While Hakuta was out not enjoying his day shopping with friends. Shiuka was more busy with formal matters such as helping Omihiro on his tasks for her father. This would be considered by some to be a funny swap for their roles, but she would consider it miserable.

“That takes care of that.” She said to herself after filing away a bunch of paperwork. It wasn’t much stuff she understood, but whatever it entailed was usually a bunch of legal reports and apology letters to cities for damages occurred as a result of gunfights. Shiuka didn’t know much about the details on his journeys, so it didn’t bother her much. Now that this was all done, all was left for her to do was to do the laundry.

“Great.” Omihiro congratulated her from a different room. I think I just finished up filling the truck with all the stuff we’re donating to the museum. The older man was prepared to leave to handle that and let her off for the rest of the day, but there was one other important thing he wanted to ask her. “So what do you want me to do with the videos?”

“What videos?” She was unaware of that according to the notes left behind by her father. “I didn’t know they had a camera.”

“I meant for your security system.” He told her. Omihiro had run into the computers down in the basement. The man didn’t think anything weird about it, since they all appeared to be monitoring important areas outside. “There was a warning on it saying the hard drives were getting full and so I decided to take a quick look before anything got deleted.”

“Thanks, but I’m pretty sure we only care about that in case someone actually breaks in.” Her dad said he wanted to set this up since he was gone all the time. So that in case something bad were to happen to her, then he’d be able to use them to find out what happened. Though she never understood what he’d do once given information. If she were kidnapped, for example, how would he be able to determine the criminals and where to find them?

“That’s great to hear.” He said, beginning to leave for the front door. “By the way, I never realized that Hakuta boy had a girlfriend.” When he said that, it was meant as an offhand comment, but there was also an air of disappointment in his tone as well.

“Excuse me, what?” Shiuka couldn’t believe her ears. There was no way this man would pull a prank on her. Yet he seemed to be genuine in telling this as if it were plain fact. “No he doesn’t, at least I’m pretty sure I would know.”

“You don’t know?” He replied, now it was his turn to be bewildered. “I guess maybe he might be keeping it a secret. I saw it on the cam footage, but figured that’s fine since you two are teenagers.”

“There’s no way.” He was in disbelief as the girl moved on over to the basement to watch over the footage. “Hakuta can’t have a girlfriend.” It made no sense, he didn’t look like the kind of boy to have one. Partially because of his personality, but also because she didn’t want him to have one.

“See, I found it around here.” Omihiro followed her to show the girl where on the footage he had stumbled upon it. The man had been fast forwarding through most of the videos just looking out for anything resembling a person popping up, where he would then stop and usually see it was either Shiuka or Hakuta.

This one caught his attention as there was Hakuta, but it was a gyaru who wasn’t Shiuka to him. Since he had never seen Rouko before, he didn’t realize this was someone who the girl knew.

“Rouko!?” Her eyes widened in seeing the pair walking up to the front door and Hakuta unlocking it. Why would he have taken her here of all places? Why would he had basically told her about the secret they had been trying so hard to keep private? As the video continued to play, she watched on as he grabbed her friends arm and took her inside in quick and assertive fashion.

When did that boy get so bold, she wondered. Didn’t he not care about Rouko at all? Not in a manner where he’d dislike her, but at least not this close to her either. But it did strike her as strange when she thought back on the night of this day. It was back when they had all been studying together at Ninka’s. When those two were the only ones to leave early. Was when he opened the door for her more than just common courtesy?

Well actually Hakuta always did open the doors for anyone, even random strangers. So that part was probably perfectly normal, but took on a new meaning to her as she continued to watch on. They fast forwarded a bit and saw her coming home alone.

“Since she didn’t leave when you got back. I assumed you were aware of it.” Said Omihiro, explaining his thought process.

“She was there the whole time?” This was another part Shiuka couldn’t believe. She had no clue during this time they weren’t alone as the two of them. Which made no sense as she had been in Hakuta’s room and she didn’t see a sign of the girl at all. The boy seemed to be all alone when he was laying in his bed. “Maybe she left another way before I got back.”

“Well no.” Omihiro went forward to crush her hopes. He sent the video to the part where he saw Rouko and Hakuta going out the front door a little bit later. They saw her show him something on the phone, then it got to the important bit. “This is why I thought he had a girlfriend now.” The man played the video to reveal to her the moment where Rouko gave him a kiss on the cheek.

“They kissed?” She wanted to fall back into a seat, but there was none. So she fell onto the ground in pure shock of the sight. “When did something like this happen right under her nose? Shiuka was certain one of her closest friends wouldn’t just decide to date him without asking. Not to mention she was aware about Ninka, so why would she do that?

“I’m surprised you didn’t see her inside.” He said, finishing up the video for now. “This place isn’t that big, how can someone just hide from you so easily?”

“We do have a lot of nooks and crannies.” She answered, remembering to years back when she would play hide and seek with the girls. “But what could they have done here?”

“Who knows, that’s not really my place.” Omihiro looked at his watch to see the time and realized he was running late. “I wish I could help, but kind of have some more important things to do.” He was already heading for the door as he talked. “If there’s anything you need, don’t hesitate to call me. I might be your dad’s employee, but I hope you consider me a good enough friend to come to.” With that, he was out to finish up the rest of his work for the day.

Shiuka hung her head down and sighed as she tried to come to grips on what she witnessed on camera. Did Hakuta really have Rouko over for a secret encounter? He had sent her a message on him being a little late that day, but was it because he had a date with the other girl?

She shouldn’t care so much about the idea on him having Rouko as a girlfriend. Especially since this revelation also meant that girl was aware of the truth between them. Why would he let her know about something so precious, especially after what they had talked about that night.

Shiuka kicked the leg of the desk holding all the monitors for the security system. It frustrated her knowing he had said all those things, yet it was a lie in that very moment. He had someone else over when she wasn’t even aware of this fact.

“What am I going to do?” She asked herself aloud. The girl wanted to badly confront him on the situation, but she wasn’t even sure on how she’d go about it. What would she even say to him? How would he react to learning that she had found out the truth?

“Oh hello Noto.” She had run out of time to figure out what she would do with the boy. He had returned from his shopping trip and happened to run into the older man on his way in.

“Ah, it’s nice to see you!” He had gotten the usual greeting when they say each other. “And you kids really should just be calling me Omihiro. Anyway, I gotta run. Hope we can chat about some things soon.” Shiuka knew he would be getting to his room soon enough. So she took a deep breath and left the basement to see him.

“Oh, Hakuta.” She put on a fake smile as she walked close to him. “How was shopping?”