The Boy With The Blank Stare: Future

Chapter Ten: Greed

TW: Referenced Suicide
Saihara's POV:

I don't think it's uncommon to wish for more than what you already have, often when we think of those stories you either have two characters. A poor and yet noble-hearted character down on their luck and drove to poverty due to outside circumstances, or a mustache-twirling millionaire whose desire and lust for wealth leads those beneath them to crumble in defeat and misery to deaf ears.

I wondered how this would be seen in the eyes of stories, in the eyes of readers. Maybe it would be watered down to the barest essentials, like with most cases I worked with. Or maybe it would one day be portrayed as a tragedy.

In the poorest district in all of Japan, there was only one school district with only one high school, middle school, and elementary school. These three schools even back in the twentieth century shared the same building, till the population grew slightly giving the elementary school eventually its own building. That was when Ouma was already in his first year of middle school.

The middle and high school however remained in the same building, till the fire. The fire had ended up burning down half of the building and so it was decided to give rebuild another old building into the new middle school while the high school after repairs were finished would remain in the same building.

The problem lies in where that money came from.

Not only for the repairs but also for the vast improvements of technology and resources the school now had. It even increased the salaries of the teachers, almost unthinkable yet there was never any large fundraising event and the school's previous history showed it to use mostly second-hand or even third-hand textbooks, along with most of the gym equipment being decade-old donations at best.

Yet somehow the school gained the resources to vastly improve not just the high school but the entire district, which only added salt to the wound how despite that Ouma still didn't even have an elevator to reach his class. Or even any assistance for the disabled, that in itself was a crime I would definitely have to expose them for at the end.

I glanced over the stacks of paper and began reviewing the school's income again, trying to approximate the exact budget the school received annually pre and post the incident and...

No doubt about it.

I paused and sighed, cursing myself for not seeing the signs sooner. It was a question I should have asked on day one when I had first arrived at the school and saw the old yearbook photos. Before the incident, the school had been on its last legs with cracked walls and minimal repairs at best, the tuition cost likely being the sole reason they could pay for those repairs. But no one seemed to question how the school had changed so fast and while not on the same budget as a private school, seemed to have been raised far higher than the area it resided in.

The fact such advancements had only been made post the deaths of DICE made it obvious, the school had been paid to sacrifice them. The teachers likely didn't know anything about this, as despite their negligence over the harassment of Ouma it didn't seem likely the substitute could convince every single one of them to turn a blind eye to his crimes. If I had to limit it down it would likely be the headmaster.

He was the one who even announced DICE's deaths to the collective student body, maybe because of shame? Or just to try and disguise his sins? It was a bit murky. There was no other explanation for such a turnaround.

So who gave them that money?

The substitute seemed obvious enough, but this reconstruction likely cost within the thousands along with the inclusions of the new technology and resources, and I doubt if the substitute had that much money he would even have done the job himself when he could have hired someone else. He had DICE had been piled into a rundown van, since the fire was unplanned on his part he likely was already using that van for his own use for some time.