Suspicions and Threats

Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at http://archiveofourown.org/works/45757105.

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Category: F/M
Fandom: ようこそ実力至上主義の教室へ | Youkoso Jitsuryoku Shijou Shugi no
Kyoushitsu e | Classroom of the Elite (Anime), SPY x FAMILY (Anime)
Relationship: Ayanokouji Kiyotaka/Karuizawa Kei
Character: Ayanokouji Kiyotaka, Loid Forger | Twilight, Yor Briar Forger | Thorn
Princess, Anya Forger, Karuizawa Kei, Sylvia Sherwood | Handler,
Satou Maya, Horikita Suzune, Kushida Kikyou, Sudou Ken, Yukimura
"Keisei" Teruhiko, Becky Blackbell, Kanzaki Ryuuji, Himeno Yuki, Shiina
Hiyori, Ryuuen Kakeru, Ishizaki Daichi, Sakayanagi Arisu, Fiona Frost |
Nightfall, Ichinose Honami
Additional Tags: Modern Era, Special Exam, Foreign Exchange Program, WISE is kind
of everywhere, Very out of character for ANHS but whatever, Everyone
is Suspicious of Everyone, Kiyotaka enjoying trying new things,
Kiyotaka never gets a break, White Room, Takes place where Y2 V8
would be, Modern Day, these students are crazy i feel bad for Anya
being a telepath here, Mostly Canon Compliant
Language: English
Stats: Published: 2023-03-15 Updated: 2023-07-05 Words: 46,608 Chapters:
14/15

Suspicions and Threats

by Andromesa

Summary

“Ostania, huh?”
Ayanokoji Kiyotaka stepped out of the bus that had driven him from the airport to where he
would be staying for the next month. This special test didn’t seem as if it would be too
difficult to get through, but his more academically challenged classmates may have their
fair share of problems ahead. It seemed that instead of a normal 2nd year school trip, they
would be traveling to a different country where a certain school had authorized a student
exchange program. The rules of the special test were simple, it was essentially graded based
on the grades that they received while studying at this elite academy for one month. The
school in question being the famous Eden Academy, known for being a prestigious school,
mostly for children of the most esteemed families in the nation known as Ostania. They
wished to have the students stay with families of the students during the foreign exchange
test. What would happen when Kiyotaka was assigned to the Forgers, a fake family
unbeknownst to him. As well as the intervention of WISE in his situation planning to cause
its fair share of troubles. Maybe this trip wouldn't be as carefree as he thought.

Takes place when Y2 V8-9 would have happened.

 Welcome to Ostania

“Ostania, huh?”

Ayanokoji Kiyotaka stepped out of the bus that had driven him from the airport to where he would
be staying for the next month. He had said goodbye to his classmates for the time being and
stepped out onto the sidewalk. The bus began to drive away, with a few of his classmates waving at
him through the window. This special test didn’t seem as if it would be too difficult to get through,
but his more academically challenged classmates may have their fair share of problems ahead. It
seemed that instead of a normal 2nd year school trip, they would be traveling to a different country
where a certain school had authorized a student exchange program. The rules of the special test
were simple, it was essentially graded based on the grades that they received while studying at this
elite academy for one month. The school in question being the famous Eden Academy, known for
being a prestigious school, mostly for children of the most esteemed families in the nation known
as Ostania. Although there seemed to be dormitories on the campus, they were all essentially full
and the large majority of the students were not willing to share a living space with ‘uncultured’
children. The school had another idea anyways, they wished to have the students stay with families
of the students during the foreign exchange test. Normally this would be unheard of by the school,
but if Ayanokoji had to guess, this had something to do with Tsukishiro’s involvement and it was
too late to cancel now. This was a very rare time where the students of ANHS were permitted to
interact with the outside world to a degree.

He watched the bus travel further down the street until it was gone. All he held was a lone suitcase,
filled with only his essential belongings. He had been given information on the family that he
would be staying with during the time period, the Forgers. Loid Forger, Yor Forger, and their six
year old daughter Anya Forger. Each of the families at the school made the decision whether they
would participate or not, and since they couldn’t all be 2nd year families this led to many students
from every age agreeing. The parents had also been given all of their OAA scores, and made their
decisions from there. The Forgers had apparently decided to choose him, maybe because he looked
unassuming enough and had decent enough abilities in every category, he didn’t really care for the
reasoning.

As there was not a set arrival time due to flight times being weird, no one was waiting for
Ayanokoji when he arrived. It was well into the evening, the sky nearing a dark blue. He looked
again at the information that he had been given, as well as a phone number that he could contact
them with. It would be polite to give them a call letting them know that he had arrived before
approaching their door, but he was already there so it wouldn’t matter too much. A few of the
people in the lobby sent weird stares in his direction, but he had become nearly immune to this kind
of othering after his encounters with the third years. He entered the elevator and rode it the way up
until he reached the designated floor. After finding his way to the apartment number listed, he
knocked on the door.

“Ah! Loid-san, he’s here!” It sounded like the voice of a woman, it must’ve been Yor Forger.

He waited for a moment before the door swung open, revealing the faces of all three of the
Forgers.

“Kiyotaka Ayanokoji, correct?” Loid asked with a smile on his face. He wasn’t used to hearing his
name in the reverse order from normal. If he remembered correctly, in western countries, they
would call people by their given names regardless of whether they knew you or not. The exception
was if you were referring to people in a very formal context, where you would use honorifics.
“Yes, thank you for allowing me to stay with you this month.”

Yor ushered him inside, “Please, sit down Kiyotaka-kun. We waited to have dinner so that you
wouldn’t have to eat cold food after coming so far. It’s not quite ready but we can show you around
during that time.”

As Kiyotaka entered the apartment, Loid began to explain the living situation for the month. “We
have a spare bedroom prepared for you, so you'll be sleeping there."

“Thank you.” Kiyotaka glanced down the hallway, seeing three rooms.

He lightly sat down on the couch and set down his suitcase to the side of it while he waited to
learn which room was his. His first impressions of the family were that they seemed caring. He
could see himself getting comfortable while living with them for the next month, familial love
slightly intriguing him. Anya soon approached him with her dog, Bond. All she did was stand there
and stare at him, Kiyotaka lightly looking back so as to not scare her.

Yor sat down on the couch to the side of him, “Anya-san, stop staring. It’s rude.” Using honorifics
on your own child would be considered strange, this immediately stood out to Kiyotaka.

She looked over towards Yor, “Anya wants to help!”

“You were talking about wanting to show him around earlier, why don’t you do that now while
Loid-san makes dinner.” Honorifics towards her husband too.

Anya turned back towards Kiyotaka, full of determination. “Anya can help show you around.” She
spoke in a strange way, her tone clearly indicated that she was still wary of him, but that was to be
expected as he was an unfamiliar guest from another country.

Anya showed him around enthusiastically, even though there wasn’t that much in the small space.
He set down his suitcase in his room and briefly looked around. Anya continued to show him
around the house, specifically highlighting her room as the coolest area. Through the duration of it,
he took the time to think about what could possibly happen during the time he was there. It
wouldn’t be impossible for his father to send people to retrieve him while his guard was down, but
after learning about how wary Ostania was of spies that may not be an option. If that man wanted
to drag him back to the White Room now, it may create future problems for him. For now, he was
glad to be in a place where he could see how a family interacts, the right way. This would be a
good opportunity to see what the image of a ‘normal’ family was supposed to be like, even if this
family ended up being not so normal. Anything would be better than no mother and a distant,
loveless father.

As he was thinking, Anya paused her tour and stood still. She suddenly turned around and headed
back to the living room, “Anya’s tour is done!” Her movements were almost robotic, slightly
endearing coming from a young child.

“Ah, uh okay.” Kiyotaka wasn’t very familiar with being in an environment such as this, so he
would need to learn to adapt quickly. He followed her back into the living room and sat down
awkwardly, Yor still waiting there.

It was clear that she was also nervous, seemingly relying on Loid to do the majority of the
speaking work. Seeing as he was in the kitchen now, that wouldn’t be possible. “So, Kiyotaka-kun,
what do you do in your free time?”

He couldn’t give a boring answer, because all things considered he didn’t really do much outside of
school. “I usually read. I’m a frequent visitor of the library at my school.”

She smiled, “That’s great to know. I think there’s a bookstore within walking distance from here,
we could visit it sometime if you’d like.”

Before leaving the school, each of the second years had exchanged some of their points for
currency that could be used in Ostania. This would make it possible for the students to buy things
using their own money instead of relying on the families to support them. Kiyotaka couldn’t deny
that he wasn’t at least slightly interested in what books they may have there, so he felt it would be
wise to agree to her offer. “That would be nice, even just to browse.”

Anya hopped onto the couch where Yor was sitting, she had recovered the bubbly energy from
earlier that she had. The silence was awkward, but neither side could think of anything to talk
about. Kiyotaka had previously turned his phone on silent, but there was the urge in the back of his
mind to check it despite knowing that it would be rude. He wondered how Kei was doing since she
had been dropped off almost an hour before him. They wouldn't have many opportunities to have
dates outside of school for the next month, this disappointed him slightly. He would be losing vital
time before winter break.

After a lengthy period of silence where Kiyotaka simply thought about the future, dinner was
finally ready.

"I hope you enjoy. I made Japanese dishes today just so that you would be more comfortable
adjusting.”

“Thank you for your consideration,” he was actually curious to try food from Ostania but his
curiosity could wait. He was used to being patient.

They sat down around the table, Anya wasting no time digging into the food in front of her.
Kiyotaka saw that both a fork and chopsticks had been offered to him, but seeing the dishes that
were offered it would be best to use chopsticks in this case. He picked up a few things from the
different plates they had laid out, Yor and Loid seemingly waiting for him to take his choice first.
It only made sense, it would probably be rude to steal all of the food from a guest. Still, he felt out
of place and as if he was being singled out in a way. It wasn’t anything like the persistent stares of
the third years, but it was a different kind of uncomfortable. An uncomfortable feeling that made
you feel like an intruder. Once he had gathered a few things on his plate and a bowl of miso soup,
he lightly bowed his head towards the meal and began to eat. At this point, Loid and Yor finally
began to take food for themselves.

Yor took a bite of a piece of tempura and her expression brightened, “Mm! Loid-san, you’re such a
good cook. I wish I had your talent.”

Kiyotaka nodded to her statement, “I haven’t had a home cooked meal like this in a really long
time.” The truth was he had never had a home cooked meal. Aside from the things that he made
himself in the dorms, with his cooking skills not nearly being enough to create complicated dishes,
a meal cooked for him like this was something new to him. Everything at the cafeteria was still
good, but it would never really be the same as this. That wasn’t even mentioning the White Room
which had extremely strict meals and nutrition requirements.

Anya began to stare at him once again while he was eating, slightly creeping him out. The only
time he had been in contact with normal children was during the cultural festival the month before,
and even then the target consumers for the maid cafe were not children. Perhaps this was normal,
it’s not as if he would know. She suddenly looked alarmed and went back to putting her full
attention on eating.
Loid spoke up, attempting to break the silence a bit, “So, Kiyotaka, we were given your OAA
evaluation when we were first choosing a student to house for the exchange program. You seem to
be a very well rounded student, are there any particular things you excel or fail in?”

He finished chewing before answering. “Math is definitely my strongest subject, but history would
probably be my weakest. Too many events to memorize.” The extent of how strong or weak he was
in each would be a mystery, but those were his honest opinions.

Loid let out a polite laugh, “Ah, Anya isn’t very good at math. Though considering how difficult
the curriculum at Eden is for even a first grader, it’s not too surprising.”

“I wonder how difficult it would be for a second year student there. I’ve never been great at school
so I think I would just flunk out in a few weeks,” Yor mentioned.

There was a full minute of silence while they continued to eat. Loid looked over at Yor and nodded
slightly with a caring look on his face. “I’m not sure if you noticed, but we’re not really a normal
family. Not as in we do weird things, but the situation is a bit complicated.”

Kiyotaka looked up, “I don’t mind either way.”

“That’s good to know. My wife died a few years ago leaving it as just Anya and I. Yor and I met
around a year ago and we got married soon after. I don’t want it to seem strange to you if we act
differently from most families, so that’s why I’m telling you this.”

Kiyotaka still had a lingering feeling that something else was going on within this family, but he
couldn’t judge from just his initial observations at this stage. “I was wondering about the
honorifics a bit, but I’m glad you let me know.”

Yor stuttered a few words out, “Uhm, Kiyotaka-kun, do you mind me asking what your family is
like? I’m sure you’ve been away from them for a while, so it must be difficult.”

Difficult, huh? If anything he was feeling better than ever now that he had seized his freedom for
the first time in his life. While thinking about his family, a memory of his father in the White
Room flashed through his mind. He was unsure of whether to tell the truth, but he decided there
wasn’t much harm in explaining it in a vague enough way to where it could be considered normal.
Many children have difficult relationships with their parents, it would be nothing out of the
ordinary if he was to have a similar situation.

“My family… I don’t have any siblings, and I never knew my mother. I also have a difficult
relationship with my father, but that’s about all.” He said it nonchalantly, he didn’t want a big deal
being made out of his situation.

Yor’s face turned red, “Ah! I’m so sorry for asking you that question. I-I didn’t know.”

“Don’t worry about it, my family situation isn’t really a big deal to me.” Yor sighed a breath of
relief while still sweating profusely.

Kiyotaka took another bite and suddenly felt a different gaze on him, but when he looked up
everyone was still smiling back. The feeling of it went away once he had looked up, but his
movement was natural enough to not make it seem weird. Anya wasn’t even paying attention, but
he had already learned what her gaze felt like to him. It was just a hunch, but one of them seemed
to be focused on who he was.

What question should he ask? Something natural to keep the conversation going. Even though he
wasn’t a fan of small talk, he was willing to do it if necessary. “What are your jobs?”
Anya suddenly looked up in excitement, “Papa is a Spy-! Spychologist!”

Loid facepalmed lightly but remained completely calm, “Anya, we really need to teach you how to
say psychologist correctly. You keep giving me a scare. But as she said, I’m a psychologist.” He
smiled back at Anya, "Sometimes it's almost like she's reading your mind. She's a strange child, but
she's cute." Anya sunk into her seat slightly.

“I do office work for the city,” Yor responded.

Seemingly normal answers, but Anya’s mispronunciation raised a few flags within Kiyotaka’s
mind. These were all just slight theories though, he didn’t particularly care about what was going
on in this family anyways. It would only be an activity to pass the time if anything.

After dinner, Kiyotaka returned to his room and set his clothes out in the drawer gently. They were
given new uniforms so that they wouldn’t stand out within Eden Academy with their usual
uniforms. He also found some of his school items inside, along with his bag. The school bag was
decided to be the only thing that would differentiate them from the other regular students, of course
other than their clear differences in complexions. He also packed some of the books that Hiyori
had lent him for the trip along with other library books. Usually students wouldn’t be allowed to
take these books on a trip, but Hiyori and him were exceptions due to being favorites of the library
staff. It wouldn’t be enough to last him a month, especially if he had a lot of downtime, but it
would suffice.

He fell down onto the bed and pulled out his phone. Over a hundred messages. He really didn’t
think he was popular enough to warrant this, but when he checked the majority of them were from
Kei. Horikita simply told him to update her if anything noteworthy happens, same with Hirata.
There was also one message from Ryuuen that was just letting him know that he would crush him
while they were here. Kiyotaka questioned for a moment how he got his number, but then saw an
excited message from Ishizaki and it made sense. He opened his texts from Kei briefly, and then
suddenly got a call. It was Kei.

He pressed the accept button and put it up to his ear, “Hi Kei.”

<I’ve been trying to get in touch with you for an hour!>

The sudden burst of sound from the phone hurt his ear, and he had to hold it away from his head
for a second before turning it to speaker phone and setting it down. “I was eating dinner. Plus, I
didn’t want to be rude by answering my phone when I had only just gotten here. My phone was on
silent.”

<I guess that answer is fine… but next time you really have to let me know beforehand!>

“Alright, I’ll make sure to do that next time.”

A moment of silence passed before Kei sighed into the phone.

<Looks like we won’t have many opportunities to meet up outside of school this month. I really
feel like I’m losing my time with you.>

“I could try to plan something, though it seems like you’re pretty far away from me in the city.”

<The family I’m staying with doesn’t seem to be too strict. I don’t know why they would’ve
chosen someone like me if they were. What’s yours like?>

“They seem nice. I don’t know why, but I just have a feeling that something is off.”
<You should totally go with your gut Kiyotaka, you’re usually right anyways. Besides, no matter
what it is you’ll predict every possibility and figure things out.>

They continued to talk for some time about what they thought things would be like, or just their
general opinion of what the city was like. Once they ran out of things to talk about, the
conversation gradually fell into silence. It was a comfortable silence that they were used to.

Kei checked the time.

<Normally I’m not the one to say this, but it’s getting late. We should probably go to bed.>

“Hm, I guess you’re right. I’ll talk to you tomorrow then.”

<...>

“What?”

<Aren’t you forgetting something?>

“I know what you’re talking about, but usually you’re the one who says it first so I like to give you
the initiative to say it.”

<It’s still nice to know that you can say it without it having to be reciprocal!> She complained.

“Okay, okay. I love you Kei.”

<I love you too Kiyotaka!>

She hung up the phone, and Kiyotaka casually looked through the rest of the texts that she had
sent. They were all very much in her style, it was cute. Before he could think about going to bed,
there was a knock on the door.

“Could I enter?” The voice was one of a gentle man.

“Come in.”

Loid opened the door with a towel in his arm.

“I’m not sure if you were going to take a shower tonight, but I just thought I should provide a towel
for you.”

“Thank you.”

He set it down on the dresser, but hesitated leaving the room and stood there for a moment.

“Is there something else?”

“Well, yes there actually is. This was Yor’s idea, but she offered that we should take a walk around
the city tomorrow and do some things to introduce you to the area. It would be a good way to get to
know each other and it would be fun.”

“I’m up for anything, if it’s what you all want to do then I’d be glad to join you.” He thought about
things that normal families did, and this seemed to be one of them.

“Then I’ll be sure to let her know. Please, feel free to help yourself to anything in the house. Don’t
feel like you need to ask for everything.”
“I appreciate it.” He had said thank you and things similar to it many times that day, but it was the
only way he could think of how to politely respond in most scenarios.

“I’ll leave you to it then.”

Loid exited the room, leaving Kiyotaka sitting on the bed.

I don’t have the motivation to shower right now… I’ll do it tomorrow morning.

He laid down on his bed after setting an alarm for early the next day and changing into better
clothes. Then, he quietly shut off the light.
 Operation Haze
Chapter Notes

See the end of the chapter for notes

Three Months Earlier

“What did you call me out here to report, Twilight?”

The handler and Twilight sat down at a table together, preparing for a serious discussion.

He jumped straight to the point. “An offer from Eden Academy has come up. They’re hosting a
foreign student exchange program with the second years at a prestigious school in Japan. The
students will be assigned to families within the school instead of being allowed to live in the
dormitories. They claimed to not have enough space.”

“Then I urge you to decline,” she stated. “It’s not worth compromising Operation Strix over.”

Twilight sighed, “Under any under circumstance I would have declined as well. However, the
school is the Tokyo Metropolitan Advanced Nurturing High School. The one WISE has had their
eyes on for a while.”

“So you’re proposing this as a way to possibly learn more about the students there? We have
recently had reports from the one we have on the inside there that stated the information they’ve
learned in the past year. Many interesting things have been said about all of the years there, but the
second years especially. Usually we wouldn’t be wary of minors, but this high school often raises
those who will be leading figures in different areas of the country.”

Twilight nodded, agreeing with what she had said so far. “We are allowed to choose students after
being given their ranking in a program they have called the OAA which measures the cumulative
worth of each student. I will not proceed without a clear student that we have decided to choose.”

He brought out a folder that showed the scores of each for each respective category in the OAA.
He had already gone through the trouble of memorizing everything in there.

“I am not involved with what is going on within that operation, I haven’t a clue on if there’s
particular students that are deemed special or not.”

The handler set down the folder after lightly looking through it.

“I don’t remember all of the details off of the top of my head, but if you’re going to choose a
student from a specific class I would advise Class B or Class A. Class B specifically, not for their
merit, but because there are clearly other factors at play. They were originally Class D at the
beginning of high school but climbed up to B and are now in a fierce competition with A. This
stands out because a Class D has not once moved up in the history of the entire school. Apparently
this class also lost all of their points at the beginning of the year, which has never been done before
either. They started from zero, defective students, to almost being on top. Change such as that
could only happen as a result of a large influence within the class.”

“And what of Class A?”

“They are known for having the best students in the school. There are a few names that were
highlighted out of all of the four classes, I think you should choose one of them. I’ll grab the file
and then we can meet up again tomorrow.”

Twilight prepared to grab his coat before she stopped him briefly.

“Twilight. You will need to be careful. There are some crazy kids at that school.”

He took her parting words with him and left.

The next day he met up with her once more, this time in WISE HQ. They met up within her office
where she had several files prepared with the contents filled with information of specific students.

“I’ve gathered up files of interest, I’ll start with who I recommend the least.”

She handed the file over to Twilight who began to read through it.

“Ryuuji Kanzaki. Seems to be a head figure of the class and extremely smart. His family owns
Kanzaki engineering and is very prominent in the business and financial world.”

He set the file down as he was handed another.

“Kakeru Ryuuen. A troublemaker no doubt, but somewhat of a dictator as the class leader. He has
been shown to be extremely cunning and will not hesitate to use forceful and dirty methods. He did
have a period where he stopped being the class leader, but it is unknown whether this was an act or
true.”

Twilight thought that he would be a pain to work with, and immediately disregarded him as a
candidate.

“Suzune Horikita. The leader of Class B and the sister of the former student council president who
graduated last year. She has shown significant growth and is seen to be a key influencing factor
within her class that led to their change.”

She may be the reason why Class B managed to climb so much, she could have held the key to
their victory.

“Arisu Sakayanagi. As the leader of Class A she is not only academically gifted, but also a
strategic genius. Reports have described her as cruel, but she has successfully turned the entire
class into her faction and ended the faction war. We have also connected her as being the daughter
of the chairman of the school who has many connections within Japan.”

Twilight began to speak his opinion, “Well clearly we should try to choose Arisu, she’s-”

“I haven’t finished yet.”

He wondered how there could be someone who was more important of a person in this school than
her. She seemed to have the most influence. Unless… there was the possibility there was the one
behind the scenes who was orchestrating it directly. That could be seen as a threat. She handed the
last file over to him, but when he looked through it, it just looked like a relatively normal student.
Class B…

“Kiyotaka Ayanokoji. I imagine you looked through his OAA evaluation and thought of him as
just another ordinary student. I was tempted to dismiss him as that as well until I saw in the report
things that were never quite adding up about him. His physical ability rating is a B-, but during the
relay event in last year’s sports festival he ran extremely fast. His academic ability is an A-, but it
wasn’t always that way. Our spy on the inside is a teacher within the school, so they were able to
get a look at the grades for the semester 1 midterm this year. In every other subject he got around
70s, but in a math test where there were college level math questions he managed to score full
points. It is possible that he is one of the main reasons that led to Class B’s ability to change.”

Twilight’s eyes widened slightly.

“As well as this, our agent had gathered information that there was a special exam given only to
select first years where the goal was to expel him. This was orchestrated by the acting director at
the time who seemed to have something against Kiyotaka. In addition, he even resorted to forceful
means to attempt to get him to leave in a boat during the island special exam. This is already not
normal, but there’s still more.”

The amount of information she had was shocking, especially considering this was all in a foreign
country. It may not seem as if it could be related but this was all for assurance of the peace between
the East and the West. If he remembered correctly, the one they had on the inside was actually a
second year teacher this year. He was not an official WISE agent but agreed to cooperate out of the
best interests of the world.

"I think I may have been able to find a familial link. After you approached me yesterday I took a
look at the files again and became interested in this specific student once again. He has a relatively
common surname but I decided to search it up to see if anything came up that could be of use. I
scrolled pretty far down and I think I may have found his father or at least a distant relative."

She handed him a picture that she had printed of the man.

"Atsuomi Ayanokoji. I was tempted to look past him at first but after analyzing their bone
structures they have remarkably similar faces. There's not much information on him at the moment
other than that he's an up and coming politician within the Naoe-faction in Japan. It seems that he
left it a few years ago, but everything else is unknown."

"I don't want to make assumptions quite yet but with the way his son acts and the small amount of
information we were given, it seems like there's more that he's hiding."

The handler rubbed her forehead in deliberation. "That's what I'm thinking. There could be danger
lying within."

Loid placed the photo inside of the file and placed it back down. He had already memorized all the
information that he needed. "Then I'll choose him. He seems to be boring in the eyes of others so I
doubt he will be taken after merely a day of the program being announced."

The handler nodded and saw him off. Now the next step was to submit his application to the
school. Operation Haze had begun.

The day had finally arrived, but Loid Forger was still confident in his ability to gather information
from this child. Although his conscience felt slightly guilty regarding investing a minor, it was for
the greater good. It was also the fact that he was over ninety percent sure that he was not normal
and there was something else going on behind the scenes that could be considered as a threat.

His first impression of Kiyotaka when he walked in the door was that he really did seem ordinary.
Other than his good looks, there wasn’t much going for him in terms of personality. Almost too
boring and soft-spoken to have any significance, but it was usually those who were doing the most
who didn’t want to stand out. He had good manners and avoided making a scene, but Anya had
been staring at him weirdly the entire night. Maybe she also sensed that something was wrong, she
often seemed to have a second sense for those sorts of things.

At some point during the dinner, Loid had sent him a piercing glare to see if he would pick up on it
while he was looking away. As soon as he did, Kiyotaka looked up in a natural way. It was
difficult to tell whether it was due to his gaze or not, but if it was he was good at covering it up.

The thing Twilight felt the worst about doing was bugging the guest room, which had previously
been used as Yor’s room. She had agreed to sleep in Loid’s room for the month, and he offered to
sleep on the floor while she slept in the bed. Unknown to either, they both had to hide belongings
which would give away their identities. However, bugging this room came with its own moral
dilemma seeing as he was still a teenager despite being the target of a lot of suspicion. He hadn’t
technically done anything wrong yet, he was merely a perceived threat.

Before Anya had gone to bed, he asked her how she felt about him.

“Anya thinks he’s weird.”

He laughed it off, “Anya, that’s not very nice.”

She was often right, scarily so to where you thought she could read your mind. He noted this for
later. Maybe it was just the presence of a stranger in the house, but it was true that she had been
acting strange all evening.

On the first night, he decided to listen in, hearing a conversation between Kiyotaka and who was
assumed to be his girlfriend. He had definitely heard worse things while working as a spy, but he
couldn’t help but feel uncomfortable from intruding when they were both minors. Something stood
out to him amidst their conversation. He was on speaker phone so although it may have been
difficult to hear the phone, it was still possible.

The topics of their opinions on the families they were staying with had come up. This would be a
good chance to learn if they were passing on being inconspicuous.

<They seem nice. I don’t know why, but I just have a feeling that something is off.>

Loid flinched at the words that he said. He either had incredible observation skills or was simply
making a random guess.

<You … totally go with … Kiyotaka, you’re usually right ... Besides, no matter what … you’ll
predict every possibility and figure things...>

There were parts that were cut off by the low sound of the speaker phone, but he managed to make
out the important parts. If his girlfriend, which he had learned was named Kei, said that he was
usually right, it was strongly implied that he had many encounters where he had to use observation
skills. As well as the part about predicting every possibility, that was a clear sign that he was
someone to look out for. He wasn’t exactly sure what information he was looking for, but if Loid
could build up a relationship of trust with Kiyotaka and get him to confide in him that would work
well enough. He wasn’t sure if it would exactly work on him, since his attempts to read the
teenager had resulted in multiple redirects that painted him as quite boring.

The rest of the conversation was uninteresting and didn’t contain much new information, but he
had found some leads during this time. Now it was just time to play the role of a normal father.
Chapter End Notes

Woah maybe I'll try to do weekly updates, I got this all done in just a few days so
maybe I'll be able to keep up lol. I have a lot of schoolwork though so I'm not sure
how well that'll work.
 Trails Through the City
Chapter Notes

I've been a little insane with updates this week, I've just had a lot of motivation I
suppose.

Kiyotaka woke up early the next day to the sound of his alarm. The jet lag was hitting him hard.
He almost didn’t get up, but he managed to pull himself out of bed and walk to the bathroom. The
sun was just barely breaking the horizon, but he didn’t want to be a nuisance to the others in the
house in case anyone else took morning showers. He would probably take a nap afterwards if time
permitted.

When he exited the room with his towel and change of clothes, he caught a glimpse of Loid who
was already sitting on the couch. He looked up from his newspaper and sent a friendly wave his
way. Kiyotaka waved back awkwardly and entered the bathroom.

After the shower he dried and brushed his hair slightly. He had done a little bit of research about
Ostania before coming here, so he decided that he would choose something in a formal casual style
to wear. That was fine for him though, during the winters it was cold and he enjoyed the extra
layers.

He entered back into the room and fell down onto the bed out of exhaustion. He thought about
reading one of the books he brought, but his energy was low and he wanted to be in a more relaxed
mood so that he could enjoy the book properly. He closed his eyes for what felt like a moment, but
he woke up suddenly with a knock on the door. It was already 9AM.

“Yes?”

“Ah! Sorry if I woke you Kiyotaka-kun. I just wanted to let you know that breakfast was ready,” it
was Yor’s voice which was much more timid when talking to him than Loid's, who was outgoing
100% of the time.

“No, don't worry about it, I woke up earlier. I’ll be out in a minute.” It was technically the truth,
but he had fallen asleep for more time after waking up the first time.

“O-Okay!”

Kiyotaka dragged himself out of the bed once again, the mattress reminding him of those that he
had gotten to sleep in on the cruise ship. He opened the door and walked out into the living room
where everyone was dressed in their morning clothes still.

“I suppose I got ready a bit too early…”

Loid dismissed it, “Don’t worry, it’s fine. We were just planning to get ready after eating.” He then
gestured over to the food on the table.

Some of it were things he had never tried before, he was determined to get a taste. Anya looked up
and smiled, “Anya likes waffles!”
“I’ve never had them before, I’m excited to try them.” His expression remained relatively
unchanged, only a slight bit of ease added to it.

Anya seemed shocked by this revelation and immediately put a waffle on his plate once he sat
down. Kiyotaka faked a small smile, he deemed it to be an appropriate time to do so. The sight of
new food always intrigued him. He never really thought about other food back in the White Room.
He had been content with where he was at, and didn’t mind being on a strict dietary routine. But
now that he had his freedom he wanted to try as much as possible before his inevitable return,
whether it was after graduation or before. Anya had stiffened up while she was eating, but
Kiyotaka disregarded it and moved onto trying the food that he never got the chance to previously.

From the other side of the room, Loid had noticed Anya’s sudden change of behavior while
Kiyotaka wasn’t even paying attention. Was it possible that she thought of something odd? Or was
it something else? He would need to keep an eye on her behavior for a while.

Anya finished up her meal and hopped off of the chair to go get dressed for the day, “An ooting!”

“Anya, it's an outing ,” Loid corrected her as she happily went to her room. Yor also left to get
dressed, taking her clothes from their currently shared room to the bathroom to change. He also left
seeing that Yor wasn’t occupying the room, leaving just Kiyotaka silently eating his food.

The morning didn’t alert anything within Kiyotaka that could be considered suspicious. Then
again, his idea of suspicion could really be anything with his limited knowledge on how families
interact.

Each of them came back out wearing clothes that were in similar formality to his, showing that he
had made the right choice. He wasn’t exactly sure where they would be going, he was unfamiliar
with how the rich usually spent their time. When he had been back at his father’s mansion during
the period of time where the White Room was shut down, he didn’t really do much to understand
what it would have been truly like to have lived there. And of course he wouldn’t be allowed to
leave and experience the outside world, an order that could not be enforced properly and led him to
where he was now.

They had decided to leave Bond at home for the day and they eventually left. Once they began
walking Loid turned his head towards the rest of them and pulled 4 tickets out of his pocket. "I
managed to get tickets to a musical last minute so I thought we'd head over there first. It's at 10:30
AM and lasts around two hours so we could go and get lunch afterwards. After that I don’t have
any particular plans so if there’s anything you want to see Kiyotaka, feel free to let us know.”

He nodded and followed them along on the street. He enjoyed the sight of normal people going
through their days. It was this sense of normalcy that made him feel ordinary. Even just the feeling
of walking around the streets with a family, which although wasn’t his, was a moment to be
cherished. He wondered if this is what his life might’ve been like if he had dropped out of the
White Room early on, but scrapped the thought. That man would never accept a failure. The only
reason why he continued to care about him was for his achievements.

Anya ended up running ahead at some point because she saw a cute dog, and Yor had to chase
after her. Loid smiled faintly and fell back to walk next to Kiyotaka.

"Do you know what you intend to do after high school?"

Kiyotaka shrugged with his hands in his pockets, "Probably go to university."

"That's always a good choice. Do you have any idea of what you would want to major in?"
"I'm not really sure. I have no clue what I would want to be."

He actually didn't know what he wanted to be. All he knew is what he had to be.

"Well, you still have time to figure things out, so don't stress about it." His encouraging words
made him reconsider his decision to give up trying to fight the White Room after graduation, but
only for a moment.

They made it to the theater after a thirty minute walk. Kiyotaka took special care to observe all of
the surroundings on the way, he wanted as many memories of the outside world as possible. If you
knew that you would never get to see it again then you would be desperately trying to savor every
memory while you were there.

Kiyotaka had only ever seen one play before, and even still he only stayed for part of it. His
experience with them was when he had been called out by Chabashira-sensei to the theater and
threatened to expel him if he didn’t try to rise to Class A. He later found out that her threats were
empty, but it was still irritating for the time that he was forced into taking action. At least they had
even managed to change their teacher in a positive way, she grew alongside the class.

He entered the theater and took his seat along with the rest of the Forgers. They had arrived a bit
early so he decided to mess around on his phone for a few minutes. There were many people
talking in the school group chat about their experiences, but he left it alone and scrolled up to read
some of it. He checked the time, and seeing that it was almost 10:30 he shut off his phone and
looked over the playbill, waiting for the lights to dim. He hadn’t really paid attention to it
beforehand but it seemed as though they would be watching ‘The Phantom of the Opera.’ He was
actually familiar with this particular performance, only having a small amount of knowledge about
it from learning some things about it on the internet. As the theater slowly darkened, he adjusted
his eyes to the light and stared off at the stage.

After they exited the theater Kiyotaka remained relatively silent, almost dizzy from staring at the
stage for so long. The brightness of the overcast sky made him squint as he stepped into the light.
He wished the weather was a bit more interesting that day. Yor and Loid had been having their
own conversation about it while Anya ran around outside for a moment. Kiyotaka’s expression was
neutral as always, but he enjoyed the new experience.

“Kiyotaka, did you not like it?” Yor asked him, slightly disappointed after seeing the look on his
face. She hadn’t given off any suspicious feelings from him yet, she just seemed to genuinely care
about his feelings. He couldn’t be so sure though.

“I actually really enjoyed it. I just don’t smile much is all.”

She smiled back at him, “I’m glad!”

A few blocks down they walked to a fancy restaurant for lunch. It was completely different from
the feeling of the one on the cruise ship. It was a strange experience for him throughout the
duration of the meal. He knew proper manners, but the real trouble came when he looked at the
menu. There were a lot of things that he had never tried before, so he would have to narrow down
his choices to just one. He eventually gave up and just chose randomly when the waiter came back
to their table.

He was waiting quietly when something felt off. He looked around at the Forgers but saw nothing
different, it had to be some sort of external threat. The feeling persisted even after a few minutes, it
couldn’t have been just a coincidence. Kiyotaka looked out the window, attempting to disguise it as
just his curiosity of what was outside. As soon as he did so, the feeling stopped. It was difficult to
pretend as if it wasn’t real, but something felt oddly familiar about this. They may not take the risk
of tailing him, but he hoped they would so he could easily identify them.

After lunch they had decided to go to a park, just to walk around and observe the scenery. He was
looking forward to the atmosphere. There wasn’t really much of a park at ANHS, and of course he
had never seen one before. Though, at this point, he had probably spent enough time in nature
during both of the island special exams lasting cumulatively 3 weeks. It was back near the Forgers’
house, so they went back in the direction they came from.

A few minutes into the walk, the feeling from earlier came back. It was more difficult to figure out
who was trailing you when there were many people on the street, the pursuer most likely using this
to their advantage. They passed a public restroom giving Kiyotaka the sudden idea to use it as an
excuse.

“I-”

“I actually have to use the restroom. You all continue ahead, I’ll catch up with you in a minute.”

Before Kiyotaka could say anything, Loid took the chance and used the same excuse as he
would’ve. It could have been a coincidence, Kiyotaka himself had said that coincidences can be
freaky, but it was still something of note to be kept in mind.

Meanwhile, Loid had come to the same conclusion that someone was trailing them. He had first
noticed back when they were eating lunch. At the same time he had a strange feeling, Kiyotaka
looked out the window in a seemingly inconspicuous way before it had vanished. The chances
were high that they were linked in some way.

When they had begun walking he had watched out for trailers, but they managed to seamlessly
blend into the people on the street who were also walking in their direction. He was unsure of
which one of the four they were trailing, but it was definitely someone within their group. If it was
him, then the feeling would persist as he turned around, but if it was someone else then their
attention would still be focused on that person.

He turned around and began to walk towards the bathroom, the feeling disappeared after walking
past a few people. It had to be one within the five people he had passed before the feeling
vanished. They were remarkably close if they were trailing, an amatuer move. Or maybe it was so
risky that it was too obvious and they would be eliminated from the running because of that. If the
person wasn’t trailing him, then the chances were that it was Kiyotaka they were interested in.
There had never been any instances of this before except when Anya got herself into complicated
situations. The question was: Why were they spying on him? Loid entered the bathroom so as to
not raise suspicion and left after a few minutes. He quickened his pace to catch up, and then slowed
down as if he had run out of energy. Two of the original five had already broken away from the
group, and a third one was turning a different direction as he continued down the street. Anya and
Yor were not too much further ahead, so he had to make sure they didn’t turn back and notice him
in the crowd behind them. After two more blocks, the last person broke away, leaving only one. He
continued to follow for a few more minutes to see if they would divert their path, but they
continued with them for every turn.

Eventually, they reached a less populated area. Loid pulled the trailer into an alley suddenly and
pinned them up against the wall. He was a man in a suit, passing as a normal person but also
showing clear muscle mass underneath his clothes.
“Why are you following my family?”

The man seemed surprised and attempted to overpower Loid and escape, but was knocked to the
ground due to his superior technique. Loid grabbed him by the collar and put him against the wall.

“I’m asking again. Why are you following my family?”

“I wasn’t! I swear!”

Loid took out a small knife he kept hidden in his sleeve for emergencies. It was very thin and only
to be used for desperate measures, but it would work for threatening someone. He held the knife up
to his neck.

“Answer my question.”

The man panicked at the sight of the knife, knowing that he couldn’t escape from Loid. “I-I don’t
really know!”

“Do you want to die?” He pressed the knife into his neck enough to feel the pressure but not
enough to be cut.

"I'm being honest! I was hired by someone unknown to tail that transfer kid that's with you. If I had
to guess, I was hired by a secondary person, since I was just paid by some bodyguard looking
fellow."

"What specific information were you told to gather?"

"Really anything. Specifically who he was with and where he was staying."

Loid sighed. He couldn't just release this guy back out there, he would definitely report what he
learned to his employer. He dialed the police on his phone while keeping him pinned to the wall.

"Hey! What the hell! I gave you info!"

"But you're a spy, it's my duty as a citizen of Ostania to report you to the authorities.”

“I-! Well you have a point there.”

Eventually the situation was taken care of as the police arrived and he managed to catch up to the
rest of them who had already arrived at the park.

“You took a while,” Kiyotaka pointed out, trying not to be rude, while still mentioning it.

Loid rubbed the back of his neck, “Yeah, the line when I walked in was long so it took a while.”
There was no way that he would tell Kiyotaka what he had learned, keeping him in the dark about
the matter may be the best way to draw out information.

“Oh, okay.” Kiyotaka knew that it had not been a bathroom visit. He had noticed Loid tailing the
person who he had figured out was tailing them, making it clear that he had some awareness about
the situation. If that spy was caught and they really were looking for information on himself he
doubted that they would give away information about his father. If he was to guess, the person was
most likely hired by a secondary person down the hierarchy. Perhaps he was careless, or perhaps
he was unskilled, but whatever he was doing was highly amatuer. He now had his own questions
about Loid’s abilities, but wasn’t all so interested that he would dedicate an absorbent amount of
time to trying to figure things out. Of course, if information fell into his grasp on accident, then he
would not hesitate to use it.

They let Anya loose at the park while Kiyotaka found a nice bench to sit down on. He continued to
people watch for a while before hearing his name being called.

“Ayanokoji-kun!”

It was a familiar voice of one of his classmates, Sato Maya. She waved towards him as she
approached and he waved back.

“Do you mind if I sit down?”

“Not at all.” She took her seat down at the bench.

“Ah, it’s been a stressful two days,” she complained.

“Hm, really? Mine have been pretty relaxing other than the plane ride yesterday.”

She pouted slightly, “I just feel like there’s so many unspoken rules that I have to follow in the
house I’m at, it’s like walking on eggshells.”

“Do they live near here?”

“Yeah, only a few streets down. What about you?”

He nodded in response, “We’re nearby too.”

“R-really? It’s nice to know that a classmate is nearby and not super far away with all the extra rich
people,” Sato said as she turned her head away from him and started blushing.

He knew that she most likely still had feelings for him despite her close relationship with Kei. They
sat in silence for a little bit and listened to the sounds that filled the air around them.

“I already kind of miss the school. It’s like I’ve left my comfort zone after a year and I’m
immediately scared and want to go back.”

Kiyotaka understood the feeling of being within your comfort zone, but he liked the change and
actively looked for more changes to break the monotony of everyday life. “I kind of understand
that, but it’s kind of nice to have something new.”

Sato fell a bit silent before bringing up a new topic. “So how are things with Kei-chan going?”

“I thought you would already know as her best friend, but they’re still going well.”

“I-”

“I hope I’m not interrupting anything important,” Loid came over with a smile on his face. “I’m
supposed to be monitoring your contact with others, sorry.”

“It’s completely understandable,” Kiyotaka responded. “This is Sato Maya, a classmate with me in
Class-B.”

“Ah, hopefully Kiyotaka isn’t a troublemaker in your class.”

Sato smiled politely, “Nope! He’s super cool and awesome, for sure one of the top five people in
the class.”
“Well, sorry for bothering you two. I’ll leave you alone.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

After a moment of silence they brought up a new topic and the conversation continued. Loid
walked away, disappointed with the results. He wanted to figure out if this was the Kei that
Kiyotaka had been talking to over the phone, but it seemed it was just another classmate. The real
reason why he wanted to meet Kei is because she seemed significantly less on her guard than he
was just from the interactions on the phone that he heard once. He figured he may be able to read
some information from her, seeing as she would most likely know the most as the person closest to
him. The only information he managed to glean from this Sato Maya was that Kiyotaka was well
respected within the class. He was not number one though, which proves that he had most likely
been doing things behind the scenes.

They returned home after going to the park, where Kiyotaka decided to read one of the books he
had brought. Then, dinner arrived which wasn’t anything extravagant due to the previous night’s
ingredient usage.

Kiyotaka was eating soup when a question was asked directed towards him. “Kiyotaka, do you
have a girlfriend?” It was Yor who asked, simply curious about the answer.

“Why do you ask?”

“Ah! Sorry… I just saw you with a girl at the park today and I was curious. You also seem like you
would be popular in your class.”

Kiyotaka put down his spoon. “I do have one, but it’s not the person you saw me with at the park.
She was a classmate who just happened to be passing by. Though, I have a picture of my girlfriend
and I if you’d like to see.”

“That’d be wonderful!” Kiyotaka grabbed his phone from his pocket and scrolled to an image of
the two of them together. He showed it to Yor and she smiled.

“She’s cute! You should bring here sometime so we can meet her.” Yor had somehow proposed
exactly what Loid was thinking at that very moment. Kiyotaka doubted that she had proposed it out
of malice in an attempt to get information out of Kei, but it wouldn’t matter if that’s what they
wanted because he really didn’t care enough about what info they wanted on him. It would be
ridiculous to assume that they were hired by his father, especially after what happened that day. If
they decided to threaten her, that was a different problem and he would not show mercy.

Anya shivered suddenly, but it was not cold inside the house so he was unsure as to what caused it.
She suddenly shook her head and returned back to normal, “I like her hair.”

Kiyotaka put his phone back into his pocket and continued eating for the rest of the meal.

He sent a goodnight text to Kei and laid down in bed early. Hopefully he could beat the jet lag, but
having never experienced it before it was incredibly strange. The White Room didn’t have any
show of time other than a clock, he would have no way of seeing what the weather was outside or
what the different times looked like. All he knew was that day was white, and night was lights out.
The VR headsets they used in an attempt to familiarize themselves with the real world could never
compare to the feeling of actually being outside.

For now, he would enjoy his ability to see the time before it was too late.
 (Math) Problems
Chapter Notes

See the end of the chapter for notes

The next day passed rather uneventfully. None of them had much to do that day, and so they all
just decided to take a break. Anya had been running around the house with Bond for a while, so
Yor took her out so that some of her energy would be lost and she would be able to sleep that night.
Kiyotaka continued reading, but left his room to do so and sat on the couch so that he could have a
view of the window. It was raining, not yet cold enough to snow, but it would be coming soon. He
glanced out the window briefly and witnessed Anya stepping directly into a giant puddle and
getting her socks wet. They returned soon after due to that mess. Loid also left the house after a
period of time, followed by Yor around 30 minutes later. They had left Anya in his care.
Apparently she was a troublemaker so that could disrupt his focus.

Suddenly, Anya came up to him with a pencil and her math homework in hand. “Anya needs help.”

He set down his book, “You want me to help?”

“You said you were good at math,” she was talking in short sentences to him for whatever reason,
but he didn’t mind. He wasn’t much of a teacher but he had been trying to learn how to teach for
quite some time. Horikita would probably argue that he already was in some ways, but in his
opinion he wasn’t particularly good at it.

“Alright, bring your stuff to the table and I’ll see how I can help.” Kiyotaka sat on the floor so that
he could get on level with the coffee table and began to look over her homework. He wasn’t really
sure what would be a normal level of difficulty for a first grader, but apparently this was supposed
to be difficult. He kept that in mind for later. She had already tried to solve many of the problems
on the page with much difficulty, only getting an average of around 3/10 right. It almost reminded
him of how the idiot trio did on the test before the first midterm. He didn’t blame her though, she
was a child and hadn’t learned to study yet.

“Anya is not an idiot!” She yelled that unprompted.

“Huh? Did I do something? I’m sorry,” he was extremely confused. Was this how children acted?
It was almost as if she heard the comment about the idiot trio in his mind.

“Uh… Anya just didn’t want you getting the wrong idea.”

“Well, let’s just start from the first problem you got wrong…” He began to explain her error, but it
didn’t feel like she was picking up on it at all. He went to get another piece of paper so that he
could demonstrate if needed. After showing the method with an example problem so that she could
learn on her own, she suddenly wrote down the answer on the page out of nowhere. She didn’t
show any work or anything, just wrote down a number that ended up being correct.

Usually Anya was able to copy the steps that the people in her class used to get to each solution
through her telepathy, but Kiyotaka’s thoughts were far too fast for her to read and made her
slightly dizzy. She gave up looking for the steps at a point and just decided to put the answer.

“Where’s your work?”

“Anya solved it in her head.”

“But what if you made an error in your head? Then you wouldn’t have the work to figure out where
you went wrong.” She started at the paper for second. “Show your work for the problem.” She
tried the method that he had written down and referenced the example problem in order to make
sure she was following the steps correctly. She got the answer wrong the first time. “Try to figure
out where you made an error on your own. If you can’t find it I’ll help.” He wanted to give Anya a
degree of initiative to find it, and she eventually did it with some searching. After redoing the parts
she messed up she arrived at the correct answer.

For the next hour, Kiyotaka did his best to teach her what she could and allowed her to find the
answer for herself. It would be more helpful for her later on if she could.

“Anya did it all on her own!”

Kiyotaka agreed with this, the work was all hers. He only gave her the means to solve it. Loid
walked in a few minutes later with Anya jumping excitedly at the door after he opened it.

“Papa look! Anya solved it all by herself!”

He looked surprised, this seemed to be a first, “Really?” He put his hat and coat down and glanced
in Kiyotaka’s direction, who had resumed reading his book.

“Well Anya had a little help, but Anya figured all the answers out on her own!”

Loid smiled at Kiyotaka from across the room, “Thank you for helping Anya with her math. You
don’t know how much I appreciate it.”

“It’s the least I can do after letting me stay in your home.”

The day retained its status as an uneventful day into the evening. Loid cooked food from Ostania
that night for dinner and it was a very enjoyable meal. Anya went to bed early to prepare for the
next day, but Kiyotaka stayed out in the living room. Yor had also gone to bed directly after dinner,
after returning from her time out completely exhausted.

Loid was sitting out at the dinner table, but Kiyotaka didn’t think he would mind if he turned on
the TV. He switched it to the news, not for Ostania but for Japan. He thought it was odd that it had
been set as one of the default channels but it was possible that they might’ve just wanted to do
research on the country beforehand. He wasn’t sure why he liked the news, but it gave him insight
into what was going on outside of the walls of ANHS.

“‘...These words were given to me by Dr. Naoe shortly after I met him.’”

Loid looked up from the work that he had been doing, recognizing the name on the news from the
information he had been given. “Are you interested in politics, Kiyotaka?” A natural followup for
someone watching the news.

He turned around to face him, “Huh? Not particularly. I just like to know what’s going on in the
world since I can’t be out there to witness it myself.”

“I’m pretty knowledgeable when it comes to politics, so I enjoy learning about it all over the
world.”

“Sounds like it could be enjoyable. I currently don’t know much about the current political climate
of any other countries other than Japan and Ostania, since I did a bit of research before coming
here.”
 “I’m glad you’re getting interested in our politics. If I remember correctly, isn’t your father a
politician?” He was now treading on dangerous territory, this could be a risky question to ask
seeing as there wasn’t much information about his father. He could pass it off as simply being
given the information from the school and doing some research on his father in his own time to go
into things with more information.

“So he is, it seems…” Kiyotaka had figured this out about that man quite a while ago, even if it
was never explicitly stated towards him. He didn't wish to know anything more about his father
than he had to, that's why he had never searched anything about him online. There was definitely
no trace of the White Room, but if his father truly was a politician then that would make sense for
the origin of the project as well as his association with chairman Sakayanagi.

"I'm sorry if I overstepped boundaries by saying that. I did a bit of research on the internet with the
information the school gave me just to get an idea for what you were like."

"It's fine." The school most likely wouldn’t give out parental information to strangers, albeit
verified strangers. This was a lie Kiyotaka could sense easily. He was now almost 95% certain that
Loid was looking for information about him. If this was regarding him personally he would be
forced to get involved. However, if he started working now, he may be able to clear any suspicion
about himself. But the real question was: What information was he looking for? And why was he
looking for it? There were many spies in Ostania and Westalis but from his understanding they
didn't pay much attention to matters overseas unless they posed a direct threat to the safety of their
nation. Did they see him as a threat? If so that was a miscalculation on their part since he would
want nothing to do with ‘threatening the peace.’

Kiyotaka got up and shut off the television. “I’m going to bed early. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Goodnight, sleep well.”

He returned back to his room and laid down in the bed. He sighed slightly. This was going to be a
troublesome trip.

Chapter End Notes

Short chapter lol

Working on chapter 5 right now! I'm having a lot of fun with that chapter specifically
right now. It should be out in the next week unless something comes up. I might take a
break next week since I do a lot of my writing at school and I'll be on spring break, but
I'm not sure yet.
Hope you're enjoying the story so far! I'm kind of excited to see what direction I'm
going to take it in since this is one of the first fics I've written without an explicit end
goal in mind.
 First Day
Chapter Notes

See the end of the chapter for notes

The next day Kiyotaka had recovered from the majority of the jet lag that he had experienced for
the past few days. He was finally beginning to adjust his body to the time zone once again.
Looking in the mirror, the uniform for Eden Academy felt odd on himself. He only ever wore
casual clothes or his school uniform which was much brighter than that of Eden’s. When he exited
his room in his new uniform, there was already breakfast waiting for him on the table. Anya was
sitting in front of the television with her school uniform on, seemingly having already eaten and
gotten ready just so that she could watch it. Usually she would go on the bus, but it seemed that
today the two of them would be driven to Eden Academy by Loid. It made sense seeing as it was
his first day. Like a parent dropping off their child for their first day of school. Yor hadn’t left yet
and was also busy getting ready.

Kiyotaka finished the meal and brought the plate to the sink to wash it. Afterwards he sat down on
the couch and watched TV with Anya while they waited for Loid to take them to school. It was a
rerun of a spy TV show, but she seemed just as engaged as someone on their first watch despite
knowing half of the words.

After around fifteen minutes, he appeared by the door and put on his coat. “Time to go.” Kiyotaka
grabbed his school bag which had been hung up on his chair from earlier and walked out of the
door with Anya. Anya seemed extremely happy and excited for Kiyotaka to see the campus,
skipping happily on their way to the car. They all got in, with Loid taking the driver’s seat. In
Kiyotaka’s opinion, it was odd that different countries drove on different sides of the road. It was
like how some countries used the less efficient imperial system instead of the metric system just to
make things confusing. It was only a minor detail in the grand scheme of things, but still bothered
him slightly nonetheless.

“How are you feeling about your first day at Eden Academy?”

“I’m interested to see the different level of difficulty in comparison to our classes. I’ve also seen
pictures of the campus, it’s very extravagant.”

Loid smiled politely into the rear view mirror, “If I were in your shoes I’d be incredibly nervous. I
don’t know how you’re keeping calm.”

“Not many things make me nervous.”

They eventually arrived at the grandiose campus. Loid waved the two of them off and Anya
spotted one of her friends, immediately dragging her over to meet with Kiyotaka.

“Anya what is it?” The girl had brown hair in pigtails and looked to be around the same age as
Anya.

“We have one of the transfer students!”

“Oh, you’re talking about those people from the other school that are going to be here for a month.
But he’s an upperclassman, they’re kind of scary aren’t they?”

Anya smiled, “He helped Anya with math!”

The girl whispered something into Anya’s ear with her wide eyes still being focused on Kiyotaka
with awe. Anya jumped back slightly and looked back at the girl with shock before turning back to
Kiyotaka quickly, and then back to the girl again.

Kiyotaka waved politely, unsure of what the best approach in this situation would be. He wouldn’t
have to dwell on it for too long because soon a voice came up behind him.

“Good morning, Ayanokoji-kun!” It was his classmate Kushida Kikyo. Anya’s friend tugged her
away and into the school to leave them alone, slightly irritated by the appearance of Kushida for
some reason. She greeted him with her usual friendly persona despite the class having learned of
her true nature. Keeping up appearances in public would be especially crucial for this special test.
She had been growing her hair out for the past few months ever since Horikita came back to school
with short hair. It now reached well past her shoulders, but Horikita’s was growing at around the
same pace so they were in somewhat of a stalemate at the moment.

“Oh, good morning Kushida-san.”

“Since no one else from our class is around at the moment, would you like to walk to the opening
ceremony with me?”

Kiyotaka looked down at his phone that had a text from Kei on it. She said that she was on her way
and wanted him to wait for her.

“Sorry Kushida, I’m waiting for Kei.”

“Ah, I see. Well, you don’t mind if I wait with you while she arrives, do you?” she asked with a
face that no one would be able to refuse.

“Not at all.” Although it didn’t affect Ayanokoji, he didn’t really mind her waiting. The company
was appreciated.

They had a small chat about their expectations for the school, with Kushida expressing her anxiety.
A lot of eyes would be on her, and if possible she wanted to make friends and become trusted
within this school as well.

Eventually, Kei arrived. She ran out towards Kiyotaka from the car she had arrived in and hugged
him. The uniform for Eden Academy made her look almost completely different. He could never
see Kei wearing anything like it in any other situation. There was a girl who looked to be only
around a year older than them trailing slighting behind her.

“Kiyotaka! It’s been so long.”

“It’s been two days, what do you mean ‘so long’?”

She huffed and released from the hug, “Well it feels longer when we’re on a trip you know.”

The girl walked up to Kei and waved to Ayanokoji and Kushida lightly, “I’ll be leaving then, Kei.”

“Wait, let me at least introduce you to him first.”

The girl smiled slightly, apparently Kei had managed to become good friends with who she was
staying with within only a few days. This kind of skill was why she was such a valuable pawn.

“This is Annalise. She’s a third year at Eden Academy. Anna, this is my boyfriend, Ayanokoji
Kiyotaka.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Ayanokoji. Kei’s talked a lot about you.” She shook hands with him
and then directed her attention towards Kushida, “Are you also one of Kei’s classmates?”

Kushida’s vibrant personality was not shaken in the presence of a third year at this prestigious
school. “Yes, I’m Kushida Kikyo. But feel free to call me Kikyo!”

She shook hands with Kushida as well, “Then I’ll be on my way. You should all get to the opening
ceremony in the gym.”

“C’mon let’s go Kiyotaka!” She clung onto his arm leaving Kushida standing alone, still smiling.
He detected that there were more emotions held under that smile at that moment. Ever since the
event with Amasawa and Kushida, she had been acting differently around him than usual. That was
to be expected after a big revelation though.

Kiyotaka and Kei walked to the gym, following the signs that had been placed along the way. They
caught sight of many of their classmates and other members of their year scattered about as they
approached the building. Once they had entered, they quickly found the area where Class B was
located.

“You sure took your time,” Horikita said to Ayanokoji as Karuizawa broke away from him to meet
up with her friends. She had seemingly gotten there much earlier than he had.

“I don’t need to make an effort to stand out just by getting here early.”

She continued to look ahead, seemingly caring very little for what he had to say at that moment. “I
have something to ask you about when time permits.”

“Today probably won’t be the best day for that. We need to focus on school right now.”

She scoffed lightly, “And you’re going to have to do so much studying to keep up.” She said
clearly sarcastically. Ever since the beginning of the school year’s special exam where he had
revealed his proficiency in math to the entire school, she would not leave him alone with comments
on his academic performance. He had made it painfully clear during that time that he would be
able to beat her in whatever subject she chose, so that was most likely her reasoning for believing
there was more to it than that.

“Who knows. Maybe the curriculum will be too difficult even for me.”

“But ignoring that, I think today would work the best. The school has already let us know in
advance that we will be permitted to be on campus until 8PM, which leaves us ample time to
participate in our study groups. Today would be one of the few days where we may not have a
study group. I believe that everyone should try to attend them as much as possible. It has been
made clear to us how out of our range these academics are already.” Ayanokoji agreed and decided
to send a text to Loid letting him know that he would be a little late after school.

"Class A is going to be right in their home field."

"I will admit that I find it difficult to see how we can win against them. But we will not falter in the
face of a challenge. Additionally, the extra rules depending on each person’s academic OAA score
may benefit us in the long run. We can score high points if we utilize those with weaker abilities."

The rules weren’t that of a normal final examination, and would instead be graded based on the
OAA score of each participant. At the end of the month they would be given a test based on the
curriculum from the school where each person could answer a minimum of two questions and a
maximum of five. There would only be one hour for the test, and you could not speak to other
students during that time. For a correct answer, if you had a different academic OAA grade the
points would be given as follows:

A- 1 point
B- 2 points

C- 3 points

D- 4 points

E- 5 points

This allowed even the lower academically scoring classes to get a high score with enough effort
and studying. Since they were up against Class A which had many high scoring academic students,
this would be of benefit to Horikita’s Class B.

There were still around ten minutes to go until the opening ceremony. "Apparently the homeroom
teachers are seeing this special test as somewhat of a vacation."

"I don't blame them. They've barely had a day off in the year and a half we've been here."

"I wonder if we'll be able to get in contact with them."

"I'm sure if you ask Chabashira-sensei to meet up she'll respond. Probably hasn't forgiven you for
the maid cafe yet, but she's become significantly more reliable ever since the unanimous special
exam."

He nonchalantly looked around, somehow managing to make eye contact with Ishizaki through the
large crowd. He waved happily at Ayanokoji until Ryuuen elbowed him in the stomach. It was odd
seeing everyone adhere to such a strict dress code, unlike ANHS which had some leniency in the
shirts you were allowed to wear underneath the blazer.

Eventually, the opening ceremony began and the chatter quieted down.

"Welcome to Eden Academy. You are here within the walls of the most prestigious school in our
country precisely because you are special students. You should feel honored to be here."

They really weren't beating around the bush.

The rest of the opening ceremony continued while bragging extensively about the school. Most
students found opening ceremonies boring to begin with, so there wasn't much that could be done
to suppress the yawns of the audience.

"This curriculum will be more difficult than what you've faced so far, so prepare for many
challenges ahead of you. That is all."

The ceremony ended with a sea of clapping, whether to be polite or because they were actually
moved by the words.

Each class of around forty was moved to a separate room, each of these classrooms being within a
separate wing of the school. There were various empty classrooms designed for special purposes
within the school, but they all happened to be on complete opposite corners. If Ayanokoji wanted
to get in contact with members of a different class it would be exceedingly difficult in this situation.
The person leading their class was a teacher from the school who would end up being their teacher
for the entire month. He looked to be around his 50s and had a sharp, but knowledgeable
appearance.

“Take your seats, your names are all written on a small notecard on a desk.” His voice
complimented his appearance very well, it definitely imposed a strict aura. The students scattered
throughout the room in an effort to search for their names.

Ayanokoji eventually found his seat, somehow being inconveniently sat directly in the center of
the classroom. Next to him was Horikita who had just sat down while silently side-eying him,
another unfortunate coincidence. On the other side of him was Sudo, if he was going to try to talk
to Horikita through him he might just leave the room. Additionally, behind him was Koenji and in
front of him was Ike. Many troublesome figures surrounded him. If this was how his seat would’ve
been at the beginning of his first school year he may have decided to drop out like his father
wished.

Before the class had settled, Ayanokoji took a glance around the corners of the room, finding
several cameras as expected. Horikita also noticed this, probably noting it for later so that her
classmates wouldn’t get carried away with this ‘freedom.’

As the final person found their seat, the teacher cleared his throat in order to stop the noise. It
halted immediately. If this had been their first year, this would have been unthinkable. “My name
is Mr. Wolff. I’m sure you’ve been warned countless times, but things are about to get difficult.
Your test at the end of this month will not be an easy one, so it will be my job to prepare you as
much as possible during this short amount of time. I won’t drag this introduction on for longer,
please take out your history textbooks.”

It was odd to adjust back to physical books after using tablets for the past half year, but within the
desks each person found the textbooks they required. Ayanokoji glanced over at Horikita while
getting out his book, she was overflowing with confidence. It wasn’t confidence to her detriment
though, it was confidence that the class could come together and overcome this exam.

When the lunch bell rang the teacher left the room, leaving the students to their own devices. Many
students groaned, it was understandable seeing the gigantic sum of content they had just been
forced to absorb without breaks.

“I barely understood a word that was being said there! I wonder if we’re going to be able to pass
after all…” The complaint came from Ike, who was currently the lowest ranking in the class in
terms of academics. He turned his head towards Horikita, “Horikita-san, can we have a study
session after school just to get a headstart on all this?”

“I never thought I’d hear you asking for a study group. But yes, that should be acceptable as long
as we’re done before 7PM. I have a strict curfew of 8PM and I need to be able to arrive on time.
However, I will be a bit late. Hirata-kun, will you be available?”

“I should be, I can stay as long as needed. But, I’ll be honest even I was confused there during
some parts.”

“That’s alright, I understood everything to a degree. If only we had more teachers.” Horikita turned
her attention towards Ayanokoji who immediately averted his gaze as if he wasn’t paying
attention. “Yukimura-kun, I’m not sure if it’s too tall of an order to ask you to help out around
some areas. You’re probably the strongest academic student in our class and the help would be
appreciated.”
He took off his glasses and wiped them down slightly before putting them back on, “I’m not a great
teacher, but I will try my best to help in what ways I can. Hasabe looked at him a bit exasperated,
but accepted it soon after.

However, Yukimura did not end it with that. “I also believe that Ayanokoji-kun should assist with
math. If we base this according to his old math test scores he should be perfectly capable of
handling everything that was covered.” Ayanokoji sighed. This was most likely payback for that
time in some way, but he had an excuse that was bound to work.

“I’m not a good teacher.”

Horikita scoffed at that, “You’re fine enough as a teacher. Put in the effort for the class, alright.”

“I’m not even sure if I’ll be able to get permission to stay after.” This was mostly a lie, the Forgers
were a family that would entirely understand if he had to stay after school to study.

“You already said that you’d be able to stay after for at least 30 minutes today, even that every day
would be fine. But if not today, please try to come sometime this week. Your other grades could
probably use the help as well.”

She had successfully trapped him on all sides, with no way to escape the study sessions. He mostly
disliked going to them since he would have to pretend to do all his work at a much slower pace
than he could’ve otherwise.

“Alright, fine.”

Kei approached him, “Let’s go get lunch!”

He nodded and left his bag in the classroom seeing as there weren’t many students who had opted
to take it with them. The only thing he brought was his school ID and phone so that he could pay
for lunch.

“I’m for sure going to have way more motivation if you’re there at the study sessions with me!”

“You’ve already decided to go to them? That’s a first.”

She pouted slightly at the small jab, “Well I thought it was what you would tell me to do anyways.
I plan to go to around half of them ‘cause I don’t want to spend all my time studying.”

“I’m glad you’re making decisions like that, though. If you need extra help I would urge you to go
to the extra study groups, but you could also possibly come over to where I’m staying at some
point.”

“Wait, really? I’d definitely want to go see you outside of school sometime! We could even meet
up on the weekend sometime and walk around to see everything,” she clutched to his arm tighter
out of her excitement.

As they entered the cafeteria they noticed that there was a sign directing students to extra seating
outside which had presumably been added due to the extra students. No one would want to sit
outside in the cold weather, so first come first serve was a necessity. They both paid for their
lunches and looked around for somewhere to sit. They didn’t seem to be explicitly split up by
grade, but most students gravitated to their own age group. Kei managed to spot a seat and dragged
him over to it. The area was relatively empty which allowed them to sit down without being too
conscious of the others around them. They definitely stuck out, but Kei often stood out regardless
so it wasn't particularly bothersome.
They simply talked about random topics while eating, with no particular pressure to talk about
anything important.

Meanwhile, Anya had a view of Kiyotaka from her seat at lunch. Earlier that day when she had
first shown Becky him, she had whispered in her ear that he was super handsome and now she
wouldn't stop talking about him. She even went as far as to say that he was almost as attractive as
Loid, which was saying a lot considering her obsession with her father. She had also begged to
know his name, and then when Anya finally told her she couldn't stop talking about how nice of a
name it was for him.

When she was dragged away by Becky in the morning she had been complaining that another girl
was talking to him, and how he was going to be hers. Anya didn't want to break it to her that he
already had a girlfriend, but now with Becky glaring angrily at the two sitting far away it was hard
to ignore.

"Anya, he's living with you, right? Is that his girlfriend over there?" She asked in an irritated tone.

Anya nodded timidly, gaining a 'hmph' out of Becky.

"It's fine, I can just make them break up! I have a whole month to do it and then he can stay here
and not go back." She had a very outlandish plan, but there wasn't much of a way that Anya could
object.

"Ugh, if only they weren't sitting over by the upperclassmen it would be so much easier to
approach them. Though I'm sure he would want to be around mature people seeing as he's super
cool and mature. But I’m super mature too!" Becky had heard almost nothing about Kiyotaka
except that he was good at math, so there were a lot of wild assumptions being made.

Anya had wanted to help out Loid with his hunt for information on Kiyotaka, but she wouldn’t be
able to reveal the information to him without saying that she was a psychic, and they would
definitely throw her out if they found out. Additionally, she couldn’t think of any plans to get him
to reveal things on his own since he was extremely cautious in the information he did give.
Sometimes she shuddered when she thought about what she had heard in his mind, it was all
strange and unfamiliar to her. But someway she got the feeling that he would understand what she
had been through due to his own experiences. Two lab children, maybe they could relate on some
level.

“Anya, you can help me get close to him, right?”

Anya valued her friendship with Becky, so she wanted to think of some plan. “Come over to
Anya’s house while he’s there.”

“I can’t come to your house! I would never be allowed to. And no offense, but your place is really
tiny.” She sat in thought for a moment, “Agh, I can’t think of anything. We’ll have to come up with
more ideas tomorrow, alright?”

“Scheming!” Anya exclaimed.

The rest of the day continued as a normal school day would for the students on ANHS, with the
exception of extreme difficulty in curriculum. Ayanokoji looked at Horikita on occasion and
noticed a confused expression on her face at some point, it was one of the first times she had ever
seen her wearing it in class. It quickly subsided and she shot a glare back at him, causing him to
pretend as if he was looking elsewhere.

After the final bell rang, she approached his desk after class.

“I don’t appreciate you watching me during class,” she said in a stern tone.

“Was that all you came over here to say? If so, I’m sorry. I had just never seen you confused in
class before.”

“Do you want me to kick you?”

Ayanokoji knew that she would actually follow through with her threat if he continued with this
attitude. “No…”

“Anyways, it’s time to have the discussion.”

Kei sent a glance his way but saw that Horikita was talking to him and quickly gave up, switching
over to Sato. “Should I assume this has something to do with what you wanted to ask me after the
cultural festival?”

She dodged the question. “Before we begin this discussion, we need to find a more isolated place.
This is not a discussion to be heard by others.”

He nodded in understanding. Ayanokoji quickly packed his bag and began to walk towards the
door with Horikita. She had presumably left her bag in the classroom to prepare for the study
group. Sudo noticed her leaving and raised an eyebrow for a moment before finding her bag still
left within the classroom, sighing in relief.

“Do you have an idea of where this isolated area would be?” he asked.

“I saw this area on the way in. It’s outdoors so you may be cold, but I think you can handle it. If
you can’t then that’s too bad for you, I’m not changing locations.” She was very straightforward
with her words. When they stepped outside, he did notice that it was colder than it was earlier
despite the opposite usually being true around this time of the day. He slipped his hands into his
pockets in order to avoid the chill of the open air. It snowed much more in this part of the world
than it did in Tokyo.

She eventually led him to a bench near a window on the west side of the school, where they both
sat down followed by a moment of silence before Horikita began the discussion with a stern tone.

“You know what I’m going to talk about here, don’t you?”

“I wonder…” he feigned ignorance, but Horikita had become immune to his small attempts to seem
unassuming and glared at him. Of course, he would not falter in the face of her wrath.

“Yagami Takuya, you arranged for his expulsion, didn’t you?”

“Hm? If this is about the things that happened at the cultural festival, I wasn’t involved so I am
unaware of the events that took place.”

She glared at me lightly. “You’re seriously insufferable. Just what kind of person are you?”

“What do you mean by that?”

“There’s no way you can be a normal student. I just don’t understand.” She wasn’t asking in terms
of academics, she was already aware of his strength. She wanted to know who he was.

“How would I even go about answering that? I’m completely ordinary. There’s nothing
particularly extraordinary about me.” She huffed in response to my response, the two both knowing
that was not true. Of course, even if he was to tell her about himself, there was no way she would
be able to understand with just a few words.

“If you won’t answer that, then I have other questions for you. Where are you from? Where did
you go to middle school and elementary school? Were you privately tutored?”

“That’s too many troubling questions.” I paused for a moment as Horikita averted her gaze from
me. “I’ll give you some information.”

“I will admit I did have a hand in Yagami’s expulsion. I didn’t set up a trap for him specifically, but
a student who was after me. He just happened to be the one to walk into it.”

“Still, that’s far too vague of an explanation for what went down that day.”

“You yourself know that there were many students after the 20 million point bounty on myself.
Yagami was most likely another one of them.”

“The way that he acted went far beyond the scope of just being in it for the bounty. In fact, he
didn’t seem to care about the bounty at all, he even went as far to say he was going to kill you.”

“That’s odd.” He pretended to be surprised, as if he had no connection whatsoever to Yagami. In a

sigh of defeat, Horikita gave up prying into his thoughts. She had managed to glean but a small
piece of information about what he was like in a discussion that she didn’t think he would answer
helpfully in the first place. She stood up from the bench and dusted off the back of her dress.
Before she left, Ayanokoji called out.

“Horikita.” She turned her head in response to the mention of her name. “Don’t bring this event up
again.” He stared directly into her eyes, piercing through her soul and sending a shiver down her
spine. She nodded slightly before turning back towards the school building. She usually never
cared about the past of a person, but she felt a need to know what kind of person he was.
Ayanokoji continued to sit for another moment before grabbing his bag and heading out towards
the front of the school.

Loid had only just pulled up when he had shown up at the front gate. Kiyotaka felt bad that Anya
had to wait on her own during that time, but he had his own matters to attend to. Anya had
previously been waiting with Becky who wanted to wait with her so that she could see Kiyotaka,
but she was eventually forced to leave. They entered the car, Loid greeting them with a smile.
“Sorry I was late, I got stuck in traffic.”

Anya saw his thoughts. ‘ Papa is a liar. ’ But she didn’t mind if it was for the sake of his spy
missions. What had actually happened was that Loid had been undercover at the school that day,
looking for information on Kiyotaka, but he hadn’t managed to find much. He had only been able
to hear bits and pieces of his conversation with his classmate, Horikita, but he had withdrawn
before things could be exposed. If he pieced together the conversation, he only gained a minimal
amount of information and it wasn’t very reliable.

“How was your first day?”

“Exhausting, more or less.” A normal student would say something around that.

The car ride continued with various topics of small talk. There wasn’t really much pressure to talk,
 it was an air that Kiyotaka thought was comfortable. A lot of his time was simply spent observing
how Anya and Loid interacted for future reference. He didn’t ever see himself having a family of
any kind, but he was curious to learn knowledge from every area he possibly could. He just hoped
that he would never reach a point where there was nothing else that he could learn, that would be
an awfully boring way to live.

Chapter End Notes

Updates will probably slow down for now! Working on other stuff so my full attention
isn't really here right now.
 New Thoughts for the Future
Chapter Notes

See the end of the chapter for notes

The week continued forward without much of a hitch. The study groups had been going well
despite the difficulty of the curriculum. There also hadn’t been much contact with the other classes
as of late other than lunch periods, but they were unsure whether this was a good or bad thing.
Kiyotaka had been making every excuse to avoid teaching math in the study groups, but Horikita
eventually roped him into it on Thursday. He was fine enough at teaching when it was only one
person, but when several people were swarming him asking for assistance he felt uncomfortable.
Horikita had managed to sense this and taken some of his workload off of his shoulders, but overall
it was still draining.

By the time 7:30 rolled around, he was significantly tired. He had taken the bus to school every day
that week in the mornings and afternoons, ending up sitting next to Anya due to being the only
connection they had on the bus. Luckily, there was a late bus that could take him back, but Anya
had already gone home hours prior. He actually thought of this thinking time on the bus he had
been given as a good thing. It was much more difficult to have peace in the morning when there
were many elementary school age kids. Late buses were mostly only used for kids with after
school activities, which didn’t apply to the elementary schoolers. The bus wasn’t entirely empty
but there were enough vacant seats to where you could have an entire row to yourself. That’s
exactly what Kiyotaka had gotten, and he took his place near the window after setting his bag
down on his seat.

It was already night, the street lamps turning into a blur as the bus continued to travel down the
road in the slightly misty air. Kiyotaka leaned his head onto the window and closed his eyes
lightly, only to get a brief moment of peace in the dark. A few days ago, he had noticed a pattern
within Anya, albeit a strange one. Any time that he would think of anything that was unordinary or
strange, specifically when it came to the White Room, she would react in some way. She would
usually stiffen up or become wide eyed. It was an impossible fantasy but…

“Sometimes it's almost like she's reading your mind.”

He couldn’t get that sentence out of his head. Perhaps it was just a coincidence. No, it was a
coincidence. Things like that didn’t exist in this world. Even if it was, there was nothing wrong
with testing his hypothesis. If she was a telepath like this far fetched idea implies, then he would
need to be careful to either keep his thoughts going by so rapidly that she wouldn’t be able to read
them in time or not think of anything at all when he was around her. The latter was definitely the
harder of the options.

Kiyotaka lightly sighed to himself as he felt the bus come to a stop, had the time passed so fast? He
was actually considering childish ideas like telepathy as a possibility. He stifled his thoughts as he
walked out of the bus. Most people have trouble deciding to stop thinking about something they
told themselves not to think about, but Ayanokoji could easily control the flow of his thoughts in
whichever way he wanted. The idea was pushed to the back of his mind, he would wait until
another day.

The next morning, Ayanokoji got a text from someone unexpected. They were asking to meet up
during the lunch period, Ayanokoji agreeing to the proposal without hesitation. It was quite easy to
assume what they would be discussing given the people he would be talking with and the timing.

When the lunch bell rang, instead of meeting up with Kei, Kiyotaka got out of his seat and headed
towards the designated area that they were meeting at. It was a secluded area in the outside area of
the school, making it a good place to have a secret meeting in the cold weather.

Apparently he had arrived earlier than the two he was meeting with, leaving him to stand around in
silence. He only hoped that people didn’t think he was weird for standing alone in the cold.

After a minute, the two finally arrived. Kanzaki and Himeno.

“Thank you for taking time out of your lunch to speak with us,” Kanzaki started.

Ayanokoji nodded, “It’s not a problem at all. I want to help your class.” Himeno looked slightly
uncomfortable at this statement, if he was to guess it would most likely be because she was unsure
of why an outsider such as himself would be willing to help out an enemy class.

“Then I’ll jump right into it-”

“Oh, Kanzaki-kun and Himeno-san! What a coincidence.” A girl and a boy approached the two of
them. “And you’re Ayanokoji-kun, right?” Ayanokoji had memorized the names and faces of
every single student in every school year, and that’s why he knew that these two were Amikura
and Watanabe. Watanabe looked very shy beside the outspoken and friendly girl, but he still waved
politely at Ayanokoji. “What an unusual group of people.”

Kanzaki was unsure of what action to take next, since this was supposed to be a private
conversation. Ayanokoji sent a glance his way, trying to signal something to him.

“Ah, we were just talking about Class D’s situation,” Kanzaki replied.

Amikura and Watanabe both dawned confused expressions, “Why are you talking about it to
Ayanokoji-kun then? Did Ichinose tell you to do this?” It was going to be difficult to tell them that
Ichinose had been slowly breaking for a while.

“Well…”

“Kanzaki-kun, I believe that you should tell them about what we’re discussing.”

“Huh? But, this is supposed to be something secret-”

“You will never get anything done within your class if you do not bring others to your side. This
could be your chance to gain allies.”

Now Amikura and Watanabe were sufficiently confused. Watanabe spoke up first, “What are you
guys even talking about?”

Kanzaki sighed, “We believe that Class D’s situation is because of the current mood in our class.
Ichinose’s ideals of cooperation and friendliness have led us from almost being at the top to being
the worst class at this moment in time.”

Amikura was quick to retaliate, “What do you mean, Honami-chan is thinking up a plan to get us
to Class A right now!”

Himeno sighed, “You guys really have no idea do you.”

Ayanokoji wanted to put an end to the useless back and forth, and so he decided it would be best to
relay some information he had gained before the trip had begun that he had planned to share during
this discussion anyways. The new student council president had to be chosen before they left since
Nagumo’s impending deadline was set for while they were gone. Between Horikita and Ichinose,
there was supposed to be a student vote, but Ichinose had quit the student council unexpectedly.
“I’m not sure if any of you are aware, but Ichinose-san has quit the student council.”

The entire conversation turned silent in disbelief for almost an entire minute. “So I guess that
means Ichinose has given up on reaching Class A after all…” Himeno sighed disappointedly

Amikura was quick to deflect that statement, “No way! Honami-chan clearly left because she
wanted to put more effort into getting us to Class A. She’s prioritizing us, it’s probably a lot of
work to do both.”

“Still, being in the student council is an influential position. It’s bad that we lost that.”

“I don’t see you trying to be in the student council,” Amikura said as she continued to defend
Ichinose. “Wait a minute… are you guys trying to start some kind of rebellion?” She took a
somewhat understanding tone despite her earlier hostility.

“Yes. I won’t deny that. But if you look at our current position you have to agree that what we have
been doing before has not been working. I don’t want to lose Ichinose as our leader, but I feel as
though we should become more aggressive. There have been plenty of times when we forfeited
winning for the sole purpose of helping others, that’s why we are now Class D.” Kanzaki’s words
seemed to move both Amikura and Watanabe, they were beginning to see his point of view.

Himeno gave them a choice, “Do you want to help us graduate in Class A? Or do you want to
continue to prioritize cooperation over our success? We will fall far behind the other classes if we
don’t take action now, and although it’d be much easier for myself if I didn’t get involved, I want
to make it to Class A.”

Watanabe nodded slightly, “I don’t believe we should be going against Ichinose-san, but I think
that we do need to start being more aggressive in the class battle.”

“I still believe in Honami-chan, but if you guys are trying to help her and our class then I will assist
if I can.” She smiled back at them.

“Well it seems as if I have no more business here, so I will take my leave.” He hoped the
conversation would continue smoothly without his presence.

Kanzaki stopped him quickly, “Wait, Ayanokoji-kun. We need to think of how we can help
Ichinose.”

“For now, there is nothing you can do while on this trip. Do your best to win the special exam,
that’s all I’d say.” Kanzaki seemed as if there was something else on his mind, but he allowed
Ayanokoji to depart, leaving him to go back to lunch.

Although he felt bad taking one of the three hourly late buses for the second day in a row, Hiyori
had asked to meet up with Kiyotaka in the school’s library after school. She could only assume that
she wanted to check it out with him together, and since he hadn’t been there yet it was a good
opportunity.

When he entered, the size of the building itself was comparable to that of the one that was located
at ANHS. The inside was old, and instead of having stairs that went up to higher levels like theirs
 did, it was a flat walk to the end of the shelves. Kiyotaka looked around in the area, taking in the
sights of the new location along with searching for Hiyori amidst the dust and shelves.

“Hello, Kiyotaka.” He looked to the side where he had heard somewhat of a whisper and saw a
small girl sitting down with her face in a book. If she had been fully immersed, she definitely
would not have noticed Kiyotaka, but it seemed as if she had only just started judging by the
amount of pages she had flipped through. Either that, or she was too excited for him to arrive.

“Ah, hello Hiyori.”

Her motions soon showed that she was about to sneeze, and after a moment of hesitation the sneeze
happened. “Achoo! Ah, I’m sorry.” She used her handkerchief to sneeze into, and then put it away
afterwards. “It’s really dusty here, a lot more than other libraries I’ve been to.”

“This library is much older than the one at our school, I’d blame it on that.” She smiled gently
back at him. “Do you mind giving me a moment to look through the books on the shelves before I
sit down? I'm very interested in what sorts of books they have here.”

She set her book down gently and left a bookmark in it. “Could I come with you? I’ve already
looked around quite a lot since coming here in my lunch periods, but I still haven’t managed to get
around to all of it.”

Kiyotaka nodded and began to scan his eyes through the shelves. They certainly had a wide variety
of books and famous authors within the library, he even noticed several things that he had already
read. The section that interested him was the mystery section, as usual. He liked mystery books in
particular due to the thinking involved when trying to solve the mystery for himself within the
book. If it was written well, then he would have no problem coming to a conclusion before the
book’s end. He also enjoyed when some evidence was hidden from the reader, but there had to be
a particularly skilled author writing to make use of the device properly. With books being the only
kind of entertainment he ever had in the White Room, they always held a place within his life. In
his opinion, it was still the best way to learn new knowledge, even becoming one of the symbols
for knowledge itself.

He finally picked a few books out, with Hiyori still trailing him and having taken several other
books off the shelf in the process to read the synapses. She had probably already hit the maximum
amount of books that she was allowed to check out from this library as she usually did.

He sat back down at the table they had previously been at after checking out the books and began
to read. At some point during his period of focus, he noticed Hiyori taking a peek at himself from
over her book. She quickly retracted in embarrassment, Kiyotaka shrugging off the action.

Eventually the time was a bit before 6 PM, and so they parted ways in order for Kiyotaka to make
it to the bus in time. He enjoyed the small moments of silence and reading that they had together,
he hoped that she wouldn’t be one of the people who he would hurt in the future.

Chapter End Notes

Okay I was lying, updates are whenever I feel like it. If I set a date each week there'll
be days where I completely forget to post something on that day, or I won't have the
right kind of motivation to write for this story each week.
I always work on several WIPs at once, so I don't think this will ever get my full
attention, there is always the possibility I will randomly drop it, but I think I'm going
to at least try to complete this work.
Anyways, I hope you enjoyed! This chapter was more broken up into different little
stories, and I wanted to try to find some way to incorporate what was lost in the canon
plot since this takes place instead of Y2V8-9. There will most likely be more chapters
with some other things from those volumes mixed in, but for now I'm trying to put in
original ideas. I'm not going to focus too much on the Ichinose conflict (I don't like her
much sorry ) and I also don't really have a plan for much more than what I had in
this chapter for it.
 Unethical Experiments
Chapter Notes

See the end of the chapter for notes

Kiyotaka arrived back at the Forger residency earlier than the previous day. Anya was sitting down
at the coffee table trying to finish her homework, presumably before her spy show aired that night.
He set his bag down in his room, instead taking the book that he had started reading at the library
and brought it out with him. He returned back out to the living room where he could hear Loid
making dinner in the other room, and Yor was sitting on the couch with a cup of tea.

“Oh, do you want me to make you some, Kiyotaka?” she asked in reference to the tea.

He nodded, “That would be great, thank you.” She got up, seemingly happy that she was able to be
helpful.

Anya looked up from her homework as Kiyotaka sat down on the couch with his book in hand and
opened it to where he had set his bookmark. She was reluctant to ask him for help, not wanting to
be a bother, but she knew that Yor wouldn’t be able to help her with the homework.

When Yor returned with the tea, Kiyotaka accepted it graciously and continued to read while
periodically taking sips of it. Anya had to do something to catch his attention, “Mama, Anya needs
help with her homework.”

“Let’s see here…” Yor picked up the paper, taking one look at the contents of it and changing to
an anxious expression. “This is even harder than last time,” she muttered nervously under her
breath. Kiyotaka looked up for a moment to see what the situation was. Once again, Anya was
struggling with math, but also science as well. He was also capable when it came to the sciences,
the use of formulas and also trying new ideas was generally easier than pure memorization like
history. He felt as if he should help, it would be rude to simply leave Anya struggling all on her
own.

“If you need, I could take a look at it.”

Yor quickly handed him the paper, “Thank you so much, I’m sorry that I’m no good at things like
this. Loid is the smart one in the house.” She did a small self deprecating laugh. After going
through the work on the paper, Kiyotaka got to work teaching.

They hadn’t finished much before dinner had been ready, but it was enough to set Anya up for
finishing the rest of it in a timely fashion over the weekend.

They all sat down on the table where there were freshly made potato pancakes and hunter’s pork
chops along with a few other side dishes. They hadn’t had a fancy meal every night, but on the
weekends there was more care that was put into the dishes.

Before Kiyotaka had finished eating, Loid decided to make a proposal. “I have to go to work
tomorrow so I won’t be in the house. My coworkers keep telling me to bring you back Anya,
would you like to go with me?”

“Anya wants to go see spychology work!” she yelled excitedly with some food still in her mouth.

“Anya, you have to finish chewing first,” Yor corrected her.

She finished swallowing, “Papa’s work!”

Loid smiled at her innocence, but then directed his attention over to Kiyotaka. “If you’d like to join
us, you’re free to come, Kiyotaka.” His real intention was to use his possible interest in
psychology, which he discovered based on one of the books that he had been reading over the
week, and use that as a way to gather information. Kiyotaka was mostly aware of what the
underlying motive behind this course of action was now that he had confirmed that Loid was
looking for information on him. He wouldn’t be careless, but he had already decided that there was
no harm to himself in that kind of environment and his own curiosity was also somewhat interested
in psychology to a degree. The White Room itself was already an elaborate psychological
experiment in more ways than one, making him simply a product of this psychology. He knew
himself the best, and knew that there were many things within his mind that could be explained
with what had already been discovered by other researchers.

“Sure, I think it’d be interesting to go. I have somewhat of an interest in psychology myself.” It was
easy to make it seem like he was oblivious of Loid’s plans, but there was no reason to reveal that
when he could use this to his own advantage in finding his motivations. Why exactly was Loid so
interested in him? That’s the only question he cared about at the moment. Anya stiffened up beside
him, again with the strange reaction. This time it could have possibly been considered just a
reaction to not being alone with her father, but it would be duly noted for later. “Oh, I also forgot to
ask, but would next weekend work if Kei were to come over for a day and hang out? She texted me
earlier today to say that she got the clearance from the family she was staying with as long as she
was given your phone number.”

Yor smiled happily, and before Loid could say anything she agreed, “That sounds great! I can’t
wait to meet her.” Loid was going to agree anyways, but it made him seem less suspicious if Yor
was the one to agree first. This child was supposedly extremely smart despite not showing it, so
any misstep may cause him to find out what he was after. His comment about his father was
already an extreme risk to take, and there was the possibility that his lie had been revealed, but he
still mostly believed that he didn’t know his intentions.

The next day Loid didn’t have to worry about going to work as early as usual despite still having to
come in. He allowed Anya and Kiyotaka to sleep in, but Kiyotaka still woke around the same time
as usual. It seemed that he had an alarm set for most days. Loid wondered if he was the type to
oversleep if the alarm didn’t go off, or if he woke up before it.

“Good morning.”

“Good morning,” he responded as he sleepily walked into the kitchen and grabbed the cereal while
taking the extra coffee that Loid had left in the coffee pot. He poured a bowl of cereal with milk
and sat down at the table, eating it silently. Loid had quickly noticed that he wasn’t one to speak
much during the first week, but he couldn’t really be sure if this was just an act or how he actually
was due to his limited information on the boy. He was leaning towards it just being his personality,
but he still thought it was odd how his voice almost never fluctuated into showing any emotions no
matter the scenario at hand.

Loid checked his watch and realized it was probably time for him to wake up Anya. He opened the
door to her room, the girl shooting up from her bed as soon as the noise hit her ears. Usually the
sound of the door alone wasn’t enough to wake her up, but she seemed excited so it was likely that
she had only been lightly sleeping.

She ran out of her room after quickly getting dressed and bounced up and down at the door in her
excitement. “Anya, you still need to eat before we leave.” Loid forced her to eat a meal before they
departed right at the time he had wanted.

During the car ride, Loid looked into the rear view mirror during a stop. He had picked up that no
matter where they were or whether it was new scenery or not, Kiyotaka would continuously stare
out the window. It was almost like he was a child who was just being brought into the outside
world for the first time. Despite all the lack of emotion he had on his face, he still gazed out that
window with a burning curiosity and a bit of wonder. Maybe he was just looking into things too
deeply, but it was slightly endearing.

Loid parked and the three of them walked in together. Loid’s coworkers noticed him right away
and immediately walked up to him. “Dr. Forger! Thank you for coming in today. Oh, and you
brought Anya!”

She bent down to get onto Anya’s level and a few others surrounded her while they commented on
how cute she was. Anya attracted a lot of attention, which was exactly what Kiyotaka didn’t like.
Loid soon introduced Kiyotaka to them so he didn’t have to continue standing there silently while
not knowing what to do. “This is Kiyotaka, a foreign exchange student from Japan who’s been
living with us for the past week. He has an interest in psychology too so I thought I’d bring him to
look around.”

“Hello, it’s a pleasure to meet all of you,” he didn’t want to make a lasting impression in these
people’s minds, so he simply used the correct manners and tried to seem as ordinary as possible.
They still doted on him as if he wasn’t almost an adult, it confused him slightly.

Loid smiled and finally brought the two upstairs to his office. The first thing Kiyotaka noticed
when he walked in was the presence of security cameras. It was a basic security precaution, but he
would keep it in mind for later.

“I have some things to take care of, but feel free to take a look around. Anya, you can come with
me if you want since you’ve already seen around.” Anya quickly jumped back to her father’s side.
Kiyotaka didn’t mind being left alone, he felt better this way anyways.

The room itself was rather comfortable, it was much easier to talk to a patient when they felt as if
the environment around them was welcoming. There were many books on the bookshelves in the
room, some being about psychology and others being more normal works that had deeper
meanings within them. Kiyotaka found it curious that the sand tray and miniatures used for sand
tray therapy were already set out and waiting, but perhaps Anya liked to play with it when she was
there. It wasn’t as though he had a particular interest in it, but thought it may be interesting to set it
up as if it was his own reality.

The cameras were still blinking in the corners of the room. If Loid had left to spy on what he did,
Kiyotaka had prepared for this. He wanted to scare the man slightly, knowing that his
understanding of the scene he would create in the sand tray would lead to concern. Judging by
Loid’s general attitude towards Kiyotaka, there wasn’t any way that he was going to fade out of the
background. By conveying small bits of information about himself that would not compromise his
identity in any way, he could use this to figure out what Loid wanted with him. What would he take
note of, and what would he consider useless? While deep in thought, Kiyotaka finished arranging
his small piece within view of at least one camera.

There was one building block higher than the other two he had placed on either side, with the
second being slightly above the third to resemble a podium. He had buried a few of the human
miniatures in the sand at the foot of the blocks. On top of the highest block there was one
miniature, but the other two blocks didn’t have anyone on them. It was up to Loid to decide what to
make of this scene.

Confident that he was being spied on at that moment, Kiyotaka stared directly into the camera that
pointed at him with his ever expressionless face.

At the same moment, Loid had indeed been looking at the camera feed from his phone. He had
specifically set up the cameras in his office to link up with his phone; it could be easily passed as
just an extra safety measure for when he was away. His eyes widened slightly, did he know that
Loid had been watching at that moment? And what was more concerning was the setup of the sand
tray. He took screenshots of it at every angle that he could and slipped the phone back into his
pocket.

Kiyotaka soon broke eye contact and changed the piece to resemble more of an embodiment of the
class wars. There should be nothing out of the ordinary about it now. He left the area and started
looking on the shelves for any interesting books, but he was also rather interested to see what some
of the patients would be like up close. Up until now, he had only met one person who he could say
for certain was mentally il. That was, of course, ignoring his own case of psychopathy that he was
fully aware of. It was slightly ironic that the White Room had created both of those people in its
attempt to create superior humans. Kiyotaka was sure that many other of the dropouts had
developed PTSD and other personality disorders as result of the trauma that was induced in that
place. He sat down on one of the chairs in the room and began to read a book that contained
information on lesser known psychological experiments throughout the years. Perhaps the White
Room would be one of the big names within the controversial psychology experiments once it was
finally revealed, but the plan was never just to be an experiment.

Loid took a bathroom break, wanting some time to finally take a closer look at the scene Kiyotaka
had created within the sand tray. It had been bugging him ever since he got a glimpse of it, so it
was better to get it off his mind sooner rather than later. After analyzing its contents, he was able to
understand things better. The one person on top of the podium was the only winner, while the
others had fallen down and given up. No one even counted for second or third place. Was Kiyotaka
one of the fallen? Or was he the superior? Although he wished that it was the former, it would
make it easier to feel him out, most of what he had learned so far was pointing to the latter of the
options. A slightly scary thought came to his mind. With any luck, the agent they had sent to
investigate the happenings surrounding his father back in Japan had infiltrated whatever was going
on there successfully and would send crucial information back soon.

Loid returned back to the room with Anya around an hour later, presumably having chased her
around half of the time. “Ah, I see you decided to try out the sand tray. It’s an interesting setup you
have here.” It was different from what he originally had it as, the goal was to throw him off of his
tracks.

“I modeled it off of the school system at Kodo Ikusei,” he answered nonchalantly while still
slightly invested in the book he was reading. Even his choice of book was slightly interesting, but
maybe that was just the boy’s fascination with psychology talking.

“Are you interested in psychology experiments?” Loid inquired, it wasn’t going to give him much
in terms of information but it was a nice question to ask regardless.

“I am. I particularly find the controversial ones interesting to learn about. I suppose why they were
labeled as controversial and what they were attempting to test the human mind about is something I
enjoy learning about.” It was an in depth response. Sometimes Loid forgot that high schoolers were
only a few years shy of adulthood.

Loid wanted to know more about how much he knew on this topic, “So you like controversial
ones, any specifics come to mind?”

Kiyotaka only had to think for a moment before coming up with his answer, “I’m sure you’re
already familiar with most of the ones that come to mind first. The Milgram Experiment, the
Stanford Prison Experiment, the Monster Study. I’ve also looked into quite a few lesser known
ones, but something about unethical experiments has always interested me.” This interest was most
likely sparked from being the result of an unethical experiment, but even if things were unethical
they got the research done. He could certainly use methods that would be considered unethical to
transform his classmates into reaching their full potential. That's exactly what he had been doing in
the past and present with Kei.

“I’m honestly surprised how much you know about this. Maybe you should study psychology in
university.”

“I’ve considered it as an option.” He knew he wouldn’t be going to university, his path was already
laid out for him. Anya wasn’t quite stiff, but she was eyeing Kiyotaka with a weird expression. She
was strange.

The day continued with Kiyotaka being given the opportunity to observe several different things
that he wouldn’t have gotten to otherwise. He was quite content in his decision to come with them
that day.

Loid had stepped out for a moment to talk to his fellow agent, Nightfall, who was going by her
alias Fiona Frost.

“I’ve heard that you’ve been assigned to gather information on that kid who’s following you
around,” she stated.

He nodded, “Let me know if you notice any odd behavior from him. Even insignificant actions
could be significant.”

“You can rely on me.” She was secretly extremely happy to be helping Twilight, hidden well
beneath her poker face. Before walking away she handed Loid a small piece of paper. On it had a
coded message that was telling him to go back to HQ and meet the handler at a certain time. He
swallowed the paper to destroy any evidence of it. Hopefully she had good news.

The next day, Loid left inconspicuously from the house, using the excuse that he would be running
errands. Sunday was always the day that he got groceries and other things of the sort, so it worked
out in his favor. It was getting a lot colder, hitting below freezing temperature every night in the
past week. He wouldn’t be surprised if it started snowing soon as it did around this time of year in
Berlint.

He arrived at WISE HQ after a variety of safety precautions and identity checks, just the usual
routine. Twilight sat down with the handler who had gathered more files of information.

“The agent we sent to investigate Ayanokoji Atsuomi in Japan has sent us results after three
months. Apparently it was extremely difficult to get in but the information that has been gathered
as a result is well worth it.”

“May I look through the files?” Loid asked.

The handler nodded, “I’ll explain anything extra for clarification if you need.”
There was an in depth summary and report on what the agent had found and investigated as well as
the difficulties that came with it all. ‘Let me start by saying that this case was not easy to
investigate. I had to forge a criminal record as well as a PhD along with creating an absurd amount
of connections in order to get into this place. The security of the operation that they’re running is
not to be taken lightly.’ The introduction eventually ended and got down to the relevant
information of the case. ‘I was able to infiltrate a project known as the “White Room” which was
founded by the Ayanokoji Atsuomi that we have been investigating. I became a teacher inside of it,
and some of the conditions that I’m observing here are frankly depressing. It seems that this is a
facility that is dedicated to raising elite students to be the future of Japan. They learn much more
than the average student does at an early age as well as several other skills like martial arts and
instruments. It would be no exaggeration to say that this is the most efficient education I have ever
witnessed, but the children are not allowed to leave to see the outside world. Many of them have
never even seen an actual tree to put it into perspective. Sometimes it even feels like I’m in less of
an educational facility and more of an asylum. The children themselves also scare me, they don’t
really feel like kids a lot of the time. I suppose that's to be expected when you're never given the
luxury of childhood innocence. So far there have been 21 generations of White Room students,
with the next graduating class being the third generation. On my first day, I was taken through a
tour which showed each of the classes. They had been dealing with some kind of trouble regarding
the fifth generation, a dropout and a student returning from the outside who was mentally unstable.
The man who was touring me around, Suzukake, brought me to the window of the fourth
generation and seemed particularly proud of it but there was no one inside. There was still one desk
waiting in there, so I thought maybe the student was just in another room unlike the 6th generation
where every student ended up dropping out. I will now recount the conversation I had from the
best of my memory.’ The dialogue continued onto the next page.

‘“This is the fourth generation of the White Room, our proudest accomplishment.”

“Ah, I’m a bit confused sir. Where are the students?”

“Well, it’s only a singular student, but he isn’t here right now.”

“Is it rude to ask where he is?”

“Well it’s not exactly a secret that he escaped the White Room and is currently enrolled at the
Tokyo Metropolitan Advanced Nurturing High School.”

“Escaped? Are we trying to get him back?”

“Of course, he’s sensei’s son and his proudest accomplishment. I also pride Kiyotaka as one of my
own achievements seeing as I designed each of the curriculums for the students myself.”

“He’s sensei’s son? Does that mean that he got special treatment?”

“Don’t be mistaken just because he’s the only one left. All the other students who were once in this
generation went through exactly the same curriculum and circumstances as he did. We don’t know
why he achieved excellence while the others failed, but it is no exaggeration to say that he is the
magnum opus of the White Room.”

“Amazing, I hope that I’ll get the honor to observe him at some point.”

At this point Suzukake dawned somewhat of a grim expression. “Just keep in mind, he’s not like
the other students. It’s hard to even call him human sometimes, I know a lot of my coworkers have
certainly stopped seeing him as that. He feels nothing at all, but still has more knowledge than any
human ever has. It’s scary. And we have created this monster.”’
The dialogue then ended. Twilight flipped through the other pages briefly that showed some of the
statistics that he had been given to have a comparison of where Kiyotaka was compared to the
other students. It also contained other less important information that wasn’t as relevant to the
operation at hand. It was frightening. He looked up at the handler who had a similar grave
expression. “I think you understand how dangerous that entire facility can be considered. If it’s
trying to create superior students to lead the future of Japan then it will create many extraordinary
humans with the same ideals. It’s currently unknown whether these ideals are good or bad and if
they are a threat. I feel genuinely bad for these children who have been put into an unethical
experiment from birth into adulthood.”

Twilight had to take a deep breath. He had seen a lot of bad things, but this was one of the first
reports that scared him in some way. “I understand. I need to learn as much about Kiyotaka as I can
before the month is gone, right?”

“Yes. Do you have any information you’ve gotten so far?”

“A bit, he’s been called really smart by people he knows well. And there was a conversation about
something that happened at their school’s cultural festival that seemingly involved him behind the
scenes. There was also yesterday. I brought him to my office because I had noticed he had an
interest in psychology. When I left him with the sand tray he set it up in a strange way.” Twilight
explained how Kiyotaka had arranged the sand tray and then stared directly into the camera with
an expression that was simultaneously empty and scary.

"That seems like an accurate representation of the White Room that he grew up in. It seemed like
he knew he was being watched and did that on purpose."

Twilight recalled the events of last week. "Last Saturday, I left the house with my family and him.
Around lunchtime I noticed that we were being followed. It appeared that Kiyotaka was aware of
this as well. The person intended to follow us home and gather information on him. When I
confronted him he said that he had been hired by people who didn't tell him why he was gathering
the information, but that it was directed towards Kiyotaka. I suspect that there was a secondary
employer, and with the new information that we learned it's possible that his father is behind this.
Using a school trip as an opportunity to take back the child that had escaped his grasp by going to
the one school he couldn't get him at."

"I agree with your theory, it seems highly likely."

"Also, he talked in depth about how he was fascinated by unethical and controversial psychology
experiments.”

“You think that interest was rooted in how he himself was the product of an unethical
experiment?"

"Yes, that's what I believe."

The handler sighed, "If he is truly as smart as they say, you need to be much more careful. It's even
possible that he already found out what you're trying to do judging by how he looked at the
security cameras."

"I will be successful." Twilight got up. It would be better not to carry the file at home.

The handler said one last thing, "Stay safe."

Twilight gave a small nod before returning back to his identity as Loid Forger.
Chapter End Notes

I'm concerned with how fast I'm updating this fic help.
Been reading too much in the CotE tag on Ao3 I've gone through so many fics and
they're all so amazing it just sucks that like 90% are unfinished. Hopefully I will not
fall into the majority here.
 More Bothers

The next Monday at school, Ayanokoji decided to head to the cafeteria alone. It wasn’t that he was
avoiding Kei, but when the bell rang she had opted to begin talking to her friends instead. He never
minded, it was always nice to have time alone once in a while. Before, he would’ve spent his time
with the formerly named Ayanokoji group, but it was better if they continued their friendships
without him from now on. He had destroyed the group, and he knew that in the future it would be
even worse for them when it was finally time to enact his plan. Overall, it was just better to end
things sooner rather than later.

He had sat down once he had bought his food and began eating. A few minutes later he heard
someone sit down directly next to him. It didn’t make sense for it to be someone random looking
for somewhere to sit, and he would recognize that dark maroon hair anywhere. He glanced over to
the side and saw Ryuuen smiling mischievously back at him. Ishizaki had also chosen to sit down
on the other side of him, and Albert and Hiyori joined them at the other side of the table.

“How’s my favorite hidden genius doing?”

“Usually you only approach me when you want something, but I don’t understand why you
brought the others here with you.”

Ishizaki was quick to respond before Ryuuen, “Oh, when we heard that Ryuuen was going to meet
up with you we decided to join him! It’s been a while since we’ve talked, bro.”

“I appreciate it. Now, what do you want, Ryuuen.”

He smiled back at Ayanokoji’s vacant expression, “Do I need a reason to talk to another student
within our year?”

“Not necessarily, but coming from you it’s extremely suspicious.”

Hiyori nodded, “You do give off that kind of aura, Ryuuen.”

“I just came to do a little inquiry into the state of your class so far.”

Ayanokoji continued to eye Ryuuen suspiciously, “And you think I would give you that
information… why?”

“Okay I’m done messing around. I’ve heard that you’ve been helping out Ichinose’s class lately on
your own time, I’m more curious to know about that. I know you don’t care much about the class
conflict, but assisting another class in order to make them more of a threat? Most people would just
let the defectives crash and burn.”

Ayanokoji wasn’t going to let his meal being interrupted stop him from eating, so he finished
chewing before answering, “Hm, I’m interested as to how you found that information.”

Ryuuen scoffed, “Shut up, it’s not like there’s many places to have a private conversation in this
school. All I need is one Class C student in the area to report your little discussion to me.”

“Well, I’ve helped your class in the past as well. Overall, it’s been pretty equal treatment to both of
your classes.” Ayanokoji took another bite of his meal, ignoring Ryuuen’s direct line of
questioning.
“I know I’m not going to get anywhere by asking you anything, but I have something else I need to
talk about with you. Privately.” Ayanokoji had to suppress the urge to roll his eyes. Everything that
happened at the cultural festival was much too troublesome for what he wanted to deal with,
though he supposed it was much better than the alternative of Yagami revealing his identity to the
entire school in a public setting. If that did end up happening he would probably just drop out since
it ruined his plan. There was no use thinking of alternative endings for things that happened in the
past.

“I’ll be back in a minute,” Ayanokoji added as he began to walk away with Ryuuen into the
hallways. He turned around one last time to see Ishizaki eyeing his food, “And don’t let Ishizaki
eat my food.” The delinquent frowned disappointedly.

Back in the cafeteria, Becky and Anya were watching Kiyotaka’s every movement. Originally
Becky had planned to go up to him while he was alone, but then a bunch of scary looking idiots
surrounded him and she had to give up that plan. “Hmmm, what are we supposed to do now!”

“Anya thinks that those guys are scary.”

Becky laid her head on the table in frustration, “I agree, but we can’t just let that guy walk away
with my Kiyotaka! I mean I’m sure he could defend himself because he’s clearly super strong, but
that’s a stressful situation!” She had no reason to believe that Kiyotaka was actually strong, but
somehow came to the right conclusion in the midst of her delusions. “I’ve got it, let’s follow them
and then I can be super cool and you, as my best friend and sidekick, can punch that other guy like
the super strong person you are! Just like you did to Damien! And then Kiyotaka will think I’m
awesome and dump his girlfriend.” This plan was absolutely not going to work, but Anya kind of
wanted to know what they were talking about and so she agreed to the proposal.

“Let’s do this.”

They got up from their seats, having already finished their meals, and followed them into the
hallway they watched the two enter.

Meanwhile, Ryuuen managed to find an isolated area where they could have their conversation.

“You were behind the tip off that led me to finding the culprit who hurt Komiya and Kinoshita, but
I know you won’t admit you were behind whatever little show happened in the student council
room.” Of course, as one of those who witnessed the events of that day, it was pretty easy to
assume he was behind things.

“What are you talking about?” Feigning ignorance was Ayanokoji’s specialty.

Ryuuen smiled bitterly back at him, “Like I’m going to believe you, bastard. That Yagami kid, he
knew about your past and where you came from. Got pretty violent for a minute too.”

“Really? That’s strange, I don’t remember telling him.” As if he was going to give Ryuuen the
information that he wanted. He would only use it to his advantage in the future. Hypothetically, if
Ryuuen knew about Ayanokoji’s past, he wouldn’t have hesitated to reveal it to the entire school
already.

Ryuuen let out a deep sigh at Ayanokoji’s continued ignorance. “Well, whatever. I can’t do much
anymore. Judging by how he acted that day, he’s like you and so is that other first year girl with
the twintails. But Yagami is gone, and rightfully so, meaning I can no longer get any info out of
him-” He paused for a second and shifted his gaze to the intersection of the hallway behind
Kiyotaka where his expression changed to one of annoyed confusion. “Why are there kids stalking
us?”

Ayanokoji turned his head and caught a glimpse of pink hair that had just run behind the corner.
“Anya, why are you stalking me?” She timidly came out from behind the corner with the friend of
hers that he had met the week prior.

“You know this kid?” Ryuuen asked.

Anya stepped in between Ayanokoji and Ryuuen, “Don’t come any closer! Anya won’t let you hurt
him!” Ryuuen thought it was a bit funny, since he had considered attempting to hit Ayanokoji.
There were cameras nearby, but he didn’t really care, and Ayanokoji would just dodge anyways no
matter what he threw at him.

Ayanokoji’s face remained expressionless in the midst of whatever was going on. “Yeah, get him
Anya!” Becky yelled from the sidelines, hoping that Kiyotaka would pay attention to her. Anya
was about to punch him–only in the legs, she was much too short to reach any higher up–when
Kiyotaka picked her up and moved her to the side.

“What are you doing?” he asked her.

“Protecting you!”

“There’s no threat, we were just talking.” Anya looked like she wanted to say something else, but
Kiyotaka interrupted first. “I can take care of myself anyways. But please, don’t follow me around
at school, it’s kind of creepy.”

She nodded, still with a look of confidence on her face, “If Kiyotaka needs, Anya will protect you
from maroon hair!”

“Okay, thank you.” He lightly patted her on the head before giving her a slight push in the
direction from where she came. Becky frowned and followed behind Anya while getting one last
glimpse at Kiyotaka.

Ryuuen burst out into laughter at the interaction. Ayanokoji sent him a fierce glare in response
which caused him to settle down slightly. “What was that? Ayanokoji Kiyotaka is good with kids,
I never thought I’d see such a sight.”

“I’m not good with kids, I’m not good with people in general and you already know that.”

“Okay, okay. I still had more I wanted to say, but this doesn’t seem like an isolated space
anymore.”

Ayanokoji sighed and followed after him, “Ishizaki has probably eaten all my food by now…”

They found a new spot that was further from the cafeteria than he would’ve liked, but privacy was
probably the most important thing in this case.

Ryuuen once again began talking. “Before we were interrupted, I was about to mention that girl
Nanase. I have a feeling that she also knows something, and she seems to stick with you quite a
lot.”

“Well I only met her for the first time when she entered this school. I suppose we just got along
decently.” Ayanokoji had a tendency to interweave the truth with lies, or make the truth vague
enough to where no one would be able to tell regardless. He lied so often that even if he did
suddenly expose his own past, no one would be able to tell if he was telling the truth.
“I suspect that to be the truth, but I assume the same is true for Yagami and yet he seemed to know
an awful lot about you. I almost wish his expulsion was delayed just so that I would know what
turned you into the monster you are.” He let out an evil chuckle, but Ayanokoji didn’t seem to
care. “You’re no fun. It just pisses me off that no matter what I do to annoy you or get on your
nerves, you still have that stupid blank expression.”

“You were pretty annoying last year. All that mastermind stuff, you forced my hand.”

He scoffed, “Oh please, we both know that you planned all that shit from the beginning. It’s like
you read my thoughts. Anyways, we got off topic. Just be warned, next semester I’m going to go
searching for answers.” He walked away laughing.

It seemed that Ryuuen’s pride was back. Well, Ayanokoji didn’t particularly care. He never really
planned to crush him fully, just break him enough to get him to end his search for the mastermind.
Class C’s comeback was beneficial for his plan after all, there would be pressure on Horikita’s
class from all sides.

Kiyotaka lightly strolled back to the cafeteria. To his surprise, Ishizaki had not eaten all of his food
yet and left an area of the plate untouched. He still ate some, but his restraint was a surprise.

“Ah, you’re back Kiyotaka!” Hiyori said happily. Her face was slightly red around her cheeks, but
he wasn’t sure if she was aware.

“I left you some food. Man, you had a long chat with Ryuuen though!” Ishizaki said, referring to
the plate of food that was not his.

“Thanks…” It was almost like he had completely forgotten that the food was Kiyotaka’s in the first
place.

The lunch period ended peacefully. When Ayanokoji returned back to the classroom, he felt the
eyes of Haruka on his back. He had noticed his former group walk into the cafeteria at some point,
but he just ignored them. If they were no longer friends, there was no need to pay attention to them.
However, he had realized that they had been showing up more frequently in places that he
frequented since the cultural festival ended. It wasn’t as though they had never been to those
places, but they were more isolated in general and the frequency in occurrences was enough for
him to think that it was on purpose. His new theory was that Haruka didn’t like the thought of him
having friends, and was doing it to make him jealous to see what he ruined. Her only error in
judgment was that he didn’t care in the slightest. Friends weren’t really a necessity for him, they
only enhanced his school life.

He already knew he would lose all support from those in his class, why would they matter in the
end?

Twilight thought over what he had read the previous day once again.

‘He feels nothing at all, but still has more knowledge than any human ever has.’

He’s only a high schooler, it can't be right. Although it is a monumental feat to be able to say that,
everything about Kiyotaka is rubbing him the wrong way. No emotions, but has a girlfriend.
Though, if he feels nothing it’s possible that he just pretends as if he does feel for some sort of
gain. He would say that would be an awful thing to do to someone, but he had played with people’s
feelings several times for the greater good. Something about Kiyotaka just didn’t feel as if his
reasoning was ‘the greater good.’ Then again, he could have been hiding his emotions from the
instructors at this “White Room” the entire time, or they could’ve appeared when he escaped and
entered high school. There’s many possibilities, and it almost seems unlikely that Kiyotaka had
lived his entire life without emotion.

Twilight doesn’t want to believe any of this to be true, but the signs seem to add up. The full score
on the math test, looking out the window vacantly, and especially his scene in the sand tray. And
that’s not even to mention how scary the concept of the White Room is to begin with. A father that
would willingly put their own child into the facility that was devoid of any love. Maybe he just
didn’t care. According to the information given, most parents who gave their children over to the
organization didn’t want them or couldn’t have them. It was a place for children who would be sent
to orphanages anyways. It would be a bold assumption to make, but his father most likely only
started being invested in the boy’s future after he began showing results. If Kiyotaka had dropped
out, perhaps he would no longer have a home. It could even be as severe as that.

But there’s no use speculating about his situation without actual leads of any kind. It would be hard
to believe Kiyotaka was this extraordinary without seeing it with his own eyes. There had to be
some way during this trip to set up a situation where he would have to reveal some of his abilities.
He would plan for something, but how are you supposed to plan when it feels like the enemy can
see three steps ahead?
 Surprising Actions
Chapter Notes

See the end of the chapter for notes

The next day, Tuesday, Class B had their first PE period with the actual teacher. They had a
substitute for the past week, and they didn’t have class every day, so they finally met the man. He
was in very good shape, and even as they walked out onto the field he was running laps. Since
there wasn’t enough time to have all of the classes go at separate times, around half of the second
years of Eden Academy were mixed in with two of the ANHS classes. Class B ended up being
paired in the same group as Class A, presumably because they just wanted to cut the higher and
lower classes into two halves. In a way, it was kind of like the sports festival pairing they had in
their first year.

“Everyone line up at attention!” the coach yelled. So this was going to be more like military
training, was it? Ayanokoji sighed, he hated putting in more effort than he had to.

Horikita was standing next to him and smiled bitterly at him, “This looks like it’s going to be
trouble for you.”

“I can already see that.”

“We’re running two miles around the track today. If you’re not working up a sweat or out of
breath, I will be grading you down for not trying hard enough!”

“Two miles?!” Ike exclaimed.

“For that outburst, it’s now three!” Ike immediately shut up at the increase of the number. Some
people glared his way, but the coach whistled to get them standing straight again. “Since there’s a
lot of you, we’re going to go in groups based on your classes. Eden Academy students, line up
first!” They took their positions elegantly, most of them being very well trained and skilled at
sports judging by their builds.

While the others were running, the other classes were dismissed to intermingle. Sudo walked over
to Horikita, “I’m gonna do my best for the class!”

“Thank you Sudo, but as long as you look sufficiently tired we won’t lose points,” she stated. She
had become warmer towards Sudo, most likely after all of the studying they had done together in
the past few months. It still seemed as though she was oblivious to his feelings, though. “As for
you Ayanokoji, I fear that this may be difficult for you. I have never once seen you sweat or even
really breathe heavily while running at the pace that you usually do.”

“Yeah, but Class A and everyone in our school already knows you’re fast. You showed that in the
sports festival already, and you were running around the whole time during the second island test
so I know you have good stamina,” Sudo pointed out.

"I might just take the penalty, I don't really care if my grade gets knocked down.” Running wasn’t
particularly straining for him. The last time he actually started sweating from physical exertion was
during his fight with Tsukishiro and Shiba during the island test.

"Come on dude! I want to see you run like you did at the sports festival again. I know you're fast,
and we need to prove that we can be better than all these snobby rich kids!" Sudo seemed to care a
lot more about this as some sort of show of honor for the class. Did Ayanokoji count as a rich kid?
The environment he grew up in wasn’t exactly indicative of that but when the White Room was
shut down he had lived in a pretty big house.

Ayanokoji looked out towards the track where the Eden students were running. "You're not going
to leave me alone if I run slowly, are you?"

"Hell no!"

Horikita took this moment to interject as well, "Out of all the people in the class you are currently
trying the least in ratio to your overall strength. That's if we ignore Koenji, of course.” She looked
over at Koenji who was sitting down on a bench with his arms crossed, obviously not intending to
do anything straining. He had been attracting some attention from the 3rd year girls during their
lunch periods, he seemed right at home here.

“So you’re saying that you’re going to bother me too.”

“Perhaps, although I’ll probably choose a less direct way than Sudo will. That just means it’ll
bother you more.”

He rolled his eyes, “Alright, alright, I get it. I’ll try… somewhat.” Horikita glared at him for his
last little addition to the end of his sentence.

The Eden Academy students all passed the three miles easily, giving it their all the whole way.
They had learned that these students had a different incentive than them to do well in school,
earning Stellas and becoming an imperial scholar. However, at least one failing grade won’t expel
you and it’ll take at least eight with that alone. But ANHS wasn’t a normal school anyways, and
although this was a prestigious academy, it was still a relatively normal school.

Class A also took their turn, with Sakayanagi sitting out as always. They still had many students
that were academically and physically capable, making the run not too difficult for them. There
were still some outliers, but overall they all made good time. Class B had several students with
above average physical abilities, but many who struggled when it came to activity like this.

They all lined up at the start, with some much more anxious than others. Ayanokoji wasn’t sure
how far his endurance would actually take him if he was to give it his all, he himself had never
bothered to measure. The whistle blew, he decided he would start out at a normal pace, keeping up
with those who could run decently like Akito. Sudo was already much further ahead, and glared at
him from behind as he already started to make the curve of the track before the others. He felt a
push from behind him, almost tripping him.

“Hey, what the hell?”

“I hope you don’t intend to cruise along at this pace for the entire time.” It was Horikita who had
pushed him, to be expected.

“Jeez, I’m just getting started.”

To avoid Horikita’s wrath, he wanted to at least stay ahead of her. He sped up his pace of jogging
slightly, just enough to be barely ahead of everyone except Sudo.

For the duration of two miles, he kept his pace in between Sudo, who had started to slow down,
and the person in third place. He still hadn’t broken into a sweat yet, his play was to go all out in
the last mile. He sped up, seeing the distance between Sudo and him start to close, eventually
overtaking him after around a lap of the quickened pace. He was still holding back, but this
wouldn’t be enough to satisfy either Horikita or Sudo. They really were troublesome for him. Once
again his pace increased, with it being what would be considered full on running speed for most
people. He passed by those of Eden Academy, Sudo now far behind him, and heard a few passing
conversations that had now taken notice of his speed. He had lapped many people in the process.
Two more laps until the end of the mile.

After the third lap, he was curious to see how fast he could actually go. He had never gone his full
speed out on a track before, and he had been abruptly stopped during the sports festival due to an
unforeseen event. Just for the last lap, he would run as fast as he could.

Loid had been spying on the school that day. He didn’t know what kind of information he thought
he would learn, but he had decided to anyway. After watching the field from afar with binoculars,
he started to see something extraordinary. Kiyotaka had previously been at a rather normal pace,
but as the laps they ran continued, he started to speed up. Most people would lose their pace as they
went forward, so it was incredible that he was able to do so, seemingly without any trouble in
breathing either. By the last mile, he was running basically the entire thing. The fact that he was
amazing at not just academics but also physical activity made him especially valuable in a class
setting. It was starting to feel more real in his head now that he had witnessed it for himself. This
kid truly was amazing, but that was exactly what scared him.

Ayanokoji ended the mile actually out of breath for once. It was a sensation he knew, but
something that had begun to become unfamiliar as he spent more time at ANHS. He walked over
to the coach and asked if he could go get water, the coach agreeing immediately after seeing his
skills in action. He lightly walked over to the water fountain on the other side of the track and took
a drink. The water soothed his thirst and brought down his heart rate.

When he returned back to where his class was, no one had managed to finish their own mile yet,
but Sudo seemed to be on his last lap. Ayanokoji just continued to stand as if he hadn’t done
anything at all, even though his own class was blown away by what he had done. By showing them
this now, it would make things easier for him in the future with his plan. Otherwise, he would’ve
just dealt with Horikita and Sudo’s incessant nagging.

He sat down on a bench and looked out at where his own class was running. Even from far away,
he caught the gaze of Kei and their eyes met for a moment. She quickly turned her head away,
probably thinking it was somewhat embarrassing while she was running.

Soon after, three girls from Eden Academy approached him, giggling slightly. The one who was
hiding behind her peers was blushing intensely and seemed extremely nervous.

The more assertive of the three started, “Hi! You were super cool out there. Like, you’re the fastest
runner I’ve ever seen, maybe even Olympic level.”

“Uh, thank you. It wasn’t that amazing though, was it?”

The second girl spoke up, “No it totally was! Even the best runner in our school year is in awe of
how fast you were.”

The one hiding behind them still stayed quiet and held the shoulders of the second. The assertive
girl spoke, “Anyways, our friend here thinks you’re super handsome and we agree too, so we’re
asking for your number.”
Kiyotaka was kind of expecting this, but obviously he had to refuse in light of Kei. Plus, he would
be leaving after a month anyways, forming a connection now would only work as a way of
heartbreak. “Sorry, I already have a girlfriend.”

The quiet girl mumbled something, “I told you guys…”

“Yeah, I guess that’s understandable. Well, just know that we have our eyes on you.” That was not
reassuring in the slightest. They walked away from him, Kiyotaka sighing a breath of relief
proceeding their departure. Sudo had just finished his final lap, but was completely out of breath
and went to get water. It was then when he heard the familiar sound of a cane against the
pavement.

“That was quite the show out there, wasn’t it?” Sakayanagi said. She sat down next to him.
Usually they would never be seen in public talking to each other, but it seemed more normal if it
was after he had done something extraordinary. Ayanokoji looked back at the Class A students.
Around half of them were staring his way, Hashimoto probably having the most mischievous look
of them all.

“I don’t think I did anything spectacular.”

She let out a small mocking giggle, “I know you don’t believe that. I only wonder why you decided
to have this show of ability today.”

“Perhaps I was feeling indulgent.”

“I have a feeling there’s something else, but you hate it when I pry. Besides that, how have you
been doing during this trip?” A surprisingly innocent question from someone usually as calculated
and scheming as her.

“That’s all you want to ask?”

“Well, you haven’t been to many places. I’m sure it’s nice to have some more freedom. Up until
this point in your life, you’ve been caged to a specific small place. Our school just happened to be
the biggest of the places you were confined to.”

“It’s nice. I like it here, or I suppose it would be more accurate to say I like seeing new sights. But
overall, it is quite a beautiful city.” They were his honest thoughts on the matter.

She smiled, “Well, I ought to leave you alone now. I’m sure Horikita and her loyal dog will have
something to say to you.” Ayanokoji helped her get to her feet, observing how the stares of Class A
shifted to that of their leader once she returned. Kamuro still glared at him from a distance, but
soon took Sakayanagi’s side once again.

Sudo returned from his water break, running towards Ayanokoji despite being out of breath
already. “That was AWESOME dude! Man, now I really wish you hadn’t been sick on the day of
the sports festival.” He gave Kiyotaka a hard punch in the arm, enough to leave a bruise. He let out
a small huff in response to the pain, but he didn’t really care anyways. “Still with a completely
blank expression as always. You’re weird.”

“I’m just not good at expressing my emotions.” Like there was anything there to express in the first
place.

Sudo shrugged and sat down on the bench next to Ayanokoji, splaying out over half of it. “I’m
exhausted from all that running. I had to go way faster than my usual pace just so that I wouldn’t be
left too far in the dust. Your stamina is amazing.” The barrage of compliments from Sudo was hard
to answer since Kiyotaka wasn’t really used to getting them in the first place. It had always been
one task onto another with no breaks and no praise. Even if he was the best, they never cared to
make him feel that way. And of course at ANHS he was just ordinary, there was nothing there
worth praising. So instead, he just sat quietly.

Eventually, others started to finish, but the gap in between was pretty big since it was a large
distance. Horikita finished, but didn’t bother to walk to get water since she had brought her own.
She approached the two on the bench, glaring at Ayanokoji with her usual ferocity.

“Suzune, did you see him?! He was like a monster out there.” Ayanokoji opened his eyes at the
mention of that nickname. Ryuuen was the most chronic user of it, but many others had called him
that throughout his life. It was useless to feel disdain over it, it was just something he had to accept.
As the one who knew himself the best, he knew that the nickname wasn’t entirely inaccurate
either.

Horikita punched him hard in the other arm, “Where were you during the sports festival?”

“Sick, I already told you that.”

“And yet you seemed to be perfectly fine the next day.”

“I just have a good immune system.” She rolled her eyes.

“Anyways, maybe just start trying. Please, for the class. We already have Koenji holding back, we
don’t need you being a nuisance either.”

“I happen to quite like being a nuisance,” he said nonchalantly. It was always hard to tell whether
he was making a joke or not since he kept the same tone the entire time.

Horikita sighed, knowing that he would not budge. “I’m not sure that the class will like you
holding back all the time.”

“Hm, the opinion of the class…” He didn’t care about it in the slightest. He had already decided he
was going to destroy them. He just wanted to be defeated before he had the chance to fully crush
them.

Kei finished running with some difficulty. She wasn’t at the bottom in terms of physical ability, but
she was just alright at best.

“Kiyotaka!” She didn’t skip any time from completing it and having her time written down before
running back over to him and hugging him. “You were incredible out there. Is there anything
you’re not good at? I mean I knew that you were good at running ‘cause of the sports festival but
that-”

“You should go get water, it’s not good to be dehydrated after a run.”

She pouted slightly. “Well I guess I should probably get off of you ‘cause we’re both kind of
sweaty. But you’re coming with me!” Kiyotaka nodded. When he looked good, it made Kei look
better too. This was beneficial to her since she would be able to keep her place in the class standing,
but he was also thrust into the spotlight for it. He was guessing that she didn’t care that much about
how his actions affected her social standing, she just loved him unconditionally. He almost wished
that the same was true for his own feelings.

They walked back with Kei clinging onto his arm. “I love you.”
“I love you too.”

He knew that it wouldn’t be possible for him to truly mean those words, but some part of him still
hoped that he was capable of the love that he had been missing his whole life.

On Thursday, Anya noticed Becky arriving at school with a vase of flowers. It wasn’t too heavy, so
she was still able to carry it despite her small stature.

“Flowers?” Anya questioned while they waited before school.

“Yep! I got them to give to Kiyotaka,” she smiled at the thought of him. “I thought I’d just give
him a nice gesture, sort of as an apology for Monday. But I was too embarrassed to put my name
anywhere.” She stood timidly and blushed slightly.

Anya understood now, “How is Becky going to give it to him?”

“Well I was thinking we would just leave it somewhere for him. You did that scouting for me
yesterday, right?” She was talking about the instance where she had asked Anya to figure out where
Kiyotaka sat in his class, and since he had stayed in for that lunch period she was able to find out.
Anya nodded confidently. “I think we should leave it on his desk before school today, but we have
to run to make it before he gets there.”

“Kiyotaka is with Kei right now. They’re not in the classroom.” She was proud of her information
gathering skills, but in reality he had just seen them walk into the school together.

“Ugh. Well we’re going to get rid of her soon anyways, and then Kiyotaka will be mine!” Anya
didn’t actually want to break them up since they seemed happy enough, but she knew of
Kiyotaka’s fake feelings for Kei and thought that it wasn’t right.

They raced into the school, being careful not to drop the vase, and found their way to their
classroom. There were only a few people in there, but they didn’t pay any mind to the sound of
their footsteps. It was highly likely they didn’t even know that Anya and Becky had entered the
classroom. Anya led her to the desk that was Kiyotaka’s and helped her lift the vase onto it. After
making sure it was stable, they both ran away giggling.

Becky was too embarrassed to look back at the classroom, “I hope Kiyotaka likes it!”

Kiyotaka and Kei had walked around campus a bit before school started since they had some time
to kill. They hadn’t had much time to spend with each other, and they were missing their late night
discussions. Of course, Kei called him almost every night, but that never beat the feeling of talking
to each other in person. They didn’t talk about important things, just random topics.

“We should probably head to the classroom, the bell is going to ring soon,” Kiyotaka mentioned.

Kei sighed, “Aw, I feel like we haven’t had much time together, though. At least I’ll finally have
more time to hang out with you this weekend!”

They entered the classroom and heard some whispers and stares that focused on Kiyotaka when he
walked in with Kei. It was pretty easy to decipher why. Kei was completely speechless, probably
recognizing this from her own experiences. “Who would…” She seemed to be in a lot of pain that
Kiyotaka was now the one having this sign of ill will directed towards him. Her grasp tightened,
but he forced her to let go so that he could observe the situation on his own.

On his desk was a vase of flowers. An act of bullying if the person whose desk it was on was still
alive and healthy. “Did anyone see who did this?”

Horikita was the only one who spoke, “I didn’t see who did it, but it was sometime in the last
twenty minutes. I had come in here earlier but I left momentarily to take care of something. When I
came back, it was here.”

Ayanokoji looked over the area where it had been placed. He was mostly looking for clues or
physical evidence that could be used to identify a culprit. On the ground he found a single strand of
pink hair. It was recognizable in length, color, and texture, so he was now sure of who was behind
it. He stood up, “Don’t worry about it, I don’t really care that much.” He wasn’t going to tell them
that he had found the culprit since it would only make for confusion if he told them that a first
grader had done it. If he was to guess, it wasn’t just Anya who had committed it since she
obviously didn’t come to school with a vase of flowers. It was probably her friend with the pigtails
as well. The only reason he could think of for their motivation behind the act was that they were
angry with him for stopping them from stalking him. Other than that, he didn't really know. With
enough questioning, Anya would answer. Unfortunately, he had to work with the study group that
day, meaning he could only question Anya after she had already arrived home. His methods
couldn’t be too harsh in front of her parents. She seemed like she would be a more troublesome
type when it came to interrogation.

Ayanokoji didn’t really know what to do with the flowers so he just moved them to the corner of
the classroom and hoped he wouldn’t have to dispose of them himself. Maybe the professor would
just think of it as a nice gesture instead of the horrible one that had actually been the case.

Kei was still standing near his desk in a state of shock. “Are you okay?”

She snapped out of it once Kiyotaka asked her the question. She sadly looked into his eyes, “Yeah,
yeah. Just… reminded me of things, y’know?” He gently rubbed her arm before she smiled back at
him and went over to her seat.

After the study group, which ended up being much more productive than usual, Kiyotaka took the
next late bus back to the Forger residency. He opened the door and quickly dropped his belongings
off in his room before returning back out to the living room. Anya was sitting on the couch,
quizzically looking back at him, while Loid sat at the dinner table, reading a book. She was
wondering why he didn’t come back home with the vase of flowers they had given him this
morning, had something happened on the way back?

“Ah, welcome back Kiyotaka. We’re just going to have takeout tonight, Yor will be back shortly
with it. How was your day?” He was as friendly as ever, not allowing himself to be shaken by what
the boy was hiding.

He shrugged. “It was fine.” Anya was sad that Becky’s gift hadn’t brightened his day at all. She
knew that her one sided love was kind of hopeless, but she still wanted a positive reaction for
something her friend had prepared. While still standing near the doorway, Kiyotaka began to
question Anya from afar to create a sense of uneasiness, “Anya, I have a question for you.” She
answered with a nod. “Why did you and your friend put that vase of flowers on my desk this
morning?” he asked in a stern tone that showed he was not messing around.

“It was for what we did on Monday!” she said with a smile. It was as he had expected, but why did
 she seem so happy about it, was it just a front?

“Oh? Anya, did you and Becky get him flowers? That’s really nice of you two,” Loid said, also
smiling at her sign of goodwill.

“Wait, nice? I think I understand now, this is a pretty bad miscommunication.”

Anya started to sweat, what could’ve possibly been miscommunicated?

Kiyotaka sighed, “I suppose I didn’t really think that it’s not like this in western countries. I
assumed it was the same everywhere.”

Loid’s face contorted into confusion. “I’m sorry, I’m really confused. Are flowers a bad thing in
Japan?” He had never heard anything of the sort, it would be pretty common knowledge if that was
the case.

“Not necessarily. Just in this case, the flowers on my desk specifically, it’s a form of bullying.
Since usually you only put flowers on someone’s desk when they’ve died, if the person is alive and
healthy it sends the message ‘You should just die already.’” Kiyotaka had not been previously
aware of this until he had come to ANHS as well, but Kei had informed him about her past. She
had many instances of bullying behind her, and so she was very familiar with every possible act
you could possibly think of.

“Anya didn’t mean to tell Kiyotaka to die!” she exclaimed, nearly on the verge of tears. “Becky
and Anya wanted to do something nice… we didn’t know.”

“It’s fine Anya, please tell her I say thank you if that was really her intention.” He wasn’t really
sure why he was being given flowers by a first grader but that thought was nice.

Loid was still in somewhat of a state of shock. “I never knew that… It must’ve been quite the
shock when you walked into class today then.” Even though Kiyotaka had been told to die on
accident, Loid noticed that he was still completely unphased by the situation. Usually that’s
something that lingers with a person who doesn’t have full confidence in themself. Thanks to
Anya’s blunder, that had given him more of an idea of the person called Ayanokoji Kiyotaka.

The door suddenly swung open. “I’m back!” Yor stood in the doorway with the food and noticed
Anya sniffling slightly while the room was in an awkward state of silence proceeding the reveal of
what had happened. “Uhm, did I do something?”

Chapter End Notes

oops I did not mean to post two days in a row. A little too silly of me but I actually had
this one like mostly finished when I posted yesterday lol. Most of the weekday
chapters are just gonna be short stories for like different random scenarios I think of
throughout the week. Kind of filler since I don't want the weekdays to be entirely
insignificant, but I have much more planned for the weekends.
Next chapter might take a bit since it's gonna be the one where Kei comes over
(finally) and stuff will happen, so I would like to get it right. My difficult tests are over
for now (let's see if I fail my trig test) though so I could be lying once again!

I am battling my mouse rn it won't scroll correctly I just want to read the LNs again
and fix the formatting of my old fics pleaseeeeeee
 One Day of Speculation
Chapter Notes

See the end of the chapter for notes

Finally, the weekend had arrived. Both Kei and Kiyotaka had been waiting to spend time together
outside of school for once, being deprived of their time together for the past two weeks. During the
morning hours, Yor was especially excited to meet Kei, keeping herself busy with cleaning the
house and making preparations for the picnic. Kiyotaka was reading out on the couch, his room
being occupied by Yor who had been in the process of cleaning it at the time. He heard a small
notification noise come from where he had set his phone down next to him on the couch. Thinking
that it was most likely Kei due to his current lack of friends, he set down his book and checked his
messages.

<I’m on my way!>

Attached was a photo of her in the car, signaling that she would probably arrive in the next thirty
minutes or so.

Anya was watching TV once again, but she was actually decently excited to meet Kei instead of
just watching the two of them from afar like she had at school. It would probably sadden Becky to
know that Kiyotaka’s girlfriend was coming over, so Anya decided she wouldn’t mention it on
Monday. She had noticed her father thinking intensely while he looked over the newspaper, but it
wasn’t about the news itself. This day would be a crucial time for gathering intel and information,
he would not let it slip by. He had made all the necessary preparations and created a setting where
Kei would be able to be more open around them.

Yor eventually exited Kiyotaka’s room, exhausted from making the house look as spotless as she
possibly could, and flopped down on the couch to get some rest. “I can’t wait to meet her,” she
mentioned to Kiyotaka.

“I’m sure she’d like you all quite a bit.” He knew that Kei had siblings so perhaps she would be
fond of Anya, and Loid and Yor were just overall nice seeming parents.

Some time later, another message came in. He made sure to check immediately just in case it was
Kei.

<Ahaha, I’m outside but I’m kind of lost.>

He texted her back, replying that he would come down there to get her. “She’s outside of the lobby
right now, I’ll go grab her.” When Kiyotaka left the room, Anya and Yor both had their eyes fixed
on the door, awaiting the arrival of their guest.

Down at the lobby, Kiyotaka walked down and saw Kei waving to him through the window. He
opened the door for her and she immediately flung her arms around him and gave him a hug. The
person who had driven her presumably took this as a sign that this was the right place and left with
a small wave. She was appropriately dressed for the weather in a sundress and light jacket, as well
as bringing a hat for sun protection as well.. The weather report for that day was rather sunny and
warm for being winter, a good day to go outside. “I’m so glad I get to see you outside of school!”
She released her grip and grabbed his hand, signaling for him to lead the way. “I’m honestly pretty
excited to meet them.” Kiyotaka hadn’t yet explained what Loid was trying to do to him, but she
did know about his suspicions surrounding the Forgers.
Kiyotaka opened the door, finding Anya and Yor standing at the door ready to greet Kei's entrance.

"Welcome! We're so excited to have you here Kei, please make yourself at home." Yor gave a very
warm welcome, drawing a smile out of Kei.

"Wow, your apartment is really comfortable, it reminds me a bit of my house back home. Also,
you're super pretty Ms. Forger! Your style really suits you." Kei knew how to create connections
very quickly, so she was probably flattering them half to be polite and half to gather information
for Kiyotaka. She was the best kind of tool because he didn't even need to tell her what to do most
of the time.

Yor blushed at her flattering comments. "You're so sweet! I can see why Kiyotaka likes you." Kei
looked over at him with a happy expression, but averted her eyes in order to not linger too much on
his vaguely content face.

She directed her attention down to Anya, “You’re Anya, right? Awwww, you’re super cute! I
really like your hair, it's a really cool color.” She patted her head lightly.

Anya smiled and returned the compliment, “Anya likes your hair too! It’s long and yellow!” For a
first grader, that was probably the best compliment she would be able to give. Kei noticed that she
spoke in the third person, finding it even cuter. She couldn’t control the corners of her mouth
curving upwards.

They walked further into the house so as to not linger at the doorway. Kei stopped before Loid and
bowed her head to show respect. “Thank you for letting me come over, Mr. Forger.”

“It’s no problem at all, we’re glad to have you here.” Kei raised her head and set her purse down on
one of the chairs so that she wouldn’t have to carry around while they waited to leave. Kiyotaka
had already let her know of their plans to have a picnic in the park that day, they were only
awaiting the time when they would be leaving. It was still only 11 AM and it wouldn’t take too
long to get there, so they still had sufficient time to go until they left.

“Can I get you anything to drink?” Yor asked Kei.

“No, I’m alright for now. Me and Kiyotaka are probably just going to hang out in his room until
we leave.” Kei waved back at them as the two returned back to his room. Loid watched them out of
the corner of his eye, and a few minutes after they had entered he excused himself to the bathroom
due to his ‘stomach problems.’ He sat down on the toilet lid, slipping the earpiece that was hidden
in his pocket into his ear and turning it on. He could soon hear their voices inside.

Kei immediately hopped onto the bed and sat down, but there was also a very comfortable chair
that Kiyotaka liked to sit on, so they had some distance between each other.

“Aw, you’re so far away,” she complained.

“The room isn’t that big. Also, I just don’t want them to get suspicious of what we’re doing in here.
Letting two teenagers into a room alone can raise some red flags within parents,” he stated.

Kei disregarded it and smiled back at him warmly. “Well, I like them, they’re super nice. They
kind of remind me of my family in a way. Ms. Forger seems a lot like my mom and Anya is kind of
like my little brother. Not too sure about Mr. Forger but I don’t get bad vibes from him. I know I’m
not as perceptive as you, but I don’t feel anything wrong.” Kei sighed at the thought of her family.
She loved them very much, but it had been over a year since she had parted ways with them. She
shifted her eyes back onto Kiyotaka. “You know, you’re always so secretive about your past and
whatever. I mean, I understand why you might not want to let people know since it seems like it’s
some big secret, but I feel like there needs to be more trust between us. I don’t really know
anything about you from before you came to ANHS, really only that you lived in Tokyo and you
still won’t give me an exact answer about what district.” She huffed at the fact that he was still so
shrouded in mystery despite the two of them dating. Kiyotaka felt as if he had been pushed into a
bit of a predicament from her comments, he wouldn’t be able to hide everything forever. It was
technically true that he had lived in Tokyo during his time out of the White Room, and he was
aware of the district it was in, but he hadn’t been outside of his father’s mansion almost at all so
Kiyotaka had no way of knowing what it was like around there. Recently, he had been considering
creating a fake past for himself with the limited knowledge he did have, but if he ever spoke about
it to the wrong person his lies would be revealed. Kei continued her line of questioning, “I don’t
know anything about your own family, let’s start there.”

She chose a particularly inconvenient time, but he knew that she wouldn’t let it go easily. He
sighed and gave into her wishes. “I suppose talking about my family doesn’t really reveal anything.
What do you want to know?”

“You know, the general stuff. Any siblings? Relationship with parents? It doesn’t have to be a
huge dump of information regarding some trauma or whatever, just simple things.”

“Well those questions are easy enough to answer. I don’t have any siblings to my knowledge. I
never met my mother, and I don’t really care to.”

Kei was a bit shocked from the sudden sadness of his family situation but a lot of people had
situations like this, so it didn’t bother her much. “So it’s just been you and your dad?”

Kiyotaka scoffed slightly and continued with much distaste in his words, “I have never once
considered that man a father. We are related in blood, that’s all.”

Her mouth opened slightly, trying to figure out what to say but not being able to find the words for
it. Kei hopped off the bed and went over to hug him. They remained that way for a small bit of
time. “I’m sorry, I wish I could do something to help. Now I feel kind of bad for asking…”

“It’s fine, I don’t need pity. You have already done more than enough to replace what I didn’t
have.” He was talking about familial love, something that would never be familiar to him. And
although the romantic love that Kei felt for him was different than what that was like, he was
thankful that she gave him to experience what it felt like to be loved for the first time in his life.

She released him from the hug and kissed him on the cheek gently. “Just let me know if you ever
want to talk about it. I’m more than happy to listen to you.”

“Thank you.” She would never be able to understand, nor would he ever tell her. It didn’t matter
what the cost of keeping it secret was, but to spill that information would mean jeopardizing his
plan in its entirety.

Loid had been listening in from the other room. It seemed that the information about his family he
had disclosed to them on the first day was in fact the truth. If his father was behind the White
Room which he grew up in, perhaps he had a dislike of the place itself. He escaped in the first
place, there had to be a reason behind that. However, if he actually disliked it then there was no
reason why he couldn’t have forced himself to drop out by failing. Maybe just the lack of actions as
a parent that his father took is what caused Kiyotaka to disregard his father as such. The conditions
in the facility were harsh and he was prided around as a possession rather than a human.

Human .
The memory of the transcript once again appeared in his mind. Emotions are what make people
human, and a lack of them in their entirety makes it hard to label someone as such. Loid could
somewhat see where the instructor was coming from when he said that. Wouldn’t life feel hollow
and lonely? Perhaps Kiyotaka had gotten over that at a young age, but Loid couldn’t help but feel
bad for him. Up to this point he hadn’t done anything during the trip, just showed extraordinary
ability. This mission didn’t feel quite ‘right’ anymore, but the greater good always comes first, they
needed to learn more about the White Room.

Loid sighed and continued to listen in, this day was his chance to learn what he couldn’t before.

“Hey, did you ever figure out who put-” her voice choked for a second. “-the flowers on your
desk?”

Kiyotaka recalled the event, “Oh, yeah. It was Anya and her friend.”

“Huh?!” she exclaimed in confusion. “That little girl would do something so…horrible?”

“No, no. Their intention was a good one. It was meant to be an apology gift for something they did
to me. In western countries that act doesn’t hold the same weight as it does in Japan.” Kei calmed
herself, he knew that the situation still made her uneasy at the time. “That was probably pretty hard
to see that day, sorry for the shock.”

She laughed bitterly at her own past for a second, “It’s still a bit funny that it’s not even close to as
bad as what else they did to me.” Her mood brightened after something else came to mind, “But it’s
behind me now, and I have you to protect me.” Yes, protection. But one day, Kiyotaka would give
her the last push she needed to break away from being a parasite, and give her the ability to protect
herself. It had already decided from the moment he confessed that they would break up. Even if his
feelings became real, he would have to leave her anyway. An unfortunate situation.

A few minutes before the time they would be leaving, Kiyotaka spoke to Kei in a low and stern
voice, “Kei, before we leave I just have something for you to keep in mind.” When he spoke like
that, she couldn’t disregard his words. “I have done nothing extraordinary in our class. I’m just
another piece of the bigger picture under Horikita’s command, working together with the others to
reach Class A. You understand, right?”

“Y-yeah…” Kei seemed to get the gist of it, but felt slightly uneasy with his statement. His caution
with his words was due to the thought that Loid could have been listening in, but the chances were
unlikely from the thickness of the door. Even when Anya had been yelling, he had only been able
to hear a bit of the noise.

Unbeknownst to him, Loid had just about been to shut off the earpiece when he heard this.
Kiyotaka’s attempts to cover up his extraordinary abilities had been a common theme throughout
the trip, but he had planned to question Kei in order to find more answers. It seems as if he
anticipated this, but Loid was unsure whether Kei had sufficient acting skills to fully dodge his goal
to hot read her answers and demeanor.

Time passed, and all of them came out into the main living area to pack and prepare for the picnic.
Yor had already packed the basket that had many foods made by Loid the previous night and that
morning. It would be a lovely day in the park.

Anya was clearly the most excited of all, running around the house with Bond in anticipation of the
picnic.

“Slow down Anya! You’re going to burn out all your energy before we get to the park,” Yor told
her. She was also partially worried that she would knock over things in the house with the big dog.

Eventually, they left the house and began their walk to the park while carrying a variety of things
that they needed. As they walked with the two adults in the back and Anya leading the way with
Bond, Kei grasped Kiyotaka’s hand. This had become normal for them ever since they had openly
come out about their relationship at school.

Yor smiled at their show of affection, “They really do seem happy together.”

Loid felt that they did seem happy, but it’s what made him slightly uncomfortable after knowing
about Kiyotaka. “Did you date anyone in high school, Yor?”

“H-huh? Me?” She quickly became flustered by the question. “I didn’t really have time, I was busy
caring for my brother. Honestly, I haven’t ever been in a relationship before. I suppose I just never
found anyone right.”

Loid nodded, “Ah, I kind of get that. Before I met my previous wife, there wasn’t really anyone I
had felt that kind of affection for.” Everything he had done was all for the sake of missions. There
was no room for love when the safety of Westalis was at risk.

Yor brought the basket slightly closer to herself and averted her eyes from Loid. There was
probably something she wanted to say, but pressing her about it wouldn’t do anything.

When they arrived at the park, Anya quickly dashed into the open field. Both Loid and Yor
understood that chasing after Anya wouldn’t be of much use, so they let her run rampant in the
park for a bit. Kiyotaka offered to help roll out the blanket, but Yor felt like she hadn’t been able to
do enough yet and refused his help, trying to do it on her own. She set the basket down on the now
rolled out blanket, and sat down on her knees next to it.

It was a pretty wide picnic blanket, with a lot of room for all of them and the food. Anya came
rushing back once she saw that peanuts had been set out and quickly started hoarding them to
herself.

After some small talk about the weather and other such happenings while they began to eat, Loid
began his subtle interrogation.

“So, I understand there’s quite an interesting class dynamic at your school. What’s it like for you
two?” Just the question of a curious parent is all it could be said to be.

Kei thought about the question for a moment, Kiyotaka seemingly leaving the talking to her in this
case. Was this a test of his or did he simply trust her abilities? “Well all the stuff was super
surprising at first, but I’ve been able to get through the class setting pretty easily. In the first month
of school I became the leader of the girls in our class, so I have a pretty big role to play in the
whole social atmosphere and leadership.” She shrugged as if it was no big deal, but internally she
was happy about her position seeing as it was how she managed to be useful to Kiyotaka.

He sighed, “I’m not very useful in my class. I’m not fit for leadership and I don’t have many skills
I can contribute. I’m just trying to keep up with the others and do my part.” To be fair, he hadn’t
been very useful in regards to what he could have possibly done.

Kei poked him lightly, “Oh come on, you beat yourself up too much! I mean, you helped out a ton
during the culture festival with the maid cafe.” By giving him some kind of insignificant credit, it
doesn’t make it seem like he’s hiding anything. Any normal student could’ve taken a leadership
position once at the request of the actual leader.
“I suppose so, but Horikita kind of forced me into that. I’m still happy with the results anyway.”

Loid didn’t notice a change in Kei’s persona at all. He already knew that they had a deeper
connection that led to her knowing more about him than other students, but he couldn’t figure out
what it was. Her acting was almost flawless if this really was all the truth.

Yor asked a question, which ended up benefiting Loid unknowingly, “How did you two meet?” Her
nature of being a kind and caring person who paid attention to their answers for no ulterior motives
was the best thing Loid could ask for in this scenario. He wouldn’t seem like he was interrogating
them specifically, and it was just a casual discussion. This was part of the reason why he was able
to go through with this plan because Yor would play off of their responses as well in a natural way,
and Anya being a child also had its own convenience.

“We were in a group during a test we had around the middle of our first year, and then we just
started talking outside of school and things went from there,” Kiyotaka responded. Loid still felt
that it wasn’t adding up how the leader of the girls in their class would just all of the sudden start
talking to someone who was relatively quiet in their class. Kei had a very strong personality, it was
easy to tell that not any boy would be able to simply start talking to her.

“It took you so long to get the hint that I liked you. I mean my crush literally started before
Christmas, I gave you a gift for that, and then I gave you something on Valentine’s day!” she
teased him.

Kiyotaka closed his eyes in response to her teasing, “It’s not my fault that I didn’t know how
people acted when they had a crush on you.”

She smiled mischievously, “You’re so oblivious sometimes.”

This conversation was confusing Loid more than before. Instead of Kei and Kiyotaka’s relationship
helping him find information, it seemed like it had set him back. It was extremely hard to tell
whether this was an act or if it was their true feelings. If it was an act, there was no way that he
would be able to procure any more from this conversation while he was present. It was unlikely
that they would talk about something important after the park, but he could only hope for that
possibility.

The afternoon continued peacefully, with Anya running around with Bond, and the rest of them
sitting on the sidelines observing the people. Kei and Kiyotaka moved under a tree to have some
alone time, Kei’s head resting gently on his shoulder with a small smile present on her face.

Eventually, they all returned back home around 3pm, once they had gotten their fair share of
activity out.

When Kiyotaka and Kei entered back into his room, she began to check her appearance to make
sure everything was in order, finding a few flaws in her hair from the wind and leaves. She got out
a brush and put her scrunchie down on the dresser.

Loid didn’t think there would be an important conversation, but he was looking for any leads he
could.

When Kiyotaka least expected it, Kei began talking. “You know, it’s almost been a year.”

“A year? Since what?” He didn’t remember any specific date that happened during this time that
could be used as some kind of anniversary.

“You know~ the time you saved me from Ryuuen and broke his spirit or whatever. And probably
his nose, his face was pretty beat up.” She laughed slightly looking back on it even though it was
highly traumatic for her.

Kiyotaka supposed it had almost been a year, so it would make sense for her to remember it as an
important moment. “Sorry for that, again.”

She looked back at him while still getting her hair in order. “You don’t have to be sorry, I don’t
really blame you except for the part where you left me there for longer than you could’ve. What
you should be apologizing for is the whole thing with Manabe and her group and the things you
said to me down there!” She continued mumbling to herself about how he probably didn’t care and
set it up on purpose.

“Didn’t I apologize back when I saved you, though?”

She pouted slightly, “Yeah but… I don’t know, it just didn’t feel genuine!”

“I said that you didn’t have to forgive me, I didn’t really think you would still have a grudge after
this long. Would you like me to apologize once again?” He got up and stood in front of her while
her hair was still down, slightly intimidating her.

Her face contorted into an anxious smile and laughed awkwardly, “Well… uhm. Just- just forget
about it alright! It’s not a big deal, just kind of annoying to think about. But I don’t hold a grudge
against you for it, don’t get me wrong there!” She seemed to have forgiven him due to the
existence of their relationship.

Loid was listening intently to the conversation, it actually ended up saying a lot about Kiyotaka
and Kei at the same time. This relationship was formed unevenly from the beginning, and was
based on the premise that he could protect her. This most likely led to her being dependent on him
after this apparent event of Kei being saved by him. Loid couldn’t guess exactly what she was
being protected from, but Kiyotaka did use violence to solve a situation which could suggest that it
was violence or bullying of some kind due to that snippet of her past he had heard of earlier. He
knew that bullying was especially common in Japan, though he did not know the details of it.
Additionally, the entire situation of her needing protection in this case seemed to be set up by
Kiyotaka’s own hands from what Kei’s mumblings would have implied.

He was willing to use cruel ways such as these to manipulate people into relying on him. His talent
for setting up situations such as these was nothing to scoff at, even from the light explanation that
hadn’t gone in depth in any way it was clear. He felt uneasy with the existence of someone in his
house who could easily play puppet master, playing around with people’s emotions and
weaknesses to benefit himself. It would be better to pull out now and not leave any suspicion, so
Loid exited the bathroom and continued as if business was usual.

Kiyotaka backed away slightly from Kei, he was really only teasing her lightly since he already
knew how she felt about all this. She averted her eyes from him and turned her head back to the
dresser to grab her scrunchie. She accidentally swiped it behind the dresser, letting out an annoyed
sigh from the inconvenience. She looked underneath the dresser but saw that it wasn’t there either.
Stepping to the side of it, she observed that it was stuck in between the dresser and the wall but the
gap was too narrow to fit her arm into. “Kiyotaka, could you move the dresser? I can't reach this.”
He nodded and picked up one side of it, only moving it enough to where either of them would
easily be able to grab it. The scrunchie fell due to the release of the pressure, Kei quickly grabbing
it from the floor. “Thank you~”

Kiyotaka was about to move it back, but noticed an odd pattern on the back of the dresser. It was
covered in a sheet of low durability cork wood, which was something odd to find on a dresser. On
closer inspection, when he punched it lightly it let out a small hollow noise. Incredibly unusual for
furniture such as this. Kei was about to open her mouth and ask him what was going on, but he
quickly shushed her by putting a finger up to his mouth. He silently and quickly took off the wood
that had been nailed in place. It took a bit of effort to get the nails off, but he eventually revealed
the other side of the wood. On it was a small device, something he was familiar with.

It was a wiretap. Kiyotaka now knew that Loid had been listening to their conversation from the
beginning through this, and it was a bad miscalculation on his own part. Without properly
confronting Loid about this soon, his intentions may remain a mystery until he leaves which would
leave bigger problems unsolved if he left this information within his grasp. Kiyotaka felt the
battery of it and checked to see if it was warm, finding a slight bit of heat touching his fingertip. He
took the device off and crushed it in his hand, reattaching it in the same place as if he had never
tampered with it in the first place.

After putting the wood back, Kei assumed she had the go ahead to start talking once again. “What
was that?”

“A wiretap. Loid has been listening the whole time,” he mentioned disappointedly.

Kei gasped slightly, “So your suspicions were right?”

“Actually I’ve known he’s been looking for information on me for over a week. My only question
is why, but so far I haven’t found anything. He seems to have found a decent chunk if he was
listening in here though.”

“So I just let him know that stuff about us?!”

“Don’t beat yourself up about it, you couldn’t have known and neither could I. I didn’t expect he
would go so far as to install this, but judging by his access to this kind of technology I can assume
one of three things.”

“What are the three things?” Kei asked, slightly disheveled from the revelation.

Kiyotaka knew he couldn’t tell her one of the three. “He’s a spy, he’s part of the secret police, or
some other third thing.” The third thing was of course that he was sent by his father, but judging by
everything that had happened so far it was judged to be the least likely of the three options.

“Well then we should totally report him right away!” Kei jumped to the most logical next step.

“Not yet, I’m very interested in knowing why he would be interested in me if he was a spy or part
of the secret police.” Somehow Loid knew some things about his father, leading him to believe that
whatever organization he was with was interested in the White Room.

Kei seemed worried about his predicament. “I mean I get that you’re pretty special at our school,
but attracting even foreign attention seems unwarranted.”

Kiyotaka shrugged, he had what he needed to figure out the truth. “Well, don’t dwell on it too
much, I’ll figure things out on my own. Oh yeah, and don’t make any suspicious actions during
dinner. If you do, it will compromise my plan.”

She was great at following directions, and she did exactly such during dinner. The evening finished
without any additional complications and Kei was eventually sent back on her way.

“Kei was great, thank you for inviting her,” Loid thanked him as they were cleaning up.
 “No, I should be thanking you for allowing her to come over,” Kiyotaka replied. Loid smiled back
a fake smile. Of course, it looked real, but Kiyotaka knew better than to trust finely honed smiles
such as that.

Chapter End Notes

I have been split between so many things oh my god. Judging by my current work
ethic, I'm not sure if I'm going to get a new chapter out any week, but I'll probably
have at least one chapter of some work out every week. Realistically depends on my
homework and motivation + what parts I'm getting stuck on in each of my works.
This is also officially my longest work now! Yippee! Oh no I have so much longer to
go and the doc already takes a full minute to load in :/

Hope you enjoyed this chapter! The story is finally going to pick up the pace after this.
 On the Surface
Chapter Notes

See the end of the chapter for notes

The next day, Kiyotaka had decided to stay back at home while the Forgers went out. On the
surface the reason why he declined to accompany them was to recharge his social battery, they
were only going out to play tennis for a while after all. However, this time alone would provide a
good opportunity to search the house for more clues and information. Although the chances that
Loid was hiding something within his sight were low, it still wouldn’t hurt to do a little looking
around.

Initially, all he did was walk around and observe to see if there were any inaccuracies on the walls
or floors in the main room that would lead to possible spaces where things could be hidden. There
were one or two indents in the walls from his observations, but it looked more like Anya had just
ran into the wall instead of this being something to investigate. Kiyotaka had already thoroughly
searched his room the night before for anything, but nothing significant was found. On one part of
the wall there was a small stain of blood that was barely noticeable if you weren’t actively looking,
but that could be easily chalked up to an injury one of them sustained.

Eventually, the only room he had left to search was Loid and Yor’s room, or what he had judged to
be only Loid’s room. The ways they acted towards each other were suspicious and did not fit that
of a married couple. Add that onto the painfully obvious bed set that almost made him gag from
how tacky it looked. The Forgers had most likely decided beforehand that they would give up
Yor’s room to him, seeing as the decor fit that of something that Yor would be interested in rather
than a guest room. He didn’t really care that they were trying to cover up the truth of their
relationship, even if they had already slightly let him in on a bit of information. The only thing he
still had concerns about was Loid’s true intentions. He had narrowed down his actual profession as
being a spy since the secret police usually didn’t have very removed fake jobs and often stayed
with the title of working for the government in some way. Since he was a spy, it was now
important to determine whether he was working privately or for a larger organization. In the case of
a larger organization, that would certainly put himself and the White Room at risk. Although he
didn’t particularly care about that man’s achievements, he still cared enough to not let classified
information about it leak.

The door of the room hadn’t been locked using the keyhole, presumably due to the fact that Yor
was staying in it as well and that would just create unnecessary problems. He opened the door, but
before entering it he checked for anything that had been left that could reveal whether the door had
been opened while Loid was away. The position of the handle couldn’t be used as a point of
inspection since it was a circular one that rotated instead of one that could be pushed down to open.
There was nothing that would have revealed if someone had entered the room, and so he proceeded
with caution.

His guard was much less than it would have been if only Loid had been staying in the room, but he
had already eliminated Yor as a threat in his mind after comparing countless of her actions against
one another. She didn’t seem to harbor any ill will towards him, being one of the few adults in his
life who seemed to genuinely care about him as a person. There was still the chance that she could
be hiding something, but he could say for certain that she was not working with Loid.

Kiyotaka took a first look within the room and decided to avoid looking through the suitcase that
contained some of Yor’s clothes. She had come into the room multiple times to retrieve her clothes
from the dresser in the other room, but most likely kept them within this suitcase for easier
convenience. If his assumptions were correct, it wouldn’t matter regardless. He started with the
easier task of looking through drawers and searching for inaccuracies in the walls, but Loid was
most likely being particularly careful with where he puts things if Yor was not aware of his
secondary profession.

Inside of a drawer in Loid's nightstand was an opened letter. It appeared to be for personal use
since it didn't fit the usual style of those that were used for business messages or billing. The letter
had Loid's name and address on the front, but had already been opened which made it easier to take
out the contents of the letter and read it after inspecting it. At first glance it seemed to be a normal
letter, a message from an estranged friend that was asking about meeting to catch up. On a closer
read of it, the grammar of the letter had oddly specific word choices and just felt slightly off in
general. Adding that onto how it was printed instead of hand written and had no return address
shows that the identity of whoever wrote it did not want it to be traced back to themselves. It was
better for him to go with his intuition, so he snapped a picture of the letter and put it back inside the
drawer.

After looking for another fifteen minutes, nothing else was found so Kiyotaka returned back to his
room with the information he had found. He took out his phone and began analyzing the photo of
the letter once again. If it was encrypted using a specialized code it would be exceedingly difficult
to find out the actual content of the letter, but if it was just a very advanced anagram then it would
be possible. It wasn’t as if he was some code breaking genius, but anagrams were usually solvable
by him no matter how advanced they may seem. If it was just a random jumble of numbers then it
would be impossible to get any information from it, but looking at the word choice again made him
more confident that there was an anagram hidden inside.

He got out a separate piece of paper and slowly went through the contents of it, finding the first
keyword inside.

‘Operation.’

It was a long word so it ended up being easier to find inside of the letter. After around thirty
minutes of analyzing it further he managed to find what he assumed to be around half of the actual
message.

‘Return to… 3 PM for Operation…’

He didn’t know how much longer he had until the Forgers returned, so he quickened his pace. An
interesting word struck him as he deciphered one of the last words. In full, the message ended up
reading as such:

‘Return to WISE headquarters at 3 PM for Operation Haze.’

The existence of an ‘Operation Haze’ confirmed his suspicions that Loid was a spy, but since he
had already deduced that previously it came as no surprise. What Kiyotaka actually took notice of
was what seemed to be an acronym for something, ‘WISE.’ Judging from the content of the
message this was the organization that Loid worked for. He deleted the image of the letter from his
phone and stored the message in his memory. Kiyotaka quickly took his phone off of the house’s
wifi and began to use the data that the school allotted to them each month. He couldn’t do more
complex searches on his phone, which is why he had brought his laptop, but it would suffice for
the time being.

A quick search on the surface web brought about no results of note, only the search engine
thinking he was searching up the definition for the word ‘wise’ very aggressively. Even after going
searching through a decent amount of websites and using keywords, he was unable to find a single
trace of an organization by the name. Kiyotaka had assumed that it would be this way, but the
internet contained several ways to look deeper for information. For this he would need to use his
laptop, but now the next problem he would have to face was clearing the search history from the
internet itself. He couldn’t use his phone’s hotspot since the school tracked what was searched on
phones, but he also couldn’t use the Forger’s internet since they could easily check what was being
searched on their wifi. There was a way to clear it, but in order to do so you would need to fully
reset the router. There were privacy laws that prevented the internet provider from using what he
searched unless they were already suspected, but perhaps it could just be thought to be someone’s
curiosity. In these times of suspicion and betrayal, although many didn’t seem like it, people were
curious about spies and the secret police.

However, in the past back at his dormitory at ANHS he had bought his own wifi router to use in
order to get onto the dark web once. It was normal for people who used computers a lot back in the
dorms to want to use better wifi that didn’t have many people on it at once so it wasn’t seen as
suspicious. Through this, he had learned more about it and how it functioned. If he was able to
fully reset it then it would lose the data that he had searched.

He opened his laptop and quickly found his way to the dark web using a method he learned in the
past and using a special application. The only reason why he had ever entered it in the first place
was just due to curiosity, but he ended up doing a bit of other information searching. One time he
had gotten curious and looked to see if there was any information about the White Room lurking in
the depths. He had ended up finding a theory or two that mentioned the name, but there wasn’t
much concrete evidence and instead was mainly speculation. If any former instructors tried to post
about what they found on extremely underground sites, they were probably targeted immediately
and the post would be eliminated somehow soon after. He wasn’t sure if there was someone on
damage control for White Room leaks, but with the age of the internet it seemed pretty likely. The
dark web was where the worst of humanity dwelled, but it was also where you would go looking if
you needed classified information.

After searching ‘WISE’ using keywords he thought would give a lead, he found something
immediately. There was apparently a forum discussing spies that was only located in the dark web
due to the illegality of the topic. It was on some sort of poorly formatted site that seemed to be
active with only around a few dozen users. There were several pages that had research on different
spies and spy organizations, along with information on the secret police too. Judging by the
contents of some of the comments, usernames, and lack thereof, the site was certainly filled with a
variety of people who would be considered criminal or had extreme ideologies.

WISE apparently stood for Westalian Intelligence Services’ Eastern-Focused Division. This was
apparently a different division of Westalian Intelligence, but in Kiyotaka’s opinion the smaller
division had a much better name. According to this, it would mean that Loid worked for WISE
which originated from Westalis, but the page also stated that they were dedicated to upholding the
peace instead of threatening Ostania. He could believe it to be such, it was an extremely tense time
where it seemed like war was about to break out at any moment. The site also listed notable spies
within it, but all seemed to be codenames. Among the community that was dedicated to researching
spies, it had to be assumed that there were a few privately working spies that had some amount of
insider information to even have this level of information on an organization that was not known to
the public.

Among these notable codenames only one was linked to another page. That being ‘Twilight.’
Judging by the state of the page, it was extremely difficult to get information on spies since their
identities were so hidden. It was slightly humorous how every person or organization listed had
‘no image found’ set for every image. He doubted reading the page would give him a lead since it
was possible that Loid was just some nobody spy, but he still kind of got the feeling that he was
more skilled than he let on. The page for Twilight essentially explained that everything about him
was unknown other than his gender, but he was an extremely talented spy whose specialty was in
disguise. People in the forums underneath the page either seemed to be praising him for his skill, or
yelling and spouting extreme words that outright stated they wanted the peace to crumble. Another
example of the dark web being home to the worst parts of humanity.

Kiyotaka did a bit more searching before ending up at a dead end for WISE. He turned off his
laptop, being careful to shut off everything he needed to completely, and headed over to the wifi
router, fully resetting it to remove any traces of him accessing the dark web.

He was relieved that the Forgers hadn't returned yet, so he began to quickly finish his assigned
homework. He would always put it off until the last minute or finish it as soon as it was assigned,
but he never wanted to work on it in front of people. Having to conceal his abilities was only
bothersome and made the homework drag even more than it already did. When he was just
finishing up the remaining part of the assignment, he heard the door open around 4 PM.

“We’re back!” He heard Loid call down the hall. Kiyotaka finished writing the problem and then
walked out into the living room where he was surprised to find an unknown woman with white
hair. Yor looked slightly anxious and was trying to distract herself by talking to Anya. He
recognized the woman as someone who had been working at the hospital, but the real question was
now if she knew of his identity.

“I haven’t introduced you yet. This is my coworker Fiona Frost. Sorry that we didn’t let you know
that someone would be coming over beforehand. It was more of an accident that we ran into her so
I thought we might as well invite her over for dinner.”

Kiyotaka held out his hand to the cold seeming woman. He couldn’t help but admit that it was
fitting for her name. “Nice to meet you, I’m Ayanokoji Kiyotaka.” She grasped his hand firmly and
shook it.

“I apologize for intruding.” She soon walked past him, seemingly uninterested. Kiyotaka would
keep an eye on this guest, he had a feeling that there was more to her than just being a coworker.
Although it wasn’t explicitly stated, Kiyotaka felt that there was usually an unspoken rule in most
places that you shouldn’t retreat to your room when you have a guest, and you should instead try to
be friendly or do activities that you would usually do back in the comfort of your own space out in
the area with them. He decided to adhere to this rule and took a book from his room and read it in
the corner of the room. This was both to keep an eye on the guest and to simply show some
manners and be polite. Yor was trying her best to remain calm while making light conversation.
There definitely seemed to be more going on between them than met the eye. Before he could even
finish a single page, he overheard a question directed towards him.

“Since I’ve already met everyone here multiple times before, I’m interested in hearing more about
you, Kiyotaka.” Even though he had introduced his name in the reverse order that western
countries adhered to, she still ended up calling him by his given name that he had said second. That
was slightly suspicious, but could be ignored if needed.

Loid spoke up from the kitchen, “I brought him to the hospital the other day to look around, he’s
quite knowledgeable in psychology for being in high school.”

“Oh really? That’s interesting.” Her voice lacked much flavor despite trying to seem interested. It
almost reminded him of his own, though at least he tried to cover up his monotone diction when
being polite.
Kiyotaka decided that he should also respond since he was asked in the first place, “It’s really only
surface level things.” That was a lie. Now that he had free time he had looked through many rabbit
holes on the internet of obscure things relating to psychology. He had many interests, but the
human mind was something that fascinated him more than other things. Add that onto what he had
already learned in the White Room and he knew much more than just surface level information.
“You work at the same hospital as Mr. Forger, correct? What’s your job like?”

“I also work in Loid’s division. I usually help patients who are struggling with extreme
conditions.” He couldn’t pinpoint exactly what it was that made him feel like there was something
suspicious about her, but he couldn’t entirely sum it up to her association with Loid. His intuition
was pretty accurate now that he had interacted with normal people for a sufficient amount of time,
so he wasn’t going to throw away these suspicions so easily.

He continued to be polite and answer questions that came his way whenever a topic of interest
came up, but overall he tried to remain quiet. Pressing the matter now wouldn’t do anything to
help, but he thought of an idea that was kind of stupid but was worth a shot regardless. There was
nothing to lose within this idea. Anya had heard within his head what he intended to do, but there
was no way that she would be able to stop him and protect her father.

Nightfall was having some difficulty seeing what made this kid so dangerous from his quiet
persona and overall outlook of avoiding trouble. But she had gotten a small briefing of the
operation since it was entirely possible that she would end up coming in contact with the target, she
knew what his story was.

They all ate dinner, though it felt more awkward and tense than usual from the presence of a guest.
Regardless, Loid still managed to keep conversation going so that the room didn’t sink into sounds
of forks hitting plates. Kiyotaka looked out the window and saw that the sky was darkening and
sunset had just passed. In a moment of silence, Kiyotaka interjected. “Hm, it’s twilight.”

Loid inhaled his food on accident from the sudden statement and began choking on it. Fiona's eyes
also widened at the sudden declaration, “What?”

Acting confused to their strange reactions, he pointed out the window. “The time, it’s twilight right
now.” He presented it as if he was simply stating what it was and he didn’t have other ulterior
motives.

Loid took a sip of water and regained his composure, “Yes, I suppose it is. Really a beautiful time
of day, isn’t it?” He had let his guard slip for a moment, and his reaction had come back to show it.
Nightfall had behaved in a manner mostly befitting of a spy, while he may have made a crucial
error.

The night continued uneventfully, and as so it ended peacefully. Yor sighed a breath of relief when
Loid exited with Fiona in order to walk her home.

They were walking in the moonlight when Twilight was the first to speak up. “That was targeted.”

“I agree. I understand that he was isolated for all of his life and this seems to be his time of
freedom, but I’m sure he has had many opportunities in the past to observe that time of day and
comment on it.”

Twilight sighed, “I didn’t think that he would have figured it out, I thought I was careful to cover
my tracks.”

Nightfall couldn’t say that it wasn’t a horrible situation, because it was a failure in some capacity.
 The objective was to procure information without alerting the target of their intentions, and he had
figured it out. “He’s incredibly intelligent, I wouldn’t blame yourself entirely.”

He rubbed his head, he felt a headache forming. “What am I supposed to do for the next two weeks
if he knows? He’ll be extremely on guard or will mislead me. Add that onto the fact that it seems
he has a clue of my identity, what if he leaks that information?”

“He doesn’t seem like the type to do so, but I can’t possibly predict what’s going on in his mind.”

“I suppose I could lay off for now, we did have someone who managed to get inside the White
Room. If they can retain their position for another two years then we can get an idea of the threat
that it poses.”

“I feel that may be the best idea as well. Of course I believe that what is going on in that place
should be stopped as soon as possible, but there are some things we need to pull out of before it
gets too risky. Plus, you’ve already gathered substantial data, correct?”

“Yes, yesterday was particularly productive. That may have been when he found out though.”

“I can see myself off from here, I’ll see you soon.”

He nodded and turned around while heading back to the apartment. It was an overwhelmingly bad
situation he was now in, Twilight would need to step very carefully from now on.

Chapter End Notes

Hi I got distracted with like a million WIPs thank you for being patient. Uhhhh idk
when the next chapter will come out I'm really inconsistent and I have this one WIP
that caught my interest so who knows there.
For now, I'll just tease that some the silly reveals will be taking place not next chapter
but the one after, so please stay tuned!
 The Downfall of Recklessness
Chapter Notes

See the end of the chapter for notes

The next Tuesday at school, Kiyotaka ended up running into Ichinose during the lunch period
while he went to the vending machine in the hallway. He didn’t want to stay and talk to her for
long, lest Kei detected them, but it wouldn’t hurt to have a brief discussion considering the state of
her class right now.

“Good afternoon, Ayanokoji-kun! It’s been a while since we last talked, hasn’t it.”

“I suppose so.”

She soon dawned an expression of immense sadness, it wasn’t difficult to guess why. “I guess it’s
kind of like our classes switched places, ahah…” her depressed laugh faded away with the reality
of the situation clouding her thoughts.

“Don’t get too down, you’re still pretty close in points with Class C. Since this is an academics
based exam your class possesses a much higher chance of winning. Even with the rules that make
things relatively even for both classes, regardless of academic ability, I still predict that you’ll win.”
He tried to ease her anxiety slightly, which made her sad look loosen. He felt a small air of
determination emanating from her following his words of encouragement.

“I do believe that Class D will win. Especially since Class C’s only move so far has been to
sabotage and distract our own study sessions, which we’ve persevered through.”

“It seems that they’re neglecting their studies, having already given up from the beginning, just to
use a reckless strategy. That’s only something Ryuuen would do.” He simply analyzed it as it was,
but it made sense why they implemented it. Class C had the worst academic ability within their
grade, and there weren’t many students who were capable of teaching the less studious students
within their classes. Ryuuen also probably didn’t want to put in the work for himself as well,
having ignored academics for the most part ever since he arrived at the school. He only did the
bare minimum in order to avoid expulsion. His plan was simply to make up for the lost points in a
later special exam and use a reckless strategy to still put up some kind of fight. He didn’t like the
thought of Ichinose surpassing him and coming back from the ground, but he believed that he
would soon crush her regardless.

Ichinose smiled back at him, “I don’t know what it is, but every time I’m around you I just start
feeling better. I’ve been super stressed about Class B and quitting the student council and all these
other things, but you listen anyways. Thank you.”

Ayanokoji nodded, “It’s no problem. I’m not really the best at speaking so the most I can do is
listen.”

“Well compared to your communication skills at the beginning of our first year, I can certainly say
you’ve grown a lot.”

“I’m happy to say that everyone in my class has grown thanks to the leadership of Horikita.” He
was going to add an additional ‘And I’m sure the same can be said about your class,’ but decided
against it seeing as it simply wasn’t the truth. Class D had no doubt grown the least out of all the
classes. They have around the same amount of points they started with, whereas Class B had now
gained around 800 more points than what they started with. They had painstakingly gone through
the processes of growth and evolution in order to grasp their spot within the higher classes after
being originally declared as the most defective students in the school. Many of them had fixed their
defects by now, but he was still a lingering factor that remained without having changed what
made him severely flawed.

Ichinose let out a small sigh, “Well, let’s leave it at that for now. I don’t want to get in the way of
your personal space.” Ayanokoji appreciated her sentiment, but what she was really implying was
that she didn’t want to get in the way of his relationship with Kei. He was thankful that she
recognized this, since it would save him any explanations later. Though, he was starting to wonder
what it would be like if a rift in their relationship formed. He was unsure when he would do so, but
he wanted to at least have the experience.

Ayanokoji continued down the hall to the vending machine and quickly paid for a coffee. He
turned towards the window while opening the can and stared into the cloudy sky. He didn’t have
much time left to figure out what he intended to do with Loid. He would act soon.

On Thursday after school, Ayanokoji was sitting on the couch once again and reading a book.
Anya and Yor had left to take Bond on a walk, so it left just Loid and himself within the apartment.
They asked him if he wanted to come with them, but he wasn’t really properly dressed for the
weather and he didn’t want to make them wait for him.

Loid walked into the kitchen and looked over at Kiyotaka. He thought he would try to make some
small talk, just to be polite. Although they were both aware that the other was hiding things, both
still seemed to stick to their normal personas and pretend as if nothing was amiss. “What are you
reading?”

Kiyotaka turned his head and lifted the book up slightly so that Loid could get a slight view of the
cover. “ No Longer Human , by Osamu Dazai.” He wanted to leave it at something short and get
back to reading, but Loid continued to talk to him.

“I’ve read that before and a few of his other works, are you a fan?” Taste in books didn’t
necessarily correlate to a person and what their mind was like, but it could reveal some things. The
book that he had selected in particular had many themes that were very dark and could perhaps
relate to Kiyotaka.

“This is actually my second time reading it, I just thought I would revisit it so that I could look into
the deeper meaning more. Though usually I’m a fan of mystery novels and philosophical works.
Mystery because of the suspense and the latter because seeing different perspectives on the world
is interesting.”

“Mystery, huh. I don’t read as much anymore but I used to like the genre as well.” He didn’t have
any particular thoughts on his selection since many people read mystery novels to make
predictions and try to solve things for themselves while also being engaged in the thrill of the
crime.

Loid walked back into the living room and was about to turn around and return back to his room.
Kiyotaka suddenly sighed and put the book down, “I feel that we should put an end to this
ridiculous charade.”

Loid raised his eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

 “You know what I mean. You don’t actually care about what kind of books I like, you only asked
the question in order to determine if it would give you some slight insight into my mind. You’ve
done this many times throughout the time that I’ve been staying here, and I believe that you chose
me on purpose when you were originally selecting the student you would be housing in order to
figure out more about me and where I came from. Am I wrong?” His voice stayed the same as
always, but the gaze that met Loid was far more piercing than any eyes he had ever faced in the
entirety of his time as a spy. His eyes were simultaneously empty while also containing a depth of
darkness that no ordinary person could ever dread to experience.

“That’s a lot of odd accusations.” He didn’t try to deny it, but his voice lowered slightly and his
persona of being a caring father slowly shifted back into his identity of a spy.

Kiyotaka shrugged. “Odd accusations that are also correct. I would not be asking you this if I was
not entirely confident that you are looking for information about me. I would like to know why, it
shouldn’t be that difficult of a demand. That is, unless you have something you’re trying to hide.
What you’re trying to hide is also something that I am acutely aware of. Now, why are you looking
for information on me?”

“How long have you known?” Having your identity breached was the worst possible outcome for
any spy, there was no way to escape the predicament he was currently in. He just couldn’t
understand why Kiyotaka hadn’t reported him to the secret police yet despite being fully aware of
his identity as a spy. The accusation would be taken seriously considering the state of Ostania
presently.

“That’s irrelevant information. Please answer my question.” In Kiyotaka’s eyes, Loid’s motivation
for gathering information on himself was still unknown. That was the only piece of the puzzle he
was missing at this point.

“That’s something I can’t answer, I’m sure you’re already aware.”

Kiyotaka glanced out the window and saw Yor and Anya returning with Bond. “We can’t continue
this discussion right now, but I’d like to end this with a warning.”

Loid did not falter in the face of threats, he could handle anything.

“ Leave me alone .”

The words were spoken with such an eerie tone, which paired with his completely emotionless
expression broke Loid for a second. It sent a shiver down his back, and all he could do was return
back to his room without looking back for one second at the anomaly of a human that resided
within his house.

Chapter End Notes

Sorry for the short chapter! I thought about incorporating the talk about Ishigami that
Sakayanagi and Kanzaki had with Ayanokoji during Y2V8 but I decided against it
cause I didn't want to be repetitive. Next chapter will be very exciting, but it's also
probably gonna take a while and who knows where my motivation will be.
 Suspicions Confirmed, Threats Used
Chapter Notes

See the end of the chapter for notes

Before any of them had realized, it was already the weekend. There were no spectacular plans, they
had already done a lot of the things that they had planned for the past month. Anya’s own finals
were coming up as well, so she needed to use the weekends to study.

Kiyotaka had decided to join Anya in walking Bond that day, not for any particular reason other
than to get out of the house. He would usually come with them on normal days, but there were also
many times that he preferred to have some time to himself. Yor hadn’t specifically asked him to go
alone with her, but after he offered she considered that it wouldn’t be a bad idea. Anya and him had
been getting along pretty well over the past few weeks, especially with him helping her with
homework on occasion.

They were walking down the street with Kiyotaka holding Bond’s leash. He hadn’t held it himself
up to this point, but he had observed how Yor and Loid held onto him while walking down the
street. He looked up to observe the gray weather, but it was easy to feel the chill on his skin. He
was wearing a jacket but the cold still managed to find its way through the fibers of the clothing.
He wasn’t sure if it was going to rain, it could still go either way considering the humidity. Anya
walked in exaggerated steps, Kiyotaka trailing behind her since she was walking next to Bond
instead. The innocence of a child would make most people smile, so Kiyotaka responded
accordingly to the situation and smiled.

Anya was enjoying herself in the brisk weather. She liked winter clothing because she got to wear
jackets more often. She had learned to brush off Kiyotaka's odd thoughts to a degree, even if they
were slightly concerning for his mental wellbeing as a human. She wished she could gather the
courage to talk to him about his life since he was similar to her in the way of being a lab child,
although in different ways.

All was well until she suddenly detected a strange thought from behind her. It wasn’t the internal
voice of Kiyotaka, it was definitely one of the other people walking on the street. On second
thought, that was a lot more than one person with those thoughts.

A few minutes earlier, Yor had been taking care of cleaning the living room when she heard a
knock on the door.

“Just a second!” she called towards the entrance while setting down the rag and spray she was
using to wipe down the windows. She rushed over to the door and opened it, finding a man in a suit
standing there with a friendly expression. Loid walked out from his room to see what was going on
and to overhear the conversation if it was anything of importance. “Uh, hello. Do you need
something?”

“Good afternoon, I’m a school official of the Tokyo Metropolitan Advanced Nurturing High
School. Ayanokoji Kiyotaka is staying here, correct?” He seemed to be friendly and presented
himself as a man who would be an official of the school.

Yor nodded, extremely confused by the sudden visit. “Yes, do you need something from him?”

“I’d like to speak to him privately, I have a message to pass onto him.” There was never anything
that seemed wrong with the man on the surface, but Loid was suspicious both from the sudden
intrusion and also the fact that something felt off with this man. He was about to step forward and
interrupt the exchange, but Yor spoke faster than he could react.

“Oh, he’s not here right now. I'm very sorry. Would you like to wait until he gets back?”

The man raised an eyebrow before responding, “Oh, if he’s not here at the moment that’s alright. I
can contact him on Monday at school. It wasn’t extremely urgent but I was told to deliver the
message to him at the earliest convenience.” Loid’s suspicion was still running high since he
declined to simply wait for Kiyotaka to return, but at the same time it didn’t make sense for him to
withdraw if he was trying to contact the boy.

“Are you sure? He’ll probably be back soon and you came all the way out here…”

“No that’s quite alright, I was already in the area so I simply thought it would be convenient.
Thank you.” He turned around and began to walk down the stairs. Loid considered chasing him
down since Anya was out there, but Yor seemed to brush it off as if nothing was wrong and shut
the door without a second thought.

Back on the streets, Anya could hear their thoughts loud and clear.

‘We have our eyes on the target.’

‘He’s just some kid, this should be easy. Why the hell do we have all this manpower anyways?’

Anya almost turned around in an attempt to look, but she slowed down to take Kiyotaka’s side
instead of Bond’s. After reading Bond’s thoughts, she was able to see the outcome of her running
back to the house, but nothing past that. However, Kiyotaka’s thoughts seemed to show that he was
aware of the danger.

‘There’s definitely people behind us. I can’t count the exact amount since there’s most likely more
hiding in the alleys up ahead, but this seems like it’s going to get messy. I need to get Anya away so
that I can take care of this.’

He stopped in a way that looked like he was just tying his shoe, but he handed the leash off to
Anya who accepted it quickly. He looked over at her with serious eyes. “Anya, I’m going to need
you to run back to the house. Don’t talk to anyone on the way, go around the street instead of
turning back the way we came. I’ll be there in a minute.” She nodded to show her understanding
with a slight fear present in her eyes, hopping onto Bond instead of using the leash. As soon as she
got on, Bond began to run into the direction Kiyotaka had pointed them towards before running
back to the house.

Now that he had Anya out of the way, he could take care of the current problem he was facing.
After making sure he was in an unpopulated area, he turned into an alleyway.

Anya burst into the apartment with Bond, causing Loid and Yor to immediately shoot up from their
spots in the living room to see what was wrong.

“Mama! Papa!” she expressed with distress in her voice.

“What’s wrong Anya?” Loid asked as he went over to analyze what was going on. Kiyotaka did not
return with her.

“They…” She was sort of out of breath despite not having done much running. “Bad people were
following us!”
“What?!” Yor asked in surprise. She too had recognized that Kiyotaka hadn’t come back with her.
“What happened to Kiyotaka?”

“He told Anya to run back and that he’d come back in a minute…but Anya thinks he was lying!”

Loid stood up. “Do you know where he is?”

“Anya doesn’t know the name but she knows how to get there.”

He scooped her up in his arms. “Then you point the way and we’ll run.”

They sprinted out the door of the apartment, still being sure to lock it, and began to run down the
street. Anya and Kiyotaka had originally been nearing the end of turning back when they had
stopped, so they were pretty far out. If they were to assume, he had probably gone further in an
attempt to lose the people following him. Both Loid and Yor had immense endurance, so they only
focused on getting to the destination as quickly as possible. Anya directed the way, but at a certain
point they had to slow down in order for her to pick up on the thoughts in the area. They just
thought she was confused at first, but she eventually pointed them in the right direction. That
direction was down an alley.

Yor intended to burst out and protect him once she caught a glimpse of what was happening in the
distance, but Loid ushered them behind a dumpster where they could listen in. Kiyotaka didn’t
seem to be in any immediate danger, and if they were mistaken in hurting these people then it
could become a problem. For now, they would just overhear what was going on.

“What do you want with me?” There wasn’t a trace of concern in his voice, it was cold as if it
already knew. This was because Kiyotaka did know exactly what they wanted with him. It was the
perfect chance to attack during this trip. To kidnap him and bring him back. There would be no
way of finding him once he was taken since all of these people were merely goons that could be
eliminated once their purpose was fulfilled. The real mistake was underestimating how many
people they would need to take him down. He was sure they were ordered not to use weapons that
could permanently scar or injure him, and overall the White Room would most likely prefer if it
was just a swift knockout where he ended mostly unscathed.

Anya almost gasped in surprise after listening in on his thoughts, but found the will to suppress it.

“I think you’re aware for the most part already.” This seemed to be the one man of the group who
had some idea of the White Room other than just being another faceless person. This
coincidentally happened to be the same man that had arrived at their door less than thirty minutes
prior. “Your father has a message for you.”

“Doesn’t he always?”

The man ignored Kiyotaka’s small jeer. “He’s asking you once again to come home. This is a final
warning. You can choose to return peacefully without conflict, or we will force you back.”

“What happens if I choose the third option?” Kiyotaka noticed the other men behind the main one
beginning to square up for battle as if to say they recognized he wasn’t going to go down without a
fight.

“There is no third option.”

“I suppose I’ll have to make my own then.” That was the way he grasped his freedom for himself
in the first place. He molded a new option for himself.
Ayanokoji raised his hands near his face and stood ready to take the offense or defense. The man
sighed at the apparent declaration of battle before signaling to the others to begin their assault.

Yor tried to get up but she was pushed down by Loid who whispered into her ear, “Don’t you think
there’s something off here? With him? I feel like we should just watch, and if it looks like he’s in
trouble then we can step in.”

“I can’t say that I don’t think this is all weird, but isn’t that a bit cruel? What if he gets really hurt
because we didn’t help?” she whispered back. Before they had the chance to get another word in,
they peered over from behind the dumpster and found an outrageous scene.

Kiyotaka wasn’t having any problems taking down each of the goons, but the main man was
proving to be a more difficult opponent. Even so, this scenario definitely wasn’t outside his
abilities even despite the large number of men rushing him. In fact, it was pretty tame compared to
what it could have been. The only time he had actually felt like he was in peril of losing in the past
ten years of his life was just recently when he fought Tsukishiro and Shiba back on the island. At
this point his father should have recognized that a bunch of fodder wasn’t going to take him down.

He skillfully dodged the trained, but also slightly sloppy, strikes of his attackers. One by one, he
took them down. Even though many of them were larger than himself, he had dealt with scenarios
such as this countless times. He was not at a disadvantage. This was just another task to keep his
freedom for as long as he possibly could.

A knee to the stomach with a punch to the face consecutively to knock out one while throwing the
unconscious body of him onto another one that rushed. His heartbeat had not quickened, his
breathing was still completely steady. He did not feel any sense of danger, it was apparent on his
stoic, unchanging face. At last, only one remained, one that had already been beaten quite badly but
still managed to hold on.

“I would send a message back to ‘that man,’ but I doubt you’ll be returning back there.”

The man responded with a vicious expression, he already knew his defeat was inevitable. His life
was over, he would be reported and taken into custody in this tense nation. He attempted to put up
one last attack, but it was quickly stopped by Ayanokoji. The man fell down onto the concrete with
a large thump, laying around the other bodies and sharing their fate. Kiyotaka hadn’t gotten out
entirely unscathed, but no injury he sustained really bothered him. It was maybe a few bruises at
most, nothing that would affect his maneuverability.

He paused above the scattered men who were knocked unconscious, looking over them with
hollow eyes. “How unnecessary,” he whispered to himself.

The three Forgers were hiding breathlessly behind the dumpster with Loid’s hand clasped over
Anya’s mouth to prevent her from making any sound. Even if he had let go, she would have been
silent regardless. Kiyotaka looked over towards the dumpster. From his perspective he couldn’t see
them, but he had been aware that they were there the entire time. The silence was deafening, almost
revealing to a point.

“It’d probably be better if you all stopped hiding. I know you’re there.” He didn’t attempt to say it
in a scary way, just stating the facts.

They stood up from their spot, only now observing the degree of violent capability Kiyotaka
possessed. Yor looked around, frightened that he had just been living in their home for the past few
weeks. Was he an enemy to the country? Did he come here to harm them? Those were questions
she asked herself after hearing the strange dialogue. She didn’t want to pose him to be the villain
immediately, but everything was odd and she was tempted to believe her strange and absurd
thoughts. Both herself and Loid were skilled at martial arts, but neither were sure that they would
be able to do this much damage without getting at least at least a decent injury.

“What even…what?” Loid couldn’t even make out what he wanted to say at this moment. Kiyotaka
was a danger, that part he had been aware of to a degree, but this was such an absurd scene to have
come upon that he felt like his eyes were deceiving him.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare any of you. I’ve taken martial arts for my entire life so I knew how to
handle this.” He didn’t really need to explain anything to Loid, it was more easing the worries of
Yor and Anya. Yor still had her doubts, and Anya already knew what he was thinking so this didn’t
prove to be very useful.

Yor’s voice shook a bit, “That man…he came to our door posed as a school official and said he
wanted to speak to you. Were they trying to kidnap you?” It was a reasonable question considering
what she had just heard.

Kiyotaka tried to think of how to explain it in a way that didn’t reveal the truth, but decided
nothing logical could be given as an explanation. He would just leak a bit of the truth to keep his
cover. “Ah, my father was really against me going to this school originally. He just happens to have
the resources to try to get me back, but so far it’s been pretty difficult since I’ve been isolated from
the outside world.” Things were starting to add up in Yor’s mind. If ANHS was like Eden
Academy in the fact that it had many students from influential families attending it, then it
probably was possible that there were quite a few students who had powerful parents and relatives
such as Kiyotaka. She was trying to calm her thoughts, but she still couldn’t curb the feeling that
there was more behind this.

Loid looked over the bodies again. “Yor, bring Anya home. I’m going to call the police and wait
here for them to arrive with Kiyotaka so that he can explain the situation to them. If anyone else
approaches the door, don’t answer.” She nodded, slightly dazed and grabbed Anya’s hand. Anya
was worried about what was going to happen, especially after seeing her father’s thoughts.

They walked away, and immediately after Loid got to business. He approached Kiyotaka, who
didn’t seem to have any problems with the man approaching. The expression on Loid’s face
showed that he was getting serious about this situation. When Loid was less than a foot apart from
Kiyotaka, he grabbed his collar and quickly pushed him against the wall. Kiyotaka could have
resisted, but decided that this may be more beneficial to him.

Loid pulled out a gun that had been hidden in his coat and held it to Kiyotaka’s head. “What are
you?”

Kiyotaka eyed the gun. “You couldn’t pull the trigger in this situation.” He had immediately seen
through Loid’s bluff.

“You really think I couldn’t?” His voice lowered as he took the gun out of its safety.

Kiyotaka didn’t even bother to look at the gun anymore, instead directing his gaze straight into
Loid’s. This was quite possibly the one gaze that genuinely scared him, piercing right through him
with an empty stare. “What would happen to you after killing an exchange student from overseas? I
assume the family you have right now is one of convenience, perhaps even for a mission itself.
Would you really like to jeopardize that? Additionally, you seem to have some information that
you want from me.”

Loid was surprised how much he managed to pick up just from being there for a few weeks. “You
don’t think I have other ways of getting that information?”

“I’d assume I’m the easiest link. An opportunity like this doesn’t fall into your arms just any day.”
For someone who had a gun up to his head, Kiyotaka remained incredibly unbothered.

He exhaled sharply. “All I want to know is what exactly you are capable of.”

“Because Westalian Intelligence is looking for information on the White Room?” He hit it right on
the nail. Kiyotaka wouldn’t have mentioned the White Room unless he was 100% sure that Loid
knew about it, and in this case he had confirmed his suspicions through a variety of inconspicuous
questions.

Loid’s finger edged off of the trigger, presumably from the shock of his organization being
outright mentioned. Kiyotaka noticed this and took the chance to slightly move his head out of the
way from the trajectory of the gun, still having limited mobility with his collar being held.
Simultaneously he grabbed the barrel of the handgun with his left hand and directed it further away
from his face before using his right to push the gun out of Loid’s hand and into his own. He kicked
Loid back using his place pressed against the wall to fall back in case his collar being let go led to
a loss of balance.

Loid was pushed back, now with the gun aimed at himself and Kiyotaka holding his finger over the
trigger. He had only used a gun once before and even then it wasn’t a real gun, it was a fake cork
gun from the culture festival. However, he had been extensively taught on how to disarm an
opponent with a gun. Loid wouldn’t actually hurt him, so he was fairly confident he wouldn’t get
shot in this scenario. The intention of this maneuver was more to disarm the opponent rather than
to threaten them.

Loid didn’t put his hands up while facing the gun head on. “You can’t shoot me either. You’d be
expelled and criminal charges would be pressed. You’d lose your freedom.”

Kiyotaka raised an eyebrow at the mention of his freedom. “It appears that we’re in a stalemate
then.” After a second of silence, he suddenly emptied out the bullets from the gun onto the ground,
creating a small clinking noise against the pavement. He put the safety back on before dropping it
and crushing the gun under his foot. "This is more fair, don't you think Twilight ?"

The color drained from Loid’s face after hearing his code name mentioned. How he managed to
learn so much, he had no clue. "What do you want from me?"

"I think I've already made myself abundantly clear. I didn't want anything from you until you
began to want something from me. What I want is for you to leave me alone." Kiyotaka wasn't
showing any signs of being ready to engage in combat, but Twilight couldn't read his true
intentions and prepared regardless. He sighed. "I believe that you work for a good cause. I've done
a bit of research of my own and I support that you're working to prevent a war. I would prefer it as
well if the world wasn't at war, so for this reason I haven't reported you yet."

“I’ve been wondering that since you confronted me on Thursday. Things are finally starting to add
up now that you’re revealing your hand.”

“Though I doubt you’ll answer, I believe I’m in a position to ask. What does Westalian Intelligence
want with the White Room?”

If Kiyotaka had truly escaped and tried to leave, it was possible that giving him a slight hint of an
idea may sway him to spill some information. “We believe it to be a possible threat to the peace.”
“I would say that there isn’t cause for concern, but there’s multiple different possibilities that could
cause peace to be ruptured as a result of its action. Or I suppose, his actions.” He showed some
detectable annoyance in his voice with his inflection of the last sentence.

“Your father?”

Ayanokoji shrugged. “It’s up to you to decide how you want to take my words. You already seem
to know a lot, so I think you know that even if you tried to fight me right now to get information
out of me, you would lose.”

“You’re that confident?” Loid had no reason to believe that they weren’t standing on equal footing.

“Winning is all that matters. I will win.” His voice didn’t waver, but he still didn’t appear to be
hostile. He looked around at the bodies for a moment and heard one of them groan as if to imply
that he would wake up soon. “Anyways, I’d like to enjoy the rest of the time I have here in peace. I
won’t be a bother as long as you aren’t either. And I won’t report you, which is probably what
you’re most worried about, unless you begin to take action against me once again.”

Loid took this as an agreement of non hostility and relaxed a bit. After a moment of waiting, he
decided to address the elephant in the room. “I should probably call the police now.”

“Yeah, probably.”

The rest of the afternoon was very strange. Before the police were called, Loid made a call to
someone from WISE so that they could pick up the one man that had more information than the
others. Kiyotaka turned a blind eye as he was taken away, pretending as if he hadn’t seen it. It
wasn’t really his problem if the White Room’s security was compromised because of actions that
someone else took, that was their own error. The police were called, and they waited around as if
nothing had happened. The police soon appeared on the site and arrested all the men, but they were
highly suspicious considering that Kiyotaka hadn’t been harmed in the slightest. They got his
testimony along with Loid’s, and after checking the cameras in the area they confirmed that the
men had originally been following him. Kiyotaka was released after giving his statement, and they
walked back together without exchanging words.

It was a very awkward walk through the period of twilight before it fully became dark outside. At
some point, both of them began to feel small droplets of water fall from the sky onto their heads.

Kiyotaka held out his hand to feel the rain in his palm. It felt chilling, but nice. As the rain began to
pick up, Loid didn’t try to rush Kiyotaka forward and just continued to walk with him at a steady
pace despite neither having brought umbrellas. Before they walked inside the apartment complex,
Kiyotaka stopped in the rain. He took a moment to look up at the clouds and observe the trees
being drenched in gallons of water. The wind and rain whipped at his figure, but he stood tall
despite it all. He was no stranger to being soaked in the rain, sometimes it just felt right in the
moment.

Loid observed him from the awning, he didn’t bother to disrupt him after that kind of experience
but he also wanted to make sure he got in alright. Watching him from a distance, it started to dawn
on him what he had done. Kiyotaka, who had already been through much trauma and stress
throughout his entire life, was still just a kid. Seventeen, not even an adult. He wasn’t exactly
feeling remorse for his own actions, but feeling sorry for the child who stood in front of him. A
child who had been forced to become empty and hollow, someone who seemed like they were
trying their best to feel. And looking at him standing in the rain now, standing in the rain to feel
some semblance of normal life, he could make peace with the boy.
 Kiyotaka turned his head back towards Loid and looked into his eyes for just a second. It almost
seemed like the rain reflected into his eyes to make them shine a bit brighter than before.

Chapter End Notes

Wow, it took me a while to complete this chapter. I guess this was the first time I was
actually right in saying that a chapter would take longer. Anyways, I actually wrote
this all in three days but I got distracted with all my other WIPs as I usually do. I'm
trying to finish this one up before posting anything new, but we'll see if I don't
suddenly appear with another one-shot that I made on a whim one night.

Loid's role as like almost an antagonist of this series (if Kiyotaka is considered to be
the protagonist) is complete! Honestly this was the only scene I had in my head since
the beginning and idk how I feel about it anymore since my writing has developed a
while since I had the idea. I'm excited to just have gotten it written down though, so at
least there's that.
I hoped you all enjoyed reading! No clue when the next chapter will be out.
 From Similar Circumstances
Chapter Notes

See the end of the chapter for notes

When the two had returned back inside the apartment, there was a very awkward air surrounding
the house. It was difficult to ignore what had just happened, but at the same time no one wanted to
acknowledge it. And so they all avoided the situation and continued on with ‘normal’ life.

Loid returned to WISE a few days later to report his findings and conclude that the mission had
more or less reached a dead end. Although it was disappointing that he couldn’t learn more, he felt
relieved after having the pressure of spying on a teenage boy taken off of him. They still had the
connection in the White Room, they could still monitor activity over there. There was just one
more question Loid intended to ask Kiyotaka, but he decided to hold out considering the present
tensions.

On the other hand, Yor had inquired into Kiyotaka’s situation despite the fact that she didn’t want
to come across as nosy. He didn’t think it would be much of an issue especially if leaving lingering
questions in her mind would lead to an alternative option that was far worse. He could see traces of
violence in her eyes when she had first come across the situation.

Although he had never fully figured out if there was a hidden side to Yor as well, even despite that
she seemed like a well meaning person. He vaguely explained that his father was trying to get him
expelled because he wasn’t supposed to go to ANHS in the first place, and explained away the
event that occurred the other day as something similar. Yor had seemed satisfied with that
explanation, so he didn’t feel the need to dwell on whether she would cause trouble in the future.

Kiyotaka continued working with the study group to some extent throughout the week, with the
final exam scheduled for Saturday where they would be leaving for the airport directly after.

“Anya! Time is running out, how am I going to get Kiyotaka to notice me?” Becky sighed as she
walked over to where the pink haired girl was eating. Anya knew she was running out of time to
talk to him. She had actually planned for today to be the day that she would tell him about herself.

Anya munched on her sandwich. “Anya thinks that it’s a lost cause.”

Becky groaned, “You’re supposed to be supportive…”

Anya felt bad that Becky was depressed about her current circumstances in love, but she also knew
that it was unrealistic.

Becky put her hands down on the table suddenly, “You know what, my priorities have been wrong
this whole time! I should have been focusing more on Loid and making progress there instead!”

Anya pretended that she was paying attention when she really wasn’t, since hearing Becky talk
about her father like that felt a little bit weird. At least she wasn’t sad anymore, but this was another
problem that she would have to deal with sometime down the line.

The day progressed until eventually the final bell had rung. Anya knew that Kiyotaka would be
riding the same bus home as she was that afternoon since he had previously mentioned that he
wasn’t helping with the study group that day. Since they were one of the last stops, she would have
time to talk to him about it.

Anya waited anxiously at the bus stop, hoping that he would reveal himself soon, and he did just in
time.

“Are you getting on Anya? The bus is already here,” he asked. She had specifically been waiting
for him because it was possible that someone else could sit next to her which would ruin things.

“Anya wants to sit next to you!”

“Oh, I see.” He moved to get on the bus and she followed after him, taking the aisle seat directly
next to him.

She didn’t talk for a while, waiting for the bus to get less crowded, but eventually the time came.

“Uh, Kiyotaka!” She didn’t have a clue as to where to start this conversation, but she had to at least
get his attention first. Finding out a way to break the truth to him was an entirely different matter
on its own. She had learned enough about him in these past weeks to deduce that he wouldn’t leak
her secret, but all she really wanted was to talk to someone with a mutual understanding of her
situation from their own experiences.

Kiyotaka’s head turned away from the window and looked towards Anya. “Yes?”

Anya began to sweat, she was getting really nervous about this. She had to be brave. “Kiyotaka is
like Anya,” she said quietly.

Kiyotaka raised an eyebrow at her statement. “I’m like you?”

She nodded and tried to think of a way to explain it properly. “Anya…can see what Kiyotaka is
thinking. She knows about that White Room thing.” Kiyotaka’s eyes widened in surprise. He
couldn’t be entirely sure that this wasn’t information that she had gotten from Loid, but even before
he had been noticing strange reactions whenever he would merely think about things in his past.

“What?” His eyes sharpened with the reveal of this information, and it only caused Anya to panic
more while reading his thoughts. The way it all went by so fast felt threatening and it was hard to
keep up with his train of thought.

“Papa didn’t tell me…I can see Kiyotaka’s thoughts. That’s how Anya knows you’re like her.”

Kiyotaka still hadn’t removed the possibility of this all being a rehearsed script despite the fact that
she did respond with a reply that was responding to his own thoughts. “How are we alike?” That
was the main part that he was still confused about, because it would be unnecessary to add that part
if this was all something that Loid had planned despite his warnings to stop acting against him.

“This isn’t a script!” She interjected before answering the question. “Anya can prove it.”

If he simply thought of something random then he could get confirmation. A name would work,
but he would have to choose someone that she would have no information on even if Loid were to
somehow procure information from everyone related to himself.

Kiryuuin Fuuka.

She wasn’t in the same school year as him and they also had very limited interactions in general.
She was something of a non existence within the school, Kiyotaka didn’t even know her until his
second year.
 “Kiryuuin Fuuka.”

“You…actually got it.” Kiyotaka was still a bit wary of the fact that Loid could be using her even
if she did have supernatural powers, but otherwise this had completely flipped his view of reality. If
things like psychics were real then what else could possibly be true in this world? It opened up an
endless amount of possibilities. “So, how are we alike then?”

“Kiyotaka and Anya both grew up in lab places.”

That was a very shocking similarity indeed. “Are your powers genetically engineered?”

Anya nodded, having sudden memories come back of that time. “Papa doesn’t know. Anya doesn't
want him to use me like the others did.”

“I suppose we are kind of in the same boat then. I already know I’m going to be used, though
you’re able to hide and escape from that kind of future,” Kiyotaka replied. His fate of a bleak
future frightened Anya, but he was right about the fact that she did have a chance to prevent herself
from falling into a similar fate.

“But can’t Kiyotaka live his life normally after he graduates? He’ll be an adult by then…”

He shook his head. “Not a chance. Unless I want to live the rest of my life constantly fighting
against the threat of being kidnapped and dragged back there, it’s better to just accept what is going
to happen.”

Anya had previously thought he was overexaggerating about the kidnapping part in his head, but
after seeing what happened the other day she would have to believe things. Anya frowned. “Maybe
one day…Anya can go find Kiyotaka again.”

Although Kiyotaka didn’t want to state it, his thoughts were seen through. That won’t end up
happening.

After finally finding someone similar to herself, she has to immediately let him go again. It’s
unfair. He looked over at the pink haired girl. “If I can, I’ll find you again some day. It might be a
while, ten or fifteen years sounds like the right estimate, but when I can I’ll look for you.”

Even though it was a semi empty promise with the hopes of that being slim, Anya took his words
and clung onto them. “Anya is sorry.”

“For what?”

“For Kiyotaka’s life.”

Ouch, that’s a bit harsh.

“Well, some people are just born leading an unlucky existence. It’s not your fault that you were
born into those circumstances either.”

Anya’s mood suddenly brightened. “Anya is going to see you again as soon as she can!”

“Alright, I’ll be counting on you then.” Kiyotaka decided not to smile, because Anya would see
through it anyway. Deep down, he did feel a flicker of something one may call joy.

Chapter End Notes

 Oh my god it's been over a month since I posted a chapter for this fic. I guarantee I'm
going to finish it over the summer but I'm not gonna lie, I have lost so much
motivation for this fic.
The main reasoning is kind of just because I've lost interest in the narrative which I
feel a bit guilty about since this is my most popular work and a lot of eyes are
watching it. This was one of my first CotE works and I jumped in without a second
thought. I had certain story beats planned out from the beginning, but as I wrote the
later chapters I felt like things were beginning to fall apart. I really harshly judge my
own work and I mark a lot of things I've used in this fic as contrived and unnecessary
in comparison to later works which I've thought out more thoroughly. Plus, most of my
work is done in first person nowadays because it helps me with internal thoughts and
this one was back from when I still wrote in third person so it's getting even more
difficult for me to work on it. I do have somewhat of an ending planned, but I literally
forgot a part of it so I'll work on it when I remember the important part.

(Fun fact: There was a scene I deleted that was meant to go in this chapter where Yor
would get too suspicious and view him as a threat and try to take him out but I was like
"wait a minute this makes no fucking sense what." Also, this chapter was originally
written far earlier and I just ended up deleting it because it was being annoying at the
end of my doc so I rewrote all of this.)

Thank you if you've stayed tuned and read this far! I appreciate all of you immensely
for supporting my work on both here and that one repost on Wattpad (lmao).

Please drop by the archive and comment to let the author know if you enjoyed their work!