Checking off another tick box of forms that needed to be filled out, Akira groaned as he leaned back for a moment to massage his weary eyes. He looked over at the clock next to the stove from his spot at the kitchen table.

2:31 AM

He sagged.

"You… are so much more trouble than you're worth," Akira grumbled, Cybele tittering in his head, uncaring of the consequences of her actions. Following the collapse of Madarame's Palace, Akira came home late in the evening and found Goro sleeping in his room likely recovering from severe mental exhaustion.

Rather than going to bed since he himself was suffering from exhaustion due to using Huginn and Muninn with Odin, whilst simultaneously keeping the Chariots in check on top of fighting Akechi, he'd, unfortunately, accepted the prestigious role of being the second-year representative of the Student Council. And, the second-year representative had duties to attend to.

Duties such as looking after the entirety of the second-year students and it just so happens that there was a school-wide event coming in a few days and Akira was required to fill out a multitude of forms for each student and class.

There were five classes for the second year. Class 2-A all the way to 2-E. Each class had twenty-five students. This meant Akira had to fill out a hundred and twenty-five forms for each student, then a form for the class overall, and on top of that, collect and process the permission slips of each student.

This was the reason why he'd been up for the last six hours, processing each form by hand with enough coffee in his veins that if he didn't have Chi You working overtime with his innate Repel Physical, he was pretty sure his heart would have popped from drinking three and a half liters of coffee or it might've just been luck that he hadn't keeled over. He'd fully admit that it certainly wasn't his smartest decision but desperate times begat desperate measures.

Add to the fact that Ishtar with Null Sleep and spamming Patra every other hour prevented his body from actually passing out from sheer exhaustion, and he was able to go technically weeks without sleep.

Of course, just because he could go weeks without sleep didn't mean he should. Null sleep just prevented him from falling asleep, it didn't impart immunity to mental fatigue caused by sleep deprivation or insomnia. He'd once gone a month without sleep which wasn't a smart idea, all things considered, he'd ended up talking to his coffee machine at like four in the morning thinking it was Goro.

Not exactly his shining moment but at least he knew now that going a month without sleep could make you think coffee machines were people.

But back to the point of paperwork. Akira wasn't sure how in the world Makoto did this type of stuff on top of keeping her Academic Excellence while also looking like she did rather than an insomniac zombie. Times like these made him doubt if she was actually a human and not a robot.

"Oh, dear god… I'm entertaining Futaba's weird thoughts…" Akira pinched his eyelids as he went for another cup of coffee, bringing it to his mouth only to find himself disappointed that it was empty.

Groaning, he ambled up and made his way over to the coffee machine to prepare another half-liter of the life-sustaining liquid. It wasn't Leblanc coffee but it'd do something, the something being good or bad was just about anyone's guess right now.

He heard movement coming from upstairs, a door creaking loudly before the sounds of heavy thuds coming down the stairs while he prepared the coffee pot. Putting some cream and sugar into his mug then adding the coffee, he picked up the mug and coffee kettle before turning around and-

"Well, you look like shit," Akira said bluntly holding both containers of life-elixir in his hands while looking at Goro.

His usually well-kept brown-hair was suffering an extreme case of bed-hair while some heavy bags sat underneath eyes. He watched in half-lidded amusement as Goro just shambled over to the table like a zombie before collapsing in his seat, head face-down on the table.

That was such a big mood.

Setting his mug and the coffee kettle onto the kitchen table, Akira moved over to one of the cupboards and plucked out a mug for Goro and filled with enough sugar to give him a toothache and a hefty dollop of cream before filling it with coffee. With a push, he placed it on the table before sliding it over, the mug slamming lightly against Goro's head none of the coffee thankfully sloshing out and burning him.

"I feel like it…" Goro grumbled as his head inched up, a hand grabbing the handle of the mug and downing the whole thing in a single chug. It was only thanks to the cream that Akira had added that Goro hadn't stupidly scalded his throat from the otherwise fresh coffee. "What time is it?" the tired teen asked as he handed Akira the now empty mug.

Akira gave a hum of tired amusement as he set about making him another cup of coffee. "Half-past two," Akira replied as he handed Goro back the mug filled who took it but rather than drinking just allowed its warmth to seep into his hands.

"I'm going to assume with how early you were asleep you didn't eat anything when you got home," Akira commented only to gain a noncommittal grunt in return. "I should probably take a break so is there anything you want?"

Goro's head slammed into the table with a thud as he just grunted once more.

"How eloquent," Akira rolled his eyes as he moved over to the kitchen cupboards and began to withdraw ingredients, such as flour, egg, baking powder, milk, sugar, and other miscellaneous ingredients along with a pan and a metal ring.

Moving swiftly he began to separate the egg whites from the yolk, beating them into stiff peaks before leaving them off to the side as he moved the yolk into a small bowl with some milk, baking powder, vanilla extract and a teaspoon of chocolate powder and began to whisk it until it was a batter.

Predictably, Goro's head lifted the slightest bit as the sound of the batter being whisked resounded through the kitchen.

Adding the egg whites into the batter along with some sugar before folding them, Akira used his other hand to begin prepping the pan with some cooking oil then placing the metal ring in the center while it began to heat up. Pouring the batter into the ring mold, all he had to do was wait.

grumble

A wry smile appeared on Akira's face as he heard Goro's stomach grumble, the smell of pancakes wafting throughout the house. In less than ten minutes, two plates of soufflé pancakes were served on the kitchen table with Goro looking less like a dead man walking and more like a hungry dead man.

"Itadakimasu," the two clapped their hands together before Goro all but dug into the pancakes ravenously.

"I will still never understand your obsession with pancakes," Akira shook his head lightly as he ate through their three-in-the-morning breakfast. Goro stopped for a moment to give him a light glower.

"You have a stupid obsession with coffee, you can't talk," Goro scoffed as he resumed his meal.

"Ah-ah," Akira tutted chidingly as he moved his paperwork off to the side so it wouldn't get stained by any stray drops of syrup, "It's an addiction, not an obsession." Goro just looked at him dully as he chewed on his pancake, disbelieving that Akira wasn't even bothering to defend himself.

"Hey, I know it's an addiction at least. I could have worse ones," Akira shrugged uncaringly.

"Right," Goro shook his head, marginally more awake now that he had pancakes in his stomach and enough caffeine that he was pretty sure he'd be keeling over at any given moment. He took notice of the pile of paperwork by Akira's side.

"Why do you have so many papers?" he asked curiously as he stood up and placed his plate inside the dishwasher, washing his hands before moving over the papers to look them over without even Akira's permission. Not that he'd cared, but it was the principle of the matter.

"These are… student forms?" Goro muttered, a small expression of confusion spreading across his face as he looked over the files. "Why do you have these?" he asked.

"I joined the student council."

Goro stopped his rifling through the papers.

"What?" Goro's head turned slowly, not really believing what he was hearing.

Akira just shrugged as he took one of the forms he'd yet to file from Goro's grasp, a black pen in hand already filling out the form. "I joined the student council at Shujin," he repeated once more simply, pen spinning in hand as he finished filling out the form and placing it to the side before grabbing another.

"You… joined the student council…" Goro said slowly as he placed the papers in his onto the table before pinching the bridge of his nose in exasperation. "Do I want to know how you managed to accomplish that?"

"Well… remember how I had some transcript forged when I fake-transferred?" he asked, Goro nodding. He remembered alright considered he'd only found out he even went to school because of the whole him jumping off a three-story building.

Robin Hood rumbled deep in his mind, Loki unable to do more than let out a low warble at the little reminder.

"Yeah well, I didn't actually bother to check those transcripts before they were delivered to Principal Kobayakawa. He ended up recommending me to Niijima-senpai to be the second-year representative on the council because of my transcripts and my perfect scores on the two exams I've done," Akira explained as he finished off another form.

Goro felt a small headache building as he listened. "Niijima? Would your student council president happen to be a Makoto Niijima?" Goro asked curiously as he recognized the familiar name.

Akira nodded while taking a sip of his coffee. "Yup. I'm going to assume she's related to the Sae Niijima you're liaising within the SIU?" Akira asked even though he knew the answer if only to keep up false pretenses.

"It's likely. Niijima-san did inform me that her sister attended Shujin Academy," Goro nodded. "I'm surprised you accepted to join the student council though, I would have thought any free time not spent at Leblanc is wasted," he jabbed, Akira giving a small grunt of displeasure at that.

"It is…I can say with full confidence it's easily one of the worst decisions I've made."

"You've jumped in front of a speeding truck and jumped off a building to save people," Goro reminded as he massaged his temple.

"Exactly," grey eyes with dark eye bags looked at Goro. "I have to take care of every second-year. We have an outdoor field trip to Inokashira Park and I need to have these done by tomorrow and file them at school… actually, make that today," Akira looked tiredly at the clock, reminding himself that it was morning. "I have to do this for every field-trip on top of whatever other duties I have to do."

"Sounds… painful…" Goro said, not sure what else to say.

"It is…" Akira groaned as he filled out the last remaining form with a slam, Ishtar slipping from his mind as he packed away the last file and his empty plate. The two heading off to bed, separating into their own rooms till their alarms woke them up for school.

Akira sighed on his way to school come Monday.

"Kurusu-san!" a voice called out from behind him.

COLD

"Niijima-senpai," Akira greeted as he turned around, the brown-haired bob-cut third year running up to him swiftly but orderly. "Can I help you?" he asked.

"Actually, yes," Makoto nodded, red eyes staring up at his. "I was curious if you've finished filling out the second-year forms for the Inokashira Park field trip," Makoto stated looking at him expectantly, that look of expectation turning into one of mild astonishment as he withdrew said papers.

"I just need to go and process them with each of the homeroom teachers before I hand them in," Akira said before notice her surprise. "Why are you so shocked, Niijima-senpai?" he asked, curious'

Makoto shook her head, her mouth closing form where it had opened slightly. "Oh, I'm sorry. I hadn't actually been expecting you to finish it so quickly," she admitted.

"But… you told me to have it ready by the time I returned to school?" Akira uttered confused.

Makoto gave him a sheepish nod. "I did, but… no one's ever actually done it time before. Usually, with field trips such as these we have to do a lot of last-minute document filing and processing," she explained causing him to raise a brow at that.

"Is it always like this?" Akira asked curiously, wondering if this was what happened before.

Makoto gave a grimacing nod as she began to walk forward, Akira following beside her. "Even more so this time since the clean-up event was created so last minute by Principal Kobayakawa. We've only had the last two weeks to begin setting this up, and since it's a school-wide event there's still much to be done," Makoto admitted as the two entered.

"I get the feeling there's a lot I'll be needing to do won't there?" Akira asked, Makoto sending him a nod as they began to make their way up to the student council room.

"Unfortunately…" she said as they made their way into the student council room. "There's no first-year representative on the council so someone will still need to take care of their forms before the thirtieth and process them," she said as she placed her bag down, and moving over to the giant whiteboard calendar.

It was filled to the brim with writing and post-it notes, and if he looked closely they were all in the same handwriting, likely Makoto's. Off to the side of the board was a piece of paper with a series of checklists.

"This… wasn't what I thought being on the student council would end up encompassing," Akira said as he looked over the whiteboard.

Makoto gave him a small wry smile. "It is taxing but it looks good on your transcripts, not that yours are anything to sniff at," Makoto said, moving back into president mode.

"We still have to take care of the organisation for the day. Each of the student representatives will be taking care of fixing up the meals for each student's years," she said looking at him.

Akira let out a quiet groan. "Who's the third-year representative?" he asked.

"Me…" Makoto said with a hesitant smile, "…but I need to oversee the entire clean-up so I won't be able to help."

Akira just looked at her before closing his eyes with a quiet huff. "Please don't tell me I'll be cooking for the entire school," he gave a small desperate plea.

Thankfully, Makoto shook her head. "No, you won't. I've managed to enlist the help of Doctor Maruki, but as of yet no other teacher wants to volunteer to help."

"Wonderful…" Akira muttered beneath his breath, mentally cursing Cybele who giggle uncaringly at what she'd done to him.

"Okay… I can work with that, at least," Akira eventually relented. "If worse comes to worst, I can split the load with him. I can take the second-years and half of the first-years while Doctor Maruki can take the third-years and the other half of the first-years," Akira said, moving over to the white-board finally deciding to commit himself to what Cybele had lured him into.

"That would work, but that means you'll need to spend the entirety of the day prepping a meal large enough for just under two-hundred students," Makoto nodded, ticking off one item on the list.

"I can make a soup or curry," Akira put the idea forth. "Rice doesn't take too long to cook in large batches and I should be able to make a heavy curry. If that doesn't work, I could always make a soup or stew but that could spoil if left outside for more than two hours."

"Well… we'll be using stovetops, and it wouldn't hurt if we could find a large automatic rice cooker," Makoto suggested but Akira shook his head. "Might take too long. They're usually slower than cooking it by hand, I'll just do it myself."

Makoto looked at him with slight concern. "That's a lot to take onto your shoulders, Kurusu-san," she stated, but an expression of contemplation appearing on her face. "But… if the Home Economics club can help out, we can have them take care of the simpler tasks…"

Akira shrugged. "Give them an incentive or something to help out. They don't have to help with cleaning up, only cooking. Hell, could even throw in an increase to their club fund allocation," Akira suggested.

"No, the funding's have already been allocated. But I think if they help with setting up the midday meals, that should be more than sufficient help towards the clean-up," Makoto mused to herself before agreeing with Akira's suggestion.

"Alternatively, Doctor Maruki and I along with the Home Economics club could work together to make a single meal so it's consistent," Akira offered. "While it would increase the workload, it should make it simpler if only one meal is being created even if the quantity being made is larger," he said.

"I think that would be the best course of action. Having two different meals might cause students to fight for one or the other," she conceded, "I'll leave the cooking crew to you then, Kurusu-san."

"We still need to do something about processing the first-year forms, however," she muttered, tapping a finger on her chin.

Akira sighed. "I'll take care of it," he placed himself forward.

Makoto looked at him in surprise. "Y-You will?" she stuttered, shocked that someone was actually bothering to volunteer for such a tedious task. "Are you sure?" she double-checked.

Akira nodded. "It's not like it could be any worse than the second-year forms," Akira said, Makoto giving him a grateful smile.

"Thank you… I think Principal Kobayakawa was correct in recommending you. You're quickly proving yourself, Kurusu-san." Makoto smiled as she moved over to a pile of form, handing them to him.

Akira nodded as he took the forms. "I'll try to have them done by tomorrow," he said.

Ding-Dong

"Ah," Makoto and Akira both looked up as the school bell rung signaling. "It seems we've run out of time. We should both head to homeroom," she said as she picked up her bag, Akira picking up his own along with the first and second-year forms he needed to process, and a folder containing the student contact and emergency contact information for filling the forms out.

"I'll go around during homeroom and process these with the teachers," Akira said as they exited the student council room and began making their way down the stairs to their respective floors, Akira on the second and Makoto on the first.

"That would be wonderful," Makoto gave him a thankful smile before they separated, Akira moving to homeroom while Makoto moved down the stairwell and towards the third-year floor.

Akira was twirling the pen in his hand contemplatively as he sat in the cafeteria, a mountain of first-year forms filled out while to the side there was a smaller pile of unfilled forms.

"Senpai?" a voice called out, getting his attention, silky red-hair, and red-eyes framed by a pair of black glasses looking at him, a large lunchbox in her hands. "I didn't see you this morning," she said, sitting down opposite him.

"Ah, sorry about that," Akira apologized as he organized the papers to give her some room. "I had to meet with Niijima-senpai this morning," he explained, her brow furrowing at his explanation.

"Again?" she tilted her head, crimson tresses falling as she did so, a strange look on her face. "Does it have something to do with why she called you into the student council room last Friday?"

Ah…

Akira just realized he'd completely forgotten to actually let Sumire know about what happened. "Yeah," he nodded, "You're now looking at the newest addition to the student council, the second-year rep to be exact."

Sumire's face became one of astonishment before morphing into the of a beatific smile. "That's wonderful, senpai!" she cheered, a small amount of attention gathering in hr due to her volume but was otherwise ignored in favor of lunch. Akira let out a tired sigh as he shook his head, the smile on Sumire's face dropping at his actions.

"Turns out it's not as cracked up as you'd think it is. I've been filling out forms since last night for the second-year classes as the council representative," Akira explained, noting her subdued cheer as she listened attentively. "Then, since there's no first-year representative and Niijima-senpai needed the filled out for the clean-up event, I volunteered to do so."

"You're the one taking care of the first-years senpai?" Sumire asked surprised, looking at him in an almost considering manner.

Akira gave her a strange look as he nodded. "Yeah, why?"

Sumire looked downward, fiddling with her hands before looking back at him. "Well… honor students are actually exempt from having to attend the clean-up day, but…" she fidgeted, deliberating her words, " I don't want to feel like I should be given special consideration just because I'm an honor student…"

Akira rose a brow as she quickly became quiet. "You… do realize you can just say you want to join in, right?" Akira asked, Sumire looking up at him. "I mean, it's not like it's difficult to add you in."

"Are you sure, senpai?" she asked apprehensively. "You already seem to have so much given to you already… I don't want to add more just because I want to join…" she deflected, warring between wanting to help and not to add more onto what already looked to be a lot on Akira's plate; the small mountain of paperwork beside him looking more than intimidating.

"I've had to fill out over a hundred and twenty forms this morning, and a hundred during lunch. One more isn't going to hurt," Akira shrugged and before Sumire could say anything, he grabbed a spare empty form and quickly began filling it out.

"There," he said as he handed her the form, the whole thing filled out in immaculate hand-writing stating her name, year, contact information, and emergency contact information. "Yours is probably the easiest since I've memorized yours and Shinichi's numbers," he said as he took the form back and placed it on the completed pile of forms.

Sumire looked at him, a smile tugging at her lips. "Thank you senpai!" she said, her head bowing in gratefulness.

"It's the least I could do," Akira shook his head as he grabbed another form and began to fill it out.

"Will you be joining with the clean-up, Senpai?" Sumire asked curiously as she began to unravel her lunch container.

Akira shook his head, the small hopeful smile burgeoning on Sumire's face turning into a pout at his words. "I'll be on cooking duty. First, second, and third-year reps were all designated for cooking, but there's no first-year rep, and Niijima-senpai is too busy with actually overseeing the entire thing to cook," he explained, the small pout on Sumire's face turning into a frown.

"So, you'll be cooking for everyone by yourself?" she asked, stunned that this was what they were going to do come clean-up day.

"Thankfully no," Akira said with an amused smile as he paused in his writing to sit back for a moment. "Niijima-senpai informed me the Doctor Maruki volunteered for cooking duty. It'll be myself, Doctor Maruki, and hopefully, the home economics club working together to fix the meals," he said before offing Sumire a small grin.

"Maybe now you'll actually be able to taste my cooking," he joked.

Sumire's only response was to give him a beaming smile.

"I look forward to it, Senpai!"