"So that's what happened?"
Yukihiro shook his head. Masanori explained the past incidents to him during lunchtime a few days later.
"You've really found a troubling guy. So there was someone at the center of those students breaking curfew!" Yukihiro exclaimed. "But to think they'd do something like that. Think maybe they're a thrill seeker? Or just looking for attention?" Yuki leaned in with a covert glance. "Or maybe he's just a real freak, some kinda junkie getting high off pheromones? I think they have a word for that."
"Don't go calling him things like that." Masanori sighed tiredly. "It sounds…"
"It sounds like he's been nothing but a pain since he arrived." Yukihiro argued. He looked out to the crowd of students eating. "Is he here?"
Yukihiro tried but since he didn't even know what he looked like and Masanori wasn't helping him he found nothing out of the ordinary.
"Who knows? Put your head down already." Masanori said with a huff, though his mind trailed off. If he was an attention seeker, wouldn't he want him to be overly watchful? That guy was a real headache…
At first, Masanori immediately wanted to find a way to retract his stupid decision from that evening. What the hell was he thinking?
But… It was working. For the next few days Takeshita Akira just seemed like a totally normal student. He chatted with friends and did his work diligently. From the outside, you would never guess that he was completely out of his mind. Masanori might even think that whole ordeal was a fever dream if it wasn't for the way Takeshita's eyes would always light up like stars and shoot him a knowing smile whenever they made eye contact. Like he was messing with him specifically, though he knew he was just following what he told him.
Still, he hoped he could find a way to clear things up, but he didn't have a clue how to go about it. Isn't this what he wanted anyway? He wasn't causing any more trouble, and he knew it was best to just let it go entirely. He would tell him if he had any ideas, right?
But…. Masanori kept watching, his eyes following him whenever he caught him passing by. Somehow, he almost thought he could catch him acting out of the ordinary if he did so, but it never happened.
He didn't follow or track his movements anymore, not again, and with his council duties to attend to after classes he only saw him infrequently. Lunch, break, in between classes, and just a glimpse as he walked back to his dorm.
He thought nothing of it, but even Ren couldn't help but see how blindingly obvious and frequently he did it and started sending him more intense stares that bordered on threatening.
'Who's acting out of the ordinary here?' Masanori thought with a sigh then spoke, "I think. Maybe he's just getting fed up with me… but things are better this way. With my report sent to student wellness, I can focus back on work for the student council. It's really not that big of a deal anyway. It'll be better to… move past this. I don't need to get involved anymore." Masanori finished, holding back a sigh.
"Oh, he's the one fed up?" Yukihiro snorted. "You'd think he'd just be grateful, with how much you've been saving him all this time." he shrugged lazily. "But sure. He must be tiring to deal with. Bet your dad ripped you a new one for that wall thing." He let out a sour chuckle. "I'm guessing two weeks of study hall, minimum. He loves blaming you when things go wrong just because he anointed you the rule enforcer."
"Actually I… never saw anyone give him a study hall slip." Masanori said with a frown, playing with his food. "And I don't think he's been. Sensei would have sent it by now…"
"Eh, it's in there somewhere, always more troublemakers than anyone can handle in this place…" Yukihiro shook his head. "Who's idea was it to have the student council also run the student's discipline as well as handling school resources?"
"Wakai Seisai's school motto is that constructive discipline is the key to success, and restraint in autonomy is the strongest form of discipline through self-government." Masanori answered. "But it's not all student-governed anyway: If any student messes up bad enough the teachers can step in at any time."
"Spoken like the son of the school's principal." Yukihiro sighed. "But it's not exactly a perfect system is it? You'd certainly know."
"What would I know? It all works fine to me." Masanori sighed.
"Really? But… you never sent that report." Yuki hummed. "Didn't you? On the curfew break by that omega?"
Masanori stiffened. "That's… I just… wanted to sort everything out before they got punished for my negligence. I only meant to hold off the report for a day or two, then the timing…"
"What can you expect from the rose of Seisai." Yuki tutted. "You always let yourself bleed before you cut others down, always caring too much... Oh, how'd you get him back to his dorm after the library mess without anyone finding out anyway? Did you carry him back yourself?"
"No, it was Ryusei-kun, I called him before. He's got a smaller division but one of his betas had a great sense of smell and tracked us down. He agreed to stay quiet about things for me…."
"The new student health monitor? Oh, you bribed him didn't you? Heard he's not hard to convince once you know what he's after…" Yukihiro hummed. This time Masanori didn't rebuke him.
"Anyway. If you want this omega's attention maybe you're coming off a little strong?" Yukihiro continued. But maybe that's just your nature. If not obsessed then that makes you the clingy type then?"
Masanori's frown deepened into a glare. "I don't want his attention, shut up about that type shit. Look, I'm done with it anyway…"
"But, will it really be that simple?" Yukihiro asked speculatively. "You'll just let it go, just like that? Something tells me you're leaving something out~" he hummed, leaning closer to Masanori with a playful grin. "If its not because you reported him, what else could have happened?"
Masanori went stiff. He mindlessly twirled one of his chopsticks, staring down at his plate, lost in his thoughts.
"... it's way too complicated to explain." Masanori said finally. He picked up his other chopstick and started to eat again properly. Yukihiro stared at him, searching his face.
"I was gonna go back to hibernation after this, but this is far too interesting!" Yukihiro's eyes glistened with intrigue. "Won't you tell me the story again? Start from the beginning!"
"I said shut it." Masanori huffed. "I don't wanna talk about it anymore. How'd your test go?"
"Aced it. Furikawa-sensei really has it out for me, he can't stand the fact that I'm right…" Yukihiro crossed his arms behind his neck and closed his eyes as he talked, missing as Masanori's eyes shifted out behind the crowd as Ren slipped away. He turned, and as their eyes locked. Ren gave Masanori a piercing warning glare before walking away. Masanori sighed, and decided to ignore it. Yuki might be right, he was coming off too strong. He just needed to leave him alone for a while, to cool off. And so, he did.
–––
While Masanori eventually left his troubles with Ren to the back of his mind, Ren had big plans brewing in the forefront of his.
Even though Masanori was confirmed to not be a spy, Ren knew he was hesitant to talk to him. He was certain they had surveillance in other places, so Ren figured that was why Masanori wasn't able to tell him more that evening; he likely took a risk giving him that letter! He said he'd "keep an open mind" which meant he couldn't commit to what he knew, not yet anyway. So, for now he just had to gather evidence on his own.
But, if he was going to gather info and formulate any of his future plans he needed to know the ins and outs of their security. So he tried to remain as inconspicuous as possible. Once he got Masanori to stop attracting attention by staring at him all the time he began learning as much as he could about the school, talking to as many students as possible to find out as much info as he could. People weren't as upfront as Ren hoped however.
"Huh, the curfew? I dunno, just check the school website…"
"Who makes the school food? I guess that's a good question… beats me though."
"W-Weird symptoms? What are you asking me for? That's a question for your dorm leader!"
But he got some valuable info. It seemed just about everyone believes in this "Alpha, Beta, and Omega" thing, just like Masanori. He also figured out the differences between them all are - aside from their ridiculous anatomy books of course - and what they mean in the school.
The "alphas" were the big dogs, the strongest and most capable people in the school. They were clearly the best of the best, the ones that held the most prestige and the most power. They he assumed, were the ones getting the best results of whatever this medicine was doing to them.
The betas were the control group, people who didn't possess any symptoms of the drugs. It made sense to have a control group in an experiment!
And Omegas….he didn't understand omegas. If the point of the drugs was to give you supernatural powers, make you stronger, then why is there a group that was the complete opposite of that?
Ren thought hard about it. 'Well, are they some kind of worse side effect? Then maybe….the school was keeping them there to try to test them for solutions? Then, the person I'm inhabiting must have taken the drugs to become one somehow…. But I just don't have enough information. If only I could get into this person's laptop or phone…!'
Ren decided to forget about it for a while, and continued to spy on the student body.
Alphas were the hardest to get info from, since they seem to hang out in a completely different league than 'omegas', so they were his main target. After all, Masanori was also one of these Alphas. Having the best powers out of the three groups, it was very likely some of them might know more about where their condition came from than others.
And so Ren started to spy on as many alpha groups as he could from a distance, as secretly as possible.
It was harder than he expected.
"Buzz off!" One of them glared right where Ren was hiding.
Ren didn't move, even though he knew his eyes were on him. Like usual they started to grumble. Sometimes they would fall for it, thinking it was just the wind.
"Weirdo..." They muttered instead, and picked up their bento box and walked away.
Ren tsked, eyes peeking out through the treeline. His hiding place was perfect this time! Ren suspected that they must have heightened eyesight to keep detecting him! He had to ask Masanori at some point… Did he need to make some kind of camouflage suit?
Ren was only partially right about the heightened senses... But in truth, he just wasn't very good at hiding. He sneezed.
'It's this body!' He fumed silently. 'The stupid thing has crazy allergies and horrible stamina! And this skin, the leaves and grass give me rashes if I sit in them for too long! In my old body I don't remember being this sensitive!'
He growled. 'I used to have a strong body, built as a real pro-sports jockman, one who didn't even get colds in the dead of winter! Not like this pathetic piece of shit!'
He sighed. He wasn't getting much from the average student anyway: outside of their alpha labels they acted pretty much how Ren felt he expected high-school boys to behave. They study diligently, goof off with their friends, talk about things they like, girls included... Well, maybe not that. It was more Alpha this, Beta that, Omega.… well he didn't want to talk about the way some of them talked about omegas. It was something he had a hard time unpacking. Even with his memory loss he felt the word and tone they used was too much. So lewd and demeaning, not to mention almost certainly a criminal offense in some cases!
"Have you managed to get near the Omega's dorm yet?" One Alpha loudly whispered.
"Got close enough to peek in through the window. Built it up nice and pretty, didn't they? Imagine what it would be like to get inside…" The other chuckled, looking gleeful with a scheming grin.
What they were talking about doing to them was gross, just unbelievably disgusting… why were conversations of breaking and entering into the omega dorm so popular?!
'What were they gonna do, steal their boxers like they're old geezers?! Why were they talking about that like it was completely normal?!'
He stopped watching those Alphas cuz they creeped him out anyway. He sighed. He had no issue if men were any of their normal preferences, but he was certain of the fact that it was those drugs that made them act this way, to say and suggest such extreme things…! No, this wasn't a normal kind of attraction at all! It just made his blood boil! Manipulating the youth's precious highschool romances with their twisted experiments! It was this school he was sure, messing with their heads with their indoctrination and the weird medicine; that was what was making them stray from the straight path!
Ren shook his fist in the air. 'Come on men! Stay strong! You can't let this school force you down that road! There are girls still out there, all those pretty flower smelling ones: just hang in there!'
Ren refocused, searching for a new target. He walked down the northern-eastern courtyard, eyes glued to his notepad. If he's right about alphas being a part of the school security then someone's bound to-
"Hey, watch out!"
Ren spun out of the way of two boys holding a large sign, moving down the sidewalk.
Ren bowed and apologized. He picked up something that fell from his bag, a crumbled up makeshift spy glass (which Ren thought would help him see through bushes but just made him more visible) and was about to turn to walk away.
But then, he read the text on the sign the boys were moving.
'Strange. Why is the judo club moving such a big sign?'
"Hey uh... Excuse me, what's up with the sign?" He asked.
One boy loosened their grip on their side of the sign to turn to face Ren.
"You didn't know? Don't you pay attention during morning announcements?"
Ren gave a nervous laugh. He's been... distracted by other things.
"Well they were asking for volunteers." The boy explained. "We've been temporarily moving some of the club rooms to the other buildings, it's been getting too noisy to focus on the west side."
Ren tilted his head. "Noise?" He found this highly suspicious.
"Eh, I don't think it's a big deal but a couple of people are too sensitive…" One of the boys huffed. "But whatever. This new space is much bigger than our old one. This sign is just to let people know they've been moved."
"Y-Yeah…!" The other boy shakily huffed, his legs wobbling from the increased weight on his side of the sign. The boy talking noticed and quickly readjusted.
"You weak ass. You're as weak as an omega."
"S-Shut up…!"
"It's probably just like Inosuke said," they smirked. "I bet you're a late bloomer."
"I said shut up!" The other boy growled.
"I'm just kidding, relax..."
The two start to walk away, leaving Ren to wonder what they meant by being a late bloomer. He just seemed to be making fun of him by comparing him to omegas, so he dismissed it, forgetting all about the noise.
'Well, I think that's enough field work for one day. Think I'll head back to the dorm…'
Ren reentered the dorm and headed back to his room, thinking of what to add to his notes from today's observations.
"There you are!!!"
Ren had hardly made it a step into the dorm's main hall when a voice suddenly called out behind him. Ren whirled his head around with wide eyes. Oh no, had someone tracked him down!?
But standing before him was a student he had never seen before, a third year student on the shorter side with spiky blue hair, a fierce glare directed right towards him. Ren broke into a sweat and hoped he was just mistaken, until the student spoke.
"Takeshita-kuuun! You damn traitor!!!" They hollered out.
"...H-Huh!?" Ren stuttered, dropping his bag in shock.