Her Last Piece of Candy

Wednesday, 2:00 PM, Student Council Disciplinary Hearing Room.

This room, located on the second floor of the main building, usually served as the meeting space for the Club Association but had been requisitioned for today. At one end of the long conference table sat the Disciplinary Committee Chairman and two second-year committee members; at the other end, scattered along the wall in the gallery, sat several witnesses named on the summons. The curtains were only half-drawn, slicing a sharp line of light and shadow across the floor, with dust motes drifting slowly through the beams. The air conditioning was set too low; someone hugged their arms and rubbed their shoulders, unable to tell if the chill came from the temperature or the atmosphere.

Ryuen Kakeru sat toward the back on the left side of the table, his posture no different from usual—back against the chair, one leg crossed over the other, spinning an uncapped fountain pen in his hand. Ishizaki Daichi sat two rows in front of him, his back rigid, a neatly folded copy of the old system document resting on his knees, his fingers pressed against the paper until his knuckles turned white. Kondo sat in the last row by the door, glancing at Ryuen from the corner of his eye, only to look away instantly every time Ryuen's eyelids flickered. Sudo Ken sat on the Class D side in a chair by the window, arms crossed, his expression one of suppressed impatience, his sports drink can left untouched on the windowsill. Manabe Shiho, called in by summons, huddled alone in the corner of the last row, her eye makeup slightly smudged.

Kanzaki Toru sat in the last row of the gallery with a notebook spread open before him, his posture relaxed, like an ordinary student attending a club meeting. Shiina Hiyori sat to his left with an unopened library register on her lap. Karuizawa Kei sat to his right, spinning a pen in her hand, the Perception Resonance humming faintly at the edge of her consciousness.

At 2:05 PM, the Disciplinary Committee Chairman struck the gavel, declaring the hearing in session. The first agenda item was the verification of the original testimony regarding the theft case involving Tanaka from Class D last semester. The Chairman passed copies to those present—two in total: one from the official Disciplinary Committee archives and the other from the original interview records Kanzaki Toru had found in the Old School Building Archive Room.

"The first copy shows the subject confessed without reservation, admitting to the theft. The second shows the subject only changed his story during the third interview, and the handwriting shows repeated alterations. The contradictions between these two testimonies require an explanation from the person in charge of the investigation at the time."

Ryuen stopped spinning his pen and glanced at the two copies. "I was assisting the investigation, not leading it. The person in charge was a second-year senior from the committee; I was only responsible for recording. If there are contradictions in the records, you should ask the record keeper." He paused. "However, if you must have my personal opinion—Tanaka confessed at the time. A confession is a confession; can a later retraction even be called a retraction?"

Horikita Suzune stood up from the gallery and projected a record of the signature retrieval onto the white wall. "Article 11 of the Disciplinary Committee Archive Management Regulations states that the duties of an investigation assistant include 'verifying the accuracy of records.' The final page of this original record bears your signature, dated the day of the investigation. Ryuen, you verified the content of the record at the time and confirmed it was correct. Now that the original record shows alterations, either you failed to verify it then, or you verified it but concealed the fact that it had been altered. Both scenarios constitute a procedural violation."

Ryuen said nothing. The Chairman took a second summons attachment from the folder—a line-by-line comparison between the original fifth page of the record, which had been replaced in the committee archives, and the finalized version submitted by Ryuen. The original had a line of small text covered by correction fluid: "Ishizaki Daichi later denied witnessing the incident, stating he was merely in the vicinity." This line was entirely absent from the final version Ryuen had submitted. Ishizaki sat in front, eyes lowered, staring at the line of redacted text for a long time before flipping his copy of the old system document to the page with his signature and pushing it to the edge of the table.

"I—" his voice was hoarse, his Adam's apple bobbing, "I didn't actually see Tanaka go through the bag. It was Ryuen who told me to say 'I think I saw it.' He said Tanaka was light-fingered anyway, and a warning would be good for everyone." After he finished, he placed his pen next to the document; the pen clicked against the tabletop, a slight sound, but one that everyone in the hearing room heard clearly.

Ryuen's hand stopped spinning the pen entirely. He no longer looked at Ishizaki, instead slowly screwing the cap onto the pen before turning his head toward the corner of the last row in the gallery. Manabe Shiho was huddled in her chair with her head down. He watched her for a long time before looking away.

The second agenda item was pushed through quickly—the comparison between the original video of the altercation between Sudo and Ishizaki and the seventeen-second reflection. The Chairman projected two photos side-by-side on the screen: the upload operation log timeline retrieved by Ryuen from the server, and the footage of the internal operations in the server room captured by Sakura Airi through the skylight. The timestamps matched perfectly. Ryuen leaned back in his chair, his gaze drifting between the two photos, saying nothing. His shoulders remained broad, and that habitual, defiant curve still lingered at the corner of his mouth, but he never resumed spinning his pen.

The third agenda item required no vote—the submission of Manabe Shiho's record of verbal bullying. Complete screenshots of the group chat were projected one by one on the wall; the names, classes, and student IDs of the senders were redacted, and the avatars of the recipients and silent bystanders were blurred, but the fragments of kicking chairs, collective silence, and the sound of pages being turned deliberately during group presentations were listed line by line. Shiina Hiyori placed a stack of library monitoring logs on the corner of the Chairman's table, with several instances of Manabe mocking her group members in the library highlighted in fluorescent ink. Manabe kept her head down, looking at neither the screen nor anyone else, merely gripping her skirt until it was deeply creased.

After the three agenda items, the Chairman left the room for deliberation. The hearing room was very quiet; no one spoke in low voices, no one stood up to leave, and even the hum of the air conditioner became piercingly loud. Then the Chairman returned to his seat, announcing the adjournment and the preliminary direction: the Tanaka case and the altercation incident would enter a formal correction procedure, and the original Disciplinary Committee handler's qualifications were temporarily suspended; Manabe Shiho's bullying behavior would be submitted to the Student Counseling Group, with the decision to be announced next week. The review did not directly label Ryuen, but the suspension of his handler qualifications meant that the committee keys, archive access rights, and cross-class audit passes in his possession were all voided the moment the hearing ended.

People stood up and left one after another. Sudo walked over to Ishizaki, said nothing, and simply placed his own sports drink on the corner of his desk. Ishizaki did not look up, but he did not push the bottle away either. Manabe remained huddled in the corner of the last row; the Class C girls who had previously been whispering around her had all walked away, leaving only a Student Council Clerk to coldly notify her to report to the counseling group.

Kanzaki Toru stood up from the last row of the gallery. Karuizawa reached out and touched his sleeve as he passed. "Chabashira-sensei has been standing by the vending machine at Gate 2 for a long time—she's holding a returned old document. I couldn't see the title clearly, but there was a reference number for your old system report in the top left corner."

He nodded and walked toward the vending machine at the end of the corridor.

Chabashira-sensei was indeed there. She held a cup of black coffee, the vending machine beside her still humming as it cooled, its indicator light casting two tiny green dots onto her lenses. She handed him the returned document, her tone as flat as it had been when she handed out class materials on the first day of school. "Your cross-class group report. The Academic Affairs Office returned it as is. There's a place that needs a supplementary signature—it's supposedly a confidentiality agreement; the old archives involved in your research require authorization for retrospective access."

He took the document and flipped through the pages. All the stamps were present, except for a blank space next to a tiny footnote at the bottom of the last page. The footnote read: "If the cited archives are later reactivated as official rules, the researcher must sign to confirm their awareness." The signature line was empty, and the remarks column contained only a date—June 1st, 10:00 AM.

The same day as the special exam preparatory briefing. He looked up at Chabashira. "When was this returned document delivered?"

Chabashira took a sip of her coffee. "Just now. Before the hearing ended." She turned and walked toward the school building, her pace steady and unhurried.

Shiina Hiyori walked over from the other end of the corridor, holding the unopened register in her arms, her brown eyes watching him quietly. "The document requires your signature. On June 1st, all your activity logs will be synchronized into the rule system."

The two walked out of the main building side-by-side. The afternoon sun was intense, cutting a sharp black-and-white boundary where the school building cast its shadow. On the gravel path by the playground, a figure carrying a sports bag was walking alone toward the sports equipment room—Ishizaki. He tucked the unopened sports drink under his arm without looking back. At the other end of the gravel path, by the window of the cafe on the third floor of the shopping mall, Kushida Kikyo sat in her usual spot. On the table in front of her were two coffees: one black, one caramel macchiato. The black coffee had already gone cold, and the caramel macchiato remained untouched. She lifted the black coffee and toasted the playground outside the window, as if greeting someone invisible, then set the cup down and took a pair of spotlessly clean indoor shoes from her bag, placing them on the empty chair beside her. The soles were free of brick-red dust, as clean as if they had never walked the path to the Old School Building.