On Wednesday at 6 AM, Ippei had just woken up, so he walked downstairs to the living quarter in the Noda family home. The same old routine he's been doing for years. Yet, exactly like every weekday morning, his dad was sitting at the small table, with television showing some drivel he wasn't paying attention to.

This morning, however, it seemed that Mizuho brought out his laptop and was doing something on it, which made Ippei a bit curious.

"Are you working?" Ippei asked, his voice still a bit hoarse.

"It's not work if I'm not getting paid..." Mizuho replied in a sarcastic tone.

"So what is it then?" Ippei wondered, a bit annoyed.

Ippei also thought that his dad should stop doing stuff that's not beneficial to the PC shop, his dad lazed around doing stupid stuff way too much and too seriously.

"It's just that I've been behind on accounting." Mizuho replied flatly, still focusing on the screen.

It was different from Ippei's expectation, although not in the sense that his father's laziness was not the issue. He was just expecting his dad to be doing something pointless.

Ippei went into the kitchen and looked at the groceries in the fridge, there's still some left, he grabbed a few things to prepare breakfast, as always. Ippei also noticed that there's plenty of time as he woke up earlier than usual, so maybe he'd actually prepare lunch for once, maybe have some extra for Sachiko?

Not much was in the fridge though, and it should be something that's not totally ruined by being left for hours before lunch time. Well at least the breakfast was sorted as there's this Poke bowl leftovers his father bought last night.

Ippei saw a pack of chicken thighs, and one thing he immediately thought of was karaage, it might be cutting it slightly close, but he didn't have to prepare breakfast, so Ippei rushed a bit and hoped for the best.

While Ippei waited for the meat to marinate, he went and did his morning routine, including eating the Poke bowl while his father was still focusing on the laptop. When he was done it was ready to be fried. 20 minutes later, everything was finished, including a salad mix and some rice. It was near 7.30, which usually was the time Ippei left the house, but there's still a bit of time.

Ippei walked out of the kitchen with the bag full of lunch boxes, ran upstairs to get his study materials and got dressed.

Mizuho took a peek at the lunch boxes, which was on the table just beside him and noticed that it was way too big of a portion for him alone.

Not only that, Ippei had been grooming himself way nicer than he was before, he even had a haircut so that crazy wavy hair of his, which he inherited from Mizuho, of course, was a bit more neat. In fact, Mizuho was the one looking like a bum recently, as he hasn't had a shave in a few days. Not long after, Ippei ran back downstairs then picked up the lunch bag.

"I'm going now." Ippei announced.

"Don't lock the door, I'll be opening shop soon." Mizuho said the same thing as usual.

"Sure."

Ippei said, then went out of the house, leaving the front door unlocked as instructed, and went on with his day.

Recently, Mizuho has been doing some maintenance of the Geo Timer application on the laptop, nothing crazy, just a bunch of tidying up in the backroom. The application by this point was feature full, as Mizuho didn't know what else to add. It's something he'd really wanted and maintaining the storage was the only thing left to do. He was thinking maybe he should come up with something new to play with.

Mizuho had been way too lazy, even he himself realized that. When was the last time he visited Tsukuba Circuit? Maybe 2021? He also thought he definitely should visit that place more often, mostly to talk to the amateur racers who's visiting on open track days, and maybe introduce them to the application.

Well, not right now, considering the police presences. Mizuho wondered when they'll get bored like usual and left the place alone finally. Especially as the reason why Tsuchiura station had taken an interest in it was really unnecessary, according to Tadamori, mostly bootlicking for the affluent.

Around 8.30AM, Mizuho received a message from Tadamori, it read.

'I will be visiting you around 11, something I need to tell you. Can't tell right now I'm going into meetings.'

Tadamori never really sent anyone a long message explaining anything fully, but it did make Mizuho a bit wary of what the matter would be. Tadamori was never visiting randomly. Something definitely happened.

Oh well.

That day, Mizuho didn't do much other than watching old live streams that he couldn't catch live. He was listening to Shirogane Noel singing a cover of Marigold when Tadamori knocked on the door, which made him pause the stream and walk to him.

Mizuho noticed that Tadamori arrived in the silver Mark X unmarked police car. An intimidating sight to anyone who knows anything about cars with the square cut out on the roof, tiny antennas on the rear window, and hidden warning lights behind the front grille.

Mizuho also noticed that there's a younger police officer sitting in the passenger seat of the Mark X, which he had never seen before. Tadamori had visited during his shift before but usually it would be a tall imposing old man, so it was unusual to see a younger guy there.

"Who's the fresh face?" Mizuho greeted Tadamori, who he noticed was looking both tired and disturbed.

"Oh, that's officer Ishida from Tsuchiura station. We're going up the mountain." Tadamori replied, a little incoherent and stuttering from lack of sleep.

"Weird, don't you work for Ishioka?"

"Yeah, let's talk about that, okay? I've already told him to wait."

Mizuho let Tadamori through to the inside of the PC shop, and Tadamori quickly walked to the chair opposite the workstation as Mizuho followed. Tadamori sighed as soon as he sat down.

"Something happened up the mountain?" Mizuho asked again.

"Yep." Tadamori nodded, "A Porsche from Saitama went into a tree. The driver's dead. Passenger lost both of his legs."

"That's unfortunate..." Mizuho replied, showing not much emotion but there's tinge of pity in his tone.

"I'm here just to make sure there's no Porsche driver on the database, right?"

"As far as I know, not a single Porsche."

"Good." Tadamori nodded, he looked like he's trying to stay awake, "There's been an influx of people visiting the road from other prefectures."

"I know." Mizuho replied.

"I have to ask though," Tadamori seemed uncertain, but went ahead with what he's thinking, "have you ever thought about deleting the application?"

Mizuho didn't react at all, he just stared back at Tadamori who was expecting this anyway. The guy never showed his emotion all that much, and even the one he did usually felt like he's forced to.

"I mean, I'm not asking as a police officer trying to prevent illegal activities, you can never be prosecuted for any of it anyway. I'm asking as a runner." Tadamori explained, a bit nervous about it all.

"Worried about what?" Mizuho raised his eyebrows in confusion, "You said I can't be prosecuted?"

"Well. There's been some effort in trying to close the road altogether, since it's clearly a dangerous place with elevated risk of accidents..."

"By whom?"

"What do you mean?" Tadamori wasn't really sure what Mizuho wanted from asking that, so he asked for clarification.

"Who's leading the effort in trying to close the Fruits Line?"

"Well, the Sawataris do know some pretty powerful people in the Kanto region..."

"So these powerful people, have they asked the ryokan owner? The soba shop at the foothill? Campsite? The entirety of Yukiiri?"

It was clear that Mizuho was getting agitated by this news, which Tadamori felt he had to de-escalate.

"I don't think it's going to fly, really. Like you said, it's just a few rich people who don't really have that much say..." Tadamori explained.

"Yet, you felt compelled to come here and tell me about it anyway." Mizuho said in a scoffing tone, "How bad is it, really?"

Tadamori didn't answer, for he didn't know either.

"Is it my problem, or the problem of those assholes who can't teach their kids to not be irresponsible? I've run the app for nearly 5 years by this point, it was orderly for the majority of it." Mizuho started ranting more and more.

"You're not wrong, but..." Tadamori tried to interject, to no avail.

"Don't worry about it, Tadamori. If the road is gonna be closed, let them. Maybe it's time people just go back to the circuit anyway."

"Huh?"

Tadamori was really surprised by this change of attitude from Mizuho, who he knew really loves the Tsukuba Fruits Line north section as a place for runners, and was the most vocal about it's closure between 2014 and 2018 due to the landslide.

Mizuho didn't say anything else after that, and Tadamori was speechless as well, so he stood up from the chair and prepared to leave.

"I have to go..." Tadamori said, quite dejected.

"Another thing," Mizuho said, "I don't think shutting down Geo Timer would do jack shit, considering those Porsche punks aren't even users. The course notoriety spreading all by itself, isn't it?"

"Well, some people have been mentioning it, I guess, but a lot of people are leaving it out."

"Yeah, I know." Mizuho concluded, "Just... go do your job. Keeping the road safe."

After that, Tadamori bowed once as a goodbye, before walking out of the store to go back to the Mark X. Ishida noticed that Tadamori seemed unhappy.

"Everything alright, Tachi-san?" Ishida asked.

"Yeah..."

Tadamori just started the Mark X and drove away without saying anything else, and both the police officers just got on with their work.

—

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

12AM, in the Tsuchiura First High School courtyard right behind the main building, most students were eating their lunch with friends. Because today the weather was finally sunny enough for them to eat outside the classroom.

This included Ippei and Sachiko, who was sitting at the wooden table and having quite a lavish lunch by all metric. While Sachiko had store-bought bento, Ippei presented his which looked so much better, and there was extra he made just for her.

"What's this salad dressing? It tastes so good." Sachiko asked, after she tried the salad.

"It's Kewpie." Ippei answered.

"Ehhhh? Really? I thought you'd make it yourself." Sachiko was surprised.

"Well, I think I could," Ippei laughed sheepishly, "but I'm too lazy."

"The karaage's fire though." Sachiko used weird slang, which made Ippei a bit disoriented, "only if it was freshly made, it'd be so heavenly."

"I can always make you some this Sunday..."

"Aren't we having Carbonara this Sunday?"

Ippei couldn't recall agreeing to that, but didn't want to contradict his girlfriend either. He also noted in his mind that he'll need to make a trip to a grocery store. Another dilemma was that should Ippei make a proper Italian style Carbonara, or a Japanized one with cream. This actually was a pretty hard decision for Ippei.

"Do you want a real Carbonara, or one that would make Italian cries?" Ippei asked to make sure he'd not be serving something that would embarrass himself.

"Oh just make whatever that's tasty!" Sachiko replied, as she stabbed another karaage with her fork.

That did not help at all! Ippei thought.

Usually when Ippei was eating his lunch alone here, his mind would wander to so many things. Worries about the near future, worries about the far future, anxiety for the unknown, embarrassing things in the past. Left to contemplate alone, his mind was always in the cloud, never sure when the sun would shine.

With Sachiko here though, it's very different for Ippei. For the first time in a long, long time, he had hopes. Maybe things would turn out alright after all...

"Hey, Sachiko." Ippei suddenly said, which made Sachiko turn to look at him.

"What is it?" Sachiko asked.

Ippei looked at Sachiko, clearly blushing, which made her blush as well. He paused for a moment looking like he's hesitant, gathering up his feelings to say what's on his mind.

"When we graduated," Ippei said, stuttering from shyness, "I want to go to Tokyo with you."

"Ehh?"

When she heard that, Sachiko gave a shy smile back. It was the first time Ippei ever talked about the future in such a way.

"Don't be silly! I don't know if I'm going to be able to enroll where I wanted." Sachiko said, still blushing.

"I'm sure you will," Ippei reassured her, "without a doubt."

After saying that, Ippei reached for Sachiko's hand and held it, her hands were so soft and warm that his heartbeat couldn't help but rise, the same as Sachiko.

For both of them, they wished the time could stop right there and then.

That was until Ippei noticed an irritated looking Akira randomly walking around, one hand holding a lunch pack. It looked like he's finding a place to sit and have lunch when he noticed Ippei and Sachiko already sitting at the table. It was too late for Ippei to hide or shoo him away and Akira came straight at them as soon as he noticed.

"So this is where you two lovebirds usually are," Akira greeted them, still looking irritated, "do you mind if I join?"

Ippei was considering shooing him away, but Sachiko was beaming and happy for Akira to sit with them.

"Sure!" Sachiko quickly replied, before Ippei could even decide to do anything.

"Thank you..." Akira said, before settling on one of the benches on the opposite side, before he realized something, "Oh! We haven't actually met, right? I'm Akira Nakajima."

"I'm Sachiko Kinoshita." Sachiko replied.

"Why are you here, Akira?" Ippei appeared irate, but was genuinely curious as to why Akira was looking irritated and not eating in the classroom with Ryoji like usual.

"Well. I don't know where Ryoji is, and I don't eat alone."

Like hell! Ippei thought. While Sachiko was imagining this friend of them, Ryoji, a nerdy looking guy who's well known for being extremely good academically.

"What is it you guys are having? Karaage? Did you make these?" Akira asked, while turning to look at Ippei.

"Yeah." Ippei replied simply.

"You're a lucky one huh..." Akira turned to Sachiko, who's smiling.

"I know, it feels like I'd be gaining weight with Ippei around." Sachiko said a bit jokingly.

At that point, Akira turned to Ippei and stared at him, looking serious, which made Ippei slightly nervous.

"Hey, Ippei, do you think Ryoji's been weird recently?" Akira asked, looking concerned.

"Weird? Weird how?" Ippei was a bit confused.

"You know... Depressed."

"Depressed?"

"Yeah, like, when I asked him something he seemed to not be paying attention, he's sleepy all the time, and his mood seemed to be in the gutter all the time."

"Well when you put it to me that way... I guess?" Ippei reluctantly agreed.

"I'm worried, man. I wonder what's going on."

Akira looked genuinely concerned, and not just joking around like usual. Honestly, Ippei didn't notice much of a difference considering Ryoji's always been a dull guy, without much life out of school.

"Have you asked him directly?" Sachiko seemed concerned just by what Akira's saying, and he nodded to reply.

"I did, but of course he said everything's alright." Akira said.

"Of course he would, huh." Ippei noted.

"I mean, I guess he's worried about getting into Tokyo U," Akira continued, "and his mother's been pretty hard on him about it I'd have thought."

"Really? I never knew that."

"It's just a guess though. You know, a lot of families with academically good students are like that."

Ippei wondered if that's the case, considering his father's never cared one bit about what he's doing at school. Well he might have done it back when he was in elementary school, but since junior high his father never even looked at the report card.

Akira noticed that now both Ippei and Sachiko were looking concerned for Ryoji, and realized he may have been rude, which Ippei definitely thought he was if it's not for the other concern.

"Shit, don't let me ruin your lunch. It's just, man. I've been on edge as well. Sorry. I'll leave you two to it." Akira quickly explained and was ready to go away at this point.

"No, it's fine," Ippei quickly reassured Akira, before turning to Sachiko, "...It's fine right?"

"Yeah, why not?" Sachiko replied.

This made Akira laugh sheepishly, as he pulled out the lunch box he bought from the grocery store nearby. He opened it and it was a very sad, very wilted looking vegetable stir fry with some meat and rice. It was the only thing left available.

Even Ippei and Sachiko felt bad about that, both were contemplating for a moment as Akira started eating, and before Sachiko realized, she saw that Ippei picked a few Karaage from his box and gave it to Akira, which surprised both Sachiko and Akira.

"Oh, thanks." Akira said, really surprised by his friend's generosity.

"Don't mention it." Ippei replied.

In truth, Akira never had a chance to eat Ippei's cooked food, even if they were close friends. Ippei was always a bit cranky and never let Akira try anything he made. Akira guessed that being around Sachiko did soften up him quite a lot in many ways, which was great to see.

Once Akira ate that Karaage, he found it to be so good. He knew that Ippei had always been quite involved in cooking, but of course never had a chance to taste by himself. He thought it was weird that Ippei was always coy about this, considering how good it actually was.

"Your chicken made my lunch look even worse! I'm sad now." Akira said as a joke.

"Why did you buy it then?" Ippei wondered, "The sad looking wilted stir fry."

"Dude, there was nothing else."

At that moment, all of them heard the sound of sirens coming from far away, not exactly an uncommon occurrence around here, but the sound was getting closer and closer until it was very close, like from within the car park, whatever emergency was within the school.

"Somebody's getting arrested?" Akira wondered out loud.

"That's an ambulance siren, you idiot." Ippei replied.

"Well either way somebody's in trouble, isn't it?" Sachiko interjected.

All of them were wondering what's going on, but not alarmed enough to actually run and find out the cause. It's probably some student getting into an accident was what they all thought. Not exactly something that hadn't happened before.

Then, Akira's phone rang, which startled him a little bit. Another one of his friends that Ippei didn't know was calling, so he quickly picked it up.

"What is it?" Akira asked.

Even through the speaker, Ippei could hear the message.

"Ryoji is being taken to the hospital, someone found him lying on the toilet floor, puking everywhere! It's bad!"

"HAAAH?!"

Only a few minutes later, many students and school staff were crowding looking at Ryoji being taken into the ambulance, including Ippei, Sachiko and Akira who ran quickly from the other side of the school building.

None of them were able to get a closer look due to the amount of people who were already there, and none of them were able to do anything other than observe. They saw Ryoji on the stretcher being taken away, and he did look exactly as they expected from a few reported words.

Weirdly enough, the person who seemed to be panicking the most, as Ippei saw, was Tanigawa-sensei. Who's sitting away from the crowd, almost shell shocked. With a few other teachers consoling him.

Ippei was wondering what exactly happened, and was perhaps the most calm about it. Sachiko was in pure shock, and couldn't do anything else other than watch in horror. Akira was trying to ask some of the friends in the crowd what exactly happened, but none could give him the answer.

That Hiace ambulance drove away, and the school staff scattered the crowd as soon as it did, leaving all students there confused and a few murmuring rumors.

—

The teachers were back in their breakroom after the incident, and Isao was still sitting there with a thousand yard stare.

He was the one who found Ryoji. The student in his class was lying on the floor in the bathroom that not many would use, as it was on the floor without a classroom.

Apparently, the stall was locked, but Ryoji passed out and it was very obvious from the way he fell down that there was some trouble. Isao noted that it wasn't a heart attack, seizure or stroke, and acted accordingly. Tilting his head to make sure Ryoji didn't choke on his own vomit.

Isao then called for the ambulance immediately, before calling Iori, the first person he thought of, to notify other teachers. She promptly did, which sent plenty of help his way.

It was only after everything happened, that the situation actually made Isao panic quite a lot. Out of concern for Ryoji, and fear that something might happen to his student. Of course, this being the case, he wasn't in the state to investigate the surroundings to see the cause itself. It was Iori who noticed packs of Tramacet on the floor. All of them were opened and consumed.

"The vice principal is coming soon." Misaki said to Iori and a few other teachers.

Right on cue, as Misaki said that, the vice principal walked into the room where the teachers were having an emergency meeting. He looked pretty concerned, hiding a bit of anger inside from all the teachers.

"I heard it was Tanigawa-san who found him?" The vice principal said.

This made everyone turn to look at Isao who turned to look at them, a bit confused. Before he realized and quickly jolted from the seat to come to the front of the group.

"Yes, Fuku-kocho." Isao replied, stuttering a bit.

"Okay. Do you have the next class after lunch break?" Vice principal asked calmly.

"I do." Isao replied again with a nod.

"Skip it," The vice principal ordered simply, "I'll sort out the substitute for you, don't you worry."

Isao still appeared quite out of it all, which concerned everyone there quite a bit even with that order.

"I want you to interview the student, Ryoji is his name, I believe? You take the responsibility of finding out the cause of it." The vice principal continued, "I would also rather have another teacher accompany you, someone more senior, along with our nurse."

The vice principal looked at the group of teachers who were now looking at each other, wondering who would be the one who accompanied Isao to the hospital visit. A brainstorming session ensued to make sure the teacher with least effect being missing for a few hours would be selected. Turns out that teacher would be Iori.

After gathering everything needed, Iori and Isao set off for the Kasumigaura Medical Center in Iori's red Civic, where Ryoji was taken to as it was the nearest municipal hospital around. Apparently, by the time both got there, Ryoji already had his stomach pumped, but was still resting and the teachers were not allowed a visit just yet.

The hectic events wore both Iori and particularly Isao down quite a lot, as they were now sitting outside the room where Ryoji was, in the hospital corridor.

"Yamada-san." Isao said, he still seemed distraught.

"Yes? What is it?" Iori asked back, she was just as weary as Isao was.

"Am I a bad teacher?"

That question made Iori quite alarmed, if anything's gonna happen now the least she would wish for was Isao blaming himself for the incident.

"No you are not!" Iori quickly rejected that notion, even if Isao didn't seem to believe her.

"I should have noticed sooner, right? As his advisor." Isao was still very dejected by it all.

"Look," Iori leaned forward, to face Isao, "never, ever, let that be what you think about what happened today."

Iori paused for a moment to observe Isao's reaction, he just raised his eyebrows and stared back at her.

"But I should have known that something's wrong, shouldn't I? There has to be some signs I missed..." Isao started to explain his thoughts.

"Hey, now, you are just a teacher. You aren't some omnipresent being who could learn anything and everything about a student at all times. Ryoji has always been a quiet, unassuming student, and I haven't noticed anything changed about his behavior. You always thought I was good at that, right?" Iori tried to reassure Isao.

"Still..."

"I'll be honest with you." Iori stared back with a serious expression, "If none of his friends have noticed the difference enough to raise the issue with you, there's no way in hell you would be able to notice it either."

This did not really alleviate Isao's doubt, but the feeling of failure was something that's hard to get away from in the moment itself. Even Iori was pretty sure Isao would see the reasons eventually.

Not long after, the female doctor who's caring for Ryoji quickly rushed to the teachers sitting there, looking extremely concerned. This made Iori worried quite a lot, while Isao didn't really manage to stop worrying at all.

"You are Ryoji Sasaki's teachers, correct?" The doctor asked, to which Iori nodded.

"Yes, doctor." Iori replied.

The doctor sighed once very clearly, and seemed hesitant in how she would describe the situation that arises.

"We had to check Sasaki's blood, obviously. Poisoning like this, it's something that's necessary." The doctor started explaining, and then paused for a while.

"What is it, doctor?" Isao was curious as to why the doctor seemed hesitant.

"Would you mind coming to my office?" The doctor asked, and it seemed rhetorical.

Iori and Isao had no choice but to follow the doctor to her office, they both sat down on the chairs opposite the doctor, who was still looking very concerned about something.

"Now," The doctor started speaking, "we still have to run additional tests to confirm, but I'm pretty certain the test was accurate."

At this point, Iori and Isao could only look at each other wondering what all the fuss was about, why would the doctor pull them into this empty, quiet office.

"The pathologist found, I must put emphasis on this part, a trace of methamphetamine in Sasaki-kun's blood."

That answer from the doctor shocked both Iori and Isao to the core, and they finally understood the doctor's concern.

"But, how?" Isao said, still in disbelief.

"Let me repeat, we still had to run additional tests, there's still a chance it's false positive." The doctor quickly tried to reassure Isao.

As much as all wanted to believe otherwise, and even if it wasn't confirmed, everyone there agreed without saying that it was probably not a false positive.