A Throne Of Greed

VI

Ryo Hoshino's footsteps rang in the dim hallway as he tugged on his backpack straps when a cold breeze blew by him. Meeting the hallways dead end, he turned left to face the wooden door of the sole classroom swept in the very corner parts of the university.

This is the landmark on why he attended the university: the gist of exclusivity.

Upon opening the door, he squinted his purple eyes when the bright light of the classroom greeted him, and his eyes adjusted to another presence in the front of the room: a black-haired male who's crouching down, busy on examining the bottoms of the front table desk.

"I'm Hoshino Ryo, and I assume that you must be another pledge." He pulled out his bid card from his pocket, the greek letter symbols shimmering on it.

"Kambe Daisuke." Kambe withdrew his attention from the table and took out his bid card as well, but he immediately resumed fiddling with corners of the desk. Hoshino's eyes crinkled on the sight of the empty most normal looking classroom.

From outside the classroom, the jingle of car keys and low murmurs directed the purple-haired male's attention to the classroom entrance door to which its knob twitches and the door cracked open.

"Geez...meeting in such an early morning. This better not be a prank." His irked murmur trailed off as he slid himself inside the classroom. His wrist made circling motions on his eyes and he wore blue plaid pajamas combined with his messy sandy blonde hair.

"Kambe?" His slouched back shot up, and in his peripheral vision, he noticed another figure. "And you?" Kamei eyed Hoshino who raised an eyebrow to Kamei's direction.

As usual, Kambe didn't turn his head to the new guest though he familiarized Kamei's voice, and he kept his focus on the table to which his hands brushed a paper underneath and curled his fingers to rip the paper off. All three males recognized each other from a distant memory in their heads.

"This is underwhelming," Kamei whispered, regaining his slouched posture back. Gazing throughout the plain white empty small, he expected some colorful confetti, party balloons, and a huge bold sign that said, "Congrats, you just risked your college degree for an underground fraternity."

"They left us a message," Kambe announced, laying a paper on the table while he held his phone above it, his phone flashing lights. Hoshino came running to his side while Kamei remained tacked in his position. From the back, he can discern the paper's blank contents; not a single word except the prospering greek letters of Tau Theta Psi.

"Is it in Braille again? God, that was such a pain in the ass to decode." Kamei felt the sole pressure on his thigh pockets of a mere thin card.

"I think we don't have to worry about that anymore," Hoshino replied, his eyes focusing on Kambe's device flashing a circling and rotating dots while words appeared behind that continued 'til it finally formed a paragraph. Curious about the device, Kamei decided to join the duo, and his eyebrows raised to his hairline.

"It's transcribing it!"

Like canned sardines, three of their heads came closer together as the Kambe's devices buzzed the finish transcribed words of the paper's raised dots. Kambe reads:

"Welcome Pledges. For the next six weeks, we will turn your life into a series of challenges in order to prove your worth and to see if your motives truly align with the fraternity's motto. We know you're well aware of our motives and our controversial history. First of all, you must be wondering where could be your pledge master right now–who's supposed to be yelling at your faces right now and throwing intimidating commands–and for that, it will be your first assignment to convince your pledge master. Despite this broken communication due to our underground status, I'll be expecting you to follow our instructions and use–or combine–your heads to work together."