Chapter 27 - What?

Raito was halfway through reviewing another news article when something tugged at the back of his mind. A stray sentence Raika had muttered earlier.

"Wait a minute," he said aloud, turning his chair slightly. "You said something earlier… about suspicious men?"

Raika, sitting cross-legged on the living room floor while Emi gnawed on a teething toy, looked up lazily. "Hmm? Oh yeah. When you went out shopping this morning, someone knocked on the door."

Raito narrowed his eyes. "And you're telling me now?"

"I was sleepy," she said, shrugging. "Anyway, I looked through the peephole and saw some goofy-looking teens. They didn't seem like delivery guys or anything, so I didn't open the door. Just went back to bed."

Raito stared at her for a long second, trying to process the layers of irresponsibility in that one explanation. "Why didn't you tell me during breakfast?"

She stretched, completely unbothered. "I forgot?"

He pinched the bridge of his nose. "Unbelievable."

Leaving his seat, Raito walked over to the hallway cabinet and retrieved the tablet connected to the villa's outdated but still functional security system. He rarely checked it—nothing ever happened out here. But today felt different.

He scrolled through the footage until he reached the timestamp from earlier that morning.

Sure enough, there they were—three teenage boys, slouching in front of his gate. Baggy clothes, bad dye jobs, and the kind of body language that screamed "I think I'm cool." One of them even had a toothpick in his mouth, which he kept dramatically shifting from one corner of his lips to the other.

Raito recognized them immediately.

"Delinquents," he muttered.

Kurai chuckled in the back of his mind. Oh, the horror. Teenagers who skip school and loiter. What will you do, Raito? Call their parents?

"More like make sure they're not stupid enough to come back." He said out aloud before he could stop himself.

Raika gave him weird look before leaning over the back of the couch, curious. "You know them?"

"They're local brats. Think it's edgy to play gang in broad daylight."

"You gonna do something about it?"

Raito sighed, setting the tablet down. "Not unless they make me."

Raika smirked. "You're like the grumpy old man of this neighborhood."

"I don't do neighborhood politics," he said dryly.

"Could've fooled me with that apron this morning."

He shot her a flat look. She grinned, then ducked back behind the couch as Emi started to babble nonsense syllables at her feet.

Raito leaned back against the wall, staring at the paused footage of the teens.

They probably weren't a real threat. But in the kind of world he lived in, even dumb kids could turn into problems—especially if they were being used by someone smarter.

Just in case, he'd keep an eye out.