Chapter 106

Mismatched (ちぐはぐ) is the one hundred and sixth chapter of Jibaku Shounen Hanako-kun by AidaIro.

Summary
The chapter starts where Chapter 105 left off with Hanako, Akane Aoi and Teru Minamoto standing near the ruins of the Big Clock. Teru is presumably summing up something Hanako just told him off-screen by guessing that the incident inside of the school and the school's time stopping were coordinated by the same person. Akane adds onto this by taking the chance to roast Hanako, saying he did nothing to help with the situation at the school and stood helplessly by as his little brother kissed Nene and kidnapped her. Both Teru and Akane insult Hanako as we finally get a look at the man in question, who is currently crying and wailing on the ground.

The color spread this time depicts Tsukasa, Sakura, and Natsuhiko within the Broadcasting Club room. Natsuhiko is sitting on a desk, wearing headphones and holding a smartphone in his hand as he lazily smiles at the camera. Sakura is sitting in a chair next to him, lowering her headphones with one hand as she gives the camera a somewhat puzzled look. Tsukasa is crouched close to the camera to the right of them, a wild grin on his face as he squeezes a pink, goopy supernatural creature in his left hand and holds a radio and pen in the other. The flavor text included within the magazine version reads: "A voice beckons from the darkness. But whatever you do, you mustn't respond."

Back to the actual story, Teru ties Hanako up with his special supernatural-binding beads and guesses that Nene was taken to the Clock Keepers' boundary. He states that, if she is, then they'll have to go there, too. Hanako, still crying and slightly drooling, feebly agrees. As Akane and Teru jump off the roof, dragging Hanako with them, Teru confusedly tells Akane that he thought that only Clock Keepers could enter No. 1's boundary. Akane affirms, saying that is "normally" the case. Teru asks him to elaborate, and Akane proceeds to explain that the entrance to their boundary usually only appears in a realm where time has stopped, essentially implying that, at least while the school's time is frozen, those who aren't Clock Keepers will be able to enter the boundary.

The chapter then cuts to Nene, who is first shown suspended in air against a dark backdrop. She notes to herself that she can't move her body, and tries to remember what just happened. Suddenly, she awakens, and we see her lying on top of a large gear in a puddle of water. Nene stares at her hands in confusion, before getting up, exclaiming in bewilderment that she can move as she shakes her right arm. A voice asks her if she's awake, and Nene turns around to see Tsukasa, who urges her to look where he's looking.



From atop a large gear, Tsukasa tells her that they're in the Clock Keepers' boundary. The boundary is a technological fantasy world filled with machinery and steampunk-like structures, reminiscent of the inside of a clock. As gears turn and steam rises around them, Tsukasa informs Nene that the flow of time works differently here, and that even though the time inside of the academy has been stopped, it still flows within this boundary. Tsukasa smiles after he says this, before telling Nene that they should go destroy the Clock Keepers' yorishiro now. Nene jumps in surprise, and inches nervously away from Tsukasa he walks closer. Unwilling to do what he wants yet unsure of how to escape this situation, Nene just leans against the pillar behind her and feigns to have fallen asleep again.

Tsukasa looks on confused, asking her if she died and smacking her cheek a few times. As he pulls on her cheek, Nene wears an expression of serene calm on her face as she tries to figure out what is going on. She tells herself she needs to figure out what she's going to next, and other important things like her rescue, what to do with the Yorishiro, and how to contact the others. Despite telling herself not to get distracted by unimportant things, however, she immediately stops to wonder about the kiss that Tsukasa gave her earlier, visible beads of sweat forming on her face as she does. She wonders if Tsukasa likes her, but comments that she's never gotten that impression from him. Then her imagination starts to get wild, and she vividly imagines her complicated love life as a shoujo manga, complete with gratuitous sparkles and red rose imagery. Tsukasa now looks much taller and older, and he speaks like some trashy rival love interest to Hanako, asking her if she belongs to his "big brother" and saying her lips are now his. Nene also imagines Hanako saving her, pointing his knife at his brother and saying he won't let him have her. Nene wonders if this is what Tsukasa meant by the kiss, and before she can get too swept up in her fantasy, she peeks an eye open to look at the real Tsukasa.

She finds that Tsukasa has caught some kind of wind-up mouse, and he offers it to Nene, asking her if she's hungry. Nene just smiles before closing her eyes and pretending to sleep again, looking somewhat disappointed as she concludes her guess was off the mark. She gets back to contemplating her next move, this time without the romantic delusions.

Surmising that Tsukasa wants her to destroy No. 1's yorishiro, she thinks that Tsukasa will have to protect her from all of the dangerous traps typical of a boundary until she does. Working off of this logic, she formulates a plan to pretend like she's going to help Tsukasa and have him lead her all the way to the yorishiro. And this is where her plan will kick into gear: the Clock Keeper, upset that someone is trying to destroy their precious yorishiro, will come fight Tsukasa and Nene. When this happens, Nene plans to betray Tsukasa and get the Clock Keeper to destroy him for her. Throughout this, the Clock Keeper in question is undefined, represented by a mysterious figure in a hood with a label over their face that reads "Clock Keeper."

Confident in her plan, Nene opens her eyes with a smile, only to find that Tsukasa has since moved into her personal space and is now staring at her point-blank with a wide-eyed grin on his face. Nene flails her arms in surprise and tries to distance herself from him, only to hit her back against a wall. She briefly wonders if he was going to kiss her again before berating herself to stay focused. Feigning confidence, she points her finger at Tsukasa and tells her she will only destroy the yorishiro for him if he agrees to some terms and conditions beforehand. Despite putting on her A-game, before she can start listing out her terms, Tsukasa wonders why she doesn't want to destroy the Clock Keepers' yorishiro when she has already destroyed the previous Yorishiros (No. 2's yorishiro, No. 5's yorishiro, and No. 4's Yorishiro) and asks why it's only now become a problem for her. Nene tries to act cool about this, but refrains from comment as sweat pours down her face.

Contrary to expectations, however, he surprises Nene by telling her that she doesn't have to destroy it if she doesn't want to, and begins walking away. He tells her she doesn't have to do anything she doesn't want to and that, in the end, it's up to her. Nene, somewhat hopeful, asks him if he really means it. Tsukasa confirms, but turns back to her with a sly smile before telling her that, if that is her choice, then she'll have to try and escape him, since it's his job to get her to destroy the yorishiro,

Before Nene can even say anything, Tsukasa suggests to her that they play a game of tag. He quickly lays out the rules, telling her that he'll count down from 10 before beginning to chase her. He says that if Nene can escape the boundary, then she wins. As Tsukasa considers what he'll get when he wins, Nene tries to interject and tell him that she never agreed to this, but Tsukasa interrupts her by saying that, if he wins, then he'll take the arm Nene uses to destroy the yorishiro. Scared by the propositions of Tsukasa's game, Nene makes a dash for it the moment Tsukasa begins to count down. Wailing and crying as she runs away, Nene whines internally about how she never wanted to play tag and panickedly wonders where the exit is. Eventually, Tsukasa finishes counting down to zero, and opens his eyes with a grin. He wonders where she went before beginning to trudge his way around the boundary.

We cut back to Nene, who has locked herself in a room filled with grandfather clocks and barred the door she entered from with one of them. She thinks to herself that she will stay in here until Tsukasa gets far away from her hiding place. Suddenly, she hears a knock at the door, and a sound like a knob rattling. Nene jumps in surprise, but eventually hears the sound of footsteps fading into the distance, and wonders if Tsukasa has left. Unfortunately for her, Tsukasa pops out of a valve in the ceiling and spooks her, causing her to scream and flee. In contrast to Nene's terror, Tsukasa screams at her to wait with a big grin on his face. He's about to grab her when Nene suddenly ducks under a rod-like piece of machinery which then proceeds to slam into Tsukasa's face. Tsukasa is knocked backwards, and Nene takes the opportunity to run away. He isn't incapacitated for very long, however, and reacts with childlike amusement at Nene's trick before returning to his relentless pursuit of her.

Tsukasa eventually chases Nene to a place filled with some lifts or weights. And when Yashiro steps on one, it suddenly falls down really fast. Finding out the left to be an elevator, she uses it to go all the way down to escape Tsukasa, but little did she know that he used the exact same tactic, and just a second later, he is close to her once again. Shocking her once more, she escapes with all that she could. And while she runs away from him, she screams at Tsukasa to stay away from her, and he asks her why.

Arriving at a spot in the boundary, she sits down and takes deep breaths from all the running she did. She then peeks off a window, and sees Tsukasa just lying down one of the lifts and staring at the sky for whatever reason. She hopes that he stays that way. She then wonders why not a single Clock Keeper is around in the boundary, and that finding an exit seemed impossible, as wherever she goes, it's like she's going deeper and deeper. She then worryingly says that she wants to go back to Hanako's side.



All of a sudden, a large own-shaped clock starts cooing, and then it starts moving towards Yashiro is. Yashiro wonders if the large owl is a Clock Keeper, and the owl nozzles her, seemingly making her feel ticked. Then the owl bits Yashiro hand, which makes her tell the owl to stop biting, but in reality, the owl takes off a piece of her time, forcing her to revert to her Middle School Self



As Yashiro wonders what happened to her, several other big owls like the one that bit her earlier all stare down at her from the ceiling. When she sees them, she shrieks out, and runs for her life once again. However, she is unable to run away from them, and instead, the owls take more and more of her timespan away, which reverts her more and more. However just in time, Tsukasa comes in and destroys all the owls with very little effort. Afterwards, he concludes that the owls are actually guards created by The Clock Keepers to protect their boundary, and that they have gobbled up some of Yashiro's time. Or rather, that they took so much of it that Yashiro had been reverted to a toddler, which surprises Tsukasa. She then begins to cry loudly, which makes even Tsukasa cover his ears.

Yashiro complains to Tsukasa that she never did anything wrong, and that she didn't want to be small. Tsukasa asks her if she also turned little on the inside as well, to which she replies with constant flailing, which confirms his suspicions. Tsukasa decides that he will just carry her like that, and so the chapter ends.

Characters in order of appearance

 * Minamoto Teru
 * Aoi Akane
 * Hanako-kun
 * Yashiro Nene
 * Yugi Tsukasa

Trivia

 * Within the chapter, the "Clock Keeper" in Nene's fantasy is represented by a faceless figure in a hood. This might be because she is imagining Kako, who she has never formally met due to being deceased when he makes his first appearance in the manga.