Megumi Fushiguro. He was the perfect model student, someone I even felt a bit of admiration for.

We were in the same class and had exchanged a few words, but we weren't particularly close. His habitually indifferent expression made him seem somewhat difficult to approach. However, the image currently burned into my retinas is a far cry from the model student I knew.

It was all because I chose a different route home than usual. A light flickered in the deserted alleyway I inevitably had to pass through. The face illuminated by that cigarette ember was unmistakably his.