Just because you dug up a box in the woods, and it had 'top secret' carved into it, didn't mean that it had anything important inside.

Nothing at all.

Ritsu had learned that the hard way. After their fight, which he was only letting Teru think he'd won, they'd gone exploring in the old fort and found a metal box buried in the woods. Someone had carved 'top secret' in it with a pocket knife. They might have meant to carve something else in it, though Ritsu had no idea how else those characters could have been read together. Maybe whoever did the carving just didn't know how to read.

That would have explained the colored in manga.

"Who the hell colors in their manga?" asked Teru as he flipped through an old manga from some outer space thing. Boring. It was also an old outer space manga thing with a lot of…pictures that Ritsu should not have been. This thing may have smelled like the back of the library, and someone had annotated and even rewritten some of the dialogue with a magic marker, but…well it was interesting. From a literary and historical and…academic…perspective. One which Ritsu could not see.

He was just a kid after all, and Teru was a man….and also Ritsu was gay, too.

"Obviously the President of Claw." Said Ritsu. He saw Teru trying to slide that manga under the couch. He grabbed it with his powers. Really. There was a whole internet full of naked girls. Teru didn't need this…and also it was important…somehow. All of this stuff was marked 'top secret' so it must have been very important to this Suzuki guy, the President of Claw, though the naked people books may just have been naked people books…

Ritsu didn't know. He needed to study more about psychology before he let Teru have any of this.

"Come on, give it back." Said Teru as he pulled on the book…a little too hard. Alright, apparently the binding was fragile…well of course it was. It had been buried in a box in the woods since the eighties. Ritsu was being so weird. What did he even want this for? He got nothing out of this, nothing.

"No, I need it." Said Ritsu

"For what? You're gay." Said Teru

"Yeah, I know that I'm gay. It's not for that, so stop being weird. I need it so I can understand this Suzuki guy's psychology." Said Ritsu

"He likes looking at naked girls and hates black and white manga…and also I guess he wanted to be a writer or something since he wrote inside of this…but whatever. Just give it back, I don't think that you're going to learn anything about anyone from this book." Said Teru. His eyes darted over towards Reigen's room. Since his birthday had just passed Reigen said that he was trusting Teru to have a door partially closed sleepover with Ritsu. If Reigen found out that they had spent the afternoon in the woods and not at Tsubomi's tennis game then they were fucked…and also Reigen might cancel ramen night! Or…however else adults punished kids…Teru wasn't sure…

But he was sure that he didn't want to find out!

"I don't know that yet, I just…it's like having a bunch of puzzle pieces in front of me but not the box. I just need to figure out how they go together and then I can understand this guy and then if I can get into his head I can figure out how to take him down." Said Ritsu. There was something here, he could feel it. In these notebooks and tapes and mangas there had to have been something. He did NOT carry this junk all the way here for nothing. He did NOT spend all afternoon in the woods for nothing. He had NOT wasted valuable planning time on this. He…he was going to get this…and then as soon as he cracked this opened and figure it out then…then the sooner he'd be closer to Sho….

It had been way too long since he'd seen his boyfriend. His real boyfriend who loved him, not his fake boyfriend who looked like he wanted to kill him.

"Not so loud!" said Teru. His eyes darted to Reigen's door. He'd heard the mattress groan. Reigen might have been turning over or…or he was probably still on his phone. He was probably planning on staying up all night even though tomorrow was a workday. He had a sandwich to notarize, a building to will to a bunch of cats, and a three week late incense delivery to wait for. Teru had a curse to undo furniture that should have been rearranged years ago….but it was Reigen who needed more sleep. Sleep which Teru knew for a fact that Reigen would not be getting. He had this idea in his head that Teru and Ritsu made out every single time he turned his back…well it was an idea that he and Ritsu had put in his head…but still! Teru had seen enough movies to know about roommate rules. He of course would have left a towel or a hat on the door if he had someone over.

He wouldn't have just started making out with Ritsu, or whoever, right there in the living room while Reigen was home. He had more class than that.

"What? Reigen's asleep." Said Ritsu. He craned his neck to the side and tried to see inside of Reigen's room. The door had mostly been closed. Mostly. He couldn't see any light from inside…and anyway Reigen must have been asleep. He was an adult and they loved going to bed early, mostly because they were tired all the time. Ritsu was tired even though it was way past his bedtime…not that he needed one anymore.

"No he's not, not yet. He'd not asleep until he starts to snore. He likes to stay up scrolling through his phone even though I told him a thousand times that it's bad for him." said Teru with a shake of his head. Teru had no idea how Reigen had managed to make it this long on his own. He used three-in-one for God's sake! And he hadn't done anything for his skin even though he'd spent years smoking…even if Claw hadn't been after him Teru would have stayed for a few days just to get Reigen all sorted out. Some people just weren't meant to live on their own.

"I don't think my Mom was telling the truth when she said reading your phone in the dark makes you go blind." Said Ritsu

"I know that, I'm not five. Straining your eyes like that is only going to give you dark circles, bags, and wrinkles…which isn't as bad as going blind but it's not good for you." Said Teru

"You're the only person in the world who cares about that kind of stuff, you know that, right?" asked Ritsu

"No, you're just the only person in the world that doesn't." said Teru

"You know if you spent half as much time helping me take down Claw as you did on how you looked then we could have done it by now." Said Ritsu as he grabbed an old notebook and flipped it opened. The first page said that this was the property of Suzuki Touichirou and it was for his eyes only…and then someone had written in totally different handwriting 'mine too' and drawn a pair of eyes…another esper…maybe….Ritsu wished he'd had his notes in front of him. He had the names, well what the internet assured him were the names, of top ranking members of Claw…so maybe this was one of them and then Ritsu could learn about him too, that wasn't a girl's handwriting, and then he'd be closer to bringing this whole thing down!

He'd be closer to seeing Sho again.

"How? With old porn and notebooks full of nothing?" asked Teru. What they needed to do was act. They needed to find more espers or see if an existing group, one that Claw wasn't affiliated with, would help them. There was no point in trying to get inside of the leader's head if they were just going to kick his ass.

"It's not nothing. Here, see? Two different kinds of handwriting. That meant that two people were involved." Said Ritsu

"So this guy had a friend, big deal. I'm guessing that he's got a lot of those since, you know, he's the President of Claw. I don't think that you can be the President of anything without at least basic social skills." Said Teru. He knew it worked in business, anyway. His parents had always been going to functions and parties and stuff. They called it networking. He'd always called it boring, in those few times when they'd brought him with. He knew how to act around people, of course, and he had never once embarrassed his parents…but he would have preferred to stay home. Well it looked like he'd gotten his wish, he was never going to have to go to one of those boring functions again….but that didn't matter. Reigen was more fun to hang out with, even on those days in the office where there was nothing to do. Yeah, working was a lot better than networking…even the boring parts were better.

"From what I read he's really reclusive…so this is weird…" said Ritsu as he flipped open a page to…a lot of writing. Close together, tiny, writing. The header of the page said 'meeting minutes 5/5/87'…oh….yes! This was a goldmine! This was the minutes of an actual Claw meeting! Now he could see the inner workings of Claw…or at least the Claw that had existed in back when Reigen had been a kid…it felt like it was so long ago…but it also wasn't. This stuff was happening when his parents had been kids…it was so weird to think of parents as kids.

The logo or insignia or whatever was different.

"That is weird. What happened to the eyes?" asked Teru. The Claw logo was the word curse with two eyes coming from the last stroke. This was just the word curse but with…was that supposed to be an actual claw coming from the bottom? Well Teru had certainly learned something new about the President, he clearly didn't have an ounce of creativity.

"It's obviously really old, see the date? This is back when Reigen and my parents were kids….and this guy was a kid too…" said Ritsu as he started to read. This was…not what he had been hoping for. There weren't any Claw secrets. They were just talking about some party some girl had invited them to…and this was marked under 'old business'…and it just kept going. Someone had written down an entire conversation…well this was good for understanding psychology, right?

He had been hoping for real secrets but psychology was good too…he supposed.

"You were right, it is two guys. I'm guessing Suzuki's the red pen and he other guy is the blue." Said Teru

"What makes you think he's the red?" asked Ritsu

"Everything in Claw is red." Said Teru with a wave of his hand. Obviously the President would be the one deciding on the color scheme. If Teru had been in charge he would have chosen something either than red and black. Maybe lime and wisteria, or periwinkle and daffodil…or maybe amethyst and ruby, if they had to stick with the reds…not that it mattered, of course, since he was taking Claw down, not giving it color coordination tips.

"They wear a lot of blue too, though, some of them." Said Ritsu. Teru's entire aura showed, he glowed gold. Ritsu wanted to smack himself upside the head. Right. Blue. Teru's ex-girlfriend. The one who he'd jeopardized everything for. The one who he'd nearly destroyed everything that they had worked for just because he wanted to do it with someone. Ritsu had heard that it was supposed to be the greatest thing ever….but not being kidnapped and experimented on was probably even better than that. He would ever understand Teru for as long as he lived.

"Shigeko's favorite color is blue." Said Teru without thinking. Damn it…double damn it! Fuck him! What was wrong with him that he couldn't even mention her? She was a girl who he'd liked, loved, but when she'd broken his heart. It had happened, they'd done it, and then she'd left. Now it was time to move on. He'd been on other dates, he'd kissed other girls, he hadn't found a girl who wanted to do it with him yet but when he did then…then maybe that would be the thing to erase her from his mind and his heart. She had been, for so long, this…this impossible person he'd thought up in his mind. She'd been everything he'd ever wanted but…but he'd seen enough movies to know that fantasy did not always equal realty. In reality Shigeko was just as terrible as the rest of her family, minus Sho in case Ritsu had spontaneously figured out how to read minds, and she'd used him…manipulated him….he'd loved her and she'd used him…

So why did it hurt to even think about her?

Ritsu's aura showed. He at least got why Ritsu was so upset. Shigeko was also the name of his dead sister. That must have been rough. His parents really should have gotten more creative when naming their kids, then things like this wouldn't have happened. It was nearly her birthday and Ritsu…well of course he was upset. His sister had died. Teru felt like the biggest loser in the world. Here he was agonizing over some girl he'd hooked up with while Ritsu was mourning his poor dead sister.

What was the matter with him?

"Sorry." said Teru. What else could he have possibly said? He had known Ritsu long enough to know not to mention anything that even had the barest hint of…of anything to do with his sister. His family had s shrine up to her and everything. Teru's parents had never even put up a shrine for anyone, not even the grandparents that he'd never met. Teru had never lost anyone, not really, so he had no idea what it was that Ritsu was feeling exactly but he knew that it had to have been worse than getting your heart broken. Shigeko may have ripped his heart out but she was still out there and alive…that didn't make him feel any better….

"It's alright." Said Ritsu, maybe more meanly than he should have. He knew that if he acted like an asshole then he was never going to make any new allies or keep any old ones…in fact he may have nearly lost Teru earlier….but…but there was no reason for Teru to be talking about this. He was acting like he got it. He didn't, he obviously didn't. It was like being haunted, almost, the way that Shigeko was just…the way that she was just always there but also never there. Teru was an only child. There was no way that he would ever understand and Ritsu didn't feel like explaining it to him.

He didn't feel like talking about this at all.

"No I mean that I really-" said Teru

"I said that it was alright!" said Ritsu. The pages in the notebook in front of him started to turn on their own. The creaking of mattress springs could be heard from Reigen's room. In the next apartment a dog started barking. Right…right. He just…right. He needed to calm down. Shigeko was dead, she'd been dead since he'd been a baby, and she wasn't going to get any less dead. It didn't make sense to just….to just feel sad about someone who he had never eve met. He had living people to worry about and…and he'd been sad for ten years. That was long enough….not that he would ever tell Mom and Dad that…not that he would ever say anything to Mom and Dad about anything….

It wasn't…he just…he went back to reading. He had things to do…to learn…

"Will you please be quiet?" whispered Teru. Reigen stirred again. They had so much stuff everywhere….he had no idea how he'd explain all of this Claw stuff to Reigen. He was going to get the longest lecture…

"I am being quiet. I'm reading." Said Ritsu. He looked down at some random page and just…read. This wasn't about the girl anymore, no, now it was about what Suzuki and…Fukuda, that was this guy's name…what their plan was when the nuclear war happened. This Suzuki guy was going to build a system of tunnels…under Japan…so he was an idiot. There. Psychology.

"Hey…I really am sorry. For mentioning your sister….well her name-" said Teru

"Oh my God, I get it! Your ex-girlfriend and my sister have the same name, can we please move on already?" asked Ritsu

"Well excuse me for giving a damn how you felt." Said Teru

"Don't. I can take care of myself." Said Ritsu

"I wasn't trying to take care of you, asshole, I was trying to be nice or whatever." Said Teru

"Well don't try to be. I'm….I'm fine. Just keep reading or looking through stuff or whatever. I'm fine. Ok? I'm just…let me read." Said Ritsu. He turned around. He didn't want to read, not really, but he didn't want to talk either. He didn't want to talk about….about anything. Especially not Shigeko. He had work to do, a lot of work, and…and he didn't have time to think about…if he wanted to talk about his sister then he would have stayed home and been sad with Mom and Dad. He was here and…and he had work to do.

This stuff had all been marked 'top secret' so somewhere in this pile of junk there was something worth keeping secret…and Ritsu would find it. Even if he had to look all night.