“Since Koharu spoke up, of course we’ll go with you!” Yui Hori patted her chest.
“Um, also…” Koharu Miura followed up after Yui responded, “The last time we went, the security guard ended up chasing us away, right? If we could bring a guardian…”
“If an adult accompanies us, the guard won’t say anything, and it’ll be safer?”
“I thought of that when you messaged me yesterday! Exactly!” Yui replied. “No problem on that front! I already told my brother. He happens to be off today, so he can accompany us for a bit. With his build, standing there makes him look like a bodyguard—no one would dare cause trouble!”
‘That’s good.’
With Yui’s brother acting as their nominal guardian, they would be legal, public, and escorted.
This wouldn’t just make entry and exit easier; the anonymous person who had been reporting them wouldn’t be able to use the excuse that “it’s inappropriate for students to visit such places without a guardian” to target them this time.
This was also one of the things Koharu Miura wanted to verify.
If she countered an ongoing Fallacy with rationality, could she weaken its impact? As long as she could prove it worked, she would have more confidence in executing her future plans.
“Yui, your brother hasn’t gotten even more buff since I last saw him, has he…?”
“Well—it is that kind of profession, haha…”
Listening to her friends, Koharu quietly breathed a sigh of relief.
Shortly after the school bell rang, Koharu and her friends walked out of the school building.
The late afternoon sun cast their shadows onto the ground, vividly outlining the girls’ various silhouettes.
While her friends were chatting, Koharu pulled out her mobile phone and checked the chat window for the ID “ALISA.”
Though she had mentally prepared herself, Arisa Kiyono really hadn’t sent a single message since that cold “Better not come” from the previous night.
She didn’t know what Arisa was thinking or if the girl was briefly running away from the situation.
However… ‘I can’t run away.’
‘Arisa Kiyono—you can’t run away in the end, either.’
Koharu whispered to herself in her mind. She couldn’t stop now.
“Koharu, hurry up! My brother is waiting at the school gate!”
The call from ahead made Koharu subconsciously look up. In a flash, her friends had already walked several meters away.
Yui was turning around to wave, while Mio Sato and Yuzuki Yasuda followed behind.
Koharu took a deep breath, her face once again wearing that gentle and harmless smile.
“Coming!”
Regardless of what anyone else thought, there were things she had to do. Even if she had to ignore the other person’s rejection, she would head straight into the eye of the storm.
……
The train wove between layered buildings and the withered trees of late autumn. The rhythmic clacking of the wheels against the tracks felt full of life.
Koharu sat by the window, her head tilted as she looked through the slightly blurry glass, watching the station signs and gray houses recede rapidly.
The sunlight, gradually approaching the horizon, angled into the carriage, illuminating the scene inside the unlit car. It wasn’t crowded.
Aside from their group, there were only a few middle-aged men dozing off and two or three elderly people carrying shopping bags.
“Hey, have you guys heard? It’s been really restless around the school lately.”
As Koharu was thinking about chaotic details, Yui, sitting across from her, suddenly lowered her voice, her expression turning mysterious.
She leaned in toward Mio Sato and Yuzuki Yasuda, occasionally glancing toward her brother, who sat diagonally in front of them, boredly flipping through a fitness magazine.
“Is it some weird urban legend again?” Yuzuki pushed up her glasses, her tone characteristically detached. “Yui, if this story is boring too, I’m definitely going to pinch you.”
“This time is different! It’s real!” Yui waved her hands frantically, her short hair swaying with the movement. “My friend in the Journalism Club said that lately, after school, they always feel like someone is suspiciously lurking around the school.”
‘Hm?’
Unlike Yuzuki and Mio’s unimpressed expressions, Koharu’s pupils constricted slightly.
‘Isn’t that what Sou Kanzaki warned me about? Have others seen it already?’
She quickly focused on what Yui was saying.
“…Especially at the exit of the street by the side gate, the alleyway we usually pass to go to the convenience store. She said she saw several men in dark coats and masks. They didn’t look like parents or passersby; they were just lingering there, staring at the students leaving the school.”
“Seriously? So it’s a stalker?” Mio frowned slightly, her tone becoming more serious.
“…”
“I’ve heard people talking about it too. Someone already reported it to the school,” Mio said. “The streetlights near the side gate are broken anyway, so it’s quite eerie.”
“Right! And it’s not just one friend saying so.” Yui seemed encouraged by the validation and grew more excited. “They said those people look really strange. Some even said they saw them using telephoto lenses to take secret photos.”
Listening to the conversation, Koharu’s eyes remained fixed on the window, but her heart skipped a heavy beat.
‘The side gate… stalkers… telephoto lenses.’
These fragmented pieces of information instantly aligned with what Sou Kanzaki had mentioned.
‘It’s not just specific people being affected anymore. Has the distortion already spread?’
This kind of comprehensive surveillance, which had even caught the attention of ordinary students, suggested that the malice born from the Fallacy was nearing the point where it could no longer maintain its fake shell.
It was becoming increasingly anxious, increasingly blatant—almost to the point of destroying the daily peace of the entire campus.
“Speaking of strange things…” Yuzuki seemed to remember something, her tone hesitating. “Yui, you mentioned your friend in the Journalism Club, right? I recall that same friend saying last time that they heard singing coming from the empty music classroom after school.”
“That has to be their imagination, right? Our school’s music classroom is locked at 5:00 PM.”
“About that…” Yui scratched her head, her momentum weakening. “I also think that might be a stretch. But she said the singing was very clear—it didn’t sound like a broadcast, but more like… like a professional singer was practicing there.”
Koharu’s lip twitched.
‘If it were anything else, I might think it was fake. But isn’t the scene where I met Arisa Kiyono exactly like what she just described?’
“See, I knew it was just made-up stories.” Yuzuki chuckled and turned toward Koharu, who had remained silent. “Koharu, what do you think?”
“Eh?” Startled by her name being called, Koharu snapped out of it. She turned her head and gave her friends a slightly shy, somewhat troubled smile. “W-what? I was daydreaming just now.”
Yuzuki’s expression darkened. “Do you also think our school is shrouded in some kind of curse?”
“Huh?” Koharu stammered. “I… I’m not really sure. But hearing everyone talk like that, it does feel a bit chilly on the way home lately. Maybe it’s just because the weather is getting colder?”
“See, you’ve scared Koharu.”
“It’s okay, though, because my brother is here today!” Yui spoke up carelessly. “Even if there really is a stalker, seeing my brother’s villainous face will probably scare them off.”
Sitting in the front, Yui’s brother’s eyelid twitched. He helplessly flipped a page of his magazine and replied irritably, “Yui, who are you calling a villain? I specifically took time off just to protect you brats.”