Chapter 17: I Gave It Up

**I Gave It Up** is the seventeenth chapter of *Boku no Kokoro no Yabai Yatsu*.

## Summary

Yamada and Ichikawa are helping the rest of the students clean the hallways at school. Rin Kanaoya keeps hovering around Yamada nervously, trying to find an opportunity to apologize for hitting her in Chapter 14. When she finally decides to open her mouth, she distracts Yamada, who is cleaning windows, and she accidentally throws her rag outside of an open one. She and Chi go to retrieve it, and Serina asks her if she was able to apologize. Rin gets defensive, saying she didn't do anything wrong. Serina pressures her, bringing up that she has thrown the ball harder at her before, and that she witnessed her not picking up her eraser, which Rin replies is paranoia. Ichikawa cringes at the conflict, preferring a nicer atmosphere between the girls. Serina tells Rin that while Yamada may have come to terms with what happened, and is largely past it, she should still apologize for her own sake. Rin reacts poorly to this, and calls Serina one of Yamada's cronies, before storming off. Ichikawa wonders if people who don't know Yamada consider her to be self-obsessed or stuck-up because of her popularity. Serina, upset, glares at Ichikawa when she realizes he is watching the exchange, and he nervously goes back to sweeping.

Later that day, while in the library, Ichikawa realizes that Rin is there, looking anxious, and that he may be in the way of her apologizing. He begins to leave, but Yamada stops him, telling him to check out a new faceswap application on her phone. She asks if Ichikawa wants to use it with her, but recognizing that Rin will lose her chance if he spends too much time, he refuses, even though it hurts him to turn her down, and she seems upset at his rejection. He forces himself to leave, and attempts to take his usual position behind the bookshelf, but Serina is there in waiting, and pulls him in. Yamada then invites Rin to do the faceswap, and they do so. She then comments that she could make a much better one if her nose weren't busted up, which finally prompts Rin to apologize while dripping tears. Yamada, confused, asks her what is wrong, and Rin clarifies that she was the one that threw the ball, of which Yamada had no idea. Yamada tries to smooth things over with candy, but drops it all on the ground when fishing for some, prompting Serina to come out of her hiding place and help clean up.

Outside, Serina and Rin apologize to each other, and have a back-and-forth about Rin mimicking Yamada. Ichikawa is happy that he was able to protect the peace between girls. When Serina thanks him for helping move the apology forward, he also mimics Yamada, to her annoyance.

* A bonus page is Yamada talking to Serina and Rin, and how the two were friends in Elementary School. Yamada talks about how they gave off "punk" vibes and were harder to approach back then. Rin also comments on Serina's nickname of "Nyaa."

## Trivia

* Ichikawa's imagining of Rin's view of Yamada is her surrounded by her friends, asking for praise as they constantly laugh at her jokes. This is ironic, as Yamada constantly strives to be seen as funny or interesting to her friends, who she says often call her lame.

* As Serina witnessed Ichikawa reacting to her and Rin's argument, and then saw him turning down Yamada, which allowed Rin to apologize properly, she likely knew he was instrumental in allowing this to happen, and this helped to put him in good standing with Yamada's friend group.