"I-I understand…" Asuka spoke softly.
"hmph…you can stop that soft exterior y'know, not like I'm going to tell anyone." Leo boldly tells Asuka.
Asuka quickly and suddenly looks up to Leo as her eyes tell her emotions quite clearly, her surprised yet shocked expression was enough for Leo to confirm that her front was a mask. Despite this Leo decided not to shine light onto it as Leo stopped leaning on the counter, standing upright and looking over at the cookbook.
"What were you planning to cook?" Leo stares at the cookbook.
"H-Huh? Oh t-this…?" Asuka closed it, showing the front cover to Leo.
"I-I was planning t-to bake some cookies…" she hands the book to Leo.
Leo took the book as she looked at the front cover, a dummies guide to making easy recipes with everyday stuff. Leo looked at the author of the book, Raval Tsh'ura, a well-respected chef that had been headlined as the south's best chef multiple times, however what caught her eye was the name it was published under.
Hildri's Publishing Corporation, A publishing company that focuses on pushing new books, graphic novels, and advertisements to the forefront in case of a massive breakthrough. However, they're rumored for underhanded tactics against their rivals in the same establishment. This confused Leo, why would a highly renowned chef pair up with a publishing company that is rumored to do underhand tactics all for advertising.
She'd shake the thought off and hand the book back to Asuka, in which Asuka lays the book flat on the table as she opens it. Asuka flips through as she finds the page about baking cookies, Leo watches as she leaned over the table a bit, reading through it as Leo shrugs it off.
"Well, have fun baking cookies. I hope you don't lace it with Red Siphon." Leo jokes.
"H-Huh?!? I-I wouldn't—"
"It was a joke." Leo reassured Asuka, continuing to walk away.
"..." Asuka had a small yet comfortable frown on her as she continued to read through the cookbook.
***
Kimura and Naoki had arrived back at their dorm as Kimura opened it, carrying a strawberry and raspberry combined ice cream in one hand. Naoki on the other hand was carrying his bag of TCG booster pack boxes and his chocolate and raspberry combined ice cream in both hands.
"Better hope I didn't waste my money on something shit Naoki" Kimura tells him, closing the door behind Naoki.
"I don't think so, these boxes should contain some rare if not strong cards…"
"Rare my ass, anyways get unpacking." Kimura scoffs.
Just as he closes the door Kimura's phone goes off in his pocket, Kimura reaches in as he clicks it on seeing a notification from Erudis. Erudis? Huh…haven't heard from him for a while… Kimura's interest piqued as he read the text sent to him.
Kimura, Korvos needs you back at the student council office. Meet us there.
Kimura sighs as he opens the door once again, heading out and ignoring what Naoki was going to say. Kimura quickly ate his ice cream and got a slight brain freeze from it. However, he pushed on as the brain freeze subsided.
Upon arriving in the council office, Kimura stood in front of the three again, his arms crossed as he didn't seem too excited about what they had to say.
"I'm surprised you even read my text message." Erudis tells him.
"It's not like I was gonna ignore it, so, what'd you want?" Kimura's obviously not happy about it.
"We got word that you allegedly beat three Kyoushou students two days ago. I just want to confirm if you did." Korvos looks at Kimura.
"..." Kimura stayed silent.
"Well?" Suharu raised an eyebrow.
"What's this got to do with—" Kimura spoke as his sentence was abruptly cut off with an image.
The image was slid over to him by Korvos as Kimura looks and walks over, picking it up. Kimura looks at the image as he sees the aftermath that he left the students in, beaten to a pulp and scattered across the street.
"What about it? It's just them lying down." Kimura asks.
"…Look closer." Korvos asks Kimura.
Kimura sighs as he takes a closer look at the image, upon doing so he notices something off, a pair of white eyes in a small bush, it's faint but he can see that the eyes were unordinary, like nothing he's seen before. What the… Kimura was perplexed as he continued his observation, he looked at the building off in the distance in the image as he noticed the blind open, someone was watching them.
Kimura took a deep breath, it felt like something straight out of a horror movie where the monster was stalking its prey. Kimura shook it off as he handed Korvos the image back. Now thinking about it, Kimura can't shake off the sudden feeling that he's still being watched, like a sixth sense was telling him about it.
"So, did you do it, Kimura…" Korvos tells him.
"..." Kimura stayed silent again, taking time to collect his thoughts.
Something feels off about them…about this room entirely… Kimura can't shake off the feeling no matter how hard he tried, something about this room just screamed fight back to him. Meanwhile, Naoki gets a phone call from Suharu, it was unreasonably odd for someone to even call Naoki, but he picks up anyways.
"Hello…?" Naoki talks in a somewhat tired tone.
"Is this Kimura's roommate!!!" Suharu's sudden erratic voice comes through.
"Ow my ear…Uh yeah, this is Naoki, Kimura's roommate…"
"Where's Kimura!!"
"Uh…I don't really know, I think he went back to the main building…why?" Naoki was a little confused.
"There's tarnished on campus! The school's main building's been closed until the Tarnished hunters get here!"
"Tarnished…? Like the ones on TV?" Naoki's tone suddenly shifts to a slightly concerned one.
Kimura however was already neck deep into the trap that's been set up, he's been on his guard almost entirely as Korvos has been asking the same question over and over. This was a bit unsettling for Kimura as he suddenly noticed how emotionless they were.