#hell if anything despite the eyebrow-raising chorus lyrics i wouldn't be surprised if this mv still portrayed mu in an a sympathetic light

[milgrambles]

The It's Not My Fault thumbnail is out! Gorgeous art aside, here are my thoughts:

I'm starting to think that the girl Mu killed was bullied by her in the past.

Hear me out. We get very clear shots of three of the girls who bully Mu, right?

And then we see them (I think all three of them, but it's a little hard to tell with the darker-haired girl) in the group selfie on Mu's phone. These are her ex-friends.

Mu's groupchat has four people in it. Just enough for everyone in the photo, implying that the photo is the extent of this friendgroup.

...So then, who's the bystander?

It doesn't seem like she's part of this friendgroup, nor does it seem like she's part of the bullying either (she's comimg out of the stall when she sees Mu on the floor in front of her, so it seems like she's only there by happenstance). Why would Mu kill her? What's going on in this scene?

I have two possible explanations. Either Mu is reaching out for help here and she snaps when she's denied it...or she's apologizing.

We've seen plenty of Mu's true colors, both since the beginning of Trial 2 and in her first voice drama: she's bratty, self-centered, and insistent that she always deserves what she wants. Put that kind of behavior in a school setting, and it's...not difficult to envision her being part of a posse of bullies.

Let's go back to the It's Not My Fault thumbnail:

Of course, I can only guess what's actually happening here, but the girl on the right seems to be reassuring Mu, who looks rather concerned at whatever's behind her. Remorseful, perhaps?

Here's my theory: Mu and her friends used to bully the girl who'd become her murder victim. Mu grew a conscience and eventually objected to it, which led to her either having a falling out with her friends or becoming the "butt of the joke" of the group, constantly picked on by them for being an annoying nag.

When she saw the girl she bullied walk past her, she ran up to her and tried to apologize for everything. Her victim, perhaps seeing her as ingenuine or just not having any sympathy for her, pulled away...and we all know what happened next.

It's worth noting that the girl in the back near the fence in It's Not My Fault's thumbnail doesn't look like any of Mu's established friends or her murder victim. This could be a point against this theory, but it could just as equally mean that Mu and her friends bullied multiple people.

It'd tie into the lyrics of After Pain, too: "'I'm sorry' won't reach anyone" could refer to her victim refusing her apology, the other people at school still seeing her as a bully, and, of course, her friends picking on her. Interestingly, it'd also make her story very similar to Futa's, just told in a reversed order: we saw Futa's cyber-harassment first and then his extreme remorse, so if this theory holds up by next week, we'll have seen Mu's extreme remorse first and then her involvement in harassment.

Either way, I'm excited as hell!