Excited Airi

At noon, on the tree-lined path leading to the student cafeteria.

Natsukawa Sosuke and Sakura Airi walked side by side. Sakura still habitually lagged half a step behind, but her stride was no longer filled with the tension and unease it had been before.

Just then, an energetic voice called out from behind them.

"Natsukawa-kun! Sakura!"

They turned around and saw Ichinose Honami jogging toward them with a bright smile. Her waist-length hair swept through the air in a youthful arc.

"I have some good news for you!" Ichinose reached them, slightly out of breath, but unable to hide the joy on her face.

"That stalker... was caught!"

Sakura Airi's body stiffened abruptly.

She slowly raised her head, her wide blue eyes hidden behind her glasses, and looked excitedly at Natsukawa before turning to Ichinose.

"This morning, the school security office raided that electronics store and detained the clerk on the spot!" Ichinose's voice brimmed with excitement. "They found a mountain of photos on his phone and computer! The evidence is irrefutable. The school disciplinary office has taken him away, and I heard he'll be expelled and handed over to the police! We... we did it!"

We did it...

It's over...

Those two phrases were like two rays of warm sunlight, piercing the thick, cold clouds that had gathered in Sakura Airi's heart over the past few days.

The fear of being watched, the helplessness of being threatened, the panic that her identity might be exposed, and the pressure of forcing herself to be brave... All those negative emotions had washed over her heart like waves, nearly leaving her utterly battered.

And now, all of it had vanished.

The cord stretched to its limit finally, completely relaxed.

Sakura Airi's eyes reddened at once. She bit her lip hard, not wanting to cry, but tears slipped uncontrollably from the corners of her eyes like pearls from a broken string, blurring her vision.

They weren't tears of fear, but of release, relief, and the joy of having survived a terrible ordeal.

She could no longer contain her emotions. The dependence and gratitude she had suppressed for so long burst forth all at once. She took a sudden step forward and threw herself into the arms of the person who had given her all her sense of safety and courage.

"Sniff... Natsukawa-kun...!"

She buried her face against Natsukawa Sosuke's chest, her cold hands clutching the fabric of his shirt as if she were holding on to the whole world. The sobs she had held back for so long finally broke free, turning into loud cries filled with boundless hurt and joy.

Natsukawa Sosuke stiffened slightly, then raised a hand and gently patted her trembling back in comfort.

Ichinose Honami stood to one side, watching the two of them embrace with a heartfelt, happy smile. Sunlight filtered through the leaves, falling on Sakura Airi's red hair and Natsukawa's steady profile. It was a warm, beautiful sight.

She was happy for Sakura, and reassured by how dependable Natsukawa was. Still, watching Sakura pour out every emotion without restraint in his arms, Ichinose couldn't help feeling a little envious—a feeling she herself hadn't even noticed.

If it were me... I wish I could do that too...

Natsukawa Sosuke stood quietly, feeling the petite figure in his arms tremble violently. Sakura Airi was crying like a child, letting out all the fear, hurt, and pressure she had endured during this time against his chest. Her warm tears soon soaked through a patch of his shirt.

He said nothing, simply holding her up. But at that moment, his thoughts had returned to the night before.

After receiving Sakura's message that the stalker wanted to meet on the rooftop, Natsukawa Sosuke knew it was time to close the net. He hadn't gone along with Sakura's "baiting plan," which would have put her in danger. In his view, making the victim face her abuser herself was already a failure.

What he had to do was pull the rat hiding in the gutter out by the roots, right in the lair where he thought himself safest.

Natsukawa Sosuke opened his laptop. He used no complicated hacking techniques. He relied only on the most common human oversight and the stalker's own arrogance.

First, he changed his laptop's MAC address to match the unique fingerprint of the stalker's phone, which he had sniffed out at Keyaki Mall two days earlier. To the electronics store's primitive public Wi-Fi router, Natsukawa now appeared, at the network level, to be the clerk himself.

Next, he took out the key piece of evidence—the Session Cookie he had intercepted two days earlier.

He imported the string into a browser extension and then visited Sakura Airi's blog. After verifying the cookie, the server immediately identified him as the stalker and let him into the backend, already logged in. He didn't even need a password.

The bullet was loaded.

Natsukawa Sosuke's fingers tapped lightly across the keyboard as he imitated the man's greasy, deranged tone and composed two deadly private messages.

The meeting place changed from the rooftop to the electronics store.

The threat changed from a simple request to meet into an outright threat to expose her.

All that remained was to wait. Wait for Ichinose to apply pressure through official channels, and for the school's security staff to follow the clues and arrest the criminal. Even if he deleted the chat history, it wouldn't matter.

That was Natsukawa Sosuke's plan. No bloodshed, and he didn't even need to show himself. He had merely given the stalker a gentle push from behind. The bullet the stalker had fired followed its predetermined path and hit him squarely.

"...Thank you."

The sobs in his arms gradually subsided, replaced by a grateful murmur thick with tears.

Sakura Airi slowly lifted her head from his arms. Her blue eyes, washed clean by tears, looked especially clear. Tear tracks still marked her pale cheeks, and her eyes were red, making her look utterly endearing.

She didn't immediately pull away. Instead, she gazed up at him from just inches away, as if she wanted to etch his image deep into her soul.

For Sakura Airi, the past few days had felt like the longest, darkest nightmare of her life.

At first, the private message had brought a chilling fear, like being coiled around by a venomous snake, and plunged her into an abyss where she was utterly alone. Then Natsukawa-kun appeared, like a beam of light splitting the darkness, and pulled her back from the edge.

Then came the first step Natsukawa-kun had encouraged her to take: morning runs. The burning in her lungs, the soreness in her muscles, and the embarrassment of running under everyone's gaze had each made her want to run away at once. But whenever she saw the unhurried figure ahead of her, never stopping, she seemed to find the strength to grit her teeth and take that first step toward changing herself.

When the secretly taken photos appeared, she had thought she was going to fall apart all over again. They were malice made tangible, proof that the shadow had reached into her real life. But this time, she wasn't alone. Natsukawa-kun's calm analysis and Ichinose's warm support had built a barrier around her.

The final threat to expose her nearly crushed her. No physical harm frightened her more than that punishment. She thought she would retreat into that trembling shell of hers again, forced to endure her classmates' strange looks.

But Natsukawa-kun's words, "I'm here," had been like a dose of reassurance, shattering the last of her hesitation and weakness.

She had chosen to trust him, staking everything she had on that trust.

And he hadn't let her down.

In a way she couldn't even understand, he had effortlessly dispelled the nightmare that had loomed over her.

Time and again, this person had rescued her from the mire of fear. He had never blamed her for being timid or mocked her for being useless. He had simply guided and protected her in the calmest, gentlest, yet most resolute way—and in the end... saved her.

This gratitude, this sense of security, had already gone far beyond the bounds of ordinary classmates.