“Can I take that to mean Hiratsuka-sensei is abusing her power as a teacher and engaging in nepotism?” “Eh?” Hiratsuka choked on Yuuta’s accusation.
Her throat suddenly went dry, and her face turned pale.
Worse still, she couldn’t deny it; forcing a student into an unofficial club using her teacher’s authority was the literal definition of abuse of office.
Yuuta didn’t stop there.
He stepped forward, letting his voice echo through the quiet classroom.
“This Service Club has violated various basic rules.
You are occupying a classroom that should be used by a more beneficial club—a club that might actually achieve something and bring a good reputation to the school.
Providing school facilities to an illegal organization that doesn’t even meet the membership requirements…
isn’t that a waste of public assets?” Yukino closed her book with a soft thud.
She stood up, her blue eyes staring at Yuuta with controlled fury.
She would not accept that the Service Club she founded was considered useless.
“A waste, you say?
It seems you suffer from intellectual nearsightedness, Yamabuki-kun.” “This club exists to change the world into a better place.
We hold the philosophy that rather than simply giving someone a fish to eat, it is far more noble to teach them how to fish.
We do not provide instant solutions for those who come seeking help; we forge them, teaching them to solve problems with their own abilities instead of blindly relying on the mercy of others.” Yuuta snorted cynically, a short, mocking laugh escaping his lips.
“Teaching to fish?
Changing the world?” He looked Yukino up and down.
“You are so arrogant that your idealism looks fake at a glance—even your acting isn’t as good as a third-rate con artist.
At least a con artist knows to stick to reality so their victims will believe them.
But you?
You’re just selling a fantasy.” Yuuta swept his gaze across the room.
“This Service Club operates in a sterile, protected school environment.
You talk about changing the world or teaching people to fish, but you yourself have never tasted the harshness of the real workforce or the dirty practical politics out there.
All this ‘independent’ rhetoric is just a form of teenage intellectual arrogance from someone who feels they understand everything when they haven’t seen a thing.” Yukino did not flinch.
She folded her arms across her chest, her chin lifted gracefully even as Yuuta’s words attacked her core principles.
“Your criticism is merely a projection of your own laziness, Yamabuki-kun.
You use your family background as a shield to avoid your moral responsibility as a human being who possesses capability.
You call it ‘sterile’ because you yourself are afraid to try.” “Just because your world is filled with cynical transactions doesn’t mean the effort to improve someone’s character here has no value.
To you, perhaps only numbers and power are real, but that is a pathetic form of blindness.” Yuuta smiled coldly, an expression that made Hachiman in the corner of the room feel a shiver down his spine.
“You don’t understand, do you?
Society builds a perfect world for the students here—a fair, free, and democratic environment where it seems as if everyone is equal and respects one another.
In other words, this school is just an ivory tower.
However, the harshness of reality can easily shatter this perfect fantasy in an instant.” Yuuta stepped closer to Yukino’s desk.
“Once that fantasy is destroyed, the people who have only grown up inside this ivory tower will collapse.
Real life is about accepting the harshness of reality; the harshness of work, the harshness of relationships, and the various messy chaos of life.
Only when someone experiences that chaos and is able to adapt to it can it be called genuine growth.” “And helping others solve problems for free?” Yuuta pointed toward the club’s nameplate with disgust.
“Isn’t this just working for others without pay?
That is forced labor driven purely by ‘kindness’ and empty ‘philosophy’ without any legal protection or compensation whatsoever!
You aren’t teaching them to fish; you are just building a new dependency under the guise of false heroism.” “…” Yui stopped in her tracks as she was about to deliver the tea tray.
Her hands trembled slightly, feeling the atmosphere in the room become so heavy that it was hard to breathe.
Sitting in his chair, Hachiman listened to every word with his unblinking dead-fish eyes.
Inwardly, he couldn’t help but agree with Yuuta’s perspective.
It was an extremely factual view of how fragile the school’s support system was.
Of course, Hachiman chose to remain silent; he wasn’t crazy enough to say that out loud and destroy Yukino’s pride, which was already under heavy assault.
Meanwhile, Hiratsuka began to regret dragging Yuuta here.
She hadn’t expected that a student who was usually so lazy and only wanted to be a “salted fish” on a normal day could become so passionate when trading arguments against a hardline idealist like Yukino.
The usually quiet club room now felt like an ideological battlefield.
Yukino stood tall, her blue eyes flashing with an intensity that was almost searing.
She took a sharp breath, refusing to back down an inch from her position.
“Your words are nothing but trash rhetoric from someone who has rotted in comfort.” “You call justice and my desire to help ‘arrogance,’ but aren’t you the one who is more pathetic?
You have everything yet choose to be nothing.” “You are a parasite who is proud of your host.
Justice needs no compromise with pathetic people like you.
This world is broken because the people who have power choose instead to stay silent and ‘enjoy life’ as you do.
If there is no one to stand up and show the right way, then everyone will end up becoming useless trash like yourself!” “Hehehe…” Yuuta laughed, a dry laugh that contained not even a hint of humor.
He looked at Yukino as if he were observing an insect under a microscope.
“How foolish can a person be to fantasize about changing others.” He replied with a dismissive tone.
“You can’t even change your own mother, Yukinoshita!
And now you expect to be able to change strangers you don’t even know, each of whom has their own complexities of mind and ego?” “If this isn’t a form of infinite conceit, then there really is something wrong with your head.
You don’t have even a shred of social common sense or a basic understanding of how complex human nature truly is!” Yukino’s body immediately trembled violently the moment Yuuta mentioned her mother and older sister.
Her face, which was originally porcelain white, now turned deathly pale.
“Stop!
Please stop fighting!” Yui cried out, setting her tea tray down roughly on the table, her eyes welling with tears as she watched the atmosphere crumble.
However, Yuuta ignored her completely.
He had no intention of stopping until every layer of falsehood before his eyes was stripped bare.
“Stupidity is a common thing in this world.
People who truly intend to change will do so of their own volition; they will seek out high-reputation mentors or learn from those who are already successful at the top.
Why should they come to a high school girl like you?
Just how great is your capacity?
Do you feel your mouth is coated in diamonds so that every word that comes out of you is a revelation?” Yuuta stepped forward, closing the distance until he could see the tremor in Yukino’s hands.
“In my opinion, the real reason you founded the Service Club isn’t for noble assistance at all.
This is just a form of compensation for your own powerlessness within your family.
You are trying to create a little kingdom in this club for the sake of gaining recognition and a sense of control that you can’t get at home.
You want to prove to your much smarter older sister and your dominant mother that: ‘I am greater than you think.’ Wrapping your personal psychological needs in the label of noble ideals…
that isn’t just hypocritical, Yukinoshita.
It’s pathetic.” Yuuta’s merciless criticism felt like a giant boulder thrown into the surface of a calm lake, creating destructive ripples that threw the entire depths of Yukino’s heart into chaos.
Those sentences almost felt like poison coursing through her veins.
Yukino was now truly ashen.
The bitter truth she had kept locked away in the darkest corner of her heart had just been forcibly excavated by Yuuta.
She felt an immense ache, a pain sharper than any physical wound.
She began to reflect on her original intention for founding the Service Club.
Was the “teaching to fish” philosophy she always extolled truly sincere?
Deep down, did she indeed harbor a haughty sense of superiority that looked down on everyone who came seeking her help?
Was she truly that arrogant?
Yukino had to admit, with a heavy heart, that perhaps the answer was yes.
All this time, she had naively believed that with the rigid philosophy and methods she held, she could resolve all the difficulties of others—and even escape from her own.
But now, in front of Yuuta, her entire fortress of conviction looked like a house of cards ready to collapse in the wind.