Wednesday, 2:00 p.m., Student Council Disciplinary Hearing Room.
The room on the second floor of the Main Building was normally the Club Association's meeting room, but today it had been commandeered. The Disciplinary Committee Chairman and two second-year committee members sat at one end of the long conference table. A few subpoenaed witnesses sat scattered along the wall on the opposite side. The curtains were only half open, and the afternoon sun cut a sharp line between light and shadow across the floor. Dust drifted slowly through the sunbeams. The air conditioning was turned up too high. Someone hugged their arms and rubbed their shoulders, unable to tell whether the chill came from the temperature or the atmosphere.
Ryuen Kakeru sat near the back on the left side of the table, looking no different from usual—leaning back in his chair, one leg crossed over the other, twirling an uncapped pen in his hand. Ishizaki Daichi sat two rows ahead of him, back ramrod straight, a neatly folded copy of an Old System document resting on his knees. His fingers pressed against the paper, his knuckles faintly white. Kondo sat in the last row near the door, glancing at Ryuen out of the corner of his eye from time to time, then quickly looking away whenever Ryuen's eyelids lifted. Ken Sudō sat by the window on Class D's side, arms crossed, his expression one of barely suppressed impatience. A can of sports drink sat untouched on the windowsill. Manabe Shiho had been summoned by subpoena and sat curled up alone in a corner of the last row, her eye makeup a little smudged.
Kanzaki Toru sat in the last row of the observers' seats, a notebook open in front of him. He looked relaxed, like an ordinary student who had come to sit in on a club meeting. Shiina Hiyori sat to his left, an unopened Library logbook resting on her lap. Karuizawa Kei sat to his right, twirling a pen in her hand. Perception Resonance continued to hum at the edge of her consciousness.
At 2:05, the Disciplinary Committee Chairman tapped the gavel and called the hearing to order. The first item on the agenda was verifying the original testimony in the Class D theft case involving Tanaka last semester. The chairman passed out two photocopies to those present: one from the Disciplinary Committee's official files, the other an original interview record that Kanzaki Toru had found in the Old School Building Archive Room.
"The first record shows that the person involved confessed without hesitation and admitted to the theft. The second shows that he changed his story only during the third interview, and that the handwriting was repeatedly altered. The person in charge of the investigation at the time needs to explain the discrepancies between these two testimonies."
Ryuen stopped twirling his pen and glanced at the photocopies. "I assisted with the investigation. I wasn't the lead examiner. The person in charge was a second-year from the Disciplinary Committee. I only took notes. If there's something wrong with the records, you should ask the records custodian." He paused. "But if you insist on asking for my personal opinion—Tanaka admitted it himself at the time. An admission is an admission. Can you really call it recanting if he changed his story later?"
Horikita Suzune stood up from the observers' seats and projected a signed authorization record onto the white wall. "Article Eleven of the Disciplinary Committee's records management regulations states that an assistant investigator's duties include 'verifying the accuracy of records.' The final page of this original record bears your signature, Ryuen, dated the day of the investigation. You checked its contents at the time and confirmed they were accurate. Now that the original record has been altered, either you failed to check it then, or you checked it and concealed the alterations. Both constitute procedural misconduct."
Ryuen said nothing. The chairman took a second subpoena attachment from a folder: the replaced fifth page from the Disciplinary Committee's files, compared line by line with the final version Ryuen had submitted. One line of the original, covered over with correction fluid, read: "Ishizaki Daichi later denied witnessing what happened, saying he was only nearby." That line was completely absent from Ryuen's final version. Ishizaki sat in front, eyes lowered. He stared at the covered-up words for a long time, then opened the copy of the Old System document to the page bearing his signature and pushed it to the edge of the table.
"I..." His voice was hoarse. His Adam's apple bobbed. "I didn't actually see Tanaka go through the bag. Ryuen told me to say I'd 'probably seen it.' He said Tanaka was always sticky-fingered anyway, and that warning him would be good for everyone." After he finished, he set his pen beside the document. It tapped lightly against the tabletop, but everyone in the hearing room heard it.
Ryuen's hand stopped twirling the pen completely. He no longer looked at Ishizaki. He slowly screwed the cap back on, then turned to the corner of the last row. Manabe Shiho was hunched in her chair with her head lowered. He watched her for a long time, then looked away.
The second item was quickly brought forward: a comparison of the original video of the shoving incident between Sudō and Ishizaki with its seventeen-second reflection. The chairman projected two images side by side: a timeline of the upload operation log Ryuen had retrieved from the server, and footage of the server room in operation, captured by Sakura Airi through a skylight. The timestamps matched exactly. Ryuen leaned back in his chair and let his gaze wander between the two images without saying anything. His shoulders were still held wide, and the usual carefree curve remained at the corner of his mouth, but he never resumed twirling his pen.
The third item required no vote: the submission of Manabe Shiho's verbal bullying record. The complete group chat screenshots were projected on the wall one by one. The senders' names, classes, and student numbers were redacted; the recipients and silent bystanders' avatars were blurred beyond recognition. But the fragments were laid out in detail: kicking someone's chair again and again, collective silence, the deliberate rustling of papers during a group presentation. Shiina Hiyori placed a stack of reading-room surveillance logs at the corner of the chairman's table, with several instances of Manabe sneering at her groupmates in the Library highlighted. Manabe kept her head down, looking neither at the screen nor at anyone else, clutching her skirt until it was creased in several deep furrows.
After the three agenda items, the chairman left to confer with the others. The hearing room was silent. No one spoke in hushed voices or got up to leave. Even the hum of the air conditioner seemed especially grating. Then the chairman returned and announced a recess and the preliminary course of action: the Tanaka case and the shoving incident would enter formal correction proceedings, and the original Disciplinary Committee members in charge would be temporarily suspended from their duties; Manabe Shiho's bullying would be referred to the Student Counseling Group, with a decision to be announced next week. The review did not directly rule on Ryuen, but the suspension of his duties meant that his Disciplinary Committee keys, access to the archives, and cross-class review pass all became invalid the moment the hearing ended.
People gradually stood and left. Sudō walked over to Ishizaki and, without a word, set his sports drink on the corner of Ishizaki's desk. Ishizaki didn't look up, but he didn't push the drink away either. Manabe remained curled up in the corner of the last row. The Class C girls who had been gathered around her whispering had all gone. Only a Student Council Clerk remained, coolly telling her to report to the Student Counseling Group.
Kanzaki Toru stood up from the last row of the observers' seats. As Karuizawa passed him, she reached out and touched his sleeve. "Chabashira-sensei stood by the vending machine at Door Two for a long time—with a returned old document in her hand. I couldn't make out the title, but the number of your Old System report was in the top-left corner."
He nodded and headed for the vending machine at the end of the hallway.
Chabashira-sensei was indeed there. She held a cup of black coffee. The vending machine beside her hummed as it cooled, its indicator lights casting two tiny green dots on her glasses. She handed him the returned document, her tone as flat as it had been when she'd handed out class meeting materials on the first day of school. "Your cross-class group report. The Academic Affairs Office returned it without changing anything. There's one place that needs an additional signature. Apparently it's a confidentiality agreement, and the old files you consulted need to be traced back to their authorization."
He took the document and opened it. All the stamps were in place. Only a tiny note at the end of the last page had a blank beside it. The note read: "If any cited archive is later reinstated as an official rule, the person who located it must sign to confirm that they are aware." The signature line was blank. The remarks field contained only a date: June first, 10:00 a.m.
The same day as the Special Exam briefing. He looked up at Chabashira. "When did this get sent back?"
Chabashira took a sip from her coffee can. "Just now. Before the hearing ended." Then she turned and headed toward the Academic Building, her pace unhurried.
Shiina Hiyori approached from the other end of the hallway, the unopened logbook in her arms. Her brown eyes rested quietly on him. "The name that needs to be added to the document is yours. On June first, all your actions that day will be recorded in the rule system."
The two of them left the Main Building side by side. The afternoon sun was bright, cutting the Academic Building's shadow into a sharp boundary between black and white. Along the gravel path by the sports field, a figure with a sports bag was walking alone toward the Equipment Room—Ishizaki. He had the unopened sports drink tucked under his arm and didn't look back. At the other end of the gravel path, by the café window on the third floor of the Shopping Center, Kushida Kikyo sat in her usual seat. Two cups of coffee sat on the table in front of her, one black and one caramel macchiato. The black coffee had gone cold, and the caramel macchiato remained untouched. She lifted the black coffee toward the sports field outside the window in a distant toast, as though saluting someone invisible, then set down the cup and took a pair of freshly washed indoor shoes from her bag, placing them on the empty chair beside her. There was no reddish brick dust on the soles. They were so clean they looked as if they had never walked the path through the Old School Building.
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