Megumi Fushiguro. He was the perfect model student who always inspired a bit of admiration in me.

We were in the same class, so we'd exchanged words a few times, but we weren't exactly close. I suppose his habitually indifferent expression made him seem a bit unapproachable. 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 slightly different path home today. In a deserted alley I was forced to pass through, a light flickered. The face illuminated by that cigarette ember was unmistakably his.