Ren picked up the schedules of his targets pretty quickly the following day. Though he had mostly ignored the betas due to his laser focus on the Alpha students, he knew a few things about the students classified as betas… Though, a few wasn't a whole lot.
Beta students were the majority of the student body, with the largest dorm that had the closest location to the school. They were also generally well-mannered, and mostly never came up in discussions between Alphas or omegas. They were … inoffensively normal, to say the least. Typically boring high school students. His hypothesis that they must be the control group for the school's experiments still felt valid, especially as he did his initial questionings.
"Is there anything about betas that would make them unique from Alphas or Omegas?"
He asked a familiar Alpha student he had talked to before, who he found out was the sumo club captain. He still didn't trust him for being an Alpha, but he gave very useful information before, and was one of the few that answered his questions back when he was looking for clubs. He now leaned against the wall in the hallways and let out a grumbling snicker at his question. "Are you joking? I guess a beta like you would find it funny you're so dull." He shifted his shoulders and lowered his head, grumbling, "You're good for being helpful, or something. Mediating they say."
Ren nodded amiably, a little disappointed with so little but still pleased. "Thanks anyway I guess. Oh, also, do you have a gym in this school? I'm trying to buff up a little." He then asked.
"I don't think there's any saving that physique…" They mumbled, but answered, "But there's one on the south west building." Ren then heard him sigh, "But, you're wasting your time if you think you can enter the club just cuz you- huh?" They looked around, but Ren had already tuned him out and started walking away, leaving them talking to themselves.
Ren took notice that a good amount of students immediately assumed that he was a beta, though there was no indication he could find in his appearance that made people make that mistake. His school uniform's only distinct difference was the yellow tie he wore that all second year students wore. It was useful with his espionage and he had yet to have an example of anyone identifying him as an omega so he didn't think much of it. But, Akagi Naoto had managed to identify him, so there was something he must be missing.
When he talked to a group of Omega students around a break in class gave him a withering look and a scoff. "Aside from less problems, not a damn thing."
Ren could agree, if they really didn't get heats like the omegas. He wished he had nothing to deal with but normal high school problems, wasn't being body swapped enough?
But when he finally asked a beta student directly he got the most unexpected result. They loudly and forlornly sighed and gave him a slow pat on his shoulder. "It's alright, you'll accept it eventually like the rest of us. The grass always looks greener on the other side but you'll see: being a boring beta isn't that bad. Maybe see the school counselor if you're feeling too down about it, alright?"
Ren decided that the student was nuts. What was greener on this side? Maybe for the Alphas, but the omegas had zero good things to yearn for!
But, it showed that even the Betas themselves were aware of their lack of use in this experiment. If this were some kind of movie or novel, he'd liken them to the equivalent of extras due to how little presence they can give off sometimes, but these were real people, not human props! Besides, Hirota Kokichi was a beta and he had personality enough for the entire beta student body combined.
He put a pin in that comment about the school counselor and focused on the two targets.
Hideki Shouta and Okano Fumio were first and second year betas respectively. Already, Ren's thoughts were on Fumio being the traitor. In the morning before class he watched the path where betas students usually head off to the main building and he was just a pretty suspicious looking dude! That gangly build and warped looking face, Ren honestly thought if anyone was up to no good and was secretly working with the evil school, it was a guy with a face like that! The fact that he gave Ren a swelling nose for a few hours yesterday did him no favors!
Nevertheless, Ren had stalked them both to their classrooms so he knew they were in room 1-4 and 2-8. During lunch breaks then he caught onto them, finding Shouta talking in a Alpha-less friend group while Fumio ate mostly alone in the shadows underneath the tree lines, working on that tablet Ren could never get a glimpse at.
Ren glanced over at the place where he could still see Shouta. The slight overlap between lunch periods for the different years was convenient, though he had to make up an excuse about needing to see the school nurse in order to not miss Shouta leaving his class, meaning he ended up missing a little of Fumio leaving his. Who knew what Alphas he could have been conspiring with in that timeframe!
So Ren kept his eyes peeled closely onto the student named Fumio, scowling at him from his hiding place of nearby shrubbery. That tablet was extremely suspicious! Ryusei would definitely want him to check what he's doing on that thing, he just had to figure out how to do so.
'Imagine that it's secret plans for how to control the student body! That mind control thing with Akagi Naoto, Masanori and Ryusei must know about it already and are trying to shield me from that truth. If mind control is being used regularly in the school then being careful about who you trust was a must. That's why Masanori has been telling me to keep out of trouble… Though I've luckily figured out what it feels like to be mind controlled, so I should be alright for now.'
Ren thought more about what Masanori had told him yesterday morning, pondering all the meanings he hadn't gotten around to asking him yet. There was something he mentioned that got overlooked, the detail about keeping omegas safe. Clearly what Masanori thought was safety was just a farce to hide the fact that they were trapped in the school, but the lack of knowing what an omega was exactly made him ponder it a little more.
He never thought much about those safe closets as much more than emergency barricades from crazy Alphas like that night at the library, but in the context of mind control… it was a lot more disturbing to think about. If they had managed to open that door, could they have used their power to force Masanori to step away, not help him? Even, force him to help them instead? Ren felt a shiver go down his spine. What a horrible thought.
He quietly sighed. But there was just so much he needed to ask Ryusei and Masanori directly! They'd tell him more once he passed this test to sniff out the traitor, wouldn't they? Though it wasn't just because of that he was doing this: he had to steal back the omega's pills for Ryusei. Imagining the entire Omega dorm having to go through that heat ordeal he just did without the pills was just too awful to even imagine!
'Hm, I wonder what the Alphas or Betas take…' Ren wondered to himself as he watched Fumio, stifling a yawn. As he did, Fumio finally stood up and began walking away, making Ren startled in a rustling of leaves as he hopped out of the bush and began following him back into the school, a twisting grin of excitement spreading across his face.
'It's too early to be heading back to class for the second years! He must be going to talk to his Alpha conspirators!'
"Sorry, excuse me. Ah, Takeshita-san?" He heard a voice call out behind him, and Ren turned towards it.
Ren stiffened 'Oh no: Masanori!'
Masanori spotted Ren from across the hall with some relief, raising a hand up to get him to notice him. He managed to catch him in the hall before he went back to class.
'I didn't have time yesterday, so I thought I wouldn't see him until after school, I guess I can ask him if it went well now.'
But in the next few seconds, Ren quickly pretended that he didn't make eye contact with him and turned back around, hastily walking through the crowd, ducking his head in the crowd as low as it could go without looking strange and quickly walking and turning a corner down a hall.
Masanori's friendly smile quickly sizzled down into a confused frown, dropping his hand from the air. '...Huh?' He then rushed forward to try to catch up to him, calling out again in a more stressed tone, "Wait, Takeshita-san?!"
As soon as Ren turned the corner he rushed into the nearest classroom and ducked down, crouching below the windows next to the door. He could just about see Masanori walk past from his angle, looking anxiously. Ren quickly scampered out of sight in case he looked down, waiting for him to leave.
Outside, Masanori scratched his head with bewilderment as he looked around. 'D-Damn. He was just here, wasn't he? I swear I thought he saw me. I gotta find him quick: if he makes it to his classroom then we can't talk. I can't be seen near it or he might find out.' Masanori then rubbed the side of his neck, looking tense, before he shook his head to himself with a furrow of his eyes. 'No, there's no time to try to sniff him out, I'll just keep looking.' He kept walking through the hall in a hurry, eyes darting around the halls in search of him.
Ren sighed in relief as he peeked out through the window to see him walking away. That was close. If he talked to Masanori while he was on his mission he might find out and get worried, and he's had enough of that. Yeah, no more relying on Masanori to save him!
Ren quickly left the classroom with a admittedly remorseful sigh, glancing down the hall where Masanori went before focusing back on his notepad. 'Damn it: I lost Fumio! I gotta find where he went off to!' Ren began walking briskly through the halls thinking of where to go.
'I guess I'll check the second floor where his class is and work backwards from… hm?'
Ren then spotted something, and he quickly ducked behind a wall to hide. It was Fumio, talking to an Alpha student!
Ren furiously scribbled down the student's name in his notepad. 'Ha! I got you now! That's Tsuda Katashi, Second year Alpha, one of the creeps that talked about breaking and entering into the omega dorm! A total creep colluding with another creep!'
Before Ren could try to get closer to hear what they were talking about they parted. Ren followed Fumio upstairs, but disappointingly found that he had just returned to their classroom early, sitting in the empty classroom at his desk still on the tablet.
Ren loudly clicked his tongue as he aggressively clicked his pen to start writing down the route that he took back to his classroom, muttering to himself with a click of his tongue. 'Cch. This guy's a real enigma! But I've got a clue now. Looks like I need to look more into Katashi…!'
Ren firmly shut his notepad with a determined nod to himself, as a malicious grin formed on his face. He already had some notes, actually…!
———
After class ended, Ren was quick to return to his dorm. Entering his room only one of his roommates were present, already sitting at the desk with his headphones on minding his business. Ren went over to his bed and crawled under to pull out the suitcase he had now filled with his notes on the Alpha students, staring down into the case with a low, maniacal chuckle.
"There's no escape from my eye, Katashi… soon, I'll know exactly what you're getting up to with Fumio!" He shuffled through his detailed notes on the school layout and mostly outdated entries surrounding the school's system, until he pulled out a green notebook. He quickly flipped through the pages, eyes sweeping back and forth searching for the right page. When he finally spotted it he grinned.
'There, Tsuda Katashi! He's in the same year as me so I've got a lot of info. In the Basketball club, typically for Alphas students to be in sports clubs. Roughly 180 centimeters, eats at the main courtyard, eats a lot of kimchi, though I don't think diet is as important as I thought before… right, this is his schedule for after class! He's at his club every day except fridays, where he heads outside the school.' Ren nodded his head. 'Good good, this is all clear signs that he's trouble. Now I just need to-'
That's when the door to the dorm room opened, and his other roommate, Kanaseki, entered. Immediately, Ren roughly slammed his case shut with both hands and shoved it back under the bed. Kanaseki only let out a grunt of a greeting and barely gave him a side glance, but Ren's eyes remained glued to the back of his head as he watched him grab something from his side of the room before promptly leaving again.
Ren pursed his lips into a hard line with a narrowing crease of his eyes in a distrustful glower. 'Still suspicious… I hope he hasn't figured out where my notes are. If he ever messes with my stuff and finds them then the school will know everything I know, probably switch up their schedules! I should think of a better place to put them later…'
Ren was still somewhat still wary of his roommate. The confirmation that there were experiments to keep them safe only confirmed even more to him that he must be a spy. After all, secret security for the omegas only made sense to not alert them of what was happening.
He remembered Masanori's line about keeping omegas safe, wondering what about them needed to be protected, or was that just something Masanori was told? Perhaps, there was something more? Ren shook his head, trying to not focus on the mystery of the omegas for right now.
Ren stuffed the green notebook in his bag then left his dorm. Time to get spying!
When Ren returned to the school though, he first tried to keep an eye on his main target. However, there wasn't much to watch from the two beta students after school, as they spent most of their time working with Ryusei in that office. To avoid suspicion he watched the door of the office, taking refuge in the opposite room that was luckily just something for storage.
While he waited for some activity he ran through his notes on all the Alpha students he had, flipping through the green notebook and crossing out any notes he made that he deemed outdated or inaccurate.
It wasn't every student, but Ren had been taking extensive notes for the past few weeks and was very proud of what he had acquired so far. Granted, he was aware that he perhaps spent a little bit TOO much time on cataloguing the Alpha students and neglected other things, like fully mapping out the gigantic school or even exploring his own dorm room properly, but when you're facing a group of potentially dangerous and highly aggressive super-powered high-schoolers, you'd prioritize learning about them too! Really, it was his own sort of power he's given himself over their mysterious nature, and kept him from going insane. He wouldn't ever end making the same mistakes he did before, because he knew exactly where and what the Alpha students of this school did.
After watching the office for an hour or so Fumio finally stepped out the room. Ren let out a sigh of relief, because to be honest he was getting bored.
Following Fumio this time, he went around to several club rooms, making Ren raise an eyebrow. What was he doing heading around to other clubs? He seemed to be talking to various students, but what they talked about Ren couldn't get close enough to hear.
He even went to his own club room, but they quickly left when one of his various usually absent club members failed to show up at the door.
'I'll have to ask Shino what he wanted, all of this is just super suspicious! If only I could get my hands on that tablet!'
Ren was about to turn the corner to continue staking Fumio when Masanori suddenly came from around the corner. Right away Ren went into hiding again. Masanori knocked on and entered the club room, peeking his head in.
"Excuse me. Nishida-san, have you seen Takeshita-san today?" Ren heard him ask. He didn't hear the response, and didn't have time to anyway, otherwise he was going to lose his target! With a hesitant goodbye, Ren quickly left down the hall.
Masanori jolted his head up at the brief sound of footsteps, but he saw no sign of anyone there. With a sad sigh in the form of a long puff of air through his nose, Masanori walked away from the club room in a contemplative state.
'I really don't know much of what Takeshita does after school I guess. Does he just go to his dorm room and stay there? If that's the case then I'll have to try again tomorrow… Maybe I'll try the main courtyard first though.' Something in his stomach churned and he shook his head, letting out a deep breath to blow it away. He shouldn't be getting worried, not so soon. He didn't worry so much before but, that was before the second heat with the construction site and the rumors and, Naoto. But, he shouldn't think so much of it. He needed to check on him but he still needed to keep some distance...
He'd just ask Ryusei how it went himself. He'd find him later.
Meanwhile, Ren had followed Fumio to a few more stops, he was disappointed to find that he was simply returned to the health monitor's room.
'Ugh, I wish Ryusei told me how much they seemed to work! I've already gotten an Alpha lead so I should look into it for Ryusei for a bit and come back later, I can ask Ryusei later if they left the office again.'
So, Ren decided to follow his Alpha lead instead. Soon, Ren stood by the fence outside of the outside basketball court with a bored expression, watching the basketball team as they practiced from a distance, searching for the Alpha student.
He wasn't the only one standing by the gate, glancing over to his left he could spot some omega and beta students whispering among themselves with sly grins and bright eyes.
Ren rolled his eyes at their antics with a warm smile. What youth, getting excited over their school's sports teams like that. When he was doing sports in school, he wondered if he ever got a devoted audience like that. They must be talking about which players were the best and was going to dominate the next game.
Ren's brow furrowed. Though he wondered how these isolated kids would ever play against other schools. Was there some protocol or did they make some excuse as to why they practiced the game but never competed?
Ren pushed the thought away. He'd maybe ask about it later. 'Anyway, Looks like that Alpha was practicing today just like I thought. And I've gotten some exercise walking here, so I should maybe try to find that gym to-'
"HEY! What are you doing over there!!"
Ren tensed up when he heard a loud and thundering voice coming from his right ear, and turned in horror to see Akagi Naoto approaching the gate, his face through the grates looking even more furious than he did yesterday.
'Shit!' Ren thought and he loudly gasped, taking a quivering step back. He felt his heart seized up at the same time a tremor erupted in his throat and he suddenly couldn't take another breath, making his panic even worse.
Ren, with no air to think, did the first thing that came to mind, and hopped into the nearest bush to hide. That bush, unfortunately, was not his ideal choice to hide in, It was the kind of leaves that made his skin rash up, with prickling thorns on the branches, clinging to his clothes and sharply poked his skin. He tried to block the leaves from touching his face with his notepad, as he watched with airless trepidation as Akagi approached the still whispering student with a twisting snarl.
"You three! Get on out of here, you're loitering!"
Ren finally found some air and he took a deep, unsteady breath. That was close.
"What?" One of the omega students said, "Loitering? What's wrong with watching them practice?"
"You'd be distracting them is the problem! You're not in the Basketball club so you should be in your own clubs or off back in your dorms!"
Ren quietly scoffed at Akagi's explanation. That sounded like total bullshit, what gave him the right to make them leave? He was just trying to control them and force them back into a place that the school can watch them better, he bet.
One of the beta students stepped past the omega students and crossed his arms at him. "Akagi. You know this is unfair. They aren't going to interfere with practice. I actually think some of the club members like an audience."
"I don't care what some of them like." Akagi growled. "If any of them don't like you watching then like creeps it's my job to make sure they're unbothered and comfortable while they practice!"
"But what about these students here?" The beta argued, "You could at least be a little more polite, no need to be so strict. You act like you're enforcing some kind of hard rule when its something to accommodate everyone. You're supposed to care about every student's need you know, not just-"
"Shut. Up." Akagi growled again, but this time there was a far more of a guttural inflection, and Ren could swear he felt a sharp breeze suddenly blow in and he twitched, a confused tremor rushing down his back. An eyebrow rose but he dismissed it as a weird spring breeze.
The beta student went silent. Their shoulders bunched up and they seemed to shrink away. They put their hands in their jacket pockets with an angry scowl, looking extremely pissed off.
Akagi just growled again, bearing some teeth and snarling, "Just, get out of here!!"
Without another word, he walked away, and the other students followed after with tense expressions.
'Geez, what an asshole…' Ren thought to himself, thinking of his words as extremely rude. He instinctively lowering his hand to try to write something down in his notepad about him. This was a mistake, as he ended up brushing a branch of leaves closer to his face, and he recoiled when he started to feel an itch in his nose.
His eyes widened in horror as realization kicked in. 'No no no!! My allergies-!' Ren quickly covered his nose before he could even think of sneezing, but he dropped his notepad on the ground, hitting a few leaves on his way.
Ren's entire body seized as he heard the slight crinkle of and thump of his notepad, staring at it with a widening pair of quivering eyes. Ren silently hoped, but when he raised his head the next second, he saw that Akagi had turned his head to look right at the bush he was in, his eyes alertly wide in a piercing glare. His eyes slowly narrowed with suspicion.
Ren's entire face turned a ghostly shade paler as he broke out into a cold sweat, his own eyes filling with terror.
'Oh fuck! He definitely heard that!'