First things first — tuck it back in and fasten those trousers.
Mm... He didn't have an exhibitionist fetish, so that was the immediate priority.
Though Oreki Gen's expression remained collected and his movements were unhurried, the embarrassment was still very much there.
"What did you say?"
Watching the handsome boy redress himself in everything she'd painstakingly unbuttoned, Sakuraba Mitsuki furrowed her brow.
An uneasy feeling stirred inside her. Did he know?
Granted, with only two people here, any abnormal occurrence could only be traced back to her. But did he not harbor even a shred of self-doubt? Or was it... that he'd retained consciousness the entire time?
At that possibility, a dangerous edge crept into Sakuraba Mitsuki's gaze.
"Between the photos last time and this sudden state just now... It's pretty obvious, isn't it, Sakuraba-san? I don't know how you're doing it, but sorry — I trust myself more than I trust anyone else. So the problem can only be on your end."
Hearing that, Sakuraba Mitsuki quietly exhaled.
So he was indeed clever.
Intelligence and looks on par with each other — just like her.
But knowing that even if he'd figured something out, he still couldn't resist her power was enough.
The dangerous glint in the girl's eyes gradually faded. With effortless composure, she paused the recording on her phone.
"I don't know what 'problem' you're referring to. But my phone has honestly recorded your behavior. With this... your perverted antics are pretty irrefutable, wouldn't you say?"
Having finally gotten every button back in place — and smoothed out the creases in his shirt — Oreki Gen was done.
Honestly, the nerve... She'd nearly ripped the buttons clean off. Would it kill her to be a little gentler, Sakuraba-san?
He met her gaze with calm, steady eyes.
"Without the before and after, all you have is a clip. It seems to me, Sakuraba-san, that you also can't prove you didn't coerce me into unbuttoning my shirt and trousers. And I guarantee that video contains no footage of me undoing anything with my own hands — because I didn't. Isn't that right?"
Of course there wouldn't be any such footage...
A tougher nut to crack than she'd anticipated. But that only made things more interesting, didn't it?
"I'll admit the video doesn't show you undoing the buttons yourself. But you can't prove it wasn't you, either, can you? And compared to your word, my recording should carry a bit more weight. After all, I have it on film. Whether I show it to the police or post it online... the outcome's pretty clear, wouldn't you say?"
Her eyes were languid, but something razor-sharp lurked beneath.
Playing the public opinion card, was she?
Oreki Gen smiled. The summer breeze from outside stirred not just the curtains, but his hair as well.
Not a trace of panic on his clean-cut face.
"If I remember correctly, from the moment you started recording until now, you haven't touched me once, have you?"
Sakuraba Mitsuki's eyes narrowed. "That's correct. To be precise, I haven't touched you since you walked through the door."
Oreki Gen nodded. His smile brightened.
"Good. Then let's take your recording and go to the police station together. We can check whether there are fingerprints on my buttons that don't belong to me."
He'd been careful when refastening his buttons — his fingers had pressed mostly against their backs. And if he remembered correctly, she'd gripped the fronts when she'd undone them...
"What..."
Sakuraba Mitsuki's eyes widened involuntarily. She froze for a brief, uncontrollable instant.
She clearly hadn't expected The young man to deliver that line with such composure.
Seeing her reaction, Oreki Gen knew. Checkmate.
From the very beginning — when he'd first raised the idea that she possessed some "unnatural" ability — all the way to now, dismantling every one of her lies, this had all been within Oreki Gen's calculations.
He'd even known with certainty that she'd use her time stop this session, and that she'd record him.
So he'd done nothing unusual. He'd simply waited for her to activate the time stop.
He also hadn't exposed his ability to retain consciousness during her time stop. This way, she'd only think he was exceptionally sharp, not that he could actually perceive her during the freeze.
Danger level: reduced.
Initiative: firmly in his hands.
This was exactly why Oreki Gen had agreed to come here on the weekend. His mind had already been made up that day. If this so-called doujin world wouldn't let him coast, then he'd stop coasting.
And so only one path remained — the polar opposite of giving up: challenging everything head-on.
The shock on Sakuraba Mitsuki's face slowly subsided. She couldn't help but smile.
"When did you figure out I had a special ability?"
She was admitting it, just like that?
Oreki Gen didn't let his guard down. He watched her movements closely as she set down the brush, turned around calmly, and walked toward the bag she'd brought with her...
"It was just a guess, really — just now. It was too abnormal. I clearly remember sitting here the whole time, so how did my shirt and trousers suddenly end up unbuttoned? That defies common sense. So the only option was to consider the most impossible possibility."
Sakuraba Mitsuki picked up the bag. Holding it in one hand, she stood directly in front of him, squarely facing his direction.
Five steps apart.
She was still smiling. Showed no sign of easing off.
"I see... But wouldn't you consider that perhaps you have a split personality? Another persona doing things you're unaware of when you're not paying attention?"
Oreki Gen shook his head.
"That still couldn't produce this situation without a single change in my posture. And my memory is clearly continuous — it's like a complete film where a few frames have been sliced out of a seamless timeline. Besides, I have absolute faith in myself."
Sakuraba Mitsuki smiled and nodded, seemingly impressed by his deduction.
Her hand slowly reached into the bag she'd brought, and her eyes never once left Oreki Gen.
"Understood. So what do you plan to do? Report what I've done to the police? Expose my special ability to the public? It's fine — go ahead and tell me the truth. Since you've already figured it out, being honest with each other would make for a more productive conversation, wouldn't it?"
Just as she delivered those seemingly reasonable words, Oreki Gen felt his phone buzz once in his pocket.
He didn't take it out. He'd realized something.
Her movements. That unsettling smile. The way she'd phrased that question...
Something was very wrong.
Activate — X-Ray Vision!
The instant Oreki Gen's gaze focused on the bag her hand had disappeared into —
He saw it, clear as day. A handgun.
A high schooler carrying a gun in her bag. Was that even reasonable? Obviously not — but when that high schooler was the heiress of the Sakuraba family, a clan whose name rang throughout all of Sakurato, then suddenly it was entirely plausible.
So her play was: the moment he answered that he'd expose her superpower, she'd shoot him without hesitation?
Oreki Gen felt sweat break out across his back.
Under normal circumstances — or before he'd transmigrated — he never would have thought this way. He wouldn't have believed it was a real gun.
But this was a doujin world. The ending he'd read had this seemingly lovely girl carving him into ninety-nine pieces, reassembling them, and walking away scot-free while his disappearance became an unsolved case.
That was who she was at her core — a ruthless heiress, cold to the bone.
She wasn't weak. On the contrary, she was decisive, lethal, and perpetually composed.
She would never accept having her secret exposed and becoming a research subject.
If the risk was that great, she'd rather kill him and have her family clean up the mess — staging his death as a plausible "accident." His family — his little sister, out in the countryside — might never even see his body in one piece.
And even if he somehow talked his way out of this room, what about after? She had the power to stop time! Killing him and disposing of the evidence would be child's play!
He couldn't die. The system had never mentioned anything about respawning.
Doujin world or not, he only had one life.
During the twenty seconds of X-Ray Vision, he watched her note his expression while her hand inside the bag gripped the gun and began to slowly draw it upward...
Oreki Gen snapped his gaze back to her eyes.
"I—"
BANG!