The trio disembarked, traversing the immaculate garden under the watchful gaze of unseen personnel. They passed through the grand main gate and moved silently down a corridor of polished wood, heading toward the appointed reception room.
Halfway there, Sakurai's small hand tugged insistently at Chika's sleeve.
"What's wrong, Zero One-kun?"
"Candy ingestion protocol. Initiate."
"Candy? Sorry, I don't have any on me…"
"…Does this mean the protocol can be skipped today? I hold a low preference rating for sugar matrices, but Doctor-Sister mandates daily consumption." His tone suggested this would be a welcome deviation.
Kaguya Shinomiya glanced back at the exchange. "Hasaka… Hayasaka-kun," she corrected herself smoothly. "There are confections prepared in the reception room, correct?" She assumed it was merely a childish pretext for sweets.
"Of course, my lady." Hayasaka Ai inclined her head. The Shinomiya household was never lacking in such amenities, all of the highest provenance.
A few minutes later, in the opulent, echoing reception room, the group engaged in aimless chatter. Dinner was still some time away. Hayasaka Ai moved with practiced grace, preparing tea.
"Where shall Sakurai-kun sleep tonight?" Kaguya inquired, a practical hostess.
"With us?" Chika tilted her head, then reconsidered. However small, he was still biologically male. "No… that wouldn't be appropriate."
She also harbored private hopes for a classic girls' night—sharing romantic secrets and grievances. The current, brutally literal-minded version of "Sakurai" would render such conversations impossible.
"Perhaps Hayasaka-kun could look after him?" Chika suggested brightly. "Since they're both boys, they'd have more in common!"
Beside them, the steady clink of porcelain ceased. Hayasaka Ai's hands went still.
Caught in the crossfire.
Her affection for Sakurai Saki did not extend to a universal, doting love for his alleged kin. Hayasaka Ai had zero interest in childcare, except perhaps for her own hypothetical future offspring. Managing one overgrown child—Kaguya Shinomiya—was her daily quota of patience. Adding another, especially this one, was a fate she'd rather avoid at all costs.
Yet, if Kaguya-san gave the order, she had no grounds to refuse. Not while wearing the 'Hasaka-kun' disguise.
"Ah! Of course!" Kaguya exclaimed, as if the solution had just dawned on her. "We have another male present. Hayasaka, you'll take him." It was settled. Why hadn't she thought of it sooner?
Hayasaka Ai approached with a placid smile that didn't reach her eyes, setting down the tea tray. My master is truly, creatively cruel. She allowed her gaze to settle on the small boy for the first time.
The resemblance is uncanny.
"Sakurai-kun," she asked, her voice gentle. "Would you like to stay with your 'big brother' tonight?" A plan formed. Perhaps the child could be a source of intelligence—a way to glean Sakurai Saki's little secrets and preferences.
Sakurai had been single-mindedly dismantling a petit four. He looked up, his large eyes meeting hers. He said nothing for several long seconds.
Then, he gave a slow, vacant nod.
Late that night, in Kaguya's expansive bedroom, the two girls were curled up on the massive bed in matching silk pajamas.
"Do you think Sakurai-kun is asleep by now?" Kaguya whispered, as if the walls themselves might report back.
"Children need lots of sleep. He's probably been out for hours," Fujiwara Chika reasoned, hugging a pillow.
On the other side of the mansion, in Hayasaka Ai's quarters.
Ai-chan, still in her short black wig and masculine sleepwear, let out a long, weary sigh. The façade was exhausting to maintain.
"Little one, aren't you tired yet?" It was past ten. Soon, she'd need to make her nightly report to the main family.
Sakurai, swimming in a set of borrowed, massively oversized pajamas, tilted his head. "Superpower Users do not require sleep cycles."
Hayasaka Ai maintained her gentle, patient expression—the one reserved for Kaguya's most unreasonable demands. "Are you… missing your brother?" she ventured, executing the perfect conversational pivot. Now, to extract some useful data.
"No~" Sakurai's lips curled into a small, peculiar smile. It held a touch of mischief, and something else—a knowing glint utterly alien on a child's face. "Because… I am him. No entity is so narcissistic as to yearn for itself, correct?"
He looked down, studying his own small palm, then placed a hand over his heart, as if confirming a hypothesis. He had finally diagnosed the lock on his powers. The realization was simple. If I intend no harm… why should I fear myself?
"I did not consume the mandated candy today. My cognitive processing speed has increased marginally…"
"Pardon?" Hayasaka Ai didn't follow.
"Irrelevant!" Sakurai's expression brightened into one of pure, angelic innocence. "Big Brother! I wish to go outside and gather experiential data!"
The look was designed to melt hearts and bypass defenses. But Hayasaka Ai, a veteran caregiver to a permanently petulant charge, was completely immune.
"It is far too late," she stated, her refusal absolute.
"Understood." Sakurai acquiesced without protest. There was no urgency. He had time.
Thirty minutes later, as Hayasaka began to hope he'd finally drifted off, a small, sleepy sound came from the futon beside her bed.
"Mmnh…"
Sakurai rubbed his eyes with tiny fists, the fight against his body's juvenile biology finally being lost. The fearsome Superpower User was, for the moment, just a very small, very sleepy boy.
Of course, the sleepiness was a calculated performance.
Seeing his drooping eyelids, Hayasaka Ai switched off the main light, bathing the room in the soft, orange-red glow of a nightlight. "Sleep," she instructed softly before slipping into the adjoining small study to make her nightly report to the Shinomiya main family.
Several minutes ticked by. Once the muffled rhythm of her one-sided conversation filtered through the door, Sakurai silently slipped from the futon. He crept across the tatami, pressing himself against the study door like a shadow.
Just a little further.
If he could reach the main door, he could find a secluded spot to utilize the day's newly-awakened ability and permanently lock his current physical state…
Heh.
Sakurai Saki? That timid fool who feared his own power—let him be erased! The very idea of his future self yearning to be "ordinary" was an insult Sakurai could not abide. Placing chains upon himself, a predator pretending to be prey—even a rabbit—was a fate he refused to inherit.
While eating cake in the reception room, fragmented data on today's Superpower User had crystallized in his mind. It was the reason he'd agreed to stay with Hayasaka Ai.
[Today's Superpower User: Chrono-Kinesis
Effect: Can accelerate, rewind, or pause time for targeted objects or individual entities.
Side Effect: Emotional agitation triggers mental and physical regression to a past state.]
A Superpower User could not be killed by his own ability. But he could be overwritten by a past iteration of himself. By fixing his body in this regressed state, he would effectively delete "Sakurai Saki" the moment the ability cycled out at midnight. It wasn't murder, not precisely. They were the same entity, just separated by a year of cowardice.
His small hand closed around the cool metal of the main door's handle.
Click.
The sound from the study door was subtle, but Hayasaka Ai's trained ears caught it. The report ended abruptly. "Little brother? What are you doing?"
Sakurai spun, his face instantly morphing into a mask of childish need. "I need to use the restroom…" he mumbled, feigning shyness.
Hayasaka Ai's suspicion was immediate—had he overheard? She cut the transmission short.
"I'll take you."
Sakurai looked up, his large eyes wide with fabricated innocence. "Brother… who were you talking to just now?"
A beat of hesitation. "…Bad people," Hayasaka Ai whispered, the truth slipping out laced with her own guilt.
"Are you a bad person too, Brother?"
The question hung in the dim light. Hayasaka Ai thought of her nightly betrayals, her reports on Kaguya's every move. "Yes," she confessed, her voice barely audible. "I am a bad person."
Sakurai's expression shifted. The innocent veneer dissolved into something chillingly serene. "That's wonderful, then."
He beckoned her closer. When Hayasaka Ai, puzzled, leaned down, he pressed his lips close to her ear, his whisper a cold, delightful secret. "Then I won't feel guilty about killing you."
His small hand shot up, pressing firmly against her temple.
A sudden, violent surge of power—followed immediately by a searing, white-hot lance of pain in his own skull. He gritted his teeth, staggering back.
Are you insane?! You even sealed the daily-awakened abilities?!
The reality was more complex. Sakurai Saki had locked down the ability categories governed by the brain, head, and limbs. In this state, "Zero One" could not access any power beyond basic regeneration. Today's time-manipulation fell under the brain's purview—hence the psychic backlash.
He couldn't kill anyone. Not like this.
Without missing a beat, Sakurai transformed the aborted attack into a gentle head-pat, his smile sweet and vacant once more. "There! I used my Superpower User to erase the bad you, Brother! You're a good person now!"
Hayasaka Ai felt an unexpected warmth bloom in her chest at the childish "magic." The guilt, for a moment, felt absolved by this strange, earnest ritual.
"Thank you," she murmured, reaching out to ruffle his hair in return.
Sakurai ducked his head, letting out a soft, shy giggle. "You're welcome~"
Tch. The side effect fades at dawn…
If he couldn't stop his own maturation, he could at least sow some chaos. Sakurai felt no kinship with his future self—a being who groveled for normality, who debased himself by mingling with these human females. It was pathetic.
A predator does not dine at the same table as its food.
A new, deliciously malicious plan hatched. I'll have this 'big brother' sleep with me. If the side effect wore off mid-sleep, and Sakurai Saki awoke to find himself entangled with 'Hayasaka-kun'…
Hehehe~
A term he'd glimpsed on the phone floated to mind: [Social Death].
What kind of face would my oh-so-proper future self make? The anticipation was exquisite. A pity he wouldn't be there to witness the aftermath firsthand.
"Haa~" As the delightful scheme crystallized, a genuine, overwhelming yawn finally overtook him. The small body' biological demands were, for now, inescapable. The revolution would have to wait for the cover of dreams.
He hadn't ingested the daily "Obedience Candy"—the confection designed to suppress his powers and, incidentally, stave off the metabolic drain they caused. Without it, the weight of his own biology was crushing. The sleepiness wasn't just a suggestion; it was a tidal wave.
In that heavy-lidded state, Sakurai swayed on his feet and collapsed forward, tumbling directly into Hayasaka Ai's waiting arms.
[Social Death Plan: Status - ABORTED.]
The scheme hadn't even launched. Had it succeeded, Sakurai Saki might have found himself needing to flee Tokyo via freight train by dawn. Waking up in the embrace of his romantic rival would have short-circuited his brain entirely. A small mercy, then, that fate intervened.
"Sleepy?" Ai-chan felt his small body go limp against her. The yawn had been real. He'd tried to use the bathroom as an excuse for nocturnal adventures, but his own energy had betrayed him after mere minutes.
He's still just a child, after all.
The memory of his earnest, if bizarre, attempt to "purify" her softened her expression. Just like his brother… gentle at the core.
She lifted him easily in a princess carry, the small form light in her arms, and settled him back onto the futon. A glance at the clock: nearly midnight. After a moment's deliberation, Ai-chan retrieved a spare blanket from the cabinet and made herself a bed on the nearby sofa, maintaining a careful, proper distance.
In the deep of night, a little past 3 AM.
Sakurai Saki's eyes opened to an unfamiliar darkness.
His hand groped at his side, finding only cool, empty sheets. He turned his head. In the faint glow of the nightlight, he could make out the sleeping features of 'Hayasaka-kun' on the sofa nearby.
Several seconds of utter, disoriented silence passed before he tilted his head back to stare at the ceiling.
???
Why was he sharing a room with his romantic rival? Where was this? The events after the confession were a blurry void. He remembered Hayasaka's lips, the surge of emotion, the terrifying lurch of regression… and then nothing.
'I… did accept the confession, right?' The uncertainty was a knot in his stomach. He'd learn the truth from her demeanor next time they met. Asking directly—"Ah, by the way, are we dating now?"—was an embarrassment he would not endure.
Moving with deliberate slowness, Sakurai Saki sat up. He swung his legs over the side of the bed, ready to stand.
… Hayasaka Ai chose that moment to turn over with a soft sigh.
Sakurai froze, a statue in the gloom. He watched her breathing even out again. Only then did he let his feet touch the floor.
He located his school uniform, neatly folded on a nearby chair. A final glance confirmed Hayasaka was still asleep. Silently, he peeled off the absurdly oversized borrowed pajamas—which now, on his restored frame, were simply his pajamas—and folded them with military precision.
Dressed once more as himself, he retrieved a small notepad and pen from his blazer pocket. He scribbled a brief note in a handwriting that was deliberately, clumsily childish, explaining that his "big brother" had urgently summoned him.
Under the cover of the moonless pre-dawn, he slipped from the Shinomiya residence like a ghost. The estate was no doubt monitored, but the greater anomaly was his presence there in the first place. With practiced ease, he navigated the blind spots his past self had long since memorized. Exposure to the ordinary world was a complication he could not afford.
So 'Hayasaka-kun' is a Shinomiya butler. The piece of information filed itself away in his mind as he vanished into the sleeping city.
Golden Week, Day One. 5:00 AM.
Hayasaka Ai awoke to her internal alarm and an empty futon.
Her eyes swept the room. Gone. Then she spotted the note on the computer desk. She picked it up, reading the awkward, rounded characters—the kind a well-meaning elementary student would produce. It spoke of a sudden summons from his brother.
"Why would Sakura-chan come get him in the middle of the night…?" she murmured. As for how he'd known the location, she dismissed it; such information was hardly a state secret.
"…" With a sigh, she removed her short black wig, the night's final disguise. She prepared a bath, the steam beginning to fog the mirror.
Sinking into the hot water, Hayasaka Ai closed her eyes. The note's explanation was flimsy, a tissue of holes. But no matter how she turned it over, no other plausible theory presented itself.
And then a new, dominant thought surfaced: As Sakurai Saki's girlfriend, isn't it my duty to help cover for him?
The memory of last night resurfaced—the small hand on her head, the declaration about "bad people," the strange, warm certainty of his "power."
'Could Sakurai… really be something like a Superpower User?'
She submerged her face, blowing a stream of bubbles into the water, as if to clear the ridiculous notion. Impossible. No matter how you look at it.
Emerging, she patted her cheeks, the residual warmth from the water or the thought she couldn't say. She stretched languidly in the tub.
"I'll just ask Sakura-chan about it next time~"
As his girlfriend.
The title bloomed in her chest, sweet and undeniable. A gigble escaped her, muffled by the bathroom's tiles.
"Hehe… girlfriend~"
It was, against all odds and logic, simply… so happy.