The Days When I Can’t Sleep at Night Because I’m Loved by a Yandere Woman - Chapter 26

Chapter 26 – Yandere and Literature

Since the last incident, I’ve been keeping a close eye on Tsubaki to see if she would do anything strange to Asai-sensei, but nothing particularly strange has happened.

Asai-sensei comes to work in high spirits, and Tsubaki is as usual, lasciviously entangling herself with me. It’s an overly peaceful everyday life, but that’s what makes it so eerie.

I hope that nothing will happen as it is, but it won’t be that convenient. I need to find out what Tsubaki is after and when, if at all possible. I don’t like to do this, but maybe I should try reverse stalking her?

“Senpai, what’s the matter with your serious face?”

“Whoa, Tsubaki… You startled me.”

“I was right behind you the whole time.”

“That’s scary, so don’t do that.”

Tsubaki is still smiling and laughing, looking the same as before. I wonder if she’s hiding her anger towards Asai-sensei behind that facade. Or maybe she has forgotten that Asai-sensei hugged me? Is that even possible?

“So, what were you thinking, senpai? I’m worried about you.”

I have a feeling that it would be bad for Tsubaki to know my intentions. I have to somehow deceive her.

“Ah, yeah… There’s this third-year high school student at my part-time job who’s not sure about her career path. She wants to go to the literature faculty, but I’m not sure if she’ll be able to find a job or not. I was wondering if Tsubaki, who is in the literature faculty, could give me her opinion.”

It’s true that there’s a student at my part-time job who’s been wondering about her career path, but it’s not my area of responsibility, so there’s no need to ask this question. I just wanted to somehow get Tsubaki off my back by talking about something random.

“I agree. It’s difficult to generalize, because it varies from university to university, but I think that choosing the literature faculty is an interesting choice. At least, I have never regretted joining the faculty of literature.”

“Heh… What does the literature faculty do in the first place? Literary studies?”

“Of course literary studies are a part of it, but… To begin with, the literature faculty is not a place to study only ‘literature’, but also ‘culture’ in general. That is why, at our university, in addition to literature, we have sociology, psychology, art, and linguistics. There’s also geography and art history.”

Is it possible to study so extensively? Although I only asked this question as a distraction, I’m suddenly interested in the subject. I want to hear more about it, since there is a possibility that I might become a teacher myself.

“What is your major, Tsubaki?”

“I specialize in Japanese literature. I haven’t decided on a field of study yet, but I’m thinking of writing my thesis on a work of modern literature.”

“When you say modern, you mean around…the Meiji to early Showa period?”

“You know it well. It was a time when many so-called ‘literary giants’ were produced.”

Huh… This conversation is so normal that I can’t even imagine it from the usual Tsubaki. From our previous interactions, I thought Tsubaki was just a psycho, but it seems that she can talk like a normal person.

And I’ve heard rumors that “Honjo Tsubaki is pretty decent as long as she doesn’t get involved with Takenaga,” which apparently may be true.

I had completely given up on Tsubaki until now, but perhaps there is room for her to be rehabilitated?

Be that as it may, I’d like to hear a little more about the literature faculty.

“I don’t mean to be rude, but how does literary research contribute to society? I mean, it’s being studied at a university, so it must be contributing to society in some way, but unlike science-related studies, it’s difficult to see its usefulness.”

“I understand how you feel. I didn’t really understand it either until I entered the Literature Faculty.”

“How did you get into the literature faculty?”

“I have to dig deep to find out what I like. That being said, literary research also has social significance.”

“What part?”

“For example, ‘The Abe Clan’ by Mori Ogai is historically valuable because it expresses the values of samurai society well. It would be interesting to find out how it has influenced the Japanese people of today.”

“I see.”

If you mean historical value, I know what you mean. People can learn a lot from history. Since human beings are creatures prone to repeating the same mistakes, it’s useful to refer to past cases in order to avoid war, poverty, unjust discrimination, etc.

Also, by learning about the values of the past, one can reconfirm what is lacking in people today and, conversely, the significance of the ethical values that people today possess.

“Another interesting story is Nakajima Atsushi’s ‘Gojo Tanni’, in which the main character is Sandor, the kappa from ‘Saiyuki’ (The Journey to the West). It’s a work that analyzes the strengths and weaknesses of Sun Wukong, Inoha-kai, and Sanzang Hoshi, as seen from the perspective of Sagojyo. By observing the various personalities of Sun Wukong, who is vigorous but rather rough, Inoha-kai, who is both noble and lazy, and Sanzang-hoji, who is poor but very compassionate, I realized how important it is to have diversity.”

“Hmm… Tsubaki, you make some educated remarks once in a while, huh?”

“Have you fallen in love with me again?”

“I never fell in love with you in the first place.”

I was almost impressed by Tsubaki’s long-winded speech, but when I think about it, she’s got a broken ethics system, even if she’s learned this much about a lot of things… Seems like it’s not worth it to study after all.

“You know, Tsubaki, I get the significance of literature, but if that makes you do something illegal, then it’s not very convincing, is it?”

“That’s not true. I used to be much more of a yankee, but I’ve come a long way since then. Even now, I’m thinking of ways to get rid of Asai-san legally.”

“Let’s change the “if it’s legal, it’s OK” mentality…”

Even now, Tsubaki is still quite anarchic, and she said she was even worse than this… What kind of acts did she engage in?

Let’s not think too much about it.

“Speaking of which, where do people with literature degrees go to work? Publishing companies?”

“That’s one of them, but there’s so much more. Everything from advertising agencies, real estate, logistics, finance, construction, teachers, and local government officials is also possible.”

“There’s a lot more variety than I thought.”

“In fact, the employment rate depends on the name value of the university. I hear that a national university like ours can manage quite well.”

“I thought about this before, but I didn’t expect you to think so much about your future.”

“Because it’s for our bright future.”

“What do you mean ‘our’? You’re not including me, are you?”

“Fufu.”

Tsubaki is still creepy, but the story itself was informative. I’ll have to thank her for that…

“Then please marry me for the price of the course.”

“The price is too high. I’ll sue the Consumer Affairs Department.”

“We can start by living together for now.”

“It’s not a concession!”

“Just this once, for now. Think of it as helping others, okay?”

“Isn’t that a common phrase among scammers?”

I was starting to feel foolish for even thinking about reevaluating Tsubaki. As I thought, she can’t be trusted. I guess I’d better keep an eye on Asai-sensei for a while…