"Later boys. I have business with the Student Council."
"W-wait!" Yamauchi called, rushing after him.
'Dammit… dammit, we should've just listened to him. It wouldn't have come to this. I don't want to get expelled… Why? Why did it have to turn out like this?' Ike thought panickly.
"Hold on, Hikita—no Hikigaya!" he shouted, his voice cracking as he stumbled forward.
The two rushed after him, their footsteps echoing as they flanked him, stepping ahead just enough to block his path and force him to slow down.
"W-what the hell are you doing, man?!" Ike blurted, his tone wobbling between fear and anger. "You're not seriously going to the Student Council, right?
Hikigaya didn't look at him his eyes stayed fixed ahead.
"Why wouldn't I?" he said calmly. "They should hear about this. Properly."
'Properly?' Yamauchi's stomach dropped. 'What does that even mean? We already said it was a misunderstanding! We backed off.'
"B-but we already withdrew the complaint!" Yamauchi said, his words tumbling out fast. "We said it was a misunderstanding, didn't we? You got what you wanted! Isn't that enough?!"
Hikigaya glanced sideways at him but the faint curve of his lips wasn't comforting.
"Enough?" he repeated quietly, "That's a funny word, Yamauchi. Enough for whom?"
Yamauchi swallowed hard unable to answer. Ike tried instead.
"Look, we said we were sorry! We dropped it! We're not causing you trouble anymore! So why are you making it worse?! You don't seriously want us expelled, do you?"
Hikigaya stopped walking, shoving his hands in his pockets with a casual shrug, his dead-fish eyes flicking over them lazily. "Did I ask you to withdraw the complaint? Nah, I never said that. You guys did it all on your own."
Yamauchi's face twisted in confusion. "W-wait, what are you talking about?! You literally said in your message that if we kept bothering you, you'd make our situation worse!"
"Yeah! We listened! We stepped away so you wouldn't—"
Hikigaya let out a short, dry chuckle, tilting his head like he was explaining something obvious to kids. "Exactly. That's why I'm just… simply expelling you two. Nothing more."
Ike's eyes widened, "W-what?! Simply expelled? But—why? We already—"
"Stopped short, right?" Hikigaya finished for him, "You backed off before you could annoy me even more. So yeah, I am letting you guys off easily with just a simple expulsion."
His lips curved into a faint pained smirk, and he let out a short sarcastic wince.
"If you had dragged this out any longer, believe me, you wouldn't be complaining about getting expelled. In fact, you'd be welcoming it. Honestly, by the time I was done with you guys, you'd be asking yourself why anyone ever thought bringing you into this world was a good idea."
Ike clenched his fists, his voice shaking. "You think you can just threaten us like that and get away with it? You're bluffing. There's no way you can actually—"
Before he could finish, Hikigaya took a step forward.
"Try me," Hikigaya said quietly. "Push me one more time, Ike. I'm dying to see if you really have the guts to find out how far I'll go."
Ike, unable to process the absolute nature of the threat started to babble. His gaze darted frantically.
"Y-you think you're safe just because of that stupid recording?! You—you hurt us too! You bullied us too! We've got injuries, dammit! Sudo too—God, the horrible things you must have done to him after we left… you think you can get away with that?!"
Yamauchi backed him up, his voice shaking. "Y-yeah! Someone must've seen you too, right?! You were yelling so loud when you were screwing us. Someone had to have heard it! They could've recorded you too! We'll find them! We'll find them. No matter what. A..and show everyone what you really did to us!"
Hikigaya watched them quietly, his expression unreadable.
They were spiralling now grasping at any thread their minds could find to feel in control again. It was a natural reaction; cornered people start talking faster, saying dumber things, trying to convince themselves more than anyone else.
Looking at them like this, even he was starting to feel really bad. It wasn't like he was a heartless or sadistic person who enjoyed this. They weren't some kind of malicious masterminds, just idiots who hadn't realized how small the hole they'd dug had become until they were already buried halfway
But pity wasn't enough to stop him — atleast for now.
'They're cracking. Just one more push… one last shove to finish it.'
"Someone seeing it wouldn't change anything," he continued. "The recording starts before that."
"B-before that? What do you mean?"
"You remember yesterday?" Hikigaya asked flatly. "When I 'ran off' before class could end and left my bag behind?"
Yamauchi hesitated, recalling the events of yesterday. "Y-yeah… you—you ran away! You thought we'd, uh… catch you, right? That's why you left your bag! You were running from us!"
Hikigaya's chest tightened with a mix of irritation and disbelief. 'Do I really have to spell everything out for these morons? he thought. 'It's like banging my head against a wall.'
Still, he knew they wouldn't understand the way he wanted them to if he just told them outright. They had to piece it together themselves. There's a difference, after all.
When someone else tells you the truth, it hits fast like a slap. It shocks, maybe even scares you. But most people fight it. They deny it, argue, shift the blame. It's loud, messy, and rarely sticks.
The real weight of truth comes differently. It's quiet, creeping in from inside. When you realize something on your own, when the pieces finally click in your own mind… it settles. Heavy, cold and you can't run from it.
That's when it hurts.
That's when it starts changing you.
"You really think I ran off just because I was scared of you?" he said evenly. "You think I'd just forget my bag?"
"W-what else would it be then?!"
"I didn't forget it," he added softly, almost as an afterthought. "I left it there."
The words sank into Ike's thought like a slow-acting poison. 'Left it…left it there? What the hell does that even mean?'
Hikigaya sighed, his eyes lowering for a brief moment before meeting theirs again. "Tell me, Ike… if I was really scared, why'd I come back?"
That stopped them for a second. Their mouths opened then closed again, their brains clearly buffering.
"…Because you remembered your bag?" Yamauchi guessed weakly.
Hikigaya stared at him with the patience of a saint and the expression of a man seriously reconsidering all his life choices.
"…Mhm yeah sure," he muttered.
The simple sound made both of them tense, unsure if it was a sigh of amusement or something far worse. He looked at them with mild curiosity, as if testing how far their confusion could stretch.
"So, tell me," He said. "When you chased me yesterday… where did we end up again?"
"Uh… that narrow alley, right? Between the old warehouse and that empty clubroom building."
"Right," Hikigaya said. "And what kind of place was that?"
Yamauchi frowned. "What kind? It was just… empty, I guess. Nobody goes there. We just followed you 'cause you ran that way."
'I… I don't get it…' A wave of frustration rose inside Yamauchi. 'Why… why all these questions…?'
"Right," Hikigaya said quietly. "And you didn't stop to think why I'd run there?"
The two exchanged a look.
"Think about that place, Yamauchi. Did you see any other students? Any teachers? Any surveillance cameras at all?"
The question hung heavy in the air. Both boys instinctively knew the answer was no.
"None," Ike whispered, his voice trembling as the pieces started to align in a terrifying picture.
"None at all," Hikigaya repeated, "Isn't that an extraordinary coincidence? I run from you, I forget my bag, I lead you to the one blind spot on campus where barely anyone goes and yet somehow, the perfect video of your little performance just appears."
He paused, letting the weight of the obvious settle upon them.
Yamauchi blinked, staring somewhere near the floor, his brows furrowing so hard it looked like thinking physically hurt.
"Wait, wait…" he mumbled, scratching his head. "You're saying… you knew there were no cameras there?"
Hikigaya said nothing his expression didn't change, but the silence itself started pressing against them.
'Why…? No cameras, no people… he ran there on purpose?' Ike's stomach twisted.
The thought barely made sense, but it was the only one that fit. He glanced at Yamauchi, hoping for some kind of reassurance but none came. The other boy's face had gone pale his eyes darting like a cornered animal's.
Yamauchi swallowed hard. "But—then how did the video even get out if there were no cameras?"
That question hung for a beat, heavy and stupid, before Ike's eyes went wide.
"…Wait. The video," he whispered.
His heart hammered in his chest. The angle… the movement… he'd seen it before, everyone had but he'd never really thought about it seriously until now. It wasn't coming from a wall a corner or anything fixed. 'It was like—like someone had placed it there on purpose.'
Yamauchi blinked. "Huh?"
"The angle," Ike said, his voice trembling now. "It wasn't from a wall or a security feed. It was moving a bit. Like someone set it up on purpose…"
He trailed off, the words catching in his throat as his mind started connecting pieces he didn't want to connect. 'No way. No freaking way. That'd mean—'
Yamauchi stared blankly, trying to follow the thread.
"Wait, Ike so you're saying… you're saying someone else was there? Like… watching? Recording us?"
Ike's voice cracked. "No, you idiot! Don't you get it? There was no one else there!"
Yamauchi's mouth hung open as realization started to crawl up his spine like a cold hand. He turned toward Hikigaya slowly, horror dawning in his eyes.
"You… set it up."
Hikigaya didn't confirm or deny, but a faint trace of tiredness flickered across his face. 'Finally, uh… caught up, huh? And here I was starting to wonder if even spelling it all out would make a difference. Guess I might've almost needed a press conference just to get through to them.'
"You ran out of class early," Ike murmured, his voice thin as he pieced it together aloud. "You left your behind bag… on purpose. So, we'd wait… thinking you'd come back for it… and then… you made us chase you. You… led us there…"
"…and you'd already set up the camera before. That's why you left earlier," Yamauchi finished weakly, "You wanted us to follow you…"
The realization landed between them like a stone dropped into deep water. Slow, sinking and final.
Hikigaya's gaze stayed fixed on them, the faintest trace of something like regret flickering behind his eyes. "You finally get it," he said "Took you long enough, Yamauchi."
Yamauchi shook his head slowly as the truth began to settle. "No… no way. You… you planned this? From the start?"
It was just as they said.
After yesterday, when the last class of the day was about to finish, he knew their rage was at its peak. He had humiliated them first in the swimming pool by exposing their perverted tendencies and schemes, and then inflamed their anger by locking them in the changing room and the washroom. He had baited them, forcing them into a frenzy of frustration.
So, he left quickly before the period could fully finish, leaving his school bag behind. They would think he had forgotten it in a moment of panic and would wait for him to return.
While they waited, he went to the isolated area he had discovered the other day while searching for a peaceful, secluded place to eat his lunch. The alley was perfect: under renovation rarely used, and completely without surveillance. Using a piece of rope, he tied his mobile phone and carefully hung it on a nearby pipe jutting out above, positioning it at a clean angle that covered nearly the entire alleyway. He turned on the camera and adjusted the focus.
Then, he went back to the classroom area and, seeing them waiting for him, easily led them to the blind alley. In their anger and frustration, they didn't realize they were following him into a trap. After everything was over, and he had let all three of them go, he retrieved the phone and edited out the part where he was bullying them leaving only the footage of their vicious assault on him.
"That's right," Hikigaya confirmed simply.
The two words landed with the finality of a judge's hammer. Ike and Yamauchi felt a sickening lurch as they fully grasped the scope of the trap. All their rage, their attempts at revenge and their self-righteous anger had been nothing more than them stepping right where he wanted them to be.
He had trapped them before in the changing room and the washroom, moments that had seemed unbearable and infuriating back then, but now looked like mere shadows against the weight of what was happening.
"You… you've been setting us up since we left the changing room," Ike whispered, his voice hoarse with dread.
"Now that you finally understand," Hikigaya continued, his voice regaining its flat, matter-of-fact tone, "let's go back to what you guys were saying."
They looked up at him warily.
"You said maybe someone else saw us. Maybe someone else recorded it too."
Yamauchi swallowed hard. "Y-yeah… exactly! Someone could've seen—"
Hikigaya cut him off with a soft, humourless laugh. "He…he he he So, what if they did? Do you really think that changes anything?"
He tilted his head, his dead-fish eyes meeting theirs with an almost pitying calm.
"The video starts from the beginning, it shows you three cornering me. Shows me scared, backed into a wall, outnumbered. Then the beating starts. Every second of it. Even if another video exists, one that catches what came later…"
He paused, his gaze hardening slightly. "It still won't outweigh mine. Because mine shows the whole picture yours will only show the reaction."
Ike swallowed, unable to speak.
"And let's say, for argument's sake, that my video gets compared to another," Hikigaya said, his tone even but sharp enough to cut through the silence.
"You really think anyone's going to side with the ones throwing punches? I only hit back after you'd already beaten me down, and even then, it was just once. After that, I didn't touch you. So, tell me—between us, who do you think they'll call the aggressor?"
"Y-you… the video…" Yamauchi stammered, his voice breaking. "You can't just twist everything with the video! People will see through it! They'll know you planned it!"
Hikigaya let out a long weary sigh, the kind that carried more fatigue than frustration. He rubbed his temples slowly, as if the sheer stupidity of the situation was giving him a headache worse than the beating itself.
"Twist it?" he repeated, shaking his head slightly. "It's not just about the video, Yamauchi. It's about the entire set of circumstances that led to that alley.
They looked at him blankly, the implications of his statement sinking in slowly.
"Think back to yesterday. When I exposed your perverted schemes in the pool, you three immediately tried to bully me during swimming class. You continued to come after me again and again afterward. Many people also saw that, correct?"
Ike swallowed, a painful lump forming in his throat. "Y-yeah, but..."
"And when I 'fled' the classroom and later arrived in the hallway, everyone there must have saw how you three started chasing me aggressively. You led me to that secluded spot. Tell me, what does this entire sequence of circumstances lead to?"
Hikigaya tilted his head slightly. "You guys have both the motive and the cause to do it. You wanted revenge for humiliation."
"On top of all that," Hikigaya added, his voice dropping to a cool, devastating finality, "you just went to Chabashira-sensei and withdrew the complaint, saying it was all a misunderstanding. Now, if you try to go back to the Student Council or another teacher with the same accusation again, do you really think anyone will take your words seriously? You already labelled yourselves liars in front of your homeroom teacher."
The reality of their situation felt like a heavy stone pressing down, making it hard to breathe.
Ike's shoulders started to shake, not from anger, but from the sudden, crushing knowledge that there was no way out.
No loophole, no trick nothing they could still change to save themselves. His hands hung uselessly at his sides, his fingers twitching in defeat.
Ike's lips barely moved as he formed the question. "Are we... we finished?"
"There's no way out for us now." Yamauchi whispered.
"Yeah, now you guys understand," Hikigaya merely nodded, his deadpan eyes meeting theirs. "There's nothing left that can save you. Nothing at all."
Both boys froze, their earlier panic now turning into pure dread.
At that moment, they realized they had almost arrived they were only a few steps away from the main administration building, where the Student Council building was located.
The three of them froze, their footsteps halting on the pavement. Neither Ike nor Yamauchi could bring themselves to move any closer. Then, breaking the tense silence, Hikigaya turned slightly toward the hallway leading to the nearby restrooms.
"Hmm… Hold on," he said quietly, almost to himself. "I just remembered something… about sending that complain."
Yamauchi blinked. "Huh, what?"
"You'll see." Hikigaya replied casually, turning toward the washroom. "I was gonna take a piss anyway. Might as well tell you guys too."
Without waiting for a response, Hikigaya casually strolled toward the washroom entrance, knowing they would follow anyway.
Neither of them spoke as they followed him, each step feeling heavier than the last.
'Will we be alright? What's gonna happen now.' Yamauchi's mind was a frantic mess. 'I don't wanna be here anymore. It's... I hate it, but I can't… anymore.'
Ike trailed close behind, shoulders stiff. 'Is he serious? What if this is—no, stop. It's fine. It's fine.'
But it didn't feel fine. Not one bit.
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Author's Note:
Hey guys!
This chapter is finally done. I hope it turned out alright.
Honestly, I ended up rewriting it from scratch four times, which is why it took a while. About what I said in the previous chapter… yeah, I was wrong again. I said it would be shorter and done sooner, but clearly that did not happen. From now on, I will not make any promises in advance. Once I start writing, things tend to shift and evolve in unexpected ways.
For the next chapter, I will try to get it out sooner. The story is getting more complex, so I need to put in a lot more effort to write and understand everything properly. I am still a newbie writer, so it takes time, but I am slowly getting the hang of it. I am also thinking about starting another story that has been on my mind for a while, so I might give that a shot too.
By the way, I've also posted this story on SpaceBattles, so if you use that platform, you can check it out there as well.
If anything feels off, whether it is pacing, structure, or character interactions, please let me know. Your feedback helps me improve.
Thanks again for giving this story a chance. Your comments and encouragement mean the world to me and keep me motivated.
Stay tuned for more.
—Raijinmaru