Ryo's classmates have the wildest theories about their new classmate.

Prompt: Ryo's college/university life, as requested. Narrated by an unnamed male classmate. Kinda OOC warning.


Ryo Kurokiba, the new student, was... mysterious, to say the least.

The university was huge, and was accustomed to foreign students, so he wasn't exactly the odd one out. He was more well-travelled than most, though, apparently going to school in three different countries.

A well-travelled kid like that, you'd almost expect them to look like they were the educated, sophisticated sort, but... Ryo didn't exactly look like that. He often came in the same, bland shirt and jeans, looking like he barely slept the night before.

He often sat in the back, quietly minding his own business, you would even think he was probably not paying attention to the lectures. But he almost, always seemed to have the answer when asked, and did astonishingly well at exams.

He must be one of those quiet nerds, I figured.

"Ryo? A nerd? I seriously doubt that," Ella, one of the girls in our class said, shaking her head intently as we sat together for lunch break. "I saw him at my gym! And he's like, absolutely yu-mmy!"

"What? That guy who sits at the back?" another girl, the redheaded Kristen, asked.

"Yeah. He's like, ripped. Washboard abs. Girl!"

"Really?" I asked, in disbelief--not at the thought that Ryo was gym-buff, but at how the girls were acting. "You better get a drink, coz you girls are hella thirsty."

They just giggled, and then proceeded to talk about signing up at Ryo's gym.


I figured the easiest way to get to know the guy was to ask him to hang out--we sat next to each other in class, after all. No harm in being friends.

...But that was easier said than done.

"I'm busy," Ryo said, scratching his head as he turned me down--again--for drinks on a Friday night.

"Dude, busy with what? It's not like we have a lot of schoolwork." That, and I noticed Ryo never liked to pile on the extra schoolwork, either. If there was extra work to be done, you could somehow bet he was last in line for it. He definitely wasn't volunteering to help classmates left and right.

He almost seemed lazy, sometimes. Almost.

"I've got work," he said. "Takes up so much damn time."

"Work? Where?" I asked.

He seemed quiet for longer than usual, until he finally said, "It's a family business."

"Oh, so your family has a business? Neat."

"Not my family," he said. "It's the boss' family. I just run errands for them, now and then."

He was so incredibly vague about it, it sounded suspicious. Almost as if it was some sort of secret. It was really, really mysterious. "What sort of errands?"

"We'd be here all day if I had to tell you, and I don't have time for that. Later," he said, then finally picking up his bag and leaving.


"He runs errands for the boss," Ella repeated the statement, and I could almost see her eyes light up with some sort of conspiracy. "Mega sus! That's the sort of thing someone in the mob would say!"

The mob? "Well, Ryo's from Japan, so maybe he's in the yakuza," Kristen said, looking thoughtful.

"...Isn't it kinda racist to jump to that conclusion?" I said, but the girls seem hyped up, almost like a bunch of excited fanfiction writers who were given crumbs to the backstory of their favorite character.

"I mean, look at him," Ella said, "He just looks like the quiet, brooding sort who lifts weights for no real reason... and he also has a lot of money, for some reason. Have you seen his watch? Those shoes? They're those super expensive Nikes!"

I couldn't tell a fake shoe from the real one to save my life. "Maybe he's just from a really loaded family? You never know."


"Huh. I'm sorry. I don't have family," Ryo said when I asked, scratching his head again, as if he felt incredibly uncomfortable with my question.

"O-Oh. Sorry, dude," I began to feel uncomfortable too. I don't know what he meant by that exactly--was he an orphan? Was he adopted? I don't know if I crossed the line here.

"...My boss raised me ever since I could remember," Ryo elaborated, almost as if trying to save us from that awkward pit. "As for my real family... I hardly remember. Don't really care to."

"Sounds like your employer's really good to you," I said.

He actually nodded at that. "The work's rough sometimes but I've got a decent paying job and I get study for free. I got lucky there, at least."


The next day was bizarre, because Ryo showed up at morning classes dressed so oddly--as if he just camped out the night before, with wet boots on his feet and a windbreaker as if he'd been dressed for the cold. This was so weird, because he often just dressed in the same plain shirt and jeans.

And then he was carrying this briefcase bag of some sort. The kind that people on TV shows had, often filled with cash. Or something illegal. One or the other.

"You look... different," I told Ryo, as he took his seat in class next to me. "You out camping or something?"

"Fishing," he said, his voice a bit hoarse, as if he barely got enough sleep. "Boat got stuck for a good hour. I barely had time to get changed."

He just randomly dropped that out of nowhere, and I never even knew he was into fishing before this. But I suppose it wasn't a big leap for a Marine Biology student to be into that.

My thoughts were interrupted when I heard a click and then a clang, and looked beside me quickly enough to see that as Ryo put his briefcase to the floor, it accidentally snapped open.

And then inside it was a full set of knives. Razor sharp, reflecting the lights from the ceiling.

But I looked closer and... holy shit, is that... blood?

Ryo must've seen the color drain from my face, because he just said, "Relax. They're cooking knives."

"O-Oh..."

"Best thing to do after catching fish is make some sashimi," he said, bending down to lock his knife case shut. "I can't gut them and clean them and slice them if I didn't bring my knives with me."

"O-Oh. I see..."

The idea of my classmate Ryo gutting and slicing some helpless fishies in half made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.


"As the smoke from the gunfight cleared, the boss picked up Ryo, who was but a little baby, and rescued him from the rubble!" Ella said, dramatically, as she speared her fork into her asparagus. "And then the boss said, 'Behold! You're my child now!' and then trains him in the ways of the clan."

"And so Ryo grows up under the clan leader's tutelage, the boss teaches him to 'clean up' after the family. Traitors are gutted and thrown into the lake, never to be seen again... ever," Kristen added, furiously typing something on her phone. I genuinely hoped she was not writing bizarre fanfiction about our classmate.

"I seriously doubt he's a killer," I knew the girls were exaggerating and getting carried away, but I had to be the voice of sanity. "You girls have been watching way too much anime," I said.

"Ohhh, that's a good one," Ella said. "You should ask Ryo his favorite anime."

"I am not asking our Japanese classmate his favorite anime!"

"Maybe he's even got a room full of figures," Kristen said. "You know, those anime girls with the massive breasts."

The girls were, as usual, getting way too carried away, it was almost embarrassing. "Geez, I seriously doubt that."


Ryo was watching what looked like a cooking show on his phone during a lecture.

He left the show running on his phone, listening to it on his earphones, as he took down notes from the class lecture. He barely looked at the screen, but for some reason, always turned his eyes onto it again when a young woman came on-screen. A blindingly fair woman who was, apparently, one of the judges.

"She's cute," I said. Honestly, she was. She had really pale skin and deep red eyes, and hair so blonde it was almost white. I wondered if she was European.

...And then she had a really nice rack. I wondered if those were real.

"Excuse me?" Ryo probably didn't hear me too well, taking an earbud out to hear me better.

"That judge on the show. She's real cute. What's her name?"

He just stared at me silently with the weirdest look on his face, and then put his earbuds back on without even answering me.

"Hey! You could at least say something, you know!"

Ryo just turned back to his notes. "Google it yourself," he said, and said nothing more.


"It's Alice Nakiri," I said, when I next spied a magazine tucked between Ryo's textbooks piled on his table. I pulled out the magazine from the pile--a sports magazine with said woman in the front page, in a tight fitting swimsuit. I googled as Ryo once dared me to, and saw her social media accounts. She was definitely hot--not exactly my type, but I can tell why Ryo likes her.

Ryo quickly nabbed the magazine from me, as if I just caught him red-handed with something illegal. "Hey!"

"There's no need to be embarrassed, she's super cute," I said, trying to tide things over as Ryo quickly hid the magazine back between his books. "I didn't think you to be the sort into socialites, though, Ryo."

"...Socialite?" Ryo said, sounding a little confused.

"Rich people who just live it up?" I said, wondering if he was just unfamiliar with the term. "I heard her family's pretty big in Japan, so she probably doesn't have to do much of anything."

"You think so?"

It was such a simple question, but he asked me that with such a serious look on his face. The look he gave me was so chilling, that I was damn sure that if I said yes, he was probably going to stab me to death with those knives of his.

I just shut up and began minding my own business.

"...Alice Nakiri is a working chef and food scientist," Ryo suddenly said. "A lot of her work is published in peer-reviewed science journals."

Ah, so Ryo was, unfortunately, a fanboy. "Dude, she's a celebrity. She probably has her secretary do all that science stuff for her."

And then all of a sudden--and so bizarrely--Ryo started laughing, but he wouldn't tell me why.


"I wonder if Ryo has a girlfriend," Ella wondered aloud, during our usual lunch break. "I haven't really seen him too close to a girl or something like that..."

"Maybe he's not even straight," Kristen said, flipping through our biology textbooks. "Can't tell unless you ask him."

"He's definitely into girls," I said, remembering his obsession with this Alice girl. "He stalks this one celebrity online. Alice Nakiri or something."

"Alice Nakiri? From one of my favorite cooking shows?!" Ella almost screamed in excitement. "She's super cute! I guess he has good taste, like me."

I'm surprised the girls even know of her. I wouldn't know if I didn't see Ryo watching her on Netflix. I suppose I've been living under a rock. "What's this cooking show about, anyway?"

"You know, the one were they make food and then submit it to explosions and stuff like that," Kristen said. "You know. Science."

"Who does that to food?" I said, utterly baffled. "Just grill some steak and eat it like everyone else does."

"This is why you don't have a girlfriend," Ella told me.

"Shut up," I said. "At least I'm not obsessed with some celebrity like Ryo is!"


"Ryo-kun! How's it going? I missed you lots!"

Alice waved cheerfully on Ryo's screen, and from the background, Ryo could tell that she was in her Nakiri International office. He glanced briefly at his wristwatch--always telling the time for wherever in the world Alice was. He figured she was just about to end her work day, her lab coat tossed recklessly over her office chair.

Ryo was just about to start his, holding onto a hot mug of coffee, starting at Alice on video call as if she were from his dreams. "Morning, miss."

"Yes, good morning to you too, sleepyhead," Alice said, with a smile on her face. Despite the distance between them, they still habitually called each other when they were free. "Off to school? How's school going?"

"You sound as if I'm your first born kid," Ryo said, sipping his coffee. "School's going like how school goes."

"Made any friends yet? Knowing you, you're probably sulking in the back with your earphones on," Alice accused, with a pout. "It wouldn't hurt for you to make some friends, Ryo. Your friends can't just be the old men fishing in the pier all the time."

He nearly choked on his coffee. Alice was spot-on. "...You know I'm no good at that sort of thing, Alice," Ryo said. "I don't like when people are nosy and I have to talk about myself. It was a lot easier when we were just challenging others to shokugekis."

"Oh dear, Totsuki set you up badly for life at a normal school," Alice said. "I have to talk to Erina about this so the next generation of students doesn't suffer."

He wanted to tell her that it wasn't exactly all Totsuki's fault, that he just wasn't fond of socialization. But it was so early in the morning to argue this with Alice, and he had no energy for it this time of the day.

That, and it was about time for his morning classes. "I've got to go, Alice."

"Alright, talk to you later, Ryo-kun!" she said, waving goodbye. "Have a good day and go make yourself some friends, alright?!"


Today, I somehow find myself in Ryo's house. With Ella, and Kristen, who almost looked like two kids in a candy store.

The school library was closed for renovations, and we had to finish a group paper. We were contemplating on just doing this at the cafeteria or some coffee store nearby, but oddly enough, Ryo suggested we could just go to his place.

That was a completely normal suggestion, something that ordinary students do all the time.

Except, what kind of ordinary student had himself a three-bedroom flat with all the modern appliances and a state-of-the-art kitchen that looked more like it belonged on the set of a cooking show?!

"Don't touch that," Ryo warned Ella, who went on to poke at the kitchen equipment, all stainless steel and expensive looking. "It's going to blow up."

She was startled and hastily backed away, and Ryo chuckled. So he was joking. I wished he didn't have to do it with such a straight face all the time.

"God, you have the latest Playstation," Kristen said, looking at the rack below the big flat-screen. Apart from said Playstation, he also had just about every console. "Isn't this really expensive?"

Ryo shrugged. "I've been working since I was five, so I saved up enough, I guess."

Who the hell has been working since they were five? Isn't that child labor?!

"...You have such an impressive place, Ryo," I finally dared to say the obvious, while the girls settled down at the spacious living area, pulling out their textbooks and laptops.

Ryo, again, just shrugged dismissively. "It's not mine," he said. "This place belongs to my boss."

There it was again, the mysterious 'boss'! This boss was definitely loaded as hell, if Ryo was living in such a fancy place. "They must be such a generous employer, to let you use this place," I said. "What is it that you do anyway? Maybe you should introduce us, I could use a part-time job."

Ryo paused and blinked at that, and then scrunched up his face ever so slightly, looking as if he was having bad flashbacks about all his troubles at his work.

"...If you value your life," he said, "I don't really recommend it."

I just stood there, confused by that response. I glanced over at the girls, who had their jaws to the floor, probably having overheard all of that.

Ryo ever so casually started pouring a pitcher of tea.

...At first I thought the girls were being too creative, but now... Ryo was definitely, definitely in the mob or doing something shady. How else do you explain all of this?!


"I never noticed this before, Ryo, but you're so... organized," Ella said, as we were about an hour into planning and sorting what goes into our group paper. Just as she said, Ryo was surprisingly adept at taking down notes and putting a paper together, almost as if he'd been in the employ of a mad scientist who needed help organizing things all their life.

Ryo just shrugged. "...I'm used to cleaning up other people's messes, I guess."

What was that supposed to mean? Cleaning up dead bodies?!

We didn't dare ask the question, and just tried go about making this paper in peace.

But soon Ryo's phone rang, and he got up and excused himself to answer the call. I sat there with the girls on this couch that was comfier than my actual bed, hearing Ryo talking with this mystery caller.

"Hey, what's up? ...Huh? You mean right now? Aren't you supposed to be in Denmark? ...Alright, alright. Want me to pick you up? ...You sure? Call me, okay?"

"Everything ok?" I asked, when Ryo walked back into the room looking a little more disgruntled than usual.

He gave a really long sigh. "It's fine. But my boss is going to drop by in a bit."

His boss?! The boss??

"Ohhh, maybe we should pack up then," Ella said, looking a bit worried. No one can really say they want to be face-to-face with some yakuza boss. "We don't want to get in the way."

"It's fine," Ryo said. "She'll probably be glad I've got people over."

...She?!

"I never knew your boss was a woman," I said.

Ryo just shrugged, again. "Well, she's my boss and so is her dad, but... It's a long story. For now, could you guys keep working on the paper? I think I'm gonna get some dinner started."


That paper didn't get moving any further, though. When Ryo just got started cooking in the (very fancy) open kitchen, it was hard to keep your eyes off him. I've never seen anyone I knew move in a kitchen as if it was second nature, and handling a knife with such ease. It didn't take too long for the place to smell so fragrant, I could literally feel my mouth watering.

"I think you're at the wrong school," Kristen said, both the girls also watching Ryo instead of doing our research. "Anyone ever told you that you could be a chef, Ryo?"

Ryo actually cracked a smile at that. "I get that a lot."

Eventually, the dish was done–some pork dish I wasn't too familiar with. Whatever it was, it smelled so darn good.

The research paper was forgotten now, and the girls got up to help Ryo set the table. It had far too many expensive-looking china on it, I was too scared to go near. I didn't want to break anything.

"We eat this a lot in Denmark," Ryo said, taking a serving plate for the meal.

"You've been to Denmark?" I asked.

He looked at me as if I asked him something stupid. But then he just blinked, and said, "Uh. I'm Danish."

What?! "With a last name like Kurokiba?!?"

He just shrugged–how many times he's done that today, I've lost count. "...It's a long story."

I was growing a teensy bit infuriated at how he was just so damn secretive, giving vague answers like that instead of just… you know, telling me he has half-Danish or something. Whatever he said, it was always just so damn mysterious.

"Oh, uh… about my boss," he suddenly said. We all looked up to him. "I'd appreciate it if you… kept who she is a secret."

That was even more cryptic, and I began to feel myself sweat. Maybe this was a matter of life and death, and I was almost expecting him to whip out a knife to threaten us to silence. With the tension, all we could do was nod quietly.

The tension was only broken when the doorbell rang, and a voice called from the hallway, yelling for one thing or another in a foreign language. The only thing clear was that she definitely called for Ryo.

He quickly went out, and we heard them start talking, the woman obviously talking a whole lot more. I could see Ella craning her neck, eyes peeled at the direction of the hallway, watching like a hawk.

This white-haired woman emerged, chattering on in this foreign language, dumping her designer bag on the nearest clear surface she could find. When she turned into the room, she froze, seeing us there.

I also froze, recognizing who it was. It was hard to tell when she was so covered up by her coat and scarf and not half-naked like she was on the magazine covers, but…

It was Alice fucking Nakiri.

"Oh my!" Alice clapped her hands together, and looked a little delighted, speaking in a charmingly accented English. "You have guests, Ryo-kun! Who knew?!"

"We were just working on a school paper," he said, putting what looked like Alice's luggage beside the couch. "Oh, everyone, this is Alice."

"A-Alice Nakiri?! The Alice Nakiri?!" Ella looked like she was about to faint.

Alice smiled brightly and waved at her. "Yep. That's me. Hello!"

"Wow, so your boss is Alice Nakiri," Kristen said. "No wonder you know how to cook."

"Boss?" Alice looked confused. "I thought you wanted me to quit calling you my aide, Ryo-kun? But now you're still going around telling people I'm your boss? You could at least say I'm your girlfriend."

Girlfriend?!

"Old habits die hard," Ryo said, but he was smiling when he said that. "I thought you wanted me to have an ordinary school life. That's kinda tough if people found out I was dating someone famous."

"I'm just a chef and a businesswoman, Ryo, not some sort of celebrity," Alice said, brushing him off, as if her millions of Instagram followers made her 'just' a chef.

"You'd better start working harder at the company, miss," he said, grinning a little at her, "because apparently some people think you're just some sort of socialite."

I just about died when he said that.


a/n:

Imagine if these kids saw the rest of the Nakiris, they'd really be convinced Ryo is in the mob…

Hello! Thank you everyone for the well-wishes, I'm alive and well. The surgery went well and I'm just trying to get my life in order after all that chaos.

About the ending of the fic: I personally do not know if I can muster an ending to it, some people might suggest a wedding chapter or kids is a way to end this. But (surprise) I'm not really a romantic and I struggle with those concepts so I can't promise to deliver those. So I guess this just ends when it ends… whenever that is.

Let me know if you're still here! xoxo