LITHY K.

4. the open-mouthed kisses he leaves on suba are searing. pants against suba's neck, licks bruises into the pale of his skin. suba wears high collars, right? sho kissing down the sweat of suba's neck.

5. leaves a kiss on suba's forehead when he leaves in the morning. watches suba stir, brows scrunching up and lips turning down in a little pout.

I mean logistically if he moved to Japan it was probably recently. They made the promise when he was still a kid but he's a grown man now. If the opportunity presented itself to go he probably wouldn't have previously gone without her since right now his alleged goal is to graduate, go back to the US, get his mom, and move back to Japan together. Being in Japan without her now is probably because of extenuating circumstances.

So what we know is that ghouls are "special admission students" and that Darkwick knows whenever someone becomes a ghoul. It seems to be that Darkwick will invite ghouls to attend(except a few who're forced due to unique circumstances--Alan who was legally adopted by the Institute, Ed who was captured, Lyca who was sent over on trial. . . .) Elias, Romeo, and Lucas are all from foreign countries--Romeo and Taiga were implied to have come together while Lucas said he was the only ghoul at Emrys which means he was a ghoul in his first year as well, and the only reason he came is because he believed it would bring him closer to finding his brother. Jiro seems to have been brought to DW because he was afflicted by Eternal Slumber Syndrome. So you either aren't immediately invited to Darkwick upon your ghoul discovery(see: Kaito not getting his until after his grandmother died and he lived with other relatives for a while) or your invitation is an open one that you're sent shortly after becoming a ghoul and you can start to attend whenever you're ready(see: Lucas.)

Back to Elias, we know he was captain of Dionysia last year, despite that the "captains and vice captains must be ghouls" rule was not in place at the time. Since he had that much trust as to be appointed captain over any other Dionysia student I think it's safe to say he'd been there a while, possibly all three years. So I would assume he came here at the beginning of his first year, around 3 years ago(relative to the beginning of the game) assuming he wasn't repeating any years. After all if somebody transferred from another school you probably wouldn't wanna make them a captain--they might go back home, right? That'd make things more difficult on everyone and it'd possibly be a security risk. But it's different if they seem to have just moved over.

Now here comes the speculation: I do believe he's the spy and we've heard a little about the US branch of the Institute so they may be who he's supposed to be spying for, which makes the circumstances of his arrival are a bit more. Questionable.

A spy is typically somebody who's been trained to retrieve and return information undercover. As such Elias would likely have been a US branch operative already, or he'd otherwise been trained for the purpose of spying on DW under the guise of accepting his DW offer. Perhaps any invitations that go to ghouls in other countries must be sent to their respective/closest branch before they can be approved--after all, DW is the one that we know is alerted to someone becoming a ghoul. If there's a ghoul in another country and that country doesn't know, it isn't fair for DW to poach what could be someone of great use to that country's branch.

All of that to say, if Elias is indeed the spy he's either already been (secretly) trained by the US branch of the Institute before attending DW or they're manipulating him in some way, perhaps saying they won't let him and his mother move to Japan unless he agrees to do their bidding first. After all, why accept an invitation to move and not bring the person you wanted to bring most? Obviously she can't know much about what he does at DW but like Haku said they take care of their home lives down to keeping his koi fish fed because they might go back home after graduation. If Elias was able to tell DW "I'll come if you give my mother a home in Tokyo" that'd probably be nothing for DW a few years ago, especially when they believe that they need ghouls to prevent the apocalypse. But if the US branch got between them then they hold all the cards for Elias--and he can't report this behavior because that would cause an international incident and make it basically impossible to retrieve his mother.

Of course all of that is speculation--but I imagine that Elias is being used by the AII-US(Anomalous Investigation Institute, US Branch) and while he would've happily come to DW on his own as long as he could bring his mama to Japan with him, he's not being given that choice unless he can fulfil this mission for the AII-US first.

Of course, much of this depends on Elias's statements being true. Elias isn't very truthful, and everything he said could easily be a cover story. He also might not be working for the US branch at all--he could even be working for a group defying the Institute altogether--but I suspect that's what's coming since we've had a few mentions of the US branch and Elias is from the US.