The Insult Letter

The other day, while I was thinking about Sudo to write about the field day, I ended up remembering things I didn't need to.

I became close with Igami when I was in second grade.
We got along very well and played together almost every day, but we were in different classes in third grade. After that, I started playing with Matsuoka, who was in my class, and it seemed like Igami became friends with Sudo.

One time at school, Igami and Sudo came up to me. I wondered if they needed something, but Igami just fidgeted and didn't say anything.
"You're here to ask for it back, aren't you?" Sudo prompted, and Igami, as if making up his mind, said, "Give me back the XX Encyclopedia."
I don't remember what the XX was, but it must have been something like Ultraman or Kamen Rider.
At the time, there were many thick, paperback-sized books titled "~~ Encyclopedia" released for children. They were published by Keibunsha and Shogakukan, and the Keibunsha ones were more popular because they had more detailed content.
The XX Encyclopedia that Igami wanted back was one I had traded for my own YY Encyclopedia.
"That's fine, but then give me back my YY Encyclopedia too," I said, and Igami nodded silently.

That settled it, but it didn't feel right to have someone ask for something back after we had already traded.
Above all, even though it was a matter between me and Igami, I didn't like that Sudo was the one leading the charge. Igami must have been put up to it. Thinking about that made me hate Sudo even more. I was also angry at Igami for being so easily swayed.
The more I thought about it, the more unpleasant I felt, so I told Matsuoka about the situation.
"That's not right."
Matsuoka agreed with my anger. So I prepared two sheets of memo paper and handed one to Matsuoka.
"Let's write terrible things about them on these and tuck them in when we return it. You write something too, Matsuoka."
"Sure."
Matsuoka's eyes seemed to light up.
I don't remember what we wrote anymore. I'm sure we wrote some pretty nasty things. After we both read them over, we tucked them into the middle of the XX Encyclopedia and took it to Igami's house.
It didn't feel right to hand it to him directly, so I put it in the mailbox and left.

In the evening, my mother brought the YY Encyclopedia to me, saying, "Something like this was in the mailbox." When I saw it, I felt that murky feeling in my stomach again, so I just took it and put it back on the bookshelf.

Three days later at school, Sudo and Igami came up to me again.
"You got the YY Encyclopedia back, right?" Sudo said with a smirk. Then the two of them looked at each other and smirked again. They were as unpleasant as ever.
"Did you look inside?"
"Nope."
"Hmm."
Sudo gave a meaningful smile and walked away. Igami didn't say anything and followed Sudo. Watching their backs, I spat on the ground. I didn't do it well and it got on my shirt, which made me even more annoyed.

When I got home and opened the YY Encyclopedia, there was a piece of paper tucked inside just as I had expected. It seemed to be filled with my insults and abuse. I just thought the handwriting was very messy and threw it away without reading it.