17 Chapter 6.1

"You really are a terrible person."

"Perhaps."

It had been about an hour since Sakayanagi came to my room.

"With this, we now share a secret we can't tell anyone else about."

"If you put it that way, you'll invite misunderstandings."

"You're the one who invited a misunderstanding in the first place, Ayanokouji-kun. Am I wrong?"

"No, you're right."

"Setting that aside, this was my first time on a boy's bed."

"You left in ten seconds, so I think it shouldn't count."

"You're not taking a girl's memories seriously."

I showed my phone to Sakayanagi, selecting what was necessary and deleting the rest. While I was doing that, I must've swiped too far back because a photo of me with Kei came up. It was a photo of us we'd taken at Keyaki mall.

"It looks like your relationship with Karuizawa-san is going well."

"I suppose."

Kei was smiling cheerfully in the photo. Sakayanagi looked at it as she continued,

"At some point, Ayanokouji-kun was attracted by her appearance, voice, or personality... Ordinarily, that's what I would've thought, but there are a few things that I don't understand."

Then, she looked up at me, her eyes sharp, her expression just as when she was facing off against me.

"I looked into her, as much as I could. From what she does after school to what she does on her weekends. The way things are right now, it is easy to put a tail on you, Ayanokouji-kun."

Because the entirety of the third year is observing me, I'm not on guard for each and every one of them. It was difficult to pick out Sakayanagi's agent once they had mixed in with the rest. It could've been Hashimoto, who I had noticed following me earlier, or it could've been someone else I couldn't identify.

"I could not fully ascertain why you chose to date her, Ayanokouji-kun, but there is something I could figure out. The strong trust and love she shows for you—I could go so far as to call it blind faith. Perhaps you are planning to use her for some experiment down the line, or you are trying to save her. I deduced that it must be something of that nature."

I don't remember ever telling her anything more than I needed to. I would think she does not know as much about Kei as even Ryuuen does. Despite that, she did well in getting so close to the truth with her conjecture.

"The special lesson you had for me, it is also related, isn't it?"

"I'm getting somewhat tired of saying this now, but well done. You're right."

For different things than with Kei, Sakayanagi and I could understand each other without even speaking.

Ding dong.

The doorbell suddenly rang, its slow and relaxed sound spreading through the room. It was around 12:30, about time for the students to finish their lunch. I got a visitor all of a sudden, even though nobody should have been in the dorm at this time.

Sakayanagi and I looked at each other before turning to the doorway at the same time. There should have been three bodyguards in the lobby. Did this person break through them with force? No, assuming they could use overwhelming force to suppress the bodyguards, they wouldn't stop there. They would enter my room as they pleased, without bothering to do something like calmly ringing a doorbell.

The bell rang once again. It was known that I was resting in my room, so ignoring this any further would be cause for suspicion. While unlikely, it was possible that it was someone from the school.

"Who is it?"

I called out to the visitor, staying on my bed.

"Remain as you are and listen to me."

A boy responded. He must have figured out from my voice that I was sitting at some distance from the door. A young voice. Not of an adult, but of someone of roughly my age.

"I remember your voice."

But I couldn't attach a face to it. The voice should be of a student's, and while I couldn't remember the person, I clearly remembered the voice. Of course, I had also overheard many random voices while living in the school. However, this person's voice quickly clicked with me.

"You've called me once before."

I responded. The person on the other side of the door was quiet for a moment.

"Incredible. You remember my voice after hearing it just once."

It was after my father had come to visit this school, I remembered clearly.

"Back then, I think you had something to say, but you didn't."

"I was happy to get in touch with you, but immediately after that something put me in a bad spot. I couldn't contact you again... I'm sure you're interested in it, but who I am is irrelevant right now. That is because to you, I am neither an enemy nor an ally."

"Then why did you come here?"

"After eliminating Tsukishiro, peace will return if you eliminate the White Room student. I was concerned that you might be laboring under that misapprehension, so I have come to give you advice."

"Fufu. What an interesting conversation! Do you mind if I join in?"

"Oh, Sakayanagi Arisu."

Sakayanagi's response was unexpected, but the boy on the other side of the door didn't seem surprised. If anything, he immediately figured out who it was from just the voice. He might have looked into who was absent from the Sports Festival, or he could have met her before and remembered her voice.

"Anyway, stay on your guard if you want to enjoy your school life until graduation."

"You claim to be neutral, but you've come to support me."

"Your existence is a bad influence. I want to prevent anything more from happening, that's it."

He answered, his voice growing fainter as he walked away. It didn't seem like he ever intended to stay for long, and we could assume he had left.

"That voice... I remember it from somewhere..."

"You have some idea of who it could be?"

"Just like yourself, Ayanokouji-kun, I can't say for sure. But I get the feeling that somewhere, I have heard that voice from behind a door once."

In short, it was something different from my own memory of his voice.

"It wasn't recent. Five, maybe ten years ago... At any rate, it was an old memory."

"If that's true, then it is close to impossible that he is a white room student."

"Indeed. If I had met him as a child, then that would be the case."

That matches with his reaction when he found out Sakayanagi was here. He was not surprised, and further, his reaction conveyed that he was familiar with her.

However, whether it came from Amasawa or this guy, that was just the thing I didn't care about at all. At this point, I had not been harmed at all, so I had no desire to do anything about it.