To calm things down and gather the team, Hikari invited the four back to his house. The pretext was just "to celebrate." When Haruna and Kenjiro arrived, accompanied this time by a notably more relaxed Yui, Hikari wasn't waiting for them in a "war room," but amidst the intoxicating aroma of home cooking.
In the spacious kitchen, Hikari stood by an island, dusting flour with a dexterity he hadn't shown before—breaking with the blissful clumsiness he usually employed at school. He wore an apron and moved his hands with great efficiency. To them, it was like watching a surgeon at a thousand miles per hour. And on the counter, a baking tray was coming out with small, golden crescents.
"These are 'empanadas' from my country, Argentina. I hope you like them," he announced with a genuine smile, one they hadn't seen before.
The first one they had seen that didn't seem part of an act.
Yui, who had already tried empanadas at an international food festival, recognized them instantly. Kenjiro watched with his usual curiosity, while Haruna merely observed with her usual skepticism, though the aroma was undeniably tempting.
"Wow... The clumsy 'genius,' who helped destroy a powerful company, now turns out to be an 'expert cook' too," she said, emphasizing each of those words, demonstrating her usual opinion of people.
"You don't need to be an expert cook to cook well; you just need love and dedication!" he declared from the kitchen, finishing up his tasks.
Hikari served the empanadas with great care on simple ceramic plates. The pastry was light and crispy, and the meat filling was juicy, savory, and spiced in a way that was both exotic and comforting. It was, in short, familiar, but fundamentally different from the ones Yui had tried. In essence, the taste of a home.
"They are... incredible," said Yui, eyes wide, unable to stop eating even though she felt full.
"The probability of me trying to replicate this and failing is 100%..." added Kenjiro, grabbing a second helping.
Haruna ate more slowly, feeling like a great critic of exquisite dishes, even though it was just a simple traditional dish from Hikari's country; still, she analyzed its flavor without saying another word. She finished the first and grabbed another almost immediately, leaving that pride behind.
Everyone ate in a comfortable silence on the wooden deck, overlooking the illuminated garden. The tension of the previous week had dissipated completely, leaving only a feeling of camaraderie forged in secrecy and success.
It was Haruna, as always, who acted as the catalyst for the room.
"Alright, Akihiko," she said, no longer the sarcastic Haruna, just direct. "Enough games. We won. Now we want answers."
Kenjiro and Yui stopped eating to look directly at Hikari, who stopped bringing his empanada to his mouth.
"The equation on the board," she continued. "The 'accident' with Kaito's thugs. Finding a seventy-year-old ordinance in less than a night. And now, it turns out you're also a gourmet chef. None of this fits the character of the clumsy and clueless exchange student."
She leaned forward. "You showed us your house. We trusted you, and you helped us save Yui's family. We are grateful. But we can't keep working in the dark. You have to tell us the truth. Who are you, really?"
Hikari looked at each of them. He knew he couldn't keep maintaining the facade. Not with them.
He sighed, a sound that seemed to come from far away.
"The clumsy boy who couldn't solve the equation... was a lie," he admitted. "A way to go unnoticed."
"And the one who solved it by impossible 'luck'?" Kenjiro asked quietly.
"That... is the complicated part," he replied. He stood up and walked to the edge of the deck.
"I'm not a genius like Kenjiro. I couldn't write a line of code to save my life. And I'm not smart like you, Haruna. I don't understand people the way you do..."
He turned to face them.
"But my parents... they were different. They were historians, yes, but their true genius lay in seeing what others didn't. My father used to say that history isn't a straight line, but a web. And in every web, there are always knots, inconsistencies, threads that lead nowhere. Those were the places where he looked."
"I grew up with that way of thinking. They taught me not to look at the painting, but to search for the single brushstroke that is out of place. Not to listen to the melody, but the single note that is out of tune. They raised me to be an anomaly detector."
He looked back out at the view. "The equation on the board... I didn't understand it better than anyone else, but I saw the only illogical route that, by chance, led to the answer. With Kaito's thugs, I didn't think, I just saw the terrain, the loose slab, the angle... I saw the single point of imbalance in the system."
His voice became more personal. "And when I saw Yui's family documents... I didn't read the history. I looked for the inconsistency. The chrysanthemum seal. It was the only thing that didn't belong, the only piece that broke the pattern. I inherited my parents' way of thinking, their method. I'm not smarter than you. I just... look at things from a different angle."
The explanation was both simple and astounding. He wasn't a superhero. He was the product of a unique education, the heir to a way of viewing the world that was almost a superpower in itself.
"And why hide it? Why the charade of being clumsy?" Yui asked.
"Because people fear what they don't understand," he answered simply. "And being seen as different in a place like Ketsueki is to be seen as a target. My plan was to be invisible. But the injustice against your family... was too big an anomaly to ignore."
The enigma of Hikari Akihiko now had a name: his parents' legacy. He was no longer a complete mystery, but he remained an individual of a depth and skill they were only beginning to comprehend. And in that understanding, the foundation of their strange alliance became a little more solid.