It didn't take long for Takeru to put forward the first part of his theory. Daisuke was trying to figure out a way to get back. The presence of Takeru's computer, which had previously been Ken's and his brother's before that, in Daisuke's apartment all but confirmed it.

"What made you think to check?" I asked, not wanting to take the thought process further just yet.

"It was like Ken said, Daisuke would never give in, no matter what. I knew from Yamato that mother had been broken into, and you were there when the detective told us about the emails to various 'programmers', which was obviously just code for hackers, and I put two and two together. I asked Ken if Daisuke would have known about the significance of the computer and when he answered affirmative, one thing lead to another and I wound up with a vase cracked over my head,"

We all knew where Takeru was going, there was only one person who could have known what Daisuke was trying to do. I didn't want to ask. I would have been fine just thinking that the police would eventually find evidence and we could have nothing to do with it.

But Iori asked instead.

"So who knew?" We both looked at him for a second before he realised, "No, but he can't have, where's the proof?"

Takeru took out the camera. My old camera. It had been state of the art nine years ago, but now it was a relic. It did however have memory card capabilities, and it was a memory card that Takeru pulled out of it.

"I found this behind a side panel on the computer in Daisuke's wardrobe," he replaced it and turned the camera on, "it seems that Daisuke really was a stalker," he handed me the camera and I looked at the photo on the screen. It was hard to make out on such a small screen, I had to squint but I could just make out the scene, "but he wasn't stalking you."

There was a man hiding in the bushes, with a camera obscuring his face. But that was still enough for me to identify him. The next photo was taken from behind the man as he himself was taking a photo at the building that could be seen in front of him. There was only one light on in the building. I counted the floors. I counted the apartments across.

I zoomed in even though I knew what must have been visible in the window.

Grainy as the screen was I could make out what was going on in the window. It helped that I had seen the scene from this point of view just yesterday, printed and in full colour, at the end of the pile of photos the detective had shown me.

"But they were on Daisuke's email, how could…" I stopped myself and internally asked a question that had never occurred to me before. Why would they be saved to his email account and not his hard drive?

"It was blackmail, a pretty sloppy attempt, but blackmail nonetheless. He must have been trying to convince Daisuke to stop and using the threat of harm to you, but when that didn't work he did the only thing he could to protect us, and that was kill Daisuke,"

I really wished I could be sarcastic and make some remark about how this was the real world and not one of Takeru's stories, but it all made so much sense, and the evidence was right in front of me.

"What about the phone? Why text me?"

"Maybe he thought that if you were involved in the case somehow, you would be able to feed him information about what the police were looking for,"

I remembered how he had comforted me and realised that it fit, it all fit, it had to be him. And to think I thought that he was the only one I could rely on.

"We should go to the police," It was Iori butting in again, I didn't think it was possible but I was getting more annoyed with him at the moment than I was with Takeru. And I was always mad at Takeru.

"No, we need to confront him." Takeru agreed with me.

"It could all just have a reasonable explanation."

"What if there isn't? What if we are about to walk right into the lair of a murderer?" asked Iori.

I went into Taichi's room and after rummaging around for a couple of minutes returned with a blank tape and the cassette recorder.

"Then we'll get a confession,"

The ride over to Koushiro's was quiet, and not just because of the unmanly amount of sound coming from under the Prius' bonnet. We were trying to take our minds off what we were about to do.

Accusing someone of murder didn't happen every day.

Iori had asked me as he drove about what I'd said earlier about Ken and Daisuke and I told him what had happened last night and what Ken had told me. When he asked why Ken had come over to mine and not his parents, I reminded him that Ken's parents lived on the other side of town, and he had had work in the morning. The conversation had ended there.

When we arrived at his block we parked next to his car. He was definitely here.

I thought about what I was going to say to him. Would I be able to keep cool and get him to confess? Or would I just blurt it out and start yelling at him that even with the world at stake, Daisuke had been his friend and deserved better than a knife in the back? Would I even be able to look him in the eye?

We reached his floor.

What if his parents were home? What would we do then?

Takeru knocked on the door and it swung open. The sound of classical music wafted through the opening. It wasn't particularly loud, but it was enough for me to pause and let Takeru and Iori take their shoes off first. The music was getting louder as the two boys called out Koushiro's name and stepped inside the house proper. As I removed my shoes, strangely I realised I knew the song from long ago, back when we were little and we still lived in Hikarigaoka, mother used to play it to us to try and give us a little bit of European culture. The music was horribly inappropriate for the situation and I felt a shiver down my spine as a drum crashed and the music once again became louder.

As we walked through towards the door to Koushiro's study the pace of the song quickened slightly and I froze. Takeru opened the door to the study and introduced himself. I couldn't see what was happening because Iori was blocking my view, but when Takeru came out white as a sheet I knew we had got it all horribly wrong.

The music continued building higher and louder, the instrumentalists becoming more frantic with their playing as I edged closer, feeling that I knew exactly what I would find once inside.

Koushiro was slumped over his keyboard.

This time the knife handle was clearly visible, silhouetted against his screensaver.

I wasn't sure if I was more shocked that he was dead or that his computer screensaver was a picture of me.

We panicked, and for a time, I was not even sure which one of us was speaking.

"Oh no! Oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no!"

"Calm down, Hikari!"

"No I will not; you know what they're going to think don't you?"

"It doesn't take a genius; you should go,"

"But, I'm on the freaking screen!"

"It won't be the same guy, we'll cover for you. Besides, someone should remove his device so we don't get asked awkward questions,"

"Fine, is that it there Iori?"

"Yeah, and I found this too,"

"That's not a pinePhone, he's such a pineApple freak it can't be his,"

"Look at that last message,"

"Shit, that's the message I got from Daisuke,"

"Iori, give it to her and Hikari get out of here, go home and wait for us to get back before you talk to anyone, okay."

"But, it doesn't make sense!"

"Hikari, you can think about it as much as you want once you're gone but the longer we stand around here arguing over the body the worse it looks so just go,"

I didn't know what to think and yet my mind raced. Everything spun and twisted inside my head until all that was left was those two last words.

I went.