a mix of emotions. She stepped forward and took Sakiko’s hands in hers, feeling their slight chill.

"Soyo taught me how to play bass, but it seems she doesn’t want to go on stage anymore. I don’t want to watch her continue like this."

"There’s a live show tomorrow. I don’t know if she’ll come, but right now, we need a keyboardist..."

"Sorry."

Sakiko pulled her hands away. The moment she did, she felt a twinge of regret, but she still had no plans of returning to the stage.

"It’s okay." Chihiro had expected this. "Sakiko, it’s fine if you don’t want to go on stage. I just… I just want to hear you play. Even if it’s just a recorded track, I want the keyboard we use tomorrow to be played by you."

"That way… I’ll have more courage."

Courage...

Is that so? So even I, Togawa Sakiko, can give someone courage?

Hearing Chihiro’s words, a faint smile appeared on Sakiko’s lips.

"Alright. I’ll do it."

---

At the top floor of a luxury apartment building in Roppongi.

A girl sat on a large, empty bed, her gaze vacant.

Her name was Soyo. Her surname… well, it wasn’t Ichinose.

She hadn’t gone to school today. Just like in the last timeline, she had chosen to run away again. She used the same old excuse—saying she had a cold.

But unlike last time, she wasn’t anxiously waiting for a reply from Sakiko.

This time, she knew she had been removed from Sakiko’s blocklist.

Yet even though the details of reality had changed, the final result remained the same.

She had failed…

"Chihiro, I’m hungry… Oh, right. She’s gone."

Out of habit, she almost called out. Normally, Chihiro would grumble about her being a hassle while fixing her something to eat.

But now, she was alone in this house.

Nagasaki Soyo sighed and grabbed the phone she had tossed onto the bed.

She had been awake for a while, just lying there. Unlike in her last life, where Anon had bombarded her with messages, this time… well, she hadn’t even added that pink-haired nuisance as a contact.

What did surprise her, though, was that an hour ago, she had received several messages from Taki.

The content was the same as always—asking if she was coming to practice today.

Soyo, of course, hadn’t replied.

She had even opened LINE this time, which meant… Taki knew she was deliberately leaving her on read.

But none of that mattered anymore.

The one thing she couldn’t afford to let slip had already been exposed.

And what made it worse was that Taki hadn’t even been angry.

She could still remember the time Taki had confronted her—grabbing her by the collar and yelling at her. That was the day she had gone home, collapsed onto her bed… and then woken up a month in the past.

"There’s no second chance now... huh?"

"...Huh? Sakiko?"

She blinked at her phone screen, stunned to see a message from Sakiko.

And then she read it.

[Sakiko: Why did you kick Chihiro out? She told me everything. Do you really reject new members that much?]

[Sakiko: I won’t deny that the dolls you abandoned were important too, but please don’t hurt the new ones.]

"Hah?! That damn Chihiro… she went crying to Sakiko again?! What is she, her mom?! Why is she always tattling?!"

"...Wait."

She had been about to toss her phone aside and go scrounge for food, but she suddenly sat back down.

Her eyes scanned over the messages again.

Dolls… abandoned… new members…

"Wait, does this mean—Sakiko actually wants to bring CRYCHIC back together?!"

"...No, no, what am I thinking? I must be overanalyzing it. Soyo, are you really going to get your hopes up just to be crushed again?"

"But… what if I’m right?"

"No, no, definitely not. I’m just imagining things. I can’t afford false hope."

"Ugh… so hungry… Chihiro…"

"Right… she’s already gone."

That fact—that Chihiro had left—was the one thing she was absolutely certain of.

No doubt about it.

---

This is a fan translation of 素世同学，恭喜你被我优化了 by 杰克喵. 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!