"What do you mean by this? Why did you put a camera in my room?"
Regarding the question Chiaki asked after hesitating for a long time, Lin responded with the explanation he had already prepared.
Was it an illusion? He felt like he was getting better at lying lately.
However, that thought didn't linger in his mind for long—lying wasn't necessarily a bad thing.
"Because I care about you," Lin said, still observing Chiaki's reaction as he spoke.
He wanted to send a signal through these words.
He was constantly monitoring her; he wanted her not to act rashly.
"C-Care? Uh... okay, I think you said something like that last night too." Chiaki still wasn't quite used to Lin way of speaking. "But don't have any weird expectations of me. I'm grateful you helped me, but you absolutely have to take that camera back from my room."
Compared to before, Chiaki seemed to have lost some of her sarcasm. It was unclear if Lin series of actions had made her genuinely fear him.
"Okay."
Lin nodded. He hadn't expected to be able to monitor Chiaki with the camera forever anyway.
There was no further dialogue between them after that. They soon walked back to Chiaki's room. After entering, Lin pulled an almost invisible miniature camera from under the table and put it back into his pocket right in front of the black-faced Chiaki.
Lin was about to leave, but Chiaki called out to him.
"Wait a minute. You said yesterday... you wanted to hear about my past today."
"..."
Lin had indeed said that, but he was somewhat surprised that Chiaki brought it up herself.
A vague sense of wrongness occupied his mind, but precisely because he was a person dominated by rational thought, this unexplainable feeling wasn't enough to make him refuse Chiaki at this moment.
"First, you have to promise not to tell anyone else about this."
"I promise."
Lin answered quickly, causing Chiaki to puff out her cheeks. "You answered too fast! You didn't even think about it! That's so irresponsible!"
"..."
However, she misunderstood Lin. As long as Lin made an agreement, he would definitely keep it.
The speed of his answer was not the basis for whether he would comply.
"..."
"..."
The two were at a stalemate for a while. After Chiaki watched the clock pass a full fifteen minutes, she asked cautiously: "You..."
"I promise."
"Huh?"
"I have already considered it for fifteen minutes. After full consideration, trade-offs, and hesitation, I decided to promise not to tell your story to others."
Liar.
Chiaki's expression had completely turned into one of disdain.
This made Lin even more silent. Answering too fast wasn't okay, and answering too slowly wasn't okay either—why did things like this happen? He thought such contradictory behavior was common enough with Mobius, but he hadn't expected Chiaki to be the same.
Was it that women were naturally like this? Or was he the one who was special?
"There's no sincerity at all! How about this: you tell me something important about yourself too, like an exchange of secrets. How does that sound?" Chiaki's disdainful expression faded into a helpless, probing one.
"Fine," Lin answered without hesitation.
"It has to be the kind of thing you wouldn't tell many people."
"This is about the circumstances of my birth..."
...
By the time Lin finished explaining his birth and growth, Chiaki's expression had become complicated beyond measure.
At this moment, she seemed to be debating whether or not to slap herself twice.
"...Even though your background in the database was ridiculous enough, I didn't expect the hidden parts to be even more... sigh..." Chiaki sighed. "Fine... that is indeed a secret that cannot be told to others."
"But, I want to ask very seriously: do you really... really care about me?"
"Yes."
This time, Lin wasn't actually lying.
He cared about everyone in Fire Moth; one could even say he cared about everyone he saw and came into contact with.
Only this sentence was absolutely not a lie.
"I guess I know why they..." Chiaki didn't finish the last half of her sentence. She seemed to have completely let down her guard, a smile playing on her lips. "You really are as stupid as they come. How can a person like you exist?"
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing. It's just that you don't understand what it means to say these things to the opposite sex. Whether it's you, me, or anyone else, we're all too self-centered."
Chiaki returned to her persona as a proud hacker, waving her hand dismissively. "You don't understand the meaning, others misunderstand the type of your affection, and while I understand and won't misunderstand, I'll still just enjoy it anyway."
"...What are you talking about?"
"Nothing. Let's start talking about my past."
An indifferent look filled Chiaki's eyes. She looked at Lin and said, "First, I have to admit one thing. All the information about me, including what Fire Moth investigated, was intentionally fabricated by me."
"..."
As expected?
"You don't seem very surprised. I thought you should have investigated me already."
"Because that information was too normal," Lin replied.
"Normal? That's not right. I think the things I wrote would seem very special compared to a normal person."
"The best way to keep someone from noticing an anomaly is through 'conspicuous ordinariness.'"
Chiaki's expression shifted slightly before returning to normal quickly. "It seems you understand too. Exactly. If a hacker were born into an ordinary family, it would surely raise suspicions. But if her birth itself was full of constant hardships, it would actually seem commonplace. Like the protagonist of a novel, being an orphan is more special than others, but for the protagonist, it's mundane and more convenient."
Lin recalled everything he had seen when he went to the database to find Chiaki's files last time. Combining that with Chiaki's mention of "conspicuous ordinariness," it wasn't hard to guess the data was fabricated.
Moreover, through this matter, he had discovered something else.
Chiaki was conveying a certain signal.
"Are you a bit surprised I'm telling you this just like that? But I'm different from you all. I value emotions more than rational thinking."
Chiaki's smile looked bleak and lonely.
"If someone could set aside their rationality for me, I'd definitely be moved to tears."
"After all, I'm a liar who has been lying from beginning to end."
"Even the name 'Chiaki' is fake."
This sentence was like a bombshell exploding, yet Lin still waited for her to continue without saying a word.
What he remembered were Vil-V's words.
He currently trusted no one.
When a lie is uncovered, it doesn't mean the truth is inside; it might just be another layer of a lie.