COTE: A Mute Guy

Vol. 2 Chp. 3: Unexpected Witness

'Italic': Notebook

The class was temporarily excited but quickly returned to reality. Like yesterday, they were trying to get information about witnesses.

On the other hand, I was standing in the back of a room like a ghost, Ike's group and Kushida for being able to converse back and forth casually.

During the investigation, they gathered names and asked for contact addresses. Kushida's presence prompted them to tell her their addresses immediately after being asked. That's also a great talent...

Even though Kushida and her group walked to the second-year classrooms and asked all the upper-level students, there were no leads.

The number of students left after school rapidly decreased as time kept ticking. When we stopped passing by other students, we decided to call it a day.

"We didn't find anything today either..."

To revise our strategy, everyone returned to my room.

Soon after, Sudou came by and joined in the discussion.

"What happened today? Was there any progress made?"

"Sadly, no progress was made. Sudou, was there a witness?'

"Hah? I never said that there was a witness. I only said that I thought there was a witness."

"Is... is that so?"

"Certainly, Sudou-kun didn't say 'I saw.' He said that he thought someone was there."

"Couldn't that just have been a hallucination? You must be doing some strong drugs," Ike said.

Sudou put Ike in a headlock.

"Hey—! I give, I give!"

While the two fooled around, Kushida and Yamauchi were still puzzled.

After the discussion continued for ten minutes, Kushida spoke up, having come up with a new idea.

"I think it might be better to change the direction of our efforts. For example, let's look for a witness who might have witnessed the incident."

"Why must we look for a witness who witnessed the incident? Isn't that useless?"

'You're suggesting looking for the people at the building that day, right?'

Kushida smiled and nodded, "Yup, it's not a bad idea."

When I looked over, I noticed that Sudou was spending a lot of time and energy playing a mobile game that he recently became addicted to. The game seemed to be called "Generation of Miracles," but I didn't understand what it was all about. 

After winning a match, Sudou struck a triumphant pose. Even though Sudou wasn't contributing to the current situation, Ike and Yamauchi looked unhappy. However, they feared Sudou's retaliation, so they kept their dissatisfaction to themselves and remained quiet as if they hadn't seen anything.

It's almost Friday already. It'll not be easy to get anything useful on the weekend.

I will do an investigation alone.

The bell rang, and a visitor appeared at my door. The small group of people who regularly visit my room had already gathered, so it was likely that person.

"Has progress been made?" Horikita asked with a condescending attitude.

I didn't say anything.

"I'm only saying this because it's you, but I have something..."