Chapter Text
"Oh and Ku," Kusuo's mother calls just as he reaches for the door, "your brother invited you to an event this weekend, he said if you went he'd get you a year's supply of those expensive coffee jellies you liked, so at least think it over. Have a nice day at school, Ku!"
Kusuo nodded before leaving the house, rolling the idea over in his head as he walked to school, ignoring Nendo and Kaido's antics as best he could as he weighed the pros and cons of accepting the invitation from his brother.
On one hand, his definition of a year's supply of expensive and delicious coffee jelly. On the other hand, the party would likely be of the 'upper crust of society' in London and he'd likely be forced to interact with at least a few politicians and or stupidly rich people at the event.
Kusuo his head of the thoughts as he changed into his indoor shoes, choosing to decide later. It was only Wednesday, so he still had a few days to think it over.
"Saiki!" Teruhashi smiled, practically beaming at Kusuo as she rushed over to him from her desk.
He didn't respond, electing to ignore her as he walked through the classroom, though he did glance briefly towards Saiko's desk. Even when the rich teen was late, there was usually some indicator that it had been checked earlier in the morning by Saiko's security team. Kusuo decided to ignore the lack.
Ten minutes of pointedly ignoring the students around him later, and class began without a single sign of Saiko. Kusuo didn't mind, as it meant less people in the area and thus significantly less thought processes.
The rich brat really didn't need as many bodyguards as he tended to bring, and Kusuo typically developed headaches when Saiko's guards were in the school. Not to say he didn't have one usually, but it was just made worse when Saiko brought 50+ extra people with faster than average thought processes into the already packed school.
He breathed out a mental sigh of relief when lunchtime rolled around without a sign of the platinum blond teen, even if it was still just as loud as usual in the cafeteria.
"Hey Saiki!" Toritsuka was the one to decide that interacting with Kusuo that day was needed. "Did you hear? Saiko's out the rest of the week on vacation, all the way in London!" 'I bet he's having the time of his life with a bunch of hot girls over there!'
So that's where he was. He didn't usually miss school unless it was some kind of work opportunity his father insisted on, and even then Kusuo usually had at least some degree of a warning with the plans being thought about beforehand. Kusuo shrugged, continuing to ignore his schoolmates as Hairo ran past alongside the track team.
By the end of the day, most of the school had seen Saiko's public Snapchat story, though Kusuo, with his blatant refusal to get a cell phone, hadn't.
He skipped any of the plans Nendo made at the end of the day, narrowly managed to avoid Kaidou, and just point blank refused Teruhashi's invitation to Cafe Mami that afternoon. He didn't feel like being out of the house anymore, especially not after a day of everyone's thoughts coalescing into one large incoherent stream of one concept. It always worsened his headaches and common painkillers didn't work on them.
When he got close enough to home that his teleporting would go unnoticed, he appeared right in his room and quickly changed out of his uniform. Typically he'd keep it on, but today was seeming less like a normal day and more like a 'hide from the world in your most comfortable clothes' type of day.
For Kusuo it was less comfortable clothing and more of spending his time in a more comfortable or convenient skin, so he easily changed into a small, fluffy white dog before trotting downstairs and deciding to lay on the couch with his mother, who was watching reality TV.
"Oh hello Ku! Was today a bad day then?" His mother said, easily picking him up and holding him in her lap, as he had intended. He liked it when his mother held him, though it was rarer for her to do it when he was human due to his general aversion to touch.
They spent the next few hours just watching television together until Kusuo's father got home, at which point Kurumi went off to start dinner. In all, it was a generally normal after school time spent with his family, though his father hadn't really interacted with him other than saying hello, though that was normal for him.
The next two days followed in similar fashion, though on Friday he woke as a she, which wasn't all that unusual for her.
Kuriko decided to skip school that day, having decided that she didn't want to go through the discomfort of being actively, though unknowingly, misgendered. She could always just present as fem and go to school in the girl's uniform, but that would bring a bit too much attention towards her and she didn't like that.
Anyways, as the morning rolled into afternoon on Friday, Kusuke decided to pop his head in on the TV, unsurprisingly when their mother was out buying groceries, as she always did on Fridays.
"Oh! You stayed home today then." Kusuke shook his head for a moment. "So, I'm sending you a case of those expensive coffee jellies you like, and I've got a new pair of limiters for you that aren't as clunky or noticeable as those ones. You'll get a year's supply of the coffee jelly and these new limiters if you come to the event with me tomorrow. You can wear whatever, you just have to be human."
Kuriko thought it over for a moment before deciding that yes, she would go, but she wanted to know ahead of time just what the limiters looked like. She didn't feel like dealing with one of those poop-shaped limiters, after all. Though if he tried that again she was likely to break his fucking spine for it.
[What do the limiters look like?] She signed, vaguely annoyed at the fact that her brother refused to figure out a way to allow telepathy to carry through the television he had so easily bugged.
"Hold on, I have to grab them-" Kusuke rushed offscreen for a moment before coming back and holding up a small jewelry box. "So, I decided to go with a new design entirely, as you've mentioned your schoolmates taking the pins out being a problem."
Kuriko nodded along, motioning for Kusuke to get to the point.
"So, I've gone with-'' he opened the box "- a pair of earrings. You can change the outer pin-" he pointed at the 'orb' part, matching Kuriko's current limiters "- to just about any type of earring you want, since they'll click into place until you take them out.
"I also made sure that unless you or I were the ones to do it, these ones won't come off just for safety purposes. Oh, and if you want I've also got some contacts I made, they should in theory be able to limit if not completely stop the medusa eye thing you have going on."
Kuriko nodded before grabbing the write-on clipboard and a dry erase marker. She didn't really like to sign, though she didn't mind writing out what she thought.
'Five years worth of coffee jelly, the limiters and the contacts and I'll go. You have enough money to do that much.' Kuriko turned the board around to face the television, a flat look on her face as she waited for her brother to read it.
"Fine, and would you want a house? Maybe in the countryside? I was looking at some of the properties I was given by some annoyingly rich sponsor a while back and one of the houses is a three bedroom two bathroom house roughly 245 meters away from any other people or places. I just thought you might want a place to have as a vacation home in case your telepathy is too much for you at any given time."
Kuriko immediately wrote 'YES' on the board, underlining it twice as she stared at the TV.
"Alright! I'll have it transferred into your name, oh and because it IS going to be a public-ish event I'm calling a truce on our games for the week, so you don't have to worry. Pinkie promise. Ta ta!" Kusuke smiled cheekily before disappearing from the screen, the TV immediately returning to the channel Kuriko had been watching beforehand.
She didn't entirely trust Kusuke not to do a game, but he'd never broken a pinkie promise before. That might have something to do with the fact that she'd previously threatened to break both his arms if he broke a pinkie promise, though threats like that hadn't had much of an effect on him otherwise.
She sighed, resigning herself to an unknown event planned for the next day as she resumed watching television. Hopefully nothing went too wrong, at worst the most that could happen was that someone would get a picture of the 'elusive younger sibling of the renowned genius Kusuke Saiki' and publish it in a place that Kuriko's schoolmates would see it.
She just had to hope God would show mercy for once in her life.
+++
Kusuo stretched his arms overhead as he sat up, stretching and cracking his neck before climbing out of bed to get changed for the event. Kusuke was expecting him at his place in London at 10 am, and it was currently 5:34 pm in Japan, which gave him about a quarter of an hour before he'd leave. He didn't have to leave early at all, he just enjoyed being to places early rather than risking being late if something happened on the way there.
He apported his sleepwear with his chosen outfit for the day, dark brown slacks with black dress shoes, some nice wool socks he liked, a white button-up, and a light brown cardigan. He checked his reflection in the mirror, blinking rapidly as he looked over himself to refresh his X-ray vision process before quirking his lips in a small smile and grabbing the coffee jelly themed earrings he'd bought the day before.
He only allowed himself the oddity because nobody ever seemed to acknowledge or notice earrings, and Kusuo just wanted something small for himself, and thus he'd allowed himself to buy them. He usually only spent his allowance on actual coffee jelly but just this once, a 1,000 yen pair of earrings would be just fine.
Kusuo pocketed the earrings, still in the packaging, before heading downstairs to say bye to his parents. Kurumi and Kuniharu were both seated on the couch watching some TV show they'd found when he entered the living room, a soft smile on his face.
"Oh my god, Ku you look so handsome!" His mother squealed, clasping her hands as she admired her youngest son's choice of outfit. "Honey, go get the camera! I want to get a picture of my handsome little boy looking so good!"
"On it!" His father said as he rushed upstairs while Kusuo's mother continued to coo over him.
"Did big Ku tell you about the earrings yet, Ku?" Kurumi asked, and Kusuo pulled out his coffee jelly earrings to show them to her. "Oh those are so cute! If you want to wear other earrings I'm sure I have some you can wear too, just ask, okay Ku?"
Kusuo nodded, smiling at her. He really did love his mother.
Kuniharu sped back into the room at that moment, and handed Kurumi the camera so she could take a picture of her son. She could always do it with her phone but she just preferred to have pictures printed out to hang around the house or keep in photo albums.
"Smile, Ku!" She beamed at him, and he smiled softly as the shutter clicked. She cooed over the picture for a minute before hugging her youngest son, and Kusuo hugged her back before teleporting off to his room at Kusuke's mansion. It was another of the properties the man had gotten from a sponsor of his, which he only used for the fact that the basement was a suitable size for his lab equipment.
Kusuo wandered around for a bit, eventually making his way into the kitchen where he perched himself on a counter as he snacked on a coffee jelly he'd taken out of the fridge while he waited for Kusuke to come get him. Ten minutes later, Kusuke was led into the kitchen by a couple security guards.
"Oh so you ARE here!" Kusuke said, pouting at his little brother. "I was waiting in the lounge for you to show up just to be brought down here because they-" he jabbed a thumb at the guards, "-noticed a pink haired visitor in the kitchens. You could've called, y'know."
Kusuo shrugged as he placed the empty coffee jelly cup down and put the spoon in the sink. Kusuke finally stopped pouting when Kusuo put his arms out, generally indicative of a little kid wanting a piggy-back ride. Kusuke gladly picked his little brother up in that fashion, already heading off towards where Kusuo knew the lounge to be.
Kusuke was chattering on and on about a few of his most recent projects by the time they made it and Kusuo was put on the couch while Kusuke went around grabbing a few different things and putting them on the coffee table.
"So, I've got it all ready but we are gonna have to take a little while to actually get the earring-limiters on since I've got someone coming over with knowledge of how to actually pierce ears coming to do your new piercings. And don't worry, they're made with the same material as your other limiters have been so we wouldn't even have to worry about possible metal allergies.
"That sound alright?" Kusuke paused, looking at his little brother with a wide grin.
"You said you wouldn't do any games or challenges. You pinkie promised." Kusuo narrowed his eyes, and his brother chuckled. "Just stick to your promise and it's fine."
Ten minutes later, Kusuo had both his new limiters and his contacts in and was fitting his earrings in place while Kusuke complained about some of the companies he worked with demanding more research for less money. Kusuo didn't mind, though he didn't particularly care either.
The window cutting them off from the front of the car opened as the limousine slowed to a stop in front of a very nice set of front steps, perhaps made of marble. Kusuo admired the aesthetics of it as he climbed out of the limo behind his brother, who continued to chatter on about various work-related topics on his way up the steps.
Kusuo and Kusuke would have been stopped at the door had Kusuke not handed an expensive-looking envelope that Kusuo knew held the invitation to one of the doormen, who called for someone to usher them inside and to the rest of the party.
Kusuo nearly cringed at the mental noise level halfway there before slipping on his germanium ring and deciding to stay near his brother or the desserts table for the night. Unbeknownst to him, Saiko Metori was on the second floor of the ballroom, and had noticed the ever so familiar pink-haired pleb walking in behind the renowned genius Kusuke Saiki.
Kusuo tuned out the chattering of his brother and the various rich people in the room as he drifted towards the dessert table to grab himself a treat. He deserved it for coming to this event.
-
Saiko Metori is rarely surprised by people, if only because anyone that is worth acknowledging has had a PI tailing them since he'd discovered their existence. Imagine his surprise when a common pleb that actively distained his 'rich kid' personality turned up at one of the events Saiko attended at his father's request.
"Metori, why are you looking down at the lower floor?" His father asked, as usual wearing a blinding amount of gold. "I told you to mingle with your peers."
"I apologize, Father. I just thought I saw a classmate from that public school I've been trying out." Metori shook his head as his father let out a quiet hm.
"If someone from that school really is here, you should interact with them, Metori. It would do you well to make your own connections, even before you take control of the Saiko corporation." Metori's father clapped the teen's shoulder before subtly pushing him off towards the stairs. "Do have fun, son."
"I will, Father." Metori didn't enjoy mingling with people all that much, though he was undoubtedly curious as to how a pleb such as Saiki Kusuo from PK Academy who lived in an average middle-class house in a middle-class neighborhood with middle-class parents could have possibly gotten an invitation to one of the most expensive and prestigious events of the year. He wondered if the shared last name between Saiki Kusuo and Saiki Kusuke had something to do with it.
He hurried down the stairs and easily caught sight of bright pink hair heading towards the dessert table. Metori vaguely remembered that the Saiki from class 3 had a particularly powerful sweet tooth. He'd have to keep that knowledge for later, in case it was in fact the Saiki from his school at the party.
He crossed the hall with minimal effort as he pointedly ignored the group of his 'peers' near the hors d'oeuvres table gossiping and occasionally glancing his direction.He had a feeling that they were talking about him transferring schools yet again, and more importantly to a public school with little to no prestige.
Metori in all honesty didn't truly mind that it was a public school, but he let them keep up with their gossip anyway. These parties tended to be dreadfully boring to the less politically inclined, after all.
He finally reached the dessert table and scanned its current inhabitants, taking mental note of the group of teens at the hors d'oeuvres table beginning their own approach towards him. Metori really didn't like them, mostly due to the fact they always looked down on him and his family despite having far less to their own names than he did.
"Oh! Kusuo there you are!" A vaguely familiar voice called from behind Saiko, and the pink-haired boy across the table lifted his head, looking off to the side. Metori choked on a gasp at the sight, how had he believed Saiki Kusuo to be a pleb when he looked like that? Metori froze up for but a moment, and that was enough for Saiki to escape.
Metori had seen his classmate for less than a minute, but it had sent his mind reeling in disorder.
Rather than the unsightly green-lensed glasses that usually took up Saiki's face as a primary feature, his eyes were finally shown, perhaps contacts were used as a replacement. Without those thick green lenses neutralizing the color though, the pink haired teen's natural eye color showed through in a beautiful shade of purple, a tone that reminded Metori distinctly of the color that the sky took on just as the sun finally dipped below the horizon.
Not to mention, without the clunky shapes of his usual glasses and those ghastly hair clips he always wore, his natural face shape seemed more… cute, for lack of a better word. He had a gentle yet sharp roundness to his face, accompanied by slight cheekbones seeming to accent his face that made Metori wonder how he'd never noticed the other’s looks. Saiko doubted that even Teruhashi could compete with Saiki's beauty. No, it wasn't even a challenge. Saiki Kusuo would kick Teruhashi Kokomi straight out of the competition if the levels of their beauty were compared without Saiki's signature glasses and hair clips.
Metori distantly wondered just how he'd missed such beauty before that day, before realizing he'd rarely even spoken to the pink haired boy with any regularity, let alone looked at his face properly.
"Oh, Saiko, how's it going? I hear you're going to some cheap public school now. What, daddy can't afford private tuition anymore?" Metori was forced from his musings by the taunting of one of the other teens at the party. As per rules, children under the age of 13 were kept home, under 15 were kept in a separate room, and anything above were allowed in the ballroom with the main party.
"Of course my father can afford tuition, I simply decided to see what the poor did in their free time. It's rather entertaining to watch the lesser run about in their own lives as if they have any control over the world." Metori responded promptly, inwardly seething with contempt. He hated Theodore, he had since they'd met at the ages of 13 and 14 respectively.
"Oh I'm sure." Theodore said, his smug tone tinted with sarcasm and disbelief. "And who was that pink haired boy you were so focused on earlier? I saw you watching him from the balcony when he came in."
"A schoolmate." Metori responded, arms twitching to fold, but he refrained. He couldn't appear standoffish, especially not at a party as big as this one.
"Oh? So then you brought the poor amongst us then? How crude." Theodore sneered, and Metori took a deep breath to calm down for a moment.
"Did you not see him come in? You know, with the Kusuke Saiki, renowned genius, inventor, founder and owner of Psi Industries? Besides, I wouldn’t bring a poor person to these events, even if the other option were death." Metori was the smug one now, as it seemed he knew more than Theodore about a guest at one of these parties. It was rare, and Metori treasured it ever so sweetly when it happened.
"What are you talking about? Mr. Saiki never brings anyone to these events. He's publicly refused to even invite his own parents to an event before. Who could possibly override that?" Theodore sneered again, though he seemed unsure now.
"Surely you noticed the sudden drop in noise earlier when Saiki Kusuke came in. You're not that dense, are you?" Metori said tauntingly, a smug grin on his face.
Theodore's pale cheeks were flushed with embarrassment as he sputtered before managing to collect himself. "Of course I'm not dense! How could I, eldest of my line, heir to the Reyes family fortune, possibly be dense enough not to notice?"
“Then how is it you didn’t notice the pink-haired boy entering right behind the blond genius? Perhaps you need glasses if you somehow managed to miss him.” Metori taunted, smirking as the other just huffed in indignation.
“I was simply busy conversing with our peers, not that you would know anything about that.” The other huffed out, and Metori rolled his eyes. He knew he didn’t socialize as much as he was expected to, but he just didn’t like talking to people. It wasn’t like he was a shut-in, so it was fine.
“Says the one who doesn’t know how to pay enough attention to his own surroundings to know when his own brother has been waiting to be acknowledged for half the conversation.” Metori finally retorted, gesturing vaguely towards Theodore’s younger brother, Marcus. Marcus was two years younger than his brother, and far nicer in Metori’s opinion.
Theodore glanced to his side before jerking violently away. “Marcus! Don’t scare me like that, you almost gave me a heart attack!”
Marcus rolled his eyes before shaking his head and standing up higher to whisper in his brother’s ear. Marcus didn’t like talking all that much, which Metori respected. Not everyone liked talking at these sorts of events, or even just in general. He knew that the Saiki from his class rarely spoke, and even when he did talk it was only when he absolutely had to.
“Ugh, fine. It appears my father needs my exceptional social skills. Count yourself lucky this time, Saiko. Goodbye.” With that final word, Theodore stalked off, with Marcus shrugging apologetically before following behind his brother at a slightly faster pace. Metori didn’t feel all that offended, deciding it would be better to get back to trying to speak with Saiki than to continue standing around.
With that, he stalked off himself, eyes scanning the crowd for a familiar head of pink hair, though he wouldn’t find it until dinner, let alone have a chance to speak with the owner of said hair until the next Tuesday at school, when he’d finally be back home and rested enough from the 13 hour flight between London and Tokyo.
+++
Saiki Kusuo aspired to be as average as possible, even at the risk of their own safety. As they stood from their seat, glasses back on their face on Tuesday, they pointedly ignored the speculative glances Saiko Metori kept sending their way. The boy didn’t know the meaning of subtly, as at least half the class had noticed Saiko’s sudden curious glances at their ‘average’ classmate.
“Oi, rich brat, why do you keep looking at Saiki?” Kuboyasu demanded at the end of their last class, slamming a hand on the platinum blond’s desk. ‘If this rich bastard thinks he can do what he did with Teruhashi to Saiki, he’s gonna have an even bigger problem than just the Kokomins going after him’, Kuboyasu thought.
Kusuo ignored it as they packed their things away, praying that they’d escape fast enough to avoid the confrontation Saiko wanted to have.
“I don’t have to answer you!” Saiko said defensively, now glancing between Kuboyasu and Kusuo. ‘Fuck, if this punk doesn’t move I won’t get a chance to speak with Saiki! I have to know why he was at that party over the weekend.’
Kusuo pointedly ignored the use of gendered pronouns, as that Tuesday ended up being a day of no gender. They rarely happened, and Kusuo tended to be a bit more fluid in their presentation on the rare occasions that they were nonbinary.
“Well if you wanna talk to Saiki, you’ve gotta go through me first.” Kuboyasu snapped as Nendo and Kaido walked up beside him, unknowingly aiding Kusuo in their escape. Saiko was too busy dealing with the three idiots to notice Kusuo’s disappearance from the classroom.
Kusuo just silently thanked God for finally having mercy on them as they escaped to the front of the school, switched out their indoor shoes for their outdoor shoes, and left the building without interruption. By the time they made it home, they'd managed to avoid any and all problems that afternoon, and breathed a sigh of relief as they made it through the front door of his house unbothered.
"Oh, Ku!" Their mother beamed as she peeked into the hallway. "How was your day? I know you said someone from your school was at that event on Saturday, did they bother you at all?"
"I'm not even sure he knew I was at the party, seeing as he didn't interact with me at all today." Kusuo projected. 'Though, that's not for lack of trying,' they thought to themself. They didn't project it though. Kusuo's mother didn't need to know about the failed attempts Saiko had made that Kusuo had forced to fail.
The first attempt had come before school, which was a rare thing. Saiko almost never made it on time, let alone early enough for there to still be at least five minutes before the first class of the day started.
-
Saiko stubbornly pushed through the crowded hallways, only two of ten bodyguards following behind him. They'd been ordered to stay stationed outside the classroom while the rest waited outside.
Kusuo was seated on an empty ledge of the roof thanks to the telepathic warning signs that Saiko Metori had seen them at the party and following dinner the previous Saturday.
Anyways, while Kusuo hid on the roof and subtly mind controlled everyone into avoiding it, Saiko was prowling the halls in search of the pink haired teen.
'I need to talk to him. If he's really the younger brother of Saiki Kusuke, I want to know why he avoids the spotlight as much as he does.' Saiko's thoughts bled through Kusuo's concentration, and Kusuo decided to avoid him as best they could that day.
By the time Kusuo made it home, they had successfully avoided two dozen manhunts, stalking tactics, and just blatant attempts at 'subtle' manipulation into getting him alone with Saiko.
-
Kurumi gave Kusuo a hug before letting them head upstairs, deciding that they wanted a nap. They were tired as hell, and they felt like they deserved a nap after avoiding all that harassment.
They ended up having a wonderful nap, only waking up when their mother came to get them for dinner.
+++
The rest of the week followed a similar trend, and by Friday Kusuo was tired of dealing with Saiko’s attempts at getting him alone. He respected that Saiko was going out of his way to ask him these things when not in public, but also Kusuo didn't want to deal with him.
And so, at the end of the day, Kusuo purposefully slipped away from the crowd of his friends, and hid up on the roof. Saiko had started staying later than the rest of the student body each day, mentally begging god for a chance to speak with Saiki.
Kusuo just sighed before momentarily pushing the thought of the rooftop into one of the guards' minds, glad to note that they latched onto the idea well enough to look up and see the pink haired teen leaning calmly against the railing of the rooftop.
Kusuo accepted his fate as the third to last student left, leaving only the staff, Kusuo, Saiko, and the guards on school premises. The guard who'd seen him on the roof called into a headset to check the roof and Kusuo decided it was time for a snack as he stepped back from view. He apported things easily enough, eventually trading his socks up to a nice, bitter yet sweet coffee jelly, and a spoon.
Saiko’s guards made their way towards the rooftop, Saiko leading the charge as Kusuo sat against the railing on the back side of the school’s roof, eating his coffee jelly as he waited. He’d only gotten the snack to have something for his hands and so he wouldn’t decide to just teleport home before the rich asshole got up to the roof.
“Saiki!?” Saiko yelled as he slammed open the door to the roof, glancing quickly across the rooftop before stalking over to where the pink haired teen was sitting.
“What.” Kusuo projected, pausing his snacktime for a moment.
“Why were you at that party last weekend?” The pale-haired teen demanded to know, his mind racing. ‘Why was he there? Is Saiki related to Kusuke Saiki? If he is, why did the blond bring him to the party when he’d never before even offered to introduce his family to anyone?’ Kusuo wondered about that last one too, though he doubted he’d get any answers from his brother anytime soon.
“My brother bribed me into going, it was last minute and he decided to drag me along.” Kusuo responded, quickly scooping a bit of coffee jelly into his mouth and sighing in pleasure at the taste. He ignored the words ‘pretty’ and ‘cute’ as it flew through Saiko’s already speeding mind. He didn’t like acknowledging his own looks, nor did he like it when people other than his mother acknowledged that he wasn’t as average as he wished he were.
“Wait, so then-!” Saiko took a half-step back, seemingly in shock. “Is Kusuke Saiki your brother?!?”
Kusuo nodded solemnly, taking another spoonful of his coffee jelly and enjoying the rich flavor of it.
‘Holy shit! Wait, if Kusuke Saiki’s family can afford the tuition to any school in the world, then why does he go to this dump? Its already poor quality was astonishing when it came to Teruhashi and her family, but with the Saiki family it’s like putting a billion yen in a trash heap!!’ Well that’s just insulting. Kusuo once again ignored the other teen’s thoughts, having another spoonful of coffee jelly.
“But if he’s your brother, then why do you go here? This place isn’t even that nice of a school, you could afford to found your own school with the kind of money Kusuke Saiki has!” Saiko finally decided to say, and Kusuo sighed as he finished his coffee jelly.
“I don’t like the attention. If we were to publicly acknowledge that I am his younger sibling, I wouldn’t get an ounce of privacy, no matter how many times he paid people to keep them away.” Kusuo said, sighing as he stood up slowly, brushing himself off momentarily before walking towards the door. “I don’t want anyone knowing. Would you mind keeping this to yourself?”
‘Wait, is he actually trusting me with this?!? Holy shit he is! I can’t let him down, if he trusts me enough to tell me all this, I can’t betray that trust.’ Saiko cleared his throat before speaking, puffing his chest out in pride at the miniscule show of trust Kusuo had given him. “Of course, Saiki. I won’t tell anyone, nor will any of my staff. If anyone says a word about this, I’ll have them and their families sent off to Siberia post haste.”
“And stop sending people to Siberia, at least get creative, like send someone to the Amazon Rainforest to find a dodo, or send them on an expedition to find Atlantis or something. Have some fun with it. Other than that, thank you.” Kusuo paused at the door, looking back with a slightly softer expression than his typical annoyed neutrality as he thanked the pale haired teen.
Kusuo pointedly ignored the sudden mental static from Saiko, leaving the rich teen and his guards alone on the rooftop as he quickly swapped his shoes and started his walk home. Hopefully Saiko knew how to pretend nothing had happened, though Kusuo had a feeling his hopes would be in vain.