The intense atmosphere was instantly broken.
“Yes please grandma.” Tsukasa said politely, “And one for my friend here.”
“Excellent. We never have guests around so I’ll bring out the special tea set.” She said, oblivious to the seriousness of the issues being discussed.
After settling his nerves, Manabu finally managed to grab the envelope. He pulled out the photos first, but he kept his eyes closed for a moment, as if to mentally prepare.
The moment he opened his eyes, his body flooded with shame. The photos were distressing, showing a supposed intimate moment between two teens. Yet with all of his experience in post production for photographers, he could easily see the shoddy job that had been done.
He could see that whoever doctored these photos was inexperienced. They literally just cropped the head of the two victims onto another photo, making heavy use of the blending and blur tool in order to disguise it.
However, the photos were so confronting that no regular person would look close enough in order to see such a detail. If Manabu was not so experienced with photo editing software, he too would have not seen all the glaring defects.
Yet that was not all. Once he placed the photos back into the envelope and turned his attention to the note, his face darkened even more.
The twisted words which taunted and blamed the victim for his actions were too much for him to bear. After ensuring he read the whole thing, he placed it back into the envelope and slowly sat back into the couch, feeling his head spinning.
It was then that his mother entered the room, carrying a fine china tea set.
“Let me pour you boys some tea. It’s a lovely Sencha that my daughter-in-law gifted me.”
Unaware of the conversation, the elderly woman was a gracious host, serving up tea to her guests.
If Manabu wasn’t being glared at by Tetsu, he would have tried to rush his mother out of the room. Yet he had a feeling if he did so, the muscular-armed man might lash out at him.
“Thank you ma’am.” Tsukasa said, lifting the tea up to his lips and taking a sip.
Silence once again filled the air after Manabu’s mother left the room. Only the sound of everyone drinking tea could be heard, creating another uncomfortable atmosphere.
“H-How do you know it’s my son?” he asked, placing down his tea cup gently.
“My daughter said it was a boy who looks just like ya.” Tetsu said calmly, bringing the tea up to his mouth and slurping loudly, his eyes never leaving the rotund man.
Manabu couldn’t deny it. For his job, he had hundreds of dollars worth of photo editing software on his computer. It would be easy for his son to access his computer and use the programs without his knowledge.
He sat in contemplation for a while, only to stand up in the next moment.
“Oi, where do ya think yer going.” Tetsu said, his deep voice oozing danger.
“I-I need to go check my computer. If I find the photos on there I can delete them so there’s no way Kohei can spread them.” He stammered, but his words seemed effective.
Tetsu nodded, but he still wasn’t fully convinced. If this guy’s son was a piece of work, what did that make the father who raised him.
“I’ll come with you.” He said.
Manabu was about to retort, however he was interrupted before the words could formulate in his mouth.
“It wasn’t a request.” Tsukasa said with a smile.
“O-Okay. Follow me.”
The rotund man got up and led the two downstairs to his lair. He originally was going to speak up out of embarrassment. Since he never received visitors, the basement was a dump.
Tetsu’s face scrunched up as he was assaulted by the smell of old food and damp sweat. If it wasn’t for his daughter, he would have likely retreated back upstairs, not wanting to sully his nose with such a disgusting scent.
Unfortunately, the basement looked as bad as it smelt with dirty clothes and plates piled up. There were also bags of rubbish, filled to the brim scattered around, looking like a landfill.
It was only now that he had guests that Manabu suddenly realized what kind of squalor he was living in. His shame and embarrassment mixed together with his anxiety, making him feel gloomy and pathetic.
‘I just want to get this over with.’ He thought.
He sat in his computer chair and brought up the recent files in his photo editing software. After scrolling down a little, he saw some files named “untitled”.
Without any fanfare, he opened up the file and lo and behold, a doctored photo of Ken and Ai appeared on the screen. Manabu’s face darkened in response, quickly minimizing the screen.
“Let me just find the file location and I’ll delete them permanently.” He muttered, just loud enough for the other two to hear his words.
After a little bit of searching, he found a folder called “new folder”, hidden within the local files on his desktop. When he opened it, there were a lot more files than he expected, causing his brow to furrow.
He wanted to open them to investigate, but he was worried about what he would find. There was also the additional pressure of the two scary men behind him.
“Open them all before you delete them.” Tsukasa said, peering over his shoulder.
It seemed that he had a lot more computer knowledge than Tetsu who seemed confused by the direction his friend had given.
Manabu let out a small sigh, but he did as he was told, silently praying that there was nothing even more nefarious in here.
He clicked the first photo, only to be met with a picture of a young girl and his son Kohei holding hands and looking at the camera with a smile. Once again, the photo editing job was shoddy, showing plenty of blur and blending had been added to the picture.
CRACK
Manabu suddenly felt the back of his chair crack, causing him to rise to his feet in a fright.
Looks like Kohei really is a piece of work. Next chapter will be quite a wake up call for both Manabu and Kohei.
Next Chapter: Consequences
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