“I figured giving her something of value back would’ve worked,” Koa said casually.

‘But how come Isla smiled at him when she seems to want as much distance as possible from him? Maybe she didn’t know what he looked like.’

One more thing though. “Why not tell me?”

He shrugged, setting his phone down. “I told you I had something planned.”

Right. His friend needed neither rhyme nor reason when he did these things. Sin closed the door behind him walking to the end of the room and then walking back.

“Congratulations, then,” Sin said, sitting down on his bed. “Your plan worked.”

He rolled on the revolving chair to face him. “Really? Did she text you?”

Sin hesitated before answering. “No… Isla told me at school and she asked me not to tell you.”

Unlike he thought, the information didn’t shock Koa, he simply tilted his head as if merely confused by it. 

“Why’s that?”

“Because she was selected as an Echo.” No need to say the rest. 

Koa’s parents owned ECB. 

The Echo Control Bureau was responsible for the regulation and migration of Echoes, they forcibly sent them to the Arena. It was for everyone’s safety but there was little known about what happened up there. Of course, those who were lucky to awaken as a high rank such as C Rank or higher survived and lived to tell the tale, but there seemed to be censorship around the whole thing for those who were outsiders like Sin and Koa. To his knowledge, you could usually climb up one or two Ranks after your awakening. Anything more was virtually unheard of. The gap between E Rank and D Rank was enormous and the one between a D and C Rank even bigger. 

Koa and Nyla’s great-great-grandparents funded the ECB and now it was administered by their parents. 

As someone connected to people who kept the world safe from monsters, Koa was beloved among common humans, it never occurred to him to think about his standing with Echoes who were once indirectly forced out of their home by Koa’s parents. 

‘The bodyguards should’ve probably been a given…’

“I see,” Koa said after a while. “Do you know where she is?”

“No… but Isla asked me to give her the money instead. She’s gonna hand it to me after class and then send me Tamara’s location so I can give it to her.”

“Why?” Koa asked the same question Sin did when Isla told him about it. 

“She said it’d be good if Tamara saw someone else for a change.” It made sense, from the little Isla was willing to tell him, Tamara was in complete isolation. Separated from her parents, her brothers, and her friends. Completely cut off from her home. Anyone would go a little mad from that and a fifteen-year-old even more so. 

“You’ll tell me how she is doing?” He slowly nodded then he asked, turning back to his books. 

Huh? 

“What?”

He suppressed a sigh. “If she’s okay—” 

“No. I mean, won’t you come with me?”

He said nothing for a moment . “She doesn’t want to see me.”

“Wrong, Isla doesn’t want that, Isla doesn’t know you. Tamara does and you’re much closer to her than I am, so you deserve to see her.”

He cracked a side smile. “Shouldn’t the most important thing be what Tamara deserves?”

“Of course.”

What Tamara wanted mattered the most, not what Isla or Koa for that matter wanted. If Tamara had a choice between Sin and Koa, she’d pick her actual friend. Having met Koa since he was in diapers told him how good of a friend Koa was despite his many shenanigans and sometimes precisely due to them. Anyone would be lucky to call him a friend.

“I know what to do.” Koa spoke up, a familiar devious glint in his eyes. 

“What’s that?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

‘When is he gonna trust me to let me in on his plans?’

But Sin already knew what his friend would say to that. It wasn’t about trust. 

[...]

“How are you doing, sweetie, having that rascal in the same class again?” Mrs. Everton asked during dinner that night, setting down her glass. 

Koa nonchalantly shrugged, glancing at Sin. “He’s not too bad.”

“I was talking to Sin.”

Sin and Nyla burst into laughter, while Koa feigned offense. Mrs. and Mr. Everton were the only to recognize who the troublemaker between the two of them was. Everyone else always seemed to think Sin was the problem. Even if Koa did nothing to paint that picture, that was how they were always framed. 

“You know,” Mr. Everton began, he always started his never ending stories with you know, the kids at the table glanced at each other knowing what followed. 

“The days I spent studying next to your dad were some of the best days of my life. We brought out the worst and best in each other. Once, we freed all the frogs in science class because I liked a girl who was an adamant protector of animal rights.”

Sin was used to hearing about his dad in that house, so much so that it didn’t make him sad anymore. 

“Was that mom?” Nyla asked.

“No.” Mrs. Everton snorted, “It was your mom, Sin.”

“Really?”

His mom, on the other hand, was a different story. The simultaneously familiar and unfamiliar pressure settled within him. 

Mrs. Everton was the one to answer. “Yes. Of course, she attracted everyone’s attention back in the day. It was actually because of her that Benson and I started dating.”

“How?” Both Sin and Nyla asked. 

Despite the odd ache, Sin possessed a craving for any and all information on his mother. He knew nearly nothing about her. His dad hesitated to mention her aside from the occasional ‘you’re so much like her’ he threw in. Less of a compliment than his dad intended, how could getting compared to a woman who abandoned her son be anything but a deep offense?

Still, though there was enough anger for twelve bulls, Sin wanted to know about her in a roundabout way of knowing about himself. She was half of him after all. 

“Well, she—”

Taein, the maid, approached the table, “Excuse me, sir, but they are here.”

Soon after, behind her came in, two men in a black and white uniform with harnesses all over. ECB. 

Sin paled. He lifted the glass to his lips to hide his face. 

“Will you excuse me for a moment?” Mr. Everton began to get up.

“Everything okay?” Nyla asked. 

“Everything’s fine, just some things that went missing. Probably just a miscount.”

Sin glanced at Koa. He was eating as of normal. 

‘Actually, on second thought, it was best to not be involved in Koa’s schemes.’