Chapter Text
Kazuki
“We’re here.” The driver says glaring at me with her dark eyes. The cars pulled up into a large gravel drive in front of a towering castle, i’m not even exaggerating it has literal turrets and battlements. Plus huge, well kept grounds surrounding us.
“Thanks,” I say stepping out of the car. My stomach turns as I walk toward the great doors.
Two—what I suppose are—butlers get out of the car behind me and remove my trunk from the boot. The sound of them dragging it through the gravel behind me is loud, annoying, and most certainly not helping my anxiety. I wish they’d pick it up. Can’t be that heavy for two burly adults.
My palms are sweating but i’m afraid to wipe them on my new trousers. This uniform is fancy. Too uncomfortable and too showy. I don’t like it. It’s nothing like the shorts and baggy shirt we wore at my old orphanage. Don’t get me wrong i’m excited to go to this fancy school my great uncle picked out, but i’m nervous too. This isn’t my league of society.
Once i’m through the huge doors I see it’s just as grand as the façade. A huge double staircase, plush carpet, a fucking chandelier and countless ornaments. I can’t help but smile. This is the most amazing, most terrifying place I’ve ever set foot.
“Ah! Kurusu you are finally here!” Announces a bulbous man in a tight suit as he rushes over to shake my hand. “It’s wonderful to see you here at Oki’s school for the criminally minded!” He has large almost bulging eyes and an uncomfortably firm handshake, distracting me from his words. That’ll be why it sounds like he’s saying, ‘school for the criminally minded’.
“Sorry what?” I ask in a small, fearful voice.
“Pardon?” He is still shaking me hand. It hurts.
I must have misheard. Best to drop it.
“Oh, nothing sir.”
“I’ll show you to your room then, shall I?” He asks finally letting go.
“Yup.”
“Yes sir or yes Mr Vandell,” he corrects. “We talk properly when we are in school. You must work up a good vocabulary and perfect mannerisms. Do you understand?”
“Yes sir.”
He smiles garishly at me again before turning on his heel and striding up the stairs.
Me and my stuff are escorted to a comfortable looking dormitory. It contains ten single beds five to a side. Each one with a number at its head, 1 to the left of the door and 10 to the right. Each with its own chest of draws that double as a bedside table and a trunk at the end. Once my trunk has been deposited i’m left to it. Standing awkwardly beside my bed. It’s marked four.
I spend far too long there bouncing on the balls of my feet wondering what to do. Eventually i do snap myself out of it, settling for unpacking my stuff. Carefully, I mimic the layout of everyone else’s things. That is apart from the inhabitant of bed 5. Bed 5 has few signs of life. If not for the trunk and ridiculous heap of books I would have thought it unused.
Once i’m done, I once again have nothing to do so flop down onto my bed, the stupid boater hat tumbling to the floor. I run a hand through my scrappy hair wondering what the other boys will look like. Was it a good idea to turn down the offer of a hair cut?
Don’t panic Kazuki. This should be fun, it’s been a while since you had new friends. Just make a decent first impression and don’t panic. The students will probably be really fancy though and might not like me, we won’t exactly have much in common. Speaking of my fellow students where the hell is everyone?
Then like I summoned him, the door opens and in comes a boy with the most shaggy, unkempt wavy hair I’ve ever seen. It covers most of his face to the point he looks like a children’s cartoon character and he isn’t in uniform. Instead dressed in black trousers and a baggy shirt, coupled with dark blue braces/suspenders and socks. No shoes though. His shirt is untucked and one of his braces/suspenders isn’t attached properly. My guess, he’s come from the toilet not expecting company.
The poor guy doesn’t notice me sitting silently and gawking at him. Instead he strides across the room, hands in pockets hair shielding his eyes. Then he trips over my trunk falling to the flor and rolling onto his back braces/suspenders now hopelessly tangled and detached. He stares up at me.
Well at least he noticed me, right?
“Uh… hi.” This wasn’t the first impression I had in mind. Don’t panic. “My names Kazuki Kurusu. It’s nice to meet you?”
No response. His hair has flopped off his face to reveal blue eyes and dark eye bags, skin so pale he looks dead.
“I’m new.” I say incase that somehow wasn’t clear.
The boy scrambles to his feet corrects his appearance and retreats to bed 5 like a spooked animal. He seems a fitting person for the strangest corner.
“What’s your name?”
“Suwa.” He pauses at the foot of his bed and glances over at me. I assume Suwa’s his surname.
“Where is everyone? It’s a Saturday, right? Surely there should be more people around? It’s not like we go home for the weekend, do we?”
“No.”
“Then where is everyone?” His hair is parted enough to make out the death glare he’s giving me.
“In town.”
“Town?” I ask aiming for more info although honestly i’d be lucky to get a reply, he looks mortally offended I even spoke to him.
“Yes. Town.”
“Thanks that really clears things up,” I sigh sarcastically.
Once again I’m not sure where to go from here. He’s opened a book and is happily ignoring me. It feels cruel to interrupt the introvert but I still need some help. I don’t know what the fuck is going on in this place. I know I probably misheard but I can’t get ‘school for the criminally minded’ out of my head. To tell the truth i’m scared.
“So why aren’t you in town?” Nothing. He doesn’t even look at me. “Uh Suwa?” I scramble over my bed and poke him in the arm. “Suwa,” I say again in a singsong voice.
“What?”
“I’m not sure what to do. No one really gave me any instructions.”
“Dinners at six, can’t miss it because of the bell, the library is downstairs and the bathroom is at the end of the corridor. Bye,” he says pointedly. Quickly snapping shut his book and throwing it down on the bed. It’s a murder mystery. Then he practically runs from the room.
What an odd creature. I think smiling.
I decide not to follow him. I think he might crash out if I keep pestering. So I leave it. For now at least. Instead, I start nosing around the rest of the dorm finding nothing interesting apart from a suspicious number of pen knives and a lot of crime novels. Then I get bored and leave the confines of the room.
Naturally the first thing I do while exploring is accidentally walk into a girl's dorm and get yelled at.
I run out instantly genuinely scared and surprised; this school didn’t seem like the kind to have girls. Not that there’s anything bad about girls! Just that the school seems too old fashioned for mixing genders.
After that i’m a lot more selective with which rooms I enter. I eye up every unmarked door, distrustful. So when I eventually find a door that is actually clearly marked as the library I enter with a sigh of relief. There settled in happily high up a ladder is the boy from earlier.
Suwa is reading (obviously as he’s in a library alone) but his hair has flopped all over the pages of his book surely blocking the light and covering up the words.
“Hey Suwa!” Just like upstairs i’m completely ignored, so I get a bit closer and say it louder. “Hey Suwa!”
“Shhhhh!” The librarian—a very old man with beady eyes—hisses at me from behind his desk in the corner.
“Hey Suwa,” I whisper for the third and hopefully final time.
“Oh. You’re back.” He groans finally noticing me.
“Hi!”
“I said shhhhh!”
“Sorry Mr Librarian!”
“I thought we were done.” Suwa looks seriously confused. Do people really not try to talk to him?
“Nice to see you too.”
“Do you want something?” He asks with a loud sigh.
“Yup. Uh…” I scan the room for a conversation topic, if I keep asking the same questions we aren’t gonna get anywhere. “Got any book recommendations?”
“The Encyclopaedia on mortal wounds.”
“The what?!?”
“The. Encyclopaedia. On. Mortal. Wounds.”
“What is up with this school!” I yelp without my consent.
“What did you expect from a school for assassins, hitmen and spies?”
“For what!?!” I run a hand nervously through my hair, what the fuck is happening? Why does a school for assassins, hitmen and spies even exist? And how did I end up in one? Wait maybe it’s a joke? I probably just heard it wrong. Again. I should get my hearing checked. That’s the problem. That’s all. That is all.
“You're kidding right?”
Suwa leans his head back against the ladder. Then speaking like i’m a small child he’s forced to put up with, “check the book titles.”
As I step closer to the bookshelf the school bell rings out loudly but I don’t really care. Although it is pretty ominous sounding.
The first book I see is called A Million Ways to Die, then on from there is The Art of Deception, A Beginners guide to Stealth and Never kill by day.
Shitshitshitshitshit.
Get me the fuck out of here.
“You going to go for dinner?” He asks, likely just because he wants me to leave. Can’t think of another reason he’d string together so many words.
“Huh?”
“The bell.”
“Oh right. Dinner.” I stare at the bookshelf trying to keep my breathing even. “Where’s the dining hall?”
“Figure it out.”
“Why aren’t you coming?” I ask as he remains in his little perch and of course my words fall on deaf ears.
It’s not actually that hard to find in the end. Everyone’s back from town and I just allow myself to be carried by the crowd. We head back to the main foyer and through a pair of large double doors between the two staircases.
The adrenaline and anxiety is making it hard to think.
The dining hall is enormous, ten long tables leading up to a large, heavily staffed serving area. Everyone seems to know exactly where to sit, but me? Not so much. Afraid to get it wrong I approach one extremely tall and one relatively small woman standing beside the door. The taller, her black hair unnaturally shiny, glares at me.
“What do you want?”
“I’m not sure where to sit uh Ma’am. I’m new.”
“Dorm name?”
“Dunno.” I shrug nervously and she sighs.
“Do you happen to know the names of anyone in your dorm?” The other asks in a much kinder voice.
“Suwa. A boy with dark hair called Suwa.”
“Ah Rei Suwa’s dorm. You’re just over there at the very end with those boys.” She points to the serving area end of the second table where a group of rowdy looking boys with stylish hair and preened clothes that aren’t uniform.
Am I the only one here dressed in school uniform!?
“Ok, thanks!” I say hurrying off, palms newly sweaty.
I sit down beside a boy with offensively bright blonde hair and paper pale skin. They all immediately turn to stare at me. I run a hand through my hair, trying to wrangle it.
“Uh hi. I’m new, my names Kazuki Kurusu.”
“Hi! You the new bed four, then?” Asks Blonde.
“Uh yeah.”
“When’d you arrive?” Asks an incredibly tall boy with amber skin.
“Like an hour or two ago, maybe?”
“You met Suwa then? He’s usually in our dorm.”
“Yeah, he seemed… well uh.”
“Yeah, he’s quite the character, eh?” Laughs a boy still wearing his boater hat inside, dark freckles decorating his white skin.
“Yeah.”
“Best to avoid him. Dangerous person to be around really. Everyone knows what happened to poor Kyutaro.”
“Kyutaro?”
“Yeah, Kyu was the last bed 4.”
“And what happened to him? Suwa didn’t seem that bad. Introverted definitely, but not like bad.”
“Kyu was transferred to a different assassin school that specialises in the tech, organisation and coverup of the industries shit.”
There are more of these places! And it definitely, definitely isn’t a joke. Not everyone in the school could lie to me like that. Large groups of teens don’t work together like that. Even if it’d be considered funny.
“Oh.” I mumble unable to think of a better reply.
It honestly doesn’t sound like a bad thing to get kicked out. He’d get out of killing right? I can’t imagine this is an easy industry to leave on your own. “Why was he transferred?”
“Him and Suwa got too close and his dad thought Kyu was a distraction, so he was removed.” Blonde says with a shrug like that’s the obvious thing to do.
“His dad can do that?”
“Dude his dad is a fucking Suwa he can do anything.”
“Oh right. Yeah.” I pretend to know what he means.
He’s important then. Important enough that if I get close to him i’ll be taken out of this place? Interesting. Seems all I have to do is be this guys best friend and i’m out. I mean it’ll be hard to leave if i’m too attached but fuck that, I need to get out.
Suddenly the door bangs open and Rei Suwa, the apparently very important person is carried inside. He is struggling madly in the arms burly woman in a suit. I’ve seen them everywhere, are they here to guard us or something? They look threatening enough.
Anyway, Rei’s carried over to our end of the table and is placed on the floor. However, in protest he refuses to stand or sit on the bench and instead sits on the floor. It’s like watching a toddler have a temper tantrum. Yet he doesn’t look embarrassed.
“Rei, just because you’re the Suwa heir doesn’t mean you can do whatever you want. I say it every day, just come and eat like everyone else.” The suit picks Rei up under the arms and places him gently on the bench next to me, patting him on the head. “They’d have our necks if we let you starve yourself. Rei glares at her with his dead eyes, the picture of displeasure.
“Hiya again,” I say to Rei.
I do not want my job to be murdering people and he is my way out.
“Mmm hi.”
We go up dorm group at a time to collect a tray of food. On each is a bowl of a thick stew, a plate with three slices of baguette and a bowl with apple crumble and custard in.
We then return to our seats all clumsily shifting about until we’re back where we started. Once settled Rei starts to pick at his stew removing every vegetable (apart from potatoes) leaving the meat, tomato based sauce and the potatoes previously mentioned. I smile slightly watching him, of course he’s a picky eater.
I take a nervous bite of my own and it tastes pretty good. Better texture to what i’m used to but the the flavour isn’t very strong. Before i’m halfway through Rei has finished everything, even the cake, and is looking hungrily at my untouched bread. I reckon he didn’t eat lunch.
“You still hungry?” I ask him and he looks over wide eyed. Maybe no one ever has the guts to call him out for staring.
“Uh… mhmm.”
“You want my bread? I can eat the rest of your stew?” He doesn’t answer but I can tell from the keen look on his usually dead looking face that he likes the idea. “Here take it.” I swap my bread plate for his on which he piled the discarded vegetables.
That should make him like me, right?
“So why didn’t you want to come eat if you were hungry?”
“None of your business,” he grumbles.
“Oh… alright then I guess.”
“Why’d you do that earlier?” The tall boy asks as we walk back to the dorms. “If you get too close with him his dad will go nuts.”
“He’ll just throw me out the school, right? It’s not like I want to be here.”
“I guess that’s fair but still be careful. Seriously his dad is bonkers, steer clear.”
“I can look after myself, don’t worry.”
We walk in silence for a few moments until I can’t bear not saying anything.
“Besides I had to give him the food. He doesn’t look like he always remembers or maybe wants to eat.”
“You’re too nice,” he says with a small smile. “Oh by the way my name’s Malcolm I don’t think I told you that earlier.”
“Nice to meet you Malcolm,” I say holding out my hand. He takes it and gives it a brisk shake, laughing.