Shiki’s dream was far from pleasant.
He dreamt of that brightly lit basement again.
The room was fully furnished with all quality of life—a bathroom, a shower, and a comfortable bedroom.
It had everything.
The fridge was stuffed with all his favorite foods.
The only downside was that there was absolutely no way to contact the outside world, and the door was reinforced with solid alloy.
Anyone seeing it for the first time would probably think it was just a nice, normal bed and breakfast.
The attention to detail showed that the owner had carefully planned it out, not just thrown it together on a whim.
Even though Togawa Sakiko had drugged and locked him up, she was still pretty gentle about it.
To keep him from getting bored, she even provided a game console and a TV, though they couldn’t connect to the internet.
(TL:I wish for this…)
“Wake up.
Hey, wake up.
It’s time for the entrance ceremony”, a faint voice said right by his ear.
Tormented by his nightmare, Shiki snapped his eyes open and jolted upright.
Still shaken, he wiped the cold sweat from his forehead.
“What’s wrong?
Did you have a nightmare?” Ayanokoji Kiyotaka looked at his panicked expression, as if Shiki had just experienced some deep, terrifying fear.
“It’s nothing.
Just a small thing, not worth mentioning.”
“Alright then.
I woke you up because everyone else in the class already left.
The ceremony starts in about ten minutes.
Let’s head out.”
Practicing the social skills he had read about in books, Ayanokoji offered a caring remark: “If something is bothering you, we can talk about it.
Two heads are better than one.
Even if I can’t solve it, I can at least help share your burden.”
Ayanokoji thought his words sounded perfectly nice and would definitely earn him some trust and affection.
But Shiki just froze.
He stared intently at Ayanokoji’s face, his pitch black eyes acting like high beam headlights peering straight into a dark cave.
For the first time in his life, Ayanokoji felt an indescribable sensation—as if he were being completely dissected inside and out, with all of his inner secrets laid bare for someone else to see.
It was a deeply uncomfortable feeling, like being stared at while completely naked.
Beneath his school uniform, his solid muscles instinctively tensed up, turning as hard as iron.
But Shiki quickly pulled his gaze away and let out a light chuckle.
“Are you a robot developed by some AI tech company?
No matter how advanced you are, you should at least optimize your facial expression software.
You look totally paralyzed.
Who talks about caring for someone without their eyes or face changing at all?
There wasn’t a single ripple of emotion.
You should really install an emotion module!”
Teasing the guy, Shiki groggily stood up and started walking toward the door.
Ayanokoji stood frozen by the desk.
His expressionless face showed a rare hint of complete blankness.
Two seconds later, he snapped back to reality, hurried to catch up with Shiki, and played dumb.
“What are you talking about?
I don’t understand at all.”
Shiki gave him a side eye and delivered a sharp critique: “Oh, not bad.
You even come with automatic updates.
Your expression this time is a bit richer than before.
It’s just that your eyes need to look a little wiser.
Try to lose the dead fish look…”
Ayanokoji: “…”
(What did my dead fish eyes ever do to you…)
“Sorry, but you’re actually misunderstanding things.
I’m not a robot”, Ayanokoji insisted, clinging to his ‘normal guy’ persona.
“It’s just that I’ve never had any friends growing up, so I don’t really know how to interact with people.
That’s why my emotions are a bit more hidden compared to others.”
“Yeah, yeah, sure.
I get it, I get it”, Shiki replied, his tone dripping with total dismissal.
“I’m really not lying…”
“Uh huh, right, right.” Shiki didn’t even look at him.
Ayanokoji fell silent.
For once, he felt an emotion that could only be described as helplessness.
It was a very strange feeling, hard to put into words—like having a delicious piece of candy stuck in his throat.
At the same time, he felt a strong wave of caution and wariness.
Even without solid proof, he suspected that this guy with the panda eyes had already seen right through to his true nature, completely defying logic.
Once this thought flashed in his mind, it grew wildly out of control.
Logically, he should raise his guard, stay far away from Shiki, and think up countermeasures.
Yet, driven by a bizarre, mysterious sense of excitement, he chose to step closer to find the answer.
(TL:How bizarre…right jojo?)
Ayanokoji took two steps forward to walk beside him, using the corner of his eye to study Shiki’s face.
“Why do you think I’m a robot?
I feel like I’m doing pretty well, just a little anti social.”
“Then you’re pretty narcissistic”, Shiki gave him a weird look.
Ayanokoji: “…”
(It is impossible to have a normal conversation with this guy…)
Shiki found it pretty amusing to see that completely blank face look so defeated, so he decided not to keep him in suspense.
“It’s just simple human observation.
A person’s outward personality is very easy to read from their surface behavior.
The most classic example is the difference in aura between an optimistic, outgoing person and someone who is insecure and introverted.
Even if it’s just your first time meeting them, you can get a rough idea.”
“Take that girl with the long black hair sitting next to me, for example…”
“Her name is Horikita Suzune.”
“Oh, right, her.
She’s undoubtedly a very simple person.
She’s cold, arrogant, and a loner.
She thinks highly of herself and only sees herself, not anyone else.
She believes she can solve everything on her own, so she doesn’t take others seriously.
I imagine she is quite capable, otherwise, she wouldn’t have the confidence to isolate herself like that.
Of course, when it comes to social skills, she is a complete disaster.”
After briefly summarizing Horikita, Shiki continued:
“But this kind of surface level observation can only go so far.
A lot of people force themselves to change their personalities to fit into mainstream society.
Even if they are pessimistic on the inside, they can face the world with a bright smile.
Smiling depression is a classic example of this.”
Ayanokoji listened very carefully.
He came from a secret training facility known as the White Room.
It was a place designed to study and create artificial geniuses that could surpass natural born ones.
They gathered numerous candidates and drilled them in countless skills, and he was the White Room’s greatest masterpiece.
With all his abilities, he had naturally learned similar profiling and psychological analysis techniques.
But to see through a person’s core in such a short amount of time, like Shiki had just done—even Ayanokoji found that very rare.
“However, if you want to completely see through someone, you can’t just rely on general observation and first impressions.
That alone isn’t enough to expose two faced people.
Their acting skills are masterful.
The masks they wear are often better than professional actors on TV.
So, you have to look more at the subconscious details a person leaks, and see if those match the impression they are trying to give off.
Just like someone who has been bitten by a snake—if they see a piece of rope, they’ll instantly shiver.
It’s a primal reaction they can’t hide.”
“Class D actually has a perfect example right now.” At this point, Shiki couldn’t help but add a complaint.
“I feel like our class has a lot of weirdos.
Like a certain deadpan guy with dead fish eyes, for example.”
As one of the mentioned weirdos, Ayanokoji stayed completely silent.
Seeing him play dumb and not respond, Shiki went back to the main topic.
“There’s a girl in our class with short brown hair and very heavy front armor.
The one with the really sweet smile.”
Ayanokoji thought for a second.
“Do you mean Kushida?”
“I don’t know her name, but her figure should definitely leave an impression,” Shiki said.
“This Kushida is exactly the kind of two faced person I was talking about.”
“I didn’t notice that at all”, Ayanokoji said honestly.
Even though he had only known her for a day, Kushida Kikyou seemed like a little angel who loved making friends.
On the bus ride here, while everyone else ignored an elderly person, she enthusiastically tried to find them a seat.
She seemed like a genuinely kind hearted, good girl.
He never expected Shiki to claim she was hiding a dark side.
(TL:Hmm…I don’t know but I feel kinda 50 50 about this, although it read like the author was nerfing Ayanokoji a bit…but I also think early Ayanokoji who still want to have and think he is having a normal school life properly didn’t pay attention that much since he want to be ‘normal’ right?
SS1 Ayanokoji was kinda passive nonetheless.
But when it count he do read people really fast)
However, Ayanokoji didn’t think Shiki was just talking nonsense.
“Of course you didn’t notice.
Her acting is so flawless she could go to Hollywood and win an Oscar.
Coming to this tiny Advanced Nurturing High School is a total waste of her talent.” Shiki laughed at his own joke.
“On the surface, Kushida really does look like a pure, sweet high school girl, and her acting has almost no flaws.
But one little thing sold her out.”
“What is it?” Ayanokoji asked, genuinely curious.
“When she was chatting with the other guys in class—especially those monkeys in heat—she made way too many micro movements.”
Shiki explained playfully, “While talking to them, she would blink those big eyes of hers, lean in super close without any hesitation, and practically press her chest against them.
She made their minds wander and their heads fill with dirty thoughts.
Let me ask you: would a truly ‘good girl’ do something like that?
Someone who doesn’t even respect her own body and uses it as a cheap bargaining chip—do you really think a person like that is a good girl?”
Ayanokoji thought back to how Kushida interacted with others, and his expression shifted slightly.
What Shiki said was completely accurate.
Following Shiki’s logic, Kushida’s behavior matched his analysis perfectly.
“But what if Kushida is just a natural airhead?
Sometimes she acts like she doesn’t really know what she’s doing”, Ayanokoji pointed out, trying to find another explanation.
“Impossible,” Shiki rejected it instantly.
“A true airhead would act the exact same way around both men and women.
Even though Kushida is friendly and kind to the other girls, she completely drops that clueless, clumsy act around them.
It completely contradicts the personality she projects.
Therefore, she is definitely faking it and has another side to her.”
His firm rejection carried an unquestionable certainty.
Ayanokoji was convinced.
He turned his head slightly, staring subtly at that sleepy, exhausted face.
A flash of brilliance and intense caution flickered deep within his dead fish eyes.
His heart rate spiked.
A heart that had beaten calmly for so long was now pounding violently, hitting his ribs so hard it almost hurt.
For the first time in a long while, he felt truly alive.
Ayanokoji didn’t know why this was happening.
He took a deep breath, forcing down the wild waves in his mind.
(TL:No gay here brother)
(Calm down.
I just want a peaceful life.
I shouldn’t do anything unnecessary.
I am a pacifist now…)
Shiki completely ignored Ayanokoji’s internal emotional crisis.
He was just thinking about where to walk around after the ceremony to uncover the secrets this school was trying to hide.
He already had a rough idea.
As the two of them slowly walked away and disappeared down the hall, a figure with gray hair and purple eyes stepped out from the doorway of Class C.
She was hugging an Agatha Christie mystery novel to her chest, her eyes sparkling brightly as she watched the empty hallway where they had vanished.
“He’s amazing…
just like a detective from a novel.” (TL:BEST GIRL ALERT, BEST GIRL ALERT)
She wasn’t very good at socializing and loved reading.
She had stayed in the classroom a bit longer, hoping to get some quiet reading time, but ended up overhearing the boy analyzing someone else’s personality.
Even though she didn’t know the student named Kushida Kikyou, his deductions were logical and well supported.
His overflowing confidence reminded her of the very first time Sherlock Holmes met Watson in A Study in Scarlet.
“I wonder if he likes reading mystery novels…” she murmured softly into the empty hallway before walking toward the entrance ceremony hall.
Just like how all crows are black, the school’s entrance ceremony was exactly the same as any other.
It was the same old boring routine.
The school officials talked endlessly on stage, and the students below were falling asleep.
Truly, everyone had a bright future.
After turning down Ayanokoji’s polite invitation to hang out, Shiki wandered around the campus by himself.
He could see Ayanokoji’s complex feelings toward him—a contradictory mix of wariness and a curious desire to get closer.
It was like standing on the edge of a cliff to admire the view, one wrong step meant falling into the abyss, but the scenery was too beautiful to walk away from.
Shiki decided to leave him hanging for now and think about how to squeeze out his usefulness later.
He had seen right through Ayanokoji’s true nature: a battle tested, extreme egoist.
Getting too close to a guy like that would only end with him being sold out completely.
So, naturally, Shiki wasn’t going to be overly polite or caring.
Keeping up a surface level friendship was fine.
That way, he could use him or throw him away at any time without wasting extra feelings or energy.
Right now, he was strolling along the path toward the main teaching building, occasionally looking around and taking mental notes of his surroundings.
Honestly, it made sense that the Advanced Nurturing High School had government and corporate backing—its infrastructure was flawless.
The clean, flat roads were lined with vibrant green trees that gave off a strong sense of life.
There were trash cans that weren’t full, a huge variety of vending machines, and wooden benches that had clearly been maintained without a speck of dust on them.
The only problem was that there were way too many security cameras.
They were practically covering every street and corner.
There probably weren’t even this many cameras inside a government building.
This was undeniably highly unusual.
Shiki quietly memorized the camera layouts and, before he knew it, arrived at the main academic building.
He started from the first-year Class D and walked all the way down to Class A.
Since everyone had been dismissed after the ceremony, the classrooms were completely empty.
The freshmen had probably already split into their little groups, excitedly heading off to cafes, karaoke, or going to the dorms to sort out their luggage and buy daily necessities.
He counted on this, specifically choosing this exact time to investigate.
After all, he didn’t want to peek into other classrooms while people were inside and get stared at like a monkey in a zoo.
After taking a quick look at the first year floor, Shiki moved on to the second year floor.
It was just as quiet.
After all, nobody actually teaches on the first day of school, it’s mostly just about going over the new semester’s rules.
He started from Class D again, but this time, it was Class 2-D.
“Huh?”
Shiki indeed found something different.
With a theory forming in his mind, he headed toward Class C.
After inspecting it, he moved on to Class B, not expecting to run into an accident.
Just as he turned his gaze toward the Class 2-B classroom, a pair of brilliant, beautiful purple eyes clashed right into his line of sight.
In those pupils, Shiki could clearly see his own stiff reflection.
Right behind it was a face as beautiful as a lotus rising from the water, with perfectly shaped lips.
“Sorry, I have somewhere to be, I’ll take my leave.”
He reacted incredibly fast.
In less than a second, he created distance between them, bowed in apology, turned around, and bolted away, all in one smooth motion.