"You’re wasting something precious! I need to teach you a lesson today!"
The owner of the shop, Kanze Himeko, was furious when she saw Hiratsuka Shizuka downing tea like it was water. If the waitress beside her hadn’t quickly held her back, she might have already started a fight with Shizuka.
"Come on, Himeko, don’t be mad. You know I can’t appreciate this kind of thing. For me, tea is just something to quench my thirst. How about I treat you to a drink tonight instead?"
Shizuka didn’t seem to realize what she had done wrong and simply grinned.
Hikigaya sighed at the scene. "Shizuka-sensei, maybe you should stop talking... Who even thinks about drinking alcohol—"
"Great! It’s a deal, then. You better not try to run away tonight!"
Hibiko made the decision on the spot.
Hikigaya froze in place. So, he was the clown all along.
With her drinking plans successfully secured, the owner finally calmed down and left in satisfaction.
"Alright, let’s get to the main topic now."
Shizuka straightened her clothes and got serious. "I looked into the matter you asked me to investigate last time."
As she spoke, she took out a tablet and played a video. The footage showed a man wearing a mask and a cap, stuffing stacks of letters into a mailbox in the dormitory hall late at night. It was all over in less than ten seconds before he vanished.
Hikigaya clicked through several more videos, all showing similar scenes. These were security camera recordings from the dormitory hall.
In fact, Hikigaya had noticed something off about Sakura even before Hasebe did. Though she had tried to hide the fact that she was being stalked, she wasn’t good at keeping secrets. It didn’t take long for Hikigaya to pick up on her strange behavior, though he had played along and pretended not to notice.
Later, when he stumbled upon some suspicious messages on a blog, he connected the dots with Sakura’s behavior and quickly concluded that she had a stalker—most likely an extreme fan from her idol days as "Shizuku."
Based on the latest messages from the stalker and a photo Sakura posted at the start of the school term that revealed her location, Hikigaya guessed that the stalker was probably in the same school.
The problem was figuring out whether the person was a student or someone else. Hikigaya suspected the latter.
Since this was a private matter involving Sakura’s privacy, he couldn’t use his position in the student council to access the security footage. Instead, he had asked Shizuka-sensei for help in checking the dormitory hall’s surveillance recordings.
"This guy always shows up in the middle of the night, wearing a mask and a hat. He also seems to know the layout of the area really well. I checked other nearby cameras, but he never appeared on them. If not for the fact that the dormitory hall’s cameras are unavoidable, we wouldn’t have even caught this much."
Shizuka’s expression was unusually serious.
Even though the clips were only a few seconds long, they revealed a lot. The man clearly knew the campus well, including the security camera placements, which meant he was very familiar with the school.
Thinking about what this person had been doing in the middle of the night made Shizuka’s face darken. Fortunately, the dormitory had enough cameras in the elevators and hallways, which was probably why the stalker hadn’t tried anything more extreme. But even so, this was a serious threat to the students!
"He’s very cautious and covers himself up well, making it hard to see his face. But judging by his height and build..."
Hikigaya kept replaying the footage in his mind, carefully analyzing each frame and trying to reconstruct as much information about the man as possible.
"He doesn’t seem like a student. He’s probably someone who works on this artificial island. I’d guess he’s in his early thirties, weighing around 150 to 160 pounds... Finding this guy won’t be easy."
Hikigaya let out a sigh.
There were too many people working on the island, making it nearly impossible for him to investigate each one.
"And more importantly... there’s not enough evidence."
Finding the stalker was one thing, but even if they managed to identify him, proving his guilt beyond a doubt was a whole different challenge.
Hiratsuka Shizuka nodded, agreeing with Hikigaya’s point. Even though checking every individual would be difficult, it wasn’t impossible. If they reported this to the school, an investigation would likely start immediately. After all, while there were many workers on this artificial island, not just anyone could enter.
Every staff member had to go through a detailed registration process and sign a confidentiality agreement, meaning their information was fully traceable. But the real issue was that even if they found the culprit, there wasn’t much they could do. His actions didn’t qualify as a serious crime, nor had he caused any major harm or consequences.
Based on what Hikigaya had just learned about Japan’s anti-stalking laws, the most that would happen was a warning and a fine. Of course, that would be enough to get the guy fired from his job on the island.
"So reporting it to the school is the best option. At the very least, it’ll keep Sakura from being harassed any further."
Hiratsuka Shizuka saw this as the safest approach. And it was a mistake to underestimate this school’s influence. If they really wanted to get serious, finding a stalker like this wouldn’t be difficult at all.
"Is that really enough?"
Hikigaya suddenly looked up at Hiratsuka Shizuka.
"Hm?"
"Shizuka-sensei, is this really the best outcome? Reporting it to the school, I have no doubt they’ll handle it properly, and it’ll definitely keep Sakura from being stalked or harassed."
His expression grew colder. "But having a stalker appear in a government-backed school like this? That’s a scandal. You know as well as I do that the school will handle it quietly, maybe even act like it ’never happened’ at all. And then what? What kind of punishment does that guy actually face?"
"Hikigaya!!"
Ignoring her, Hikigaya continued, "The outcome is obvious. Aside from getting fired, he won’t face any real consequences. Shizuka-sensei, does that seem fair to you? Or are we supposed to accept it just because ’he hasn’t caused serious harm yet’?"
His voice was now ice-cold, his gaze distant and unfamiliar to Hiratsuka Shizuka.
"Heh... So we just wait until something serious happens before doing anything? What’s the point of that? You’ve seen the disgusting comments on Sakura’s blog, haven’t you? For people like him, there’s no real cost to their actions."
"Sakura got lucky this time. But who’s going to be the next ’Sakura’?"