Saiki didn't need to activate his telepathy. It was always on—constant, ambient, like breathing. Still, the moment he stepped into his room, he gave the mental landscape a subtle sweep. Not out of paranoia—though with Kusuke as a brother, that was debatable—but because it was practical. Necessary.
The mental noise was normal. Some distant thoughts from the neighbors—shopping lists, TV jingles, someone arguing with a cat. His room, at least, was quiet.
Until a hidden speaker crackled to life above him.
"Ah, little brother," Kusuke's voice rang out, overly cheerful in that way that meant he was about to say something deeply unhinged. "Had a nice date?"
Saiki sighed. Audibly.
"Of course you did. Very romantic. The coffee jelly tour was a bold choice. If I didn't know you better, I'd say you were developing a personality."
Saiki ignored him and walked over to close the blinds.
"Don't ignore me. I have something important to share."
"No, you don't."
"Yes, I do," Kusuke said, smug. "Let's talk about your boyfriend. Makoto Teruhashi, right?"
Saiki's fingers paused for exactly half a second. Just long enough for Kusuke to gloat.
"I knew it," Kusuke muttered. "He's not the same. Not even close. And today, he said something weird. Yesterday too."
"I'm not interested."
"You should be. He mentioned a 'system.' Like, in a totally casual, definitely-not-alarming way. And I quote: 'And I'm just a regular civilian with a totally normal brain and definitely not an incredibly powerful system living in it. Super average.' Who talks like that? Other than people being blackmailed by aliens?"
Saiki frowned slightly. He remembered that line. He'd mentally flagged it as suspicious before choosing—very consciously—not to investigate further.
"Wait," he said. "How do you know he said that?"
"Oh, right," Kusuke said brightly. "I planted a mic on you."
"You what."
"Relax. It's anti-psychic shielded. Took years to perfect. Seventeen patents. You'd be impressed if you weren't so busy being ethically outraged."
"You're insane."
"You're boring," Kusuke shot back. "Which is why it's so weird you suddenly have a charming, enigmatic, possibly possessed pseudo-boyfriend following you around."
Saiki rubbed his temple.
"I know it's hard for you," Kusuke continued. "But think logically. Normal people don't say stuff like that unless they're characters in a game. Or hallucinating. Or from another world."
There was a long pause.
Saiki sat down on his bed, stared at the ceiling, and didn't say anything.
Because the truth was: he already knew. Or suspected. Or chose not to care.
Makoto wasn't like other people. He wasn't even like the original Teruhashi. He didn't just act different—he was different. From the way he looked at things, to the strange jokes he muttered under his breath, to the way his thoughts… paused, sometimes. As if something else was buffering behind them.
None of it surprised Saiki.
He'd noticed. And he hadn't done anything.
Because Makoto made good coffee jelly. Because he said ridiculous things. Because his brain was somehow both annoying and oddly peaceful. Because he was one of the few people Saiki didn't mind being around.
He liked him.
There. He'd thought it. No one had to know.
"…Well?" Kusuke asked. "Aren't you going to investigate? Dig up his secrets? Dissect his entire identity like a responsible brother?"
"No," Saiki said flatly.
Kusuke paused. Saiki could almost hear the confusion hissing behind his smugness.
"…No?"
"He's not dangerous."
"You don't know that."
"I do. I'm a psychic."
Kusuke groaned. "Unbelievable. You've gone soft. Love really does kill brain cells."
Saiki raised a hand. The speaker sparked, then popped, sending a tiny wisp of smoke curling from the ceiling.
Silence returned.
Saiki lay back on his bed, arms behind his head, and stared at nothing.
He could still hear Makoto's voice in his head—laughing at his own joke, utterly unbothered by Saiki's silence. Bright. Sincere. Infuriating.
Saiki didn't mind.
Kusuke sat back in his chair, eyes locked on the glowing monitors that replayed the footage of Saiki and Makoto's "date." The café, the laughter, the casual ease—none of it escaped his relentless scrutiny.
He didn't trust the smirk Saiki wore when he talked about Makoto. He never did. That faint smile was a crack in Saiki's armor, a vulnerability Kusuke wasn't about to ignore.
The audio unit Saiki had destroyed during their ceiling mic conversation? A decoy, Kusuke was certain. The real microphone remained on the psychic, a spiderweb of nanotech feeding him a crystal-clear stream of everything Saiki and Makoto said—and more. Data bounced between encrypted satellites, rerouted through the most innocuous device imaginable: a Hello Kitty bag pin belonging to Makoto himself.
Kusuke's lips curled into a bitter smile as he sipped his dark coffee. The bitter taste was the only thing sharp enough to match his growing suspicion.
Makoto Teruhashi was no ordinary celebrity. The public face was a well-crafted mask, but Kusuke had seen what lay beneath: awkwardness where there should have been vanity, hesitation where there should have been confidence. And beneath all that, something else—something inhuman.
The system. It was the only explanation for the strange references, the sudden mood shifts, the uncanny ability to worm into Saiki's life so seamlessly.
No "normal" person talked about having a system controlling their thoughts or actions. No normal person noticed Kusuke's surveillance drones the way Makoto did.
Kusuke flipped through layers of data he'd managed to pull off Makoto during gym class—wearable MRI scans, heatmaps, brainwave patterns. The system was real. And it was guiding Makoto.
A parasite. A threat.
His gaze sharpened as the footage played—crowd engagement near the café had already spiked, with paparazzi swarming and camera flashes lighting up the scene like fireworks.
And Saiki was smiling.
That smile was an alarm bell.
Slamming his fist onto the desk, Kusuke spilled coffee onto the hard drives but barely noticed. There was no time for distractions.
He dived into the Academy's databases, cross-referencing Makoto's records: attendance, family registry, medical history. Everything was pristine—too pristine. No scandals, no flagged notes, no sign of the chaos Kusuke expected from someone like Makoto.
Someone had cleaned up his trail. Someone was hiding something.
A chill ran down Kusuke's spine.
Makoto wasn't just lucky. He was calculated. Precise. A worthy adversary.
A challenge.
Kusuke opened a new file on his system, fingers tapping out the classification.
Target: Makoto Teruhashi
Threat Level: Unknown, escalating
Objective: Expose. Neutralize.
He cracked his knuckles and began typing, opening a secured file buried under six layers of quantum encryption. If this "Makoto" really was hiding a system, then Kusuke didn't need help—he needed precision. Something subtle. Clean.
He didn't need a hacker.
He was the hacker.
"I need an AI scrambler," he muttered to himself, fingers flying across the keyboard. "One that can disrupt embedded intelligences without killing the host. Just enough to cause glitches."
He built the framework from scratch, dragging lines of code like scalpel cuts—surgical, targeted. A logic bomb disguised as ambient noise. It wouldn't destroy the system. But it would make it twitch. Slip. Reveal something.
His smile turned razor-sharp.
"AI. Possession. Delusion. Whatever you are…" Kusuke murmured, eyes locked on a freeze-frame of Makoto smiling too warmly at Saiki. "I'm going to make you glitch."
He closed the program and leaned in, pulling up a different window—surveillance footage from earlier that day. Makoto stood outside the café, waving goodbye to someone. Then, unprompted, he glanced upward.
Right at one of Kusuke's hidden cameras.
For the briefest moment, his expression shifted—subtle, precise. Like he knew.
Kusuke's eyes narrowed, pulse spiking.
"You're not fooling me," he said softly. "Let's see how long you last under pressure."