Ryuen Kakeru was trash.
That was all everyone said, a repetitive mantra whispered by neighbors and spat by strangers who saw nothing but a boy doomed by his own bloodline.
Born from a mother who sold herself to survive and an abusive, drunkard, and gambling-addicted father, Ryuen's life can be said to be in hell difficulty.
From the moment he could crawl, he was surrounded by the stench of cheap liquor, the sound of breaking glass, and the suffocating weight of poverty that threatened to swallow him whole before he even reached puberty.
But Ryuen was a child that is extremely stubborn.
He possessed a primal, unyielding spirit that refused to be quelled by the low expectations of others.
He liked to give a middle finger to those who told him what he can and cannot do, fueled by a spite that burned brighter than any conventional ambition.
When those older delinquents beat him around in the dark alleyways behind his apartment and told him he was trash and can't beat them, Ryuen didn't wallow in his bruises.
Instead, Ryuen went to a dojo and learned martial arts; he trained until his knuckles bled and his muscles screamed, returning to those same alleys to systematically dismantle every bully who had once looked down on him, leaving them groveling in the dirt.
When his teachers at school told him he doesn't have a future, looking at his cold eyes and scarred hands with disdain, and claimed that no matter how skilled he was at fighting it's useless if he isn't academically gifted, Ryuen took that as a personal challenge.
Ryuen busted his ass off, studying 16 hours per day, consuming textbooks like they were war manuals.
He sacrificed sleep and social life, sharpening his mind with the same brutality he used for his fists, and eventually became number 1 in his grade, leaving the faculty stunned into silence.
When his parents, in their rare moments of sober bitterness, told him that no matter what he did, he'd still be a trash of society and only live in the streets, Ryuen decided to own those streets instead.
Ryuen conquered every delinquent in his area, becoming its boss through a mixture of tactical genius and sheer, terrifying violence.
He then turned that street, no, that entire district into his domain; gambling dens, KTV, bars, arcade, he turned the place into his own entertainment district, ruling everything with strength.
He had even subdued some Yukaza Clans and some Conglomerates when he completely took over the Hyakkaou Private Academy middle school section.
And through his clever management and an iron grip on the local economy, he began earning him hundreds of millions of yen of income per month, proving that he could generate wealth where others only saw waste.
Although Ryuen couldn't compare to some long standing family lines like the Big 4 Families; Shinomiya Family, Suzuki Family, Senzenin Family, and the Kambe Family.
Nor can he be compared to the 7 Great Families like Yukinoshita Family or Nakiri Family, but he can at least be compared to local tyrants like the Nakano Family.
And when his parents still dared to insist that he will remain trash with no status regardless of his money, Ryuen decided to prove them wrong on the grandest stage possible.
He applied to the government-funded school, Tokyo Metropolitan Advanced Nurturing High School.
It was a prestigious, isolated institution—a school that boasts a hundred percent college admission rate and employment rate for its graduates.
It was the ultimate proving ground for the elite, and Ryuen intended to dominate it.
And at this moment, while waiting for the bus heading to Advanced Nurturing High School to drive, Ryuen sat at the front of the bus, his legs crossed with an air of casual arrogance.
His hands rested on a German book, Faust, the complex philosophical text seeming perfectly at home in his grip.
During his time in middle school when Ryuen was grinding 16 hours of studying, he actually quite enjoyed reading fine literature, finding a strange kinship with the ambitious and the damned in classic stories.
He had even learned to speak and write four different languages aside from Japanese. Those being German, French, Chinese, and English—each one a tool he had mastered to ensure he could never be limited by borders or communication gaps.
Even while reading, Ryuen naturally exudes an aura of "danger, do not approach."
It was a physical pressure, a sharp edge to his presence that made other students and some adults in suits afraid to go near him.
They steered clear of his personal space as if he were a predator resting in a cage of his own making.
At this moment, a beautiful, young woman with silver hair entered the bus.
She moved with a certain grace, her pale hair catching the morning light as she looked around the crowded interior.
There was almost no seat left, the bus already having filled the vehicle to near capacity.
She turned and saw an empty seat beside Ryuen, but seeing his terrifying aura and the sharp, predatory look in his eyes, she hesitated.
It's not like she is afraid, she has been around dangerous people since she was a child, but she specifically decided to go to this school to live a normal life, so she hope she doesn't get entangled with dangerous people.
But that hesitation vanished the moment she saw him reading books.
Her eyes lit up with a spark of genuine curiosity as she adjusted her bag, and without a word, she immediately sat down behind him, seemingly intrigued by the contradiction of the boy who looked like a demon but read like a scholar.
And for Ryuen, the silence of the bus, usually heavy with the collective anxiety of students heading toward an elite institution, was suddenly broken by a soft, melodic voice. "Excuse me, but what is that you're reading? The prose looks quite dense."
Ryuen didn't even look up.
He was deep within the philosophical struggle of Heinrich Faust, his mind occupied by the pact with Mephistopheles and the nature of human striving.
The interruption felt like a pebble hitting a still lake, and without thinking he responded in fluent, sharp German.
"Geh mir nicht auf die Nerven. Ich versuche mich zu konzentrieren(Don't get on my nerves. I'm trying to concentrate)" he muttered, his voice a low, gravelly rasp.
A beat of silence followed.
Ryuen blinked, the reality of the bus and the Japanese morning air rushing back.
He realized his slip-up; most people would have looked at him like he was speaking in tongues or assumed he was just being an arrogant delinquent making up gibberish to sound intimidating.
He took a breath, preparing to turn around and translate his dismissal into blunt Japanese, but before he could, the girl responded.
"Es ist selten, jemanden zu finden, der Goethe im Original liest(It is rare to find someone who reads Goethe in the original)," she said, her German surprisingly fluid and elegant, lacking the harshness of a beginner.
She leaned forward slightly, a small, genuine smile playing on her lips. "Ich genieße das Lesen auch sehr. Es ist eine wunderbare Art, der Realität zu entfliehen, findest du nicht?(I also really enjoy reading. It's a wonderful way to escape reality, don't you think?)"
Ryuen froze for a fraction of a second.
He turned his head, his sharp eyes meeting her calm, violet-tinged ones.
She wasn't mocking him, nor was she intimidated by the "danger" he worked so hard to project.
She was genuinely engaging with the language and the literature.
A rare spark of genuine interest flickered in Ryuen's chest. He closed the heavy volume of Faust, the thud of the cover echoing in the quiet bus.
He didn't offer a polite greeting. Instead, he reached out and patted the empty seat directly beside him—the seat that everyone else had treated like a bed of nails.
"Come," he commanded, though the edge in his voice had softened into something resembling an invitation. "Sit down."
The girl's face brightened, her eyes widening as if she had just been offered a treasure.
She stood up, moved with a light, airy grace, and settled into the seat next to him.
The contrast was striking: the white-haired girl who looked like she was carved from moonlight sitting next to the copper-haired youth who looked like he was forged in a back-alley fire.
"Shiina Hiyori," she said, clasping her hands over her bag. "It's nice to meet you."
"Ryuen Kakeru," he replied, leaning back and resting his arm on the top of the seat, encroaching on her space in a way that would have made anyone else flinch. "So, Hiyori, you like to read? Not just the light novels most kids these days rot their brains with, I assume."
Hiyori blinked, a light dust of pink appearing on her cheeks.
She was clearly startled by the immediate use of her first name—a level of intimacy usually reserved for long-time friends or family—but there was something about Ryuen's bluntness that felt honest rather than predatory.
She didn't correct him or ask for the standard honorifics. Instead, she chose to match his pace.
"Yes," she nodded, her voice regaining its steady, dream-like quality. "I was actually hoping to just spend the next three years reading books and do nothing in this school, K-Kakeru-kun."
Ryuen raised an eyebrow, a wolfish grin playing on his lips. He had expected her to stutter over his name or insist on "Ryuen-san," but she had thrown his own boldness back at him.
She had courage; that was a quality he respected above all others.
"Is that so?" Ryuen remarked, tapping the cover of his book. "... Anyway, since you recognised this, what do you make of Faust's ultimate bargain?"
Hiyori's eyes lit up, the kind of intellectual hunger Ryuen rarely saw in his peers. "It's tragic, isn't it? The idea that human satisfaction is the end of growth. My favorite quote has always been: 'Vom Eise befreit sind Strom und Bäche durch des Frühlings holden, belebenden Blick.' It represents a rebirth, though in Faust's case, it's a rebirth into a very dangerous path."
Ryuen nodded, his expression turning thoughtful. "A bit too poetic for me. I prefer the more grounded cynicism. 'The man who's resolved to master the moment is the master of all.' That's the only truth in this world. Mastery. Everything else is just window dressing for the weak to feel better about their chains."
"Really?" Hiyori hummed, nodding softly. "So you see the world as something to be conquered? To each their own, I guess. But I see it as something to be observed. I prefer the scenes where Faust is simply overwhelmed by the beauty of the world, even if it's a lie orchestrated by a demon."
"Beauty is a distraction," Ryuen countered, though he wasn't annoyed. He found the debate invigorating. "Mephistopheles is the only honest character in that play. He knows exactly what people are—creatures of impulse and greed. He just provides the mirror."
They spent the next several miles lost in the world of 18th-century German literature, their voices a low murmur that stood out against the hum of the bus engine.
From Goethe, the conversation naturally drifted to other titans of the written word.
"If you find Goethe too cynical, what about Dostoevsky?" Ryuen asked. "I spent a month on Crime and Punishment during a summer when I had to... lay low. Raskolnikov's theory about the 'extraordinary man'—the idea that some people have the right to overstep moral boundaries for the sake of greatness. That's a scene that stays with you."
Hiyori hummed in thought, tilting her head. "It's a terrifying scene. The way the walls of his room seem to shrink as his guilt grows. But I think I prefer the quiet intensity of Agatha Christie or even the gothic atmosphere of Mary Shelley. There's a scene in Frankenstein where the monster looks at his own reflection in a pool of water and realizes he is a horror. It's heartbreaking. It makes you wonder who the real monster is—the creation or the creator who abandoned it."
Ryuen let out a short, sharp bark of laughter. "The creator, obviously. For being incompetent enough to make something he couldn't control. If you're going to bring a monster into the world, you'd better be prepared to lead it."
Hiyori looked at him then, her eyes searching his face. "... I think, I'm liking this conversation more than I anticipated, Kakeru-kun."
Ryuen smirked, "Same here, it's hard to find a fellow cultured people in my circle."
"Well, I think," Hiyori said, her voice barely a whisper as the bus began to slow down, nearing the gates of the massive school complex, "that you and I are going to find very different things in this school, Kakeru-kun."
"Isn't that more exciting, Hiyori?" Ryuen said, standing up as the bus came to a halt.
He looked down at her, his presence looming but no longer feeling like a threat to her. "I think for some people, going into this school that is completely isolated, is like starting a new life."
As the doors hissed open, the other students scrambled to get off, eager to put distance between themselves and the "red-haired demon" at the front.
But Ryuen waited. He waited for Hiyori to gather her things, and for a brief moment, they stood together in the aisle—two anomalies about to enter a system designed to categorize them.
"This school boasts about its hundred percent success rate," Ryuen said, looking out at the sprawling, modern campus of Advanced Nurturing High School. "But success is a boring metric. I want to see if this place has any 'extraordinary men' worth breaking."
Hiyori stepped off the bus beside him, the morning breeze catching her white hair. "And I just hope the library has a good collection of French mystery novels. If not, I might have to ask you to help me... reorganize the system, Kakeru-kun."
Ryuen smirked, a genuine, dangerous glint in his eye. "Hahaha! Hiyori, if you keep talking like that, I might actually start to like you."
"I think it's already too late for that," she teased, her eyes sparkling with a quiet, hidden wit.
Together, they walked toward the entrance exams, an unlikely pair of "trash" and "treasure" that the school was definitely not prepared for.