Hayama Hayato was a smart guy. Anyone who managed to maintain good relationships with all of their classmates was very unlikely to be an idiot.
At the same time, though, he also had a side that wasn't smart enough—namely, whenever a situation required him to take a clear stance, he would always worry about how to avoid hurting everyone, and end up being vague and noncommittal. The result, more often than not, was the exact opposite of what he intended.
Kindness without enough backbone sometimes amounted to nothing more than weakness. Only goodwill with sharp edges could truly exert its full effect.
"If you don't want to be the villain who exposes ugly truths, then become the sinner everyone can unite against! Take all the blame onto yourself, passionately explain your supposedly noble intentions! Go from the sunshine darling everyone adores to a gloomy schemer who endures humiliation and hardship in silence!"
"That's certainly a creative proposal… but Narumi-kun, you've completely ignored the aftermath of Hayama-kun's character image collapsing, haven't you?"
Rarely enough, Yukinoshita Yukino acknowledged the creativity of Narumi Tōru's idea—though she still showed no mercy with her words.
"Besides, if this plan were actually adopted, the difficulty level for Hayama-kun would be infinitely close to role-playing. You do realize he's the type who would ignore a friend's suffering just to keep the atmosphere pleasant, right?"
"Oh. Then that route's a dead end."
Narumi glanced at Hayama Hayato, whose smile had grown increasingly awkward. To be honest, Narumi hadn't expected Hayama to have the resolve to make the truth public in the first place—let alone to convincingly play a charming, lovable villain.
"Alright then, let's change our approach. Shoot the horse before the rider—just find out who's sending the emails and shut them up."
"I agree."
Hikigaya Hachiman, who had been quietly reading the room the whole time, spoke up for once—albeit only to briefly voice his support for Narumi.
"This… wasn't my original intention in coming to you."
Hayama frowned. All he had wanted at first was for the situation to calm down, but if things kept going this way, a direct confrontation with the culprit felt inevitable.
"Want to get something for nothing, without spilling a drop of blood? There's no such good deal. You don't get to pay no price and still win big, Hayama-kun."
"W-well… I do understand Hayama-kun's feelings to some extent," Yuigahama Yui chimed in at just the right moment to smooth things over. With her around, the Service Club really did manage to keep conversations from freezing over whenever Yukino or Narumi made sharp, biting remarks.
"After all, everyone involved is the same age—classmates. A lot of things don't really need to be pushed that far."
"The person who decided to send those chain messages should have anticipated the day they'd be exposed and have nowhere to hide."
Yukinoshita Yukino remained unyieldingly impartial. Beside her, Narumi Tōru kept nodding in firm agreement, which left Yuigahama—who had just tried to save the mood—feeling rather helpless.
These two really are in perfect sync when it comes to ganging up on people. And what about me, stuck awkwardly between the Service Club and the normie crowd—who's looking out for that?
"Then we just warn the culprit privately. No public shaming, no loss of face."
Taking into account everyone's positions, Hikigaya Hachiman picked up Yuigahama Yui's hesitant suggestion. Though she immediately shot him a grateful look, Hikigaya—utterly unskilled at handling this kind of situation—chose to pretend he hadn't seen it.
"If the investigation proceeds under the condition that no one gets hurt… then I agree."
After hesitating for a moment, Hayama Hayato finally made a small concession.
In Narumi's memory of the simulated future, there hadn't been any request involving Hayama Hayato. Around this same period, he seemed to have already run off with Yukino—away from Sōbu High, and even away from the Kantō region altogether. That meant relying on clairvoyance to identify the culprit this time was out of the question.
Naturally, the same was true for Yukinoshita Yukino. With no shared information between them, neither knew what the other had seen from their own perspective. Still, at least for now, they were aligned in their goal of resolving the request.
After that, the Service Club members worked together with Hayama Hayato, retracing their memories and reasoning things out step by step, from the origin of the emails to the timing of their appearance.
The chain messages seemed to have started about a week ago. Even Yuigahama Yui—who usually avoided getting involved in this kind of trouble—had received one.
As for notable events from last week, if one really had to point something out, it would be the workplace internship group assignments.
The internships were done in groups of three—but Hayama Hayato had three close friends in class. Which meant one of them was guaranteed to be left out. And one particular person, terrified of being "excluded," struck first to avoid ending up alone—exposing questionable, possibly fabricated scandals about the other two.
Of course, to avoid suspicion falling on themselves, the culprit also leaked some dirt about their own reputation as camouflage. No matter how hard it was for Hayama to accept that one of his close friends could do something like this, the suspect pool had still narrowed down to those three.
A classic three-choice dilemma straight out of Detective Conan—the odds of accidentally guessing the culprit were already fairly high. With some further investigation into their personalities and relationships, the truth was bound to surface sooner or later.
After seeing off a visibly shaken Hayama Hayato and confirming their course of action, the Service Club wrapped up activities for the day.
After saying goodbye to the others, Narumi slung his backpack over his shoulders, left the school building, and dragged his body—thoroughly worn down by a full day of classes—onto the train home.
The platform was still packed with people. After great effort, he squeezed himself into a rush-hour car, barely managing to wedge himself into a corner. Hugging his bag to his chest, he pulled out his phone to kill time.
Narumi tapped into the mobile forum page. His previously tired, absent-minded expression froze solid in an instant.
Just two days ago, the novel thread had barely reached forty to fifty thousand views. Today, it had surged to three or four times that number—and it was still climbing, with no sign of slowing down.
Utterly baffled, Narumi rapidly scrolled through the comment section, trying to find some clue.
[We're all here from YouTube, right? Not just the fan-made manga—turns out the original novel hits just as hard.]
[First Kashiwagi Eri-sensei's manga, now a fan song too… This is blowing up. Mark my words.]
[Upstairs, this novel's been semi-popular for a while already. I saw it in the mod's recommended quality shorts a few days ago.]
[Author-sama, have you considered releasing an overseas translation? I can help connect you with reliable translators—love from China 🇨🇳]
[Everyone keeps hyping how emotional it is, but that's it? Eat something better, raise your standards already.]
[Wow, the dad energy is leaking off the screen. Did your dad die early or something?]
[The aggression in the comment above—I approve.]
…
After skimming through the comments at a glance, several high-frequency keywords on the message board caught Narumi's attention.
"Fan manga", "YouTube", "Fan song"
And "Guitar Hero."
He opened YouTube and searched for a creator called "Guitar Hero," pulling up their newest—and most-viewed—video.
"Th-this song is an original fan track I composed for a manga… It's my first time creating music inspired by another work. I hope everyone enjoys it…!"
After nervously finishing her introduction—carefully keeping her real identity hidden—Guitar Hero placed her hands on the guitar strings.
And that moment marked the beginning of her first video to surpass 200,000 views.