Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Clarity.

For children, clarity came late. Their brains were underdeveloped and memories were hard to retain. But many impressions remained. Children were pure, untainted by the world around them.

Or so it was supposed to be.

Gakushuu Asano was born with an impression of a female in her 20s, and equally unimpressed by the world around him. He was quite self sufficient, thank you. Even though his new mother and father might argue otherwise. They’d be wrong.

Gakushuu was the one reborn, not them. If he said he was, then he was quite certain he was. Not to mention he was an only child.

Funny enough, it was actually his father who had a vague suspicion first. Gakushuu’s family life was normal. His father was amazing, and a teacher too, and his mother was a lawyer, and sometimes played the role of wife and mother.

So, it was actually quite surprising that his father sat his 3 year old son down and very seriously asked, “Gakushuu, are you a girl?”

Now, normally, he’d be playing pretend, heck, he had actually decided to never talk about his past life (or so he assumed it to be) but his father was sitting in front of him with the patience of a monk, and the determination of a father.

(Also, he was a 3 year old boy who suspected he had vague memories of a past life in his head.)

He burst into tears.

After a slightly frantic father and an amused mother had calmed him down, he nodded and then shook his head.

“I’m a boy, but sometimes I’m more of a girl,” he clarified. Then he fidgeted. He hadn’t exactly been expecting to reveal anything at all to his family, especially not at such a young age. He hadn’t even done anything particularly girlish.

He had played with his family, had a total of two trips overall with them, spent time looking through his father’s books, pointing very heavily at the famous companies when his father looked through stocks (which would have been slightly suspicious, but he was generally a smart and intuitive kid) and well, played some more.

How his father guessed his past life’s gender-

Well, maybe his father deserved the idolization most kids automatically had for their parents.

“Hm. Genderfluid?” His father asked. Gakushuu shrugged uncertainly. The term seemed familiar but he wasn’t sure of the exact definition, so it was hard to confirm.

His mother clapped her hands once.

“How about we do this?” She rummaged for a pen, tore out a page (to his father’s wince) and drew an accurate skirt and then flipped to the other side and drew out pants.

“We can hang it by your door and you can just flip it to whatever gender you want us to address you by!” Gakushuu winced before sighing and nodding.

It didn’t really feel like a major issue to him, but he was also 3 years old. And he guessed he should be glad his parents were so welcoming about something like this, at least. And he liked the thought of occasionally wearing a dress or something, when he was older.

But it honestly didn’t feel like a big deal to him. He wasn’t transgender, nor did he feel any body dismorphia. But again, he was only 3 years old. They were all considerations for his future. He didn’t mind letting his parents get familiar with the thought, at least.

Which again, begged the question. How the hell did they even figure it out? He looked at his father, only to find him looking back at him slightly curiously.

How odd.

Maybe it was his habits. He had habits he still retained, even if his memories were vague. But even then, it shouldn’t have been enough.

Hm.

He became slightly more aware of his father.

Time passed by slowly. His mother occasionally bought him dresses, most of which stayed rotting in his cupboard. The tag still hung by his door, but it almost always showed the pants sign. His mother became disappointed.

His father took him to his cram school, where he napped, played with a few other students, and occasionally cheered his father while he played basketball against a few of his students.

His father still found time to teach him japanese, english and math. Bits of politics, world history and business also popped up from time to time. He seemed genuinely surprised by Gakushuu’s talent in languages, and occasionally they debated about politics (which felt oddly like they were gossiping, except instead of celebrities, it had more real world impact).

He liked his time with father. Even if he came in a dress, he had  no reaction to it. Whenever his mother saw him in one, she would get excited and take pictures. Sometimes she would act like his tastes and interests had completely changed and try to make him wear something fluffy skirts or put him in a duck costume.

It was bothersome, but even his father would laugh, so he didn’t mind it too much. A large part of their cheer came from his mother. He and his father were too similar, and they amused themselves with sly sarcasm. But his mother would pick up the mood and make them play around and laugh.

It had been turning out to be a fun family to be a part of.

So of course, that's when everything started to go to hell.

Gakushuu was about to start going to school. His father was starting to get busy and his mother always had been. It wasn't a surprise. He had been expecting it for a while, almost as much as he had been dreading it.

His father had come back home almost cheery one evening. He pulled out a basketball Gakushuu remembered playing with in his cram school, and played with him till the sun set.

Then the next day, they went to his father's student's house.

He had no idea what was going on, at first. His father was frozen stiff, and they were just standing in front of an unfamiliar house.

"Father?" He called out, confused. He was supposed to meet his father's student. His father didn't look at him, but his grip tightened on him.

His father went in the house, and his father made him sit in a corner and there were people, and apparently, they were in the middle of a funeral.

Normally, it wouldn't have been a thing he cared about. He had been to funerals before, not to mention he was a kid. There were no expectations on him for any occasions.

But.

Wasn't this his father's student's house?

He had gotten cheerful stories about Ikeda for a while, and had occasionally met him too, though he didn't remember him very clearly. He had met many of his father's students, and the first of which would have been when he was really young.

He didn't remember much about Ikeda. But he had heard plenty about him.

His father took him back home late.

Gakushuu didn't complain about the lack of food, nor at being left alone for hours on end.

His father took time off from teaching. He stayed in his office for 2 days, and then he stayed out for a week straight.

The only time he spent with his family was when he ate. His mother didn't speak, and his own attempts were rebuffed harshly. Sometimes, a little too harshly.

But he didn't cry, or complain. He tried not to let his mother know about the bruises he got accidentally either.

His mother found out once, and his parents got into a fight. The first fight he had seen them get in.

He worried.

He worried about the quiet in their house. About the bruises on his father. About the tinge of fear in his mother's eyes.

He tried to talk to his mother, but his mother flinched, and smiled awkwardly and the cheer that she always brought was missing.

He forced a day out with his mother, and they had fun. The creases in his mother's eyes almost smoothed out, and she was even laughing.

But the moment they reached home, his father took him away and put him in front of books.

Suddenly he wasn't allowed to see his mother until he completed the workbook in front of him.

He completed it in 3 hours, and when he finally met his mother, she was crying.

His heart shuddered.

His father started him on a new routine in the morning.

He would wake up, his father would watch him clean up his own bed (he struggled with his small hands, and his small body) and then he would run and run and run until he was gagging and trying to puke.

Then he would take a bath, and sit with his parents and eat.

His mother attempt to smile at him while holding on to her fork just a little bit harder than the day before, and then his father would lock him in his room with a few tests and workbooks.

He had no idea what he did. Or what his mother did.

If he cried, or tried to talk to his father, or if he protested, or didn't continue, his father wouldn't let him see his mother. He wouldn't let him go out.

He took away the toys he had unknowingly collected, the soft fluffy clothes that he hadn't outgrown. He took away the boxes of clay he used to play with, or the jar of small marbles he sometimes took out to play with.

Studying was okay. Maths was fun. English was easy. Japanese was complicated, but easy too. He learnt Chinese, and that was a little confusing, but it was okay.

Talking about business was still fun. Talking about politics and it's effects on the world was fun too.

But there were things that used to be fun that he couldn't do anymore.

He couldn't sleep in and wake up to his mother playing with him. He couldn't see his mother whenever he wanted. He couldn't refuse to eat at all. He had to earn back toy privileges.

He started to see his mom even less. Sometimes he wouldn't see her for a whole day. Sometimes he could could on his fingers the number of times he saw her in a week.

There was arguing, crying and fighting. His father sometimes got bruises and his mother would come out crying more often than not.

He wasn't sure what was wrong or right.

But no one smiled anymore.

He went to school.

It had crying and screaming and paint and glitter and laughter and tears and-

It was a hell of a more lively place than his home.

He didn't talk much.

He hadn't seen his mother aside from breakfast in a month and his father was starting to occasionally tell him he did well in a test, or if he had a surprisingly insightful comment about something.

He wasn't an idiot.

He could see his family fall apart in front of his eyes.

He could see his mother crack down, he could see his father twisting himself, blinding himself to what was in front of him.

There was a sense of oppression in his house now.

And he was getting quiet quiet quiet as time passed by.

His mother cracked first.

She packed up her bags, and left.

He didn't see if she was crying, but he had seen her cry plenty of times in this house. He didn't need to see her cry one more time to know she was suffering.

His father became quiet in a different way, even as he forced him to robotically go through the routine no matter their grief.

There was some time when he didn't move from his bed. No matter the threats, cajoling or panic his father threw at him.

He spent hours curled up on himself. He didn't cry. He wasn't sick. He got force-fed and he spent the next few minutes puking it out.

His father spent the whole day at his bedside.

The worst part here was, his father cared. He ran his hand through his hair, ran him a bath, and carefully shampooed his hair. He brushed his back and put him back to bed.

Gakuhou was gentler that week.

Gakushuu got up on his own, and asked for music lessons the next day at breakfast.

He learnt violin first.

He played a lot. From the first few months where the sounds were almost always bad, to the months after when he could play out tunes and songs, to even a year after, when he took part in a local competition and came first.

He grew up.

He had always been smart, but Gakuhou nurtured it further. He didn't accept anything less than a 100% on his tests. Gakushuu had the intellect of at least college student (or so he assumed, since most of the material he had come across seemed quite doable) if not the knowledge of one.

His father made him brush his basics until he could multiplicate in his mind, until he could do most of the work in his head, until he started to come to the conclusion as he read the questions.

And then he upped the difficulty.

He taught him Japanese, the nuances of language and how to cut the sentences open and form something else completely. And with it, Gakushuu learnt more about himself and his father.

He learnt his own talking patterns and habits, and how his father calculated his words and impressions.

He spent time dissecting his own words and separating the feminine and masculine sentence structures, and then realized how his father had caught him at age 3.

He wore a dress and played the brilliant daughter for a day, and then he changed back and played the brilliant son.

His father let him pick another instrument to learn and put him in gymnastics.

His father became busybusybusy and that left Gakushuu time. He did his workbooks that became tougher, he played with words almost as often as he played with music and he picked personas for himself every outing.

He played the charmer almost as often as he played the loner.

He found a persona for himself in school. A sporty kid with charm that oozed out of him. The other kids liked playing with him and the adults like him being polite.

He wasn't a social idiot and so he offered genuine niceness when he talked to people. He was good at a lot of things (which his father praised almost as often as he scoffed at), but arrogance never helped anyone.

Confidence, though, did.

He kept sympathy from other kids because of his strict father, but still took out enough time to actually enjoy playing sports (which his father approved).

He was active all the time.

He felt like two different people sometimes. The quiet at home was soothing, but also grating. The loud and energy at school was frustrating, but it also created an energy outlet he needed.

If he needed noise at home, he played his instruments, if he needed quiet at school he pretended to sleep.

He was only human, no matter what his father tried to make of him.

He made his first friend from a quiet kid called Ren. He was carrying some book to school and some other kids slapped them from his hand and into the ground.

He was tempted to tear their bags open and drop their books but that would leave evidence and his father would disapprove.

He challenged them to a game of soccer during their break. Ren Sakakibara quivered behind him.

It was an easy win considering his own fitness was far ahead of theirs, and his dynamic vision and lack of fear of injury made him pretty much the best.

He would probably start sport competitions soon too. It was starting to look like a common theme.

So it was actually a surprise when Sakakibara actually came up to confront him a few days after.

"Do you want my family name?" He asked, his jaw set in grim determination, and his eyes looking straight at Gakushuu's. There was a glint in his eyes which made him think research, but there was a focus that told him he had already decided on Gakushuu regardless of whatever he had found out about him.

Until that point, he hadn't even been aware that Sakakibara was someone important. His father would have been disappointed.

"Yes, I do." He accepted gracefully, because here was a boy willing to hand him influence for helping him. Ren took a breath before nodding firmly.

It was innocence and naivity and somehow it was refreshing.

"Okay," he said, "You can call me Ren."

Gakushuu's lips raised into a surprised smile.

"All right."

Ren came under his "protection" so to say, and suddenly there were a hoard of other boys vyvying for a spot on their group.

Ren somewhat skillfully deflected the attention, to Gakushuu's continued surprise.

His father silently approved and put Gakushuu in a martial arts class in return.

Gakushuu studied and studied and grind down, and then he ran away for a day.

Gakuhou called the police on him.

Gakuhou handed Gakushuu a phone with strict orders to always carry it on him.

Gakushuu ran away with the phone a month later, but didn't get the police called on him.

Though in retaliation his workbooks increased and time spent with Ren decreased.

His father established his own school, and somehow managed Gakushuu just as strictly as before. He got introduced to the staff and facilities, and he spent the day sending his father dirty looks when he got explained how the class E system would work and where.

He couldn't decide if his father was too sentimental or not enough.

His father spent even more time trying to talk about general work probabilities and he argued back about how anyone could have the talent to become great.

One talent would be all they needed and teachers should allow students to find it.

His father added even more extracurricular activities to his school and to Gakushuu's already busy schedule, in retaliation.

Ren came to cheer for Gakushuu's competitions.

It was nice.

Ren brought the sense of light-hearted cheer that he had been missing since his mother left. And Ren had a typical old man father and young step mother case, which made it easy for them to overlook him.

Ren's father was a dirty old man, and Gakushuu honestly wished he could take him away. Ren, on the other hand, didn't want to touch the Asano family with a 10 foot pole.

Gakushuu protested. His father definitely broke his family, but he was giving Gakushuu a ton of useful skills for real life. It might seem overbearing and overwhelming at times, but in some ways he appreciated and enjoyed a lot of his lessons.

He wasn't allowed to stop a lesson he had started, however. Or skip classes, but he could take initiative and choose what he was interested in.

Academics was a must, but he choose which languages he wanted to learn or extracurricular thesis or projects he wanted to do.

He wasn't too interested in sports but soccer was an important social activity, and his father avoided any mention of basketball, even though he probably enjoyed that more than soccer.

He enjoyed music so his father had suggested guitar (a cliche that everyone enjoyed) and he had chosen the classics-violin and piano. He played the flute too but he had given that up after a while for greater proficiency at piano.

He had actually been quite interested in vocals as well, which had ended up taking priority for quite a while. He didn't really take part in any competitions for it though. It might have been something to do with his past life, but he found something oddly familiar about it.

He would have said voice actor, but that didn't sound completely right either. His memories of before were hazy as always, and while it felt somewhat creepy, he didn't mind it too much. It felt comfortingly familiar instead, to have some form of familiarity with some things in life already.

The suffocating oppression from his father felt lighter on the days he found an oddly familiar mathematics problem, or when he dressed up feminine, or those days he ran away from home.

His father encouraged his escapades, as long as he was careful and didn't interrupt his lessons (which was fucking hard, by the way).

Gakushuu liked many things his father forced him to do, when he wrote it down, or thought about it objectively. But he hated the way he felt like he didn't have a choice. His father had an opinion about everything, and it felt like he wasn't allowed to have any. Or at least, nothing real.

He could skip out for a day, but god forbid he prefer aikido to judo. He could have a preference for sports, but he couldn't stop playing it completely.

He could like animals, but he couldn't keep a pet. He could be kind, but the kindness couldn't be from his heart.

He had his own opinions which he enforced against his father. And every time it felt like he had to fight against a tsunami.

Why did he have to justify any genuine kindness to be a part of something bigger? Why did it suddenly become something that made a bigger lie into a truth, because it held a hint of genuine kindness in it? Couldn't he just be kind for the sake of it?

Why did everything need to be a social experiment and not an opinion on life? He wasn't Gakuhou Jr and he would never be. Some of the defiance Gakuhou allowed (because Gakushuu straight up told him he was probably going to be depressed otherwise) and a lot of things- small or big- he denied.

He got leeway because many times he didn't force an issue that his father thought was important. He was allowed his own opinions because he didn't defy his father on others.

There was a part of Gakushuu that was a careless adult as much as there was a responsible youth.

There were lines he didn't cross, but that was because he had reasons to, and not because he had a learned instinct by his father to not to.

His father had tried to brainwash him, and then manipulate him, but he had also tried to teach him the how's and whys of manipulation too.

In a way, he trusted his father, but in many others, he couldn't afford to.

His father was only human, even if he seemed to be at a superhuman level at times.

But Gakushuu was his son who had lived once before as a completely different being.

So they both learnt compromise.

(Not to mention Gakushuu's occasional genuine disregard for his own life that would scare the breath out of Gakuhou.)

(And so he had to learn from his son, as much as he didn't want to.)

Chapter Text

Kunugigaoka Junior High and High School was running smoothly, much to Gakushuu's continued surprise.

His father's name was big in the education industry (and also business, but he couldn't completely justify knowing that without divulging his own secret activities there).

There were many nuances that his father had to actively fix as the school years went on, and there were some that Gakushuu actively intervened for and gave up a few rights to do so, including some special clubs that didn't take part in any competition (which was rare) but allowed all students, without exception, to take part in.

There were also regulations that were wholely unique to Kunugigaoka, including class E, a tutoring system for students in other classes from students in class A of the same year, extra curricular activities that were run almost uniquely by the students, and a student council that enforced the will of the Principal.

There were all kinds of clubs that got created, most that got disbanded almost as soon as they were formed when they didn't follow all the rules of "special clubs" and some that barely had enough students to continue on.

There were no regulations about how many clubs someone could be a part of, but no one was allowed to just be a ghost member to fill in numbers.

It was overall, a quite fulfilling academic school. Specially for overachievers like he was turning out to be.

Unfortunately, instead of the freedom he had enjoyed, his future Junior High school life would be a less restricted version of his home life, where he would be a slightly more important pawn in his father's game.

It was frustrating. But slowly, just like always, he would need to change it. He didn't completely understand his father's obsession with class E or Ikeda, in fact, but he was determined to live his own life, and not just create an offshoot of his father's.

He was under his father's eyes here, but that also meant there were ways to break or make his educational policy depending on how Gakushuu played his role.

Of course, none of that really mattered because he had already signed away his freedom just to create his very own club- a self defense club, on top of that.

His father had gotten kind of quiet and then allowed Gakushuu to continue on with his plans. It went without saying, but in exchange, he was going to play the overachiever- the principal's son- role better than in previous schools.

He was already exhausted at just the thought.

The first action he took that involved Kunugigaoka was confronting his father about his club- aka giving up his freedom- but his second was a lot more discrete.

He went to visit the old campus.

He had shifted around his lessons for some free time, turned off his phone (the GPS was annoying to deal with) and then made his way to the old campus when the school for out for summer.

The first thing he noticed was the disrepair.

His father had always made sure it was cleaned up before . He vaguely remembered summer days he spent being carried around by students who made excuses to skip out, while everyone else toiled under his father's instructions to clean up the field.

He stood on a wooden bridge covered partially under moss and he closed his eyes. The sun was bright overhead and he had the rest of the day to himself.

It was hot, he thought to himself.

He remembered the soft cushion of an underdeveloped chest behind him. A cheerful girl carried the toddler him.

There was an ice box, and the taste of cold then orange in his mouth. He got sneaked in shaved ice from her. From everyone, he corrected himself, remembering the multitude of fingers and hands poking and prodding him.

He remembered crying once because one of them had dropped him to catch a slipping ice cream once. He smiled to himself, remembering his father sitting the whole class down for a lecture on childcare after that.

He opened his eyes, brushed his fingers against the wood and went on his way.

There were odd memories that he was remembering, the more he walked and lingered along the old campus.

Hadn't there been a basketball court somewhere here too? He remembered watching his father play with many of his students. He pushed the thought aside for the moment.

He saw wild flowers growing on the sides of the well walked path, and a slightly overgrown path that made him hesitate.

He was already here so might as well explore, right?

He walked into the forest.

There were critters and birds that chirped and flew away at his presence, and he had to carefully walk over a few poisonous flowers (why did they have poisonous plants in the grounds??) but it was surprisingly a peaceful walk.

He played by himself and spotted a few rare beetles and at one point, felt completely lost, but kept going anyway. He wasn't sure where the path was leading, but he had time and he wanted to put in the effort too.

He didn't doubt his father had the whole area memorized, no matter how decrepit he left it.

In a way, he felt melancholic. He found Ikeda's existence bittersweet. He could also say that he disliked him and it wouldn't be wrong, but it wouldn't exactly be right either.

He envied Ikeda.

His father's affection were not easy to hold. And the dead couldn't change.

His father would always remember Ikeda as his beloved student, and not as someone who could have been an adult- a teacher, or maybe an athlete- as he had apparently wanted to be.

No, his father's memories of Ikeda wouldn't grow or evolve. They would always just remain the same, and so would his affections.

He didn't know how that felt.

He had died once, but that only meant he had left people behind.

What did loss mean?

How did it feel to know that there was someone in your memories who didn't exist anymore in the world?

The thoughts felt heavy, but, he thought, his life would still go on. Even if his mother died, his paths wouldn't stop. Maybe if his father-

No.

Anyway.

The path was rough, like no one had stepped foot on it, in ages, but it also had its own charm. His clothes had already become slightly dirty. Mimi, their housekeeper, (name: Midorima Miyakashi) would need to be told to keep it quiet from his father.

He walked for a while, before he heard the sound of rushing water. He paused, surprised.

He racked his brain for memories but came up empty. He had never been to a stream of any kind in the old campus before.

He reached the soft streaming of water and his gait slowed with surprise. It was…pretty.

He had been to natural waterfalls and even done river rafting once, but there was something really soothing about the gurgling of water as it rushed over the rocks and formed natural pools.

He looked at his clothes and gave a mental "fuck it".

He was going to lose his freedom anyway, he might as well take his chances to have fun when he could.

He threw off his shoes and socks, rolled up his jeans as high as it could go, and took off his shirt even. Then he stepped into the water.

The rocks were slippery and he felt half a dozen times, but after a while he just found himself sitting quietly in the midst of the stream, a hand dipping into the rush of water and listening to the regular sounds.

It was a peaceful afternoon.

He woke up hours later, with a squirrel perched up on his head.

That wasn't the end of course, but he didn't want to end up lost in the forest after dark so he had to find a trail back to the building.

He was slightly sunburnt, but that was okay. He made his way back to the old campus building faster than he had reached the stream and almost had a moment of heart attack when he stumbled across the basketball court instead.

He had clearly gone in the wrong direction somewhere. He laughed at himself for a moment before looking through the court.

It was in a state of intense disrepair. Not only had no one visited the place, his father hadn't even cleaned it up a bit. He scowled to himself before taking a running start and jumping. He took a few seconds to hang on and swing from the hoops.

It creaked from his weight but held.

Surprisingly, it was still usable.

He dropped, landing with a slight squelch on his shoes. He wrinkled his nose at the sound then focused on the abandoned court.

It was too bad he didn't have a basketball, but he promised to keep one in the campus building. It was a shame to let it be completely forgotten.

He caught sight of a scratched out metal and carefully patted it clean.

The paint was peeling and the metal rusting but he could read a few characters.

" Asano-sensei the invincible was here "

Or so he assumed.

It actually read something like:

"... no sen….invincible….. here"

There were random hearts around the words and a few more characters which he assumed was meant to denote their names.

He lightly brushed his fingers against the words, smiling to himself. His father had been quite popular with his students, it seemed.

Well, he was a young father. Aside from the disgusted feeling he got at the thought of thinking of his own father similarly, he wouldn't have been surprised to have a crush on a dedicated teacher who was multitalented and was a loving father to boot.

…. or not.

No way. The thought just automatically made him think of his father and ugh, he shuddered to himself.

Yeah, he wouldn't. Just the thought grossed him out completely.

But he could still see the appeal. He didn't like the thought of being a father, but it was flattering to have people like and admire him. Not to mention, he would probably grow up to look pretty similar to the man himself.

He liked the thought of aging that well.

He looked around a little better, before getting on the trail to the actual building this time.

Then he hesitated.

He felt like there was a memory right out of reach.

He looked around the area. The decapitated basketball court, the rusty hoops, the metal support with scratched out words.

Then he took a random path instead of going back to the building. It wasn't far, but there was an enclosed area, and then as if it was in a seat of honor, there was a tree with scratched out words on it.

It was deeply grooved in.

Ikeda + Mori + Nakai

And then above that-

Gakuhou Asano

There were knife marks around it, grooving them in deeper than it had been originally.

But there was something about the knife marks though.

He traced the marks with his fingers, and he remembered his father disappearing for a week straight after Ikeda's death.

Something about the marks spelled grief to him.

He let it be.

A part of him almost wanted to scratch out the names or pluck out the bark and destroy the lines of grief. But-

Maybe it was sentimental of him. But he couldn't destroy them.

Maybe it was the innocent way all the names were scratched out the first time. Spelling out the joy of youth and something that seemed to talk to him about loving life.

Or maybe it was the way, he could see fragments of bark shattered over the "Gakuhou Asano".

He stood for a few more moments, looking at the words, before he turned around and left.

It didn't feel like something he should see.

He felt like there was a phantom of his father collapsed in front of the tree, fingers cut on by the bark where he attempted to scratch his own name off.

He breathed out the feeling before continuing on.

The old building was simultaneously worse and better than he expected. It looked well used and worn down, and there were signs of semi regular cleaning. It looked like it had been given a certain amount if maintainance.

But there was also something old about the whole place. Something that screamed almost deliberate about the ruin. Like the fragments of new and old were contrasting against each other and creating something almost…ugly.

He looked around the outside, scuff marks he remembered making were cleared out, there were faint marks still there, but most of it had been very obviously replaced or cleaned out.

Instead of the careless ruin of the rest of the place, the building was the same, but also not.

He sighed.

It wasn't unexpected, but he wished his father was a little better about dealing with his issues.

He would send his father to therapy, but he was actually worried his therapist would be cross examined and have their own self confidence stripped away.

He should make an AI therapist, he thought to himself. There was no way his father could make an AI cry…right?

He found it funny how his faith in his father's superhuman ability seems to have only grown with age. To be fair, his father regularly functioned on an average of 2 hours of sleep.

He was glad to be able to sleep the 5 hours he got, even if on some days even that seemed too much, to both him and his father.

But well, he was quite firm with his own mental health, unlike his father. He would sleep the minimum amount he needed, though exceptions could be made when needed.

He would need those exceptions soon in Kunugigaoka, he suspected.

His father has been okay- for a certain amount of okay- with his marks in other schools (he regularly scored in the range of 95 to 100) but he suspected his father would want him to actually put his full effort in the academics instead of getting by with just his regular studying and worksheets.

As in, all nighters.

Ugh.

Well, his father had given him a lot of power in return. His own club for himself? He might need to bring over students on his own, but both he and his father were well aware that it wasn't actually an issue.

So his father had actually even up on a fraction of a fraction of his power to Gakushuu. Which was pretty much mind blowing. He wasn't even aware his father had that much faith in his abilities.

What kind of supernatural feat was he expecting, he wondered yet again. Because he surely was.

His father was many things, but careless? Never.

But either way, he was planning to do things his own way. He was reasonably certain he wouldn't be killed and buried by his own father, so he was more or less free to follow his own will on the details.

He sighed.

The old campus, class E's classroom, wasn't terrible . But things could definitely be better.

Plus, he hadn't actually met any of class E students in any of the years. He wondered if they would hate him for being the principal's son.

Probably, he winced. Then he sighed again.

Even then, he wanted to do something for this place that was half a graveyard.

He made a list of things in his head and smiled. He hadn't even started school yet and he was already planning on renovating a hill and taking over at least half the school.

He needed to leave some for the rest of the years till he aged up at least, or high school might end up more boring than Junior High.

Oh well.

He couldn't exactly go half baked.

Might as well go in full throttle.

His school started uneventfully, no well, there were plenty of events actually.

He went to a sports scrimmage from his school and won, went to a math scholastic and won, went to a spell bee and won, and well-

You get the idea.

He took part in so many events, Ren had to call off attending half of the events so his step mother could take him to an international trip.

He wasn't jealous. Much.

Unfortunately, his father was still a superhuman and sensed his slight jealousy (loneliness) in a wrong way. So, he got sent off to some international trivia event where he finally got some more time to sit down and take a breath.

He made a friend, Alejandro, there. He was quirky, had a terrible sense of humor and always had a smile like he dropped a bug in Asano's bag.

He deadpanned while talking about his father's death and Asano hadn't even been sure if it was actually a murder mystery or if the criminal had been caught, right up until his father dropped by to take him back home.

He was too flabbergasted to even feel offended at being duped.

Ren had to listen to his rants from a country away, while his step mother seemed intent on throwing Ren into a bad lifestyle.

So of course he felt obligated to drop by and steal Ren away.

(Well, he didn't leave the airport and Ren came to meet him there and leave on his own two feet, but whatever.)

In the end, he unsurprisingly missed his cue and ended up skipping the main event. He won prizes for everything else, but that still didn't spare him from his father's scolding and the stripped Ren privileges.

It turned out okay though.

Finally he entered Kunugigaoka Junior High with the highest marks in its history (not that that was hard, considering its history was certainly short) and then spent the rest of the week sneaking away documents about the students in his year at random.

Most of the students were, so to say, spoilt brats. A lot of them had a lot of real life problems, but they mostly spent time trying to get over it using superficial ways.

Of course, it wasn't a surprise. Kids were kids after all. They just blindly repeated what they saw.

For that reason, he believed his father's methods would actually be quite helpful in instilling a sense of discipline, hierarchy and also, a sense of understanding.

It's okay because when you overcome problems, you grow, after all. He would be mouth feeding that to as many students as he could.

It would depend on how many people swallowed it.

But that didn't mean he wouldn't try his best.

He didn't suffer through his father just to not even use any of it. He might not have been dedicated to flipping the board, but when he got invited into it, he was going to make damn sure he messed it up good.

There were things even he couldn't stand, after all.

Chapter Text

"So what's the plan?" Ren poked at his brain one of their "study nights".

He was snacking while lying upside down on a couch. He should be doing neither of the actions, but Asano was all for living their own lives so he didn't scold Ren. In the first place, it wasn't his place to scold Ren anyway, he was just there to pat his back and give him 'told you so' looks while Ren eventually coughed his lungs out.

"We're going to take over the world, obviously," he replied dryly as he continued to write down his thesis level essay his father assigned him about the ocean currents and underwater life forms. It was actually a very interesting topic, he was glad he got assigned something this good instead of…hm, he actually found most things interesting so it actually didn't matter what his father assigned him.

Ren snickered, then flipped on his side and started hacking out a lung.

Gakushuu took a brief break from his studies to make sure Ren survived himself. After a glass of water and an experiment with ice cubes when they got distracted, Ren came back to the topic.

"No, what are you planning with the club? You started talking about that almost as soon as you knew about Kunugigaoka," Ren pointed out persistently.

Gakushuu bit down on one of the ice cubes and he considered. Well, it would be wrong to say he didn't have plans. But, honestly, he wasn't too bothered by the future. He was the type to live in the moment. Also thinking about the future gave him anxiety and no one likes that.

"Well, since Ikeda, it was a useful weak point. He always gives in a little easier to stuff like that." Gakushuu remembered his enthusiasm about martial arts and how easily his father had decreased his studying hours to make more time for his interest (he couldn't emphasize how much of a big deal that was).

He caught up after he got used to the new schedule, but still. Those few weeks had shocked him still.

After a while his father had taken up his martial arts teaching too. Something about incompetent teachers. Gakushuu understood. His previous teacher had started to fight against Gakushuu fewer times and his growth speed had actually slowed down. His father had been furious.

Ren hummed thoughtfully.

"So you just wanted to rub it in?" Gakushuu spluttered, surprised.

"What? No." He said reflexively because pausing to consider. "Okay, maybe. He totally deserves it for all the emotional blackmail."

Ren huffed out a laugh, a contradiction with the frown on his face. Gakushuu ignored the frown.

"It's not like I'll disagree," he mumbled under his breath before shoving some ungodly mix of snacks in his mouth.

Gakushuu went back to the reference material once (his father was going to give him a disappointed lecture about his lacking memory) before starting a second and hopefully final draft.

He could almost hear his father's voice in his head, 'Really now? A second draft, how plebian,' but that was better than 'You can start the research again with these many mistakes in your paper, what are you planning to do, get a 90 next?'

It was the milder versions of the degradation, but it would definitely be in a similar theme.

He sighed, ignoring Ren's glance of concern as he texted someone (probably his step mother who seemed annoyingly insistent about spending time with Ren).

Ren didn't have room to judge when his own family was this messed up. How Ren grew into a somewhat sensible person he wouldn't know.

He guessed his own influence and Ren's own nature, because there was literally no other reason.

He mentally sighed.

Powerful people were such terrible parents.

He couldn't even do much about things like this.

His own home was as fragmented as it could get, after all.

His introduction to the student body was the Entrance Ceremony. He would be on stage, get acknowledged, give a speech and get it over with.

Or so he would have done generally.

He didn't fidget, gulp or wipe sweat. He calmly made his way to the stage, caught Ren's eyes before scanning through the rest of the students and their parents.

There were kids who were bored, some being lectured about his marks, some staring at him with mild interest and some already sleeping.

He gave the audience a placid smile and spoke. His voice, tone and speech was charming, inclusive and welcoming. It wasn't perfect, but it was pretty close. Some of the kids who looked bored had even deigned to look at him in surprise.

But instead of the students, he kept his eyes on the parents. Some looked at him consideringly, some were searching out his general scores and history.

He hadn't been first in Japan, but his numerous achievements (where he had put in more effort than his marksheet) was impressive nonetheless.

That was, of course, where his first plan started.

He wanted to get in touch with Araki Teppei, second in rank, and son of the information industry.

He had grown up with information that would be hard to find casually at his fingertips. Only a fool wouldn't have used the knowledge lying about for him to grab, and Araki Teppei certainly wasn't foolish.

He had done his research too, and it helped Teppei was still young, because he could feel a hole being bored into him as he swiftly evaded crowds while trying not to get out of line of sight.

He was pouring himself water when Teppei actually approached him. His fingers trembled with nerves, but he braved it to stand in front of Gakushuu alone.

He spared the boy a glance but didn't initiate conversation.

Teppei gulped, his smile wavered before he introduced himself.

"Hello, I'm Araki Teppei. I got second place in the Exam." He introduced himself politely. Gakushuu let him sweat for a moment more before turning with polite smile.

"Of course. I am Gakushuu Asano, first rank." He introduced himself needlessly. "I heard you came from Kyoto."

Araki nodded his head, his eyes lighting at the offered conversation topic, completely missing Gakushuu's point of having done background research on the other.

"There was a lot of good reviews about Kunugigaoka, so mom insisted. I was surprised to find someone scoring higher than me on the exams though. Those were pretty tough. I guess Kunugigaoka lives up to its name," he said slightly sheepishly. Gakushuu blinked, surprised. That was more casual than he had been expecting.

He glanced at Ren. He seemed involved with a group already, talking about something. He felt like a switch flipped with realization.

Right.

Kids.

He let himself break his own professional smile in return and talked to Teppei a bit more casually. He caught a slight flash of surprise in his eyes and he made sure to drop plenty of hints of his own.

Teppei seemed surprisingly willing to follow Gakushuu's lead, but he would need to be more thorough to check deeper before he actually trusted the boy. But that would happen in school.

His goal for the Entrance Ceremony was already achieved.

His next actions would need to be subtle and he needed to mostly blend with the student body.

After all, the people who rose first and highest, ended up falling the hardest. Not to mention, he would only be able to understand their natures better after their next ranking in school.

His father was influential and manipulative. He had no doubt the student body would change drastically in the coming months.

That's when he would start his actual work. Until then…

He would go around and make some genuine friends.

The morning of his first day, he woke up at 5am. He ran, took a bath, wore his new uniform and sat down with his father to eat breakfast.

Mimi had already set the table and they ate quietly after wishing good morning.

After they were done, Gakushuu expected his father to leave, but he set down his cutlery, wiped his mouth and looked at Gakushuu.

"From now on, I expect you to call me 'Principal' in school at all times. Is that understood, Asano-kun?"

Gakushuu flinched imperceivable before dropping his head in a nod.

"Of course, father," he replied with a flat smile.

Gakuhou gave him a look before he got up and completed the rest of the routine and getting in the car and leaving for school.

He hadn't exactly been expecting a ride to school, but- he scoffed- he wasn't expecting even more distance between them.

Were they even a family anymore?

He frowned before shaking his head and getting up. He needed to meet Ren soon. He was planning to lay low, and the best way was to already have a clique.

People found it hard to enter established friend circles, not to mention his last name. He would let rumors die down before he did anything.

It was surprisingly easy. At first there were some people who approached him about his last name being the same as the Principal and after they verified the rumors, people started being a bit more wary of him.

He also tended to not break his mask in school, responding even to Ren politely, much to his distaste.

There were some people who tried to bother him, or be friendly, but he had a lunch companion and school was supposed to be busy anyway. Some of them seemed surprised by the fact that they didn't even lax on the first day, but-

Well, they'd understand soon enough.

He exchanged polite remarks with his classmates and about ignored anything to get him involved deeper.

Friend groups established in the beginning tended to not last much either.

Teppei had approached him, but he seemed to be socializing well enough on his own and didn't bother Ren and him during the lunch, which was a relief.

The first day went by easy.

There was an assembly though, and his father spoke to the student body about academics, and ranks and strength and so on.

Most people were weirded out, while a lot of them just ignored it. It wasn't like it was important or anything, yeah?

Attention towards him increased and decreased, but people stopped trying to talk to him much after the assembly. They got the message that he wasn't really interested in being involved with them.

Teppei hesitantly kept contact but even that had drastically decreased.

That was okay. There was still some mild interaction with his classmates and it wasn't like they were avoiding him or anything so blatant.

He kept track of the rumor mill through Ren, and sometimes talked to a few random people.

He became friendly with this one girl from 1-B, Kimiko who had already started to crush on one of her classmates and did ballet. She hadn't recognised him at first, but he had recognised her gait and became interested enough to talk.

She was pretty nice about it too. Mostly because he had managed to create a pleasant impression first before he got recognised.

They talked about ballet shoes, and her classes and competitions she took part in. He entertained her with his own attempts at accompaniment for a music and dance showings.

It was a nice and friendly conversation. They didn't exchange numbers though, but he was sure by their second and third meeting they would be close enough to.

And time passed as he blended with the student body. Well, he registered for a few clubs and there was a slight initiation for them, which wasn't particularly hard.

He kept his abilities on "promising but not star level" which was nice. He didn't need to deal with jealousy so soon.

It, like everything else, would come later.

Though his seniors were eyeing him down like meat already. His last name was keeping them mostly at bay.

He guessed they too, were waiting for the scores in the next exam.

Not to mention, he was still busy with his lessons outside school hours and his father soared time once a week or so to check up on all his skills.

Gakushuu was doing pretty well in that regard. Once a week, he would take up a topic, research it out and then write a thesis for his father to look over. Mostly, his father looked over his results, gave a couple comments on how to improve himself, and did his own Principal work.

He was surprised to note that he had been given slightly more freedom. As long as he completed his work per week, his father didn't hover or control his lesson timings. The amount of punishments had decreased as well.

It almost felt like a vacation. He had PTSD, wondering if this mistake would make his father come out of nowhere and lock him up.

Ren said the freedom was a good thing, but Gakushuu was just mostly suspicious. It didn't feel like his father was planning anything, so he just tried to get over his paranoia and adjust to the new normal.

He managed to actually have a few more outings, celebrated a few birthdays and even went off hiking for a weekend. The extra time did him wonders.

It cut into his sleep though, because he had to rush to finish his weekly quota. He might have gotten a tad excited.

His father, aware of his plans, gave him disappointed looks but didn't actually take any actions (he was stunned).

But overall, it was a refreshing month. His occasional sneaking into class E hill was successful too. He liked to visit the stream and just have a place that seemed so cut off from the rest of civilization.

It was funny, because even Ren commented how much of a complete proper city boy he seemed. But he enjoyed being completely alone.

He remembered even his father had been quite surprised to see him wander off to another city all by himself just to have their traditional foods and sightsee and come back.

His father had never begrudged his independence. Of course, it helped that he didn't actually ask for money from his father.

He remembered when he was really young, how he had helped his father with become a shareholder of a company that ended up becoming well known. He slightly regretted those now. He wouldn't have given him so much free information if he knew his father was already rich and him.

And so the month passed by. The first test for their academic abilities came up. The seating arrangement got shifted around. He spotted a new name in the top five- Akabane Karma.

He had been clearly above average in the Entrance Exam, barely scraping into the top 10, which was a significant result, if you didn't take his lackluster attitude into regard.

Gakushuu had predicted his ranking to decrease.

But.

What?

He watched Akabane carelessly get into his new seat. The rankings shifting meant more than just seat changes. It meant, there was a list of names in the red now.

People who would be dropped down a class if they maintained their rankings. After that, there was a rush of praise from the teacher for all the top students and disdain at the few students who might be dropped.

The class ranks were posted up in eyesight, and the teachers' mild attitudes changed. So did the attitudes of the seniors in the academics clubs.

Class E didn't face any significant changes aside from a few students doing much better.

Suddenly, Gakushuu was at the height of popularity among the teachers. All the academics clubs that had him were smug and didn't refuse any of the sign up requests he got.

The teachers got surprised for a while, then disappointed. It would depend on his capability to see how many clubs could retain him now. It was impossible to attend all the associated tests and such, after all.

Gakushuu's workload increased tremendously.

On the other hand, students started getting up in arms. Some reported him for cheating, some of the people he was acquainted with took a step back, some took a step forward.

A lot were simply confused and tried not to get affected by the teachers and seniors. But it was hard.

You would have had to not participate in any clubs to have that happen, and class A had mandatory club participation. It was the first class to get affected.

Akabane didn't though. He hadn't actually attended any clubs as far as Gakushuu knew. Not to mention, he didn't really seem like the kind of person who overly cared about peer pressure. He didn't seem like the kind of person who had peers at all, actually.

Gakushuu was curious.

He felt like he could sense something in Akabane. Something that felt…familiar. Not the other life thing, but something that felt quite similar to himself. He couldn't point it out though.

Akabane seemed like he couldn't care less about class rankings that was posted in front of his face, or the way clubs hounded him to get registered.

He looked like he went through life without a worry.

But somehow, Gakushuu felt like Akabane was watching him back.

It was a normal day. A normal end to classes. A lot of students who didn't have clubs that day left school.

Gakushuu was watching the students leave for the day when suddenly for no reason he could tell, his eyes caught red .

Hair the colour of red glowed brightly, almost furiously. Gakushuu was well aware of the student possessing that hair.

Akabane Karma.

Somehow, it felt like Gakushuu was watching Akabane a hell of a lot more recently.

But it bothered him. He didn't know what bothered him.

He cupped his chin in his hand as he stared.

It was a nice colour… he admitted after a few moments.

He stared some more.

Then, Akabane turned around, his eyes accurately catching Asano's without hesitation. He was startled, but he didn't have the habit of fleeing before he had even confronted an opponent.

For seemingly no reason, Gakushuu felt like it was their first confrontation. They sat relatively close to each other in class now, and Gakushuu had his attention on him, almost all the time now.

But this time, they stared at each other across a difference of 3 floors and a crowd of students.

Asano felt a slightly odd feeling creeping down his spine. Karma turned away, seemingly bored and Asano subconsciously gripped the window.

He still felt like he was being stared at, even when Akabane had turned and walked away. He had felt it before, the first time Akabane changed seats.

He watched him walk away, before he continued on with his own work.

It felt odd, for some reason. He couldn't shake the feeling that something had happened that hadn't happened before.

He buried himself in paperwork.

Chapter Text

Gakushuu's 'blending in' stage of the plan went relatively well.

There was gossip, but it wasn't really him. He was little more than a background fixture to anyone not in his class.

His class was, unfortunately, quite aware of him. Once he came in sight of the kids who didn't like to lose, as the overall number 1, there were silent challenges everywhere.

If they couldn't dominate over him in ranks, they would find different methods.

There were some who wanted to defeat him in their favorite subjects, some who wanted to defeat him in sports, some who wanted to get him into trouble by making up lies or rumors.

There were all kinds of things going around.

He didn't bother mitigating them, and just dealt with it as it came. They wanted to challenge him academically? Fine. They wanted to challenge him in their sport of choice? Well, if he was unfamiliar, he would need a day or two to get familiar with the rules but otherwise he was pretty good.

One of his weekly tests got ruined, he stayed after school to give another and pointed at one of the students being a bit more malicious towards him to get punished for it.

He didn't mind challenges. But having his books or clothes ruined bothered him much more.

But it was already time. Time to slowly raise their awareness of him, that is.

He started with sports. While he was still a part of a few sport clubs, due to his father's preference, he could choose maybe three, and even then, his presence was limited in them.

Well, to be technical, he started kendo and since he was a beginner, people had the false impression that he was bad at sports.

He also played soccer, but he was playing that for sociability points really.

His third club was basketball, which he hadn't actually attended aside from the very first one.

So, he started with soccer.

He had already beat most of the players through sheer physical ability but when the game started, he let others have the limelight.

His senior teammates were actually aware of his talents, but his year mates showed their jealous sides and put him down when there were no actual results coming from him.

It was slightly more effort to shine.

(He went home exhausted, beating others again and again while maintaining a high athletic ability instead of just having fun was annoying. )

 It didn't take too long to see results. A few more clubs related to his footwork knocked on his metaphorical door.

He had to give his polite smile and shut it on their face.

The next was kendo. He had started kendo after announcing that it was his first time- kids explore new options right?- and he had shown definite improvement.

He made it into the bracket of five students who were going to participate in the interschool kendo competition.

It was actually pretty funny to watch the way everyone flailed when the opponents failed to get past him.

Kendo competitions had a 1 vs 1 where every time a teammate was defeated, the next in line would pick them up. Generally the best was in the last.

(Asano Gakushuu was the second name on the list, no one made it past him.) 

Then before the hubbub about him could peak, there was the pre-midterm Assembly and anxiety peaked.

Normally he took midterms relatively lighter, but this time he couldn't. He was about to start his club and he had to get excellent marks.

His sleeping time decreased dramatically.

Time passed and his standing in the eyes of general student population increased. His eye bags became obvious and this seemed to have reassured some of the students of his species as a human being.

But he went out of his way to help out students who had either asked him for help (friends he made throughout the other classes came by to tentatively ask for his help).

(He almost couldn't help the flash of satisfaction that filled him the first time someone interrupted his lunch to ask for a study book reference.)

Gakushuu went above and beyond to help the students to asked for him. He personally showed them important points to memorize, formulae to use the most frequently and some handy little quirks to make calculations easier.

For him, a lot of things had been intuitive (*cough* past life *cough*) and while his father had turned up his nose at Gakushuu's shortcuts, Gakushuu still used them and found more for regular use outside of Gakuhou directed lectures.

Not to mention, he had been planning for a while.

Plus teaching others was sort of…relaxing, though he would never - even on the pain of death- tell that to Gakuhou. He would genuinely rather die again than go into the teaching profession.

It seemed to have started a trend around school, where lunch time was dedicated to asking fellow students for help.

It was the first show of anything not-negative from the collective student body, and Gakushuu had to silently admit that in a way his father was indeed right.

(The thought burned, and he wanted to prove him wrong, he wanted to burn it all to ashes-

But no, that's not what he was doing. Even if the end goal might fall somewhere close by, his purpose and method was completely different.

He just wanted to live his own life.)

Studies made much of the student body come together, and it was here that the first embers of the E class started.

The people who didn't care, the people who excluded themselves from the trends and groups of studying, the people too shy or too hesitant to join- they started to form a peripheral group, unnoticed by everyone.

This was one more thing his father wasn't wrong about. He wasn't wrong.

But.

(But, one of them was Akabane Karma.)

The school results were out, and everyone wanted to see the results they put so much work in.

They wanted to see real changes based on their hard work. There was enthusiasm and budding competition.

Asano Gakushuu was first, Araki Teppei was second, and Akabane Karma was third.

And finally-

They saw the results of their hard work.

They saw classes change, and schedules shift and teachers change- all because of their marks.

In between it all, Gakushuu waved at the Kimiko from 1-B who transferred to 1-A, he smiled at the boy who had first approached him about the study guide as he sat in the same class as Gakushuu, and he acknowledged the group of students who had decided to hog Gakushuu for almost a week straight so he could tutor them in their weak subjects.

He smiled, satisfied when he saw the glint of surprise in Araki Teppei's eyes and smirked at Ren's laugh and tried to ignore Akabane Karma's yawn.

Another step was complete.

Then he finally established his Self Defence Club.

He didn't particularly promote his club, but news spread.

People were curious, or mostly just willing to come by to degrade it sometime later.

Calling it a 'Self Defence' Club was slightly high handed after all.

Well, people still appeared sporadically though.

He spent some time to talk about laws related to self defence before explaining a few basic moves, and then promptly making everyone try those moves out too.

A lot of people had never fought, or had just come to talk to Gakushuu or even even the start of what Ren called a fanclub. He was pretty sure they hadn't expected him to actually start demonstrations nor make them attempt them.

It was a slightly messy affair, but he was at least vaguely familiar with all the people in his school by now so it wasn't particularly hard to manage the few people who did come by to check try out.

He arranged people by physique and temperament.

Fortunately none of the people who came were the type to walk out in the middle so he managed to convey at least two important points to his audience, even if they took it lightly or didn't really case about it much.

First, that no permanent names of members would be added to the Club regardless of attendance, because it was a 'special club' that would participate in no competitions and held no exceptions for attending members.

Second, he had safely given his phone number to the attending students.

Of course, he might start receiving prank calls and such from then on, but, it was a number he handed off to Ren, when he was busy with lessons.

Still, he had started off on the right path for now.

Gakushuu acting as a part time teacher at the Self Defence Club aside, he was a part of a multitude of clubs whose activities were really starting off after the midterms ended.

The basketball interhigh was starting, and he barely had enough time to attend the sessions or take part in most of the teamwork exercises. He asked to be a first string substitute instead so he could still help out, but didn't have to be an integral part of the team.

He missed the first game, but managed the third and then the forth, but unfortunately, he was late for the fifth and they didn't manage to score enough to qualify for the finals.

He did manage to win in the high school trivia competition which was on the same day as the fifth match of the basketball interhigh.

There were a few academics clubs he had to dedicate a little more time to, but he was mostly trying to manage his limited time to complete his lessons, study and still manage the clubs attendances.

He was glad he wasn't in his third year because they even had a class trip and if it was him, he would have definitely missed it for the amount of things he had had to handle this time.

He had already stopped classes for violin and replaced it with guitar, and his classes for piano were already as rare as his martial arts classes, which were about once or twice a month with a highly skilled instructor.

Mostly, his majority of the time went into the Academics part recently. He was slightly unhappy about it, but he still practiced everything else enough to not lose in skill as time passed by.

Not to mention, he had perfected his Self Defence lessons with his instructor before trying to teach a bunch of preteens. He wasn't as thoughtless as to teach something he hadn't perfected himself. But he still wasn't sure if the man was a highly skilled underground criminal or someone employed by the government. He wasn't sure if he would ever find out, either.

His father was as mysterious as always.

Either way, it wasn't too bad. It was slightly tiresome, but it could have been worse.

He could still afford to skip a few times to spend time on his own, or shift things around to make time for friends- like the time he went to give an apology treat to his basketball team (their coach's treat had been shabby at best, for them failing to get into the nationals. Leaving it at that would have been too depressing).

The period of time between midterms and finals was generally a time for interclass competitions. For the first semester, it involved sports.

A lot of national competitions were ongoing during this time, including basketball, soccer, baseball, volleyball. Of course, they didn't really care about completions involving music since those were generally featured in the latter half of the year, during the school festival.

Nonetheless, the students were quite bothered by the variety of sports they were made to take part in.

P.E. was a compulsory class, but Kunugigaoka was a school where academics came first. Without a decent level in academics, they would fall into E class and be kicked out of their sports clubs- a possibility so horrifying no one could bear it happening.

As soon as Gakushuu found time to breathe after getting involved with the clubs, he was almost immediately thrown into the interclass rivalry egged on by his own classmates.

He almost couldn't believe the amount of ego inflation they must have received to decide to walk into hell themselves.

(As punishment, he subtly incited their P.E. teacher to increase their workload. They needed to feel their legs giving out on them at least once. Ren shot him desperate looks, but he ignored them all. It would serve them well.)

Chapter Text

Gakushuu never understood why, but Ren had always, always held him in high regard.

There were many skills in his life that had almost seemed normal. Things like acting, lying, manipulation; some things like staying wherever in the social hierarchy that he wanted, things like playing multiple instruments, being good at fighting, being good at sports.

Those were the things that Gakushuu learned through his own sweat, blood and tears, and Ren didn't let him forget that.

There were other things- things like kindness, empathy, being a decent human being; that Gakushuu didn't forget because of Ren either.

It wasn't to say he didn't have his own issues, or they didn't have their own secrets from each other. Just that, they had helped each other far more than the other person could ever know.

And Gakushuu respected Ren for that, as much as Ren respected Gakushuu.

It was a balanced relationship.

…

So.

It really fucking pissed him off when someone tried to push him around.

There weren't many things that made him angry. But.

He was really possessive.

He couldn't handle someone stepping over a line with his people.

Ren was allowed his secrets.

Ren was always, always allowed to keep his secrets and his opinions.

But this?

Oh no.

This was not allowed.

Gakushuu had been expected to go to Ren's house that day. It was the weekend, and one of the rare days Gakushuu and Ren would meet up and just relax.

They would talk and talk for nothing and everything and do whatever they wanted. It was just them.

So.

Why was some bitch all over Ren like she was in heat?

Ren had discomfort written all over his face while a random half dressed dark haired woman laid over Ren on their couch. Ren's step mother laughed, stepping into the living room with a bottle of wine in her hands, wearing only a robe.

Well, "wearing" was a stretch. It was draped on her wet body, sticking to her skin in a manner Gakushuu could only call revealing, if asked to explain in a polite manner.

She smiled at the other woman harassing Ren, and Ren was trembling under her.

Gakushuu wouldn't be able to describe the fury in his veins as the woman pressed a kiss on Ren's neck and complimented his body.

"What. The hell is going on?" He asked, his voice flat and cold. There was ice in his veins.

Ren's head jerked up in shock before an uncomfortable look fell upon it. His fingers clenched on the couch.

Ren's step mother gave him a seductive smile.

"Well, hello, pretty boy. It's been a while hasn't it? Ren has been naughty," she said, her voice lilting with laughter. "We were just teaching him a lesson on women."

Gakushuu smiled, walking- stalking- up to Ren and the other woman.

"Oh?" He asked, then he gently touched the woman's cheek before tilting her head up to face him. She had a slight blush that had nothing to do with how intoxicated she was.

Yeah, she was definitely about to force herself on him. He smiled at her gently. His hand went to her nape and he pulled her hair, keeping her head tilted at an uncomfortable angle.

He tilted his head just out of view from Ren's step mother and let his smile drop.

He had faced his father a lot . He had seen his father freeze grown men in their seats with a glare and seen him manipulate a room with a few words.

He was pretty sure he could give a pedophile a little breakdown.

"That's right. It's a bad time, isn't it?" He said, his eyes meeting hers. The expression on her face froze from the secret pleasure she had been hiding. "That's right," he almost purred, "You've been doing some bad things to Ren haven't you?"

His voice rose and fell, almost musically. He could tell from the surprised silence behind his back that even Ren's step mother was surprised by how seductive and smooth he sounded.

But only Ren and this woman could see his face.

"Should I punish you?" He asked almost innocently. His bloodlust leaked, and he tightened his grip on her neck.

'How foolish,' his face said. 'How foolish of you to let me near your neck to bite it out.'

He grinned before letting go.

She collapsed, her face covered in cold sweat.

He turned around to face Ren's step mother.

"But!" He interrupted the mood cheerfully, "I actually made plans with Ren and a few others outside, so we'll have to meet again another time."

He grabbed the bowing woman by her shoulder and Ren's arm before pulling him out from under her. She tumbled onto the couch but didn't protest.

Ren and Gakushuu made their way out the house, walking almost naturally towards a nearby cafe where they went to study sometimes.

When Ren finally got a hold of himself, he let out a light chuckle.

"You know," he started, his voice cracked a little when Gakushuu tilted his head towards Ren, "you can be pretty scary when you want to be."

He didn't bother acknowledging that.

Just like Ren's stepmother had always been one of his secrets, Gakuhou had always been one of his.

They were just two damaged rich kids making it out into the world.

Self Defence Club had become an unofficial place to go if students wanted to talk to Gakushuu.

He always tried his best to accommodate people individually. It was hard, splitting his attention and awareness over all the people, but there were always less than 10 people present at any time. Even 10 was a stretch.

People didn't understand the purpose of the club.

Some people wanted to learn to fight, and well, if he had nothing to do, he did teach a few tricks. But mostly, he liked to keep things a little down low.

People wandered in for half an hour, or one hour and then left when they had enough. Gakushuu encouraged the behavior by spending personal time to teach them tricks about if people tried to steal from them, or if someone showed up with a knife.

Sometimes people came back more often and he drilled some reflexes into their body.

The days and times he kept separate for his own club was special, in a way. He spent time doing what he liked, talking to people with almost no pretence and just spent time being himself.

It was a time he pretended like his father was invisible. Like he wasn't a massive hypocrite. Like he was just a kid who knew some things and wanted to spread it around.

Then he heard some news from Araki that he should have gotten much much earlier.

Someone from their school had been getting into fights.

He didn't know who that was, but he was slightly concerned. A lot of people in their school tended to be foolishly overconfident, he wouldn't be surprised if someone got in over their head then kept getting bullied.

Or maybe someone actually went to seek out fights. Kunugigaoka students getting in fights? They must be looking for death. His father would never let them off.

Honestly he was surprised his father let it get to that point. He would have thought his father would have outright expelled them after dropping them to E class or something.

Fighting wasn't exactly bad , in his father's dictionary. But he prized his school's reputation. Araki Teppei was a student, abet one with a good information background, but a student nonetheless. To have reached the point where a student could accurately pin down a location? His father's standards seemed to be falling.

He hadn't even considered the person as a suspect for the fights until he came face to face with Akabane Karma in the area Araki and he had narrowed down to.

There was a slightly wild look in Akabane's eyes as he looked down at a few beaten up people at his feet. He scoffed at the back of his throat.

"You guys done too?" He asked, poking at them with one foot. There was no answer, so he rolled his eyes and leaned down to grab his bag.

Well, that wasn't what he had been expecting at all.

Gakushuu silently stepped into view before the other boy could leave. Akabane looked up at him, a smile widening on his lips.

"Asano Junior pays a visit too, it seems." Akabane put his bag on his shoulder before turning away, dismissively. "Don't worry, I'll make sure to change my class from next week. I won't darken the light of class A again." He mocked the words that seemed slightly familiar.

Gakushuu blinked, surprised.

He hadn't been aware his father had paid Akabane a visit. He hadn't been aware his father had taken to openly calling Gakushuu the 'light of class A' because what?

What was he, a doting father?

But more importantly-

"You actually got demoted from class for fighting? What did you do, get arrested?" Gakushuu asked him, curious. There hadn't been any news leakage about Akabane so whatever it was was well contained at least.

"Hmm?" Akabane stopped, tilted his back to look at Gakushuu curiously. "So Asano Junior didn't know and came to see me himself?"

He gave a mock bow.

"Wow, class rep. To what do I owe this honor?"

Yeah, class representative had pretty much defaulted to him when the time came and honestly, compared to the amount of work he was already doing, it hadn't even been a blip. Yet.

"It looks like I'm lacking as a class representative since I wasn't aware of your extracurriculars," he glanced at the two half pretending beaten up students.

"I can see why the Principal had to come by personally," he gave a mocking smile back at Akabane. There was a quick flash of something in his eyes before his expression was back to normal.

Gakushuu had to control his own expression at that. He had no idea what that look was for. He was well versed in psychology and Akabane had actually managed to hide his expressions from him. It was a bit off putting to be honest.

Akabane cocked his head looking over Gakushuu from top to bottom.

"So what? You came to stop the fight or something?" Akabane smirked, his expression making it clear he doubted his capability.

"I mean," Gakushuu smiled, a threat in it, taking a step closer to Akabane, "I'm not the Principal, but-" he took another threatening step, "I can deal with something like this myself."

He didn't give any indication whether he was talking about the two people near their feet or Akabane himself.

This time, there was a clear flash of anger at the provocation.

"Tch," he swung his bag back, "I don't want to get in trouble with the Principal's son right now." He looked back at Gakushuu, hostility and dominance laid bare on his expression, telling him as obviously as his words, 'back off'.

Gakushuu smiled wider.

"Scared?" He replied instead. Akabane immediately paused in his retreat. His shoulders bunched up in restraint.

"How about it?" His smirk deliberate in his voice, "After school tomorrow, I get the second gym for my club. I'll show you I can put you in your place."

He could easily read the anger in Akabane's back. He wasn't even restraining himself anymore. He was so blinded by his own anger that he couldn't even sense the things around him at the moment.

So easy.

Gakushuu turned around and left.

Akabane clearly had anger management issues, but, Gakushuu remembered the lazy way he behaved in class, he also avoided a fight unless he was confronted.

He was like some territorial cat. Left alone, he was happy enough to do his own thing, but he would bring out his claws the moment he found something unpleasant.

Akabane had been dancing around Gakushuu for a while now. In class, in academics.

They would have been having their interclass sports event soon and something in him wasn't even surprised that Akabane ditched their class right before.

He probably hadn't been planning to attend at all. He would have been dropped a class anyway, Gakushuu reasoned. His father would never allow someone who didn't live up to his ideals to stay.

He bit his lip, before realizing the impulse and stopping.

How annoying.

He didn't see hide or hair of Akabane Karma the next day.

He was completely missing. There wasn't even an announcement from the teacher about Akabane dropping a class.

Gakushuu still couldn't figure out when his father had gone to see Akabane, but he had confronted Araki about his source and he had confessed that it was the Principal's secretary who had spilled it to him.

Gakushuu was mildly impressed. She hadn't been moved by Gakushuu's occasional attempts at bribery and manipulations. Araki either found something on her, or she liked him enough to give him a few hints.

He guessed it was probably that she liked him. Araki had this innocent air about him, that served him well, unless he was actively talking shit, that is.

But after class that day, a quick meeting in the math club aside, he was on his way to take over the second gym for the day. And he was surprised to find Akabane leaning against the wall, his hands stuck in his pocket, looking utterly bored with the world at large.

Akabane could even go into modelling with that kind of side profile, he thought, his thoughts stuttering for a moment.

"I thought you weren't coming," he noted casually as he unlocked the gym doors. He had to take the key from the staff room too.

Akabane got up, a mischievous grin on his face.

"How could I miss and leave the class rep at his lonesome?" Asano wouldn't miss the sarcasm in Karma's words in a mile. He started getting out mats and getting a couple of pamphlets he had made in the second week.

He handed them to Akabane with a smirk before going back to setting the place up. Karma took them curiously before going through it for a second then dropping it to the side.

"What's that, teach? Class manual?" Akabane mocked, antagonistically. Gakushuu bared his teeth with a smile.

"No, just some things you should take to heart." Gakushuu actually had a list of general tips written on it which basically amounted to "Keep your cool".

Obviously, Akabane seemed to have gotten the message because he looked a shred more annoyed as he dropped his bag and followed Gakushuu on top of the mat.

Gakushuu watched as Akabane confidently strode up to him, that wild look back in his eyes.

"So how about it, class rep?" A hint of cruelty leaked out, and Gakushuu-

Well, he wasn't sure. But he doubted what he was feeling was anything bad. His blood was thrumming in his veins after all.

He took a hold of his tie before pulling it off. He could tell that he'd be choking on it if he kept that on. Akabane had easily taken down two older, more muscular students. He didn't doubt his technique or strength.

Akabane watched him without a change in expression as Gakushuu shifted from the Principal's son, number 1 in class A, to club president.

Gakushuu ran a hand through his hair and grinned at Akabane.

"Let's fight then," he said.

Akabane turned out to be prodigiously talented.

He was good, but Gakushuu could beat him easily.

The first time, Gakushuu brought Akabane down with a single move.

He could tell how shocked he was just by the look on his face. Gakushuu almost couldn't suppress the smile (or the slight disappointment).

The second match was a little better but Gajushuu still brought him down, this time struggling a little. Akabane was strong. He looked strong, of course, but Gakushuu felt a little like he was going up against a tank or something.

He felt surprisingly solid . His footing must be excellent, he absently noted even as he blocked and strangled a punch into an arm lock.

Of course, it wasn't anywhere close to his level. But he could tell what kind of people Akabane must have been fighting against, the fighting style he must have been using in the streets.

A few more fights, and he could see Akabane acknowledge the distance in their ability and close off. He could get much better, he bet, but it would take time.

Even as Gakushuu laid up on the mat after a bout, Akabane got up, grabbing his things and stormed out.

He couldn't help the breathless laugh he gave out a few moments later. Akabane was one petty bitch.

But at the same time, he thought privately, he didn't particularly hate it.

Chapter Text

The school was pumping itself up for the interclass sports events. It was divided by gender, and class A was hyped.

Amami and Hinata, two best friends who had started off the lunchtime special Gakushuu study session right before midterms, had enthusiastically pointed out that Gakushuu was their Ace and he was excellent at sports.

Gakushuu had pointed out that the sports events were team events, which did the job of bursting their bubble.

But now he had to deal with whipping his class into shape. The girls were dealing with basketball and the boys with baseball, which was ugh.

Even Ren agreed and he happened to watch sports (well, watch Gakushuu play sports) more often than Gakushuu did.

Not to mention there was an exhibition match that was between the best class in year 1 and year 2, and another exhibition match that took place between the baseball team and class E, who…basically weren't allowed to be part of any clubs and therefore had no practice.

Sometimes, Gakushuu wondered who his father thought he was fooling, then he would look around and see the students of class 3-A cheering and he would wonder if he was the only person in the world with a brain.

Gakuhou induced a very specific level of blindness in people, and Gakushuu, being the level headed, far sighted person that he was, really wanted to hand his father off to a therapist or maybe an asylum and hope he didn't burn it down.

Akabane, as he had guessed it, had almost completely disappeared from his sight and hadn't taken any part in the events. He hadn't expected otherwise but, well, it would have been nice to have someone relatively competent around.

Not that he didn't have people of his own. Ren was level-headed enough to blink in surprise but still note down all the holes Gakushuu poked through his father's education system- they'd brainstorm about if it was possible to take advantage of it later.

Araki would occasionally show his Kunugigaoka win statistics graph on a national level or which teamplays would be better suited to their respective classes.

Gakushuu was glad to see Araki had cottoned on to Gakushuu's methods after a while. His family name was good enough, but that wouldn't mean much if Teppei himself didn't have the correct mindset to use it properly.

Gakushuu liked the Amami and Hinata combination though. They were childhood friends and more often than not, in sync. Of course, being the resident basketball expert, he took over coaching the girls through basketball.

On the other hand, baseball was something quite individual. He left it to Ren to decide how to take over after him.

Ren wouldn't be a decent second or even secretary if he couldn't control a class Gakushuu already had majority control over after all.

Not to mention, Gakushuu didn't actually really care how the result ended up as. The point of the interclass was for the exhibition match that put class 3-E down after all.

Of course, he had to put on a good show, but aside from a reprimand and maybe a small punishment, Gakushuu wouldn't actually have any major problem, even if they didn't win the whole thing.

Gakushuu assigned the positions of his classmates based on build. A small problem cropped up, but after a few practice sessions, everyone was too tired to care.

It was pretty decent class bonding- that he'd give.

Gakushuu became close with the girls in his class, and Anaya- she either had a crush on him or found him useful, no one could tell through her poker face- started to regularly bring him coffee in the morning for some reason.

Then Ren apparently got handsy with her and got a slap imprint on his face that swelled up for two whole days.

(He didn't see them flirting, it was simply a misunderstanding. That's it. Yup. Definitely.)

There was Keiji Shimizu, who liked to be called by her last name on some days and first name on others. He pretended he didn't hear the pronoun change that the girls started to adapt when Shimizu went by her last name.

The most problematic of the boys was actually Tadashi Morisuke. He watched Gakushuu play like a hawk, and tried to demand his position without the confidence to actually pull it off.

It became a problem because he was actually one of the decent players. He had a level of fitness others didn't and he constantly flaunted it. If Gakushuu hadn't seen him wear glasses and study in the library, he would have thought he had bullied his way into class A.

Gakushuu had designated himself second baseman due to the high level of technical skill it required and Morisuke had persistently held the belief that he could hold onto the spot for only a day before collapsing under Gakushuu's attacks.

They switched and Morisuke took great pleasure in making Gakushuu run around in return. But they managed to prove that Gakushuu was, in fact, the better choice.

Araki took over the base running decision making when Gakushuu wasn't there (to Gakushuu's pleasant surprise) while Ren tried his best to hold on as a regular player.

Gakushuu constantly shot him amused 'see what happens when you don't listen to me' looks and Ren returned them with 'I'm not planning to be world renowned player, genius' .

He was as hilarious as always. 

On the day of the inter class, one of his classmates fell sick and had to be switched out for an alternate- thank God Gakushuu had insisted on the whole class training instead of just the participating members. 

The girls' event started first and most of the class crowded into the gym to watch them, along with most of the classes in their year and a few seniors.

The days were divided by per year. Morning had A vs B; then afternoon had C vs D then repeat for the next three days.

There was a gap of a day before the exhibition matches to allow everyone to rest.

Only the most enthusiastic class ended up in the exhibition match, and Gakushuu couldn't help giving tips to the girls as they played. He and the other boys only got to watch the first quarter, unfortunately, but he made sure to have someone record it for them.

It could capture a few good moments for his classmates, and they had worked quite hard in spite of all their constant whining.

The baseball wasn't actually too rough. B class was fired up but they made rookie mistakes just like class A, but they didn't have a Gakushuu as a stop gap.

Class C and D were more intense, because they actually had baseball players in their class, unlike class A, which was completely bereft.

Then- thank you nepotism- class A got selected for the exhibition match. Which led to the boys groaning in despair. The justification for choosing class A was another speech about the strong, and how thoroughly they managed to crush class B when compared to the hard fight between C and D.

Even Morisuke had started gaping at the bullshit his father was spewing. He was just glad most other people in class could hold a better poker face.

He heard so many nepotism jokes from Ren that he almost strangled him for staring too hard in class. Yes, there obviously seemed to be some amount of nepotism, but he liked to think his class played well too.

(Not).

They came by the next two days and watched their seniors, then Gakushuu trained his classmates into the ground while the girls tried to cheer for them.

The girls had played pretty well, but class C was filled with athletic girls so without nepotism involved, the exhibition match had gone to them.

Gakushuu had been seriously impressed by this one girl, Kiyoko from 1-C. She was head and shoulders above the rest of the girls in her class. He made plans.

Their seniors had been slightly more adjusted to the game, but 2-A had been almost completely hopeless. They had a called game even though 2-B had maybe 3 decent players.

His classmates had gotten fired up at the hopeless loss in front of their eyes, determined not to let it happen to them. He wondered if he needed to start nagging them to study now, he didn't want them to be that enthusiastic about sports.

It was a nice week long inter class competition. The exhibition match had them crushed under 2-C, though it still hadn't been a called game, to the surprise of both sides.

Gakushuu had taken time and booked a whole restaurant for his class' celebration. They had followed his, Ren's and even Araki's lead, worked hard when Gakushuu had pushed them and didn't call out Gakushuu's smooth takeover of the class leadership.

(He might have spotted red at times from the corner of his eyes while playing, but he had been too busy with his class to pay attention. Akabane had played though, not too well, but he had.)

(Class E had been excluded so naturally from all the events, it had almost slipped by, but Gakushuu was a determined child who didn't let things slip by without a word).

(Gakushuu had talked to a few seniors and had smoothly slipped in that he had created a club which welcomed all students. Someone from class E seemed to have heard.)

Not long after the baseball game, Gakushuu had his first 3-E guest.

Honestly, he had made plans for the bullying system that seemed to go on for E class and try to still keep it within the range of his father's 'ideal'.

There was no way to have an outright fight against the main campus, especially when one of their own could choose to leave the moment they got in the top 50 (a hard task, but not impossible).

The whole rank and class system created a system in which things like 'class unity' was hard to maintain. In the first place, they were a class that received special treatment because of their rank.

Rank was the hardest thing to maintain, especially the top spots. Especially for every exam.

But if you flipped it, it meant Gakushuu could gain control over a minimum of two classes. If some students did leave, Gakushuu wanted them to have a strong connection to his class. And anyone new who came, would want to stay, not just because of the privileges but because of their class unity.

But, the point was class E.

His first 3-E guests were a squinty eyed guy and a shy girl. They seemed to have gathered up their confidence to come. But it also meant, they held some amount of hope of either returning to the main campus or they were just really, really kind.

Well, that wasn't his job. He edited his speech mentally as he approached them like he did anyone new and explained the basic purpose of the club, emphasizing that all students were welcome and they didn't need to register their names either.

They gave their names to him shyly and he politely explained to them how to manipulate the hell out of the system.

As long as it wasn't defiance, most things would slip under his father's notice. Or at least, it should. Even then, Gakushuu hoped he didn't find out until it was too late.

There would be hell to pay, but he hoped he would have to pay for it when there were people already willing to pull him out of said hell.

The two students left feeling slightly lighter and Gakushuu smiled as he met the suspicious looks of the male counterpart.

He hoped he could continue to do things like this without his father's knowledge. It would be a happy ending then.

Chapter Text

As the heat of the inter class event died away, a name list was given to the students of class A.

A name was chosen for them out of the students of class C that they would be tutoring. Extra credit would be given to students who managed to get their tutee to go up ranks. Prizes would be given if someone managed to get their tutee to go up by a class.

Gakushuu's class groaned almost in unison at that. Gakushuu had to hide his smile as they started looking at Gakushuu's tutee's name enviously.

Quite a few of them had made it into class A with Gakushuu's tips after all. He wasn't surprised, but he liked to hear the way they immediately started plotting a way to steal him away.

It made him feel included.

Ren elbowed him inelegantly and Gakushuu shoved him away. He came back with a smile this time. Gakushuu scoffed but let him be.

"That was good teamwork," Ren grinned. Gakushuu glanced at the class before allowing a rare fist bump.

Gakushuu had thought his actions had gone under the radar. But he was obviously wrong with the look Gakuhou was giving him.

"I've heard you incited class E to rebel," Gakushuu hid his wince smoothly. He had no idea what Gakuhou was talking about but he was still pretty sure it was his fault.

Maybe it was too early in the year to include them. Gakushuu's reputation hadn't stabilized yet either so class E running off like that should have been expected.

"My apologies, Principal," he said, then he narrowed his eyes. Was he talking as the Principal to a student or a father to his son?

There was a pause, and Gakuhou looked over Gakushuu, giving him a moment to tense up on his own.

"You've been breaking the hierarchy." Gakuhou noted, almost absentmindedly. But Gakushuu felt a deeper threatening chill than ever before. He froze.

Then, he cleared his throat after the silence got a bit long.

"Was there a question there, Principal?" He asked. Gakuhou's eyes flashed, then he acqueased silently even as he bored a hole into Gakushuu.

" Why have you been breaking the hierarchy when I told you to maintain it?" Gakushuu smiled at his father.

"You told me to maintain an ideal image and the top spot," he reminded his father.

"-to maintain the hierarchy." His father finished, a glare starting to form on his face. Gakushuu swallowed.

"I was told no such thing," he denied, then, "Didn't you allow the club knowing it was going to be open to all students?"

He was silently implying Gakuhou's awareness of the breaking of the 'don't break the hierarchy' rule.

Gakuhou watched Gakushuu silently. His elbows rested on his table and his fingers interlaced. He looked at Gakushuu for a long moment, before leaning back.

There was nothing relaxing about the posture. In fact, it felt even more like he was dragging something distinctly sharp against Gakushuu's neck.

"Very well. I'll allow it this time. And only this time." He emphasized.

"But you will maintain the hierarchy from now on." Gakushuu's lips flattened at the order.

"And in return?" He asked, pushing. He couldn't back down. Not yet. Not with just words left behind.

"I'll overlook your influence on class A," Gakushuu's eyes widened in pure shock. Overlook Gakushuu's influence in class A?

He hadn't expected his father to be blind to it, but that hinted at a deeper awareness. He felt the zing of alarm yet again.

"And class B," he added, wondering if he could perhaps take more. Gakuhou's eyes flashed with genuine irritation that promised punishment, and Gakushuu hastily backtracked.

"Just class A is fine, actually," he acqueased to him immediately.

Fear had, unfortunately, kept him at quite a stranglehold. Just as his father liked, he was sure.

But he had received actual permission-

"Oh, and," Gakuhou added before he got carried away, "the influence of your club on the students," Gakushuu froze again.

"We'll come back to that another time. You're dismissed for now, Asano." Gakuhou gave him a cold cold smile and Gakushuu gave him a stiff nod before turning around and leaving the office.

He shut the door calmly, then paused for a moment before gritting his teeth.

This bitch . 

He couldn't help fume. Gakuhou had given it to him knowing that he would use it.

How dare he?

Gakushuu walked for a few more minutes before coming to a familiar empty hallway, taking a few deep breaths to calm down.

Gakuhou always made Gakushuu feel like a pent up teenager. Like, all the effort throughout the years had been for nothing. Like his past life and experiences meant nothing.

He leaned against the wall and pressed the heels of his palm into his eyes.

"Don't get angry, don't get angry about something like this," he whispered under his breath. Well, it wasn't just anger though.

His father was aware of his delight at being allowed his influence over class A. He understood and then at that moment decided to utterly ruin that joy for his own enjoyment or his own version of a punishment.

Father? What a cruel joke.

The silence was good though. He was used to silence. Silence would calm him down.

"Fuck," he cursed, then huffed out a laugh. He was a pretty messed up son too, though.

He let his head fall back with a sigh, his head knocking against the wall with a dull 'thump'.

Then there was a loud slurp.

He froze.

A familiar redhead poked his head out from the staircase that went up . To the rooftop. Where people weren't allowed.

(Mostly because the access was quite close to the Principal's office and after a while it just fell into disuse and was closed off, it wasn't actually against the rules though.)

"Akabane," he acknowledged, mentally floundering for a moment before casually straightening up.

"Just to be noted," Akabane slurped obnoxiously, "I was here first."

Gakushuu scowled.

"I'm well aware of that, thank you. I was about to apologize for interrupting your quiet time, but it seems that it would be better to just leave instead," he noted his previous actions and words, and silently cursed as he put on a neutral expression.

He didn't like interruptions to his post-Principal de-stress, so he kept some time in between but-

He had clubs to go to after this. His eyes flickered away, he wouldn't have time to fix his mentality up if he headed straight for the club, but he seemed to be out of options.

He'd just have to make do like every time. It's not like most people weren't already aware of his brilliance, he could probably take his frustration out somehow. They probably wouldn't ask if he was a tad more ruthless.

He looked back at Akabane who had been watching him while he went through his own minor dilemma.

"No, no. Feel free to have a mental breakdown. It's practically tradition for all the students who come out from the Principal's office to have one here. I won't interrupt." Akabane insisted, the grin on his face gave away his true intentions though.

Gakushuu eyed Akabane before decided 'what the fuck' and sliding down the wall to sit on the floor. He didn't see Karma startle nor watched his eyes glitter with genuine interest.

"Since it's tradition anyway," he smiled a little wryly, "I might as well follow it right?"

After a few moments, Akabane sat back down and they were hidden from each other's sight again. Then he slurped loudly at the empty bottom of his strawberry milkshake. Gakushuu laughed.

"Are you having a mental breakdown yet?" Gakushuu didn't even pretend to hide his laugh without a watchful eye on him.

"No," he replied, amused. "Do you want me to get you a new strawberry milk from a nearby vending machine?" He asked back.

"Nah, I'm done anyway," Akabane replied back. Gakushuu heard him squeeze the empty carton.

Then after another moment of silence, Gakushuu broke the silence.

"Why don't you take part in a club?" He asked curiously.

"What's the point of taking part in one?" Akabane shot back. "It's just a pointless waste of time."

Gakushuu frowned.

"Not all of them," he defended. Akabane laughed, a mocking edge in it.

"Like what? Your soccer club that you don't even like?" And Gakushuu's breath about stopped.

"How did you know I don't like it?" He couldn't help asking back. It was meant to be a denial, but it ended up conveying his simple curiosity instead. He hadn't spent a lot of effort to hide it, but no one had actually spotted it, from what he could tell.

Mostly because he actually enjoyed physical activity, even if not the sports itself. They couldn't distinguish the difference.

There was a hum from Akabane, before he answered.

"You enjoyed fighting me," he noted, and Gakushuu felt another jolt of shock. "But you didn't enjoy soccer. The difference was too big."

Gakushuu could find a way to mislead Akabane, but-

Well, why?

He was genuinely interested in him anyway. If Akabane saw through him, he didn't particularly mind.

Akabane surprised him, but it felt like a far more pleasant feeling than the surprise his father's revelations gave him.

"That's a little surprising," he confessed, a secretive smile on his lips. He leaned forward, his chin held in his hand, elbow on knee as he thought all the things he knew about Akabane.

How curious.

He had known child prodigies, but Akabane was unexpected. He suspected it when he fought but Akabane was an all-around prodigy.

His observation skills were top notch and if he genuinely didn't care much about his studies and still managed to score that well…

He was curious.

He was curious about Akabane's future too.

"You're pretty surprising too, Asano," Akabane said, his tone shifted to an oddly serious one that Gakushuu would say suited him quite well.

Gakushuu blinked in surprise again. He hadn't heard Akabane call his name yet. He was always calling him 'class rep'.

He blushed a little. Then he frowned at himself.

Was he getting flustered just because he was called by his name? And not even his first, but his last name.

What the hell.

They held the silence before Asano felt his phone vibrate. An alarm for his next club. He shut it off, before sighing. He got up and stretched.

Then he smirked to himself.

"Thanks for the safe mental health space, Akabane," he teased. There wasn't any response, but he heard a slight tap, which he took as acknowledgement and left.

As the temperatures increased, the pool became open to public use. Their P.E. started to include swimming lessons- that he didn't actually need- but he enjoyed the swim.

He could feel eyes drilling into him every time he came out of the water, so he could safely assume many others enjoyed his swim almost as much.

There was more class interaction in P.E. and class A and B intermingled.

Gakushuu was once again reminded of Akabane's drop to class C. He still had no idea of whatever fight he got into that had been severe enough for his father to skip class B and go to C directly.

Or maybe, it was because Gakushuu's sphere of influence was expanding to class B.

Didn't Akabane say something about his father telling him not to 'darken the light of class A'?

He hummed thoughtfully before deciding to leave it be. Whatever his father saw in Akabane, he found it unpalatable to his ideals. He was still holding Gakushuu's club influence over his head, so he couldn't take a risk just yet.

Gakushuu first needed to solidify his influence properly.

The school hierarchy would give way to him at minimum, after finals of the semester. He couldn't rush it at all.

Patience would give him the best results, he reminded himself.

Then he searched for someone familiar from class B, and to his surprise, he saw someone he was slightly interested in.

Kataoka Megu.

Her swimming skills were elegant and practiced. She was in class B, but she was a far more interesting person than most others.

She kept a slightly stoic face though, but her kindness was even more apparent in contrast. She had a weak heart to people who showed her some amount of consideration.

Gakushuu could almost see her future being used without being able to do anything about it. Of course, it would depend on exactly how gullible she was.

He wondered if the ruthlessness of Kunugigaoka Junior High would make or break her.

He approached her, a smile already in his face.

He would like to have her make it, instead of breaking herself.

"Hello," he interrupted the fawning a few others were making over Megu's skills, and they looked at him with an annoyance that turned to hearts at the sight of a wet Gakushuu.

He looked at Megu and she was looked back at him curiously.

"Asano Gakushuu," he introduced himself politely. The girl bowed her head.

"Kataoka Megu," she introduced herself.

"I saw you swimming," he commented, "You're really good. Are you on the team?"

Kataoka flushed slightly.

"Ah, I am." She nodded her confirmation. Then she looked at Gakushuu.

"You were really good too. Everyone was talking about it," Gakushuu wondered if she was poking at his mask. Quite a few people did that, actually.

"Thank you," he demurred, "I practiced."

Kataoka's lips lifted a slightly more genuine smile.

"Can't get anywhere without practice," she said knowingly, like she was repeating a line she had heard far too many times. Gakushuu thought back to his multitude of classes and clubs and almost deadpanned.

Yeah, no shit.

But of course, he couldn't say that to her, so he smiled instead.

"Of course, practice makes perfect," he recited another saying. Kataoka nodded in acknowledgement before facing the pool, readying to take another dive.

Slightly awkward, but he was more surprised at the way she pulled him into her own pace.

He nodded another way, understanding the motions of dismissal, and bid goodbye before leaving politely.

She had a good charisma. He remembers the amount of people who had surrounded her before he arrived and smirked.

That was curious.

Hinata broke down crying one day.

She didn't even run away from class to do it, and Gakushuu wasn't sure if that was a good or bad thing. But nonetheless, he was willing the help as long as she got to the core of her problem sometime soon.

Amami shushed her and wiped her face gently. Their lunch time was spent reassuring Hinata and they didn't get any words out of her until it ended and class resumed again.

Gakushuu made a mental note to keep an eye on them. Something that made Hinata cry like that couldn't be anything good.

Hinata was ever cheerful. Amami and her made a pair of introvert-extrovert best friends, with Hinata being the extrovert. To see her break down sobbing was definitely a concern.

She had almost single-handedly kept quite a few boys from outright giving up when Gakushuu put them through the ringer for the interclass. If he had to pick a 'class idol', it would probably be her.

He could already hear the boys of his class planning something stupid. When people were told they were smart too often, they just turned out stupid.

Then he stopped, and considered his thoughts again.

Wasn't there something wrong with his own thought process?

The boys were misguided, but, he wouldn't call them stupid . And they hadn't even plotted anything against anyone specific. Gakushuu would definitely try to make their life a hell if he got the name for 'who the hell made Hinata cry?'.

He considered his own thoughts.

Was he putting double standards? Underestimating people?

He glanced at the boys suspiciously whispering among themselves, before dismissing. No way. They actually seemed that stupid.

But, Gakushuu felt slightly disturbed at the automatic assumption his mind made. He thought back to his meeting with his father, and wondered.

Was he still following his father's plans? Did he still get manipulated into doing the things his father wanted instead of what he did?

In fact, Gakushuu remembered, he hadn't actually cross dressed and run away in a while, right?

He did that to get away from his father and reset his mental state. But recently, he hadn't. Even before he started his Junior High, he had left dressed as a boy instead.

He worried at his lip.

Was it him getting too used to being Gakushuu or him thinking if himself above them in some way?

Because, hadn't he already had thoughts like this pretty often? He had been silently putting people down all along for a while now.

Maybe not Ren, but Araki, Morisuke, and even Akabane, which was odd. He had wanted to put Akabane down even fiercely, than Morisuke.

He remembered the 'show you your place' that he had told Akabane and shivered.

A thought that had been forming in his mind coagulated into a solid thought.

His father had been lying.

He hadn't given up control over class A. He had just decided to use Gakushuu to control it.

But because he had been slightly heavy handed this time, Gakushuu had been able to detect the slight mental changes that had already been ongoing for a while.

Gakushuu should have felt a sense of accomplishment at the thought. He had probably just realized a major manipulation tactic his father used on him. But, he couldn't help the strand of genuine fear and distrust that took root in him.

His father had been doing this for a while now. He had given up a part of his control to Gakushuu, but that might not be just because of him, but because-

Because he considered his views to have taken root deep enough inside Gakushuu.

Gakushuu had his first panic attack in class that day.

No one noticed it.

-

When class ended that day, he hadn't decided yet what to do about himself. But, he remembered his own list. He had noted a few priorities that were based on the sensations he had found from his past life.

He wasn't that person, but that person was probably the only part of Gakushuu that could hold a candle against his father.

He remembered the 'have fun' he had noted down casually before wondering if writing it had even been necessary. It felt like such an obvious thing to do for the version of Gakushuu who still had a living mother, and a father who hadn't gone off the hinge.

He decided to resolve his issues one day at a time, and made his way to a depressed looking Hinata. Then he bent down on his knees and waited.

Hinata had been avoiding eye contact with everyone, even Amami, and he could sense that whatever it was, Hinata felt overwhelmed by it. She felt like it was a noose around her neck, choking her.

Gakushuu felt like that sometimes too, and that's why he left home. He couldn't stand to continue his daily life. He could bear to go back home and see his father, sitting on the dining table, sipping coffee, like he hadn't been destroying Gakushuu.

And he waited.

He had patience, and he definitely had the ability to sit like that all day.

He could feel his classmates still as they watched him crouch in front of the upset girl. Araki slinked off towards Ren, confusion evident on his face.

Gakushuu was just a normal boy. He was a classmate and a friend. He was a hard headed, stubborn and probably had bent himself way too much for his father, but he still remembered who he was.

Hinata's shoulders stiffened and her hands tightened around her books that she was shoving into her bag. He could see that she wanted to leave. She wanted to leave and never look up and see the concern on their faces.

She was just running away from something she was afraid of.

"Hinata," he said. He saw her jolt in surprise. In fact, he heard a few of his classmates get startled. He hadn't actually called any of his classmates by their first name. Aside from Shimizu, and Ren, obviously.

But he hadn't even let Ren call him Gakushuu in class though.

A part of him revelled in the surprise.

His father had given him free reign over class A. Even if it was what he had wanted from his club, it didn't matter since his father had actually said those words.

He didn't mind giving up on the school for his class, he decided. It was an emotional choice, but it was his choice to make.

It was a choice he wanted to make.

"Hinata," he repeated again, his voice lifting with his smile. He felt happy about his own choice.

Hinata looked up hesitantly at him. She blinked, even as her shoulders tightened.

"Want to go to an amusement park?" He asked, his eyes softening at her response. "We can make it a class thing," he suggested.

'Everyone is worried,' his eyes said.

"We'll distract you from whatever you're thinking of," he offered. Hinata's nose turned slightly red as she hid behind her hair.

Amami watched Hinata with a worried expression.

No one else in class moved.

"Okay," Hinata whispered under her breath, her shoulders still drawn up tight. Kimiko, one of the few people who hadn't liked Hinata, stepped up beside her.

Her lips were pressed in a tight line. Then she put her fingers under Hinata's chin and tilted her head up to face her. A tear trekked down her cheeks and Kimiko ignored it, looking into Hinata's eyes.

"That's a 'yes', right?" She stated, her eyes looking dead in Hinata's eyes. Hinata swallowed before repeating.

"Yes," her voice was far steadier this time. Kimiko smirked, and Hinata's cheeks flushed, but she couldn't look away with her chin caught in Kimiko's grip.

Gakushuu smoothly stood up, his eyes catching Kimiko's for an instant before he looked at the rest of the class with a rather unlikely smirk on his lips.

"Get ready, people." He leaned his hips against Hinata's desk, his usual confidence back in his posture. "We're going to the amusement park right now."

Gakushuu himself ended up calling his French tutor to cancel class for the day, before calling and cancelling his practice with a fellow violinist who was playing as his accompaniment in an upcoming recital.

There were about a little more than a dozen people who were free and willing to go on an impromptu trip to the amusement park, and it was surprisingly a lot.

It was more than half his class. He saw quite a few people get into arguments on call, so it definitely wasn't because they were free. They just wanted to make Hinata happy.

Gakushuu felt like a wall inside his head was crumbling.

-

The amusement park wasn't as busy as he had been suspecting.

Probably because it was a weekday.

A few of his classmates seemed slightly unfamiliar with amusement parks- trying to walk into it without getting a ticket first- but he didn't blame them.

He wasn't very familiar with it either. He had just done a very quick internet search on the amusement park while they were all talking.

To his surprise, Kimiko took the lead, dragging Hinata and therefore most of his classmates around like she had been to the place a hundred times.

Amami suggested they take pictures but it was Anaya who ended up being their best selfie taker. She moved them around, shoved a few people together until she was satisfied and then took pictures.

(Gakushuu pretended like he didn't see Ren and Anaya argue about couples forming in their class.)

Morisuke had decided to accompany them too, but he had pretty much grabbed Miya, one of the few boys who talked to Morisuke, and left while they were debating where to go.

Hinata had been oddly relieved by the decision, and the group of 11 decided to split into groups.

Hinata stuck with Kimiko, Gakushuu, Ren and Anaya. The others split into two groups and separated.

Gakushuu was surprised to see Amami willingly choose not to join them, but they seemed to have talked it out telepathically, from what he could tell, so he didn't think too much on it.

Gakushuu decided he would rather play third wheel with Kimiko and Hinata rather than Ren and Anaya and stayed beside Hinata most of the time.

There were a few times where they needed to sit in twos, and Gakushuu tried his best to shove Kimiko and Hinata together. Kimiko seemed to have a way of making Hinata feel more self confident, while Gakushuu was doing pretty good at the comforting aspect.

Gakushuu found himself laughing a lot. Ren incited them with stories of Gakushuu's terrible shooting skills, and then they just had to witness Gakushuu attempt to win them what they wanted from a nearby stall.

Gakushuu almost thought he wouldn't get it, he hadn't exactly had a shooting instructor and Ren had found out about Gakushuu's lacking skills when they went to a nearby annual festival and they tried to win a mask.

Gakushuu had been flustered, and Ren had almost laughed himself sick at the discovery.

This time too, Hinata let out her first laugh watching Gakushuu get flustered as he was handed the gun and he missed all three of the shots he was supposed to take.

It wasn't like he didn't know how to handle a gun . He just…couldn't shoot it, for some reason. It didn't feel like a part of his body and it was just awkward.

He had no problem with a knife, or even a sword. He could disable armed attackers, even if they carried a gun. But somehow, if he was asked to shoot, his hands trembled and he got a sense of dread and he couldn't shoot.

Even if he tried his best to push through and shoot, it ended up with a similar result each time. He couldn't even practice.

It was sheer luck that he got even one prize and he was nearly sweating by the end of it. He tossed the toy to Anaya, whose whole face had become expressive and red with laughter, but she managed to catch it somehow.

"Fine, just win us all the stuff we want already," he commanded Ren, pointing at the stall, where even the owner had started to pity him. He had spent several times the amount of the small stuffed toy he won, after all.

Ren took the shotgun with a confident grin. Then he proceeded to shoot all the targets on point.

Ren, on the other hand, was surprisingly and annoyingly good at shooting. His father occasionally took him for shooting with some of his business partners, apparently.

All the practice had done his confidence good. He never missed the chance to tease Gakushuu about his lacking skills and Gakushuu enjoyed putting Ren in the spotlight for his own skills.

For some reason, Ren had no problem taking over for Gakushuu, but when it was for something he did, he used to get hesitant or act like it wasn't a big deal. Gakushuu had, of course, done his best to do otherwise, and the result showed.

Ren bowed dramatically, and offered a toy to all three of the girls. Anaya giggled before returning the one she had back to him. Gakushuu passed it to Ren who took it very naturally.

Gakushuu hadn't had a toy in his house for ages now. His way of going over the rule was to just give everything off to Ren, who had a section of his room kept aside for Gakushuu's things.

With the only one with nothing in his hands, Gakushuu became the designated delivery boy when they decided to get food. He went back and forth, laughing when Ren went and got flowers for all of them and Kimiko started sneezing.

Ren watched sadly as Gakushuu dumped the flowers in the trash, before lighting up when he brought back fake flowers instead. He bought a few random items before twisting a few wires here and there and then presented them with a clip with a flower on it.

It was slightly rough, but it was pretty good. At least the petals wouldn't fall off like it would have if anyone was slightly rough with the fake flowers itself.

Hinata 'ooh'ed at it before clipping it on and then deciding they all needed to take pictures. Ren and Gakushuu- through majority vote- had to wear one too and Anaya took a fabulous picture of all five with their flowers exposed.

Right before dark, Ren and Anaya shoved Hinata and him inside a ferris wheel, giving him a cheeky wave as he looked back at them confused. He looked at Kimiko, who was avoiding looking at them as she scuffed her foot against the floor.

Then he decided to sit back and relax since he was there anyway.

Hinata fiddled with her sleeves then fixed her skirt. Gakushuu sighed before shuffling to sit beside her.

"You know everyone cares about you, right?" He said. Their shoulders brushed and he leaned back, his eyes looking outside instead of the girl beside him.

"Whatever it is, you can talk to me. I'll do my best to help you out," he said bluntly. They had spent the day calming her down and he hoped it wouldn't have an adverse effect bringing it up again.

Since Ren and Anaya had put them together instead of Kimiko and her, he assumed it was time to bring it up again. But, he still wondered if Hinata was about to confess to him, or something.

They hadn't had that much interactions yet, right?

He got slightly nervous.

"The-the thing is," Hinata started, looking at Gakushuu sheepishly, "my cousin is planning to transfer into Kunugigaoka."

Gakushuu blinked in surprise. Well… okay. At least it wasn't a confession, like he was dreading?

Hinata fiddled with her hair.

"I know it doesn't sound very important, but-" she closed her eyes, taking a deep breath before she could continue calmly, "he's terrible. He's a menace. He gets in trouble all the time, and he pushes and pushes until you just want to shove a knife into-"

Gakushuu grabbed her by her shoulders. Hinata stopped her murderous rampaging thoughts before hunching over.

It wasn't just anger or frustration there, Gakushuu noted. There was humiliation too.

"What did he do?" He asked. He was sure his tone was pretty understanding, but Hinata still froze at the question.

"He just-" she shuddered, "he just harasses me. It's not, physical harassment. He just-"

"-keeps pushing," he completed for her, understanding. Hinata nodded.

"I know it seems like nothing when I say it. It probably doesn't even look that much when he does it either. But he's always there! And no one says anything because he's so academically brilliant that no one wants to find fault at all!" Hinata gestured, looking like she was going to start crying from frustration.

Gakushuu sighed. Hinata flinched before looking away. Gakushuu put his hand on top of her head, gently patting it.

"It's all right. Thank you for telling me." He soothed. "You did well. And, it's probably not just you he does things like this to. We'll deal with him when he comes. Everyone is standing with you, Hinata."

Then he promised.

"We won't let him touch you. Not as long as we're there." Then he pulled away, to look Hinata in her eyes.

"So don't think about leaving class A, okay?"

Hinata's lips quivered, before she threw herself at him, a sob breaking out from her lips.

And of course, that's the moment the ferris wheel stopped and Ren, Anaya and Kimiko looked at the two of them in surprise.

Later, Gakushuu pulled Ren away and hissed at him under his breath.

"That thing with Hinata wasn't meant to be a confession thing right?" Ren froze, a hint of awkwardness in his face.

"Right?" He insisted. He almost face palmed at the obvious expression on Ren's face.

"Hinata clearly likes Kimiko, why did you put her with me?" He groaned.

"What?" Ren hissed back at him. "She likes Kimiko?! But they hate each other!" Gakushuu frowned.

"I think something about rivalry makes passion bloom or something?" He repeated the line from memory, before cocking his head. He didn't remember where he heard it though.

"Whatever, but they clearly had a moment in class. In front of everyone! Hinata blushed!" He poked at Ren, frowning harder as Ren just looked at him surprised.

"I think it's because you were basically kneeling in front of her." Ren explained to him. "Everyone's kind of stopped functioning around then."

Gakushuu groaned again.

"Don't tell me I have to deal with attempts to pair us up from the whole class now." Ren laughed nervously before pulling out his phone casually.

"Of course not."

Then, Anaya waved at them, telling them to hurry up so they could meet up with the rest of the group.

After a while, Gakushuu spotted a group called "GakuHina" where Ren was furiously typing, 'Mission Abort, Mission Abort'.

He wondered what plan exactly they were aborting.

When the group went to have dinner at a restaurant and almost got sent to separate tables due to 'an error in booking', he got their plan.

When Ren grabbed their host midway and pulled him away for a whispered conversation that ended with the host coming back with a 'Nevermind, the error was resolved' that no one would take at face value, Gakushuu wondered why he had chosen to befriend Ren.

The tactic might have been decent, but the resolution was just sad.

He gave Ren a mental thumbs down.

But the group still managed to eat a meal together, and everyone went home happy, so he considered it a job well done.

When he finally returned home at night, he resolved himself.

One day at a time.

He would take it one day, one person, and one moment at a time.

He wanted to live his life his way, so instead of planning so much of his future out, he should experience each moment properly.

(Of course, he still had most of his future hashed out anyway, it wasn't like he could stop his brain from working. He planned to live fully, not die without even knowing how it happened.)

Chapter Text

The fever for final exams started about a month before the exams.

Gakushuu's tutee, Mori Tsunada, was eternally grateful about being taught by the rank 1 in Kunugigaoka.

According to Miya, one of his classmates who got assigned to Akabane Karma , he had never even appeared for any session or replied back to any of Miya's messages.

Miya had been quite nervous about it, but Gakushuu had just sighed and made sure that Akabane's name was signed in for all the study sessions he was supposed to have with Miya.

Mori Tsunada, or Tsuna, as he preferred to be called, was a tad more troublesome. He constantly fawned over Gakushuu, and got distracted when Gakushuu was attempting to show him something.

Gakushuu wasn't sure if Tsuna found him attractive, or simply admirable, but it was exhausting dealing with the boy. He had even complained to Araki once, and Araki had decided to sit in with them the next session.

That one had actually gone much better, even though Araki hadn't actually done anything aside from exist. He just sat down on the same table, greeted Gakushuu then he studied.

Tsuna had slowly stopped trying to have a conversation with Gakushuu and actually sat down and listened.

Gakushuu had been so used to being mostly ignored by the student population aside from when someone wanted to confess or they needed something from him, that he almost felt like blessing Araki for the grace of that 1 hour of almost silence.

After Tsuna left and Gakushuu and Araki finished studying on their own, Araki looked at him with a faint smile.

"You're the oblivious type, aren't you?"he asked Gakushuu.

His reply would have been a startled "huh?" but that would literally be a cliché, so instead he said, "No, I'm not. I'm well aware of Tsuna's interest in me."

Araki's lip twitched. Gakushuu suddenly wondered if he had missed something else . Then he nodded to himself.

"I guess your father did a good job," Araki mock nodded in understanding, ignored the scandalized look on Gakushuu's face as he continued packing away his books.

"My father," he said, "is not the reason why I have the observation or social skills I have."

Araki finished putting all his books inside before looking up in surprise before realizing Gakushuu was genuinely irritated at the remark.

"He's not?" He raised a brow doubtfully, looking slightly uneasy. Gakushuu understood, Araki wanted to get close to him and had chosen a route. But he had chosen the wrong route.

Gakushuu was allowed to acknowledge when the skills his father taught him was helpful, but it felt affronting to have someone else say it instead.

"My father has a few misconceptions about me. What he intended to teach me, is not what he actually taught me," Gakushuu's smile didn't shift at all as he said it.

"So, I don't really like my own efforts to be credited to my father," he looked at Araki, who blinked a few times and before dipping his head in a slight nod. Gakushuu breathed out slowly, trying to calm his temper.

"Yeah, okay." Araki said, his voice quivering slightly. Gakushuu didn't point it out.

"I think you should talk to Ren about it," Gakushuu recommended. "I don't like to talk about it, but I don't mind Ren sharing some of what he knows. At his own discretion," he added the last bit before picking up his bag and leaving Araki behind.

"Why are do I always find you in these kinds of places?" Gakushuu asked, exasperated.

In front of him sat Akabane Karma, playing a game on his phone. He didn't even bother looking up from his phone.

"You know, everyone just pretends not to see each other when they're having their own alone time, away from the rest of society. You're the odd one here, not me," Karma sipped his strawberry milk before dropping it and going back to playing.

Gakushuu scowled.

"I'm not planning to turn a blind eye to someone's distress," Karma smirked, his golden eyes flicking up to capture his, before dropping back to the screen. Gakushuu was irritated to notice that he hadn't even died once for it.

"Oh? Was this a terrible attempt at comforting someone in distress?" Karma didn't even sound amused, just bored as fuck. Gakushuu wanted to punch him in the face.

"You don't seem very distressed," Gakushuu scowled, and Karma batted his eyes at him, a mock upset expression on his face.

"I'm actually super distressed. I died to a tentacle monster," and Gakushuu did spot a red tentacle monster waving around in the background of Karma's phone screen.

"There, there." Gakushuu deadpanned. Karma made a face somewhere between a scowl and a smile.

"Wow, Asano. Your comforting skills have really fallen, huh?"

"Speak for yourself. Who was the one who just walked past a crying girl last week?"

" I never said I was good at comforting, you're the one who goes around trying to catch all the broken hearts," Karma pointed out logically, suddenly looking very comfortable with sitting and chatting with Gakushuu.

"I mean, at least I meet with people who try to confess. You don't even read the names of people sending you confession letters." Gakushuu scoffed.

"Cause I don't know them," he shrugged carelessly. "Why bother?"

"I have no idea why people even like you,".

"I don't either," Karma smiled mischievously at him. Gakushuu looked back suspiciously.

"You're a strange person," Gakushuu shook his head, not even sure if he meant it to be a joke or a genuine thought.

"Oh? Who was it that had a mental breakdown in school again?" He asked, tone a touch mocking. Gakushuu felt almost reassured by the mention. He didn't want to feel like it was some kind of a dirty little secret they would mutually keep quiet on, even if he probably should have.

"Remind me again, who was it that got thrown down two classes after getting caught fighting?" He shot back, his lips curling up.

Karma shrugged it off.

"I didn't get expelled for it, isn't that a bigger deal? Obviously the Principal likes my results," and suddenly, Gakushuu realized one of the reasons why he was trying to establish dominance over Akabane.

No way, right? Jealousy?

He pondered on the feeling, surprised at its existence. No matter how much he knew his father loved him, he wasn't sure he still held the capacity to love the man back. All he had for his father was pity, or so he thought.

He poked at the feeling. Or at least, the bare bones of what was left, and determined that it was easily disposable. He already knew that his only way to escape would have to be made by his own will and no one else's.

He felt a little better about himself after the realization.

But then he realized he let the silence drag on a little too long. And here he was, arguing that he didn't have too many issues.

He sighed.

"I'll have to go now," he met Karma's stare with a steady look, "Try to actually attend your afternoon classes."

With barely a wave, he abruptly left Akabane alone by himself, in one of the scarce hiding spots of Kunugigaoka.

"NOOoooo!!!" Ayaka whined as Gakushuu snatched away her paper. He absentmindedly patted her head as he arranged the multiple answer sheets.

Ayaka continued to give him wide eyed teary looks, and Gakushuu ignored it and went around collecting the papers everyone had given up to him willingly.

"Why did we ask him to set the paper again?" Kazuki, another of Gakushuu's classmates, mumbled with his face smushed against the table.

"I think I failed," Hinata mumbled back, face equally smushed against the table, her pencil digging into her cheek. Amami sighed before pulling the pencil out from under Hinata's face. She mumbled out what seemed to be a thanks to her friend.

"It wasn't actually that bad," Anaya said as she gave up her own answer sheet to Gakushuu. "Though I haven't personally taken a mock test so much harder than the actual one." She frowned.

"It's actually easier to do than the kind of ones Gakushuu does," Ren pointed out.

"I'm just surprised he has time to grade all the papers," Anaya sniffed. Everyone groaned in unison.

"He's definitely got time manipulation ability. It can't be humanly possible to fit these many things to do in a mere 24 hours," Hinata perked up as she spoke. Superpower fanatic that she was.

Gakushuu quirked his lips up, amused, then he sat down and started grading them immediately.

"What." Anaya spoke up first, and by then Gakushuu was done with his first paper. He put it on the table and the rest of the class scrambled to grab it first.

"It's Ayaka's." Ren read out the name. Anaya snatched it from his hand as Ayaka let out a loud wail that received glares from the nearby non-class A students. Half of them glared back, while the other half ignored it.

Gakushuu watched the by-play with an amused smirk. He loved the way his own possessiveness had spread to his classmates.

"That was so fast, man," Kazuki sneaked up on Anaya and peaked at the paper. "Woah, he even wrote the correct solutions!" He gasped out.

"What." Morisuke scowled harder. He had been sitting away from the most gathered up area of the class A students but he held a sense of competition against Gakushuu. Every time he learnt of something now that Gakushuu was capable of doing, he would get all huffed up.

He brushed aside his classmates and grabbed Ayaka's paper that Anaya willingly gave up, ignoring Ayaka's wail of 'Stop looking!!!'

Ren silently took the other graded papers and handed them out correctly.

"Oh, I completely forgot about this formulae," Miya groaned under his breath as he scanned over Ayaka's paper he had taken from Morisuke.

"Heh, tell me something I don't know," Kazuki snickered at his own words, showing off his bright red 60. Then he looked at the score.

"I don't even remember the last time I got a 60," he said under his breath. Hinata patted his shoulder sympathetically. She had a 79. Kazuki looked at her paper then dropped his, disappointed.

The students devolved into a low murmured discussion as they compared their own papers. Gakushuu twirled his pen, before deciding to rest his head on his chin to watch.

He enjoyed the dynamics in their class, the way everyone was unique but so held together that even hate hadn't lasted long. The competitive spirit was lit, but there was also this growing desire to stay together that Gakushuu was beginning to notice. He hummed softly under his breath, his eyes falling close as the sounds dulled.

Ren turned around to look at Gakushuu about a question before blinking in surprise at the sight of Gakushuu dozing off.

There was a click of a phone beside his ear and he turned to see Anaya taking pictures in different angles.

"Well, our class rep is human after all," she said, a small smile on her lips, softening the sardonic lilt in her words.

Morisuke frowned, then gave a "tch" before turning around and going back to his own seat.

"Guess we're keeping it down then," Kazuki grinned, slightly nudging Ayaka to stop her from gasping loudly in surprise at the sight.

Hinata giggled under her breath before taking out her phone to text Anaya. Anaya's phone, on silent as demanded by Gakushuu, vibrated gently in her hands and she sent the best picture to the Gakushuu Stan group also known as the girls group in their class.

Kimiko, a (silent) member of the group but not currently present, immediately replied.

'No fucking way,' she texted. 'Is he seriously napping with all you loudmouths around him?'

Hinata stifled her laugh. Kimiko sounded like a complete gangster when she texted.

'Yeah, he just dozed off. We're trying to keep it down though.' Hinata texted back.

'He looks so cute???' Ayaka texted then smiled when she checked the picture Anaya had sent. Kazuki looked over her shoulder at it, shooting Anaya a thumbs up.

'He's always been good looking though?' Shimizu texted confused, she was sitting on another table.

'Yeah, but he looks like a baby angel or something!!' Ayaka was unmatched in her shamelessness, and all the members of the group deadpanned at the message. Hinata looked up at Ayaka and felt like she was looking at a literal halo around her. She edited Gakushuu's picture with a halo and sent it.

Ayaka smashed her hand over her face, trying to stifle her laughter. Kazuki shot a panicked look at Gakushuu before almost physically lifting the other girl up, shoving her out.

Loud laughter burst out from the otherwise small girl before she could get dragged out, and everyone sighed as Gakushuu startled awake.

Then they decided, in unison without a single exchanged glance, to pretend that they hadn't just witnessed Gakushuu's very human side and let him pretend like he hadn't just dozed off in the middle of their study session.

Minutes later, Hinata had to run out laughing when she received a picture of Gakushuu with devil horns and a tail.

When the schedule for finals arrived, all of class A almost gave a cheer. The teacher, intensely confused by his class, decided to ignore Hinata and a few other boys tearing up and gestured, for the few people (including Ayaka, who was the loudest) cheering, to calm down.

Gakushuu gave the teacher his polite confused smile#3 (dubbed nee Ren) as he glanced at him in silent askance. The teacher sighed, giving up.

Ren coughed a few times, and the class' happiness slowly died down. They stared at the teacher, grim faced. The teacher shot another confused look at Gakushuu, only to receive polite smile#17 (continue-the-fuck-on-already) before decided to continue on with his lectures.

His class was going through dramatic changes but the Principal hadn't said anything and neither had his son, so he wasn't going to be involved at all.

(He found himself slightly more cheerful for the rest of the day, to the surprise of his colleagues, and when asked he couldn't answer, but he silently remembered the looks of sheer relief and happiness on faces that had only been looking disdainful, bored or awkward half a year ago.)

Chapter Text

The end of finals was signalled by the quietest of sighs by the students of class A.

Everyone was exhausted by the massive level difference in normal school exams and Kunugigaoka. Of course, the mid-semester exam had been difficult as well, but the mid term exam was on a different level. It made the students earn their ranks.

Gakushuu insisted on everyone taking a complete break from studies and everyone gladly took it on. Araki had noted that there would be a chance of rebellion if Gakushuu had insisted on studying. He laughed at the silent threat Araki delivered (his first).

The silence before the results almost made Ayaka blow up, but thanks to the timely arrival of their teacher and the glaring of half the class, the results were delivered on time.

Gakushuu scored the first rank with a total of 499 marks, which almost made him internally sigh. It was Japanese, he was sure of it. Ren would be scandalized.

Ren tied with Gakushuu in Japanese though, to Gakushuu's absolute surprise, though his other subjects brought his overall score down. Araki came in second rank and scored his best in Social Studies. Akabane Karma scored best in math, but his rank decreased to 4th, with Hinata getting 3rd rank.

He, along with the rest of the class, turned as one to stare at Hinata. She had her hands over her mouth as she stared at the results. She blinked a few times and started crying.

"I-I can't," she sobbed out, "I can't believe I got it." Amami stepped in arm range and Hinata launched herself at the other girl, laughing and crying at the same time.

Amami stumbled but caught herself with Miya's support who was looking at them happily. Even Morisuke's scowl eased up at the genuine joy in Hinata's laugh.

When she finally wiped her tears away, she bowed to the rest of the class.

"I promised myself that if I got in the top 5, I wouldn't transfer schools. My cousin will join from the next semester and I wanted to leave the school. But I couldn't!" She closed her eyes tightly as she confessed.

"I'm really sorry for worrying everyone! And," then she looked at Gakushuu and smiled brightly, "thank you for helping so much, Gakushuu."

Gakushuu blinked a few times before he flushed red. He nodded, pretending he didn't feel the heat of his skin, and tried to stifle either a smile or a scowl.

Ren smiled brightly at the class.

There was a class trip at the end of the midterm exam that they gave every year to the three classes who scored the best.

Kunugigaoka was actually a place where you couldn't get in without paying through your nose. Of course, it wasn't too big a problem for an average salary man, but it was more suited to the kids of the rich people who wanted their kids to succeed at both academics and life.

A class trip to a good place was slightly excessive, but not something that hurt them much. Unlike most excellent schools, Kunugigaoka didn't spend money on the best teachers, or even a lot on the facilities.

And the better things the main building had, the worse they would feel about being dropped to class E.

So, Gakushuu had been about the only one who had been thinking about the class trip for being the best class, while his classmates spent time studying for the exams.

There were three spots that were booked, and out of those one was given to each year. As the son of the Principal, he obviously snatched first right of choice.

There was a beach venue, a mountain terrain and a wildlife area.

The wildlife choice was the most varied and Gakushuu had been unsure about how his class would react to something like that, so he had chosen the mountain terrain.

Though, even he wasn't sure what exactly his father meant by 'mountain terrain', he was pretty sure it would be a luxury reward for the rich kids of class A, at the minimum.

He had to admit though.

Looking at the glistening glass mansions perched on the mountain side, as they rode up to it in a bus. It was absolutely gorgeous. And he had underestimated his father.

When they reached the nearest mansion, which had floor to ceiling glass doors and a clear view to the mountain range on which the sun would set.

He could honestly feel the luxury in the place. There was a man who welcomed them politely and after identifying Gakushuu, explained that they would get two of the mansions to themselves, and they would have a couple chefs who would make their meals at set times.

Then he was introduced to another man who would take them out for whatever adventure sports, hiking, or whatever they had available.

Ayaka pounced almost immediately at the idea of food and the class snacked as they discussed how to divide the rooms. It was decided to do it based on gender, but there seemed to be a number of girls who seemed oddly disappointed about it.

Gakushuu had to admit to being slightly disappointed as well. He would have liked to spend more time with the girls in his class. He could always tell them about him.

But.

Gakushuu ended up taking over one of best rooms in the boys mansion. He had plans , which involved waking up at dawn, a cup of coffee and a book.

He would get wonderful alone and peaceful time in a place like this.

Not to mention, it was cold. They were high up on a mountain, and mist occasionally gathered up, but it just made the place seem even more enchanting.

The path between the mansions were also lined well, and you'd have to actually jump over the rails to fall over. And even then, Gakushuu had spotted another surface right below the edge, they probably won't get anything more than a twisted ankle and in the worst case, a broken bone.

It was surprisingly safe.

When they met up again, Hinata was almost bursting with excitement at the chance to go paragliding while Amami seemed to be shaking her head fiercely at the thought.

Morisuke insisted that he wanted to check out hiking spots and even Gakushuu was actually tempted. It was a beautiful place and he hadn't been hiking with other people before. He was sure it would be fun.

But Hinata's insistence along with a few more who joined in after looking at the amount of things they could do, convinced the rest.

They decided to spent the first day on Hinata's idea, and the second day would be an optional hiking, for people who wanted to.

Gakushuu would have been content just staying in the mansion itself for a day though. It had everything they needed to entertain themselves. He was sure a few of the girls were planning to swim in the indoor pool he had seen both the mansions have.

And so the first day was an absolute rush . It was hard to deny Hinata but, Gakushuu wondered if putting the hiking first wouldn't have been better.

He felt like he was being converted to a complete adrenaline junkie. They jumped from the highest places they found, and felt like they were dying half a dozen times.

There was a moment where Kazuki almost cried but he got pushed into trying out paragliding since their next destination was closer to the landing spot.

Gakushuu was honestly surprised at the number of people absolutely thrilled (and screaming) through everything they tried out.

He would have said they almost forgot to eat, but with Ayaka around, it was literally never a worry. She had an almost infinite amount of snacks with her and she bought whatever peaked her curiosity.

He was surprised to find, Shimizu was their hoarder. She would buy specialties of each spot and maybe a few more items and sneak it into her bag like she was doing something shady.

No one questioned her but she received a few odd looks.

After they were exhausted out of their minds, damp from the slight rain and decided to go back, they found Kimiko and Miyuki, one of the most unlikely pairs ever, who had both decided to stay back and not take part in the whole ride of an adrenaline junkie that the day had turned out to be.

They were relaxing in the indoor pool. Miyuki had been eating fruits but when she spotted them coming back, she let out a soft 'eek' and blushed; while Kimiko, alerted by Miyuki's response, gave them a wave as she continued to read a book.

Kazuki, along with a few girls, approached the pool and the two girls. He stuck his hand in the water and gasped at the warmth he found there.

Then, he immediately jumped in, to the shrieks and horror of the girls. Gakushuu facepalmed and Ren tried to slide away from the mess but Araki stopped it by putting his hand on his arm. He sighed silently before sending Gakushuu a pitiful look. He really didn't want to get involved when he was already so tired.

Gakushuu smiled at him before waving Ren and Araki away. Kazuki's personality was well known to the class so the other boys had run away so they wouldn't be forced to deal with whatever mess he made.

Kazuki floated on the water with a blissful smile, and a few of the girls scrunched up their noses in disgust. Miyuki meekly got out and even Kimiko huffed out a breath before getting out.

Kazuki was making the pool dirty and they didn't like it.

"That's enough now," he sighed, dragging a drenched Kazuki out from the pool. Fortunately, there was a pile of towels nearby that Gakushuu opened and wrapped around the other boy who was shivering too hard to protest.

"This is way too-" he sneezed, when Kimiko opened a window. "Close the window!!" He yelled at her, trying to curl even more into the big towel.

"Just go and change in your room," Gakushuu cut in. Hinata shut the window and Kazuki sighed in relief. Then he started sending longing looks at the pool.

"We'll gather at this pool for dinner. For now, everyone just go clean up and change," he lightly shoved Kazuki towards the stairs and then he turned to look at the girls with a slightly apologetic look.

"You guys can just bring a change of clothes and dress in my room, it's clean, I promise." Kimiko ran her hands through her mostly dry hair.

"We were waiting for you guys in the first place, so no worries," then she smirked, "and we've already been using your room, there's no need to give us permission."

Gakushuu nodded, laughter in his eyes. It was one thing he had liked about Kimiko. No matter how proper she had seemed in first glance, she sometimes acted like a bona fide gangster. She spoke in their group chat crudely, and crossed over all the lines of propriety when it inconvenienced her. If she started to get into fights, he would have had to take a second look at her family history in relation to Akabane.

But she also knew how to put on a mask and do what society asked of her. It was just that, this time, Gakushuu asked them to show their true selves to each other.

Gakushuu looked at the other girls, some were dipping their legs in the pool that was rapidly becoming cleaner, some had already left for the girls' mansion, some were looking at him and Kimiko, some were leaning into each other, giggling.

It was the same for most of the girls in class. Girls were forced to adapt to their surroundings the most, their truest selves unaccepted by majority.

People only wanted them to show what they wanted to see. It was just, this time, Gakushuu had asked them all to show their true selves. He didn't interfere if they hated each other and argued, like with Hinata and Kimiko previously, or if they didn't like people in general, like Shimizu.

He only stepped in if someone was trying to force them to conform to society, like the only time one of their classmates, Akira, had commented on how the girls should stick to just learning to be a wife, when he saw them starting to learn basketball under Gakushuu.

It had infuriated him, and the retaliation had stopped the boys from making any more sexist comments. Akira had perhaps the most genuine 'hatred' for Gakushuu in class, but he couldn't retaliate because he was aware of his status as the Principal's son.

The girls had left behind the masks they had started to make for themselves, to be truly themselves. Maybe it wouldn't be for long, or maybe they hadn't completely opened themselves, like Miyuki, the shyest one in their class.

The boys had been easier in this aspect. He had the strength to hold their respect, and well, that was a pretty good start.

The boys gathered up first, while Gakushuu went through the controls for the indoor pool. It extended from one side of the room to the other, at the very back. There was a gentle trickle of falling water from a trio of balls that made the pool look shallow and for show.

But when the trickle of water was shut off, they could increase the water flowing to remove any dirt or stagnant water; which Gakushuu assumed they did before the students had arrived.

The water was warm, the same temperature as the room, actually. Gakushuu would be going through its mechanisms as soon as he could get his hands on the blueprint, someone with know-how, or some time to himself in the place (how convenient that everyone else left when night fell).

It wasn't enough for all the students, but he doubted everyone was that interested anyway. And he was right.

Everyone was tired, but after eating, they put their feet inside the water and talked. There were groups and people talking across the groups and at one point Gakushuu was talking to three people at the same time, but it was light-hearted. It was relaxing.

Even Miyuki talked to Kimiko, and Ayaka used her rarely used indoor voice, though downtimes the volume went slightly out of control.

They swapped life stories, and Gakushuu caught more than 20 developing psychological issues from their stories alone, but he didn't focus on them. The most he would do was nudge someone's friend in a direction.

But they were kids. They created their own issues and got over them with the same gutso. Not to mention, teenagers were dramatic.

He was dramatic.

He knew but, whatever. He was also pretty competent so it worked out.

He did end up talking about his father once, but the reaction was pretty lukewarm from everyone, even if some- more than he had been expecting- were forcing it.

But he didn't particularly care.

His father was the Principal of their school. They already had a few stiff interactions outside the office, and there were rumors, though he hadn't gotten the specifics, after getting the gist of it from Ren.

To his surprise, it was Miyuki who took up talking after he talked about his father.

She talked about how she used to get abused by her divorced father before he died, and then her mother got custody and she was doing better. She seemed embarrassed, but she spoke because she wanted to comfort Gakushuu.

Which was pretty cool, actually.

What was even cooler, was the way most of his class couldn't close their mouths.

Then Kimiko picked up after.

"It's not anything as bad as Miyuki's but, I my aunt almost ended my ballet career two years ago. She was a trainer and her daughter was learning too, but she was jealous of how talented I was," Kimiko smiled, a small cold thing that Gakushuu had seen on the rare occasions when someone pissed her off.

"I didn't know then, but if I hadn't gone to the doctor when my mom insisted, I probably would have had to drop dancing all together."

There was a slight coldness after she ended, but he could feel something was beginning to give.

"It's nothing as bad," Morisuke started, so everyone's visible surprise. He took in the looks and scowled.

"Shut up, I'm human too!"

He looked away, but when Miya put his hand on Morisuke's shoulder, he took a breath, his eyes flickering to Gakushuu before he settled on looking at the pool surface.

"My coach…" he started, and Gakushuu felt like he got the first inkling of why Morisuke seemed more dead set on Gakushuu than normal, "-he got fired for helping me," then the story continued in an unexpected direction.

"My dad's in textile manufacture," and the class receive yet another blow at the news. Morisuke was tall for his age, he looked like he would turn out to be a buff, but he still wore glasses and studied with them in the library. But now there was textile??? Their understanding of Morisuke was shattered a third time.

"And I've always been good at studies even if I didn't look at it, so I used to follow him around. But one day after school, one of his employees came after me. I wasn't very good at fighting then, so I almost got held down and raped or whatever it was that guy wanted to do," he said quickly, his eyes darting about, embarrassed, as the class started to listen in with surprising fierceness.

"My coach hit the guy over the head, and almost gave him brain damage. He got fired, and my father sued him to keep his mouth shut," he shrugged uncomfortably.

Then there was silence.

No one knew what to say to something like that.

Would consoling be a good option or something else?

An image of Akabane flashed through his mind. Mid-fight and alive, frustrated at his loss but exhilarating.

"If you know how to fight, you should just come to the club and fight me," Gakushuu opened his mouth and said something. Morisuke snorted.

"As if someone as wimpy looking as you can beat me," Gakushuu grinned at the challenge.

""Funny. That's exactly what Akabane said before I beat him."

Then everyone shouted in surprise at him 

"EH??!!!"

"Akabane Karma??? That Akabane Karma?"

"What is the class rep doing with that delinquent?!"

"But that guy!! He's terrible!"

"He's really crazy, Gakushuu!"

The class continued to bitch about Akabane and Gakushuu shot a look at Ren. He shrugged, looking amused.

"You seemed to like him. And you've kept your meetings away from the public so far."

"I would have still liked to know how bad the rumors had gotten!" He hissed back under his breath.

"They're talking about actual incidents I've already told you about. The student body heard about them and came to the conclusion that Akabane was batshit crazy on their own," Araki piped in from the other side.

"He is batshit crazy," Ren pointed out.

"Asano is batshit crazy," Araki mumbled under his breath.

Gakushuu rolled his eyes.

The topic devolved from there to talking about the rumor mill in Kunugigaoka. There was news about the student council being unstable and shady things going on in 3-A of High School. Random news about the student council secretory being secretly a lesbian, or some senior dating 2 girls at the same time and got demoted a class when he lost his grades for it.

They were gossiping and talking shit about random people, late into the night. When it started raining, a gentle patter of rain hitting the window, Gakushuu clapped his hands loudly.

"All right, I'll make sure the girls all get to their place. Everyone else can continue or just clean up and go."

A few people let out a groan of dismay, but quite a lot of them were already yawning. Ayaka giggled and buried her face in Hinata's shoulder and Anaya yawned a few times, running her eyes to get rid of the sleepiness.

"Let's just go," Kimiko complained when Miyuki took time, struggling to find her glasses that she had lost sometime.

Miya handed it to her with a smile and Miyuki shyly accepted it.

The night was cold to the point he wondered if he should have gotten a few sweaters. Everyone started shivering almost immediately.

Tomomi, Emiko, Satsuki and Yuzuki huddled up together like the group of childhood friends they were, and the rest inched closer to Gakushuu, trying to seek warmth from him.

When they finally reached their mansion, they barely gave a wave to Gakushuu before running inside. Hinata hesitated, wondering if she should ask him to cane in, but he just walked away after he saw everyone get in.

Ayaka was almost asleep, hanging onto Hinata, and she focused on getting the other girl to wake up enough to brush her teeth and sleep.

Gakushuu walked back, his hands in his pockets. The cold wind froze his skin, and the slight rain felt like drops of ice.

But in spite of all that, he had a small smile on his face.

Chapter Text

Gakushuu woke up right before dawn. His room was cool, his windows were misted over, and both the harsh wind and the cold rain had stopped.

He went down to the kitchen and made himself a cup of coffee. Even their chef wasn't awake yet, but there was already a variety of fruits in the kitchen, in case they wanted to eat.

Gakushuu took a thermos of strong coffee and went up to the rooftop. It had glass on all sides so as to not obscure the view when he sat. He brought a book from his room, planted a chair in the best position and sat there and read.

The sky lightened and the heat warmed him under his comfortable sweater. He watched the sun rise and when the sun rays finally fell on him, he took off his sweater and kept reading.

There was peace and quiet. There was no traffic, no unnecessary noises. It felt like…he was completely alone in the world.

For the first time, he felt the slightest uneasiness at the thought, and he smiled to himself.

It was a sign of improvement for him. The first sign of disharmony between him and the most prominent Asano mindset his father had instilled in him.

He closed his eyes and sipped his coffee quietly.

It was a truly tranquil time.

Hiking was tough with a class of not completely fit students. Ayaka was focused on her snacks more than her feet and Tomomi and Satsuki looked like they might start crying if they had to get up sometime soon. A few of the boys were just laying on their backs, staring at the clouds blankly.

They had barely started two hours ago and a lot of people were close to giving up already. Gakushuu was ready to let them, just so they could continue on.

The only one near as exasperated as him was Morisuke, or Mori, as he had asked to be called. He was mumbling under his breath something and 'wimps' and seemed pleasantly surprised to see Gakushuu not even breaking out a sweat.

"Let's fight on, everyone!" Hinata cheered, her face still lightly flushed from the effort. "We have promises of good food and an equally amazing view! Let's see it as a class!"

"I can't believe I'm actually going through so much effort. Dad would be so proud," Yuzuki said, leaning into Emiko tiredly.

The two best friends watched a few of their classmates get up before getting up as well.

The hike took longer and they left much of the class in the halfway rest stop, to catch up to them after a few hours of rest, while the rest made their way towards the view point and the team house that sat near it.

Gakushuu had been hesitant, but the strong aroma of tea broke through his inhibitions to consider tea.

They sat, relaxed and tried a few different teas and snacks they were given along with it. They had made it with a little more than a quarter of their class, and while it made for a slightly unusual combination, since both Ren and Araki had decided to stay behind, it gave more opportunities for him to see his classmates in a different light.

Masachika, or Chika, was an irresponsible eater. He tried to eat a little of everything, leaving everything else to be picked up by the rest of the boys.

Hinata and Shizumi had made it up, in spite of all signs otherwise, and had decided to sit far far away from the group of boys hungrily devouring everything the establishment placed in front of them.

Gakushuu would have liked to do that too, but he kept watching Chika's extreme tendencies like he was watching a train wreck. The only thing that would save Chika from a lifetime of obesity was his ardent love for physical activity.

He had been the one that had to be replaced from the baseball game at the last minute due to something he ate the day before. He was completely unreliable if food was placed in front of him, but otherwise, he was a relatively responsible person.

The boys left after they had filled their stomach, eager to explore a little more. Gakushuu, feeling at ease with the view and the cup of tea, had waved them off, which was about when Hinata and Shimizu joined him.

Soon Gakushuu and Hinata were bickering about Hinata's love for the thrill even though she turned red from the exercise two hours into the hike.

At some point they just devolved to throwing insults at each other.

"You're so stupid, stupid," Hinata pouted, her cheeks flushing with an obvious anger.

"I'm stupid? You're stupid, stupid," he retaliated with the same logic.

"Hah! The ever famous cold and cool prince of the school-"

"You're the one who started by calling me stupid-"

"-actually came down to the human level of name calling other-"

"Some people don't understand what I'm saying, so I have to bend down to your level-"

"-the absoLUTELY COLD HEARTED CLASS REP OF CLASS A-"

"-just because you're shouting doesn't MAKE YOU RIGHT-"

"-AND NOW HE'S SHOUTING-" Hinata shouted in his face and he felt his IQ physically lowering as he mimicked Hinata.

"I wasn't shouting!" He defended loudly.

"TO THINK! Kunigigaoka has fallen SO FAR! THE SON OF THE PRINCIPAL-"

"HEY!"

"HE'S-"

And that was the scene the rest of class A stumbled on to.

Gakushuu and Hinata, wearing similar expressions of flustered anger, half standing from their seats, looked at their audience while Shimizu giggled quietly to herself.

"We heard shouting…" Ayaka hesitantly explained with a deer in headlights look. The rest of the class looked like they weren't sure if they wanted to ignore the two, take a picture or just leave.

After a while, Ren came in and collapsed on a chair. Gakushuu sighed, cleared his throat and sat back down. Hinata copied him with an obvious pout.

"How about a truce?" He asked politely. Hinata scowled.

"You were making fun of me!" She pointed into his face. He grabbed her arm and lowered it with the same smile on his face.

"I won't tease you about this. How about it?" He offered.

"So you admit you'll tease me about other things?" Hinata eyed him suspiciously. She caught onto it far too easily. Was he slipping or was she too used to his wordplay?

He kept smiling.

A few someones giggled in the background.

Hinata kept scowling, but she extended her hand out for him to shake. When he grabbed it, she pulled him forward.

"But I'll find something to tease you about soon enough. You better be ready." She threatened, a pout still on her lips.

"Try your best," his smile turned slightly mocking. She bared her teeth before turning away with a huff and bothering Shimizu.

Gakushuu leaned back and drank his cold, bitter tea. The weather really was far too cold.

The class saw the sunset then caught a few cable cars to back down. They caught the tail end of the sunset from the mansion and spent time doing random things.

Gakushuu ended up cooking one of the dishes for dinner, with the help of Miyuki, who claimed to be a pretty good cook (she was).

His was slightly too spicy, according to a few, but most seemed to have enjoyed it. Though, Akira seemed to have taken it as a challenge and ate it with almost a liter of water.

The dinner was enjoyable and they had been so involved with each other, laughing and enjoying their last night, that they didn't notice the weather take a turn for the worse.

Unnoticed by them, the rain continued pouring on and on.

"It's quite heavy now." Miya commented, a hand over his head as he tried to peer into the distance. "Is this okay?" He asked.

"I don't think it's a good idea," Ren added in, looking at someone other than Gakushuu for once. Hinata frowned at the sky.

"No, I need to go back," she shook her head fiercely. Shimizu joined in, nodding. Kimiko looked out at the pouring rain and then at the other two girls, before signing heavily.

"How about this? A few of us will go to pack and bring everything back here. This place was more structurally sound, right?" She asked Gakushuu, standing behind Ren, looking at the rain with a forced neutral expression.

"Yeah, it's been like this for a few hours already," he said, looking around at the road almost pouring out what looked like a small stream. A silent intimidating aura came from his expressionless face and Hinata looked unsure for a moment before pulling up her shoulders in stubbornness.

"It'll be better if I just go and get what's important instead. I don't want to put anyone else at risk," Hinata said quietly, even though she didn't change her desire to go back.

Everyone sighed.

"I'll go with you. Hinata, Kimiko and Mori. We'll leave now. Dress warm. Everyone else, if there's anything important you need from the place, people tell us right now."

Shimizu shyly told Gakushuu about a small bag she kept on the table which held a few religious items, hesitating, but didn't add anything else.

He put a comforting hand on her shoulder.

"If nothing happens to that place, we should be able to get it back just fine."

Then he turned back to look for Hinata.

"-my mother's. I can't leave it behind." She was quietly saying. There was an exasperated sigh, then a moment of silence. Gakushuu cleared his throat and saw Kimiko and Hinata emerge from the kitchen with slight blushes.

"Right. Let's just go steadily. Keep holding onto each other and DON'T PANIC. There's a support at the edge of the road, so even if you slip, you won't fall," he continued to regurgitate all instructions he thought might be helpful until he reached the door.

Then he gave them a smile.

"Well, it's going to be one adventurous walk, at least," Hinata gave a small giggle before clasping hands with Gakushuu, while Kimiko did the same with Mori.

Then they walked out into the rush of water.

Almost immediately Hinata slipped and Gakushuu picked her up completely, not letting her panic for more than half a second before gently setting her down. Mori gave him a relieved look before focusing on his and Kimiko's footing.

Gakushuu led the way, tracing his path from the night before, keeping his foot away from any holes or slippery surfaces. He heard a yelp from behind them, and Hinata almost turned and slipped but he held her tight until she stopped trying to struggle. He slowly turned his head and saw Mori give him a nod with a slightly pale face, then he kept walking.

He could barely see a foot in front of him. Honestly, he would never have let anyone out at all, but, Hinata's urgency and made him take the risk. His father was going to go into worry/panic and then forbid him from being reckless with his life.

He almost felt his hands ache with phantom pains at the memory of writing all the common ways of death in the world by percentage and how to avoid them.

Hinata slipped a few more times, but aside from a moment of panic when he almost couldn't hold onto Hinata's arm due to the rain, it wasn't too bad.

They reached the place, carefully trying not to slip in front of the tiled front door.

They all let out a sigh of relief when they left the loud rain behind, finally able to hear each other better again.

"I feel like I almost went deaf," Hinata said a little shakily. Mori shook his head and Kimiko rolled up her tied hair and tried to get the water out.

"Let's finish up fast," he interrupted their relief. "I have Shimizu's. Spread out and get whatever you need and meet here."

Kimiko nodded, leaving her hair alone.

"Right. Do your thing, Hinata. I need something from mine and Miyuki's room."

They separated. Gakushuu entered Shimizu's and immediately spotted a small idol outside and what seemed like well wishes in a small bag. He put everything in a plastic bag before putting it in the cloth bag, which would be easier to carry in the rain.

They gathered up in a few more minutes, and Kimiko was looking outside the floor to ceiling windows to the rain.

"I think it might start hailing," she whispered. Gakushuu's face was blank when she looked up at him, a friend on her face.

"Don't worry about it. We can stay in until the rain finishes and afterwards, we'll be able to leave. My dad isn't an irresponsible person," he patted her head a few times reassuringly.

Kimiko gave him a shaky smile.

"I really don't get your weird faith in your father. He's not invulnerable." Then she hesitated. "Right?"

Gakushuu cracked out a smile.

"Everyone I can do, he can do better." He said, "Everything I know, I learnt from him. He formed my philosophies in life, and he trained me to be who I am. I'm not him," he whispered it like a secret, "but he's not me either."

He looked at the obscured clouds above. It was white washed, but he wouldn't be surprised to know something like his father decided to plane drop into the middle of a storm to rescue Gakushuu. Though he probably would have thought him to have far more sensibilities than to wander into such a heavy rain for some inane reason or the other.

"He's super strong," he smiled. He wasn't sure of the kind of face he was making but Kimiko looked at him before looking away like she couldn't bear to look anymore.

"... sounds like you wished he wasn't," Kimiko said just as quietly.

"Do I?" Gakushuu said, his hands coming up to cover his smile. It was upturned in the kind of smile he had always been trained to have.

"Super depressing, but let's go. We're here," Mori said, clearing his throat. The two of them turned to look at Hinata carrying a purse stuffed full and a small velvet bag with a string around her wrist. Mori had a plastic bag tied up, hanging from his elbow.

He nodded.

"Want me to carry either of the bags?" He asked Hinata. His face telling her it wasn't an option to refuse. She hesitantly gave him the purse. He separated the straps and swung his arms through each hoop and let it settle on his back.

"We have things in our hands now, so we have to be extra careful now, okay? We'll go slow and steady, just like before," He reminded and Hinata shut her mouth to all protests at his way of carrying the purse.

He put his hand on above Hinata's elbow, an easy way to control her whole body with one arm and they set off into what seemed like a river pouring down on top and around them.

He almost slipped on the tile before catching himself, keeping his footing as stable as he could. He remembers the rails that had seemed plenty safe before and winced.

There was very little chance it would be able to catch them if they slipped and hit it with their full body weight. And even the slight jutting out part of the mountain wasn't going to keep them alive with the amount of water flowing.

If they slipped, they would probably just fall straight to their deaths.

He shook his head off the negative thoughts, and took care with his steps, building Hinata away from a slippery spot she had slipped on, on the way back.

Then he instinctively turned, took a step out and caught Mori's arm right after he stepped on a slippery spot. He had let go of Kimiko's hand, but Kimiko had turned to hold onto his arm, giving him more stability.

Gakushuu sighed in relief, nodded at Kimiko through the white wash, and ignored Mori's slightly shaky hand. He wondered if Mori had figured that his reassurance about the support beams catching him was bullshit.

He turned around to hold Hinata's arm again, when he suddenly noticed Hinata windmilling her arms at the sudden loss of support he was giving her.

The small velvet bag slipped from her wrist and he reflexively tried to catch it.

It was a mistake.

His foot was in the middle of a strong rush of water and his footing was already unsteady by the hasty step he had just taken to save Mori.

He slipped and fell.

Gakushuu praised the owners for the lack of maintenance of the mountain roads, as he looked at the slight hole he had managed to fit his fingers into and catch himself, half on his knees.

One of his nails broke at the harsh jerking and he tightened his grip on the hole and steadied his footing, his center of gravity still low.

He looked up, Hinata was frozen stiff, her mouth open in a scream. He lifted his other arm and showed her the velvet bag he had managed to grab and then motioned for her to stay there.

She was either still frozen or had seen his motion for her to stay still because she didn't try to do something stupid like run to him.

Mori looked like he had taken a step towards him but they still managed to steady themselves when they saw him stop.

He slowly navigated towards somewhere with less rushing water before making his way back to Hinata, his hands still hovering near the road in case he slipped again, before he stood up straight beside Hinata again.

"Keep going," he yelled into her ear. Then, "Steady!" when she wavered on the spot for a moment.

She took a deep breath before nodding with determination, channeling her worry into focus.

They made their way back to the mansion with no other major incidents, and there were people throwing towels over them and rubbing out the water before he even said anything.

They must have been anxious, he laughed to himself.

Then he heard actual laughter and realized it was him. Even he could hear the relief in his voice.

"Ren, first aid," he grabbed the towels thrown on him and covered his hair and shoulders before dropping the bag, the velvet bag and the cloth bag on the table.

Hinata burst into tears and everyone else started panicking- at him getting hurt, at Hinata crying.

Kimiko went and hugged Hinata, rocking slightly and rubbing her arms warm.

"Go take a warm bath, I think we still have that for now," Gakushuu reminded, and Mori ran a hand over his face.

"Why are you like this." He groaned. Gakushuu looked at him, slightly confused.

Mori threw his towel at his face before marching towards the bathroom. Everyone else looked at him for an explanation.

"It's probably because I almost fell," he said, showing his broken nail where he had grabbed the hole with to stop his body momentum from increasing.

Araki and half a dozen of his classmates paled almost immediately before rushing at him in loud, angry worry. Gakushuu sighed.

Ren carefully bandaged his fingers, taping up his other fingers as well, with a frown.

"We should get away from all the windows," he told Ren, and he nodded silently, his lips pulled tight.

They cleared up the kitchen area and put a cloth then pulled down a few mattresses from a few beds and brought down almost all the warm duvets. Their travel bags were packed and shoved to a side and they huddled together, as the windows vibrated and cracked.

There was a sense of anxiety in everyone, but there were enough level headed people to maintain a sense of calm, and soon a few fell asleep, and then even more.

Gakushuu stayed awake, falling into the lightest doze at worst. He was woken up sometime when it was pitch black to a sound he was sure was the breaking of a glass.

He met Kimiko and then Chika's eyes before he carefully left, making sure not to disturb anyone.

An ice ball the size of Gakushuu's hand was lying right by the door to one of the previously occupied rooms. There were smaller hailstones filling up the room even as he watched and he quietly closed the door.

The roof was completely ruined as well. The glass lining the roof was shattered and he wondered who was irresponsible enough to build a glass house in the middle of a mountain.

He remembered being impressed by how pretty it was, but now he was just exasperated at the lack of safety features.

He was aware that there hadn't even been a proper storm in the area for 5 years and hail storms this bad in 10. But honestly, it was still negligent.

He had been slightly doubtful when he had noticed the slight instability in the other mansion's geographic area but he now believed that the one who built it hadn't considered the environment at all.

They had just chosen it for the view and what would look prettiest.

This was another mark on the list of reasons that proved his father wasn't omniscient. He wondered if his father had even come personally to look at the place or if he had just asked someone else to investigate a list of places and picked whatever seemed the most suitable.

Probably the latter, with the state of things. Even he had noticed the state of the other place, when he had seen it.

He went back to his classmates.

He shook his head and explained what he saw to Chika with sign language, and saw him nod and then lean towards Kimiko, whispering into her ear.

The three of them had decided to stand guard. Kimiko was a sort of unspoken, unofficial leader for the girls even though Hinata would be the more spiritual leader. Chika was someone who understood sign language due to one of his friends who lost his hearing early due to an accident. He kept a steady head when he wasn't trying to kill himself via various foods.

Gakushuu was awake for an obvious reason. Everyone found him reassuring. If someone woke up due to some or the other reason, he would hold them or quietly reassure them and either let them sit with him or let them fall asleep by themselves.

Also, he couldn't really sleep, not that it had ever really stopped him from sleeping. But he didn't want to, so he didn't.

The rain went on and on and on.

They had no news from the outside.

Everyone woke up to continuous rain outside and Gakushuu and a few more people busied themselves in the kitchen.

So much so that Gakushuu ended up leaving halfway, letting an anxious Hinata take over for him.

They ate breakfast quietly, then Gakushuu heard Ayaka start humming a song under her breath. Ayaka was normally a loud person, so just her keeping quiet for so long was practically a miracle.

He took her humming and started singing. It was a soothing song about lost love, and Ayaka looked at him with sparkling eyes before she started singing another song and he picked it up after a couple lines and he started tapping a beat to his and Ayaka's singing male and female parts of the songs.

They switched songs and Ayaka faltered at a particularly high pitch and he grinned taking over for her and she watched, laughing, as he hit an incredible pitch and dragged it out, smoothing out the switch from female voice to male and he heard whistling and a few claps as he ended the song.

"I can't freaking believe our class rep-" Ayaka gasped out between her laughter and Gakushuu grinned.

"I took vocal lessons," then conspiratorially, "You won't believe the things I can do with my voice," he winked.

Ayaka gasped dramatically.

"Are you flirting, class rep? My, oh my!" She giggled, waving at her face.

"Why, my lady." He matched her, "I certainly am not. I have reached a pitch so high your ears would hurt if you listen to it," he bowed with a flourish.

"Oh no," Ren groaned.

"Oh yes," Mori grinned.

"Wait, wait. I need to record this!" Hinata fiddled with her phone, "Aw, damn it's dead!"

"You can use mine," Miya offered. Gakushuu shook his finger.

"No recordings, or you won't hear it."

"Ugh," Ren repeated his annoyance and out his hands over his ears with exasperation. Even more curious, the class abandoned their phone, though Satsuki sneakily turned on an audio recording slyly, along with a few other students.

Gakushuu glared at them but didn't stop them.

Then he started with a normal vocal range, and kept going up by a pitch. Some started to rub their ears when Gakushuu went up another pitch and a few flinched.

He stopped abruptly leaving them with ringing ears.

"Holy hell," someone whispered. Everyone silently agreed.

"Is there anything…you can't do?" Akira asked, a disgusted look on his face.

"Can you even call something like this-" Asahi motioned to Gakushuu, "-just talent anymore?" Asahi protested, slumping into his arms in defeat.

"Ugh," Ren protested again. Araki patted Ren's arm.

It was noon when the rain paused and almost half an hour after, there was a sound of a vehicle.

Everyone rushed to look outside and they found what looked like a military van or maybe a little like a tank, going up the path towards them. It stopped in front of them and a tall, well built man got out.

He stopped in front of all the students, his eyes roving over all the students who were gaping at him, and his frown eased when he spotted Gakushuu who had stepped out when he had seen the man's eyes fall on his classmates.

"Asano, right? Your father sent me to get your kids off the mountain. Leave your luggage and just get in," he motioned to the vehicle. Gakushuu was unmoved. He silently stared down the other man, and the man frowned deeper before his brows relaxed at a sudden realization.

"Right. He said you wouldn't trust me unless I told you this. 'Empty springs lead to no growth, and without growth the chance to win will slip. Winter will arrive without a moment and you will fall from your throne.'"

Then the man cleared his throat awkwardly. Gakushuu nodded after a moment.

"Everyone is accounted for," he said. Then, he turned his finger in a circle, and his classmates turned and went back inside. They talked, relieved, as they grabbed their few essentials and lined up to get inside the vehicle.

Half of them got in, while the other half stood by. Gakushuu nodded at Ren and Chika as they got in.

"There's a bus waiting for you all down there, but the path up wasn't very good so we'll have to divide the class up for now. Don't worry, you'll meet again." The man tried to sound reassuring but ended up sounding awkward.

Gakushuu didn't acknowledge the words and darted his eyes to capture Mori's and he silently replaced Hinata who wanted to take the last seat.

Hinata pouted.

The man sighed, looking at the silent instructions thrown about by the child.

'Like father, like son' he thought before getting inside the car and slowly bringing it down.

He made a second trip and brought the rest of them down, before sighing in relief. He was already sweating. It felt like he was in training with a demon instructor telling him, '100 squats for the mistake'.

Watching the children gravitate towards the Asano spawn, he had the distinct thought of 'Letting a terrifying man like Asano Gakuhou procreate was probably their biggest mistake'.

Not to mention, he seemed more mentally stable than his father, which was surprisingly a terrifying thought. Asano Gakuhou had accomplished a lot, but he had always been focused on the education district. His gray morality had given him as many allies as enemies. It was far more terrifying to imagine a mini-Asano with a pack of hounds, especially ones that influential.

He remembered the daughter of one of the bigger telecommunications companies, the son of the newspaper company, and the son of a multinational company just at a glance.

He wondered if it was big enough to inform his superiors. Then he shook the thought off.

The kid might be an Asano, but he had heard he didn't gain the terrifying learning talent of his father. Gakuhou was a perfect student, as much as he was an educator. His son was far from it.

He silently reassured himself. Then wondered if he should have removed himself from military politics by now if a kid was making him over think. Weren't private contracts supposed to be easy? Why did he have cold sweat down his back?

The Asano child turned around right before he got on the bus and caught his eyes accurately from a distance. He froze.

The kid smiled and nodded before getting up on the bus. He watched the bus depart and silently wondered if it wouldn't have been better if the landslide had killed the kid before he ruined what few good things the world had left.

Then he shook off the momentary terrifying thought that would lead to his life being in danger if he ever came in front of Asano Gakuhou, and went back to his borrowed van.

Either way, he wouldn't have anything to do with that family again. Probably.

How often did a principal of a school end up needing a private contractor anyway?

Not much, he guessed.

His eyes went to the departing bus.

Not much, he hoped.

Chapter Text

None of Gakushuu's classmates ended up informing Gakuhou of Gakushuu's sudden lack of judgement mid storm which had put his life in danger.

He told his father Mori had tripped and he had slipped and almost fallen over but he caught himself with his hands.

It was the truth even if he didn't explain the exact circumstances. His father didn't have much time to grill him when he was off fending off a few worried parents after the incident.

Gakushuu smoothly slid back to his normal routine of competitions, lessons and random way study material he found. He found himself studying architecture on more than one occasion, and gained a better understanding that maybe the mansion hadn't been as bad as he had been thinking. But it hadn't protected them against storms that generally happened in mountains, even if it hadn't happened on that specific one in a while.

Mostly though, he talked to his classmates, managed to meet with a few of them when their schedules matched, asked Ren and Araki to get more information on the man who got them out of the mountain and enjoyed a day in the old campus, dressed in clothes that made him look more feminine- a slight widening of his hips, a bit more space near his chest.

He looked older when he dressed up as a girl. Something about his vibe fit with someone that registered as older.

Gakushuu didn't mind it.

He liked it, in fact. It suited him well.

He went for another international sports event this time, he didn't have Ren to distract him and he ended up making friends with Kevin, a football star from America. He met up with Kevin's friends group who seemed to meet up every time there was an international sports event for youth.

He spoke three of their native languages, which he actually managed to improve in the short time he had with them. But they all knew English, so it was relieving that there wasn't any communication problem otherwise.

He explored the foreign country, found that Kevin was terrible at bargaining and that he knew all the best restaurants in a 5 kilometer radius.

And soon the second semester started and their newest problem by the name Tomoya Seo arrived.

Hinata quivered in front of her cousin.

The first thing Seo did when he transferred was go directly to Hinata, a grin on his face.

He didn't look malicious, simply like he was greeting an old friend. It made Hinata's words echo in Gakushuu's head. But turned out, he didn't need to personally make a move at all.

Kimiko stood up from her own seat at the back.

"So, transfer student. How about you take a seat there until your rank comes in?" She bared her teeth, and stepped in front of Hinata.

Seo booked at the seat directly under the air conditioner, and scowled. He looked back at the teacher.

"Go to your seat, Seo. We'll start classes soon," the teacher agreed, already aware that designated seats were thrown out the window the moment the class became friends.

People could change seats, as long as it was mutually acknowledged. In this class, Seo had no friends.

Seo didn't cause much trouble at first. He talked about himself all the time, got upset when he didn't get attention and like almost everyone in school at one point, developed a one sided rivalry with Gakushuu.

Hinata's friends kept Seo out of her sights and they almost managed to somehow stay in the same class.

But then. The other new student in their class started becoming disturbing.

Natsuhiko Koyama was tall . And he kept following Gakushuu. He remembered helping him out with bullies once, but surely that was no reason to stalk Gakushuu?

Not to mention, his hygiene was atrocious. If Koyama could stop stalking Gakushuu, he would be very willing to point him towards a good salon and dentist. But as it was, his few neutral feelings were rapidly descending to 'what the fuck' and 'crush his head in'.

Gakushuu wouldn't normally resort to violence first, but Koyama was bad at stalking. Not only was he bad at it, he ran away from Gakushuu the moment he called him out, but also made people hesitate to approach him.

He left Koyama wrangling to Ren, and maybe Araki, if he felt like it. Sometimes he wasn't sure if Araki would sit back and watch his misery or if he would actually play the supportive friend he had been going for. He supposed becoming friends with someone who had clear ways of dealing with friends, enemies and acquaintances had its own vices.

Even with the two new annoyances, second semester wasn't nearly as hectic as the first had been, and exciting things aside, they were setting up a routine for themselves.

Gakushuu finally had the leeway to start looking at the student council of their school. The roles were neatly divided, and tasks for a school year were divided by their roles.

Of course the president had to preside over all judgements being taken and had the most power over both the council and enough to manipulate many things in their favor.

There was politics everywhere.

Of course, Gakushuu knew how to play politics better than any 15 year old but, it was the thought that counted.

As a first year, Gakushuu wasn't allowed on the council. As a second, his only restriction would be from the president position. Third year, he could easily become president with no clear rivals.

("Student council president sounds like a lot of work," Akabane said. Gakushuu agreed, but at the same time-

"It's fun," he smirked, with surprisingly good humor.

"You have a weird sense of fun," Akabane complained, finding a more comfortable slump in spot #4 of Kunugigaoka.

"I'm not the one who goes around fighting any willing body," he retorted.

"Well said, future president. Make sure to give a rousing speech that I'll completely miss."

"You're a menace to society," he laughed.)

Seo got isolated in class.

He was angry, and frustrated. But he was also lonely. He had no idea what he had done to receive such a cold treatment from his own classmates.

He cracked in 10 days, but he didn't even know why he was being treated like that. Gakushuu felt a little bad-

Actually, no. He was pretty satisfied by it. He felt pretty good about making the guy feel miserable in what would have been a place he could have shone.

He studied well, he was arrogant and quite rude as well, but the job of breaking him seemed to be going well. Hinata seemed slightly uncomfortable seeing him starting to look down in class but everyone kept her distracted.

Using her high ranking as an excuse Amami and Kimiko joined together and convinced a few others to study with her. Gakushuu nudged a few from class B to join them and Hinata was thoroughly distracted with making new friends.

Gakushuu just watched Seo break down.

Araki switched from team Tomoya handling to Seo's, saying how it was more interesting. Gakushuu thought Araki was one of the few smart enough to see what was going on, even if he had never seen it before.

He silently gave him the go ahead and even the teacher started to completely avoid Seo's existence.

Gakushuu appreciated Araki's initiative. Then they watched Seo act out outside class. He complained a few times to teachers, and the same privilege given to him got applied to them and he got reprimanded.

Well, it was bound to happen.

Asano Gakushuu was now a name that was going around as one of the most academically popular students in Japan. His constant presence in the competitions was noted, especially in the academic ones, due to his father.

But honestly, the reason he was as famous as he was, was because of his face.

He couldn't count the number of times Ren, Hinata and even Mori had laughed in his face for the things going around in the internet about him.

Someone had made a video of him walking into a room into something internet famous. Gakushuu appreciated the effort, but he was still thinking about what the internet was drinking.

After a few weeks, Gakushuu inducted Seo in with Chika's group of friends. They went out and ate sushi, talked about each other and left amicably with a slightly more obvious warning of 'don't fuck with class A again'.

Hinata and Seo talked with the eyes of the whole class set on them the day after, and Gakushuu smiled at the other boy when he glanced at him.

"The hidden mastermind," Ayaka whispered loudly, and then giggled. Kazuki smacked his hand on her face in response and they started bickering.

Seo spent the day trying to sneak looks at Gakushuu, mostly ending up with Gakushuu looking back at him and smiling placidly.

"Is he a mind reader?" He asked Chika and the other boy almost smirked, uncharacteristically.

"Not as far as I can tell," he replied. Seo shot Gakushuu another look and barely half a second later he turned and gave him a chilling smile that made Seo snap his face away.

That was creepy as fuck.

But Seo couldn't even call him creepy aloud because the class was almost fanatic about the other boy for some reason.

That was fucking weird.

"I heard you got into a fight again, Akabane," Gakushuu teased with a smirk. "Really getting that rank's worth, aren't you?"

Akabane grinned back, his sharp teeth on display and Gakushuu felt like an animal was barely stopping itself from pouncing on him.

"Might as well," he replied, looking like a cat that caught the canary.

Gakushuu hummed under his breath in response, his eyes sharp.

Preparations for the sports festival start and Gakushuu kept an eye on the Student Council.

As a first year, Gakushuu, the class representative and Anaya, the vice representative, didn't have many responsibilities, but they were called in once before the sports festival and asked to submit the list of participants for each event.

Gakushuu automatically disqualified Koyama, who kept sending him pitiful looks, and wasn't integrated into class well enough (he sent a 'work harder' look to Ren and received the emotive version of a crying emoji).

Aside from him, he put the class through a variety of practices to select people by ability. Hinata outright refused to take part in the relay and he sent her to the 100 meter dash instead.

There was a slight argument among the boys that seemed to have gotten resolved in the locker room itself, and a meek Seo ended up not taking part in anything due to his lack of athletic ability. Chika was put in the relay, with a replacement ready in case he ate something bad right before the day again.

Gakushuu took part in relay, the marathon- that everyone could take part in- with Mori and Satsuki, and in the 1000 meter dash.

It was the most he could take part in and the class took the rest, not complaining as much as last time, thankfully.

There was a random class event that would take place at the end of the day and this year it was an obstacle course with assigned roles for 5 chosen members of a class.

Gakushuu picked himself and decided to pick the rest by volunteer.

But he didn't put much focus on his class for the event. The Student Council was far more busy and he finally decided who to approach.

The Vice President was an important and yet almost an honorary position. And to reflect that, the Vice President was a boy who felt far too threatening to look that meek.

Gakushuu's first encounter had him prepare for everything but the moment the Vice President laid eyes on him, he burst into laughter.

"That's pretty good," the boy said, something light and threatening in his eyes and Gakushuu's heart skipped a beat. He wondered if he was in love or in front of a predator he wasn't sure how to deal with.

Then the moment passed and Gakushuu smiled politely.

"Thank you," he said, getting a vague feeling that the boy was looking through him.

"I'll nominate you as Vice President next year. That's what you wanted, right? So do your best, yeah~" the boy slid his fingers together and his smile widened. Gakushuu didn't drop his smile, didn't sharpen his smile like he was tempted to. The boy was tempting him to drop his mask in front of other students he trusted but Gakushuu didn't, so he wouldn't.

"I'll use the opportunity well," he said instead, looking right at the other boy's eyes. There was something unsettling but beautiful about the flickers of gray streaks he could see in it.

"Hmm," the boy hummed looking over Gakushuu. "You are pretty."

Gakushuu choked.

"You shouldn't tease him. He's still young, Itadori," a girl giggled cutely, covering her mouth to hide the smile.

"Right. Baby murder children," Itadori, the Vice President, sighed mournfully. Then he grinned at Gakushuu.

"But you seem quite aware, hmm?"

Gakushuu narrowed his eyes in response. He would not acknowledge either his sexuality or anyone coming onto him.

"My apologies," he smiled, a threat slipping out, "I have no idea what you're talking about."

The boy started laughing.

"Well, this is good too. Then, work hard next year, junior." Itadori gave him a mocking wave and Gakushuu was embarrassed to admit he ended up flushing at the gesture, before he left.

All of his preparations were useless. He had been about to ask for the treasurer position, but if he was getting Vice President instead, so he wouldn't complain.

Much.

"Why is there a picture of Asano Gakushuu blushing, secretly spreading around the students?"

"It's cause he's cute and he's the Principal's son."

They show the picture to their friend.

"... okay. He's cute."

"Pfft. Don't tell me you're getting a crush!"

"Shut up! It's none of your business."

"I think your chances with that boy just went down the drain with that send," the pretty girl sitting beside Itadori commented, painting her nails.

Itadori snickered.

Gakuhou put his hands on his face in exasperation.

So did Ren.

Araki laughed.

Karma found the picture, frowned, then forced a smirk.

He saved the picture.

Gakushuu ignored everything.

Chapter Text

Seo stopped in front of Gakushuu's desk.

"Sex. Fucking. Intercourse?" He said with a steadily growing blush. 

Gakushuu blinked at the other boy.

"Are you offering?" Seo turned red.

Kimiko snorted loudly. A few other people started laughing. A few flushed almost as red as Seo at his words.

Kazuki came up to Seo and patted him on the back.

"Good effort."

"Tch," Seo scowled, shrugging off the hand, and walked off.

Hinata giggled from behind Gakushuu.

Sports festival started with a bang. The students- participants or otherwise- gathered in the school, and the students hyped themselves up.

It was a unique day with mostly athletically inclined students would be in attendance. Not even all the students of class A came to cheer, even though Anaya had to come in spite of not taking part in anything. Chika was unsurprisingly sick once again and his replacement, Kaito, took over all the events he was supposed to take part in, much to his dismay.

The event was pretty simple overall. Gakushuu was busy as either a harassment material for a few seniors (since no one in his year had the guts to come to his face to tease him) and helped out with small things as the class rep along with Anaya.

Mostly, he was just busy avoiding Akabane after he saw a mischievous grin on his face in the morning.

He wasn't very successful, but his unflapped straight face and busy schedule of events let him get away. He could help grinding his teeth in irritation a few times though.

He was going to make dog poop in the student council meeting room. Or the Vice-President's classroom

Somehow, the sports festival was more about him avoiding various brave seniors who had decided to see him as a child, than him actually running through the relay, or the 1000 meter dash, or even the over-exciting obstacle course.

Gakushuu generally wasn't one to run away- actually no, he did know how to run when he needed to- and this was one of the rare times calling for it. He left the school grounds as soon as he possibly could.

He knew Akabane could almost feel him reaching his limit. And that's when he would pounce to catch him.

He wasn't going to let it happen. Never. Ever.

So he had no choice but to work harder between his events and throw most of the after school work at Anaya and go back home.

It was a frustrating day.

Without the seniors underfoot like during the sports festival, the students completely stopped asking him about it.

….Of course, Akabane was the exception.

"-but you look so red!"

Gakushuu refused to answer. He didn't even look at his picture, taken sneakily by one of the surrounding students.

"Awww! Tell me what happened! This looks like the student council room, you went there a few days ago right?" Gakushuu stilled for barely a moment before pretending to not hear it, but Karma grinned at him like he just got his confirmation.

"Was it the treasurer? I heard she's really pretty. That's the position you were going for, weren't you?" Karma grinned wider. "That's it, isn't it?

Gakushuu sighed.

"If you keep trying to talk about this, I'll leave," he threatened.

"No way, you love me too much! But seriously! Do you like her? Did she reject you?" He squinted at the picture like he was trying to see something he hadn't seen before.

"That's an embarrassed blush, right? That looks like an embarrassed blush. You totally got rejected by her!"

"I didn't even confess," Gakushuu said misleadingly before scowling. Karma narrowed his eyes, catching on somehow.

"What's wrong with this picture?" He asked curiously, then, "oh wait! Did she try to ask you out? Did you reject her ? Is that why the picture is everywhere? Is this harassment?"

Gakushuu groaned and dropped his head at the onslaught of questions.

He really really hated his lack of peace in school, sometimes.

Mid-semester exam preparations for third years started earnestly after the sports festival, and years 1 and 2 watched the third years get into a study haze as they relaxed.

Third year students had to prepare for their High School Entrance Exams, which was why their final semester was shortened tremendously even though they were still supposed to take part in the sports day and school festival.

Gakushuu dropped a surprise test on his class and some (Kazuki) cried as they gave it.

There were literally no students who didn't study all year round in class A, but Gakushuu's semi-monthly tests became a type of marker for them to keep themselves in top shape.

It was a mark of pride as well, since Gakushuu's tests were a fair bit harder than the weekly tests they had to give in class.

It was almost reassuring to give a difficult test when there was a study fever on-going within the third year students.

Akabane nudged him slyly when he spotted the treasurer of the student council studying alone.

He ignored it.

Time went by smoothly, and Gakushuu became busy again, with all the sports related winter national tournaments, and a surprising request to take part in a musical televised show, which his father declined, to his disappointment.

They celebrated a few more birthdays, about half of which Gakushuu could attend, and Ren finally gave Tomoya the go ahead. Hinata had insisted on his hair being tied or braided back at the least. Anaya just casually threatened to chop it off if it got in her way for even a moment.

Tomoya made sure to always carry a hairband or two around with him, just in case, after that.

Gakushuu spied a little crush. Though Ren was casual about it. Gakushuu still wasn't sure if he just didn't get jealous or if he hadn't noticed yet.

Gakushuu's regular meets with Ren were infested by his classmates now. Hinata, always welcome, dropped by with a combination of Kimiko, Anaya or Kazuki. Chika, the food lover, would sometimes come for the free food with Seo who had loudly gasped in shock at seeing Gakushuu in casual clothes.

Then, again, when he saw him eating, though for different reasons. He saw the first hint of reluctant admiration when Gakushuu managed to help Seo remember the science fact he had been screeching about forgetting every time during tests.

It was a fair bit louder than normal that time, but surprisingly fun because of it. Seo was lively, easily what someone would call the life of a party if he wasn't an automatic joke of the party instead. He pulled off the role quite well, after all.

Seo was the kind of person no one took seriously. That no one should take seriously. That was a path to hell, if he ever saw one.

Seo was the kind of person who needed to be brought to heel. If he made a challenge, he would never fulfill his side of it. If he was threatened, he easily crumbled. His mental perseverance was terrible.

On the other hand, Gakushuu much preferred Anaya, who was capable, and still learning how to smile properly. Or even Hinata, who cried too easily and got flustered and frustrated, but still pushed through somehow. Or Ren, who never complained about the problems in his path, even as he hurt himself on them.

They were frustrating in their own ways, but Seo was just an unreliable character.

Unless he realised how little he meant and what he could have, he was worse than useless. He was someone who could end up harming them.

It was the point of Gakushuu spending time on him, to make him experience a certain amount of loneliness. And also, what 'friends' felt like but still keep him outside of it.

It was a tad cruel, but Asano Gakushuu had never been taught to be kind. Cruelty came far more naturally.

Also, children were far more cruel in ignorance than anything. He preferred Araki's knowing cruelty to Seo's unknowing one.

Either way, Seo's subconscious integration was going well.

Gakushuu took part in a free composition for a violin and piano combination and asked his last companion. She agreed.

Then, during the competition, he invited his entire class for it. It was pretty huge and his class got along with his accompanist which was nice.

A few of their parents also showed up, giving excuses about enjoying classical music. Most left before he joined his classmates, so he assumed it was a tacit approval from them. Not that he had ever doubted his capability to gain approval from someone he wanted it from.

In one of his free days, Gakushuu had been to a pet cafe, but when he found some free time in his hands, he chose to do volunteer work at an animal shelter. Probably one of the bloodiest days in his short life, considering the dog who ended up in the middle of an accident and a college student brought her for treatment.

Gakushuu appreciated the life saved, but he wouldn't forget the way her leg was amputated.

He liked animals, but it was disturbing to watch. Even more so when the one working to save her was a kindly woman who was incidentally a vet attached to the shelter.

It was slightly terrifying to watch her smile sweetly at Gakushuu after she had brutally saved the dog from a terrible death. Worse was the fact that throughout, Gakushuu was utterly convinced she wouldn't even harm a fly.

He had new respect for vets.

(Far in the future when Karma would confess his reasons for being wary of Nagisa, Gakushuu would laugh and laugh, unable to explain why the thought was so utterly hilarious.)

The third years were hoping for a last hurrah in the school festival, before their final exams would begin, and various classes booked time slots for using the Assembly Hall and the gymnasiums.

Class As of all years were expected to put up a good show regardless of what they were doing.

Gakushuu, though, had a different idea. He joined in and booked a slot to use the gym after blackmailing the Treasurer of the Student Council about illegally spreading the picture of him.

She took it like a champ and agreed to give the slot to him under class 1-A's name. 

(Aka she laughed and then indulged his wishes when she saw he was serious about suing her.)

Officially, class A was doing a British cafe. Unofficially, there was news about Gakushuu doing something for the students on the evening of the third day of the school festival.

It was one of the few times even Ren had no idea what Gakushuu was planning.

There were arguments about having a maid or butler cafe, but looks finally won and they just decided to have both.

Anaya was surprisingly the one who took charge in handling all the responsibility and Gakushuu, amused by his class's ideas, decided to let their creativity bloom.

Gakushuu could definitely pull in sponsors but it was actually pretty fun to work on the details with his classmates. Someone brought genuine artworks that they ended up showing off here and there, then Seo brought extravagant furniture and had it set up.

There was a few hours of confusion that Gakushuu had to solve about random furniture laying around. Anaya brought in an interior designer and they finally ended up setting up a classy cafe.

Then there was a slight hiccup where Hinata suddenly wanted to dress Gakushuu up as a maid, but everyone else ran interference and the moment passed by.

As first years, they didn't have either attention nor pressure, so they were able to get the cafe off to a pretty good start. There were many performances from different classes. Class 2-B and 2-C held plays that were completely contradictory in plot- the classic Romeo and Juliet and another Hamlet.

Somehow the Hamlet ended up as a comedy and Romeo and Juliet ended up far too tragic.

There was almost a whole circus on day 2, but day 3 flopped because it got a little too dangerous and got banned. It was quite an unfortunate end.

Class A's idea was decidedly common, fun, and expensively done. Anaya threw out a couple customers for ruining a painting, and Gakushuu ended up playing the guitar in the middle of his break which ended up giving them even more work and cutting his break short.

It was fun watching his classmates get irritated, or pretend of smile, or Chika watch the customers with an hawk's eye, or Hinata almost cry when someone gently told her she brought the wrong order.

It was chaotic. Things went wrong. Things went right. People ended up running around to watch other classes far too often and they were almost always understaffed.

But it was fun.

At the end of the day, they came together, talked about the things that happened and laughed. Hinata started a fight with Kazuki that got resolved almost immediately. Anaya frowned at the ruined painting and Ren offered to take it back with him and find out if it was salvageable.

Some things happened, but it was rather entertaining.

Oh, and Gakushuu's plans got out the moment the festival officially started.

Technically, it was a 'performance' but in reality it was more of a school dance. There was a dress code, restriction for only the students, and Gakushuu invited musicians for it.

It was pretty huge, and most importantly, new .

The exclusivity generated much more interest and people came to their cafe just so they could ask more about it.

Well, it wasn't just the other students.

("Are you going to dance?"

"Are you going to sing?"

"Did you-"

"When was-"

"No way, did you actually get-"

Gakushuu sat facing a crowd of classmates with a blank expression as they continued to run around asking him questions excitedly.)

Class 3-A did a musical. It was very Kunugigaoka worthy and actually had Kimiko sobbing at the beauty of music. She really loved it. To the point, she kept watching the official video even when she was supposed to be working.

Gakushuu gave reluctant praise and walked away when Itadori called out to him loudly.

Kunugigaoka had never had an event to close their school festival before. Some schools had bonfires or fireworks.

But Kunugigaoka would let the festival end, give them enough time to get the school back to its previous state and go back to its usual studying grind.

Of course, there would be a morning announcement of the classes that earned the most, but even that was integrated between the announcements to be better than their peers.

It was the slightest bit…dull.

Gakushuu had the idea come to him first when they were on the winning class trip. Kunugigaoka students also deserved to have fun after all the work they had to keep doing. And this wasn't actually too hard for Gakushuu to arrange either.

…. Since he was planning to play on the piano.

Everyone expected Gakushuu to get busy when the last performance in the gym got over but no one really expected the complete revamp the place ended up with. It was a friendly, yet elegant look.

And when they allowed students in- some dressed casually, some in the clothes they wore for the day (witch, ghost, formal, odd make-up on their faces) but many followed the dress code.

Gakushuu came to the stage and smiled at the gathered students before he walked and sat down at a genuine grand piano set up on the side of the stage.

"This is for the students of Kunugigaoka," he announced to the students.

Then he started playing.

A few beats later, a violin joined in and spot light some on a girl slightly older than Gakushuu swaying along with the music as she played.

The sound of the instruments fused and the students watched in awe at the performance.

Then, Gakushuu started singing.

And the music became slightly faster, and the lights dimmed.

No one moved.

When he finished, he stood up to sparse scattered applause and bowed to his accompanist. She curtseyed to him.

Then they walked down from the stage arm in arm.

Someone else came on the stage, and the music resumed.

Gakushuu and the girl stood in an empty space, separating. Then Gakushuu extended a hand to her and she accepted with a grin.

They danced.

It went on for a while and the older years were surprisingly more excited about it than Gakushuu had anticipated because they almost completely took over in the latter half as some of them dropped out of sheer exhaustion.

Gakushuu was sweating, constantly switching partners and bringing whoever wanted to dance into the fray. He got spun around about a million times, and danced with half as many boys as he did girls.

And when it was time to close, he went up on the stage and slowed down the tempo of the song and brought it down to a soft melody to give it a sweet end.

"She's dead! Let's leave her here to die!" Kazuki announced to his surroundings. The girl dying at his feet let out an annoyed mumble.

"Oh, I think Gakushuu's planning to play again to end this!" Ayaka squealed. Said dead girl shot up to her feet.

"What? Where? Is he going to sing??" Hinata asked, her face flushed red from exertion. Amami tried to cool her face but ended up slapping her in the face.

"Ow," Hinata complained after a minute, when she didn't hear any music. Amami deadpanned.

"He sounded so nice! I want to hear him sing again!" Ayaka sighed.

"Don't worry, I recorded it," Anaya added.

"Yeah, you and half the school," Ren dryly said. The other boys snickered.

"You're just jealous," Ayaka pouted, poking a finger in Ren's face. Anaya picked up Ayaka's hand then pointed at the snickering boys.

" They're jealous," the girls snickered as the boys scowled.

"I stand corrected," Ayaka raised her nose up high.

"Oh, he's really starting now!" Hinata jumped excitedly.

"Oh, wait, let me start recording," Anaya said, shoving a few of her classmates away to get a better view.

"But I wanted to watch…" Kazuki whispered under his breath watching his spot get stolen away.

Then, Gakushuu joined the previous music, and kept the tempo, slowly changing the song then, slowing down.

"Wow, I'm kinda feeling super relaxed now…" Ayaka whispered.

"I knew it! He's definitely got a superpower!" Hinata hissed back victoriously.

"Shut up!" Someone whisper-shouted at them.

They shut up.

Chapter Text

Gakushuu learnt something new after hosting a school wide dance- becoming famous was easy.

Well. Maybe easy wasn't the right word.

But, it wasn't difficult.

Gakushuu had everything he needed to be famous, even the steps were laid out for him. It was practically fate. It was bound to happen some way or the other.

Gakushuu had a beautiful face. It showed strength. No matter Gakushuu's clothes or words or even actions. His face and expressions conveyed a sense of confidence and strength.

When people looked at him, they naturally sensed that he was somehow superior. It was his charisma. It stole attention from people. It invited jealousy.

It brought out their lust, greed and envy for him.

Even without memory of his part life, he was well aware of the ugliness of humanity.

His father would show it to him deliberately, and then show him how to crush it under him.

People were complex, but they were also pretty simple. And this was why Gakushuu wasn't surprised by kidnapping attempts.

Gakushuu was a pretty boy. Maybe no one could call him delicate, but no one could refute the fact that he was pretty in a way, very few things were.

Pretty like a mirror shattered and then brought together like a kaleidoscope. It wouldn't break a second time, but the marks of the first were always left behind.

So. Kidnapping.

Yes, kidnapping happened.

But it was extremely short lived.

Gakushuu had barely even been thrown in a car when someone came, rescued him, dropped him outside on the street and drove the car full of unconscious potential kidnappers away.

It was hilariously short lived.

Gakushuu didn't tell anyone but he got enough clues to deduce his father had somehow been behind his prompt rescue.

He didn't even get scolded for being surprised enough to get thrown in the car, which would have been rather shocking if his father hadn't immediately rearranged his schedule to make time for them to spar.

Well, mostly him learning how to avoid getting ambushed.

In the first place, Gakushuu wasn't someone who got easily ambushed, but, it wouldn't be a mistake to say that it was his weakest point.

Ambushes were supposed to be surprise attacks, after all. If the attacker was either more skilled, or Gakushuu was more unprepared, it could go either way.

Midterms were simple enough when compared to the stress the third years were going through.

Their midterm and finals were practically one after the other. Gakushuu started looking over the student council work, which wasn't as complicated as people were led to believe. Mostly because, the most important decisions were made by the Principal, and not the council itself.

The council was mostly there to handle the details of school events, the student body or complaints of a not-serious nature.

Of course, Gakushuu hadn't expected the amount of complaints they were receiving. There were prank complaints, actual complaints, serious complaints or problems that should have been noted, but weren't.

But Gakushuu directly receiving the position of Vice President so blatantly was unprecedented. It was obvious what the actual Vice President was doing- announcing to the student body that Gakushuu was gonna be the next Vice President.

A challenge and a dare all at once.

Though most of the people who would dare go against the Vice President, were just second year delinquents, and first year loved Gakushuu already, so.

It was an easy win.

Though he still didn't like getting help from the other boy at all.

('He's a threat' Gakushuu thought.

"What happened? You look like you're about to blush again," Ren snickered. Gakushuu scowled.

"Shut up.")

Winter break, on the other hand, was like being back before Junior High all over again. And not in a good way.

Ren was busy, his classmates were busy with their families or taken away by their parents for some reason or the other.

A few were inspired by Gakushuu and the class and insisted on learning more or doing more.

Basically, most of his classmates and friends were busy . And Gakushuu was roaming busy streets, trying to avoid the explosion of family theme and sweets everywhere on the 25th of December.

So of course, that's when he heard the sound of a fight and when he went to check it out, he spotted an exceedingly familiar figure.

He waited till the fight was over to approach. Wouldn't do for one of them to brain Akabane just for Gakushuu.

"Akabane," he acknowledged, giving a distasteful look at the slumped over bodies scattered on the dark road. His eyebrows lifted when he counted the number of people.

"Did you get injured?" He asked curiously. Karma let out a huff, before standing up and facing him. There was a sharp mischievous look on his face.

"Nah, these are small fries," Karma grinned at the twitching body and it stilled again.

"If you want better fries, you should go eat at a better restaurant," Gakushuu deadpanned. Karma snorted, at the unexpected joke. Then looked at him consideringly.

"All right, let's go eat," Karma started walking back into the crowd of people. Gakushuu blinked in confusion for half a second before following the other boy.

He was the one who suggested food, why was he following Karma then? He sulked a little but followed him through the crowd trying to throw him in different directions.

A warm hand clasped his own.

Gakushuu scowled harder.

"I'm not getting lost!" He half shouted to reach Karma but the other boy pretended to not hear him. He clicked his tongue but didn't remove his hand.

Then they reached the fast food joint and Gakushuu wished he could turn break time instead.

"Fries!" Karma grinned victoriously at Gakushuu's annoyed scowl, then dragged him in.

Gakushuu could have said a lot of things to prevent them from actually eating there. Maybe his father's ban (he would want to defy it more), or even how he literally hadn't had a proper burger before (no, that would make him more insistent) or maybe just lie about Gakushuu not liking fast foods (true, but he hadn't tried enough of them to make a proper opinion. 43% chance of him seeing through the lie though).

But instead of insisting anyway, Gakushuu let himself get dragged by Karma, let his food be ordered by him and went along with him to sit at a table.

Then they started talking and bickering about things. Somewhere in the middle Karma talked about his new friend in his recently demoted class D, and Gakushuu ranted about Karma falling into class D as a student in their Top Five.

Karma smiled, and Gakushuu didn't completely hate the whole thing.

Neither of them talked about either of their absentee parent figures.

There was a shiny Christmas tree, and people taking pictures under it. There were free items shoved in their hands that Gakushuu almost automatically gave Karma, before realizing it wasn't Ren and wincing. Then realizing Karma probably wouldn't give him shit about free stuff anyway.

"Not like I can take them home," he shrugged, feeling surprisingly honest. Karma, as expected, didn't give a shit.

There was a live concert on the streets, then fireworks from some place and Gakushuu bought a half decent scarf that was far too expensive, and handed it off to Karma.

That one he didn't take as easily as the free items and Gakushuu took on his insistently curious look for a few minutes before sighing.

He leaned in close and whispered in his ear.

"Happy Birthday!" His cold nose brushed against Karma's warm cheeks, and then he pulled away, grabbed Karma's hand to pull him along the crowd instead of standing in the middle of a busy street.

When he looked back, Karma's eyes were sparkling brightly, a grin on his face.

Gakushuu found a pair of gloves delivered to his house on his birthday.

Gakushuu didn't watch the first sunrise of the year. He didn't go to a shrine or watch it on television.

Gakushuu was studying.

After winter, they would have their finals and he would be buried in work. Studying needed to happen before he got busy.

So he studied, did tests, went through his own work, then his father's work. He created his own tests and completed them almost as he was done choosing.

He created tests for his classmates and studied through the rising and setting of the sun.

Then he studied the rest of winter too.

When school resumed, it was almost a relief. Gakushuu wasn't allowed on the student council work anymore, and he did his class rep duties with Anaya.

Everyone discussed their holidays and Gakushuu mostly brushed his off as competitions and new year events.

January finished quickly and February started. Then the students started thinking about Valentine's Day.

Gakushuu didn't really celebrate most holidays anyway, Valentine's had never been an exception. Though he did give obligatory White Day gifts back to people, he clearly mentioned that he wasn't accepting any feelings.

His return gifts were always on the same theme. Like bulk purchased chocolates.

It still made the people giving him gifts happy (a lot of them just didn't leave a name and they were touched he could tell from the Home Ec. skills or you know, the CCTV footage, to see who left gifts for him).

That year was about to be slightly different because Gakushuu wanted to build a good bond with his classmates, and when he received their obligatory chocolates, he decided that he needed to go an extra mile.

And if he was doing it for his classmates, he could just go it on a mass-produced scale and just give it to everyone else too.

So he ate himself sick on the boxes of chocolates that came for him. He disliked sweets and his class was mostly aware of it, though he still received sweetened chocolates.

There were white chocolates and dark chocolates and normal ones in different shapes and sizes.

The most memorable moment for him was when opened a plain box and took out a piece of chocolate and ate it.

He nearly died right then. Because he was pretty sure that there was wasabi filling in there.

Someone spent time to take out the original filling of the chocolate, he guessed something like peanut butter or white chocolate filling, and put wasabi there instead.

The following chocolates from other people felt almost tame in comparison, so Gakushuu made himself eat another. Cause he was a complete masochist.

Of course there was two .

And the other had hot pepper instead of wasabi. Gakushuu still didn't know which he preferred because both of them made him tear up.

So Gakushuu came to class the next day with red eyes, looking for all the world like he had cried himself to sleep.

The pictures went viral.

When White Day came, Gakushuu gave every person who gave chocolates a candied apple.

In different shapes.

He himself created the ones he gave to class, changed to suit their specific tastes and gave general animal related ones to the rest of the people.

("I can't believe he's giving it to everyone who gave him a gift," a girl whispered to her friend. Said friend hummed, watching Gakushuu talk to another girl and hand her a 'thank you' candied apple lollipop.

The girl groaned in disgust.

"Don't blame the sweet! It's really good!" She protested as she bit off more of the hard candy. The girl without the candy pouted.

"...I heard he gave everyone in his class an animal-shaped taste-specific candied apple," the girl said under her breath, watching the other girl open the wrapping to find a normal candied apple lollipop.

"I'm kinda jealous," the other girl replied casually, noisily chewing at the pieces of candy in her mouth.

"...Same," the girl sighed.)

Gakushuu's most special candy, of course, had to go to only one person.

Gakushuu walked to class D with a smile on his face that made a few students part to give way to him.

Or maybe they wanted to see the show.

He spotted Akabane Karma easily and he smiled, walking inside the class and dropping the candy on his desk.

"Thank you for the chocolates, Akabane," he gave a tight mean smile. "They were a delight ."

Gakushuu had found out that Akabane had sneaked in chocolates for all the boys in class A, which was even more annoying. But Gakushuu had gotten the special two in one offer and received both chocolates filled with different fillings, unlike the others who received one of each.

Karma picked up the candy and rolled it between his fingers, warily eying Gakushuu.

"Will this explode if I open it?" He asked, and Gakushuu smiled.

"I hope you enjoy it. I made it myself." Then he put a hand on the table and let Karma see the challenge in his eyes. "It's even got layers. "

Karma's eyes lit up. He grinned. He looked at the candy in his hand and the mean look on Gakushuu's face and slowly opened it.

It looked normal.

Karma gave it an experimental lick.

"That's pretty good," Karma lied easily. Then he took another lick, showing Gakushuu his thorough enjoyment of the candy. Gakushuu narrowed his eyes, watching.

Karma took it a step further and popped the whole thing in his mouth.

There was a crunch sound as Karma bit into it. He froze for a moment, and Gakushuu smiled victoriously.

"Wow. This is pretty good!" Karma said, casually pulling out the lollipop stick the candy was attached to and bit into the pieces in his mouth, chewing it quickly.

Gakushuu scowled as he watched Karma eat his hours of hard work. 

"So glad you're enjoying it," Gakushuu said, disgusted before swivelling on his heel and walking out.

The moment Gakushuu left the vicinity of the class, Karma spat out the pieces and finished his own bottle of water in a few gulps, then he grabbed someone else's water and drank that too.

He teared up a little and slowly drank his third snatched bottle of water.

The class snickered and Karma sniffed, his taste buds were dead. They were absolutely completely dead from the terrible mix of Karma's own medicine.

He gave the remains of the candy a wary look. He had no idea how Gakushuu had managed to make a hot pepper top layer to a hard candy, but when Karma bit in (while severely underestimating his 'layers') he tasted the shock of what felt like frozen wasabi on his tongue.

Was that even something that could be done? Did people do things like this??

Karma was almost offended he hadn't managed to find a way to make hot pepper and wasabi look like delicious candied apple lollipop. Was Gakushuu some kind of cooking genius too?

Also, hadn't Gakushuu finished both his chocolates?

Karma made an expression of 'challenge accepted' and picked up the candy again.

Hmm.

Was that mustard...?

Chapter Text

Year 1 ended without much fanfare. Though there was actually a lie.

There was a lot of fanfare.

Gakushuu scored rank 1 with a total of 500 marks. A complete utter domination of every test given to him.

There was screaming and crying, some not even from his own class as everyone wondered if they should say something like "that's normal for an Asano" or "HOLY FUCK FULL MARKS IN THIS HELL".

It was pretty insane.

There was some media coverage for Kunugigaoka for some reason, and the scuffle about the Principal's son getting the first full marks in the history of Kunugigaoka was pretty big news.

Gakushuu dissed his father's exam setting methods a little, but mostly, he was pretty happy about his marks. It was nice to see undisguised awe in people's eyes.

His father quizzed him about world politics and scolded him when he stuttered about some facts about a country that was so mediocre it was painful.

The thing about Kunugigaoka was that people didn't like to continue schooling in it. A lot of students of Junior High chose to not even give the High School exam and other people transferred in after listening to its reputation.

People only realised how terrible and stressful the system and being 'the best' was after they were in the middle of it, taking part in it.

No one really liked Kunugigaoka. They just liked the fact that someone was suffering more than them.

Class A had privileges, so people assumed that it had the least amount of suffering, but the thing was, suffering never just ended.

It was always there.

Class E suffered the most obviously. But they weren't even an integral part of the system.

They were cut off from the world, people who could leave and walk away.

It was class A that suffered from the envy and fear of failure. The constant keeping up, the anxieties and fears. The perfectionism was polished by grinding parts of themselves away.

There were so many different ways to suffer. And everyone was in pain.

And Gakushuu couldn't help them all.

He could help out in their home life. He did, in fact, when he became the Vice-President of the Student Council in his second year, after an election so biased towards him it felt rigged.

And he found more avenues, more ways to find information and more importantly, more power. Even if the power was easily overruled by his father, the small changes would accumulate.

So Gakushuu started small- punishments to do random errands for the students who did something that went against his own meager moral code.

He didn't have power over the class representatives yet, but he had enough to do small things for or against specific students 

He talked to students he felt were abused at homes and tended to be bullied. He made sure they had his number and asked to ask for help.

There were class E students who suffered through depression and he asked the student council president to ask for a Student Councillor but his father refused. It wasn't unexpected.

Gakushuu still did things that slowly went against his and his father's equal exchange policy.

He found a student suffering through terrible physical abuse, who had come to him willingly. He felt terrible but he made sure to make her take pictures of every single injury and send it to him.

Then he compiled it into a file and went to his father.

"What is it?" His father asked, when he threw the file down on the table.

"Abuse," Gakushuu replied. His father opened the file and looked through the file detailing incidents and causes of each injury.

The most recent one was the reason Gakushuu had come to his father. He needed to get the student out of his family situation, and it was immediate enough that the injuries could be registered legally.

But if Gakushuu didn't inform his father about his course of action, there was a possibility his father would oppose the action and hush both father and child with money, to prevent the case from being linked to his school.

Gakushuu's method could only be 'loud'. He didn't have enough connections to keep it quiet, unlike his father.

He wanted his father to hasten the whole process and solve this in the best way available.

His father hummed.

"And in return-"

"I won't publicise it," Gakushuu interrupted. His eyes were as cold as the South Pole.

"And you'll take care of your class at the same time? Surely being in the student council means that your time with you class is limited," Gakuhou said, the threat in his words to his classmates hovered in the air but Gakushuu was unmoved.

"We have an agreement you won't be going against. I'm not completely against harming myself to get back at you," he said mockingly, voice frosty.

"Should I block your card then?" Gakuhou asked, almost curiously. Gakushuu being minor meant that no matter the amount of money he gathered on his own, the bank would still give access to his father, his legal guardian.

"I have class A. They're rich," he almost rolled his eyes admitting it, instead of talking about his very illegal bunch of bank accounts he had hidden away for a 'just in case' situation against his father.

Gakuhou pretended to consider the student's file for a little more (for show, he had decided the moment he saw it).

"All right. I'll handle it. As a reward for your marks in your finals," his father almost seemed to smile and Gakushuu stopped himself from recoiling away. He didn't give away a single twitch.

His father flicked his hand dismissively and Gakushuu nodded and left. There was something cold in his heart and he wasn't sure if it was because his father had threatened him casually over many important things to Gakushuu or because of the 'reward' that Gakushuu had never received.

He barely got praise.

A reward? What was that?

It was unbelievable. But even more unbelievable was the fact that Gakushuu came out scot free. He didn't have to pay for it.

He didn't know if his father had a soft spot for the physically abused or if he was just pretending. Was it another Ikeda thing or a Gakushuu thing?

Was it actually a reward, however unbelievable it seemed?

Somehow, the sun didn't feel that bright that day.

Gakushuu's second year was pretty good. He was popular among the second and third years, and the newest batch of first years were intimidated enough by him that they didn't do much.

Gakushuu guided the lost sheep into his club and guided them on the do's and don'ts of Kunugigaoka. There was a drastic change from normal schools and he didn't want them to develop a complex about Kunugigaoka like most of his seniors.

His year seemed to be on both ends of the spectrum, but overall, it was better than his senior years.

Since he had enough power as a Vice-President, he made sure to catch the eyes of anyone who jeered at class E and punish them, deliberately letting them know the reasons and even if they protested, well, the punishments technically weren't 'punishments' and the teachers would let harm come to him over their dead bodies.

Gakushuu was their golden goose, someone who got full marks in the finals of the hell school, even if it was in the first year. But he got it for every single subject.

It was unprecedented in the short but intense history of Kunugigaoka.

The difficulty levels varied through, so even they couldn't be sure, but most people were pretty certain that Gakushuu would be in the top 2% of the best students in Japan.

But Gakushuu had never skipped years. Not that Gakuhou would have let him. He did every year thoroughly, taking advantage of his age and his skills.

A methodical way of building himself up, a step by step process that built a solid foundation for himself.

But it meant that Gakushuu had never been tested as a genius, unlike a few other students in his very own school.

Gakushuu had worked hard for every little bit of knowledge. He had learnt to be efficient, to manage his time better, to act before he thought, and think before he acted.

Gakushuu never really felt like he was special. Like he was comprehending something at an unnatural pace. People around him were awed by the skills he worked for, not the things that were inherently his.

He knew every hour, every day spent polishing those skills to perfection. The effort he spent on them.

He wasn't his father, who was a genius at education, but even his father worked harder than him. Even if education came easy, his father worked to be who he was in the realm of business and politics.

And it mostly worked.

But for Gakushuu, it was truly the reverse. For Gakushuu, business came easy. Not just because of his past life but because it really did feel easy.

Making money had never been Gakushuu's problem. He could throw money at people if that was all they needed, but you had to know how to delegate roles and how to use the money too.

Gakuhou still underestimated Gakushuu. What he had wasn't limited to just his father's Junior High, even if he treasured his classmates. Gakushuu had already reached out into the world and taken things for himself of his own power.

The second year winning class trip that Gakushuu picked at random was the wildlife.

Everyone was pretty nervous about it, and Araki spammed their chat with advice from professionals. Hinata sent anxious emoji and Kazuki got banned from texting at all.

Their living arrangement was literally…a boathouse.

They travelled through a river, stopping on islands to rest, or eat or for more wildlife watching and interaction. They tried not to get eaten by crocodiles in the river and then tried not to get eaten by the lions on land.

It was a difficult job even for Gakushuu. Especially when Chika went crazy at one point and wanted to eat a crocodile.

He wasn't even sure what to say to that.

At one point, a group of girls got pushed into the water, but thankfully, there weren't any dangerous creatures nearby and their screams alerted everyone of their predicament.

Gakushuu made the boys eat the weirdest foods they could get as punishment.

Even their guide sweat at trying to manage their mess of a class. It was already good enough that they could come out of the other end without having one of their classmates dead or dying.

Gakushuu was determined to have the school manage their trips a little better.

So maybe last time, he hadn't really said anything about the amount of things overlooked on their trips, but this time wasn't even his fault.

It's not like he deliberately jumped into a fight with a crocodile! They were literally a group of teenagers who wanted to do scary, crazy things and then the class trip was literally throwing them at crocodiles and snakes and god knows what.

There needed to be either better supervision or the pre-checks needed to be stricter.

Also, why the hell was the presence of their teachers optional? Why did their teacher decide that one or two relatively responsible teenagers was enough to manage a whole class?

Gakushuu had so many problems with their own class trips that he already had a headache.

Gakushuu was adding more work for himself and he wasn't even the Student Council President. Why was the Vice President so busy?

The class trip ended cheerfully, and everyone left exhilarated, and slightly sick of the food.

They had way too many unique things to eat. The palate of class A wasn't willing (aside from Chika).

To be fair to class A, Gakushuu wasn't aware of exactly how exceptional he was. He had high standards for others and even higher standards for himself.

He was always surrounded by people who were exceptional at their fields. So, he didn't understand what 'giving up' meant even if he understood the concept.

Class A was filled with exceptional people, like most of Kunugigaoka. They were all people who had passed the difficult Entrance Exam into Junior High.

But Gakushuu, even if he was aware of the facts, had never seen the ordinary people around him.

Ren caught his attention with his competence, so did Araki, and Akabane. His knew how exceptional his father was for years, since the age of 3.

So, Gakushuu wasn't aware that his class A was actually really amazing, even if he was comparing it to the class in the High School section.

He asked for a goal to be completed, and the students who were used to perfection reached for it. They didn't always reach it, but Gakushuu was used to finding the path for himself, and when he couldn't, he asked his father.

His father had never stifled his growth, even if he had his own bad points. So Gakushuu had watered the seeds of class A and nurtured it to grow into exceptional flowers.

Gakushuu wasn't always aware of how good his classmates were, but the better they were, the easier his own job was, and the more he could then take on.

So, class A grew and Gakushuu sheltered and nurtured them, going out into the storm first so he could show the rest a path forward.

And soon, as their second year proceeded, they could see the path themselves. They could support themselves and they grew in different, exceptional ways all on their own.

They were inspired by Gakushuu, by Ren, by the growth everyone had experienced even unknown to themselves.

Their greed for growth grew and they reached even further all on their own.

After all, that was how class A was made. It was made of exceptional students who adapted to the education of Kunugigaoka the best. They were the people who understood the rules of society, and reached for the top, and achieved it for themselves.

So just as Gakushuu grew, so too did class 2-A.

Chapter Text

Time Skip

Gakushuu let his hands curl over the cat sleeping on his chest and purring loudly. He scratched behind his ear and he pawed his chest.

Gakushuu was lying in a park with a cap covering his face, and a total of 3 cats surrounding him. One was curled up and purring on his chest, another was half on his neck and shoulder, and another was sleeping on top of his other free hand.

Gakushuu was in, what he liked to call, his most attractive phase in life. He was a relatively hot person (hottie #1 according to polls) with a lot of friends, even more skills, and a mostly absentee father.

Now what was good about it?

Well, it would be the fact that he was pretty damn amazing. And even though his father had a lot of expectations on him, he was doing a pretty decent job meeting them, so he had a lot more freedom than…literally ever in his life.

He literally walked into a cafe having a live concert, played a song and he became internet famous with his friends spamming him with messages about what he was doing.

It was funny. It was liberating. It was what he really wanted to always do with his life.

Except-

As if aware of his thoughts, his phone rang. He sighed. Then he stopped petting the slice of heaven on his chest and took out his phone and answered without looking.

"Asano." He said curtly.

"Shuu-chan~" Karma started.

"You're a pain," he informed the other boy.

"But you like a little pain, don't you?" Gakushuu let out an exasperated sigh at the line.

"I'm guessing you found other people who liked a little 'pain' too?" He replied instead.

"That's right!" Karma said cheerfully. There was a groan in the background. Then a sound of flesh hitting flesh. Gakushuu looked at the sky, then realized the hat was still covering his face, and sighed instead.

"You're a pain," he repeated.

"Your vocabulary has shrunk by an alarming degree, Ace of class A." Karma mocked him as Gakushuu sent off a text.

"It's because no matter how amazing my vocabulary when I'm insulting you, you just reply in unoriginal ways," Gakushuu shot back. 

"Are you calling me boring? " Karma gasped.

"No, how could I ever accuse you of being boring-" you might set fire to the school if I do, "-I'm just accusing you of being unoriginal. Last week's water works was far too easy to see through."

"Class A is just 'the territory of the ruler' so how could I-"

"You, the fourth ranked student in the school?" Gakushuu interrupted, and Karma snickered.

"And still not in class A," Karma reminded, mocking at his father's philosophy.

"Because you're a menace to society, Akabane." Gakushuu said automatically, going back to paying most of his attention to the cat napping on his chest.

"You've been calling me that since the first year, I think you might need to go back to the dictionary again," Karma pointed out.

"Then should I say you're a terrible influence on the world and humans at large and will one day lead to the end of the world?" Gakushuu replied sarcastically.

"That's music to my ears, Shuu-chan," Karma said, almost sweetly.

Gakushuu pushed the hat to cover more of his face.

"And I have better things to do in life than you," he retorted. Then felt regret slapping him across the face a moment later.

"Oh, my." Gakushuu could almost see Karma grinning. "Are you-"

They simultaneously heard a loud 'meow' as the cat on Gakushuu's shoulder tumbled over. It batted at the hat on Gakushuu's face and Gakushuu melted.

He removed his hat, placing it beside him and watched the cat play with it. He sighed, contentedly at it.

"Did you get a pet cat?" Karma asked, delighted.

Gakushuu didn't get startled at the way Karma naturally let him have his moments, even when Karma was on call. Generally it was either to gather blackmail or because Karma was actually a kind person about some very specific things.

This time, it was probably blackmail though.

"I didn't," he said peacefully. "I'm just relaxing with the cats." Karma hummed before Gakushuu heard Karma moving.

"The emergency service isn't there yet," Gakushuu reminded Karma.

"But you told them the whole situation right?" Karma grinned as he asked, already knowing the answer.

"That's because you only call me when there's a third person involved in your fights!" He scolded the other boy.

"But you're so good at dealing with annoying things like that!" Gakushuu wanted to, once again, punch the other boy in the face.

"Don't interrupt my free time," he warned instead, a slightly annoyed look on his face. It eased as he watched the cat abandon the hat and circle Gakushuu's head.

"Too late~" came Karma's voice, from his phone and from somewhere behind him. Gakushuu shot up.

The cat sleeping on his hand mewled loudly at being disturbed. Gakushuu gave it an apology scratch as it brushed against him once before leaving for a better spot. He had automatically cradled the cat on his chest but the other cat that had been curiously circling his head left him to walk around Karma's feet, curiously.

Karma bent down to scratch at the cat and she mewled cutely at him, flicking her tail.

It was a pretty view. Gakushuu wanted a picture. He took the picture.

Karma shot him an annoyed look before giving into the cat's demand for more scratches.

He plopped down on the ground beside him.

"Ugh," Gakushuu voiced, gently petting the cat in his arms. Karma took a retaliatory picture. Gakushuu rolled his eyes.

The cat on Karma hopped on his legs, before jumping on his shoulder then jumping off behind Karma. Gakushuu snickered as the cat left.

"She's already had her nap. Too bad for you, Akabane." He teased.

Karma turned back to look at Gakushuu's raised phone, and his smug face, and his eyes narrowed vindictively.

Oh fuck.

Gakushuu bemoaned his fate of being set on for Karma's revenge. He was one petty bitch. The name was well suited.

"So, Gakushuu ," his name rolled off Karma's tongue with delight, "have you been napping under the sun with your fellow cats all this time?"

He continued before Gakushuu could protest.

"Oh, how terribly rude of me. I interrupted Shuu-chan's nap time. Shuu-chan seems terribly grumpy," he crawled forward, sticking his face close to Gakushuu with a smile.

"Aren't you the cat here, Akabane? Coming and going as you please? Not abiding by the rules of human society?" Karma laughed at that.

Gakushuu didn't protest, well aware that the traits he just listed were considered positive ones that they both appreciated.

Karma started petting the cat Gakushuu was holding and Gakushuu looked around.

There were a couple of people throwing a baseball at each other. They were just playing catch, with training gloves. One was quite obviously the pitcher and the other seemed to be his catcher.

Gakushuu scratched his cat and frowned the two. There were quite obviously other people-

Just when the thought flashed through his mind, the baseball went wide and landed somewhere behind Karma.

Then there was a loud familiar mewl of a cat, and both of them turned to the sound with alarm.

When Karma moved, Gakushuu could finally see the cat laying on the ground, and the baseball rolled to a stop in front of her.

She made a high painful sound, and Gakushuu echoed it, the sound settled almost painfully in his throat. The cat tried to move but even he could see the way the ball had injured his hind legs.

Karma immediately went to her and carefully checked her. He was awkward about it, but gentle.

Gakushuu just stayed frozen as he watched Karma carefully pick up the cat in his arms.

"Where's the closest vet?" Karma asked. His eyes were wide with worry, as he cradled the cat, trying not to hurt her.

"Um.'' Gakushuu said blankly feeling like he had just skipped through the last few minutes of life, before he pulled himself together. "Right."

He stood up, then led the way, and Karma matched his pace, his gait almost matching Gakushuu's normally smooth ones. The cat in his arms let out soft painful sounds that felt like it was tearing into his soul.

The vet was almost 10 painful torturous minutes away and Gakushuu almost felt like crying or taking the cat from Karma and running to the vet himself near the end of it.

It was relatively quick care since the vet was there and it was an emergency. Karma and Gakushuu sat side by side on uncomfortable chairs and he realized, for the first time, that he was still cradling the cat from the park to his chest.

He let out a slight giggle. Then another.

The next one stuck in his throat when he remembered the two irresponsible people playing around. Murderous fury filled him, instead.

"I'm going to kill them," he said, standing up. The cat in his arms shifted uncomfortably and he realized he should probably put him down somewhere comfortable before Gakushuu went and killed a few people.

"Hey." Akabane asked, "How about you leave those two to me?"

Gakushuu raised an eyebrow, looking at the other boy. Then at the cat in his arms.

He nodded and sat back down.

"Okay," he agreed.

He wasn't entirely sure what Karma was planning to do considering he had never seen him fight someone who wasn't willing to fight him first, but he remembered the wasabi and various other items that Karma enjoyed putting in all the wrong holes and stopped thinking about it.

He was confident that even if it wasn't him, as long as it was Karma, an appropriate punishment would be dished out.  Though maybe their life and future wouldn't be as ruined as he would like.

He should legally sue them for animal abuse and public carelessness with objects that could cause harm.

"I'm still suing them," he told Karma. The other boy smirked.

"That's okay!" He said almost cheerfully, as he bared his teeth. "I'll make sure they're alive enough for it."

Satisfied, Gakushuu went back to petting his cat.

Gakushuu couldn't actually adopt the cats, but Karma decided he had enough free time to deal with two cats, injured or not, which was a relief.

Since the winter of his second year of Junior High, the ginger cat would find Gakushuu once a week to nap on him, or get a few scratches or snacks. He had fallen in love with the ginger mess of a cat.

He always ran away even if Gakushuu tried to leave him for adoption or pay someone to care for him.

The cat was stubborn, and he had chosen Gakushuu for some reason, and no one but Gakushuu would do.

It would be sweet. Except he tended to ruin Gakushuu's room, and on one occasion ruined Gakushuu's closet of gifts that was hidden away with Ren. It was an upsetting time.

But both the white injured one and Gakushuu's ginger cat seemed to have taken a liking to Karma- which probably would have made Gakushuu jealous if it weren't for how much he hovered over the injured cat.

Karma was surprisingly nice, but most importantly, absent from his own home, for long stretches of time that made him wonder if he was punching delinquents or just avoiding his house.

Gakushuu had had close calls bumping into him many times even outside school, which made sense when Gakushuu became a semi-frequent visitor to his house and realized he wasn't even home half the time.

But the cats seemed satisfied and his home wasn't a wrecked mess so obviously it wasn't going too badly.

With that said, Gakushuu was once again pulled away from his idyllic days when his father scoffed at him for making an inane mistake in some competition and proceeded to make sure Gakushuu wouldn't be making the same mistake ever again.

It wasn't very common nowadays, because Gakushuu was actually a pretty amazing student, and his mistakes were rare.

Gakushuu was competent, thank you very much.

Which meant that Gakuhou was emotional . Though, looking at the upcoming school year, Gakushuu had an idea of why.

Wasn't Gakushuu at the exact age where Ikeda and Gakuhou built up their amazingly strong beyond-life-and-death bond?

Gakuhou became emotional about the oddest things.

He didn't care about Ikeda's day of death, but he punished the ones that caused it. He didn't give Gakushuu the same care but he bragged about him to people.

He never directly compared Gakushuu and Ikeda but Gakushuu was built on the idea of Ikeda's 'failure'.

Gakushuu never knew what to feel about his father. Just that, whatever he did, it felt strong. And unbelievably complicated.

Ren's advice was an incredibly simple yet sharp "get a fucking therapist".

But Gakushuu didn't. He didn't trust someone to allow them in his mind after Gakuhou. But, it wasn't just that.

He didn't want his therapist to report Gakuhou. It might not even happen, or even if it did, his father would find a way to stop it.

But even then. It felt like just having it out in the open would tear him apart. He didn't want to be faced with the choice. Or the consequences of either action.

Gakushuu had been thinking about a way to really hurt his father, and he had come to the conclusion that his father had always been a teacher. He hadn't actually spent much time being a father.

Gakushuu barely even remembered the joy of being in an actual family anymore (lie) but he was sure Gakuhou did.

The biggest scar on him would be to realise that he had gotten exactly what he wanted- Gakuhou had raised a student, not a son.

And it would kill him.

The summer vacation before his third year began with an injured cat and a punishment.

It didn't get better.

Chapter Text

Karma had always known about Asano Gakushuu.

A boy with an intellect to rival a genius but also a maturity that probably stemmed from trauma. Anyone could look at Asano Junior and see the daddy issues gushing out.

There was always something or the other going on with him, and everything seemed to stem from their deep seated family issues.

Maybe at one point Karma could have said the daddy issues were one sided, but with the amount of public humiliation the whole school had witnessed from both members of the family, he could safely say that it was very much mutual.

Just like how Asano Senior had messed up his son, said son also messed with his sperm donor.

It would actually be a funny show for him. If only, Asano Gakushuu hadn't taken one look at him and decided that he was something.

Karma didn't know what.

Asano Gakushuu did a thing. He looked at people and instantly decided they were 'his'. There was no similarity that he found between himself, Sakakibara Ren and Kamiya Hinata, and yet they were all people Gakushuu had taken in.

Akabane Karma would like it to be noted that he did not want to get involved in the family drama. Or the class drama.

So why the hell did he keep following Gakushuu?

Ren was the one who ended up confronting him on it.

"You can just go talk to him instead of lingering around here," Ren spoke up unexpectedly from beside Karma as he watched Gakushuu from a distance, rejecting a girl.

Karma absolutely did not startle. Or yelp.

Ren looked at the other boy with an amused look.

"I don't want to," Karma said flippantly, trying to play it off. 

"Yeah, and you haven't been following him around," Ren replied sarcastically. "Did you think he hadn't noticed? You have met up at least 50% more this month than the last, and Gakushuu hadn't gone out of his way enough for it to increase that dramatically. So it's you who has."

Karma clicked his tongue.

"We're friends. It's not exactly a big deal," he admitted, feeling irritated at being exposed too easily. This was the problem with smart people.

The Principal induced partial blindness in people, but Gakushuu had always been a firm believer in looking at all the ugly truths of the world.

Probably another reason why he suffered so much under his father's guiding hand. He didn't want to just close his eyes and ignore people (himself or his father) in pain.

"Hmm," Ren roved a judgemental look over Karma's untidy uniform, lack of tie and wrong jacket on his shoulder and shook his head in disappointment.

"I don't know what he sees in you, but I'll help you just this once," Ren told him distastefully. "Gakushuu goes to the park to relax, and only goes to three cafes when he wants to be around people that aren't us. He hates anything sweet, so good job on Valentine's but he's possessive, so bad job by giving it to everyone in class A. Don't compare him to his father and-"

"Wait wait wait!" Karma interrupted, surprised at this sudden outpour of grossly personal information.

Generally, he would be up to sitting down and listing all the weaknesses and teasing Gakushuu about it, but he didn't miss the underlying implication.

"Why are you telling me all this?" Ren looked at him like he was stupid.

Karma sort of might be feeling a tad bit stupid.

"You can't spend time with him when it's just class A students and with the way you're going…" Ren wrinkled his nose like Gakushuu did when he saw something distasteful.

"... You don't like me but you're encouraging me to be friends with him?" Karma clarified.

Ren nodded readily.

"I'm representing class A and doing this since half of them either want to kill you or will make you want to kill them. I doubt your restraint and replaced all of them by veto," Ren explained and Karma wondered what the fuck was going on, while also preening at the thought of class A being so wary of him.

How adorable.

But also, last he had seen, class A had been a pretty normal class, granted, that was almost a year ago now, but that still counted, right?

Gakushuu hadn't really talked about his class, so Karma hadn't ever cared, but he didn't expect them to confront him instead.

He hummed then accepted the information dump.

"I don't really care what you want from me, or him," Karma didn't really point but it was obvious he meant Gakushuu and Ren showed his first hint of a smirk at that, Karma narrowed his eyes at the response. "-but I'll just do what I want."

Something rubbed him wrong about this. He didn't like becoming predictable.

Also, he had literally never been told he had done a "bad job" at a prank, no matter how subjective the person saying it.

"And," Karma let a threat slip in his grin, and felt oddly satisfied at the way Ren watched him calmly instead of flinching or even getting wary, "maybe you should sleep with an eye open from now on. A friendly suggestion."

Then, Karma noticed that Gakushuu had already left and so he turned and walked away.

Behind him, Ren groaned, and Karma smirked, an idea to ruin their next few days forming in his head.

He was ticked off by the 'help', though. Karma's eyes flashed with irritation at the interference from class A.

Ren might have said Gakushuu was possessive, but Karma didn't particularly like people sticking their nose where it didn't belong either.

Karma would unravel Gakushuu's habits himself either way. He didn't need someone to spill all the secrets out at once.

Wasn't half the fun in getting to know someone, finding out their habits and quirks? And finding ways to use them against said person?

Then he hesitated for a moment.

Normally he would have turned around and gone back to get all the weaknesses in spite of his suspicions.

But honestly, it was fun competing against Gakushuu. And he hadn't checked Karma's files that were definitely in his father's office or the school system, either.

He shrugged and kept the option at the back of his mind, uninterested.

Either way, it didn't matter.

If he didn't want to, he didn't want to. Did the reasons matter?

Anaya liked Gakushuu.

Anaya hadn't noticed him because of his rank or his biological father. She noticed him because he took responsibility.

In the extended Mizukachi family, Anaya could count the number of responsible people on a single hand.

Old families like hers had about as much drama as irresponsibility. Her father being the most irresponsible one. He had cut all contact from his family, from the old money that helped him start his business and joined hands with the second more irresponsible person, her mother.

In a way, it was supposed to be in her blood.

But Anaya was born to two irresponsible parents who didn't want her.

Anaya was left to the Mizukachi family to do as they willed, and her father's ex-fiance, out of some goodness of her heart, raised Anaya to be the respectable proper lady she could be.

Anaya didn't learn business from her father, but she learnt about duty, about responsibility and confidence that could do anything.

And then Anaya went to Kunugigaoka and saw all these in Gakushuu. Her first attempt was greetings, then morning coffee, and then trying to know his friends.

She wasn't anywhere close to as smooth as she hoped she would be, and the position she yearned for was already taken by his childhood friend, Sakakibara Ren.

She spotted the new money on him the moment she saw him. But surprisingly, he was a decent human being, and an even better assistant.

Anaya chose a different route.

Competition wasn't the way to Gakushuu. It was through compliance, not obedience, but companionship.

Even Sakakibara let his guard down after a while and Anaya revelled in being one of the closest companions. She liked being beside Gakushuu and accompanying him for class representative duties.

Anaya didn't like Gakushuu, but she found him to be someone she could trust with her back, which was in a way, more important.

Her irresponsible parents remembered her existence when Kunugigaoka third year top student, ex-Vice President of the Student Council, won the international under 18 swimming bracket. Gakushuu entered the spotlight as the next Vice President and the only student scoring full marks in an exam in all subjects.

Anaya came under the public's eye and her parents came back with eager eyes.

Their irresponsible ways didn't change in the years Anaya hadn't seen them, and they asked her to accompany them and she got handed her father's company and suddenly he was talking about marrying her off?

If she was any less of the lady she was, she would have had them assassinated.

She was already well aware that sometimes, parents really didn't care. And sometimes they liked to pretend like they did.

Anaya wasn't stupid, nor irresponsible.

So she had to take over her father's company before he spouted more of his bullshit.

Also, her "fiance" he kept talking about had already been dealt with.

Her classmates were quite a bit more competent than just that. Unknowing, idiotic and brainless children weren't even worthy of competing against them, let alone asking for her hand in marriage.

If she were to marry, her future husband would have to work for it.

Hinata was a crybaby.

Everyone knew that. Amami, her definite bestie, knew that. Her mean friends knew that. Her amazing second bestie Gakushuu knew that.

But, she didn't like suffering.

She just couldn't avoid it.

There was nothing bad about being happy but, sometimes she couldn't keep it up 

She couldn't keep a smile on her face when she knew her cousin was coming.

She couldn't keep a smile on her face at the thought of losing the last remnants of her dead mother due to a stupid hailstorm.

And she couldn't keep smiling when Gakushuu slipped .

Her heart had stopped in her chest. She had watched wide eyed as the boy who patted her head, who comforted her, who risked his life to get something she could live without.

Hinata couldn't laugh. She couldn't cry.

She could only watch him catch himself, injure himself for her.

What was the remnant of her mother when compared to the living breathing person in front of her?

Her mother was dead. She was gone.

Her mother was never coming back.

But the boy who risked his life to hold onto it was still alive and breathing and.

She was useless.

She was a terrible person to ask them to sacrifice even more for her.

It was Amami, the love of her life, her forever person, who finally resolved it for her.

She said, "Become strong."

Hinata didn't know what that meant.

But as the months passed by, she watched Gakushuu. She watched Ren and Anaya and Mori and everyone around her stand at the top with their eyes wide open and not look down.

And she thought, 'Maybe that's what strength was'.

She was a little bit of an airhead, but Amami had always been by her to stop her from walking into traffic or to stop her from tripping over the rooftop fence.

But she wouldn't always be there.

Amami had her own friends, and, Hinata realized, so did she.

She was close to Kazuki but Amami wasn't. Amami was closer to Anaya than Kimiko but the opposite was true for Hinata.

They wouldn't always be there for each other, and Hinata realized she needed the strength to let her go.

Because she had always been the weak link. She could smile, but not through her tears.

She could stand up again, but not ignore the pain like Anaya did.

She could ask for help, but she didn't have the strength to provide it if someone asked her.

What had studying been for her, but an escape?

Hinata had worked like never before for her rank in the top 5.

She had worked to reconcile with her terrible cousin, Tomoya.

She had worked.

And as second year went on and she naturally took up work from Ren without even being asked, she realized she had grown.

She looked around and Amami was working with Anaya. And Kimiko was already looking at her with impatience about their next job.

Hinata smiled brightly.

"Did you go deaf or something?" Kimiko mumbled, looking away. Hinata's smile brightened.

"Nope! I'm just happy about my friends!" Kimiko blushed, mistaking her words. But Hinata didn't correct the misunderstanding because, well, she wasn't wrong.

Kimiko hummed in acknowledgement.

Hinata smirked, a motion similar to Kazuki in his mischievous mood.

"Say, have you heard about that new cafe that opened up? I heard some good reviews…"

Chapter Text

The summer vacation was unpleasant.

As much as Gakushuu did his own thing, summer had increasingly made him leave his house behind to do something or the other.

It was almost a relief that Gakushuu had the excuse of the cats to stay in Karma's sort of empty house instead.

The first full day he spent in Karma's house surprised both of them. Gakushuu had studied then played with the cats and when they were eating, he had been watching the cats and accidentally fallen asleep.

He had woken to the cats and spent the rest of the time sleepily stroking the cats. The warmth of the sun disappeared and he dozed, finding the complete emptiness of the house safe.

It was the closing of the door that convinced him to wake up. But he wasn't fast enough and when Karma came in, Gakushuu had just straighted out his clothes.

Karma snorted, his eyes warming with laughter as his eyes roved over Gakushuu. His eyes paused at his hair and Gakushuu fixed that as well, though it wasn't too messy.

"Well, looks like you'll need dinner too," Karma invited and then he went to the kitchen. He switched on the lights as he went and Gakushuu wondered, slightly surprised at the way Karma seemed so at ease.

There were two people in Gakushuu's house and they still had a housekeeper to clean and cook for them. Neither of them were people who spent time cooking meals.

Karma, though, naturally took out ingredients, checked their state and selected the ones he was about to use for dinner. He started cutting them up smoothly, skillfully, and Gakushuu wondered if his own knife skills would compare.

Gakushuu watched Karma confidently go through his kitchen, picking utensils and tossing things in the pan.

He paused for a moment and turned to look at Gakushuu, and Gakushuu wondered what kind of face he was making, to make Karma look at him so confused.

"What? Never seen a guy cook before?" He asked, a confident smirk on his lips.

Gakushuu frantically told himself that it was a biological reaction to be attracted to someone who cooked or fed them since ancient times and it wasn't just because-

Nope. Nope.

"I think you're better than me at it," Gakushuu complimented, his voice raspy. He cleared it and pretended it was because he just woke up. "Need any help?"

Karma blinked in surprise at Gakushuu and he wondered what the fuck he was still doing so late in another person's house.

"Hm. Set up the table, I guess?" Karma shrugged, going back to the meal.

Gakushuu went for the spoons and chopsticks he had already seen in the kitchen.

He was about to look for plates and bowls and Karma told him, "On the left" and Gakushuu followed Karma's instructions to set up the table, while he cooked.

"Medium spice, right?" Karma confirmed with him, already measuring out the spices and Gakushuu hummed in agreement.

Then Gakushuu went to search for the cats.

Gakushuu's skin prickled oddly at the way they were behaving with each other. Like the energy and caustic back and forths of their daily life were drained out, and…

Gakushuu had never just sat down with someone only to do their own things. Well, unless they were studying and then asking each other for solutions or checking methods.

But, the words were comfortable and to the point. It held no word games and only the information they wanted to convey.

Maybe someone might call it professional, in a way. But Gakushuu had never, in his life, had something like that.

There were word games everywhere. His vulnerabilities led to even more word games. Gakushuu was always doing his best to resist his father, in the midst of his own house, never truly comfortable to let go and do what he wanted.

So this felt uncomfortable, somehow. He wasn't used to it.

Being so familiar and at ease, looking at a new side of Karma, someone who wasn't even a classmate.

Willingly choosing to not.

Not fight, nor quarrel, not argue and play around each sentence the other threw out.

Suddenly, Gakushuu was extremely uncomfortable at the thought of how dinner might play out.

He wasn't sure he could take more of that kind of environment. He wasn't sure he could take more of this.

His ginger cat brushed against his hand and Gakushuu realized he was crouched in front of the two meowing cats. He stroked the cat in front of him.

Then he checked the healing cat and she rubbed her face against his arm and he felt a tad bit better again.

"Hey! Don't play with the cats right before dinner," Karma shot Gakushuu a look over his shoulder when he came back, and seemed relieved that Gakushuu wasn't carrying the cats back.

Gakushuu almost sighed in relief at the normal tone.

"I'm not planning to eat cat hair either, I just checked Yuki," Gakushuu rolled his eyes.

"So you admit, you were playing with them all day, huh?" Karma grinned, but the image was ruined by him coming over to pour the curry he made in the bowl. It was an oddly domestic scene when compared to the teasing words.

Gakushuu's eyes flicked away then back, suddenly embarrassed at the sight instead of the words. Karma laughed, misunderstanding.

"I knew it, you're such a cat, Shuu," Karma teased.

"Shut it. Who's the one willingly taking care of two cats in his own home?" Gakushuu scowled back.

"Are you telling me you weren't prepared to offer up your own home if you could?" Karma raised an eyebrow mock-judgmentally and Gakushuu knew he had lost.

He'd be a dick if he refused and Karma wasn't ever going to let it go if he actually admitted it with his own mouth.

"You're still the one taking care of it," Gakushuu mumbled judgmentally as he glared Karma down to his seat. Then they started eating.

Gakushuu didn't even notice Karma keeping an eye on him, a small smirk on his lips, as he took the first bite.

Then, feeling like he had been mistakes, he took another.

Then another, because. That couldn't possibly be true.

After the fourth, Gakushuu physically struggled between getting frustrated enough to throw down the spoon and between taking one more bite.

Karma snickered, and Gakushuu made the instant judgement of throwing his spoon at Karma's head instead.

He wasn't prepared for this, damn it.

If Gakushuu was being polite, Karma's food was out of this world. It wouldn't be a surprise to eat it at a very good restaurant. Maybe not Michelin Star level, but just the fact that he was trying to compare it to that.

In cruder terms, Karma was a fucking brilliant cook and Gakushuu was glad he didn't have ovaries. Really, the only thing worse than this would be liking Karma for his cooking skills.

He stole Karma's unused spoon, while he ducked and laughed at Gakushuu's face.

Gakushuu made the decision to busy himself with the food and forget about said cook.

Life just wasn't fair sometimes, and you had to learn to roll with the punches.

Gakushuu also learnt how to wash dishes that day. It was like a distant memory, but Gakushuu's memory was almost eidetic so of course it was something he did a lot in his past life. He had enough experience with it to become familiar after the first fumble.

Gakushuu had learnt how to cook from chefs- basic knife work, ingredients, spices, techniques. Nothing too unique, but his basic skills were well polished.

But he had never actually made food more than a few times at home. And every time he did, Mimi would come after and clean up.

It was her job so Gakushuu had always left her to it.

Karma laughed at him when Gakushuu had told him to do it once, then he had raised a brow in surprise at seeing him serious.

Karma had easily cleaned up his own plate and then watched Gakushuu clean his. The demonstration was enough, but his hand movements were still slightly awkward, he slowly became familiar, fragmented sensations coming and his own habits fixing mistakes that he made by relying on his imperfect past life.

"So you did know," Karma noted, and Gakushuu internally sweated. Karma hummed, narrowing his eyes.

"I can do the rest. Maybe you should go check on Yuki yourself while I'm at it?" he offered, and Karma stared into his soul. Then after a moment, he shrugged, clearly deciding to let it go.

"If you can't, just leave it in the sink, I'll do it," Karma said carelessly, deciding to go where Gakushuu had just been.

Gakushuu looked at the utensils and sighed.

It was slightly messier than he had expected, he had accidentally put too much of the dishwasher and the utensil slipped from between his fingers. He managed to catch it somehow, but his clothes became wet from the soapy bubbly utensil.

He winced.

He finished the rest and decided to just go to the washroom and wash the soap off from his shirt, which was about when Karma caught him stripping off his shirt.

"So you really aren't used to it, huh?" He asked, a smirk on his face, enjoying the superiority he held over Gakushuu.

Gakushuu felt a slight déjà vu, remembering his father at the door while he was puking into the toilet, sick, and his father had stood by the door and mocked him the whole time. But then Karma left as Gakushuu washed his shirt and when he returned, he tossed Gakushuu a shirt.

"You don't have anything to wear, right?" Karma's lips stretched into a smile, like he was being a kind gracious host.

Gakushuu opened the shirt suspiciously and the searing bright orange almost blinded him. He blinked back spots and stared.

It was somehow the most childish and tacky shirt he had ever seen, while still being in their mutual size. It was an obnoxious orange that a mostly blind person could easily spot from a distance, with a pony in front in pink.

Not only was the colour coordination terrible, Gakushuu's own hair would clash terribly.

Then he looked at Karma's hair and admitted that it would probably clash less than with Karma's bold red, at least.

"Who in their wrong mind decided to give this to you?" He said, utterly disgusted with the piece of cloth that he refused to believe Karma would buy even as a joke. Wasn't black the norm instead of something this terrible?

Gakushuu would prefer Karma going through a black emo phase instead of the colourful magical girl one.

Karma burst into startled laughter, before he poorly attempted to cover it by coughing into his first. Gakushuu shot him a look at the terrible attempt and was surprised to see Karma attempting to look at him solemnly but his lips kept stretching into a smile as he saw Gakushuu's horrified reaction.

"My parents gave this to me on my birthday. Automatic sizing with their own…design," Karma explained, then he grinned cheerfully. "And of course, it is something I can only give to my dear friend, who accidentally ruined his shirt in my very house!"

Gakushuu looked at his wet shirt and wished he hadn't drenched it so thoroughly in his irritation. He would have been willing to wear a half wet shirt if that was what it took.

He resigned himself to wearing the terrible distasteful shirt and silently hoped that Karma's parents burnt in hell for their terrible lifestyle choices. Specifically for their memory of their son's age.

"All right, get out," Gakushuu shooed Karma and there was a moment where he thought the other boy would bite his hand, but instead Karma darted in to grab his wet shirt, and gave him a mocking wave as he closed the door.

Gakushuu looked at the mirror, then at the shirt, and back again. Then he pulled the shirt over his head and slipped it on.

Surprisingly the material was soft and the smell was…familiar. He had a flash of memory, a moment of looking out the window into the ocean of students and a flash of red that caught his eye.

He inhaled. A meeting of gold and violet, across a veritable crowd of students.

Gakushuu dropped the shirt and met his own violet eyes. His cheeks were flushed, deeper than the slight dusting he was used to, when he got angry or frustrated or embarrassed.

His heart was beating in his throat, and there was a sensation under his skin. Something akin to embarrassment but also, a light almost unpleasant feeling that he related to nervousness.

He tilted his head up, and waited for his blush to pass.

It really was a frustrating sensation sometimes, Gakushuu thought.

Gakushuu opened the door and Karma was playing on his phone, his damp shirt missing instead of in a bag, like he was expecting.

Karma looked up, cheek resting on his fingers.

"You took a while. Appreciating yourself in the mirror?" Gakushuu very carefully didn't think about what he had actually been doing.

"I think I can pull even this monstrosity off," he smirked back, tilting his head arrogantly, showing him his model profile. A colour coordination that almost worked, if not for the pink pony.

Karma snorted, and Gakushuu sighed.

"Yeah, I can't pull this off either," he admitted frankly. "It's literally the ugliest thing I have ever seen. I have no idea what they thought your age was, but at least the material's pretty good."

Gakushuu rubbed the bottom hem of the shirt, feeling the high quality fabric. It made it that much worse that the design itself was so tacky.

He had taken a look at the tag and he still felt slightly surprised by the fact that Karma had implied it was custom made. Karma nodded along, agreeably but Gakushuu could see his dislike of the colours as well.

"...Don't they only do custom orders for regular customers?" He asked, curiously. Karma shrugged forced-casually.

"My parents probably are. People from the Japanese branch come by to take my measurements then again to drop off the finished product. It's like clockwork, on my birthday on the dot," Karma laughed, a bitter sound that didn't didn't fit in at all.

His expression said that he found the whole thing meaningless and distasteful, but there was a sense of loneliness around him.

"I've never celebrated my birthday," Gakushuu offered back, and Karma looked up at him, startled. "It's an odd enough time that people aren't really free and I just never minded," he shrugged.

"Well, that'd do it. It's the same for me," Karma grinned. Gakushuu raised an amused brow.

"Well, I'm certainly not you, Jesus Christ," he mocked.

"Well, at least you know I'm coming back to life at least once," Gakushuu's smile wavered for a moment before he redirected.

"I mean, if you want to check out your resurrection so badly, how about now?" He threatened, an eye on the path to the kitchen where a range of knives were kept.

"So eager to have blood in your hands? Are you planning to confess any other crimes while you're at it?" Karma suggested, his eyebrows lifting, entertained.

"I admitted nothing," he claimed. "Also, I'm not some kind of movie villain who monologues before killing his victims."

"Aha! So you admit to attempted murder," Karma exclaimed, his finger holding the record button on his phone. Gakushuu laughed, leaning forward.

"I don't have a habit of refusing people who are asking for death," his voice dropped into a mock-serious tone, and Karma smirked as he recorded Gakushuu's words.

"And now everyone will know who to go to if I suddenly end up dead," Karma saved the audio with a pleased expression.

"Why? Are you asking for death?" Gakushuu asked. Karma froze for a microsecond and Gakushuu felt a chill.

"I'm friends with Asano Junior," Karma said flippantly, "of course, I'm courting death."

"Karma," Gakushuu said, voice tight. Karma sighed heavily.

"I'm not," he rolled his eyes, looking into Gakushuu's eyes. "You can tell, can't you?"

Gakushuu looked into Karma's eyes and. Well, he was right.

Gakushuu and Gakuhou had both gone through every kind of behavior pattern for people who ended up actually suiciding, and also for people who were on the path to.

Gakushuu had been depressed for a while, but Gakuhou had never let him get to such a state. Gakuhou would have rather given up his entire education policy if it had made Gakushuu actually suicidal.

Sometimes Gakushuu almost wished he was, just so he could show him the flaws in the system, but Gakushuu could never muster up enough dislike or even harder, dissociate from life, with his father hovering over him.

"Yeah," he said after a few minutes of staring at Karma. Karma's expression softened.

"I can too," he said, his eyes looking meaningfully into Gakushuu's own.

Gakushuu gave him a wry smile that made him look his age.

"Of course you can," he shook his head, breaking eye contact.

"So what did you do with my shirt?" He asked, changing the topic with no subtlety. He saw a smile peak out.

"I threw it in the wash," there was a full blown teasing smile on Karma's face, "I mean, you are coming back."

Gakushuu wished he could refute it but he really couldn't.

"Shuu is such a cat person," Karma sighed dramatically, "does your dear class A know about how you cuddle them to sleep, Ace?"

He flashed his phone mischievously.

"Should I send them some pictures?"

Gakushuu lunged and Karma laughed.

Gakushuu stopped chasing after Karma when he realized yet again how late it had gotten.

He frowned for a moment, before deciding to quit it. Then he waved and left casually.

It wouldn't be the first or last time he came to Karma's house, though, it had gotten quite late already.

He had already become familiar with both Karma's house and the neighbourhood, able to navigate through it with his eyes closed.

Summer vacation, like winter, was a time a lot of his classmates tended to be busy. So was he, but he had shifted a lot of his free time around so he could spend more time with the cats.

Normally, today would have been his 'run away from home' day.

Which was why, he was surprised to be called out when he was going up to his own room. He debated changing but his father's voice was slightly impatient.

"Yes, father." He answered politely, standing by the doorway.

"Come in," Gakuhou said, his eyes looking at the orange monstrosity with distaste.

"You're late," he noted.

Gakushuu kept a blank expression, and nodded.

"My apologies, father. I wasn't aware of the passage of time," then Gakushuu internally winced. He shouldn't have given an excuse at all. It was a mistake Gakuhou was going to capitalize on.

Gakuhou's eyes narrowed at the remark.

"...I see. You weren't aware of the time," his voice became colder by a few degrees.

Gakushuu had cold sweat going down his back as he frantically tried to find a way out.

He couldn't give more explanations. It would bother him more. The best way to deal with it would be to take whatever his punishment was willingly instead of adding to it.

"My apologies," he repeated, looking at his father's cold eyes.

"Yes, I see that you are," Gakuhou commented. Gakushuu felt a stirring of discomfort at the remark.

Was this the wrong answer too? No, he would have been punished for something, as long as Gakushuu was opening his mouth to speak.

"You haven't managed to repeat your perfect score from the finals of your first year till now. I think it would be better to stay in for the rest of the summer to study, don't you?" Gakuhou suggested.

Gakushuu was actually open to defy his father for this. There wasn't a solid reasoning for the punishment, nor was the punishment appropriate when Gakushuu had a few more things left lined up.

But he shut his mouth and nodded.

Gakuhou was seriously ticked off about something since about halfway through the summer vacation, and Gakushuu used his EQ to determine this wasn't a situation he wanted to add fuel to.

Gakushuu went back to his room.

He hesitated, something about the situation just felt off.

'Keep a low profile if you can' he texted to the class group.

Then he switched to messaging Karma and texted him the same thing.

He didn't read any responses, choosing to drop his phone and relax back into his bed and the comfortable shirt he was wearing.

He fell asleep surprisingly quickly.

Chapter Text

Class assignments were posted in the school almost a week before classes started.

It was also when Gakushuu would continue his work as the class representative and Vice President of the Student Council.

Well, to be honest, he was mostly taking over the Student Council, so it was an incredibly busy day.

As soon as classes started, he would become the President and as a third year, a lot more responsibility would fall on him as well.

So, when he heard Karma got into a fight, he wasn't surprised. But what he was surprised to hear, was that another Kunugigaoka student was involved.

The involved student was unwilling and the situation grew out of their limits to handle. Maybe if they had had more time to negotiate or threaten said student, it would have been easier. But without time on their side, he couldn't do anything for the other boy.

On the day Karma was called for punishment, Gakushuu waited outside the school anxiously. There was only one place to go from class D, and he hadn't been expecting Karma to drop there at all.

When Karma finally left the school, he had a disappointed-frustrated-angry expression on his face.

Gakushuu wondered what exactly had made him so many negative emotions simultaneously. He stepped into view, and the flash of resentment when Karma saw him was startling to witness.

"Are you okay?" He asked first, before Karma could throw angry words at him. There was a quick flicker on his face, before he kept walking. Gakushuu kept pace.

"Yeah," Karma rasped out finally, his voice sounded like he had been screaming or not speaking for a long time. His shoulders had tightened incredibly in the short time Gakushuu had been walking with him.

But even then, he didn't tell him to go away, even though his body language told Gakushuu that Karma really wanted to be alone to get his thoughts in order and maybe work his frustrations out.

Karma increased his pace just as Gakushuu decreased his, and Gakushuu was looking at Karma's back, drawn up straight with tension.

Oddly enough, Gakushuu felt another moment of déjà vu, but this time, he didn't know who. Gakushuu almost reflexively reached out, then pulled back the moment his hand brushed against Karma's back.

Karma paused and looked back.

Then his expression twisted up into an incredibly frustrated expression. He gritted his teeth as he turned around.

Karma grabbed Gakushuu's chin, tilting his head to make him look straight into Karma's mercury gold eyes.

"Look at me ," he said, "I'm right here. Me. Akabane Karma."

His grip on Gakushuu's jaw tightened for a moment when Gakushuu's eyes widened in surprise.

" Look at ME," Karma repeated, his frustration leaking through the words. 

Logically, Gakushuu understood that the frustration Karma was feeling wasn't just because of him. But, his mind could protest a million times fruitlessly when his body didn't even seem to listen.

He put his hand over Karma's wrist. Karma was holding onto Gakushuu's face like he was about to run away, and also like Karma wanted to slam his head to the ground.

"I'm looking at you right now, Karma," he replied, his hands shifted to lay over Karma's.

They locked eyes, and something incredibly intense passed between them. Something personal, but heavy.

It thickened the air with tension.

Karma's eyes flicked away first. He frowned, his eyes darted between Gakushuu's, tracing his features for a bare moment that left him feeling slightly hot.

Karma's eyes stopped, stuttered and then went back to Gakushuu's eyes.

He let go of Gakushuu and then took a step back. Then Karma turned around and walked away from him.

Gakushuu kept standing, shocked still, face hot and heart stuttering a little too fast in his chest. He stared until Karma walked out of sight.

He didn't even know when he would see him again, but his legs refused to move. He was frozen.

Because-

Because he was pretty sure Karma's eyes had paused on his lips.

Gakushuu got busy with his class representative and Student Council duties. There wasn't much, so he could be done in a day. But he made it his excuse to get out of his house for a little while.

Karma was suspended, and would start his third year in class E.

Gakushuu had to sneak into Karma's house and threaten him to not let his grades drop. Then, when he saw Karma sulking, he ended up spending half the day with him.

He showed off his much better baking expertise and Karma almost snorted jalapeño sauce.

Gakushuu was once again in awe of the range of spices Karma had. Smugly, Karma showed him different spices and let him taste a few (Gakushuu knew it was going to burn him, but he still did it. He was a complete idiot) which looked interesting.

There were a variety of tastes that Gakushuu was sure he hadn't ever tried. There were some of the Indian spices in the curry Karma had made, but he showed Gakushuu Mexican for lunch and they compared the differences in spices.

Chika could have been delighted to have this talk with Karma, and Gakushuu said so to him. Karma rolled his eyes dismissively and Gakushuu wondered if he should actually let them meet.

Chika was one of the relatively calmer ones, but Karma could definitely make the oddest foods, and Chika would be a willing victim so he could keep eating, even if he was on deaths door.

Gakushuu felt a shiver of premonition go down his spine and he prayed for Chika's stomach. That was basically a free victim for Karma instead.

A lot of people in Gakushuu's class were actually quite vulnerable to Karma's brand of humor. Maybe not Ren, who had been through almost all kinds of phases Gakushuu had gone through, or Anaya, who could deadpan with the best of them.

But Hinata would be crying tears of blood after a minute. Mori would definitely end up dead by the end of the day, and Kimiko would either kill Karma or the rest of Japan, if Karma escaped.

Gakushuu wondered with morbid curiosity how Karma would fare against the people in his class.

If it was an actual fight, they'd definitely be dead, unless it was Kimiko. Even Gakushuu had no idea what Kimiko did half the time, and that was saying something.

Gakushuu had first become friends with Kimiko's mask of a polite ballet dancer from class B, then Kimiko had started messaging them and her true bullheaded self had emerged. After that, Kimiko and Hinata started dancing around each other and Gakushuu started to wonder if Kimiko had relations with the underground, because, from the surface, she was basically the daughter of a secretary of a minor company's boss.

But Kimiko herself was such a contradictory figure that Gakushuu couldn't be totally sure. He wasn't that pushy a person in the first place. He had generalized background checks that were just minor, and most of his information was always gained by the person themselves.

Unless of course, he designated someone as a threat. Then, he would use all his methods against them.

Even with Karma, Gakushuu had just checked enough to see that his parents were alive and every other information was all things Gakushuu had deduced or had gotten out of Karma himself.

He knew Karma was surprisingly strict about his food habits, especially in his home. He didn't ruin home cooked meals, but if it was meant for consumption outside, it was fair play.

Karma was neat, but he wasn't minimalistic. His whole house was redesigned to Karma's tastes and Gakushuu found that he liked it far more than his own home, which was minimalistic and always seemed to show light coloured painted walls to him.

There were wooden designs and dark shades and therefore, far far from the shades of blue or cream that screamed at him accusingly.

Gakushuu didn't dislike his own house, but he didn't have control over the colours and it showed.

Gakushuu would have thought Karma would have liked a wallpaper but he shrugged uncaringly when asked.

Karma's house might have had only one occupant, but it was much better than Gakushuu's own. Though, Karma obviously didn't feel the same.

He was sure the cats made it better though. He wondered why Karma had never tried to get any animals before if he felt so lonely.

Then he changed his words. It wasn't that Karma felt lonely , but more that he felt abandoned instead. Animals had a short lifespan, so maybe he didn't want to be left behind.

Gakushuu looked at Karma under his lashes, feeling slightly curious. Karma, with abandonment issues, was kind of obvious, but he had never actually seen someone Karma actually wanted to be with.

Except maybe that one friend he had for a while in class D. Shiota Nagisa.

Gakushuu had talked to him once.

Gakushuu used his Vice President powers for good to make one of the students with a potentially abusive parent meet him privately.

This time it was Shiota Nagisa, class D. He came in quietly, his eyes fell on Gakushuu with wariness.

"Vice President Asano, Shiota Nagisa from class D," he introduced, then gestured to the papers in his hands, "The teacher told me to put these in the meeting room," he said.

"Thank you, Nagisa," Nagisa nodded, and placed the stack of papers carefully on the table.

"Can I talk to you for a moment? You are free to refuse or leave anytime," Gakushuu spoke soothingly, and Nagisa stiffened.

He turned around and faced Gakushuu. Gakushuu stood and leaned actually against the table, keeping his head leveled near Nagisa's.

"I am aware that you have some amount of family trouble, and I want you to know that I can get you out of your house, if you want," he said bluntly, but not unkindly. "You can ask me anytime, even if it's in High school and you go to a different school than me."

Nagisa opened his mouth then shut it. He stared for a few moments. Then cleared his throat.

"Thank you, Asano. But it's not like that," he moved his hands around helplessly, "and I know how to manage it. It doesn't go that bad."

Gakushuu sighed.

"It might not seem too bad, but it's always nice to have a place to run away to, right? I'm giving you the option to run away. You can take it as seriously or lightly as you want to, but I'm sure you're aware that I have done it more than once already," Gakushuu stared into Nagisa. Nagisa shook his head.

"I'm not doubting your ability, I just-" don't want to, Nagisa bit back those untrue words. He looked like he was being pushed into a corner. Gakushuu relaxed slightly.

He didn't want to give the other boy a panic attack or make him cry. Just a way out.

"I just called you to inform you of it, you don't need to make any decisions anytime soon. Thank you for your time, Nagisa," Gakushuu dismissed and Nagisa bowed lightly, before leaving.

Nagisa had his number, like everyone in the school, but he had never called for help. Gakushuu had always been aware that he couldn't help everyone, and Nagisa didn't seem like he would ask him for help anytime soon.

But he had never seen Karma and Nagisa together. He couldn't even imagine their interactions. Nagisa had seemed quite quiet, and maybe even timid. But Karma had obviously seen something in him.

"Nagisa is in class E," he blurted, and Karma paused. He didn't look at Gakushuu. A tension that had been simmering rose sky high in an instant.

"The class environment isn't too bad, and the teacher is actually really nice. She's a kind person," he continued, "and the Principal will arrange a few class competitions between class A and class E."

Then he looked at Karma, and Karma looked back. There wasn't any resentment in his eyes, but Karma looked like he didn't want to talk about it, he wanted to avoid it and run away, as far as possible.

"Are you worried about me, Ace-kun?" Karma smiled and there was a mocking undertone that Gakushuu was surprised to find had actually been missing for a while now.

"Yes," he answered honestly. Karma looked startled, before he giggled.

"Right, of course. Who did I think I was talking to? Asano Gakushuu, the son of the demon king, who single handedly turned all opinions around about him," the mocking tone was gone again, and Gakushuu found himself relieved.

"I like to think my class helped in that," he smiled, neatly ignoring the topic again even though it burned in his throat. But he had already said all he wanted to.

Gakushuu wasn't sure of the reason for his anger, but he wanted it to ease. No matter how good Gakushuu got, his father had always been his biggest blind spot, and he kept his matters under strict lockdown.

Unlike Karma's first offense, there weren't any records of it outside the school, so Gakushuu couldn't even find out for himself.

Karma leaned back from the dining table, his chair balanced precariously.

"Your class is surprisingly united," Karma's eyes glittered, "did you teach them something?"

Gakushuu grinned.

"How did you find out? Did you prank them?" Gakushuu hadn't seen any evidence of it so either they had escaped or they had internally handled the spill over.

Karma hummed, not giving it away.

"They escaped?" He guessed. They had been getting pretty good at their observation skills. "How many attempts?"

Gakushuu stared Karma down and the other boy pouted, looking away exaggeratedly, playing up his unwillingness.

"3?" He guessed again, and Karma's neck snapped back to look at Gakushuu. He laughed at the surprised look on his face.

"Let me guess, Ren, Anaya and…Kimiko?" He asked tentatively. Karma clicked his tongue.

"I wasn't surprised by Ren and Anaya," Karma played with his chair, swinging back and forth on the back two supports, "but the last was going to be Araki, but, stuff happened and-"

"It was Hinata," he completed. Karma raised a brow. "I know you don't know about Kimiko and the only one she'll go out of her way to help is Hinata."

"...Yup. The female you didn't seem to have taken it well," Gakushuu shrugged with a smirk.

"Well, that was her girlfriend. She would be planning something equally vicious back." Gakushuu fluttered his eyes mockingly, "I'd sleep with one eye open, if I were you."

"Wow, I get to deal with a vicious female Gakushuu who's girlfriend I accidentally pranked, while being suspended from school?" Karma's lips spread into a wild excited smile, his eyes sparkled. He looked like a kid who's birthday had come early.

"Just for lil old me? Really?" Gakushuu could almost see the gears in his head moving as he thought up ideas for the upcoming spectacular prank war.

Gakushuu wondered if he should feed to it or not.

"Maybe I should help her, if you're so happy about it?" He asked, a reflexive smile on his face from seeing Karma so exuberant.

Karma froze.

"Huh," Karma warily met Gakushuu's eyes. He raised a brow, feeling slightly offended at the reaction.

"What?" He asked.

"You've literally never pranked me before," he deadpanned. "You never even retaliated aside from White Day, and you gave something to everyone who gave you chocolates," Karma narrowed his eyes suspiciously.

Gakushuu smiled, and tilted his head, consideringly.

"I guess you wouldn't know," he said, thinking aloud. "The reason I'm constantly playing Kunugigaoka's overachiever is because I have a deal with the Principal. He gives me class A, and I give him the perfect student."

Karma looked away, his eyes noticeably cooler.

"... give?"

"More non-interference, actually," he clarified, confused. Karma stared at him.

"... and you give him the perfect student?" He asked. Gakushuu tilted his head, still confused.

"Yes?"

There was a flash of bitterness in his eyes. A dawning realization that Gakushuu wasn't completely sure about.

"So you both are planning my downfall, huh?" Karma asked, suddenly cheerful again after a moment of silence, that gave Gakushuu a whiplash. He shot Karma a worried glance before accepting it.

He wasn't planning on interfering with whatever world changing realization he was having. And realizing Gakuhou was a shitty person, was never going to be a bad thing.

"I'm sure the Principal will accept class A bullying class E," he bared his teeth, and Karma huffed out a laugh.

Gakushuu silently agreed. He couldn't imagine anyone 'bullying' Karma. They'd probably end up half-dead in a ditch with wasabi stuck in their nostril.

When Gakushuu was finally prepared to leave, almost cutting it too close to skipping his pre-event rehearsal, Karma suddenly grabbed his arm.

Gakushuu turned around, about to demand Karma let go because he really needed to leave, but then he saw Karma scratching his cheek, with a look he would call on anyone else as shy.

"Karma?" He unstuck his throat and asked. The sight was about to throw him into a tachycardia and he wasn't sure he would survive not breathing on top of that.

"Um, thanks," he said, not looking at Gakushuu's face, "For coming by," he clarified when the silence dragged on.

Gakushuu tried, unsuccessfully, to make his voice work, and managed to get out a squeak.

Karma looked up, startled at the sound.

Gakushuu stared back helplessly, his face flushed a pretty pink and as time dragged on, it creeped down. Karma's eyes followed his blush and Gakushuu tried to work his voice.

"My hand," he croaked.

"Oh, uh. Yeah," Karma replied, distractedly. He let go of Gakushuu's arm.

Gakushuu cleared his throat.

"I have to go," he said.

"Yeah," Karma replied.

They stared at each other.

"Yeah," Gakushuu repeated, softer. Then he turned around.

Karma was going through something, figuring something out, that was making him rethink a lot of things.

He hadn't really beaten up the Kunugigaoka student. In fact, the Kunugigaoka student was an unfortunate bystander.

But Karma did get into a fight, and one of the other guys tried to take him hostage. Karma ended up laughing, because that was a hilarious concept.

Hostage? Against him?

Then, they beat up the student.

And Karma beat them.

Except, the student clearly held a grudge. His father or mother or whatever, was clearly an influential figure even if he didn't make it to class A, and the student complained to the teacher that Karma beat him up.

Now, Karma was sure, his teacher would laugh it off. His teacher wasn't a very good person. But he encouraged Karma's studies, understood that Karma worked the beat on his own, at his own pace and let him decide how to handle his own fights.

Karma trusted the man because he felt a sense of kinship, because they understood the other person.

He was a teacher, and Karma was a student.

Or.

That was what was supposed to happen.

Karma never saw it coming.

He didn't see the way the teacher sneered at him, nor the superior way he looked down at Karma.

Karma felt betrayal .

It was the bitter taste in his mouth, the red of his blood thrumming in his vision and the terror in the eyes of the man in front of him.

Karma didn't remember the exact motions of what he did, but everything simultaneously felt absolutely clear and also like he was blurring out the world on a whim. He felt high.

And then he felt his own pain.

The world came crashing back down on him. His arms hurt, his hands hurt, his foot hurt and there was a man with terror in his eyes in front of him.

Karma turned around and walked away.

He was reluctant to see Gakushuu. He could feel a heaviness in his bones, a desire to just rest that he didn't generally feel.

Generally, he felt like running, like he would keep running forever. Away from something, or to something. But forever running.

Though, he would admit, that it was a different sort of pleasure to come home to a house occupied by living creatures besides himself.

He felt a stirring of humor every time he remembered the name Gakushuu had given the ginger. Mirai was a startlingly funny name, specially when associated with Asano Gakushuu.

He punned with his own hair colour and the ginger fur of the cat. Karma had insisted on Yuki as the name for the white cat, while laughing his head off at the name Gakushuu chose for the ginger.

The two cats laid together intertwined with each other, and Karma went through his daily routine of checking on the cats, their nessesities and then the rest of the house.

And then, he thought, and thought more.

By the time, Gakushuu visited and left again, Karma was in a better state of mind.

It felt like his blind rage had let Karma realize that he still kept a tunnel vision on a few things. He couldn't just ignore things into going away.

And that's exactly what he had done, hadn't he?

The Principal had always been a strain on Gakushuu. His movements and choices in life were restrained as long as Gakuhou held any amount of power over him.

And Karma laughed it off as simply 'daddy issues. It was frighteningly apt, but it made him feel the slightest amount of self-recrimination that he had known so much and never actually tried to help.

He hadn't even made excuses for himself.

He had just considered it, acknowledged it and then ignored it.

Gakushuu had obviously decided on his course of action, and had managed to handle a lot of things his father had done, if the massive advantage of 'giving him class A' was true.

It probably was, he admitted. He didn't really know much about the Principal, but he was definitely a control freak. He wouldn't have been able to stand his son treating his school lightly,

But Karma couldn't imagine him giving up control over class A either.

And most importantly, Karma just didn't like the way he treated Gakushuu.

Through the three years, Karma had seen Gakushuu have panic attacks, lose his composure, look like he was a second away from tears or exploding or both. And every single time had been right after meeting with the Principal.

Gakushuu had tried, in the beginning to call his father "father" but after a few months, he had stopped trying. He called him the Principal all the time, unembarrassed and unrepentant, even when he realized he had called him so.

It was a deliberate attitude he had chosen. To treat him like a Principal instead of his father.

Karma approved, but he also-

He also remembered waiting in an empty house. He remembered going out alone, or getting hurt as he cooked because he was too small or if he made a mistake.

It was as much bitterness as necessity that made his cooking decent. It was pure spite that turned it excellent.

He hated the day his parents came back and saw him. They had been surprised and happy, coddling him for a few minutes before forgetting about him after that and going out again.

They took him to a restaurant and he ate food better than his own. And he hated.

He hated every thing about that day, that week, that seemed to stretch on without an end.

Earn their love?

Karma realized what a joke the thought was.

His parents didn't even know what love was. They didn't love Karma and they certainly never cared.

They kept the house because they liked to buy houses, and they needed a permanent residence.

Karma had money because he was their biological child. He lived in their house because he was their bioligical child.

He didn't want anything to do with either, but he had to. He was helpless. He was a child.

Karma built his careless attitude because of that helplessness. He became wild because he never had any restraint. He let go.

And he shouldn't have.

Karma wouldn't become someone like his parents. He would never let himself.

Change came slow, but it always started with a single decision.

And Karma had made his.

Chapter Text

Kunugigaoka's third year started, and Gakushuu became the Student Council President.

The start of the school year was even more chaotic than usual. Their third year was the time of the greatest academic stress, and achievement. For the newest 3-A class, it was even more so.

They had been together for two years. They already knew each other's habits, interests and backgrounds, and the first week was busy for all of them, meeting back up after a long time.

While the school time was the busiest time for Gakushuu, it was the opposite for his classmates.

Their vacation was the time they used what they learnt from their school, from their friends, and the real world. Sometimes they got into trouble, sometimes their friends did and many of their vacations were surprisingly active. Even for the students who could be said to have average home lives.

Their groups were unique and rich kids weren't exactly lacking in Kunugigaoka. Random trips for some event or the other happened every so often, some of his friends came by to see Gakushuu playing or went for the open invite given to all his classmates for study sessions.

And when classes started, the class met up again and showed off their achievements. After all, class A was made of people who saw and achieved the most results. They held pride in their ranks, but even more pride in the real life results they had produced for themselves.

If being an overachiever had a lower limit, all of class A had crossed it, even Akira who had been the most reluctant or Koyama who followed Gakushuu fanatically, but hated to waste time doing anything but studying or experimenting.

And the closer they got to Gakushuu, the more they admired him. He was someone within their sight, someone achievable and yet still almost unbelievable in spite of it.

Gakushuu called himself human, but similar to how he viewed his father, so too did his classmates view him. A lifetime of perfected knowledge was drilled into Gakushuu, after all.

Gakuhou was the best at education, bar none.

It was just fortunate that the education system did not just run on who the best educator was, but also on many other aspects. 

Gakushuu’s first week was a blur of work, similar to last year. Unlike last year, he was working with the class representatives instead of the students.

His Vice President was Kiyoko, someone he once admired for her relentless personality and athletic sense. She was in class B and her leadership skills were impeccable.She had gracefully come under Gakushuu when he was selected as the President, and he was glad he didn't have to do politics against her.

Kiyoko looked simple, but her force of personality was created in the heat of summer, under the training of her father, a renowned coach.

Unlike Gakushuu however, she didn't have complex feelings about her father nor a continuous manipulation to look out for.

Her criteria for judging people was also simple. If you saved people, you were a good person, no matter how many you hurt.

It was a surprising take that induced complicated feelings in Gakushuu. Feelings he would rather not have. But she was a good leader, and she admired Gakushuu far more than he probably deserved.

Was it kindness when he couldn't even feel it? He didn't feel anything in particular saving someone from an abusive home, or stopping any bullying.

They were just some guidelines he had thought that he should follow when he still felt like a person with the capability for kindness.

Now, the lines felt like they were blurring more often. Was it kindness or cruelty?

Gakushuu wasn't someone who changed his mind, but his path blurred sometimes. And he couldn't be sure if he was going what he wanted or what his father did. Or maybe it was what his past life had wanted?

His memories were a blur so he couldn't even tell what kind of person she had been. Someone who laughed easily, he was sure. Someone who took joy from the small things.

Someone a little like Hinata.

But, he wasn't her. He had always tried to fit himself in awkwardly to what he had been before, but he didn't really need to. If he was a girl sometimes, wasn't it okay to be the same?

There wasn't a mold he needed to fit into. No one remembered her, and no one wanted Gakushuu to be her. It was a relieving thought.

Kiyoko and Gakushuu got along well. Ren became his secretary, and many of the students of class A took up positions of leadership if they hadn't already.

Third year was the time where they were pushed the hardest. The school semesters ended when they finished their final exam, but there was still another final semester that was exclusively managed by their teacher.

Until their high school examinations finished, they were still students of Kunugigaoka and Kunugigaoka took particularly good care to remind them of it.

Sometimes, if a class did particularly badly, Gakuhou would take over educating them until graduation. Which was a particularly different level of hell than simply Kunugigaoka.

Gakuhou took particular care of the third year students of class E and the main school students.

From the inter class competitions to the school festival, everything was set against the class 3-E. It was the main reason for the fantastically consistent failings of class E.

Even if they mustered up some amount of fighting spirit, by the end of year 3, it would be long gone. Gakushuu worried.

He worried for Karma, for Nagisa, for the teacher. He worried for the new class rep, Isogai, and a little for the end product of the hill with Karma up on it with little to no supervision.

Gakushuu wondered what made his father think it was a good idea to send delinquents into a place where they could do whatever they wanted. Not to mention, a place that held such precious memories.

Gakushuu, once again, despaired at his odd sentimentality.

Time passed and his father got busy with school as well. They reached the last year's uneasy peace and Gakushuu settled into a slightly new schedule where he went by to check on the cats occasionally and sometimes met Karma too.

Karma seemed to have a new found habit of feeding Gakushuu for some reason, but he enjoyed the delicious food though he still hadn't managed to give a compliment on it.

Every time he tried, Gakushuu would feel his face start to heat up and he would end up arguing about something or the other, in a fluster.

Thankfully, Gakushuu hadn't ended up blushing in front of Karma aside from that night, and they both had been flustered enough that neither of them brought it up.

Karma was restless often and Gakushuu took him out for baseball batting practice once and laughed himself into a coughing fit when Karma failed, barely managing to hit it correctly.

Karma got irritated at his laughter, ignored Gakushuu's non-subtle demonstrations and hints, and then improved drastically in the next half hour out of sheer spite.

Gakushuu laughed at his pettiness. Then admitted that he wasn't that good at baseball either.

They relocated to a basketball court the sports center had, and they played around, bumping into each other, committing a few fouls, half-fighting and half trying to get the ball from the other.

They weren't strictly playing basketball, but Gakushuu was surprised to find that Karma was more his match than their first year. Not only that, Gakushuu thought, as he looked at a slumped over sweaty Karma drinking water after they called quits trying to outdo the other, Karma had become stronger in general.

Gakushuu and Karma were the same height now. They had slightly different physiques, where Gakushuu looked deceptively thin, Karma was more fit, and his muscles were slightly more obvious.

Karma could actually be called pretty, when he wasn't showing off his god awful personality, that is. He looked more delicate.

Where no one would ever call Gakushuu delicate, if someone didn't know Karma, they could call him so. His features were sharp, and his hair threw them into contrast, making a pretty picture.

Gakushuu resisted the urge to take a picture of him.

Karma, sensing Gakushuu's gaze, turned to look at him with a raised brow. Gakushuu wordlessly shook his head. Karma's lips turned into a teasing smirk and he mentally sighed.

There it was. The reason no one sane could even think of Karma and 'delicate' in the same sentence.

"Aww Shuu, were you admiring my pretty face?" Karma teased.

"I will, the moment you stop sweating like a pig," Gakushuu shot back. Karma let out a short laugh.

"But I am prettier this way, Shuu~ you're definitely prettier this way too!" Karma casually complimented Gakushuu while he tried not to choke himself on thin air.

"I'm prettier, sweaty?" He asked, unable to help himself. He felt slightly flustered at the sudden compliment. But he also liked it.

"You're pretty when you're not trying to be a perfect," Karma said, gazing back at Gakushuu with warm, very much non-teasing eyes.

Gakushuu felt hot. It might be a little hot. It was a sports center after all.

"Oh. Hm." He cleared his throat, looked away and tried very hard not to blush. He missed the slightly smug look on Karma's face.

"How about we try the gun range?" Karma said, interrupting Gakushuu's thoughts of their next target.

Gakushuu scowled. He looked at Karma who gave him his best innocent look.

"We're at a sports center," he pointed out. Karma smiled smugly.

"There's one close to here," Karma replied. Gakushuu narrowed his eyes suspiciously.

"Who told you?" He asked. Karma gave him another wide eyed innocent look.

"Was there anything to tell? Am I missing something, Shuu?" He dragged out his name, a knowing smile at the edge of his lips.

"You-" lying scheming conniving bitch, Gakushuu conveyed with his expression, "-how about we try out the archery, if you feel like long range?" He tried.

"But you chose the first and the second one. I should be able to pick the third and forth at least, right?" Karma countered, his lips raising the more Gakushuu protested.

"Do you want to just let me have a day of my pick then?" Karma asked, his grin getting even brighter.

Gakushuu felt a shiver of dread at the thought of a full day before he resigned himself to a few hours of being teased instead. At least, he wasn't going to risk getting fed beetles or grasshoppers for lunch then.

"No," he sighed. "Let's go then."

The gun range was exactly as much of a disaster as Gakushuu had expected. Karma was new at it, but Gakushuu had years of attempted practice.

Karma rolled on the floor, laughing, after Gakushuu's fifth failed shot.

"I can't believe- you just- hit my target!" He laughed so hard he couldn't even speak and Gakushuu attempted to concentrate and hit his target at least, at his next shot.

He could at least hit the target, normally. But Karma was distracting him.

Karma let out another peal of laughter when Gakushuu missed his target yet again. He sighed in frustration. But there was a slight smile on his lips too.

He didn't particularly like getting laughed at, but he liked knowing that his friends had another reason to laugh, even if it was for one of his own flaws.

No one was good at everything, but it was funny that Gakushuu failed so miserably at something, when he was pretty great at others.

But it was still nice because Karma watched him. His attention was a heady, heavy thing that Gakushuu enjoyed even as he steadied his aim, got into the perfect posture and then failed miserably yet again.

Gakushuu still felt good because-

"You don't get hand tremors," Karma pointed out sharply. Gakushuu smiled, then tried again.

A slight tremor starting from his fingers, tensed up his arm, and the shot went wide. And suddenly Karma was holding Gakushuu's hand, pulling the gun out of his grasp and then staring at his hands. It was normal- no unsteadiness or tremors.

"Are you scared of guns? " Karma asked, his tone more worried than incredulous.

"It's more of a subconscious fear of guns," he explained, his voice quiet.

Well, his past life would probably be able to explain more but, even Gakushuu had no idea why she was scared of guns. Maybe she died of a bullet wound or maybe she killed someone.

The thing was, none of his friends had actually figured out the reason. They took it as a severe lack of talent in this one area, and no one has actually seen him try out long ranged items aside from guns in general.

Gakushuu felt pleased that Karma had gotten it right. That he would notice was par for the course, but that he would accurately assess the reason correctly had still been up in the air.

Karma frowned at Gakushuu's hands then kept the gun with him.

"We should leave then," he said. The range was empty, but someone could come in anytime. Also, technically, they were minors with no licence so they weren't really allowed in the range in the first place.

Of course, rules had never applied to people like Karma or Gakushuu.

"Okay," he said agreeably. He followed Karma out.

Then, the moon exploded.

It was night, and Gakushuu spent maybe a little more time outside than he should have but.

The moon exploded.

People started stopping in the streets to point and stare. Some took out phones to record the view.

Gakushuu and Karma gaped .

They stared at the half shattered moon.

"What the fuck, " one of them said.

Gakushuu's phone started ringing, and he pulled it out, still staring at the moon.

"Hello," he said, feeling slightly faint.

"Come back right now," a cold voice demanded. The call was cut off immediately after.

Gakushuu paled, his brain functioning again.

"Fuck," he breathed out.

Then he grabbed Karma's arm and started running.

He tried to call his father back but he was busy. He called other people- people in the government, children of powerful political figures, geniuses who were known in the scientific community.

People weren't panicking yet , but they would .

The people who picked up were already being informed about being put in safety, temporarily, some were theorizing the reasons and Gakushuu was trying to hold a million conversations at once.

He was panting by the time he reached home with Karma. They had already seen one accident, and he didn't want to see any rioting.

Mass panic was not a pretty sight.

When he saw his house and his father standing in front of it, he sighed in relief.

"Father," he breathed out. Gakuhou's eyes roved over him then at Karma, who he was still holding on to. He didn't say anything to them, still on call. He tilted his head to the car pointedly.

Gakushuu didn't move.

"The shattered pieces." He said, still breathing hard, as he pointed at the broken moon.

Gakuhou shook his head.

"It won't hit Earth," he mouthed the words, his voice silent, and he went back to talking to whoever was on the other side.

Gakushuu sighed in relief, his panic abating a little and he dragged Karma away from his father and to the car.

They could already see a meteor shower in the sky, and Gakushuu guessed that there were also weapons the nations were deploying to shatter the larger pieces or something.

Because Gakushuu could see the shattered pieces form a ring around the moon.

Maybe they had found a way to increase the gravitational field. Gakushuu wasn't well versed in space related phenomena, but he was sure he knew the space programs that were shown to the civilians at least.

Whatever had happened, was either an alien, a really crazy natural phenomena, or the government.

He wondered which one he preferred. He looked at Karma who had basically dragged right into a safe house with him, and saw him frowning at the sky.

He sighed. Then he picked up another call.

Gakuhou was busy, and so was Gakushuu. He was listening in to his father, while talking to a few other people, trying to figure out what the fuck just happened.

The school shut down for a little while, and the rioting and mess outside eased. Karma was sent back to his home on day 3, when the mass panic eased up with the government's handling of the situation. The religions riled up with Armageddon and it was a messy social situation.

But.

The streets went mostly back to how it was, even if there were still people talking about the world ending, or wasting away their life savings.

The odd thing was, he was pretty sure his father was angry . And the government side was actually oddly hushed up.

It was suspicious.

Gakushuu had found a private undocumented research facility that was destroyed into rubble . But he couldn't find anything suspicious about it aside from the sheer amount of destruction at the place.

It was swept clean.

There was no left over research or no bodies, no odd items lying around. Which was what made it even more suspicious.

Unlike the other buildings or hidden research facilities that were hit hard by the protesting people, this was almost bare.

Gakushuu could find hints of what was happening in the other buildings. But if he hadn't known the place was a research facility from the beginning, he wouldn't have even suspected it.

The place was owned by a private organisation, under Yanagisawa. He subtly dug deeper. He found the place far too suspicious after all.

When school restarted, he heard news of Yukimura Aguri's death, and he connected a few dots. The destroyed private research facility was under Yanagisawa, Aguri's fiance. Aguri worked there occasionally, and Gakushuu had looked into it before because he actually found her to be a kind teacher.

Then to confirm his hypothesis, he asked his father about Aguri's death.

His father didn't do something as plebeian as twitch but he had a reaction. And that was enough for Gakushuu to confirm.

It had been a far fetched thought, but.

Private research facility, meant that it might or might not be government approved. The sheer amount of destruction meant something had gone wrong. And 'undocumented' meant it was something bad.

It was destroyed the same day as the moon shattered and Gakushuu was pretty sure, that if the government didn't fix whatever the cause was, they might actually be a little fucked.

School started again, and people got used to the moon. His father got increasingly suspicious, meeting every day with more people, some from the government, some not, and that was what Gakushuu could see.

Gakushuu sneaked in surveillance of his father, sometimes by himself, sometimes putting in a device that his father might or might not notice.

After the first attempt, where he was able to gather the most information, his father started to get more thorough about combing through any changes he spotted. Similarly, Gakushuu's chances of gaining new information decreased, but it didn't completely become impossible.

As long as he did some things more blatantly, his father would disregard his exaggerated attempts as true attempts. It worked a few times and Gakushuu gained another piece of information.

A being made for antimatter research.

It was a human experimentation gone wrong.

They had gone almost a week without the world ending. But human experimentation…

And antimatter on top of that?

Gakushuu wasn't exactly the pinnacle of human morality, but both were things he held severe distaste for.

Antimatter was a delicate field, and the research for it was given to very very very few facilities. Human experimentation, a taboo, on top of antimatter?

There was no way it was government approved. And even if it was , it certainly shouldn't have been done on Earth.

Or maybe…

Gakushuu looked at the shattered moon and let out a slightly hysterical laugh.

They were so screwed, it was almost funny.

After Gakushuu calmed down yet again , he noted something important.

If it was a human , that meant there was a direction to channel that power. It hadn't immediately exploded Earth, so either it didn't have the ability to, or it didn't want to.

If it didn't have the ability to, the government would have found the person and buried both the person and the research. And since the government was still being secretive of even more related things, he could conclude that the person hadn't been caught yet.

So, whoever had the power, was pretty strong, and wanted something (maybe a last request?) before they died, but didn't want all of humanity to die. Or at least, not die just yet.

Then Gakushuu sighed.

It was all just a reasonable hypothesis, but likely not true.

It wasn't exactly possible for the government to condone experiment on such a decent human being. They wouldn't just pick a person off the streets for research on antimatter .

Whoever it was, probably had it coming, but unfortunately, that person might just have the world in their hands.

They probably wanted to fulfill their own cruel desires before blowing up the planet to kingdom come. Talk about reaping what you sow, he scoffed to himself.

Gakushuu narrowed his eyes.

Either way, he had a point of entry with his father, and he didn't trust him enough to leave the whole thing up to him, or the government, who created the mess in the first place.

He would get involved, he just needed to find a point of contact first.

And he would get it, come hell or high water.

The fate of the world wasn't going to rest on the decision of a negligent government, if he had anything to say about it.

Chapter Text

The moon exploding was a big news that caused a splash everywhere. The moon was an important celestial body in the first place.

But surprisingly, the after effects didn't cause any deaths aside from what mass panic and riots did. The ocean levels did change, a few new places for discovered due to it, and there were a few places which got flooded.

Property damage happened, but it wasn't too bad.

People attributed it to the government, but Gakushuu was slightly suspicious. The government never really cared about semi-natural disasters, so, preemptive measures to save lives?

Gakushuu was very very suspicious.

Then he came across some news. Interviews of the victims were being taken down from the news, there was indirect news but direct news was being shut down.

It wasn't particularly hard actually, since there was bigger news but Gakushuu was already looking underneath the surface the government wanted to show the public.

Witnesses claimed they had almost been teleported to another place when they were about to die or get hurt. Those witnesses were hushed up to prevent spread of the news, but human nature was as it was.

Some people slipped past or violated the agreement to send news of all sorts out. This news blended with many others but Gakushuu already had clues already.

Someone else was saving people from the floods.

And it was one person, no matter how contradictory it was. Even if it felt almost at the same time, it was actually one person moving incredibly fast.

There was video evidence of a yellow blur. And it solidified the impossible idea in Gakushuu's mind.

A being of antimatter who was fast but not a bad person, if they were going around saving people.

But if the person wasn't bad, then the government was obviously the one at fault. The suppression of news meant that they wanted to put the person as the 'bad guy' or they didn't want information about the man to get out.

Or both, he thought darkly.

Then, Gakushuu started to notice a theme in his father's visitors.

The military came to visit him more often. They came with things.

Gakuhou could control what went on inside his office, but he couldn't hide the people coming and going from his house or office from a determined Gakushuu.

And Gakushuu could find out who the person was from their faces, which they couldn't cover without looking even more suspicious.

And Gakushuu could run plates for cars since he was 8, thank you father.

So the military came to visit his father. Consistently. With papers. And things.

Gakushuu couldn't get to any of them, but he knew the people who came to drop them.

He couldn't talk to all of them, but he talked to a few, and he slipped out more information from their own lips without them realizing what he knew.

They thought they were reassuring him, but he was actually just getting information from them.

He found one man coming in more consistently.

Karasuma Tadaomi.

When he had innocently asked him, he had replied with difficulty that he was going to become a teacher in his father's school.

Which would have seemed obtrusive enough.

Except.

There were government agents going back and forth with his father for the last few days. Even if Karasuma pretended like he had retired from the military (officially) and he was looking for a job (with his qualifications?) and his father had decided to hire him due to their previous acquaintance (his father didn't believe in nepotism).

The amount of suspicious points in the things he said were almost too many.

And. Teacher???

Why???

He grilled the man but his father saved the other man from him with a glare.

How extremely suspicious.

It came to a head a little after a week since the moon exploded.

Karasuma became the teacher of class E.

Gakushuu, once again, panicked.

Then he went to find Karma.

"Have you heard about your teacher?" He asked a moment after he met the other boy.

Karma, suspiciously, shut his mouth with a click sound. A surprised noise emerging from his throat.

Gakushuu's 'I knew it' couldn't be more obvious.

"So?" He asked, apprehensively. Karma's eyes narrowed suspiciously.

"And what do you know?" Gakushuu tried to not stiffen up suspiciously.

He didn't know what Karma knew, but the other might have information that the other person didn't know.

Gakushuu hummed under his breath.

"Did you sign an NDA?" He guessed. The government was involved after all.

Surprise flashed over Karma's face, then relief. But Gakushuu shook his head.

"No, don't tell me. I didn't sign it," he clarified. "You need plausible deniability."

"I can still tell you," Karma tilted his head, confused.

"No, if you don't, then I can still help you," Gakushuu replied. "The underground is also involved so you might get involved with some annoying politics as well. If you get caught by someone or the other, I can get to you even without the military."

Karma frowned.

"The military seemed pretty intent on letting us kill him, they gave us-"

"No, stop," he interrupted. "If I learn too much at once, they can probably erase my memory."

Gakushuu's mind raced, and even more suspicious things started to link in his mind. He had already gained too much information from Karma already.

The antimatter being had a relationship of some kind with Yukimura Aguri. Maybe they had a relationship before -

No, then Gakushuu would have found a missing person's report. So, someone who built a relationship of some kind with Aguri while they were experimented on.

He had been about ready to forcefully transfer Karma to another school, if he had to. Or change the class.

But, plans needed changing.

The man wanted to teach.

But the students were allowed to attempt assassination?

Karasuma was an excellent military agent. He was there to keep an eye on the teacher. The students were probably expendable.

Not to mention, the memory wipe. He had been suspecting something similar when some witnesses posted something online then came to interviews to clarify that it was just them wanting their 15 minutes of fame.

And they had obviously been truthful. They weren't exactly people trained in lying in the first place.

And weapons.

Special weapons or items that could hurt the antimatter being.

Gakushuu massaged his forehead.

There were way too many hints and theories. But one thing is for sure.

"You're bait," he said clearly, "No one expects you to actually kill him. The government is throwing you at the being like you're a plaything. They don't care about you living or dying."

Gakushuu looked Karma in the eye. He didn't look surprised or like it was new information.

Anyone could have deduced this much from the whole situation, let alone Karma.

"That's never stopped me before," Karma replied, his words were arrogant but his eyes were reassuring. "I've never gone along with people's expectations of me before and it's not going to change now."

He shrugged.

"But figure everything out soon, Shuu. Or you'll be the one being left behind," Karma grinned mischievously.

"I doubt that ," Gakushuu smirked back.

It was slightly reassuring to have Karma go in with his eyes wide open. Plus, Gakushuu didn't need to know the beings specs to know that he was probably already world-ending strong.

It would be easier to take Karma out of the being's eyes before he started class, but after might be impossible.

Plus, it was perhaps a little selfish and impossible, but Gakushuu wanted class E to do the impossible.

Wouldn't that be something?

A complete overturning of his father's education system. Gakushuu had control over the main campus, but he had never managed to get into class E students' heads. Some resented him, some liked him, but mostly, they all just disliked the students of the main building.

Even if Gakushuu gave them some amount of power, they would take it, riot and then get punished just as soon. He had never been able to induce a change in them, even with Yukimura's kind nature to nurture them.

The students might react differently, but the moment an opportunity came, they just gave up. The few that didn't, just wanted to hurt the main school students like they had been.

It wasn't what he wanted to do, but he had never been able to help them yet.

But this super being who seemed like he wasn't going around killing people in his free time, but helping.

Gakushuu saw a new path forming in front of him.

And, everyone liked rooting for the underdog, didn't they?

So, Gakushuu might have slightly underestimated the being.

He had kept an eye on the families of class E, and the camera hadn't even caught a yellow blur before the name plates in front of the house disappeared.

Gakushuu had to slow it down and watch frame by frame to find the slightest hint of yellow blur being caught in maybe two of the cameras.

Two. Out of twenty six.

But this also told him that the class had met up with the being.

That meant, Gakushuu could do more information gathering from them before Karma caught up.

He planted listening devices in the students' bags. It was manual, so there weren't any waves that could be emitted. He didn't know what the being could detect, but it was better to be safe.

The camera in the teacher's lounge had been detected first but no one had checked the students' bags.

After the day, he sneaked it out of the bag, downloaded it into his laptop and listened for clues.

And he had to shake his head at the clumsy attempts of the students to kill the teacher. He had received a lot of information just by using the students themselves, but with the information he got…

This method might not be useful for much longer.

But he had other ideas too. He would put cameras all over the mountain instead. Also, he had the basic idea about this Koro-sensei, so he could try to see if he could detect transmitted image or audio signals. He would have to do a few experiments to find out a bit more.

But overall, Gakushuu was relieved to find that he actually seemed like he was trying to encourage his students. He didn't seem like he was going to destroy the Earth, aside from his constant threats otherwise.

Also, if he had destroyed the moon, the question would be why?

Gakushuu had thought there were two different bases for the research. If the man was from the research on the moon, then what happened on Earth?

If the man was from the Earth research center, then how did the moon get destroyed?

Gakushuu understood Koro-sensei was trying to claim credit for it, but the act itself didn't seem to suit the character he was going for. Or was that the true character of Koro-sensei?

He sighed. This was why he would rather not be a PI. They could work themselves to death alone, thank you.

Unfortunately, Gakushuu couldn't just forget about class A and spend all his time researching the antimatter being called Koro-sensei.

The moon blowing up was pretty scary and only his reassurance of knowing the cause and surety of it not happening to Earth, had stopped his classmates from starting their own doomsday conspiracy. Or disappearing off the face of Earth to lead an extravagant life in the islands of the Caribbean.

Honestly, it was a problem that his own classmates were smart enough to overlook the bullshit of the government. Well, it wasn't just his problem though.

People in Kunugigaoka would probably burst at the seams if they knew the world-destroying creature was literally a hill away.

By the time Karma's suspension was over, Gakushuu had discovered that firstly, no, Koro-sensei could not discover signal transition, but he was really good at spotting differences in the classroom.

Secondly, Nagisa was probably a secret ninja.

Third, Koro-sensei was crazy intimidating.

When they found a bug in Nagisa's bag, Koro-sensei had taken it away and Gakushuu had assumed that it was going to be destroyed. But Koro-sensei had turned threatening instead.

He turned completely black and, on the assumption that Gakushuu was an assassin, told him to never use the students themselves to hurt Koro-sensei though he welcomed any assassination attempts otherwise.

Which. Hm.

Contradictory.

But Gakushuu would appreciate it as soon as the cold sweat stopped dripping down his back.

Gakushuu also found that the underworld was slowly teeming with information about the super creature. An assassination request to kill a creature that went to Mach 20 speed at his highest, was round, yellow and had tentacles like an octopus.

If the assassination request was accepted, then special weapons would be provided.

It was a government officiated request so the ones who succeeded would receive money and also, they would be taken off the wanted list of the government. They could even request official citizenship.

The underground wasn't a place where the criminals could just live as honest people. Most of the people were born into it, and they didn't know much else.

But it also showed that the government was desperate. It showed how highly they viewed the being.

Let alone Kunugigaoka, if the being had asked for half a country, the nation's might have had to follow the request.

The only reason they had even left it alone to teach was because they needed the time to plan, and the criminals themselves were also a stop gap.

Everything they were throwing at the being was their desperate attempt to buy themselves time.

But, Gakushuu liked that even in spite of having the whole world try to kill him, Koro-sensei was determined to do what he wanted. He travelled the world and ate sweets, he bought pervy magazines, he studied and taught his students, all the while cheerily fighting off assassinations from the nations, other assassins and his own students.

It was funny, entertaining and entirely unusual. And it lent credit to another theory of Gakushuu's.

He was used to having his life threatened. He was born in the underground, so people like that were rarely ever on records. It was easy to forget about morality when the person being experimented on was a man who had killed multiple people before.

It was a reason why prisoners of war were generally the first people to be experimented on by enemies. It was easy to just think of them as 'enemies who killed our own' and move on with life.

When Karma arrived, Gakushuu was mostly certain that the teacher, at least, wouldn't hurt the students.

So he decided to stay out of class E's development and watch instead of interfering as he had intended.

It was funny that when he had decided the teacher wasn't a threat, the students decided to take up the role of threatening themselves well enough.

He wasn't unaware of Nagisa's suicide/murder attempt, but he certainly hadn't been expecting something like that from Karma.

When Karma had been the first to injure the superhuman, Gakushuu had been pleasantly surprised. He had heard about it from discussions between the students afterwards. His subsequent attempts had ended in embarrassment, which Gakushuu was almost sad to miss.

Karma in a pink apron would have been hilarious to see. Gakushuu made sure to rub it in, by buying Karma a pink apron that evening.

He scowled at Gakushuu with his slightly flustered expression and Gakushuu absolutely laughed at him for it.

But, Gakushuu wasn't laughing when he spent his lunch replaying the video of Karma jumping off a cliff with a gun in his hand.

The only reason he hadn't immediately run for class E was because he wasn't sure he could run past the sickness in his stomach. And also because it would give away it was him behind the camera.

Koro-sensei didn't remove the camera from around the hill on the assumption that he was an assassin. Since the Ministry of Defence wouldn't tell Koro-sensei how many people and who had accepted the assassination request, Koro-sensei played nice.

Gakushuu was taking advantage of an information gap between them.

But that wouldn't have meant much if Karma had actually succeeded.

Gakushuu spent the rest of the day so dedicated to his studies that he finished the slight backlog he had accumulated by obsessing over class E.

But he couldn't get Karma's attempt out of his mind. He didn't go to see him that day.

Or the day after.

Gakushuu wasn't generally someone who doubted himself.

But this time, he doubted his belief in Karma's words.

Karma's 'I don't want to die' that is.

Chapter Text

Gakushuu didn't get surprised often. Be it his father or the things the world threw at him.

It wasn't that he could predict it.

It was just that at some point he started to expect the worst.

His family's slow breakdown had taken a lot of his hopes of his new life too. But he hadn't expected a new low.

His father's constant demands to be the best was suffocating. He had tried and tried to live up to his expectations, but the thing was.

Gakushuu wasn't like his father.

He wasn't the genius of the century. He wasn't someone who could look at a person and tell what approach to manipulation or teaching would suit them best. He couldn't be the best by relying on sheer talent.

Gakuhou had put in a lot of work. In fact, he worked an average of 22 hours a day.

Gakushuu had neither the talent nor the dedication. He was always a 'failure' when compared to his father.

And the thing was, Gakushuu constantly did. His father didn't have to always tell him that his grades were terrible, that his marital arts fell behind, that his artistic skills could be better 

He knew it.

He could see the veiled threat in Gakuhou's movements now. He could see the strict control he applied to his own body and mind each and every day. He could see his father's dedication.

Gakushuu could barely remember the time when his father was just 'father' anymore instead of something he just fell short of. He wanted to abandon his father, the expectations and all of what went with it.

He wanted to leave behind every hope and dream his father had for him.

It was difficult to think, to breathe, at the possibility that Gakushuu would always be a failure to his father.

He didn't know how to deal with the fact that Gakushuu didn't want to.

He didn't want to become a person who slept 2 hours and used the rest of the time efficiently. He could but he never wanted to.

But his father's expectations were forcing Gakushuu on the same path. He didn't have enough hours in the day to focus on so many things.

No matter how many things he stopped, it never felt enough to sleep for 8 hours or study enough to score that 100 on all his tests.

It never felt like he had enough time to spend with his friends, or to learn the things he enjoyed.

Sometime around his second year, when his anxiousness would tip over a certain point, he would seek out Karma. They didn't do anything, but he realized that Karma's playfulness and understanding made it hard for Gakushuu to worry about the future, when the present was so clear in front of him.

So, it was understandably terrible that the reason for his anxiety this time was Karma himself.

He kept himself with his classmates and tried not to watch Karma settle in with his new and old classmates.

He settled in well.

But Gakushuu was trying pretty hard to not-watch him.

So it was a genuine surprise when Gakushuu saw Karma waiting outside the main campus building.

A few students whispered when they saw him, but everyone gave him a wide berth. Karma looked undisturbed by all this, leaning on a wall, and just waiting. He wasn't even drinking his normal strawberry milk. He was just very obviously waiting.

Gakushuu sighed.

Karma really didn't like to make things easy for him. If he pretended he was distracted by something else, Gakushuu could just sneak away and pretend Karma just hadn't seen him.

But if Gakushuu didn't go, Karma would look like some kind of jilted lover. Worse, he would look like Gakushuu's jilted lover, knowing Karma.

 "What do you want?" He asked flatly, when he reached Karma. The other boy looked up, a friendly smile on his face.

"Hey Shuu. It's been a while!" Gakushuu ignored the mocking nickname and the deliberate reminder that Gakushuu hadn't even been by to see the cats.

"And? Do you have something to say?" He asked again.

He felt uncomfortable. He had never felt uncomfortable around Karma before. But this felt intensely uncomfortable, and private.

So when Karma grabbed his wrist and suggested they check out the cats first, he didn't argue.

He didn't exactly want to talk to Karma right that moment, but he was also aware that Karma was definitely the person he should talk to.

Maybe it was Karma being himself, but many of Gakushuu's problems felt like they were much easier to solve in his presence. Or sometimes he would have an epiphany and realize that 'oh, life actually is that easy'.

Gakushuu had at least realized something about himself, at least, after he pulled himself away from watching the video of Karma jumping off the cliff yet again.

He was upset.

Gakushuu was angry and frustrated. But mostly, he felt a little like he was about to start crying.

And Karma holding his wrist tightly in a warm grasp didn't help matters much.

They didn't talk, but that didn't stop Gakushuu from noting the rougher hands, the slightly windswept hair, and the very same presence that Gakushuu had gotten so incredibly used to in the last few years.

He pulled at his hand, and Karma stopped looking back at him.

"I can walk on my own," he said, his voice decidedly quiet. Karma frowned, then decided that all questions could wait till they reached and turned around and walked, an eye on him to make sure he was there.

Gakushuu stayed a step behind and walked, keeping his eyes on Karma.

He curled his hand, an uncomfortable anxious itch making itself known. He clenched his hand, and unclenched it. Then kept his eyes forward and kept walking.

A hand slid over his own. Gakushuu's heart leapt to his throat, as he watched Karma's hand carefully uncurl his fingers from digging into his palm. He slid their fingers together until they slipped between his and they were holding hands.

They were holding hands.

Gakushuu flushed red, and he couldn't bring himself to protest at being, once again, dragged to Karma's house.

Though, it may or may not have something to do with Karma slowly dragging his thumb over Gakushuu's knuckles.

Karma kept an eye on the blush crawling down Gakushuu's cheeks and played with the word that popped into his head and decided that yeah, it fit .

'Cute' he thought again.

"You're mad at me," Karma stated when they finally reached and the cats had finished scratching at Gakushuu for leaving them alone with Karma.

He took his punishment from the cats and had sweet tea placed in front of him that Gakushuu disliked as his second punishment for avoiding Karma's house. He sighed and sipped at the horrendous mix.

Why was he getting punished when Karma was the one who threw himself off the cliff? He complained to himself as he sipped the too sweet tea.

Karma leaned against the kitchen counter and looked at Gakushuu with a 'well? Spill it' expression.

Gakushuu frowned into his cup and didn't answer. Karma sighed like he was being difficult, and then came and sat beside Gakushuu.

"So? Why are you mad at me?" He asked reasonably, and Gakushuu tightened his grip on the cup. Karma waited.

"You threw yourself off a cliff, why the fuck -" Gakushuu was horrified to hear his voice crack on the word. He looked away.

"Why the hell do you think I'm mad at you?"

"Oh," Karma blinked.

"Oh?" Gakushuu said, voice cooling by a few degrees. "You jumped off a cliff, Karma. Give me something more than an 'oh'."

"Um, I didn't- it wasn't a-" Karma fumbled in surprise. Gakushuu breathed out from his nose.

" Why did you jump, Karma? You dying wouldn't be worth keeping the world safe from one decent semi-human. There was no reason -"

"I wasn't thinking of reasons when I did it," Karma curled his fingers together, looking down. "I- do you know what happened when I got suspended?"

Gakushuu blinked at the abrupt shift in topic.

"... A student complained that you injured them, and asked that you be expelled or he would leave the school. The Principal intervened personally and suspended you for fighting and then suspended the student for lying."

"Huh," Karma blinked in surprise at the whole story. "Wait, him too?"

Gakushuu smiled at him.

"Yeah, well, your expulsion was decided but afterwards the Principal got involved and managed the rest."

"Huhhh," Karma dragged the word out then he put his face in his hands and groaned out loud. Gakushuu tilted his head in confusion.

"What?" He asked. When he didn't get an answer, he poked at Karma. "What is it?"

"This is so embarrassing," Karma groaned. Gakushuu was already smiling at Karma's embarrassment.

"I won't laugh too much. Promise," he said, a smile in his voice.

"Liar. You're already laughing at me," Karma peaked an eye out to look at Gakushuu.

"Just tell me so I can go back to being mad at you," He mock-scowled at him.

"Now I don't want to tell you even more," Karma stuck a tongue out. Gakushuu narrowed his eyes. Karma gave up reluctantly.

"So the teacher told me that he would support me even if I got in fights, as long as I maintained my top 5 score," he started.

"-but you got suspended so you…felt like you couldn't trust anyone?" Karma nodded then shrugged.

"Kind of. I just realized people were untrustworthy even though they promise you something. It seemed like a good deal, he gets notoriety and I get to do what I want, but then I realized that he was just the kind of person who could throw all his morals as a teacher away the moment it inconvenienced him."

Gakushuu sipped his cold, too sweet tea and hummed. He understood a little of what Karma was thinking but-

"Aguri would have made you acknowledge her too," he said, tracing the rim of the cup. "I guess she'll be happy to see her legacy earn yours too."

Karma hummed. Then paused, rewinding his sentence in his mind. Because that almost sounded like-

"Wait, Koro-sensei knew her?" Gakushuu smiled.

"And you won't know about that because you jumped off a cliff instead of talking like a sane human being," he grinned into his cup.

Karma made a noise of disgust in his throat.

"All right, watching you continue your pitiful attempts at this is just making me sad. How long are you going to drink this? You hate it." He took Gakushuu's cup then rolled his eyes hard when he noticed it was emptied.

Gakushuu smiled at him when Karma deliberately rolled his eyes at him.

"I can't believe you finished this, you heathen," Karma scoffed.

"I mean, it was extra sweet, but you still made it for me. I couldn't just not have it," Gakushuu said flippantly, but Karma froze for half a second before he continued to clear out the table and put the cup back in the kitchen.

'Just like Valentine's?'

Karma deliberated on saying the words but ended up not saying it. Valentine's had become an odd prank time for them, one where Gakushuu could freely give Karma the oddest combination without anyone being surprised at the normally proper boy doing anything heinous.

But the thing was, both had to accept being pranked. Gakushuu would deliberately eat the weird things Karma left for him without complaint, even if he was coming to class with red rimmed eyes, and Karma did too. He would chew and swallow the tongue and brain-numbing combinations Gakushuu made in revenge.

It was a new experience, but it was a good experience.

Instead of saying anything else, Karma decided to make Gakushuu and himself something less sweet to drink.

His mind went back to that exhilarating moment when he had let himself fall back, and decided that he would acknowledge the teacher if he didn't die.

He didn't think death bothered him, but he also didn't like to think his parents essentially abandoning him bothered him either.

He turned around, and Gakushuu was watching him with a sad expression. The smile on his face had slid off and his eyes were far away from just Karma. Though, he registered the movement a second later and blinked it back into focus to look at Karma.

Karma didn't like the way his voice had cracked. It felt good to know someone cared, but Gakushuu had never really made it a secret. He seeked Karma out, about as much Karma did him.

Though, he mostly placed himself on Gakushuu's path when he was seeking the other out to make it look 'accidental' even if both sides were mostly aware that it wasn't. Gakushuu just didn't bother.

He would find him relaxing at the rooftop, or the loner spots of Kunugigaoka where people went to have a mental breakdown but Karma just went to hide away from people.

It made Karma feel wanted . And it was nice. Because Gakushuu was always busy. He was always doing something or the other and Karma was sure he didn't even know half of it.

Gakushuu made time for him, or his class even when he was drowning himself in things to do. 

It wasn't like Karma couldn't see the eyebags. He could see them right through the concealer Gakushuu favored, and it made Karma feel good about how obviously Gakushuu prized him.

He knew that class A didn't like him, that most of the school didn't get why Gakushuu, the son of the Principal, favored by most teachers and people in general, would choose to be friends with Akabane Karma, violent delinquent on the path to hell or jail, whatever came first 

Karma didn't like pretending he was something he wasn't, and he was also aware of how it made people see him.

Gakushuu had, never once, let that bother him.

Gakushuu built his reputation and then threw it away even when Karma got more notorious. He didn't shy away from talking to Karma in the middle of the hallway, in front of any teacher or any students. He didn't pretend he didn't exist in front of his friends.

Gakushuu had never treated Karma like he could just be ignored.

So, he had never wanted to get Gakushuu so upset.

"I never really found something I looked forward to, you know?" Karma started, looking down at the cup in his hands. He could feel Gakushuu's gaze boring unto his back.

"Like, sure. Life's cool, but it's not something I can't throw away to do something even better."

Karma hadn't jumped thinking it was going to be a life changing moment. But maybe it had become one by the time Koro-sensei caught him. He didn't find his life to be anything precious.

But, when he had gotten saved, when Koro-sensei had promised to save him every time, instead of leaving him to rot like the trash he was, he thought that maybe, it was the life changing event that he had been looking for.

"And I think that, now, I want to live and see what's going to happen. With Koro-sensei and class E." He dropped the cup and leaned away from counter, his hands gripping the edge.

He remembered watching Koro-sensei's smiling face gentle with care, the sun beams shining over him, and the cool of the tentacles he had weaved into a web just for Karma.

Then he turned around to look at Gakushuu. His expression was complicated. He looked at Karma like he was happy, but also sad at the same time. Karma almost laughed because he had been expecting the exact same expression from him.

He liked that Gakushuu had always always cared. He felt a familiar warmth in his gut and smiled.

"I'm still not telling you Koro-sensei's history," Gakushuu finally said.

Karma laughed.

Because yeah, fair.

Chapter Text

The newest addition to class E was an ever famous name in the underworld, Irina, the hot blooded temptress, a foreigner who earned her living with her unmatched seduction skills.

Gakushuu was in genuine awe of the woman's skills. The thing was, she didn't need to actually sleep with her target more than half the time. She would lure them to an empty location and bam! Dead.

She was just…incredibly young though. She was one of the people who grew up in the underworld, who had never lived a normal life.

The life of a woman in the underworld was never easy, you need incredible luck, skill and a level of renown to make a decent living. Seduction was almost a necessary skill to survive, especially for a woman that beautiful.

However, Gakushuu's heart almost stopped when her icy blue eyes caught one of his hidden cameras that even Karasuma had managed to miss. She narrowed her eyes, hummed under her breath and then ignored it.

She was extremely aware of people watching her. It was almost eerie how she had even managed to find cameras or listening devices even in the thick of the forest.

Instead of Karasuma or even Koro-sensei, Gakushuu had the feeling that he had to be more careful around her. She might easily decide to not care and destroy anything she felt encroached into her personal space.

Irina was a woman who was both intensely exposed, but skillfully hidden even in plain view. Her bright blonde hair and icy blue eyes caught the attention of people around her, and it made it incredibly easy for Gakushuu to find the video evidence of her and Koro-sensei's first meeting.

Koro-sensei wasn't technically a part of the faculty, and him claiming otherwise and bringing up Irina to class E had been caught on camera. Along with his incredible feat of getting rid of people trying to harass Irina.

Unlike Irina, who couldn't even be caught in camera half the time, Koro-sensei was far far too obvious.

Gakushuu had hundreds of sightings of Koro-sensei all over the world. He was too fast to catch on camera when he moved, but he patiently waited in line and paid for all the food he got.

His disguises were also so over the top that it practically looked like a person wearing an odd mascot wear. People shared his image with a laugh, like it wasn't the world ending creature in front of them.

Sometimes Koro-sensei posed for people asking for funny pictures.

Which made Gakushuu feel flabbergasted. It took a completely different kind of person to take being experimented on, and come out the other end, so cheerful.

But it wasn't all like that.

Gakushuu had caught various assassination attempts on camera as well. Some that tried to trap him by making him fly over a specific area which would be covered by a net made to hold the supernatural being, or another where a missile was launched which was filled and covered by the antimatter damaging material.

The assassins from different regions teamed up to fight against Koro-sensei and the man would get through every trap through sheer speed or skill. Mach 20 was an unbelievable speed, specially in the hands of a man who knew what he was doing.

Gakushuu got even more sure that the man was used to dodging assassination attempts, because some were inspired and a certain amount of skill and insight would be needed to escape.

Koro-sensei taught freely, even the assassins who came after him. He would stop to chat with a few assassins, and Gakushuu had no idea what he said, but many of them ended up backing down from further assassination attempts.

Gakushuu had been using the connections of the class to find and research more about the supernatural being, so it was kind of obvious that some of them would catch on.

Kimiko was someone involved with the underworld, had been one of the first to find out about the assassination request for the supernatural being teaching in class E. She had been surprised, but she had mostly shrugged it off.

The second was Ren, who was always following Gakushuu's moods and obsessions. He found out because Gakushuu had been far too obvious with his multitudes of pictures and videos that were taken of Koro-sensei all over the world.

He hadn't known about class E and Gakushuu had explained most of the situation to him. Ren, understandably, got worried, then angry. He ranted at Gakushuu for almost an hour before he could be calmed down.

Anaya knew about the teacher from the pictures on the internet that kept getting taken down, and she did her own subtle research on him before figuring out Gakushuu knew more than her.

Anaya was perhaps the most heavily involved in the research aspect, aside from Gakushuu. Ren had decided to keep his nose out of the whole mess since both Anaya and Gakushuu had decided to get involved, and kept an eye on the Principal and his classmates instead.

Hinata was oblivious, and neither Kimiko, nor any of the others in the know were willing to let her know.

Araki kept his eyes on the students and the internal working of the school instead of rumors of the paranormal creature making rounds of the planet.

So school assembly was a shock for all the students in the main building, let alone class A. When the teachers of class E came out, he could almost see the envy in the eyes of all the students.

Irina was a beauty used to seducing the populace with every gesture, and Karasuma had a strict but proper atmosphere that would be attractive to anyone who liked the type. Let alone the student body, even the teachers were envious of the line up class E was showing.

There was the traditional sneering at class E by the teachers and Gakushuu's own sharp gaze swept over the students following along. Some flinched, and some pretended like they hadn't just been looking down on the class.

Class E was made up of the students with the least amount of marks, but that wasn't the only criteria. They were the people who had been outcasted, who hadn't been able to go along with the groups and expectations of society for some reason or other.

They were all unique people, made so by their failings in proper society. And the class of outcasts were about to become assassins for a superhuman being who was going to teach them.

But, Gakushuu thought as he looked at the smug class E, they were still just students for now.

He was surprised to see Karma among the students. He looked bored out of his mind as his class was publicly humiliated. He caught Gakushuu's eye and sent him a slow mocking wave that many of the students caught and glared at him for.

Gakushuu rolled his eyes before sending him a wave back. Class A sighed, and a few in class E gaped.

Karma grinned, showing off his sharp canines.

A few nearby students took a couple steps back.

Gakushuu stifled a laugh.

When the assembly was over, Gakushuu and Karma naturally met up as the classes separated. 

"Aren't you busy now, President?" Karma teased.

"Shouldn't a student of class E be on their way already?" Gakushuu glared playfully.

"I'm in class E because you can't get me to actually listen. Keep up with the times, prez." Karma laughed.

"And here I thought it was because you kept picking fights you won't win," he smirked, a slightly smug expression in his face.

"Literally one time, two years ago. It's not going to be the same again. You've been taught for years, I bet I can beat you after six months," Karma taunted.

"I'll give you a year," his smirk turned into a smile. "More than enough time for you to surpass me, right?"

A bet or a test, Karma wondered silently, but accepted it verbally.

"Before the year is over," he accepted. Gakushuu looked satisfied with it.

Then they both turned a corner in time to see Nagisa threaten two other students. Karma's eyes narrowed.

"Huh," Gakushuu blinked in surprise, "Is he secretly a ninja or something?" He asked.

Karma burst with startled laughter.

"Not that I know of," he pretended to cough, when Gakushuu pout-glared at him.

"Then what's with that shift when he heard the word 'kill'?" He asked. "You all might be learning to be assassins, but it's not from an actual…" Gakushuu's words faded as he stared absentmindedly at the space Nagisa had been standing.

He wondered at the change. The abrupt shift from being him to assassin that seemed kind of familiar.

Wasn't that almost exactly like the change in Koro-sensei? The abrupt shift from kind to ruthless, then back again. Not to mention that Nagisa was naturally observant.

Did he pick up on something Gakushuu had missed?

Karma raised a brow. "I mean, we're learning from Bitch-sensei I guess." Then he muttered under his breath, "Though what exactly we're learning is a bit suspect."

Gakushuu side eyed him.

"She's been teaching us practical English," Karma shrugged.

"Well, she's pretty renowned for her seduction skills, so she should be pretty good." Gakushuu said slowly, looking at the other boy. Karma's teeth peeked out mischievously.

"Maybe you'd like the other training she does," Karma leaned in teasingly. His eyes sparkled as he looked at Gakushuu.

Gakushuu roved an uninterested gaze over Karma's face.

"And that is?" He asked, raising an eyebrow.

Karma looked closely at Gakushuu, his eyes narrowing in suspicion. Then a moment later-

"Never mind," he pulled away, "Gotta go. See you later, Shuu~" he waved his fingers cheerily as he walked towards the class E hill.

"Yeah," Gakushuu said.

Then he covered his face for a moment and let out a long groan.

He had cameras in the class of course he knew what Karma was talking about!!

He just-

He couldn't believe Karma had just implied-

Gakushuu blushed to his ears.

After the assembly, the students were buzzing with class E trying to push the boundaries yet again.

The last time it had happened, it was in Gakushuu's first year and he had tried to connect with the class E too hastily. This time, it was obvious that it definitely wasn't him leading the charge.

Though, some in class A still thought otherwise and came by to offer their support. Most were already aware that having the Principal for his father wasn't exactly the best place to be, and they were quite willing to use their international connections to get Gakushuu out, if that's what it took.

Unfortunately, Gakushuuu had no intention of leaving his father while he wasn't an adult. Not unless he did something more drastic than taunting him about his failure at life.

Though, Gakushuu had managed to get something new while everyone around his scrambled.

He played with a seemingly rubber knife. He flicked it up, then caught it. It was slightly lighter than a normal rubber knife, so it took some getting used to. But the material was surprisingly hard.

He cut it up and gave it to Miya. Miya was pretty unobtrusive, but his father was the head of a research facility and Miya had inherited the eye for biochemistry.

His mother was a fashion designer though, so he had no idea how the unlikely couple worked, but they did.

Gakushuu wouldn't even have to make up much of an excuse if he got caught. Class E literally had the knives laying around.

Well, in their pockets, that is.

Not to mention, there was so much the government was having to deal with, with news of the super being mostly out to the non-civilians, they probably wouldn't care about one misplaced knife.

Or the multitude of cameras laying around class E, whenever they realized that it wasn't from Gakuhou or an assassin.

Gakushuu almost didn't have enough time to go through the whole thing, so he had had to make a program to point out the deviances from the norm so he could keep an eye on them.

It was almost funny that no one had just outright thrown away his far-too-obvious-trained-people devices because of reasons.

To be honest, though, Koro-sensei and Irina probably just didn't care. And Karasuma frowned but he left them alone.

Though anything the students could notice was obviously a big no as indicated by Koro-sensei threatening him through the one he found in Nagisa's bag.

Gakushuu found that he enjoyed Koro-sensei's lessons too. But-

They were quite familiar.

It felt nostalgic in a way.

Koro-sensei was quite obviously not human. But he taught in a similar way to Gakushuu's father.

Or the way Gakuhou used to teach. Now, he just enjoyed shoving knowledge down people's throats.

Gakushuu hadn't had much opportunity to be taught by his father before Ikeda's death. He was young, and his parents were practically the ideal of a normal, happy family.

So, Gakushuu felt slightly pathetic for clinging to that happy time, but he was also happy to find that Koro-sensei might have been inspired by his father in some way.

It felt good to know.

And if Gakushuu sometimes fell asleep dreaming of the times his father used to encourage his each and every step forward…

That was completely his business.

Chapter Text

The Principal was huffing up a storm. He seemed irritated by the blatant disregard of the rules that Koro-sensei seemed to be doing.

Gakushuu found the whole thing hilarious. And was rather grateful that it wasn't him caught up in the middle.

It was doubtful that he would manage to stay away from the mess the whole time, but it was already pretty great that Gakuhou's focus was the superhuman roaming around class E.

Also, Gakushuu had also found out about Gakuhou's visit to class E but he hadn't actually managed to get an idea of what exactly happened, since all electronics in the teacher's lounge were taken out.

But it had put Koro-sensei up to the task of making his students aim for the top 50. Gakushuu almost laughed.

While class E had excellent students like Rio, Karma, or even Isogai. A few months of good teaching wouldn't suddenly get them all into the top 50.

Class A was a consistent high scorer, but class B tended to hold a close competition. Araki, Hinata and Ren fought closely for the second spot and depending on what kind of tests were given, Karma tended to fall in 4 or 5th rank.

Ren excelled in English, Japanese and Social Studies. Though his English was still slightly weaker. He was improving though.

Hinata was either excellent at Math or would confuse all the formulae and fail terribly, depending on the day. She surprisingly liked biology and scored well when she worked for it.

She and Koyama bonded over their interest in biology, though it was on different ends. Hinata was considering medicine while Koyama seemed like he couldn't wait to start dissecting animals.

What was even more interesting was the way Koro-sensei rejected the students opinion and forced them to change the way they viewed their scores.

A completely different refraining take on the same monotonous thing along with the added motivation…well, it worked like a charm.

Gakushuu found the being to be surprisingly nice.

He taught as much as he could without scruples or any amount of self consciousness. He dedicated his whole being to educate his students.

There weren't many people who could dedicate themselves so completely for something.

Gakushuu felt slightly envious of class E to have gotten a better version of Gakuhou as a teacher. And he also felt like he was looking at what his father had once been.

Wasn't that why his father had been so beloved by his students in the beginning? His complete and utter dedication to the growth of his students?

But even then, Koro-sensei was a humorous person who made everything incredibly cheerful. He had a natural charisma that let everyone take things both seriously but also lightly.

He was bringing out the true talents of all his students.

The mid term preparation was tough as usual. Class A spent time in the library and met up in groups outside to study together.

Though they took mid term preparation relatively lightly compared to the finals of the semester exams, they still had a high level of dedication not to mention the silent competitions inside their groups or classes.

Class A took their grades seriously, it was another method of showing 'results' after all. Where there was a slight antagonistic relationship, superiority was marked by their ranks.

Gakushuu could show his superiority to sport enthusiasts by beating them at a game, but he had to dominate Kunugigaoka with his marks alone. Gakushuu's extracurricular activities were just a cherry on top, but wasn't the sole reason for his unparalleled renown over Kunugigaoka.

Class A had to work hard to get the privileges it received, and similarly the other classes tried to receive them by working harder. Class E had just always been left out of everything.

So in the sudden assembly turned to a class headed by the Principal, no one really expected to see class E in the first place.

But it was class A that found the Principal's sudden outright exclusion of class E odd. He was proud to find his classmates use their own methods to find out what exactly had ticked off the Principal.

Of course, they didn't have to wait long. The day before the midterm exam, a tornado seemed to randomly form on the mountain of class E. The students stood and gawked at the sight and Gakushuu found that his father had met with the teaching/assassination staff of class E.

It was too bad that some of his devices were damaged and he had had to destroy them to prevent traces of them being left behind.

Gakushuu had only found out about the ultimatum later. Koro-sensei deciding to leave if the students didn't get in the top 50?

That was a far more complicated suggestion.

Koro-sensei wasn't a being who could just roam around or do whatever he wanted, as he pleased. And as far as they were aware, he destroyed the moon.

What if he got bored and destroyed Earth too?

Unfortunately, Gakuhou wasn't someone they could just ask to increase the marks of class E. Even if it was falsified, Gakuhou would never allow anything to interfere with his education policy.

Not to mention, he had experienced an amazing success and was tasked to teach the children of many of the upper class citizens.

Kunugigaoka lent itself well to introduce connections among unlikely yet strong people.

Of course, Gakushuu's year was unique in this matter as well. Class A wasn't just a hub, it wasn't simply even the sole focus of the round of connections. The whole year had connections that spread across classes and backgrounds.

Class E was almost always cut off, but even then, there were people who admired the pretty Isogai or the ever violent but good looking Karma, or even Rio, who was known for her foreign looks. Not to mention Kanzaki Yukiko.

There were always people like that in every class, and Gakushuu had been one of the first to start making connections across classes, starting with Kimiko.

It was natural, the way his class had followed his lead.

But the thing was, the more Koro-sensei destabilized the class E system, the more Gakuhou would realize exactly the sort of power Gakushuu had gained among the other students.

Gakushuu just had never been given the right opportunity to exert that power, but he would. Gakuhou would definitely try to involve the students in his dirty politics to maintain a hold on class E.

It was honestly, intimidating, if Gakushuu thought about his father shifting opinions enough that the nations actually let Gakuhou do whatever he wanted, even with a world destroying creature on the other side.

The amount of power Gakuhou had truly accumulated couldn't just be considered by his money or connections. His power had already become an overwhelming influence that could guide opinions around the world, if needed.

Not to mention the amount of money even Gakushuu could see pouring in from the government.

His father took full advantage of having the superbeing in his backyard and yet, wanted none of the cons as well?

That was naive.

Gakushuu was well aware that his father was a flawed even if amazingly competent human being. But the one against him wasn't simply a human.

It was a being who had also studied Gakuhou's habits and features with the same intensity Gakuhou preserved for teaching Gakushuu.

Just like the way Gakushuu had learnt to take the backlash of being taught for 20 hours, he bet that Koro-sensei could take on all of Gakuhou too.

Or at least, he hoped.

Because he wasn't sure if anyone else in the world could stand up against him.

There was only so much Gakushuu could take up on himself without burning out.

So Gakushuu sent his notes to Nagisa, and told him very very clearly to hide his personal involvement.

Nagisa just had to pretend that someone from the main school had decided to send them Gakushuu's notes. Anyone in the main school could take those and it didn't just have to be Gakushuu himself or even class A.

It could have easily been a fan of someone in class E and most people in class D were aware of Karma and Nagisa's general friendship, at least.

Isogai might have been more effective, but Gakushuu wasn't sure if he could keep the whole thing quiet. But Nagisa seemed to be the kind of person who would keep the secret, even from Karma.

Of course the moment Karma saw the notes, he sent a 'lol' message to Gakushuu and he had to roll his eyes at the other boy.

Karma was the only one in Gakushuu's vicinity who found him relatively predictable, for some reason. It would be funny if it was a little less heartwarming.

Karma always acknowledged every single attempt Gakushuu made to help. He would mock them but he had never taken it for granted.

Gakushuu had always been grateful for that. It made him feel valued, it felt like he was someone who was cared for.

Gakuhou had never let him feel like that, at least. He could only take comfort from the care and concern his friends had for him.

And so, the midterms arrived and the week dragged on slowly and flashed by in a moment. Gakushuu put in his effort into revision and studying as much as possible, and his constant rank 1 showed his success.

He had once again fallen short of a single point in Japanese, and Ren bemoaned the fact that Gakushuu was more likely to lose points in Japanese than English.

Gakushuu wasn't surprised to see Karma's rank rise to third nor the sparse few who had managed to eke out a decent score and rank in the top 50.

He was actually pretty satisfied by his subtle mocking of Gakuhou's efforts 

Gakuhou was furious.

He wasn't used to having his actions nullified by mistakes.

He tried to find the culprit but he could only suspect class D or class A. Someone smart enough or stupid enough to defy him.

Of course Gakushuu met both requirements, not that his father knew that.

He had been scolded about letting his notes be taken by anyone, and he should be maintaining his absolute dominance over all the students by not sharing.

Gakushuu let that in from one ear and out the other, but he nodded seriously and to Gakuhou's credit, did decide to find some alternates.

To find ways to go over the restrictions, that is.

Gakushuu wasn't stupid.

With the way the year was starting out, it was quite likely that Gakuhou would be making more attempts against class E.

If Gakushuu didn't stand his ground against his father, he could be thoroughly used up as his father's prized and favored pawn.

What he wanted, was to make a neutral zone on the side of the chess board with Koro-sensei and Gakuhou on each side.

He, himself or class A wouldn't have the option to back out, but that didn't mean everyone needed to get caught up in the crossfire.

The assembly turned classroom had shown Gakushuu had his father had no compunctions about using all the students he had under him to the fullest.

And Gakushuu was planning to take a few of his cards away from him.

Gakuhou had never suffered losses well, and this time wouldn't be any different. He hated anything that even remotely resembled a loss.

And this was just the start.

Gakushuu had plans to start the downfall of his own father.

He didn't know how far he could go.

He didn't even know how far he would go.

But he wanted his father to accept and live with that loss.

(Was he talking about losing against Koro-sensei or Ikeda's death?

Gakushuu wasn't sure.)

Chapter Text

The class trip that Gakushuu had been dreading since the first year was finally approaching.

It was a trip for all the third years to Kyoto, the commercial center of Japan, and it was for three days and two nights.

They would spend hours traveling on the train and spend the days touring the city on their own, before spending nights in a hotel that would be arranged according to their class.

They were literally just going to Kyoto , a place Gakushuu had been to multiple times by himself.

Unfortunately, his classmates were slightly more excited than him. The important part for them was unaccompanied.

Kyoto was a place where many many things could happen, good and bad, and leaving the students in groups to do whatever they pleased could be said to be irresponsible, that is, if they actually were left on their own.

Basically, it was mandatory for at least one person in the group to carry a phone and to submit their phone numbers to their class teacher.

This, of course, meant that Gakushuu had, not only the phone numbers of group leaders but also every individual carrying one, and therefore, had a mode to keep track of them.

There were some people who didn't carry one, either because they couldn't, or because their parental figures wouldn't let them.

And Gakushuu had no doubt that anyone who ended up lost would be found if his father willed it hard enough. And surely they would be kept track of, if only because there was a superhuman creature acting as class E's teacher?

Though, Gakushuu couldn't possibly think him particularly hard to keep track of.

He looked outside the window, and there it was, Koro-sensei was lingering outside the train.

He could spot class E making their way into the train while class A put away their bags inside. The seating was arranged by class and then groups, so, Gakushuu relaxed into his seat, put on earphones and pretended he knew none of the screaming, excited children around him. (Looking at you, Ayaka.)

Anaya sat beside the window, content to be far away from the rest of the class. No one was going to bother Gakushuu, therefore no one was going to bother Anaya.

Gakushuu sat between Anaya and Ren. Ren was talking to Araki, while both Anaya and Gakushuu pretended to be sleeping.

Their first class cabin was divided by their chosen groups. Their car held all of class A's cabins so they were free to roam between the multiple cabins and cars for other classes.

For Gakushuu's cabin it was himself, Ren, Anaya, Ayaka, Kazuki and Araki.

Half an hour into the journey, everyone was mostly involved with doing their own things, Ayaka and Kazuki had decided to leave for cheerier companions and Ren and Araki were discussing something or the other.

Occasionally, there would be loud laughter or hooting about something or the other from the other compartments, but that was only expected.

Half way through, Gakushuu decided to stretch his legs. The trains stopped on certain stops occasionally and he habitually bought an energy drink before climbing on the train and wondering if he should even drink it.

The trip to Kyoto meant Gakushuu had a lot of time to do whatever he wanted. It wasn't too troublesome to clear out a few days on his schedule when he had decreased his extracurriculars outside school for third year preparation.

His father was just mostly out to get him, so Gakushuu would need to prepare for a tough final examination. Though he bet the highschool exams would probably have him on a deathbed through caffeine overdose.

Gakuhou, as usual, didn't know the meaning of restraint.

So when Gakushuu spotted his father out of the corner of his eye, he let out a startled breath before turning smoothly- or not- because he bumped into someone.

They hissed when he- almost clumsily- dragged both the person and himself into the small washroom stall.

"What the hell, Shuu?" The other person hissed at him, and Gakushuu wasn't surprised at all to find Karma being bodily pinned against the washroom door by him.

Gakushuu placed a finger on his lips to motion for silence, then had to hold onto the walls as the train started moving.

Karma slipped a hand around Gakushuu's waist and another somewhere slightly behind him and pulled them tightly together in a steadier hold.

They were the same height, and were pressed together from the foot to their chest. They had their chins tucked over the other's shoulder, and were literally stuck together in an embrace.

Gakushuu's heartbeat, awkwardly enough, sped up. Gakushuu hoped that Karma wasn't looking at the vein in his neck and was instead thinking about the unexpected situation instead.

Or even thinking about saving Gakushuu from falling back into a dirty place. That teasing would be more preferable.

Then he heard the subtle familiar steps of his father walking past the stall and towards class A.

Class A, that was where Gakushuu was supposed to be.

Gakushuu almost wished he could press closer, to hear better, or farther, so he could actually do something.

They waited for a few more minutes, by that time Karma had let go of Gakushuu's waist (disappointingly) and Gakushuu had calmed down his heart, even though they were still attached to each other.

Gakushuu pulled away slightly, and sighed in relief and Karma silently raised an eyebrow.

He suddenly realized that Karma had literally been dragged along and just stayed quiet the whole time because Gakushuu had signalled him to.

That was quite a bit of trust he placed for him.

Then he handed off his unopened can of energy drink and the earphones hanging around his neck to Karma.

He took them with a bemused expression.

"The Principal is here too," he whispered in Karma's ear.

Gakushuu should have known better than to relax with his classmates on a school trip. He was sure, with class E getting on his father's nerve, if he had been seen with an energy drink and god forbid, a pair of earphones?

Nothing good would have come out of it.

But why the hell was the Principal on the train??

Gakushuu slipped out first, leaving behind a slightly confused Karma, before going to find the Principal.

He had bought out all the seats of a whole cabin and was working on his laptop in silence. He raised an eyebrow at the sight before he left, unacknowledged.

So he wasn't there for Gakushuu at all. It was a cursory check on class A then.

He sighed in relief as he made his way back but instead of going back to his own cabin, he went back to the walkway between the cars.

Karma was there, sipping on Gakushuu's energy drink and twirling the wire of his earphones.

"So?" He asked when Gakushuu came back out. He took the energy drink from Karma and gulped down the rest. Karma watched him, amused.

"He should have just taken the flight instead," he complained, tossing the can into the trash. "He's been hovering around like I'm going to either drop dead or destroy the school if he's not looking," he added with a sneer.

Well, it was true.

Gakuhou had found ways to try to restrict Gakushuu inside his home as much as possible. He hadn't even complained too much about Gakushuu stopping a few of his extracurriculars.

Like, since when??

Was this his severely uncomfortable way of trying to take care of Gakushuu while a world ending monster taught in class E? Or his way of keeping them apart…?

The thing was, Gakushuu had never been able to read his father. He knew his father cared about him, but he had never exactly shown that with actions.

He knew his father hated to lose, but until Koro-sensei, he hadn't actually seen his father lose at anything.

He never could tell what his father wanted.

He wasn't sure if his father was wary of Koro-sensei or if he knew that Koro-seneei imitated his style of teaching. Or even if he was aware of Gakushuu's relationships with the students in class E.

"So, you decided to kabedon me?" Karma said, his teeth peeking out from between his lips into a mischievous expression. He put a hand beside Gakushuu's head and leaned in closer.

Gakushuu blinked in realization.

He essentially had pulled a kabedon on Karma, didn't he? He had even pulled him into a close space like a cliché too.

He would have made a joke about it, if his tongue didn't feel like it had twisted up in a pretzel at Karma's teasing reverse kabedon at him.

Gakushuu shot him an unimpressed look, and Karma pulled away with a disappointed look.

"And here I thought you'd be the blushing maiden!" Karma stuck a tongue out when Gakushuu's expression flattened even further.

"I have never played the blushing maiden in my life," he said. Karma almost did a flip take at the fact he had taken offense to…something else?

"Oh?" He immediately grinned, willing to take advantage of the slip.

"In fact," Gakushuu continued, interrupting Karma, " I believe it's you who's playing it."

??

Karma felt question marks form over his head. Gakushuu smirked, satisfied.

Karma's face burst into red.

He belatedly realized that he had implied Gakushuu was not only gay but-

Then Gakushuu just-

Karma's face was practically a heating bag when Gakushuu picked up Karma's other hand, his thumb brushing at Karma's thudding pulse and Karma almost pulled away.

He would have, actually, if Gakushuu hadn't just shot him a challenging look. He leaned back against the wall, pulled Karma's hand up towards his face and placed a soft kiss on his wrist.

He smirked, feeling the pulse under his lips, and the speed at which Karma's heart was beating.

Karma leaned in close, and Gakushuu looked up, his violet eyes were intense, but also, light, teasing at Karma. He was pulling at the blood thrumming through his body, right out through the soft lips pressed against Karma's wrist.

He let out a soft breath, feeling the slightest brush of teeth against his skin. There was a familiar heat on his skin, against his body, and unlike a few minutes before, it was him pressing closer into it.

"Hey, Karma," Gakushuu whispered softly, his voice pulling Karma out of the slight tunnel vision he tended to fall into, especially when he was about to get into a fight, but this time, it wasn't exactly a fight, was it?

Karma couldn't speak, but he stared into Gakushuu's pretty violet eyes that were staring into him. And Karma felt the slightest bit dumbstruck at how pretty Gakushuu was.

Like, of course, the other boy was good looking and had about a million fans praising him about it. But.

Gakushuu had a sharp awareness in his eyes that shone even through the gentle violet. Normally, the color would lend itself to bring softness into a face, but it looked like tinted glass, it was sharp, hard and looked the slightest bit brittle.

But when Karma looked in further, it felt like an entire world was hidden under the depths of violet. A ruthless arrogance that would take advantage of even the smallest opportunity and yet there was gentleness reserved for the people he called his own.

Gakushuu's eyes were teasing, but he was serious. He didn't look it in the least, but Karma knew Gakushuu now. He could tell.

Somehow he felt like he knew what Gakushuu was going to ask him. He felt like he could tell the words that had been building up between them.

His eyes flickered slightly. Gakushuu hesitated.

"Do you-"

Someone cleared their throat.

Gakushuu immediately jerked away, before realizing he had nowhere to go. Karma just lowered his hand and looked up with a slightly irritated expression.

"Yes?" He asked.

Anaya deadpanned at the two of them.

"This is a public space. Anyone can walk in on you both," she looked at Gakushuu, instead of Karma, who was still shamelessly pressed up against Gakushuu.

"Anyone," she emphasized again.

"Um, yeah," Gakushuu said, his voice going an octave higher.

Karma sighed, before taking an exaggerated step back and putting his arms up like he was showing he had unhanded Gakushuu.

Anaya shot Karma a subtle thumbs up, as Gakushuu pretended to straighten his clothes to calm down. Karma's eyes glittered with mischief.

"The teacher was doing rounds," Anaya clarified when Gakushuu looked like his brain wasn't about to burn out through sheer embarrassment.

"He asked for me?" Gakushuu frowned lightly, already shifting into his class rep mode. Anaya nodded silently.

He shot Karma a politely apologetic look before waving and walking slightly too fast back towards the teacher's cabin.

Karma watched Gakushuu walk away and turned to look at Anaya, Gakushuu's essential left hand, who had stayed a step behind.

"Good view, huh?" She said, her lips faintly curling up into a smirk before she, too, walked away.

Karma blinked before he felt a familiar heat crawl under his skin at the memory of what just happened. Then he remembered staring at Gakushuu's back.

'Well, both qualified as a pretty good view ,' he thought absentmindedly.

He blushed a little again, but this time with a smile.

Chapter Text

Gakushuu was not thinking about Karma the rest of the ride to Kyoto. He also wasn't avoiding eye contact with Anaya.

He didn't want to explain to Anaya that he might have sort of liked Karma but also totally thought his father would either kill him or have a heart attack if he knew, which made it even more enticing.

But he definitely liked Karma first and wasn't that a stupid thing to think about? Of course, he liked Karma first but ugh.

He didn't want to actually say it.

Or talk about it.

Not only was it not very socially acceptable for Gakushuu to be…pansexual? Or attracted to people he considered a threat?

What did he even call it?

Gakushuu liked the thought of being threatened. Didn't that mean he was a masochist?

Gakushuu, now, wanted to talk to Anaya even less.

Especially about his dating preferences.

Though Gakushuu had made plans, but, he also had plans for just about anything else, though maybe not for the world destroying creature teaching class E.

But Gakushuu didn't have a shortage of plans, and he could always make more. Or find alternatives.

Gakushuu would be diagnosed with a slight anxiety disorder, if he ever actually went to get diagnosed, that is.

But yes, basically. Gakushuu did not want to talk to Anaya and he spent the rest of the trip making sure she knew it. He could tell she was laughing at him.

He could also tell she was telling him that there wasn't anywhere he could run from her.

Which wasn't very reassuring.

At all.

The classes were separated by buses after they reached Kyoto. They dropped their bags at their hotel and then they were free to do whatever they wanted.

Gakushuu accompanied his group for half the day, then slipped away on his own, to meet up with a few other people in Kyoto on his own.

One of the people he was meeting was a young genius physicist who had finally reached 18 and was enjoying a life of debauchery in Kyoto.

No, not really. She wasn't interested in human beings at all. But she was an absolute car maniac, and cake. For some reason.

She had caught Gakushuu sneaking around at age 11, when she herself was 14. And both were in the wrong city.

It was a time that Gakushuu could and moreover, would never divulge. He might be praised by his father, but he was pretty sure none of the things they had done were socially acceptable.

There was only so much they should be allowed to do in the name of knowledge.

Anyway, when she heard about Gakushuu coming to Kyoto, she immediately jumped at the opportunity.

He skipped out on the dinner plans his class was making and went to meet her.

She was drunk.

He had called up Ren to tell him he would be late coming back because he planned to dump her home.

She had wine at home.

(He got drunk.)

The proceedings of the night were once again going under 'things that definitely didn't happen' and he was pretty sure her basement was now toxic.

He reached his room at 3am and she was still attached to him. He didn't really care though.

The next morning, Ren opened the door to find Gakushuu sleeping with a half naked older woman.

Of course, the first thing he did was scream, panic and then invite the whole class over to watch the show.

And so Iriya woke up to Gakushuu's classmates gawking at her. Uncaring of the eyes on her, she cuddled up against Gakushuu's back and went to back sleep.

His class shrieked in response.

Gakushuu woke up, bleary eyed, about ten minutes after, by which time Iriya had started shaking Gakushuu to make him get rid of his classmates.

Gakushuu convinced them to go out with Anaya side eyeing the woman and Ren looking at Gakushuu like he was going through another weird phase.

Everyone was utterly convinced he was in a relationship with her no matter how much he tried to explain otherwise.

When Gakushuu and Iriya finally got out, they were both gulping down coffee like it was their last meal, they had breakfast, then Iriya planted a kiss on his cheeks before taking her leave.

The class gawked at them the whole time.

"I can't believe you're dating someone already," someone enviously murmured.

"And she's pretty hot too," another whispered.

"No, in the first place, Gakushuu being single would be weirder, right?" Shizumu pitched in, surprisingly into the topic of Gakushuu's love life.

"But he doesn't have time to do much in the first place, it would literally be weirder if he was in a relationship," Hinata reasoned.

"And someone that much older," someone added.

"Maybe that's why it works out!" Ayaka gasped, her hands clapping together in realization. "It's a long distance relationship."

They turned to look at Gakushuu in unison.

"He's still a teenager though…?" Hinata faintly added. Then after a moment of silence where everyone stared deeply at him, "maybe it could happen?" She changed her opinion.

And suddenly they were discussing the kind of person he would be in the relationship.

"Wouldn't he be really giving? He woke up when she insisted and kicked us out," Miyuki pitched in with her opinion sometime after.

"Yes, but he was also being cuddled by her, maybe his love language isn't physical touch? Does he not like being touched, maybe?" Everyone turned to eye him again.

Gakushuu wondered about the random discussions going on in front of him and pretended he couldn't hear anything.

It was always a little awkward every time they started on an odd tirade, specially if they were talking about the multitude of inhuman qualities they felt Gakushuu had.

"-seems like a bottom in some ways-"

"But isn't there-"

"-like Ren? Was he inclined-"

The girls started gossiping with their voice even lower and Gakushuu pretended, along with the other boys, that they could hear nothing.

He had no idea what topic the girls had been researching, but it didn't seem like something he needed to know about either way.

Just when Galushuu was about to relax, he got a surprising call from Karma.

He moved away from his group who were spread around one of the hundreds of shrines of Kyoto, and accepted it.

"Hey, Shuu. I got some dicks here who caused some problems. Can you get someone to clean them up?"

Gakushuu sighed.

"It's literally a school trip, not a fight club. Don't just pick a fight with anyone." Then he remembered that Karma was supposed to go around with a group as well and frowned, "Did they do something?"

Karma hummed cheerfully, "If you count kidnapping the girls and getting some shady photographers to try to come and take their pictures."

This time it was Gakushuu who was getting angry. He understood the implications just as well.

They were planning to humiliate the girls, probably make them strip or take videos and pictures while doing a multitude of even worse things to them.

Girls were far more vulnerable to acts like that, after all.

"... they also might have mentioned something about getting them to keep it quiet after so they could continue it after we returned," Karma continued to add fuel to the fire.

Gakushuu understood.

Karma couldn't forgive them. He couldn't forgive them, but he could only physically torment assholes like this.

Only when Gakushuu was making them feel the true punishment, could Karma be satisfied by beating them up. Just hitting them a few times wasn't enough to satisfy his anger at all.

Gakushuu couldn't forgive them either, so it was a simple decision.

"Are they at your location?" Gakushuu asked calmly.

"Nope, I left them behind in the abandoned building. You can get the location right? I just came from there," Karma replied, his tone still weirdly cheery.

Gakushuu felt a slight shiver crawl down his spine.

"... yeah," he said, suddenly wondering what state he was about to find the criminals in. Already, a juvenile wouldn't be out of the question, what with the kidnapping charge. The blackmail and others would be cherry on top.

"They're still in one piece. My classmates were still with me so I couldn't really do anything," Karma reassured him, seemingly understanding his thoughts.

Gakushuu hummed agreeably, already planning out the lawyer he was going to get on this case.

"I will need a follow up report on this from the kidnappee, but their presence shouldn't be required," Gakushuu said as he planned.

"Yeah, I know," Karma reassured again, already used to the procedure.

It wasn't his first time either. Karma had already gotten involved with all sorts of random incidents throughout his life.

He was a kid with too much time, money and fight in him after all. It was easy for him to run into problems.

His way of dealing with said problems had just been adjusted forcefully (aka Gakushuu being nosy) to accommodate long term penalties for the perpetrators now too.

Though Karma had only been able to get away because of Gakushuu's timely intervention. But this time he wondered if Karasuma would be willing to help punish the idiotic high school students. After all, they were technically his students too.

But Karma had probably asked him to make sure they did get punished, instead of just getting their memory erased and dropped off.

They were both aware of exactly how much the class E's well being was worth to the government.

Nil, that is.

But as Gakushuu left the call, he still felt oddly disturbed by Karma's sharp cheerfulness.

It almost felt like that had been directed at him. He had thought it was because of his classmate's kidnapping but…

…there was no way Karma knew about Iriya, right?

Also, it was odd for Karma to call him after leaving the scene of crime.

Hmm. No way, right?

It wasn't like Karma would lie about his classmates getting kidnapped, but wasn't it a little excessive to call Gakushuu when the military was right there.

Was it because he didn't trust the military to not just mind wipe them and drop them off somewhere else?

Then he sighed.

Maybe he was just hoping too hard.

It wasn't like Karma was so jealous he actually needed an excuse to call Gakushuu.

He called Gakushuu randomly all the time. Well, though it normally was for post-fights clean up though.

He groaned to himself.

Liking someone was already too stressful, he didn't need potential reciprocation to complicate matters further.

…and he still had to talk to Anaya about the whole Karma thing.

The news spread.

'Gakushuu woke up with a girl in his bed' became huge news to the student body, Ren told him.

Everyone was already aware of the news since they both came down together for breakfast. Gakushuu felt slightly dumbfounded that he hadn't even considered it.

He had been exhausted and relaxed with Iriya so much that he had forgotten that class B had also been in the same hotel.

It wasn't a good option to mix his daily life with the people he stayed with during his runaway days.

He felt oddly sheepish about the whole issue.

Of course, that hadn't been the end of it.

His father called him the night after Iriya stayed overnight.

"So you're aware of the things being said, is that correct?" Gakuhou asked. His face was so straight Gakushuu wondered if he was taking this seriously or if he was amused by the situation.

"Yes, sir," he replied.

"And you're aware that this sort of acts is strictly prohibited during the school trip?" Gakushuu stiffened.

"Yes, sir," he replied instead of protesting. Gakuhou wasn't even talking about something like sex. He was simply reprimanding Gakushuu like he was a child.

And the worst thing was, Gakushuu had behaved immaturely. Getting drunk?

He had never gotten drunk before.

Iriya made him reckless, made him get into a mood where it felt like the craziest things were possible. It was freedom, he tasted with her.

But the same couldn't be said about his daily life.

He really shouldn't have brought her into his normal life.

But he had to.

Iriya was a physicist.

He had to know about the things that were happening. About a being of antimatter, about the moon blowing up, and about the potentially illegal experiments taking place in Japan.

The fact that she had been in Japan, and had gotten that drunk when she was supposed to be busy, meant that she had some amount of knowledge.

He needed to get information out of her too.

The easiest way was to get drunk and pretend to forget about everything they discussed when drunk.

Iriya might have already been aware of Koro-sensei though. She wasn't someone who could be overlooked.

The first time they met, Iriya had crossed countries to go to Japan illegally and alone, and accidentally stumbled across Gakushuu.

She was someone who could do things.

That Iriya had gotten drunk.

She was crazy, but she wasn't stupid. Her getting drunk was absolutely Gakushuu's best opportunity, and it was possible that she had either gotten drunk to relax, or be able to slip through between loopholes to tell Gakushuu some things.

And Gakushuu had gained more information from her.

He had gained quite a bit of what had happened, and it wasn't what he had been expecting at all.

Koro-sensei had been human, yes. But, he had also been the world's greatest assassin.

So no fucking wonder.

Class E was learning the art of assassination from the best assassin in the world.

Gakushuu was suddenly very very aware of the kind of existence class E was on their way to become.

A class taught by a Mach 20 dedicated super creature would be enough to turn anyone into someone amazing, but, learning it from the best assassin in the world?

That was a whole different level.

Suddenly the few moments of change he had already witnessed in the class felt significant.

Karma, Nagisa, Kayano, Nakamura, Okuda.

He had witnessed the sharpness in their gaze. The killing intent that they were nurturing.

They weren't just living through something strange.

They were being tempered by the will of the greatest assassin to be his assassin.

Somehow… Gakushuu felt eager to see the end result.

Chapter Text

Karma was lazily walking back to the boys room, a drink from the vending machine in his hand, his mind still on the events of the day.

"Nagisa, who did you vote for?" A classmate voiced the question. Sugino, as ever friendly as ever, covered for Nagisa after a moment of uncomfortable silence.

"Maehara, what about you?"

"Ah, it's a secret," he could almost hear Maehara smirk.

"Stop pissing me off. Even the thought of you being the most popular guy pisses me off!"

Karma snorted quietly. If it was the label of 'popular guy', wasn't Gakushuu farther ahead than all of them combined?

Then he remembered Gakushuu looking at him through his lashes, an unnamed intensity that pulled at Karma closer.

Then it was offset by the sudden irritation that besieged him at the next words.

"Speaking of, did you hear?" The one speaking lowered, and everyone subconsciously leaned in, "I heard Asano came down from his room with a woman hanging off him," he whispered conspiratorially.

"No way, Asano Gakushuu?"

"I heard she seemed like a high school student!" Someone pitched in.

"Yeah, she was pretty hot. I heard she kissed hi-"

Karma slammed open the door.

"What are you guys talking about?" He asked, the can in his hand had finger imprints from how hard he was gripping it.

"Hey Karma, nice timing!" Unknowingly, someone seemed like they were walking the path to hell, or Karma's list of future victims, that is.

"Oh?" Karma responded.

Ignoring the sudden widening of eyes and the head shakes directed at him, he continued, "we were talking about the girls we liked in class, what do you think?"

Karma took a sip of his drink and closed the door behind him casually.

"Hm. Okuda Minami, I guess" he took the paper from his classmates and looked over the votes people had given to the girls. Unsurprisingly, Kanzaki Yukiko was the most voted.

His classmates shot him confused looks at that.

"Wow, that's surprisingly honest."

"Why her though?"

Karma sat with them.

"She can whip up chloroform and other poisons. Combined with my ideas, it sounds like a match made in heaven," he shrugged.

His classmates shuddered at the thought and quickly changed the topic. Thankfully, everyone was too distracted by Koro-sensei's sudden appearance and him taking notes on them that no one talked about Gakushuu again.

"I thought you were pining after Karma."

Gakushuu's heart almost jumped out of his chest when he heard a voice speak to him while he was relaxing on the terrace. He whipped around to see Anaya relaxing on the chair hidden in the shadowed corner.

She had her cheek resting on her knee, and her gaze was positively boring into Gakushuu.

"I didn't expect you to bring a random woman up to your bedroom. So who are you playing?" She asked, her tone was monotonous, but her words were sharply accusing.

Gakushuu, surprisingly, didn't feel too offended.

"So you were helping Karma," he confirmed instead.

Suspicions were just suspicions without solid enough evidence to back it up. He had been pretty sure, but this exposed their emotional involvement too.

"Gakushuu…" she warned.

"Don't pull that tone on me, Anaya," he rebuked lightly. Then he explained, "I'm not playing either of them. Iriya is practically married to her work, she won't even bother looking at me even if I begged her."

There was a moment of silence. Gusts of cool wind blew at them.

"And Karma?"

Gakushuu smirked in response, before turning away.

"I think it's time you go back, Anaya. We're leaving Kyoto tomorrow." He said, amused.

Anaya was as into gossip as the rest of them. She just hid it better. She was definitely going to go to Ren and spill the whole conversation.

As expected, Anaya left with a slight spring in her step. Then turned in the wrong direction to be going to her room.

Gakushuu shook his head and closed the door behind her.

The classes met back up again on their journey back. Thankfully, Gakuhou had to leave a day early so Gakushuu was allowed to relax.

On that note, Gakushuu texted Karma and wandered off nearer to the class E's section of the train.

"Hey," he greeted Karma, who had been standing by the door looking outside. He visibly startled at his voice.

Gakushuu slowly raised an eyebrow when Karma stared at him. He opened his mouth once and then shut it, shaking his head.

The silence dragged on.

"Hi," Karma replied after a while.

They stared at each other a little more.

"So," Gakushuu started, choosing to ignore that moment.

He had pushed quite hard last time, it would be better to just go back to normal first, he decided.

"How are your classmates?" He asked.

"Hm?" Karma made a confused noise at first. Then he realized, "Right. Kanzaki and Kayano were kidnapped. They seem to have gotten closer through it at least," he shrugged.

"Nothing like shared trauma to bring people together," Gakushuu mumbled wryly.

Karma's lip twitched.

He disagreed with that. Kanzaki and Kayano hadn't seemed the least bit traumatized. They had been glad to see them, but they hadn't really been sobbing their hearts out due to gratitude or anything.

Well, if 'shared trauma' was past trauma, maybe that qualified. He had seen Kanzaki take out a picture of herself, dressed up, from one of their pockets.

"Something like that," he said aloud, instead of the nitty gritty details about his classmates. He noticed Gakushuu take a barely-there glance at him before they went back to leaning on opposite sides of the wall, staring outside.

"Last-" Karma started, before he stopped. Gakushuu kept looking outside.

He could feel the atmosphere between then becoming different- a nervous tension rose as they both determinedly avoided looking at the other.

The silence stretched oddly. Like time was and wasn't moving at the same time.

"Was it," Gakushuu felt his cheeks heating up as he whispered, "too much?"

Karma took in a sharp breath.

"...No," came a hurried reply a few moments too late. Gakushuu glared at the empty floor between them.

His heart was beating too hard. And he hated that he could hear the lie in Karma's voice.

He could feel the bitter regret already taking root.

Karma took a step towards Gakushuu. He didn't look up.

The space between them had decreased. Karma was a half step in front of him.

"No," Karma repeated, this time his voice was steadier.

Gakushuu looked up.

His face was red, but he was looking straight at Gakushuu. There was confusion, and uncertainty but.

He looked like he wanted to pull him closer, like he wanted to shake him or maybe punch him but to Gakushuu, it looked like, he just wanted to hug him.

His fingers pressed harder against the wall behind him. Suddenly the walls behind him felt incomparably steady when compared to his legs.

…he wasn't going to fall, right?

Karma took the step back.

Then the two boys looked at the floor with their faces burning red, neither moving farther away or coming closer.

Chapter Text

Gakushuu got hacked through class E.

Gakushuu had left open ended connections to a random unrelated abandoned ghost house and he had used the black market to make up the whole set up, but he had been forced to abandon his class E watching.

Gakushuu's devices automatically self-destructed, and the connection that the hacker was using shut down.

Luckily, the self-destruct was fast enough that the hacker hadn't been able to pinpoint the ghost house Gakushuu had used.

Unfortunately, he still had to abandon it. He didn't want the military to pinpoint one irregularity on Gakushuu and just take his memory of it away. He would end up making clumsy moves that would expose him.

Fortunately, he hadn't been besieged by any military personnel, and even if he had been, he held a slight hope that his father didn't want his highly intelligent son's brain scrambled with.

Though, Gakushuu probably knew far more than his father by now.

Fortunately, Gakushuu had been able to pinpoint the deviation from the normal class E schedule soon after. He hadn't been able to get any video for the whole day since all his equipment was useless already.

A transfer student had been the reason. And along with the big machine he had seen the government agents move into the classroom the night before, told him it was probably someone who was really far away.

Disabled, intelligent student?

There were many people like that, who had severe disability, as if to make up for their creativity or intellect.

Someone like that might actually cover a lot of the bases that class E lacked. Obviously, this person was tech-savvy.

Gakushuu already liked the newest transfer student, just by the fact they had just casually hacked into Gakushuu's system.

It had been something neither Koro-sensei had cared to do, nor had Karasuma.

This kind of casual safety was what he wished everyone would learn. Something watching you in your vicinity, you go and check who it is.

There would be more problems sometimes, but well, it wasn't safe either way, and not knowing is definitely worse.

But it was too bad that Gakushuu had lost so much in one go. Although he didn't really need to keep a close watch, or even a normal watch on them anymore.

He was a little disappointed but it was for the best that he stop obsessing over Koro-sensei. He didn't need to have any placebo feelings for Koro-sensei.

That would help no one in any way. It wasn't like he was in class E.

Not to mention he had so many things to do for his club as well. It had changed a little to accommodate the students joining in.

A theoretical aspect that told them about rules and regulations to follow and a practical aspect where you could learn techniques or practice them against a few other students, not always including Gakushuu.

It was practically self sufficient.

But otherwise, Gakushuu suddenly had a huge chunk of time freed up. He was still looking into Koro-sensei, but it was much harder.

Even Iriya hadn't told him about the ongoing events, but instead made sure he knew enough to keep himself safe. Or at least, as safe as could be with the world's best assassin in Mach 20 teaching on the hill behind the school.

He sometimes still wondered what the hell must have happened to turn someone like that into that. People said that geniuses were generally crazy, and Gakushuu would be inclined to agree, looking at his father and some of the people he knew.

But even then, Koro-sensei's change was quite excessive.

Maybe being near death, or everyone else's death did that to you. Gakushuu wondered if he'd be more weird if he had remembered this time as dead. Or more of his past life as a living person.

Even then, he felt like an addict. Going around dressed as someone he technically wasn't anymore, someone who didn't even exist.

He didn't really need to. It wasn't just about being a 'safe space' for himself. He was plenty strong enough to create one for himself.

He just, kept doing it. Like it was a bad habit. Or something he was already stuck doing.

Asano Gakushuu was male. But someday, he used to be female.

He used to be a she .

And then she became a he .

So in this case, which would be a truer identity?

The right answer might have been 'he'.

It was an acceptable, obvious answer. Of course, he had all the physical components, he mostly felt male. There shouldn't be a desire to stay as a woman anymore.

But, he liked it.

There wasn't any need for it. But, he just liked it.

He felt closer to the person he used to be. Maybe his memories didn't change, but he somehow felt like he was looking at the world through a new perspective.

Maybe it was because he had created a persona for himself when he was really young, but he could let go of his responsibilities as Asano Gakushuu easier.

It was similar to how you sometimes convinced yourself that being under the blanket meant the monsters under the bed couldn't reach you.

Gakushuu didn't have a proper understanding of the situation from either of his lives, but he was pretty sure it was close enough.

A safety cover, a comfort that didn't need to be, but was. Gakushuu was an effective stranger to everyone he knew.

If no one knew he was doing it, from their point of view, he wasn't really doing it, was it? People saw this as 'results'.

If you couldn't see the results of an action, people wouldn't know you were working for it in the first place.

Gakushuu felt similarly.

No one could see Gakushuu when he called himself Chiho.

All it took was some skills, a fashion sense and a name change.

Suddenly, Gakushuu was a stranger to the world he knew. People didn't always work the same way when they thought his gender was female, and Gakushuu had to work to learn even more things.

He learnt about the sides of people he would rather not have known.

Gakushuu couldn't have a fight on the streets, but when it was Chiho , people came looking for fights like they couldn't have enough. Maybe it was the hair, the slender figure or the feminine appearance, but Gakushuu was surprisingly more influential as a female.

Also, it was actually a really good cover. It wasn't what it had started out as, but one of Gakushuu's ways inside the underground was as well Chiho.

It was slightly more unsafe, considering his identity might be exposed, but people didn't expect a male to crossdress, for some reason. Also, he was pretty good looking as a female. That probably helped too.

It was all the more reason he respected Irina. She might have had more protection, but no one went unscarred by the underworld. Not Gakushuu and certainly not Irina.

Karma was frustrated.

Mach 20 hadn't seemed easier when Koro-sensei was painting his nails or giving him a trim, but it was far harder than it seemed as he slowly worked his way up.

Maybe he could say that the first time he had felt the 'wall' of excellence was when he first met Asano Gakushuu.

Asano wasn't just a person, but also a goal. Karma knew he was smart, of course. Life wasn't easy but it certainly felt simple enough. He could easily coast by.

But excitement was the name of the game. So he got into fights, most were easy, some were hard but achievable. There were very few he couldn't actually cross with a minimum level of effort.

But it was in Kunugigaoka, that he understood the saying about being the 'big fish in a pond'.

Gakushuu was effort personified.

He wasn't just strong, he wasn't just smart. He wasn't just charismatic. He wasn't just quick witted.

He wasn't 'just' anything.

It felt like Asano Gakushuu lived to give Karma a complex.

And worst yet, Gakushuu was determined to direct every single bit of his charm towards Karma.

He slowly creeped in, pulling Karma like he was hooking a fish. He set traps, set off bombs to throw him off. He let himself be vulnerable, so Karma could see the human skin underneath.

Then he laughed like Karma's beating heart was a joke.

The world felt like a joke.

Gakushuu looked at Karma, and only at him.

He didn't waver, or pull away. He didn't push, or pull at his edges. He was just, always looking right at him.

Koro-sensei did the same, he knew. He could tell why class A had become who they had after being in the same class as Koro-sensei taught.

He looked right at the person in front of him. Like he was accepting the person, with their layers and mistakes, with their choices and their masks and everything.

He didn't try to peel their armor apart like Asano Gakuhou looked like he was always doing. Karma had been under the Principal's eyes enough times to have had that expression directed to him.

But Gakushuu was different even from Koro-sensei.

Gakushuu had bared his awful human heart to them too. He had placed the knives in their hands, then told them to fight with their backs to him.

And they had, because he was also an excellent judge of character.

Gakushuu was lethal too, but they could all trust him to watch their backs, just like he trusted them to not stab him with the knives.

Karma wasn't in class A.

But he trusted Gakushuu.

It wasn't because of class A, or because of their back and forth relationship, or even because of the cats.

It was simply because Gakushuu had spent the last two years doing just that.

It wouldn't just be Karma either. He couldn't see anyone in class E actually considering Gakushuu to be an enemy. Maybe a rival, but not an enemy.

Maybe even an ally actually. The whole school might.

It was because Gakushuu worked hard.

Unlike Karma, Gakushuu worked in every aspect of his life. He spent so much effort doing things that sometimes seemed meaningless or pointless. But his results were proof that it wasn't all like that.

Unlike Gakushuu, Karma didn't actually work for it. He coasted along other people's efforts.

And Koro-sensei was proving it.

Mach 20 wasn't a speed that could be achieved by humans. But Karma and his class needed the best reaction time along with creativity to kill Koro-sensei.

It didn't need to be pretty, but it needed to be effective.

Karma's line of thought had always been simple. The kind of thing that elicits a response from even emotionless people is disgust.

Well, pain and fear too, actually.

But it wasn't love or hate or whatnot.

Disgust was easiest to bring out. Pain was much more effort than worth it for a Mach 20 creature. Fear also wasn't easy to use.

Karma didn't have the ability to follow through it, no matter what he induced in Koro-sensei, either way.

So Karma had to spend time training and learning. He had a renowned teacher straight from the military, it was almost a shame not to use it.

Karasuma taught them effective movements. Disabling an opponent was good, but it was even better to get a one move kill in instead.

Karma was good. But growth wasn't always even. And Karasuma was a fully grown adult with his own battle experiences.

So Karma skipped a few classes.

Anyway, he knew the syllabus and he had already scored better than his class just by listening to Koro-sensei for revision.

But with Ritsu who could fire hundreds of bullets with inhuman AI-led precision, or Itobe who could literally swing around tentacles, he needed to work on himself.

An assassin.

Someone who would kill their target no matter the cost.

The pride of an assassin wasn't simply their own skills but also their minds which could accurately assess and make plans in an instant. It was to make traps to kill the target, not simply weaken them.

As assassin's goal was always to kill.

Karma closed his eyes and imagined Karasuma in front of him.

He took in the environment around him, and moved first.

Karasuma could counter every move. He knew Karma's limits because he had trained him himself. He knew the movements because he had taught them.

Then, Karma remembered Gakushuu, someone he had lost to, once.

It wasn't simply quick, unexpected movements or using the environment best. It was also about controlling the pace of the fight. Accounting for the other's timings and habits.

When people trained, they built reflexes and habits. When people built habits, they could be analyzed and found out. A person whose habit was exposed could be disabled.

It wasn't something Karasuma had taught Karma. This was something that Gakushuu's fight had told him.

Karma needed to be aware of his own habits to make sure he wouldn't get caught out again, and even if he did, he would have a trick or ten up his sleeve to counter that.

Maybe someday, he would see the limits of Karasuma's ability too.

Chapter Text

Karma ditched his classes again.

He didn't like to say it, but he was struggling. He was clawing at the wall of experience and skill in front of him.

Every fight against Karasuma was a time to experiment with something new on a skilled opponent. It was similar to his single fight with Gakushuu.

Straightforward. No holds barred.

It tested his judgment, skill and experience all at the same time. No tactic could be repeated a second time, and it had to be well thought and practiced the first time.

Karma was very well aware of how important being a good fighter was, maybe more than anyone else in his class. It made him respect Karasuma's skill even more.

Fighting had always been easy. He could see what people were doing, so he could beat them.

He had never seen a human arm blur the way Karasuma's did.

Human vision? What a joke.

Karasuma had superior physical specs in all aspects. He could see them in slow motion, coming at him like toy cars bumping against his toes.

Karma didn't like to admit, but he had to put in much more effort into it than he had probably put in anything else. He observed Karasuma's movements, the criteria for judgements, the decisions he chose to make and their whys.

Fighting had always been easy, but when Karasuma taught him, a different world opened up in front of his eyes, and he understood.

There was much more in the world of assassinations than Karma had expected. He had never actually dipped into the underworld, no matter how many chances he might have had. He wasn't going to take risks he wasn't sure he could handle.

It wasn't like he didn't know death , and death could come in so many different forms. But personally, he thought that Koro-sensei's death would probably end up hurting a lot.

It would be a death caused by his own hands.

Right then, a familiar sound of flesh hitting flesh reached his ears.

He paused, then turned to look into a nearby alley.

Deeper in, a girl wearing a two inch heel placed her foot in front of the beaten up person in front of her. She was blonde, tall, she flicked her painted nails towards the other person looking at her with shaky knees.

Karma couldn't hear what they were talking about, but when the person at the girl's feet got up, they both bowed and loudly called her name.

"-Chiho-sama!"

The girl who seemed extremely familiar, but also older than Karma, shooed them away. They ran.

Then she turned with a sigh and stiffened at the sight of him.

Did they know each other?

He assessed her from top to bottom.

She was a combination of purple and yellow. From her shoes to her clothes and even her hair. She was rich, pretty and confident.

He was pretty certain he didn't know anyone like her. But when she stepped into the light, he felt like he could almost tell. The name was almost at the tip of his tongue.

"Hi," she said to him, an oddly sweet smile on her lips. It was at a contrast with the two people she had just dealt with, it was a contrast to-

"Gakushuu?" He said uncertainly. He was mentally going through a deeper assessment of the two people, the girl in front of him and the boy he had known for over two years.

The shoulder, arm, legs were the same. They would have been the same height if not for the heels the girl was wearing. It was just slightly off- 1.75 inch instead of a solid 2 inch like he had initially assumed.

Their hair and eye color were different but just similar enough to make him want to take back his words. The smile was different.

But the way she was looking at him wasn't.

"Shuu?" He asked, more certain of his initial assessment but more startled as well. Even though they could be cousins or something, he was still pretty certain that the girl in front of him was actually Gakushuu.

…Right?

The girl smiled at him wryly, a familiar expression.

"That's right, Karma," but her voice when she spoke was different. He had the oddest moment of jamais vu.

Her tone was the same, her expression was the same, but the voice was feminine, and softer. She smiled easier than Gakushuu normally did.

"How did you recognise me so fast?" She asked, her resting pose of leaning on a single leg was also unfamiliar.

Karma spent half a moment blanking out, because he couldn't really say 'you're one of two people who look at me like that, and I know you're obviously not Koro-sensei'.

"Instinct," he excused instead. It was partially instinctive though. He had stopped and found something familiar in her, so he waited instead of walking on.

"And your measurements," he added.

Gakushuu blinked confusedly before looking down at her decidedly feminine chest.

"Not-not those ones," Karma choked out. "I meant the length of your arms and legs, your shoulders."

Then Karma felt surprised.

Gakushuu would have normally just shot back something teasing back at him but the way she reacted…

Then he did a back track.

Gakushuu was a girl .

There were two possibilities, cross dressing or…

"Say, are you a girl?" He asked abruptly. He was trying too hard to be nonchalant with the question.

"Well, for now I am," she linked her fingers together and stretched it forward. "Let's go shopping," she said suddenly.

"Hm?" He asked, surprised.

Shopping? With Gakushuu??

"... are you planning to change back?" Karma asked.

"Nope!" She popped her p and cheerily made her way to the shopping district.

"Was that from Hinata?" Karma tilted his head considering.

"That's right," Gakushuu shot him a familiar smirk. "The more time you spend with me pretending otherwise, the more you'd doubt yourself. I'm normally pretty good at this, trust me," she snickered.

"Did you pull that on your classmate?" He asked, amused. But privately, he felt far more surprised at that.

"No, other people I knew. It's a big city, you don't just bump into people you know all the time," Gakushuu shrugged.

"You bumped into me," Karma pointed out suspiciously, but Gakushuu waved it off.

"It was a coincidence, and we've never really stumbled across each other before this either," Gakushuu shot back. Karma mentally gave her a point for it.

"So? What are you shopping for?" Karma asked after they passed some clothes shops.

"Well," she shot him a teasing look, "you'll find out."

Karma raised an eyebrow but followed along agreeably.

Gakushuu led them to a corner shop with a wooden gloss, random accessories framing the entrance. Karma spotted various rings, necklaces, circlets, arm bands, chokers, anklets and that was only at the first glance.

Gakushuu passed over many of them without a second glance. Then she stopped in front of a bunch of chokers. Karma did a double take.

Gakushuu was wearing a choker actually. It just smoothed out over her throat so well that Karma's eyes had easily slid over it after acknowledging it once.

He was watching now.

Gakushuu opened up the one she was wearing, and seemingly randomly selected a seemingly black one and slid it on. She slid her golden blonde hair off her shoulder, baring her pale neck to Karma's eyes.

Her fingers smoothed over her jaw, and she slid the dark dark choker on. Karma took a half a step closer, his own fingers trailing up along with Gakushuu's as she latched it together behind her neck.

Their fingers brushed as Gakushuu lowered her hands.

"Is it pretty?" She asked, her eyes a slate gray, showing the hints of violet he was so familiar with. Karma's heart picked up a pace.

"Yeah," he got out through his dry throat, his fingers brushed over the choker. It was a red so deep it looked black.

But out in the sun, he would be able to see it.

He would see red staining over Gakushuu's neck in the sunlight.

He was pretty sure he knew what he was doing, but his mind felt completely blank. His body was hot.

He pressed his fingers to Gakushuu's skin, above the choker. It was hot too.

His thumb brushed over her jaw, and red was staining her cheeks. It was pouring over and onto her ears, a light pale pink that was slowly turning darker.

Gakushuu was staring at him.

Karma pulled away.

"Yeah, it's pretty," he croaked out.

He took a few more steps back.

Gakushuu kept staring at him.

Then a few moments later, she turned on her heel and walked away.

Karma walked out of the shop and into the sun, and wondered what the fuck he was doing.

Chapter Text

Gakushuu came out of the shop with the deep red choker over her throat. Karma spent a few seconds distracted before Gakushuu tugged at his wrist.

"Let's go eat something," she suggested. Karma let his eyes closed for a moment before opening them back up.the same view.

Gakushuu was pretty, dressed up, and asking him to a meal.

Yeah, sure, why not?

His eyes flickered to the choker once before he sighed.

"It's pretty early," he reminded, walking along with her. Gakushuu shot him a sly smile.

"It's a good place," she reassured, like that was Karma's concern. "You'll like it."

Now Karma liked to think he had fed Gakushuu enough of his meals for both of them to be aware of his high standards. Karma generally didn't eat food outside at all.

Drinks were an exception. He could eat everything, he just preferred not to when his own skills were more than up to par.

He was slightly curious about the kind of food Gakushuu wanted Karma to try though.

When Gakushuu stopped in front of a shop, Karma burst into startled laughter.

"Did you just bring me to a maid cafe?" He asked, when he was done. He wiped his eye exaggeratedly and Gakushuu shot him a scowl.

"I mean, it's not like I was going to bring you to a Michelin Star restaurant or something," she snarked, turning away with an upset pout.

"So you agree my cooking is amazing?" He teased.

"If it wasn't good, I wouldn't have kept coming back for it," she snapped back with a backhanded compliment. Karma stifled a smile.

"And here I thought you were coming back for me," Karma put his hand on his chest and shot her a sad look.

"...I was coming for the cats," she deadpanned.

He smothered another smile. He could spot that shoddy lie from a mile away.

"Right," he agreed.

Gakushuu made a noise of disgust before opening the door.

"Master, Mistress, welcome back. You can call me Mine-chan. I'll serve you for today," a girl in either high school or college welcomed them.

They could spot a variety of the male population seated across the place, a few groups of girls were seated by the window, and a lone couple were holding hands over the table and talking to each other softly.

Gakushuu started for the upper floor, Karma walked behind, staring curiously at one middle aged man laughing creepily at his phone.

"Mine-chan, could you give your strawberry special drink for my guest here, and a cold coffee for me? Asamusa-san knows my specification," she ordered, as she sat down.

Mine-chan, surprisingly didn't look bothered at being ordered around abruptly by Gakushuu. She accepted them with a slight bow.

"As you wish, Chiho-sama," and wow that explained it

"You come here often?" Karma asked. Gakushuu sat on the seat like queen on a throne. Her leg lifting smoothly over the other and Karma was once again distracted by legs cause holy shit.

Gakushuu had been wearing a skirt, but he hadn't paid it as much attention as he would have because it was Gakushuu. But maybe he should have because Gakushuu could really pull that off.

Then he gave himself a mental slap because Gakushuu was giving him a satisfied look.

"I do, they're good people," she smirked, " my people," she emphasized to him.

Karma's eyes sharpened and he took a look around him once again. He had noticed oddities as he was going up but, maid cafes were supposed to be something like that, right?

Also, the maid cafe was oddly popular, but not so popular that it could afford to stay in the district it was.

"This place is yours?" He realized.

"Well, a friend of a friend of a friend, to be accurate," Gakushuu batted her lashes at him innocently, "I know a lot of people."

Karma let out an amused breath.

"You know an unhealthy amount of people. How much sleep are you getting with that?" He asked, half worried, half amused.

"How much sleep are you getting, Karma?" She dragged his name out, a mocking tinge.

"Enough," he replied, straight faced.

"Enough," she replied to him, a smile curling at the edge of her lips.

"Your enough is much less than my enough," he argued, feeling surprisingly invested in the topic he had randomly picked up. "Are you even getting 4 hours?"

Gakushuu scrutinized his expression.

"....close enough," she replied, reluctant now.

Karma dropped it, aware he had already made his concern known. If Gakushuu wanted to do something about it, she would.

"I only have one life," Gakushuu continued, her lips tilting into an odd wry smile, "and knowing people helps," she looked at Karma through her lashes.

Karma listened.

"If I want to run away," she started, and Karma felt a flicker of reluctance, like Gakushuu was slipping away from him. Then he felt surprised at that feeling. It wasn't like Gakushuu was running away from him .

"-I have people who will help me do that. I probably still can't get emancipated, but that's okay. I know enough that I can at least cause him a few problems if I really need it," she shrugged.

"And what do these people think about you using them?" He asked through a slightly dry throat.

"Well," her eyes sparkled, "they get to receive my help too, of course. My name has a certain amount of weight, you know," she grinned.

She was showing off, he realized.

That was the goal.

His throat tightened up a bit.

Mine-chan came back, cheerily offering them both their drinks.

Gakushuu took hers with a smile, and Karma nodded his thanks, his eyes set on Gakushuu.

Did she know she was doing it or was it a spur of the moment choice?

He believed when she said it was a coincidence that they met. But was it really? Or did she subconsciously want to meet him?

That alley was slightly closer to his house, on the path to the shop he went to buy cat food.

It was when his lips closed around the straw and he took his first sip, that a thought that had been lingering for a while solidified into a fact.

Gakushuu liked him.

The strawberry flavored milkshake from the maid cafe became his favorite drink right about then.

Gakushuu had excused himself after he finished his coffee to show a connected door to a room where Gakushuu changed back into 'Gakushuu'.

The make up, clothes, shoes and everything were packed away into a bag. Karma didn't ask about it. In fact he didn't say much, though he showed his appreciation for the chef's special to Mine-chan when she came back asking how they liked it.

He was slightly surprised that Mine-chan hadn't even blinked at seeing someone distinctly male sitting where Gakushuu had been sitting as very obviously female.

Though she had switched her tone and familiarity when addressing him.

"Masters, please come back again," she wished as they left together.

Gakushuu headed for Karma's house, but right when they were at the split between their houses, Karma grabbed Gakushuu's arm and stopped him.

His eyes were soft, warm, as he looked back.

"You don't need to push yourself," he said, his voice dropping. Gakushuu turned to face him, surprised.

"I wasn't-" Gakushuu started but Karma tightened his grip on his arm and he swallowed back his words.

"You didn't show yourself to your class, right?" Karma stated, he reached up for Gakushuu's hair. The strands fell across his fingers smoothly. The meaning was clear.

Gakushuu stared at Karma before replying, "No, I haven't."

Karma let go of his hair.

"You don't have to push yourself so much, Shuu," Karma brushed his fingertips down his cheek. He smoothed the back of his fingers over his jaw, and Gakushuu's eyes fluttered at the sensation.

He didn't have to open his eyes to feel Karma lean in close.

He was so close.

Karma's cheeks brushed against Gakushuu's. His hair delicately brushed over his nose, his parted lips and his cheeks. His skin tingled with every brush.

"I like you as you are," Karma whispered into his ear.

His voice was so soft that Gakushuu wouldn't have been able to hear at all if it weren't for the fact he was saying it into his ear.

Karma's lips brushed almost shyly over his steadily reddening ear. Then down again, on his cheeks.

His hand cupped the other half of Gakushuu's jaw, his thumb making a slow sweep over his parted lips, leaving almost reluctantly for his cheeks before tracing the lower edge of his lip to his chin.

Gakushuu gasped.

His fingers fisted into Karma shirt, holding him close.

The warmth seeped in. Body heat felt like a rediscovery. Karma's other hand rested on his shoulder for a moment before sliding down to rest on his waist.

He pulled his lips away from Gakushuu's cheeks, choosing instead to rest his head against Gakushuu's.

He smiled.

Gakushuu was blushing a bright bright red Karma had never seen before.

Chapter Text

Karma was surprisingly handsy, Gakushuu noted, happy despite himself.

Gakushuu could, in fact, had gotten bold on occasion, but it was planned.

Karma tended to just casually touch Gakushuu in ways he wasn't used to. He would tug at his hair when Gakushuu got too busy with the cat, or he'd cup Gakushuu's face to hold him still and watch while Gakushuu slowly turned red.

Or they'd knock at each other's feet while they are Karma's food.

Well, in a single evening, Gakushuu had gotten flustered enough times to outdo every single time before that evening, combined.

Karma didn't even have to do much. He could blow air over Gakushuu's ear or lean in a little too close and Gakushuu would shut up mid conversation and turn red.

Gakushuu could see how much fun Karma was having from his reactions, but what made him happiest was that Karma was having his own reactions too.

Gakushuu leaned on an elbow by the kitchen counter while Karma cooked. He took his eyes off for half a second to raise an eyebrow at Gakushuu only for his eyes to fall on the red choker Gakushuu had been wearing.

But this time, it was Gakushuu . Very very male, and just as pretty.

The red was lit up by the kitchen lights in Karma's house, and Gakushuu had actually unbuttoned the first one to show him a very clear view of both the choker and Gakushuu's very prominent clavicle.

Karma almost upturned the utensil on the stove over himself, and only his quick reflexes managed to save it with only a burnt hand to show for it.

Gakushuu laughed the whole time while shoving Karma's hand down the ice box.

Karma was not impressed, but he was too red to put up a proper protest. Especially when Karma pulled out his hand to show the burn to Gakushuu and he leaned down to quickly brush his lips over the delicate skin.

"There, there," he whispered teasingly, then he looked up to see Karma turn as red as his hair, staring at Gakushuu with wide eyes.

Impulsively, Gakushuu leaned forward and gave him a quick kiss on his cheek. Karma made a sound like a dying whale and shoved his hand into the ice box again.

Gakushuu laughed through the pink of blush, pleased at the reaction.

When they finally managed to eat, they ended up playing footsie, Gakushuu managing to hold a steady upper hand though Karma's sudden tricks threw him off at times.

Finally when Gakushuu was leaving, Karma hooked his finger with Gakushuu's, and they stared at their interlinked finger. Gakushuu tugged Karma's hand closer, and Karma uncurled his fingers, and they reached out towards the other at the same time, linking their fingers together.

Their fingers slid between the other's until finally, their palms pressed against each other.

Gakushuu swallowed.

Karma's palm was warm, almost damp.

He looked at Karma.

They dropped their hand, still together, and Karma took a step closer, his burnt hand brushing Gakushuu's hair back. He leaned up, and pressed a gentle kiss on his forehead.

Gakushuu stared, surprised. Karma gave him a soft but mischievous smile, his finger poking Gakushuu's cheek.

"Come back here, okay?"

And Gakushuu heard a million unheard words in that.

Come here when you want to run away

Come back here like this is your home

Come back to me .

Gakushuu blinked a few times, and tried to convince himself that this was supposed to be a crush.

He didn't even make it past the first time.

"Mm," he made a noise at the back of his throat, and Karma's expression softened further.

"Okay, yeah," he breathed out. His heartbeat was far too fast to casually brush it off.

"See you later," Karma gave him a teasing wave, his expression at odds with the regular action.

"Later," Gakushuu repeated, then made his feet turn away and walk towards his own house.

An icy silence filled his house. 

Gakushuu wasn't called for dinner.

He didn't go down to eat it either.

"Did you hurt your hand, Karma?" Nagisa noticed first. More people joined in the show of concern, including Koro-sensei, who got him a super effective burn cream from Germany.

Only a few noticed him bite back a smile as he showed off his burn.

Two days later, all of Kunugigaoka had a picture of Karma on a date with a mysterious blonde girl.

Karma was looking at the girl, a smile on his lips, and the girl was holding onto Karma's arm. Her long hair reaching down her back could be seen, while Karma's whole face was caught.

They were leaning into each other almost provocatively, outside what seemed to be a normal restaurant but was actually the maid cafe.

The streets were slightly blurred out, either due to sudden movement or deliberately.

Class E collectively shat bricks.

Then they jumped on Karma like hounds on food.

Karma was flustered. Gakushuu was, subtly, flustered.

Class A was displeased.

Neither could provide an appropriate explanation.

And with that perfect timing, the inter class baseball match was about to begin.

Chapter Text

Class E got distracted soon after Karma's reveal, with the interclass baseball competition.

Sugino's worsening relationship with his friends on the baseball team, lit a fire under the class. They ended up training with Koro-sensei for the match.

Gakushuu and Karma had no time to meet, not even crossing by occasionally. Gakushuu cursed the placement of class E in his head.

He was trying to decrease the sudden rise in resentment for Karma in class A while trying not to reveal that the girl in the picture was him.

Apparently, a girl from the broadcasting club had captured the moment on her phone, but she hadn't been able to even tell Gakushuu where she had taken the picture.

When the inter class baseball was announced, the class drew an unprecedented amount of energy out for Gakushuu's pre-event training. Even Ren seemed frustrated beyond belief.

Either way, they wouldn't be confronting class E, so he didn't see much harm in them working out their energy.

The girls played almost more ferociously. Anaya and Hinata especially had a fire lit under them.

Gakushuu would have been thankful if the girl wasn't actually him in the first place.

He wasn't sure if he should be relieved or not about class A being completely unable to play against class E.

On one hand, discrimination. On the other, class A would either destroy class E or self destruct tremendously.

Self destruction being more likely.

Class A managed to win the first match and lost the second but that was a bitter struggle where the other class almost conceded at one point.

Then they gathered to cheer for Mori, who was the only one amongst them in the baseball team against class E.

Thankfully, he generally didn't give a fuck about class matters. So Gakushuu held out hope.

The hope died a sad death when he saw Mori glare at Karma along with half the school.

Karma shot Gakushuu a confused look and Gakushuu shrugged in response, an amused smile flickering over his face for an instant.

Karma rolled his eyes at him before turning back to face his classmates.

Class A stubbornly held out under the heat, in spite of Gakushuu's requests otherwise, and boo'ed for every single play Karma was involved in.

At a certain point, Karma stopped trying to stifle his grin and openly mocked the loudly boo-ing crowd.

(Gakushuu laughed).

It wasn't as funny when Gakuhou came to the field.

Class A changed targets and stopped booing, though that didn't stop the rest of the school. A few got uncomfortable at the confrontation and left.

Gakushuu stayed and watched the coach get carried off. Then watches his father encourage the baseball team.

Or could it even be called 'encourage'?

Some of them looked dazed. They played aggressively against class E, risking their bodies in a way that was unlike the way athletes should play at all.

They took risk after risk, pulling off plays at times that were high risk, low return. The strategy changed completely into something much more brute strength instead of the steady gain of points they had been aiming for.

A tension, even unlike an official game, fell over the field, and suddenly, Gakushuu noticed students start to silently rooting for class E's victory.

When Karma stepped into the baseball range, Gakushuu wasn't looking at Karma or even Shindo, the batter. He was looking at Gakuhou.

Gakuhou was staring at Karma with a scrutinizing expression, something ugly underneath. He turned away from the two confronting Shindo to look at class E and then Koro-sensei.

When the baseball team finally collapsed, Gakuhou was staring back at Gakushuu from across the field.

Gakushuu felt a shiver of premonition watching his father walk away.

Gakushuu put together a fee more things after that.

The girl from broadcasting being unable to remember where the pictures were taken, the perfectly edited lone picture in her phone, her lack of memory of the event itself.

Then Shindo, a trained athlete aiming for nationals playing aggressive enough to injure himself for a meaningless school event. A blurring memory, actions led by a single meaningless motivation, and finally, a deep reluctance to hurt causing a breakdown mid game.

His father keeping a hand on Shindo as he whispered encouragement to the rising star that almost made him throw his talent away.

He was putting together a pretty ugly picture, and worse yet, no one else was.

Gakushuu was the student council president. One of the roles of the student council was to carry out the will of the Principal.

Gakuhou was subtly increasing the workload of the main building, the range of topics increasing ever so slowly to include almost twice as much.

Gakushuu and the motivated class A burned through the constantly updating syllabus at a fast pace. The Principal, pleased, increased the workload more.

The finals were always more difficult than the midterms, but the pace, even in the start, felt almost unprecedented.

While Karma was mostly freed up again, Gakushuu was practically drowning in work. Never mind Karma, he didn't have enough time to stay updated with his own class.

He tried not to let it affect his schedule, but his sleep time had decreased to an almost risky degree, even with Ren, Anaya and the people around him helping out.

They were still busy with their own matter too 

Even Kiyoko, his Vice President, had started eyeing his eye bags with pity.

Overall, Gakushuu was absolutely not prepared for Karma interrupting his music class by setting off the fire alarm, then grabbing him and making a run for it.

Gakushuu got dragged off to Karma's house for a nap with the cats, and a surprisingly quiet evening. And also the absolutely delicious sorry-for-making-you-miss-lunch snack.

Gakushuu was, once again, reluctant to go back home, but forced himself to, anyway. He slept through dinner, a call from his music teacher, and somehow woke up in time to finish his homework and rush to class the next day.

Even amidst his tiredness, he didn't miss the quick addition of a teacher in class E, and then back out again.

He didn't ask about it, and neither Gakuhou nor Karma provided him with an explanation.

The pool opening up was just one more problem on his list of work he had to do. The maintenance, overseeing of work, and even the daily check, almost half was under the student council preview.

Gakushuu barely had time to implement more efficient systems between all his work.

The work slowed down as the heat rose and the transition period between the seasons got over. Most of the work would be done by other staff, not unpaid students, thankfully.

That meant that Gakushuu had more time to prepare for his finals, along with his class. He arranged the pre-exam tests and everyone tiredly bragged about their marks.

They had somehow kept up with Gakushuu's studies through sheer resentment alone. He was honestly surprised his classnates weren't dying due to caffeine overdose already.

He had no excuses for himself aside from genetics that let him stay awake and functioning as long as he was. His classmates didn't even have that.

To be able to keep up with his study schedule, no matter how busy he was...

He was genuinely impressed by how much they actually hated Karma.

(He was also surprised by how much they had managed to read up on his feelings throughout the years.)

He had managed to go to Karma's house once, but it had been an unplanned gap in his schedule so Karma hadn't been there.

Gakushuu had ended up playing with the cats, stole some of Karma's pre-cooked food before leaving for his next lesson.

And then the finals began with a bang.

Or, an almost fight, as it went.

Apparently a few of class E planned to study in the main school library when they were spotted by the oddest combination of people- Seo, Hinata, Anaya and Koyama.

He had no idea what they were doing together, but they caused a ruckus through the school.

There had been taunting, resentful words and at one point, Seo going overboard. Oddly, everyone actually approved of Seo's dramatic personality this once.

Even Anaya, who had taken the abrupt challenge to class E for the finals marks, on the go.

But everyone had been startled when class E had responded to Seo's 'betting his life' by grabbing the nearest deadly object and pointing it eeriely close to the students' lethal points.

That was when class A started baring their teeth too. And it started from a surprising person.

Hinata had snarled (apparently) and grabbed hold of Nakamura Rio's hand and dared her to stab her in the public library. She threatened to sue her to hell and back until she couldn't take a foot into proper society.

Anaya had been extremely impressed and completely unbothered by the pencil that stopped right in front of her eye.

She had given them a cold smile and told them to accept their bet unless they all wanted to be sued for attempted murder, with dozens of witnesses.

Class E, had been completely riled up.

Class A, was similarly riled up.

Class A didn't really care about the conditions for losing, just that they could rub it into their faces after.

So Gakushuu had just assigned class E mandatory, year long servitude to the Self Defence club. Which was funny because they were basically mini-assassins.

And something they might or might not have time for, but since he was the president of the club, he would decide to just cancel the whole thing if they couldn't.

He could always do with more people who actually knew what they were doing, but they weren't really necessary.

On the other side, Isogai was looking at the recently received email from Gakushuu about class A's part of the deal and frowned at the message he had just sent.

Okinawa trip for club attendance was far too uneven a bet. He would have immediately changed their terms of the bet, if half the class hadn't been reading Gakushuu's email over his shoulder.

It was Karma who stopped the few people from class from resending new terms for the bet.

"Isn't this fine as it is?" He said, interrupting his class from their arguments.

Isogai frowned at Karma.

"His side is losing out though," he pointed out, upset.

"That's because we don't have anything to offer them," Karma shrugged casually, "and do you think if we lose, Gakushuu wouldn't put us to work, in spite of the assassination we actually need to do? He's asking for time we can't give him, because our assassination skills will suffer," Karma lied through his teeth, unflinchingly to the whole class.

Nagisa and Isogai gave him a few odd looks, but most people weren't really personally acquainted with Gakushuu, and to be fair, Karma was actually the closest person to Gakushuu aside from class A.

Though class A seemed to intensely hate Karma one-sidedly, from what they had seen.

"I wonder how you became friends with him in spite of your personality, Karma," Isogai shook his head while the class got convinced by Karma's words.

"That's because we aren't friends," Karma smirked, completely honest for once.

Isogai raised a doubtful eyebrow. Karma simply shrugged before going back to bothering Nagisa.

Koro-sensei nurufufufu'ed in the background and everyone ignored it in favor of talking to each other.

The finals started with anticipation and confidence for class A.

They were certain at being able to capture victory. Gakushuu wasn't sure about the state of class E students, but he still felt relatively certain that beating class A for top scores (his scores) would probably be impossible, or at least very difficult.

Gakushuu couldn't imagine someone actually beating him.

He ignored the three people that automatically popped into his head.

Gakuhou was his father and Itadori was his senior, and he wasn't sure if Karma would actually manage to beat him, because well, he did have a bit of a cheat too.

No matter how good Karma was, beating Gakushuu in middle school when he had half remembered memories of some random woman in his head was almost impossible, right?

He was pretty sure he could beat Itadori too, and his father-

Well, maybe another day.

The exam week ended almost as quickly as it had started.

The moments of anticipation for the upcoming exam, the stress of preparation and the delight of high scores in Gakushuu's tests faded into simple exhaustion.

And then finally the results were unveiled.

Asano Gakushuu was still rank 1, but he was no longer unrivaled.

Hinata and Gakushuu had tied for second place in Science, while Okuda Manami got 99 and became the highest scorer.

Gakushuu had 99.5 in English, and normally it wouldn't be a problem, except Nakamura Rio had actually received a full 100.

Maths and Social Studies was completely dominated by Gakushuu, but Gakushuu must have fallen asleep because he was pretty sure he saw a second 98 in his scores in Japanese.

Gakushuu had literally never scored worse. Even his classmates were staring at Gakushuu's eye bags and wondering if the lack of sleep had caused his unprecedented lower marks.

He had lost a total of a rounded up 5 marks. He had never lost 5 marks as Gakushuu for anything.

He wasn't even surprised at being called to the Principal's office. Class A didn't even care about the bet, they were simply concerned about Gakushuu.

(And he didn't miss the 'rank 13 Akabane Karma' written on the overall score either.)

Gakuhou didn't talk about the bet at all, only about Gakushuu's sudden drop in scores.

He promised to get his sleep schedule up straight, with a threatening smile, and managed to leave without losing anything.

But class A winning meant nothing to them. In fact, class E had done something almost unprecedented.

They had bested Gakushuu in 2 different subjects.

Gakushuu had been sure that class E wouldn't have been able to actually reach him. He had been arrogant.

Gakushuu hadn't gotten his scores because of something miraculous happening in past life, he had gotten them because he worked for them.

The midterm's failure on the class E's end, even after he ended up sending them his notes wasn't the end all, be all. He hadn't focused much on it, but it had been a frantic time for class E.

The few people who had managed to score well were exceptional. Okuda Manami and Nakamura Rio were in the top 50 then too.

Gakuhou hadn't mentioned the bet at all because he won, but that also gave him leeway.

Gakushuu went back to his class to tell them about his plans.

The end of term assembly, once again, gathered all the students in school including class 3-E.

E class formed up in a group, their shoulders hunched up defensively, even though no one had pointed fingers at their loss. It had been an obvious loss, and everyone thought that.

They themselves did too.

Class E also thought that once again, no matter how hard they fought, class E was always meant to be the Dead End class.

They weren't the same people as they were in the start of the term, but that also didn't mean they were different people.

Gakushuu entered the hall un-assaulted, his class behind him. They started spreading out, some carrying out the council duties Gakushuu was supposed to while he talked to class E.

His eyes swept over the students of class E, stopping for a brief moment on Karma, who looked him dead on. His eyes warmed, but he gave the class his polite smile.

"We lost the bet," he announced straightforwardly. "Six people in class E managed to beat me."

Six? Every student's brain stuttered for a moment, before the whole hall turned in unison to stare at the four Home Ec. high scorers.

They all stiffened, their eyes widened as they stared at class A, who had turning up their nose at them.

Gakushuu smiled.

"I have never been beaten in English before," he stepped forward, lowering his voice to talk to the class. He seeked out Nakamura Rio's blonde hair among class E while they stood gaping.

He nodded in acknowledgement at the flustered wide eyed girl, then again at Okuda Manami. She got flustered as well, making a soft panicked noise when their eyes met.

"Congratulations on your win. I hope you have fun on the trip," he smiled, nodded and joined Hinata, who he had forced to take over his duties as Student Council President until he was done talking.

He left Isogai thanked him, and rest of the class stood gaping.

"I can't believe you just gave up your win like that," Hinata grumbled at him the moment he reached her. He laughed.

"It was the class' win, we all gave it up," he physically turned her away from the mic stand she had been about to break.

"As if. Even if we had a majority of the highest rank, the only one competing for the highest scores has always been you," Hinata's shoulders dropped. Gakushuu patted her head.

"You tied with me," he reminded, "and Ren did well in Japanese too. Just because you don't get consistent 100s doesn't mean you're not amazing. I failed to get the top scores in a few subjects too, does that mean I've become a failure?"

Hinata stiffened at his reasonable tone then sighed with a pout.

"Kimi said the same thing," she admitted, "but I don't like that you gave up your win to them. Even if it's for a good cause," she dropped her voice to an almost imperceivable level.

Gakushuu won, but winning here didn't just mean he had better scores than class E. Class E wasn't just a simple class.

No matter how reluctant they were, Gakushuu would force them to accept the Okinawa trip. Or send them to another beachside place.

Water was Koro-sensei's biggest weakness yet and the class needed to be together for the assassination attempt.

Gakushuu wanted them to win, so giving up the trip to give them a good opportunity was easy enough.

Besides, he had a better plan for his classmates. After all, they had studied quite hard too. They deserved some fun time together too.

Gakushuu might not like what would await him at the end of the day, but he would make do.

Just like always.

Chapter Text

Class E wasn't happy.

Or to be more specific, class E was confused.

They had gone in, prepared to be mocked for their loss. But the weighty silence was almost worse.

The looks that came at them seemed surprised at their audacity to challenge Kunugigaoka's beloved, Asano Gakushuu. Moreover, class A against class E would obviously result in class E losing.

The mocking for class E had decreased a while ago, but that didn't change the way students in the main building pretended that class E didn't even exist. Or the way they thought that class E should live and die quietly in a corner.

Attempting to overthrow class A? 

They should have just stayed in their cages, locked up like pigs in a pen. They had no right to bite the hand that fed them.

Just because animals could walk, didn't mean they were suddenly human.

It was the same case.

Class E was looked down upon as the dregs of society. Even if a few has-beens entered it, it didn't change the fact that it was the 'Dead End' class.

But the moment Asano Gakushuu entered the hall, the whole atmosphere changed. The heavy stares turned into something infinitely lighter. Isogai could hear a few relieved exhales from his classmates.

But now they had to deal with someone even more intimidating.