Chapter 165 Shimizu Akira: This Is My Escape Route
Now, it was Shiina Hiyori's turn to fall into deeper confusion.
She stared blankly at Shimizu Akira, completely unable to fathom the meaning behind his words. All the testimonies and evidence were laid out before him like a string of pearls, perfectly connected—so why did she receive such a denial in return? Why was he making excuses? He didn't seem like the type to act this way.
"Words alone are not proof." Shimizu seemed to see through the doubt in her eyes. His tone remained calm, even carrying a hint of composed suggestion.
"How about I take you to my room to see for yourself?"
Shiina Hiyori remained silent for a moment. This deduction was supposed to conclude with her resounding declaration of the truth, yet now it felt as though it had been forcibly detoured into an unknown side path.
She looked up at his calm profile and eventually nodded, her voice carrying a trace of imperceptible tension. "...Alright."
The two walked side by side through the dormitory corridor.
The hallway lights cast intersecting shadows on the floor, and their footsteps echoed clearly. In her mind, Hiyori repeatedly replayed the interlocking evidence—the candidate for the alt account, the efficiency of the spreadsheet, and the computer in the bedroom... every piece felt like a nail sealing the truth shut. Yet, Shimizu's denial was so frank that it began to shake her resolve.
"We're here." Shimizu stopped in front of Room 402, pulled his keycard from his pocket, and swiped it crisply over the sensor. The lock clicked, and he pushed the door open without a second of hesitation.
Shiina Hiyori followed him inside, her gaze immediately darting toward the desk like it was pulled by a magnet. It was completely empty—not just of a laptop, but of pens and paper as well. It was so clean it felt almost deliberate.
Shimizu turned around, his eyes meeting hers. "See? Is there a computer in my room?" He paused, then added, "Of course, you're welcome to look around the room to confirm for yourself."
"...Then, excuse my intrusion." Hiyori hesitated for a few seconds before nodding. At this moment, her detective instincts were in the lead—having received the owner's permission, there was no reason to refuse.
She thought for a moment and headed to the bathroom first. After a thorough scan, she opened the cabinets below, then looked up at the ceiling and gave it a tap to confirm there were no hidden compartments. Finally, she walked back to the center of the room. Next, she thought for a bit and simply squatted down to look under the bed.
It was empty; nothing was there.
Shimizu's room had almost no furniture, with only the school-issued wardrobe—which was certainly large enough to hide a laptop.
'Could the truth be hidden in the wardrobe?!'
The moment the thought occurred to her, her first reaction was to think of the famous scene from Ryukishi07's Umineko When They Cry.
Shimizu-kun had truly given her another surprise. She felt, for some reason, that he was doing it on purpose—just as she had deliberately placed The Murder of Roger Ackroyd on her desk.
"Just because the wardrobe is here, can Shiina-san make such a deduction?" Shimizu asked again.
Hiyori started, surprised that he was on the same wavelength.
That line was exactly what Erika Furudo would say. Unfortunately, just like the "Twin Trick" in that work, the wardrobe was ultimately empty. She walked over and pulled the doors open. As expected, there was only a school uniform and gym clothes. Nothing else.
'Did Shimizu-kun anticipate my anticipation and move the computer in advance?!
But when I called him to come downstairs, he came out in about three minutes! Even with the elevator or stairs, he shouldn't have been able to prepare that quickly!
Besides, he can't read minds. How could he have known I had guessed his true identity?'
But then she reconsidered; she had only figured it out herself this afternoon.
'Maybe... he never kept the computer in his room to begin with?'
Hiyori's fingertips unconsciously brushed against the wardrobe panel. The cold touch made her thoughts clearer. She scanned the room again—empty walls with no shelves, and the space under the bed was clean enough to see the grain of the floorboards. This space didn't look like somewhere things were hidden; it looked like a room that simply had nothing to hide.
"Did you think of something, Shiina-san?" Shimizu's voice came from behind her, carrying a faint hint of a smile.
She turned around abruptly. He was leaning against the doorframe, his eyes as calm as a deep pool.
"What if the computer wasn't in this room from the start?"
She tested the theory, her speech speeding up.
"It took you three minutes to get downstairs. But if the computer wasn't here, transferring it wouldn't have required any time at all."
Shimizu raised an eyebrow.
"Are you saying I would specifically go out at nine at night to a hiding spot to fill out a spreadsheet? Setting aside the time for the round trip and the trouble of finding a hiding place, the battery life alone wouldn't hold up. This deduction of yours seems a bit weak."
Shiina Hiyori was genuinely stunned. He was using her own logic to refute her.
It was true! She had sent him the spreadsheet at 9:00 PM. If there was no computer in the room, Shimizu-kun would have had to leave his room and go to a hiding spot to handle it—that logical chain was indeed flawed.
"If there's no computer, then how did Shimizu-kun..." Hiyori's words caught in her throat.
"Office software on a phone makes it quite easy to fill out a table." Shimizu interrupted her, his tone as calm as if he were demonstrating a simple math problem, while pulling his phone from his pocket.
"It doesn't necessarily require a computer."
He lit up the screen and turned the phone toward her. It clearly showed an office software icon with the label "Installed" underneath. Hiyori leaned in; it was indeed a common office app. While not as comprehensive as the desktop version, it was more than enough to handle a spreadsheet.
"This..." She opened her mouth, and her deductions about the "necessity of a computer" suddenly deflated like a punctured balloon.
'What is going on... he has office apps. It's unlikely Shimizu-kun predicted my thoughts, and from the moment I started my deduction, he hasn't touched his phone—which means those apps were definitely installed in advance!'
Hiyori pondered. It seemed the "computer" angle was a dead end. Since that path was blocked, she decided to seek the truth from another direction.
"There is an even simpler way to verify if Shimizu-kun is 'that person'." Hiyori's gaze fixed directly on Shimizu's phone.
"What way?"
"Transaction records cannot be deleted. If you let me see your spending history, and if there is a movement of over two million points, 'that person' must be you." Hiyori spoke clearly, her logic regained. "'That person' should have the Student Council President on their friend list—after all, the President took Ryuen-kun's money and would logically transfer it to you. Also, it's impossible to buy an alt account without spending a single point.
At the very least, at the time the alt was purchased, there must have been a transaction on your main account. If I'm not mistaken, there must be at least one transaction between you and your homeroom teacher, Chabashira-sensei, and one of them must be the expenditure for the alt account."
She naturally hadn't relied solely on the "computer" as her only entry point. The alt account was an equally vital link in her chain of deduction. Of the three pieces of information she just stated, if Shimizu matched even one—even without a computer—he would inevitably be the one "renting surveillance from the school." Especially the final point about the transaction for the alt account—she was almost 100% certain of it.
This was her final trump card, hidden in her heart to overturn all counter-arguments. Initially, she had hesitated to say it out of respect for Shimizu's privacy. But now that the computer argument had been debunked, she had no choice but to reveal this card.
"An almost perfect piece of evidence..." Shimizu nodded instinctively, a hint of admiration in his voice.
He truly hadn't expected to be pushed to this point.
These three inferences were each more precise than the last. He did have several large transfers between his alt and main accounts; he had used his main account to add Horikita Manabu—the President was a respectable man, and adding him with an alt would have been too rude.
And that last inference, in Shimizu's view, was a checkmate. In a mystery game, that sentence alone would override all other conclusions. The truth was exactly that: no matter how he hid expenses, the moment he bought the alt, he had to use points from his main account. It was an unavoidable step.
In this school, transaction records simply could not be deleted. He had been notified when he bought the alt: point flow records were completely transparent to the school, so how could students be allowed to delete them?
"Since you say so, you must have already obtained the account IDs for the Student Council President and the Class D homeroom teacher?"
"Um... not yet." Hiyori shook her head awkwardly. She hadn't expected things to escalate this far.
"Then you can ask Ichinose-san and get their account IDs from her. If I tell you myself, I might be suspected of misleading you. Checking the information on my phone should make the truth very easy to see."
"...Alright." Hiyori nodded. Though she wondered why Shimizu was still so calm, she quickly contacted Ichinose and got the two IDs. She didn't suspect Ichinose would send the wrong ones—she trusted Ichinose Honami's character. Besides, such a thing would be easily exposed anyway; teachers' accounts were identity-verified. Hiyori checked on her own phone and saw the verification tag next to Chabashira Sae's name. This was definitely the teacher's account.
"Watch me."
Shimizu walked over to her and turned his phone screen so she could see clearly. First, he searched for the Student Council President; the result showed "User not found."
"This..." Hiyori froze. Before she could recover, Shimizu opened his transaction history. In the total summary, neither income nor expenses exceeded 100,000.
What caught her most off guard came next: Shimizu specifically searched for transactions related to Chabashira Sae's account. The page was completely blank; there wasn't a single transaction record.
Hiyori stared blankly at the phone. The emptiness on the screen was like a mirror, making her confident theories look hasty. How could this be? She had calculated every step—the large transfers, the President's friend status, the transaction with Chabashira-sensei... these pieces of evidence that should have bound him like chains were all broken links.
Not a single one hit the mark!
"Actually, there was one more major flaw in your deduction." A hint of subtle seriousness entered Shimizu's voice, as if placing the final piece of the puzzle. "If a student wants to buy an alt, they don't necessarily have to go through their homeroom teacher."
He looked at Hiyori's changing expression and continued, "The Student Council in this school has immense power. Since 'that person' could contact the school through the President to rent surveillance, there's no reason they couldn't buy an alt directly through the Student Council. For them, bypassing the homeroom teacher would actually be a safer choice. So, your reason for locking onto Class D was flawed from the very beginning."
This was like a "checkmate on a checkmate," catching Hiyori completely off guard in her logical blind spot.
"That...!" Hiyori's eyes widened, and she froze.
Shimizu was right; the Student Council did have that kind of authority. In truth, from the moment she saw his account balance, her resolve had already crumbled—the clear registration records and flawless account info were enough to conclude the person before her was not "that person."
"I'm sorry... I misunderstood you, Shimizu-kun." Her voice dropped, filled with deep regret. "And I went on and on with all those smug deductions..."
Before she finished, her cheeks flushed a fiery red, spreading from her ears to her jaw. All those interlocking analyses and pressing questions now felt like a self-important farce. She wished she could find a hole to crawl into. She lowered her head instinctively, staring at the floorboards, her voice trembling with embarrassment.
"I was too presumptuous..."
"It's okay, really." Shimizu waved his hand.
"There are indeed many suspicious things about me. It was perfectly logical for you to doubt me. This should mean you no longer think I'm the person 'renting the surveillance,' right?"
"...Yes! Um... I'm sorry, I won't disturb you anymore, Shimizu-kun... I'm going back! That! I'm sorry! I'm truly sorry!"
Hiyori's voice was still thick with bashfulness. She turned quickly, fumbling with the doorknob. She practically fled Room 402. The moment the door closed, she could still feel that calm gaze behind her.
The cool hallway breeze brushed her face but couldn't dissipate the heat on her neck. Her confident deductions and sharp questioning now felt like little thorns in her heart, making every step uncomfortable. It wasn't until she turned the corner and took the elevator back to her room that Hiyori collapsed onto her bed like a deflated balloon.
"Sigh... how embarrassing." She pressed her hands to her burning cheeks, letting out a tiny sigh. Her self-assured "investigation" had ended in a pathetic defeat.
Wait, so Shimizu-kun knew from the start that he wasn't the "culprit," yet he still went along with her and played out the role of the suspect? Furthermore, she had been so smug, saying things like "I'm not Miss Holmes" and claiming she would "let him off the hook"... looking back, she seemed like a middle-schooler with a bad case of chuunibyou.
No! Not even a middle-schooler would make such a flawed deduction!
"I'm so stupid!" She covered her face with both hands, her fingertips feeling the scorching heat of her skin.
"How am I supposed to face Shimizu-kun tomorrow..."
In his eyes, she was probably just a weirdo who read too many mystery novels. But then she thought it should be okay. By tomorrow, he would likely treat her with his usual attitude.
"After all... even though he knew he wasn't the 'culprit,' he still put in all that effort to go along with my deduction and play the part."
Embarrassment aside, the disappointment of her deduction being overturned was gradually replaced by a more subtle emotion. She couldn't quite name it, but her heart felt warm and strangely comfortable.
Just then, her phone vibrated. It was a message from Ryuen Kakeru.
Ryuen Kakeru: How is the investigation into the surveillance renter going?!
Shiina Hiyori: My apologies. My deduction had a major flaw; I overlooked the Student Council's situation. I need to re-evaluate the information.
Ryuen Kakeru: You really are useless. Don't bother looking into it anymore. A month was long enough.
Ryuen Kakeru: Next, go tutor the other students in Class C. Your grades are decent, at least.
Ryuen Kakeru: By the way, my plan is to target Class D starting from the third month. I'll start with the people in their clubs.
Ryuen Kakeru: Especially those members in the sports clubs with decent grades. Those guys are likely all brawn and no brains; a bit of provocation and they'll probably get physical.
Ryuen Kakeru: I'm not telling you this for your opinion. I just think you're one of the few smart people in Class C, so I'm informing you.
Hiyori stared at the screen, her brow furrowing slightly. In the third month, Ryuen was going to move against Class D? Fortunately, his targets seemed limited to those in clubs.
So, Shimizu Akira... he shouldn't be in any clubs, right?
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