Yutaka presses his lips together and quirks them for half a second—

(Which makes Iemasa narrow his eyes and flare his nostrils and open his mouth to say something—)

"Of course," Yutaka says before he can do that. "My apologies. I was out of the house, spending time with a classmate, and didn't have my phone on me."

"A classmate."

"Yes. We did homework together."

"Homework."

He quirks his lips again. "Yes, father, homework."

He snaps the lid of his laptop shut. "Yutaka, has it ever occurred to you that your actions could have consequences, or are you so busy trying to get people who don't matter to overlook your flaws and like you that you don't have enough time left over to dedicate to thinking?"

...ouch?

"You're a smart boy. A smart man. I know that, because you are my son, and because I have seen what you can accomplish, when what you want to accomplish is being miserable and making sure everyone around you is just as miserable."

"...that's more direct than you usually are, father." And it's kind of throwing Yutaka, he's used to the game of subtext he and his father play but this much—bluntness from the man himself is quite unprecedented.

"Yes, well, I've had a long day, I can feel a tension migraine forming, and it seemed like you could benefit from some bluntness. I've raised you to play the games we play well," he says, echoing Yutaka's thoughts, "but I haven't raised you to play all of the games I play. I had hopes that you'd learn them anyway."

This asshole is really getting under Yutaka's skin, now.

"But you haven't, father," he says, adding a lilt to the end of his sentence that almost turns it into a question.

"—I'm sorry?"

"You haven't raised me. You hired people to raise me, and then passed judgment on their results. You were never there, and you still aren't. You might think that's normal, perhaps that's how your father was with you, but it's not normal, father, and when other fathers talk about raising their sons, they are not talking about this."

"...Yutaka, what did you just say to me?"

"Oh, apologies, father. Did I forget my sonkeigo? Dear me, that almost never happens."

He sighs. "You know, I had really hoped you'd manage to last longer than a week. I had even hoped that you might, in fact, learn something. But clearly I was just fooling myself, and just as clearly this opportunity served only to strengthen your resolve in dragging your and my name through the mud.

"I'm withdrawing your enrollment in Shimamoto High, and I'm sending you to Kaiyo Academy."

"—father? Kaiyo Academy is a boarding school." How did he even manage this in February—

"Yes, Yutaka. It is."

"...no."

"No?"

He looks up at his father.

Does he need to transform to use that "mind trick"?

A mind trick is not the same thing as transforming, turning his gem into a bauble from a ring and back, remote-controlling his meat puppet, OR using telepathy! So yes.

Cool! So how does it work, exactly? What levers does he have to solve the problem that is Iwasaki Iemasa?