“Regardless, she seems suspiciously disinterested in pursuing the culprit,” he observed. “I can’t help but feel that there’s something else at play here.”
“Um, like?”
“Perhaps the perpetrator has blackmail material on her,” he said firmly. What if Kaname feared that finding the culprit would be to her disadvantage? What if most of the graffiti was false, but part of it was true? What if the graffiti was a warning: ‘Cross me and next time I’ll tell the students your real secret’?
“It’s possible that Chidori knows who the culprit is and fears what they might do if cornered,” he pointed out. “They might know some terrible secret of hers that she doesn’t want revealed.”
Kyoko, who was somehow still listening to this, was genuinely impressed. “That’s incredible...”
“It was a simple deduction,” he protested.
“Not that part,” she told him flatly. “I mean, it’s incredible that you’re willing to believe such awful things about your own classmate.”
“But it would explain her reticence in pursuing the matter.”
“Yeah? But I think there’s a more obvious reason...”
“What do you mean?” Sousuke asked with a frown.
Kyoko gazed at him despairingly. “Oh, forget it. Poor Kana-chan...”
Yet Sousuke puffed out his chest at this. “No matter how tragic and terrifying Chidori’s secret is, it won’t sway my feelings,” he declared. “Even if she’s a weapons smuggler, a drug dealer... even an assassin for President Gorbachev...”
“She’s not gonna be any of those things!” Kyoko protested.
“Regardless, I must learn her secret,” he continued, completely ignoring her. “If it’s a scandal that could undermine her administration, I could nip it in the bud.” Sousuke pulled a gun from his belt. “Fortunately, I have an idea of who the culprit might be.” He pulled back the slide and checked the bullets in the chamber.
“The culprit... Dare I ask?” Kyoko asked.
“A boy from Class 2 that I met this morning.”
“That Shirai guy? How come?”
“He accosted Chidori at the station and made demands of her,” Sousuke explained. “He told her to ‘really think about it,’ and assured her that he was ‘serious.’”
Kyoko’s glasses slipped sharply down her nose. “I really don’t think that’s it...”
“Of course you don’t. You’re an amateur, after all.”
“No, that’s not what I— Hey, Sagara-kun, where are you going?”
“To see the president,” he declared. “I’m going to advise him to get Shirai to confess Chidori’s secret so that we can formulate a counter-strategy.”
Kyoko watched him go despondently. “Honestly. There’s no way Hayashimizu-senpai is going to allow that...”
Unfortunately, she was wrong.
After class that day...
Someone called to Kaname as she was walking down the hall.
“U-Um, Chidori-san...”
“What is it, Kazama-kun?”
It was a mousy-looking male student, Kazama Shinji, who was in the same class as her. He was gingerly carrying a manila envelope, which he held timidly out to her.
“What’s this?” she asked.
Kazama Shinji replied bashfully, “Um... there’s eight thousand yen in there. I-Is that enough?”
“Huh? For what?”
He took out a digital camera and fidgeted. “Um, I heard you were willing to pose for lewd pictures, two thousand yen apiece...”
Kaname hefted up her bag and smashed it down on Shinji’s head, taking extra care to get him with the corner. “Get the hell out of my face, you gross pervert!” The boy dropped his camera and slammed face-first into the wall. She gave his envelope of money a hard stomp, then strode swiftly off.
Tokiwa Kyoko, who’d been watching passively, quickly followed after her.
“Darn it, that’s the fourth one today!” Kaname exploded. “Why did Hayashimizu-senpai have to be right?!” The graffiti also explained her curious feeling of being watched earlier.
“Hey, Kana-chan, you sure you’re okay?” Kyoko asked, worried.
Kaname waved her off dismissively. “I’m fine. These rumors are no big. Everyone’ll forget them in a day or two. Besides, I’m used to this kind of thing.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. It’s kinda been my thing for a while now, y’know?” Kaname said with a laugh.
Kyoko didn’t seem reassured by her clearly forced mirth. She did, however, seem to remember something. “Oh, Kana-chan. During lunch break, Sagara-kun—”
Just then, a shriek rang down the hall.
“Oh?” Kaname mused.
She ran around the corner and saw Sagara Sousuke about ten meters away, dragging a male student along at gunpoint. The student was...
“Shirai-kun,” she said flatly.
Sousuke was trying to pull him into the nearby boys’ bathroom.
“H-Help me!” the boy cried.
“Quiet,” Sousuke ordered. “You’re just making this harder on yourself.”
Poor Shirai wept like a fool as he clung for dear life to the bathroom door frame. “I swear I don’t know anything! It’s true! Please believe me!”
“I told you to be quiet.” Sousuke gave Shirai’s hand a solid rap and finally succeeded in dragging him inside.
“Yeah, this is what I was gonna tell you,” Kyoko said.
“Oh, that idiot...” moaned Kaname, as both girls ran to the boys’ bathroom entrance and looked inside.
Sousuke had just dragged Shirai into a stall and closed the door. They couldn’t see them from their current vantage point, but they could hear threatening noises and Shirai’s pitiful wailing.
“Don’t kill me! Don’t kill me!” Sounds of struggling ensued.
“I won’t kill you. Yet. Whether I do or not eventually depends on how cooperative you are.” This declaration was followed by the sound of handcuffs clicking into place.
“Nooo...” cried Shirai, weeping in a high falsetto.
“Tell me Chidori’s secret and I’ll guarantee you respectful treatment,” Sousuke suggested. “A warm meal and a soft bed too. But if you continue to hide it...” he trailed off suggestively, followed by the sound of a gun being cocked.
“Wagh!” For some reason, this shriek was followed by the sound of a toilet being flushed.
The fact that the girls couldn’t see what was going on made everything that was happening inside the stall seem even more horrifying.
“Ah, this is bad,” Kaname muttered.
“Kana-chan,” Kyoko said urgently. “We have to stop Sagara-kun.”
“You’re right. Ugh... fine, let’s do this.” She’d never been inside the boys’ bathroom before, but Kaname steeled herself and took a step in. The moment her feet hit the tile, she was filled with a feeling of Ah, I’m unclean.
But there’s no time for that now! she reminded herself, striding up to the stall and flinging the door open. “Sousuke!” she cried.
Sousuke had Shirai sitting down on the Western-style toilet. He’d covered the boy’s head in a burlap sack, and he’d also just pulled out his combat knife. “Chidori?” Sousuke said, sounding surprised. “The girls’ bathroom is next door.”
“Yeah, duh!” she scoffed. “What the hell are you doing?!”
Sousuke met Kaname’s gaze unashamedly. “I’m sorry, but I have to find out what he has on you.”
“Huh?” she echoed. “‘Has on me’?”
“There’s no need to hide it,” he told her earnestly. “I already know the broad strokes of the matter.”
“What in the world...”
Sousuke held out a sheaf of papers. Its concise contents read thus:
Sagara Sousuke (Head of School Security and Aide to the Student Council President)
I give you full authority to pursue the matter of slander against Vice President Chidori.
Jindai High School Student Council President, Hayashimizu Atsunobu
“The hell?” Kaname asked incredulously.
Aide to the Student Council President Sagara Sousuke puffed out his chest and said, “It’s a commission from the president. I have full authority on this matter now.”
“This is the absolute craziest—” Kaname started to say dubiously, but he cut her off with a gesture.
“Everyone has elements of their past they don’t want known,” Sousuke told her. “But I must learn them, in the name of school order. No matter how humiliating the secret might be.”
“I bet you’re imagining some really offensive stuff...” she mumbled.
“Ah, you understand, then?”
They seemed to be talking right past each other.
“Chidori-san, save me!” Shirai wept to her.