At 9pm, on the same day we had gone to the swimming pool, Mitsuba called for me, Yukimura and Tanaka to come to his room.

"That's fine."

I closed my laptop. Taking out the SD card, I buried it inside my drawer. No one was going to ever see what was inside that card, including me. I left my room to go to Mitsuba's dorm, which was room number 110. When I knocked on the door, Tanaka opened it up.

"It's Takanori-san, de gozaru."

I entered the room, greeting them by raising my hand lightly.

The first thing that hit me was the strong smell of salt in Mitsuba's dorm room. Even though he had his window open to let the warm night air in, it didn't remedy it at all. Scattered all over the floor were packets and wrappers of savoury and sweet snacks, and embedded in the carpets were crumbs and leftovers. Even though he had guests over, Mitsuba still didn't bother to clean up after himself.

"Hey, Takanori-san! Aren't you excited?"

Mitsuba span around in his red gaming chair, which must've been expensive. He was sitting in front of his PC, with a 128 GB SD card sitting on the desk.

"I suppose."

"It's good that you're finally learning to become one of us, right, Tanaka-san?"

"Yeah, definitely. The old Takanori-san would've complained about it, but this new Takanori-san joined in without any qualms, de gozaru!"

No, I had plenty of problems with what these three were up to. I even tried to warn them, but it fell on deaf ears, so I was left with no other choice. The fact that Tanaka thought I joined without hesitation showed me that they didn't remember any of what I said at all. It was disappointing.

Somehow, despite eating so much junk food, Mitsuba wasn't fat at all. His metabolism must be really good. It was a complete contrast to Tanaka, who was nearly obese. Even though he was a large guy, he dabbled in otaku hobbies, which made him unpopular. However, both he and Mitsuba shared the same passion of perverted things, so they got along fairly well.

I was going to sit on Mitsuba's bed, but there were scrunched up tissues dotted on the mattress. Considering what kind of guy he was, I didn't want to go anywhere near that mess. Instead, I settled just to sit on the sofa that had his uniform folded haphazardly on top. It was the least dirty place I could sit on.

As I sat down reservedly, a loud bang on the door made Tanaka go open it. Of course, it was Yukimura, who was in his iconic black tracksuit. With a grumpy face, he swiped the tissues on Mitsuba's bed to one side, and laid down on it, kicking up his feet onto his pillow.

"Oi, hurry up and show me the goods. I've been waiting ages to see Sakigamiya-san's full glory."

Even though he was also against it at the start, Yukimura eventually gave into the temptations of man and Mitsuba's heartfelt speech about reclaiming youth. These three were absolutely hopeless.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm on it! Let me put the SD card in first!"

Mitsuba took the SD card on his table and slotted it into his PC. Tanaka watched in anticipation while sitting on the carpet and eating an open bag of chips that was laying on the floor. Dude, that might be expired...

"We're waiting."

Yukimura continued to complain, groaning. Despite being so happy in the morning, his mood seemed to worsen in the evening. I quietly waited for Mitsuba to load up the file on the SD card.

When he opened it up, the screen was blank. There was nothing on the card.

"Eh? Ehhhhhhh?!"

"What now?"

Yukimura got off Mitsuba's bed and trudged over, looking over his shoulder.

"Huh? What kind of joke is this?!"

"I-I don't know either! There should be a video in this card!"

Mitsuba clicked on and off the file again, in hopes that something would appear, but it was the same result each time. There was nothing to be displayed.

"Waaaaaaah?! It's gone?! Not here?! Impossible!!"

Tanaka got up and began to mess around with Mitsuba's PC, while Yukimura got Mitsuba into a headlock and wrestled him to the floor.

"I'm gonna kill you for wasting my time!"

"I swear I put the camera on properly! I swear!"

Mitsuba pleaded for mercy as he was being suffocated by Yukimura. Tanaka's face dropped as he fell to the floor in defeat.

"Guys... the camera didn't record anything, de gozaru..."

Yukimura let go of Mitsuba and stared at Tanaka in disbelief. Mitsuba, tears in his eyes, hit the floor in agony.

"NO! THAT'S IMPOSSIBLE! THAT'S FREAKING IMPOSSIBLE! I TURNED ON THE CAMERA! I MADE SURE IT WAS RECORDING! THERE SHOULD BE SOMETHING, ANYTHING?!"

"Do you think... a girl found out and turned it off?"

I quietly suggested that. All three boys looked at me, then each other.

"I was never involved in your guys stupid idea! Mitsuba, get a grip on reality, you degenerate!"

After berating him, Yukimura got up and sprinted out of Mitsuba's room, acting as if he was also innocent in all this. I could hear him scream expletives in the distance as he retreated to his dorm room.

"W-wait... this plan was foolproof... there's no way a girl found that camera..."

Mitsuba curled up into a ball, rocking back and forth as he began to think of the consequences of his failed plan. Tanaka patted his back, dropping his head in shame.

"Mitsuba-san... we need to accept that we've been found out, de gozaru..."

"No... how could this be... our school lives... it's gonna be ruined..."

"If you act like that, they'll know it's us for sure!"

Tanaka, who still had some logic left in him after the dreaded realisation that their camera failed to record anything, reassured Mitsuba to stay calm and composed. Mitsuba wiped his eyes and nodded.

"You're right... if I act guilty, then they'll suspect me! In the first place, they won't know who set up the camera, but they'll know that someone did set up one!"

"Wouldn't that mean there's a pervert in E Class, which would implicate all of us, as we're boys?"

I tried to get Mitsuba to stop jumping to conclusions and think of the bigger picture. Even if the girls knew about the camera, which they didn't, they'd probably suspect him or Tanaka first due to their perverted personalities.

"Takanori-san, stop using logic!!"

Mitsuba, who couldn't bare to think about what would happen to him, covered his ears and slammed his head onto the carpet.

"The best thing to do is act that this never happened. Unless the girls bring it up, this should stay a secret between us four."

I tried to reason with him the benefits of keeping this a secret.

"If it came out that we tried to peep on the girls, it'd be all over for our school lives. There'd be no chance we could get girlfriends, as all the girls in the school would think we're perverts. Not to mention that this behaviour would likely drop our class back to 0 Cl. You don't want that, do you?"

I started to target Mitsuba's weak spots. He cared about two things: girls and private points. By threatening the loss of both, he'd have no choice but to surrender to my idea. I was sure that Yukimura would stay quiet about this, since his reaction implied that he was going to forget it ever happen in order to save himself from the implication of being involved. Tanaka would just have to go along with it in order to avoid being labelled a traitor to the "male cause".

Mitsuba slowly raised his head and looked at me with puffy eyes. He had bet everything on this one plan, but it had failed miserably due to one reason. He lacked a fundamental understanding of the type of person I was.

"Okay... good idea, Takanori-san... let's pretend none of this ever happened, okay? I'll message Yukimura-san about it too, just to be safe..."

"What's said in Vegas, stays in Vegas, de gozaru."

Tanaka used a common English phrase that meant secrets should stay secrets. All four of us had no choice but to stay silent about it, and pretend it never happened, or else we'd risk losing all of our reputation and ruining the class dynamic. Not to mention, the girls would hate us for sure.

"I agree."

With that, I left the room. My job here as the whistleblower was done.