A more realistic take on what happened when Yuzu and Matsuri rescued Mei from the Udagawa Mansion, and the aftermath. In order to force the Udagawas and Mei's grandfather to cancel the arranged marriage, Matsuri uses her hacker skills to dig evidence of controversial investments made by the Aihara. It works. But cops still get called, and as Matsuri's mother picks her up from the police station, Harumin is faced with an unexpected glimpse into Matsuri's torturous home life.
Note: in this story, Mei tells Momokino about her engagement dinner weeks before it happens, and also tells her the fiancée is Udagawa. But because Mei has not attended school since then and Yuzu has been unable to contact her in any way despite several attempts, the gang decides to intercept her at the engagement dinner instead. The events that follow are from Matsuri and Harumin's perspectives.
Chapter 1: Crime
The night before the engagement dinner. Mizusawa household.
Click. Click.
Slurrrrp.
Matsuri's bedroom had no lights on, only the 2 big monitors and fluorescent keyboard and vertical mouse lights glowing in the dark. Late-night coding while drinking ice coffee and blasting some hypnotic techno tunes was her weekend hobby for sure, but this was a weekday. And Matsuri was exhausted tonight. It's 3:10 already, shit...I need to wrap this up and fast. She had been sifting through the documents captured from Aihara Academy servers since a week ago, searching for something. Something untoward, that could be used as blackmail against Mei's grandfather and all these rich people she absolutely hated.
Her goal was revenge; how dare Mei hurt Yuzu this way? Yes, she had kept quiet for months about Mei's bullshit engagement because, by the time Mei dashed from Yuzu's life, Matsuri was already going through the application process to enter Aihara Academy for high school. She was offered a full scholarship to attend the wealthy private school based on her top-notch grades and, let's face it, probably with the help of a recommendation by Mei herself. Mei had been surprised to find out Matsuri was on the gifted program at her public middle school and regularly ranked pretty high at regional math and programming Olympiads. Turns out Matsuri was brilliant and studied hard, mostly when no one was looking. So Mei encouraged her to apply to the school, as its escalator system could help the pink-haired girl get around Japan's tough university entrance exams. So Matsuri felt keeping quiet about the situation between Mei and Yuzu was best, at least at first. But now…this was just too much.
Finding out a couple of weeks ago from Momokino that Mei's fiancée was Udagawa himself, and all the details about how she broke up with Yuzu by letter, without a face to face conversation even…it enraged her. But not in an explosive way, as during the Summer camp day, when she overheard from Momokino and Shirapon that Mei had basically been two-timing Yuzu. No, this was different. Matsuri wanted Mei to pay for humiliating Yuzu like this; for using her and then discarding her like she never mattered. Yuzu was the first person to show Matsuri what friendship was like, and in Matsuri's mind, Mei's actions were threatening to destroy Yuzu's caring heart. But Matsuri would never accept living in a world where Yuzu's heart was broken into pieces…her kindness was something the girl held on to for dear life in bad moments. Moments like…No point thinking about this right now. C'mon, focus.
Matsuri flicked through yet another document. Hang on. With the document now back on the screen, she pressed her closed eyelids with one hand. Her eyes burned a bit, strained from looking at the screen for so long. Was this right? The eye-popping figure and the destination made it clear this particular rabbit hole was worth diving into. She started searching for related documents, set on solving the puzzle.
Hah, I see…Well, I guess for every crime there is a punishment Mei-san. And looks like you are about to get yours. Just in time.