“What… what do you mean, somehow! What exactly do you mean by somehow!”
“Like I said, if we find out who the culprit is, we just need to tell the teacher.”
“Huh?… Huh?”
Hagasaki-kun sat down again with a somewhat displeased expression, using the edge of the desk as a backrest. (The chairs in the chemistry lab are the usual box-type chairs, so they don’t have backrests. Thus, sitting with your back to the desk and using the desk as a backrest is a comfortable way to sit.)
“First, let’s confirm the information.”
“This time it’s about molestation. Do we know how many female students have been victimized? It hasn’t been made public, right?”
“A girl in our class said it’s the sixth one.”
Everyone turned to Kadomi-kun. How does he know that?
“Kadomi-kun, who’s that girl in your class?”
“Um… someone noticeable. She’s the manager of the baseball team… um, I can’t remember her name…”
When mentioned, her face kind of comes to mind, but her name doesn’t. What was it again?
“Hmm, well, that’s fine. Anything else?”
“… Anything else?”
“Other victims.”
“I don’t know. But that girl said, ‘I’m the sixth one,’…”
“Ah, I see. And there’s a girl in our class from the wind instrument club who said something like that, so I guess it’s around that.”
Hagasaki-kun continued the conversation, seemingly uninterested in this part.
“And the incidents all happened while going home, right?”
“Yeah, that’s right. The complete departure time is 7 PM, so it’s around that time, isn’t it?”
These days, long past the autumnal equinox, it’s already dark around 5 PM. At 7 PM, it’s considerably dark. If you take the main road in front of the station, it’s not that dark, but if you take one of the shortest routes from the station to the school, the streetlights are sparse, and there are few people around.
“Even if the wind instrument club stays a little past the complete departure time, most people leave school around 7 PM. So, even if you take your time, you’d reach the station by 7:20 PM at the latest.”
By the way, Maito is ‘taking her time,’ but it usually takes us about 12 or 13 minutes to walk this route. If we walk at this pace, Maito might find it a bit tough, so when we go home together, we walk at a more leisurely pace.
“… If it’s President, it’s 11 minutes.”
“Normally, a girl walking at that pace wouldn’t get molested.”
Also, President… Tsuge walks ridiculously fast, not just because of his long strides. If there were a high school girl walking at that speed, she’d undoubtedly be a monster, and perverts wouldn’t dare approach her, nor would they need to be advised not to.
“And then… from the day before yesterday, the teachers started patrolling.”
“That’s right.”
The day before yesterday… on the 27th, the teachers began patrolling. The teachers on patrol included our chemistry club’s Hibiki-sensei and a few others.
I don’t know the exact number, but some clubs were operating without their advisors, and some students who went to the staff room with questions couldn’t ask them because the teachers they were looking for weren’t there. So, it’s certain that several other teachers were out on patrol too.
“So, despite the teachers’ patrols, yesterday? Or the day before yesterday? … Another molestation incident happened, right? At least one.”
It’s possible there were two incidents in consecutive days, but normally, it’s one incident either yesterday or the day before. This information isn’t disclosed to us students, so it’s naturally vague.
“The teachers were patrolling yesterday too, right?”
“They were. I went home right away yesterday, but the teachers were there.”
There were no club activities yesterday, so Kadomi-kun apparently went home immediately.
“…By the way, until what time were they patrolling? I went home around 5:30 PM yesterday, and the teachers were still wandering around.”
Maito, it seems, did something before going home but still saw the patrol.
“…I left school after 6:30 PM, and the teachers were still there.”
I also saw the patrol and even greeted them normally.
“And today, it seems there’s an emergency staff meeting, but some of them seem to be on patrol. I saw a few of them leaving earlier.”
“…Um, so, we should thank the teachers for their hard work?”
Well, that’s about right. They’re probably taking turns as needed, but really, thank you for your hard work.
“Is that enough for confirming the information?”
“It’s fine, but Hagasaki-kun, are you planning to play the armchair detective?”
Hagasaki-kun, as always, remained seated, using the edge of the desk as a backrest.
“Rather, let me ask you this: do you think I’d try to solve a problem that can’t be resolved without interrogations or something?”
The answer is obvious: ‘No.’
Hagasaki-kun isn’t the type to claim he can do something he isn’t certain about.
In other words, this incident could be solved by a high schooler playing armchair detective.
…Well then, let’s see Hagasaki-kun’s brilliant deduction.
“First of all, think about it normally. If you were a pervert, would you want to get caught?”
“Maybe there are perverts with that kind of fetish! I wouldn’t know!”
“No way. If their goal was to get caught, they’d commit a more worthwhile crime. Are you stupid?”
After saying that, Hagasaki-kun received a reproachful stare from Maito, made an embarrassed face for a moment, then looked away from her and continued.
“…At the very least, the idea that ‘the culprit wants to get caught’ or ‘the culprit is trying to frame someone else by doing something that would get them caught’ is beyond what we can handle, so let’s not consider it this time.”
“Uh…?”
“We only need to think about things within our capability, and this time, it probably is.”
Thinking about Hagasaki-kun’s words.
Things within our capability.
A culprit we can identify by thinking.
…In other words.
“An inside job, huh?”
“Well, something like that, I guess?”
Hagasaki-kun replied to my words with a suitably nonchalant response.
“…Ah, certainly, it is strange.”
Amidst this, Maito raised her voice.
“Over there, sure, the streetlights are sparse and it’s dark, but it’s not a place with many blind spots, and there’s no way the teachers weren’t paying attention. The fact that there was a molestation incident in such a place means… um.”
Maito got stuck on her words.
“…An inside job, meaning, like, one of our school’s teachers…? Who on earth…?”
“…Ah, the cheerleading club’s advisor…”
“No, stop. It’s not that. And Kadomi-kun, why are you suspiciously pinpointing someone like that?”
“Well, that person often films the cheerleading club when they’re dancing… from a low angle…”
“…Can we pretend we didn’t hear that?”
Maito raised her hand in place of the head-holding Hagasaki-kun.
“Wait a minute! The culprit isn’t necessarily a teacher, right? The teachers are on alert for suspicious persons! So, it’s possible their vigilance towards students is lax!”
“Wait a minute.”
But Hagasaki-kun interjected.
“Hey, Maito.”
“Yeah?”
“What would you do if you were molested by a fellow student from the same school?”
“I’d use my legs, which can run 50 meters in 8 seconds, to catch up and give them a flying kick.”
That’s aggressive and commendable, but is she okay?
“Are there other girls like you?”
“There are! Definitely! Because the track and field club, basketball club, volleyball club, and wind instrument club all have the same complete departure time, 7 PM! If I’m in conditions to encounter a molester, then the much faster and stronger girls in those clubs would also encounter molesters and give them flying kicks too!”
That’s fine, but why did she include the wind instrument club among the sports clubs? Well, half of them are like a sports club anyway…
“…That’s fine. Though not everyone would attack, there would be at least someone who’d say, ‘It wasn’t a suspicious person, but a fellow student,’ afterward.”
Hagasaki-kun, with a somewhat indescribable expression, looked at Maito, who nodded and then clapped her hands as if realizing something.
“They might have been threatened.”
“If that were the case, they wouldn’t say anything from the beginning, and the molestation wouldn’t be discovered.”
“Then the student who did the molesting was in disguise.”
“If that were the case, the teacher would find them and become suspicious.”
“Ah…”
Maito slumped in her chair, using the desk as a backrest, just like Hagasaki-kun.
“Give up…”
It seemed she was giving up.
“Ah, I see.”
Hagasaki-kun looked somewhat satisfied. Well, I can understand the feeling.
“…Um, so, is the teacher the culprit…? The cheerleading advisor…”
“Kadomi-kun, stop it. That teacher is probably a good person at heart.”
Kadomi-kun followed up with his words, a naive yet cruel statement.
Does he have a grudge against the cheerleading club’s advisor? No, probably not. It’s just Kadomi-kun being Kadomi-kun.
“Well, it’s not impossible, but it would be difficult. Normally, teachers patrol in pairs.”
Now that he mentioned it, it’s true. When I saw them yesterday, they were in pairs. It’s better to have two people together for handling emergencies and communication.
“If a teacher were the culprit, it would mean both of them would have to be accomplices.”
“…Other suspicious teachers…”
“Kadomi-kun, stop it. Let’s stop looking for a culprit who doesn’t exist.”
I stopped Kadomi-kun for now. If this continued, innocent teachers would be falsely accused by innocent Kadomi-kun.
“…Sigh. Well, okay then.”
However, Hagasaki-kun was looking at me with a slight smile that was both satisfied and unsatisfied. What was going on?
“Alright then, Suzumoto. Your answer, please.”
“…Huh?”
Although Hagasaki-kun said that, I had no idea what he meant.
But Hagasaki-kun’s expression remained the same, and before I knew it, Maito and Kadomi-kun were looking at me with some sort of expectation. Stop it. Why are you looking at me like that?
After all, it was Hagasaki-kun who had been deducing everything up to this point. Why suddenly throw it to me?
…But, well, even I could figure it out.
Up until now, all the information necessary for the deduction had been laid out.