Chapter 86: A game of chess

Things were pretty weird in the Holy Land household; that's the usual scenario. Although they themselves might call it relatively normal, if someone else were to get a house tour of their room, they would definitely smell something fishy other than the pet food that Shivani gives to Charlie every morning. The girl is really diligent on that matter. She knocks at their door at six o'clock and hands Charlie's food to Taro since he's the only one up at that time. Although they talk to each other on their way to school and in class and stuff, she never holds a conversation with him at that time. She'd just give the food and head back to her room. M'Baku hates the food, however painstakingly eats it because of the thought behind it. It has a really fishy smell, so everyone basically wakes up at that point.

Back to the point. Although things were weird on an everyday basis, it elevated to a whole new level that day. As stated before, everyone wakes up from the stench that Charlie's food brings right at six o'clock. However, someone else was awake that day besides Taro. It was John. Him being awake was pretty fine by itself, however as soon as he woke up, rather than greeting Taro, he started sneaking around, believing that Taro hadn't noticed yet. However, Taro did notice but didn't act up because him finding a veteran MIB agent in his stealth mode will raise suspicions from John's part. He had a cover to keep up, so he didn't give it an eye… Or so he acted. Secretly, he peeked at John's actions here and there and found it really suspicious.

First, he looked at Taro's schedule that day for some reason. Taro didn't understand this sudden interest that John had to his schedule and the twelfth grade in general… specifically, Juan. Although John did his best to cover up his intentions with a bunch of lies, Taro was perceptive. He was assigned to find the idiots who messed up with Wadorian structures back in the day, and they had similar body language as John had. If John was an expert in his field, Taro was as well… Or else, why would he, a person without an attribute, be a team leader?

It was evident by John's talk that it had something to do with Juan. The main thing he could remember was when John flinched when he talked about him inviting Juan to MIB. He believed that may be John was interested in Juan's skills and wanted to recruit him to MIB. However, he was slightly concerned as to how a show-off like Juan might settle in an organization that's supposed to be a secret. Will he even allow them to erase his real identity?

While he had these complicated thoughts, John continued his search. Suddenly he headed back and took a photo of Taro's schedule. However, he forgot to turn off the flash and the shutter noise that came when a photo was taken. Surprised by this, John jumped back instinctively and tried to put the schedule back in its place. He then stood there as he normally does, fully expecting that Taro might've noticed him. However, to him, it seemed like Taro didn't, so he heaved a sigh of relief.

Unlike Taro though, Gibli and Kunjan, who had war traumas and mistook the camera flashes as flash bangs, woke up. So, John could no longer continue with his desperate search and gave up. Taro, the one who saw the entire fiasco was feeling troubled. He had yet to know what John was planning.

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Things continued to surprise Taro. Lonappan came to the Holy Land at seven o'clock looking for John, which was weird for a guy who arrives after they leave for work. Taro could understand this part since Lonappan was worried about the neuralyzer incident. However, what happened next surprised him. John, the person who cried about Lonappan leaving him out of the fun he has, actually rejected him. He looked right in his face and said that he wasn't interested to go out that day. This made both Taro and Lonappan suspicious, however both decided to not pry it any further. That doesn't mean that Lonappan didn't try asking him to come to the MIB base yet again, however John's stance in this matter didn't change.

In the end, Lonappan gave up and said that he was leaving to the base. Although, both John and Taro knew that wouldn't be the case. It was like a chess match, however both clearly knew each other's moves, since they learned from the same master. However, Taro here was playing three-dimensional chess, with his observations.

Anyway, eight o'clock came around and the group of four was ready to leave for school and John diligently waved them goodbye. Although Thankappan and Gibli were busy to notice, since the former was busy talking to Shivani who accompanied them and the latter was generally absent-minded , Taro and Kunjan were clearly aware of the act John was putting up. It seemed like another one had entered into the three-dimensional chess, or at least to silently spectate the events.

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As Lonappan expected, by the time afternoon came by, John left the Holy Land. And as John expected, Lonappan began following him. Thus began the cat and mouse chase. Although John's target was the school, which was literally a minute or two away, he wasn't stupid enough to give out his location to his opponent, so he led Lonappan as far away from school as possible. To shake off Lonappan's tail, John used the public transport in his disposal and changed the bus three times, entered an auto once and finally caught a taxi. Since he was slightly inexperienced in tailing even though he knew he roads better than John, Lonappan lost in his chase. However, he grinned as if he was the victor.

From the beginning, Lonappan's plan wasn't to successfully chase down John, but to give him the false hope that he had won in this little game. If Lonappan wanted to, he could always head back to Pazhamukku and catch John lurking out there, however he wasn't that stupid. If he did that, John wouldn't drop his guard down. He intentionally stayed back, got inside a little bakery and ordered a sandwich and called up someone while eating it. He was ready to bring in the observers down into the field.

While teaching to the twelfth graders in his second period of the day for them, he received a call from Lonappan saying that John was heading towards the school and asked him to be on hold, to which Taro agreed. Taro called in Kunjan, his second accomplice in this mission, who readily agreed as well. They were all sided with Lonappan as they knew Lonappan's mission, however was unaware of John's actions. Surprisingly, Kunjan informed Thankappan and Gibli as well. It turned out that they were accomplices of Lonappan in this mission as well. They acted like dunces so that John wouldn't suspect a thing. It wasn't an even playing board. There weren't any observers or anyone playing 3D chess; it was a match between Lonappan with his trusted officials and a lone king in the opposition, John. He was lured into this elaborate 1000 IQ plan all along. The king no longer had a move to do, other than gracefully giving up… if the king himself was aware that he got checkmated.

However, John was unaware of such a thing. He did suspect Taro in the beginning, when he did basically nothing. However, that event was exceptionally covered by Kunjan and Gibli giving out their war memories, even though they didn't have such a trauma… At least, Kunjan didn't. For Gibli, it was a mental warfare against Glomerans rather than a physical one, so the flash bang story didn't apply to him either.

Anyway, John was there at the exact time that he wanted to arrive- the time when Taro moved to the next block after his second class with the twelfth graders. However, something unexpected happened. Taro, instead of leaving, stayed in the class and taught the third English class of the day for the twelfth graders. This made things tough for John. He was hoping for Taro to leave so that he could catch up with Juan since he had certain things to talk with him during the break time after this class, in the time it took for Taro to reach this block.

However, it was as if the Gods above heard his prayers. Some teacher called him from the other block to head to that part of the school due to the confusion that he caused by the sudden change in his schedule. So, as soon as the bell rang and the class ended, he ran towards the other block, giving John his golden chance he was waiting for to meet up with Juan. Little did he know that it was a play on him as well to drop his guard further down, as the random teacher who "called" Taro was none other and Kunjan himself.

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