In the line of work of a bodyguard – the Akaba Reiji's bodyguard no less – Nakajima's routine went from day to the following day, from night to the next. Yet, all in all, he gets more sleep than his employer. Nakajima wasn't Reiji's sitter, however. He didn't think he re-hired him for that anyway.

Besides Reiji and his night-shift crew, the populace of the household were asleep. Or so Nakajima thought.

Under the gaze of the moonlight beaming from the western windows, a long shadow crept up to him. He caught its elongated head touching the door he was about to reach for. At once, Nakajima pivoted, shooting his hand in the air like a tiger bounding to its prey. His fingers buried around a wrist, but before he could process its skinniness, bones he could feel and flesh that he surely have already bruised, he yanked it in into the moonlight. Only then, with barely any weight to drag in, that the oddity struck him, but the face of a child was already staring at him with wide-eyed confusion in return.

"Selena?"

The confusion turned to anger. She had a demand at the tip of her tongue, but Nakajima had already released her before she had gotten the chance. She settled at glaring at him and rubbing her wrist, though it did not really hurt as much as Nakajima thought.

It was Nakajima's turn to be angry.

"What are you doing out of your room?"

Nakajima never thought of Selena as the type to answer questions, but she stood and replied, "I've just left the training room. I'm headed there right now."

"Is that so?"

"I...I got a little lost."

Nakajima didn't believe her one bit, and Selena knew that. Selena would never admit anything of that sort. Unless it wasn't actually true.

"Let me accompany you to your room then."

Selena snorted. "Why? Are the corridors of the Akaba mansion dangerous?"

Nakajima smiled. "If you were scared of the dark. But you're too old for that. Good night, Selena."

"Wait!" said Selena as Nakajima turned his back on her. "You will take me to my room."

"I take orders from Akaba Reiji, not from you."

"Please."

"She does want something." Nakajima sighed. He didn't want to have anything to do with any or the brats or Lancers Reiji kept accommodating in his house. He wasn't being paid for this.

"Very well," he said, hoping to sound like he was annoyed for being bothered but his tone came out as indifferent as he was expected to be. "But if there's something urgent that you need, please contact someone else next time. I'm not a servant."

"I understand."

They proceeded to walk with Nakajima leading. Selena wasted no time asking him what she wanted. Nakajima could feel her eyes looking at him intensely by the back of his head.

"Tell me about Akaba Reiji."

A flat no, unfortunately, wasn't going to end this conversation. Nakajima knew.

"Have you fallen for him?"

"Don't give me that bullshit." When Selena fell silent, Nakajima listened to clues to what she could be thinking. She didn't stay quiet for long, but she sounded edgy. "With who I am and what Academia has done, I've been treated kinder than I expected. At first, I thought it was because I looked like Yuzu. Not even Kurosaki would want to lay a hand on a person who looked just like his beloved sister. But there's something else. Since I've been in this mansion, he, Akaba Reiji, has been...too accepting."

They walked into a dark hallway with only the moon as light. Nakajima chose not to reply and Selena seemed content about his silence as she went on again.

"I know he expects something in return, and so do I. But it isn't just him. His little brother. And LDS' Directory, his mother."

Nakajima continued with his silence, but Selena wasn't as happy with his decision the second time.

"Aren't you going to say anything?"

"I'm not really sure what to say," answered Nakajima truthfully. "What you want to hear me say."

"Tell me! Tell me about Akaba Reiji! What is the reason behind his hospitality to me, his hated enemy?"

Nakajima stopped by Selena's room and adjusted his sunglasses. "I'm not Akaba Reiji."

"But you've been with him all this time! Surely, there's something that you..." Selena wavered when Nakajima raised an eyebrow.

"It seems you've misunderstood. I've only been in his service for less than a year."

"Less than a year?" she repeated in disbelief. Nakajima opened the door in her room, where light poured out. "That's impossible! You are the most man privy to everything Reiji knows and does outside of his family! How can he put so much trust in you?"

"I don't know how it goes in the Fusion Dimension, but money runs this particular world."

"Don't mock me! You know what I'm talking about!"

"Honestly, I don't," said Nakajima, his patience running out. What did he look like, Reiji's consultant? "Have you considered that there is no meaning behind it?"

"No meaning?"

"Yes. You're over-thinking it. Excuse me."

The following morning went on in Nakajima's usual routine. He was occupied enough to forget about last night's encounter until Selena came barging into the employee's house, seeming to know where Nakajima was. He was checking out upgrades for the cameras in the mansion in his tablet over lunch. Selena didn't care whether he was busy doing his work or eating his food.

"Three years ago - " Selena gasped for breaths, " - you became Akaba Reiji's personal bodyguard."

Nakajima set down the tablet, studying Selena's sweat-coated face.

"I know. But you were dismissed a week later. Why?"

"Where did you hear that?" Nakajima was legitimately curious, and slightly concerned. How was this girl snooping around for information from three years back? The employees in the Akaba household were professionals, not gossipy maids who were eager to blabber on trivial stories to excite their droll lives.

"Answer me!"

Nakajima pushed his sunglasses up out of habit. "I'm not obliged to answer you."

"I knew you'd say that." With a smug smile, Selena threw her left arm up. Latched on it is her Academia duel disk, activating to her command. "I should have settled this with you last night. Duel me! If I win, then you'll have no choice but to answer all my questions!"

Nakajima sighed. He was going to try to appeal to reason. Once.

"Why are you so insistent on knowing, Selena?"

"I won't bother explaining myself twice. Take up your duel disk and fight me!"

"That's impossible. I don't play your game." When he received no reaction, Nakajima elaborated; he imagined the thought of it had left Selena baffled. He took a sip of his late morning coffee. "I'm not a duelist."

.

"Selena? Why is that?"

"I don't know, sir," said Nakajima to his employer, sounding more exasperated than Reiji would ever be if he even tried. "I wasn't sure if I should report it to you or not."

Reiji laced his hands together, pressing his lip to his hands as per his habit when contemplating. "What did you tell her?"

"Nothing. I told her she should ask you directly. I suppose she hasn't done that."

"No. What is the progress on the transporters?"

Nakajima glanced at the report on his tablet. "Halfway there, but progress has been increasing everyday. It's only a matter of time."

"Good."

And that was it. For the past few weeks, they had done nothing but observe the progress of their teams, whether be it Reiji's team of scientists developing inter-dimensional transportation devices or his team of duelists who would accompany him to spread their cause in another dimension. Nakajima popped open the browser in his tablet where it opened to a tab to a list of cameras and their prices. He pressed onto another existing tab: a tourist page on the fully-blossomed sakura in Akita prefecture.

"Sir, there doesn't seem to be any immediate matters to attend to," commented Nakajima.

Reiji swiveled around. "Hm? What is it?"

"It's just something I noticed, sir. I looked up your activities in the last three years when you re-hired me, and around this time, you depart to see the cherry blossoms. Has there been a change in schedule?"

Reiji was surprised. A rare sight that Nakajima was sure the same thing had passed his face just now. Reiji pulled the side of his fist to his mouth in deep thought.

"Sir?"

Reiji raised his head. "All matters are being handled without a problem, correct?"

"Currently, yes."

Reiji crossed his arms, his eyes looking intently at his knee. "I suppose I'll have time... No, it's about time I say goodbye," he mumbled. Reiji stood up and made his way toward the elevator. Nakajima followed. "Your observation has helped me again. Good work, Nakajima. I completely forgot about it."

"That's rare, sir. I heard you never miss an appointment. From what I've seen, that seems to be true until now."

"It's not a schedule," he replied impassively, lights of computers reflecting on Reiji's glasses as the elevator took them below. "It's just something I remember once in a while. Every year. It's about time I bury it into the past. Forever."

.

It was time for breakfast for the Akaba and their guest. It wasn't Nakajima's job, but if it were to save them all the inconvenience, walking from the dinning hall to the bedrooms wasn't a difficult task to offer. He knocked on Selena's door and saw the door fly open almost instantly.

"Selena, the madame and her sons are waiting for you. Hm?" Selena was holding something on her hand. A photo. By the troubled look on her face, she had been thinking about it for some time.

"I...I found this. Because you wouldn't tell me anything, I..." The words were hard to form. The guilt was enough to make Serena squirm. She handed it to Nakajima with a slight tremble and Nakajima took it, anxious at what Serena could have done while he was accompanying Reiji out for an entire day. A part of him wondered if this were some kind of joke.

"Where did you find this?" he whispered in shock.

"Even you don't know then?" whispered Selena.

If he'd said nothing, Selena wouldn't have suspected anything, but Nakajima made the wrong time to hesitate. "Well..."

"You do!" gasped Selena.

Nakajima looked between the photo and Selena. Would Reiji care if he told her? He was worried Selena might take more drastic action after this. How did she find this? "And?"

Selena slightly deflated. "If you could tell me... But I know I've become too nosy. So if it's nothing too personal and...if you can keep it a secret from Reiji..."

"Absolutely not," he said flatly.

Selena glared at him.

"How did you find this? Where did you find this?"

Selena's glare twitch but she held onto her silence.

"It wasn't you that's for sure," he muttered. "In any case, I'll report this after breakfast. You're keeping them waiting – "

"Wait, Nakajima. You have to tell me. This isn't something I can ask Reiji."

"Why do you want to know so badly?" he wanted to say but he kept it to himself. Nakajima considered his options. So far, being direct and reasonable hadn't worked out with Selena. She was too stubborn. But she seemed to cave in when her feelings conflict one another. If she were in his debt, she might be easier to negotiate with next time. Who helped her snoop around the mansion without any of the cameras catching her?

"Four years ago, Reiji got into a car accident. They were taking a vacation around the country when the accident happened. That's all I really know. He had grievous wounds but as you could see, he made a full recovery."

"He looked so happy," she said, her normally hard expression melting to something akin to pity - sadness. "I didn't know he and the professor could make that kind of face."

Nakajima didn't either. When he was hired three years ago, Reiji was already a completely different boy. Today, three years later, he was another changed person. And this photograph told of a third story when Reiji was a happy child being carried on the shoulders of his father, the father he had made his enemy a long time ago.

"I've not been in the service of the Akaba long, but family is very important to them. Perhaps that's why none of them took Akaba Leo's abandonment well." He chuckled. "Not that anyone would like it in particular. But the Akaba have more...reasons."

Selena sent him a frown of confusion but Nakajima sent her off.