The Twin Fools

[Unhacker]

20/04/2018 - 7:30 - Shujin Academy - Arisato Minato

Minato was lurking around the shoe lockers, he did have a purpose aside from looking creepy. He was checking for Ikki-kun, if he figured out the shoe locker, he could leave the notice for meeting up. It was in the form of a small letter, Makoto did the writing for it and Minato would admit that her handwriting was godly.

Suddenly, he saw the boy that he was looking for, black ponytail and all, despite his broken nose and various other bruises and cuts, Minato did admit, Ikki-kun had something of a rugged beauty to him. Minako shook his head and looked at the boy in more detail, he had finally found one of the rare cases of someone who followed the school uniform policy and was dressed in full uniform, though he was ignoring the school policy on hair, though it seemed that everyone here ignored the school rules to some extent.

"Hey, isn't that the delinquent?"​

"What's he doing?"​

"Don't know, man, and don't want to either."
As the boy took his slippers out of the school locker, Minato paid close attention, ignoring the gossipers, trying to figure out which locker was the boy's one. As the boy left, Minato made his move and walked up to the shoe locker, he slid the small letter in and walked away, the arrangements had been made, all that there was left was to see if Ikki-kun would leave them hanging or if he would actually talk.

20/04/2018 - 8:00 - Shujin Academy - Suzui Shiho

Shiho wasn't sure what to think of the situation, within a week, her entire world had been shattered but what was worse was that her thoughts weren't on the man who shattered her world, no it's on the girl who was willing to sell her body and soul just to help her friend.

That word, 'friend', it used to fill Shiho with so much joy and it made her really happy to call such a girl her friend, but now... now, it didn't feel nearly as good, it felt more like a dagger in her chest, because she knew that was all they would ever be, just friends.

The lesson from Kawakami isn't registering, the words of the perpetually exhausted teacher might as well have been cast upon the breeze for all the good it does for Shiho. Her notebook is blank and her pen lies unused in her hand.

Takamaki Ann was a girl that always seemed to be on Shiho's mind, from when they met first in middle school, the blonde girl had been so beautiful and her hair was so silky and as she got older those curves developed quite well, she was always so popular with the guys and yet she never had a boyfriend. Her eyes were beautiful, especially now that she broke off her relationship with Kamoshida, they glimmered with a light that Shiho hadn't seen in years. Her face was so pretty and Shiho found herself following Ann's lips and wondering how they would feel, probably really soft.

Going past her physical features, Ann was braver than Shiho would ever be Ann dressed how she wanted and was done with caring about what others thought of her, she had the wits that Shiho lacked and she had a unique appearance, someone like her would easily be able to make her way around the world. While Shiho saw herself as useless really, she was only really good at volleyball, she lacked the bravery that Ann had, she wasn't nearly as witty and her appearance wasn't anything to write home about.

Ann was quick in social situations, able to make friends wherever she went, Shiho was shy and was barely able to talk to strangers, it was a wonder the two of them ever got to be so close.

Though that did lead her thoughts to Arisato Minako, the second Arisato twin and the more upbeat of the two of them, plain in appearance and certainly not the sort of person who Shiho would consider to be socially adept, but when she was around, she always found a way to decrease the tension.

Shiho always wondered what Ann meant when she said that the brunette was teasing her, she wondered what the brunette said or texted to the blonde that made her blush so much.

Shiho knew she was going to have to have a conversation with the brunette, she knew something about Ann and Shiho was determined to find out what it was or at least get a hint about it.

20/09/2018 - 12:00 - Shujin Academy - Suzui Shiho

It was lunchtime and they were once again on the rooftop, one would think that the teachers would try to secure the place after Shiho came so close to jumping off there.

"Hey, Minako, could we talk for a bit?" Shiho asked, the brunette nodded and walked with Shiho to the corner of the roof that the dark haired girl had occupied for this lunchtime.

"What do you want to talk about?" Minako asked, sounding curious "Or do you want to confess something to me?" That did sound tempting, after all, she had a lot on her mind.

"Well, I've wanted to ask you..." Shiho began, now that she was talking to the brunette, it was harder than playing the conversation out in her head. "What do you keep texting Ann about?"

Minako laughed at that like actually laughed long and hard "I'm teasing her about her love life." Minako answered, still laughing a bit "her desolate wasteland of a love life."

"Does Ann like someone?" Shiho asked, narrowing it down, Minako looked rather amused at that one.

"In terms of platonically, sure, she likes a lot of people, in terms of romantically, well...." She looked like she was considering something "You're going to have to ask her yourself." She still looked amused, she then muttered something that Shiho was unable to hear. The brunette pulled out her phone and started texting someone

"What are-"

"I'm texting Ann, to see if she wants me to tell you." Minako answered, "It's her choice after all, though there is nothing so awkward and amusing as seeing her dance around her crush."

"What does she say?" Shiho asked as Minako looked at the pale screen, the last word that Minako said not really registering.

"She says that she'll talk about it in her own time." Minako answered, looking amused "Whatever, 'her own time' means, which I guess would be until the literal end of the world." Minako put her phone away and looked the dark-haired girl in the eye, "So why exactly are you asking me about this?"

"Well..." Shiho began, trying to think of the best way to phrase this one without openly revealing her secret. "Ann has someone on her mind doesn't she?"

"Yes, of course, she does. Back to the topic at hand." Minako answered her tone of voice spoke of annoyance.

"Can we please drop the subject?" Shiho asked, her voice was wavering, but the look on Minako's face said that she wasn't going to drop this topic easily.

"You know what? I'll let you tell me about this until the end of the month, after that, I'm more than happy to tell your secret to everyone." Minako said, her grin was like the devil's own.

"How do you know-"

"Come now, Shiho, it's obvious to everyone and there's no reason for you to worry. I gave similar terms to Ann." She said, her devilish grin was still on her face "One of you two are going to have to talk eventually."

Shiho thought on the brunette's words, was she really that obvious? "Talk about what?"

"Your secret, what else?" Minako

"Why are you doing this?"

"I have your best interests at heart, I may not look it, but I do care," Minako said, "though my method of caring is a bit different, I'll admit, but it's for the best." She paused "Most likely, either way, it's fun."

It was at this moment that she realised that Arisato Minako was most likely The Devil. Shiho walked back to the rest of the group with the brunette, who was still grinning like an idiot. Ann seemed to be blushing from the texts that were sent her way if only Shiho knew what was going on in there.

20/04/2018 - 12:10 - Shujin Academy - Arisato Minako

There was nothing more annoying than two people who were mutually pining, sure it was adorable and heart-warming/wretching in fiction, but in this case, it wasn't nearly as fun, sure watching them awkwardly dance around their feelings was fun, but, much like punching a small squirrel, it sort of gets boring after a while.

She didn't really intend to stay true to her threat, though the illusion of a deadline would expedite their inevitable confession to each other, hopefully. She could detect the resentment in Ann's and Shiho's glare, it was true that she was bluffing and she was glad that she told Ann over texts as she'd probably be able to call the bluff, hell it was a wonder that her bluff wasn't already called.

She pulled out her phone and texted both of them with the same words.

Ko: Just talk to each other and I won't tell.

There was a feeling of being a bit evil by borderline blackmailing both the girls, they'd thank her later, it really wasn't healthy to be keeping secrets from your friends.

20/04/2018 - 14:00 - Shujin Academy - Takamaki Ann

Minako was evil, she probably did have good intentions, but she was still straight up evil.

Really, give her ten days to admit a secret that she had kept for years now. Ten days, there was no way in hell she'd be able to build up the courage for that one and there was certainly no way in hell that Shiho would do that as well.

What a conundrum, she was trying to keep this topic out of her head and focus on what the teacher was saying but the words didn't register with her, she'd have to ask Minato for a quick catch up lesson. Ann twirled her pen around in her hand and considered what Minako was saying.

She said that she had Ann's best interests at heart, well she had a funny way of showing it, she'd have to ask Minato about that if it was something that Minako usually did.

Ann tried to listen to the teacher about the English Language and the words still weren't registering, grammar rules that native English speakers wouldn't know or care about flew past her ears without making an impact, the pages of the book were blank and might as well have not existed.

What a wonderous situation.

20/04/2018 - 16:00 - Tokyo Subway - Arisato Minako

Minako was on her way to the cafe for her job interview, she made sure to get the earliest train she could get in order to make sure that she got there in time, her phone's GPS told her that the cafe was just a thirteen minute walk from the station, but she needed to be safe, also she could just kill some time surveying one of the many, many, many, many, many manga stores in the area.

The chords of 'Wiping All Out' played through her earphones and made the claustrophobic journey on the subway more bearable, admittedly, there weren't that many people on the subway to Akihabara at this time of day, though that was by Tokyo standards, to the standards of normal people, there was still a hell of a lot of people and some of them were making their way home through this line.

In her hands was her phone as she did some research on the cafe that she was working at, it had alright reviews, though an annoying factor was that most of them were written in English, she couldn't read English, she was conversational in the language, knew enough slang to talk to tourists but didn't know how to read the language, she could make use of Google translate but that was notoriously bad for translating. Fun, fun, fun.

What reviews that were in a language she could actually read, the cafe was apparently, very meh, not all that bad, but not that good either.

20/04/2018 - 16:30 - Akihabara - Arisato Minako

Minako walked out of the subway station and breathed in heavily through her nose, it smelt like virginity and extreme nerdiness, in other words, exactly what she expected, not like she could talk, she was still a virgin but still.

She looked down at her phone, Grey Cloud Cafe, it as to her left for about ten minutes and then right for another five minutes, God bless GPS because otherwise, she was sure that she'd be lost in the bright lights of the district, especially as she entered the more Otaku oriented area of the district. This was where the fun begins.

20/04/2018 - 16:35 - Aoyama-Itchome - Arisato Minato

Minato was a bit bothered, he wasn't really used to the idea of being separated from his sister, they were twins, the two pretty much did everything together, so it sort of felt a bit off, like he was missing the second half of his comedy routine or something similar.

He saw Ann walking up to him and shook his head to rid himself of a useless line of thought and looked at the blonde as she approached him.

"Minato, I've got a question." Ann began, he nodded at her and she continued "Does your sister regularly blackmail people into confessing their secrets?"

"Yes," Minato answered simply, it was a habit of his sister's and it was one of the ways she showed how much she cared. "It's her method of saying that while she cares for you, she'd rather it if you confessed what secret you're keeping." As he said that, a look of dread began to set in on the blonde's face. "So, what is your secret? Don't worry, I won't tell anyone about this, think of it as practice for actually confessing your secret."

"Well ... my s-secret?" Ann said, stuttering slightly, he shook her head and began again "Well ... my secret is that I care too much."

"Half-truth," Minato said, calling out what it was, "Narrow it down."

"It's about Shiho, I care about her too much," Ann said, her shoulders were slightly slumped in defeat.

"Close to the truth, but there's more," Minato said, his voice was apathetic and clinical as always, "Keep going."

"I'm in love with Shiho," Ann said, her shoulders further slumped, what a sight this must make for people from the outside, a blonde girl, shoulders slumped in defeat and a blue haired boy, grinning at this. Wait, he was grinning? he checked his face and confirmed that.

"There you go," Minato said, he did enjoy it when people confessed their secrets, there was something so satisfying about it. "Though it won't do you much good, I'm not the person who you should tell that to." It was true, Shiho had every right to know that Ann was in love with her.

"I don't want to ruin my friendship though," Ann said.

"You won't," Minato said, "If something so minor ruins your friendship, then she isn't that good a friend. I can tell from the outside that the two of you care for each other." Minato then mumbled, "It's really sweet."

20/04/2018 - 17:10 - Shiho's House - Suzui Shiho

Shiho was, once again, alone in her house, she rarely saw her parents nowadays, they always seemed to take on extra shifts, not that she minded, it did lead to an increase in her allowance, though it did mean that she was often unable to ask them for help

She took off her shoes as was proper and made her way to her room, slamming the door behind her, there was only really one thought that was in her head. "GODDAMN IT MINAKO!!" She screamed at the empty room, mostly to satisfy her own anger.

There was something about how Minako thought that her solution was clever, it would force Shiho to confess something that she kept secret for years, but that was the problem, she didn't really know how to confess her feelings.

Even without that, it was more than likely that she'd be ruining her friendship with the blonde by saying something like that. She has a snowflake's chance in hell of her feelings being accepting.

What was worse was that Minako was able to figure out her secret, was Shiho really being that obvious or was she bluffing, what if Ann had already figured out that Shiho was in love with the blonde.

She pulled her phone out of her pocket and looked at it, she looked at one of the photos she had taken and wondered how Ann managed to look so pretty, even the photo which was a pale copy of the real image and even then, her image was bewitching.

Shiho looked at the picture and saw her own image, she was younger then and it was before she was beaten by Kamoshida before Ann had to date that horrid man if memory served, it was after they were accepted into Shujin Academy.

Shiho imagined her and Ann in a similar situation, they'd be happy together, living together, seeing each other at their best and worst, maybe they'd argue but then make up afterwards. She sighed, why was she thinking about what the goddamn wedding and domestic life would be like when she had a bigger fish to fry and more pressing as Minako did have a deadline for her.

She got up and went to her Kotatsu, it's time to do something that she hadn't done in a few months, write a love letter, she'd pour all those feelings that she was scared to say in person on to the paper.

20/04/2018 - 18:00 - Akihabara - Arisato Minako

If there was one thing that Minako was annoyed by, it was that after the interview she was unaware of whether or not she'd be getting the job, of course, this then meant that she didn't know if she had disposable income.

This, of course, meant that she shouldn't be carrying all the manga that she had just impulse bought, she wouldn't be complaining for a while. It was to her disappointment that she couldn't buy some anime but she didn't have a DVD player and a TV so she could hardly spend a few days in and she did have something better to do than binge-watching anime.

Her manga was either stuffed into her school book bag and various blazer pockets, thank god she usually never put anything in there, though she did look like the average Yaoi Fangirl, up until the moment that you looked at the cover of the manga and then one would realise where her tastes lay.

She checked her phone and realised that she was running far behind schedule, she was supposed to be home by now, as such, she began to furiously powerwalk towards the Subway Station and get on the first train home.

20/04/2018 - 18:30 - Tokyo Subway - Arisato Minako

Minako Arisato was on her train home and she decided, that since no one was really going to be paying attention to her, that she'd read some of her manga. The manga itself was familiar and she had bought this volume before but it was likely that her uncle had burned the thing so they wouldn't be getting it back anytime soon.
"Look at her."

"You mean the girl over there?"​

"What's that she's reading?"​

"I think that's Yuri"​

"What's this country coming to?"

"Girls shouldn't be reading such filth."​

Minako felt sick in her stomach when she heard the gossiping of what looked like a group of office workers, it was obvious that they were talking about her, this was because there was hardly anybody else on the subway who was a girl and reading Yuri.
"You think she heard us?"

"Of course she did, look at how
she's retreating into the book."​

"When I was a kid, we never thought
about something so filthy."​

Minako reached for her earphones and put them in her ears, then she reached for her phone and ignored the fact that her ears were blurring slightly from being insulted.

The song she was playing was somewhat ironic as it was called "Way of Life" it would be amusing if she wasn't trying to block out the gossiping of people who clearly disapproved of her tastes.

She wondered if this was how Ann and Shiho felt when she had blackmailed them earlier today, thinking about it, she put her manga away and pulled out her phone and her fingers moved along the on-screen keyboard.

[Ko] has created chat [Aplogy]
[Suzui] has been added to [Aplogy]
[Ann] has been added to [Aplogy]
Ko: Ann, Shiho, forget about the deadline
Suzui: WTF is this?
Ann: What's the catch?
Ko: No catch. I realised my mistake and I apologise, you may tell each other what you wanted to.
[Ko] has left [Aplogy]

She put her phone away, her method of forcing people to confess was a terrible idea. She did have some idea of it before, but to her, the successes of it usually outranked the cost, but this time, she realised that she could very well screw up any chance of the two girls being happy, and to be honest, these girls needed their happiness.

 

[Unhacker]

21/04/2018 - 05:55 - Shiho's House - Suzui Shiho

Shiho was getting dressed in her uniform, she paused slightly to look at the bruises on her wrist, despite what she initially thought, they were starting to fade slightly, eventually, they might not even be noticeable, the thought made her smile slightly.

Her phone vibrated and she ignored it as she continued to get dressed, the phone started to vibrate more violently and as she put on her pullover, she picked up her phone. It was the Kamoshida Investigation Chat

Min: We'll be meeting with Ikki-kun after school today
Ko: In addition, we'll be using Makoto to present evidence to Kawakami, she's the most likely to believe us.
Makoto: How so?
Ko: She's generally seen as caring about the students
Min: She's also one of the few teachers who doesn't hate us on principle
Ko: According to the rumour mill, she has also expressed concern over the physical condition of the students.
Min: Even if we initially don't get her on our side, we just need the idea that Kamoshida is doing something horrid.
Ko: We just need to make her curious or realise that Kamoshida is not the hardworking teacher he pretends to be.

The thought was manipulative but it was correct, Kamoshida was horrid, they just needed to open the people's eyes to the truth.

Min: Just to be clear, we'll not be all there for the Ikki-kun interview, we just need Makoto to record the interview.
Ko: Attendance to is optional
Shizu: About the Kawakami talk?
Min: Plans call for Makoto, me, Minako and Ann at the minimum
Ko: I and Minato have the valuable testimony.
Ann: I still have all the texts from Kamoshida and all the logs of conversations from him
Makoto: And I'm the one who is actually believable.

Shiho smiled at Makoto's witty comment and felt somewhat hurt at the fact that it was true.

Min: Besides we're all in one of her classes, she can call us in to check out our stories and bruises, if necessary.

That wasn't as good, while most of the gang did know what happened to Shiho, she didn't want knowledge of it becoming widespread, the school wouldn't stop talking about it.

Shizu: I'll be with you for talking to Kawakami

Goddammit, why'd she type that? Why'd her fingers do that and not what she wanted to do?

This was going to be a long day, wasn't it?

21/04/2018 - 7:30 - Shujin Academy - Arisato Minato

Minato stepped into school and one of the first things he noticed was the sharp glare that he was getting from Ikki-kun, a glare that he pretended he didn't notice as he swapped in his shoes for school slippers.

As he slid his shoe slippers on, the third-year walked up to Minato and gave the boy exactly two seconds to notice that slight difference in height between the two, Ikki-kun was a head taller than Minato, who tried not to notice the cologne that the, rather attractive, third-year wore.

"Why'd you slip that note into my locker yesterday?" Ikki said, his tone was inquisitive and laced with anger.

"What note?" Minato said, looking around, "we could talk about this on the rooftop."

"No, we talk about this now." He said, jabbing a finger at Minato, "So I ask again, why'd you leave the letter in my locker?"

"I'm just the messenger." Minato said, shrugging his shoulder slightly as he readjusted his stance "Niijima-senpai asked that I deliver the note to your locker, ask her about it after school." He answered, there was no point lying

"How do I know you're telling the truth?" He asked, jabbing his finger again

"What reason do I have to lie?" Minato said, shrugging. "The letter is from Nijima-senpai, my handwriting isn't nearly as good as hers."

"What was it about a meeting?" Ikki-kun (what was his real name?) asked

"I trust you read the note, if so, then I don't have to explain this one to you." Minato answered, "I'd appreciate if you move on, we're gathering a crowd, Senapi." He slipped out and made his way to homeroom, leaving Ikki-kun behind, looking a bit annoyed.

21/04/2018 - 7:40 - Shujin Academy - Suzui Shiho

Shiho was glad for one reason because Minako made some random example of mercy, she was able to still keep her secret which was something that she never thought that she'd be able to do. Because of that, she was able to still just live as Ann's best friend and Ann won't be disgusted by Shiho's feelings because she'll never learn of them, it was a guaranteed success.

She looked at the clock and saw the time, there were just over two hours left until the talk with the school's most exhausted teacher.

She looked up and saw her homeroom teacher, Ushimaru, enter the room, she sighed and swore to herself that someday she'd find it in herself to tell Ushimaru what she really thought of him and his traditional values. Though she knew that today was not one of those days.

21/04/2018 - 12:15 - Shujin Academy - Arisato Minato

Minato had gathered some of 'the squad' as he as mentally dubbed them, consisting of himself, Ann, Makoto, Minako and Shiho, who looked rather tired.

Kawakami was still packing her teaching materials in her dull yellow ring binder, looked just as tired as she always did. There were heavily visible bags under eyes, no amount of make-up covered those bags.

"Kawakami-sensei?" Minato began, getting his teacher's attention "We've got a few things to tell you." Kawakami sighed, while her eyes were not full of the usual hatred that teachers had for him, but she clearly did not want to be here.

"What is it about?" Kawakami asked, at this point, Minato was sure it was hard to find one part of the teacher in front of him that wasn't tired. Minato pulled out his Kamoshida Investigation Folder

"It's about Kamoshida and all the things he's done," Minato said, his voice was steely and he knew that he would have to be in order to make sure that the teacher believed him.

21/04/2018 - 12:30 - Shujin Academy - Kawakami Sadayo

Sadayo was not entirely sure what to think of what all these students had told her, a large part of her wanted to say that it was a lie, a well-constructed lie that had part of the truth behind it as well.

But on the other hand, it made sense, every single female student avoided Kamoshida like he had the plague and she always felt uncomfortable around the man. It also perfectly explained why every member of the volleyball team walked around with limps or obvious bruises and worse yet, some of them had broken noses, a good example would be Ikko-san (who nowadays went by 'Ikki-kun') or Sakamoto-san with his broken leg.

Then there was what was done to Suzui-san, no parent should have to find out about that and it does explain why she was seemingly so intent on jumping off the roof of the school.

Though there was something that didn't make sense, it was why they hadn't taken it to the police. "Why haven't you taken this to the police?" Sadayo asked, her voice was somewhat inquisitive and, as always, showed just how exhausted she was.

Nijima Makoto answered that one "It would be heavily likely that all the evidence can be waved off by Kamoshida-'sensei' as a few students with a grudge against their 'hard-working teacher'," Makoto answered, there were heavy traces of sarcasm in her voice at the word Sensei and the last few words she said. "in addition, not many of the students want to talk out of fear of Kamoshida so....."

"You want me to do the questioning of some students," Sadayo answered, she could see the logic, it was just that she wasn't entirely sure when she'd get the time to...

Wait, why exactly was she thinking about the inconvenience of this? It certainly wasn't convenience that led her to help that boy, it was wanting to help her students. She saw all the students with bruises and looking like they were dead on their feet. It just begged the question of when did she stop caring?

The worst thing was: she couldn't remember when she stopped caring.

"Yes, that is the short and long of it," Minako said, her voice was somewhat uplifting despite the tone of the conversation, "So what do you say?"

Sadayo pulled out her phone and called her other employer, holding up a finger to indicate that the students should be quiet "Hello, yes it's me." She said into the phone.

"Kawakami-san, why are you calling?" The voice of the receptionist said, sounding a bit confused.

"Sorry to bother you, but something came up, could you possibly move my shift over towards Saturday?" Sadayo said the receptionist made some noises that sounded like she was about to voice a complaint "It's a family emergency."

"Of course," The receptionist said, "I'll call you back to when if the change is approved." what followed was the dial tone as the receptionist evidentially hung up on her.

Sadayo put her phone away and looked at the students, they looked at her with a mixture of understanding at the thought of their teacher having a second job "Sorry about that, I'll be happy to help you."

It was hard not to notice the expression of unadulterated joy on Minako's face, an expression that spread to Takamaki's and Suzui's faces as well as realisation seemed to set in.

21/04/2018 - 13:00 - Shujin Academy - Arisato Minako

Minako was far too pleased with herself like she knew that she should tone it down a notch, but to be honest, this was some of the best news she had heard all year.

They had a teacher who was a reputable source on their side.

To be honest, Minako knew that something was likely to happen that would spoil her mood but for now she was riding that positive emotion.

Unfortunately, all good things must come to end and this was no exception, Ushimaru walked into the room, looking rather annoyed, more annoyed than usual.

There went her mood.

21/04/2018 - 15:30 - Shujin Academy - Niijima Makoto

It was time for the meeting with Ikki-kun, Makoto had her phone at the ready to do an audio recording of the entire process. She was currently sitting down at one of the old chairs that were on the roof and she had one prepared for Ikki as well.

When the boy eventually walked up the steps, he turned and looked somewhat surprised that Makoto was there.

"Glad to see you got the note." She said, trying to break the ice

"I did, I'm just curious as to why it asked for you to meet me on the rooftop and why you asked Arisato-san to deliver it," Ikki responded, despite the fact that the man looked like an idiot or a rich brat, he was one of the smartest people in the school, though that was hampered by his own laziness. He sat down in the other chair, taking up what could be considered as a neutral position, as he leant forward slightly.

"Where else could we talk in this school without word reaching Kamoshida?" She supplied

"Good point."

"As for using Minato-san, he was willing to do so," Makoto answered, it wasn't technically a lie, he was less willing than his sister, but she required subtly and Minako was not subtle.

"Okay." Ikki said, "So what did you want to talk about?" He asked

"Your injuries." As soon as Makoto said the words, Ikki's face hardened and it was clear that he didn't want to talk.

"Why?"

"I'm building a case against Kamoshida." Makoto supplied, making sure not to make reference to the fact that she had assistance. "And I need more confessions, don't bother lying to me as well, I can tell you look like someone hit you in the face with a baseball bat." Ikki looked like he was considering this.

"Not a word of this reaches Kamoshida?" He asked, sounding slightly scared and looking around, possibly for Mishima who was well known as Kamoshida's pet snitch

"Not a word," Makoto replied, the meaning was clear. Ikki looked rather relieved at that and stopped leaning forward in his chair and instead leaned back in his chair. "But I am going to need to record what you say, it'll be used as evidence," Makoto added, the news didn't seem to annoy Ikki at all, instead he seemed rather pleased at the news and when Makoto made an obvious show of recording he began speaking.

"So... my injuries, oh where to begin?" He sighed "A good start would be in my first year, he used to beat us for any minor mistake, you messed up a spike, beating, tripped, beating, got hit in the face, beating, stepped out of line, beating. I think you get the drift by now, I was pretty shit at Volleyball at that time, so I often went home limping with plenty of bruises on my face."

"What about your parents?" Makoto asked it made no sense that they wouldn't catch on.

"Oh them, they noticed after a week when Kamoshida ran out of wrist and leg to bruise and went for the face. I remember my mother asked me who did it to me, I did the only thing I could think of," He paused, recalling what he said, "I told her the truth, she didn't believe me and told me to go to my room for badmouthing a teacher." He muttered something under his breath "Despite that, I still went to Volleyball club, it was one of the few things in the school that would help a student who wasn't all that good in their academics. By my second year, I was a damn sight better at Volleyball, though this was mostly through trial and error, I quickly learned from my mistakes in order to minimise the number of bruises I would get, the year really passed uneventfully, my mother was shaking her head at how her boy, who she thought was a delinquent, was still part of the school's volleyball team that went all the way to the Nationals. The only real source of interest was at the end of the year when I got my nose broken."

"How was it broken?"

"You want to know, well, basically Kamoshida was really angry that day and decided to vent his frustrations while demonstrating how to throw a spike, three guesses where it landed." He paused for effect "It hit me right in the nose with the force of an angry god and shattered my nose. At this point, my mother asked me again about my injuries and I told her that it happened during Volleyball, not a lie but not entirely true as well, I had learned my lesson from last time, she wouldn't believe me if I told her the truth."

"And why did you quit the team?"

"It's simple really, I heard that Suzui-san was called into Kamoshida's office and well, he was very tense that day. I didn't know what happened to her, but after she was going to jump I did hear the rumours. I was disgusted by Kamoshida, my view of the man worsened even more and I quit the team." He paused a second "That is the short and long of it."

Makoto stopped the recording and played back part of it, the sound came out clearly and she looked satisfied "That is really good, thank you Ikki-kun." She stood up from her seat and put the phone into one of the pockets in her waistcoat and began reaching for her blazer.

"I wish you luck." Ikki said, "I mean that in all honesty."

"Well thank you, I wish you luck as well," Makoto replied

21/04/2018 - 16:20 - Diner - Arisato Minako

Minako had been dragged into a familiar diner by a very annoyed looking Ann.

Well, to say that she was annoyed was something of an understatement, she looked livid, though she put on a polite face long enough to get herself a flat white, Minako just ordered a coke using some of the money her brother had lent her.

Minako had a good suspicion about what Ann was going to talk to her about. "So what the hell is going on? You blackmail me and then call it off on the same day?" Yep, she totally was

"I initially wanted to help, however, I then realised that my attempts to help would have caused more harm than good, to both you and Shiho," Minako answered, trying to keep her voice neutral, she did feel guilty about what she did.

"So why did you try to blackmail me?" Ann asked

"I thought you asked my brother about this," Minako said, she had heard as much from her brother

"I have, but I want to know what you think," Ann said, taking a small sip of her coffee

"Well... I notice that often people are hiding secrets that they shouldn't be or holding back saying things that they would regret not saying earlier, I often try to give them a push, I never actually intended on delivering on my threats, it was just a case of the illusion of a deadline, it would encourage people to expedite the process."

"So it was basically manipulation." Ann summarised, her face hardening

"Yes," Minako confirmed, there were no two ways around it "Though later I realised that I was basically forcing you and Shiho to out yourselves." Minako provided, not noticing her slip

"Wait, what was that you said?" Ann asked, hearing something of interest.

"I was basically forcing you to out yourself." Minako corrected, trying to cover up her mistake.

"You mentioned Shiho," Ann said

"Yes," Minako replied, there was no hiding it, while Ann was sometimes oblivious to some things, she had noticed Minako's slip up

"Is Shiho gay?" Ann asked,

"I'm sorry, you didn't notice that?" Minako said, her voice was incredulous "I noticed that from looking at the both of you." Ann's face went red as she thought through every interaction with Shiho in a different light. "However, in the interest of keeping things fair, I will tell Shiho that you're gay."

"Wait, why are you doing that?"

"Shiho would probably be wondering what the hell is up when you start flirting with the knowledge that she does swing that way," Minako explained, "She'd probably want to know, she's been feeling down lately and I think that information is what she needs to lighten her mood." Without waiting for Ann's response, the brunette took out her phone and her fingers flew over the on-screen keyboard with precision

Ko: Ann's gay
Shuzi: What?
Ko: Takamaki Ann likes girls.
Ko: Just thought you should know, she's already figured out how you swing.

Minako put her phone away and tried to ignore the fact that she was sporting a shit-eating grin. Today was a good day.

21/04/2018 - 17:00 - Shiho's House - Suzui Shiho

Shiho was wondering what the hell was going on. First, she was blackmailed by Minako, then the brunette called the blackmail off, then the brunette told her that Shiho's secret was spilt to the one person that she never wanted to know about it and that the blonde felt the same way.

In short, it seemed to be a strange day. Shiho walked into her house when she smelt something weird, a scent that was coming from the kitchen.

She followed the familiar scent and saw that her mother was home. Shiho blinked and rubbed her eyes to make sure that she was seeing things correctly and yes her parents were in the house.

Shiho almost forgot about what misery there was in her life, this was a really good thing that had happened to her, but she was wondering what had brought this about.

"Hello mom, I'm home," Shiho said, her voice was full of joy and a small amount of contentment.

 

[Unhacker]

22/04/2018 - 6:20 - Shibuya Station - Arisato Minako

Minako and Minato were waiting at the subway for their train, both of them looked quite bored and occupied themselves with two different activities.

Minato was playing a, rather old school, JRPG on his phone, his earphones on, drowning out the game's BGM with his own music.

While Minako spent some time reading that volume of Manga that she had bought two days ago, taking some joy in the fact that her favourite characters were happy and having fun, oh if only her life was like that, full of cute girls with generally happy times ensuing for everyone involved. She wondered if what she did concerning the relationship between Ann and Shiho was the right thing and if it would help her.

When she thought about that, she often thought of what one of her many uncles and aunts would have said, in this case, she thought of Aunty Kikai, a rather quiet and demure old woman who never married, she adores relationships no matter who or what the participants were, just as long as they consenting, this was what Minako thought of as the voice of reason for most relationships, while for the voice of tradition for relationships was the voice of her Uncle Shizi, a rather stern and traditional man who had openly voiced his disapproval at what Minako often read (yuri) and seemed like the textbook example of the Unreasonable Asian Father (all grades must be perfect for his approval, in the top ten of the class was the minimum for him to acknowledge your existance), if she was to ask him, he would say something along the lines of how what they had wasn't a real relationship and was just a disgusting affair or something similar, while Kikai would probably say that it was so sweet that young love was still blooming and that they should be happy for eachother, in most cases, Minako would side with Kikai.

She felt her phone vibrate in her breast pocket and pulled it out, it seemed that she had some texts from Ann

Ann: Why'd you tell Shiho
Ann: She texted me this morning asking if what was said was true
Ann: It's going to be so awkward talking to her now

Minako looked down and noticed that Shiho was also texting her

Shizu: I asked Ann about what you told me and she still hasn't replied yet
Shizu: I'm worried that she's mad at me

She looked down at her phone and considered what to do, there was some element of annoyance when she looked at the two girls' texts, why'd they go to her? She certainly wasn't an expert in relationships.

"Excuse me, miss?" A voice said, Minako turned around and saw something that she'd never thought she'd see, a teenager, in 2018, with a mullet, like a full-on mullet. It took every effort she could find to not laugh in this teenager's face. "You were glaring at your phone quite a bit. Is something wrong?" The teenager's voice was certainly smooth and when he talked, she swore she could see a few girls swoon, though this boy did look familiar, not that she could place where from though.

"No nothing's really wrong," Minako said, waving off the boy, the more she looked at the boy, the more familiar he seemed to be "Do I know you from somewhere?" She asked this was a question that needed to be answered.

"From your fantasies, perhaps?" He said, she could hear his eyebrows wiggling at that and she resisted the urge to headbutt the boy where he stood. She assumed that he could tell how thoroughly unimpressed she was at that line "I'm kidding, probably from my TV appearance, the one concerning the judicial system and the understaffing of the police." Oh yeah, that one, oh she was going to have words with this boy

"Oh yeah, you're that junior detective, the one some are calling the Second Detective Prince, though the people who are more dramatic are calling you the Japanese Sherlock Holmes," Minako supplied, this was the boy, Akechi Goro, the boy who apparently had a sharp intellect, a silver tongue and rapier wit. "Akechi-san,"

"That's my name, please, be sure to take care of me." He said, finishing the typical greeting with a bow and she could have sworn that he just winked at her. She could see the fangirls swooning, she could also feel the angry glares from some girls as they spotted him talking with a girl who wasn't them and she could hear their lies that were being weaved by the second, it said something about where her life was that she was used to such things happening to her.

"I'm Arisato Minako, it's a pleasure to meet you." She introduced herself, pretending not to notice that Akechi's eyes lit up with understanding "I think we should cut this conversation short as it seems this conversation has drawn the attention of your fan club." She added, directing her glance specifically at one of the fangirls, who she recognised as Eiko-senpai. He looked around and saw that there was a collection of school girls and middle-aged women who were glaring at him.

"I see," Akechi said, his eyes darkening when he saw some of the older (middle-aged) fangirls "I won't keep you any longer," He backed off and went his way, only some of the glares from the Akechi fan club had lifted.

Welp, there's a new rumour, that she's dating the Japanese Sherlock Holmes

22/04/2018 - 6:30 - Shibuya Station - Akechi Goro

So that was the illustrious Arisato Minako, for someone who was convicted, she was surprisingly agreeable, though she brushed off a pick-up line that he had used to make many girls swoon over him, he often wondered how some fell for such a cheesy line, probably wanting to be connected with a famous person, but that was not his main concern.

His main concern was the girl who he had just met, almost as tall as him, striking red eyes like his as well, with a gaze that seemed to flicker around the room as it took notice of everything around her. When angry, her face contorted into something that would make the Devil shiver, while when happy, she looked rather pleasant, if a bit plain. When he talked to her, he could almost see her put on a mask which looked like a polite smile, this mask only really broke when the judiciary was mentioned. So that was a sore subject, though that was to be expected.

Though what was worrying was the fact that he couldn't find the other twin, though chances are the two would be close by, though he was slightly annoyed by the fact that Makoto hadn't updated him on the school situation.

22/04/2018 - 7:30 - Shujin Academy - Kawakami Sadayo

Sadayo was interviewing one of the first-year students about Kamoshida, her smartphone was doing a video recording of the interview.

"Wait, does any of this reach Kamoshida?" the first-year, a boy called Kita Takao, asked after answering all of Sadayo's questions.

"No, I'll try to make sure that you won't be punished for coming forward." She answered, reassuring the boy. The boy himself had black hair, combed into a small fringe that went right, his face was lightly bruised, though he had shown off the bruises on his arm and they were not pretty, she couldn't understand how Kamoshida thought he could beat students this much, though he had been able to get a tenure for his position at the school, which meant that he was able to get away with it for years at least, though then again, if you bring presitge to the school on a consistent basis, you basically get a tenure.

"Oh thank god," The boy said, rubbing his left wrist, "Is there anything else you need to know Kawakami-sensei?"

"No, that'll be all," Sadayo said, watching the boy leave the room, quickly.

Sadayo wrote down the last of the details and turned off her phone's camera, interviewing a student was way more stressful than she thought and she dressed up as a maid for a second job.

She sighed as she turned off the phone's camera, she put the last of her notes into a small brown folder that she hid inside her yellow ring binder. She looked at her desk and took a final chug of her morning coffee (took with a cream and five sugars) and ignored the fact that it was lukewarm at this point, she still needed her caffeine to make it through the day, lukewarm coffee or not. The clock on one of the walls of the office told her that Homeroom was beginning.

Sadayo got out of her chair, smoothed out her clothes and went over to her classroom, hugging the ring binder and by extension, her interview notes, close to her chest, hopefully, what she was providing would prove useful to getting Kamoshida put behind bars.

22/04/2018 - 8:40 - Shujin Academy - Arisato Minako

Minako was listening to another lecture from Ushimaru-sensei, she swore that if she had to hear another talk about the moral fibre of the country, she was not going to be held responsible for her actions, though that would be an interesting headline: 'Teacher stabbed by a student because "He deserved it"'

Nah, probably not the best idea, despite how tempting it would be, that and he'd actually then have a point.

"Now some of you believe that there are issues surrounding Japanese Society today," Ushimaru said, his voice was somewhat condescending though he was taking a break from his normal method, so Minako was willing to be talked down to as long as she didn't have to listen to more waffle "Would any of you want to give an example?" Minako wanted to say something about the criminal justice system or hell, anything. But another student beat her to the punch.

"What about Gay Marriage?" A random student said, she looked to see who volunteered the answer and it was, Mishima, oddly enough, had to give some respect for the little snitch, he looked rather nervous as he realised that people had, in fact, heard him speak up. There was not a word to describe how disappointed Ushimaru looked, there was also a mixture of annoyance in his look.

"Kids these days..." He said to himself, his hand on his face. "Alright kids, and listen up and listen good. This sort of perversion that is common in the west and is destroying our culture should not be treated like its an actual relationship, mostly because it is not." Oh goody, he was one of those people. Minako tried to ignore the fact that those words sounded like a personal insult. "All of you need to know that relationships like that are Class-S relations for a reason, they are to be abandoned by the time you enter high school. Any exceptions to this are immature and need to grow up." Minako could see Ann's hands clench into fists, though Minako couldn't talk, her hands were also clenching and she did what she normally did when this topic was brought up, put on a polite smile and keep silent. She felt an even stronger urge to stab Ushimaru, she looked over at her brother and saw that his fists were slightly clenched, there were few things that pissed him off, but one of them was being called immature.

Minako could hardly fault her teacher, he was transparent about the fact that he was a traditionalist, she wasn't entirely sure what she was expecting.

22/04/2018 - 8:42 - Shjin Academy - Takamaki Ann

Ann did not need to hear Ushimaru's lecture, she was used to hearing such comments, she had heard such when Kamoshida had to pause her dates to talk with his friends over the phone, she had heard such opinions from more than a few older men and women, though it also seemed to be related to her appearance as well, apparently her part-American origins made her 'easy' or a 'degenerate' among other things.

She was pissed off and she knew this really well, even Minako's teasing was good natured and it was clear that the girl had no genuine malice behind it.

"Minako-san," Ushimaru said, getting the attention of the brunette. "You look like you want to contribute something to the discussion."

"If it's alright by you, sir, I'd like to not say anything," Minako said, Ann was surprised, she could hear the barely restrained anger in Minako's voice, Ushimaru did not look that impressed

"Nonsense, I think it's important for all voices to state their opinion," He said, though based off his open disdain for Minako, it felt wrong for him to say that it was like Kamoshida being a decent person, it just felt wrong.

"If you insist," Minako said, her voice was laced with reluctance "Shall I be a good machine and spout the opinion you want me to say or shall I give my honest opinion?" Minako asked, her voice was very jokey though Ann could hear the glare that the brunette was giving her teacher and could feel the murderous intent radiating off the teacher.

22/04/2018 - 12:50 - Shujin Academy - Arisato Minako

Minako's forehead hurt like a bitch, it turns out giving the infamous 'Wielder of the Death Chalk' sass was a bad idea and there was now a massive bruise on her forehead as he just pelted her with a stick of chalk so hard that she didn't give her opinion, as he was readying another piece of chalk.

So there was that matter, but more importantly, there was also the matter of the Kamoshida case.

"So Minako..." Ann began, her voice mischievous "what was your opinion on the subject?" Ann didn't have to say what the subject was because she knew what Ann was referring to, unfortunately.

Minako began to quickly consider her options, would she out herself or would she pretend to just be an ally? She began fiddling with a pen that she had in one of her pockets. That was until Ann noticed the cover of the manga that was in one of Minako's blazer pockets

"Minako, is, is this Yuri?" Ann asked, her voice putting on a faux-scandalous tone, "who've guessed?" She giggled "Who've thought you'd be such a fan of Morinaga Milk?" Minako felt the urge to punch Ann in the face "I guess this means that-" Minako cut the blonde

"Yes, I'm gay and yes, I support Gay Marriage," Minako said, her cheeks were red and she honestly wished that the earth would open up and swallow her whole, this was not her ideal scenario "can we please drop the issue?"

Ann seemed to get the message and awkwardly apologised for her questions, realising that it was a sore subject for Minako,

It was at this time, Makoto arrived at the rooftop, looking surprisingly pleased "I just talked with Kawakami-sensei," She began "We might actually have enough to press the issue with the police,"

"You mean like an anonymous tip?" Ryuji asked, sounding somewhat confused,

"Something like that, if all else fails, I can get my sister to pull some strings and get an investigation on him," Makoto said, the mention of her connections, though then again Makoto was definitely the kind of person who would hate using family connections.

"So that leaves the question...." Minako began

"Should we actually press the case now?" Minato finished, he seemed to be mulling it over in his head, "we should press it," he said.

"Do you think they'll believe us?" Ann said, it was true, they were just a bunch of school children.

"That's why we'll ask Kawakami to do it," Minako provided "While we are schoolchildren, she can actually provide an explanation and be respected," She said the last words with a grimace, it was true after all, they wouldn't even take them seriously unless they had good video evidence against him and even then it was unlikely anything would come of it.

What a shit situation, though due to the fact that they had a teacher on their side, suddenly, the situation was immediately better, it was understandable, so that way teachers who were simply unpopular wouldn't be investigated because of it, after all, no one liked Ushimaru, but he wasn't a bad person.

22/04/2018 - 15:20 - Shibuya Station - Arisato Minako

Minako was just leaving the subway, somewhat satisfied by the fact that the Kamoshida incident was going to be over when suddenly, her phone started vibrating, she quickly brought it up to her ear and answered it. "Minako speaking," she said into her phone pleasantly.

"Hi, Arisato-san, it's about your job application to Grey Cloud Cafe." The voice of the American receptionist spoke, Minako felt some nervousness sink into her as she heard the receptionist speak. "After a short period of shortlisting, we've decided to employ you on a part-time basis." The voice said and Minako could've sworn that the world just got a little bit brighter, yes finally, income a job.

But then it was curbed by her realising that she never really intended to get this job. Ignoring that minor road bump, "Thank you, when do I start?" she asked, despite the fact that she never really wanted this job, she was still pleased to get an income, this would mean that she wouldn't be as reliant on her brother lending her money as she normally was.

"I think we've got an empty slot on Saturday, about 5 PM," The receptionist said, this was followed by the sound of her asking someone else about the time, before she then spoke again "Yeah, Saturday 5 PM,"

"Thank you," Minako said, her voice was proud

"No problem, just be sure to be there on Saturday," The receptionist said

"I will, goodbye."

"Bye." The receptionist said. This was followed by the dial tone and Minako felt her chest swell with such pride that she almost ignored the look that her brother was giving her, she then put her phone away and ran after her brother who gave her a look that said 'Move it, gotta get on the train'

22/04/2018 - 16:00 - Niijima Sisters' Flat - Nijima Makoto

Makoto was studying in her room, or at least, trying to study, there was a massive problem with trying to do that these days and that was the small fact that the Kamoshida case filled her waking thoughts, she wouldn't mind the thought of bringing a repulsive man to justice so much if it wasn't for the fact that exams were coming up and she would need to make sure that her grades were consistent.

She was sitting at her desk, empty notebook in front of her, open history (one of her weaker subjects) book in front of her, kept at a roughly 45-degree angle by a stack of textbooks she had behind it. A ballpoint pen was in her hand and despite all that she wanted to do, she couldn't focus on the words of the textbook, as such, she couldn't even begin trying to decipher the useful information from the textbook's waffle.

She slouched in her chair, allowing her honour student act to drop for a minute, while it was satisfying, actually trying to help out the school, she knew that it might actually affect her future prospects, it was a trade-off and the decision made always told you something about the person. She wondered what her sister would do in this situation.

She sighed heavily and looked back at the textbook, the words looked somewhat clearer, she began writing down what she could while she could still focus.

22/04/2018 - 18:00 - Cafe Leblanc - Arisato Minato

Minato was angry, well that wasn't entirely accurate, he didn't really like to consider himself angry, such a disposition often clouded one's judgement.

A more accurate description would be calm with some rage shimmering underneath, he wanted to deck Ushimaru after his talk about gay people and some of the anger from that was felt throughout the day and it annoyed him, not only was he called immature, but that it happened so early in the day that it soured his mood for the rest of the day.

Though that was not to say that there weren't good things about the situation as well. For starters, they had enough evidence to build a decent-enough case on, they could probably actually give some defence attornies a run for their money with the testimonies, so that did mean that the police should be receiving a tip-off that one Kamoshida Suguru was not nearly as good as the world believed him to be.

A second good thing was that his sister got accepted for her job, which meant two things, one was that she could stop borrowing money from him (though he doubted he was ever going to given that money back), a second was that he had teasing ammo against his sister. A third point, which sounded minor, but did wonders for his mood was that it improved her mood, she was the sort of person who always tried to seem happy and Minato had spent most of his life looking at that fake smile of hers, though when she gave a genuine smile, it shone like the sun and it genuinely did improve his mood, though he tended to get happy as a result of everyone else's happiness.

They were currently sitting in one of the booths of Cafe Leblanc, pretending to be customers for two reasons, one was that a businesswoman was currently drinking some coffee from Sojiro and the second reason was because the Cafe wasn't actually closed yet as there was also an old couple getting some late night coffee as well, though they spent most of their time talking to each other.

The businesswoman was wearing all black, the specific shade was midnight black, blazer, turtleneck, black suit trousers and black heels. She had long grey hair, the colour of the hair looked like some had turned that colour from stress and some had turned that way from hair dye. Her long hair was asymmetrically styled and pulled to the right, revealing several black hair clips that she had on the left of her hair.

In short, she cut a figure of a someone who was married to their job and had a serious attitude in both the workplace and at home. Minato also thought that he saw something resembling a wistful expression on her face, either way, she was still rather young looking, which made the fact that she looked like she was married to her job even more heartbreaking.

She was currently sipping coffee and probably pondering something, her gaze was focused on the CRT TV in the corner which was still playing The Tabloid News.

Minako was currently focusing on her schoolwork, trying to translate a sentence from a language that she could read to a language that she could not even begin the make heads or tails of, like why the hell does their alphabet have 26 letters and why are the grammar rules for the language so retarded from time to time? Though it was not like she could complain, asking her brother to write down his answers as he was better at translating block text, for him, she would help with his literature homework, even though she found the class to be an absolute joke.

The woman in a business suit eventually finished her coffee and got off the stool that she was sitting on, she was about to walk towards the door when she saw the twins in a booth, studying. "Nice to see some students doing some work," She said, her voice carried the, now familiar, tone of someone who was perpetually stressed.

Minako was the first to answer "Thank you very much miss," She said, deciding to take the woman's statement as a compliment, the woman then looked at both of them

"Do I recognise you two from somewhere?" She mumbled before her eyes lit up in understanding "Are you two the Arisato Twins?" She asked while it was grammatically a question, it was more like a statement.

"Yes," Minato answered in his normal deadpan voice "What's it to you?"

"Forgive me, I forgot to introduce myself, I'm Niijima Sae," the woman said and both the twins started to notice the similarities between the Niijima sisters "I've seen your files, all of it."

Well, that wasn't creepy "Who hasn't seen our files," Minako snarked to her brother

"I'm sure quite a few people have, though this is a rare occasion, someone actually seeing all of the files," Minato answered back

Sae looked rather unimpressed at that "I've got a sister at Shujin Academy-" she began only to be cut off

"Niijima Makoto, I know her, we talk to each other, a lot," Minako said

"And I know, if we so much as think of doing anything to her we'll be sued for all we're worth and dragged kicking and screaming back to Juvie," Minato added, his voice as snarky as ever. He looked over and saw that Sojiro looked absolutely appalled "But thank you for the warning anyway,"

"Don't stress yourself out," Minako fired as Sae started walking away, looking very annoyed.

Oh, they were soooo going to pay for that later.

 

[Unhacker]

23/04/2018 - 05:00 - Cafe Leblanc - Arisato Minako

Minako looked up at the ceiling as she lay on the sofa, she only got four hours of sleep that night. She was far too nervous to get much sleep, there were too many things to think about, she hadn't resolved the Ann/Shiho issue, she wanted to make sure that she made a good impression at work and more importantly, she wanted to see if Kamoshida would get locked up.

Would the investigation actually pay off, would he actually be able to hire a lawyer who can protect him and be that 0.1% of people who are found innocent in the Japanese Judicial system? Probably not, but she couldn't help but think about, she occasionally rid herself of more unproductive thoughts but that left her with the trifecta of thoughts that she didn't really want to overthink.

She eventually settled with staring into the void, trying to remember when there were exams, she made a small "Tch" sound whenever she remembered that there were exams that she would have to do, she would do something but she didn't want to wake her brother up, also that ceiling was looking more interesting by the second.

23/04/2018 - 7:30 - Shujin Academy - Arisato Minato

Minato knew for a fact that it wasn't a rare occurrence to see members of the police in Tokyo, though usually, they were on foot, patrolling the streets and trying to keep the peace.

Though it was odd to see a squad car parked outside what was a prestigious school, especially the school that he went to.
"What the hell is going on?"

"Why are the police here?"​

"Maybe the delinquents did something."​

"That'd be fun to watch."​

Minato stood there, in the alleyway that Ryuji had shown him on his first day, prepared to watch the events that were going to happen. Out of the car stepped two police officers, professional as always and Minato had to admit, he felt a small bit of panic when he saw the police, memories of that night flashing through his head.

He saw that Kawakami was at the door to the school, she led the officers inside the building and Minato held his breath for a minute waiting to see what would happen, his sister caught up with him and actually bumped into him.

"Hey, Mina, what's happening?" Minako asked, sounding a bit confused.

"One, you know how much I hate that nickname. Two, it seems the police are going to have some words with Kamoshida," Minato admitted he let himself grin at that, there was something so ... satisfying about seeing justice actually being delivered.

"You think they'll arrest him?" She asked

"Why wouldn't they, I expect he'll be found guilty as well," Minato answered, there was some fun in knowing his odds of being found innocent.

"Hey, what are those delinquents
doing?"​

"Why's he smiling at that?"​

"I can't help but think they're
going to mug someone..."
Minato smirked slightly at the rumours "Hey Minako, apparently, we're going to mug someone," He said to her, just loud enough for some of the gossipers to hear.

"Really, that's the first I heard, and here I am without my mugging knife," Minako responded, with an overdramatic sigh, also making sure that she was loud enough for the gossipers to hear her. "Such, a shame, looks like we're going to call the whole thing off," she shrugged.

Minato noticed that some of the gossipers started walking faster. It was then that he saw it, Kamoshida was being dragged off by two officers.

"Hey, let go of me!" Kamoshida shouted at one of the officers who had already cuffed him. "I haven't done anything!" he shouted at the other police officer, despite himself, Minato started to properly smile. As he was being dragged into the squad car, he shouted one last thing "How dare you treat me like this! You're going to be hearing from my lawyer!"
"Why the hell is Kamoshida being locked up?"

"Maybe that rumours true."​

"What rumour?"

"You don't think it is, though?"​

"Who knows?"​

If Minato was going to be brutally honest, this was one of the best days he could remember, he only hoped that this wouldn't be the peak.

23/04/2018 - 8:00 - Shujin Academy - Suzui Shiho

Shiho couldn't believe her ears when she heard that Kamoshida had been arrested, she was ecstatic, scared, but most of all, relieved. She had even asked Ryuji (he shared class with her, though they rarely talked) and he confirmed that Kamoshida had been arrested in the morning.

Shiho knew that she should be happy, but there was one small problem and that was the fact that she still had an unresolved problem, which was Minako who she wasn't sure if she was trolling her, which might actually be true, or it might not be true. The Brunette didn't ever seem to see a reason to explain herself to other people and this was no exception. She wondered what her angle was, though a lot could be said about the brunette as a whole.

She sighed to herself, to be honest, lunchtime could not come sooner.

23/04/2018 - 11:00 - Shujin Academy - Arisato Minako

Minako was wondering what would happen to gym class considering that the coach had been arrested. The answer had come pretty quickly and that was in the form of it being converted to a class of self-study.

"Hey, when are the tests?" Minako asked Ann, who slouched at the mention of the tests.

"Why'd you have to ask about those, just let me have one goddamn day of enjoyment," Ann moaned, with a small amount of despair in her voice, "to answer your question: it's after Golden Week."

Golden Week, Minako had almost forgotten about that, an entire week off to do whatever it was that people did when they were on holiday, though it was a public holiday, which meant that there would be longer queues than usual, but, discounts would also be offered so it balanced out.

Not like it mattered anyway, the looming threat of exams would sort of kill the mood, she hated the fact that she would have to study during the holidays.

"Thank you," Minako said, reaching into her bag to pull out one of her notebooks, hopefully, her handwriting was legible enough to read, so that she could at least pretend to revise.

What an interesting line of thought, one of her teachers had been arrested, she had even helped collect evidence that would be used to find the man guilty and all she could think about was her goddamned exams. That probably said something about her mental state that she wasn't that keen to unpack.

23/04/2018 - 12:30 - Shujin Academy - Arisato Minako

Minako made her way up to the rooftop of the school, which the gang had claimed as their unofficial meeting spot and it was a good one as well, the gossipers didn't go there, there were some seats that no-one used and it allowed them to take advantage of the good weather.

Such a shame that her good mood was ruined whenever Ann dragged her off to the side, oh goody, it was going to be one of those talks.

"Minako, we need to talk," Ann told her, having dragged the brunette off from the main spot the group would normally take.

"Of course, what do you want to talk about?" Minako responded, smiling slightly, pretending that she didn't know what the problem was, she knew very well what the problem was, Ann wanted blood or at least an explanation, she probably wanted an explanation more.

"I need your help," Well that was unexpected. She wanted the Minako's help! she could just squee right now "What's so funny?" Ah, yeah forgot, she not good at hiding her facial expression.

"It's nothing," Minako said, still grinning, "I'm sorry, I must have misheard you, I was sure that you needed my help."

"That's what I said," Ann replied, sounding a bit annoyed "I need your help to confess to Shiho," she was blushing and Minako was torn between laughing in Ann's face or making that high pitched squeeing sound, that is reminiscent of a kettle with boiling water, the sound she does whenever something good/cute happens in the manga she reads.

"Sure I'll help," is what the brunette eventually came out with, noticing that her voice was slightly higher pitched. She cleared her throat and then said: "I mean, I'll be more than happy to help."

"Are you serious?" Was the first thing that came out of Ann's mouth and Minako had to admit, she was a bit miffed at that.

"Yeah, I actually do want to help you." Minako responded, sounding serious, "anyway, we should get back to the rest of the group before they suspect something,"

23/04/2018 - 12:33 - Shujin Academy - Suzui Shiho

When Ann and Minako got back to the group, both of them were smiling, though Minako smiling wasn't anything unusual, that's probably how she copes with most things, while with Ann, it was standard for her to smile.

But that smile, she really wished she could see that smile of pure unadulterated joy more, and it just begs the question of what Minako did to get Ann smiling like that. Perhaps Shiho don't even want to know.

Maybe the two of them had begun dating? In that case, she would have to wish them the best, despite the fact that the one who she love would not be with me, though the two of them could be commenting on how happy they are that Kamoshida got arrested.

"Wait, you saw that piece of shit get arrested?" Ryuji asked Minato, his manner of speech as vulgar as always, he seemed to always want to fit at least one swear into every sentence.

"Yeah, it was satisfying..." Minato said, his face certainly did not match the words he was saying, maybe Minako would be better at deciphering what his facial expressions meant, lord knows the two of them are close enough, "It as also immensely amusing to see him shouting at the cops as they dragged him away." Minato added

"Yeah, he was shouting stuff like 'You'll talk to my lawyer!' like any lawyer would want to defend him," Minako added, her tone was humorous "Though they probably would if he offered enough, but even then not that many want to be connected to a case like that. He'll probably just get an inept attorney."

It was a cruel kind of logic, but it made sense, no one really wanted to be connected with what Kamoshida did and no-one really wanted to defend him, though there would still be some people who would, but that was beside the point. "So... any plans?" Ryuji asked

"How about we hit the town and celebrate, I'm pretty sure that we could get into Ryuji's favourite place," Minako suggested, sounding far too enthusiastic

"Good point, you did actually get the job so you can actually pay for the meal," Minato said

"My shift starts today, so it can't be today." Minako responds

"What exactly does she do?" Ann asks in the beautiful voice of her's

"She works at a maid cafe," Minato answered, dropping the words like they were nothing, at the mention of her job, the brunette started to do her best impression of a tomato. Ann and Shiho started snickering, Makoto looked frankly disappointed and Ryuji was flat out laughing and Minato was smirking.

This was fun teasing ammo.

23/04/2018 - 13:40 - Shujin Academy - Suzui Shiho

Shiho had to admit, between the teasing of Minako and the fact that Kamoshida was locked up, it was enough to more than make this one of the best days that she'll have all year (second only to hearing the prison sentence of Kamoshida), as a result, she had a small grin on her face, she never really allowed herself to have a large grin on her face, it left people believing that she was up to something, especially due to her normally gloomy personality.

She felt her phone vibrate in her blazer pocket and slowly but surely pulled out the phone, hoping that Ms Chouno didn't notice the fact that Shiho was breaking school rules by looking at her phone in class.

What the cause of the vibration was a single text

Ko: Come to the Library at 4 PM, I have something for you.

Well, that wasn't ominous.

23/04/2018 - 15:55 - Shujin Academy - Takamaki Ann

Ann was in the library with Minako, she had pegged it as a brainstorming session. Though there was one question on her mind.

"Maid Cafe?" Ann asked the brunette, causing the girl to unleash a tormented groan.

"Can we not, please?" She responded, she still kept up a polite smile, but her face looked annoyed,

"Come on, spill all the details, do you get a discount?" Ann asked, her tone scandalous, to be honest, she was mainly curious but there was some fun in teasing the brunette who had teased Ann for so long.

"If we continue this, then I'll stop helping you with your love life," Minako threatened, her smile was still polite, but her eyes were very annoyed.

"We'll see how good you are at brainstorming ideas, then I'll consider it," Ann responded, she didn't want to waste her time on brainstorming that wouldn't really result in anything.

When the two eventually got started, Ann decided to make use of the first draft of an unsent love letter. Minako's eyes brightened at seeing this and her smile became genuine, it was easy to tell when they weren't fake because they were just a bit wider than what was considered polite or normal for that matter.

She quietly read the love letter, maintaining her happy expression, her eyes quietly scanning the words on the paper. After a solid minute, she put down the love letter and looked Ann square in the eye "I am really glad you never sent this letter," She paused "It's terrible." She gestured to part of the letter "I have been in love with you for many, many years" She said, reading out the lover letter in the sort of voice that you hear reading a cheesy romance novel, "I know that you won't return my feelings because I'm a girl, but I still need to tell you and I still hope beyond hope that you could find it in your heart to accept my feelings and be the Juliet to my Romeo," She continued, before stopping to giggle "You are aware of the ending to that play?"

"It was the first draft," Ann defended, while this love letter was unsent, it was actually a copy of the one that she sent for Valentine's Day. "What's wrong with it specifically?"

"The 'many, many years' might have something to do with it, an important thing to know about love letters is that while it might seem obvious to you who the writer is, to Shiho she might think that it is someone else." She looked at the love letter "You also didn't leave your name, or like a nickname that she might know you by."

"I was really nervous about her rejecting my feelings, so I wanted to leave nothing that would lead back to me,"

"And you decided that you would leave a vague message that could relate to you instead"

"Yeah." Ann was unsure why Minako looked at her phone and started grinning, "What are you looking at?"

"It seems like we have company," Minako said, beckoning someone over, Ann looked at saw that it was Shiho. "Did you hear everything Shiho?" The dark-haired girl nodded, looking rather shocked. Minako stood up and left the library "I think both of you have something to talk about,"

Ann found herself cursing the situation that she was in and the brunette in specific as she looked at the shocked face of Shiho, it was over, wasn't it? Shiho knew and she would be disgusted by Ann, "That letter on Valentine's Day, that was you?" Shiho asked, her voice sounding like an angelic chorus, Ann numbly nodded in response to this "Is it true that you were in love with me?"

"I-I" Ann began, stuttering slightly, she wasn't used to be nervous about saying things "Yes, it's true." She sighed "I have loved you for quite a while,"

"Why?" Was all that Shiho asked, "You could have your pick of girlfriends and you go for me."

"Why wouldn't I love you?" Ann responded "You have such wonderful, silky black hair, your smile is just pure beauty, you have such wonderful muscles and when you laugh it makes my heart skip a beat," Ann supplied, trying her best to keep her voice level and not to babble or ramble "Your personality really is the best, you are so selfless, even when you were being beaten, you worried about me, you always loved my lame jokes and never made excuses when it came to me." She sighed, talking about this was embarrassing, especially considering the fact that Shiho hadn't really moved after hearing this "I still remember the day I met you, most of the girls at the school talked about me behind my back, but you just talked to me and offered to be my friend, it was one of the best days of my life." Ann said, really hoping that Shiho would respond "Shiho, I don't care what you say, I've already made my peace with the fact that you won't love me, just please say something."

"Why am I only hearing about this now?" Shiho asked, her voice somewhat hollow.

"I've been scared of what you would say, you were one of the few people whose opinions I cared about, I tried to make myself content with only being your friend, I didn't want to burden you with my own selfish feelings," Ann responded, she was having a hard time keeping her voice level, "If you're going to reject me, just do it already, I'm a big girl, I can handle it."

"You idiot," Shiho said, Ann felt her mood worsen, so this was it, all those hopes and all those dreams for nothing. She sighed "I won't say anything like that," wait, what "why would I say something like that, when I love you."

Ann was wondering if Shiho was being honest or being cruel, it could just be a case of Shiho confessing her platonic love. Ah platonic love, what a hindrance "Shiho, I don't think that my love is the same kind of love that you're thinking about. I want to do things to you that would make even hentai artists blush," Ann said, that line sounded better in her head "And after that, I want to be able to live with you until we're both old and grey."

"Funny, that's the kind of love I feel for you as well." Ann blushed heavily at that, was she being serious? "I didn't ever really figure out how to tell you about my own feelings," She giggled at that "I can't believe we were both dancing around an issue that didn't exist."

Yeah, when put like that, it made Ann think that they were effectively worrying over very little. It almost brought a smile to her face, though she wasn't entirely sure how to ask Shiho out on a date.

23/04/2018 - 18:00 - Niijima Sisters' Flat - Niijima Makoto

Makoto was sitting at the dinner table, waiting, she had already eaten her dinner and was now waiting, she looked down at her phone again and sighed, she had gotten a text earlier

Sis: Makoto we are going to have a talk
Sis: Make sure you are home.

Makoto wasn't sure what was scarier the fact that she could detect her sister's anger over the texts or the fact that she wanted to talk.

She heard the door open and saw her sister walk in, dressed in her iconic black and grey suit. her face was a mask of barely restrained anger, mixed with ... concern? She put her bag down and took off her shoes when she was finished she took a seat across from Makoto at the dinner table.

"Makoto, the most curious case came across my desk today" Sae began, her tone was faux-casual and Makoto could guess that it was about Kamoshida "When did you plan to tell me about the fact that your gym teacher was a child abusing paedophile?" Well, that was blunt.

"I didn't want to bother you, sis," Makoto said, not really thinking of a reason. "You're always so busy all the time and I didn't want to worry you as well."

"You know I always-" Sae began, only to be cut off

"You don't, you've yelled at me before for taking up too much of your time and I know you work hard, so I didn't want to put any more pressure on you."

"Point taken." Sae conceded, sounding a bit offended, but she understood the point "So, what did you do about your gym teacher's tendencies, or how did you find about it?"

"One of the transfer students told me, he then told me that he and some of his friends were gathering evidence." Sae's face turned sour at the mention of the transfer students though it would probably be because they were criminals

"You trusted him?"

"I didn't really, but what he said made sense, it explained why Suzui-san was so intent on jumping off the roof of the school."

"Wait, a girl was about to commit suicide at your school?" Sae asked, she really didn't like being kept in the dark about most things

"The principal wanted a media blackout about the incident since Suzui-san was talked down by the other transfer student, the principal was able to keep a lid on it." Makoto wanted to add 'presumably by sitting on it' but it did not fit with the conversation "After a while, I was able to identify that there was, in fact, a large amount of abuse being perpetrated, I was even able to interview one of the students." Makoto added, she admitted, that she was proud of the fact that she was able to display her ability to investigate cases. "Eventually, we managed to talk one of our teachers into tipping off the police and interviewing students, since they had better powers to interview students, well, more than a student council could muster."

Sae appeared to be thinking about what she was just told, her face was stern and neutral as she mentally processed the flow of information that Makoto gave her. Eventually, she decided that her facial expression would be one of pride and annoyance, an interesting combination "I'm still annoyed that you didn't tell me what was going on, I could have pulled a few strings and got a professional investigation on him, no problem and I'm disappointed that you didn't trust me enough to tell me about him." She looked off to the side "though I am proud of your courage and initiative and your investigatory abilities."

Makoto resisted every urge she had to squee at the fact that her sister had approved of her, something that never really happened that often these days.

 

[Unhacker]

24/04/2018 - 07:30 - Inokashira Park - Arisato Minako

Minako was sitting on a park bench at Inokashira, she felt ... bored. Sure Kamoshida was in jail which was wonderful, but she had nothing else to do now.

Ann and Shiho now know about each other's feelings, so all that was left was for them to get together, there was a little bit of satisfaction from making the two realise their feelings.

She had got a job, so there was that level of income, so she wouldn't have to borrow money from her brother.

School was going well, self-study allowed for extra time to focus on her studies.

There was the problem of her own love life. Let's see what her past romantic partners: No-one. How about her past dates: One, and that one was when she was figuring herself out.

She was not sure what it said about herself that her response to solving a major problem with her school was the fact that she was bored.

24/04/2018 - 07:35 - Inokashira Park - Takamaki Ann

Ann was unsure of what to do, she would admit, she had no idea of what to do when it came to love, she was able to go through the motions when it came to dating Kamoshida, though that was just to make it look like she didn't abhor the man, he already knew that she hated him.

Now there was the problem that Shiho and Ann had come to an understanding but then it led to the fact that neither really knew what to do in this situation.

She saw Minako sitting o a park bench and sat down next to the brunette.

"Good Morning Ann," Minako said, her voice spoke of boredom.

"Minako" Ann said, colder than she intended, Ann wasn't sure how to deal with the brunette or what her deal even was, the girl seemed to like helping people but choose some of the worst methods of doing so, engineering a case where Ann would talk about her feelings in front of Shiho was a very prominent example.

"So how's Shiho?" the brunette asked, the tone of her voice was somewhat cheerful.

"She's alright, now that she knows about my feelings for her, sort of wants to go out during Golden Week." The blonde replied twirling a single finger in her hair, the gang were going out tonight to celebrate Kamoshida getting locked up, but in the morning no one had any idea of what to do. "I guess I should thank you for confessing to Shiho." The brunette smiled at that, clearly enjoying being acknowledged for something.

"No problem" The brunette responded. "Well, actually it was kind of a problem, but I had fun helping you."

"Don't you mean 'teasing'?" Ann asked, "Or do you actually mean 'helping'?"

"Yes."

24/04/2018 - 12:20 - Shiho's House - Suzui Shiho

Shiho was sure of one thing, her world had finally got happier. For starters, she now knew that Ann felt the same way towards her. Secondly, Kamoshida was locked up and thirdly, it seems like her parents had finally started coming home at regular hours and were actually present in the house on Sunday.

Shiho was spending most of the day in her room, she was trying to figure out what to wear tonight when the gang went out to celebrate. As she looked through her wardrobe, she came to a realisation: All of her clothes were very plain.

It was actually surprising when she thought about it, when she was still on the volleyball team, her casual clothing meant very little to her and she never really paid attention to what she wore, now that she looks back on it, most of her clothes are a variation of pale blue jeans and white polo shirts or t-shirts. She was friends (and hopefully something more) with a model, it made very little sense to her that she had such plain clothing.

She was currently dressed in a pair of fitted baby blue jeans and a white tank-top and the fact that she was looking through a wardrobe filled with exactly the same kind of clothes was amusing.

Shiho huffed and sat down on the ground, she didn't have any good clothes to wear to the group meeting. She couldn't just cancel on them, it was at this time that she remembered who the other members of the gang were:

Ryuji - Who had an infamously bad sense of fashion (nicknamed the 'Whatever he can get off the floor' style)

Minako - Something of a hipster, has a bit of an emo sense of fashion

Minato - Something of an emo sense of fashion, probably has a pair of rainbow coloured shoes that he hides.

Makoto - Wasn't sure on that one actually, it was probably smart and really mature. (Never saw that one out of school)

Ann - A lot of red was in her clothes, she always also seemed to brown shoes as well

Shiho realised that she could just ask Ann for help with buying clothes during Golden Week, sure a shopping date is not exactly what most people think when dates are mentioned, but it was better than nothing.

She also knew that Minako had no room to tease her, anything that the brunette said could be shot back because the girl worked in a maid cafe.

Though thinking of the gang, she had to remind her parents that she was going out tonight. "Hey Mom," She shouted out of the room, her mother opened the door to the room.

Her mother was a woman called Kimiko, she had long shining black hair that poured over her back like a waterfall, though with stress some of her hair was turning grey, she was rather alright in her figure as well, giving off a very mature businesswoman vibe.

"Yes, honey?" She said, her voice was sickly sweet. It was obvious that she was trying to sound caring, Shiho just thought it sounded insincere

"I'm going out with my friends tonight, is that okay?" Shiho asked.

"Why, is it a mixer?" Mom said, "If it is, no."

"It's not a mixer, my friends want to go out," Shiho responded

"Okay," Mom said, she didn't sound all that pleased. Shiho wondered what her Mom would do.

24/04/2018 - 13:20 - Cafe Leblanc - Sakura Sojiro

Sojiro had to admit, he didn't have that many good days, the fact that most of his cafe's clientele were old and didn't have many friends were part of the reason, another reason was probably the fact that most of the clientele were the sort of people who liked the peace and quiet and as such, attracting more customers to the cafe seemed like a bad idea to them.

Such a shame that it wasn't a good idea for him, he made a loss most days when it came down to it. He almost wished that he actually took money from the twin's family, though he couldn't bring himself to do that.

Today was a good day though, not because of his customers, no it was rarely a good day when they were concerned, that old couple was a good example, never bought enough coffee to justify the amount of time they spent in the cafe, honestly, four hours and a single cup, between the two of them.

Why today was a good day because of the fact that he was able to get his surrogate daughter, Futaba out of her room and managed to get her in the cafe, sure, she was lurking in one of the darkest corners of the room, but it was a step in the right direction.

She was quietly sipping coffee in her corner of the room, looking at her smartphone, Sojiro thought about those jokes that some of his more middle-aged clients said about kids with their phones, Futaba was worse, she almost always had a screen in front of her face at some point.

It was a wonder her glasses still worked for her, though it might not actually, given how close she looks at her screens, it might be possible that her glasses are no longer fitted for her eyesight.

If nothing else, Sojiro was glad that Futaba was becoming less of a shut-in.

24/04/2018 - 14:40 - Inokashira Park - Takamaki Ann

Minako had left a few hours ago, apparently getting bored of the quiet and left the blonde with nothing but her thoughts.

Ann always relied on the principle of not over-thinking things, doing that tended to make the situation worse than it actually was, but she felt her thoughts drift towards Shiho, Ann was scared of messing it up with the dark-haired girl, Ann loved Shiho and didn't want to mess up the relationship, mostly because she felt that her relationship shouldn't end on a sour note.

Eventually, after the better part of an hour was spent overthinking a relationship, Ann got up and did a quick stretch, before going off back to her apartment, it was then that she felt it.

Ann had a good sense of when someone was watching her, she learnt it as she worked as a model and right now, she knew that she was being watched intently, she cast a quick look around the park but didn't spot anyone who looked out of place, there was a young man who was painting, but he looked intently focused on his painting so chances are it wasn't him.

Regardless, Ann didn't like the feeling of being watched most of the time and due to the fact that she couldn't even tell who was looking at her, she decided to increase the pace at which she walked.

24/04/2018 - 14:50 - Shibuya - Sakamoto Ryuji

Ryuji had to admit, the fact that Kamoshida had been locked up made him feel fantastic, all of that misery that he faced for a year, all that ridicule, suddenly everything was better, it wasn't worth it, but it was still quite a good thing.

Ryuji was currently playing some arcade shooter right about now and had to admit, he was doing better than normal, that didn't mean that he was actually getting into the top ten, but hey, it's not like he was complaining, it allowed him to relieve stress and got his mind off the various homework assignments that he had to do half-heartedly.

Though his thoughts were on a certain transfer student, the blue-haired one. The boy had a nice agile figure, not all that fit but he was more than willing to help out. A nice sarcastic personality combined with a sharp intellect that Ryuji never could really understand, he wanted to know what was going on in that beautiful mind.

Huh, Ryuji's thoughts turned very gay for a second there, it was probably nothing.

24/04/2018 - 15:50 - Shiho's House - Suzui Kimiko

Kimiko was unsure of why her daughter was going out, however, after seeing the bruises on Shiho's face, she knew that Shiho might have joined the wrong crowd, so it was her responsibility to save her daughter from that.

She got dressed in one of her many suits, a two-piece navy-suit with no tie. She fixed her hair into a loose bun so that she looked like a businesswoman who was on her way into an evening shift. To help preserve that image, she brought a book with her, a romance novel because it helped solidify the image.

She saw her daughter leave a few minutes beforehand, dressed in a pair of fitted light blue jeans with a few rips (she never understood what the rage was with rips in clothes), a white polo shirt and a light blue zip-up hoody, she cast a somewhat innocent image.

After she looked at herself in the mirror and was content with how she looked in the mirror and began to follow her daughter to the train station.

24/04/2018 - 16:30 - Tokyo Subway - Suzui Kimiko

Kimiko felt somewhat bad about the fact that she was following her daughter, however, her pursuit was bearing some fruit already, Shiho had met up with a rather unkempt looking blond boy with obviously bleached hair, the man stood out like a sore thumb, mostly because of the fact that he was a walking fashion disaster (honestly, a purple tracksuit jacket?).

Her daughter was playing on her phone much like the blond boy, Kimiko played the role of businesswoman on the train and read the novel, looking like a bored woman waiting for her stop.

Looking at the blond boy, she could determine a few things about him, he was probably fit based off the physique that he had and he was probably a delinquent based on his bleached hair, he might have been poor because of the fact that his bleached hair looked like it was poorly treated.

What sort of life had Shiho lived when Kimiko was away at work? All she heard was that Shiho was an avid player of Volleyball and was very sporty, though that was what she had heard and Shiho did have a large number of bruises on her, Kimiko never found the right way to ask why she had those bruises. Maybe she had fallen in with a gang recently? Though those bruises were always there, maybe she had been bullied?

24/04/2018 - 17:40 - Sato's Beef Bowls - Suzui Kimiko

Kimiko was unsure of her daughter's group of friends.

For starters, there was the blond boy she had met on the train, the boy walked with a slight limp and practically screamed delinquent.

Secondly, there was a couple who they met up with, a blue haired boy and a brunette. The blue-haired boy wore a pair of dark blue jeans and black boots, complete with an off-colour white t-shirt and black-ish brown blazer, his hair was styled into a fringe that almost covered one of his eyes. The girl, on the other hand, wore a pair of fitted black jeans (rips at the knees), a pair of black trainers, complete with half-rims and a black hoody with a sinister design on it, her hair was styled into a short high ponytail.

Third, a girl who looked rather sophisticated and mature, all things considered. She wore brown boots, black suit trousers, a black turtleneck and a turquoise coat. Her hair was an auburn brown and was styled in a short bob with a small braid over it.

The final member of Shiho's friends was a blonde girl, the girl had bright blue eyes, and her hair was styled into two long pigtails that went down to her shoulders. She wore a pair of beat-up red converse trainers, black tights, an off-colour white skirt, over that was a lilac shirt that was not tucked in and an open red and white letterman jacket. Kimiko remembered this girl as 'Ann' that girl who was staying with Shiho the other day.

What an interesting group of people, Kimiko was glad that when she got to her table, she was within earshot of the group, but was not in direct sight of them.

"So, gang, today I would like to propose a toast." One of the girls said with a cheery sound in her voice, Kimiko assumed that it was the ponytailed brunette. "To our gym teacher and his guilty verdict." What? what had she just heard, they hoped that their gym teacher was found guilty, why? there was a resounding "Kampai" from the group, the irony was not lost on some of the middle-aged customers that the students were drinking non-alcoholic drinks.

"Glad that piece of shit got arrested," one of the boys said, cheery and somewhat angry

"Damn straight," the other boy said, his voice apathetic, "if he gets found innocent, it'll be a miscarriage of justice."

"Right you are, brother," the cheery girl from before said, "I never thought I'd be glad to see someone go to jail, but he proved me wrong." These were teenagers talking about their teacher going to jail, why were they so happy? Why were they talking about miscarriages of justice? "We got justice for you Shiho, and if that doesn't make you feel good, I'm sure that Ann will."

Kimiko could feel her world breaking down, was her daughter gay? She was raised to be better than that, or was the ponytailed girl gay? The blonde girl, she would have suspected, but still. What were they talking about, what did she mean by justice for Shiho. There was a list of questions that Kimiko felt the need to ask.

"Minako, stop teasing Shiho." The second boy said in his apathetic tone, she risked a glance and saw that it was the blue-haired boy.

"Sure thing, Mina" the girl, Minako said, her tone humourous, the mention of the name caused everyone at the table to laugh.

"Mina?" Shiho asked, trying to cover up her snickering

"It's what she used to call me as a child," The boy said, his tone was faux-angry, she could almost imagine the gritted teeth.

"So..." Shiho began "Minako, Mina," there was a small huff at that "If you don't mind me asking: How'd you get arrested?" What? Shiho was hanging around criminals.

"So, you want to know our tragic backstory?" Minako said, her tone was darkening, but still had some humour "Well, brother you do the honours."

"Well...." The boy, apparently called Mina, said: "It was late one night, we were heading home from cram school, Uncle Shinzi had signed us up for it without our permission."

"As we were heading home, we took a shortcut as we wanted to get home faster," Minako continued "We didn't normally take it at night but we were in a hurry. That was when we saw it." She paused for effect and Kimiko wondered if these two teenagers were making up this story as they went or if they had the story pre-planned.

"A bald man was forcing himself onto a woman, he shouting various things about money and how, and I quote, the police are my bitches, end quote." She could almost imagine the air-quotes

"The man was obviously drunk, and she was obviously unwilling, her screaming probably told us that much." Minako picked up, "I was the first to act and I pushed him to the ground, Mina here went to the woman to comfort her."

"The police had shown up and the drunken man told the police that he had been assaulted by us, the woman was even coerced into giving a testimony against us," Mina added, "We got sued and an assault charge was put on our permanent record."

"Yeah..." Minako said, her tone somewhat sad "Most of the friends we had built up at Yasogami High had flat-out abandoned us and we found ourselves on probation in Tokyo." Minako sighed "So that's the portion of our tragic backstory that I'm willing to tell you."

Kimiko scoffed, it was obviously fabricated like the police would be that corrupt or incompetent to be unable to put two and two together in order to figure out who was responsible.

"A miscarriage of justice if I ever heard one." One of the girls said, Kimiko assumed that it was the mature looking girl "Honestly when I'm a cop, I'll try to change things."

"When we can vote, then we'll change things," Ann joked.

"Can we just get this eaten?" Mina asked, "Ko and I have to get home soon."

"I'll ask about Ko later, but why do you have to go soon?" The mature girl asked

"Our guardian is teaching us how to make coffee, we don't want to miss his lessons." Minako answered, "I should take you all there during Golden Week, his coffee is godly."

Kimiko couldn't be bothered to listen to the rest of their conversation and focused on her meal, there was far too much on her mind, she also had to get home before her daughter did.

24/04/2018 - 19:30 - Cafe Leblanc - Arisato Minato

Minato and Minako had finally arrived at Leblanc after a long train journey and found that Sojiro was waiting for them with a customer, in addition, they quickly put their things upstairs and got the pair of aprons that Sojiro kept under the counter ready.

"Now then, since you're going to be working the store, I'll have to hammer in the basics." Sojiro began, his voice had hit what Minato called a 'mentoring' tone "You know what I'm talking about, right?"

"I'm going to go with making coffee," Minako said, her tone humorous and the customer who was still there was smirking slightly at her humour.

"Yup, glad to see you understand that much, I was hardly going to teach you how to hit on people." He said, he looked off to the side "Those lessons are for later." He cleared his throat. "This store's not the busiest around, but I'm real particular on how the coffee is made here, it's a Coffee and Curry place after all." He looked the twins square in the eye "I'll kick you out no questions asked if you serve a bad cup, got that. I have a reputation to uphold."

The customer, a rather gaudy looking middle-aged woman wearing a pink jacket and floral dress spoke up "Let me tell you, So-chan definitely does things right with his coffee." Minato resisted the urge to smirk at the mention of the nickname. "It goes really well with that special curry of his, I can't imagine ordering anything other than the set meal every time."

Sojiro rubbed the back of his neck slightly "What can I say, each of my regulars gets an experience personally tailored to them. It's always fun meeting new customers and tailoring their experience."

The gaudy woman spoke up again "Can you tell me the key to that wonderful flavour? I'd love to make it at home sometime,"

"Sorry, trade secret, you understand right. Though feel free to guess what the secret is based on your own taste though." He smirked as he said that, Minato wasn't sure what the secret was, but he was determined to find it out.

"Cheapstake." The woman said, her voice was faux-teasing "Keeping secrets from me even though you know you've already stolen my heart with your food."

"His food steals the hearts of everyone, young and old," Minako said, speaking up, her tone was amused.

"I'm glad to hear it." Sojiro said to the brunette before turning to the woman "Anyway, how about a nice dessert for the road, it's only three hundred yen." Minato wasn't sure what it was about Sojiro but the man seemed to be not only a god of coffee and curry but also customer service. He was determined to find out his divine secret.

24/04/2018 - 20:30 - Cafe Leblanc - Arisato Minako

Eventually, when the woman left with her stomach full of Sojiro's food and her heart stolen, Sojiro turned back to the twins.

"When you run a shop, you get all sorts of customers, some good, some bad, but that doesn't matter. Knowing their personalities is absolutely vital. It's what being in the food service is all about, anyone can serve a cup of coffee," Sojiro said "But you need to be able to serve it so well that they'll feel like they're at home. Understand?"

Both the twins nodded, Sojiro was good at lecturing and teaching and gave clear and concise instructions, trusting his pupils would be able to pick up on what he meant.

The bell on the door rung, signalling the entrance of a new customer, it begged the question of who would be visiting at this hour. Sojiro turned and looked shocked, "Welco-" He stopped as he saw who had entered.

It was a rather pudgy looking middle-aged man with a black baseball cap on, complete with a black jacket and a pair of off-colour black trousers.

"You," Sojiro said eloquently, both the twins had never heard him sound like this, it could be best described as a mixture of scared and surprised, his face looked like a deer in the headlights.

The man put on a smile that didn't go up to his eyes "Hello there!" He said, his voice was that kind of cheerful that made someone worried, the kind that made you start inching towards the nearest exit in the room or any out in the conversation. "It's been quite a while, Sakura-san! I heard you open a shop, so here I am!" His face turned to a somewhat hurt expression "It wouldn't have killed you to mention it to me though." He looked around the store like a real-estate agent taking in the warm atmosphere of the place "Got a real nice location here, right by the station, near a residential area, really good at picking up commuters."

Sakura's face was stern and his anger was barely hidden as he simply said "Your order?"

"No small talk?" the man replied, crossing his arms, "that's cold, Sakura, really cold." He noticed something "but this smell ... sure brings back memories! You're still making that curry, huh? Guess you haven't gotten over her yet..."

"Your order, sir?" Sojiro responded, trying to steer the conversation back on track.

The man laughed, the laugh was about as fake as his smile and half as disquieting as his tone "You're so pushy today, Sakura-san. I just stopped in to say hi." he paused looking at his watch "I'll be back again soon. Bye!" He turned on his heels and went back the way he came, slamming the door closed on his way out.

After Sojiro was sure that the man had left, he let go of some breath that he was holding and, with an annoyed tone, said: "Don't know where he caught wind of this place."

"Seemed suspicious," Minako said.

"Like he was planning on blackmailing or extorting you," Minato added,

Sojiro smiled at that "Glad to see you two have an eye for some things after all." He turned back to the twins, "Well, nothing's going to help with that." he muttered under his breath before addressing the twins "If you have time for questions, you have time to be learning about bean types, you're not going to be of use to me if you can't pick up on the ABCs sometime soon." He looked specifically at Minako first, "This might actually help you out with your job, as for you," he looked at Minato "Ladies love a guy who knows his coffee. This isn't such a bad deal for you."

"I want the ladies to love me." He said with that apathetic tone of his, he was probably mentally replacing the word 'ladies' with 'boys'

Sojiro laughed at Minato's response "If you only you were this obedient all the time, I'd have no bother what so ever." He put his hand on his chin as he looked the twins up and down "Either way, I'm gonna teach you two right. That way, I'll be able to sit back and relax once in a while, watching both of you work instead."

Minako smiled at this and nodded, a deeper bond with Sojiro meant that they'd be trusted more and learning how to make good coffee was a skill, hell, they might be able to get a good job if they owned the place or started up their own coffee shop with this skill.

 

[Unhacker]

25/04/2018 - 07:30 - Shujin Academy - Arisato Minako

"I heard he beat his students"

"No really? I thought
they just liked bandages"​

"Shut up."

"He was so scary..."​

Minako had to admit, the arrest of Kamoshida meant that the school was abuzz with rumours, she always loved screwing with the Shujin Academy Rumour Mill but this was wonderful, not only was justice being delivered but the Rumour Mill wasn't focused on her.
"Do you think the Principal knew?"

"Of course he did, the fat
bastard just doesn't care"​

"Don't let him hear you say that."​

"What's he going to do,
sit on me?"​

This was just beautiful and it got better when Kawakami walked in, she looked rather pleased with herself, hell she also looked somewhat well rested, which was an improvement for her.

"Excuse me, class," Kawakami said "Before we take the roll there is something that I need to tell you, as your all well aware, Kamoshida has recently been arrested before you start celebrating, I'm here to tell you that the principal has requested that you pretend to be heartbroken by his arrest." Her face was scrunched up like she was cringing when she read those words "I'm also supposed to tell you that you're not to talk to any news outlets regarding the arrest of Kamoshida." That was met with various boo's, Minako was surprised that some of the students were actually doing that, "Hey, I'm just the messenger, I don't agree with this crap either." She said, shrugging. The students heard what she said and stopped booing as they just processed what their teacher had said. "Now, on to the roll call."

Minako was surprised, there was something almost comical about how Kawakami had turned from 'tired homeroom teacher' to 'only the best teacher in the entire damn school'


25/04/2018 - 8:00 - Shujin Academy - Suzui Shiho

Shiho had to admit, it was hard to focus on class, her thoughts were drifting to either Ann or Volleyball. When had her life come down to the point when that was very only two ports of call? It wasn't like she didn't mind, Volleyball was a really good sport and a fun one at that. And Ann was ... Ann, so pretty wonderful and good looking.

Shiho had to admit, she was trying to focus in class today, though she wasn't trying all that hard when it came down to it. The fact that it was English didn't help, she could barely figure out the language and the words being said barely registered with her, it was something about grammatical rules, though she had it on pretty good authority that no one who spoke the language actually cared about those rules. Ms Chuno herself looked annoyed as she talked about the grammatical rules, her heavily made-up features cast into a minor scowl as she read over grammar rules that she probably struggled over when she was young.

Shiho wondered how exactly anyone learnt English it seemed like such a hard language, too many different sounds and far too many words in that language as well, the grammar was also weird as well. Maybe it was a similar experience to native English speakers trying to learn Japanese?

She looked over to see how Ryuji was faring, there was a simple answer to that: he wasn't. Instead, he was sleeping in the middle of class. She found that somewhat amusing, mostly because she had some knowledge of him before he became the school delinquent and he was one of the least threatening and somewhat dorky people she knew and well... it was hard to see the delinquent Ryuji in him as he sat napping.

Ms Chuno coughed and Shiho focused her attention back to the front of the class, "Miss Suzui." Chuno began, using the foreign title, "since you're clearly paying attention," Chuno continued, the Japanese words being heavily accented with an American accent that she didn't quite recognise "Translate this sentence from English to Japanese." She pointed to a sentence that she had written on the blackboard.

"Of course," Shiho said, she was not really confident about the language, Ann had helped her with the pronunciation of words and similar things, but she never really picked up many skills when it came to translating. She looked at the unfamiliar words and mumbled them "I wasn't paying attention in class." the words barely left her mouth as she tried to mentally translate the English sentence to coherent Japanese "I wasn't" she mumbled, trying to figure out a sentence that made sense, she recognised the word 'paying' that typically had connections with money, but what did it have to do with class?

"Can't understand it?" Chuno asked, a single eyebrow raised, Shiho shook her head "Understandable, in the interest of time, I'll tell you what it means: I wasn't paying attention in class." Shiho felt some anger at the insult the teacher gave her. Wasn't her fault that she had more important things on her mind than a language that she would rarely use. She glanced back and Ryuji was still asleep, it was understandable that no one was waking him up, most teachers had flat out given up on the ex-athlete.

25/04/2018 - 9:30 - Shujin Acaademy - Takamaki Ann

Ann was currently in another Japanese lesson and the words of the teacher were not registering. She looked at the clock and silently wished that time could go faster.

Her thoughts drifted towards the incident yesterday, someone was staring at her quite intently, it creeped her out, she had just got one creeper off her and now another had risen to take her place. Was it a constant cycle? Such thoughts just made Ann huff slightly, the words of the teacher still weren't registering.

She tried to tune into the lesson but about a minute later, she found herself being bored again and tuned out the teacher again.

25/04/2018 - 12:10 - Shujin Academy - Arisato Minato

Minato was sitting on one of the desks that were on the roof of the school. All was well in Shujin. He was content and there didn't seem to be many problems. Minato made sure not to say that out loud, he didn't want to jinx himself and he found that the prospect of saying something like that out loud would be ... unproductive.

To be honest, most of the gang were sitting around talking away their lunch time. He looked at his notes, exam days were coming and he would be damned if his grade average would drop, his academic standards were at risk here and he wouldn't cheat like some delinquent.

"Hey, Minato," Ryuji said, getting the blue-haired boy's attention. "Think you could help me prepare for the tests?" This got the attention of everyone in the group. Minako let her face drop into a pitying look, Ann, Shiho and Makoto all looked curious at his statement.

"What got you interested in academics all of a sudden?" Makoto asked, sounding very curious.

"Well, considering that we are still waiting for Kamoshida's verdict and will be for a while, I think that I should try to improve my grades." He rubbed his right hand against the back of his neck "It'll help me get a job despite my shitty grades."

Minato looked Ryuji dead in the eye. This blond delinquent, a man who had less than stellar intellect but had his rare moments of brilliance, this was one of them. "Ryuji, just so you know: I will run this material over you to the point where remembering it will become instinctual, I will make sure that the only thing you think about at night will be my lectures. Got it?" Ryuji gulped at that and Minako looked at Ryuji with pity.

"Got it," Ryuji answered bravely, foolishly perhaps, but bravely. "When do we start?" Minako continued looking at Ryuji with barely disguised pity. "Why do you keep looking at me like that?" Minato looked at Ryuji with a single half-smirk.

"You don't know what you're getting yourself into, get out while you still have the chance," Minako said, pleading with Ryuji.

"How bad can it be?" Ryuji naively asked, as if he was asking the Gods of irony to strike him down.

"How often do you sleep during class?" Minako asked, "No, better question, how often do you space out during class?"

"Pretty often, why?" Ryuji answered the consequences of what he agreed to finally sink in.

"Poor child, you will not survive the winter," Minako said vaguely, "honestly though, Minato will run you ragged and more importantly, he will enjoy doing so." The aforementioned blue-haired boy gave his best sadistic half-grin in response to being mentioned. "I'm begging you to reconsider."

25/04/2018 - 12:30 - Shujin Academy - Suzui Shiho

After the rather loud discussion of Ryuji getting privately, and personally, tutored by Minato had finished, Shiho found her thoughts resting back on her home, she realised that she didn't really know her parents and she doubted that they knew her either.

They spent so much time away from the house that Shiho didn't really know what their preferences were, how they acted when they were angry, sad or happy. One of the few times they were home would be during Christmas and even then, dinner there was an awkward affair with them stiffly referring to each other and being unable to make anything more than polite small talk with each other.

She wondered what had caused her mother to look at Shiho so sourly. Though it was somewhat better than her dad trying patch things up, he tried so hard to be hip and it somehow made it worse when he did so, she was still trying to forget the flurry of outdated slang she had heard when her dad tried to talk to her.

It actually made her angry to a small degree, her mother never cared when her daughter walked home with bruises on her face and when she was angry, she didn't ask Shiho about it. Maybe when mother got home, then they could talk about it.

When she thought about it, she remembered the feeling of being watched when she was walking with Ryuji and meeting up with her friends, was she being stalked? If so, then who?

She was broken out of her musings by a hand flashing in front of her face "Hey, Shiho." Minako's voice broke through, waving her hand in front of Shiho's face "Earth calling Shiho, come in Shiho."

"Yeah?" She asked she was somewhat thankful that the brunette had broken Shiho out of a bad thought process.

"You were scowling a lot just now." Minako supplied "and I don't think that's your resting face either, so tell me, is there something wrong?" The brunette, although she sometimes didn't act like it, actually cared for everyone in the group, even if she had a pretty bad way of caring.

"Nah, don't worry about it." Shiho said, dropping into her normal method of getting people to stop worrying about her "It's probably nothing, just family problems." At the mention of the phrase 'family problems', Ann's face darkened in understanding.

So much for that method of evasion.

25/04/2018 - 13:20 - Shujin Academy - Takamaki Ann

Ann was left wondering a few things, one of the things that managed to float its way to the front of her mind was what Shiho was trying to avoid.

Maybe it was the family problems that she had mentioned at lunchtime, from what Ann remembered, Shiho had a pretty apathetic family, so much so that they didn't even seem to raise an eyebrow at her staying with Shiho all day, even during a school day. She didn't like when Shiho tried to get people to stop worrying about her, it probably one of the things that caused Shiho to be so prepared to take her own life. Ann still regretted not being able to see the signs of Shiho sinking into depression.

She was in the middle of a history class, which meant that she was being taught by Inui.

To say that the man was vanilla would be an understatement, he looked like the default character one would get out of a character customisation screen. About average height for a Japanese man, he was thin and was able to maintain a good posture while teaching. His features were averagely Japanese, his hair was pretty standard, the only interesting thing being the hair which was combed to the right of his head in something that could almost become a fringe if it was combed downwards as well.

His outfit was about as boring as the man was, he wore black shoes, black suit trousers, white shirt, red tie and a dark grey suit jacket (he must really be living on the edge), though she would be negligent not to mention his grey waistcoat, he was wearing it today, all of the clothes looked worn from years of usage. The man's face was stern and he had a reputation for being a no-nonsense teacher, though this led to his nickname among the students 'Ushimasu-lite'. She was snapped out of her musings when he coughed lightly.

"Takamaki-san, could you possibly tell me what Roman Emperor participated in the Olympics?" At the mention of the question, Minako's hand shot straight up, Minato also looked vaguely interested. Ann quickly ran through the names of Roman Emperors that she knew of, all five of the names: Ceaser, Nero, and what were the other one's names? Well, it looked like she had to take a guess and she wasn't even sure that Nero was actually a real Roman Emperor.

"Would it be Nero?" Ann answered.

"Are you asking me that or answering me?" Inui responded, it should be mentioned that was one of his pet peeves, he didn't like it when students didn't answer confidently, something about preparing them for life or something similar.

"Emperor Nero was the Roman Emperor who participated in the Olympics," Ann answered, she prepared herself to be reprimanded for answering incorrectly.

"Well done." He said that was basically his way of saying 'correct' "Can anyone tell me what exactly he did at the Olympics?" He asked, "Well, Arisato-san." He paused realising what he had done "The one who is a walking rules violation." Minato's head shot up at that and he realised that Inui was referring to him.

"Emperor Nero participated in Singing at the Olympics," Minato answered in his own way, intoning as if reading from a book "This was because Emperor Nero made up the event. Unfortunately, his singing skills were worse than his candle making skills." He also apparently had no chill if that dark joke was anything to go by.

Inui cleared his throat at that, "Quite." He responded "Since Nero held supreme power in the Roman Empire, he made Singing a competition within the Olympics, an event that he won gold for, though this was largely because of the fact that he was Emperor and not because he was particularly skilled at singing. As Arisato-san has stated, he had particularly bad singing skills and was tone deaf, he even used to hold long singing performances where the audience would not be allowed to leave, women pretended to go into labour and men would pretend to die in order to leave these events." He finished with a small chuckle, why was it that History teachers found amusement in the smallest things. "Because of these actions, as well as the abundant reports of his lecherous side, he became what was known as a Despot."

Ann could not stand this class.

25/04/2018 - 13:30 - Shujin Academy - Suzui Shiho

Shiho was stuck in a class with Kawakami, someone who Minako had described as 'only the best teacher in the entire damn school' sure, the woman had helped during the Kamoshida case, but she couldn't have been that good, right?

Kawakami's teaching style was often moderately fast, she wrote a lot on the board, her elegant hiragana and kanji gracing the blackboard as she wrote out concepts on the board, she generally didn't like long lectures, she would write on the board, answer student's questions and ask questions of students to make sure that they understood what was being taught. "Sakamoto-san." She asked, causing the blond boy to snap to attention "What's the common usage of kakushinhan again, regarding an action you take?" Ryuji had not been paying attention in class, hadn't he, it was very likely after all, he was often lost in thought, blanking out or straight up sleeping in class, it actually made Shiho slightly concerned when she thought about it.

"It's knowing your actions are wrong, right?" He said, looking over his notes. There was a look of hope on Kawakami's face as she processed what Ryuji had said.

"That is correct Sakamoto-san." She said, clearly not quite believing the words coming out of her own mouth. "Anyway, the real meaning of kakushinhan is the opposite, so what is it?"

Ryuji was thinking about it, despite what many believed the boy was somewhat smart, just never really had any conviction in class. "Conviction that you are right?" He answered.

"Sakamoto-san, I never thought I would say this, but good job." She responded, a look of pride and accomplishment on her face "Now please keep it up for the rest of the year."

"Yes, miss." He answered, sounding very proud of himself, Shiho was almost sure she was dreaming, Ryuji was actually becoming smart. What nightmarish hell dimension was she living in? After pinching herself, she decided that she was, in fact, living in reality. The gossipers had apparently started to process what had just happened as well.

"Did, did Ryuji just answer a question?"​

"More importantly, did he answer it correctly?"

"Okay, what the hell is going on?"​

Well, at least they weren't blaming it on witchcraft like that one time last year.

25/04/2018 - 16:40 - Shibuya - Takamaki Ann

Ann was wondering how exactly she was going to broach the topic of Shiho's home life, the dark-haired girl had a habit of shutting people out when it came to deal with her problems, it was very admirable but it was also very unhelpful when it came down to it.

She twirled a finger in her hair as she sat down on some bench and thought about things, it was then she felt it again, someone was looking at her very intently, she tried to look around for the culprit but couldn't see anyone around. If she was lucky it was a separate incident from the one at Inokashira Park and that it wasn't the same guy, however, if she was unlucky, it was the same guy. The gaze was the same intensity and she felt sick at being glared at despite not being able to see the person.

She couldn't see anyone who really stood out, the closest she got was a sighting of that young boy she saw painting yesterday. Wait, what if? No, that's not likely. Ann started to walk home, making sure to get into large crowds in order to help lose the man who was staring at her, she wouldn't be surprised if the man would start following her, so all she had to do was make sure that she lost him in the crowd.

25/04/2018 - 18:00 - Shiho's House - Suzui Shiho

When Shiho had entered the house she entered her room almost immediately to start on what homework she could do, though that was not much, she really couldn't focus as her head was a flurry with thoughts which ranged from dating Ann to what had pissed her mother off so much.

She was currently sitting at her kotatsu and was trying to get her English homework done before it piled up, the keyword was trying. In actuality, she could not really focus on the subject, oh what she wouldn't give to have Minato explain the entire subject to her in his deadpan voice.

Though her somewhat frantic homework session was interrupted when her mother entered her room, without even knocking as well.

"Shiho?" She asked, her voice was stern but there was a hint of 'caring mother' in her tone as well. "Can we have a chat?"

"Of course, mom." She said, preparing to get up, but was shocked when her mother sat down at the kotatsu with her daughter. "Okay, so what do you want to talk about?"

Shiho's mom started pondering on how to phrase what she was about to say "Have you started seeing someone recently?" She asked.

"Mom!" Shiho responded, out of all the questions she expected she never thought that'd be one, "what makes you think I'm dating someone?"

"Well, you've been happier lately." Shiho looked shocked at that. "You could've been discussing your boyfriend with that Ann girl the other week." Little did she know "And while you were out with your friends, I found a bunch of unsent love letters." How did she find those? Shiho had hidden them in a hidden compartment in her drawers.

"Fine, I've found someone I'm interested in, but we haven't started dating." Shiho said it was true, but she was keeping a few details out of the exchange "No need to worry."

"Oh, I am worried, I followed you to your meeting with your friends." Mom said

"Wait, you followed me to when I was meeting my friends?" Shiho asked. She was honestly not entirely sure if she was hearing that correctly. Her mother was about to start talking but Shiho felt the need to continue "No, I'm sorry mom, I'm not going to let you say anything, you followed your own daughter to a meeting with her friends and then you no doubt eavesdropped on us, due to the fact that you would hardly start worrying just from looking at us."

"Let your mother talk please." Mom responded, "Shiho, I try to care for you, I really do and I can't help but think you might have fallen in with the wrong crowd." She sighed, thinking back to what she remembered from eavesdropping on her daughter "Two of your friends are criminals, all of them want their teacher to go to jail and more importantly, one of them mentioned how Ann could make you satisfied." The two women of the Suzui family looked at each other, eyes meeting.

"I know the Arisato Twins are criminals, I knew that when I talked to them, they're good people, better than half the school for that matter." She added. "I know we want Kamoshida to go to jail, he deserves it for every second he walked free from jail and every time he abused his students." Shiho was getting somewhat angry

"Why'd you never tell me he was abusing you?" Mom asked

"Because you were never at home, how I could tell someone who I saw only like five minutes a day?" She said, asking a rhetorical question "Moreover, I doubt you would've cared, you never showed any sign of caring, even when your daughter was walking home limping with bruises." She tried to control her anger before she said something that she'd regret "Oh but now when I found a group of people who actually care for me, when I found people who act more like family than my actual family, I've suddenly fallen in with the wrong group and you need to save me from that."

"I'm trying to protect you."

"I'm sixteen mom, I don't need your protection." Shiho responded, "In fact, I wanted to tell you something anyway, though I'm sure you figured it out, seeing as you eavesdropped on my conversations and read my love letters." She sighed, there was no going back if she stopped, mom would undoubtedly re-read the love letters and figure it out. "I'm a lesbian." She said finally, this was not how she imagined coming out to her family, being angry with her mother and sitting at a kotatsu. Though she found that there was something worse when she looked at her mom, the woman wasn't responding.

"Where did I go wrong?" She mumbled to herself "Was it because I was never home?" She asked herself "Why, what did I do to cause you to think that way?" She paused, as if in thought for a second before continuing "It's that Foreign girl isn't it?"

"What, no," Shiho said, she would have said that she was born like this, but her mother continued

"Was it the criminal girl?" She asked.

"No, it was not Minako" She answered, "I was born this way, mom." Her voice was resolute, she had to at least get that much through to her mother.

Her mother actually started to tear up, "After all these years, my beautiful baby girl has turned into a faggot." She sniffed "Maybe I shouldn't have focused so much on my job, I could have stopped this from happening."

"No, you would've been able to come to terms with me earlier in life." Shiho disagreed with her mother on a lot of points, to put it simply, she didn't like what her mother was saying and she would be damned if she didn't get at least a few words in.

25/04/2018 - 21:20 - Ann's Apartment - Takamaki Ann

Ann was sitting on the sofa in her apartment, trying to figure out what could be bothering Shiho, all the while ignoring her cat, Morgana who was trying to get Ann's attention.

The cat itself was rather smart and could see that its owner was troubled by something. Ann still paid her cat little attention as she thought more about it. It had to be Shiho's parents, the girl didn't have any siblings that Ann knew of, the girl was wondering what it would be about, Shiho's parents were apathetic, that was all Ann had seen, she wasn't entirely sure what would make Shiho worry so much.

She was knocked out of her musings from the sound of someone knocking the door. Strange, Ann didn't expect anyone today. Ann was getting off the sofa when the knocking began again, it was a polite knock, the sort you would expect from a salesman.

Ann looked through the peephole in her door. What she saw was a crying Shiho. The blonde quickly opened the door and came face to face with the dark haired girl, she was still in her school uniform and she had a small suitcase with her as well.

Ann put the pieces together in her head. Shiho was kicked out of her house. "Ann, do you mind if I come in?" Shiho asked, she was trying to keep her voice steady, but there were still plenty of tears on her face. Ann moved out of the way and was surprised as Shiho acted like nothing was wrong, politely taking her shoes off and casually stepping into Ann's apartment like she wasn't crying.

"Shiho, were you kicked out of your house?" Ann asked, she knew it was something of a dumb question, but it was probably a good question to start with.

The dark-haired girl nodded, "Do... do you mind if I stay with you tonight?" She asked. Ann felt her face heat up, she didn't have a spare room in her apartment and well, looking at Shiho she would have to help the dark-haired girl, the two were best friends (and romantic interests)

"I don't mind at all." Was all Ann could answer with. She'd ask Shiho about why she got kicked out later.