IGTL Chapter 31

Chapter 31 – Meanwhile, the High School Extortionists…

“Haaah… How the hell did it come to this…?”

Whenever I remembered the moment we got arrested, the gloom hit me all over again.

If only I hadn’t mugged that old man back then, none of this would’ve happened…

If I could, I wanted to rewind time.

But yeah, that was never happening.

No use crying over spilled milk.

Once something happened, it never went back to how it was.

“Seriously… what’s going to happen to us…? The lawyer’s negotiating properly, right?”

Right after the cops arrested me, they brought me to this place. An interrogation room.

I walked into a big room in the detectives’ division with an officer, and as we headed toward the interrogation rooms in the back, I heard the cops talking along the way.

“…This is brutal.”

“He’s hitting him with a bicycle pump…”

“Mugging him for a thirty-million-yen scratch ticket, huh…”

They were watching the video and saying that stuff one after another.

Plugging my ears at their words, I entered the interrogation room, and they told me to sit on the chair in the back.

“Alright then, Yoshioka Mitsuki. Could you take a seat there?”

“Y-Yes…”

When I sat down, the officer took the seat across from me.

And behind him, there was another officer, sitting with his face toward the wall.

“Man, it’s gotten cold lately, huh. Alright, let’s start the interrogation. Could you tell me what you said earlier one more time?”

The interrogation started with casual small talk like that, but once we got to the part about motive, the officer’s tone got a lot harsher.

“…So where did you meet Mr. Takahashi Kakeru?”

“I-It was at the AEON near our school…”

“Hmm. At AEON, huh… So why did you commit robbery resulting in injury against Mr. Takahashi Kakeru?”

R-Robbery resulting in injury!?

That sounded way too dramatic…

We just mugged the old guy, that’s all.

“R-Robbery resulting in injury is kind of an exaggeration… We just mugged him, that’s all… And anyway, he was the one who bumped into us first.”

“I see. He bumped into you? Then did Mr. Takahashi Kakeru say anything at the time?”

“W-Well, I think he said something like sorry, yeah…”

“Oh, really? So Mr. Takahashi Kakeru apologized for bumping into you. That’s what you’re saying?”

“Huh? W-Well… yeah, I guess…”

“Hmmm…”

The officer said that and fell into thought.

“Then why did you assault Mr. Takahashi Kakeru and take his money and valuables? He apologized on the spot, right?”

“Huh? Th-That’s…”

I mean… there wasn’t really a reason…

He bumped into us and it ticked me off a little, so we mugged him…

And he tried to hide that high-prize scratch ticket…

“…You must’ve had some reason to assault Mr. Takahashi Kakeru and take his money and valuables, yes?”

“N-no… We just mugged him, that’s all. This whole ‘assaulted him and took his valuables’ thing sounds way too grand…”

“But you surrounded Mr. Takahashi Kakeru with five high schoolers, beat him with a bicycle pump, and took a scratch ticket worth thirty million yen along with his wallet, didn’t you? That’s a textbook case of robbery resulting in injury. Besides, you admitted it at school before you came here, didn’t you?”

“Ugh… Th-That… I’m sorry.”

As soon as I said that, the clacking of a laptop keyboard echoed through the room.

This conversation was just them calmly confirming what we did.

Somehow, the air in the room felt heavy.

And “robbery resulting in injury,” seriously…

“Um…”

“Yeah? What is it?”

“W-What’s going to happen to us now?”

When I asked, the officer thought for a moment.

“…That depends on the prosecutors. I can’t say anything. Sorry.”

“I-I see…”

It felt like I was charging straight toward a cliff in pitch-black darkness.

I was scared. What was going to happen to us?

While I hung my head, the officer placed a sheet of paper on the table.

“…This is your written statement. Check that there are no mistakes, and once you’re satisfied, press your thumbprint on the last page and on the right edge of every page.”

“O-Okay…”

When I looked at the written statement, it described everything that happened in complicated wording.

And when I checked the contents, it was written like we were straight-up criminals.

“H-Hey! This makes us look like criminals!”

It said we “deliberately assaulted the victim and seized gift certificates worth thirty million yen.” What the hell is this!?

“Hm? Is there something incorrect?”

“O-Of course there is! What do you mean, ‘deliberately assaulted the victim’!?”

I put the written statement down on the table and pointed at the part in question.

“I don’t think it’s strange… Don’t tell me you’re claiming it wasn’t deliberate, and that you ‘carelessly’ used violence? That you ‘carelessly’ used violence and ‘carelessly’ seized gift certificates worth thirty million yen?”

“N-No, that’s not what I’m trying to say…”

“Then what are you trying to say? This is an interrogation room, and what we’re doing right now is recording your statement. If there’s an error in the written statement, I’ll correct it.”

“N-No… That’s not… What I’m saying is…”

N-No! That’s not what I meant!

This made it sound like I committed a crime!

I never said that. We just mugged the old guy.

I didn’t use words like “deliberately” or “assault” or “seize” at all!

“…I didn’t say this. A written statement is supposed to summarize what I said, right? Then don’t write it like this. Write what I actually said.”

When I said that, the officer let out a sigh.

“…Listen. You’re a high schooler already, right? So are you saying you want the written statement to say, ‘We mugged the victim for gift certificates worth thirty million yen’?”

“Y-Yeah! I didn’t say any of this!”

“…When you say ‘mugged,’ what you’re describing is extortion: threatening someone and demanding they hand over valuables. Do you understand? Extortion is a crime where you use violence or threats to frighten the other party, but only to a degree that doesn’t fully suppress their ability to resist. In other words, it assumes a level where the victim could still fight back. Violence or threats so strong the victim can’t resist aren’t what that category is meant to cover.”

“W-What does that even mean…?”

I didn’t get it at all.

I wanted him to explain it in a way that actually made sense.

“…Simply put: if you only threaten them, it’s extortion. If you don’t just threaten them but actually hit them and injure them, that becomes assault. In this case, you gave Mr. Takahashi Kakeru injuries requiring two weeks to heal and took gift certificates worth thirty million yen. So there’s a high chance robbery resulting in injury will apply. That’s why the written statement says, ‘deliberately assaulted the victim and seized gift certificates worth thirty million yen.’ Do you understand now?”

“U-Ugh… But then…”

“Well, there’s still time. Let’s call it here for today… You were dragged to the station out of nowhere, so you look pretty confused. For now, I’ll take you to the holding cell.”

In the holding cell they led me to, my buddies were there too, all wearing the same exhausted expressions as me.

The cell was about four-and-a-half to six tatami mats in size, and it had iron bars so we couldn’t run.

Once they locked us in, I let out a sigh.

“Haaah… Seriously? I’m stuck with you guys too? What about Aoyama Kanau and Endo Noemu?”

“Yeah, Yocchan. Rough day. Aoyama Kanau and Endo Noemu are in a different room, I think. So? How’d the interrogation go?”

“How do you think? It was the worst… What’s going to happen to us…?”

“Guess we’re sleeping here tonight… They took our phones too. What are we supposed to doooo…”

While I sat slumped on the tatami, Minato Mirai muttered like he was talking to himself.

“…It’ll be fine. I told the cops and already requested a lawyer.”

“A lawyer!? We can do that!?”

“Obviously. We have the right to request one too. Well, I’m just parroting manga, but still. Also… don’t you guys stamp that written statement, okay? No matter what the cops say.”

“W-Why!?”

“Isn’t it obvious? Written statements can seriously affect how the trial turns out. You guys don’t want to become criminals, right? If you don’t want that, then don’t sign a damn thing until you talk to a lawyer.”

“Y-Yeah… got it.”

C-Close calllllll!

I almost signed it.

Now that he said it, the contents of that written statement…

It was obviously written to screw us over. I knew something felt off.

I was glad I fought back.

“But what about money?”

“Money?”

“Yeah, we’re hiring a lawyer, right? What if they charge us some insane amount?”

Minato Mirai muttered triumphantly.

“Yocchan, you haven’t read enough manga… A court-appointed lawyer means the state covers the legal fees. Well, we don’t know what kind of lawyer we’ll get, but it’ll be fine!”

“R-Really? They’ll seriously assign us a lawyer?”

“Yeah, obviously. We just mugged an old guy. We didn’t do anything so bad we need to get locked up.”

“Y-Yeah… true…”

That was Minato Mirai for you. He really was aiming to be a lawyer someday.

He’d probably been stockpiling knowledge by playing stuff like Ace Attorney and reading all kinds of games and manga.

Honestly, deep down I always thought that kind of knowledge was useless and stupid, but right now he felt reliable.

“…Anyway, leave the lawyer talk to me. For the next few days until the lawyer comes to see us, you guys just have to pretend you’re remorseful and don’t sign the written statement. Easy, right?”

“Y-Yeah! You’re right!”

Amazing!

Minato Mirai, who was usually kind of unreliable, looked insanely impressive right now.

He was super dependable.

The next day, while we stayed in the holding cell and kept up the act of being sorry without signing the statement the cops made, a lawyer contacted Minato Mirai.

The fact that he moved the very next day after we were arrested was reassuring.

He had to be a pretty competent lawyer.

When we finished another round of interrogation and returned to the cell, Minato Mirai was grinning.

“Yocchan! We pulled a jackpot in the lawyer gacha! A lawyer named Noume, who’s strong with juvenile cases, got assigned to us. He said he’ll steer things toward a settlement!”

“R-Really!?”

“Yeah, but apparently robbery resulting in injury makes it hard to get a suspended sentence… For now, keep pretending you’re remorseful during interrogation and make the cops think better of you. Also, about the written statement, he said if they wrote anything you didn’t do, tell them without holding back. The lawyer’ll protest for us.”

“For real!?”

Attorney Noume, huh.

The name sounded kind of dangerous, but he didn’t seem half bad.

Yeah… I felt like I could relax a little now.