The Rajan Conspiracy

There are perks to no longer being omniscient.

For starters, I’m not legally required to stare at Kaito Sasaki’s face 24/7. Which is huge. Do you have any idea how exhausting it is to narrate every single thought of a man who once tried to microwave tea in a plastic cup?

Now that I’m a journalist, I get to make choices. I get to explore. Investigate. Avoid emotional scenes by pretending I have deadlines.

Which is why, while Kaito and the others were off emotionally spiraling toward their inevitable meeting with the UN, I decided to do something far more productive:

Spy on Rajan.

Because something about him doesn’t sit right. Too calm. Too well-dressed. Too good at making eye contact. He moves like a man who’s never tripped over a shoelace in his life. And that’s not normal. That’s suspicious.

Also, he saw me. Like really saw me. That alone should’ve triggered a cosmic HR report.

I never liked that guy.

Too perfect.

Too polite.

Probably not even human.

No, my current working theory is that Rajan isn’t from Earth at all. I think he was sent here by the Narrator Council. Or worse... by Edgar Allan Poe himself.

Yes, that Edgar Allan Poe. Head of the Global Narrator Union. The man who wrote “The Raven” and then went on to unionize omniscient beings. A true villain. HR’s final boss. The only being who still writes exclusively in gothic italics.

And now, I think he’s toying with me. Which is a direct violation of Narrator Workers' Rights Section 12B: “Thou shalt not messeth with thine former coworkers while they are freelancing.”

But do Narrator Lords care? No. They just send perfect men with jawlines sharp enough to cut syntax and names that sound like plot twists.

So I’ve decided. I’m going to investigate Rajan. Find out what he’s hiding. Expose his cosmic LinkedIn profile if I have to.

Because I may not be a narrator anymore…

…but I still know a setup when I see one.

And Rajan?

Oh, he’s definitely a setup.

Let’s find out for what.

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You ever met someone so perfect it feels illegal?

That’s Rajan.

His hair never moves. His shirt never wrinkles. I saw him drink from a cup and not a single drop hit his mustache. I don’t even think he has a mustache, but if he did? It would be perfect.

Naturally, I concluded he was evil.

Or worse: corporate.

So I followed him. Like a true investigative journalist with too much time and not enough self-control.

That sounds creepy. And it is. But also: this guy looked at me. Like, directly. With eye contact and everything. That’s not just breaking the fourth wall—that’s walking into the audience and asking for snacks.

And ever since then, he's been doing things.

Suspicious things.

First off, Rajan doesn’t walk like a normal person. He drifts. Like the floor is slightly afraid of disappointing him. I saw him float up three stairs without bending his knees. I don’t know how. I’ve replayed the footage. It haunts me.

Then he entered a teahouse, sat at a corner table, and ordered something called the Existential Hibiscus. Who drinks that? Is that even FDA-approved?

He pulled out a notebook. Not a normal one. A leather-bound journal with gold trimming and a pen that refilled itself. Every few seconds, he’d write a single word. One word. Close the notebook. Wait a moment. Then write another.

That’s serial killer behavior, I thought.

Until I realized he was doing crosswords.

Then he paid—not with money—but with what appeared to be a handshake coupon from the Prime Minister. The waiter just bowed and left.

Okay, that part was probably just India being India.

But then—then—I watched him stare at a street sign for a full thirty seconds, nod, and walk away. Just nodded at it. Like it gave him advice.

Suspicious.

He bought a pack of chewing gum, opened it, chewed one piece, then fed the wrapper to a recycling drone mid-flight.

MID. FLIGHT.

He complimented a statue. A statue. Of a historical traffic light.

And when a vendor offered him a free snack, he declined. Politely.

Who turns down free snacks?!

I’m telling you, dear reader, this isn’t normal. Rajan’s not normal. He’s doing things. Quiet, calculated things that feel like background details but reek of main villain energy.

I’ve seen this type before. Too kind. Too calm. Probably speaks in flawless haiku when no one’s listening.

Which brings me to the only logical conclusion:

He was sent by Edgar Allan Poe.

I bet Rajan’s here to mess with me. Personally. As punishment for going rogue. For daring to narrate with heart.

This is a violation of Narrator Workers' Rights, and I will file a complaint.

But first, i have a meeting to attend.

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The meeting room was buried deep within one of Mumbai’s administrative towers—somewhere between “classy boardroom” and “futuristic escape room.” The walls glowed faintly with ambient lighting that adjusted to your mood. Kaito’s chair dimmed the lights the moment he sat down, which seemed rude.

“Maybe it’s detecting your guilt,” Sota muttered beside him.

“Maybe it’s detecting your face,” Kaito snapped back.

Hana ignored both of them.

Across the table sat a man who looked like he hadn’t slept in a week and had recently lost an argument with a whiteboard. His tie was crooked. His hair had given up. His eyes were glassy in the way that only bureaucrats or people who’ve tried to teach grammar to TikTok influencers can understand.

“Thank you for meeting with me,” he said, voice flat. “I’m Head Delegate Matthew Price, United Nations Department of Linguistic Crisis Response.”

“Long title,” Kaito said.

“I had to make my own badge,” Price replied, holding up a laminated card with "UN-LCR" scrawled in Sharpie.

Rajan, ever-gliding, poured everyone water and stood by like an extremely polite statue.

“We’ll make this quick,” Price said, rubbing his temples. “To be honest, we weren’t expecting much.”

“Charming,” Hana said.

“But then,” Price continued, “you went viral. The streak. The owl. The cult. The blender fight. You became… central.”

“We didn’t ask for any of that,” Kaito said.

“None of us ask for the apocalypse,” Price replied, looking 400 years older than when he walked in. “But here we are.”

He tapped a remote.

A screen behind him flickered on, displaying what looked like a loading bar over a giant globe.

“We tried. You have to believe that. We made a beta version of a global language. Simple. Clean. AI-generated symbols, grammar stripped down to basics.”

“Like Esperanto?” Sota asked.

“No,” Price said. “Esperanto still had rules. This had… vibes.”

Kaito squinted. “So what happened?”

“The protesters.”

“Oh no,” Hana muttered.

“They came out of nowhere,” Price said. “Dressed as emojis. Holding signs that said ‘🧠❌🖋️ = ❤️’ and ‘💬 = 🚫.’”

“They stormed the building. Took the linguists hostage. Made us communicate using only reaction GIFs for three days.”

Sota blinked. “That sounds… oddly familiar.”

“And then what happened?” Kaito asked.

“They renamed the language ‘EMOJISH’ and declared independence.”

Hana winced. “That… sounds legally binding.”

Price sighed. “The point is—every solution has failed. Every diplomat has quit. Every system we try gets corrupted.”

He looked Kaito dead in the eyes.

“You’re not here because we think you caused the collapse. You’re here because we’ve got nothing left. No more theories. No more teams. Just rumors.”

He leaned in.

“And the only consistent rumor is that it all started when your streak ended.”

The room went quiet.

Its weight finally settled across Kaito’s shoulders. Not just blame—but expectation. Burden. Hope.

“So what now?” he asked softly.

Price shrugged. “We don’t know. But whatever you three are doing, keep doing it. The world is broken. And somehow, you’re still moving forward.”

There was a pause.

Then the parrot flapped down onto the table and said:

“We’re doomed.”

Price blinked. “Why is there a parrot in here?”

“Emotional support,” Sota muttered.

The parrot added, “No refunds.”