Departing Message

Departing Message is chapter 144 of the Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai light novel series. It is chapter twenty-three of volume eleven.

Summary
At the end of the Winter holiday, the club members no longer had time for club activities however, they still met in the clubroom after to school to study. Maria was tutoring Kobato, Yukimura dressed as a maid and served the club as usual and Rika was reading her doujin. Kodaka managed to fulfil the requirements for his university of choice, though barely. Yozora has made it into the toughest university in the region, all while balancing her new butler job at the Kashiwazaki Estate with Stella. Though the others had attempted to have her reconsider, Sena chose the same university as Kodaka. Kobato performed well on her exams, and would be proceeding to high school. Maria would continue teaching, while Hinata, with an extreme amount of effort, managed to finally pass her exams and graduate. Aoi decided to go to a private university in the Kansai region, and Karin chose a Hokkaido university. Kate decided to leave behind her life as a nun and took up several jobs for money. Those being a restaurant, a moving firm and an electronics store. Kodaka honestly wasn't sure what her plans were. Everyone had decided what they'll do, and spent the rest of their days together until graduation day.

Graduation day arrives, and afterword, Kodaka, Yozora and Sena all went to the Neighbor's Clubroom together. The others soon arrived after. Rika brings up that they should hold a ceremony in the Neighbor's Clubroom after everything is said and done, to which everyone agrees. Rika begins her farewell address:

"'...Err... um, as everyone knows, Rika studies in the science room, and never ever shows up in class... except once when Rika snuck in among my classmates in order to fight with Yukimura... well, you could almost call that never, right... so as far as Rika is concerned, the time Rika spends in the science classroom and in the Neighbors Club basically makes up Rika's entire school life. Ahaha... if it wasn't for the Neighbors Club, Rika would have stayed in the science classroom alone all the time... no, Rika would definitely have stopped feeling like going to school midway and dropped out, you know... just thinking about it makes Rika tremble with fear...' Rika was still smiling, but in the corners of her eyes, tears were welling up. 'Yozora-senpai. Thank you for founding the Neighbors Club. Rika is sorry for saying all those overthe-top things to you... thank you.' She bowed deeply towards Yozora. Tears welled up in Yozora's eyes, and she sniffled. Rika raised her head, and turned her gaze on me. 'Kodaka.' '....' 'Ko...daka...' '...Yeah.' The tears welling up in Rika's eyes finally started flowing down her cheeks. 'Meeting you was truly great. Please continue being friends with Rika after graduating.' With my vision blurred by tears, I looked at Rika's tear-covered face and smiled. '...Does that even need to be said?' I replied softly, as I spent a great effort to maintain my smile. 'Um... representative of the student body, Shiguma Rika! Aaah... so embarrassing!' She made a bow and quickly returned to her seat, slumping forward on the table. '...as far as fujoshi's go, that was pretty well-spoken.' Yukimura whispered. Rika seemed as if she would start a quarrel, but remained slumped on the table, murmuring: 'Shut up... seriously..." Yukimura's eyes were also red.

Next up was the Thanksgiving address by Sena. Not wanting to do it, the club argues about who should. Yukimura states that since no one wants to do it, and Thanksgiving is over, that concludes the address. Next up was the teacher's address, given by Maria:

" Voicing her annoyance, Maria stood up and spoke: 'Hmm... about that... ah? To be honest, you are all poop.' 'Why you little...' Yozora smiled bitterly. '...In fact, though~ I was a bit of a poop before as well. I am a genius, so I still got into high school, but at that time I was a bit of a poop, so made some... a few... extremely many mistakes.' Maria smiled while recounting this miserable past, but seemingly with some nostalgia. 'You are all poop, so in the future you will also make mistakes. Since even a genius like myself is like this, you retards will definitely be even worse.' Her smile turned more and more kind. '...however, the day will come when you will probably... definitely be able to surpass these difficulties completely. No matter what challenges you encounter, they will be of no consequence to you. I am a genius, so what I say cannot be wrong. You are all poop, so the mistakes you make will be more numerous than for normal people, and you will keep on making mistakes in the future. But that also means that you are able to become even stronger than normal people. What I say is absolutely without fault. Having been able to spend this regrettable youth with you, has made me extremely pleased. It's been super-fun!' The advising teacher of the Neighbors Club, Takayama Maria, gave us a part-nun, part-teacher... and part-person-who-looks-forward gentle smile, giving us parting words of advice and encouragement. Mikazuki Yozora, Kashiwazaki Sena, Hasegawa Kodaka, "Congratulations on graduating. I wish you all an ever bright future."

Kodaka thought, looking back on their pasts, they hadn't necessarily overcome any huge obstacles, they had all climbed over many short walls to grow bigger. They had found compromise within their hearts. They all grew big and sat there, as normal people. They all began to cry one by one. Their youths had finally been fulfilled.