Then, about a year later, we encountered a group of oddities. First came that idol girl that Kano had somehow tricked Kido into bringing. He also had somehow forced all of us to agree to form a gang, even though we had no exact purpose and no coherent name, but I smiled and went along with it, thankful for all of the noise to drown out bad memories. I was also rather happy at the thought that we could all move on, and not just me. For a while, Kano had stopped talking and avoided us a bit after Ayano's death. It made me feel at ease when I could see him smiling.
When Momo arrived, Kano had only just whipped together the name and purpose of our gang not even hours before, but he seemed set on making this a reality. We deemed the Mekakushi Dan, or Blindfold Gang, and our purpose was not only to strengthen our "eye powers" but also fight crime or help the public using them in any way we could. Kido seemed a little hesitant at the idea of us suddenly using our last names, but soon after she put up her great façade of irritation at the responsibility of being the leader shoved in her face. I, however, could tell she was actually quite pleased with the notion of her being in charge of all of us.
Kido was content with another girl joining due to female power and whatnot, but not soon after had we delved into chaos and Momo's expensive cell phone was in a pitcher of lemonade, frying its circuits. Kido then forced all of us to own up to what had happened and forced us to the mall to compensate, and somehow we came into contact with her older brother, the shut in who despite being socially awkward, was probably the only one that surpassed me and Kido's level of sanity. We discovered this after a plight involving terrorists and we forced him to join the gang after Kano spilled everything about us to him.
To be truthful, I believe Kano knew what he was doing when he tricked Kido into bringing Momo and when he quickly, and without reason, spilled all the details about us to her brother. It was almost as though he wanted them to join. To me, however, I was just happy the Kano wanted to make some new friends. It was a nice change of pace compared to when we were avoided by him for a couple of months.
I just hoped that this time, these friendships were going to be real.