>>279667455
>>279668701
“Thanks for putting in the effort to think about the case for me, but grit your teeth.”
“Huh?”
A vapid clap sounded.
Hisaka-kun had hit my cheek with his right hand.
It was not painful… that slap was so weak it was almost like a light touch. I staggered, not from the pain, but from the shock. Hisaka-kun stared at his palm.
“How pathetic. I couldn’t snap my hand back properly, so it hurts. Well, it’s not like I injured my tendon, so it’ll heal.”
He then put on a melancholy face.
“Hey, Kobato, did I ask you to do this? You assume that everything I say is a clue, and even met with some person in a hotel on a rest day. Did I tell you to do that? Quite the opposite, wasn’t it? I said the exact opposite to you, didn’t I? – Don’t do anything unnecessary, I said. Did you forget?”
I froze and kept silent, allowing Hisaka-kun to continue with his monologue.
“I remember it clearly. When you came over to visit me in that hospital room and told me you were looking for the culprit of my hit-and-run accident, I told you. Please, don’t do anything. Please, stop this. You won’t say that you forgot, right?”
Hisaka-kun was not a talkative person. His speech was not fluent, and the words fell out of his mouth in staccato.
“I properly told you not to, so why did you do something like this? Why? I heard from Ushio. He was the first one to suggest looking for the culprit, but he gave up immediately, and the one who did almost all the investigating was you. That’s correct, right? No problems with that story, right?”
“…”
“I also heard from Fujidera-kun. I told him not to talk about it, but he revealed everything to you.”
“Fujidera-kun isn’t to blame.”
“I never said that. But I’ll bear a grudge at him. And at you, of course. You sniffed all around and made the guy I told to keep quiet about it spill the beans. Why?”
It was to capture the culprit of the hit-and-run. And then…
What exactly did I want to do?
Hisaka-kun caught the rays of the eastern sun from the window.
