Kiyoharu was a very orderly person in daily life. Shimaura Hitomi had noticed this long ago, so if personal belongings kept disappearing without a trace, it would inevitably put him on alert.
That was the foundation upon which the carbon pen swap plan existed.
If her senior had been a careless man, she could have simply stolen them. There would have been no need for anything so complicated. But if Kiyoharu truly had been that careless, perhaps Shimaura Hitomi would not have liked him so much?
Probably.
Liking someone was a very complicated emotion. It could not be changed simply by adding or removing traits. Shimaura Hitomi taught physics, and the essence of physics was summarizing the laws of the objective world and building abstract models.
Her senior could be pretty abstract sometimes, but he was hard to model.
The office was currently alive with grand discussion, and Kikuta Haruto had the loudest voice. Like Shimaura Hitomi, Kikuta was a teacher in the physics department, though he taught first-years. He had rarely appeared in this office before, but after Ayano joined the staff, he had started dropping by frequently.
The allocation of office space at Chihaya Academy had to take teachers' factional backgrounds into account. For example, everyone in Kiyoharu's office had relatively good relations with the Chihaya Family, whereas Kikuta had always been at odds with them. They had many political disagreements and plenty of overlapping business interests in competition.
"If you ask me, why do we have to go sunbathing on some deserted tropical island? A school trip should go somewhere lively."
Kikuta Haruto was an advocate of American-style education. Perhaps that had something to do with the education he had received in his youth, but in Kiyoharu's eyes, Mr. Kikuta had merely learned the American habit of