Meanwhile, just outside his room, someone was standing with his back against the wall, listening to the conversation coldly.

The figure remained perfectly still, every muscle tensed with barely contained anger. His hands were clenched into fists so tight that his nails dug into his palms, drawing tiny droplets of blood that he didn't even notice.

The laughter filtering through the door—his brother's laughter—felt like salt being poured directly onto an open wound.

How dare that servant. How dare some worthless nobody who'd been plucked from the gutter make his brother laugh like that.

He only stayed for as long as he could hold his anger at hearing some less privileged human having a conversation with his brother before walking away.

***

Inside the room, oblivious to the rage that had been brewing just outside, Satoru's laughter finally began to subside.

He wiped tears from his eyes—the good kind of tears, the kind that came from genuine amusement.

"I really thought you already had a kid..." Satoru exclaimed, his voice still carrying traces of amusement. "I mean, kids!"

"To think that you still get embarrassed over something so basic for adults is comical for real."

Kenji's face, which had just barely begun to return to its normal color, immediately flushed red again at the continued teasing.

He looked like he wanted to protest, to defend himself, but the words he should use were lost somewhere in his brain, causing him to avert his gaze sideways with his mouth resembling that of a pouting kid.

"If you have big plans, that means you haven't gotten married yet, am I right?" Satoru continued, his head tilting to the side.

"You are right," Kenji admitted with a heavy sigh. "But you keep making it sound like I'm such an old man!"

"I'm still in my mid-twenties, you know!"

"What!" The word exploded from Satoru's mouth with the force of an explosion shaking the room. His jaw dropped so dramatically that it looked almost cartoonish.

"I wouldn't have ever guessed as much!" Satoru continued, with his eyes widened with genuine shock. "Your face is always so damn serious."

Satoru wasn't being mean, exactly—he was just stating what seemed to him to be an obvious fact. The seriousness that Kenji wore like armor while on duty and when Satoru first spoke made him appear beyond his years.

He had transformed from a man in his mid-twenties into someone who could easily be mistaken for late thirties or even early forties.

"Well, now you know," Kenji responded with a slight shrug that tried for casualness but didn't quite achieve it. His shoulders moved awkwardly, as if they'd forgotten how to perform such a casual gesture. "I need to keep a tough facade for the purpose of my job."

His voice dropped, becoming softer as he continued: "I wasn't living a very good life before I got into this job, you know. I'm trying my best not to screw up and play my part to the best of my abilities."

"Oh, that figures," Satoru spoke, but the enthusiasm had drained from his voice completely, casting a dark shadow across the upper half of his face. The bright, playful child who had been laughing just moments ago seemed to have been replaced by someone else entirely, someone older and cold.

"I know this cursed family better," Satoru said, and there was something chilling about the calmness of his tone, the way he spoke words that should have been shocking coming from anyone, let alone a ten-year-old child.

"They know their way of getting their hands on whatever specimen they wish."

"Specimen!" Kenji exclaimed, his voice carrying evidence of protest, as if the word itself were an insult that needed to be disproved immediately. "I'm not a specimen! I'm just a mere worker!"

"That's what you think," Satoru responded, and his tone was so numb, so utterly devoid of emotion. "That means I know this family more than you do."

His small hands clenched into fists at his sides as he continued. "We are all pawns that are being bred by Nakamura for his own benefit. While the majority get sold, the best among the best get kept—that's for the children."

"As for the guards also," Satoru locked eyes with Kenji, "they carefully select random people roaming the streets at their lowest. Ranging from poor to homeless, and even those who were at the brink of committing suicide."

"He chooses the vulnerable, the desperate, the people who had nothing left to lose and everything to gain from even the slimmest hope. Finding them at their absolute breaking point, when resistance was impossible and gratitude would be overwhelming."

"All of you feel like Nakamura is like some angel sent from heaven," Satoru said, and there was something almost pitying in his tone now. "And you all believe you owe him and his family big time. Some believe they owe him their lives and would do anything for him."

"Tell me I am wrong, friend."

Absolute silence stretched across the room, thick and suffocating and impossible to ignore. It wasn't the comfortable silence of people who were simply quiet together, enjoying each other's company without the need for constant conversation.

This was the silence of someone who'd been confronted with a truth they'd been desperately avoiding.

Kenji was shut of words, because the truth—the terrible, undeniable truth that he couldn't escape no matter how much he wanted to—was that everything Satoru had said had no errors.

Kenji had theorized these same things in the dark hours of the night when sleep wouldn't come. He had connected these same dots, reached these same conclusions.

And then... he had scoffed at them.

Dismissed them as paranoid thinking, the result of stress and exhaustion from the day's work rather than genuine insight.

The Nakamura family was just as cruel as Satoru described—if not worse.

"Satoru," Kenji finally spoke, and his voice came out softly as he reached out slowly, carefully, and placed his hand on Satoru's shoulder.

The gesture was gentle, almost paternal, completely at odds with the respectable distance he'd been maintaining since entering the room.

"All of these are not something you should have spoken about," Kenji said, and there was genuine fear in his voice now—not for himself but for this child who had just revealed knowledge that could put him in trouble. "Or at least not inside the mansion."

"If you get caught, you could be punished, or—" Kenji began, but Satoru cut him off with the snappy intensity of someone who'd been waiting for exactly this objection.

"So what if I get caught!"

"Tell me!" he demanded, his small body practically vibrating with suppressed rage. "Are they gonna kill me, huh? I would really like that."

The words were delivered with such casual matter-of-factness, with complete sincerity.

This was a ten-year-old child—a child who should have been worried about video games and homework if he was from a normal family—speaking about death like it was no big deal.

"Believe it or not," Satoru continued, and his voice had dropped back down to that cold calmness, "I can say all of this right to Nakamura's face."

In a movement that surprised both of them, suddenly Kenji dropped to his knees.

He brought himself down to Satoru's height, abandoning entirely the pretense of superior differences between them or the careful distance between servant and master.

He sighed, then he reached out and pulled Satoru into an embrace.

"Satoru," Kenji said quietly, his voice muffled slightly by the embrace, "I would have tried to save you from this misery, but I know better how much of a suicide mission it would be for both of us."

Pulling away slightly but keeping both palms on Satoru's shoulders, maintaining physical connection while creating enough distance to look the boy in the eyes, Kenji added: "I never knew a Nakamura descendant like you could ever exist."

His eyes were bright with unshed tears gathering at the corners that he refused to let fall, maintaining that last bit of composure he could manage now in front of this kid. "Your strong, unwavering resolve toward the truth, despite being sent out to live alone at such a tender age where you could have chosen so many bad paths to follow..."

"Satoru, I promise to stand by you if you ever plan to be free. I will protect you even if it kills me, as long as you promise me you will live... and you will continue on this path."

His grip on Satoru's shoulders tightened, fingers pressing into the boy's flesh without even realizing it. "Even my ghost won't ever take Nakamura's side, after so much evil he has done."

"That's nice of you, Kenji," Satoru spoke with a gentle smile. "But you don't need to worry about me. I got big dreams too."

"I mean dreams against the Nakamura family, not planning to make a family—don't get me wrong." Satoru quickly clarified, waving his hand defensively before they both burst into laughter.

Short-lived laughter at that... Because a knock at the door was heard next, which shouldn't have been.

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