✿ Sakura Academy Dorms ✿

Sayuri entered the room that she calculated was Kyle's room. From the records, she knew that he shared the dorm with his best friend, Xing Han.

The best way to know the person was to look through his personal room. His house would have been better, but that was out of bounds. Grandfather said to focus only on his life in the school and she was not to disturb the family.

She wasn't ready for that yet, apparently.

With a small flashlight, Sayuri surveyed the simple room. Again, she was surprised at what she was looking at. The dorm was just as normal as can be, without any ostentatious or luxurious items decorating the place.

The beds were bare, the bookshelf had textbooks on them and the desk was clean and orderly. She went to one desk that had a picture frame on it and looked at it carefully. It was of Kyle and Kay, hugging and laughing in front of a Ferris wheel. Most likely, a theme park of some sort.

She looked about and saw that the room was a mirror image of each other. Since the table with Kyle's picture was on this side, then it meant that this side of the room was Kyle's.

She went to the closet, opening it and found several items of clothing inside. She flipped through them and found them to be simple and basic.

Jeans, shirts, T-shirts, shorts, shoes. All normal things. Not only that, they were all so neatly placed inside. The shirts were hung on the left, the jeans and shorts were folded neatly and laid in a pile on the middle shelf on the right.

The shoes were placed at the bottom of the closet below the shirts. Two pairs of bedsheets (with pillowcases) were folded and put on the bottom shelf on the right. Toiletries and his hairbrush on the top shelf.

Sayuri frowned as she closed the closet door.

She checked out Xing Han's closet and saw the uniform hung while everything else ... was just piled all over the place. Some were folded, some were not. There were even some brands that she recognised to be of the higher end.

That looked like what she expected a guy's closet to look like. Messy. Still, it was surprising that there weren't a lot of designer labels. Perhaps he had brought them all home? She closed the closet doors and leaned on the doors, looking into the room again.

Sayuri bit her lip and sat down on Xing Han's bed, thinking hard about what she was seeing. To be more accurate, she was reflecting on her reaction and thoughts to everything.

Why was she so surprised to see a normal room? Why had she been expecting the place to be overly or richly decorated? Was her judgment flawed?

Sayuri sighed, leaning back on the bed and looking around again.

Why would this Kyle person continue to destroy all her perceptions of what a typical rich kid would be like? If she hadn't seen it with her own eyes, she would have scoffed and dismissed any information she received about him being like this.

A sense of shame hit her.

A true ninja would not let their personal feelings affect the mission that they were on. They were to collect information, analyze it and form a conclusion - a logical conclusion, free from any bias. Yet, here she was, coming to investigate Kyle with preconceived notions of what he is like.

No wonder Grandfather told her that she still had a lot to learn.

She had been so caught up in her own sense of self-importance and own world that she was viewing everything from what she felt, was correct. She needed to get rid of that. Wipe the slate clean.

Unknown to Sayuri, this realisation was the first baby step that she took on the path that her Grandfather set for her.

Then, she remembered that smug, blowing kisses boy and she gnashed her teeth.

Still an annoyingly handsome guy.

[.... well, I did say it was the first ... baby step ...]

In another part of the Country, a fairy-like maiden's face had a slight glow, the blue light reflecting on her soft features from a laptop as she was looking at it.

Kay pursed her lips. She had just placed the fly buy that morning, and who knew that it was exactly at the right timing?

Since Sayuri wasn't doing much so she didn't need to tell Kyle right now (It was late at night, after all). Sayuri didn't even manage to find Kyle's hidden compartment and was merely looking around and sitting there. Obviously, she only viewed Kyle as a normal student and was checking up on him.

Why, though?

She would have to wait until Kyle came back and ask Master Shifu himself. Since this involved the Ninja World, she had no right to it. Thus, she couldn't ask. Kyle never talked to her about it either and she never pressed the issue. It wasn't for her to know.

✿ Kyle & Xing Han ✿

After the initial barrage of questions ... mainly about sex, positions, orgasms, G-spots and such ... Kyle began telling Xing Han about his children and former life. Xing Han wanted to know it all and lapped it up.

"Only Kay knows about this," Kyle said.

"Are you going to tell the others one day?" Xing Han asked.

"I don't know, honestly," Kyle replied as he walked to the kitchen. He opened the fridge and took out a bottle of mineral water, drinking it all in one go.

"That question had been plaguing me for years. At first, I felt it wasn't necessary as you guys know me, as me. Kyle Smith," Kyle said as he sat back down at the sofa, "My past life is insignificant."

"You're wrong about that," Xing Han said, "Your past life made you who you are."

Kyle was quiet as he thought about it.