MYSTERY I: The Kanzaki family

Rich extravaganza with its luscious golden trinkets, always ringing in front of his eyes. Everything is a god given gift, whatever you own is not yours but a gift from someone you owe. Every gift is not a gift but a debt. A debt so heavy on one’s head that it crowds the vision of the future, only engraving words and actions of its choice. Lilacs are beautiful at night and yet, the scent is poisonous to those who reject the pollen. Everything is an art, a rich extravaganza until it's not. A luxury until it's not.

Until it starts killing you.

Until it starts erasing you.

Lies are the truth until someone says it otherwise.

But what of those whose whole life has been nothing but a lie.

Carefully weaved with delicate threads of truth to fabricate a suitable reality. One that doesn't bleed you dry, one that waters you like a plant. One that doesn't allow you to fly in the open yonder but does let you flap your wings in a jewel embedded golden ring, a circus that has its own rules. Rules that you cannot deny but sing.

“Kaito is a Kanzaki and Kanzakis worship the Kitsune, Hikari. They know something we don't, the question is, what?” Yukio stated, affirmation in his voice. He adjusted his glasses as he walked up to Saqib. Saqib’s face was the very picture of exhaustion, a hint of frown between his brows when his back hit the classroom door behind him and slid down. Forming a triangle with the ankle of his feet, he glanced at Kaito from the corner of his eyes. In his white hair, Kaito had not moved since being caught. His head was down but the glare in his eyes didn't leave the floor. As if, he was frustrated but appalled at himself.

“Look at me, Kai. Tell me what's going on!” Hikari urged him again, suppressing whatever anger she had in her after the feelings of betrayal washed on her. Kaito shook his head, he didn't want to meet her eyes nor answer her questions. “Why not!”

“Because!-” Kaito's voice cracked. Saqib could hear the frustration and pain in his voice, he wanted to help him- in any way he could but… facing Hikari was not something Saqib could save him from.

“Tell her, Kai. You can't avoid it anymore. She needs to know.” Saqib's voice was nothing but a whisper of courage. He wanted nothing but for his friend to be already free of a burden. “Tell me what?”

“They are dead.” A whisper full of pain, Kaito’s fingers curled in a fist, clenching hard enough until his knuckles turned white. “What?” Hikari staggered back, her feet stumbled into each other until she fell on her back. She tried crawling further away, as if running away from the dread that was choking her alive. “You're lying… he can't be dead…” she protested. Until her eyes fell on the crimson glaring ones, Kaito didn't mince his words. “5 missing people, all were found dead at the old kitsune shrine on the mountain, the Kanzaki family is keeping the lid on the story for now, at least not until we have some leads. It's only a matter of time till Hiroshi’s body also shows up, Hikari.”

Hikari's heart dropped, anger turned into fear and started brimming at the corner of her eyes. She could feel the lump in her throat, the kind that would hurt to swallow. “I still don't get it..” Kaname spoke, voicing out his thoughts. “Your family worship the Kitsune then why-? Why would you tarnish the name of the nine tailed fox?” As Kaname's voice picked up, there was a hint of repulsion in his voice.

Yukio's eyes glinted with a shine, amazed at his devotion towards the supernatural. Kaito understood it fully well, for he never chose to do it. He was ashamed to be the anchor that tarnishes the name of his beloved deity. “To stop the increasing number of victims.” This time it was Saqib who spoke up on behalf of Kaito. Though not bound by blood, the two have been brothers in arms since a young age. If Kaito felt weak, Saqib would take the stand to be his strength. “Do you think you're the only ones who sneak inside the University at midnight in hopes to encounter the supernatural? No. There's been a whole bunch of losers that have pulled this stunt in the past. Those missing people weren't any different. They sneaked inside the college and never returned.”

Kaito took in a deep breath, his eyes still on the stunt Hikari, who has yet to gather herself together. “All 5 of them were huge sponsors to my family. We considered the possibility of this being a personal attack to weaken the Kanzaki family until…” Kaito trailed off and his eyes softened. He reached out his hand for Hikari to take it and helped her get back on her feet. “Until Hiroshi disappeared in a similar fashion.” Yukio finished the sentence for Kaito, adjusting his glasses. An unreadable expression on his face.

“But if it's an attempt to weaken the Kanzaki family, Hiroshi is of no use to them! I hate to admit it but he's just another delinquent, if anything he is never in his right mind to help anyone, Manabe Senpai. Why would they…” Hikari contemplated the chaos in her head again, searching for any clues she might be missing, views and logic clashed in her mind, as if avoiding certain truths.

Kaname felt a hint of unease in his chest, as if he was overlooking something, something important. “Kaito… did you physically encounter any other student?” Kaito nodded his head denying, causing Kaname to retract the theory he was making in his head.

“No need to scatter your brain over it, I already know where we can find the perpetrator.” Yukio nonchalantly declared. After helping Saqib up, the group expectantly looked at the genius, hoping to be finally filled in the truth that he has been hiding.

“You… you knew this whole time that it was Kaito that was pretending to be the kitsune, didn't you?” Kaname affirmed his hunch. Yukio couldn't help the confidence curve of his lips, he removed his glasses and tucked them away in his coat’s pocket. Something came undone in Kaname's head, a chortle of disbelief left his lips as his chest tightened.

It's all a game for this guy. Ha… I can't believe I thought he was just a worried senpai. This bleached broccoli…

However Kaname didn't let his thoughts interrupt the genius. “Think about it, 5 people disappeared, with no whereabouts or any hint of Intel left behind. There were two clues that made Kaito’s involvement very apparent to me, when I looked up their case history.”

“What two things?” Saqib asked, not in the slightest irked by the methodical way of  of Yukio's speaking. “Like Kaito said, they were sponsoring the Kanzakis. That's the first reason.”

“And second?” Hikari inquired, she tried her best to not interrupt. However, surprising to the group, Yukio smiled gratefully and fondly at Hikari as he patted her head. “It was obvious. When people disappear with any signs of foul play in their life, you are supposed to register them as kidnapped– not missing. And yet, the police kept insisting on it to be a missing case. After all, those 5 women were allegeable bride candidates for the Kanzakis, word is that the sponsors' were pressuring Kaito to say yes to their proposal. It does make a reliable storyline to blame the Kanzakis for their disappearance. That means, someone powerful was pulling the strings behind the scenes- that powerful figure being a Kanzaki. Of course they want to hide the truth, or else the Kanzaki family might get the blame for their disappearance and eventually death. Hence, I concluded Kaito was involved, I figured they made the whole Kitsune charade to divert the blame from the family to something else.”

Kaname's frown didn't ease, his fist itched to sock in Yukio's jaw for deceiving them. “I don't get it, what was the point of bringing us here if you knew that the Kitsune was Kaito. What was the reason behind wasting so much time?”

By this point in the conversation, Hikari, Kaito and Saqib had taken a few steps away from the two, sensing the rising hostility in Kaname who only stepped closer to the genius. “I knew nothing. It was a guess. I needed to confirm in case there was even a 1% chance of me being wrong.” The shaman scoffed, biting his lower lip to suppress his anger. “Dear gods.. you're infuriating. What else are just guesses that you have in your mind?”

Yukio wore his glasses back, shrugging his shoulders as he spoke in a matter-of-factly monotonous tone. “I'm only 90% certain about who the murderer is, I can't affirm it as a fact yet. So I can't tell you who it is.”

This infuriating mint haired Einstein of a prick– he's a total basket case!

It may have made Kaname upset that day but soon he would learn why Yukio was the way he was. It wasn't arrogance and it wasn't pride but instead…..