Regardless of whether he made that reference to superpowers unwittingly or on purpose, it still made my heart skip a beat.
So what is he saying? What happened to the PSI drives? I wanted very much to tell him to get straight to his point and stop beating around the bush, but I couldn’t bring myself to interrupt a company president and so just continued listening intently.
“Shiori-san, you are our client. As such, I cannot imagine any reason why you would switch out the contents of your own packages with stones. After all, you could have just taken them back whenever you wanted to. Then as for me, I myself know that I did not do this. That left only one suspect. Accordingly, we hired a private detective to look into this, and this was what they found. Were the contents of your packages the devices shaped like swords and shields and various other weapons being made in our research labs?”
President Kaneyama then spread the contents of the manila envelope on the table: payment reference indicating the transfer of several million yen into an account under the name “Kinemitsu Sago”; a document detailing the address of the payer; a picture of the inside of a warehouse taken from the outside through a window, within which a spear PSI drive could be seen leaning against the wall; a page from an auction catalogue in English that depicted a drawing of a PSI drive, accompanied by a blurb describing it as some sort of artifact; a picture of a man who looked like me peering into a window of Kaneyama Tech’s head office during nighttime.
Naturally, I had absolutely no knowledge or recollection regarding any of it. So............ what does this mean exactly? Wait, has someone fabricated evidence in an effort to frame me?
In a fluster, I looked up from the collection of fabricated evidence, only to find the president glaring at me while declaring in conclusion, “I believe that Sago-san is the culprit, or at least someone deeply involved with the swapping and smuggling out of the contents of the packages. This is why I called the both of you here today.”
“I-I didn’t do it. I’m being framed!”
“All culprits say that.”
“I know right! The line is such a common trope that it’s almost the go-to response for culprit charac—no I mean seriously, I didn’t do it! It really wasn’t me! I’m not just saying it, I mean it!”
“Sago-san, calm down. Slowly, take a deeeep breath. I know that you didn’t do it, all right?” Kaburagi-san grabbed my hand and smiled at me.
Obediently, I took a very deep breath. But instead of calming me down, it only ended up making me even more agitated. The president was literally glaring daggers at me and the hand being held by Kaburagi-san. Forgive me.
“So clearly Kaneyama is trying to frame Sago-san, but how do you think we should handle this?”
“Wha—?” I was really surprised when Kaburagi-san suddenly asked me for advice, but then I noticed that time had been stopped. Before, the world during stopped time would be in pitch darkness if she didn’t previously prepare a light source, but now it was stopped in such a natural state that it took me a moment to recognize it for what it was. The world was as colorful as it usually was, and everything looked completely natural. The fruit of Kaburagi-san’s daily efforts was on full display.
“Hrm...... what do you think about the possibility that it was someone else who had fabricated this evidence and that President Kaneyama had just been gullible enough to fall for it?”
“Have you already forgotten what he said about the card keys? Since it wasn’t me and it wasn’t Sago-san, then he must be the culprit. I really thought he was a better man than that.”
Uwah, that cold tone and the dropping of honorifics...... so she’s that disillusioned with him, huh. What a poor...... but not really, no. I myself am literally just about to be socially murdered by him right now, aren’t I? Ok yeah, the only thing I’m feeling is anger. But what was it that I did that caused him to hate me this much? Was it the necktie? Did me coming over without wearing a necktie piss him off that much? No, no, no, that can’t be it. But no other incident comes to mind though.
“What motive could he possibly have for doing this?”
“Kaneyama is in love with me, isn’t he? This is very likely envy toward the close relationship that I share with you.”
“Uh...... so you’re aware of it? I mean, I had somehow gotten that vibe too, but......”
“Pretending to not notice and putting on a cute innocent act is against my sense of beauty,” replied Kaburagi-san without even the slightest delay. Then again, if she had responded with something along the lines of “Eh~ No way~ But I’m just so ugly, there’s no way he likes me~ (squirming delightedly)” then I would have seriously doubted her sanity. It was a relief to see that she was her normal self.
But still, trying to pull me down due to envy, huh. There isn’t even the slightest chance that a frame job like this would succeed, but I suppose the situation might not look that way in the president’s eyes.
President Kaneyama was under the misunderstanding that the relationship between Kaburagi-san and I was only that of an employer and an employed representative. Or perhaps he had dug far enough to think that I was someone who Kaburagi-san had introduced a bartending job to, and that she was a regular customer at said bar. But never in his wildest imaginations would it ever occur to him that our closeness was on the level of being the co-founders of a make-believe secret organization.
If Kaburagi-san and I were really just employer and employee, or even just a bar master and a regular customer, then all the effort put into fabricating all this evidence could indeed have been sufficient. After all, Kaburagi-san and President Kaneyama were friends that went all the way back to high school. Would she believe an innocent old friend, or a business partner against whom plenty of evidence had been gathered? The answer was all too easy to see.
However, the true state of affairs was hardly worth talking about. President Kaneyama had apparently gone to great lengths in an attempt to get rid of the strange new man who had seemingly come out of nowhere and gotten strangely close to Kaburagi-san in a suspiciously short amount of time, but all his efforts had been in vain.
“We had made sure to remove the fuel cells from all of the PSI drives that we stored here at Kaneyama Tech. Therefore, even if the PSI drives really did get out, at least we don’t have to worry about the worst case scenario of our superpowers being exposed. So then, what should we do? You’re the victim here, Sago-san, so I’ll go along with the direction you want to take. We’re almost at the 44 second mark, do you want me to stop time again so you can think about it?”
“......No, I’m good. As for the rest—”
Time resumed.
“—Leave it all to me. Can you wait outside for a while?”
“All right.”
“Shiori-san?”
While leaving the bouquet of flowers behind, Kaburagi-san shot a glance the temperature of Eternal Force Blizzard toward President Kaneyama before exiting the room.