Chapter 217 - Infiltration: Tokyo Detention House
Pushed into the back seat, I stared blankly out the windshield.
In the driver's seat sat the police officer who had been called "senpai," and in the passenger seat sat the one who seemed to be her junior.
As for Erin, she was being held quietly in the junior officer's arms.
"Look, senpai. This cat isn't struggling at all. She's a smart one."
"Yeah."
I heard a disinterested reply, and then the car began to move silently.
...This is bad.
If I get taken to the station like this, I'll end up with a criminal record.
At worst, they might even search my home. If that happens, everything's over.
It would be discovered that I have multiple minors living in my apartment, and I'd go down in entertainment history as a legendary sugar daddy.
No, not just entertainment history — even across all of criminal history, wouldn't I carve out a pretty prominent spot?
Society might accept the thing with Angelica and Ayako-chan as "he couldn't control his lust," but adding Philia, who's regressed to infancy and babbling, and Chloe, who a DNA test would reveal as my secret child, I feel like the scandal level would jump about five stages.
Just imagining what kind of reporting I'd get is terrifying.
"We have a breaking news report. It appears that Keisuke Nakamoto, known as the UFO Guy, has been arrested on suspicion of confining multiple underage girls in his home. Among them is a white woman with intellectual disabilities, and authorities say they are investigating possible connections to international crime organizations. ...Ah, we have another update! One of the girls living with him is reportedly Nakamoto's biological child! A secret child! Calculating her age, it seems she was born when Nakamoto was still a teenager... H-how long do we have to keep calling this sex fiend a 'member' in our reports!?"
No good, this would dominate public conversation for weeks...!
The shady true-crime manga lined up at convenience stores would all be about me for a while...!
"Guooo...!"
As I groaned, clutching my head, a certain person's face floated into my mind.
Sugitani-san — that person should be a big shot in the Public Security Bureau.
If I dropped his name, wouldn't something work out?
"Hey! Could you check with Sugitani-san?"
"..."
Ignored, huh.
What's with this dry response?
What, she doesn't want to exchange words with a pervert in possession of obscene materials?
Fine, if that's how it is, I'll use force... but doing that would probably damage my social reputation even more, so what the hell am I supposed to do?
The fact that they're female officers makes the impression even worse, you know?
If I hurt them, I'd definitely be the villain.
In short, isn't it game over the moment I got caught?
Just as I was sinking into resignation, a voice came from the driver's seat.
"Contact with Superintendent Sugitani is currently impossible."
"Huh?"
I looked up instinctively and met the female officer's eyes in the rearview mirror. It was the one who'd been called senpai.
"Superintendent Sugitani was taken into custody a short while ago."
"Wh-why...!?"
"We don't really understand either. The charge is embezzlement."
Oh, the flow of the conversation's changed somehow? Clinging to any straw, I latched onto the discussion.
"Embezzlement...? Sugitani-san? He didn't seem strapped for cash at all."
"It's likely just a pretext for the arrest."
"This is starting to smell a bit fishy, isn't it?"
"We think so too."
Could this be... maybe that thing?
Recalling a scene from a crime drama I watched long ago, I asked the female officer.
"Is it that thing where I got caught up in a power struggle within the police organization?"
"That's roughly how you should think of it."
"Then you two are Sugitani-san's trusted subordinates, and you're heading to rescue him now, right!?"
"You're quick on the uptake. That helps."
So that's the situation, huh, I thought with relief.
In other words, these people are under Sugitani-san's influence. They're probably not really trying to arrest me.
"Superintendent Sugitani is currently being held at the Tokyo Detention House. ...Nakamoto-san, from here on, you'll be infiltrating the facility as a suspect in a sex crime."
"Couldn't you send me in with a cooler charge?"
"Even so, these are Superintendent Sugitani's orders."
"Sugitani-san's?"
"He said that if you undergo a simple physical examination, evidence of crimes involving girls would turn up, so we should arrest you on that pretext and send you to the detention house. In a sense, you have his trust."
That old man was looking at me like that?
Don't screw with me — that makes it sound like I'm routinely doing shady things with teenage girls, doesn't it!?
Which is exactly the case!
"...I've got nothing to say to that."
I'd been doing whatever I wanted today too, kissing and cuddling with Angelica and the others before leaving.
And on top of that, I'm engaged to Rio, so it's only natural I'd be seen as an old man obsessed with young girls.
"We'll put information controls on the media, and later we'll report it as a mistaken arrest, so don't worry. Just relax, become a criminal for real, and explore the detention house for us."
"Roger."
Honestly, even if I haven't been caught, I'm practically a real sex offender anyway.
Fine, I'll do it.
Listening to the Sugitani-san rescue plan, I felt a pang of regret for my own depraved private life.
Volume 2 is now on sale!