Bathroom Conversations

“Who is this ‘Sojiro Sakura’ who has decided to take me in for a year?”

No answer. His mom was too busy smacking her lips together while admiring her lipstick in the mirror.

“Are you sure he isn’t, like, I’m not sure, secretly into grooming teenage boys? This whole thing sounds kinda shady.”

“You are not making any sense, honey.” She shook her head, searching for something in her makeup bag. “It sounds like a perfectly normal thing to do, in my book.”

“Grooming teenage boys like your son sounds completely normal?” Her opinions were pretty unique sometimes, but…

She laughed off his question. Her “I don’t know what’s wrong with him either, Principal. His big sister turned out completely fine.” kind of laugh. It had never been his fault. Okay, on second thought… maybe the first time. But trouble’s ugly trait to stick to his shoe soles like bubble gum, ever since that moment? Definitely not his fault.

Ren knew things would have to change. His probation was about to begin, and he was committed to try his best to stay out of trouble for once.

… living with a stranger, probably into grooming teenage boys.
… attending school, as the transfer student with a criminal record.

One year. Three hundred and sixty five days.
He would need to find a way to get that gum off very soon —

Or buy new shoes.

“So your parents sold you to Sojiro on Facebook marketplace?” Futaba’s voice sounded positively delighted.

So glad we managed to change her heart. Not only had it fucked up his sleeping cycle, having to go to the gym every morning to take a shower before class — now he was also back to his bathroom chat routine.

“Something like that, yeah. I didn’t manage to extract further information from her.” He was looking into the mirror and trying to sort out his messy fringes, preparing his voice to sound as neutral as possible.
”Speaking of extracting information.” Yesterday, he’d had an idea, and he wasn’t sure yet if it was a good one. “The phone you hacked.”

“Uhm, which one, exactly?” She pushed her glasses back onto her nose.

Come on. You know which one. “The one that belongs to the traitor. The traitor guy, the bad apple of the bunch guy. That one.”

“Ahhhh. That one. What about it?” Ren didn’t like the look she gave him.

“I think we should start looking into other stuff, too. The first thing the police does when building their case is establishing a full profile of the perpetrator.” He tried his best to keep his expression neutral, too. “And I think our profile is very incomplete.”

“What do you think is missing?”

“I’m not sure yet… but there has to be something.” On further thought… it was probably a stupid idea, but he wasn’t ready to let it go yet either.
”Like, what about his browser history. Any suspicious websites, maybe, which may help us figure something out?”

Futaba didn’t reply immediately. But when she did, she cackled just like he had, before he’d done the things that made the principal call his mom. “You know, if you want to see his porn, all you do is gotta ask.”

“Great. Today after school? I’m gonna be back at around 6.”

His sis gave him a thumbs-up. “Don’t forget to bring snacks.”