"Hmm… where exactly did I slip up?" Yukinoshita Haruno puffed her cheeks slightly, pouting in visible frustration. "I really thought my disguise was flawless."
"From appearances alone, it was hard to tell," Hara Kei said as he ended the call in his hand. "I even checked your handwriting carefully—it's practically identical to Yukinoshita's. You could've fooled anyone."
"Then how did you—"
Before Haruno could finish, another voice—a cheerful, melodic one—floated up from the bottom of the staircase.
"Obviously, it was while writing The Murder Murder Case Files."
The voice came from below.
Following it, Haruno looked down the stairs and saw a familiar head of pink hair and a beaming smile—Fujiwara Chika.
Noticing Haruno's gaze, Fujiwara waved enthusiastically. Behind her stood another girl, one with long, dark hair and sharp crimson eyes—Shinomiya Kaguya, who regarded Haruno with quiet, calculating curiosity.
"Even though The Murder Murder Case Files is just the record of the Lambs Club's activities, little Yukino treats it like a serious literary project," Fujiwara said as she climbed the stairs, letting out a cute little "heave-ho" sound as she reached the landing.
"The club's activity notes are always jotted down on scratch paper first. Once everything's resolved, Yukino edits, rewrites, and finally copies it neatly into The Murder Murder Case Files."
"After all," she added with a smile, "it's our exclusive detective anthology."
Her expression softened a little, as if recalling that afternoon when they'd first worked on a case together.
"So you started testing me from that day?" Haruno's eyes widened. She turned toward Hara Kei. "But that was our first meeting, wasn't it? What made you suspicious of me?"
Because you wore perfume.
Hara Kei's eyes flicked briefly across her chest—still modestly flat despite her disguise.
Ever since leveling up his [Cooking] skill, his senses of smell and taste had sharpened dramatically.
The moment he'd entered the Lambs Club room, he'd caught a faint whiff of a sweet perfume coming from "Yukinoshita Yukino."
The real Yukino never wore perfume.
Haruno must have used it to mask the scent of sweat. With her chest tightly bound under layers of fabric, it was inevitable that she'd perspire. And like most girls, she probably couldn't stand the thought of smelling bad—so she'd sprayed a little perfume to cover it up.
Unfortunately, that tiny detail had been enough for Kei's keen nose to catch the truth.
Of course, that wasn't the kind of thing he could say out loud—it would sound way too much like something a creepy pervert would notice.
Ignoring the curious look Haruno gave him, Kei instead replied, "When the case is over, wouldn't it feel wrong if the 'victims' don't show up to the conclusion scene?"
After all, in this case, the only two "victims" were Fujiwara Chika and Shinomiya Kaguya. If Haruno had truly been trying to use this incident to her advantage, then the people she needed to win over weren't him—they were those two.
His role was "the detective"—to uncover the truth and reveal the culprit. That was his only job.
He hated when people made decisions for him, so by the same logic, he never made decisions for others.
"Miss Haruno, right?" Fujiwara stepped closer to her, studying her face intently for a few seconds before grabbing both of Haruno's hands in delight. "Wow, you really are Yukino's sister! You're so pretty! It's like looking at a more mature version of her! Except…"
Her gaze drifted toward Haruno's short, chin-length hair, and she sighed regretfully. "You'd look so good with long hair, though!"
Haruno's expression stiffened slightly. Being exposed this early, right at the moment she'd been feeling triumphant, was humiliating enough. If not for her strong nerves, her face would have gone bright red already.
Still, her goal hadn't changed. The opportunity was too rare to waste.
This time, though, she wasn't going to rely on deception or tricks.
Her amber eyes flicked toward Hara Kei. He was far sharper than she'd expected—clever enough that she couldn't hope to fool him. Which meant the only way forward was honesty.
"I wanted to use the IT Club's resources to check the school's security footage," she admitted.
Fujiwara's eyes widened in surprise. "Eh? Why would you want to do that, Miss Haruno?"
Haruno reached into her pocket and took out a small women's wallet. She unzipped it and revealed something inside the transparent inner pocket—a single long, white petal.
The moment they saw it, everyone's expression changed.
That unique shape… it was unmistakable.
A white chrysanthemum petal.
In Sakurajima, such flowers were used only for mourning the dead. They belonged at funerals, pinned to black suits, or resting atop a shrine offering—not in the lively halls of a high school.
Unless…
The same realization struck everyone at once.
"I found this in Yukino's desk drawer," Haruno said quietly. "It was leftover after she'd cleaned it. I think you all understand what that means."
Placing a white chrysanthemum in someone's desk—it was a curse, a way of wishing death upon them.
An act of bullying, malicious to the extreme.
No wonder Haruno was so furious.
Kei and the others were equally shocked. Yukinoshita Yukino had never mentioned anything like this.
Kei suddenly recalled that afternoon when Shizuka Hiratsuka had brought Yukino to him, saying, "At this rate, she'll end up eating lunch in the bathroom."
In his previous life, he'd never encountered bullying like this—and in this life, he'd made sure to crush such things before they could take root.
If the evidence hadn't been so clear, he would've found it impossible to believe that someone could harbor such malice toward their own classmate.
"If we want to find out who did it," Haruno continued, "the fastest way is through the school's security cameras. That's why I tried to pressure the IT Club president into helping me."
"After all, as far as I know, Akasaka Ryūnosuke's IT team handles nearly all the school's electronic maintenance and system updates. Their huge budget allocation mostly comes from that."
The group fell silent for a while.
Then, Hara Kei finally spoke.
"If you really want to check the security footage," he said, his tone calm, "there's actually a much easier way."
5:00 PM.
Yukinoshita Yukino stepped out of her sister's academy, her pace light and her expression content.
After a full day of study and discussion, she finally had a solid grasp of how to write lyrics for that song. No longer was she stumbling blindly in every direction.
Just then—ding! Her phone buzzed with a new message.
She opened it. The sender: her sister.
The message was short.
"Seems like you've made some good friends at St. Eden Academy. As your big sister, I'm truly proud of you."
"???" Yukino blinked, tilting her head.
What on earth was that supposed to mean?