The rain continued to fall as Ren and Mira walked back toward their classroom, the steady tapping against the windows filling the hallway with a dull rhythm. Everything felt different now. Every passing student seemed like a possible suspect, every casual conversation like a mask hiding something darker. Ren's mind kept replaying the moment Yuuto Tanaka had hesitated. It had lasted less than a second, yet to Ren it had felt louder than a confession. Lies always carried weight, and Yuuto's lie had been heavy. Mira walked beside him calmly with her hands loosely in her pockets. Unlike Ren, she didn't look tense at all. If anything, she seemed thoughtful, almost curious, like someone examining the first clue of a puzzle she had been waiting to solve. After a few steps she spoke quietly, "Tell me something." Ren glanced at her. "What?" Mira kept her eyes forward. "When he lied… what did it feel like?" Ren considered the question carefully. "Sharp," he finally said. "Like something twisting." Mira nodded slightly. "Then the lie mattered."
They stopped just outside their classroom door. Inside, several students were already seated while the teacher wrote notes across the board, completely unaware of the invisible tension hanging over the room. Ren focused quietly, sensing the intentions inside. Most of them were faint and scattered—boredom, annoyance, sleepy thoughts drifting lazily between desks. But one intention stood apart immediately. Cold. Focused. Watching. Ren felt it without needing to look. Yuuto was inside. And he was paying attention to them. "Still there?" Mira asked softly. Ren nodded once. "Yes." Mira opened the classroom door and stepped inside without hesitation. The moment they entered, Ren felt the cold intention shift slightly, as if someone had adjusted their focus. Yuuto sat near the back of the classroom now, leaning lazily in his chair while spinning a pen between his fingers. His posture looked relaxed, but his eyes moved once—briefly toward Ren, then toward Mira, before returning to the front of the room. The teacher turned around and frowned slightly. "You two are late." "Sorry," Mira replied calmly before walking to her desk. Ren followed and sat beside the window.
For several minutes the room returned to something that almost resembled normal. The teacher spoke about the day's lesson while rain continued tapping against the glass, but Ren couldn't concentrate. The killer was only a few meters away, sitting among the other students as if nothing had happened. Ren slowly closed his eyes. He didn't need to see to understand what was happening. Intentions were clearer when he removed distractions. The minds around him felt scattered and soft, drifting between boredom and random thoughts, but Yuuto's intention was different. It was focused. Calculating. And it kept shifting between two directions—Ren and Mira. Ren opened his eyes slightly and looked across the room. Yuuto hadn't moved, but his posture had subtly changed. He was no longer pretending to relax. He was observing.
Across the classroom Mira rested her chin on her hand as if she were bored with the lecture, but Ren could tell she was paying attention to something else entirely. Their eyes met for a brief moment, and Mira gave the smallest nod. She had noticed the same thing. Then suddenly the classroom door opened. Two unfamiliar adults stepped inside, and the teacher stopped speaking immediately. One of the men was tall and wore a dark coat, his sharp eyes scanning the room the moment he entered. The other carried a small notebook and looked far more serious than anyone else in the building. The class fell silent almost instantly. The teacher cleared his throat nervously. "These men are investigators," he said. "They're here to ask a few questions about the incident this morning." A quiet wave of tension spread through the classroom. Ren felt it immediately—fear, curiosity, uneasiness—but the strongest reaction didn't come from the other students. It came from Yuuto.
For the first time since Ren had sensed him, Yuuto's controlled calmness cracked slightly. Just for a moment, a thin thread of pressure slipped through his intention. It wasn't panic. But it was close. The tall investigator stepped forward slowly and looked around the room with unsettling focus, as if he were searching for something invisible. "Good morning," he said calmly. "My name is Detective Hayashi." His gaze moved across the students one by one. It paused briefly on Ren, then on Mira, and then—almost casually—on Yuuto Tanaka. The entire room felt strangely still. Ren suddenly noticed something odd. The detective hadn't blinked once. His eyes were fixed and observant, studying the class in a way that felt disturbingly similar to how Ren sensed intentions. Yuuto's spinning pen stopped for a fraction of a second before moving again, but Ren felt the shift clearly now. The killer was no longer calm. Because the game had just gained a new player.