The Rooftop

On Wednesday afternoon, Kanzaki Toru finally found a moment to be alone.

After school, Sudo dragged Yoshida to the gym, Horikita organized a study group with several top-performing students in the classroom, and a crowd of girls took Kushida to Keyaki Mall. Sakura Airi went to the sports field with her camera—she had recently started taking a series of photos themed "Sky Beneath the High Walls," and every day after school, she took pictures from a different spot.

Kanzaki Toru headed for the stairwell alone. He had memorized the location of the door where Sakura had stopped yesterday, at the landing. The stairwell was at the far end of the Academic Building's east wing, where few people usually went.

He walked up to the door. It stood ajar, and someone had picked the lock, leaving several fresh scratches in the metal. He pushed it open. A narrow staircase led to the rooftop. Dust drifted slowly through the rays of the setting sun, and the air carried a faint smell of rust.

The rooftop door was ajar too. He pushed it open, and the April wind rushed toward him.

The view from the rooftop was better than he had imagined. The entire campus lay before him—the Academic Building complex and the glass dome of Keyaki Mall to the south, the sports field and gymnasium to the north, and, farther away, the gray-white high wall, its dense coils of barbed wire reflecting the cold light of the setting sun. A few abandoned desks and a rusty folding chair were scattered across the rooftop.

Kanzaki Toru walked to the edge of the rooftop, rested his hands on the railing, and looked down over the campus. This was an excellent observation point. Not for watching the scenery, but for watching people. From the students playing soccer on the sports field to the crowds coming and going outside the shopping mall, from students entering and leaving the library to the girls chatting beneath the dormitory—the rooftop's vantage point covered nearly half the campus's daily foot traffic.

He noticed Sakura Airi crouching beneath a cherry tree at the edge of the sports field, tilting her head up as she snapped a picture of its crown. From this angle, she looked especially small.

There were signs that others had been on the rooftop. Beside the folding chair lay a cigarette butt. It wasn't fresh; the wind had already scattered the ashes, but a faint smell of tar still clung to the filter. A few scribbled characters had been carved into the chair's armrest, though they were too blurry to make out.

He returned to the stairwell and carefully examined the door someone had picked. The scratches on the lock were fresh, probably made in the last few days. Whoever had picked it wasn't very skilled—not a professional. The rooftop's secret wasn't one person's secret, but several people's. It was clear that more than one person had used this place. The cigarette butt might have belonged to an upperclassman, or to someone in Class D who secretly smoked. Sudo and Yoshida didn't smoke, but he wasn't sure about Ishizaki, the blond guy. What interested him more, however, was the folding chair. It faced the rooftop's best vantage point, and there was no dust on the seat, which meant someone had sat there recently. And its position—facing the sports field, slightly to the west—offered a clear view of the row of benches at the field's edge.

The very place where Sakura Airi spent her time after school every day.

He didn't linger on the rooftop. After going downstairs, he left the door ajar just as he had found it, then headed to the library. It was quiet inside, with a few students scattered around the corners, reading. Hirata Yosuke sat by the window, an open book in front of him as he turned its pages, absorbed in reading. Kanzaki Toru didn't disturb him and went straight to the reference section.

Among the materials left behind by previous students, he found an unremarkable photo album. Inside were pictures taken by a student several years ago. In the bottom-right corner of one page was a photo of the rooftop. It looked almost exactly as it did now—a folding chair in the same spot, with a student whose face was impossible to make out sitting in it and watching the crowd below. On the back of the photo, a line of tiny writing read: "You're never the only observer."

He put the album back on the shelf.

You're never the only observer. The words were like a code, passed down across the years. Who was sitting in the folding chair on the rooftop now? What were they watching? A particular person, or the whole campus? If it was the former, then the person being watched might well include Sakura Airi.

By the time he left the library, it was nearly dark. Most of the people had left the sports field, but Sakura Airi was still sitting on a bench, looking through the pictures she had taken that day. Kanzaki Toru walked over to her.

"What did you get?"

Sakura looked up. She wasn't wearing her hat, and her purple eyes looked especially clear beneath the streetlights. She handed him her camera. "...The light was especially good today. Most of the cherry blossoms have fallen, and only a few clusters remain in the canopy. The setting sun just happened to shine through them from the side." Her voice was soft, but when she talked about photography, it grew steadier. She no longer spoke in fits and starts, and her sentences flowed smoothly.

Kanzaki Toru looked through the pictures. She had a real gift for composition—not the kind of standard, textbook arrangement, but a play of colors charged with personal emotion. A vast expanse of pink sky filled the frame, yet the subject was a bare cherry tree on the verge of losing its blossoms. Sunlight fell through gaps in its sparse branches and onto the ground, where a tiny student stood in the shadows. The whole photograph felt like an unfinished sentence, one that made you want to continue it.

"You don't take many pictures of people."

Sakura lowered her head. "...People are hard to photograph. Their expressions are always changing, and you never know when they're being genuine."

Kanzaki Toru handed the camera back and sat down on the bench beside her. Sakura gave a slight start, but showed no sign of discomfort. In the past, whenever someone sat too close, she would instinctively lean a few centimeters away. She didn't do that today.

"If someone took pictures of you without your knowledge one day, what would you do?" Kanzaki Toru asked suddenly.

Sakura blinked. "...I don't think anyone would take pictures of me."

"Just suppose they did."

Sakura fell silent for a while, absentmindedly fiddling with the camera's zoom ring. "If they were taking pictures without my knowledge... I probably wouldn't notice. If I did, then they probably weren't very good at it." She looked up at him. "Why are you asking, Kanzaki?"

"Just curious. Come on, it's getting dark."

He stood up without saying anything more. Sakura put away her camera and followed him. As they left the sports field, Kanzaki Toru glanced toward the roof of the Academic Building's east wing. Behind the railing at the edge of the rooftop stood a blurry figure. It was too far away to make out a face, but he could tell the figure's build. It wasn't Ishizaki, Yoshida, or any other boy he knew.

The figure stood there motionless, like a statue. Then, just as night fell, it turned and disappeared.

Kanzaki turned his gaze away.

After school on Thursday, he went to the rooftop for the second time. This time, he brought a lock—not to lock the door, but to test something. If he locked the door when he left and it was open again the next day, that would mean someone else was using this place regularly too.

As he examined the lock in the stairwell, footsteps suddenly sounded from below. More than one person was coming, and he heard voices. He set down the lock and leaned against the stairwell wall, sinking into the shadows.

The footsteps drew closer. A boy and a girl.

"...Are you sure this is the place?"

"Of course I am. I've been here plenty of times." It was Ishizaki's voice. The tall blond guy had been hanging around Sudo a lot lately.

"Won't we get caught?"

"Relax. Nobody ever comes to this stairwell. The rooftop has a great view, and no one bothers us."

The door swung open, and the two of them came in. Ishizaki was in front, with a girl following behind him. Kanzaki knew her—she was in Class C and was called Yamauchi. He had seen her in the hallway a few times. They went up to the rooftop, and their voices gradually faded.

Kanzaki Toru stood in the shadows of the stairwell for a while, then silently opened the door and went downstairs. Ishizaki was using the rooftop for dates. The cigarette butt probably belonged to him too. He wasn't an observer, just a delinquent looking for somewhere private. That meant the real observer was someone else.

As he left the Academic Building, he ran into Horikita Suzune.

She had just turned away from the vending machine, a can of black coffee in her hand. When she saw him, she frowned slightly. "You came out of the east stairwell? Nobody usually uses that one."

"I was looking for a quiet corner to think," Kanzaki Toru said. "You drink black coffee?"

"Sugar and creamer are unnecessary. Pure things don't need anything added." Horikita cracked open the can and took a sip, then looked at him. "You look like you're thinking about something unnecessary."

"I was wondering if you could help me look into something."

Horikita raised an eyebrow. She neither agreed nor refused.

"There's a clause in the student handbook's appendix that says students' personal conduct during school will be recorded. I want to know exactly how. Is it through terminal tracking? Surveillance cameras? Or something else? You're the one who examines the rules in our class most carefully."

"Surveillance cameras, library borrowing records, terminal purchase records, attendance data, and cameras covering the public areas of the gymnasium and Academic Building," Horikita said. "The student handbook doesn't say so directly, but you can infer it from the combined security and privacy regulations."

"What about inside the dormitories?"

"There are no cameras inside the dormitories."

"And the rooftop?"

Horikita paused. "The rooftop isn't considered a public activity area, so in theory, it isn't covered by surveillance."

"Got it. Thanks."

Horikita glanced at him but didn't ask what he was investigating. "Next time you need my help, just ask. Beating around the bush wastes time."

With that, she turned and headed for the stairwell, the bitter smell of black coffee lingering in the air. Kanzaki Toru stood in front of the vending machine, fed it a few coins, and bought himself a cup of cocoa. The rooftop wasn't covered by surveillance. That was its real value—not as a place for dates or enjoying the view, but as a private space where people could speak freely without being recorded. And whoever sat in that folding chair clearly knew that.

He carried his cocoa to the steps and slowly drank it. In his mind, the rooftop was starting to stand out from the background as an ordinary setting and become a place where several forces converged: Ishizaki used it for dates, someone else used it to observe, and in the future, he might need it too, for something he couldn't afford to have recorded.

On Friday evening, Sakura Airi noticed something while sorting through the photos she had taken that week.

"Kanzaki." She called out to him, her voice a little strange. "Look at this picture."

She turned her camera screen toward him. It showed a photo she had taken the previous afternoon—there was a faint figure on the rooftop. It was a boy wearing a dark jacket over his uniform, his upper body partly obscured by the railing so that his face couldn't be made out. Sakura lowered her voice as she explained what she had noticed. "I took this because the sunset reflecting off the railing looked beautiful... I only noticed when I zoomed in while sorting through my photos."

"Can you tell who it is?"

Sakura shook her head. "Most of his features are hidden, but one thing is clear—his posture isn't relaxed. He's observing. His body is leaning forward slightly, and one hand is gripping the railing, his fingertips gone white from holding it so tightly. He isn't up there to relax."

Kanzaki Toru was silent for a few seconds as he superimposed the figure he had seen behind the railing at dusk onto the outline in the photo. The same spot, the same posture. And judging by the figure's height and stance when he had looked up yesterday, the person seemed more like a first-year student.

A first-year observer.

On the back of an old photo from last year, someone had written, "You're never the only observer." And now, a new observer had taken their place. The rooftop was no longer just a place people used. It was a position from which cameras could be set up to watch the stage. Everyone was watching the actors below, and those actors had no idea anyone was looking down at them.

He switched off the camera and handed it back to Sakura. "Starting next week, if you go to the sports field to take pictures, try to finish before dark."

Sakura looked up. "Is someone watching us?"

"Possibly. But keep taking your pictures. If you notice someone watching you, don't make a scene. Move somewhere else and keep shooting. Act natural, and you won't tip them off."

Sakura listened carefully, then nodded firmly. "I understand."

That nod was completely different from the shy, slight bow she had given him at the start of term.

On Friday night, after organizing a week's worth of notes in his dorm room, Kanzaki Toru lay on his bed and opened the Illustrated Guide in his mind.

Sakura Airi's page glowed calmly, her affection level at 70. A small line had appeared beside her status bar: "Heightened intuition for threats." Horikita Suzune's page was becoming clearer, her affection level holding steady at 30, with "Cooperation status initially established." Kushida Kikyo's page remained a hazy blur, but the words in her title field, "The boundary between her public and private selves remains to be confirmed," shimmered faintly, as if something were about to awaken them.

And in the bottom-right corner of the final page, he noticed a tiny prompt in an area that had previously been blank:

—"Rooftop scenario unlocked. New character trigger condition met. One key step remains before the next affection reward."

Kanzaki Toru withdrew his consciousness. The observer on the rooftop, and the new person about to appear in the Illustrated Guide—these side stories were gradually unfolding. His gaze passed over the campus's high walls, standing silent outside the window, and then he slowly closed his eyes.

There was no need to rush. He had 1,095 days at this school—enough time to uncover every secret on every page of the Illustrated Guide.