Where Is the Mastermind?

Morishita Ran also stood up, looking as though she was going to follow him.

At that moment, Mikage Touji knew the truth was out. He crossed his hands in front of himself in a defensive stance and shouted, "What are you doing, Morishita Ran?!"

"Lady Morishita has caught the scent of love." Morishita Ran's formerly expressionless eyes now sparkled as she stared at the pocket of Mikage Touji's uniform. "A young girl's feelings, innocent emotions, a blushing face, and those confession lines she keeps revising. Hey, hey, Mikage Touji, let me see it too, please."

Did that look like a request to you?

Her burning gaze seemed ready to pierce through Mikage Touji's pocket and strike the love letter inside.

"Actually, I'm curious too."

Shiraishi Asuka, who had already left to get lunch, had somehow turned back. She pressed her hands lightly together and appeared behind Mikage Touji, her voice as soft as water.

"What?!" Mikage Touji was on the verge of despair. "How do you know about this too, Shiraishi-san?"

"Because you've been acting really strange today, Mikage," Yamamura Miki said seriously from the other side of the classroom, sitting with her legs together and tilted to one side as she raised her index finger to point it out.

"You kept adjusting your posture, sliding back and forth and side to side in your chair, and shifting your butt around frequently and quite noticeably. Lady Morishita could see it all from the back," Morishita Ran said.

"You shouldn't tap your fingers on the desk rapidly and randomly either," Shiraishi Asuka added with a smile. "That makes it obvious at a glance that something's on your mind."

"And you've been sitting at your desk all day without much energy, Mikage," Yamamura Miki said, delivering the final blow.

"..."

Overwhelmed on all sides by the three of them, Mikage Touji had nowhere to run. All he could do was sigh at the ceiling and accept his cruel fate.

At Mikage Touji's desk, four people crowded around it, their eyes fixed on a pink letter.

"So this is the legendary love letter? I can already smell the beating heart of a young maiden," Morishita Ran said, barely containing her excitement.

"Hehe~ Did you find it in your shoe locker, Mikage?" Shiraishi Asuka asked with a light laugh, resting her chin in her hands.

"Huh?" Yamamura Miki's face turned as red as an apple as she covered her cheeks. "I-is that how it works?"

"Actually, this is my first time seeing one in person too," Mikage Touji said gravely, lowering his head.

He had initially thought it might be some kind of prank, but then he reconsidered. Apart from Morishita Ran, no one would be bored enough to prank him, so there was a good chance the letter was genuine.

"Do you want to open it, Mikage?"

Yamamura Miki curiously examined the sticker on the envelope.

"I'm more curious about whether Mikage will accept," Shiraishi Asuka said, her eyes narrowing as she smiled knowingly.

Mikage Touji sat in his chair with his arms folded, thinking. He hadn't decided what to do—or rather, if it really was a love letter, how he should respond.

"Open it, open it! Love's script is knocking at your heart. Open the door to love!"

Morishita Ran still couldn't resist stirring things up, whispering in Mikage Touji's ear.

Mikage Touji suddenly turned to stare into Morishita Ran's wide eyes and asked harshly, "This really isn't one of your pranks?"

"It isn't."

"Do you want me to open it?"

Within seconds, Morishita Ran's eager expression had turned calm and placid.

"Do whatever you want."

"..."

"In that case..."

Mikage Touji patted his cheeks, took a deep breath, and picked up the envelope. He peeled off its seal. "I'm opening it."

"Mm-hmm."

The other three nodded solemnly.

"I hope it isn't some prank that someone came up with because they were bored."

A pink sheet of paper, folded with deliberate care, appeared before Mikage Touji.

To calm his nerves, Mikage Touji placed a notebook over the letter and slowly pulled it down, little by little.

First, he had to make sure this thing was really a love letter.

Curious, bewildered, thrilled, and feeling all sorts of other things, the other three silently leaned their heads over the letter.

Then they saw Mikage Touji's hand covering it.

"Even if it's a love letter addressed to me, isn't it a little rude to stare like that?" Mikage Touji narrowed his eyes at the three who were still standing there.

"No!"

Morishita Ran brought out her talent for twisting logic and said with a perfectly serious expression, "If she could write it and put the envelope in your shoe locker, that means the envelope already belongs to you. And if she was brave enough to send it, she must have been prepared for other people to see what she wrote."

"Mikage, girls can be very deceitful," Shiraishi Asuka said, her eyes curving as she gently wagged a finger. "If some nasty girl wrote it, I'll help you judge."

"..."

Mikage Touji turned to the last person.

Yamamura Miki's face flushed in an instant, and she stammered, "I-if you want to know who wrote it, Mikage, I... I-I can help you find her."

"So you're saying you absolutely have to read this letter?"

"Yes!" the three answered in unison.

Faced with three people who had thrown all pride out the window, Mikage Touji had no choice.

"You can't tell anyone else what it says."

"Okay!" x3

"And if it's a prank letter, you can't laugh at me."

"Okay!" x3

After getting their agreement, Mikage Touji turned his attention back to the envelope. He slowly moved his hand away, revealing the first line.

[I've been interested in you ever since we started school...]

All four hearts gave a sudden leap—not only because of what the letter said, but also because of the handwriting. It was small and cute, clearly not written by a boy. And if you sniffed closely, you could detect a faint fragrance mixed in with the scent of ink and paper.

"Looks like a cute girl wrote this," Shiraishi Asuka said, her gaze flickering as she looked at the handwriting.

"Mm!" Yamamura Miki nodded firmly in agreement.

"..."

Morishita Ran stared blankly at the envelope on the desk. After a moment of silence, she suddenly slapped her palm.

"So someone really did write a love letter to Mikage Touji?"

Mikage Touji's face darkened. So you really didn't think anyone could like me, huh?

"Come on, come on, keep reading!"

Morishita Ran kept slapping Mikage Touji's shoulder.

"I know, I know. Can you do that a little more gently?"

"No!"

Mikage Touji took another deep breath and slowly lowered the notebook.

The letter said, more or less, that the writer had been drawn to him ever since they started school, and that seeing him do all sorts of things made her heart flutter. Then it listed a series of specific examples. In the final paragraph, she wrote that she had recently begun to realize her feelings and wanted to meet him behind the gym at four o'clock on Friday after school.

Mikage Touji tilted his head in puzzlement.

No matter how he looked at it, this was a love letter. It was sincere and conveyed a young girl's innocent, nervous feelings for the person she liked.

But...

Mikage Touji looked up and saw three pairs of bright eyes staring at him.

Shiraishi Asuka: "Do you often go to karaoke with the class, Mikage?"

Yamamura Miki: "So you cleaned the whole classroom at the start of the school year and helped the person who wrote this letter?"

Morishita Ran: "You even make lunch boxes and share them with your classmates? Where's mine? Give it back!"

"How could I? When have I ever done any of that?"

Mikage Touji was starting to lose it.

Wait!

Mikage Touji pulled the notebook all the way down, revealing the entire letter.

After looking over the opened envelope once again, he narrowed his eyes, silently took out his phone, and called someone. After three beeps, a cheerful voice came from the other end.

"Yahallo! Mikage!"

Mikage Touji held the phone to his ear and said expressionlessly, "Ichinose, you left something at my place."

The four of them walked together along the school path toward the convenience store. Mikage Touji walked ahead on his own with a cold expression, while laughter rang out from behind him now and then.

"Can you stop laughing already? Didn't you promise you wouldn't?"

Mikage Touji stopped and turned to look at the three walking behind him at uneven intervals.

"Sorry, Mikage," Shiraishi Asuka said, wiping away the tears at the corners of her eyes. She passed by him, then quietly looked at him and added, "Still, I'm really glad."

"Glad about what?"

"Because you didn't get a love letter."

Shiraishi Asuka's blunt remark left Mikage Touji speechless. Before he could respond, she continued walking ahead.

"Um... please... don't be sad." Yamamura Miki hurried up behind him, her fingers nervously twisting together. She called out in a voice a little louder than usual, "Someone will like you, Mikage. I'm sure of it."

After saying that, she too jogged off ahead.

"Hehehe~" Morishita Ran drew out her laugh on purpose as she came over to Mikage Touji. For once, her usually impassive face showed a hint of delight. "I knew no one would ever like that delusional, lovesick Mikage Touji who likes bullying girls."

After tossing that remark at him, Morishita Ran hopped off toward the others like a little rabbit.

Mikage Touji fell behind and watched the three of them from a distance, letting out a heavy sigh.

Yeah...

He took a light-blue envelope from his pocket. It was a love letter with a heart on it too.

He unfolded the paper. There was only one sentence on it.

[I like you, Mikage Touji.]

Where Was the Mastermind Hiding?

The afternoon break on the day after the Midterm Exam.

By the windows in the Class 1-A classroom, several Class A students had gathered to exchange information about the previous day's exams in each class.

"A student in Class D dropped out."

The usually composed Katsuragi Kōhei set down his notebook and spoke first, unexpectedly. It seemed the news of a student dropping out had shaken him.

"A student named Kanji Ike," Hashimoto Masayoshi added, leaning against the window frame and deftly spinning his phone as he looked outside.

"Do you know exactly how he dropped out?" Katsuragi Kōhei asked, frowning.

The previous day, some Class D students had come to borrow points from Class A. Since they hadn't asked for much—only ten or twenty thousand points—Katsuragi Kōhei hadn't paid much attention. But that very evening, he'd received word that a student had dropped out.

On top of that, the timing of the request to borrow points had been strange. Why had they waited until the last class of the day to ask? Most importantly, a student had still ended up dropping out.

The situation made Katsuragi Kōhei uneasy.

"No. Something's strange this time. I tried to get information out of the Class D students by asking around, but they wouldn't say anything. In the past, I could get the information with just a few points," Hashimoto Masayoshi said, his expression growing more serious as his phone stopped spinning.

Kito Hayato, standing in the corner with his arms folded, reminded them in a low voice, "One of the Class D students hasn't been to class since the Midterm Exam. His seat has been empty since yesterday."

Katsuragi Kōhei frowned even more deeply. After a little thought, he reached a conclusion. "We need to investigate Class D further."

"I'll keep looking into it," Hashimoto Masayoshi said with a nod, smoothly slipping his phone into his pocket.

The sun blazed outside, and the roadside trees hung their heads, looking wilted in the heat.