“Yeah, I did. But I didn’t get anything like a message for you from him,” said Hashimoto.
“Time is limited. If you were entrusted with something, I cannot imagine there is any need for you to pointlessly keep me in suspense,” pressed Sakayanagi.
“No, really, I seriously have absolutely no clue what this is all about. Give me a minute here. Let me think.”
It was true that Hashimoto met with Ayanokouji, but he truly didn’t remember being asked to deliver a message to Sakayanagi. He frantically searched through his memories.
“Ah, wait, hold up… Don’t tell me…” he thought aloud. “Could that be it?”
“It would seem that you do have an idea of what it is, after all,” remarked Sakayanagi.
“No, well, I mean, that was definitely not a message though. It was just…” said Hashimoto, before snapping his mouth shut just as he was about to say the words.
“What is it?” asked Sakayanagi.
“He gave me one warning before going into the special exam. ‘Don’t lie to yourself,’ was what he said,” replied Hashimoto.
“You are a liar, after all. I suppose that is why he had given you that advice.”
However, that likely wasn’t a message for Sakayanagi, as Hashimoto was hesitant to say.
“Right? Honestly, there was nothing else,” he said. “No message or whatever.”
Sakayanagi thought for a moment. It didn’t look like Hashimoto was lying about this matter. On top of that, she couldn’t imagine that Ryuuen was lying about it either. There was no doubt that he had already given up on the exam, since he didn’t even watch the discussion. In that case, there was only one answer remaining.
“You were entrusted with a message by Ayanokouji-kun, but you were not informed that it was a message. That is why you cannot find the answer, even if you search your memory,” said Sakayanagi.
“What are you talking about? If that’s true, then there’s nothing I can do, right? I have no clue,” said Hashimoto.
“There is no need for concern. I will find that message.”
To do so, it would probably require maximizing the time for dialogue.
“Examiner, I will ask you this ahead of time. I will now ask him whether or not he is the traitor, and at this stage, I will only be asking how he would answer. Can I please ask that you not take what he says to be his official confession?”
After informing the examiner that she did not want the confession yet, Sakayanagi confronted Hashimoto.
“Can you tell me if you are the traitor or not?”
Hashimoto glanced at the examiner. The examiner nodded slightly in agreement, promising that anything said for now would not be taken as a confession either way, whether innocent or guilty.
“What are you after?” asked Hashimoto.
“I just thought I would like to speak with you. You said something earlier, didn’t you? You said that Ayanokouji-kun told you not to lie to yourself. Please allow me to confirm whether that is true. If you are on Ryuuen-kun’s side, then there should only be one answer here.”
“I’m not going to just carelessly believe you, no matter how many times you’ve made an announcement to the examiner. So, let me put it this way: If you ask me to confess right now, I might say that I’m not the traitor,” said Hashimoto, providing himself some insurance by being vague and noncommittal.
“I see. Then you were simply called here, even though you were cast into a different role. Is that right?” asked Sakayanagi.
“Yeah. I’ll tell you how I really feel,” said Hashimoto.
“I do not mind that stance. I feel that if you can tell me what is really on your mind, then I can get to the message. Shall we have a short chat then, before we get to the confession?”
Immediately after that, a one-on-one conversation between Hashimoto and Sakayanagi began to unfold, unrelated to the special exam.
“What do you want to ask me?” asked Hashimoto.
“Please allow me to ask you something that I could not ask the you from before. The old me would not have been interested in such things, but I believe that your character and thoughts are built upon your past experiences, Hashimoto-kun,” said Sakayanagi.
“Who can say? Maybe that’s true, maybe it isn’t.”
“Even if you are not going so far as to lie, are you unwilling to simply answer the question?”
“We don’t have the kind of relationship where we could talk about the past with each other.”
“Well, then, perhaps I will go ahead and take a few guesses myself,” Sakayanagi said. “I thoroughly investigate both allies and enemies, and you must be aware that you have some strange bad habits. Whenever you have a problem or are worried about something, you tend to shut yourself away in a bathroom stall.”
When Sakayanagi pointed that out, Hashimoto’s shoulders suddenly twitched at the thought that Sakayanagi, sitting across from him, knew about a habit that he had no intention of letting anyone find out about.
“Wow, that’s a major surprise, for sure…” he said. “How and when did you find that out?”
“I believe you may have already realized her identity, but I have had Yamamura-san investigate a number of things for me, for quite a long time. That is how I know you have been in contact with Ryuuen-kun on a regular basis and that you have spent a lot of time with him,” explained Sakayanagi.
“In that case, does that mean you also had Yamamura trespass into the men’s bathrooms?”
“Thinking back on it now, I suppose that I did force her to do some difficult things,” Sakayanagi said, not denying it but instead nodding in acknowledgment of the fact. “You shut yourself away in bathroom stalls when you have no business to do in there. Either you want some time alone to think, or that is a place where you can escape from reality. I suspect it’s the latter. I do not know if it was while you were in primary school or in junior high school, but I am sure there must have been some event that created that behavior. And, if we factor in your personality…there are things that become clear.”
Hashimoto responded to Sakayanagi cutting to the core of him with perfunctory applause and chuckled to himself as he filled in the blanks for her.
“It’s not that unusual a story,” he said. “A long time ago, I used to get chased around by people who didn’t like me. A lot. And, on the campus of the school I went to, there was this bathroom that was so dirty no one would go near it. I would hole up in there and do a lot of thinking by myself. I just haven’t been able to shake that habit is all.”
He could have lied, but he figured he’d tell the truth since it was just about this. Even if Ayanokouji had advised him to do so. He didn’t want to displease Sakayanagi by being thoughtless.
“You speak so optimistically cheerfully when you say that, but your past was quite painful, wasn’t it?” asked Sakayanagi.
“Who can say?” replied Hashimoto, dodging the question. Because, if he had answered it, it naturally would have dug up unpleasant memories.
“You had realized something through those experiences. You came to believe that it was right to betray others before you were betrayed yourself, and you learned that the art of survival was to lie in order to win. That is Hashimoto Masayoshi.”
“Don’t talk like you know. Don’t show me you understand, as someone who has never seen hell before,” spat Hashimoto. Slightly overcome with anger, he reflexively smacked his knee. “I don’t know what Ayanokouji’s message is, but it’s got nothing to do with me. I have to graduate from Class A. I need results. Results that’ll show those people who think that I’m nothing but a piece of shit that they’re wrong.”
Sakayanagi, Ryuuen, Ayanokouji. Hashimoto didn’t care, no matter who it was. He was going to graduate from Class A. With only that goal in mind, Hashimoto continued to fight.
“Enough of this already. Let’s just move onto my confession,” said Hashimoto.
“What will you do once we move onto the confession? You were told not to lie to yourself, and so now, you will confess that you’re not on Ryuuen-kun’s side and that you are the traitor. Is that what you’re intending?” asked Sakayanagi.
“Obviously,” Hashimoto replied. “If I say that I’m not the traitor, even as a joke, you’ll declare that I am the traitor and get me expelled, acting all high and mighty over nothing, like you slayed some great beast. There is no way I am going to let something like that happen.”
“Yes. I will not promise something like ‘I will not make that judgment, no matter what you say,’ either, of course. My answer to you is a definitive one: I will judge you as such,” said Sakayanagi.
“In that case, then this conversation is over. I—”
Hashimoto, who had tried to bring this dialogue to an end himself, went speechless as he looked into Sakayanagi’s eyes.
“What? Why are you making that face?” he asked.
Sakayanagi was wearing a calm, gentle expression, which he had never seen on her before. It wasn’t the kind of face someone made when they were mocking another person but a warm smile, like a mother looking over her child.
“Maybe it is because my understanding of you has deepened, Hashimoto-kun,” Sakayanagi said. “I promised Masumi-san that I would have you expelled. But…just now, I thought that it might be a good idea for me to reconsider that.”
“Huh? There is no way I could believe that,” said Hashimoto.
“I did not say that I would rescind it. If you are going to continue to betray the class, then the consequences are not over. But if you trust me and follow me, then things will be different. That is all that I am saying,” said Sakayanagi.
“Do you really think I’ll believe that?” Hashimoto shot back. “Of course you’ll betray me.”
“I am not so sure about that,” said Sakayanagi.
“You’re gonna trick me, catch me off guard, and then retaliate. Aren’t you?”
“Hashimoto-kun, please give it some thought.”
“You’ll obviously betray me. Definitely. I…have to defeat you…”
Suddenly, a droplet of water trailed down Hashimoto’s cheek.
“What is…?” said Hashimoto.
He didn’t even understand it himself, it was just so sudden. It was only when he wiped it away that he realized it was a tear.
“What the hell is this? There’s no reason to cry, so what’s going on?” he asked with a helpless laugh at the physical abnormality going on with his body.