Summary
A group of girls stand outside of the Science supplies room but none dare step foot inside. Yuu, one of the girls elects Asato to go inside, her refusal causes them to shove her in while denouncing her friendship. She and Hana go on to decide that from now on Asato will be replacing their current victim, a simple girl named Chiba. Anyone who speaks to her will also be kicked out of the group.
Asato can hardly fathom how she got into this situation. Just a week ago these girls were her good friends and she got along with them really well. They are pretty cruel to others outside of the group though; and they had a tendency to befriend a girl one day, then turn on her the next. It was probably bound to happen.
The girls lock the door from the outside preventing Asato from leaving. They insult her intelligence and decide to scare her by bringing up the rumor going around about the skeleton model, which is said to walk around after school. They take off with one last laugh at her expense, leaving Asato to wander around the room for the time being. She comes across the pristine wrapped skeleton model and is startled for a second, only for a teacher to catch her. She gets scolded and heads to class.
After school Asato overhears the girls discussing plans for karaoke and feels saddened that she isn't invited to go too. It's then Yuu realizes her hair pin has gone missing. The others recall her playing with it by the science room and she heads off to retrieve it, but the following day nobody has seen her. Their teacher asks for students to contact the staff if they know anything.
Asato recalls her hair pin and decides to head over when she gets a chance. Everything looks normal and the skeleton remains in its place, but she spots Yuu's hair pin at its feet and picks it up while wondering if the skeleton somehow got rid of Yuu for her. She asks but gets no response, when Hana suddenly appears to ask who she was spaking to. Asato's answer causes Hana to insult her for being a coward who sucked up to them. They complained behind her back all the time, about how she always went along everything in order to fit in. Asato is hurt by her ex-friend's cruelty and throws the hair pin at her before running out of the room. She slams the door shut and holds the knob so that Hana can't escape. Hana bangs on the door and threatens to tell on her if she doesn't let her out but Asato proclaims that she wishes Hana would go away. She is frightened by a blood-curdling scream and Hana desperately begs for her to open the door. Asato runs away.
The next day, Asato remains shaken as the class is informed of Hana now missing. Everyone is convinced the skeleton rumor must have something to do with it, saying that it appears to be looking for something. Asato says nothing but believes they are wrong; the skeleton is helping her get rid of bad people. It's her friend, so its perfectly fine to use it to dispose of her enemies. She stubbornly refuses to think otherwise as break rolls around, when Chiba approaches her to reveal that she cleaned Asato's dirtied gym uniform, which the girls threw in the trash recently.
Asato is surprised by her kindness, given how withdrawn she is and how the group used to pick on her. She asks Chiba why this is, but Chiba assures her that as someone who was cut off from her friends, she understands how Asato feels now. Observing her uniform causes Asato to realize that her friendship with Yuu and Hana wasn't real like she used to think. She never stood up for herself, she always went with the flow and never wanted to do anything that would make the others hate her, even if it meant letting them do things like copy her homework.
After school the Teacher gives Chiba some papers and asks her to deliver them to the Science room. Concerned about her safety Asato follows her but doesn't see Chiba by the time she reaches the room. She heads inside and worriedly asks the skeleton to leave Chiba alone, because she's nice. As she wonders what happened to Hana and Yuu, Asato decides to pull off the sheet from the skeleton to speak to it directly, but to her horror she discovers that it's now covered in flesh and stitches; except for the skull. While observing the body to realize it has a pulse, she turns to find several jars filled with various bodily pieces- one of which has an arm with fabric that she recognizes from the top Hana was wearing the prior day.
Asato recalls the rumors of the skeleton, saying that it has been searching for something. The skeleton has been collecting body parts to cover itself up so that it could find a friend.
The door shuts behind Asato as she observes the skeletons glowing eye sockets. She cries out for help and tries pulling the door open, but suddenly she's lost her voice. The skeleton appears behind her.
In the hall, Chiba recalls what tasks she has left to do after realizing how late it's gotten. She prepares to finish when Asato joins her and offers to lend her a hand. Chiba asks if this is alright, and once she assures her that it is, she happily accepts. Asato asks if they are friends, and Chiba confirms they are, unaware of the stitches around her neck.
In the science room, a bloodied corpse has been covered by a sheet.
Tropes
- Asshole Victim: Hana and Yuu, who string along girls and toss them away once they get bored. Probably counts as Karmic Death.
- Downer Ending: Asato gets killed after she finds someone she can genuinely connect with. But it's a Happily Ever After for Chiba and the skeleton.
- False Friend: Yuu and Hana to Asato, using her for as long as she was willing to let them.
- In the epilogue Yomi points out that the skeleton was never on Asato's side.
- Failed a Spot Check: Chiba doesn't notice the stitches on "Asato's" neck at the end of the chapter.
- Gory Discretion Shot: When the skeleton shows up behind Asato, the view switches to Chiba in the hallway. Then after she chats with "Asato", the view returns to the room to reveal a bloodied sheet covering a corpse.
- I Just Want to Have Friends: The reason why Asato offered herself to a group of girls known for bullying other girls who weren't in their group or were prior members.
- This is the skeletons motive.
- Lack of Empathy: Yuu and Hana. Asato herself begins to show this after both girls vanished, saying they deserved it.
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Moral Event Horizon: Hana brutally told Asato off and threatened her, so Asato refused to let her out of the science room. When she screamed and begged to be let out Asato chose to run away. By this point she saw nothing wrong with letting the skeleton get rid of people who hurt her. - Would Hurt a Child: The skeleton dismembered them for its own goal.
