"Is it true?"

"Yes."

     "What are the charges?"

"Unprovoked assault, multiple instances."

    "Doesn't it count as a valid defence against an alpha trying to rape someone?"

"Hōji is trying to say there was no attempted rape at all and Inori just beat up a bunch of people unprovoked."

    Ishiyo stares at him like he grew a second head. "You're joking? Who the fuck would believe that?"

        "Who the fuck even believes that a scrawny omega could beat a bunch of alphas up like that in the first place?" counters Naoko.

    "Well, I mean, that part is just true."

        "Yeah but anyone who knows that part is true also knows who Yamada is. You can either have no idea who he is and not believe he did it at all or you can believe he did it and know it was in self-defence or defence of others, so the line these people are trying to draw makes no sense."

The "miasma" (as Tōkan called it) of the previous day seems to have pretty promptly gotten inverted: everyone wants to know the hot goss and Yamada's boyfriend is the most likely source of an explanation. Subaru, Naoko, and Tamiki are helping Tōkan field the questions, and he's feeling loved again.

This is much more his vibe, now that the full picture makes sense in his head again he feels like he knows which strings he needs to pull to get what he wants. So here's how it'll go.

The miasma effect, as far as he's been able to piece together, came from an implicit threat that Hōji and her cronies were making which was sort of backed by their families. His father got Hōji and Karato to bring Inori to the attention of their parents last week, and pulled some strings to make lots of prominent families aware of him in a way they hadn't been before, and the combined pressures meant most people were terrified of what looked like something weird happening around Tōkan.

Inori being detained changes things, though, in that the braver kids are curious enough to ask, and Tōkan tells them just enough that it will pique others' curiosity in a sort of cascade effect, shifting the social consensus curves. And he doesn't tell anyone about Ōta & Ōta being on the case explicitly but he got the rumour to start circulating so that people are speculating madly about it.

Most importantly, the stakes become both more and less personal: on the one hand, Inori being detained makes it become Serious Business rather than just high school popularity stuff, it grounds the discourse; and on the other hand Tōkan now is an insider source on something that will absolutely make the news, which is exciting.

It's a bit more complicated than just that. He has to finesse things, discredit people in ways that won't make his audience just think he's butthurt about Hōji, play enough sympathy cards about how absurd the whole thing is while still being confident that it will blow over and the ones who will end up humiliated will not be Tōkan and Inori.

His father is trying to indirectly play the popularity game against him, make people not want to associate with him because he's embarrassing and involved in shady shit, but he's just... not sufficiently Slytherin to pull it off.

It's exhausting work, though, and after lunch Tōkan finds himself with Subaru on the rooftop again. He's not smoking this time, but Subaru is.

"And to think we used to hang out here with Hōji and Karato."

"I think they've been avoiding here like the plague. It's always been your spot, you're the cool kid who hangs out on the rooftop like some anime boy and everyone else is just hanging out with you."

"I had kinda hoped I'd have managed to go through high school without picking up any enemies. Leave that for when we're adults, you know."

"You did straddle the line alright, I guess."

"...but given the way I believe a large fraction of our peers are unrepentant rapists and that's bad it was inevitable?"

"Yeah. I told you, people didn't really believe you meant it."

"Fuck 'em."

"So... how did it go with Inori yesterday? And what's next?"

"Ōta Kaiyō-san was very reassuring about our prospects, really. Depending on how willing Hirune is to pour money down the drain this can drag out for nearly a month but he and his wife sounded pretty confident that there isn't a case here."

Subaru looks at him from the corner of his eyes and exhales a long puff of smoke. "But you know it's not Hirune behind this."

"I do," he agrees easily. "The thing with Dai was very heavy-handed."

"Dai?"

"Oh, did you not see? My father brought my cousin to the inauguration of his new hotel yesterday and had him cut the tape."

"...wow that is heavy-handed. I'd have thought he'd be more subtle than that."

"He doesn't have a single subtle bone in his body. Kinda banking on that to help with the investigation."

"How?"

"If I could catch him saying it was him, and record it, it would be over."

"...do you think he's that unsubtle?"

"Well, no, but I just need him to admit to enough that it will scare away all prosecutors rather than just ninety-nine percent of them. Or even just enough that if it gets out it will fuck with his image."

"Mm. You got a plan for that?"

"Half of one. Ōta Kaiyō-san is, I hear, very good at digging up connections, and if Father thought there was no point in denying it..."

"Sounds hard to arrange."

"I'm optimistic."