Kikuchihara watched Kazama slip his phone back into his pocket. He could tell by the expression on his leader's face that something was wrong. Well, not like he couldn't tell before - it was made blatantly obvious before that he and Miwa were hiding something from him. He just hadn't said anything in hopes that it would be brought up at some point later.

And from the uncomfortable look on Kazama's face, Shiro believed now was that time.

Kazama pulled up a seat next to the bed and sat down. Several moments of silence went by as Shiro watched Kazama, and his leader searched for the right words to say. He cleared his throat and looked at the brunette.

"So, Miwa went to Tachikawa's house and found a file folder he had stolen from Border," he began explaining, and Kikuchihara looked at him with curiosity. "It had information on all the A rank agents - basic information, but also..personal information as well."

Soya paused to gather his thoughts, and Shiro now looked at him with confusion. What could be in that file that was causing him to behave like this?

Taking a deep breath, his leader began again. "Miwa saw your file. Kikuchihara… it talked about your parents… about what happened to them."

Silence engulfed the room, and Shiro swore his heart stopped. Everything seemed to be happening in slow motion, and he felt Kazama's presence disappear.

No. Why would something like that be in a file? And now Miwa and Kazama knew too? No, this wasn't okay. He had kept it concealed for a reason, and now all of that crumbled just like that.

"Shiro?" Kazama said quietly, jolting the teen out of his thoughts. He looked over to his leader, not knowing what to say.

The two sat in silence, and Shiro got the sense Soya was waiting to say something else. The teen bit his lip, unsure as to whether or not he wanted to hear the rest of what his leader knew. However, he figured he would have to hear it sooner or later, and he decided he would rather suffer more emotional trauma now than have to show more emotion later.

"What else," he said in a tone barely above a whisper.

Kazama looked up at him, at first surprised by the question until he quickly understood the teen clearly could tell from his tone he was keeping something. He looked away and didn't answer for several moments.

"Kazama," he said in a somewhat pleading tone. "What is it?"

"Kikuchihara, who killed them?" he asked, and the brunette caught an undercurrent in his tone.

"I-I don't know," he answered slowly. "They never figured it out."

Kazama shook his head softly, and Shiro looked at him with even more confusion as he felt tears began to pool behind his eyes from frustration.

"Border knows what happened," Soya said calmly, looking to the teen to see how he was dealing so far. Shiro saw Kazama second guess himself, and he shook his head.

"And what exactly happened," he questioned, feeling several tears stream down his face.

"Kikuchihara, Tachikawa Kei's father killed your parents."

Kazama continued talking about what the teen assumed were more details, but even with his enhanced hearing, he couldn't hear what he was didn't even know how he was feeling - he couldn't tell if he was frustrated, angry, upset, or something else. He just knew he had put behind his parent's murder all those years ago, and now the wound was suddenly reopened.. And it was different now - now, there was a name and reason behind the murder, and while he hadn't exactly heard the reason, it still changed everything.

He took several quiet, shaky breaths, trying to calm himself down before tears started streaming down his face. He realized Kazama's eyes were on him, and he avoided eye contact.

"I'm fine," he said, wiping a stray tear from under his eye. "It was just a shock. I'm fine."

He felt Soya move closer to him, and he looked away, trying to shift over. "Kikuchihara, we need to talk about this. You've held this in for so long, and you can't just gloss this over like this never happened."

"Kazama, my parents were murdered, apparently by Tachikawa's father. There's nothing to talk about. It happened years ago, and I'm over it."

"You can't keep holding everything in forever," his leader replied softly. "You have a team, and we're here for you."

"Yeah, well I haven't told anyone yet and I've been fine, so I don't see why anything has to change."

"Because we care for you and don't want to continue seeing you act so emotionless when we know there's something else going on inside!"

"Why does it matter to you!?" he asked desperately, feeling what he thought were frustrated tears start to pool again in his eyes. "I don't get why everyone cares so much about how I'm feeling! It's not like anyone can do anything about the past, so that doesn't matter. And no one can change how I feel, so why should I have to tell you things that are completely irrelevant to your daily life?!"

He inwardly cursed as a large amount of tears began to fall from his eyes that he couldn't control. He hated this whole situation; he felt so weak and vulnerable in front of his leader, and he couldn't stand it. None of this would have happened if Tachikawa hadn't gotten ahold of those files. Or, at least, if Miwa had never seen them. Now everything he had worked to cover up had been destroyed, and he didn't know how things were going to turn out.

It was silent in the room for a long amount of time, and Shiro took that time to stop his tears. He finally felt the last tear escape his eye, and he took a couple last shaky breaths, continuing to avoid looking at Kazama who sat there looking very unsure of what to do.

"Kikuchihara," he started, sounding hesitant. "I understand what you're saying - why tell people something that they cannot help? I get it, okay? But at the same time, part of being in a team is letting people know if something is wrong so we can support each other and keep the dynamic of the team. Even if you think we can't help with something, if you need to get it off your chest, you should just say it - it will help both you and the rest of the team. And you might think it's weak to show emotion, but there's nothing wrong with that. I just wish you would understand that."

The brunette opened his mouth to reply, but at that moment, Utagawa burst into the room, almost out of breath.

"Kazama-san," he started, and both Kazama and Shiro sat up, hearing the urgency in their teammates tone. "The communications system is down. It looks like someone hacked in from the outside - it's not just a system failure."

"Tachikawa," Soya said matter of factly, and Ryo nodded. "There's no evidence directly leading to him, but that's what the superiors think. They're trying to restore the system but aren't having much luck so far."

Kikuchihara felt Kazama look at him once again, but he still didn't make eye contact. His leader gave a small sigh and stood up."Kikuchihara, you're staying here. Do not leave this bed."

The teen nodded, and Kazama and Utagawa ran out of the room. However, as soon as they were gone, he stood up, testing his weight before searching the room for his clothes. Quickly finding them, he changed and swiftly exited the room.

Sorry, Kazama-san, he said to himself, but you can't leave me out of this.