Tokyo: Are you even a proper lawyer?

The following day, at 3 PM.

Masashi Akiyama sat behind his desk, with preliminary case information brought by Rieko Uchida spread out in front of him.

Rio Arimura sat on the sofa in the reception area, glancing at the clock on the wall from time to time; the hour hand had already passed 3:10.

The agreed time has passed.

"Uchida-san... could it be that you were delayed on the way?" Rio Arimura said softly, glancing out the window.

The snow on the streets had not yet melted, and pedestrians hurried along, their breath dissipating quickly in the cold air.

Masashi Akiyama didn't look up, but calmly turned a page of the document: "Wait ten more minutes."

Before he could finish speaking, the doorbell rang.

Rio Arimura immediately got up to open the door.

The door opened, and a cold wind carrying fine snowflakes rushed in. Rieko Uchida stood outside the door; she was all alone.

She was still wearing the same off-white duffle coat as yesterday, but today she wasn't wearing a scarf, and the collar was loosely open, revealing the thin uniform shirt underneath.

Her cheeks were pale from the cold, her lips were purple, and tiny ice crystals, whether from tears or snow, clung to her eyelashes.

Her eyes were swollen and red like two walnuts, her gaze empty, staring straight ahead, yet seemingly unable to see anything.

"Uchida-san?" Rio Arimura's heart skipped a beat. She stepped aside to let her in. "Come in quickly, it's cold outside... Where's your friend?"

Rieko Uchida did not answer.

She walked in mechanically, her steps unsteady, like an empty shell from which her soul had been ripped away.

The hem of his coat trailed behind him, leaving a trail of wet footprints and melted snow on the doormat.

Masashi Akiyama looked up, his gaze lingering on her face for a moment before he put down the documents in his hand.

"Sit down." He gestured to the sofa.

Rieko Uchida did not sit down.

She stood there, her body beginning to tremble slightly, at first very gently, then more and more violently.

She opened her mouth as if to say something, but only managed to utter a series of broken, incoherent breaths.

"Uchida-san?" Rio Arimura stepped forward to help her, but was stopped by a look from Masashi Akiyama.

"Let her speak."

Rio Arimura stopped what she was doing and looked at Rieko Uchida with concern.

The latter finally regained his voice, which was hoarse like sandpaper, and every word seemed to be torn out from the depths of his throat.

"Yuna...Yuna, she..."

She paused, then tears welled up unexpectedly, rolling down her frozen cheeks and dripping onto the front of her coat, spreading into dark stains.

"She's dead."

Rio Arimura gasped, her fingers clenching the hem of her clothes tightly.

Masashi Akiyama frowned almost imperceptibly. "When did this happen?"

"This...morning..." Rieko Uchida sobbed, her words incoherent, "Her mother...called me...and said Yuna...took her medicine...in her room..."

She couldn't continue; her body was trembling violently, and she could barely stand.

Rio Arimura finally couldn't hold back any longer. She stepped forward to help her up, led her to sit down on the sofa, and hurriedly poured her a cup of hot water, placing it into her cold hands.

Rieko Uchida did not drink it.

She held the cup in both hands; the scalding heat radiated through the porcelain, but it did nothing to warm her frozen hands.

She lowered her head, and large tears dripped into the cup, creating tiny ripples in the hot water.

"Yesterday...after I left here yesterday, I went to look for her..." Her voice trailed off, "Her house...no one answered the door...I waited until very late...then her mother came back...and said Yuna didn't want to see anyone..."

"This morning... I went there again... and saw... an ambulance... and police..."

She raised her tearful eyes and looked at Masashi Akiyama.

"Mr. Akiyama... I beg you... you must help Yuna... She can't... she can't die like this... and bear the stigma of stealing..."

Masashi Akiyama looked at her, remained silent for a moment, and then slowly spoke.

"Explain things clearly. What exactly did your friend go through from beginning to end?"

Rieko Uchida's intermittent narration.

Yuna Sakura, 17 years old, is a second-year student at a private girls' high school.

To save money to buy the camera I've been wanting for a long time, I started working at a chain convenience store near the train station six months ago.

She is a hard worker, introverted, and never argues with anyone.

A week ago, after her night shift, store manager Kenichi Nakajima called her into his office.

"Yuna, there's one box of limited edition chocolate missing from the shelf. It's priced at 5,000 yen."

Kenichi Nakajima is a slightly overweight man in his early forties who always has a smile on his face.

"The security cameras captured you passing that shelf several times. Do you know what happened?"

Yuna panicked. She had indeed passed by that shelf, but that was her assigned area; restocking and organizing the shelves was her job.

But she definitely didn't take anything.

"I...I didn't...Manager, I really didn't..."

"Don't be nervous." Kenichi Nakajima smiled kindly, walked around the desk, and stood in front of her. "I trust you. But just to be on the safe side, I need to check your bag, and... your person. It's the rule, you know."

Yuna hesitated.

She felt something was wrong, but the store manager's explanation made perfect sense, and the other person had always been the senior employee who took the best care of her in the store.

She hesitated for a moment, then handed over the canvas bag she was carrying.

Kenichi Nakajima took it, symbolically flipped through it a few times, then put it down, his gaze falling on her.

"Take off your coat too, and your sweater as well. What if it accidentally gets caught inside?"

The office door was gently locked from the inside as he turned around.

"Take it one step at a time, don't rush."

Yuna started to tremble. She wanted to leave, to say "no," but her throat felt blocked and she couldn't make a sound.

Urged on by the other party, she trembled as she took off her down jacket, then her cardigan, and finally her school uniform shirt.

The winter chill seeped through her thin clothes, making her teeth chatter, but what chilled her even more was the gaze that clung to her.

"Continue," Kenichi Nakajima said.

Yuna shook her head. She tried to back away, but all she could find against her back was the cold wall, and tears welled up in her eyes.

"Manager...please...I really didn't..."

"Then prove it to me." Kenichi Nakajima stepped forward and reached out to pull at the hem of her uniform skirt. "The last one. Take it off, and I'll believe you."

Just as his hand was about to touch her, Yuna let out a short scream, pushed him away abruptly, picked up her clothes scattered on the ground, and rushed out the door.

She didn't even have time to get dressed properly, just threw on a coat haphazardly, and ran wildly through the cold winter night wind.

The next day, Kenichi Nakajima contacted the school.

"I regret to inform you that Sakura stole something from the store. When I discovered it, she not only denied it but also ran away in a rude manner. As the store manager, I have an obligation to inform your school of this situation."

The homeroom teacher spoke with Yuna.

The middle-aged female teacher, who always had a stern face, simply pushed up her glasses after hearing Yuna's tearful explanation.

"Sakura-kun, the store manager has CCTV footage proving you were indeed near the shelves at that time. And if you really didn't steal anything, why did you run away? Doesn't that just make things more suspicious?"

"Teacher... I really didn't... He... he made me take off my clothes..."

"You can't just say things like that," the homeroom teacher interrupted her, her brow furrowing. "Manager Nakajima is a model businessman in the community; he donates to the school every year. You said he...did that kind of thing with you, do you have any evidence?"

Yuna was stunned.

Evidence? There were no security cameras in the office, the door was locked from the inside, and only the two of them were there.

"Without evidence, it's slander." The homeroom teacher's voice turned cold. "Sakura, I suggest you admit your mistake, compensate for the losses, and apologize to the store manager. That way, the school can handle it leniently and won't leave a record on your file. Otherwise... if this matter blows up, it won't do you or your parents any good."

Yuna returned home, wanting to ask her parents for help.

She was met with a barrage of slaps from her father and hysterical cries and curses from her mother.

"You shameful thing! How could I have given birth to a daughter like you!"

"Stealing? And then slandering others? You've completely disgraced our family!"

"Go apologize right now! Pay up! If the school expels you, don't ever set foot in this house again!"

No one listened to her explanation.

Nobody believed her.

On that cold winter night, Sakura Yuna huddled in the corner of her room, watching the snow fall silently outside the window. She felt like a snowflake, light and insignificant, no one would care where she landed or melted.

She didn't go to school the next day.

There was none on the third day either.

On the morning of the fourth day, her mother opened her bedroom door and found her lying in bed, pale and cold.

On the bedside table, a sachet of sleeping pills lay empty. Next to it was a suicide note, containing only a few lines:

"I didn't steal anything."

"I really didn't."