Chapter 40

Gakushuu walked into class after lunch time, and class A was immediately sent into an uproar.

"We thought you weren't coming!" Ayaka exclaimed with a worried frown.

"Are you okay?" Ren asked, holding Gakushuu's shoulder still. His classmates gathered around like pigeons coming to peck at food. Their eyes were wide and worried as they tried to decipher Gakushuu's moods.

Gakushuu smiled at them fondly.

"I'm fine. I was a little stressed but I'm doing better now," he slid off Ren's hand, holding a couple stares.

"You don't have anything to do for the day, but you'll have to take a make up test after school," Anaya informed him.

Gakushuu let out a dramatic sigh.

"If only I had someone to be me for a day…" Hinata giggled in response.

"They'd probably be dead half way through. And oh! I got hold of the recording of your normal accompanist doing a solo, and she sent you a shout out to you. Did you see?" Hinata jumped on Gakushuu's back, shoving her phone in his hand.

He and Kimiko met each other's eyes and rolled it with perfect synchronisation. Then he pressed 'play'.

Hinata not-so-subtly shooed his classmates away, determined to monopolise his time and Gakushuu stifled a laugh and played along.

Things were working out oddly smoothly and Gakushuu was slightly suspicious.

Well, he said 'smoothly' but Gakushuu was carrying on as normal. It was actually Karma facing the biggest changes.

Apparently, he actually agreed to have his parents over for dinner. Dinner.

Now see here, Gakushuu was well aware that a lot of important things for Karma involved cooking. Maybe not the food itself, but cooking was an important time for Karma.

To find that he was willing to cook for his parents?

Gakushuu was so incredibly suspicious (read: jealous) that he couldn't breathe. So. He might have sort of been eavesdropping on them.

It was a little hard considering there was no preparation and Gakushuu would never allow anyone else to invade Karma's home without permission, but he managed.

By managed, he meant he had sneaked in himself and was actively eavesdropping on them.

But he hadn't discovered much actually, other than Karma trying his best to actively curb his acidic tongue and trying to manipulate them into doing his bidding.

He was surprised to find that , actually.

Was it Koro-sensei? Gakushuu himself? His class or maybe someone else?

What made Karma, distasteful as he was towards the couple, want to actually get involved?

The last he had seen of the three was them not even pretending to keep up a facade of a family. So what was this?

Halfway through, Gakushuu started to feel like he might be encroaching a bit too far . He was used to taking drastic measures, but. He trusted Karma.

He had just felt like Karma didn't want to get involved with those two. That was why he had been getting plans in place. He had been ready to go as far as to bring them to some other country due to another emergency.

He didn't need to find out the reasons why they came, he just needed to get rid of their presence.

But.

As much as Karma didn't like them, he now seemed interested in at least getting involved with them.

It was perhaps the most clueless he had been about a situation. But he smiled to himself and pulled back.

Hadn't someone pretty damn smart told him to take things 'one at a time'?

He trusted Karma to deal with the things he chose to involve himself with. He would be there, just like when class E was on the island, and he would trust him to solve his own problems.

Karma let his eyes drift outside, hearing the slightest movement of a person leaving the vicinity subtly.

He smirked to himself.

Then his 'parents' called him back with warm honeyed voices and Karma felt the creeping disgust crawl down his spine again.

Then he flipped the envelope in his hands letting his eyes wander over the neat script.

He was well aware of his parents' habits and this?

This had a smell of someone else's manipulations all over.

A letter, a picture, the timing and the way they reacted every time Karma brought up anything remotely domestic, Gakushuu or about his love life…

He flipped the envelope between his fingers.

He didn't want Gakushuu to get involved in something like this at all. Specially when he was beginning to finally understand the wariness Gakushuu held for his father almost constantly.

Gakuhou, huh?

He placed the envelope back into its place, hidden away from sight.

The easiest way to deal with this was to complete their objective in returning, and obviously he couldn't do that.

So he would give them the one thing that they disliked enough to break through whatever goal that was given to them.

Karma smiled so brightly that anyone watching would recognise the childish sense of joy someone showed when they were truly happy.

"Mom, dad!" Karma called, ignoring the slightest cringe from both of them. "You should try my raspberry banana chocolate smoothie that I made just for you ," he brought two glasses filled with what looked like puke instead.

The two of them shared an alarmed glance and looked at the spread of food in front of them. Every dish looked nice, but tasted almost horrendous. But the smoothie looked like it had been made blindfolded by the worst cook in history.

"Um. Karma, maybe we could go out and get dessert, honey?" Karma's mother asked, her voice taking a pleading note at the end.

"Sorry, I guess this is too much, right?" Karma hesitantly looked at his 'smoothie'. "I made it for you guys since you used to like eating my food so much before. I mean, you are my parents after all."

That was a lie.

His parents had never eaten a single dish made by him. Actually, they still hadn't. Everything Karma was feeding them was things Karma had gotten over himself to order from the worst restaurant he could find. With terrible hygiene.

"Haha, yes of course." His 'father' made an uncomfortable expression as he took a hold of the glass. His hand slipped on the cool surface and there was a brief flicker of relief before Karma caught it mid air.

He smiled at his father.

"Here you go!" He safely placed the glass in front of his father, looking at his mother earnestly. She was the one who seemed to actually be using her head more. His father was far more gullible than her.

She hesitantly took the glass, a disgusted expression on her face.

"You…made this, Karma?" She asked, her voice wavering.

"Yes, mom," he replied, wide eyed, smiling earnestly.

"In this kitchen, right?" She asked again, looking at the perfectly cleaned kitchen within her eyesight. It was practically sparkling.

"Yup," Karma reassured her.

His father took the first bite. His face turned green. Then pink. Then white.

He breathed out weakly.

"Ho-honey?" His mother called out. Fūei reached an arm towards his wife then his eyes rolled back and he fainted from his seat.

She shrieked.

Karma breathed out excuses while dialling for a hospital. At worst, he would be suffering from stomach pain and a few digestive problems. There wouldn't really be any permanent after effects.

But.

Well. Karma smiled to himself, viciously hoping it was a scarring experience.

After the ambulance took away his fainted father and a panicked mother, he looked at the glasses still upright on the table with disappointment.

It was too bad she hadn't taken a bite as well.

But oh well.

He was sure if she snapped out of it, she would recognise the threat he had laid out for them for what it was.

As he had promised them long ago, if they fucked with his life, he would make sure to fuck with their lifespan too.

And this time, he was so much better at subtly poisoning people.

Even if there was some kind of investigation, the restaurant which had the guts to actually deliver this trash to him would be shut down and nothing else.

After all, Karma was just a loving, lonely child so eager to please his parents he ordered food and pretended he made them.

He had just directly served the food and there was absolutely no tampering involved. At all.

It didn't even take three days before Karma was cleared, the restaurant shut down and his parents booked for the next flight to whatever place they had been staying.

Karma wrapped an arm around the love of his life, and smiled a mischievous little grin.

Gakuhou looked over the way the situation he had poked at turned out and blinked in surprise.

He hadn't seen such a blatant 'fuck you' to his face in a long while.

Akabane Karma actually poisoned his parents to get them out of the country.

He hid a smile.

Maybe the abandoned childhood wasn't as big of a weakness as he had expected it to be. It was a far quicker end to the conflict he had been planning to brew.

Somehow, he didn't dislike it though.

Maybe if it was this boy… his thoughts trailed off with wonder.