Episode 137: The Tables Are Turned

「Why is Takanashi-kun here… and even Yokogawa-kun?」

It was no wonder Yuzuki-senpai was saying that.

When we reached the rooftop door, we heard voices, so we took a little peek. For some reason, Takanashi-kun was there.

Even Yokogawa-kun, too…

Satsukawa-senpai is the one holding that letter, so he shouldn’t even know about this.

There are also two other guys I don’t know, plus that boy who put the letter in the locker…

「This is unexpected…」

Even Satsukawa-senpai seems confused.

While we’re standing here, the conversation over there is moving forward, and we can hear everything through the cracked door.

Yuzuki-senpai seems to be recording the whole thing with her smartphone, though.

「Anyway, Takanashi, we heard all about you from Yamazaki. Sounds like you were a real delinquent back in middle school.」

「Let’s see, what was it? Stalker… assault… injury… blackmail. Man, that’s impressive.」

!?

That’s…

So, Takanashi-kun really was that Takanashi.

He’s so different from the image I’d heard that I thought he was a different person.

「Sara, calm down. It’s okay, I don’t believe a word of it.」

「Me neither. More importantly, I’m sorry, but please let me listen a bit longer. I’ll explain later…」

Satsukawa-senpai showed a bit of a panicked look.

Yuzuki-senpai spoke up to calm her down, so I followed suit.

Hearing our words, Satsukawa-senpai seemed to settle down a bit.

To think that the great Satsukawa-senpai would show such a flustered and anxious side…

It made her look so cute, seeing that even she becomes a normal girl when it comes to the guy she likes.

But right now, the focus is on Takanashi-kun’s story.

Honestly, I want to hear a bit more…

「Todo-san…?」

Ignoring Satsukawa-senpai, who looked a bit surprised by my reaction, I focused all my senses on my ears.

「Those are lies spread by my childhood friend. I didn’t do anything.」

Takanashi-kun’s words felt incredibly right to me.

Childhood friend… he must be talking about Sasagawa Yuzuha.

It’s a famous story that that woman egged Yamazaki on to perform a public execution on Yoko.

If she’s a woman with such a twisted personality, it’s not strange at all for her to do something like that to Takanashi-kun.

If that’s the case, then the Takanashi-kun I’ve seen is the real one, and the rumors were fake after all.

「This is a photo of a sex offender being arrested, and Yamazaki’s in the background, right? Apparently there are other photos too. To think he was an accomplice.」

!!??

What’s that!?

If a photo like that exists, I want it!!

I’m sure Yoko would be happy… we might be able to get revenge on Yamazaki.

Thinking that, I couldn’t just stand still here anymore.

Sara-san and Natsumi-senpai… and for some reason, Todo-san?

Why are the three of them here?

Hayato, the idiots A and B, and even that guy I don’t know are all shocked.

「Sara-san… why are you here?」

「Kazunari-san, I’ll explain the circumstances later. More importantly, I’ll deal with those two who committed blackmail first…」

「Takanashi-kun, show me the photo you were just talking about! I need it…」

「What the! Why are Satsukawa-senpai and Yuzuki-senpai here?」

「Princess!? You’re just in time! Right now, we’re in the middle of unmasking Takanashi’s true nature…」

「Yokogawa-kun, what happened…」

It’s chaos.

I really want to keep pressing them about this photo, too…

Since I’m dealing with them using just one unreliable photo, I want to keep the momentum going before they can recover their psychological composure.

But everyone seems to have something they want to say…

I reflexively got irritated by the situation where the conversation couldn’t move forward.

「EVERYONE SHUT UP!!!!!」

I yelled with a voice louder than I’d ever produced before.

They seemed surprised, and everyone went silent at once.

I’ll apologize to Sara-san and the others later…

「Sara-san, for now, please leave this to me!」

「Ye, yes… I’ll leave it to you, Kazunari-san…」

Sara-san accepted it obediently.

Her face was flushed, and she was staring at me blankly. I wonder why?

「I’ll hear what Todo-san has to say later, so let’s put that on hold for a second.」

「Y, yeah, I get it… Sorry, Takanashi-kun.」

It looks like Todo-san calmed down.

「Natsumi-senpai… please look after Sara-san and the others.」

「I’m always the calm one, after all.」

Looking at the smartphone she was holding, it seems she was playing the role of the camera crew again.

Now, over to Hayato…

「Kazunari, let me talk first, okay? I won’t do anything bad. Part of it is just that I can’t stand listening to this anymore, but thanks to your talk, I’ve got something to press these guys about. It might be related to that photo.」

If it’s related to this photo, I want to hear it.

To be honest, I didn’t know how far I could get with just this blurry photo if they started talking back.

「Yokogawa, what the hell, man? Aren’t you on our side…」

「Huh? I’ve never once thought that. Besides, you’ve been using my name to talk to girls without my permission, haven’t you?」

The two of them look away from Hayato.

These two were doing something so petty…

「But that’s not it right now. Among the people you talked to, there was a girl who got caught up in a crime… You mentioned Sagawa just now, right? Why do you know the name of the culprit?」

!?

Whoa… is this photo even more amazing than I thought?

It’s really coming in handy, Yuji.

I’ll have to thank him later…

「We didn’t say anything like tha—」

「Oh, I’m recording the conversation we just had, so you’ll see if we play it back, right?」

Natsumi-senpai cut in without skipping a beat.

「「…………」」

They won’t be able to talk their way out of this. I’m recording too, anyway.

「Since there’s a high chance you two were involved with a person named Sagawa who was connected to a victim among the people you talked to… I get it now. I’m reporting this to the police. I’m sure the police will look into it.」

I don’t know if he was serious or if he had an intention, but once Hayato mentioned the police, the two of them panicked all at once.

「We had nothing to do with it! We really didn’t have anything to do with that incident!!」

「It’s the truth!! We only just found out about the victim right now!!」

They seemed incredibly flustered and started making excuses at a rapid-fire pace.

From the look of it, they aren’t lying, but this might be a chance to get info on Yamazaki.

「Do you have any proof that you weren’t involved?」

I decided to jump on the momentum.

But being on the other side of things, I really feel the power of the phrase「Do you have proof?」again.

In middle school, was this how the people who said that to me felt?

「Proof… proof… something… ah, on RAIN! There’s an exchange that shows we aren’t involved, so if you look at that, you’ll see!!」

In a panic, A pulled out his smartphone and opened RAIN.

「Let me see.」

Hayato took the smartphone and scrolled through the history while making sure I could see it too.

…There’s a command to spread rumors about me. Are these guys errand boys?

「Where is it around?」

A took the smartphone back for a moment and scrolled through the history. After waiting a bit…

「There, it’s right here.」

Hayato and I looked at the screen together again.

There, the exchange between the three of them remained.

『Don’t tell anyone about the Sagawa-senpai thing, okay?』

『Tell them what? We had nothing to do with it anyway.』

『She was a girl Yamazaki introduced! If anything, you’re the one involved.』

『I just introduced her. Sagawa-senpai just assaulted her on his own. I haven’t seen that guy since then.』

『Is that for real? Then why’d you tell us to keep quiet?』

『Hey, let’s stop this. Anyway, we aren’t involved. It doesn’t matter who gets caught, we have nothing to do with it.』

…………

This is an interesting RAIN exchange.

Since Natsumi-senpai is recording, I stop my voice recording and take a photo of the screen.

Including the group members…

I couldn’t help but smirk at the fact that such an unexpected piece of information fell into my lap, all starting from one vague photo.