The air on the rooftop turned ice-cold. It wasn't the temperature of the Odaiba evening; it was the chilling, blunt-force honesty of Agung's words.
He didn't just insult Ayumu; he dismantled the entire group's hierarchy of importance, stripping away the "idol" veneer and leaving them as individuals, ranked by his own subjective, deeply personal history. The silence that followed was heavy, jagged, and absolute.
Agung didn't blink. He looked directly at Ayumu, who was still trembling near the discarded knife, and then swept his gaze across the rest of the room—Setsuna, Rina, Shioriko, Karin, Emma, Mia—all of them frozen in the wake of his ultimatum.
"You think you're protecting them?" Agung asked, his voice steady, devoid of the earlier fury. "You're not. You're just playing the role of the 'loyal friend' while the man who actually owes them an apology is right in front of you. If you want to keep throwing knives, go ahead. But every second you spend attacking me is a second they don't get back. A second of their lives that I'm trying to give them, and you're trying to burn."
He turned his back on the group entirely, walking toward Kanata. He looked at her, his expression softening, the rage vanishing into a profound, weary exhaustion.
"I came here for you, Kanata-chan," he said, his voice barely a whisper. "I know the others. I know their songs, their stories, their struggles. But you're the one who stood out as the anchor. If they want to play this 'murder the interloper' game, let them. I'll spend my life sitting by your side in every room you enter, and I will treat everyone else like they don't exist. If that's what this family is, then that's what I'll be."
Kanata's sleepy eyes widened. The threat—the idea that a man with his knowledge, his resources, and his newfound resolve would *only* focus on her and treat the rest of the club like ghosts—seemed to hit her harder than any physical blow could. She saw the truth in his eyes: he wasn't posturing. He was a man who had hit his limit, and he had decided that if he couldn't earn them all, he would only earn the one who had actually reached out to him.
"Agung..." Kanata started, her voice faltering.
"No," Agung interrupted, his gaze flicking back to the group one last time. "They want the 'Deadbeat's' drama? Let them have it. I'm done. I'm just a guy who wants to see you rest. If the others want to be part of that, they can put the knives down and stop acting like a script-writer's idea of a betrayed wife."
He stood beside Kanata, his presence grounding, his posture defensive. He had just made the ultimate declaration: he was withdrawing his "services" of apology from everyone except her.
The shift in the room was instant. The lethal intent vanished, replaced by a stunned, agonizing awareness. By threatening to ignore them, he had suddenly become the most important person in the room—and the power dynamic of the last three years had completely, violently inverted.
As the group stares at him, reeling from the realization that he is genuinely prepared to walk away from everyone but Kanata.